Additional - Question:
Que: What is the Changes for Working Towards?
Ans: Debates and discussions about social customs and practices took on a new character. One important reason was the development of new forms of communication like books, newspapers, magazines, leaflets and pamphlets. All kinds of issues like social, political, economic and religious could be debated and discussed by men and sometimes by women in the new cities.
Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) founded the Brahmo Sabha (later known as the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta. Rammohun Roy felt that changes were necessary in society, and unjust practices needed to be done away with. He was keen to spread the knowledge of Western education in the country and bring about greater freedom and equality for women.
Que: which is the Changing the lives of widows?
Ans: Rammohun Roy began a campaign against the practice of sati. He tried to show through his writings that the practice of widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts. In 1829, sati was banned. Later reformers adopted the strategy of Rammohun to challenge a practice that seemed harmful and tried to find a verse or sentence in the ancient sacred texts that supported their point of view.
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, through ancient texts, suggested that widows could remarry. In 1856, a law was passed permitting widow remarriage. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the movement of widow remarriage spread to other parts of the country. Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj, to support widow remarriage.
Que: What is reson for Girls begin going to school?
Ans: Education for girls was necessary to improve their condition. In the mid-nineteenth century, the first schools were opened. Many feared that schools would take girls away from home and prevent them from doing their domestic duties. To reach schools girls had to travel through public spaces. Many people felt that girls should stay away from public spaces. So, most educated women were taught at home by liberal fathers or husbands.
In the latter part of the century, Arya Samaj established schools for girls in Punjab and Jyotirao Phule established schools in Maharashtra. In aristocratic Muslim households, women learnt to read the Koran in Arabic taught by women who came home to teach. The first Urdu novels began to be written from the late nineteenth century.
Que: Why Women write about women?
Ans: In the early twentieth century, Begums of Bhopal played a notable role in promoting education among women. They founded a primary school for girls at Aligarh. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain started schools for Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta. Indian women started going to universities, by the 1880s where they were trained to be doctors and some became teachers. Pandita Ramabai wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women.
Many Hindu nationalists felt that Hindu women were adopting Western ways and that this would corrupt Hindu culture and erode family values. By the end of the nineteenth century, women wrote books, edited magazines, founded schools and training centres, and set up women’s associations. They also formed political groups to push through laws for female suffrage (the right to vote) and better health care and education for women. In the twentieth century, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose extended their support to demands for greater equality and freedom for women.
Que: What was Demands for equality and justice?
Ans: By the second half of the nineteenth century, Non-Brahman castes began organising movements against caste discrimination and demanded social equality and justice.
The Satnami movement was founded by Ghasidas, who worked as the leather workers and organised a movement to improve their social status. In eastern Bengal, Haridas Thakur questioned Brahmanical texts that supported the caste system. Shri Narayana Guru proclaimed the ideals of unity for his people. He argued against treating people unequally on the basis of caste differences.