Ch- Women, Caste and Reform
Very Short answer questions
1. Why people such as Rammohun Roy are described as
reformers?
Answer: People such as Rammohun Roy are described as
reformers because they felt that changes were necessary in
society, and unjust practices needed to be done away with.
2. Who was Raja Rammohun Roy?
Answer: Raja Rammohun Roy was a social reformer. He founded
a reform association known as the Brahmo Sabha (later known as
the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta.
3. What is Hook swinging festival?
Answer: In this popular festival, devotees underwent a peculiar
form of suffering as part of ritual worship. With hooks pierced
through their skin they swung themselves on a wheel.
4. What do you mean by ‘sati’?
Answer: In some parts of the country, widows were praised if
they chose death by burning themselves on the funeral pyre of
their husbands. Women who died in this manner, whether
willingly or otherwise, were called “sati”, meaning virtuous
women.
Short answer questions
1. How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the
reformers promote new laws?
Answer: i) Whenever reformers wished to challenge a practice
that seemed harmful, they tried to find a verse or sentence in the
ancient sacred texts that supported their point of view.
ii)They then suggested that the practice as it existed at present
was against early tradition. Thus, the knowledge of ancient texts
helped the reformers promote new laws.
2. What were the different reasons people had for not
sending girls to school?
Answer: The following were the reasons people had for not
sending girls to school.
They feared that schools would take girls away from home,
prevent them from doing their domestic duties.
Moreover, girls had to travel through public places in order to
reach school.
Many people felt that this would have a corrupting influence on
them.
They felt that girls should stay away from public spaces.
Long Answer Type Questions
1. What steps did Raja Ram Mohan Roy take to eradicate
sati?
Answer: i) Rammohun Roy was particularly moved by the
problems widows faced in their lives. He began a campaign
against the practice of sati.
Ii)Rammohun Roy was well versed in Sanskrit, Persian and several
other Indian and Europeon languages.
iii)He tried to show through his writings that the practice of widow
burning had no sanction in ancient texts.
iv)By the early nineteenth century, many British officials had also
begun to criticise Indian traditions and customs.
v)They were therefore more than willing to listen to Rammohun
who was reputed to be a learned man. In 1829, sati was banned.
2. What do you know about Tarabai Shinde and Pandita
Ramabai? What did they do for improving the condition of
women?
Answer: Tarabai Shinde:- Tarabai Shinde, a woman educated
at home at Poona, published a book, Stripurushtulna, (A
Comparison between Women and Men), criticizing the social
differences between men and women.
Pandita Ramabai:-a)Pandita Ramabai, a great scholar of
Sanskrit, felt that Hinduism was oppressive towards women, and
wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu
women.
b)She founded a widows’ home at Poona to provide shelter to
widows who had been treated badly by their husbands’ relatives.
Here women were trained so that they could support themselves
economically.
3. Give an account of the movement that spread in
different parts of the country in favour of widow
remarriage. Did the movement get success?
Answer: i)By the second half of the nineteenth century, the
movement in favour of widow remarriage spread to other parts of
the country.
ii)In the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency,
Veerasalingam Pantulu formed an association for widow
remarriage.
Iii) Around the same time young intellectuals and reformers in
Bombay pledged themselves to working for the same cause.
iv)In the north, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who founded the
reform association called Arya Samaj, also supported widow
remarriage.
v)The movement did not get much success. The number of
widows who actually remarried remained low. Those who married
were not easily accepted in society and conservative groups
continued to oppose the new law.
.
4. How did women involve themselves in their upliftment?
Answer: i) By the 1880s, Indian women began to enter
universities. Some of them trained to be doctors, some became
teachers. Many women began to write and publish their critical
views on the place of women in society.
ii)Tarabai Shinde, a woman educated at home at Poona, published
a book, Stripurushtulna, criticizing the social differences between
men and women.
iii)Pandita Ramabai founded a widows’ home at Poona to provide
shelter to widows who had been treated badly by their husbands’
relatives.
iv)From the early 20th century, Muslim women such the Begums
of Bhopal and Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain played
active role in spreading education among Muslim girls. They
founded schools for them. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
fearlessly criticised the conservative ideas. She argued that
religious leaders of every faith accorded an inferior position to
women.
v)By the end of the nineteenth century, women themselves were
actively working for reform. They wrote books, edited magazines,
founded schools and training centres, and set up women’s
associations.
vi) From the early twentieth century, they formed political
pressure groups to push through laws for female suffrage (the
right to vote) and better health care and education for women.
Some of them even joined various kinds of nationalist and
socialist movements from the 1920s.
5. Why were changes necessary in Indian society?
Answ-Indian society had been a prey to many evil practices for a long
time.
• Men and women were treated differently. Women were subjected to
many restrictions. They were not allowed to go to schools. They were
not allowed to choose their husbands. Child-marriage was an
established custom in the society. Most children were married off at
an early age. Both Hindu and Muslim men could many more than one
wife. In some parts of the country, sati was in practice. Those widows
were praised who chose death by burning themselves on the funeral
pyre of their husbands. Women’s rights to property were also
restricted.
• One more evil practice that had crippled Indian society was that all
people did not enjoy equal status. The upper-caste, consisted of
Brahmans and Kshatriyas, availed all privileges. But other than these
people were subjected to exploitation. The untouchables, who did
menial works, were considered polluting. They were not allowed to
enter temples, draw water from the well used by the upper castes.
They were seen as inferior human beings.
• These evil customs and practices had eclipsed the progress of
society. Hence, debates and discussions began to take place from the
early 19th century, with the development of new forms of
communications. For the first time, books, newspapers, magazines,
leaflets and pamphlets were printed. They spread awareness among
the common mass.
• Social reformers like Raja Rammohun Roy, Ishwarchander
Vidyasagar, came forward and took initiatives to bring changes in
society by abolishing the evil practices one another.
6. What social ideas did the following people support?
Answer: Rammohun Roy – Ban on Sati
Dayanand Saraswati – Widow Remarriage
Veerasalingam Pantulu – Widow Remarriage
Jyotirao Phule – Caste Equality
Pandita Ramabai – Equality and Freedom for Women
Periyar – Equality for Untouchables
Mumtaz Ali – Women’s Education
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar – Widow Remarriage
