Raja Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj

At a Glance

• Founder Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833), Brahmo Sabha, August 1828
• Core ideas Monotheism, reason, the Vedas and Upanishads, opposition to idolatry
• Phases Roy; Debendranath Tagore (from 1842); Keshab Chandra Sen (from 1858)
• Splits Brahmo Samaj of India (1866); Sadharan Brahmo Samaj (1878)
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Reform Movements and Their Leaders

Where Does It Fit?

This is the first topic of the category on reform movements and their leaders. The previous category gave the general features of socio-religious reform. This topic begins the individual movements with the oldest one. The next topic covers the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay, which the Brahmo ideas inspired. Previous topic: Struggle Against Caste-Based Exploitation.

Who Was Raja Rammohan Roy?

Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833), often called the father of the Indian Renaissance and the maker of modern India, was a man of versatile genius. He believed in the modern scientific approach and in the principles of human dignity and social equality. He put his faith in monotheism. He wrote Gift to Monotheists (1809) and translated into Bengali the Vedas and five Upanishads to prove that the ancient Hindu texts support monotheism.

In 1814 he set up the Atmiya Sabha (Society of Friends) in Calcutta to propagate the monotheistic ideals of the Vedanta and to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills. Some books give 1815. Strongly influenced by rationalist ideas, he declared that Vedanta is based on reason and that, if reason demanded it, even a departure from the scriptures is justified. His rationalism extended to other sects too, particularly their elements of blind faith. In his Precepts of Jesus (1820) he tried to separate the moral and philosophical message of the New Testament, which he praised, from its miracle stories, and he earned the wrath of missionaries by advocating the incorporation of Christ’s message into Hinduism. He stood for a creative and intellectual process of selecting the best from different cultures, and faced orthodox reaction for it.

How Was the Brahmo Samaj Founded?

Raja Rammohan Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in August 1828, later renamed the Brahmo Samaj, to institutionalise his ideas and mission. The Samaj was committed to the worship of the Eternal, Unsearchable, Immutable Being, the Author and Preserver of the Universe. Prayers, meditation and readings from the Upanishads were the forms of worship, and no graven image, statue, carving, painting or portrait was allowed in Samaj buildings, underlining its opposition to idolatry and meaningless ritual.

Its long-term agenda, to purify Hinduism and preach monotheism, rested on the twin pillars of reason and the Vedas and Upanishads. The Samaj tried to incorporate the teachings of other religions, and stressed human dignity, opposition to idolatry and criticism of social evils such as sati. Roy did not want to found a new religion; he only wanted to purify Hinduism of the evil practices that had crept into it. His ideas met strong opposition from orthodox elements such as Raja Radhakant Deb, who organised the Dharma Sabha to counter Brahmo propaganda. Roy’s death in 1833 was a setback for the Samaj.

What Social Reforms Did Roy Pursue?

Sati: Roy was a determined crusader against sati. He began his struggle in 1818, citing sacred texts to prove that no religion sanctioned the burning alive of widows, and appealing to humanity, reason and compassion. He visited cremation grounds, organised vigilance groups and filed counter-petitions with the government. His efforts were rewarded by the Regulation of 1829, which declared sati a crime, as told in Reform Movements and the Position of Women.

Women: He condemned the general subjugation of women, attacked polygamy and the degraded state of widows, and demanded the right of inheritance and property for women.

Education and language: He supported David Hare’s efforts to found the Hindu College in 1817. His own English school taught mechanics and Voltaire’s philosophy. In 1825 he established a Vedanta college offering both Indian learning and Western social and physical sciences. He compiled a Bengali grammar and helped evolve a modern, elegant prose style. He knew more than a dozen languages, including Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, English, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

Press: He was a bold supporter of freedom of the press and a pioneer of Indian journalism, bringing out journals in Bengali, Hindi, English and Persian to inform the public and present their grievances to the government.

What Were Roy’s Political and International Views?

As a political activist, Roy condemned the oppressive practices of Bengali zamindars and demanded fixation of maximum rents and abolition of taxes on tax-free lands. He called for reduction of export duties on Indian goods abroad and abolition of the East India Company’s trading rights. He demanded the Indianisation of the superior services, separation of the executive from the judiciary, judicial equality between Indians and Europeans, and trial by jury.

