Day after the bust of 19th century Bengal reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continued to attack each other about the incident.
About:
Birth: Iswarchandra Bandopadhyay was born in 1820, in Midnapore district in present day West Bengal a poor Brahmin family.
Education: He studied Sanskrit grammar, literature, Vedanta philosophy, logic, astronomy, Hindu law, English literature and philosophy and received the title of Vidyasagar — Ocean of Learning — at age 21. At the age of 30, he was appointed principal of Calcutta’s Sanskrit College.
Compassion towards poor: He was also the “Daya’r Sagar” — Ocean of Compassion — who literally wept at the sight of the poor and destitute, and is said to have spent his salary and scholarships on their welfare.
Bengali alphabet and language reconstruction:
He reconstructed the Bengali alphabet and simplified Bengali typography so as to reflect contemporary pronunciation.
His work, Borno Porichoy ("Character Identification"), the Bengali primer, remains even now almost every child’s introduction to learning and writing the language.
Campaign against Child Marriage: In a paper written in 1850, Vidyasagar launched a powerful attack on the practice of marrying off girls aged 10 or even younger, pointing to social, ethical, and hygiene issues, and rejecting the validity of the Dharma Shastras that advocated it.
Campaign for Widow Remarriage:
In 1855, he wrote his two famous tracts on the Marriage of Hindu Widows, showing that there was no prohibition on widows remarrying in the entire body of ‘Smriti’ literature (the Sutras and the Sastras).
On July 16, 1856, The Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act, known as Act XV, was passed.
Inspired by Vidyasagar, a number of literary men produced dramas advocating the remarriage of widows, in Bengal and elsewhere, especially in Maharashtra.
Campaign against polygamy: In 1857 and again in 1866, he petitioned the government for the prohibition of polygamy among Kulin Brahmins. He argued that since polygamy was not sanctioned by the sacred texts, there could be no objection to suppressing it by legislation.
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