(i) Rise of Social Organisation:

Modern social organisations like the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal and Arya Samaj in Punjab were set up. The All-India Muslim Ladies Conference (Anjuman-E-Khawatn-E-Islam) was founded in 1914. Indian reformers debated not just in public meetings but through public media like newspapers and journals. Translations of writings of social reformers from one Indian language to another took place. For instance, Vishnu Shastri published a Marathi translation of Vidyasagar’s book in Indu Prakash in 1868.

(ii) Rise of new ideas promoted by colonial rule and modern Indian social reformers:

(a) New ideas of liberalism and freedom, new ideas of homemaking and marriage, new roles for mothers and daughters, new ideas of self-conscious pride in culture and tradition emerged. The value of education became very important. It was seen as very crucial for a nation to become modern but also retain its ancient heritage.

(b) The idea of female education was debated intensely. Significantly, it was the social reformer Jotiba Phule who opened the first school for women in Pune. Reformers argued that for a society to progress women have to be educated. Some of them believed that in pre-modern India, women were educated. Others contested this on the grounds that this was so only of a privileged few. Thus attempts to justify female education were made by recourse to both modern and traditional ideas. They actively debated the meanings of tradition and modernity.

(c) Jotiba Phule thus recalled the glory of pre-Aryan age while others like Bal Gangadhar Tilak emphasised the glory of the Aryan period. In other words 19th century reform initiated a period of questioning, reinterpretations and both intellectual and social growth.

Any collective mobilisation for action directed explicity towards an alteration or transformation of the structure of a system can be properly understood as a social movement.

Features of social movement:

1. Social movement is a collective mobilisation as against occasional individual efforts. Social movements are organised collective endeavours.

2. The organisational structure and leadership is another vital aspect of a social movement.

3. Distribution of tasks is required in every movement. These tasks are assigned to different persons and units of the group depending upon personal qualities and commitments of individuals.

A persuasive leader leads a movement support of the masses tends to be spontaneous. Different levels of organisations are devised on the basis of movements, aims and objectives.

4. Social movements cannot keep itself alive unless it develops its ideological frame and identity.

5. Social movement is change-oriented. Every movement is directed towards some change according to its aims and objectives. The relationship between social movements and social change is well-established.

(i) The varied social reform movements did have common themes yet there were also significant differences. For some the concerns were confined to the problems that the upper caste, middle class women and men faced. For others the injustices suffered by the discriminated castes were central questions.

For some social evils had emerged because of a decline of the true spirit of Hinduism. For others caste and gender oppression was intrinsic of the religion.

(ii) Likewise Muslim social reformers actively debated the meaning of polygamy and purdah. For example, a resolution against the evils of polygamy was proposed by Jahanara Shah Nawas at the India Muslim Ladies Conference. She argued:

... the kind of polygamy which is practiced by certain sections of the Muslims is against the true spirit of the Quran... and it is the duty of the educated women to experience their influence among the relations to put an end to this practice.

(iii) The resolution condemning polygamy caused considerable debate in the Muslim press. Tahsib-e-Niswan, the leading journal for women in the Punjab, came out in favour of the resolve, but others disapproved.

(iv) Debates within communities were common during this period. For instance, sati was opposed by the Brahmo Samaj. Orthodox members of the Hindu community in Bengal formed an organisation called Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British arguing that reformers had no right to interpret sacred texts.

(v) Yet another view increasingly voiced by Dalits was a complete rejection of the Hindu fold. For instance, using the tools of modern education. Muktabai, a 13 year old student in Phule’s school writes in 1852:

Let that religion

Where only one person is privileged

And the rest are deprived

Perish from this earth

And let it never enter our minds To be proud of such a religion...

(i) Meaning and definition of Westernistion: M. N. Srinivas defines westernisation as “the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at different levels...technology, insitutions, ideology and values”.

(ii) Different Types of Westernisation:

(a) Ways of Thinking: One kind refers to the emergence of a westernised sub-cultural pattern through a minority section of Indians who first came in contact with Western culture. This included the sub-culture of Indian intellectuals who not only adopted many cognitive patterns, or ways of thinking, and styles of life, but supported its expansion. Many of the early 19th century reformers were of this kind.

(b) Ways of living: There were, therefore, small sections of people who adopted western life styles or were affected by western ways of thinking. Apart from this there has been also the general spread of Western cultural traits, such as the use of new technology, dress, food, and changes in the habits and styles of people in general. Across the country a very wide section of middle class homes have a television set, a fridge, some kinds of sofaset, a dining table and chair in the living room.

(iii) Merely Imitation of culture but not following the latest thoughts: Westernisation does involve the imitation of external forms of culture. It does not necessarily mean that people adopt modern values of democracy and equality.

(iv) Impact on Indian Art: Apart from ways of life and thinking the west influenced Indian art and literature. Artists like Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, Chandu Menon and Bankimchandra Chattopadhya were all grappling with the colonial encounter. The box below captures the many ways that style, technique and the very theme of an artist like Ravi Varma were shaped by western and idigenous traditions. It discusses the portrait of a family in a matrilineal community of Kerala but one that signficantly resembles the very typical patrilineal nuclear family of the modern west consisting of father, mother and children.

(v) Westernisation and different groups of caste l.e., lower caste group and upper caste group: Srinivas suggested that while ‘lower castes’ sought to be Sanskritised, ‘upper castes’ sought to be Westernised. In a diverse country like India this generalisation is difficult to maintain. For instance, studies of Thiyyas (by no means considered ‘upper caste’) in Kerala show conscious efforts to westernise. Elite Thiyyas appropriated British culture as a move towards a more cosmopolitan life that criticised caste.

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M. Imp.

It is told by sociologists that several social reformers of 19th and early 20th century conveyed their ideas in a mix forms for the betterment of cultural change of the Indian societies. Some of the ideas of some prominent reformers are given in the following lines:

(i) Ram Mohan Roy attacked the practice of sati on the basis of both appeals to humanitarian and natural rights doctrines as well as Hindu shastras.

(ii) Ranade’s writings entitled the texts of the Hindu law on the Lawfulness of the remarriage of Widows and Vedic Authorities for Widow Marriage elaborated the shastric sanction for remarriage of widows.

(iii) The content of new education was modernising and liberal. The literary content of the courses in the humanities and social sciences was drawn from the literature of the European Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightment. Its themes were humanistic, secular and liberal.

(iv) Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan’s interpretation of Islam emphasised the validity of free enquiry (ijtihad) and the alleged similarities between koranic revelations and the laws of the nature discovered by modern science.

(v) Kandukiri Viresalingam’s The sources of Knowledge reflected his familiarity with navya-nyaya logic. At the same time he translated Julius Huxley.

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V. Imp.