Old NCERT Summary (Bipan Chandra) Growth of New India - Religious & Social Reform

Introduction

• Nationalism and the rise of democratic ideas that accompanied the struggle for freedom found parallel expression in movements to reform social institutions and religious life in India. Many Indians believed that social and religious reform were essential for modern development, for removing obstacles to progress, and for building national unity.
• The spread of Western education and ideas, the growth of nationalist sentiment, the appearance of new economic forces, and increased contact with the wider world sharpened awareness of social backwardness and religious practices that reformers judged obsolete or harmful. After 1858 these reforming tendencies widened and intensified; the legacy of earlier reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy and Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was carried forward through several organised movements of religious and social reform.

Religious Reform: General Characteristics

Religious reformers sought to adapt religious beliefs and institutions to the requirements of a modern world shaped by science, democracy and national aspiration. While many reformers sought to remain true to the spiritual core of their traditions, they criticised practices they regarded as superstitious, irrational or socially injurious. The principal features common to most reform movements were emphasis on reason, individual access to religion without priestly mediation, opposition to caste-based discrimination and social disabilities (for example, child marriage and restrictions on women), and promotion of modern education and social service.

Brahmo Samaj

• The Brahmo Samaj traced its intellectual origins to Raja Rammohan Roy (early 19th century). After 1843 its ideas were developed by Devendranath Tagore, who rejected the infallibility of the Vedas, and from 1866 by Keshub Chandra Sen. The movement sought to reform Hinduism by removing social and religious abuses and by promoting monotheism grounded in the ethical and philosophical teachings of the Vedas and Upanishads, while also drawing selectively on modern Western ideas.
• The Brahmo Samaj placed strong faith in human reason as the criterion to judge religious beliefs and practices. It denied the need for an intermediary priestly class and maintained that every individual had the capacity and right to interpret scripture in the light of reason. Consequently, the Brahmos opposed idolatry, ritualistic superstition and what they saw as the oppressive elements of the Brahmanical order.
• On the social front the Brahmo Samaj campaigned against the caste system and child marriage, advocated widow remarriage and women's education, and supported wider social reforms aimed at achieving equality and modernisation.
• Although the Brahmo Samaj experienced internal divisions in the late 19th century and was primarily influential among urban, educated groups, its intellectual and moral impact on Bengal and on wider Indian social and political life was decisive in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Religious Reform In Maharashtra

• In western India, reformist activity began early. The Paramhans Mandali in Bombay (around 1840) opposed idolatry and caste distinctions. Gopal Hari Deshmukh, popularly known as Lokahitwadi, wrote in Marathi and launched rationalist critiques of orthodox Hindu practices, arguing that religion should change when it failed to sanction social reform.
• The Prarthana Samaj (founded in Bombay in the 1860s and associated with leaders such as R. G. Bhandarkar and Mahadev Govind Ranade) aimed to reform Hindu religious life in the light of modern knowledge. Influenced by the Brahmo Samaj, it promoted the worship of one God, opposed caste orthodoxy and priestly domination, and encouraged social reform.
• Gopal Ganesh Agarkar was an important rationalist thinker in Maharashtra who emphasised the authority of reason and criticised blind reverence for tradition and uncritical glorification of the past.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa And Swami Vivekananda

• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1834-1886) was a mystic and saint who pursued religious experience through traditional practices of renunciation, meditation and devotion (bhakti). He lived among and learnt from practitioners of different faiths, asserting that there are many paths to God and that genuine service to humanity is service to God.
• His disciple Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) popularised Ramakrishna's teachings and reinterpreted them for modern Indian society. Vivekananda stressed social action and argued that spiritual knowledge without practical work was incomplete. He proclaimed the essential unity of all religions and condemned religious narrowness.
• Vivekananda combined faith in the Indian philosophical tradition (especially Vedanta) with advocacy of social reform. He criticised social stagnation and urged India to re-engage with the world: "Motion is the sign of life." He also condemned the caste system and ritualistic superstition, and encouraged liberty, equality and independent thinking.
• Vivekananda's humanitarian focus led him to found the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, an organisation dedicated to social service. Through its branches the Mission opened schools, hospitals, orphanages, libraries and dispensaries, emphasising social welfare alongside spiritual development.

