History Quiz: Socio-Religious Movements latter half of 19th Century & early 20th Century | 25 May, 2021

The reform movements could broadly be classified into two categories—the reformist movements like the Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the Aligarh Movement, and the revivalist movements like Arya Samaj and the Deoband movement.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

The Christian missionaries were the first to set up the Calcutta Female Juvenile Society in 1819.

• The Bethune School, founded by J.E.D. Bethune, president of the Council of Education in Calcutta in 1849 was the first fruit of the powerful movement for women’s education that arose in the 1840s and 1850s.
• The Indian Women’s University set up by Professor D.K. Karve in 1916 was one of the outstanding institutions imparting education to women.
• Sarojini Naidu went on to become the president of the Indian National Congress (1925) and later the governor of the United Provinces (1947-49).

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

In 1910, Sarla Devi Chaudhurani convened the first meeting of the Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad.

• Considered as the first major Indian women’s organisation set up by a woman, its objectives included promotion of education for women, abolition of the purdah system and improvement in the socio-economic and political status of woman all over India.
• Sarla Devi believed that the man working for women’s upliftment lived ‘under the shade of Manu’.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Ramabai Ranade founded the Ladies Social Conference (Bharat Mahila Parishad), under the parent organization National Social Conference, in 1904 in Bombay.

• In 1910, Sarla Devi Chaudhurani convened the first meeting of the Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad.
• The All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC), founded by Margaret Cousins in 1927, was perhaps the first women’s organization with an egalitarian approach.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Gandhi always had in mind the objective of eradicating untouchability by root and branch. His ideas were based on the grounds of humanism and reason.

• He argued that the Shastras did not sanction untouchability and, even if they did, they should be ignored since truth cannot be confined within the covers of a book.
• In 1932, he founded the All-India Harijan Sangh.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

During the 1920s in South India, the non-brahmins organized the Self-Respect Movement led by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker.

• There were numerous other movements demanding that the ban on the entry of lower castes into temples be lifted.
• Sri Narayana Guru in Kerala led a lifelong struggle against upper caste domination.
• He coined the slogan “one religion, one caste, one God for mankind”, which his disciple Sahadaran Ayyapan changed into “no religion, no caste, no God for mankind”.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

In 1867, Keshab Chandra Sen helped Atmaram Pandurang found the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay.

• Earlier, the Brahmo ideas spread in Maharashtra. A precursor of the Prarthana Samaj was the Paramahansa Sabha, something like a secret society to spread liberal ideas and encourage the breakdown of caste and communal barriers.
• The Prarthana Sabha was very attached to the bhakti cult of Maharashtra.
• The samaj relied on education and persuasion and not on confrontation with Hindu orthodoxy.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Phule’s works, Sarvajanik Satyadharma and Gulamgiri, became sources of inspiration for the common masses.

• Phule used the symbol of Rajah Bali as opposed to the brahmins’ symbol of Rama.
• Phule aimed at the complete abolition of the caste system and socio-economic inequalities; he was against Sanskritic Hinduism.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Gopalhari Deshmukh (1823-1892) was a social reformer and rationalist from Maharashtra.

• He held the post of a judge under British raj, but wrote for a weekly Prabhakar under the pen name of Lokahitawadi on social reform issues.
• He started a weekly, Hitechhu, and also played a leading role in founding the periodicals, Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash and Lokahitawadi.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), a liberal leader of the Indian National Congress, founded the Servants of India Society in 1905 with the help of M.G. Ranade.  

• The aim of the society was to train national missionaries for the service of India;  
• to promote, by all constitutional means, the true interests of the Indian people;  
• and to prepare a cadre of selfless workers who were to devote their lives to the cause of the country in a religious spirit. 

Source: Spectrum Modern India.