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1st May 2021

Important Socio-Cultural Reform movements

 

1. Brahmo Samaj

• Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) founded the Brahmo Sabha in August 1828; it was later renamed Brahmo Samaj.
• The Samaj was committed to “the worship and adoration of Eternal, Unsearchable, Immutable Being who is the author and Preserver of the Universe”.
• Prayers, Meditations and reading of the Upanishads were to be the forms of worship and no forms of a graven image, statute or sculpture, carvings, paintings, picture, portraits etc were to be allowed in the Samaj buildings, thus underlining the Samaj’s opposition to idolatry and meaningless rituals.
• The long-term agenda of Brahmo Samaj was to Purify Hinduism and to preach monotheism.
• This long-terms agenda was based on twin pillars of reason and Vedas and
• The Samaj kept its emphasis on human dignity, opposition to idolatry and criticism of social evils such as Sati.
• Maharishi Debendranath Tagore gave a new life to the movement when the joined it in 1843.
• The Samaj supported widow remarriage, women’s education, the abolition of polygamy improvement in ryots’ condition and temperance.
• When Keshub Chandra Sen was made the acharya by soon after he joined it, the Samaj experienced another phase of energy, vigour and eloquence. He was instrumental in popularising the movement.
• After Keshab Chandra Sen was dismissed from the Brahmo Samaj owing to his radical reforms he founded Brahmo Samaj of India.
• Significance of the Brahmo Samaj-
  • Denounce polytheism and idol worship.
  • Discarded faith in divine avatars.
  • It denied that any scripture could enjoy the status of ultimate authority transcending human reason and conscience.
  • It criticised the caste system.
  • Took no definite stand on the doctrine of karma and transmigration of the soul.

2. Prarthana Samaj

• Keshab Chandra Sen helped found the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay in 1863.
• They relied on education and persuasion rather than on confrontation with Hindu orthodoxy.
• It’s four-point social agenda includes-
  • Disapproval of the cast system.
  • Women’s education.
  • Widow remarriage
  • Raising the age of marriage for both male and female.
• Prominent figures include-
  • G. Ranade (1842-1901)
  • G. Bhandarkar
  • G. Chandavarkar. 

 3. Young Bengal Movement

• Henry Vivan Derozio, who taught at the Hindu College was the leader and its inspirer.
• During the 1820s and early 1830s, there emerged a radical intellectual trend among the youth in Bengal which came to be known as ‘Young Bengal Movement’.
• Drawing inspiration from the French Revolution, Derozio inspired his pupils to
  • Think freely and rationally.
  • Question all authority.
  • Love, liberty and equality and freedom.
  • Oppose decadent customs and traditions.
• The movement also supported women’s rights and education.
• The movement, however, failed to have long term impact, reasons for which are-
  • Prevailing social conditions at that time were not ripe for the adoption of radical ideas.
  • The movement lacked any real link with the masses.

 4. Paramhansa Mandalis

• It was founded in Maharashtra in 1849.
• The founder of this movement believed in one god.
• They were primarily focused on breaking the caste barriers.
• They also advocated widow remarriage and women’s education.
• Branches of Paramhansa Mandalis existed in Poona, Satara and other towns of Maharashtra.

 5. Satya Shodhak Samaj

• Jyotiba Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873.
• Its leadership came primarily from the backward classes-Malis, Telis, Kunbis, Saris and Dhangars.
• Main aims of the movement were-
  • Social service.
  • Spread of education among women and lower classes.
• Phule aimed at the complete abolition of the caste system and socio-economic equalities.
• The movement gave a sense of identity to the deprived communities as a class against Brahmins who were seen as the exploiters.

6.The Ramkrishna Movement

• It was led by Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
• The Brahmo Samaj appealed more to the intellectual elite in Bengal, while the average Bengali found more emotional satisfaction in the cult of bhakti and yoga so the movement found many followers.
• Two objectives of the Ramakrishna movement were
  • To bring into existence a band of monks dedicated to a life of renunciation and practical spirituality.
  • In conjunction with lay disciples to carry on preaching, philanthropic and charitable works, looking upon all men, women and children, irrespective of caste, creed or colour, as veritable manifestations of the Divine.
• The second objective was taken up by Swami Vivekananda after Ramakrishna’s death when he founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897.
• Paramahamsa sought salvation through traditional ways of renunciation, meditation and bhakti amidst increasing westernisation and modernisation.

