"Two important intellectual criteria which informed the reform movements were rationalism and religious universalism." Critically examine.

Answer:

The nineteenth-century socio-religious reform movements were shaped intellectually by rationalism, the appeal to reason against custom and superstition, and by religious universalism, the belief in a single truth underlying all faiths. Both criteria are amply visible, though neither was universally applied.

Rationalism in the movements

• Rammohan Roy attacked sati, idolatry and caste by appeal to reason and to scripture critically read.
• The Brahmo Samaj rejected doctrines that could not withstand rational scrutiny.
• Akshay Kumar Datta and the Prarthana Samaj applied similar tests to ritual and custom.
• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan insisted that religion must be in harmony with reason and nature.

Religious universalism

• Rammohan drew on Vedanta, Islam and Christianity, seeing one truth behind many creeds.
• Keshab Chandra Sen's Nava Vidhan sought to combine the teachings of several faiths.
• Vivekananda proclaimed at Chicago the harmony and equal validity of all religions.
• The Theosophical Society explicitly promoted a universal brotherhood of faiths.

A critical qualification

• Revivalist strands were less rational: Dayananda's 'back to the Vedas' asserted Vedic infallibility.
• Some movements were community-specific and hardened separate identities.
• Reform often stopped short where caste privilege or property was concerned.

The two criteria therefore describe the dominant intellectual temper of the reform movements accurately, if not exhaustively. As Bipan Chandra observed, rationalism and universalism gave nineteenth-century reform its liberal and humanist character, even as revivalist currents within the same movements pulled in a more exclusive direction.