Showing posts with label social reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social reform. Show all posts

Monday, 13 February 2023

VISHNUBUVA BRAHMACHARI (1825-1871)

 Vishnubhuva Bramhachari travelled through the length and breadth of India preaching the superiority and infallibility of the Vedas. According to him, ‘Veda means knowledge. It is a part of God himself’. He believed that the Vedic religion leads man on to the moral and spiritual heights. According to him, the Vedic times were not only far advanced in spiritual insight, but in scientific and technical knowledge as well, including chemistry and physics. He said that in ancient times, people all over the world followed Vedic religion and received their religious instructions through the Sanskrit language. V. B. did not have a good opinion of other religions, as for Christianity, he held its teaching as ‘filth created by the hypocrisy of barbarians’. 

 

V.B. was very conservative in his attitude towards some aspects of Brahmanical Hinduism, such as Vedic ceremonies, vegetarianism, belief in rebirth and so on. For him, the great difference between Hindus on the one hand and the Jews, Christians and Muslims on the other, consisted in the belief of the latter religion that only human beings have the soul, not animals, their rejection of the idea of re-birth and their acceptance of a general judgment at the end of time. 

 

V. B. showed a remarkable sense of independence of mind in rejecting a number of traditional ideas and customs. In his view, caste should be determined by a person’s qualities, and not by his birth. He favored female education and upheld the right of girls to be consulted in the choice of their husbands, though he wanted them married before the age of 12. He also opposed the custom of Sati and favored widow remarriage. 

 

He was a prolific writer. Among V. B.s famous work was Vedokta Dharmaprakasha (the Principle of Hindu Religion), published in 1864. In a very interesting essay on ‘Beneficial Government’ (Marathi) he put forward ideas such as ‘One home and all citizens as one family’. He held the view that it is the duty of the king to ensure the happiness of all his subjects and it was the duty of the subjects to obey the kings laws. Further, since, according to him, all citizens belonged to one family, and all land and its produce should be held in common, every person should work for the community and in exchange the community must meet his needs. 

 

In social matters, he was in favor of civil marriages and favored divvorce. In his view, children should remain with their parents upto the age of 5 and then be handed over to the state. He wanted work to be assigned to each individual according to the person’s capacity, and grouped the end’s into 5 castes, corresponding to their professions. He wanted the state to take care of the old and employ them as heads of each work – department. This body could work as a kind of parliament. 

 

V. B. envisaged a moneyless economy and a society without charitable institutions. He was optimistic that the caste system would disappear and people would live in peace and happiness without enimity. In 1869, he got 10,000 copies of the essay printed and sent to prominent persons in India as well as to members of British Parliament, ministers, Queen Victorial and Prince Edward of England. 

 

It was indeed surprising that a semi-literate and conservative person like V. B. should put forward notions of ‘Utopian Socialism’. Perhaps, as Lederle has pointed out, he may have derived ideas from Vedanta Monoism and the writings of Jnaneshvara, the great thirteenth century commentator of the Bhagvadgita. To quote Leaderle, “In developing this philosophy of society (socialism) based on Vedantic Monoism V. B. thus remained true to a strong trend in the Indian traditions”. 

 

V. B. was a pioneer of the revivalist tendencies toward social and religious movement. He had full faith in the superiority of the Indian culture over the western civilization and therefore he preached that the Indians should look back to the Vedic times for inspiration and guidance. R. C. Majumdar describes him as ‘a utopian socialist who based his social ideas on Vedic religion and may be compared to the Christian socialists of Europe’. According to one writer, ‘he was socially equalitarian religiously Vedantic, politically socialist and mentally liberal and independent, morally bold and confident and humanitarian’. 

 

V. B. though an ardent Hindu, defiantly challenged Brahmin leadership of his time. In so doing he created ‘an undesirable split between the upper classes and the masses which ultimately led to some unfortunate developments in the public life of the Bombay province’. The Bombay journal Induprakash, in an obituary on 20th February 1871 wrote: “It is extremely difficult to find an outstanding man like V. B. He was an outstanding thinker and one who translated his precepts into action. He was courageous enough to say or do what he thought was necessary for the interests and good of the country. Therefore, in the death of this good man, not only Bombay but Maharashtra as a whole, has suffered a great loss’.  

