Women, Caste and Reform

This is Chapter 7 of Our Pasts – III. hess206 showed British and Indian debates on education; this chapter turns to two great questions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India: the position of women and the injustices of caste. It shows how printed books and pamphlets carried the debate to a wider public; how reformers used ancient texts to argue for new laws against sati (1829) and for widow remarriage (1856); how girls began going to school and women began writing about women; how new jobs and schools opened paths for ‘low’-caste people; and how leaders from non-Brahman castes — Phule, Narayana Guru, Ambedkar, Periyar — demanded equality, while orthodox groups defended custom.

• Links within this book: hess205 (the British feared that reforms on sati and widow remarriage had angered Indians in 1857); hess206 (Orientalist translations of law texts; girls’ and mission schools; Rammohun Roy’s 1823 letter on education); hess208 (the national movement, where many of these debates continued).
• Senior pages to pair with: lesy202 (Class 12 Sociology, Cultural Change — reform movements, Sanskritisation and Westernisation), lesy105 (caste, untouchability and the women’s movement as social exclusion), lesy103 (caste as an institution), jess403 (gender, religion and caste in politics today), jess305 (print culture and the reform debates), lehs303 and jess302 (Gandhi, Ambedkar and the Poona Pact). This page gives the Class 8 foundation they build on.
• UPSC: Modern Indian history is among the most heavily tested parts of Prelims and GS1, and the socio-religious reform movements are one of its most regular topics: Brahmo Samaj (1989, 2012), Rammohun Roy (1982, 2025), Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission (1982, 1983), matching reformers and organisations (1983, 1988, 1990), Satyashodhak Samaj (1993, 2016), Vidyasagar (2005, 2021), Periyar (2025) and Ambedkar (1984). Mains has asked about the women’s question in nineteenth-century reform (2017), Young Bengal and the Brahmo Samaj (2021), the renaissance and national identity (2019) and Phule (2025).

• Then: early marriage, polygamy, sati, little property or education for women; caste ranked people, and those at the bottom were treated as ‘untouchable’ (NCERT pages 78–79).
• Method: print spread debate; reformers such as Rammohun Roy (Brahmo Sabha) quoted ancient texts to show a harmful practice went against early tradition → sati banned 1829; Vidyasagar → Widow Remarriage Act 1856.
• Girls and women: girls’ schools (Vidyasagar, Bombay reformers, Arya Samaj, Phule); Mumtaz Ali, Begums of Bhopal, Rokeya; Tarabai Shinde’s Stripurushtulna; Pandita Ramabai’s widows’ home; Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929.
• New openings: missionary schools, city and plantation labour, army shoes, the army; ‘No place inside the classroom’ (Bombay, 1829).
• Equality movements: Ghasidas (Satnami), Matua sect, Narayana Guru (‘one caste, one religion, one god’), Phule (Gulamgiri and Satyashodhak Samaj, 1873), Ambedkar (1927–35), Periyar (Self-Respect); orthodox Sanatan Dharma Sabhas reply.
• Organising for reform (box): Brahmo Samaj, Derozio and Young Bengal, Ramakrishna Mission and Vivekananda (Chicago 1893), Prarthana Samaj 1867, Veda Samaj 1864, Aligarh 1875, Singh Sabhas 1873/1879.

NCERT begins with a contrast. Today most girls from middle-class families go to school, many go on to college and jobs, must be adults before marrying, may legally marry anyone from any caste or community, widows may remarry, and all women can vote and stand for election — though these rights are not enjoyed by all. Two hundred years ago most children were married young; both Hindu and Muslim men could marry more than one wife; in some regions widows were praised if they died on their husbands’ funeral pyres — women who died this way, willingly or otherwise, were called sati; women’s property rights were restricted; and most women had virtually no education — in many places it was believed an educated woman would become a widow.