7. The Servants of India Society.

• Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), founded the Servants of India Society in 1905 with the help of M.G. Ranade.
• The aim of the society was-
  • to train national missionaries for the service of India;
  • to promote, by all constitutional means, the true interests of the Indian people;
  • to prepare a cadre of selfless workers who were to devote their lives to the cause of the country in a religious spirit.
• The society chose to remain aloof from political activities and organisations like the Indian National Congress.

8. Arya Samaj

• Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883) founded the movement.
• Dayananda subscribed to the Vedic notion of chaturvarna system in which a person was not born in any caste but was identified according to the occupation the person followed.
• The Arya Samaj fixed the minimum marriageable age at twenty-five years for boys and sixteen years for girls.
• Inter-caste marriages and widow remarriages were also encouraged. Equal status for women was the demand of the Samaj, both in letter and in spirit.

9. Sree Narayana Guru Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Movement

• It was started by Sree Narayana Guru Swamy (1856- 1928) among the Ezhavas of Kerala.
• Ezhavas were a backward caste of toddy-tappers and were considered to be untouchables, denied education and entry into temples.
• The SNDP movement was an example of a regional movement born out of the conflict between the depressed classes and upper castes.
• Sree Narayana Guru held all religions to be the same and condemned animal sacrifice besides speaking against divisiveness on the basis of caste, race or creed.
• The movement as a whole brought transformative structural changes such as upward social mobility, a shift in the traditional distribution of power and a federation of ‘backward castes’ into a large conglomeration.

10. Sef-Respect Movement

• This movement was started by V. Ramaswamy Naicker, a Balija Naidu, in the mid-1920s.
• The movement aimed at a rejection of the brahminical religion and culture which Naicker felt was the prime instrument of exploitation of the lower castes.
• He sought to undermine the position of brahmin priests by formalising weddings without brahmin priests.

11. Temple Entry Movement

• K. Madhavan, a prominent social reformer and editor of Deshabhimani, took up the issue of temple entry with the Travancore administration. Nothing transpired.
• In the meanwhile, Vaikom, in the northern part of Travancore, became a centre of agitation for temple entry.
• In 1924, the Vaikom Satyagraha led by K.P. Kesava was launched in Kerala demanding the throwing open of Hindu temples and roads to the untouchables.
• Gandhi undertook a tour of Kerala in support of the movement.
• Leaders like P. Krishna Pillai and A.K. Gopalan were among the satyagrahis.
• Finally, in 1936, the Maharaja of Travancore issued a proclamation throwing open all government-controlled temples to all Hindus.

12. Aligarh Movement

• A section of Muslims led by Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) was ready to allow the official patronage to stimulate a process of growth among Indian Muslims through better education and employment opportunities.
• He wanted to reconcile Western scientific education with the teachings of the Quran which were to be interpreted in the light of contemporary rationalism and science even though he also held the Quran to be the ultimate authority.
• He said that religion should be adaptable with time or else it would become fossilised, and that religious tenet was not immutable.
• He advocated a critical approach and freedom of thought and not complete dependence on tradition or custom.
• He was also a zealous educationist-founded the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (later, the Aligarh Muslim University) at Aligarh in 1875.
• The Aligarh Movement emerged as a liberal, modern trend among the Muslim intelligentsia based in Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh.
• It aimed at spreading-
  • (i) modern education among Indian Muslims without weakening their allegiance to Islam;
  • (ii) social reforms among Muslims relating to purdah, polygamy, widow remarriage, women’s education, slavery, divorce, etc.
• The ideology of the followers of the movement was based on a liberal interpretation of the Quran and they sought to harmonise Islam with modern liberal culture.
• They wanted to impart a distinct socio-cultural identity to Muslims on modern lines.

