Eternal India Encyclopedia

LUMINARIES participation in the Mutiny. He convinced his own people of the need for accepting British rule and profit from the benefits which it offered. He laid greatest emphasis on education and scientific knowledge and established a society for popularising science among the Muslims. In 1875 he started the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College which was raised to the status of a university as the Aligarh Muslim University in 1921. He was a firm believer in the need for co-operation between his community and the British Government. He therefore advised Muslims to stay away from the Indian National Congress when it was formed and throughout remained a critic of its policies. His opposition to the Congress was based on the belief that a system of representative government, if introduced in the sub-continent, would lead to a rule by the Hindu majority. A religious reformer like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Dayanand Saraswati took a different path in opposing Western ideas and Western education and undertook instead to revive the ancient religion of the Aryans. He went back to the Vedas to denounce the evils of post-Vedic Hinduism idolatry, polygamy, child marriage, the seclusion of widows, untouchability and the caste system. He was bom into a Brahmin family in Morvi State in Kathiawar. His father was a zamindar. A major turning point in his life came at the age of 14 when he observed for the first time a special all-night fast and vigil in honour of Shiva. It caused such revulsion in him that he waged war on idolatry for the rest of his life: "Thoughts upon thoughts crowd upon me.... Is it possible, I asked myself, that this semblance of man, this idol of a Personal God that I see bestriding his bull before me — is it possible that he can be the Mahadeva, the great Deity.......the supreme being and the Divine hero of all the stories we read of in the Puranas? I feel it impossible to reconcile the idea of an omnipotent, living God, with this idol, which allows the mice to run upon its body, and thus suffers its image to be polluted without the slightest protest." To avoid being married he ran away from home at 19 to become a Sanyasi. He spent the next 15 years as a wandering ascetic living in jungles, in Himalayan retreats and places of pilgrimage in northern India. He developed his reverence for the four Vedas and disdain for the later scriptures from an old blind teacher of Swami Dayanand (1824-1883)

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833)

Mathura, Swami Vrijanad. For the rest of his life Swami Dayanand based his preaching on the exclusive authority of the Vedas questioning practices like idol worship, untouchability and child marriage and the prohibition on women studying the Vedas which he pointed out were not sanctioned by the Vedas. He established the Arya Samaj in Bombay in 1875 to carry on his social and religious reforms. He established pathsalas to spread knowledge of Sanskrit and the Vedas. Later the Arya Samaj established a number of D.A.V (Dayanand Anglo-Vedic) Schools and Colleges in the Punjab which became the centres of aggressive and militant nationalism. His revolutionary teachings incurred the wrath of the orthodox and numerous attempts were made on his life. He met with his death in Jodhpur when he accused the princely ruler of loose living. The prince's paramour instigated Swami Dayanand's cook to put poison in his milk. According to Rabindranath Tagore, "Through the dense undergrowth of the degenerate days of our country, he cleared a straight path that was meant to lead the Hindus to a simple and rational life of a devotion to God and service toman." The "Grand Old Man of India" as he came to be known, Dadabhai Naoroji was the son of aZoroastrian priest. His family name was Dordi meaning twisted rope made of coconut husk. He once said, "You may burn a Dordi but you can never take the twist out of it. So it is with me. When once I form a decision, nothing will dislodge me from it." At 27 he became Professor of Mathematics at the Elphinstone College in Bombay, the first Indian to hold the post. At 30, he left India to become a partner in the first Indian firm to do business in England. His main purpose in moving to London was to appeal directly to the British public for a better understanding of India's problems. For the next fifty years he delivered papers on Indian subjects to numerous societies and submitted memoranda and petitions to British officials. Propounded "the drain theory" of India's wealth to Britain. Was elected in 1892 to the British House of Commons on a Liberal ticket, the first Indian member of Parliament. He served as Chief Minister of the Indian state of Baroda in 1873- 74 . He took a prominent part in the first session of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and was thrice elected its president in Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

Born in an orthodox well-to-do Brahmin family in Bengal, he was turned out when at the age of 15 he wrote a pamphlet in Bengali denouncing idol worship. He made the best use of this to travel far and wide. He already knew Arabic and Persian. He now mastered Sanskrit and learnt English, French, Latin, Hebrew and Greek. He was able to study in original the scriptures of the important religions of the world and make a comparative study. In 1805, he joined the service of the East India Company and continued to work till his retirement in 1814. In 1814he started the Atmiya Samaj and in 1828 the Brahmo Samaj. It advocated the worship of one god and the brotherhood of man. It stood for respect for all religions. Raja Ram Mohan Roy believed in the fundamental unity of all religions. He stood for the abolition of sati and carried on a ceaseless propaganda against it both from the platform and in the columns of his Bengali journal Samvad Kaumudi, which is among the earliest Indian newspapers. It was his consistent support which enabled Lord William Bentinck to ban this inhuman custom in 1829. He went to England on a special mission to plead the cause of the Mughal Emperor of Delhi. While he was there, he died at Bristol on September 27,1833. He was given the title of Raja by the Mughal Emperor. According to Rabindranath Tagore, Raj a Ram Mohan Roy "inaugurated the modern age in India." He has been described as "perhaps the first earnest -minded investigator of the science of comparative religions that the world has produced." Although he was one of the foremost orientalists of the age, he believed that India could progress only through liberal education covering all the branches of Western learning through English. He helped in the founding of the Hindu College which was the best institution of its time. B orn in Delhi to a noble family respected for its learning and piety, he was given traditional Muslim education. At the time of the Mutiny he was a subordinate judicial officer in the service of the East India Company. He foresaw that the Mutiny would not succeed and remained faithful to the British. After the Mutiny he worked hard to allay the misgivings which the British had developed about the Muslims because of their Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898)