Who among the following is known as the father of modern Indian Renaissance?

Concept

The 'Indian Renaissance' (also called the Bengal Renaissance) names the wave of 19th-century socio-religious reform in India — a combination of monotheistic religious reform, campaigns against regressive social customs, promotion of Western/scientific education, and growth of a vernacular and English press. Historians trace the origin of this combined reform template to one founding reformer active in early 19th-century Bengal.

Application

Raja Ram Mohan Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, campaigned for the legislative abolition of Sati (enacted in 1829), and promoted English-medium and scientific education alongside a vernacular press (Sambad Kaumudi) in Bengal. This combined religious-reform, social-reform, and education/press activity from the 1810s to the 1830s matches the founding phase of the Indian Renaissance, which is why he is called its father.

Cross-check

• Swami Dayanand founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, a Vedic-revivalist organisation active nearly five decades after Roy's founding-phase reforms — a later wave, not the origin.

• William Bentinck, as Governor-General (1828–1835), enacted the legislative ban on Sati in an administrative/colonial capacity — implementing a law, not originating the reform movement.

• Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian National Movement in the first half of the 20th century — the freedom-struggle phase, a full century after the Renaissance's founding reforms.

Only Raja Ram Mohan Roy's activity matches the founding 1810s–1830s combination of religious, social, and educational reform that historians call the Indian Renaissance, so Raja Ram Mohan Roy is the correct answer.