13. The Deoband School (Darul Uloom)

• The Deoband Movement was begun at the Darul Uloom,Deoband, in Saharanpur district (United Provinces) in 1866 by Mohammad Qasim Nanotavi (1832-80) and Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (1828-1905) to train religious leaders for the Muslim community.
• The Deoband Movement was organised by the orthodox section among the Muslim ulema as a revivalist movement.
• It has the twin objectives of propagating pure teachings of the Quran and Hadis among Muslims and keeping alive the spirit of jihad against the foreign rulers.
• On the political front, the Deoband school welcomed the formation of the Indian National Congress and in 1888.
• Shibli Numani, a supporter of the Deoband school, favoured the inclusion of English language and European sciences in the system of education.
• He founded the Nadwatal Ulama and Darul Uloom in Lucknow in 1894-96. He believed in the idealism of the Congress and cooperation between the Muslims and the Hindus of India to create a state in which both could live amicably.

14. Sikh Reform Movements.

• The Sikh community could not remain untouched by the rising tide of rationalist and progressive ideas of the nineteenth century.
• The Singh Sabha Movement was founded at Amritsar in 1873 with a two-fold objective—
  • to make available modern western education to the Sikhs, and
  • to counter the proselytising activities of Christian missionaries as well as the Brahmo Samajists, Arya Samajists and Muslim maulvis.
• For the first objective, a network of Khalsa schools was established by the Sabha throughout Punjab.
• In the second direction, everything that went against the Gurus’ teachings was rejected, and rites and customs considered to be consistent with Sikh doctrine were sought to be established.
• The Akali movement (also known as Gurudwara Reform Movement) was an offshoot of the Singh Sabha Movement.
• It aimed at liberating the Sikh gurudwaras from the control of corrupt Udasi mahants.
• The government tried its repressive policies against the non-violent non-cooperation satyagraha launched by the Akalis in 1921 but had to bow before popular demands.
• The government passed the Sikh Gurudwaras Act in 1922 (amended in 1925) which gave the control of gurudwaras to the Sikh masses to be administered through Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) as the apex body.
• The Akali Movement was a regional movement but not a communal one.

15. The Theosophical Movement

• A group of westerners led by Madame H.P. Blavatsky and Colonel M.S. Olcott, who were inspired by Indian thought and culture, founded the Theosophical Society in New York City, the United States in 1875.
• In 1882, they shifted their headquarters to Adyar, on the outskirts of Madras.
• The society believed that a special relationship could be established between a person’s soul and God by contemplation, prayer, revelation, etc.
• It accepted the Hindu beliefs in reincarnation and karma and drew inspiration from the philosophy of the Upanishads and Samkhya, yoga and Vedanta schools of thought.
• It aimed to work for the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour.
• It opposed child marriage and advocated the abolition of caste discrimination, uplift of outcastes, improvement in the condition of widows.
• In India, the movement became somewhat popular with the election of Annie Besant (1847-1933) as its president.
• She laid the foundation of the Central Hindu College in Benaras in 1898 where both Hindu religion and Western scientific subjects were taught.
• The Theosophical Society provided a common denominator for the various sects and fulfilled the urge of educated Hindus.
• To an average Indian, the Theosophist philosophy seemed to be vague and lacking a positive programme; to that extent, its impact was limited to a small segment of the westernised class.
• As religious revivalists, the Theosophists did not attain much success.
• But as a movement of westerners glorifying Indian religious and philosophical traditions, it gave much-needed self-respect to the Indians fighting British colonial rule.
• Viewed from another angle, the Theosophists also had the effect of giving a false sense of pride to the Indians in their outdated and sometimes backwards-looking traditions and philosophy.

