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9. Women Caste and Reform

Chapter Rerview

Chapter - Rerview:

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• Women empowerment is one of the most used term these days. Today women are leading in all feilds- whether it is the army or the medical sector or in the field of scientific research. 

• But the situation was not same 200 years back. Women faced so much of humiliation in the past. Women had to go through a lot of adversities. Child marriages, polygamy, the humiliation of widows were quite common during that time. One of the practices of that time was the ‘Sati Daha Pratha’ or in other words ‘Sati’ in which a woman had to die after the death of her husband in the same pyre.

• The major area of concern was the gender discrimination in India at that time. Women were just treated same as commodities.

• Young girls were forced to marry with elderly men even before attaining 10 years of age. However manier time, the groom used to be a dying old men. After the death of the men, the widowed women were made to sit and die on the same pyre as that of their husbands’. This horrifying practise of burning innocent women to death was referred as ‘Sati Daha Pratha’.

• People were also divided in terms of caste. The upper castes of the society was of Brahmins and Kshatriyas. The traders and moneylenders were referred as Vaishyas and were placed under the upper castes.

• The bottom-most caste were referred as the Shudras and artisans and peasants like weavers, potters came under this caste.

• The lower castes was treated as ‘untouchables’ by the upper castes. It was a discriminative practice within the religion.

• The reform again these was initiated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the situation had started to change.

• However, the reform was not so easy. It was achieved later through several movements against the supporters of these practices.

• During the early nineteenth century, several debates and arguments were made regarding social customs and practices.

• New types of communications were published which included books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and pamphlets.

• The new means of communication were quite easily accessible.

• Common people were now able to express their views.

• A new and reformed thought led towards the change.

• Some People like Raja Rammohun Roy came forward and led the movement towards change.

• Raja Rammohun Roy also played a very important role in expanding women education in India. He was the proposer of the expansion of western education and favoring women education in India.

• The movement against ‘Sati’ system was initiated by Raja Rammohun Roy which was later banned by William Lord Bentinck. This was the most famous movements in the history of India.

• Another reformer during this period was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar who was the main architect of the Widow Remarriage Act. He gave several ancient Sanskrit texts in support of widow remarriage.

• In southern part, the movement against widow remarriage was carried out by Veersalingam Pantulu in India.

• Widow remarriage was supported by Swami Dayanand Saraswati also, who was one of the renowned social reformers and establisher of Arya Samaj.

• Arya Samaj in Punjab and Jyotirao Phule in Maharashtra by now had opened several schools for girls.

• At that time teaching of women by women became popular.

• Begums of Bhopal helped in promoting education in India in the Muslim community.

• Several schools for girls were opened in Patna and Calcutta by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. 

• Women education had gained an escalation after 1880. Since then, women had started to enter universities, and some of them even became doctors.

• In the beginning of 1900, women were presented with opportunities and were able to carry on with their education.

• The orthodox mentality of the family members of the women was the main problem of the women education in India.

• In the early twentieth-century, due to the political pressure groups were created by women to enact laws for female suffrage (the right to vote) and improved physical condition and education for women.

• Initially the caste system was reformed by Raja Rammohun Roy and Prarthana Samaj.

• Schools were established by the Christian Missionaries for the tribal groups and lower caste children.

• Demand for labor was increased as the cities expanded. Most of the laborers were from the lower castes. Few of these people went abroad to get rid of the oppression of the upper castes.

• There were movements in order to drive away from the inequality and caste-based society in India. The Satnami movement, initiated by Ghasidas, was one of a good example to these.

• Haridas Thakur’s Matua Movement was another movement made to upgrade the social status of the Chandala cultivators.

• Each and every movement was led by non- Brahmin people. Their main agenda was to form a sense of self-esteem among the lower caste people.

• One of the most famous movements of lower castes was brought by Jyotirao Phule. His notable work in the movement was the book written by him named ‘Gulamgiri’ which was based on slavery. His moral idea was to connect with the people of lower castes in India and the black slaves in America.

• Another renowned activist of the anti-caste movement was B.R. Ambedkar. He was a part of several movements between 1927 to 1935 for entering in the temples by the lower castes.

9. Women Caste and Reform

Exercise NCERT

9. Women Caste and Reform

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Que: What social ideas did the following people support?

Rammohun Roy

Dayanand  Saraswati

Veerasalingam Pantulu

Jyotirao Phule

Pandita Ramabai

Periyar

Mumtaz Ali

Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar

Ans: These people supported the following ideas:-

(I) spread of education among women.

(II) Widow Remarriage

(III) Caste equality and justice

(IV) Abolition of child marriage

(v) Social equality for untouchable.

Que: State whether true or false:

(a) When the British captured Bengal they framed many new laws to regulate the rules regarding marriage, adoption, inheritance of property, etc.

Ans: True

(b) Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practices.

Ans: False

(c) Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country.

Ans: False

(d) The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1829.

Ans: False

Que: How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the reformers promote new laws?

Ans: The reformers tried to convince people that Widow burning, caste distinction child marriage etc. had no section in ancient texts. Their knowledge ancient texts. Their knowledge of ancient text give them immense confidence and moral support which they utilised in  promoting new law. They did not get feared when people raised voice against the reforms they had brought

Que: What were the different  reasons people had for not sending school to the girl to school?

Ans: In fact people afraid of the school that were opened in mid 19th century. They had their own reason.

