Social Movements | ISC Class 11 History Notes

This note covers the ISC Class 11 History unit on Social Movements: the struggle against caste through the work of Jyotirao Phule, Sree Narayana Guru and Veerasalingam, the condition of women in nineteenth-century India, and the four reform Acts on sati, widow remarriage, female infanticide and the age of consent, with their impact on Indian women.

What was the background of social reform in nineteenth-century India?

How did Western education create a new class of reformers?

By the early nineteenth century most of India was under British rule, and the East India Company's administration had begun to touch the everyday life of Indians in new ways.

The Company needed Indian clerks, teachers and junior officials who could read English and handle Western methods of accounting and law.

From the late 1820s, under Governor General Lord William Bentinck, the British adopted policies aimed at "reforming" Indian society by introducing Western education, Western ideas and Western institutions.

With the cooperation of sections of Indian society they set up English-medium schools, colleges and universities which taught Western sciences and the liberal arts.

In 1835 Bentinck's government, following Macaulay's Minute of the same year, made English the medium of higher education, and in 1857 universities were founded at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.

This education produced a new Indian middle class in these cities, made up of lawyers, teachers, journalists and government servants. This class produced most of the reformers and most of the early women writers and organisers.

It was through their newspapers, pamphlets, public meetings and petitions that the condition of women and the injustice of caste first became subjects of public debate in India.

This contact with Western ideas produced two very different reactions among Indians. One group, later called the reformers, welcomed many of the new ideas and wanted Indian society to change from within.

They argued that many customs of the day, such as the burning of widows, the bar on widow remarriage and the treatment of the so-called lower castes, were not part of the true teachings of the scriptures but had grown up over time.

Another group, the conservatives, defended existing customs and feared that reform would destroy Indian culture and religion. The debate between them shaped the whole story of social movements in this period.

How did reform become tangled with British power?

Reform also became tangled with the growth of British power. The Company annexed kingdoms such as Satara (1848), Jhansi (1854) and Awadh (1856) on pleas like misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption, and once these territories were annexed the British introduced their own system of administration, their own laws and their own methods of land settlement and land revenue collection.

Many Indians felt that all they cherished and held sacred, from kings and socio-religious customs to patterns of landholding and revenue payment, was being destroyed and replaced by a system that was more impersonal, alien and oppressive.

This perception was aggravated by the activities of Christian missionaries. Social reform therefore became tied up in Indian minds with foreign rule, and reformers had to work carefully to show that they were improving Indian society rather than surrendering it to the British.

By 1857 many people in North India saw the law against sati of 1829 and the law permitting the remarriage of Hindu widows as part of the same attack on their way of life as the annexations, a feeling that fed the revolt of 1857.

Reformers therefore had to argue that their proposals came from Indian traditions and Indian needs, and not simply from the wishes of a foreign government.

Definition: Social reform means a deliberate, organised effort to change customs, laws or institutions in society so that they become more just. A social movement is a sustained campaign by a group of people, outside the ordinary machinery of government, to bring about such change or to resist it.

Why did reformers turn to the caste system?

What did caste and untouchability mean in daily life?

Caste was the deepest division in Indian society. Birth in a particular caste decided whom a person could marry, what work they could do, where they could live and even whether their touch was considered polluting.

The groups placed at the bottom of this order, today called Dalits, were treated as untouchables: they were barred from temples, from wells used by others and often from the main village itself.

They did most of the hardest and dirtiest work and received the least return for it.

Which new ideas challenged caste?

The first big challenge to this order came from the West, but in an unexpected way.

Christian missionaries who came to India preached that all human beings were equal before God, and they opened schools that admitted children of low caste. Many people from the lower castes converted to Christianity, especially in the south.

This both alarmed orthodox Hindus and encouraged reformers to argue that Hindu society itself must be purified of the evil of caste.

A second source of challenge was the spread of English education and the ideas of the French Revolution and of nineteenth-century liberalism, which spoke of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Indian students who read these ideas began to ask why such principles should not apply to their own society. A third source was the work of European scholars who translated ancient Sanskrit texts.

When these texts were studied closely, reformers could point out that the rigid caste rules of their own day did not match the older literature, and that the true religion of the Hindus had been more open.

The struggle against caste took different forms in different regions. In western India, Jyotirao Phule attacked the supremacy of the Brahmins and organised the lower castes to claim education and dignity.

In Kerala, Sree Narayana Guru attacked the practice of untouchability among the Ezhavas and other groups and built temples open to all.

In the Telugu country, Veerasalingam, himself a Brahmin, campaigned against the power of the priests and the customs they upheld.

All three were agreed that caste was a moral evil, but they differed in method: Phule worked through schools and organisations, Narayana Guru through religion and education, and Veerasalingam through writing and public argument.

Note: A common confusion is to think that all nineteenth-century reformers wanted to abolish caste altogether.

Most of them attacked untouchability and the arrogance of the higher castes, and many defended a purified form of caste based on occupation rather than birth.

The demand for the complete abolition of caste became much stronger in the twentieth century.

What did Jyotirao Phule contribute to the struggle against caste?

