Dayanand Saraswati was not merely a religious reformer; he was also a bold social critic. He strongly opposed: Caste by birth Untouchability Child marriage Sati Gender inequality He supported: Women’s education Widow remarriage Equal moral and spiritual rights for all He advocated education in Sanskrit and Hindi, believing that cultural regeneration was essential for national revival. The famous historian Jaiswal is not wrong when he observes: "The rise of Dayanand in the nineteenth century is a phenomenon which baffles the historian. Nevertheless, there is such life germ in the civilisation of Hindus, which evidently make it indestructible and which are beyond the ken of that empiricist observer called the historian. The present reformed and rejuvenated Hinduism is solely a gift of Dayanand Saraswati. Dayanand had the humanity of Buddha but he combined the preservative complex of ƒa×kara." Dr. Rajender Prasad, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress and twice the president of the Indian Republic, was more specific about the role and contribution of Rishi Dayanand in the making of modern India. According to him: "Swami Dayanand was a social reformer, profound scholar, and great fearless leader who had rendered valuable services through Arya Samaj movement for which India will remain indebted to him. He was a true nationalist by every test and a farsighted leader. It is amazing, how he anticipated so far back, those very things, which Mahatma Gandhi later included in his constructive program and greatly emphasised during the active struggle against foreign rule. With surprising foresight, Dayanand propagated the ideals of having a national language, Harijan uplift, women's education, the use of hand woven cloth, and Swadeshi goods, which Mahatma Gandhi associated with the freedom struggle, fifty years later. All his life Dayanand dreamt of liberating India from foreign rule. Dr. Keskar, Union Minister in Jawahar Lal Nehru's cabinet remarks, "Mahatma Gandhi had only taken up the work begun by Swami Dayanand and completed it." Renowned philosophers like Romain Roland of France finds in Dayanand, "A man with the nature of a lion whom Europe is too apt to forget when she judges India, she will probably be forced to remember him to her cost". He finds in him a rare combination of a thinker, and of action with a genius for leadership. The great visionary scholar American Davis Andrew Jackson hurls praises on Dayanand in a poetic style in prose as follows: "I behold a fire that is universal, the fire of infinite love, which burneth to destroy all hate, which dissolves all the things to their purification." Magistrates like P. Harrison who as a District Magistrate in Allahabad had a chance to hear a fake suit filed by a crooked monk Alaram Sagar holding Rishi Dayanand and his organisation responsible for treason and sedition against the British Govt. Magistrate P. Harrison acquitted Rishi Dayanand and his organisation of the above allegations. He holds in his judgement that Dayanand's teachings are not targeted to oust the foreign rule, but they are aimed at reforming Hindus to the extent that they can become capable of the self-rule in future.
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Dayanand Saraswati was not merely a religious reformer; he was also a bold social critic. He strongly opposed: Caste by birth Untouchability Child marriage Sati Gender inequality He supported: Women’s education Widow remarriage Equal moral and spiritual rights for all He advocated education in Sanskrit and Hindi, believing that cultural regeneration was essential for national revival. The famous historian Jaiswal is not wrong when he observes: "The rise of Dayanand in the nineteenth century is a phenomenon which baffles the historian. Nevertheless, there is such life germ in the civilisation of Hindus, which evidently make it indestructible and which are beyond the ken of that empiricist observer called the historian. The present reformed and rejuvenated Hinduism is solely a gift of Dayanand Saraswati. Dayanand had the humanity of Buddha but he combined the preservative complex of ƒa×kara." Dr. Rajender Prasad, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress and twice the president of the Indian Republic, was more specific about the role and contribution of Rishi Dayanand in the making of modern India. According to him: "Swami Dayanand was a social reformer, profound scholar, and great fearless leader who had rendered valuable services through Arya Samaj movement for which India will remain indebted to him. He was a true nationalist by every test and a farsighted leader. It is amazing, how he anticipated so far back, those very things, which Mahatma Gandhi later included in his constructive program and greatly emphasised during the active struggle against foreign rule. With surprising foresight, Dayanand propagated the ideals of having a national language, Harijan uplift, women's education, the use of hand woven cloth, and Swadeshi goods, which Mahatma Gandhi associated with the freedom struggle, fifty years later. All his life Dayanand dreamt of liberating India from foreign rule. Dr. Keskar, Union Minister in Jawahar Lal Nehru's cabinet remarks, "Mahatma Gandhi had only taken up the work begun by Swami Dayanand and completed it." Renowned philosophers like Romain Roland of France finds in Dayanand, "A man with the nature of a lion whom Europe is too apt to forget when she judges India, she will probably be forced to remember him to her cost". He finds in him a rare combination of a thinker, and of action with a genius for leadership. The great visionary scholar American Davis Andrew Jackson hurls praises on Dayanand in a poetic style in prose as follows: "I behold a fire that is universal, the fire of infinite love, which burneth to destroy all hate, which dissolves all the things to their purification." Magistrates like P. Harrison who as a District Magistrate in Allahabad had a chance to hear a fake suit filed by a crooked monk Alaram Sagar holding Rishi Dayanand and his organisation responsible for treason and sedition against the British Govt. Magistrate P. Harrison acquitted Rishi Dayanand and his organisation of the above allegations. He holds in his judgement that Dayanand's teachings are not targeted to oust the foreign rule, but they are aimed at reforming Hindus to the extent that they can become capable of the self-rule in future.