People were also divided by caste. As NCERT describes it, Brahmans and Kshatriyas considered themselves ‘upper castes’; traders and moneylenders (often called Vaishyas) came next; then peasants and artisans such as weavers and potters (called Shudras). At the lowest rung were those who kept villages and cities clean or did work the upper castes considered ‘polluting’ — likely to cause loss of caste status. Upper castes treated many of these groups as ‘untouchable’: they could not enter temples, draw water from upper-caste wells or bathe in their ponds, and were seen as inferior. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many of these norms slowly changed.

From the early nineteenth century, debates on social customs took on a new character, above all because of new forms of communication. For the first time books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and pamphlets were printed; they were far cheaper and more accessible than manuscripts, so ordinary people could read them and write in their own languages. Social, political, economic and religious issues could be debated by men — and sometimes women — in the new cities, reach a wider public and be linked to movements for change (jess305).

These debates were often started by Indian reformers. Raja Rammohun Roy (1772–1833) founded a reform association, the Brahmo Sabha (later the Brahmo Samaj), in Calcutta. Reformers like him felt that changes were necessary and unjust practices had to go, and believed the best way was to persuade people to give up old practices and adopt a new way of life. Rammohun wanted to spread Western education and bring greater freedom and equality for women; he wrote about how women were confined to home and kitchen and kept from education. Well versed in Sanskrit, Persian and other Indian and European languages, he tried to show that widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts. British officials, who were already criticising Indian customs (hess206), listened to a man reputed to be learned. His strategy became a model: find a verse in the ancient sacred texts that supported your view, then argue that the practice as it existed was against early tradition.

Rammohun was particularly moved by the problems widows faced and began a campaign against sati; in 1829 sati was banned. Later reformers used his method. Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, one of the most famous, used the ancient texts to argue that widows could remarry; British officials adopted his suggestion and a law permitting widow remarriage was passed in 1856. Opponents of widow remarriage opposed and even boycotted him. In the second half of the century the movement spread: Veerasalingam Pantulu formed an association for widow remarriage in the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency; young intellectuals and reformers in Bombay pledged themselves to the cause; and in the north Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Arya Samaj, supported it. Yet few widows actually remarried; those who did were not easily accepted, and conservative groups kept opposing the law.

Many reformers felt girls’ education was needed to improve women’s condition. Vidyasagar in Calcutta and many reformers in Bombay set up schools for girls. When the first schools opened in the mid-nineteenth century many people feared them: schools would take girls away from home and domestic duties, and walking through public places would ‘corrupt’ them. So through the nineteenth century most educated women were taught at home by liberal fathers or husbands, or taught themselves — like Rashsundari Debi, who secretly learned to read by candlelight. Later in the century the Arya Samaj in Punjab and Jyotirao Phule in Maharashtra set up girls’ schools. In aristocratic Muslim households in north India women learnt to read the Koran in Arabic from women teachers who came home; reformers such as Mumtaz Ali reinterpreted Koranic verses to argue for women’s education; and the first Urdu novels, from the late nineteenth century, aimed partly to encourage women to read about religion and domestic management in a language they understood.

From the early twentieth century the Begums of Bhopal promoted women’s education and founded a primary school for girls at Aligarh; Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain started schools for Muslim girls and was a fearless critic of conservative ideas, arguing that religious leaders of every faith gave women an inferior place. By the 1880s Indian women were entering universities and training as doctors and teachers. Tarabai Shinde, educated at home in Poona, published Stripurushtulna (‘A Comparison between Women and Men’), criticising the social differences between them. Pandita Ramabai, a great Sanskrit scholar who felt Hinduism was oppressive towards women, wrote about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women and founded a widows’ home at Poona where women were trained to support themselves. This alarmed the orthodox: many Hindu nationalists felt Hindu women were adopting Western ways that would corrupt Hindu culture and family values, and orthodox Muslims were also worried. By 1900 women were writing books, editing magazines, founding schools and associations; from the early twentieth century they formed pressure groups for female suffrage, health care and education, and from the 1920s some joined nationalist and socialist movements. Leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose supported greater equality; nationalists promised full suffrage after independence but asked women to concentrate on the anti-British struggle meanwhile.

