Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Introduction
Raja Ram Mohan Roy is widely acknowledged as ‘the Father of’ Modern India, Modern
Indian Liberal Tradition, Hindu Reformation and Renaissance, ‘the Champion’ of
Women’s Rights, ‘the Pioneer’ of Social and Political Reforms, ‘the Prophet’ of
International Co-existence, and the ‘Forerunner’ of the Indian Liberal Moderates.
As the father of Modern India, he ceaselessly strove to link tradition with modernity. He
not only reminded his fellow countrymen of the richness of their ancient civilization, but
also asked them to approach other civilizations in the spirit of cooperation. He worked
against superstitious beliefs and diabolic practices like the Sati, the Devadasi and the
Caste System, in order to ‘recreate’ a society which would be ‘open’ enough to treat
everyone as ‘free’ and ‘equal’. He harmonized caste with modern humanity, ancient
superstition with modern science, despotism with democracy, stagnant custom with
conservative progress and polytheism with monotheism.
Ms. Sophia Collet rightly describes Raja Ram Mohan Roy as “a bridge over which India
marches from her unmeasured past to her incalculable future.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Ram Mohan Roy was born in a high ranking Brahmin family of West Bengal that had the
distinction of serving the imperial Mughals for three generations. He had his education
at Patna and Banaras and was, perhaps the most eminent linguist of his times. He was a
scholar not only of Bengali, Sanskrit and English, but also of Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin,
and eighteen other languages and literatures. In a span of less than two decades, he
authored eighty one scholarly treaties on issues which he, his society and State had to
grapple with.

Views on Education
Ram Mohan Roy was of the considered view that unless the educational system of India
was totally overhauled, “there was no possibility of the people coming out of the
slumber of so many centuries”. He asked the British rulers of India “to help equip the
new generation of Indians with useful modern scientific knowledge”. He believed that
instruction in useful modern sciences like Chemistry, Mathematics, Anatomy and
Natural Philosophy would instill new awareness and new capabilities in the Indian
people.
He was the staunch advocate of English education of Indians. He even started in 1816
and maintained, with his own meager funds, the first English School in Calcutta. In
addition, he was also responsible for establishing the following educational institutions
as well:
(i) Hindu College (1822);
(ii) Vedanta College (1822);
(iii) Maha Pathshala (1825).
He was the first eminent advocate of women’s education. It is another thing that he
preferred for them “education of the household”. Yet, he was modern enough to plead
with Indian women to shed off their traditional veil, which had kept them aloof from
both the society and the State. Instead, he called upon them to adapt “English manners
and English behavior”.
Ram Mohan also attempted to encourage cultivation of the native languages and
literature, especially Bengali, Sanskrit and Hindi. He even wrote a Grammar and
Geography in the Bengali language for the education of the common people. Though he
himself was a great scholar of Sanskrit, he felt that the Sanskrit learning was irrelevant
to modern India and, thus, he strongly opposed it. He also did not want to load the
young minds with grammatical complexities and speculative or imaginary knowledge.
He, thus, wanted to discard whatever he considered ‘dead-wood’.

