Women and Reforms Class 8th

Smita -December 21, 2020

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Women's power

SOCIAL EVILS PREVALENT IN THE SOCIETY

Restriction on Widow Remarriage:

Widow remarriage was severe restricted in the society. They were not allowed to remarry and the lived in seclusion throughout their lives.

Female Infanticide:

Birth of a child in family was considered girl Curse. A new born girl child was killed and buried soon after her birth This practice of killing a girl child is called female infanticide .

Purdah System:

According to this system, women had to live in the Purdah and cover herself throughout her life. It had a bad impact on their health and progress .

Lack of Women Education:

Most of the people hardly cared about educating their girls. They were not treated equal to men.

Sati Paratha:

According to this system, if the husband of any woman died, she had to sit on the funeral pyre of her husband and was burnt alive.

Child Marriage and Polygamy:

Child marriage and the system of polygamy was a curse for the society. Seeing this, attempts were made by the state and reformers to do away with the evils of early marriage by legislation. In 1901, the Gaekwads of Baroda passed the Infant Marriage Prevention Act, which fixed the minimum marriageable age in the state for girls at 12 years and for boys at 16 years.

WOMEN WRITERS IN INDIA

Educated women of the 20th century played an important role in promoting education and reforming their position in the society. Some of the prominent women writers were:

Sakhawat Hossain

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain:

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born in 1880, in a Bengali-Muslim family.
She was not allowed to study as a child.
she persuaded her brother to teach her Bengali, English, Urdu and Sanskrit.
She was married to Khan Bahadur Hossain in 1896 With the help of her intellectual husband, she set up a school for girls in 1909 in Bhagalpur.
After the death of her husband, she went to Calcutta and opened Sakhawat Memorial Girls School'.
This school was converted into a high school.
She was a gifted writer who wrote about the oppression, discrimination and suffering of women in the society She wrote a number of short stories and essays regarding the prevalent social taboos.
Her most famous novel, 'Paddorag was published in 1924, which portrayed the real lines of working women. Her column in 'Oborodhbashini' strongly criticised the Purdah system.

Pandita Ramabai

Pandita Ramabai:

Pandita Ramabai was the founder of Arya Mahila Samaj.
Through this, she taught the women of the deprived classes.
She went to America, where an association was formed to find schools to child widows.

Lila Nag

Lila Nag:

Lila Nag played a prominent role in women's movement in East Bengal.
She set up 'Dipali Sangha' with an objective of enhancing women's education in 1923.
She also founded a school named Dipali School and 12 other cost-free primary schools. For the benefit of female students, she established a women's hostel in Calcutta (now Kolkata).
She was also the founder of the 'Mahila Atmaraksha Fundi lo safeguard women from attacks.
Her literary activities as an editor of an influential magazine, Jayashree, were devoted to women's issues.

IMPACT OF THE REFORM MOVEMENTS

As a result of reform movements, among the women, the East India Company initiated some useful social reforms in India during the period between 1813 and to 1857. These included the following:

Suppression of Sati:

It is estimated that during 1815-18, there were 800 cases of sati in Bengal alone. In 1829, moved by a public outcry led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy against this illegal practice, Governor General Lord William Bentinck abolished sati and made it a punishable offence.

Ban on Female Infanticide:

British government passed Acts in 1795 and in 1804 that banned female infanticide. But it is still in practice .

Marriage Act:

In 1860, government passed an Act to fix the minimum age of girls for marriage. It was the 'Sharda Act of 1929 which clearly fixed the age of marriage for both boys and girls at 16 and 14 years, respectively.

Widow Remarriage:

Social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar campaigned in favour of widow remarriage It was finally in 1856 that the colonial government passed an act allowing Hindu widows to remarry. Today, widow remarriage is acceptable in the society. These contributions made by the social reformers to reform the society can never be ignored while studying the history of modern India.

Raja Rammohan Roy:

Raja Rammohan Roy is also referred to as the Father of Modern India.
He was a pioneer introducing reforms to improve the position of women in the society .
He had a burning desire to reform society through his Brahmo Samaj, founded in 1828.
Most of the social evils prevalent in the society at that time were the direct outcome of superstitious beliefs.
He struggled to do away with the custom of sati Due to the efforts made by Raja Rammohan Roy, Lord William Bentinck passed a law by which sati was declared an illegal practice in 1829.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar:

Being a great scholar of Sanskrit, he was conferred the title of Vidyasagar' by the authorities of the Sanskrit College, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Widow upliftment and education for girls were his main aims.
He took personal interest in passing the Widow Remarriage Act.
He was awarded various scholarships and appointed as a Special Inspector of schools. He opened a number of schools for girls in the district.
Later, because of his revolutionary views, he was forced by the opposition to resign from his post. He was a close friend of Drinkwater Bethune who started the first school for girls in Calcutta .

Swami Vivekananda:

Swami Vivekananda's original name was Narendranath.
He founded Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 to reform the society in many ways.
He emphasised on social service and respect for women while he severely opposed untouchability .

Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Arya Samaj:

Swami Dayanand Saraswati was the founder of Arya Samaj.
It was founded in 1875 and another branch was opened at Lahore in 1877.
Arya Samaj brought about a number of social reforms to uplift the position of women and their education,

Some of these reforms were:

It resulted in the decline of the evil practice of sati.
It advocated widow remarriage.
It was greatly opposed to child marriage.
It set up orphanages and widow-ashrams.

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