He was an internationalist ahead of his time, standing for brotherhood among nations and the universal character of liberty, equality and justice. He supported the revolutions of Naples and Spanish America and condemned the oppression of Ireland by absentee English landlordism. His associates included David Hare, Alexander Duff, Debendranath Tagore, P.K. Tagore, Chandrashekhar Deb and Tarachand Chakraborty. His ideas and activities also had nationalist undertones, as they aimed at the political uplift of the masses through social reform. H.C.E. Zacharias described the Brahmo Samaj as the starting point of the various reform movements in religion, society and politics which have agitated modern India.

What Happened Under Debendranath Tagore?

Maharishi Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), father of Rabindranath Tagore and a product of the best of traditional Indian learning and Western thought, gave new life to the Samaj when he joined in 1842. Earlier he headed the Tattvabodhini Sabha (founded 1839), which, with its Bengali organ Tattvabodhini Patrika, was devoted to the systematic study of India’s past with a rational outlook and to the propagation of Roy’s ideas. The informal association of the two sabhas brought new vitality and members. The Samaj now included prominent followers of Roy, the Derozians (see Young Bengal Movement and Henry Vivian Derozio) and independent thinkers such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Ashwini Kumar Datta.

Tagore worked on two fronts. Within Hinduism the Samaj was a reformist movement; outside, it resolutely opposed Christian missionaries for their criticism of Hinduism and their attempts at conversion. The revitalised Samaj supported widow remarriage, women’s education, abolition of polygamy, improvement in ryots’ conditions and temperance.

What Happened Under Keshab Chandra Sen and the Splits?

The Samaj experienced another phase of energy when Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-84) was made acharya by Debendranath soon after joining in 1858. Keshab popularised the movement, and branches opened outside Bengal in the United Provinces, Punjab, Bombay, Madras and other towns. But Debendranath found some of his ideas too radical: the inclusion of teachings of all religions in the Samaj’s meetings, his strong views against caste and even open support for inter-caste marriage. Keshab was dismissed from the office of acharya in 1865.

The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj reiterated the Brahmo doctrines of faith in one supreme God, the belief that no scripture or man is infallible, and belief in the dictates of reason, truth and morality. Brahmo centres opened in Madras province, and in Punjab the Dayal Singh Trust sought to plant Brahmo ideas through the Dayal Singh College at Lahore in 1910.

What Was the Significance of the Brahmo Samaj?

In social reform, the Samaj attacked many dogmas and superstitions. It condemned the Hindu prejudice against going abroad. It worked for a respectable status for women: it condemned sati, worked for the abolition of purdah, discouraged child marriage and polygamy, and crusaded for widow remarriage and educational facilities. It attacked casteism and untouchability, though with limited success. The chapter’s assessment is that its influence did not go much beyond Calcutta and, at most, Bengal, and that it did not have a lasting impact.

As an analytical point, the Brahmo Samaj mattered more as a source of ideas than as an institution. Its rationalism, its use of the press, its women’s agenda and its search for universal principles recur in the movements that followed, including the Prarthana Samaj and the Arya Samaj, classified in Aligarh Movement Revivalist…">Two Streams of Reform: Reformist and Revivalist.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Core topic Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj feature in nearly every Prelims paper on reform
• Chronology The founding years and the splits of 1866 and 1878 are frequent facts
• Base for the rest Later movements are compared with it

What Came Next?

The next topic covers the Prarthana Samaj of Bombay. Next topic: Prarthana Samaj.

Key People and Terms

• Atmiya Sabha Roy’s 1814 Society of Friends in Calcutta
• Brahmo Sabha The body Roy founded in August 1828, later the Brahmo Samaj
• Tattvabodhini Sabha Debendranath Tagore’s society, founded 1839
• Adi Brahmo Samaj Debendranath Tagore’s Samaj after the 1866 split
• Sadharan Brahmo Samaj The body formed after the 1878 split
• Dharma Sabha The orthodox body organised by Raja Radhakant Deb

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for the contribution of Roy and the Brahmo Samaj. These points add depth.

• Rational faith Vedanta based on reason, with no scripture above conscience
• Wide agenda Education, press, women, politics and internationalism
• Limits Splits and a base confined mainly to Bengal