(i) They feared that school would take girl away from home and prevent from doing their domestic works.

(ii) As girl had to travel from public places in order to reach school, many people began to feel that this would have a corrupting influence them.

(iii) Several people were of the opinion that girl should be stay away from public spaces.

Que: Why were Christian missionaries attacked by many people in the country? Would some people have supported them too? If so, for what reasons.

Ans: People suspected that Christian missionaries were involved in forced conversion of the poor and tribal people from Hindustan to Christianity. If some people have supported them, it must be due to the reason that the poor and the tribal people, converted to Christianity, would get a opportunity to going to school. The school would equip them with resources to make their way into  a changing world.

Que: In the British period, what new opportunities opened up for people who came from castes that were regarded as “low”?

Ans: With the expansion of cities new demand the labour created Drains had to be dug, roads laid, building constructed and cities cleaned. This required coolies, diggers, carriers, bricklayers, sweepers, rickshaw pullers, etc. This labour came from people belong to ‘low’ castes. They  left their villages and small  towns  and shifted to the cities to gate work.    

Some went to work  in plantations in Assam, Mauritius , Trinidad and Indonesia. Although it was not easy to work in the new locations, poor people saw this an opportunity to get away from the exploitations  of the upper –caste.

Que: How did Jyotirao ,the reformer, justify their criticism of caste inequality in society ?

Ans: Jyotirao attacked the Brahmans, clam that they were superior to others because they were Aryans. Phule argued that the Aryans were outsiders. They came from outside the sub-continent, and defeated and subjugated the true children of the country- those who had leaved here from before the coming of the Aryans. This Aryans established their dominance and begin looking at the defeated population as low-caste people Phule opened that the ‘upper’ castes had no right to their land and power. The land, In fact, belonged to the native, who were considered as low-castes people.

Que: Why did Phule dedicate his book Gulamgiri to the American movement to free slaves?

Ans: Jyotirao Phule wrote a book in 1873. He named the book Gulamgiri meaning slavery. Some ten year before this, the American civil war had been fought, leading to the end of slavery in America.  Phule dedicated his book to all those Americans who had fought to free slaves. he did this in order to establish a link between the considered fought as low-caste people .

Que: What did Phule dedicate his book Gulamgiri to the American movement to free slave ?

Ans: Ambebkar led three temple entry movement between 1927and 1935 .his sole purpose behind these movement was to make people see the power of caste prejudices within society .

9. Women Caste and Reform

Additional - Question

Additional - Question:

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Que: What is the Changes for Working Towards?

Ans: Debates and discussions about social customs and practices took on a new character. One important reason was the development of new forms of communication like books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and pamphlets. All kinds of issues like social, political, economic and religious could be debated and discussed by men and sometimes by women in the new cities.

Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) founded the Brahmo Sabha (later known as the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta. Rammohun Roy felt that changes were necessary in society, and unjust practices needed to be done away with. He was keen to spread the knowledge of Western education in the country and bring about greater freedom and equality for women.

Que: which is the Changing the lives of widows?

Ans: Rammohun Roy began a campaign against the practice of sati. He tried to show through his writings that the practice of widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts. In 1829, sati was banned. Later reformers adopted the strategy of Rammohun to challenge a practice that seemed harmful and tried to find a verse or sentence in the ancient sacred texts that supported their point of view.

Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, through ancient texts, suggested that widows could remarry. In 1856, a law was passed permitting widow remarriage. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the movement of widow remarriage spread to other parts of the country. Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj, to support widow remarriage.

Que: What is reson for Girls begin going to school?

Ans: Education for girls was necessary to improve their condition. In the mid-nineteenth century, the first schools were opened. Many feared that schools would take girls away from home and prevent them from doing their domestic duties. To reach schools girls had to travel through public spaces. Many people felt that girls should stay away from public spaces. So, most educated women were taught at home by liberal fathers or husbands.

In the latter part of the century, Arya Samaj established schools for girls in Punjab and Jyotirao Phule established schools in Maharashtra. In aristocratic Muslim households, women learnt to read the Koran in Arabic taught by women who came home to teach. The first Urdu novels began to be written from the late nineteenth century.

Que: Why Women write about women?

Ans: In the early twentieth century, Begums of Bhopal played a notable role in promoting education among women. They founded a primary school for girls at Aligarh. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain started schools for Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta. Indian women started going to universities, by the 1880s where they were trained to be doctors and some became teachers. Pandita Ramabai wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women.

Many Hindu nationalists felt that Hindu women were adopting Western ways and that this would corrupt Hindu culture and erode family values. By the end of the nineteenth century, women wrote books, edited magazines, founded schools and training centres, and set up women’s associations. They also formed political groups to push through laws for female suffrage (the right to vote) and better health care and education for women. In the twentieth century, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose extended their support to demands for greater equality and freedom for women.

Que: What was Demands for equality and justice?

Ans: By the second half of the nineteenth century, Non-Brahman castes began organising movements against caste discrimination and demanded social equality and justice.

The Satnami movement was founded by Ghasidas, who worked as the leather workers and organised a movement to improve their social status. In eastern Bengal, Haridas Thakur questioned Brahmanical texts that supported the caste system. Shri Narayana Guru proclaimed the ideals of unity for his people. He argued against treating people unequally on the basis of caste differences.