Social Reform Movements of Maharashtra — MPSC GS Paper I and Prelims Paper I

Weightage: GS Paper I asks for social reform movements with Maharashtra's reformers as the main examples, and the same names recur in Prelims, the Essay and GS Paper IV. This chapter gives the dates, organisations and ideas. The GS Paper IV chapter on Maharashtra's moral thinkers turns the same people into ethical arguments.

1. Why Maharashtra's reform tradition is asked

Western India produced two reform traditions that argued with each other. One was a liberal, upper-caste reform led from Bombay and Pune that worked through the press, associations and petitions. The other was an anti-caste movement, begun by Jyotirao Phule and carried on by Shahu Maharaj and Dr Ambedkar, that questioned the social order itself.

Most Mains questions ask you to compare them, or to evaluate one reformer. Organise your notes by reformer, with an organisation, a text, a date and an idea for each.

2. The early press and the first reformers

Balshastri Jambhekar started Darpan, the first Marathi newspaper, on 6 January 1832, a bilingual Marathi-English paper that discussed widow remarriage and education. Maharashtra marks 6 January as Marathi Journalism Day.

Gopal Hari Deshmukh, known as Lokhitwadi, wrote the Shatapatre ("hundred letters") in the weekly Prabhakar around 1848-50. They attacked priestly authority, caste privilege and blind custom.

Dadoba Pandurang was among the founders of the Paramhansa Sabha (1849), a secret society in Bombay whose members pledged to break caste rules. It dissolved once its membership list became public, which shows how costly open reform still was.

3. Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule

Jyotirao Phule (1827-1890) made caste and gender the centre of reform. His main steps:

His argument was that caste was a system of domination, not of divine order. Gulamgiri compared the condition of the Shudras and Atishudras with slavery and was dedicated to the Americans who had fought to end it. The Satyashodhak Samaj ("society of seekers of truth") conducted marriages without priests and opened membership to all.

Savitribai Phule (1831-1897) is remembered as India's first woman teacher in a school run by Indians. She faced abuse on her way to school and continued. Her poems appeared as Kavyaphule (1854). She died in 1897 after nursing plague patients. Fatima Sheikh is remembered as a teacher at the Phules' schools.

4. The Prarthana Samaj and the liberals

The Prarthana Samaj was founded in Bombay in 1867 by Atmaram Pandurang, inspired by Keshub Chandra Sen of the Brahmo Samaj. It stood for one God, prayer without idols, and social reform.

Mahadev Govind Ranade, a judge, and R. G. Bhandarkar, an Orientalist, were its leading members. Ranade's work reached far beyond the Samaj. He helped found the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha (1870), which petitioned the government on public questions, and the Indian National Social Conference (1887), which met alongside the Congress. His method was gradual reform through law and persuasion.

The Deccan Education Society was founded in 1884 by Tilak, Agarkar and their colleagues, building on the New English School (1880) started with Vishnushastri Chiplunkar. It opened Fergusson College in 1885. Gopal Krishna Gokhale taught there and, in 1905, founded the Servants of India Society in Pune to train public workers.

5. The Tilak-Agarkar debate

Gopal Ganesh Agarkar was the first editor of Kesari, which he and Tilak founded in 1881 with the English weekly Mahratta. The two then split over one question: should social reform come before political freedom?

• Agarkar held that a society that ill-treats its women and its lower castes could not be free, so reform came first. He started the Sudharak in 1888 to argue for rationalism, widow remarriage and a later age of marriage.
• Tilak held that political freedom came first, and that a foreign government should not legislate on Indian social custom.

The split came to a head over the Age of Consent Act, 1891, which raised the age of consent for girls from 10 to 12. Reformers supported it and Tilak opposed it. The earlier case of Rakhmabai, who refused to join a husband she had been married to as a child, had brought the issue before the public.

Worked example 5.1 (a 10-mark answer, ~150 words). "Compare the approaches of Jyotirao Phule and M. G. Ranade to social reform."

Model answer. Both men sought a just society, but they began from different places.

Ranade worked within the existing order. Through the Prarthana Samaj, the Sarvajanik Sabha and the Social Conference, he pressed for widow remarriage, education and legal reform, by petition and persuasion. His method was gradual, and his audience was the educated upper castes.

Phule questioned the order itself. He saw caste as domination, wrote Gulamgiri, founded the Satyashodhak Samaj and opened schools for girls and for the lower castes. His audience was the peasant and the Shudra and Atishudra.

