Factors Giving Rise to social and religious Reform movement
1.Desire for Reform
- Due to rise of enlightened thoughts among society there was desire for reforms among Indians
- The impact of British rule on Indian society and culture was widely different from what India had known before. Most of the earlier invaders, who had come to India settled within its frontiers, were either absorbed by its superior culture or interacted positively with it and had become part of the land and its people.
- However, the British conquest was different. It came at a time when India, in contrast to an enlightened Europe of the eighteenth century affected in every aspect by science and scientific outlook presented the picture of a stagnant civilisation and a static and decadent society.
2.Social Conditions
- Indian society in the nineteenth century was caught in a vicious web created by religious superstitions and social obscurantism.
3.Depressing Position of Women
- The most distressing was the position of women. Attempts to kill female infants at birth were not unusual. Child marriage was another bane of society.
- The practice of polygamy prevailed and in Bengal, under Kulinism, even old men teok very young girls as wives.
4.The Caste Problem
- This entailed a system of segregation, hierarchically ordained on the basis of ritual status.
- The untouchables suffered from numerous and severe disabilities and restrictions.
- Under a rigid caste system, social mobility was checked, social divisions grew, and individual initiative was thwarted.
5.Opposition to Western Culture
- Western culture was a new concept to Indian society and was rejected by them
6.New Awareness among Enlightened Indians
- There was an awareness that a vast country like India had been colonised by a handful of foreigners because of weaknesses within the Indian social structure and culture.
- Rising tide of nationalism and democracy also found expression in movements to reform and democratise the social institutions and religious outlook of the Indian people.
7.Middle Class Base
- As Western education, had brought about the great transformation in the West from medieval to modern times through movements like the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and democratic revolution or reform. Which some how had influence on india too
8.Rationalism
- Raja Rammohan Roy firmly believed in the principle of causality linking the whole phenomenal universe and demonstrability as the sole criterion of truth
- Many of the intellectuals set aside the authority of religion and evaluated truth in any religion by the criteria of logic, reason or science.
- Religious reformation was an important but not the exclusive concern of these movements. Attention was focussed on worldly existence and not on issues of salvation or other worldliness.
Overview of these Movements
A.Reform Movements
B.Revival Movements
A.The reform movements
- These those movements which focused on bringing basic reforms. reformist movements ex.-the Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the Aligarh Movement,
B. Revival Movements
- These movements focused on revival of Indian culture and individual identity ex-Arya Samaj and the Deoband movement.
- The only difference between one reform movement and the other lay in the degree to which it relied on tradition or on reason and conscience.
- In the beginning, organisations such as the Social Conference, Servants of India Society and the Christian missionaries were instrumental social reform along with many enlightened individuals like Jyotiba Phule, Gopalhari Deshmukh, K.T. Telang, B.M. Malabari, D.K. Karve, Sri Narayana Guru, E.V. Ramaswami Naicker and B.R. Ambedkar.
- In later years, especially with the onset of the twentieth century, the national movement provided the leadership and orgenisation for social reforms