Which one of the following social reformers strongly opposed the Jury Act of 1826?

The correct answer is B) Raja Ram Mohan Roy. The Jury Act of 1826 (applied in Bengal and the Presidencies of the Company) restricted jury service in the Supreme Court's criminal trials mainly to Europeans and Americans, effectively denying Indians an equal role in judging cases, including those involving Europeans. Roy opposed this racial discrimination through petitions and memorials, and he also challenged the Press Ordinance of 1823 in the same period. His protest is one of the early examples of Indians using constitutional petitioning against colonial discrimination.

Why the others are wrong:

• A) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar fought for widow remarriage (Act XV of 1856) and women's education, not for jury rights.
• C) Mahadev Govind Ranade was a founder-figure of the Prarthana Samaj and the Indian National Social Conference, and worked on social reform in western India. He is not linked to the Jury Act.
• D) Rajnarayan Basu was a Brahmo leader and educationist in Bengal, associated with nationalist and reform activity, but not with opposition to this Act.

The core concept here is colonial racial discrimination in the judicial system and the early constitutional agitation against it. For Mains, it connects to the growth of civil liberties, the demand for Indianisation of services and courts, and the rise of the political associations of the 1830s and 1840s.

Trap: Candidates often pick Vidyasagar or Ranade because the options are all 19th-century reformers. Remember that this question is about a legal and political protest against racial discrimination, not about a social reform issue.