The focus of his social reform was women — and he spent his life’s energies trying to ensure an end to the practice of child marriage and initiate widow remarriage. On July 16, 1856, The Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act, known as Act XV, was passed. In 1866 Vishnu Shastri Pandit translated Vidyasagar’s book on widow remarriage into Marathi. Campaign against polygamyAlongside the campaign for widow remarriage, Vidyasagar campaigned against polygamy. The college bearing his nameToday’s Vidyasagar College in North Kolkata grew out of the Calcutta Training School that Vidyasagar conceptualised in 1859, and which came to be known as Metropolitan Institution in 1864.

Source: Indian Express May 15, 2019 13:30 UTC