DONE BY-A.

P ISWARYA
CHITRA PALLAVI
 Nowadays most girls from middle class families
go to school , and often study with boys
 On growing up, many of them go to colleges and
universities , and take up jobs after that.
 They have to be adults before they are legally
married, and according to the law, they can marry
anyone they like.
 All women, like all men can vote and stand for
elections.
 In the past most children were married of at an early
age.
 In some parts of the country, widows were praised if
they chose death by burning themselves on the
funeral pyre of their husbands, this was called “sati”.
 In many parts of the country people believed that if a
woman was educated, she could become a widow.
 In most region, people were divided along lines of
caste.
Nov. 30,1818.

Conference Between an Advocate for, and an Opponent of, the

Practice of Burning Widows Alive .
 Advocate.—I am surprised that you endeavour to oppose the

practice of Concremation and Postcremation of Widows,1 as

long observed in this country.
 Opponent.—Those who have no reliance on the Shastru, and

those who take delight in the self-destruction of women, may

well wonder that we should oppose that suicide which is
forbidden by all the Shastrus, and by every race of men.
 Advocate.—You have made an improper
assertion, in alleging that-When a widow is
absent from her husband at the time of his death,
she may in certain cases burn herself along with
some relick representing the deceased. This
practice is called Unoomurun or Postcremation.
 Brahmans and Kshatriyas considered themselves as
“upper castes”.
 Traders and moneylenders were placed after them
and were known as “vaishyas”.
 Peasants and artisans such as weavers and potters
were referred to as “shudras”.
 At the lowest place were those who labored to keep
cities and villages clean and they were known as
“untouchables”.
• Untouchables were not allowed to enter temples,
draw water from wells used by the upper castes,
or bath in the pond were upper caste bathed.
• They were seen as inferior human beings.
 People are described as reformers because they
felt that changes were necessary in society, and
unjust practices needed to be done away with.
 They thought that the best way to ensure such
changes was by persuading people to give up old
practices and adopt a new way of life.
 RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY
 ISHWARCHANDRA VIDYASAGAR
 VEERASALINGAM PANTULU
 SWAMI DAYANAND SARASWATI
 MUMTAZ ALI
 TARABAI SHINDE
 PANDITA RAMABAI
 PERIYAR
 SHRI NARAYANA GURU
 JYOTIRAO PHULE
 B.R AMBEDKAR
 Raja Rammohun roy formed a reform association
known as The Brahmo Sabha in Calcutta.
 Rammohun roy was keen to spread the knowledge of
western education in the country.
 He began a campaign against the practice of Sati.
 He tried to show in his writings that widow burning had
no sanction in ancient texts.
 Many British officials were more than willing to listen
to Rammohun who was reputed to be a learned man.
 In 1829 sati was banned.
 'That woman who, on the death of her husband, ascends
the burning pile with him, is exalted to heaven, as equal
to Uroondhooti.
 'She who follows her husband to another world, shall
dwell in. a region of joy for so many years as there are
hairs in the human body, or thirty-five millions.
 'As a serpent-catcher forcibly draws a snake from his
hole, thus raising her husband by her power, she enjoys
delight along with him.
 'The woman who follows her husband expiates the sins
of three races; her father's line, her mother's line, and
the family of him to whom she was given a virgin.
 'There possessing her husband as her chiefest good,
herself the best of women, enjoying the highest
delights, she partakes of bliss with her husband as long
as fourteen Indrus reign.
 'Living let her benefit her husband; dying she commits
suicide.'
 Ishwarchandra vidyasagar, used the ancient texts
to suggest that widows should remarry.
 His suggestion was adopted by British officials
and a law was passed in 1856 permitting widow
re-marriage.
 Vidyasagar in Calcutta set up schools for girls.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYRQ1czi
Uao
Ishwar Chand
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSSD6aY
bGg8
Short Story
 In the telugu speaking areas of the madras
presidency, veerasalingam pantulu formed an
association for widow re-marriage.
 Swami dayanand saraswathi formed an
association called arya samaj.
 He believed infallibility of the vedas.
 He was against idol worship.
 He supported widow re-marriage and wanted
women to be educated.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3a-jBkm
5f8
Dayanand Saraswati
 Many reformers in Bombay set up school for girls.
 When the first schools were opened in the mid nineteenth
centaury, many people were afraid of them.
 Many people felt that schools would take girls away from
home, prevent them from doing the domestic duties.
 Moreover, girls had to travel through public places in order to
reach school.
 Many people felt that this could have a corrupting influence
on them.
 Therefore, throughout the nineteenth century, most educated
woman were thought at home by liberal fathers or husbands
Hindu Mahila Vidyalaya 1875
Same education was given to Girls here as that of
 Indian women began to enter in universities.
 Some of them trained to be doctors and some
became teachers.
 Many women began to write and publish their
critical views on the place of women in society.
 Tarabai shinde,a woman educated at home at
poona, published a book, stripurushtulna
criticizing the social differences between women
and men.
 Begum Rokeya Shekhawat started schools for
Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta.
