May 22nd marks the birth anniversary of India’s reformer, the one who opened the doors to liberal thinking. Profoundly remembered as the ‘Father of the Indian Renaissance’, Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the one who lay the founding stone of Modern India. Google dedicated its doodle to Raja Ram Mohan Roy today. It has been created by Beena Mistry, a designer based out of Toronto.

A non-conformist in his own right, Roy was born in Radhanagar village in Murshidabad district of West Bengal. A sturdy supporter of monotheism, Raj Ram Mohan Roy shunned the orthodox Hindu rituals and idol worship right from his childhood even though his father, Ramkanto Roy, was a Hindu Brahmin.

Over differentiation in opinion with his father on religion and faith, he left home at a very young age and made way to Himalayas and Tibet. He studied Persian and Arabic along with Sanskrit, which influenced his thinking about God. An avid reader, he took note of Upanishads and Vedas and went on to compile "Tuhfat al-muwahhidin", his first book advocating reasons in religion and opposed ritualism.

As a social reformer, he was against the practice of ‘Sati’, and took all measures to abolish it. He campaigned for equal rights for women, including the right to remarry and the right to hold property. In 1830, he went to the UK as the Mughal Empire`s envoy to make certain that Lord William Bentinck`s law banning the practice of Sati was not overturned.

In 1828, Raja Ram Mohan Roy established the "Brahmo Samaj", which is recalled to be one of the first Indian socio-religious reform movements.

Roy was also one of the pioneers of Indian journalism. He published several journals in Bengali, Persian, Hindi and English to propagate social reforms. In today’s Google Doodle, we can see him speaking at a public meeting with his detractors in the background.