As women’s organisations and writings grew, the momentum for reform gathered strength, and people challenged child marriage. A number of Indian members of the Central Legislative Assembly fought for a law, and in 1929 the Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed — NCERT says without the bitter debates earlier laws had seen. It set minimum ages for marriage, which were later raised to 21 for men and 18 for women.

Some reformers also criticised caste inequality. Rammohun Roy translated an old Buddhist text critical of caste; the Prarthana Samaj followed the bhakti tradition of the spiritual equality of all castes; and in Bombay the Paramhans Mandali was founded to work for the abolition of caste. Many of these reformers were themselves of upper castes, and in secret meetings they broke caste taboos on food and touch to shake off caste prejudice in their own lives. Others also questioned the caste order: during the nineteenth century Christian missionaries set up schools for tribal groups and ‘lower’-caste children, giving them some resources for a changing world.

At the same time the poor began leaving villages for jobs in the cities — in factories and municipalities. Drains, roads, buildings and city cleaning needed coolies, diggers, carriers, bricklayers, sewage cleaners, sweepers, palanquin bearers and rickshaw pullers, and many of these workers came from low castes. Some went to plantations in Assam, Mauritius, Trinidad and Indonesia. The work was hard, but many saw it as a chance to escape the oppressive hold of upper-caste landowners and daily humiliation. During the First World War, because caste prejudice kept others away from leather work, only traditional leatherworkers would supply the huge demand for army shoes, and they could charge high prices. The army also offered jobs: many Mahars, regarded as untouchable, served in the Mahar Regiment, and B.R. Ambedkar’s father taught at an army school.

By the second half of the nineteenth century, people from within the non-Brahman castes began organising against caste discrimination and demanding social equality and justice. The Satnami movement in Central India was founded by Ghasidas, who worked among leatherworkers to improve their social status. In eastern Bengal, NCERT says, Haridas Thakur’s Matua sect worked among ‘Chandala’ cultivators and questioned Brahmanical texts that supported caste. In present-day Kerala Shri Narayana Guru, from the Ezhava caste, proclaimed unity for his people and argued against unequal treatment: all humankind, he said, belonged to the same caste — ‘oru jati, oru matam, oru daivam manushyanu’ (one caste, one religion, one god for humankind). These sects, founded by leaders from non-Brahman castes, tried to change habits that drew the contempt of dominant castes and to create self-esteem among subordinate castes.

Jyotirao Phule, born in 1827 and educated in missionary schools, was one of the most vocal ‘low-caste’ leaders. He attacked the Brahmans’ claim to superiority as ‘Aryans’: the Aryans, he argued, were foreigners who conquered the true children of the country and then treated them as low castes, so the ‘upper’ castes had no right to land and power — the land belonged to the indigenous people. Before Aryan rule, he claimed, there was a golden age when warrior-peasants ruled the Maratha countryside justly. He urged Shudras (labouring castes) and Ati Shudras (‘untouchables’) to unite against caste discrimination, and his Satyashodhak Samaj propagated caste equality. In 1873 he wrote Gulamgiri (‘slavery’), dedicating it to all Americans who had fought to free slaves — some ten years after the American Civil War ended slavery — linking the condition of India’s ‘lower’ castes with that of black slaves in America. Phule extended his critique to all inequality: the plight of ‘upper’-caste women, the misery of labourers and the humiliation of ‘low’ castes.

The movement for caste reform was continued in the twentieth century by Dalit leaders such as Dr B.R. Ambedkar in western India and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker in the south. Ambedkar, born into a Mahar family, experienced caste prejudice as a child: in school he had to sit outside the classroom on the ground and could not drink from the taps upper-caste children used. After school he won a fellowship for higher studies in the United States; on returning to India he wrote extensively about ‘upper’-caste power. In 1927 he started a movement in which his Mahar followers took part; Brahman priests were outraged when Dalits used water from the tank. Ambedkar led three such movements for temple entry between 1927 and 1935; his aim was to make everyone see the power of caste prejudice in society.

