Raja Rammohun Roy Biography

Born: May 22, 1772

Died: September 27, 1833
Achievements: Founded Atmiya Sabha and Brahma Samaj. Played a key role in abolition
and Sati. Fought for the rights of women.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy is known as the 'Maker of Modern India'. He was the founder of the
Brahmo Samaj, one of the first Indian socio-religious reform movements. He played a major
role in abolishing the role of Sati. Raja Rammohan Roy was a great scholar and an
independent thinker. He advocated the study of English, Science, Western Medicine and
Technology. He was given the title 'Raja' by the Mughal Emperor.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was born on May 22, 1772 in village Radhanagar in the District of
Hooghly in Bengal. His father Ramkanto Roy, was a Vaishnavite, while his mother, Tarini, was
from a Shakta background. Raja Ram Mohun Roy was sent to Patna for higher studies. By the
age of fifteen, Raja Rammohun Roy had learnt Bangla, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was against idol worship and orthodox Hindu rituals. He stood firmly
against all sort of social bigotry, conservatism and superstitions. But his father was an
orthodox Hindu Brahmin. This led to differences between Raja Ram Mohan Roy and his
father. Following differences he left the house . He wandered around Himalayas and went to
Tibet. He traveled widely before returning home.
After his return Raja Ram Mohan Roy's family married him in the hope that he would change.
But this did not have any effect on him. Raja Ram Mohan Roy went to Varanasi and studied
the Vedas, the Upanishads and Hindu philosophy deeply. When his father died in 1803 he
returned to Murshidabad. He then worked as a moneylender in Calcutta, and from 1809 to
1814, he served in the Revenue Department of the East India Company.
In 1814, Raja Ram Mohan Roy formed Atmiya Sabha. Atmiya Sabha tried to initiate social
and religious reforms in the society. Raja Ram Mohan Roy campaigned for rights for women,
including the right for widows to remarry, and the right for women to hold property. He
actively opposed Sati system and the practice of polygamy.
He also supported education, particularly education of women. He believed that Englishlanguage education was superior to the traditional Indian education system, and he opposed
the use of government funds to support schools teaching Sanskrit. In 1822, he founded a
school based on English education.
In 1828, Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the 'Brahma Samaj'. Through 'Brahma Samaj, he
wanted to expose the religious hypocrisies and check the growing influence of Christianity
on the Hindu society. Raja Ram Mohan Roy's efforts bore fruit when in 1829, the Sati system
was abolished.

In November 1830 Ram Mohan Roy traveled to the United Kingdom as an ambassador of the
Mughal emperor to plead for his pension and allowances. Raja Ram Mohan Roy passed away
on September 27, 1833 at Stapleton near Bristol due to meningitis.

Mahatma Gandhi Biography

Mahatmas Gandhi was the primary leader of India's independence movement and also the
architect of a form of civil disobedience that would influence the world.
Synopsis
Born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, Mahatma Gandhi studied law and came to
advocate for the rights of Indians, both at home and in South Africa. Gandhi became a
leader of India's independence movement, organizing boycotts against British institutions in
peaceful forms of civil disobedience. He was killed by a fanatic in 1948.
Spiritual and Political Leader
Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as
Mahatma Gandhi, was born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, Kathiawar, India. He studied
law in London, England, but in 1893 went to South Africa, where he spent 20 years opposing
discriminatory legislation against Indians. As a pioneer of Satyagraha, or resistance through
mass non-violent civil disobedience, he became one of the major political and spiritual
leaders of his time. Satyagraha remains one of the most potent philosophies in freedom
struggles throughout the world today.
Fight for Indian Liberation
In 1914, Gandhi returned to India, where he supported the Home Rule movement, and
became leader of the Indian National Congress, advocating a policy of non-violent non-cooperation to achieve independence. His goal was to help poor farmers and laborers protest
oppressive taxation and discrimination. He struggled to alleviate poverty, liberate women
and put an end to caste discrimination, with the ultimate objective being self-rule for India.

Following his civil disobedience campaign (1919-22), he was jailed for conspiracy (1922-24).
In 1930, he led a landmark 320 km/200 mile march to the sea to collect salt in symbolic
defiance of the government monopoly. On his release from prison (1931), he attended the
London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform. In 1946, he negotiated with
the Cabinet Mission which recommended the new constitutional structure. After
independence (1947), he tried to stop the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal, a policy which led
to his assassination in Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic.
Death and Legacy
Even after his death, Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and his belief in simple living
making his own clothes, eating a vegetarian diet and using fasts for self-purification as well
as a means of protesthave been a beacon of hope for oppressed and marginalized people
throughout the world.