RAS question
Pandita Ramabai's book 'The High-Caste Hindu Woman' (1887) exposed:
Correct answer: (B) The oppression of women in Hindu society especially widows.
Pandita Ramabai's 1887 book The High-Caste Hindu Woman exposed the oppression of Hindu women, especially the suffering of child widows.
Explanation
Pandita Ramabai's The High-Caste Hindu Woman was published in Philadelphia in 1887 and directly examined the life of the high-caste Hindu woman through sections on childhood, married life, woman's place in religion and society, and widowhood. Its central force was not a general attack on another community or on colonial rule, but a close account of how social and religious practices kept women dependent. Widowhood was treated like punishment, with child widows and childless young widows bearing particular abuse and hatred. Ramabai linked this suffering to the need for education, shelter, and women teachers, which explains why the book drew support for her welfare work.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) The condition of high-caste Hindu women, rather than Muslim practices, was Ramabai's subject.
- (C) Although widows faced material hardship, the primary focus was social and religious oppression of women, not economic exploitation as a separate theme.
- (D) British rule appears only incidentally; Ramabai's argument targeted the customs and laws shaping Hindu women's lives rather than British oppression.
Concept
Modern Indian social reform included nineteenth-century critiques of gender inequality and widowhood. RAS repeatedly uses such examples because reformist writings connect social practices, education, and women's public activism.