Early life and influences

Jyotirao Phule (1827 to 1890) grew up in Pune in a family of the Mali caste of gardeners and flower sellers, a caste that ranked low in the local order.

He studied at the Scottish Mission school in Pune, and this English education gave him both the language and the ideas with which he later attacked caste.

The teaching of Christian missionaries, the writings of Thomas Paine and accounts of slavery in America convinced him that the position of the low castes in India was like that of slaves, and that they needed to be awakened and organised.

A turning point came in 1848, when he was insulted for walking in the wedding procession of a Brahmin friend.

Why did Phule start schools for girls and the low castes?

Phule's most important work was in education. In 1848 he opened a school for girls at Pune, at a time when the education of girls was rare and strongly opposed.

He and his wife Savitribai Phule taught in it, and Savitribai became one of the first women teachers in India. In the early 1850s he opened schools for children of the Mahar and Mang castes, who were treated as untouchable.

The couple faced abuse and social boycott: Savitribai had mud and stones thrown at her on her way to school, and in 1849 they had to leave the family home under pressure from orthodox opinion. They continued the work regardless.

In 1882 Phule told the Hunter Commission on education that the government should provide free and compulsory primary education for all, especially for the low castes.

What were the Satyashodhak Samaj and Gulamgiri?

In 1873 Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the Society of Seekers of Truth. Its aim was to free the low castes from the domination of the Brahmins and to persuade them to give up the services of priests who upheld caste.

Phule argued that the true religion of the creator was one of equality, and that the Brahmins had invented caste to keep others down.

In the same year he published Gulamgiri (Slavery), in which he compared the condition of the low castes in India to the condition of black slaves in America, and he dedicated it to the people of the United States who had fought to end slavery.

Satyashodhak marriages were performed without Brahmin priests, and the Samaj spread to the villages of Maharashtra through its members and its meetings. In 1888 a public meeting in Bombay honoured Phule with the title Mahatma in recognition of his service to the low castes and to women.

How did Phule take up the women's question?

Phule also attacked the treatment of women. He opposed child marriage, supported widow remarriage and organised a strike of barbers against the shaving of widows' heads.

In 1863 he opened a home where widows who had become pregnant could give birth in safety, so that their babies would not be killed.

In 1868 he opened the water tank at his house to the castes treated as untouchable. Phule died in 1890; Savitribai carried on the work and died in 1897 while nursing victims of plague in Pune.

His work did not produce an immediate change in the law, but it gave the low castes a sense of their own worth and a language in which to demand justice, and it prepared the ground for later movements.

What did Sree Narayana Guru contribute to the struggle against caste?

Who were the Ezhavas, and what did they suffer?

Sree Narayana Guru (1856 to 1928) was born at Chempazhanthy, near Thiruvananthapuram in the princely state of Travancore, in a family of the Ezhava caste.

The Ezhavas were a large cultivating and toddy-tapping caste, placed below the Nairs and Brahmins, and they suffered many disabilities: they could not enter temples, could not walk on certain roads and had to keep a distance from people of higher caste.

Narayana Guru received a traditional education in Sanskrit and became a wandering teacher and ascetic.

Why was the Aruvippuram consecration of 1888 important?

His most famous act took place in 1888 at Aruvippuram in Travancore. He installed a stone image and consecrated it as a temple of Shiva, and he did this himself, without the help of a Brahmin priest.

Orthodox Hindus were outraged, because only a Brahmin was thought to have the right to consecrate an image.

When he was challenged, Narayana Guru is said to have replied that he had installed not a Shiva but an Ezhava Shiva, meaning that the low castes had as much right to worship as anyone else.

The temple was thrown open to all, and it became a symbol of the demand for equality in religion.

What did the SNDP Yogam and his later work achieve?

Narayana Guru then built a network of temples and schools in Kerala, and he founded an organisation, the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP Yogam), in 1903 to spread education and improve the condition of the Ezhavas, with the poet Kumaran Asan as its first general secretary.

He campaigned against the practice of untouchability, against the wasteful expense of religious rituals and against the use of intoxicants.

His message was summed up in his famous saying, "One caste, one religion, one God for man", which taught that all human beings were equal and that the divisions of caste and creed were man-made.

In 1904 he settled at Sivagiri near Varkala, which became the centre of his movement, and in 1913 he founded the Advaita Ashram at Aluva, where a conference of all religions was held in 1924.

His followers took part in the Vaikom Satyagraha of 1924 to 1925, which demanded that the low castes be allowed to use the roads around the Vaikom temple, and Gandhi visited him at Sivagiri in 1925.

Narayana Guru's method was religious rather than political. He did not ask the government for legislation, and he did not organise a political party.

He worked through temples, schools and a community organisation, and he tried to persuade the higher castes as well as to uplift the lower.

His movement gave the Ezhavas of Kerala education, self-respect and a strong sense of community, and it influenced later social and political movements in the state.

What did Veerasalingam contribute to the struggle against caste?

Who was Kandukuri Veerasalingam?

Kandukuri Veerasalingam (1848 to 1919) was a writer, journalist and reformer of the Telugu country, in the Madras Presidency.

He was born at Rajahmundry in a Brahmin family, received an English education and worked for most of his life as a teacher.

