An exhibition highlighting the history of Brahmo Samaj through old letters written by Raja Rammohan Roy, Keshav Chandra Sen and Rabindranath Tagore was held in the city on Monday on the occasion of 185th Maghostava, an annual celebration of the Sadharan Bramho Samaj.
The Brahmo Samaj, a prominent socio-religious movement, was founded by Raja Rammohan Roy along with Dwarkanath Tagore and others on August 20, 1828. In total, about 40 such documents were put on display.
In the exhibition, coloured etchings depicting the social practices of 19th century Bengal were exhibited. These paintings bring out social customs such as sati, the burning of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre. It was against such social practices that Raja Rammohan Roy started his reform movement and ultimately succeeded in bringing a ban on the custom of Sati.
An original document of a loan agreement of Rabindranath Tagore during the 1900s was also in the exhibition. “Rabindranath Tagore probably took the loan for his family business,” the collector of the documents, Ganesh Pratap Singh, told The Hindu . There is also a letter from Raja Rammohan Roy written in March 1828 in the United Kingdom. “In this letter, Rammohan Roy asked the recipient to return some of his works for correction,” said Mr. Singh.
One of the visitors, Sudin Chattopadhyay, a former professor of History at Presidency College (now Presidency University) pointed out that the paintings depicting the custom of sati were still relevant for the current generation. “The word sati does not bring the horrible picture of the custom to one’s mind. The current generation, who only have textual knowledge of the custom, will get a glimpse of how horrible the practice was after seeing these paintings,” he said.
