Socio-Religious Movements

The socio-religious reform movements had a large and long-lasting influence, particularly on societal problems such as crimes against women via purdah, child marriage,  dowry, and sex-based inequity. 

Negative Effects Of Socio-Religious Movements    

Religious reform movements were not the only ones in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was a religiously-motivated social movement. Reformers such as Rammohan Roy of Bengal, Gopal Hari Deshmukh (Lokhitavadi) of Maharashtra, and Veeresalingam of Andhra Pradesh called for religious reform with the main goal of political and social improvement. These movements also led to an increase in nationalism and patriotism. It has a long-term impact on the country. 

National Awakening Creation

• Religious reform organizations supported many Indians in adapting to modern life; and
• Intellectuals’ views and activities were directly or indirectly tied to the aim of nation-building and rebuilding.
• In truth, rather than being an isolated event, the social reform movement had been influenced by broader national political and economic difficulties.
• These movements helped pave the way for the formation of Indian nationalism, which ultimately led to the war for independence.
• The socio-religious reform movements foreshadowed nationalism in numerous ways.

Negative Aspects Of Religious Reform Movements

• One of the fundamental drawbacks of religious reform movements was their small social base, which consisted mostly of trained and urban middle-class people, while the great portions of peasants and poor people of urban society were disregarded.
• The reformers’ desire to cling to the glory of the past to rely on scriptural authority fostered new kinds of mysticism and pseudo-science thinking, while impeding full acknowledgment of the need for a current scientific approach.
• To top it all, these inclinations contributed to the segregation of Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Parsis, as well as the estrangement of the high-caste Hindu community from the low-caste Hindus community.
• The growth of another type of awareness, community consciousness, accompanying national consciousness among the middle classes, seems to have delayed the formation of a complex culture, which was throughout Indian history.

The Cause Of India’s Peasant Movement’s Decline

• The peasants fought primarily for their own demands, almost entirely on economic problems.
• They fought against their local opponents, foreign planters and indigenous landowners, and private lenders, zamindars;
• They did not make colonialism their aim, and their goal was not the abolition of their subordination system and exploitation.
• They had minimal territorial reach and little mutual contact or links;
• They also lacked battle continuity and long-term organization.
• When a movement’s goals were met, its organization, as well as the peasant solidarity that had grown up around it, disintegrated and vanished.
• These movements lacked a grasp of the economic structure and the colonial state — as well as the social framework of the movements themselves;
• They lacked a constructive notion of an alternative society, among other things.

Peasant Movement

Land tax increases, a lack of tenure security, and landlord exploitation of the poor peasantry were the primary reasons. The insurgency has deteriorated into Hindu-Muslim conflict.  The Peasant Movement demanded: (a) a reduction in income. (b) Beggar’s abolition. (c) A social boycott of tyrannical landlords is proposed.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s contribution to the campaign was that he visited communities to learn about the people’s complaints. Oudh Kisan Sabha was established for farming, and 300 branches were established within a month.

Three aspects of the peasant movement Organized in Awadh

(i) The peasant movement in Awadh was led by Baba Ramchandra. He was a sanyasi, who had previously labored as an indentured worker in Fiji.

(ii) The agitation in this area was against talukdars and landowners who wanted excessive rents from peasants.

(iii) Peasants were forced to do begar and labor on landowners’ fields for no pay.

Conclusion 

The nineteenth-century reform movements contributed significantly to the creation of modern India. They symbolized societal democratization, the extinction of superstition and vile practices, the spread of knowledge, and the formation of a logical and contemporary world-view.