The impact of modern education, rational, humanitarian and scientific approach to life – which ushered in – both in action and reaction – were largely responsible for social reform movements in the 19th and 20th century. Rammohan Roy, a pioneer in modern religious reform movements in India, was also the Morning Star of modern social reform movement in the country. Social reform became an integral part of religious reform in India and this was equally true of Bramho Samaj, Prathana Samaj, Arya Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission, Theosophical Society in Hinduism as also among the Muslims, the Parsis and the Sikhs.
C. H. Heimsath in an excellent analysis of the Hindu social
reform movements has indicated three distinct phases in the History of social
reform in India viz. first phase of individual revolt and reform together with
strong religious links from Rammohan to the early 1880s; the second phase was
marked by the elevation of social reform movement to a national plane as
exemplified by the efforts of Behramji Malabari and the Indian National Social
Conference; the third stage began when social reform was identified with a
regeneration of the traditional spirit of the nation and is popularly
associated with the activities of ‘extremist’ leaders of the early twentieth
century. To it may be added the fourth phase under the leadership of Mahatma
Gandhi when social reform became a main plank in the all-round regeneration of
Indian society.
The social reform movements in India have aimed at
uprooting social evils, and inculcating in men and women the spirit of
sacrifice for the general good of the society. The first and foremost social
problem that attracted enlightened opinion was the need for a better deal for
women in society, in the abolition of the cruel rites of sati and infanticide,
in the condemnation of child marriage and polygamy and popularization of widow
remarriage, in the abolition of purdah, in provision of educational facilities
for women and economic openings to make them self-supporting and finally an
equal share for women in the political life of the country by enfranchisement.
Another social evil that was a major concern of the English
educated and Hindu intelligentsia was the caste restrictions in Hindu society
and the degrading position of the lower castes especially the untouchables. Of
these two great evils, those connected with the position of women received
greater attention in the 19th century, while the problem of the
untouchables (harijans) came in sharp focus in the 20th century
because of political overtones.
Sati: The term Sati literally means a ‘pure and virtuous
woman’. It was applied in the case of a devoted wife who contemplated perpetual
and uninterrupted conjugal union with her husband life after life and as proof
thereof burnt herself with the dead body of her husband. Enlightened Indian
rulers like Akbar, the Peshwas, had imposed restrictions on its performance.
Though the East India company broadly adhered to its declared policy of
noninterference with the social customs of the people, yet early Governors-
General like Cornwallis, Minto and Lord Hastings had taken some steps to
restrict the practice of Sati by discouraging compulsion, forbidding admission
of intoxicating drugs to the sorrow stricken widows, putting a ban on the Sati
of pregnant women or widows below the age of 16 years and above all making compulsory
the presence of police officials at the time of sacrifice who were to see that
no compulsion was used. However, these restrictions proved inadequate and
achieved limited success.
Enlightened Indian reformers led by Rammohan Roy launched a
frontal attack on the evil of sati. With an eye to the coming Charter debates
in the British Parliament and anxious to get a renewal of its charter for
another 20 years by presenting a creditable image of its activities in India,
the Court of Directors encouraged William Bentinck to enact legislation to
suppress Sati. Regulation XVII of Dec 1829 declared the practice of Sati or
burning or burying alive of widows illegal and punishable by criminal courts
and culpable homicide. The regulation of 1829 was applicable in the first
instance to Bengal Presidency alone but was extended in slightly modified forms
to Madras and Bombay Presidencies in 1830. Thus, the evil practice of Sati on
any scale was wiped out though stray cases might have occurred here and there.
Infanticide: Another horrible and cruel rite particularly
common among the Rajput and Bengalis was killing of their infant daughters at
birth, taking female children to be a great economic liability. Further, if the
parents could not arrange marriage for their daughters, it was considered a
social disgrace and a violation of religious injunctions. Some socially
backward tribes followed the practice of killing their infant daughters at
their birth; this was done by the mother by deliberately neglecting the feeding
of a female child to administering poisonous drugs to the child through the
nipples of the mother’s breast. Maharaja Dalip Singh, son of Ranjit Singh,
mentions that ‘he had actually seen when he was a child at Lahore, his sisters
put into a sack and thrown into the river’.