The two were complementary. Ranade gave reform institutions and legitimacy, and Phule gave it a social base and a moral critique that later shaped the non-Brahmin movement and Dr Ambedkar.

6. Women reformers

• Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) founded the Arya Mahila Samaj in Pune (1882), the Sharada Sadan (1889) for widows, and later the Mukti Mission at Kedgaon.
• Tarabai Shinde wrote Stri Purush Tulana (1882), a sharp comparison of the standards applied to men and women.
• Anandibai Joshi became, in 1886, the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree in the West, from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
• Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve (1858-1962) married a widow himself, set up a home for widows in 1896 that moved to Hingne near Pune, and founded the Indian Women's University (1916), later the SNDT Women's University. He received the Bharat Ratna in 1958.
• Ramabai Ranade led the Seva Sadan in Pune, which trained women for nursing and teaching.

7. The non-Brahmin movement and Shahu Maharaj

Shahu Maharaj of Kolhapur (ruled 1894-1922) used the powers of a princely ruler for social reform.

• By an order of 26 July 1902, he reserved 50 per cent of posts in his state's administration for the backward classes, which makes him a pioneer of reservation.
• He made primary education free and compulsory in Kolhapur in 1917, and opened hostels for students of every caste.
• The Vedokta controversy (from 1899), when priests refused him Vedic rites, turned him towards the Satyashodhak Samaj.
• At the Mangaon conference (1920) he presented the young Ambedkar as a leader of the depressed classes.

The non-Brahmin movement carried Phule's ideas into politics in the 1920s under leaders such as Keshavrao Jedhe, who later joined the Congress and brought much of its base into the national movement.

Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, a Satyashodhak, organised the Bombay Mill Hands Association (1884), among the first labour organisations in India, and won a weekly holiday for mill workers.

8. Vitthal Ramji Shinde and Dr Ambedkar

Vitthal Ramji Shinde founded the Depressed Classes Mission in Bombay on 18 October 1906, which ran schools and hostels for untouchable communities.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) turned the question into one of rights.

Educational movements built on this work. Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil founded the Rayat Shikshan Sanstha (1919) with the motto "earn and learn", and Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh founded the Shri Shivaji Education Society at Amravati (1932). Sane Guruji fasted in 1947 to open the Vitthal temple at Pandharpur to all castes.

Worked example 8.1 (a Prelims-style match). "Match the organisation to its founder: Depressed Classes Mission, Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha, Satyashodhak Samaj, Servants of India Society."

Answer. Vitthal Ramji Shinde (1906); Dr Ambedkar (1924); Jyotirao Phule (1873); Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1905).

Common traps MPSC sets here

• Crediting the Prarthana Samaj's founding to Ranade. It was founded by Atmaram Pandurang in 1867. Ranade was its best-known member.
• Mixing up Mahad and Kalaram. Mahad (1927) was about water from a public tank; Kalaram (1930) was about temple entry.
• Confusing the Depressed Classes Mission with the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha. Shinde founded the first in 1906, Ambedkar the second in 1924.
• Confusing the Servants of India Society with the Servants of the People Society. Gokhale founded the first (1905, Pune); Lala Lajpat Rai founded the second.
• Dating the Satyashodhak Samaj to 1875. It was founded on 24 September 1873.

Memory aids

• "32, 48, 73": Darpan, the Bhide Wada school, the Satyashodhak Samaj.
• "02, 06, 24": Shahu's reservation order, Shinde's Mission, Ambedkar's Sabha.
• "Mahad for water, Kalaram for the temple, Yeola for the vow, Nagpur for the diksha."

Summary

Maharashtra's reform began with the press and with liberals such as Lokhitwadi, Ranade and the Prarthana Samaj, who worked through associations and law. Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule opened a second tradition that attacked caste and gender hierarchy directly, through schools, the Satyashodhak Samaj and Gulamgiri.

The Tilak-Agarkar debate asked whether reform or freedom came first. Women reformers from Pandita Ramabai to Karve built institutions for women. Shahu Maharaj pioneered reservation and free education, and Dr Ambedkar turned reform into a movement for rights that shaped the Constitution.

Exam protocol

• Give each reformer an organisation, a text, a date and an idea.
• For a comparison, set the liberal and the anti-caste traditions side by side.
• End an evaluation with the reformer's legacy in law or institutions.