Pandita Ramabai travelled to different corners of the country. This helped in faster exchange and spread of ideas. Sociologist Satish Saberwal identifies this phenomenon as :
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Modes of communication in the modern context
Option (1) Nature of ideas in the colonial context — Incorrect. The nature of ideas is the third of Saberwal’s aspects: new ideas of liberalism and freedom, of homemaking and marriage, of pride in culture and of the value of education. Ramabai’s journeys are about how ideas travelled, not about what the ideas were.
Option (2) Modes of communication in the modern context — Correct. Satish Saberwal sketches three aspects of the modern framework of change in colonial India: modes of communication, forms of organisation and the nature of ideas. New technologies — the printing press, the telegraph, steamships and railways — speeded up communication and the movement of people. Pandita Ramabai travelling to different corners of the country, and Keshav Chandra Sen visiting Madras, are his examples of this quicker movement of new ideas.
Option (3) Forms of organization in the modern context — Incorrect. Forms of organisation means the modern social organisations that were set up, such as the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj and the All-India Muslim Ladies Conference. A reformer’s travels are not the setting up of an organisation.
Option (4) Forms of organization in the colonial context — Incorrect. Again, forms of organisation refers to bodies like the Brahmo Samaj and to public debate through newspapers and journals; Ramabai’s travelling is an example of the spread of ideas through new means of communication.
NCERT (2025-26): “2.1 Social reform movements in the 19th and early 20th century … Sociologist Satish Saberwal elaborates upon the modern context by sketching three aspects to the modern framework of change in colonial India:
“New technologies speeded up various forms of communication. The printing press, telegraph, and later the microphone, movement of people and goods through steamship and railways helped quick movement of new ideas. Within India, social reformers from Punjab and Bengal exchanged ideas with reformers from Madras and Maharashtra. Keshav Chandra Sen of Bengal visited Madras in 1864. Pandita Ramabai travelled to different corners of the country. Some of them went to other countries. Christian missionaries reached remote corners of present day Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya.…” |