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All Reading Available points or time. In the 1890s, Ra.I Bahadur Ananda Charlu, Judge aad 1ocial aclivut ~
8130462424,70'2223162 from Madra.s, expreued ,ome irritation al the fact that with 1ome. reform bad come to g
include .1undry items -relating to ma.tten of convenience, of d«eocy, of tule an.d al r-~
thrif\ ...involving change, down to such lruignificant thinp u the use. by our respect· x
CHAPTER 4 :3
able women, or umbrellas and slippers . .. • He hoped that hir co-worken would rn.dily
grant that the "bulk of these features ue feature, ln which no serlo,u, elabora.t.e or learned
controver:iy ha, arisen or could ariae .., We alJo know of the ahup distinction that many 0
eminent Hindus drew between social reform and the poli1,cal. For them, the.e reptt- 2
The Idea of Social Reform and its Critique among sented two different spheres of action, demanding different methods of work. Pt,Utical
Hindus of Nineteenth Century India reform aimed at per,uadlng the colonial buruucncy to grant Jodi.ans grea.tet political 0
power and representation; social reform oo the other h&lld, increasingly demanded the j
curtailment of atate Interference. The first wu projected u "righta", the aecood, a c:all 5
to duty. Allowing for a few exception,, it would Indeed be hard ID find Hindu ID w U
Amiya P. Sen nineteenth century who were conalst.ently on the aide or 10cial and political ttform and ~
were equally committed lo both. Thu,, nther t.ba.n expand upon Ito ,cope or meanin&,
the Hindu Intelligentsia of our period, managed to effectively shrink the "sociar to "ff"f :,..:
specific clements o( everyday life. One of the objectives o( this esaay would t>. lo ahow ci;?!
that for most reformers, reform and change were never fully Interchangeable. Opera• §

I
t is Indeed 3omewhat ironical that in nineteenth century India the expression "socl&l lively, reform wu controlled change, carefully defined and executed aloll8 what one ;.:J
reform" when it was more commonly in use , and often pusionately debated, wa.s reformer from Maharuhtra, Kuhlnalh Trembak Telang (1850-1893) lmmonalized u ...J
far from definitively defined. In part, th!, wa, no doubt because underneath broad "the line orJeut resistance".' By and large, reform wu bued on "clut-conaea....• not (5
constNcts like •Hinduism• or • Hlndu. Society''. there remained a wide array of beliefs, "clus-war• by which o( coune, its spokesmen meant a. braa.d unity within _;.,,... I U
rite, and practices, vuying by region, community or cute. However, even all~lndia educated, upper-caste males. :::>
bodie• like the National Social Conference, which Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842-1901) This es,ay also argues that the hutory of reform cannot be exu-icaled from ala deep- ~
and his friends &om Madru founded In 1887, did not produce any official statement rooted link, with several Inter-related developmentt o( the period: the polibcal truui- ::;:
in thlS regard . Such shortcomings , if one may ,ay, are only reinforced by the fact that t!on from regional state, to unified empire, the perceptible tra.naformation of lacliaa ( -
by "reform" itself, Ranade meant different things at different time, . Changing one',
view• with 1uch alacrity did not always reflect, as one might reuonably expect, the
economy and the structure of social relation1hip1, the binh o( the urban, Hind.a middle &3
cluscs ~nd the profo~nd lmp~t _or the wertern monl, pohucal and aocial ~ •- !-
uneven progreu of a.n idea. or movement through time. More frequently pcrha.ps, they
upon thu clau. It u indeed 11gmficant that notiona or both "India." aod •H·nc1,._• ~
revea1 prolific personal confusi~n , inconsi1tency or ~ndeeis1on that became a part of the
reformer'• repertoire by the third quarter of the 01octeenth century.
(though not _"Hindu") cry1talliud around the same time and intenected eac1t otber In
1
0
A near-cootcmpora.ry of lunade, Raghunath Punuhotam Paranjpye (1876-1966), many meaningful way,. Thh meant that reform could not aimply be ahc,,11 cJlanae or ><
India's first Senior Wrangler at Cambridge and lotcr, Pnncipal, Fcrguuon College (1902- even change e,ctemal to the concerned historical acton. Rather, thia wu -D lo -ch 0
)924) once made the point that compared to the way• In which It wa., uodcr:itood io upon _deeper question, of 1elf-idenrity, about new way, of defining the commonliy or &3
lndill: social reform wru a more comprehcn1ivc and far rea~hing paradigm lo contem- what ll "'.•~t to be a Hindu . It called for a new 1e1 or assumption, and new moda of ><
porary Weit since it also took up for consideratloc, mal~crs hkc workmg-h~urs, workcn ,elf-qucs11on1ng, When talking of social reform in respect of Hlnd\ls ii became -lllia.l C..
insurance and pens,ooary benefits or the problem of child labour. From tbu, Para_nJP_Ye to once again ult •Who wu a Hindu?" or "Whal did 11 mean 10 '1,e a Hindu?" fij
11
went 00 10 conclude that actually, the exprcu1on •_oclal ~•form dea!t with all ~ctlv1ue, has of course be~n aptly t.rgu•d that social reformism o( the nineteenth ctnlllry I\Q
th t • d ID raue a natioo or an ind1v1dual in (their) 1oc1al aspects and th•~ m 10 far wu not simply a reaction to colonialism or more generally, to the Impact made b the ~
u apot~:C.1 reform too a.Jmcd at gwing better opportuo1t,c, of ,clf-realiution, 1t ought West but h~d palpable roots In an older di1tourse.• Such continuities would appear~ ::.a
also to be giveo the ,tatus of social reform., more stan.hng given the fact that extant hiuoriu of reform are esaentially upper claaa
The ob,ervatlons made by ParanJpye are of some relevance here since the history of 1 th
n~t ~•~ ~•tee, ey proJect reform -work u auempts at modifying only Hlndu•brah-
modem HlDdu reform reveal, that ageodu as well u method, were debottd at variou, mi::; c~ de" s and practice, and ••• upper-cute male, u the agenciea tnclidonelly
au onze to carry out 1h11 work . In 1855, an English language oewapaper &om Bea-
 AmryoP. Sm
110
109
but Jttongly reacted to ..U•mpts
Hindu parent., were willing to educate their d aught.eu
century, the W1dow-rna rnage e&rn·
ract that even u a Sudra. Raja at n.i1iog their marriageab le age. In the ni neteenth
pl. the Hind• PA/not., abowed ,omc dismay a.t th, e. refonnen leaned on ~.e
u, wu opposlog the widow• pa18ll acqu ired an all -India ch aracter but a.Imo.s t everywher
lladbdanta Oe.b (1783-1867 ), a leader of the cooscrvativ tha t people often made ongui.&1.ed ID
side of child-wido w,. To a.n extent, the exce ptio ns
1
initial~ by a brihmao, IIW'&.l"Chand ra Vidyuagv (1820- 91), The
marriage campaign the g e n der-l njuJtJ.c.e and opprc,-
remark is even otherwise Important aiace it reveals how, very oflen 1 the defenders of the lack of public exposu re and awareneJJ. For mo.ny,
m ag e• when compared to, (or exam-
the soc.ial aad re.ligiow .sr~ were ooa-bribma Qa them.selvea.
Nonetheleu , the point sion were not u apparent In the case of 1nfant- ma
changes 1n beliefs or practice.1 when ry or for ced ,elf-i mm o latJon by wid ows A fte r a11, It ""'u only in the
that the Poln« use.ati&lly wiabed to m&ke is that ple, the volunta
more acceptable &nd enduring. wer e alerted to th e fa ct early m.v-
introduced by brihm~• thcm,elves, were bound to be 1880s, when so rdid talcs came to light that people lo
the brihm&Q reaffirmed hi, trad,- comumma tlo n could a.l10 lead to the loss of human livu.
By lint bri.a.pog a.bout 1uch ch&n.gu upon him-1elr, riagcs a.nd their premature
for ced antercoun e, o(
social orpniz.atio n. It ca.nnot be inJtance, the Bengal i pres, reported the dea th , through
tion.J pontioa u the head of the Hiodu-bn.h manical 1889, foe
that in lkogaJ or elnwhere, the meo who Initiated the widow mar--
pure ~locideoce a ten year old girl, Phulmonl.
widow, were brlhmaos them- o f th e: pre-moder n refo rmbt dis-
ri-,ge amp~ in modem time., 1.t11d the fint to many Co ntinu ities notwithsta nding, a close r co mpariso n
me.ant tha1 the would-be upper-caste refonner bad d iffe rences. For one, .so far u tra-
selves.. Such re&ffinnatio ns obviowly
of Hinduism or alternative mod- course and the modem will reveal , ome si gn ificant
no preuing reuon to look for ahcm&l1vc perccptJon.s "' reform " i.s prob lc:m.a.ticaJ even
ll'Uc of not just the history of ditio nal India is con cerned, the very use of the tenn
eb of aoc:ial behaviour. This, however, would be broadly h.nu e to be in vogu e. H ere. I am
.n' but of the pre-modem u though for lack of a better ahemative , this will con
modern HJndu reform u 1uggcatcd by Gauri Viswanatha In Ind ian langu age~ namely swJNi:r
wtlllng to haza.rd the guess that its curTen t equ ivalents
wcU. earn ed e xactly the same: Slgn.ifica.-
ioa dculy underlies nineteenth century projects o( 1n Hindi or Marat.hi a.nd JOlfl.Sluir In Bengali, neither
Arguably, a degre-c of condesccnr neth Joo e• has n g btly dnwn our
, Sir Narayan C. Chan• tions earlier nor .,..•ere they ~ co mmo nl y used . Ken
reform . One of the gre.attst Hindu rcfonnen from Mabu~htr& o"rgamza bon that m od ern re fo rm bodies
), ma1ntaincd that •the customs a.nd ins1itutlon1 with which the attention to the entuely new methods of work or
dravarkar {1858-1923 print-m ed ia, a.o o ual b udgets o r d e m-
social reformer propo,e, to deal are common to the
higher da.ues of Hindu socidy employed : public debates, the extensive use of the
11 What interests me more though are I.be n ew 1d eu, new
from which the lower clu.ses take their standard .
., The name, that more frequently ocratically elected leaden.
ue thou: of SIU'Tlku&. Ri- que.Jtion1n g that obviously 1.0spu ~
appeu in the nineteenth century Hicdu rcformilt discourse standards of public behaviour and new modes of
-mcn mostly belonging encounter with the We,t and
m£ullja, C&Jtauya, the Buddha. or the Mahuuhlrl &n 1lllnt-pocU these change,. And here, one ha, to say, India'• modem
it ii a.ho in the nineteenth century that one state and 1ocicty proved to be the major detr:n:z:u.aa ntJ~
to the uppu-eute s. Paradoxically enough, cooditions peculiar to a colonial
and one which hoped to draw its
hean of Hladu social reform H a pan-Indian project
Cha.ndravar ka.r, even when acut.cly aware NUANCE S or REFORM
1treogth and legitimacy In popular support. TRADITIO NAL HINDUIS M: THE CONCEPT UAL
the reformer had lO •work on
or tbe lmporta4ce of upper-cute in.idativn, argued that twin problems of con.servat ion and
of the •oclety in g-cnenJ• a.od criticize the common fouodatiow ia which Cultures aero" the "."orld have to cope with the
tbe conscience in this regard . However, wbat made
the social cwtolDJ &nd lnJtitutJon.1 that he 1t:elu to Improve,
resL' Swami Vivekana.nda ch_a.nge and surely, Hindu aoclety wa.., no exception
or Christ i.inity wa.s that here
(1163-1902) wu quite wary of reform that had no
bUU in the geoera.J awakening of che Huidulsm somewhat unique in rclauon to I.slam , Judaism a •
than doctrinal. Thu allow-e,d
manes.• Tlw Hitwtw. & popular paper from Maclru,
,ectariao clashes betweea local Vai,oav,, exhorting them
showed great concern at recurring
to Join the movement towud.s
~e m.stru~ents of .social control were more
mtcrpretatt ve f~eedom than freedom or 0exibility
ttructunl
in the soc.iaJ .sphere. CIVen S:: ..-;;
wu evidently a si,u founder, tunu like •diu idence•
aa Wlified HiDdui1ni.ie In Briti,h India. a homogeniz ed Hindui1m :ence of an ,,umfied church or a commonly accepted . •
on on the put of withJn tn.dillon~ tt ·
p• ""' of rdonJUSt succeu 1.nd renect.ed a new political self-definiti heterodoxy , JUch olhen had no practical .J1gnilicat1on mduum.
that tran1Conned reform into the complex herme- a_ ,ociety which permitted ~11 kinds of opinions to surfa.
the HiadUJ. Jt wu Hindu nation.Jinn but how
On the cootrary,
o in . ce, also achieved
Hinduism
onticaJ tuk or having to determine not ju,t bow best
to redefine ~e most extraordina ry totalitarian ism . For, such Cree-flo•lin 0
aelf•lmprovemeot.. the second, the Hnacrur!.s ~d ton. '. 100.3 as they
far lo redefine IL The flnt reflected the paradigm of did oo~ also h~ve the power to traruform established
iaiorurelati on.ship.s, could
rblttOric of ,eU-deJencc. be toc1ally quite innocuous. Within traditional Hindu.ism, 0
British India u a common• -slandin p ~rolifen\e d p.utly
The growing cu.ltu.raJ need to project the Hindu, &11 over becau,e there was perhaps no eJtabJished or Ion
also explains why local iuue, "bl g mechanism of 1nte:llectua )
ly defined, wcll-knlt community ol belief, and lnter,sto, penecutioa . More importantl y however this w g
hook-1wlng ia3, the branding or dl1fipremc ut of one, body or the practice of fling- hm..;,ical tradi~ion po~~:~1 0/ because. or the: tema.rkabJe
like a.bility that ~c Hindu-bra.
adequate reformist atten- neuLra1Wn g lhe transform a.-
ing one,elf beneath thejapmd th cu al Puri, never obtained tlve pos.slblhtJes of thought 11
could be made even otherwtJe.
tloo, It U, however, lmponaot to note that uceptioDJ
 TM Id.ea of Social lvfonri and 1u Cnatw orwmi Hind1u of Nitvi.lffltA C,,. 11"" India Ill 112 A..,. P• .s,,,