Although he was himself a Brahmin, he is remembered as one of the earliest and boldest critics of the power of the priests and of the customs they upheld in the Telugu-speaking region.

How did he use print against custom?

Veerasalingam used the new medium of print to reach a wide public. In 1874 he started the journal Viveka Vardhini, and in the same year he opened a school for girls at Dowleswaram near Rajahmundry.

He wrote novels, plays, essays and textbooks in Telugu. His novel Rajasekhara Charitramu is often described as the first Telugu novel.

Through his writings he attacked the greed and hypocrisy of the priests, the waste of money on ceremonies and the treatment of widows.

He also wrote a play, Brahma Vivaham, which mocked the custom of marrying young girls to old men.

Why is he linked with widow remarriage?

His most important campaign was for the remarriage of widows and for the education of women.

He used the Act of 1856 and arguments from the Hindu scriptures to persuade the public, and on 11 December 1881 he arranged the first widow remarriage in the Telugu region at Rajahmundry, protecting the couple from hostile crowds.

He went on to arrange many more such marriages, often meeting the costs himself, and late in life he founded the Hitakarini Samaj and gave it his property to carry on the work.

He was a strong supporter of the use of the mother tongue in education and wrote textbooks in Telugu for schoolchildren. He also attacked caste pride and the hold of superstition.

Veerasalingam's work was part of a wider movement in the Madras Presidency, where educated Indians used the press and public meetings to change opinion.

His contribution lay in making social reform a subject of everyday discussion among the Telugu-reading public, and in showing that a writer could be a reformer.

Like Phule and Narayana Guru, he faced opposition from orthodox groups, but his writings reached a large audience and helped to weaken the hold of custom.

How did the three reformers differ from one another?

The three reformers agreed that caste was an evil and that the low castes and women deserved a better life, but they worked in different regions, spoke different languages and used different methods. The table below compares them.

The deepest difference was in their attitude to religion. Phule came close to rejecting the Hindu scriptures altogether and built a new faith of equality.

Narayana Guru stayed within the Hindu tradition and reformed it from inside, installing images and founding temples that were open to all. Veerasalingam attacked the abuses of religion but did not break with it.

In method, Phule was the most organisational and the most political, Narayana Guru the most religious, and Veerasalingam the most literary.

What was the condition of women in nineteenth-century India?

What did marriage and widowhood mean for women?

The condition of women in nineteenth-century India was marked by many disabilities, though it varied greatly by region, caste and class.

In much of northern and eastern India, girls were married very young, often before they reached the age of ten, and a girl was often married to a man much older than herself.

Because a girl went to live in her husband's house after marriage, parents regarded a daughter as a burden, and this encouraged the practice of female infanticide, the deliberate killing of newborn girls, among some groups.

A woman's life was expected to be spent within the household. She had little access to education, and in most communities girls were not sent to school at all.

She could not inherit property in most parts of the country, and she had no independent status in law. Her husband was regarded as her lord, and after his death her position became very difficult.

A widow was expected to give up ornaments, good clothes and rich food, and in some communities her head was shaved. She could not remarry in most Hindu communities, even if she had been widowed as a child.

The Indian Penal Code of 1860 set the age of consent at only ten, so the law itself did little to protect child wives.

Where were sati, purdah and female infanticide practised?

The practice of sati, the burning of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre, was followed in some parts of India, especially in Bengal and among some Rajput communities.

It was not universal, and many widows lived on, but where it occurred it was defended by appeals to custom and religion.

The British, who had at first left such customs alone, came under pressure from missionaries and from Indian reformers to stop it.

The condition of women was also affected by the practice of purdah, which kept women of some communities confined to the house, and by the custom of female infanticide, which was practised by some Rajput and other groups who found the expense of marrying a daughter beyond their means.

Reformers argued that all these customs together kept women in a state of dependence and ignorance, and that the improvement of the country required the improvement of its women.

Note: The condition of women was not the same everywhere. In parts of Kerala and among some communities, women enjoyed more freedom and education than in much of northern India.

The disabilities described here were most severe among the upper castes of northern and eastern India, and reformers often generalised from these cases.

What did the four reform Acts provide, and what was their impact?

Between 1829 and 1891 the colonial state passed four laws on the position of women within the family. Each had a different background, different provisions and a different impact, and each was preceded by a long public campaign.

The Abolition of Sati Act, 1829: background and provisions

The practice of sati was defended by many orthodox Hindus as a religious duty, and the East India Company had at first followed a policy of not interfering with the customs of its Indian subjects.

By the 1820s, however, the pressure for action had grown. Indian reformers, especially Raja Ram Mohan Roy, campaigned against sati in pamphlets from 1818 and in his Bengali newspaper Sambad Kaumudi from 1821, and Christian missionaries also spoke against it.

Governor General Lord William Bentinck, who took office in 1828 and had been urged by Ram Mohan Roy and others, finally acted.

Regulation XVII of 1829 declared the practice of sati illegal and punishable as culpable homicide.

Passed on 4 December 1829, it applied to the Bengal Presidency, and it made the burning of a widow, whether with or without her consent, a criminal offence.

