Durga Mohan Das (1841-1897) is known for being a Brahmo Samaj leader and a social reformer from Bengal, who particularly advocated for women’s emancipation. Born in a well-known Baidya family in Bengal, he studied in Calcutta, and choose to join the Brahmo Samaj. In a few words, this movement is the social component of Brahmoism, a reformist vision of the Hindu religion based on monotheism developed with the Bengal Renaissance. The Brahmo Samaj is now recognized as a very influential religious movement in India, that had participated in a lot of religious, social, and educational progresses in the 19th century within the Hindu community. The Brahmo Samaj was noticeably implicated in women’s education, through the Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya (or the Brahmo Girls School), founded in 1890, with the participation of Durga Mohan Das. In addition, he helped financially Annette Akroyd with the opening if her girls boarding school, and admitted his own daughters in this school, illustrating the personal dimension of his implication in the cause of women. Eventually, he worked a lot for widows’ remarriage, struggling against conservatism by organizing remarriages, even he got his young, widowed stepmother married to one of his friends.
Durga Mohan Das is mentioned once in Haimabati Sen’s autobiography, when she decides to leave her job in the school, driven by her desire for higher education, and choses to go to Calcutta (p.68). At this moment, she says that she had two letters of introduction, including one for Durga Mohan Das. Thus, this name is important in her life because it represents her inner desire of education, which drives her life, with a vocational dimension. In addition, it represents the transformations on process at this time in India for women’s lives, and its advocacy for widows’ remarriage had indirectly marked Sen’s life.
Sources:
CHATTOPADHYAY, KANAI LAL. “THE BRAHMO MOVEMENT IN BARISAL - A CRITICAL STUDY.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 55, 1994, pp. 595–599., www.jstor.org/stable/44143415. Accessed 21 Feb. 2021.
Two articles of presentation from the website of the Brahmo Samaj:
http://www.thebrahmosamaj.net/impact/educationalimpact.html
http://www.thebrahmosamaj.net/impact/brahmobalika.html
Supriya Roy, “Durga Mohan Das, the feminist who married off his widowed stepmother”, Get Bengal, 9 March 2020. https://www.getbengal.com/details/durga-mohan-das-the-feminist-who-married-off-his-widowed-stepmother