Friday, 1 July 2022

SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

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.

Friday, 24 September 2021

BRAMHO SAMAJ

The Bramho Samaj (The Society of God)

The Bramho Samaj was the earliest reform movement of the modern type which was greatly influenced by modern western ideas. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the founder of the Bramho Samaj. He was a very well-read man. He studied Oriental languages like Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit and attained proficiency in European languages like English, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. His extensive studies freed his mind from the bigotry that characterized the average Bengali.

Although Ram Mohan Roy was a man of versatile genius, the governing passion of his life was religious reforms. At a time when the Bengali youth, under the influence of Western learning, were drifting towards Christianity, Ram Mohan Roy proved to be the Champion of Hinduism. While he defended Hinduism against the hostile criticism of the missionaries, he sought to purge Hinduism of the abuses that had crept into it.

At the early age of fifteen he had criticized idolatry and supported his viewpoint by quotations from the Vedas. He reinterpreted Hindu doctrines and found ample spiritual basis for his humanitarianism in the Upanishads. He started a campaign for the abolition of Sati, condemned polygamy and concubines, denounced casteism, advocated the right of Hindu widows to remarry. He rejected Christianity, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, but accepted the humanism of Europe. Thus, Raja Ram Mohan Roy sought to affect a cultural synthesis between the East and the West. Even today he is recognized as the forerunner of Modern India and a great path finder of his century, for he embodied the new spirit of enquiry, thirst for knowledge, brad humanitarianism, all to be achieved in the Indian setting. In the words of Dr. Macnicol – ‘Ram Mohan Roy was the herald of the new age’ and the fire that kindled in India burnt ever since.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy accepted the concept of one God as propounded by the Upanishads. For him God was shapeless, invisible, omnipotent and omnipresent but the guiding spirit of the world and omniscient.

In August 1828, Roy founded the Bramho Sabha. The Trust Deed executed in 1880, explained the object of the Bramho Samaj as ‘the worship and adoration of the Eternal, Unreachable, Immutable Being who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe’. The Samaj declared its opposition to idol worship, and ‘no graven image, statue or sculpture, carving, painting, picture, portrait or the likeness of anything was to be allowed in the Samaj building. There was no place for priesthood in the Samaj nor sacrifices of any kind were allowed. The worship was performed through prayers and meditation and readings from the Upanishads. Great emphasis was laid on ‘promotion of charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and strengthening of the bods of union between man of all religious persuasions and creeds’. It should be clearly understood that Rammohan Roy never intended to establish a new religion. He only wanted to purge Hinduism of the evil practices that had crept into it. Roy remained a devout Hindu till the end of his life and always wore the sacred thread.

From the beginning the appeal of the Bramho Samaj had remained limited to the intellectuals, educationally enlightened Bengalis living in the towns.

In the field of religious reform, the main significance of Bramho Samaj lay not in what is retained of traditional Hinduism, but what it discarded of the old beliefs of Hinduism. Its overall contribution may be summed up as:

-          It discarded faith in divine Avtars

-          It denied that any scripture could enjoy the status of ultimate authority transcending human reason and conscience

-          It denounced polytheism and idol worship

-          It criticized the caste system

-          It took no definite stand on the doctrine of karma and transmigration of soul and left it to individual Bramho to believe either way

In matters of social reform Bramho Samaj has influenced Hindu society. It attacked many dogmas and superstitions. It condemned the prevailing Hindu prejudice against going abroad. It worked for a respectable status for women in society, condemned Sati, worked for abolition of purdah system, discouraged child marriages and polygamy, crusaded for widow-remarriage, provision of educational facilities, etc. it also attacked casteism and untouchability.

In the field of social reform, the focus was on four objects:

-          Disapproval of caste system

-          Raising the age of marriage for both males and females

-          Widow remarriage

-          Woman’s education

The prominent leaders of the Samaj were Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, R. G. Bhandarkar and N. G. Chandaverkar. A number of Bramho Samaj Centers were opened in the state of Madras.