child marraige and untouchability write a paragraph 250 words
Answers
Untouchability is a practice so old that it is embedded tightly onto roots of many people in India. People divided in the name of such social practices refuse to see the bigger picture and refrain from treating everyone as equals. It is the naïve thought processes and opinions of certain people that have led to the way in which people from the so called “Lower caste” are treated.
Different words are used across the world to address these people who are the victims of the practice of untouchability such Dalits in Asia and Cagots in Europe. Various brave people with vision have fought against this absurd practice. Some of them include Vinoba Bhave, B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. These people with the help of their supporters chose to fight against the odds and the unfair treatment. This was one of the many evils of the society against which the leaders of independent India were fighting. Other social evils that have existed in India include sati practice, polygamy, child marriage and illiteracy to name a few. While some of these practices are still prevalent in our society others have been brought to end with a lot of effort.
Two hundred years ago the lives of women were totally different from what it is today. There were so many restrictions imposed on women. Widows were praised and called ‘satis’ meaning ‘virtous’ if they chose to by burning themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. People were also divided along lines of caste. Brahmins and Kshatriyas considered themselves in upper caste, after them traders and moneylenders referred to as Vaishyas and the lower caste were Shudras and included peasants, artisans, weavers and potter. The attitude towards women & social customs started changing from the early 19th century. Raja Rammohan Roy set up the Brahmo Samaj to fight social evils. He began a campaign against the practice of sati.
Swami Dyanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, and also supported widow remarriage. Many reformers felt that to improve the condition of women, education for girls was necessary. Many reformers in Bombay and Vidyasagar in Calcutta set up schools for girls. With the inaugration of first school in mid-19th century, many people feared that school would take the girls away from home and prevent them from doing domestic duties. Many people believed that girls should be kept away from public spaces as they believed that they can get corrupting influence. In aristocratic Muslim families in North India, women learnt to read the Koran in Arabic. They were taught by women who came home to teach.Christians missionaries began setting up schools for the tribal groups and ‘lower’-caste children. There were availability of jobs in cities in factories. Many poor people from the villages & small towns who belonged to low castes got the jobs as labour. The work was hard enough. But the poor had got a chance to get away from the control of upper-castes landowners who exercised daily humiliation over them. Army was another option in jobs. A number of Mahar people, who were regarded as untouchables, found jobs in the Mahar Regiment. By the second half of the 19th century, people from within the ‘lower’ castes began organizing movements against caste discrimination and demanded social equality and justice.