An Apostle of Women Issues: Revalidation Modernist Approach of Raja Rammohan Roy’s Ideology

Women issues occupies a foremost place in the writings of Raja Rammohan Roy. His sincere and serious efforts to modernize brahminical order through his articles like ‘The Missionary and The Brahmun’ and ‘A Vindication of Hindoo Religion Against the Attacks of Christian Missionaries’, ‘A Defence of Hindu Theism’and many more translations of Vedas and The Vedanta could not drive the countrymen so mightly as did his efforts to eradicate the practice of widow burning and advocacy of widow remarriage. Raja Rammohan Roy was in a true sense a modernist and a forebearer of Indian renaissance.  Reason, rationality and a life long concern for human rights were the three pillars of his activity throughout his life. His sense of rationality did not lead him to attack religion as such but he tried to show that deviation from the classical religious concept of monotheism and the origin of various pseudo-religious puranic cults and dogmas were at the root of the contemporary social evils and that the only way to fight it out was through a process of mass awakening. In that sense, Rammohan was the first champion of women’s rights in our country