NCERT Solutions for Class 8 History Chapter 7 - Women, Caste and Reform

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED
 

Let’s Recall 

Q.1. What social ideas did the following people support:
 Rammohun Roy
 Dayanand Saraswati
 Veerasalingam Pantulu
 Jyotirao Phule
 Pandita Ramabai
 Periyar
 Mumtaz Ali
 Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar
 Ans. These people supported the following ideas:
(i) Spread of education among women.
(ii) Widow remarriage.
(iii) Caste equality and justice.
(iv) Abolition of child marriage.
(v) Social equality for untouchables.
 

Q.2. State whether true or false:
 (a) When the British captured Bengal they framed many new laws to regulate the rules regarding marriage, adoption, inheritance of property, etc.
 (b) Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practices.
 (c) Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country.
 (d) The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1829.
 Ans. (a) True, (b) False, (c) False, (d) True.
 

Q.3. How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the reformers promote new laws?
 Ans. The reformers tried to convince people that widow burning, caste distinctions, child marriage, etc had no sanction in ancient texts. Their knowledge of ancient texts gave them immense confidence and moral support which they utilised in promoting new laws. They did not get feared when people raised voice against the reforms they had brought.
 

Q.4. What were the different reasons people had for not sending girls to school?
 Ans. In fact people afraid of the schools that were opened in the mid-19th century. They had their own reasons.
(i) They feared that schools would take girls away from home and prevent them from doing their domestic works.
(ii) As girls had to travel through public places in order to reach school, many people began to feel that this would have a corrupting influence on them.
(iii) Several people were of the opinion that girls should be stay away from public spaces.
 

Q.5. Why were Christian missionaries attacked by many people in the country? Would some people have supported them too? If so, for what reasons?
 Ans. People suspected that Christian missionaries were involved in forced conversion of the poor and tribal people from Hinduism to Christianity. If some people have supported them, it must be due to the reason that the poor and the tribal people, converted to Christianity, would get a golden opportunity of going to school. The school would equip them with some resources to make their way into a changing world.
 

Q.6. In the British period, what new opportunities opened up for people who came from castes that were regarded as “low”?
 Ans. With the expansion of cities new demands of labour created. Drains had to be dug, roads laid, buildings constructed and cities cleaned. This required coolies, diggers, carriers, bricklayers, sweepers, rickshaw pullers, etc. This labour came from people belonged to “low” caste. They left their villages and small towns and shifted to the cities to get work. Some went to work in plantations in Assam, Mauritius, Trinidad and Indonesia. Although it was not easy to work in the new locations, poor people saw this an opportunity to get away from the exploitations of the upper-caste.
 

Q.7. How did Jyotirao, the reformer, justify their criticism of caste inequality in society?
 Ans. Jyotirao attacked the Brahmans, claim that they were superior to others because they were Aryans. Phule argued that the Aryans were outsiders. They came from outside the sub-continent, and defeated and subjugated the true children of the country—those who had lived here from before the coming of the Aryans. These Aryans established their dominance and began looking at the defeated population as low-caste people. Phule opined that the ‘upper’ castes had no right to their land and power. The land, in fact, belonged to the natives, who were considered as low-caste people.
 

Q.8. Why did Phule dedicate his book Gulamgiri to the American movement to free slaves?
 Ans. Jyotirao Phule wrote a book in 1873. He named the book Gulamgiri meaning slavery. Some ten years before this, the American Civil War had been fought, leading to the end of slavery in America. Phule dedicated his book to all those Americans who had fought to free slaves. He did this in order to establish a link between the conditions of the lower castes in India and the black slaves in America.
 

Q.9. What did Ambedkar want to achieve through the temple entry movement?
 Ans. Ambedkar led three temple entry movements between 1927 and 1935. His sole purpose behind these movements was to make people see the power of caste prejudices within society.
 

Q.10.Why were Jyotirao Phule and Ramaswami Naicker critical of the national movement? Did their criticism help the national struggle in any way?
 Ans. They were critical of the national movement because the nationalists often made seating arrangements following caste distinctions at feasts. The lower castes were made to sit at a distance from the upper castes.
Their criticism helped the national struggle to a great extent. Ramaswamy Naicker inspired the untouchables to fight for their diginity by initiating the Self Respect Movement.