How freedom movement is related to social and religious reform movement in pre independence India: An Analysis

reform. Religion was the dominant ideology of the times and it was not possible to undertake any social action without coming to grips with it.

Indian society in 19th century was caught in a vicious web created by religious superstitions and social obscurantism. Social conditions was equally depressing, the most distressing was the position of women. The birth of a girl was unwelcome, her marriage a burden and her widowhood as inauspicious. Attempts to kill girl infants at birth were not unusual. Those who escaped initial brutality were subjected to the marriage at tender age.[15]

Another debilitating factor was caste. It sought to maintain a system of segregation, hierarchically ordained on the basis of ritual status. The rules and regulations of caste hampered social mobility, fostered social division and sapped individual initiative. Above all was the humiliation of untouchability which militated against human dignity.

There were innumerable human practises marked by constraint, credulity, status, authority, bigotry and blind fatalism. Rejecting them as features of decadent society, the reform movement sought to create a social climate for modernization. Since practises based on faith cannot be challenge without bringing faith itself into question. Hence, Raja Ram Mohan Roy demonstrated that sati had no religious sanction, Vidyasagar did not take up his pen in defence of widow remarriage without being convinced about scriptural support and Dayanand based his anti casteism on Vedic society.

Two important intellectual criteria which informed the reform movements were rationalism and religious universalism social relevance was judged by a rationalist critique. It is difficult to match the uncompromising rationalism of

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