The important social reform legislation passed in the 19th century

Till 1813 British authorities also followed a policy of non-interference in the religious, social and cultural life of the country, but after 1813 they took active steps to transform Indian society and culture.

The officials British efforts at reforming Indian society of its abuses were on the whole very meager and, therefore bore little fruit.

Their biggest achievement was the outlawing of the practice of sati in 1829 when William Bentick made it a crime to associate in any way with the burning of a widow on her husband’s pyre; earlier the British rulers had been apathetic and afraid of arousing the anger of the orthodox Indians.

It was only after Rammohan Roy and other enlightened Indians and the missionaries agitated persistently for the abolition of this monstrous custom that the Government agreed to take this humanitarian step. Many Indian rulers in the past, including Akbar and Aurangzeb, the Peshwas, and Jai Singh of Jaipur, had made unsuccessful attempts to suppress this evil practice.

In any case Bentinck deserves praise for having acted resolutely in outlawing a practice which had taken a toll of 800 lives in Bengal alone between 1815 and 1818 and for refusing to bow before the opposition of the orthodox supporters of the practice of sati.

Female infanticide or the practice of killing female children at the time of their brith had prevailed among some of the Rajputs clans and other castes because of the paucity of young men who died in large numbers in warfare and because of the difficulties of earning a livelihood in unfertile areas, and in parts of Western and Central India because of the prevalence of the evil custom of dowry in a virulent form.

Regulations prohibiting infanticide had been passed in 1895 and 1802, but they were sternly enforced only by Bentinck and Hardings. In 1856 the Government of India passed an Act enabling Hindus widows to remarry. The Government acted after Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and other reformers had carried on a prolonged agitation in favour of the measure. The immediate effects of this act were negligible.

All these officials’ reforms touched no more than the fringes of the Indian social system and did not affect the life of the vast majority of the people. It was perhaps not possible for a foreign government to do more. Rammohan Roy was a great thinker.

He organised groups of life-minded people to keep a strict check on such performance and to prevent any attempt to force the widows to become sati. When the orthodox Hindus petitioned to Parliament to withhold its approval of Bentinck’s action of banning the rite of sati, he organised a counter-petition of an enlightened Hindus in favour of Bentinck’s action. He was a stout champion of women’s rights.

He condemned the subjugation of women and opposed the prevailing idea that women were inferior to men in intellect or in a moral sense. He attacked polygamy and the degraded state to which widows were often reduced. To raise the status of women he demanded that they be given the right of inheritance and property. In 1843 Debendranath Tagore reorganised the Brahmo Samja and put new life into it. The Samaj actively supported the movement for widow remarriage, abolition of polygamy, women’s education, improvement of the ryot’s condition and temperance.

The next towering personality to appear on the Indian scene was Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the great scholar and reformer. Vidyasagar dedicated his entire life to the cause of social reform. He waged a long struggle in favour of widow remarriage. His humanism was aroused to the full by the sufferings of the Hindus widows.

To improve their lot he gave his all and virtually ruined himself. In 1855, he raised his powerful voice, backed by the weight of immense traditional learning in favour of widow remarriage. Soon a powerful movement in favour of widow remarriage was started which continues till this day.

Later in the year 1855, a large number of petitions from Bengal, Madras, Bombay, Nagpur and other cities of India were presented to the Government asking it to pass an act legalising the remarriage of widows. This agitation was successful and such a law was enacted.

The first lawful Hindu widow remarriage among the upper castes in our country was celebrated in Calcutta on 7 December 1856 under the inspiration and supervision of Vidyasagar.

In 1850, Vidyasagar protested against child- marriage. All his life he campaigned against polygamy. He was also deeply interested in the education of women. As a Government Inspector of Schools, he organised thirty-five girls’ schools, many of which he ran at his own expense.

As secretary to the Bethune School, he was one of the pioneers of higher education for women. The first steps in giving a modern education to girls were taken by the missionaries in 1821 but these efforts were marred by the emphasis on Christian religious education, in 1849, the Paramahansa Mandali was founded in Maharashtra. Its founders believed in one God and were primarily interested in breaking caste rules.

At its meetings, members took food cooked by law-caste people. They also believed in permitting widow remarriage and in the education of women. Vishnu Shastri Pandit founded the widow Remarriage Association in the 1850s. Another prominent worker in this field was Karsondas Mulji who started the Satya Prakash in Gujarati in 1852 to advocate widow remarriage.