Article Title: Harichand Thakur
20-03-2023
History & Art and Culture Prelims Plus
Why is in news? PM pays tribute to Sri Sri Harichand Thakur Ji on his Jayanti
Harichand (30 March 1812 – 5 March 1878), worked among the untouchable people of Bengal Presidency.
He was born in 1812 in Orakandi, Bangladesh, into a peasant farmer family of the Thakur community (SC community).
The family of Thakur was Vaishnavite Hindus who founded a sect of Vaishnavite Hinduism known as Matua.
His newly founded Matua religion is based on only three basic principles - Truth, Love, and Sanity.
He completely rejected the sermons of earlier Hindu saints which described the household as an illusion and family as the main obstacle on the path of attaining salvation.
Earlier Hindu saints discouraged people toward family life by preaching one has to leave home to achieve Nirvana (attaining salvation). However, he said Let karma (work) be our religion.
Members of the Namasudra community adopted this, and they were then also called by the common pejorative name of Chandalas. They were considered untouchables.
This sect opposed caste oppression and later attracted adherents from other communities that were marginalized by the upper castes, consisting of Malis and Telis. The followers of Thakur consider him God and also call him Thakur, an avatar of Vishnu or Krishna. Therefore, he came to be known as Sri Sri Harichand Thakur.
He died in the Faridpur district in Bangladesh in around 1878.
Sri Sri Harichand Thakur devoted his life to the cause of the betterment of the oppressed and deprived people in undivided Bengal during the pre-independence era.
UPSC / PCM - 2026 / NEW REGULAR BATCH STARTS ON AUG-3, 2025 