The non-Brahman movement. In the early twentieth century, non-Brahman castes that had gained education, wealth and influence started the non-Brahman movement. They argued that Brahmans were heirs of Aryan invaders from the north who had conquered the original inhabitants of the south — the ‘indigenous Dravidian races’ — and challenged Brahman claims to power. Periyar, from a middle-class family, had been an ascetic who studied Sanskrit scriptures, then joined the Congress, leaving it in disgust when, at a feast organised by nationalists, the lower castes were seated apart. Convinced that ‘untouchables’ must fight for their dignity, he founded the Self-Respect Movement. He argued that they were the true upholders of an original Tamil and Dravidian culture subjugated by Brahmans; that all religious authorities treated social divisions as God-given; and that ‘untouchables’ had to free themselves from all religions to achieve equality. He was an outspoken critic of the Codes of Manu, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana, which he said had been used to establish Brahman authority over lower castes and men’s domination over women.

The orthodox response. These assertions were challenged. The speeches, writings and movements of lower-caste leaders led to some rethinking and self-criticism among upper-caste nationalist leaders. But orthodox Hindu society also organised: Sanatan Dharma Sabhas and the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal in the north and associations such as the Brahman Sabha in Bengal set out to uphold caste distinctions as a cornerstone of Hinduism sanctioned by scripture. Debates and struggles over caste continued beyond the colonial period, NCERT notes, and still go on.

NCERT’s box ‘Organising for reform’ (pages 90–91) lists the main associations. The Brahmo Samaj prohibited idolatry and sacrifice, believed in the Upanishads, forbade members to criticise other religious practices, and drew critically on Hinduism and Christianity. Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, a teacher at Hindu College, Calcutta, in the 1820s, encouraged his pupils to question all authority; this Young Bengal Movement attacked tradition, demanded women’s education and campaigned for freedom of thought and expression. The Ramakrishna Mission, named after Ramakrishna Paramhansa, stressed salvation through social service and selfless action; Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), born Narendra Nath Dutta, spread his guru’s teachings worldwide, spoke at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, called on Indians to rise above a narrow ‘religion of the kitchen’ and serve the nation, and believed reform could succeed only by uplifting the masses. The Prarthana Samaj (Bombay, 1867) sought to remove caste restrictions, abolish child marriage, educate women and end the ban on widow remarriage, drawing on Hindu, Buddhist and Christian texts. The Veda Samaj (Madras, 1864), inspired by the Brahmo Samaj, worked against caste distinctions and for widow remarriage and women’s education. The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, founded by Sayyid Ahmed Khan at Aligarh in 1875, offered modern education including Western science and later became Aligarh Muslim University — the Aligarh Movement. The Singh Sabhas (Amritsar 1873, Lahore 1879) sought to rid Sikhism of superstition, caste distinctions and practices they saw as non-Sikh, and promoted education combining modern instruction with Sikh teaching.

The chapter’s six Activity boxes, in order.

‘Let’s recall’ (two), ‘Let’s discuss’ (eight) and ‘Let’s imagine’, pages 91–92.

Numbers

One-liners

• Two hundred years ago: child marriage, polygamy, sati, few property rights, little education for women.
• Caste ranked people; those at the bottom were treated as ‘untouchable’.
• Print carried debates on custom to a wider public.
• Rammohun Roy (Brahmo Sabha) argued from ancient texts against sati; it was banned in 1829.
• Vidyasagar used the texts for widow remarriage; the law came in 1856.
• Veerasalingam, Bombay reformers and Dayanand’s Arya Samaj backed widow remarriage.
• Girls’ schools faced fear; many women learned at home.
• Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about women’s lives; Rokeya founded schools.
• The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1929.
• City work, plantations, the army and mission schools opened paths for ‘low’ castes.
• Ghasidas, the Matuas and Narayana Guru built self-esteem among subordinate castes.
• Phule’s Gulamgiri (1873) and Satyashodhak Samaj attacked Brahman claims.
• Ambedkar led three movements for water and temple entry, 1927–35.
• Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement rejected religious authority; orthodox sabhas defended caste.

