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

the early Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Akshay Kumar Dutt. This prospective not only enabled them to adopt a rational approach to tradition but also to evaluate the contemporary socio-religious practises from the stand point of social utility and to replace faith with rationality. In the Brahmo Samaj, it led to the repudiation of infallibility of Vedas, and in Aligarh Movement, to the reconciliation of teaching of Islam with the needs of the Modern age. Holding that religious tenet is not immutable, Syed Ahmad Khan emphasised the role of religion in the progress of the society: if religion did not keep pace with the meet and demands of the time, it would be fossilized as in the case of Islam in India.

The prospective on reform were not always influenced by religious considerations. A rational and secular outlook was very much evident in posing an alternative to prevalent social practises. In advocating widow marriage and opposing polygamy and child marriage Akshay Kumar was not concerned about religious sanctions or whether they existed in the past. His arguments were mainly based on effect on society.

Although the ambit of reform were particularistic, thier religious prospective was universalistic. Raja Ram Mohan Roy considered different religions as National embodiment of universal theism. The Brahmo Samaj was initially conceived by him as a universalistic church. He was defender of basic and universal principles of all religions- the monotheism of the Vedas and the Unitarianism of Christianity, and at the same time attacked polytheism of Hinduism and trinitarianism of Christianity. Syed Ahmad Khan echoed the same idea: all Prophets have the same din (faith) and every country and Nation had different Prophets. These prospective found

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