Social reforms in context of India uplifting the status of women

INTRODUCTION

The late 19th-early 20th centuries were a period of social reforms in India. Many of
these reforms originated as a response to the European critique of the Indian society as
backward and “uncivilized” as compared to the “enlightened” European societies. This
was really a design to validate and continue the European Imperialism in India as the
White man’s responsibility to “civilize the uncivilized world.” This was nothing specific to
India, but was common to all the Asian and African colonies of the European powers.
However, India showed a strong will and enterprise in responding to this critique and
emphasizing that Indian society had the potential to adopt modern ideas and in fact its
history was not as “backward” as the European critique had made it out to be. In the
following passages, we explore some of the major reform movements of this period and
their impact on women.

ARYA SAMAJ

Arya Samaj was a Vedic movement founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati from
Kathiawad in Gujarat. It was officially established on the 7th of April 1875 in Bombay.
Prior to this, he established Vedic schools or Gurukuls between 1869 and 1873 in
Farrukhabad, Mirzapur, Kasgunj, Aligarh and Varanasi. These schools ran on the model
of traditional ancient Gurukuls and revolved around the learning and imbibing the values
of the Vedas. However, they didn’t get continuous financial support, enough teachers
and there was a paucity of textbooks.

Dayanand Saraswati realised that such educational attempts had to be based on public
support in order to continue for a long time. In order to propagate his ideas of Vedic
education, Dayanand travelled across India during 1872-73 and met other social
reformers of his times, especially the ones from the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal. In 1874
he gave a series of “Light of Truth” lectures, which were published under the title
“Satyarth Prakash.” Having generated a lot of support for his educational ideas, he
founded the new Arya Samaj.

This was not just an educational institution, but a social movement including emphasis
on Vedic education among other issues it dealt with. Arya Samaj accepted the priority of
the Vedas and propagated the adoption of a Vedic worldview as a result of Vedic
education. According to this worldview, Dayanand Saraswati propagated women’s
education, giving respect to women, their space in the family decisions, opposed child
marriage of girls, advocated remarriage of widows, opposed Sati and also opposed
image worship, rituals and various rites that women and others engaged in. It advocated
including modern scientific ideas in one’s life as part of Vedic worldview. He advocated
extending the Vedic education amongst the non-Brahmanical castes, including the
schedule castes. For this he engaged in debates with the traditional priests and
defeated them in debates. Dayanand Saraswati died in 1884 and after him; Arya Samaj
acquired widespread influence mainly in Punjab and retains a large following in Punjab,
Delhi, Haryana and Western UP till this day. Lala Hansraj and Swami Shraddhanand
Saraswati were two of his main successors in this region. Lala Hansraj founded the first
Dayanand Anglo-Vedic School in 1886 in Lahore with the fellow Arya Samaji Guru Dutt
Vidyarthi. This grew into the DAV College later and many branches of DAV schools and
colleges were established in the north-western part of the sub-continent. This
movement propagated accepting English and western education along with Vedic
education as part of the modernisation of the society.

In this sense, it had a more modern approach towards society in general and women in
particular. It didn’t stop at merely imparting Vedic knowledge to the people, but also
opened up the possibility of modernising society while retaining its Vedic roots.

BRAHMO SAMAJ

It was established on the 20th of August 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and
Debendranath Tagore at Calcutta as Brahmo Sabha. It was the most important reform
movement of Bengal. It propagated the Vedic notion of worshipping the supreme
Brahman as the only deity, disregarding all the other gods and goddesses of Hinduism.
Essentially, it accepted the authority of only the Brahman and not that of its
manifestations into innumerable forms. From the viewpoint of social reform, it advocated
the Vedic vision of equal education of men and women, women’s right to choose their
marriage partner, their place in the family decision-making, opposed child-marriage and
strongly opposed Sati through Ram Mohan Roy’s efforts.

When Raja Ram Mohan Roy left for England and died there in 1833, Brahmo’s activities
dwindled. Then on 6th of October 1839, Devendranath Tagore established Tattvavarjini
Sabha, which was soon renamed as Tattvabodhini Sabha to propagate the ideals of
Ram Mohan Roy. In 1843 it was merged with Brahmo Sabha. In 1861, Nobin Roy
established Brahmo Samaj in Lahore as an extension of the ideals of Brahmo Sabha of
Bengal. It had the vision to influence people outside Bengal on a much wider scale.
Thus, even though it was established later under a slightly different name, it was in
essence a continuation of the Brahmo Sabha of Bengal.

Brahmo Samaj and its precursor Brahmo Sabha were different from the Arya Samaj in
the sense that they evolved around the concept of Vedic education and praying to the
Brahma, but they didn’t accept the Vedas as infallible. They laid a strong emphasis on
the Western system of modern education in addition to learning the Brahmo ideals. In
their stress on Western education, they were ahead of the Arya Samaj. They stressed
scientific knowledge, rationality and the Western ideals of Enlightenment. Some
scholars in more recent times have even said that they represented the Hindu version of
the missionary activities of the West, because their founders were educated in the West.
They had a strong influence on the modernisation of the upper-class Bengali women’s
lives.