ChHi~du-brah.".'u,ical tho ught, It mu,t be funher ,iaicd, dlffen from thot of the Judaic Kabir. Their humanism wu more religious io oriutatioo than •oci.al, the-tr eplitanan-
nsb.an 1.n.d1uon in U much LS It regards both ma.n and the universe to be eternal i.Jm grew from the belief that everything ha.d a common origin an God. Nou.e of chem,,
and uncreated . Accordtog lo lhe former, oo God created the world out of chaos or iD 10 fu a..s one can 1ee1 viewed woman u the prima.ry object of reform or u iDdica to
a purposive_way. Creation 1lsclr, in other words, ls not a. unique act. In the latter view, the social and moral health of the Hindu commuruty, u modern rdorme:n we~ aee-a
creation ls 1nvened Wltb a definite purpose and chaos with a palpably negative value. lo do. 1• lroni.cally enough, I.he most radical of the:m, Kabir, had fairly conservative. V&eW1
Here, etblca.l a.nd metaphysical support is sought in the idea of a. Crea.tor-God wherea., on women.. Above all, traditlonal Hindu reformers, unJjke the.iT rnodera s-ueu:sson, did
for the Hindu, crea.tion is ethlca.lly neutral. In Hiodu•brahmanical thought, the individ- not proceed from the belief that human nature could be Improved upoa intaminably
u&l becomes an a.gent or accessory in a luger cosmic proceu; he believes in the end- or that time and history were beset with 10me development chronology, repre:KDtmg
less rhythm of world-fonnatioo and dissolution aod is virtually powerless to introduce the releot!us punuit of progress through purification. Compa.uion and a dde.re:ou Car
his own perceptions or good and evil in creation , In the Judaie•ChriJtian tra.dition, the divine in ma.n were really their major guiding principles..
where.lo both man and hbtory are lmportan~ an individual can be driven by a power-
rut activist tmpulse, a recurring, almost exiltent11l urge to start afresh. Thus, as hu been TRADITION AS A CULTURAL RESOURCE AND MODERN HINDU REFORM
quite ln1ightfutly obse.rvcd, the two traditions appear to be driven by the somewha.t Generally spea.klog, modem Hindus construed reform a.s esse:otially a.a a.ct of re-inter-
different ideals or completeneu (p0.tl)Gtw&J and perfection respectlvely.u Hindu c.osmol- preting, re-adapting and re-orienting tra.dltion. Al one level, thi1 is only too evident
ogies a.re indeed natter uid rejec.t the monochromatic. idea of there being either an from the fact that popult.r DicUonanes Encyclopedias on Hinduism lllllally do not go
ab10\ute good or absolute bad . V\vekana.uda cautioned hls followers about good a.ad beyood the: sixteenth or seventeenth c:enturies; there is very Uule afle.r that period chat
evil being •eternally conjoined• a.od about work it.self being "'more subjective tha.n ob- 11 seen to be conceptually new. In the proce:u of rrinterpnting or re-a.dapll.Dg cndition.
je.ctive, more cducauooal than actlU.l." 14 Fl0at1y, a word on lhe Hindu notion of tune many emioenL Hindus also misled themnlve.s and postcnty into believing that Reh
There IS now a growrng corueruu1 on the v1ew that rather than be purely cyclical in work could also be under.stood a.s •revival". The complex l.Dter-pl&y of reform and revival
nature Hindu lime u actua.Uy a complex mosalt of varied viewpotnt.s, some even ong- will be taken up at a more appropriate place within thi.!1 uu,y. For now, it i.a e.noqh to
ioalio~ in non •bn.hmuiica.l sourcc1.1.1 Al) the sa.me, the idea of a cychcally degenerative s;iy that such misconce:ptions arose in some muddled thinking and a fairly tendentiou,
time bu re.ma.med ii. very powerful mouf 10 Hindu India a..od from the perspecuve of reading or the past Hei e it would be also important to somewhat separa~ the notion
Hindu aoc.la.l and relipous reform, ill implica.llons can ool really be overlooked. ln of "tradition• from a general 1.wareness of the pa.st Lower cute movements had their
several ways, the ideas of an uncreated universe and perennially c~rcul_a r (and re:pet1 • OWD distinctive reading of the put but rejected the guiding hand of •rn.ditio·a• for that
tive) time feed intD each other and tend to take away from the hL>torocal and moral word, as uodentood in upper-cute parla.nce, wu only another name for brahmanism.
worth of human iotervenllon. Ir, u in degenerotlve ~t,yug~ there 1s the_all_eged fall in Broadly speaking, the bouodarie, of tndiUoo m•y be defined in two w.yo. 1lley
human cha.ncter a.nd the grou caricature of erstwhile soc.la.I v:Uues, llus, 1mportantly may be defined symbolically and synthetically but alao ,ub,t&11tivdy. In the lantt, the
nou h ls not iomething tha.t huma.n beings the:ms~lvcs CTeated OT have:_tbe capaaf>'. to bouaduies of Lraditioo may closely coincide with the bound&rie, colle.ctively comticm-
e ~ bL Here, degeneration i1 a. recurring cosmic proc_e:u, n.ot .i 1oc1a.l or hutonc1.l ed by ntes, usoges and beliefs pertainjng to a community and may be hiatoric:alty aa.al-
set ng . b ahmanical prucnption, for coping with the ev,b or Kallyuga ysed. In fact, history would be of great relevance here since unlike M ~ Jnn or
1
one. No~osi~~:::~ ~T.:tices altogether. It is not u though such priiLctices are in them• ChrfatianJ, the Hiodu.s did not constitute their community arouud certaio given, immu-
a.re to a that ln,crutab1e processes have: now rendered men -.nd women quite table beHefs. In their cue, rites. wages uid belief, ,eem to have evolv~ with the bi,-.
selvea bad but c ,. Further down this essay, l shall argue that one or the: powerful torical evolution of the community it.se:lf.ts However, tn.ditions have also been defined
unworlhy of th " vc modero Hindu reform.en, norwilluta.ndiog the ,tnctuTes of Kabyu · normatively. asninung an underlying unity of selves •od where, ide:ntitiea,. rather thu
tmpulsu that dro , . ntality his extraordinary powen of cffectiog Jelr·1m- re,t on precise: Joclal differentiah, may be Jubromcd in "'thick• dncnptiocu.• When
. the faith in m11.n , 1nstn1mc '
fO.. u al noble selneunus. understood in this sense, tradition wu also the storehouse of the 1Jation1s sentimab
provemeot but 5 O , • oets. my,tics and philosophers did produce powerfol 1.Dd attachment to thiJ particular notion of traditlon- a.rriv~d more ,pont&neou.tly thu
In pre-modern I nd •~ sa,n~ P and consciously aied to eradicate certain social Md through the power of intellectual convic1lons.
cntiquu of coote'."po~~ :~,;;;~: Rome,h Chunder Dutt (1848-1909) doubted ,f modem In hindsight, it would a.ppea.r as though some of the coofua1on or incoo.wte..acy that /
relig,oua ma.lpr&eUC~he courage of the ,uctecnih ce~tury Bengali rdormer and mystic, affected Hindu rdonnen ln the nineteenth century came from the subconscious play or,
Brahmos poueued (! _ ).• All the same, lt,. lmponan_t for~• tD acknowle_dge both these conceptions. Modem reform had to emulate pa.st idtals but the ideals tb,em-
486 1533 selves had to be accept.able in the light of new Ideologies and a new ..t of socio! pri·
Sr\ l(.r1Qa C~ttanya wevcr radical in ,u mten4 was couched in an 1nten3e)y rehgi,ou1
th t thl• criuque, ho th. fully aecula.r in the meuage, of even a Nan&k or orities. Modem problem• rtqulred tome new re■olutioru but these 1 nevertheleu., bad
1..:guage. There ii perhaps no mg
 II ◄
113
I
the Eoglith. Given the very o~ture ol the,r enterpNc, uppu-a.or.a moVCQCD _., al,o
to be: based on aome commooly a.ad coavmtionally accepted authority. For a commu•
1lity dl&l I D ~ ttjecud the idea e>C ,ocial legulalion being Introduced by an alien under the greale,t compuuioru to ,omebow fuul a«eptable ..wag,u bawem cndl-
ruliQg clus but also farud to ada,o,-icdg,, the fact that they no longer bad the power tlonal ways of thioklng and the modun or Jir::i,pfy to giw't one •top tbe odae.r. Tw. •.u
to m&b their own laWI, the Hindus tend~ to n.ll back on the convenient ,olution of a daunting wk and probably ended op l11 pleuiDg aobody. A corrupooda>< ol 1M
eelwig smu:Dcm iD the listn::f or brahmm:ica.l pre.scnptive texts. However, th.is itself Daum (Calcutta) accused Ra.oade or deplctin6 • Hlndo r11 "yery much ID che ligb& of..,
wu • oelf.<leceptio: of IOlU for people •crou Ideological divid., were reali,tic enough English geotleman-fanner•,u More Intriguing perhap, is the way m wb.ida thla _ .
to aeme tb&l the l a ~ or old could ooc pouibly have forenen the cba.nging need, ble reformer kept ,hilting the de~niUooal boundaries of "reform" Itself Spcakmg be,
ol 9C11Ciety for JI ti:Du.• Besides, N wu lo emap duria.g debates a.round every major fore the Sixth Social Conference (Allahabad, 1m), Ran;ade • p p ~ me:,tiaaed Low
,_., the Ulbas th=seh-.. ,pc,ke with many voiteL •] alway• figbt shy of the Vedu; contempon.ry society had come to be orpnin:d on difTereni principl~ Dl&J'bn,: ~
c:md<sRd the D0led Bengali lndologist, Raja Rajendralal Mitra (1820-91), "it is a con• tramition from •com1tn.int to freedom, aedulity to bet.id, from sum, to comract. av-
cupla that )ield. ID llS admim- wblkV« he desireo ... " Vidyuagar would bave known thority to reason.• Evidently, thi., underline, his belief m Hindmmi alld Hmdm u
tlw - ,-,ti texts iDdudmg that of M&llu forl>ade widow marriage, and ye~ it wu evolving categorie, for whlcb the past ...., but • prepantory •<age, nol lhe iclw iue:J'.
ml belief t!,,at p1Jhhc opiaion could be more euily woo over this way that led this Only three yeus Jater, however, be performed a 'l10l..u /ca., J.ho\lllfUJg p:&L ~ to
compuacmate PL:idil to b.unt for tuts that would allow such muria.ges. That be even- part with "ones traditional irutitutions•. AppueotJy, R.J.nade a!:so perceived h&tlory u
many fomad tho m the law-giver Pu-iia.r only uodencores the polyvocality of the Jtistra.s bolh the work of human agency and reflecting tome lnsa,:H:ahle clrna« wuL Thi.I thell
but ~ importmtly perba.pa, it briD19 out the fact tha.t conservativ~ status·quo•bt placed him fo I.he a.wk ward positioo or either de.oying that the Hi.nch:u had degenenud
ll.tbblda were essentially root.ed in local custom (ddCCO,i, with or without the ,a.action over time and hence in seriou, need o( reform (ti.Dee it wu fot mall U> aet nght the
of lb, - . , After all. the use of wtras ia the widow marriage campaign did not fully wrongs that he him,elf had perpetrated} or d,e to ins1nuate that a mcrc:iful God Him-
placate the conservatives among the educ.a.led middle clu.ses or even the traditional self w:u capable ol inflicting ,uch mjsfortune upoa buma.oity A, the lea.ding 'w>t of
Pa:ndil cla.u.. Of these. then were .s many io opposition as in favour of reform. In the the Social Confe.rcnce 1 he could have ha.rdly acc.eptHI the fonna wbucu Car • piow
cia.dealth ciemary, ii wu indeed a .-are reformer who had the. courage to admit tha.t
man u he, the second might have been a saa,Jcge. Howncr, the a.uoci:ahon of God
mmedme:s reform-work had to rely simply oa de1t.nJction, not cosmetic ch;uige or
with history is not fortuitous but an idea ra.idy growing aioc-c the day, or Raja Rammo-
mod.ificati.on.
han Roy (lm-1833). In hindsighc one can see that it provided leg,tmlXy to two intu-
11ae -put•, u J ha.•e ind.ia.Led.. remained a. contested tern.in I not just between
related ll.S3Umptiocs runong the wc,rcm -educated H indu middle clus. F"~ 1t remforced
upper-cute individuals themselves but more s.o between uppcr-ca.st.e and lowcr-ca.,te
the belief, actively promoted by men hke Mm and ~bcauJ.v, that Bntish nale hAd fi-
m0¥SICDll for refonn.Jotino Pbule (1827-1890) and his Satyasodhak Samaj obviously
rad the hutory or the M&nlhi rpnking people very differently from the way it was nally mcued India from the political <yranny and the ~ig,nus .fanabdm, of Inda-Muslim
rad by the western educated. brihma.,tt intellectuals from Bombay or Poona., the most rule Lnd planted the seeds of modem reform and p~greu lt ~u God't tntentioa lb.at
r<pffRDWlVO ~ am0l1g whom again wu M.G. R.anade." 1n the south, the strongly India be placed in the hands of the English for bere lay the g.ute>t pro•pttts of the
~ movoment lauached by E. V. Ramuamy Naidter (1879-1973) in the early Hindu 's ,elf•tcdem.ption, Second.. it also helped educaled Hindu, to pe.n::e,ve b.istonc.al
decada of the tweD6etb ca"1uy durly overturned the method, of biibmai:ir like Dewan and social cha.ngc.s u a part of some IBrger cosmic proccu &nd therefore aot Nl1y
Rqlumalli Rao (1831-1912) who aought the molutioo ol all problem, in ;.,,,.,,,. In a comprehensible intellectuBlly. The prob lem, i?TCSptttive of whether or not Ran.ade would
eea.,e., lowff--cute movemnts h&.d rad.le.al but limited age:ndas. Phule and Naidc.er sin· see it, was that after the 1880,, such usumptioru about the redempt1Ve quality of Bnt
glecl out the bnhmanical system, but more apecif,cally the briluriru:, as the target ol i!b rule were fut turning sour."
viciou amd.. To an extent. their support to woman related reform wa., an outgrowth . It might a.s well b~ admitted th1t giveo the comtralou lJ_ndu which ht w:a., worluag,
of 11,riT luger anli-brihaw;, campaign since they believed that ideologically and social- 1t would bsve been diffiC'Uh to have wriggled out or thu pre:d1ca.m,ent. Middle cfa.sa hope.
ly, It wu the ~ bimaelf thu wu behind the lnju,tlce perpetrated on the woraan. had not been completely duhed by the 1680s. On the cootn.ry, the birth of the eon.
For all,Jndia bodiu like the Nadooal Soda! Coarerenu, led very larg,,ly by upper cutes, greu had provided it ,~th new chuineb of self•exptts.uon and there were indeed c.x--
lb, problem, wm, m.anifold and perceptibly dirrerenL Unlike lower-cute movements, pecU.tiona that the Brhuh would 1h11 come rou.nd to accept lodiuu u d d
Ibex - • aot very eothntcd by the proapecll or 1tate Intervention In ,oclal roauen. equal partners In the Empire. From the penpective or soc1a.J refonn, h . o ~ v ~ r ~
They UIO took it apoa them.elves to c.oavinc.t European• whether la India. or abroad 1 lemt were or 11. 1om.ewhat different order. WbJle at one level . -1-• ••d
\ ..... , &1 -..
al ..
mo.r attique.a
of the Hinda'• commitment to aodal ref'on:n. At & dUferent level, they were also keen produced by £ngli.t~ official1 or mi»ion ■ rie, m~de educated Hindu, •aately ttl(--coa,..
to ftl.llllR dM c:ouervativn that rdorm wu not aomethlng devised merely to pleue Kious about the aenous need for lntro.sp«b.00 1 .Jucb cnllquei., unh&pp,tly. &ho aome--
 Thi Ilka of Soc.at Rz/or,n •nd " ' Cnllqu, ""'°"I Hindu, of N,.....,.,1h C..uury lnd,n 115 116

