SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 6 of 95

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

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How did Raja Rammohan Roy contribute to the movement against the practice of Sati in early 19th-century Bengal?

(a)He organized armed protests in Bengal villages
(b)He issued government ordinances against orthodox leaders
(c)He campaigned using newspapers and engaged in debates
(d)He formed alliances with British Christian missionaries

Answer

Why

Correct — C. NCERT describes Rammohun Roy as a reformer who worked by persuasion. He tried to show through his writings that widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts.

He argued in print, including an 1818 tract framed as a conference between an advocate and an opponent of burning widows alive, and his Bengali weekly Sambad Kaumudi editorialised against sati. Newspapers and debate: option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
He organized armed protests in Bengal villages — Roy was a reformer of persuasion, not force. NCERT says reformers like him sought change by persuading people to give up old practices and adopt a new way of life.
(b)
He issued government ordinances against orthodox leaders — Roy had no power to issue ordinances. The ban came in 1829 as the Bengal Sati Regulation under Governor-General Lord William Bentinck. Roy supplied the argument officials listened to.
(d)
He formed alliances with British Christian missionaries — Roy's case rested on Hindu scripture: the ancient texts, he argued, gave sati no sanction. From 1819 he was increasingly at odds with the Serampore missionary William Carey.

Concept

From the early nineteenth century, NCERT notes, cheap printed books, newspapers and pamphlets let social customs be debated before a wider public. Reformers such as Rammohun Roy used that new space to argue for change.

Roy, versed in Sanskrit, Persian and several European languages, met the orthodox on their own ground, scripture. In 1829, sati was banned by the Bengal Sati Regulation under Lord William Bentinck.

NCERT adds that British officials of the time were already criticising Indian customs and were willing to listen to Roy. The stem asks for his method, which was the pen and the argument, not the regulation itself.

Key facts

NCERT: Roy tried to show through his writings that widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts.
Sambad Kaumudi, Roy's Bengali weekly, editorialised against sati.
Sati was banned in 1829 by the Bengal Sati Regulation under Lord William Bentinck.
Roy founded the Atmiya Sabha in 1814 and the Brahmo Sabha, later the Brahmo Samaj, in 1828.

Study next

The Brahmo Sabha and its later form, the Brahmo SamajIshwar Chandra Vidyasagar and the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856Lord William Bentinck's social reforms

Common traps

Crediting Roy with issuing the 1829 ban. The regulation was Bentinck's, and Roy's part was the argument.
Picking (d) on the memory that Roy dealt with missionaries. His sati case was built on Hindu texts.

Roy is also tested at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.7, which asks which Governor-General helped him abolish sati (keyed Lord William Bentinck), and at 17 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.12, on the Atmiya Sabha of 1814.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 218 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.