PRARTHANA SAMAJ

It was founded by Aatma Ram Pandurang in 1867. Later RG Bhandarkar a noted

Sanskrit scholar and Justice Ramdev Govinda Ranade joined it. This movement was
mostly propelled by the efforts of Justice Ranade. It was similar to the Brahmo Samaj in
its stress on Brahman and on modern ideals. However, it added to these ideals its own
specific characteristic in that it stressed the teachings of the 13th century Bhakti
poet-saints of Maharashtra such as Tukaram, Namdev and Vitthala. They regarded their
historical religious tradition as important as the stress on the teachings of the Vedas.
Moreover, their stress was more on the social reform than on political aspects. They
advocated women’s education, remarriage of the widows and equality of castes,
opposed child marriage, thus uplifting the position of the women from the oppressed
castes.

SATYASODHAK SAMAJ

Most of the reform movements were dominated by the upper-caste people of India. The
scheduled castes had not taken much interest in these movements. In Maharashtra, the
yoke of reforming the scheduled castes fell on the shoulders of Jyotirao Phule and his
associates, including his wife Savitribai Phule. They belonged to the Mali (gardener)
caste. Jyotirao Phule was educated in a missionary school and in 1849 he started a
school for the Shudra girls. He educated his wife Savitribai Phule who became his prime
associate. She taught in this school and encouraged the scheduled caste families to
send their girls to school. In 1873 they founded the Satyashodhak Samaj to free the
scheduled castes from the oppression of the upper castes. Their ideals were different
from those of the other movement in that their political activities were not directed
against the British as much as against the upper caste people. They criticised the upper
castes for exploiting and oppressing the scheduled castes. Their stress on women’s
education was a part of their caste-based politics, in order to uplift the oppressed castes
from doom and give them a respectable life. Their activities had an awakening influence
on the Shudra girls’ lives, many of whom began to get educated and come out in public
life more visibly than before.
SELF-RESPECT MOVEMENT STARTED IN TAMIL NADU

This was begun by EV Ramasamy “Periyar” in 1925 as a movement to raise

consciousness amongst the oppressed castes of Tamil Nadu against the exploitation of
the upper castes, mostly Brahmins. He demanded entry into temples, which was
banned to the schedule castes in Tamil Nadu, though the North Indian temples had
opened their doors to all. Under his guidance, this movement passed major resolutions
to improve the condition of women. They passed the resolutions for widow remarriage,
women’s right to property, prohibition of dowry and against the institution of Devadasis
in Tamil Nadu.

OTHER WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTION

There were several other women who contributed immensely towards reforming fellow
women’s lives. Pundita Ramabai testified before the Education Commission in 1881 and
emphasised the need for the abolishment of child marriage and opening of girls’
educational institutions. In 1889 she opened the first home-cum-school for the widows
called Sharada Sadan at Bombay. Ramabai Ranade presided over Seva Sadan for the
education of women, especially of the widows. She gave free professional training for
women, especially widows so that they could become economically strong. Anandibai
Joshi worked to provide medical aid to the helpless women in India. Francina Sorabji
established three schools for girls in the Bombay Presidency. One of them was for the
girls, another for Muslim girls who were not allowed to attend regular schools and a third
for the training of women teachers, the only one of its kind at the time in Western India.

MAHATMA GANDHI’S SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENT

Mahatma Gandhi appeared on the scene in the early 20th century and widely influenced
the social reform movements of the country in respect to women. He was not just
another reformer advocating women’s education etc. the others before him had talked
about women’s education, remarriage of the widows, opposed child marriage, dowry,
Sati system etc., but had spoken of the women as subjects within the family structure
whom they were targeting as their wider agenda of social reform, which included a lot of
other issues such as religious reform, caste equality, freedom struggle, modernisation of
the Indian society, opposition to the caste oppression etc.

Women were only incidental to this reformative discourse they were propounding. Some
reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar etc. had advocated
strongly the cause of the women on issues such as Sati, widow remarriage and child
marriage etc. however, their influence remained regional in focus, because they were
often raising issues that were regional in character such as Sati, which was prevalent
only in Bengal and in parts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and they were not really
engaging with the reformers from other parts of the country on a large scale on issues
that were more widely prevalent.

Mahatma Gandhi on the other hand took a pan-Indian perspective. He wove together
the issues related to women from across India and spoke for the women from all over
India. More significantly, he did not view the women as subjects to be targeted by men
as needing reforms. Rather, he viewed them as equal partners to men in all areas of life
and also as equal participants in political and social movements. Women were
empowered, conscious participants in his worldview, not passive recipients of
reformative discourse from men. Because of his different approach, he was able to
energise the women’s cause more effectively across India than any other reformer had
done till then. This was also the reason why in his political movement women took a
major part, rather than just receiving the impact of reformist discourse from men.

He was convinced that women’s participation was essential for the political and social
energization of India. Mahatma Gandhi advocated women’s empowered position in all
areas of life. In matters of education he advocated not only educating them, but making
them self- sufficient by getting education at par with men. This is where he differed from
other social reformers of his times. His reform was for the empowerment of women, for
their becoming self- sufficient and independent beings and not for getting educated just
for the sake of it.

Similarly, he opposed caste-based marriages and spoke for the right of the women to
choose their own husbands. He said so not because this was an aspect in the larger
scheme of caste opposition, but because he saw this as a means to provide a powerful
position to the women who made their own decisions in life. He opposed dowry not
because it was a burden on the woman’s family, but because it demeaned the status of
woman before the man. He advocated widow-remarriage on the same grounds. Thus,
his worldview was radically different from that of the other social reformers, even though
he was speaking about the same issues.