times threatened to duaolv th rb . . THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF REFORM

Many emlnent Hind be_ every a. nc or H_1ndu_rcligious Hfe aod .soc.ialorga.nization.
to ,et their own houu ~u he figure, accepted u, pnnclple that the Hindus really ought So far, this essay ha.s argued that wbereu reforml ■m wu very much_ a part of ~
but alao aenaed that~• m order before making Ju~t demand, for greater politic~ righu tradition, the term "reform• itself came to acquire some new dnnem,on, or me.amnp
1 in the nineteenth century. In other word.a, while reformbt Intent.ions are DOt 11niqua CO
way o( lookin a ~ a dlsturb~n.g way, 1uch cntid,m also rested on a very different
g t lnd,a and lnd11.n1. Thu■ the moral and social critiques produced by Hindus of British India., they do seem to have been founded on .ome new id.eu or
Europea.ns lo the nineteenth century were not like those of an honest and impar1ial principles duriog th is time.
obaerver but c.an-ied with in it. Inherent notions of sclf-righteou1ness a.nd superiority. There has been a.n extended, often pu,looately fought deb••• on whether &he JO
It was in tbe n,netccntb century that the Hindu intelligentsia wu mo.st brut.a.Uy called Hindu "awakeoing" In the nineteenth century and by implic:.alion, the mav-1
c?~fronted with the fact lhat there bad somehow occurred a rupture in the Hindu tn.- towuds reform, were aolely Inspired by we1tern-Chrbti"&D ldeu. For molt Ea:ropeaas.
d1t:i.on a.nd that th is tra.ditioa could no longer re-esta.bli.sh or rebabilit.a.te itaelf using the officials and non-officials, 1uch origins have been emphulz.ed IUlC.t: the days of MacaaaJ..
same methods or mecbui.L,ma known to have been succes.sfutly used in the put. ,.We ay. And predictably again, this wu countered by nationaliat histonoinphy both 11>
are conrronted with the destcuctive power, or one or the most militant civilizations tha.t colonial aod po,t•colooial lndla. In the 19701 and "801, sopbiabcated M.andu> social
the world bu ever seen," argued the moderate leader, Surendrnatb Ba.nerjca. 11 8ra.b- ana.lysia observed tha.t tbe very notion of an Indian •Re-naiu:auc.e• wu based 00 c.utaiD
ma.nlsm ha.d .ttood its ground against a. militant Mohammedani.sm ... but It is cot With Euro-centric presupposition, and that the experience• of the colonaed mu.at be -cmdcr·
physical force that we are now called upon to co nteod,-it is moral fo rces or immense 1tood within a distinctive social and h.istoric:.a.l framework. All the same:~ Marxist hislo-
potency with which we a.re oow coofronted .. .-u This ought to pose before us two inter- riography has remained somewha.t trapped within iudlgenist u.sertions. The argam.ea.t
related queatioo1; first, whetber pre-modem hlam aod Muslims in Sou th ~ia failed to put forth in the 1990s by the Muxist historian K.N. ~lkkar thal the aocio-a&ltllnl
throw &o intellectual challenge to the Hlodus and second, whether therefore, the cba.l• regeneration of India wa., "occuioned by the Britisb prese:oce, not cnaled by I:"'" appan
lenge from the West was not of a very different order compared to all preceding chat• ' to ofTer a commonly accept.able position but misses out on the inner nuaDcn of the
lengc1. There h some ground for arguing that th is indeed wa.s the cue. In Maharash tn, question. However, one scholar wbo more categorically reaffirmed the lndigenist roata
Gopal Hui Deshmukb, Lokahitawadl (1823-92) alleged that the Muslim, hod made llulo or reform even al the time wu G.C . Pande wbo observed thus:
impreulon on the Hindu eHte.u In Bengal, the Tottwabodhini Parriha in November 1873 Rationalism and Humanism are characteristic human value.s a.nd thw; can hardly
and the Bharat Mihir on 5 January 1901 argued th&< six hundred years of Muslim rule be sa.id to belong in this .strict ,ense to the lndi&n Renaissance which a•otded
had not affected the Hlodu, an the slightest. Sir Gooroo Das Banel)ce (1844-1918), som•· agnosticism a.nd naturalism. Ma.ny of the reformen appealed lo west.em social and
time Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University, ob1e rved that while Lhe Muslim ruling moral ideals, interpreting them, however, in a m&11ner thac pve them univenaliry
class •teft unmolested the intercourse between man aod man," it had had a. .. very per- aod conformity with western tradition. Their reformum did not have lle:nd.amite 5:j
nicious effect on intellectual progyesa.•~• The historian in us could rea.sonably take this philosophical presuppo,ilion,, their humanitan&m.sm was not hued oa Collllaa ~
to rnea.n that lndo-Muslim rule ho.d fa.Hed to significantly alter both the strucrure of Positivism, their evolution did not advocate the survival of the fittest. Their ~ ~
social relationships and the trajectories of though t; the fiut on account of sheer dbin• nalism wu consistent with religiou1 revelation and intuition and they gmeraBy U
tercstedoess and the second perhaps by default. 1 have argued _else":'here,.>0 thu the asserted the authority of the Vedas or appealed to personal experienca i1I the >(
apparent failure of the Muslim elite to lntellect~ally prov~ke .its Hmdu couo~e~art traditional manner of sainb.,. 0

