8 months ago
Raja Rammohun Roy's Legacy and Controversy
Raja Rammohun Roy was a famous social reformer in India.
He started a group called Brahmo Samaj to promote equality and justice.
He also spoke out against a harmful practice called Sati.
Some people today say bad things about him, but he did a lot of good.
He even went to Britain to help the Mughal Emperor get money that was owed to him.
The British company in charge at the time didn't want to pay, but Rammohun Roy tried his best.
Even though he didn't succeed, he is still remembered as a hero.
Raja Rammohun Roy is a highly regarded social reformer in India, known for his work in promoting equality and justice.
He founded the Brahmo Samaj to institutionalize his vision of a new world based on equality, liberty, justice, and brotherhood.
Roy denounced the practice of Sati, a social injustice perpetuated by Hindu orthodoxy.
He traveled to Britain in 1831 as an envoy for the Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah to address the East India Company's breach of faith regarding the peshkash payment.
Despite his efforts, the mission did not yield significant monetary results, and Roy died in 1833, leaving the question of the peshkash unsettled.
- Who
- Raja Rammohun Roy, a social reformer and pioneer of nationalism in India
- What
- Controversy surrounding Rammohun Roy's legacy and his mission to Britain
- Where
- India and Britain
- When
- 1831, during Rammohun Roy's mission to Britain
- Why
- To address the East India Company's breach of faith regarding the peshkash payment to the Mughal Emperor
Key facts
- Raja Rammohun Roy
- Social reformer and pioneer of nationalism in India
- Brahmo Samaj
- Institutionalized vision of equality, liberty, justice, and brotherhood
- Sati
- Social injustice practice denounced by Rammohun Roy
- Peshkash
- Annual payment to the Mughal Emperor by the East India Company
- Akbar Shah
- Mughal Emperor who sent Rammohun Roy to Britain
- George IV
- British Monarch during Rammohun Roy's mission
- Dwarkanath Tagore
- Close friend of Rammohun Roy who prepared a memorandum for Akbar Shah
Quotes
Prof Amar Farooqui
Professor and author of 'Governors of Empire'
“Rammohun Roy’s presence in London when the Privy Council took up the Dharma Sabha’s appeal (against sati abolition) was a coincidence.”
thestatesman.com
“Rammohun Roy had travelled to England primarily to carry out a task assigned to him by the Mughal Emperor. He had been sent by Akbar Shah as his official envoy to George IV to apprise the British Monarch of the East India Company’s breach of faith in not adhering to the commitment it had made in 1765 to render to the imperial treasury the annual peshkash of 26 lakh rupees as the Emperor’s share of the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.”
thestatesman.com
Prithwindra Mukherjee
Author of 'The Intellectual Roots of India’s Freedom Struggle'
“He restored traditional spiritual teaching of the Vedanta in the new universal faith that he founded. Irrefutable in his arguments, culling support from trustworthy Sanskrit texts, he gave back to Brahmanism its purest monotheistic vision.”
thestatesman.com
Sources
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