Social reform movements

In the nineteenth century, social reformers fought against practices that harmed women and lower castes: sati, child marriage, the ban on widow remarriage, and caste discrimination. (People had fought social discrimination much earlier too, in the Bhakti movement for example; but the nineteenth-century reform had a new, modern context.)

The sociologist Satish Saberwal pointed to three aspects of this modern context:

• new modes of communication: the printing press, the telegraph, railways and steamships spread ideas quickly;
• new forms of organisation: associations like the Brahmo Samaj (Bengal) and Arya Samaj (Punjab), and the All India Muslim Ladies Conference (1914);
• new ideas: liberalism, freedom, equality and rights.

Reformers cleverly used both modern and traditional ideas:

• Raja Rammohun Roy attacked sati using modern ideas of natural rights and humanity, and also by showing that the Hindu shastras (scriptures) did not require it.
• M.G. Ranade found support in the shastras for widow remarriage.
• Jotiba Phule opened the first school for women in Pune.

Reform also sparked debates within communities:

• Among Muslims, there were debates on polygamy and on women's education.
• Among Hindus, orthodox Bengalis who opposed the Brahmo reformers on sati formed the Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British against the ban.

So reform did not simply reject tradition. It reinterpreted tradition, arguing that the true tradition supported change.