in
robably He, in the ve ry religious nature of the Hmdu-Mushm du1logue. And religions,
both Hindu and Muslim traditions, were th e le_ast am~~l\ble to ch~nge. The chal-
Prima. facie, Pande's arguments would 1eem to agree with Panikku"s just critiq- or ~
the •impact-reaponse schema" which saw reform u a Hrie.s o( mere n:Rexes to cbal... C..
]en e from the West, I argue, represented a ,ubtle tntert~mmg of An~hcan Protestant· leoge, thrown by the We,L" On the whole, however, they leau, more heavily OD d,e 1..:.1
·smg and po■t•enlightenment philosophical thought. The •~tellectual he,r, of Loe.kc and ,Ide of writera like D.S. Sarma who claim that the nlnelffnth cmtury awakening waa W
1
i le rejected the argument that pro1clytaz.alion alone wu Gods worlc.
only one io a ••ri•• of similar developmenu that lncl1a had witnessed owr time.• What "9
Newton , or;:;:~• not.'• ~v. Alexander Duff, an important missionary figure bued
is also somewhat troubling is that Pa.nde's argumenu are not always 111pported by r-..; ~
aod secular ctcenth century Bengal (eh tha.t Hinduism would be more effectiv~ly de-
Thu, while the Arya Sunaj accepted the authority of the Vedas, the Brahmo S...,..: co:,
ln early nin odern western thought than by the Gospel.J' It ls •p~arcnt_ that during our
s n·o.ycd b~ m Pranha.na Samaj and several contemporary Individuals clearly did not.u Now It la u,aa
could cleaT"ly perceive that the boundaries of belu~f co1nc1dcd less and
nd I that after the 1850s, the more representative Utilitarian thinker wu j.S. Mill, DOI
penod_, H ' : that defined the communlty. It wu indeed the different nature of chal-
th th0 Bentham, even though I am given to undentand that Lokabitawadi wu a gnM admir-
less wi •
Ieng• now poaed at ma
th de th• Hindus act quite precipitously.
er of the latter." All the same, thia cannot be taken to suggest that u a IOClai and """:"1-~ -
 118
Cmtury /Min J 17
Tk Id.• of S6ooJ &/tll"M •""- lu C:ringw a"'O"f Hin4w of Ni1'Nfflllc
"adaptatio n• "" Pantle spew
ha, rightly drawn our auention lo the fact that ii i• mcb
.
educated Hindus. Even though of that grtw into Hindu apologeriu .••
;; l philosophy, Utilitariuaism was cnt.ireJy C&Jl uide by the On the whole, It would be only fa ir to uy that when e,camirung
the we,t,:rn =pa.cl
51,, they did not alway• oxpreu this cloarly, the social wefulnos, of
e opinion
a measure was alway,
may have dingreed with on the Hindu mJnd, it I! Important not to be , wayed by the extreme u
po. lbilitie,
history of ideu. causal COJll-
of
r:, aa importaat determinant of reform. Conaervativ either uncritical acceptance or wholesale rejection. In the
the criterion of u,eful•
m the u1efula"" of &D objective, they did not complotely din vow nection, cannot alway• be establi,hed with any precision.
In any ca.st, I.be Iado-Bntu h
m and believed
~ neu. 8&Dltimchandr& Cbattopad hpy (1838-1894) mockod Utilltariaols dalogic and d ialectic:al m
yet wrote a moving trib- encounter in the nineteenth century , trike, me u ber1>g Cj17ile
m that it could not be the resolution of all Indian problem, and be to offl!T 11,., an.alogie., of
nature. My own submbsion in the matter would therefore
5 ale to tbe memory of tho dopartodJ.S . Mill, calling him a paromiumiy
a (clo1e relative)."
are not typically high•qualit y ,ecd and fertile .1011. Barren m ind, and feeb
le traditlon,, could noC have
X Ironically onough. Pando's cl&Jm that nationalism and bumanl!m experience d among the Hindu, or B n.lUh
comes di1coocerti ngly dose to cJainu made by imperialbt historians who produced the mental and moral revolution
r, Indiaa value• of tbu great effinreKeJ>Ce ha.,
m alJo foud Iadi&D> lacking in these virtues. Abo somowbat quostionab le is Pando', India. On the othor hand, the intellectua l productJon•
m uwL
~ ·/ u,amplion that in European thought, rationalism or naturali,m invariably led to agno•· also lo be mea.,ured by the unique propertie1 of the Jti
enced by their hunilin ,
m 1 tic:ilm. At place, where thu wu indeed the cue, Hindu thinken
were clearly wary and Most Hindu reformer,. one bu to admi~ were deeply influ
thinker largely with the radical tradition, or cho,en moral and intellectua l ideals. Ranade, Bbandaral ca.r ll.Dd
;;;, 1uptical. David Hume, it would seem, wu a popular regional
rri= n.mt-poet ,, £k.a&th and
Dennla.n, aod while the ,ociological theories of August Comte
and Herbert Spencer Chandrava rkar were greatly influenced by the Maha.ra.,h
u la.m , Vediin ta and Tantra ;
z Weft extremely 1.Peful for many, their alleged
athebm or agnosticism wa.s certainly not.
recocciled naturalism
Tukaram; Raja Rammohan Roy by hi, pcuonaJ study of
Kc,habcha ndra by the Vai1,:,avism of the Ca.itanya school
to which bu f ~ly adhered ;
0 There ii, however, reason to believe that European thought abo
C God. Fraoci.1 Bacon, whom and the logrc.al rigou r of NOJ17D
&Dd ntloaaliam with Ibo theudc postulate of an omnipresen t Bo.nkimchandra by the co,mology of tho Saq,khya ,chool
centre. Even aJJowrng for
r
81 Rammoban Roy groatly admired, maintained that the law,
of ,uch a God, the oubject of human reverence
of nature clearly revealed
and adoration. Ranade
Nyoya for which Bonga! had traditionall y beon an important
the fact that hi, exteruive travels or penonal meeting, wtth
Eu ropean schobn like Max
rr:-1 the exiatenceinlloeaced by the Natural Theology of A.C. Fruer and JO far a, one can Muller and Po.uJ Deuuen might have Jef( a mark on Vivekanan
da., there can be 00
wu deeply
m a, he called it) gvra. the Brihm"-(! m)'Ric,
C)
m l see, tbi, did
not prove incongruent with the theutic piety (Bhagavatis d~ubt that '.he greatest single influence upon him w&:1 hu
European who left a deep Engluh and spokl! in nuac
that be imbibed from the Mahara,htr ian saint•poeu. Another Sri Ramakrish na Paramaham ,a (1836-1886) who knew no
Ro who also clalmed that nature R&mmoha n. Vivekanand d
i's mark oa Ranade wa, Joseph Buder, Buhop of Durham,
aad n,vealed roUgion could be undentood io the light of the Jame
general law,." While
parable,." It i• important to note that u in the ca,e of
parted signifiantl y from the non•dualut ph ilo,opher .!bm!Gira,
hut JO tuated hmuelf ~iru':
k it u entirely pouible, u P.u,de claim,, that traditional Hindu
thinking ,aw no contra•
an ocdrya parampara. the lineage _of •piritual teachPu.
Hi, difference ., with $amkara
(') with some mod-
diction betweeo reuon and revelwoD, thU Jeeau ro be
also the cue
therefore,have .t? be Jeen eueabally LJ a conliauari on of exegetical practices (&Jrf
0 r..-y society could b:
r ern Europeans. common In tTo.d1t'.o~al Jodi~. That powerful cnhque, of contempo
r Pande'1 arpmeou would 1eem to be funher quaJified by
the pronounced angJophile Englub or the ~•fit of we st •
m English education and pure developed .by md11ndual, with no formal knowledge of
ten denda iD cert.a.in reformer, acro1.1 the country. "Pure .n, the autbor of th T
C)
r., in Beng&.I and have since cm educau?~ u amply demon,tra ted by the euly R&mmoba
re!ipc,111 reformat.ion commeac.e d aJmo1t at the aame Ume
f•t•l•M,u,unh,din (1803), Yishnubab a Brabmocba ri, the
author of V,dokladh onno e ,.;:,:-
s gone on parallel lines." ob1erved the noted reformer, kshabchan
dra Sen (1838-84)."
(1859.), Dayan•nd Sara,wati, the author of the SaryanA
Pr k .It ( 1875) tpr A
0 scholar wu worth a thou• and Sa.1ot ~ -
c;:; la Maharuht n, Lokahitawadi'1 claim that •a 1ingle Engli1h llngar in South India who founded the '"Sanma.rga
movem:n' ;: lho.t
ent.•'
uJ religion and aimed at eradjcating barrif'rs or cut~.
and pandiu•n would have cau.ed Macaulay himself some embara.um creed or co~::'!-e d a.n uruver-.
r=: we,tem ldeu "con• r th . ·
m F'10olly, even u Pande might argue otherwise, attempll to ma.Ice It would be Important nonethele, , not to Jo,e sight of th
giving reform a conservativ e edge. lo e act at ID modern India,
form• lo Htadu lradilioas ,ometime, endod in
the North Weot Provine••• Satchidaaa nd Slaha (1871-1950) cited
and
Herbtrt Spencer In
could not be ha,•
tra dltioa wo., indeed put to some unique and innovat
a tradltloaa.J parallel for. lummohan 's use of the 8 ,.,:;:.,::e~;}~
would be ha.rd t~ find
Ng,I n furthenng soc,aJ r~
,upport of hi, arpment that reform olway, proceeded gradually fom,, more •peclllcally, in fighting the cruel rite of Sat · ••
general duapprova l tnterestu,g ii Ute way
,..,ed by any 1ocla.J Afitadoo or punitive Jaw,." la Bengal, Comte', modem Hindu reformers detected mean1og(ul parallels ~etw:e:u
of leCODd raamasa la mea and women WU u1td to ltrengtben the argument
against
(1879-1952), a prod· the weatern. Thu, It i• not 10 surprising that Ran d h
ind,~now thought u,d
wid- marriapa. la Maliaruhtr a, Sankar Ramchand ra RaJwade ~e •omewhat putJal lo the
onJ.S. Mill being medieval Vaitl)av•Vedintln, IUmanuJa ,. •Ince In ~o~; ~~:d
uct of Deccan College, approvingly cited Principol F.W. Bain'• remark• nadvoJta and Bacon 1an phi-
and the vlow that women lo,ophy, he would have found the Idea of a wo Id
"one of the qlllnteueatJaJ alaeteentb century hopeleH ldlo11• by divine presence u,d
worldly activity a■ only re0ectlng divine play. ,'
5 11
p~rrnehate.d
ougbt aot to be educated oo the nme Jina u men." In recent
times, A,reha.oand a DharaU m ar y , t ~ tdca that habitual practice
 d Stationery Store
Pradeep Xerox a~ Kiror\ Mal College
Hindu College ar:i 9711491324
813046242 I go
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Tit, Ilka / Sooal Fl,form aJ1d iu ~a,no,,gHi,idw o/Nindunlh Cmtury India
NniJaP. Sm
119