The regulation provided that anyone who aided or abetted the practice would be punished, and it gave the courts power to try such cases. Similar regulations followed in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies in 1830.

What was the impact of the sati regulation?

The impact of the Act was mixed. In Bengal, where the practice had been most common, the number of recorded satis fell sharply after 1829, and the law gave reformers a legal weapon against the custom.

It also showed that the state could be persuaded to act against a social evil, and it encouraged reformers to press for other changes.

But the Act was resented by many orthodox Hindus, who saw it as an attack on their religion by a foreign government.

In 1830 they formed the Dharma Sabha in Calcutta and appealed to the Privy Council in London, which rejected the appeal in 1832. The law remained one of the grievances that fed the wider discontent before 1857.

The practice did not disappear at once, and cases continued to be reported in princely states and in areas outside direct British rule.

Definition: Sati is the practice in which a Hindu widow was burnt to death on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. The word is also used for the widow who died in this way. The British called the practice suttee.

The Widow Remarriage Act, 1856: background and provisions

Hindu custom in most of India forbade the remarriage of widows, and a widow, especially a child widow, was condemned to a life of hardship.

The campaign for widow remarriage was led in Bengal by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a scholar and educationalist who used his knowledge of the Sanskrit texts to argue that the custom of forbidding remarriage had no basis in the ancient law books.

In 1855 he published a tract arguing, on the authority of the Parashara Smriti, that widows could remarry, and he sent a petition to the Legislative Council. Orthodox opponents sent counter-petitions with many more signatures.

The result was the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act (Act XV of 1856), passed on 26 July 1856 under Governor General Lord Canning.

It declared that no marriage of a Hindu widow would be invalid, and that the children of such a marriage would be legitimate. A remarried widow gained the same rights as any other wife in her new marriage.

However, the Act also laid down that on remarriage she lost whatever rights she had in her first husband's property, by way of maintenance or inheritance, as if she had died.

The Act therefore removed the legal bar to remarriage but kept a property penalty that discouraged many widows and their families.

What was the impact of the Widow Remarriage Act?

The impact of the Act was limited in practice. It legalised widow remarriage but did not make it socially acceptable, and most Hindu widows continued to live single lives.

The first widow remarriage under the Act took place in Calcutta on 7 December 1856, and Vidyasagar himself helped to arrange it; in 1870 his own son married a widow.

Reformers in other regions, including Veerasalingam in the Telugu country from 1881, took up the cause, and the Act gave them a legal basis for their campaigns.

Over time, the idea that a widow could remarry became more widely accepted, especially among the educated middle classes, but the change was slow and uneven.

The Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870: background and provisions

Female infanticide, the deliberate killing of newborn girls, was practised by some groups in India, especially among certain Rajput clans and among some communities in the north and west.

The reasons given were the expense of marrying a daughter, the fear of dishonour and the belief that a girl was of no use to the family.

Earlier officials, such as Jonathan Duncan at Benares in the late eighteenth century and Alexander Walker in Kathiawar in 1807 and 1808, had persuaded chiefs to sign agreements to give up the practice, but these had not been effective.

The Female Infanticide Prevention Act (Act VIII of 1870) was passed to deal with the problem more systematically.

The government could apply it to any district, caste or group suspected of the practice, first in the North-Western Provinces, Oudh and the Punjab.

In those areas the registration of every birth and death was made compulsory, officials could check on the girl children of suspected families, and the death of a girl child could be inquired into.

Those who failed to report could be fined or jailed. Killing an infant was already murder under the Indian Penal Code of 1860; the 1870 Act added a system of registration and inspection so that such killings could be detected.

What was the impact of the 1870 Act?

The impact of the Act was limited. It applied only to certain districts and did not cover the whole of India, and it depended on the cooperation of local officials and of the communities concerned.

The practice did not disappear, and it continued in some areas into the twentieth century.

The Act did, however, put the state on record against the killing of girl children, and it encouraged later campaigns for the protection of the girl child and for the improvement of the status of women.

It also showed that legislation alone could not change a custom that was rooted in economic and social conditions.

The Age of Consent Act, 1891: background and provisions

The age at which a girl could be married and could be considered to have consented to sexual relations within marriage became a subject of public debate in the 1880s.

In 1884 the Parsi journalist Behramji Malabari published his notes on infant marriage and enforced widowhood, and reformers pointed out that girls were being made mothers before they were physically mature.

The case of Rukhmabai, who had been married at eleven and refused to live with her husband, was in the courts from 1884 to 1888; in 1887 she was ordered to join him or go to jail, and she refused.

In 1889 a child wife, Phulmoni Dasi, died in Calcutta after forced intercourse by her much older husband, and his trial in 1890 showed that the law could not protect her.

The Age of Consent Act, passed in March 1891 under Viceroy Lord Lansdowne, amended the Indian Penal Code to raise the age of consent for all girls, married or unmarried, from ten to twelve years.

Intercourse with a girl below twelve became rape, even within marriage. The Act was passed after a long and bitter debate, in which many orthodox Hindus, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Pune, argued that it interfered with the Hindu religion and with the authority of the family.