Enlightened British and Indian opinion was unanimous in
condemning infanticide. When persuasion alone could not help, the Bengal
Regulation XXI of 1795 and III of 1804 declared infanticide illegal and
equivalent to committing a murder. Pressure was exerted through political
residents and agents in Indian states to eradicate this evil rite. As a
precautionary measure, the Government of India passed an Act in 1870 making it
compulsory for parents to register the birth of all babies and providing for
verification of female children for some years after birth, particularly in areas
where the custom was resorted to in utmost privacy.
Widow remarriage and prohibition of child marriage: The lot
of women in society could not be improved merely by the negative steps of
suppression of sati and infanticide but by positive action in popularizing
widow remarriage and raising the age limit for marriage of girls. The Bramho
Samaj debated the question of widow remarriage and popularized it among the
Bramhos. The efforts of Pt. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-91) Principal of
Sanskrit College, Calcutta, deserve special mention. He dug up old Sanskrit
references and proved that Vedic texts sanctioned widow remarriage. He sent a
petition signed by 987 persons to the Government of India urging it for
legislative action. His efforts were rewarded when the Hindu Widow Remarriage
Act (Act XV of 1856) legalized marriage of widows and declared issues form such
marriages as legitimate. However, in Bengal the widow remarriage reform
achieved very limited success.
In Western India, Prof. D. K. Karve took up the cause of
widow remarriage and in Madras Veeresalingam Pantulu made Herculean efforts in
the same direction. Prof. Karve started his career as a teacher in a Girl’s
School at Bombay and seven years later in 1891 became a Professor at Fergusson
College. In the meantime, he became a widower. He refused to marry a teenager
and married a Brahmin widow in 1893. Karve devoted his life to the upliftment
of Hindu widows and became the Secretary of the Widow Remarriage Association.
In 1899, he opened a widow’s home in Pune with the object of giving high-caste
widows an interest in life by providing them openings in the profession of
teachers, doctors and nurses and making them, at the same time,
self-supporting. He crowned his work by setting up an Indian Women’s University
at Bombay in 1916.
Legislative action in prohibiting child marriage came in
1872 when by the Native Marriage Act (popularly known as Civil Marriage Act)
marriage of girls below the age of 14 and boys below 18 years were forbidden.
However, this act was not applicable to Hindus, Muslims and other recognized
faiths, and as such had very limited impact on Indian society. B. M. Malabari,
a Parsi reformer of the 19th century started a crusade against child
marriage and his efforts were crowned by the enactment of the Age of Consent
Act (1891) which forbade the marriages of girls below the age of 12. The Sharda
Act (1930) further pushed up marriage age and provided for penal action in
marriages of boys under 18 and girls under 14 years of age. A further
improvement was made by the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act 1978 which
raised the age of marriage for girls from 15 to 18 years and for boys from 18
to 21.
Education of Women: Hindu society in the 19th
century suffered from false religious illusions that Hindu scriptures did not
sanction female education, that education of girls wrought wrath of gods
leading to their widowhood.
The Christian Missionaries whatever their motives, were the
first to set up the Calcutta Female Juvenile Society in 1818. However, the
celebrated name of J.E.D. Bethune, President of the Council of Education, will
always be remembered with respect. In 1849, he founded a Girl’s School in
Calcutta. Pt. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar also did a lot in popularizing the
cause of female education and was associated with no less that 35 girls schools
in Bengal. In Bombay the students of Elphinstone Institute became the spearhead
of the movement for women’s education and founded the Students Literary and
Scientific Society. Charles Woods’ dispatch on Education (1854) laid great
stress on the need for female education. In the broad perspective, women’s
education became a part of the general campaign for amelioration of the plight
of women in society.