 She was a fearless critic of conservative ideas and
argued that women were given an inferior place
by the religious leaders of every faith.
 Begums of Bhopal started a primary school for
girls in Aligarh.
 Mumtaz interpreted verses from the koran.
 She wanted all women to be educated.
 She encouraged women to learn both religion and
a language to understand the outside world.
 Pandita Ramabai, a great scholar of Sanskrit, felt that
Hinduism was oppressive towards women.
 She wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper
caste Hindu women.
 She founded a widows home at Poona to provide
shelter to widows who had been treated badly by the
husbands relatives.
 She wanted women to be educated so that they could
support themselves economically.
 Many Hindu nationalist felt that Hindu
women were adopting western ways and that
this would corrupt Hindu culture and erode
family values .
 Orthodox Muslims were also worried about
the impact of these changes.
 Women themselves were actively working for
reform.
 They wrote books, edited magazines, founded
schools and training centers, and set up women's
association.
 They formed political pressure groups to push
through laws for female suffrage and better health
care and education for women.
 Nationalist promised that there would be full
suffrage for all men and women after independence.
 The Prarthana samaj adhered to the tradition of bhakti
that believed in spirtual equality of all castes.
 In Bombay, the Paramhas Mandali was founded in 1840
to work for the abolition of caste.
 Many of these reformers and members of reform
association were people of upper castes.
 Often, in secret meeting, these reformers could violate
caste taboos on food and touch, in an effort to get rid of
the hold of caste prejudice in their lives.
 Christian missionaries began setting up schools for tribal
groups and low caste children.
 The poor began leaving their villages to look for jobs
in the cities.
 Expansion of cities leaded to new demands for
labour.
 For the work coolies, diggers, cleaners, sweepers,
brick layers were required.
 This labour came from the poor from villages and
small towns who came to the cities in search of
work.
 A number of Mahar people, who were regarded as
untouchable, found jobs in the Mahar regiment.
 The Satnami moment in central India, founded by
a leader named Ghasidas who came from a lower
caste, worked among the leather workers and
organised the moment to improve their social
status.
 In eastern Bengal, Haridas Thakur’s Matua sect
worked among low caste Chandala cultivators.
 Haridas questioned brahmanical text that
supported the caste system.
 In what is present day kerala, a guru from
among low caste ezhavas, Shri Narayana
guru, proclaimed the ideals of unity of all
people within one sect, a single caste and
one guru.
 One of the most vocal amongst the low caste
leaders was Jyotirao Phule.
 He set out to attack the Brahman's claim that they
were superior to others, since they were Aryans.
 Phule argued that Aryans were foreigners, those
who came from outside the subcontinent.
 As the Aryans established the dominance, they
began looking at the defeated population as inferior
and the upper caste people had no right to their
land and power.
 The Satyashodhak samaj, and association
Phule founded, propagated caste equality.
 In 1873, Phule wrote a book called gulamgiri
which he dedicated to all the Americans those
who had fought to free slaves.
 He was concerned about the plight of the upper
caste women.
 Ambedkar was born into a Mahar family.
 As a child he experienced what caste prejudice
meant in everyday life.
 In school he was forced to sit outside the classroom
on the ground, and was not allowed to drink water
from taps that upper caste children used.
 In 1990 ,he wrote extensively about upper caste
power in contemporary society.
 In 1927 Ambedkar started a temple entry
movement, in which his Mahar caste followers
participated.
 Ambedkar led three such movements for temple
entry between 1927 and 1935.
 His aim was to make everyone see the power of
caste prejudice within society.
 E.V Ramasamy Naicker or Periyar as he was
called ,came from middle-class family.
 He became a member of the congress only to leave
it in disgust when he found that at a feast organised
by nationalists, seating arrangements follow caste
distinction-that is the lower castes were made to sit
at a distance from the upper castes.
 Convinced that untouchables had to fight for their
dignity , Periyar founded the self respect
movement.
 He said that Hindi scriptures had been used to
establish the authority of Brahmans over low
castes and the domination of men over women.
 Men should not touch each other, see each other; and cannot enter
temples, fetch water from the village pond: in a land where such
inhuman practices are ripe, it is a wonder that the earthquakes have
not destroyed us, volcanoes not burnt us; it is a wonder that the earth
has not split at its heart and plunge this land into an abyss, that a
typhoon has not shattered us. I leave it to you to decide if you still like
to trust to a divinity that has not punished us thus; if you still consider
that God a just God, a Merciful Being. How long do you desire a vast
section of the oppressed, the depressed classes to remain patient,
peaceful and quiet? Would you consider it wrong if these oppressed
were to choose death rather than lead such a life as they do now? "
Periyar E. V. Ramasami
 In this popular festival, devotees underwent a
peculiar form of suffering as part of ritual
worship.
 With hooks pierced through their skin they swung
themselves on a wheel.
 This act also was banned by the british.