What was the impact of the Age of Consent Act?

The impact of the Act was important but limited. It gave the state a legal basis for protecting girl children within marriage, and it encouraged reformers to press for a higher age of marriage.

It also provoked a strong reaction from orthodox groups, who organised themselves against further reform and argued that the government was attacking Hindu religion.

The Act did not raise the age of marriage itself, and child marriage continued to be common.

The campaign for a higher age of marriage and for the prevention of child marriage continued into the twentieth century, and the question of the age of consent remained a subject of public debate.

What was the combined impact on Indian women?

The four Acts together marked the first time that the British Indian state had legislated directly on the position of women within the family.

They gave reformers a set of legal tools and showed that public opinion, when organised, could change the law. They also brought the condition of women into public debate and encouraged the growth of women's education and of women's organisations.

The impact on women's lives was uneven. The Abolition of Sati Act of 1829 saved the lives of widows in Bengal and showed that the state could act against a custom.

The Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 gave widows a legal right to remarry and made their children legitimate, though a remarried widow lost her first husband's property and social opinion changed slowly.

The Female Infanticide Prevention Act of 1870 put the state on record against the killing of girl children, though it did not end the practice.

The Age of Consent Act of 1891 gave girl children some protection within marriage, though it did not raise the age of marriage.

The Acts also had a political effect. The laws of 1829 and 1856 convinced many orthodox Hindus that the British were attacking their religion, and this resentment was one of the grievances behind the revolt of 1857.

After the revolt, Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1858 promised not to interfere in religion, which made the government more cautious about the later laws of 1870 and 1891.

At the same time, the Acts convinced reformers that the state could be an ally in the work of social change, and they encouraged the growth of a reform movement that was both Indian and modern.

The debate over these Acts helped to create a public sphere in which the condition of women could be discussed, and it prepared the ground for the women's movements of the twentieth century.

How did different groups respond to these reforms?

The reformers

The reformers, such as Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Jyotirao Phule, Sree Narayana Guru and Veerasalingam, welcomed the Acts and used them in their campaigns.

They argued that the customs which the Acts attacked were not part of the true religion and that the improvement of Indian society required the improvement of the condition of women and of the low castes.

They organised associations, wrote pamphlets and newspapers, and pressed the government for further legislation.

The orthodox Hindus

The orthodox Hindus opposed the Acts, especially the Abolition of Sati Act of 1829 and the Age of Consent Act of 1891.

They argued that the government was interfering with the religion and customs of the people, and that the reformers were betraying their own culture.

They organised petitions, public meetings and associations of their own, and they tried to defend the customs which the reformers attacked. Their opposition showed that legislation alone could not change society.

The British officials

The British officials were divided. Some, like Lord William Bentinck, were convinced that the reform of Indian society was a moral duty and a mark of good government.

Others feared that interference with religion would provoke unrest, and they preferred to move slowly. The events of 1857 strengthened the hands of the cautious officials, and after the Proclamation of 1858 the government was more careful about social legislation.

The British also used social reform as a justification for their rule, which made many Indians suspicious of it.

Women themselves

Women were not merely the objects of these reforms. Some women, such as Savitribai Phule, became teachers and organisers. Others, such as Rukhmabai, resisted the customs that the reformers attacked, and Rukhmabai later trained as a doctor in London.

In 1882 Tarabai Shinde published Stri Purush Tulana (A Comparison of Women and Men), and Pandita Ramabai founded the Arya Mahila Samaj in Pune; in 1889 Ramabai opened the Sharada Sadan, a home and school for widows, in Bombay.

Such women demanded education, better treatment and a voice in public life. Their participation showed that the women's question was not only a matter for men to settle.

What is the timeline of the social movements and reforms?

The events of the nineteenth century did not happen in isolation, and a timeline helps to show how the work of the reformers and the reform Acts fitted together.

The table below sets out the main dates in order, from the birth of Phule in 1827 to the death of Narayana Guru in 1928.

Reading the table by decades shows a pattern. Up to the 1850s, the main campaigns were led from Bengal and asked the state for laws on sati and widow remarriage.

From the 1840s to the 1880s, Phule in western India and then Veerasalingam in the Telugu country built schools, journals and associations.

From the late 1880s, the age of consent became an all-India controversy, while in Kerala the work of Narayana Guru grew into the SNDP Yogam. Each phase built on the legal and public gains of the one before it.

How did the struggle against caste and the women's question come together?

The struggle against caste and the women's question are usually studied as two separate movements, but in the nineteenth century they were closely connected.

The same reformers who attacked the arrogance of the higher castes also attacked the treatment of women, and they often used the same arguments. Jyotirao Phule, for example, ran schools for girls and for low-caste children side by side.

For him the two causes were one: both the low castes and women were kept down by a social order that the Brahmins had built and defended.

Sree Narayana Guru made the same connection in Kerala. The Ezhavas suffered many disabilities, and their women suffered them doubly, as members of a low caste and as women.

His teaching that there was "One caste, one religion, one God for man" applied to women as much as to men, because it denied that any human being was born inferior to another.