Swami Dayanand And The Arya Samaj

• Swami Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883) founded the Arya Samaj in 1875. He criticised what he saw as distortions introduced by later texts such as the Puranas and asserted that the Vedas were the supreme authority. Dayanand's reliance on Vedic authority gave his movement a distinctive orthodox tone, but he combined this with rational interpretation and a challenge to priestly control.
• Dayanand opposed idolatry, ritualism and priestly domination, and he attacked the rigidities of hereditary caste practices and popular religiosity as propagated by priestly elites. He emphasised attention to life in the present world and encouraged the study of modern science.
• Followers of the Arya Samaj established schools and colleges to impart modern education; Lala Hansraj was prominent in these educational efforts. In 1902 Swami Shraddhananda founded a gurukul near Haridwar that aimed to propagate more traditional educational ideals.
• The Arya Samaj promoted social reforms such as women's education, opposition to untouchability and caste rigidities, and encouragement of self-reliance and social consolidation. At the same time, its active campaign against conversions and its vociferous defence of Hinduism contributed, in later decades, to communal tensions. Thus, while the Arya Samaj advanced many progressive social measures, some of its religious and political emphases had unintended divisive consequences.

The Theosophical Society

• The Theosophical Society was founded in the United States by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott. They established the Society's headquarters at Adyar near Madras in 1886. The movement in India grew under the leadership of Annie Besant, who arrived in India in 1893.
• The Theosophists promoted revival and renewed appreciation of ancient Indian religious traditions, as well as elements of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. They endorsed doctrines such as the transmigration of the soul and preached the universal brotherhood of humanity.
• Although the Theosophical movement did not succeed as a mass religious revival, it helped many Indians recover self-confidence by emphasising the value of India's spiritual past. One practical contribution was the establishment of the Central Hindu School at Benaras by Annie Besant; this institution was later developed by Madan Mohan Malaviya into the Banaras Hindu University.

Syed Ahmad Khan And The Aligarh School

• Reform movements among Indian Muslims developed later than among Hindus. After the Revolt of 1857 there was increased interest in modern education and reform. The Mohammedan Literary Society (Calcutta, 1863) encouraged discussion of religious, social and political questions in the light of modern ideas and urged Muslims to adopt Western education.
• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) was the principal Muslim reformer of the period. Deeply impressed by modern scientific thought, he sought to reconcile Islam with modern knowledge. He regarded the Qur'an as the primary authoritative source and advocated rational interpretation of scripture: interpretations that clashed with reason, science or nature were, he argued, misinterpretations.
• Sir Syed emphasised critical thinking and freedom of thought as prerequisites of civilised life, opposing blind obedience to tradition, fanaticism and narrow-mindedness. He advocated religious toleration and believed that underlying all religions there was a shared practical morality.
• To promote modern education among Muslims he founded the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875 (later the Aligarh Muslim University). The college admitted students of different communities and received support from diverse sources. Sir Syed encouraged social reforms such as raising the status of women, removal of purdah, spread of female education, and discouragement of polygamy and facile divorce.
• Politically, Sir Syed advised a cautious approach. Convinced that the British government could not be easily dislodged and that premature political agitation might jeopardise educational progress, he urged Muslims to concentrate on social and educational uplift before direct political confrontation. In later years some of his followers interpreted his caution as communal separatism, a development that Sir Syed himself did not intend and which had negative consequences for later communal politics.
• Other notable figures of the Aligarh School included Chiragh Ali, the poet Altaf Husain Hali, Nazir Ahmad and Maulana Shibli Nomani, who contributed to the reformist and educational programmes of the movement.

Concluding Remarks

The religious and social reform movements after 1858 were diverse in origin, doctrine and social base, but together they transformed the moral, intellectual and institutional landscape of modern India. While some movements emphasised reason and social equality, others combined religious revivalism with social service and education. These movements challenged orthodoxies, promoted women's education and social reform, and stimulated debate about identity, modernity and national unity. At the same time, some reform initiatives unintentionally contributed to communal tensions when religious revivalism became exclusivist. Overall, the reform movements of the late 19th century played a crucial role in preparing Indian society for wider political mobilisation and the struggles for self-rule in the 20th century.