infa,,ticlde, widespread among Rajput.,Jat and Ahir commuort>a 10 aorthcn> b,dla, the
of good work wu the most reliable mea.ns of self-improvement that Hindu graduates
Jadeju In Gujarat or lhe Bedis and Khatri, In the Punjilb wu noticed u arly u 1800
would have imbibed from J oseph Butler, Benjamin Kidd or Herbert Spencer would have
but aboluhed by law only In 1870, thank.a to some penutent elTorts by coloaial olfi..
been only buttressed b y the traditional Hindu idea of seine., work. Perhaps it is this
cials. What is indeed remarkable here is thal allowing for ratt exuptioaa, the Hindu
overlap of moral theory and social praxu that 1<ccounts for the immense popularity that
did not produce a.ny sustained agitation on the iuue ... Not ,urprising!y, the standard
" work like the Gita attained in modem limes. Reformist projects or the nineteeoth
monograph on the subject is put together almost cxcJu,jvely on the buis of oftidal
century were i ndeed driven by a self-corucious belief that human agency had unlimited
records. 111 Oo the other hand, u is cow ooly commonplace.. the widow marriage qaa-,
powers of social construction . "'It is not what you have but what you yourselves become
tion created great furor even when, in the words of one cootem.poniy, it did Dot affect
that makes or ma.rs a man's or nation's history," Ranade wa., to argue before the Sixth
over •seventy percent of Indian womec".n The act of reform also implttd cattfu1 de-
Socia.I Conference." S. Subramania Iyer (1842-1924), as one contemporary noted, was
keen lo establish "'the right of action as d..ict.at.ed by an enlightened conscience and dicLat.es liberations on appropriate strategy, On the whole, difTerenca over processes and pxo-
cedures lingered even when some broad consen.3u.s coWd be ~.iddy reached oa the
of equity."~'
Intentions of improving self a.nd society could be born of keen observation and agenda. Sometimes, the pace at which reform was to be canied out wa., a far more
sensitivity but tum more effective when grounded in so.me social a.nd et~ic~l .theo;Y. la cootested is,ue lha.n the need for reform. Above all, we must not overlook. ~
Maho.ra.shtra, Butlers'• wrilings palpably strengthened ideas about lhe md1v1dual s ac• in penonal temperamcnl. There were people who were not i,nduly per!DJbcd by the
countability to society at all timcs.u In Bengal, Ba.nk.imchandra tried to reformulate the fear of social pressure and did not visibly alter lheir reformist pl&m:. La a few ~ the
traditional paradigm of Dhanna m the light of writings of several conte~porary Euro~ conservative party themselves relented and withdrew their oppo.sitlon. Tuljic:a.a,. Chu•
can writers including Seeley, Renan, Comte, (the anthropologi,t) Tylor, Mill and Marx . nilal Khandwala (b.1858), a social reformer from Gujar"~ withstood social excommllZ11·
ft 1s quite .significant that Hindu writers of the nineteenth century were n~t only keen cation by the Vi.slro and Lad Dasha Bania jati for over two deades uotiJ it wu lifted by
the Bania, themselvea in 1932." On the other hand, thttt were also tho.., who lackrd
to disseminate moral education among the youth but free~y borrowed the v~tal ~lemen~
thereof from non-H indu sources. In Bengal, the translation of the Sansknt !lllopadl.Ja .such courage and deserted the reformist ca.mp at the slighte,:t pretext. The latter ac-
couots for frequent backtracking amoog reformer, and some shodting iac0DS1Ste:ncy.
( l820) had :u:rually been preceded by lhe Nitihathii (1818) and the Bahudanfan (1820) Posterity, however, shou)d sufficiently al)ow for the {act that reform often urived i.o
. "all pilations of moral aphorisms, taken from English and Arabic
which were cssenaln . Y_dcomtally the Aesops Fables had been translated by one Tarinicha· com plex package, wherein several issues could be delicately intertwined. Some marmen
.sources. In Beng me• en '
were visibly discomfited by this and argued thal reform issues ought to be ta.ka> ap
ran ~irra as euly a., ~!~3~:c final point about the impact of the West on the modem individually. Na.rasimba Chinlamani Kclkar, eminent Mantbi journalist and fricad of
, Thu l~a.ds me toe ':'a.sc or nineteenth century Bengal, one schola~ has drawn ou~ at- Bal Gangadhar Tilak ( 1856-1920), alleged lhat early roform movements Row.dettd
Hmdu mmd. [n th f "voluntarism" and the remarkable proliferauo.n of several km~s precisely be<:ause they attempted too much. The aame aentiments,. I fiad wen: ecboed
tention t~ the cultu~e ~ ns debs.ting clubs or philantiuopic bodies ..w Thi,. [ would ,ubmll,. by the Gujanti reformer, Balwantta.i Kalyanrai Thakon: (1869-1952) ... Kelbr allepd
of instirunons, asso~ali::b~r to the ensuiog debates on reform for they stren~cned the that in the event or widow muriage5.t to cite an example, reformen wowd cJaim .,....
was a kind of ~uruun or civic and social responsibilities and created great •.otellectual sounding victories simultaneously on thrtt fronu-the marriage or a widow in the teed:t.
notion of pubhc apace, . nment of debate and discuuioo. Even in the P\inJab, whe~e of oppositlo11, the weakening of cute (since in 1uch ca,eo, the cute ol d,e ...yt,,c
ferment through an ~nviro ·v I late eoplc actually made a living by runni~g pubhc couple often varied) and the reclamation of an abandoned woman. Such claims, if I
weatcm education arnvcd '.elati ;:.,ial U~ion (of lhe 1860s) which aubsequcntly uwolved read Kelk.ar conectly, only more: provocatively threw I.he challenge to the CODNl"W'a-
debating forum•"· The Guiarall f began as • debating club for young men who tive:!I. Problems al.so arose when a reformer WU expected to aufl'er a 1ucceaioa of per-
it.self with que.stions of soc1alu~1i::m~&king." The problems confronting Hiodu society sonal sacrifice,. Thus Dewan Raghunath Rao of Madrao would aciually officiate u prieol
sought training in the a.rt : ~handr~vark.ar once observed, were by no mea~: new but ia widow marriage, but DOI stay back for the comm11nity feut that followed lor fcv ol
. the nineteenth cenrury r' d'sposal certainly appeared lo be so . losing cute." Happily, acceptable compromioes were-sometimes reuhed whenby . .
:;:e lnsuumeau now at the reforme a •
reformer's pride could be somewhat salvaged and the coJUervativc, kept ........,. /
RACfiCAL NUANCES OF REFORM conceoded, R.a.uade 1 who refused to rrcant even under preuure from tile Supbrldrya
THE P
e nineteenth century, as I havet=
lo th I
::i
I' ,uggestcd the term• reform and change did
required' change o~ modification w .. per·
• intencct. Not every ~al i nn Conversely, some mue• 1h31 were so per•
of .Karvir Math (for aldiag with the pro-widow mu-nag. party) placated~'
sentiments by DOI marrying a widow blmael( whco his rana wife died and IOcially boy·
cotting his friend and one time co-worker, Vishnu Sastri PandiL,.
not a way ·ssue coocemiog soc1a re o . I ocial problem,. Thu, the evils of female
ceived as an ' ·Jy represent univena '
ceived, did not necesaan
 122

Andhra, th e local supporters of the Brahmo Samaj led by the bribm&Q reformer. Vira,-
.~ .
- I There were, or coune, tharp critics of piecemeal refonn. The Parsi rcfonncr, Behramji salingam Paatulu ( 1848- 1919) observe d d11tmcbo0• of uste aod chose to call th<.m.dve•
E,\, M. Malabori (18S3-1912) noted how It wu •• mockery to speak of female education in the Prarthna Samaj." In Guj uat likewise, Bholanath Sa.nbhai (1822-188'!) of the Ahmed-
r., a country suffering from the cune or Infant marriages.•" R.P. Pu-anjpye, whom I ha.vc abad Prartboa S•bha preferred to ,ide with th e Bombay Prarthoa SamaJ nther than the
~ cited earlier, made the pertinent pomt that it wu not proper to reform by bib a.nd Lhat Brahroos of CalcuUa. The. Ahmedab ad Sab ha barred lta membership to antoucbablet
>< the evil, of a single act of Injustice never ended with illelf but propog•ted IL!elf in {though allowrng ChrislianJ) and di d not in1isl oo scrupulou.sly avoiding idolatrous
~ numcrou, way1." In hind,igh~ however, it might be Wd that the critiques or Paranjpyc practices.0 After the 18701 or so, the ques tion of ca.s te indeed served to acveT Bengal
0 u,d Malabari though monlly impeccable, were socially a trifle unrealistic. A, a social from western 1Lnd southern India.. Bengali BrahmoJ were unpopular eveo in the PDaJa.b,
>::: being, a ~former could not always be e.xpectcd to lei his moral convictions and con• not particularly known for Its cute-conflicts and thi•, notwi thstanding the bet lhA1 ,ome
()
~
;;j ·
I aittency of action get the better of hi• social con,tralnl!. In a.ny case, pleu for all-round,
comprehensive reform could al,o be made with entirely different purposes. Keshab
Chandra Sea disapproved of the idea of segregating reform into man and woman re·
of the greatest public figures of nineteenth century Punjui nsch a.s Ruehl Ram Sahru
and Dyal Singh Majithia either spent • part of their lives in C alcutt.a or eJJe d e veloped
stroog personal links with BeopHs. u
;:.:, lated reform. •Why abould we get up I.D exdurive movement for the so called woman's In part, the attitudes di.splayed by reformen from variou.s p rovince.> re.fleeted the
right" he ulted, "If women are fi~ they must have their right, and privileges""· In the course of provincial histories. In Maharubtn.. where Hindu poweT la.sted longer and

zt:; 1890., Vivekana.nda too was to warn his followers against excessive meddling with
woman'• iuues." He~ it may be tempting lo conclude that men were finally coming
where the political tnnsition in modtrn limeJ wu not nece-.s.su ily accomp&aicd by
significant changes in social structures, reform had an euy p•ced a.nd leu polanzed
C round to grant women their autonomoUJ ageoc.y and .1pace. The underlying intention, hi.nary. Io late medieval Bengal, attempts lO revive widow ma.mage.s b.Ad bee n fnu tr3 l·
() however, wu onJy to reiterate a sense or re,tn.int and caution. ed by tJ1e coo1ervatbm of some Hindu umindan: and lhe ap:at.by or the Mwlim ruling
0 clau. In Maharuhtra, by contrast, brahma(l Peshwas had not oaly allowed widow
r
r II marriage at lea.st among non-brihmar:u, but even collected a L&X 00 iL" la Bengal. the
m early consolidation of BritiJh power, the spread of modem education. the siguifie&Dt
0 The coune or H1odu reform, it would appear, wu a.lso .tignlfic11.ntly modulated by in-
m transformation of the local economy all contributed to crtale an exaggerated Jeuse or
ter-n,gioa al differences. Both Ranade and R.G. Bhanduku (1837-1925) expressed some
rupture with the pa,t, Thus the well-known Bengali hutoriao R .C . Majumdar, uJU.al ly
fl:<> upis.b al the aUeged tendencies among Bengali reformers to pu.th religious reform at
;,; .situated within Hindu-oationali.1t historiography, once claimed that only fony year, or
the upente or the 1oclal." This ,eem, to be a reuonable 1,1.1essment but for the fa.ct
English education had produced greater ch;jlJ]ge in fellow Bcngalll than bad been pos-
k that the Prartlun Samaj too 1 where R&n&de and Bha.ndukar were leading figures, wu
sib_le lo the preceding thoun~d ycan." Since colonialism ch;anged the face of Ba,apl
() preoccupied with rellgiout queltion1." Ranade a.Isa appears to be curiously ill-informed quickly and more comprehe011vely, the Hindu re;actioo to th.U wa.s also to develop fair ly
0 about development.I in Bengal since at one place he daim1 that the law against Sati was
r ea.rly. Ranade ~imself noticed this pandox when he argued how Bengal, in relatioo to
r pused five years after lummoban's death." A well-known historian of Indian soci.al the re,3t of India, wa.s both more .tocially progressive and conurvative_N Thou h the
m reform claims that ii wu Bhau Dajl who persuaded Keshab Ch&odra to more actively
0 modem widow marriage campaign wa.J fant launched here, Bengal actuaUy ce1e!rated
m promote the luu of female education." Coavenely, it wu Keshab Chandn, who i., /e':'e_r morri•g~• compared to Gujarat, Maharuhtn or cou~ Aadhra." By the 1880s,
3:' believed to have convinced Bhaadukar that spiritual reform should by all mean, pre- ~usionary cnuques ha.d oaly 3Crvcd to hardea conservative fee l ings in Bcnpl &nd here
0 cede IIOdal reform.n ThiJ iJ quite consistent with Kesbab's own thoughl!" and with that •~ would only be apt to recall 1he controversy that Bankimcb1L11dra had wtth Rev. Wil-
~ of othn emineat BengalU. Vivekananda, in a letter to his di.lciple, Aluinga Perumal, liam .Ha.sue of the General Auembly's Institution, Calcut~ on the alleged idolatrow
r- expreue-d identical sentiment.." Benplh themselve-1 acknowledged signinc&nt dirTcr•
":1 practices a.mon~ wester:" educated Bengalis.•• In South India, to cite a ve: diffueat
eoca between coodiboo1 prevailing Ul their province Uld eliewhere. ln lhe early 1860., e~~ple 1 • nocw1thstandmg the longer history of Hindu-Chrisllan conffict:'EW"o ca.a
when touring South India, .Ke1hab Chand,- observed bow local women moved about m1~s1onan~s we_rc actually encouraged to .1dvance the cause of reform .., Such diffe~coc-
in 1U1covered palaoqula1, 1ometblag which be believed to be quite unthinkable ia c1 m public &UJtudes would reveal that wherea, 10 the 1860 M dru
Benpl. 11 lo the 18901, Vivekananda noticed how, unlike contemporary Bengal, Madras a. "benighted" province ll.nd "unprepared" for .,higher" goa.1/'it h:d in m;y have beea
hMI not gone ioto •the play or action and reactioa•. 11 Pa.radox.ically, other provinces years or so, taken s1gnifica.nt strides towards social p 8 .j c next thirty
abo came in for some adverse eommeot and c.ritici,m rroru vi.1iting Bengali1. Even u cootra.sl, was the hot-bed of both miliLanl nationalism :~::'~ial;n~~ i? the 1890a, by
he prailed the freedom of movement unong the women of Madru, Kesh&h felt that oa In a sense, Maharashtra, ?ujuat and South India made more m~anincgflionary attuud~s.
the wbole, the province wu "lamentably backward" and ant ripe enough for the "gnnd en the fact that Bengalu somehow never lived d h ul prog,ess g,v-
Sa.tflkar.iciryft. un er l e fear or stistris or the
movemeall that the Brahmo Samaj wu developing in Bengal."" Roughly ten yeu, later,
the Brahmo mluloaary Slbnath Sulri (1847-1919) wu shocked to find that in coastal
 Tht ldm of .»CIOl lvft1rt1t •~
124
Ill OtrifW l'IJlll.llf Htndw of Nuld«t1tlt C-mtm)' India 123