Kandukuri Veerasalingam joined the two causes by attacking the authority of the priests, which upheld both the rules of caste and the ban on the remarriage of widows. A reformer who challenged the priests on one question could not easily accept their authority on the other.

The connection worked in the other direction too. The reform Acts on sati, widow remarriage, female infanticide and the age of consent were all concerned with women, but they were passed in a society in which caste decided almost everything about a woman's life: whom she married, what work she did and how she was treated as a widow.

A high-caste widow could not remarry, while a low-caste woman might face different customs altogether. Reformers who generalised about "the condition of women" were often describing the upper castes of northern and eastern India.

Note: A common confusion is to treat the struggle against caste and the women's question as two unrelated subjects.

In fact the same reformers led both, used the same arguments of equality and reason, and saw the low castes and women as suffering from one and the same social order.

The two movements drew apart only in the twentieth century, when separate organisations for caste and for women were formed.

Why was education the common weapon?

All three reformers put education at the centre of their work, because they believed that ignorance kept the low castes and women in subjection.

Phule's schools at Pune, the schools that grew around Narayana Guru's temples in Kerala and Veerasalingam's girls' school at Dowleswaram all followed this belief.

Before the Hunter Commission in 1882, Phule complained that the government spent too much on higher education for the few and too little on primary schools for the masses.

Veerasalingam showed another side of the same weapon. Through his novels, plays, essays and journals he reached a wide public, and his Telugu textbooks carried new ideas into the classroom.

Schools and print together produced a generation of literate men and women from the low castes who later took part in the social and political movements of the twentieth century.

Draw three columns headed Phule, Narayana Guru and Veerasalingam. Under each, list the instruments each used: schools, organisations, temples, writings and journals.

Draw arrows from each column to a box at the bottom labelled "Spread of education and self-respect among low castes and women".

What did the reformers achieve, and what did they leave undone?

What did the reformers achieve?

The reformers achieved a great deal in the space of two generations. They made caste and the condition of women subjects of public debate, and they created a language of equality and reason in which these subjects could be discussed.

They founded schools, organisations and journals that outlived them. They pressed the state into passing the four reform Acts of 1829, 1856, 1870 and 1891, and they gave the low castes and women a sense of their own worth.

What did they leave undone?

Their achievements were nevertheless limited. Phule's work did not produce an immediate change in the law, and the low castes remained subject to untouchability long after his death.

Narayana Guru's movement gave the Ezhavas education and self-respect, but it did not end the disabilities of caste in Kerala. Veerasalingam's writings reached a large audience, but the customs he attacked survived.

The Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 legalised remarriage but did not make it socially acceptable, and the Age of Consent Act of 1891 did not raise the age of marriage.

The reformers also left the women's question largely in the hands of men. Women such as Savitribai Phule and Rukhmabai took part, but the organisations and the legislation were controlled by men, and the reforms were framed as improvements granted to women rather than as rights claimed by them.

Women's own organisations, such as the Arya Mahila Samaj of 1882, appeared only towards the end of the century.

Finally, the reformers were divided among themselves. Phule came close to rejecting the Hindu scriptures altogether, Narayana Guru stayed within the Hindu tradition and reformed it from inside, and Veerasalingam attacked the abuses of religion but did not break with it.

These differences meant that there was no single reform movement, but a set of regional movements with different methods and different goals.

Note: A common confusion is to think that the reform Acts of the nineteenth century settled the questions they raised.

They changed the law, but the customs they attacked survived, and the campaigns for a higher age of marriage, for widow remarriage and against untouchability continued into the twentieth century.

The Acts were a beginning, not an end.

What sources tell us about the social movements of the nineteenth century?

Historians of nineteenth-century social reform depend on a wide range of sources, and each has to be read with care. The most important are the writings of the reformers themselves.

Jyotirao Phule's Gulamgiri, published in 1873, is both a history and a polemic, and it tells us how the low castes saw their own past.

The pamphlets and letters of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, including his tract of 1855, show how a reformer used the Sanskrit texts to argue for widow remarriage.

The novels, plays and journals of Veerasalingam, beginning with Viveka Vardhini in 1874, show how reform was carried to a Telugu-reading public. The sayings and writings of Sree Narayana Guru, from 1888 onwards, show how a religious teacher preached equality.

A second group of sources is the records of the government. The proceedings of the Governor General's Council, the reports of officials and the texts of the Acts of 1829, 1856, 1870 and 1891 show what the state intended to do and how it justified its actions.

The debates in the Council over the Age of Consent Act of 1891, and the petitions sent to the government by both reformers and orthodox Hindus, show how public opinion was mobilised on both sides.

A third group is the newspapers and journals of the period. The Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and English press reported the campaigns, published letters and carried advertisements for schools and associations. These are valuable because they show what ordinary readers were told, but they also reflect the prejudices of their editors.

A fourth group is the records of the missionaries and of the Christian churches, which describe the condition of women and of the low castes and the work of the mission schools.

A fifth group is the visual material: portraits of the reformers, prints of the temple at Aruvippuram and illustrations in the press. These tell us how the reformers were seen by their contemporaries.

How should historians read these sources?

Historians have to use all these sources together, because each one is partial. The government records tell us what the state did, but not what women and low-caste people felt.

