Indian History Quiz: Socio-Religious Reform Movements

The correct answer is A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. He founded the Atmiya Sabha, a society of friends for religious and philosophical discussion, at Calcutta in 1815, and it was the first of his organised efforts against idol worship and empty ritual. From it grew the Brahmo Sabha of 1828, later the Brahmo Samaj. Option B is wrong because Keshab Chandra Sen came a generation later and split the Brahmo Samaj by founding the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866. Option C is wrong because Debendranath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhini Sabha in 1839 and joined the Brahmo Samaj in 1843, giving it organisation after Roy's death. Option D is wrong because Raja Radhakant Deb was an orthodox leader who founded the Dharma Sabha to oppose the abolition of sati, that is, to oppose Roy.

The correct answer is B, Swami Dayanand Saraswati. He founded the Arya Samaj at Bombay in 1875, held the Vedas to be the source of all true knowledge, rejected idol worship, priestly authority and hereditary caste, and set out his views in Satyarth Prakash. The Samaj also began the shuddhi movement for the return of converts. Option A is wrong because Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, a different body with a different emphasis on service. Option C is wrong because Swami Shraddhanand was a later leader of the Arya Samaj who established the Gurukul at Kangri in 1902; he carried the movement forward but did not found it. Option D is wrong because Ramakrishna Paramahansa was a Bengali saint who taught the unity of religions and founded no organisation himself.

The correct answer is B, Jyotiba Phule. He founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the society of truth seekers, in 1873 in Maharashtra to free the lower castes from Brahminical domination, and his book Gulamgiri of the same year compared their condition with that of slaves. With Savitribai Phule he had already opened a school for girls at Pune in 1848. Option A is wrong because B. R. Ambedkar's organisations came much later, the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha in 1924 and the Mahad Satyagraha in 1927. Option C is wrong because Sri Narayana Guru worked in Kerala and founded the SNDP Yogam in 1903. Option D is wrong because E. V. Ramasamy Naicker, known as Periyar, began the Self-Respect Movement in Tamil Nadu in 1925. Phule's aim was social and not only religious: he pressed for schooling for the lower castes and for women, and in 1888 he was given the title Mahatma at a public meeting in Bombay.

The correct answer is A, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. A Sanskrit scholar and principal of Sanskrit College, he argued from the shastras themselves that the remarriage of widows was permissible, petitioned the government and so brought about the Act of 1856; he also worked for girls' schools and against polygamy. Option B is wrong because Behramji Malabari, a Parsi reformer, pressed for the Age of Consent Act of 1891. Option C is wrong because Har Bilas Sarda moved the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929, which is named the Sharda Act after him. Option D is wrong because Raja Ram Mohan Roy died in 1833; his great legislative success was the Regulation of 1829 that declared sati illegal, not the widow remarriage law. The Act was passed while Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General, a second fact often asked along with Vidyasagar's name.

The correct answer is B, Swami Vivekananda. He founded the Mission in 1897 in the name of his teacher and established its headquarters at Belur Math near Calcutta in 1898, four years after his address to the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. The Mission's work is education, medical relief and disaster relief, on the principle that the service of man is the service of God. Option A is wrong because Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who died in 1886, founded no organisation; the Mission carries his name. Option C is wrong because Annie Besant led the Theosophical Society in India and founded the Central Hindu School at Banaras in 1898. Option D is wrong because Keshab Chandra Sen belonged to the Brahmo Samaj and died in 1884.

The correct answer is B, Adyar near Madras. The Theosophical Society was founded at New York in 1875 by Madame H. P. Blavatsky and Colonel H. S. Olcott, and in 1882 it moved its international headquarters to Adyar, from where it spread the study of ancient Indian philosophy and revived pride in Hindu and Buddhist thought. Option A is wrong because Belur Math is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, established in 1898. Option C is wrong because Banaras is where Annie Besant, a later president of the Society, founded the Central Hindu School in 1898, out of which the Banaras Hindu University grew; the school was an offshoot and not the headquarters. Option D is wrong because Aligarh is associated with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's college of 1875. Colonel Olcott was the Society's first president, and Annie Besant, who led it later, linked its work in India with national awakening and with education.