Constitutional Liberalism and Rights

Ram Mohan is acknowledged as the Father of Modern Indian Political Liberalism. He
was, perhaps, the earliest advocate of the Liberalism and the precursor of the Liberal
Movement of 19th Century India. As a liberal, Ram Mohan stood for the “value and
dignity of the individual personality”. He believed not only in the freedom of body and
mind, but also the freedom of thought and action.
In his three-and-a-half decade long public life, he struggled for “the inviolability” of
certain rights. He would not like the individual to be sacrificed for the sake of the
society. He, thus, did not see any scope for arbitrary and despotic use of authority in any
field of human activity, whether political, religious, social or economic. He was against
the abuse of power by authority, and not against the existence of authority itself.
Ram Mohan was probably the first modern Indian thinker to create awareness for civil
rights amongst Indians. Though he did not specially enlist in detail, the civil rights for his
fellow countrymen, he seems to have pleaded for each and every individual right which
the Western and the Eastern liberals could possibly think of.
In line with John Locke, Ram Mohan first asked for individual’s “Right to Life, Liberty and
Property” for both men and women equally. Regarding Liberty as “a priceless possession
of mankind”, he fought not only for the Liberty of the individual person, but also for the
Liberty of each and every individual nation. As the first Indian Liberal Moderate, he
wanted ‘good government’ first and ‘self-government’ later on. Ram Mohan’s love for
liberty was not confined to India; it was, in fact, universal. He supported all struggles
which aimed at human freedom.
As a true liberal, Ram Mohan also believed in the virtue of the right to property” for
both men and women. To him, every individual should have the right to own the
property he inherits or earns. Ram Mohan was of the considered view that the root
cause of the subjugation of Indian women was “the complete denial of their property
rights”. In his Brief Remarks Regarding Modern Encroachments on the Ancient Rights of
Females (1822), he pointed out that the ancient Hindu law-givers gave the mother the
right to have an equal share, with her sons in the property left by the father. To him,
women had become “the slaves of the male members of the family”, just because they
were robbed of their right to property.
Ram Mohan was also the unrivalled champion of the individual’s Right to the Freedom
of Thought, Speech and Expression, which included Freedom of the Press. To him it
included the freedom of creativity of mind and intellect, as well as the freedom of
expressing one’s opinion and thoughts through any and every medium of
communication. He felt that the freedom of expression was useful equally to the rulers
and the ruled.
It may be said to Ram Mohan’s credit that he was the first Indian in Modern times to
have started his newspapers in Bengali, Persian and English “to foster mutual
understanding between the rulers and the ruled” and “to create an effective public
opinion against the misdeeds of both the society and the State.” His Bengali newspaper
was called Sambad Kaumudi, Persian newspaper as Miratual Akhbar and the English
newspaper as the Brahmanical Magazine.
As Ram Mohan relentlessly pointed out the faults of the government and publicized
them in his three newspapers, he became “an eyesore” to the Government. His views
were not quite pleasing to the Government and it, therefore, enacted a law restricting
the Freedom of Press.
He vehemently opposed the restrictions imposed on the Freedom of Press, petitioned to
the Supreme Court against the curbs imposed by the Government, made a brilliant
defense of the Freedom of Press in India, but did not remain alive to see the
establishment of a Free Press in India, for the restrictions were formally withdrawn by
Lord William Bentinck in 1835, two years after Ram Mohan’s demise.
The other important rights for which Ram Mohan fought for included the following:
(a) Right to the equality of sexes;
(b) Right to political participation;
(c) Right to the freedom to form associations including political parties. Ram Mohan was
the first politician of Modern India to form a political party to foster better
understanding between the people of India and their British masters.
As the champion of Modern Indian Liberalism, Ram Mohan regarded constitutional
government as “the best guarantor of Indian freedom’’. In preference to the feudal rule
of the rulers of Indian Princely States, he was, generally, in favor of the Western type of
Parliamentary Democracy which ensures peoples’ largest participation in their
governance. He was also in favor of the doctrines of the “separation of powers” and the
“codification of laws”. He was also in favor of the revival of the age-old Panchayat
system of administration at the grassroots level.
To Ram Mohun, the purpose of State was Lokshreya, i.e., good of the people in all
spheres of human activity. Consequently, he was not in favor of restricting the sphere of
State activity only to the political field. He rather urged the State to also undertake
social, moral and cultural responsibilities. To Ram Mohun, the existence of any
government becomes meaningful only if and to the extent it performs all such functions.

Conclusion
Ram Mohan was not merely the Father of Modern India, Modern Indian Liberal
Tradition and Indian Renaissance, he was also a Vedic Hindu, a Social Reformer,
following the path of social and political involvement, a founder of great religious
movements, a true patriot and forerunner of the Indian Liberal Moderates, as he not
only pursued the politics of ‘prayer and petition’, but also the strategy of ‘gradualism’.
He was able to strike a judicious balance between tradition and modernity, between the
ancient Indian and modern Western political principles and practices. He wanted to
create a new Indian social system which is essentially transparent and in which the
principles of tolerance, sympathy, reason, liberty, equality, fraternity and social justice
would be honored. In sum, Ram Mohan was a many-sided genius of modern India.