 

 

Important Newspapers associated with the freedom Struggle

Name of the Paper             or journal	Year and Place  of           Publication	Name of the Founder          or       Editor
Bengal Gazette	1780, Calcutta	James Augustus Hicky
India Gazette	1787, Calcutta	Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was associated with it
Bombay Herald           (First Paper from                   Bombay)	1789, Bombay	————
Digdarshana   (First Bengali Monthly)	1818, Calcutta	———–
Bengal Gazette        (First Bengali                    Newspaper)	1818, Calcutta	Harishchandra Ray
Sambad Kaumudi     (Weekly in Bengali)	1821	Raja Ram Mohan Roy
Mirat-ul-Akbar                   (First Journal in        Persian)	1822, Calcutta	Raja Ram Mohan Roy
Banga-Duta            (A weekly in four languages- English, Bengali, Persian, Hindi)	1822, Calcutta	Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore and others.
Bombay Times   (From 1861 onwards, The Times of India)	1838, Bombay	Foundation laid by Robert Knight                            Started by Thomas Bennett
Rast Goftar            (A Gujarati fortnightly)	1851	Dadabhai Naoroji
Hindu Patriot	1853, Calcutta	Girishchandra Ghosh
Bengalee	1862, Calcutta	Girishchandra Ghosh   (Taken over by S.N. Banerjea in 1879)
Amrit Bazar Patrika	1868, Jessore District	Sisirkumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh
Bangadarshana              (In Begali)	1873, Calcutta	Bankimchandra Chatterji
Indian Statesman (Later, The Statesman)	1875, Calcutta	Started by Robert Knight
The Hindu (In Egnlish) (Started as weekly)	1878, Madras	G.S. Aiyar, Viraraghavachari and Subha Rao Pandit
Tribune (daily)	1881, Lahore	Dayal Singh Majeetia
Kesari(Marathi daily)             and    Maharatta (English            weekly)	1881, Bombay	Tilak, Chiplunkar, Agarkar
Swadeshmitran                  (A Tamil paper)	Madras	G.S. Aiyar
Paridasak (a weekly)	1886	Bipin Chandra Pal (publisher)
Yugantar	1906, Bengal	Barindra Kumar Ghosh andBhupendra Dutta
Indian Sociologist	London	Shyamji Krishnavarma
Bande Matram	Paris	Madam Bhikaji Kama
Talwar	Berlin	Virendranath Chattopadhyay
Ghadar	Vancouver	Ghadar Party
Bombay Chronicle               (a daily)	1913, Bombay	Started by Pherozeshah Mehta
The Hindustan Times	1920, Delhi	Founded by K. M. Panikkar as a part of the Akali Dal Movement
Leader (in English)	———-	Madan Mohan Malaviya
Bahishkrit Bharat (Marathi fortnightly)	1927	B. R. Ambedkar
Kudi Arasu (Tamil)	1910	E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar)
Bandi Jivan	Bengal	Sachindranath Sanyal
National Herald	1938	Started by Jawaharlal Nehru

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It’s been said, tried and tested multiple times that reading Laxmikant is inevitable for UPSC prep. In Fact we must use this book as the pretext for our preparation for Polity.

We are not going to support or advocate any new source to read Polity. Instead, we are going to tell you the SMARTER way of preparing for Prelims from Laxmikant itself.

Lets see how, read through the Year Wise breakup of questions asked from Polity

Year	Number of questions
2014	11
2015	13
2016	7
2017	19
2018	13
2019	12
2020	17
2021	Any guesses?

 With the evolving numbers and inherent uncertainty above, we need to read between the lines and get an idea of the developing trend and pattern where the importance of Laxmikant cannot be ignored.

On an average UPSC has been asking 15-20 Questions each year from the polity section since 2011.

Most of the questions are being asked from a single source which is M Laxmikanth. Lately, a mix of current affairs-based questions has been introduced with associated static knowledge.

Click here to fill the Samanvaya form for 1-1 mentorship. We will call you within 24 hours. 

How to start reading Laxmikanth?

Never devote equal importance or time to all sections of Laxmikant as that would turn out to be draining you (Mentally and Physically) at the end with no real outcome. With this extra hard work strategy, you may or may not solve all the polity questions in prelims.

The second strategy is the Hard-work + Smart strategy where even though you will read each and every chapter of Laxmikant but you will give special focus to certain important chapters and information which will help you to solve each and every question of polity in UPSC prelims. We call them “Meaty Areas”. And most importantly, always try to learn chapters from Laxmikant with one or two live examples. There are a sufficient number of them around us.