The correct answer is B, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. He led the Aligarh Movement, held that the Quran was compatible with reason and modern science, founded the Scientific Society in 1864 and the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, and in 1875 opened the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, which became the Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. Option A is wrong because Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi founded the Deoband seminary in 1866, which took an orthodox line opposed to Sir Syed's approach. Option C is wrong because Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founded the Ahmadiya movement in 1889. Option D is wrong because Maulana Abul Kalam Azad belongs to the twentieth-century nationalist movement and edited Al-Hilal, long after the college was founded. Sir Syed also started the Mohammedan Educational Conference, and his movement is remembered as an attempt to reconcile Islam with English education and modern science.

The correct answer is A, Sri Narayana Guru. Working among the Ezhavas of Kerala, he preached that caste had no place in religion, consecrated temples open to all castes, and in 1903 founded the Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, the SNDP Yogam, to carry the work forward. Option B is wrong because Ayyankali, also of Kerala, led the struggle of the Pulayas for the right to walk on public roads and to enter schools; he was a contemporary but the motto is not his. Option C is wrong because Dayanand Saraswati's watchword was 'back to the Vedas' and his field was north and western India. Option D is wrong because M. G. Ranade was a leader of the Prarthana Samaj and of the Indian National Social Conference in Maharashtra.

The correct answer is C, Lord William Bentinck. Persuaded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy's campaign and by the evidence collected from the shastras, he issued the Regulation of 1829 that declared the burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be culpable homicide, first in Bengal and then in the other presidencies. Option A is wrong because Lord Dalhousie, who came much later, is remembered for the doctrine of lapse, the railways and the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856. Option B is wrong because Lord Cornwallis, of the 1790s, is associated with the Permanent Settlement and the reform of the services. Option D is wrong because Lord Curzon, Viceroy from 1899, is associated with the partition of Bengal in 1905 and with the Universities Act of 1904. Bentinck's term is remembered for reform generally, including the suppression of thuggee and the decision of 1835 to spend education funds on English, so he is called the reforming Governor-General.

The correct answer is B, Atmaram Pandurang. He founded the Prarthana Samaj, the prayer society, at Bombay in 1867 on lines close to those of the Brahmo Samaj, and it worked for widow remarriage, the education of women, the raising of the age of marriage and the removal of caste barriers. Options A and C are the standard traps: M. G. Ranade and R. G. Bhandarkar were its most famous members and gave it intellectual weight, and Ranade also founded the Indian National Social Conference, but neither of them founded the Samaj. Option D is wrong because Dadabhai Naoroji belonged to the Parsi reform movement, the Rahnumai Mazdayasnan Sabha of 1851, and later to the Indian National Congress and the drain theory. The Prarthana Samaj built on the work of the Paramahansa Mandali of 1849, which had attacked caste and idol worship in the same region but in secret.

The correct answer is A, Henry Vivian Derozio. An Anglo-Indian teacher at Hindu College, Calcutta, he encouraged his students to question every received belief, and the group of radicals who gathered round him came to be called Young Bengal. They attacked idolatry, caste and the subjection of women, and demanded free thought and women's education. Option B is wrong because David Hare was a philanthropist who helped to found Hindu College and promoted English education, but the radical ideas came from Derozio. Option C is wrong because Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and belongs to the orientalist study of Indian texts. Option D is wrong because Charles Wood gave his name to the Despatch of 1854 on education. Derozio was removed from Hindu College in 1831 for his radical influence and died the same year, aged only twenty-two, which is why the movement was short-lived.

The correct answer is B, E. V. Ramasamy Naicker, known as Periyar. He began the Self-Respect Movement in 1925 to free the non-Brahmin castes from priestly domination and ritual, promoting marriages without priests, widow remarriage and the use of Tamil in place of Sanskrit. Option A is wrong because C. Rajagopalachari was a Congress leader of the same province whose programme was the national movement and prohibition, not an anti-caste movement of this kind. Option C is wrong because Sri Narayana Guru worked in Kerala and founded the SNDP Yogam in 1903, two decades earlier. Option D is wrong because Jyotiba Phule belonged to Maharashtra and to an earlier generation, founding the Satyashodhak Samaj in 1873 and dying in 1890. Periyar's work later shaped the Justice Party and Dravidian politics, and he is remembered as the leading voice of non-Brahmin assertion in the south.