The reformers' writings tell us what they wanted, but not how far they succeeded. The newspapers tell us what was discussed, but not what was done.

The history of these movements is therefore a history of debate as much as of achievement.

Going beyond the syllabus

The reforms of the nineteenth century did not settle the questions they raised. The age of marriage was raised in 1929 by the Child Marriage Restraint Act, known as the Sarda Act, which fixed fourteen as the minimum age of marriage for girls and eighteen for boys, and again after independence.

The campaign against untouchability was taken up by Mahatma Gandhi and by B. R. Ambedkar, and it led to the abolition of untouchability by Article 17 of the Constitution of India in 1950, followed by the Untouchability (Offences) Act of 1955.

The demand for women's rights continued through the twentieth century and produced the Towards Equality Report of 1974, which examined the condition of women in independent India.

The work of Phule, Narayana Guru and Veerasalingam is remembered today in statues, schools and universities named after them, and their writings are read as the beginning of the modern struggle for equality in India.

Glossary

• Sati: the practice of burning a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, made illegal in 1829.
• Untouchability: the practice of treating certain castes as polluting and barring them from temples, wells and public places.
• Satyashodhak Samaj: the Society of Seekers of Truth, founded by Jyotirao Phule in 1873 to free the low castes from Brahmin domination.
• SNDP Yogam: the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, founded in 1903 to spread education among the Ezhavas of Kerala.
• Widow remarriage: the marriage of a woman after the death of her husband, legalised for Hindus in 1856.
• Female infanticide: the deliberate killing of newborn girl children, legislated against in 1870.
• Age of consent: the age at which a girl is legally considered to have consented to sexual relations, raised to twelve in 1891.
• Purdah: the practice of keeping women of some communities confined to the house and veiled.
• Reformers: Indians who wanted to change social customs and laws in the direction of equality and justice.
• Orthodox: those who defended existing religious and social customs against change.
• Ezhava: a large cultivating and toddy-tapping caste of Kerala, below the Nairs and Brahmins.
• Gulamgiri: Phule's book of 1873, meaning Slavery, which compared the condition of the low castes with that of slaves in America.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Sati was practised all over India and by all castes. Correct: It was followed in some parts of India, especially Bengal and among some Rajput communities, and many widows lived on.
• Misconception: The Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 made widow remarriage common. Correct: It legalised remarriage, but a remarried widow lost her rights in her first husband's property, social opinion changed slowly and most widows remained single.
• Misconception: The Age of Consent Act of 1891 raised the age of marriage. Correct: It raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse to twelve; the age of marriage was not raised by this Act.
• Misconception: Jyotirao Phule was the first to campaign for women's education. Correct: He was one of the earliest, opening a girls' school at Pune in 1848, but others had begun similar work before him.
• Misconception: Sree Narayana Guru rejected Hinduism. Correct: He stayed within the Hindu tradition and reformed it, opening temples to all and preaching "One caste, one religion, one God for man".
• Misconception: The British passed these Acts purely out of concern for Indian women. Correct: Reformers pressed for them, and the British also used social reform to justify their rule.
• Misconception: The Female Infanticide Prevention Act of 1870 ended the practice. Correct: It applied only to certain districts and the practice continued in some areas into the twentieth century.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. State any two contributions of Jyotirao Phule to Indian society. [2 marks]

1. He opened a school for girls at Pune in 1848, where his wife Savitribai Phule taught, and he also opened a school for children of the low castes.
2. He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 to free the low castes from Brahmin domination, and wrote Gulamgiri comparing their condition to slavery.

Q2. State any two features of the Abolition of Sati Act of 1829. [2 marks]

1. Regulation XVII of 1829 declared the practice of sati illegal and punishable as culpable homicide in the territories under the Company's direct rule.
2. It made the burning of a widow a criminal offence whether or not she consented, and provided for the punishment of those who aided or abetted it.

Q3. Explain any three features of the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856. [3 marks]

1. It declared that no marriage of a Hindu widow would be invalid, so remarriage was made legal in spite of custom.
2. It provided that the children of such a marriage would be legitimate, and that the remarried widow would have the same rights as any other wife in her new marriage.
3. It laid down that on remarriage the widow lost her rights in her first husband's property, by maintenance or inheritance, as if she had died; this property penalty discouraged many remarriages.

Q4. Explain the contribution of Sree Narayana Guru to the struggle against caste. [4 marks]

1. He consecrated a temple at Aruvippuram in 1888 without a Brahmin priest, and opened it to all, showing that the low castes had as much right to worship as anyone else.
2. He built a network of temples and schools in Kerala and campaigned against untouchability and wasteful ritual.
3. He founded the SNDP Yogam in 1903 to spread education and improve the condition of the Ezhavas.
4. He preached "One caste, one religion, one God for man", teaching that the divisions of caste and creed were man-made.

Q5. Describe the condition of women in nineteenth-century India. [4 marks]

1. Girls were married very young, often before the age of ten, and often to men much older than themselves.
2. Women had little access to education and could not inherit property in most parts of the country.
3. Widows were expected to give up ornaments and good clothes, and in some communities their heads were shaved; they could not remarry in most Hindu communities.
4. Sati was practised in some parts of India, and female infanticide was practised by some groups who found the expense of marrying a daughter beyond their means.

