He was the Pioneer social reformer of 19th century. He introduced various reforms which rusted the Indian society for long. The evils of past were haunting modernisation past and has kept virtually half of the population at the mercy of other half. The kind of reforms brought by him introduce humane elements of modern society.
Work done by him:
- He was opposed to Sati, polygamy, child marriage, idolatry, the caste system, and propagated widow remarriage.
- He stressed on rationalism and modern scientific approach.
- He believed in social equality of all human beings.
- He started many schools to educate Indians in Western scientific education in English.
- He was against the perceived polytheism of Hinduism. He advocated monotheism as given in the scriptures.
- He studied Christianity and Islam as well.
- He translated the Vedas and five of the Upanishads into Bengali.
- He started the Sambad Kaumudi, a Bengali weekly newspaper which regularly denounced Sati as barbaric and against the tenets of Hinduism.
- In 1828, he founded the Brahmo Sabha which was later renamed Brahmo Samaj. He had also founded the Atmiya Sabha.
- Brahmo Samaj’s chief aim was worship of the eternal god. It was against priesthood, rituals and sacrifices. It focused on prayers, meditation and reading of the scriptures.
- It was the first intellectual reform movement in modern India where social evils then practiced where condemned and efforts made to remove them from society.
- It led to the emergence of rationalism and enlightenment in India which indirectly contributed to the nationalist movement.