Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was a well-known philosopher and philanthropist from India. On Tuesday, his bust was vandalised at Kolkata University. The incident has brought him back in the news.
Here is all you need to know about Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was a philosopher, academic educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, reformer and philanthropist.
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a Bengali polymath, was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance.
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s efforts to simplify and modernize Bengali prose were significant.
- He also rationalized and simplified the Bengali alphabet.
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar also forced the British to pass the widow remarriage act.
- He received the title "Vidyasagar" (means ocean of knowledge) from Sanskrit College, Calcutta.
- In 2004, Vidyasagar was ranked number 9 in BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time.
- Vidyasagar was liberal in his outlook even though he was born in an orthodox Hindu Brahmin family.
- He contributed significantly to Bengali and Sanskrit literature, with one of his works, Borno Porichoy ("Character Identification"), being considered a classic.
- Unlike some other reformers who sought to set up alternative societies or systems, he sought to transform orthodox Hindu society from within.
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