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

advantage and social comfort.”[14]

Written at the time when Indians has just begun to experience the intellectual and cultural turmoil that characterized social life in the nineteenth century India this represented the immediate Indian response.

The spirit of reform embraced almost the whole of India beginning with the efforts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy in Bengal leading to the formation of Brahmo Samaj in 1828. Apart from the Brahmo Samaj, which has branches in several parts of country, the Paramhansa Mandali and the Prarthna Samaj in Maharashtra and the Arya Samaj in Punjab and North India were some of the prominent movements among Hindus. There were several other regional and caste movements like the Kayastha Sabha in Uttar Pradesh and the Sarin Sabha in Punjab. The backward class also started the work of reformation with the Satya Sodhak Samaj in Maharashtra and the Shri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sabha in Kerala. The Ahmadiya, the Aligarh Movement, the Singh Sabha and the Rehnumayai Mazdeyasan Sabha represented the spirit of reform among Muslims, the Sikhs and Parsees respectively. Despite being regional in scope and content and confined to a particular religion, thier general prospective were remarkably similar; they were regional and religious manifestations of a common consciousness.

Although religious reformation was a major concern of these movements, none of them is exclusively religious in character. Strongly humanist in inspiration, the idea of other worldliness and salvation were not a part of thier agenda; instead thier attention was focussed on worldly existence.

Given the interconnection between religious beliefs and social practises, religious reformation was a necessary pre-requisite for social

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