Q6. Compare the methods of Jyotirao Phule and Sree Narayana Guru in the struggle against caste. [5 marks]

1. Phule worked mainly through schools and organisations: he opened a girls' school at Pune in 1848 and a school for low-caste children, and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873.
2. Narayana Guru worked mainly through religion: he consecrated a temple at Aruvippuram in 1888 without a Brahmin priest and opened it to all.
3. Phule attacked the Brahmin priesthood and came close to rejecting the Hindu scriptures, while Narayana Guru stayed within the Hindu tradition and reformed it from inside.
4. Phule wrote Gulamgiri and compared the low castes to slaves in America, while Narayana Guru preached "One caste, one religion, one God for man".
5. Both worked in their own regions, Phule in Maharashtra and Narayana Guru in Kerala, and both founded organisations to spread education and self-respect among the low castes.

Q7. Discuss the impact of the four reform Acts of 1829, 1856, 1870 and 1891 on Indian women. [6 marks]

1. The Abolition of Sati Act of 1829 saved the lives of widows in Bengal and showed that the state could act against a custom.
2. The Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 gave widows a legal right to remarry and made their children legitimate, though a remarried widow lost her first husband's property and social opinion changed slowly.
3. The Female Infanticide Prevention Act of 1870 put the state on record against the killing of girl children, though it applied only to certain districts.
4. The Age of Consent Act of 1891 gave girl children some protection within marriage by raising the age of consent to twelve.
5. Together the Acts brought the condition of women into public debate and encouraged the growth of women's education and organisations.
6. The Acts also provoked orthodox opposition and convinced many Hindus that the British were attacking their religion; the laws of 1829 and 1856 were among the grievances behind the revolt of 1857.

Q8. "The social reform Acts of the nineteenth century changed the law more than they changed society." Evaluate this statement with reference to the Acts of 1829, 1856 and 1891. [6 marks]

1. The Acts did change the law: sati was made a criminal offence in 1829, widow remarriage was legalised in 1856, and the age of consent was raised to twelve in 1891.
2. But the Widow Remarriage Act did not make remarriage socially acceptable, and most widows continued to live single lives.
3. The Age of Consent Act did not raise the age of marriage, and child marriage continued to be common.
4. The Abolition of Sati Act was resented by many orthodox Hindus and cases continued in princely states and areas outside direct British rule.
5. On the other hand, the Acts gave reformers legal tools and brought the condition of women into public debate, which was a real change in attitudes.
6. So the statement is partly true: the Acts changed the law at once but changed society slowly and unevenly.

Key takeaways

• Jyotirao Phule opened a girls' school at Pune in 1848 and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 to free the low castes from Brahmin domination.
• Sree Narayana Guru consecrated a temple at Aruvippuram in 1888 without a Brahmin priest and preached "One caste, one religion, one God for man".
• Kandukuri Veerasalingam used novels, plays and journals to attack priestcraft and to campaign for widow remarriage and women's education.
• The Abolition of Sati Act of 1829 made sati a criminal offence and saved the lives of widows in Bengal.
• The Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 legalised remarriage and made the children legitimate, though a remarried widow lost her first husband's property.
• The Female Infanticide Prevention Act of 1870 required the registration of girl children in the areas where the practice was reported.
• The Age of Consent Act of 1891 raised the age of consent to twelve but did not raise the age of marriage.
• The Acts changed the law more than they changed society, and orthodox Hindus resented them as attacks on religion.

Test yourself

In which year did Jyotirao Phule open a school for girls at Pune?

In 1848. His wife Savitribai Phule taught in the school, and he also opened a school for children of the low castes.

What was the Satyashodhak Samaj?

The Society of Seekers of Truth, founded by Jyotirao Phule in 1873 to free the low castes from the domination of the Brahmins and to persuade them to give up the services of priests who upheld caste.

Where and when did Sree Narayana Guru consecrate a temple without a Brahmin priest?

At Aruvippuram in Travancore in 1888. Orthodox Hindus were outraged, and he is said to have replied that he had installed an Ezhava Shiva.

Which Act raised the age of consent in India, and to what age?

The Age of Consent Act of 1891, which raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse for girls, whether married or unmarried, to twelve years.

Who led the campaign for widow remarriage in Bengal?

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a scholar and educationalist who used his knowledge of the Sanskrit texts to argue that the custom of forbidding remarriage had no basis in the ancient law books.

What was the main method of Veerasalingam's reform work?

Writing and journalism. He wrote novels, plays, essays and textbooks in Telugu, edited journals, and used the new medium of print to attack priestcraft and campaign for widow remarriage and women's education.

Why did orthodox Hindus oppose the reform Acts?

They argued that the government was interfering with the religion and customs of the people, and that the reformers were betraying their own culture. They organised petitions, public meetings and associations of their own.

What did the Female Infanticide Prevention Act of 1870 require?

It required the registration of the birth of every girl child in the areas where the practice was reported, and gave local officials the power to enquire into the death of a girl child and to punish those responsible.