Traps to avoid

• Sati ban 1829 (Bentinck, Rammohun’s campaign) — not 1856, not Keshab Chandra Sen.
• Widow remarriage: Vidyasagar, 1856 — Rammohun’s cause was sati.
• Child Marriage Restraint Act: 1929, not 1829; girls 14 as passed (NCERT says 16).
• Age of Consent Act 1891 ≠ Sarda Act 1929.
• Brahmo Sabha 1828 (NCERT box: 1830); Arya Samaj 1875, not 1835.
• Brahmo Samaj: monotheism, no idolatry, no priestly class — but not ‘Vedas infallible’.
• Ramakrishna Mission: founded by Vivekananda (1897), named after Ramakrishna.
• Prarthana Samaj: Atmaram Pandurang (1867), inspired by Keshab; Ranade its leading member.
• Matua sect: Harichand Thakur (NCERT: Haridas), among the Namasudras.
• Rokeya’s schools: Bhagalpur 1909 and Calcutta 1911 (NCERT: Patna and Calcutta).
• Mahad 1927 was for a public tank; temple entry: Kalaram, Nashik, 1930–35.
• Self-Respect Movement: Periyar, 1925 — not Ambedkar.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Founders and societies: Brahmo Samaj — Rammohun Roy (1989); its principles — monotheism (1989), no idolatry, no priestly class, not ‘Vedas infallible’ (2012, key: 1 and 2 only); Ramakrishna Mission — Vivekananda (1982); Chicago 1893 — Vivekananda (1983); Satyashodhak Samaj — uplift of backward classes, anti-caste movement in Maharashtra (1993, 2016); Self-Respect Movement — Periyar (2025); leader of the Depressed Classes — Ambedkar (1984).
• Matching questions (1983, 1988, 1990): learn the founder–society table in section 9 and the three classic wrong pairs — Keshab ≠ founder of the Prarthana Samaj; Ranade ≠ Brahmo Samaj; Keshab’s own body was the Brahmo Samaj of India, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj broke away from him.
• Dates and statements: Arya Samaj 1875, not 1835 (2001, key: III and IV); Bethune School and Vidyasagar (2005, 2021); Singh Sabha before the Gurdwara Reform Movement (1990); Rammohun’s respect for Eastern philosophy and his rational, egalitarian outlook (2025, key: both).
• Answer-key notes (all keys kept): 1982 Rammohun as a supporter of ‘widow remarriage’ and 1989 Rammohun as the one who ‘mostly encouraged’ it — both work by elimination; the campaigner was Vidyasagar. 1981 ‘revival of Hinduism’ — Dayanand keyed, Vivekananda defensible. 1983 Prarthana Samaj — Keshab (inspirer, not founder). 1990 Keshab — Sadharan Brahmo Samaj (strictly a breakaway from him). 2005 ‘Vidyasagar founded the Bethune School’ — he was its secretary; the key (1 and 2) is the only workable option.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• The women’s question in nineteenth-century reform (GS1 2017): issues — sati, widow remarriage, child marriage and the age of consent, education, purdah, property; debates — scripture-based reform (Rammohun, Vidyasagar) versus orthodox defence (Dharma Sabha; opponents of 1891), male reformers versus women’s own voices (Tarabai, Ramabai, Rokeya), and reform by law versus from within (Tilak); limits (Lata Mani’s critique; few remarriages).
• Phule and the subaltern classes (GS1 2025): Shudras and Ati Shudras, women (the 1848 girls’ school with Savitribai; widows), peasants (The Cultivator’s Whipcord), slavery as a universal frame (Gulamgiri), and his critique of upper-caste nationalism (Source 3). Young Bengal and the Brahmo Samaj (GS1 2021) and the renaissance and national identity (GS1 2019): use the ‘Organising for reform’ box — rational inquiry, social reform, pride in heritage (Vivekananda) — and Phule’s warning that unity without equality is incomplete.

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