gs1 What religious and social reforms did the British make in Indian society? | UPSC General Studies-I
What religious and social reforms did the British make in Indian society? | UPSC General Studies-I
What religious and social reforms did the British make in Indian society?
Answer.
The following are the religious and social reforms brought by the British during the colonial period:
Female feticide:
In the upper Bengali caste and Rajput caste, the killing of female infants soon after birth was common in the Bengal Presidency during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Bengal regulations of 1795 and 1804 declared female feticide illegal and would be treated as murder.
In the Regulation Act of 1870: It was made mandatory for the parents to register the birth of all the infants and the girl child was verified from time to time.
Sati Ban:
Bengal Regulation Act 1829: The practice of Sati was banned in the Bengal Presidency.
Then in 1830: The ban on Sati tradition was extended till the Madras and Bombay Presidencies.
Widow remarriage;
Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the principal of Sanskrit College, Calcutta, was the first to try to legalize widow remarriage.
In 1852, Kardondas Mulji, an advocate of widow remarriage, started Satya Prakash in Gujarat.
Vishnu Shastri Pandit founded the Widow Remarriage Association in the 1850s.
The British Government passed the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856 to legalize the marriage of widows.
D.K. Karve also made efforts for widow remarriage in Madras Presidency and he himself married a widow in 1893.
Child marriage:
The Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872, which prohibited child marriage, had effect only for Indian Christians and had a limited effect in India as it did not apply to Hindus, Muslims, and other religions.
Age of Consent Act 1891: The minimum age of sexual intercourse was raised from 10 to 12 years for all girls, married or unmarried.
Saradha Act 1929 or Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929: The age of marriage for the boy was fixed at 18 and that of the girl at 14.
The Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Act 1978 raised the age of marriage to 21 for boys and 18 for girls.
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