Question 1:
What social ideas did the following people support.
(i) Rammohun Roy
(ii) Dayanand Saraswati
(iii) Veerasalingam Pantulu
(iv) Jyotirao Phule
(v) Pandita Ramabai
(vi) Periyar
(vii) Mumtaz Ali
(viii) Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar
Answer:
(i) Rammohun Roy: Raja Rammohun Roy made great efforts to remove social evils such as sati pratha, child marriage, etc., from the society. Due to his efforts, sati pratha was abolished in 1829.
(ii) Dayanand Saraswati: A reform organisation known as Arya Samaj was founded by him. He advocated against child marriage, sati pratha, caste system and dowry system.
(iii) Veerasalingam Pantulu: Veeresalingam belonged to the Madras Presidency. He formed an association for widow remarriage.
(iv) Jyotirao Phule: He was a social reformer of Maharashtra who worked hard for the upliftment of scheduled castes. He set up three schools in Poona where girls of lower castes were given education. He strongly opposed the caste system.
(v) Pandita Ramabai: She considered certain principles of Hinduism as oppressive towards women.
She established a widows’ home for those widows who were ill-treated by the society.
(vi) Periyar: According to him, the Hindu scriptures were a weapon in the hands of the Brahmans to dominate over people of the lower castes as well as men over women.
(vii) Mumtaz Ali: Mumtaz Ali was a social reformer among the Muslims who advocated for women education by reinterpreting verses from the Koran.
(viii) Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar: He emphasised on widow remarriage citing various ancient texts due to which the British passed an Act called the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856.
Question 2:
When the British captured Bengal, they framed many new laws to regulate the rules regarding marriage, adoption, inheritance of property, etc.
Answer:
TRUE
Question 3:
Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practices.
Answer:
TRUE
Question 4:
Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country.
Answer:
FALSE
Question 5:
The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1829.
Answer:
FALSE
Question 6:
How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the reformers promote new laws?
Answer:
Most of the reformers were well-versed in ancient texts. Raja Rammohun Roy started revising the ancient texts and promoted new laws. He was of the view that no ancient literature promotes social evils like sati pratha and child marriage in ancient texts. Due to his efforts, many laws were passed by the British Government to declare many social evils as illegal. Similarly, many social reformers cited verses from ancient sacred texts for challenging the evil practices stating that the on-going practices were against actual traditions.
Question 7:
What were the different reasons people had for not sending girls to school?
Answer:
Many people did not send their girl children to schools due to the following reasons:
(i) People thought that if girls go to school, it would prevent them from doing their domestic chores.
(ii) The fear of corrupting influence also prevented the parents to send girls to school as girls had to
pass through various public places to reach school.
(iii) Inability of finding a suitable match for their girl child was another concern among the parents.