Question

What did the spread of print culture in nineteenth century India mean to Reformers?

Answer 1

1. Reformers employed newspapers, journals, and books to expose the social problems that prevailed in society. Raja Ram Mohan Roy released the Sambad Kaumudi to highlight the condition of widows.
2. Many Bengali women writers, such as Kailashbashini Debi, began writing works in the 1860s that highlighted women’s experiences of being imprisoned at home, kept ignorant, forced to do arduous domestic labour, and treated unfairly by the men they served.
3. Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote vehemently about the wretched circumstances of upper-caste Hindu women, particularly widows, in the 1880s in what is now Maharashtra. Tamil writers have shown concern about women’s poverty.
4. Jyotiba Phule was a social reformer. He wrote about the problems of the ‘low caste’. He discussed the caste system’s inequalities in his work Gulamgiri (1871).
5. In the 20th century, B.R. Ambedkar also wrote powerfully against the caste system. He also argued against untouchability. E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, also known as Periyar, wrote about the caste system that existed in Madras (Chennai).