RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY And if one were again asked to single out the great man, through whose personal endeavour and great self-sacrifice, abuses and corrupt practices that had gathered as accretions round the once pure and healthy body of Hindu doctrine received, if not a violent check, at least, scathing condemnation, I should point to Ram Mohan Roy. And if one were asked, whose was the bold and prophetic vision, that en abled him to see beyond India's political down fall and the passing away of the sceptre from her, beyond the surrender of her independence and the humiliation of her lot, to the future vistas radiant with the dawn of hope, when through Western culture, and democratic discipline the Mother of Nations would again step out to take an honourable place in the comity of nations, I should point to Ram Mohan Roy. And finally : If one were asked to indicate the master-mind who saw that India's progress was to be conditioned not by contemplation alone, but by action ; not by pessimism, but by invincible hope ; not by self-suppression, but by self-realisation ; not by isolation from the life of the West, but by healthy competition or co-operation with it, enlisting in the cause of national develop ment forces that truly modernise life, wresting the mysteries of science, capturing the treasures of Western knowledge, and applying these researches for the enrichment of India, I should again point to Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
Ram Mohan was, indeed, a man of capacious powers of mind, broad religious sympathies, and a very powerful though genial personality. His range of interests was as wide as the sphere of his activities. He never destroyed for the sheer fiendish delight of destroying. He pulled down, so that he might raise a. new building, on the ruins of the old, after clearing away the debris.
Our hero figures throughout his long and arduous campaign against ignorance, helplessness and oppression, not only as the champion of men, but also of women. He is the first Indian who raised his powerful voice against the iniquitous treatment of women. He has done for women in India, what John Stuart Mill did for the women of England in another direction. The socially enfranchised—and one earnestly hopes that also the politically enfranchised women of the future would think well of him, who generations before, strove to improve their status, and sought to penalise the indignities and horrors that they suffered, even under the British regime.
Before we proceed to fuller details and personal incidents, we should like to suggest that the Raja's title to celebrity can be established only through his founding the Brahma Sam'aj in 1828. But his efforts were not, by any means, confined to religion. He just as strenuously promoted the best interests of the community by stimulating interest in educa tion, giving generous donations, and helping those who were pioneers in this respect. He was perfectly in his element, when pouring hot indignation over the practice of suttee as when pleading for political reform or advocating the cause of the King of Oudh.
Beyond dispute, the hero of the present sketch stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries and even many of his successors, as the premier nation-builder of India. His great towering person ality stands in solitary, majestic outline, dwarfing by its contrast, even greater men of a later day. For in passing judgments on the achievements of the Raja we must remember the obstacles he had to encounter ; the organised forces of conservatism and decadence against which he had to stand up and fight, and the difficult times during which he flourished. And never did man fight more valiantly, or was more obedient to the heavenly vision.
Ram Mohan came of a highly respectable and deeply religious parentage, his father being for long connected with the Muhammadan Government in Bengal. He had thus sprung from very high-caste and orthodox Brahmins, known as Kulins. His father was a follower of the Vishnuite leader, Chaitanya, who early in the sixteenth century, infused emotional warmth and fervour into Hindu worship and devotion, which was till then either ceremonial or else severely intellectual. His mother came of a 5:hata family. The Shaktas are a Hindu sect, who worship goddesses as the energy of the Supreme Being. Lakshmi is thus the energy of Vishnu ; Uma the energy of Shiva.