1.
Answer the following questions:
Marks : 8
1. Evaluate the contribution of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar
in the Women freedom movement.
2. Give an account of British Education Policy in India
in the 19th century.
3. Mention the background/causes of the renaissance
in the 19th century Bengal
4. Discuss on the background of the expansion of
western education in Bengal. What was the result of
the expansion of Western education in India? 5+3
5. Discuss on the contribution of Young Bengal Group
in Young Bengal Movement. Why was it a failure? 5+3
6. What do you know about the causes, significance and
limitations of the nineteenth century renaissance in
Bengal?
Answers
Answer:
1. Vidyasagar’s Barna Parichay (an introduction to the Bengali alphabet) is still the first book a Bengali child is handed more than 160 years after it was written, His contribution to the alphabet, translation of several Sanskrit books, including Kalidas’s Shakuntala, has helped Bengali literature, Vidyasagar wrote two volumes on the mistreatment of widows, which set the tone for major social reform in the state etc.
Discuss then his contributions as a social reformer – took on conservative power centers of the Hindu society to force through reforms that would allow widow remarriage, women’s education and the rights of lower caste Hindus to study Sanskrit, challenged the widespread practice of child marriage, He challenged the staunch Hindu patriarchy to bring in modern reforms etc.
2. the British East India Company was not concerned with the development of the education system because their prime motive was trading and profit-making. To rule in India, they planned to educate a small section of upper and middle classes to create a class “Indian in blood and colour but English in taste” who would act as interpreters between the Government and the masses. This was also called the “downward filtration theory”. The following steps and measures were taken by the British for the development of Education in India. The chronological development of Education during the British Period.
3. Bengal Renaissance refers largely to the social, cultural, psychological, and intellectual changes in Bengal during the nineteenth century, as a result of contact between certain sympathetic British officials and missionaries on the one hand, and the Hindu intelligentsia on the other.
4. Originally the British went to India as tradesmen, but gradually they became the rulers of the country. On Dec. 31, 1600, the East India Company was established, and, like all commercial bodies, its main objective was trade. Gradually during the 18th century the pendulum swung from commerce to administration. The deterioration of Mughal power in India, the final expulsion of French rivals in the Seven Years’ War, and the virtual appropriation of Bengal and Bihar in a treaty of 1765 had all made the company a ruling power. In spite of this, the company did not recognize the promotion of education among the people of India as a part of its duty or obligation. For a long time the British at home were greatly opposed to any system of public instruction for the Indians, just as they were for their own people.
5.The Derozians failed to have a long term impact. Derozio was removed from the Hindu college in 1831 because of radicalism. The main reason for their limited success was social conditions prevailing at that time which were not ripe for adoption of radical ideas. Further they lacked to link masses like peasant cause.
6. The Bengali Renaissance or simply Bengal Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual and artistic movement in Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent during the period of the British Indian Empire, from the 19th century to the early 20th century dominated by Bengali Hindu community.[1]
Historian Nitish Sengupta describes the Bengal Renaissance as taking place from Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) through Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and Shiv Chandra Sarkar (1872 - 1958).[2] According to historian Sumit Sarkar, 19th century Bengali religious and social reformers, scholars, literary giants, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists were revered and regarded with nostalgia in the early and mid 20th century. In the early 1970s, however, a more critical view emerged.