📖 PART 1: The Condition of Women in the 19th Century

Two hundred years ago, the lives of Indian women were very different. Children were married off at an early age. Both Hindu and Muslim men could marry more than one wife. Women had virtually no rights to property, and education was mostly denied to them.

Sati

Caste System

• Society was also strictly divided along caste lines. Brahmans and Kshatriyas considered themselves "upper castes".
• Others, like traders and moneylenders (often Vaishyas), were placed after them. Then came peasants and artisans such as weavers and potters (Shudras).
• At the lowest rung were those who cleaned cities or worked at jobs considered polluting. The upper castes treated these groups as "untouchable". They were not allowed to enter temples, draw water from the wells, or bathe in common ponds.

🤝 PART 2: Working Towards Change (Key Reformers)

From the early 19th century, debates and discussions about social customs began taking a new character, mainly due to the development of new forms of communication (books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets).

1. Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833)

• He founded a reform association known as the Brahmo Sabha (later Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta.
• He spoke out against unjust practices, particularly Sati. He was well-versed in Sanskrit, Persian, and several other Indian and European languages.
• Strategy: He tried to show through his writings that the practice of widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts. British officials, who were themselves criticizing Indian traditions, supported him.
• Result: In 1829, Sati was officially banned.

2. Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar

• Used ancient texts to suggest that widows could remarry.
• His suggestions were adopted by British officials, and a law was passed in 1856 permitting widow remarriage.

3. Girls Begin Going to School

• Many reformers felt that education for girls was essential to improve their condition. Vidyasagar set up schools for girls in Calcutta. Many others were set up in Bombay.
• When the first schools opened in the mid-19th century, many people were afraid. They feared schools would take girls away from home, prevent them from doing domestic duties, and corrupt their morals by teaching them to read/write. Therefore, throughout the 19th century, most educated women were taught at home by liberal fathers or husbands.
• Examples: Rashsundari Debi (secretly learned to read and write in the flickering light of candles at night).

4. Women Write about Women

• From the 1880s, Indian women began to enter universities. Some trained to be doctors, others teachers. Many began to write and publish their critical views on the place of women in society.
• Tarabai Shinde: Published a book, Stripurushtulna (A Comparison between Women and Men), criticizing the social differences between men and women.
• Pandita Ramabai: A great scholar of Sanskrit, she felt Hinduism was oppressive towards women. She wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu widows and founded a widows' home at Poona to provide shelter for women mistreated by husbands or relatives.

🚫 PART 3: The Movement Against Caste

Many reformers who fought for women also fought against the rigid caste system.

Paramhans Mandali (1840)

• Founded in Bombay to work for the abolition of caste. Many of these reformers were derived from the upper castes. Often, in secret meetings, they would violate caste taboos on food and touch, attempting to rid their lives of prejudice.

Jyotirao Phule (1827-1890)

• One of the most vocal "low-caste" leaders. Born in 1827, he studied in schools set up by Christian missionaries.
• He set out to attack the Brahmans' claim that they were superior. Phule argued that the Aryans were foreigners who came from outside the subcontinent and defeated the true indigenous people. After establishing their dominance, they began considering the defeated population as low-caste. According to Phule, the upper castes had no right to their land and power.
• He proposed that Shudras and Ati Shudras (untouchables) should unite to challenge caste discrimination. He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj to propagate caste equality.
• In 1873, he wrote a famous book called Gulamgiri (Slavery). He dedicated this book to all those Americans who had fought to free slaves, thus establishing a link between the condition of the "lower" castes in India and the black slaves in America.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

• Born into a Mahar family (considered untouchable). As a child, he experienced prejudice everywhere—forced to sit outside the classroom, not allowed to drink water from vessels used by upper-caste kids.
• After returning from higher studies in the US in 1919, he wrote extensively about upper-caste power in society.
• In 1927, Ambedkar started a Temple Entry Movement, in which his Mahar caste followers participated. Brahman priests were outraged when the Dalits used water from the temple tank.
• His aim was to make everyone see the power of caste prejudices within society and fight for equal rights.

E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar)

• Born in a middle-class family, he became an ascetic and carefully studied Sanskrit scriptures. Later, he joined the Congress but left it in disgust when he found that at a feast organized by nationalists, seating arrangements followed caste distinctions.
• Convinced that untouchables had to fight for their dignity, Periyar founded the Self Respect Movement.
• He argued that untouchables were the true upholders of an original Tamil and Dravidian culture which had been subjugated by Brahmans.