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UPSC Optional 2025Question 3SociologyImpact of Colonial Rule on Indian Society150 words

According to you, which social reform movement has played the most effective role in uplifting the status of women ? Explain. (Answer in 150 words)

Model answer & approach

- According to you, which social reform movement has played the most effective role in uplifting the status of women ? Explain. (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
The Brahmo Samaj did most for women, because it attacked the sanction behind the practices, not only the practices.
Body
1. The Brahmo Samaj and what it changed: Rammohun Roy's campaign against sati produced the Bengal Sati Regulation of 1829, the first time the state legislated against a religiously defended practice. Brahmos then pressed for widow remarriage and girls' schooling and secured the Special Marriage Act of 1872, which allowed marriage outside caste.
2. Why it counts as the most effective: It worked through law, so its gains bound everyone; it rejected scriptural authority rather than reinterpreting it as the Arya Samaj did; and it produced an educated female cohort, among them Kadambini Ganguly, one of India's first women graduates.
3. What it did not achieve: Its reach stopped at a thin urban bhadralok layer; property rights and Dalit women's position waited on independent India's legislation.
Conclusion
It turned reform into enforceable right, which no revivalist movement did.
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