Rammohan Roy, the Brahmo Samaj and the Prarthana Samaj

Prerequisites

• British Expansion and Colonial Policies: Company rule in Bengal, English education and the Charter Acts. These are the setting the reformers responded to.
• Bhakti and Sufi Movements: the older Indian tradition of questioning ritual and caste. The 19th-century reformers often drew on it.
• Socio-Religious Reform Movements: chapter overview: the map of the whole chapter.

The Hook: A Tract Written in Persian

Why it matters: Prelims asks for exact founders, years and splits (1828, 1866, 1878), and for the Sati Regulation of 1829. Mains asks you to assess the reformers: their methods, their limits, and their role in preparing the ground for nationalism.

The Setting: Why Reform Began in Bengal

• Bengal was the first region under direct Company rule (after Plassey, 1757, and the Diwani, 1765). Calcutta was the capital of British India.
• A new English-educated middle class grew up there. It worked in Company offices, trade and the professions.
• Western rationalism, the printing press and newspapers, and Christian missionary criticism of Hindu practice all reached Calcutta first.
• Reformers used reason and the authority of old texts together. They argued that evils such as sati were not sanctioned by the original scriptures.

This is often called the Bengal Renaissance (बंगाल पुनर्जागरण).

Raja Rammohan Roy (राजा राममोहन राय), 1772–1833

Organisations and writings

What the Brahmo Samaj stood for

• One formless God (monotheism), worshipped without idols, priests or sacrifices.
• Authority of the Upanishads read through reason. Rammohan translated several Upanishads into Bengali and English.
• Open to people of every faith for worship. No image, no sermon reviling another religion.
• Opposition to caste rigidity, polygamy, sati and the denial of property rights to women.

Social reform and politics

• Sati (सती प्रथा): He campaigned against it from around 1818 through tracts and petitions. Governor-General Lord William Bentinck passed the Bengal Sati Regulation (Regulation XVII), 4 December 1829, making sati illegal and punishable.
  • The orthodox Dharma Sabha (1830) of Radhakanta Deb appealed to the Privy Council against the ban. Rammohan, then in England, worked to defend it, and the appeal failed.
• Education: He supported English and scientific education. He ran an Anglo-Hindu School (1822) and a Vedanta College (1825), combining Western science with Indian learning.
• Press freedom: He protested against the Press Ordinance of 1823 (the Adam Regulation) that required a licence to publish.
• Women’s rights: He argued for women’s inheritance rights and against polygamy.

The Brahmo Samaj after Rammohan

flowchart TD
    A["Brahmo Sabha, 1828
Rammohan Roy"] --> B["Brahmo Samaj revived
Debendranath Tagore
(joined 1842–43)"]
    B --> C["Split 1866"]
    C --> D["Adi Brahmo Samaj
Debendranath Tagore"]
    C --> E["Brahmo Samaj of India
Keshab Chandra Sen"]
    E --> F["Split 1878
(Cooch Behar marriage)"]
    F --> G["Sadharan Brahmo Samaj
15 May 1878
Ananda Mohan Bose, Sivanath Sastri"]
    F --> H["Keshab: Naba Bidhan
(New Dispensation), 1880"]

Debendranath Tagore (देवेंद्रनाथ टैगोर), 1817–1905

• Father of Rabindranath Tagore.
• Founded the Tattvabodhini Sabha (1839) and later merged it with the Brahmo Samaj, which he joined in the early 1840s and revived.
• The Tattvabodhini Patrika (Bengali journal) spread rational, Upanishadic religion. Akshay Kumar Datta was a well-known editor.
• He gave up belief in the infallibility of the Vedas and kept the Samaj focused on religion rather than radical social change.

Keshab Chandra Sen (केशवचंद्र सेन), 1838–1884

• Joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1857. A powerful orator who took the movement beyond Bengal, to Bombay, Madras and the north.
• Pushed social reform: inter-caste marriage, widow remarriage, women’s education, and removal of the sacred thread by Brahmo ministers.
• First split, 1866: Debendranath’s group became the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Keshab formed the Brahmo Samaj of India.
• Founded the Indian Reform Association (1870). His campaign led to the Native Marriage Act, 1872 (often called the Brahmo Marriage Act). It allowed civil marriages for those who did not profess the established religions, fixed the minimum age at 14 for girls and 18 for boys, and forbade polygamy.
• Second split, 1878: Keshab married his under-age daughter to the young Maharaja of Cooch Behar with Hindu rites, against the Act he had championed. His followers broke away and formed the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj (15 May 1878), led by Ananda Mohan Bose and Sivanath Sastri, among others.
• In 1880 Keshab announced the Naba Bidhan (नव विधान, “New Dispensation”), drawing on several faiths.

Young Bengal

• Led by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831), a teacher at the Hindu College, Calcutta.
• His students questioned religion, custom and authority, inspired by the French Revolution and radical Western thought.
• Derozio was removed from the college in 1831 and died the same year. The movement was radical but had little mass base.

Reform in Western India: the Prarthana Samaj

M.G. Ranade (महादेव गोविंद रानडे), 1842–1901: judge, economist and reformer. Associated with the Widow Remarriage Association (1861), the Deccan Education Society (1884) and the Indian National Social Conference (1887), which met alongside the early Congress sessions.

Analysis for Mains: Contribution and Limits

Memory Tricks

Don’t Confuse

Common Mistakes

Practice

All questions below are original practice questions written in CGPSC style. They are not previous-year questions.

Level 1: Foundation

1. Rammohan Roy’s Persian tract on monotheism was titled ______.
2. Sati was declared illegal by Regulation ______ of 1829 under Governor-General ______.
3. The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was formed in the year ______.

Level 2: Prelims MCQs

Q1. Consider the following statements about Keshab Chandra Sen:

1. He founded the Brahmo Samaj of India after the split of 1866.
2. The Native Marriage Act, 1872 was passed as a result of his campaign.
3. He led the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj formed in 1878.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1 only
• (b) 1 and 2 only
• (c) 2 and 3 only
• (d) 1, 2 and 3

Q2. Match List I (Organisation) with List II (Founder or leader):

• (a) A-3, B-1, C-2, D-4
• (b) A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4
• (c) A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2
• (d) A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3

Q3. Which of the following newspapers was published by Rammohan Roy in Persian?

• (a) Sambad Kaumudi
• (b) Mirat-ul-Akhbar
• (c) Tattvabodhini Patrika
• (d) Rast Goftar

Q4. The Young Bengal movement is associated with:

• (a) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
• (b) Henry Louis Vivian Derozio
• (c) Akshay Kumar Datta
• (d) Sivanath Sastri

Level 3: Mains Answer Writing

Q1. (150–200 words) “Raja Rammohan Roy was the first modern man of India.” Examine his contribution to social and religious reform.

Q2. (60 words) Why did the Brahmo Samaj split in 1866 and 1878?

Quick Revision Table

Key Takeaways

What’s Next

• Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and Theosophy: the “revivalist” strand that looked to the Vedas and Vedanta
• Women’s Emancipation and Caste Reform: sati, widow remarriage and the laws that followed
• Indian Thinkers: Rammohan, Vivekananda and others for Mains GS-IV
• National Movement (1885–1919): how reform fed into early nationalism