Some general observations about the book

• It has been written in such a way that you do not need to make any notes out of it
• It is one of the best compilation of various useful resources contained in the constitution
• Its language is simple and easy to understand
• It is way more to easy to comprehend than say, a book like Constitution of India by D .D. Basu

Macro-level suggestions on how we should read from Laxmikant book

#1. Start chronologically with Chapter 1 itself.

Remember the Union and its territories, recent LBA with Bangladesh. Go slowly, reading each and every line (each and every line of this book ought to be read)

#2. Prelims examination not only requires conceptual clarity but also the applied part of it.

The conceptual clarity helps to solve the analytical question asked from this section. (Prelims 2017, 2019 & 2020 was heavily loaded with conceptual questions from Polity).

Example:

1) Consider the following statements:

The Constitution of India defines its ‘basic structure’ in terms of federalism, secularism, fundamental rights and democracy.

The Constitution of India provides for ‘judicial review’ to safeguard the citizens’ liberties and to preserve the ideals on which the Constitution is based.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

2) Consider the following statements:

According to the Constitution of India, a person who is eligible to vote can be made a minister in a State for six months even if he/she is not a member of the Legislature of that State.

According to the Representation of People Act, 1951, a person convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for five years is permanently disqualified from contesting an election even after his release from prison.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

You might be wondering how this is applicable to the current scenario? These questions appear to be directly coming from Laxmikant and that is even true but unlike earlier, they require a lot of conceptual clarity to answer them. Even seasoned aspirants have ended up marking them incorrectly. The interplay of phrases like “India defines” and “India provides” has made many confused.

According to the earlier trends, it was easy to attempt a maximum number of questions from polity because generally questions from this section were direct and based on factual information. But, now the nature of questions has changed.

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#3. Along with factual information, one should cover the current political developments.

Link the “Current Affairs” with “Associated Static”. This eases the pressure on the aspirant and also helps build confidence.

Example:

Q.) With reference to the Parliament of India, consider the following statements

1. A private member’s bill is a bill presented by a Member of Parliament who is not elected but only nominated by the President of India.
2. Recently, a private member’s bill has been passed in the Parliament of India for the first time in its history.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

UPSC, nowadays does not ask direct current affairs, it asks about background knowledge of any matter/issue.

Correlating things: the bookish knowledge and the practical happenings- is the real essence of preparing for UPSC civil services exam. Try to locate whatever you learned from Laxmikanth book in the day-to-day happenings, history, hypothetical situations, etc.

You may watch Lok Sabha proceedings and can tally whatever you learned from the book. You might read an article in a newspaper about change in name of a state, and revise the procedure for the same from the book. This will make learning interesting.

#4. Most importantly, analyze previous year’s question papers. See what type of question is asked and how they are asked.

Practicing previous year questions will help you to find out the areas where you commit mistakes.

Micro-level suggestions on how you should read the book

Section one: Historical background

What is most important here?

Committees of the Constituent Assembly

What is moderately important?

Composition of the Constituent Assembly

Rest can be ignored or given a mild read.

Section two: Fundamental Rights, Duties, DPSP, Preamble (Very very important)

General Comments

UPSC asks 5-6 Questions every year from this section. In UPSC 2020 most of the polity Questions were asked from this section. You have to read this section multiple times.

Specific Suggestions

• Salient features of the Indian Constitution (Moderately important. The topics mentioned in this chapters are covered extensively in later chapters)
• Preamble to the Constitution (Very very important) UPSC simply loves Preamble. It has asked questions on the preamble in 2015 and this year also. Read carefully about different words mentioned in the preamble (example fraternity) and what do they exactly mean.
• Union and its territory (Moderately important). Aspirants should be aware of the process through which states are created and also they should be aware of the sequence of new states creation).
• Fundamental rights, DPSP and Fundamental duties (Very very important) FR, FD, DPSP etc are difficult as they have laws and bylaws.
• Some are explicit while others are implicit. It is thus important to get the concept and soul of them. UPSC won’t ask petty details or facts. It will exploit the conceptual part.
• You should be able to connect dots with recent happenings. For example, in 2017 UPSC asked a question related to privileges after use of red beacons was abolished by the government for ministers/officers.
• Amendment of the constitution (Read carefully about different types of majorities and which majority is used in which case for example in which cases two-third majority is required and in which cases simple majority is required.)
• Read very carefully about basic terms of polity like Cabinet form of Government, Judicial review, President System, Prime Minister System, Federalism, First past the post system, Proportional representation, rights and duties etc.