{levira.te) &nd the rwa,amva,a {the pn.ctl c.e of women personally and pubbcly chooti:Dg
Som~ rela.lc:d po m u: of Interest ma.y be briefly introd uced here In the opinio n of
the groom)... The fear of female prom ltC\.llty, of women them.telvu aylag to ut re-
some .s ola.n, som e rcform-,uucs originated not so m uch at the r~a.lm of idea., u in
formi st oorm.s or choosing to lead iodependent lives, u on e can see, ""'ere Cean com.-
;c.n ;1 n ~ractica.1 soc,a.1 problems . 1n the l960s, the bistorikn Benoy Ghosh offered the
moo to reform er, a cross H indu lnd iL.,
a.ir Y on,guia.J and interesti ng thu11 that 10 Bengal, the mov e to abohsb Sa ti and co•
courage w,dow ma.mage.r were moUva.ted by tho desire lo resolve a social crb 1s of soru
THE MANIFOLD CRITIQUE OF REFORM

p==
facc:-d by the rcrhl bli"i brihmar,s, the JOii to whi.ch both Rammohan a nd Vidyuagar
belonge~. Ghosh argued that the 1ong-st.a.ndmg stnctu res against wido w ma.rr iagcs and The sharpest critiques of reform ue usually uaociated with the c . o ~ backluh §
the mulbplc ma.rnages among rt:1.rhl kvlfo males had left ma.ny wo men iu ueleu, result·
10g ,n a steady decline 10 the numeric.al strengt h or the com munity. Th u problem was
then sought to be rcdre.s.sed through rescuing wome n from self-immola.tJo n a nd encour·
;~~; ~:~:,::'~o~ :•r.'::~::1u~~,:f,~o ,:;~~y~a~!1;;;~'~7
8 0
~
0 8
1;:::::
of H iadu reactiooary attitudes wa.s .seeo i n some quarters u th e 11pu of dialoya.Jty &Del
2

aging remuri•ge .• lncldenta.lly, thi1 th esis stands in sh arp contra.st to the cl aim s put scdlUon. tn Bengal, the conservative but extremely popular Ben.pli daily, chc &awpAi,i. -
forwa.rd by .nother Bcngal t, Swami Vivelta.nanda in th e ninetee nth centu ry It.self. The wu lned fo r publishing •sediUous" m&&ter, .Jbeit uiuuccusfully "'
Swami considered the whole idea of 'Widow muriage to be socially tn equitable since in Beginning from about the 1820s, one objection common.Jy &.ad q uite puaonately Q
hn opinloo.. every widow remarried meant a virgi n den ied." T here are, in any ca.se, raised from lime to lime wu that relating to the intervention of a.o alle11 gov aoCIMDl ~
two difficulties With Ghosh'• the,is . In the first place, it is only retro,pective ly th at one in social a.od religious m aUcn concerning Hindu.a , lo the evly nineteenth cemany, the --
may c.on.n ect the two iuucs of di.scouragmg San· and en couraging wido w marri ages Ram- oppositiooit t.s were also the aclc.ouwledged ddeoden of the fai th a.Ad appareutly fo,md ~
moh1.n himself does not app ear to ha ve see n the connection since he made V1dyua• some encour.gement from Orieotaluts like H .H . Wilson ( 1786- 1860 ) who feh 11,a, if ~
gar1 1 ta..sk all the more difficult by looking up i ii.Jin , support fo r asce tic widowhood . nol interfered by the state, the Hindu, would prove to be their owu reformers.•~ the
Further, 1t cannot be sheer coinc.idence that the ro rhi agitation should have cHmu ed in yea.n adva.nced 1 matten were further complicated by the fact that certain rcformut bocba
colonW lnd1a and n ot at aome earlier point in time, given the long·sta.nd ing nature of like the Bn.hmo Samaj actually sought government intervc.ntion over promulgating a
the prob lem. It i1 also not JUSl to prOj CCt men like Ra.mmoha.n and Vidya.ngar merely separate marriage act for the Brahmot. What proved oo leaa unpala.ta.ble wu the emet•
u spolc.csmen for ra rlu hulin.; one has o.l so to lAk.e into account th e ir outstand ing per• geoce of non-Hindu reformen of aJ.1-lodia 1tanding of whom Lhll! bat known example
soo al qualities of courage tiid compa.ssion a.s also the significantly different ideological ls the .Pani 1 Behra.roji Malabari. Jo a leacr that he wrote to the Bombay Go.cm.meat
a.nd social c.1rcumstu1ces 10 which they were operating. in 1885, Rao Ba.h•dur V.N. Mandlik (1833-1889) took seriow exception to the pnblic
In the runetcen th century, reform a.long cute lines or when conducted by caste lead circulation of Malabari'• Nora on Infant Mamap anJ Eftjorud W"°'"Aood (1884) on the
en, coul d &110 produce qWte am bivalent results . On the more positive side, there is, for grou.nd that a non-Hindu could not be expected to poaaea any intimate lmowl~ of
instan ce, the app recia bl e 1ucceu gained by ce rta.in caste ass ociations of upper Ind ia the Hindu tradition nor the day to day life of Hindu,. Maa.d.lik atroJllgly contested I~
such u the Kayastha Sa.bha tn th e North Western Provinces" or even the Jat Pat Toda.k Ma.Jabari 11 contention of widowhood being "enforced• on Hlodu women. c1aimi.a, ta- _
Maudal (founded io. 1912) in the Punjab. On the other hand, cutes were al,o known lo stead that a large majority of such women, out of deference to their lndltioa aad tlNi,- • Z.
go back 00 the ir reformis t visions or el1e huden their &ttitudes with respect to social dutie1 u wife and women, entertained no lhought, on IKOod m&l'li.ace·• 0
reform. In the mid l930s, the Ja.t Pat Todalc. Manda) wu discourte ous enough to bar While the 1treogtb of their convictiont or sentiment c&DDOt be do1&b&ed. COIINl"Ya&iwe )(
B R. A.mbedkar from speaking a.t a meeting to wh ich he had been originally invited as objections to state intervention in aoclal maa.en do begin to look a little rpedou pvm O
· e,t spea'ker-all in the name of orthodox preuure. In Maharashtra.. the Marathas the fact that the con.Jervative party wu itMU guilty of soUcitiag such help_ u for iJt. ?.:
a ~ ome other intermed iary jdris began discouraging widow marriages In their respec-
:e- :ommu.nities in the hope of gaining some social and ritual_ mobility._Even in_the
lBBOs, it wu clear that widow marriage wu no longer a 1pec1fically brahma.o prob-
sta.oce_over fighting the radical &Dd •atheiat1c• lnJhaences of the .Anclo-lDdiaa teac:ller,
Derozio al Calcutta or demanding dwiag 1886-1887, that tho - • ...., uilciat law IO
fore• rebelllou, wives to rejoin !heir bu,banda."' In truth, lho gn,wl11g oppooilioa IO
>(
:,..
!ij
lero." A a.i m ilar u-end ba., bem Couod for late nin~leeo.th ce~tury Bengal.•• In the Pun· 1tateinterfereuce wu direclly proportional to the ttbuff Iha, educated HlndWI ll1lhnd f\0
. . dl c.a.steJ like Ahalri1 cnc.ouras;ed widow mamage, bul from mixed mo• lo the unequal .contest for power wlth the colonial nahog cluaea aad &he rau1dq ~
J;:;/
al
0
:'"::en:S:ork on gco.der relations i~ ~c province demonstrates how this. wu
ootcd lo growing puntan ism and an,ueetes a~out the u_nattached, woman. Widow
popularity of ldeu of 1elf-sufficleacy and ,elf-help. The Bengali paper s.w.w...,; (ol 21 / <>:
April 1878) and • cone1pondont of the Ja.JaSIA S.....ica, in the Nonb Wu, ......._.
so r c:- thu• abo came to be seeo. as the restoration or a 1ingle m~ .' control over a put this very well wben they ob,erved Iha, wbereu In politics, one had to c..-1y
ma.mag,. B the clote o f the nineteenth century, the Arya SamaJ 1ts~lf wu pretty
:;:;~.el a.bou.t Swami Oayananda' s recommend auon1 oo the r1!'v1val of myoga
1truggle against an alien and umympathetic b1.ueaucracy 1 social reform repruea.&ed 11
domain that belonged eotlrely to the Hindu, themselves. ia 1n \he 1880.. thia wu alao
 125 12G

