What did raja ram mohan roy do to eradicate social evils like Sati?

Answer 1

¢In 1805 Roy left Murshidabad to serve with John Digby, a British East India Company officer he had known since 1801. Roy worked for Digby, as munshi, for 4 years and as diwan another 4 years. Digby taught him about western culture and helped him to perfect his English. His money-lending, dealings in real-estate, and work for the East India Company made him a wealthy man.

¢Returning to Calcutta in 1815, Roy gathered an AtmiyaSabha (Friendly Association) for "the dissemination of religious truth and the promotion of free discussions of theological subjects." The beraders (brothers) held theistic worship, studied the Hindu scriptures, and held discussions in which they called for abolition of the Caste System, sati, polygamy, and dietary restrictions. In 1819 Roy, at a well-attended Sabha meeting, debated idol worship with SubramanyaSastri a prominent Madras Brahmin. His success in this, however, led to a campaign against Roy by his opponents that forced him to disband the society.

¢As the rules of the AtmiyaSabha prohibited members from supporting idol worship, Roy did not receive financial support of his family's religious practices. This led to a series of lawsuits, 1817-19, filed by his nephew, Govindaprasad Roy, and his widowed sister-in-law, Durga Devi, who sought to confiscate Rammohun's property on the grounds of apostasy. His mother was said to be the driving force behind these ultimately unsuccessful proceedings.

¢After the death of Roy's older brother, Jagamohan, in 1812, his sister in-law had been forcibly burned alive by his family. Deeply disturbed by her death, and believing that no human beings should ever be pressured to kill themselves for any reason, he ever afterwards preached that sati should be abolished. He visited Calcutta's cremation grounds to persuade widows not to kill themselves, helped prepare a petition to the British government against sati and wrote A Conference between an Advocate for, and an Opponent of the Practice of Burning Widows Alive (1818 ,published in Bengali and English). He based his reasoning on Hindu scriptures, tradition, and practical morality. In A Second Conference (1820) he added arguments based upon women's rights. The fact that women were considered lowly creatures and unworthy of being trusted to survive without their husbands, he thought, was not due to their nature, but to their inferior upbringing and education. In everyday experience, he contended, they lived harsher lives and, on the whole, behaved better than men.

¢Later he founded a reform association known as the Brahmo Sabha (later known as the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta (1828). Through the Brahmo Samaj, he raised his voice against sati, caste-system, polygamy, child marriage, infanticide, untouchability and seclusion of women. He advocated equal right of man and woman. In the social front, the Brahmo Samaj attacked the age old social taboos and tried to make Indian society more secular than before

In political front. He promoted freedom of thought and compelled the british authority to appoint the qualified, educated indian in the administrative services.

¢He bought reforms in the field of education. In order to mordenize India, he established the Hindu College, the City College, Vendanta College and English Schools in Calcutta. He supported women and helped them become educated.

¢The Brahmo samaj became more popular due to the efforts of Kasha Chandra Sen. His radical activites led Devendranath Tagore to dismiss him from the Bhramo Samaj. Thus Raja Rammohun Roy, for the first time, advocated the principals of individual freedom, emancipation of women, freedom of press, individual rights etc. Eventually, sati was abolished in 1829.