Question 1.
What social ideas did the following people support?
Answer:
Rammohun Roy
Dayanand Saraswati
Veerasalingam Pantulu
Jyotirao Phule
Pandita Ramabai
Periyar
Mumtaz Ali
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Answer:
Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) was the founder of Brahmo Sabha (Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta. He supported the ideas to spread the knowledge of western education in the country and bring about greater freedom and equality for women. As a result of his efforts, the practice of Sati was banned in 1829.

Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 and supported widow remarriage.
Veerasalingam Pantulu formed an association and supported widow remarriage.
Jyotirao Phule supported education for girls. He established schools for girls in Maharashtra. He opposed all forms of inequality, including the caste system.

Pandita Ramabai supported the equality of women with men. She opposed the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women. She also founded a widows’ home at Poona.

Periyar or E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker advocated for social equality. He founded the Self Respect Movement and challenged Brahmanical claims to power.

Mumtaz Ali supported women’s education.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar supported widow remarriage, education for girls and set up schools for girls.

Question 2.
State whether True or False:

When the British captured Bengal they framed many new laws to regulate the rules regarding marriage, adoption, the inheritance of property, etc. True
Social reformers had to discard the ancient texts in order to argue for reform in social practices. False
Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country. False
The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1829. False

Question 3.
How did the knowledge of ancient texts help the reformers promote new laws?
Answer:
This strategy was first adopted by Raja Rammohun Roy and later by other reformers. Whenever they wished to challenge a practice that seemed harmful, they tried to find a verse or sentence in the ancient sacred texts that supported their point of view. They then suggested that the practice as it existed, at present, was against early tradition.

Question 4.
What were the different reasons people had for not sending girls to school?
Answer:
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:

The Christian missionaries were attacked by many people in the country because they feared that the missionaries would change the religion of tribal groups and lower-caste children.
Yes, some people would have supported them too.
This has the following reasons:
- The missionaries were setting up schools for tribal groups and ‘lower’ caste children.
- These children were thus equipped 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:
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:
Jyotirao Phule attacked the Brahmans’ claim that they were superior to others since they were Aryans. He argued that
the Aryans were foreigners, who came from outside the subcontinent, and defeated and subjugated the true children of the country. Aryans began looking at the defeated people as inferiors, as low-caste people. Phule further said that the upper castes had no right to their land and power. In reality, the land belonged to indigenous people, the so-called low castes.

Question 8.
Why aid Phule to dedicate his hook Gulamgiri to the American movement to free slaves?
Answer:
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:
In 1927, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar started a Temple Entry Movement. He led three such movements for temple entry between 1927 and 1935 in which his Mahar caste, followers participated. Ambedkar wanted to make everyone 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:
1. They were critical of the national movement run by upper-caste leaders because they held that this would serve the purposes of upper-castes. After the movement, these people would again talk of untouchability.. Again they would say “Me here and you over there”. Periyar left Congress in the reaction of an incidence of untouchability.
2. Yes, their criticism helped the national struggle as unity. The forceful speeches, writings, and movements of such lower caste leaders did lead to rethinking and some self-criticisms among upper-caste nationalist leaders.

Objective Type Questions

1.Match the following:

Answer:
(i) d
(ii) e
(iii) f
(iv) a
(v) c
(vi) b

2. State whether True or False:

Pandita Ramabai supported the economic independence of women, set up widow homes, True
Reformers got full support from all sections of the people of the country. False
Jyotirao Phule set up schools for girls in Punjab. False
Raja Rammohun Roy was the founder of Braham Samaj. True
People were dissatisfied with British rule in the 1870s and 1880s. True

3. Fill in the blanks:

The Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1929
In 1873, Phule wrote Gulamgiri
In 1940 the Muslim league demanded an ‘Independent State’ for Muslims.
Independence Day was observed on 26th January 1930 all over the country.
The knowledge of ancient texts helps the reformers promote new laws.
Ambedkar was born into a Mahar
Periyar was an outspoken critic of Hindu scriptures.

Multiple Choice Questions

Choose the correct answer:

1. Who supported the idea of the self-respect movement?
(a) Mumtaz Ali
(b) Rammohun Roy
(c) Periyar
(d) Pandita Ramabai

2. The idea of widow remarriage was advocated by
(a) Dayanand Saraswati(b) Jyotirao Phule
(c) Periyar
(d) Pandita Ramabai

3. The Satyashodhak Samaj association was founded by
(a) Mumtaz Ali
(b) Periyar
(c) Jyotirao Phule
(d) B.R. Ambedkar

4. Widow Remarriage Act was passed in the year
(a) 1826
(b) 1856
(c) 1876
(d) 1886

5. What is coolie ship?
(a) Luggage lifter at the railway platform
(b) A ship that carried many Indians to Mauritius
(c) Association of Coolies
(d) None of the above

6. E.V. Ramaswamy was known by the name
(a) Phule
(b) Periyar
(c) Vidyasagar
(d) Dayanand Saraswati

7. During which period did Ambedkar lead the three temple entry movements?
(a) Between 1900 to 1927
(b) Between 1927 to 1935
(c) Between 1935 to 1940
(d) Between 1940 to 1945

8. Prarthana Samaj was founded by
(a) H.L.V. Derozio
(b) Swami Vivekananda
(c) R.G. Bhandarkar
(d) Raja Rammohun Roy

9. Which of the reforms movement was founded by H.L.V. Derozio?
(a) Young Bengal
(b) Brahmo Samaj
(c) Veda Samaj
(d) Aligarh Movement

10. Who started schools for Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta?
(a) Mumtaz Ali
(b) Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
(c) Sayyid Ahmed Khan
(d) None of these

11. The first Urdu novels began to be written from
(a) the late sixteenth century
(b) the late seventeenth century
(c) the late eighteenth century
(d) the late nineteenth century

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