Reform Movement in Western India - General Knowledge of Modern India
Prarthana Samaj was established in Bombay in 1867 AD. Mahadev Govind Ranade and Ramkrishna Bhandarkar were its main founders. The leaders of Prarthana Samaj were influenced by the Brahmo Samaj. They opposed the caste system and the practice of untouchability. He worked for the improvement of the status of women and advocated widow-remarriage. Ranade, who was also one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, founded the Indian National Social Conference in 1887, whose objective was to work effectively for social reform across India. This conference was also organized every year along with the sessions of the Indian National Congress to discuss social problems. Ranade believed that without social reforms progress in the political and economic field is not possible.
He was a big supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity and declared that a country as vast as India can progress only when both Hindus and Muslims move forward together by joining hands. Two other great reformers of western India were Gopal Hari Deshmukh Lokhitwadi and Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, popularly known as Jyotiba or Mahatma Phule. Lokhitwadi was associated with many social reform organizations. He worked for the upliftment of the status of women and criticized the caste system.
Mahatma Phule devoted his entire life to the upliftment of the downtrodden and downtrodden sections of the society and to improve the condition of women. He established a school for the girls of the so-called lower class in 1848 AD and educated his wife so that she could teach in that school. In 1873 AD, he founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, in which anyone could get admission without discrimination of caste and religion. It used to work to get equal rights to the people of the downtrodden and backward classes of the society. Mahatma Phule opposed the supremacy of Brahmins and started the tradition of solemnizing marriages without Brahmins. Due to the work done by him for the Dalits, he was given the title of Mahatma.
Dayanand Saraswati and Arya Samaj
Dayanand Saraswati, whose real name was Mool Shankar, was born in Kathiabard in 1824 AD. At the age of fourteen, he had shown his rebellious nature by refusing to worship idols. Soon after that he left home and dedicated his life in search of knowledge. During this time he acquired proficiency in Sanskrit language and literature. In 1863, he started preaching his theory that God is the only one who should be worshiped not in the form of idols but with the inner self. He propagated the view that the Vedas contain the knowledge which God has given to man and the important things related to modern science can also be discovered in them. With this message, he traveled all over India and founded Arya Samaj in Bombay in 1875. Dayanand chose Hindi as the language of his teachings and writings. Satyarth Prakash is the most important book written by him.
Due to the use of Hindi language, his ideas were able to reach the common people of North India. Arya Samaj spread very rapidly in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and in Punjab it emerged as an important social and political force. The members of Arya Samaj followed ten principles, the first of which was the study of the Vedas. Other principles were related to ethics and morality. Dayanand had also prepared a social behavior code for these, in which there was no place for caste discrimination and social inequality.
Arya socialist opposed child marriage and encouraged widow remarriage. In order to spread education throughout North India, he established a system of schools and colleges for boys and girls, which started with the Dayanand Anglo Vedic School in Lahore, which soon developed into the leading college of Punjab. Here education was provided in English and Hindi on modern lines. Some of Dayanand's disciples, who wanted to retain the original intention of Dayanand, established a Gurukul in Haridwar on the basis of the ancient ashram system of education.
Dayanand considered the Vedas to be the ultimate truth because he wanted to provide a definite framework of religious beliefs to the Hindus. He also started the Shuddhi movement to bring back the Hindus who had accepted Islam and Christianity back to Hinduism. Many reformers presented examples from the Vedas and other ancient religious texts to substantiate their social and religious views. He emphasized his ideas on the basis of logic, while some others openly criticized these ancient scriptures. Its contribution was more significant than that of any other reform movement.
Tags
Modern India