Ram Mohun Roy, Ram Mohun also spelled Rammohun, Rammohan, or Ram Mohan (born May 22, 1772, Radhanagar, Bengal, India—died Sept. 27, 1833, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng.), Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated the lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is sometimes called the father of modern India.
Early life
He was born in British-ruled Bengal to a prosperous family of the Brahman caste. Little is known of his early life and education, but he seems to have developed unorthodox religious ideas at an early age. As a youth he traveled widely outside Bengal and mastered several languages—Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and later Hebrew, Greek, and English, in addition to his native Bengali and Hindi.
Roy supported himself by moneylending, managing his small estates, and speculating in British East India Company bonds. In 1805 he was employed by John Digby, a lower company official. Through Digby he was introduced to Western culture and literature. For the next 10 years Roy drifted in and out of British East India Company service as Digby’s assistant.
Roy continued his religious studies throughout this period. In 1803 he composed a tract denouncing India’s religious divisions and superstition. As a remedy for these ills, he advocated a monotheistic Hinduism in which reason guides the adherent to “the Absolute Originator who is the first principle of all religions.” He sought a philosophical basis for his religious beliefs in the Upanishads and Vedas, translating these ancient Sanskrit treatises into Bengali, Hindi, and English and writing summaries and treatises on them. The central theme of these texts, for Roy, was the worship of the Supreme God, beyond human knowledge, who supports the universe. By translating the sacred Sanskrit Upanishads into modern Bengali, Roy violated a long-standing tradition, but, in appreciation of his translations, the French Société Asiatique in 1824 elected him to an honorary membership.
In 1815 Roy founded the short-lived Atmiya-Sabha (Friendly Society) to propagate his doctrines of monotheistic Hinduism. He became interested in Christianity and learned Hebrew and Greek in order to read the Old and New Testaments. In 1820 he published the ethical teachings of Christ, excerpted from the four Gospels, under the title Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness.
Social and political activism
In 1823, when the British imposed censorship upon the Calcutta press, Roy, as founder and editor of two of India’s earliest weekly newspapers, organized a protest, arguing in favour of freedom of speech and religion as natural rights. This protest marked a turning point in Roy’s life, away from preoccupation with religious polemic toward social and political action. In his newspapers, treatises, and books, Roy tirelessly criticized what he saw as the idolatry and superstition of traditional Hinduism. He denounced the caste system and attacked the custom of suttee (ritual burning of widows upon the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands). Roy’s actual influence on the British East India Governing Council’s prohibition of suttee in 1829 is not clear, but it has been widely accepted that he had the effect of emboldening the government to act decisively on the matter.
In 1822 Roy founded the Anglo-Hindu School and four years later the Vedanta College, in order to teach his Hindu monotheistic doctrines. When the Bengal government proposed a more traditional Sanskrit college, in 1823, Roy protested that classical Indian literature would not prepare the youth of Bengal for the demands of modern life. He proposed, instead, a modern, Western curriculum of study. Roy also led a protest against the outmoded British legal and revenue administration in India.
In August 1828 Roy formed the Brahmo Samaj (Society of Brahma), a Hindu reformist sect that utilized Unitarian and other liberal Christian elements in its beliefs. The Brahmo Samaj was to play an important part, later in the century, as a Hindu movement of reform.
In 1829 Roy journeyed to England as the unofficial representative of the titular king of Delhi. The king of Delhi granted him the title raja, though it was unrecognized by the British. Roy was well received in England, especially by Unitarians there and by King William IV. Roy died of a fever while in the care of Unitarian friends at Bristol, Eng., where he was buried.
Roy’s importance in modern Indian history rests partly upon the broad scope of his social vision and the striking modernity of his thought. He was a tireless social reformer, yet he also revived interest in the ethical principles of the Vedanta school as a counterpoise to the Western assault on Indian culture. In his textbooks and treatises he contributed to the popularization of the Bengali language, while at the same time he was the first Indian to apply to the Indian environment the fundamental social and political ideas of the French and American revolutions.