Chapter 9 Women Caste and Reform Solutions
Question - 1 : - What social ideas did the following people support?
a. Rammohun Roy
b. Dayanand Saraswati
c. Veerasalingam Pantulu
d. Jyotirao Phule
e. Pandita Ramabai
f. Periyar
g. Mumtaz Ali
h. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Answer - 1 : -
a. Rammohun Roy – Ban of Sati
b. Dayanand Saraswati – Widow Marriage
c. Veerasalingam Pantulu – Widow Remarriage
d. Jyotirao Phule – Equality amongst castes
e. Pandita Ramabai – Women’s education
e. Periyar – Equality to untouchables
f. Mumtaz Ali – Women’s education
g. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar – Widow remarriage
Question - 2 : - State whether true or false:
(a) When the British captured Bengal they framed many new laws to regulate the rules regarding marriage, adoption, the inheritance of property, etc.
(b) Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practices.
(c) Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country.
(d) The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in1829.
Answer - 2 : -
(a) True
(b) False
(c) False
(d) False
Question - 3 : - How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the reformers promote new laws?
Answer - 3 : -
- The reformers used ancient texts to convince people that social evils like caste distinctions, child marriage, sati, etc. had no sanction in ancient texts.
- The knowledge of these texts gave reformers a sense of confidence and moral support to promote new laws.
Question - 4 : - What were the different reasons people had for not sending girls to school?
Answer - 4 : -
In fact people afraid of the schools that were opened in the mid-19th century. They had their own reasons.
- They feared that schools would take girls away from home and prevent them from doing their domestic works.
- As girls had to travel through public places in order to reach school, many people began to feel that this would have a corrupting influence on them.
- Several people were of the opinion that girls should stay away from public spaces.
Question - 5 : - Why were Christian missionaries attacked by many people in the country? Would some people have supported them too? If so, for what reasons?
Answer - 5 : -
People suspected that Christian missionaries were involved in the forced conversion of the poor and tribal people from Hinduism to Christianity. If some people have supported them, it must be due to the reason that the poor and the tribal people, converted to Christianity, would get a golden opportunity of going to school. The school would equip them with some resources to make their way into a changing world.
Question - 6 : - In the British period, what new opportunities opened up for people who came from castes that were regarded as “low”?
Answer - 6 : -
During the British period several new opportunities were opened up for the people who came from castes that were regarded as low. The following account reveals this:
- The poor began leaving their villages to look for jobs that were opening up in the cities. There was work in the factories and jobs in municipalities.
- Drains had to be dug, roads laid, buildings constructed, and cities cleaned. This needed coolies, diggers, carriers, bricklayers, sewage cleaners, sweepers, palanquin bearers, rickshaw pullers.
- Some of them also went to work in plantations in Assam, Mauritius, Trinidad and Indonesia.
- The poor, and the people from low castes, saw this as an opportunity to get away from the oppressive hold of the upper-caste landowners.
- There were other jobs too. The army, for instance, offered opportunities.
- Numerous Mahar people, who were regarded as untouchable, found jobs in the Mahar Regiment.
- The father of B.R. Ambedkar, the leader of the Dalit movement, taught at an army school.
Question - 7 : - How did Jyotirao the reformer justify their criticism of caste inequality in society?
Answer - 7 : -
Jyotirao attacked the Brahmans, claim that they were superior to others because they were Aryans. Phule argued that the Aryans were outsiders. They came from outside the sub-continent and defeated and subjugated the true children of the country – those who had lived here from before the coming of the Aryans. These Aryans established their dominance and began looking at the defeated population as low-caste people. Phule opined that the “upper’ castes had no right to their land and power. The land, in fact belonged to the natives, who were considered as low-caste people.
Question - 8 : - Why aid Phule to dedicate his hook Gulamgiri to the American movement to free slaves?
Answer - 8 : -
In 1873, Phule wrote Gulamgiri. It means slavery.
- Some ten years before this, the American Civil War resulted in the abolition of slavery in America.
- Phule dedicated his book to all those Americans who fought to abolish slavery. Thus this book set up close relations between “lower” castes in India and the black slaves in America.
Question - 9 : - What did Ambedkar want to achieve through the temple entry movement?
Answer - 9 : -
Ambedkar led three temple entry movements between 1927 and 1935. His sole purpose behind these movements was to make people see the power of caste prejudices within society.
Question - 10 : - Why were Jyotirao Phule and Ramaswamy Naicker critical of the national movement? Did their criticism help the national struggle in any way?
Answer - 10 : -
They were critical of the national movement because the nationalists often made seating arrangements following caste distinctions at feasts. The lower castes were made to sit at a distance from the upper castes. Their criticism helped the national struggle to a great extent. Ramaswamy Naicker inspired the untouchables to fight for their dignity by initiating the Self Respect Movement.