".:J tcinfon;:~ by the oew westuu theon es on lh e organ ic n•.ture of slate a.nd JOCicty. These dl,allowa cha.nge",112 Such argument.s do appur a 1nnc harsh if only for the rea.soo tlat
s:'. uoderacored lhc pra,Clle:al limilt lo individual medietion aod further suggested that aJl io th e nineteenth century ft.,elf, it seero.s to have ca.med a range of mnmn1J. Thou~
b \.- culturu could be bttl undentood through their own conccprua.l vocabuJuy and 1ccu- sharp ly critiqued by Ranad c in his now fa.mou1 &ddreu before the Eleventh Social
~ malated common t~o1e. Thw the ooted Bc"Qga.11 cducationitt Bhudeb Mukhopadhya Conference (Amrao h, 1897).iu u Jomethi ng antiquanan. obsolete and reacbonazy, the
""O (1827-189-4) could argue that 1ocieties ~·hJch had loll their politicaJ power did not a.Jso te rm also figu red in th e refor mist discourse in a. more positive sense . At one leve.l h
>< loae: thei.r 1ocial soverci.gnty. • Mabadcv Siva.ram Golc. 1o mctime Principal, Fcrguuon Jeems to have bee n used u a corTcclive to re form bt cxccuet, an anguuhed cry for
~ College.. produced two Marathi works in quick succession or
wbkh the fint., BroAl"Mn a.dhering more closely to Ind igenous ideal,. Al a d iffere n t level, it rela.ted the .su.rcb for
C ""' IJ•1tci Vid,JG {1895) advocakd I.he re.tum of brthma.(ls to power and the 1ccood, these idea.ls 10 a renewed pride in a cuefu lly co nJ tructed pa.sL At a thi.rd JcVel~ it coaJd
>< Rnul""""-o •ni ~ n o (1898) ru.mma.rily rejected 1ecular reform .»• be s1.1d to more aggressively defin e and d eroa.rcale th e bo unda.riu of •Hmdv" a.od
Q Repttably, the oppooeots of state iotef"enb.on were oot men who themselves seized "Hinduism·. All these possible nuances .1u rfacc in lh e cootroveny th at Ula Lajpat Rai
z ~ ia..ita&.tive for reform. On the cootnry, auch opposition was often accompanied by (1865 -19 28), the Arya leader, once had with lh e veteran Brahmo mi.u,ooary. Srboath
~ a very gradu&.list approach to social c:h&JJ,ge. Mutdlik.. who wa., consistently In opposi- Sutri during October-November 1895. Con testing Sutrl 's all eptioru of abetting 30C:.ia1
;:::, don to the idea of int.erve.oboo by the st&le or by non-Hindu,, wu al,o hard to say a.nimosity through the Vedic revival and the move to readmit convc.zts, Lajp&1 Rd io
tbal •balf a douo Railway• would sett1e a hundred social questJont more quickly and tum accuaed the Brahma Sama.j or being a. denationalized body, closer i.0 fa.Ith to Mmlims
z
C
ctnaiDly lhan two hundred lectures•. 1• Importantly, lower cute movemenu did not
■hue u:y or the iahibiDon1 a.pin.It sodaJ legislation. Phu le, in fact. was one of the few
and Chri1tia.ns than the Hindus themselves. The Arya Sa.maJ, he argued wa.s a refo nm.st
body more than anything else since for it, '"an unreformed Hiad u is n earer tha.o oae
C tupporten or Ma.labari during the stormy decade of the J880s. Ramu.ml Naicker who renounces the Hindu reltgion."u4 II is amply clear from th1J controveny how H md u
n believed that tlale could be u.aed co revolutioniu the condition• in society. 1• In this. cultunl perception•, though intenecting a.l many points, couJd also d iffer given th e
0
r ooe bu to •y, they were extremely cou~ou.a but Llso somewhat unrealistic. It wu varyiog historical experiences of dlfTerenl regions. In nmeteenth century Punjab. whe:a
r DOt Malabari: 1 auaade itxlf that led the colonial state lo pus the Age of Consent Act
1
Sikhs, Muslims a.nd Hindus were a.JI running their •purification" movemenu through a
m
0 iD 1891 bw 1111omalle■ la existing law which the state alone could set right. The colonial series or cultural excisions, the mea.ning, or reform and revival could be pe..ruptibly
m •tale, furthermore, bad DO iatenlioaa of overtum.lng eJtablished social structure. and different from whn.t they were in contemporary Bengal
R- nlatiomhips.. therd,y unduly antagoDUinr a wide crou-1ectioa of Hindus but especial• lroolcaJly eoougb, Hindu chauvinism or soda.I conservatism, wh ich, for mo.st p~ple
A ly1 tbe politically U'tic:ulate., educated middle clau. Pragmatic considerations of self-prea- ls quite interchangeable with Hindu revivalism, was perhaps th e fint to obj ect to th e
3:: ervalloa were alway, uppcnnost lo the minds of the English ruling claues. Bentinck use of the term revival. In reviewing a cla..ssic treatise by the con.serva tive spoke.am.au.
n puaed the law against Sod only aft.er he wu convinced that there exhced no real threa.t Chandr&nath Ba.su, Hindutwa, Hindur Pralm'ta lliho1 (1892), the reviewer dted the ugu-
0 of dlha- o f ~ agn:uion or internal rebellion. He wu also lo later admit that the ment.s or Buu to uk if "Hindu revlvalum• wa., at all an apt expreuion given the !act
r
r
r:,
govenuneot would have been more cautiout ba.d the anli-Sah law initiated among the thal Hioduiim itself had never died. 1u Oddly, this objection returned with a ve.o.ge.a.oce
0 "bold and ......iy people of th• Upper province,• .1'" With Beogalls, evidently, he wa.s io a work th:it shues none or the conservative ideology.'" All the same.. the difficulty
m oa ..r.. ll""'Dds· with iuch objections u that here, the term revival iJ read much too liten.J.Jy. In bi.,
3:: A doRr look ac the coune of modem Hindu reform wi11 reveal that the slate wu rejoinder to Ranade's Amrao<i address, Lajpat Ra.i argued, quite succincc.Jy, that the e.aure
0 qllita complidl in geoe:rally apboldi.ag a patriarchal conservatism. Lucy Caroll hu dem- revivalist campaign wu selective in 1t.s uae of the past and reJected Juch eleme.au a.s
c:: omtnled that in adjudicating cases concerning widows, both European judgu and Indian were clearly unsuited lo modern life.'" If the reference to the pa.st ipso facto sepuated
r=
m wen equally under its spell.• Rulunabal who eveotually losc the much debated Bhika- the revivaJist from the refonnc'r, many eminent Hindu reform ers , one would have to
~ ji-Rulunabal case at the Bombay High C,ourt wu later to write lo her friend, Pa.ndita n.y, would abo have to be labelled as revivalist.s. R.G Bha.ndukar. though oever ac -
Ramabai. how in th&t in.stance, European judges, officl.Js a.od Indians on the side or cused of being ooc, ia known to have a.s.sured fellow-reformers that •by ieek.ing the
the plalatiff, Bhibji, were brought together by certain corumoo loteresu. lot several reforms that we have in view, we ceruunly shall not be I.liking a lup in the dark
for tb_e c~ndltion of our society once wu what we ue now endevounng to rna.ke iL• ••
Ill "':"d 1ron1cally _enough, notw1thstandiog hi, bitter sarcasm against rcvivaLsts, Rana.de
himself could duplay promint:nl revivalist overtones. Thus whereas Brah mos themselves
la h111oric&l tu.rvey1 of the Hindu reform movements, reform is generally seen to have
had no reservallons in aclmowl~dg,ng their intellecru&.) and m o ral debts to the West
mel ill nemeril ta revival. •in • 1e111e, nvtvaJ wu the negation of seculu social re-
&nd to Chnstlamty, RAnAde d_e~1cted them a.s men conhnumg the labours of an •old
form•, writn &he hiJtori&n Taruhanku B&nerjee. 11• Othen too have identified it with
11 nee, u old u Lhc B~agavadgua and the Bhag.vat Purlna•. 1• Reform could not have
1endmental uti•iDtellectuaJi.nn• 111 and a "misleading concept that effects clorures and been opposed to revival for it wu the very idiom In which 1 t spoke.'"
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CONCLUDING REMARKS
Contra')· lo 'li\-·h•t crll.i cs hkc Da.1mia h•vc llll<'gcd , n:vlva\lsm did not •lwa.y1 carry a ~
pt:jont1Vc meaning or ,nvuubly produce c1osurcs 111 for, chanHe of some kind wu ln eucncc, this eua.y has •tt.empt.ed to foc.w on the problem or ho"" ccnain 1deu, ~ ~
codcmk lo the p roj ect h u not the rcv lv•llst who cou ld have opposed ch a. ngc but contlnulng In dmc, may bt brought forth and purpo11vely arucu\ated at 1pedti.c. h ~-
tho s c who defined thclr lflc.i1I and religious being not with rd crc ncc to what 11 migh t 1caJ conjun cru res. Wh Ue contt nu\tiu a.re alway ■ 1mporta.n~ Lo overe:xten.d these m~y often ;c;
have been ln the put but the 1um tot.a) of whl.l It wu In the prese nt. The rcvlva.lisi, lead one to historical • nu hronu m. It iJ one 1.•nng LO say that empinca.l obH't"'l"UiO• OD ~_:_
one atrongly fccla, must be rc,cucd from the rcCLc.tiona.ry j ust a.s a patho1o gica.1 rear of society and polity were u much aput of tradition.al lt>dia u they were of the _.i.ru;
change must be dbtmgutshed from support to rcform 1 however inconsistent or fo.ltcri ng. ,t could be qu ite another to 1uggu1 that mode rD 1oclolopal and butoncal theory may 0
ll would be just u important to cmphulxc that in the co nte xt of the ninetee nth be equall y located In pre- modern ti mu Under1tand1ng hiswry P"'ely iD <ama of lw• ::C
century, d1chotom,e.s of "'liberal" and · comcrvativc" need to be sc nously qual ified , 1f man agency and lh ro ugh the use of an empu1wL•pomtin11 fra.m.ework o( caaae a:JMl dlcc.&. :.:..
not cnbuly ovulookcd. JuJt a.a the reformer was often guil ty of backtra.ckiog, th e op• are developments tb al hav e characterized the Hindu miod only nnc.e the a.metenrth ~
po.sidonists, for 1. va.ncty of reasons, could not fu lly duclo,e th ei r reform ist bent of mlnd. century. I would be mcliDed to argue therefore that wbile there c.er1a!nly r--iu •
In ta_rly n,nete-enth cenrury Bengal, dols (factio ns) proved to be a m•jor detcncnt ~ in history of pre-modern Hindu thought negotiating the recurnng problcm.o ol IIOCJU .ad
Mahara.1htra or Gujarat, social boycotting ullcd by caste lea.d en, lti.stris o r th e
Samkaricirya ""ere at work. Penonal dirfere n cc■ too co uld so metime grow into larger
,deationiLI chaDge, this I, DOI necesnnly 1rLD>latable u the paradigm of rd onn. espe- t'.:
ciiLlly u uDdentood ID colonial IDdlL While tradinon.al H,nduum wu known IO ..,.. -=,;
facl1onaliun. T'Jak once alleged tha.t but for oppostt,on from reformers themselves, he crate its own methods and mechanbrn.1 of chaus~ lo the ninetttnth c eDtu.ry. H.indaa ~
would have mort a.c.tsvely ■upported the 11sue or wid ow marriages.I'"' This h nol 1m •
were confroDted by some unique challenge• which then required DCW CODCeptul IOOII ~
probable given the extended controveny Lh•t he had within the Deccan Education
Society with ,neD like Ranade, Bhandarkar but most of all, with GopiLI Gane, h Ag.,hr a.nd Dew methods ol negotiating change. The oldn b rahma111al world-v,ew tried IO
(1806-95), a mao who represents perhaps the D\ost penUtent auempl3 4l bringing sec• situa.te individuals and their work wilhin the prec.once.i.v ed notion or a contuuaou tra•
ul ar reform m nineteenth century Mahuuht.n. lo a.ny case, Tlla.k i! known LO ha.ve dltion (pam,nparo); the modem paradigm of reform put greater faith In the i............. :J
authored a.n article m the Mo ro tho (March 1892) warning the Jdsrri.J not to overreach tallty of human IDterventioD and projected tbil u 1ome lu ad ol monl rapomibility 5
thcmsclvca with the power of excommunlCatloo .m The ideology or militant nationalism that Individuals had towards the community al large. Both tnditlon&J H ladsabm Uld U
also took iu toll fo r b y his own a.dmiuion, Tilo.k wa.s conatra.lned not to support uopop• modern Hindus had their theory ol rights and dutiu but whereu lnditiooally, d111ieo ::,
ular meuures. • There are numerous ways of circumventing orthodoxy,• he once a.dmit- were related to 1tructure1 of family, sex or Jd<~ modem H ind111 saw thiJ u a put ol C
ted before h is Friend aDd lawyer, John Bapt!Jta, ond then went on to add that "the some univenal and impenona.l law.s. ~
o rthodoxy would oat stand tn the way of social reform if it {be) necessary for swuajya." 124 Reform, u I have also argued, wu a contnled paradigm. Broadly apealiing. acb
In Bengal. two of Rammohan's contemporaries, generally clused a.s "orthodox", conu,tallons arose on accouDt of two reuom. Soine of thue obviouly follow.cl fram ffi
dhplaycd ooti or:u of public good, compa.ssion and liberal reformism. On~ of ~em_, a the fact that while tho Idea of reforming ,ociety and religion wu older, Ila ldeolociatl t-
tradi ti onal Pandit u,ociated with Fort Willlam College In Calcutt.a., Pandit Mntun;oy cooteot and active formulation1 WCl'e ruher new. At the aame time. coa.tataaoaa w.ae ~
V ldyalanb.r (1762-1811), actuiLlly anticipated Runmohun in locating i<il<ric authority IUIO produced by the very plunlity of reform-work. In the ainelND&I, camry, ad, U
agalnll So t/. ,u The other wu the more well known RaJ•. Radhakanta Deb, lea~er ol the work hu to be seen u growing out ol both an IDter-<ultunl u well u lnua-aaa-.1 )(
conservative Dha""o Sabha which opposed legislation oo SatL The latte~ was indeed an dialogue. Upper-cute re!onniJt group• lor lmtance, had to simulaneouiy .....,... wtdl, ~
extr1ordlnary figure and deserves greater hlJtorical alteDtlon thaD h~ hitherto been hi, the moral and Intellectual cballeagea emanating from the West and ndicaJ ~ fram w
fate . Sir Radhakanta w:u a member of the Cal~utta School Book Society, wrote 1..1:"ed X
below. Lower-cute movemeoll, na their part, had to contend with the c:&11bou -
a en on cotton and tobacco growing in India, tranalatcd & P~ruan work ~n ho~t1cu\-
vatum of the Hindu upper cutes and the DOH loo eoth111iutic respoDN ha, Illa ......,. fl:j
fu:. Into BeDgo.11, started a girls school at h~me, had no objecuon, lO the d,o,ect1on ol
the human body by Hindu ,tudents of med_,clne and actually encouraged foreign trav•
I t.tt Hb support to woman'• educa.tion 10 tr~cd a fellow member or lhe Dha""a ~abha
~-at he threatened to join a riviLI lacllon. •n Sir Radhakanta opp_osed bo~h the Sah reg·
officiiLldom. By the early twentieth ctntury, men lilo.e hriyar ""'re 1a c-..,rkally re- l:J
ject the very paradigm of reform since !or them, tlua wu only ,nother fonn ol ~ •
~;:v:~~ti:~d::, ~!ro":.~;clua society. Undentandably, tbey pinned their ho,- -,
i
:t.
. and the Bill related lo widow mamagcs and each time, h11 oppo11t10n was ba~ed
ulauon h 0 the iubitanLive content of refonn a.s the procedure thal w1u bemg . For the Hindu,, reform of religion Utd IIOCiety wu aba a -Y of •ffinD"'I - ..-l,
not to muc : the government was accused of going ha.ck on h1 •vowe:d policy within the modern project of reconstituting Hlndu\nn. Beyond a point theftfoft, II tlkl
followed , EachRad~~ ta Deb believed th&t H,odu society would accept chaoges only not really matter whether the c1tegorin of thought u,ed were foreign or lndll"-. U
of neutrality. E "d •~ he did not wish to see them brought about precipitously.
step by atep.,,. v, en y only we were to grant lha.t at one levt\ 1 reform WL\ lnditNI an tnte~ultunl dialopa.
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129

