A group in colonial India read western enlightenment thinkers and philosophers of liberal democracy, dreaming of a liberal and progressive India. Identify it. How did it respond to humiliation by colonial rule?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → It asserted its pride in traditional learning and scholarship
Option (1) It gave up reading western liberal thinkers — Incorrect. The group kept reading western thinkers. It held on to their ideas and still took pride in its own tradition, which is the paradox of colonial modernity.
Option (2) It turned to Christian missionary schools for education — Incorrect. This group was already a product of western education. Its answer to colonial humiliation was pride in its own learning, and missionary schools play no part in it.
Option (3) It took up the injustices suffered by the discriminated castes — Incorrect. The injustices suffered by the discriminated castes were a central question for some reform movements. They belong to that reform agenda and form no part of this group's reply to colonial humiliation.
Option (4) It asserted its pride in traditional learning and scholarship — Correct. The group is the English educated Indian middle class that grew under colonialism. Humiliated by colonial rule, it asserted its pride in traditional learning and scholarship.
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