In the last few years UPSC has been asking lots of questions to test the conceptual clarity of the aspirant.

Section three: Similar topics

Union and state Executive / Centre and State Relations

Given the nature of evolving polity in India and ever powerful state govts, the conceptual clarity with respect to the Centre and State relations and constitutional bodies / protocols have ( PM Modi rebuking CM Kejriwal for airing the live meeting).

Almost 90%  of powers and functions of President and Governor are the same. With respect to Delhi the introduction of the recent GNCT Act, with more power to the office of Lt Governor of Delhi is another aspect of development, important for both Prelims and Mains.

If you cover topics which are similar like President and governor, Prime Minister and Chief Minister, Parliament and state legislature, supreme court and high court together it will save your time and will be easy to memorize and link them. Smart work!

How President and Vice President are elected and removed

Read very carefully the Comparison table of powers of Governor and President mentioned in the Governor Chapter in Laxmikanth.

Always read trivial information very carefully, you can also make notes of the titbits information mentioned in any chapter since UPSC loves to ask trivia based questions, for example, the President can pardon a death convict, however, the Governor cannot.

Parliament and state legislature

Every year 1-3 questions are asked from it in prelims.

 What is most important in this chapter?

• Read both chapters simultaneously. Look for differences between the powers of parliament and state legislature example privilege power of parliament is much wider than state legislature. (Very important)
• Different committees and its composition and various kinds of motions and resolutions.
• Different types of bills
• Different types of discussions
• Powers of speakers,deputy speakers,Chairman and Vice Chairman.
• Comparison between powers of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and Rajya Sabha and legislative council.
• Budget.

Supreme court and High court

What is most important here?

• Comparison between writ powers of High court and Supreme court. Master of Roaster, Conflict of interest, Corona crisis, you name it and Courts are into it. Especially use of art 142 by SC also needs to be inspected carefully.
• Appointment and removal process of SC and HC judges(There is some trivial differences in that process)
• Original powers of SC and HC

Section 4:  Constitutional/statutory and Executive bodies

What should you read very carefully?

• Whether the body is constitutional, statutory or executive. Example SC/ST commission is constitutional body but backward commission and women commission are Statutory Bodies.
• Who appoints the chairman and member of the commission and how they are removed.
• Focus on trivial issues
• Usually, except for appointment and removal, most of the functions and details of Central commissions and state commissions are similar.

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 Section 5: Special status of different states and union territories

What should you read very carefully?

• Read carefully the role of Governor and president in these states as already emphasised.
• Read carefully the powers of L.G. and president in union territories. President has some extraordinary power in some union territories.

Section 6: Local Bodies

These third tier of Govts are not considered the most important pillars of basic governance and their empowerment is must going forward. Aspirants need to devote a decent amount of time understanding the constitutional mandates and powers of Panchayati raj and Municipality.

14th and 15th Finance Commissions and their views of local governance and their development needs a mention here. There are now direct allocations to local bodies from Consolidated fund of India suggested by these Finance Commissions.

Read carefully different committees of Panchayati raj.

Regarding powers and functions of local bodies read carefully about which clause is mandatory (mandated by 73rd and 74th amendment) and which is optional (depends on whims and fancies of state government).

Example SC/ST reservation in local bodies is mentioned in 73rd and 74th amendment but OBC reservation is optional.

Section 7: Miscellaneous items

This will include remaining topics:

• In this most important chapters are anti-defection law, the official language, political parties and elections.
• The anti-defection chapter closely read about differences in the 52nd amendment and 85th amendment (it is bit tricky).
• In the political party chapter extensively read about criteria for granting any political party national or regional status.

Rest of the chapters should be read but they are not very important from an exam perspective.

 

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