Paper II · 2017 · Q 1(b) · 10 Marks
"The chief value of Raja's (Raja Rammohan Roy) labours seems to lie in his fight against the forces of medievalism in India." Critically examine.
Socio-Religious Reform Movements › Rammohan Roy
Answer:
Rammohan Roy, often called the father of modern India, devoted his life to combating superstition, ritual excess and social cruelty. The judgement that his chief value lay in fighting medievalism captures the essence of his work, though it understates his positive constructive achievement.
His fight against medievalism
- He campaigned successfully for the abolition of sati, achieved by Bentinck in 1829.
- He attacked idolatry, polytheism and priestly authority through the Brahmo Sabha of 1828.
- He opposed caste rigidity, child marriage and polygamy.
- He championed women's right to property and to education.
- He used reason and scripture together, publishing the Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin and Vedanta translations.
His constructive contribution
- He founded the Hindu College and pressed for modern scientific education in 1823.
- He pioneered the Indian press through Sambad Kaumudi and Mirat-ul-Akhbar.
- He advanced ideas of constitutional liberty, free press and civil rights.
- He was an internationalist who welcomed liberal movements in Europe and Latin America.
A critical view
- His reform reached mainly the educated urban elite of Bengal.
- Some hold that he conceded too much to western criteria of judgement.
- Yet his synthesis of tradition and reason set the pattern for later reformers.
Assessment
- He is rightly called the father of the Indian renaissance.
- His method of reforming from within scripture was adopted by later reformers.
- He died at Bristol in 1833 while representing the Mughal emperor's case.
- Tagore called him the inaugurator of the modern age in India.
The statement is thus broadly just but incomplete. As Bipan Chandra observed, Rammohan's greatness lay not only in demolishing medieval abuses but in laying the intellectual foundations, rational enquiry, a free press and modern education, on which the Indian renaissance and later nationalism were built.
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