;)? ltbe u.M: ol we.stern catcg:onu of thought or que,tioning could be undentood from two or the UpllDitads, IM On the other ha.nd, modem H1nduum wu q,ute dccu1ve in rt~Ject--
> ' penpecdvu. F'int. thuc c:ould be unden.tood in relation to univernli.JI ideu about a iog II secular culture and In eslablishing soci aJ reform on a rellgiow aile. Quite t eccul·
t,V common intdlecn.aal &nd mo...J Jepcy: of human todety everywhere beJng bound by ly, Peter Vao der Veer bu percep11vely argued that for Ra.aun oha.n, the oppo,itiouaJ
§ ld~bcal la-.n of dnelopment a.nd propuj of aew k.aowJedge being the common categories were •real religion" and "perverted religion• aod that In th i.J way, h e efTec-
""C' property of all mm.kind . In hil deba.tes WJtb Chrbti&n mlulonarie.s. lhe venen..ble Brahma tively circumvented the path or secularism.us To thu1 we may add that R.ammoha.o'•
~ le.der, Debendnna.th Tagore (1817--1905) wu to argue that Baconlan phllosopby wa., very fonctional definition or religion wu In any cue und er atl&Ck by the laLe n10 e-
- no more Christian than HJodu.ut Se-condJy, c.hcir u1e may aJso be undenloo<I u praxb: 1ecntb century. Whereu the R.ajft wu willing lo bring about rchgiou, reform fo r th e
~ the pnaic:aJ &n.d atra.legic needs lo formulue argument, u1ing lne reigning d!Jcourae of u,
sake or "political advantage and social co mfort•, men lilce BhAJJda.rkar an d Rana.de
the day. In the prd,ace to hi, commentary on the Srimod.bltogovotgitO (1902}, Bankim• were to categorically deny that the object or relig,oo was to bnng about a.oy geoen.l
p cband.. Chauopadhyay (1838- 1194) candidly confeued about how all Intellectual com- wcll -bemg,u, However, a greater rebuttal comes from a rcllow Bengali, Swa.tni VIvc-
k&nanda, who also operated within the same philosophical mould of non•dualb Vedan-
Z . mu.aica.t100 with modern, ""'UlUD· educated Bengali, had to be couched in European
ta Vivekan:inda uw socie1y and socia l changes to be by their very oalure 1.n.n,1cory
~ •t
C&lepri• of thought.
a.nd hence mcapable or being a ln.ie mcuurc or 1hings. "We are uked 'what good ls
;:::;: 111 the period under revM:w, HUldu reform W1I both a fixed and evolving category.
It wu fixed in u much u re.form was bToadly defined u a corrective to milconstrued your religion to your society'? '" He complains at one pla.ce, "Society u m&de the Le.st or

z
c;
faith and .oc::ial malpractice. Beddu.. foT moat re.formera, the •Good Society'" wu locat•
ed i.D some Idyllic put and reform. 1n tlwi 1eD.1c, wu but the re1toratioa or some lost
Truth. Now this js very IUogical. Society is only a stage in the gro""Lh which we are
pusing (through) ... Society Is good at a certain stage but It cannot be an ideal, It is in
C id.al, albeit nit.ably modified to meet modern conditioi:u. However, CCI O.Sl&Dl 0ux,"' 1µ
n an evolvina pandigm. Hen e-volutioo may be undentood in broadly reform wu also
two ways. Finl,
Pnmo Jo<U. thh would 1uggest that the continu1t.lu between 1ra.ditional notion., of
0 it reflec:lecl a philomphicaJ Wt.h i.n the progresaive gTOwth or societies, 11. nahlral move•
change and the modem arc demonu.r11bly deeper than would appear at fint glance.
r However, such continuities appear to have been aJ,o deliberately reinforced by new
r' meol towu:d, greata" 1oc.laJ harmony, lntelJectu&J 1ophlltkatlon and ethical Anessc.
m Balda. reform wu a.I.so rvolving in a more crnpiric:a.l and practical serue in so rar u
dlscur.sive necd.s. Notions or reuon or utility were nol unknown to traditional Hindu•
C)
Um but in modem time,, their social use and inadequacies become more polariu:d. For
~ jt bad ta comtall&ly ArfOti&tc and rene1otiate over its Idea.ls and method,.orten aga.irut
one, utility was notoriously and-traditional. However, I also suspect that it 11 und-er
ti. ce over which it had no control
colonialism that Hindus e1pecially became aware of the ract 1ha1 re&,on and utility were
ll ii apt to condade this euay by briefly bin.Ung at two lnterHti.ng puadoxe1 that
not values in themsclvc,u, but only methodological guides to put.sue projecu, the orl-
IIDclerlle tbe whole coune of modem Hlndu reform. first. even though It proved to be
gii:u of which lay elsewhere. Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay found Utilltaria.nism wodully
a major impahe behind i~ the growth of Hindu natiooal!Jm 11, In fac~ qulle lnvenely
in1dequate in ruolving its own operabve problems. By "greater good• did they mca.o
~ &o Mlnnc:emaw lD the Oekf of aod.al reform. At leut during the nJnetccnth
a great.er inten.sity of happineu or that which wu more endunng m time , he ulu at
0CIIIIU')', many a.oted lndt-n or the Indian National Coogreu refused to implicate that
ooe place.'.. •
body ta che work of .t0dal reform far rear that lh.11 would only aggravate difference, Io Britbh India., the search for an indigenous theory or values became all the more
~ fadiam. Sip.ificu,dy enough. in 10me Indian naled lt&te.1 Hke Baroda or Myaore,
1mpor tant a., modem di1cipline.s like h11tory and anlhropology bred a new relativism
IOdal relorm wu initialed early and carried out without any gTeat ntistance. that was culturally unfamiliar and alienating. Such a repository of values, l believe,
However, the pandox that i.t In r.ct more Intriguing but se1dom co~~coted upon modern Hindu• found in the tn.dition&l calcgory or dharma, now 10mewhat teodeo-
ia the one lb.at cooc.crru the vexed re:lalbon1hjp between 1oclal a.od rehg,o~• refonn. tJowly trao.slated u "religion•. This wu sema.nticaJJy su1pect but 1tn.tegically ,ucceu•
Arpabl modffll Hlodu, wen able to more clearly .separate the bound&nes or the ful. Art.er aJI, lo 1he historical experience or modern Hindus, reform wu al.so the reba.-
90Cial ~ tbe religiou.s tbaa bad ever beeo poaible lo the puL la the nineteenth century, bilitation or the sclr a.nd represented ;anxious efforts to find a foothold in a rapidly
~ educadoa wu considered a ,oc.JaJ vltme rather tbaa religtoua, more a civic righr appli- chianging world . With Hindw of the nineteenth century, the whceb cf change lumed
~ cabt. to all citizem tbaa a prlviler eoofaffd oa certain /l,tu or on men lo preferen~e slowly bul they oevertheleu turned .
a.. over die woman. Both modert1Ults and traditiooali1ts, reformcn and revivali1t.1, recnnl-
~ ed pnctlc.a.11 from the aame ,ocial cluan, were unsnimou.s In upholding a modern, NOTES AND REFERENCES
.b- aecalac edu~on ud 1 urely, u one level, there remai":' an underlying untty be~e:
'° Ram lau'• oppati.Dg a govemmait ,pomored tradiuonaJ lnslHutlon or leammg,
I BM Gore (td .), Sd.Klrd Wnl111r •11d s,,_c1n II/ Dr. /lP Pa,.,,Jllr, Bombay , Kamat.Ila Publt.~l"g
Hou.e, 1940, p. 225.
_, mo clianiuiog Sidlkhya and Vedlnta u 11 (■1.e 1y1tcm1 or ph!losophy•w a~d 2. C.Y. Cluni.amanl (1d ), l11d,011, S.aal Iv/--, Madru, 1901 , pp. I, 27.
Vlclyuapr'I
LaJpet Ral'• open dl upprov al o r .....,., __ young mlacb to the 1peculabve metaphy11cs
~r--u.oa
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CHAPTER 5 ""'
::;
:5
Critics of Society: Precursors and Predecessors of ~
!:l
Sociology r.:;
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Bela Dutta Gupta t:

::.;
:..:
.,,.
or
I a Jndi.a. i~ t.he ninet.centh century, dramallc chilllgc1 took place u a re.ult htr t:J
0
c.onfroot.allon with the Well Thc1c changes were moady triggered off by an alien
rule. A good amount of wcial thought, a.long with 1truccural c.haage1, wu, expect•
:j
•dJy, implao~d from abroad. lo 1hi.1 mili•u of 1uucrural and paycholog1caJ change,,
-"
~

~ .-
local 10.telUgenu1a began to look at lhe1r own 1ocial inslltutioru in way1 different from (.,;
~ ::,
thOM Lllowed a.ad &&ncdoned by ceorury old lndidon, and cu,wrru, They became critical (I)
of their own pu1, they grew, by and large, cr11lcal of lhe "new 1ode1y• which 1he for• Cl) 0
elgn n.ile engendered. But. however cridcal they might have been of the ,..new tociery''.
lisf rJ ~
they felt a Jund ol au.racuon for lu rauooali11.1c ethoa and they wanted t.o alough off
tndit1onalilm and medievalum in 1heir own 1hough1 and acdon. II wu, in 1his epoch ~~~~ ~
of •tr&DJValu.a.tion of value,•, that there emerged In Bengal, in the ntnetecnth ceotury1 ~ .,- f c! ~
a new geocrabon With their "changing atrucrure of ..entJmenr-. With thu, I.hey cha.lltnged ;!S Z,'{ :.:.:
v

,i!jul
t.b.e UJ1.Hnption.t of the rhctonc of the old and turned Into .,other directed" critic.,, o t.a. ~::: o,"'
Karl Mannheim', o( the then JOCiety In ~ng&J. They rabed their voict1 o( prot.en aga.Jntt 08:§•- X

2:~.
wha.tcver t.eemed a.na.c.hroni•tic to them. They did not. o( couru, have cleu treu of 0
pro(eulooal lnttteit, agr•ed cr1ter1oo or 11gnificance, or utabli,hed method, or con· ~
cepll to guide their work. They dld not,., out 10 "do" aodology X
fb- ~
AK.5HOY KUMAR DUTT (1820-1866) :.:J
~c
la the late nineteenth uutury, Immediately alter R&mmohan Roy, a achola.r of comp•·
,able breadth and acumen wu Abhoy Kumar Duu. He wu, perhap,, for~mo,1 of them
• ~
~

r
•
wbo,e humu, lDqulrlea 1lowly pav•d lht way for the utablLshmeol of 10c1ology" 10
th
~r:.,1.., R.oy a.ad Aluboy Kumar Duu oever meL In fac~ wheo the lauer came
Calclllla, at I.ht age of elevoo, Rammohan had already left for England. Nooe1heleu,
10