Social Reform Movements and the Rise of Nationalism (1828–1905)

Socio-religious reform movements

Movement	Founder and year	Ideas and work
Brahmo Samaj	Raja Ram Mohan Roy, 1828 (Calcutta)	Monotheism, against idolatry; campaign against sati (abolished 1829 by Bentinck); English education; the newspapers Sambad Kaumudi and Mirat-ul-Akhbar. Later led by Debendranath Tagore and Keshab Chandra Sen. Splits in 1866 and 1878
Young Bengal	Henry Vivian Derozio (Hindu College)	Radical rationalism
Widow remarriage	Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar	Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856; girls' schools; Bengali primer
Prarthana Samaj	Atmaram Pandurang, 1867 (Bombay)	M. G. Ranade, R. G. Bhandarkar
Satyashodhak Samaj	Jyotiba Phule, 1873	Against caste and Brahmin dominance; Gulamgiri; with Savitribai Phule, the first girls' school (Pune, 1848)
Arya Samaj	Dayanand Saraswati, 1875 (Bombay)	"Back to the Vedas"; Satyarth Prakash; shuddhi (reconversion); DAV schools
Theosophical Society	Blavatsky and Olcott, 1875 (New York); Adyar, 1886	Annie Besant; Central Hindu College, Benares
Ramakrishna Mission	Swami Vivekananda, 1897	Social service; Vedanta; Chicago, 1893
Aligarh Movement	Sir Syed Ahmad Khan	MAO College, 1875 (later AMU, 1920); modern education for Muslims
Deoband Movement	1866	Orthodox; opposed the British, and supported the Congress
Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana	Narayana Guru, 1903	"One caste, one religion, one God for man" (Kerala)
Self-Respect Movement	E. V. Ramaswamy (Periyar), 1925	Against Brahminism
Singh Sabha	1873, Amritsar	Sikh reform; later the Akali movement and the Gurdwara Act (1925)

Reform laws

• Abolition of sati (1829).
• Suppression of thugee (William Sleeman, 1830s).
• Widow Remarriage Act (1856).
• Age of Consent Act (1891), following the Rukhmabai case and Behramji Malabari's campaign.
• Sarda Act (1929), which fixed the minimum marriage age at 14 for girls and 18 for boys.

Education and press

• Charter Act 1813: ₹1 lakh a year for education.
• Macaulay's Minute (1835): English as the medium of instruction (the "downward filtration" idea).
• Wood's Despatch (1854): primary to university levels; universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras (1857).
• Hunter Commission (1882): primary and secondary education.
• Indian Universities Act (1904) under Curzon tightened control.
• Press:
  • Bengal Gazette (James Augustus Hicky, 1780) was the first newspaper.
  • Vernacular Press Act, 1878 (Lytton) was repealed by Ripon in 1882.
  • Tilak's Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English).
  • The Hindu (1878).
  • Amrita Bazar Patrika.
  • In Bihar, Bihar Bandhu (1872), one of the first Hindi newspapers of the province.

Factors behind modern nationalism

• Political and administrative unification under British rule; railways, post and telegraph.
• Western education, and a new middle class.
• The press and literature, such as Anandamath and Vande Mataram.
• Economic exploitation and the drain.
• Reactionary policies of Lytton:
  • the Delhi Durbar of 1877 held during a famine;
  • the Vernacular Press Act;
  • the Arms Act (1878);
  • lowering the maximum age for the ICS exam to 19.
• Ilbert Bill controversy (1883) under Ripon.

Associations before the Congress

• Landholders' Society (1838).
• British Indian Association (1851).
• East India Association, London (Dadabhai Naoroji, 1866).
• Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870, M. G. Ranade).
• Indian Association (1876, Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose). It led the ICS agitation and held the Indian National Conference (1883).
• Madras Mahajan Sabha (1884) and Bombay Presidency Association (1885).

Indian National Congress, 1885

• First session: Bombay, 28–31 December 1885.
• 72 delegates.
• President: W. C. Bonnerjee.
• Founder: A. O. Hume, a retired civil servant.
• The "safety valve" theory says Hume set it up to release discontent. Bipan Chandra called this a myth: Indians used Hume as a "lightning conductor".

Early sessions

Year	Place	President	Note
1886	Calcutta	Dadabhai Naoroji
1887	Madras	Badruddin Tyabji	First Muslim president
1888	Allahabad	George Yule	First Englishman as president
1905	Benares	G. K. Gokhale	Swadeshi supported
1906	Calcutta	Dadabhai Naoroji	Swaraj declared the goal

The Moderates (1885–1905)

• Leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji ("Grand Old Man of India"), Pherozeshah Mehta, G. K. Gokhale (founded the Servants of India Society, 1905), Surendranath Banerjea, R. C. Dutt and Justice Ranade.
• Methods: the "3 Ps", prayer, petition and protest, within constitutional limits. They had faith in British justice.
• Demands:
  • expanded councils;
  • simultaneous ICS exams in India and England;
  • reduced military expenditure;
  • separation of the judiciary from the executive;
  • lower land revenue;
  • more Indians in government jobs;
  • an end to the drain.
• Achievements:
  • The Indian Councils Act, 1892 brought indirect election to councils and the right to discuss the budget.
  • Their economic critique of colonialism laid the intellectual base of nationalism.
  • They built political awareness.
• Limits: a narrow social base, and little mass mobilisation.

Exam tip: UPSC asks "who founded what and where" through statement questions; for example, the Arya Samaj was founded in Bombay, not Lahore. BPSC adds Bihar's own reformers and newspapers. See the Bihar modern history unit for the Bihar Scientific Society and Sachchidananda Sinha's Bihar Times.