Abolition of Slavery: Slavery of the Greek or Roman on
American negro type did not exist in India. Slavery in India was more akin to
what may be termed as bonded – servant, bonded-labor type and slaves in India
were treated in a humane manner unknown to Western countries. In this context
the observation of the Committee of Circuit deserves to be quoted. It reads,
‘The ideas of slavery, borrowed from our American colonies, will make every
modification of it appear in the eyes of our countrymen in England a horrible
evil. But it is far otherwise in this county; here slaves are treated as the
children of the families to which they belong and often acquire a much happier
state by their slavery than that could have hoped for by the enjoyment of
liberty’. If in northern India slaves generally served as domestic servants, in
South India slaves were mostly employed in cultivation. Of course, European
slave-owners in India, treated their slaves in the same inhuman manner
characteristic of Western slave owners.
Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833 and a
clause was inserted in the Charter Act of 1833 requiring the Governor – General
in Council to abolish slavery in India as soon as it could be safely and
conveniently carried out. Act V of 1843 declared slavery illegal in India and
all existing slaves were emancipated without any compensation to slave owners.
The Penal Code of 1860 also declared trade in slavery illegal. Bonded labor in
one form or the other however lingers on in India even now.
Social reform in the 20th century: The history
and course of social reform movement in the twentieth century is marked by the
coming into existence of a number of social organizations both at the all India
and provincial levels. The Indian National Social Conference founded in 1887 by
M. G. Ranade had limited objectives and achieved limited success. In 1903 the
Bombay Social Reform Association was founded and in Madras Mrs. Annie Besant
set up the Hindu Association. In September 1932 the All India Anti
Untouchability League was founded, later renamed as Harijan Sevak Sangh.
Further, the social reform movement lost its exclusive male and upper caste
basis and orientation; women themselves crusaded for an equal status in society
and organized the first All India Women’s Conference in 1926 while the lower
castes founded All India Depressed Classes Association (March 1918) and All
India Depressed Classes Federation.
Though many social evils like drinking, beggary, etc.
received the attention of social reformers in the twentieth century, the twin
problems of improvement of the lot of women and depressed classes received
greater attention partly because of the dynamic leadership of Gandhiji and
partly due to political overtones of the problem of depressed classes.
Attacking the purdah system among women Gandhiji said, ‘the
sight of the screen made me sad. It pained and humiliated me deeply… let us not
live with one limb completely or partially paralyzed… Let us tear down the
purdah with one mighty effort’. The All India Women’s Conference also denounced
purdah. Gandhiji appealed to women to come out of the purdah and participate in
the nationalist struggle by picketing and spinning. In the Civil Disobedience
Movement launched by Gandhiji in 1930 women participated and courted arrest in
large numbers to evoke a comment form a foreign observer that if the Civil
Disobedience Movement accomplished nothing else but the emancipation of women
in India, it would have fully justified itself.
When the Muslim League obtained separate electorates and taunted
the Hindus that the depressed classes were not part of the Hindu Community but
constituted a separate community deserving representation in its own rights,
the political ambition of the Depressed Classes was touched and they realized
their bargaining potential in the fast changing political scene. The Indian
National Congress and Hindu social organizations saw the political-cum-social
aspect fo the problem of lower castes and made some determined efforts to keep
them within the fold of Hinduism. In 1928, the Indian National Social
Conference adopted a resolution that ‘the present caste system is a great
obstacle to the unification of the Hindu society, and therefore resolves that
its abolition should be expediated by a) encouraging true interdining, b)
promoting intercaste marriages and c) removing untouchability and all
disabilities arising therefrom wherever they exist’. Gandhiji organized the Harijan Sevak Sangh
with headquarters at Delhi which has done some useful work. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar,
a politically conscious leader of the Depressed classes, was not satisfied with
these half hearted moves and blamed the Harijan Sevak Sangh as a wing of the
Congress with the ‘real aim of ensuring the Untouchables and to make them the
camp-followers of the Hindus and the Congress’. In 1945, Dr. Ambedkar
criticized Gandhiji in his famous book ‘What Congress and Gandhi have done to
the Untouchables and advised his fellow untouchables to embrace Buddhism.
The Constitution of the Indian Republic has abolished
‘untouchability’ and forbidden its practice in any form, while reservation of
seats for scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes in the Lok Sabha and State
Vidhan Sabhas, apart from reservation of seats for them in the services are
steps in the right direction. Caste disabilities are fast crumbling under the
new democratic set up and economic pressures and the scheduled castes are
increasingly playing their due role in the national life.
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