प्रश्न यूपीएससी के हिंदी प्रश्नपत्र से · व्याख्या अभी अंग्रेज़ी में

Prelims · Modern India & the freedom struggle · 12 questions

Social & religious reform movements

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Prelims 2016 · Q58

Easy

सत्य शोधक समाज ने संगठित किया

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Satya Shodhak Samaj organized

(a) a movement for upliftment of tribals in Bihar · (b) a temple-entry movement in Gujarat · (c) an anti-caste movement in Maharashtra · (d) a peasant movement in Punjab

उत्तर और व्याख्या · explanation in English

Answer: (c) महाराष्ट्र में एक जाति-विरोधी आंदोलन

Jotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth Seekers Society) in 1873 in Maharashtra to secure human rights and social justice for low-caste people, so it organised an anti-caste movement in Maharashtra.

✓ (c) Phule denounced the injustice of the caste system and the Samaj propagated caste equality among the Shudras and Ati Shudras of Maharashtra.
✗ (a) Phule's Samaj worked on caste in Maharashtra; it was not a tribal upliftment movement in Bihar.
✗ (b) Nothing links the Samaj to a temple-entry movement in Gujarat; its cause was caste equality in Maharashtra.

Remember · Satyashodhak Samaj: founded by Jotirao Phule in 1873; an anti-caste movement of Maharashtra for the rights of low castes. Phule also wrote Gulamgiri.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Indian Society, Ch 3 (practise this chapter)

Sources

NCERT Class 12 · Indian Society, Chapter 3 “In 1873 he founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth Seekers Society), which was devoted to securing human rights and social justice for low-caste people.”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

Prelims 2016 · Q69

Medium

निम्नलिखित पर विचार कीजिए :

1.कलकत्ता यूनिटेरियन कमिटी (Calcutta Unitarian Committee)
2.टेबरनेकल ऑफ़ न्यू डिस्पेंसेशन (Tabernacle of New Dispensation)
3.इंडियन रिफॉर्म असोसिएशन (Indian Reform Association)

केशव चन्द्र सेन का संबंध उपर्युक्त में से किसकी/किनकी स्थापना से है?

Read this question in English

Consider the following:

1. Calcutta Unitarian Committee

2. Tabernacle of New Dispensation

3. Indian Reform Association

Keshab Chandra Sen is associated with the establishment of which of the above?

(a) 1 and 3 only · (b) 2 and 3 only · (c) 3 only · (d) 1, 2 and 3

उत्तर और व्याख्या · explanation in English

Answer: (b) केवल 2 और 3

Keshab Chandra Sen set up the New Dispensation (Nava Vidhan) church (1881). The Calcutta Unitarian Committee (1821) was founded long before he was active, by William Adam and Rammohun Roy.

✗ 1. The Calcutta Unitarian Committee was founded in September 1821 by William Adam and Rammohun Roy. Keshab was born in 1838, so he had no hand in it.
✓ 2. Keshab founded the New Dispensation (Naba Bidhan or Nava Vidhan) in 1881, an institution meant to bring the truths of all great religions together. The question's 'Tabernacle of New Dispensation' is this church.
✓ 3. UPSC's official key treats this statement as correct; we could not confirm the detail from an official source, so we do not explain it here.

Remember · Keshab Chandra Sen: Brahmo Samaj of India (1866), New Dispensation (1881). The Unitarian Committee (1821) belongs to Rammohun Roy and William Adam.

Sources

Sen, Keshab Chandra (Banglapedia, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh) ↗ · reference work “Shortly after coming back from England, Keshab formed the Indian Reform Association (November 1870). Its activity had five aspects: Charity, temperance, improvement of women's material and social conditions, mass education through mother tongue and cheap reading materials.”
Church of the New Dispensation (Encyclopaedia Britannica) ↗ · reference work “In 1881 Keshab founded the Church of the New Dispensation (Naba Bidhan) for the purpose of establishing the truth of all the great religions in an institution that he believed would replace them all.”
Cosmotopia Delineated: Rammohun Roy, William Adam, and the Calcutta Unitarian Committee (Itinerario, Cambridge University Press) ↗ · reference work “The Calcutta Unitarian Committee, jointly founded by William Adam and Rammohun Roy in September 1821, sought to bring together prominent Brahmins who were friends of Roy's and supporters of his agenda”
Encyclopaedia Britannica: Keshab Chunder Sen ↗ · reference work “Keshab Chunder Sen (born November 19, 1838, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India—died January 8, 1884, Calcutta) was a Hindu philosopher and social reformer”

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

The Syllabus X-Ray of this topic

2 of its 4 sub-topics are High

0 Core · 2 High · 1 Steady · 1 Rare

HighBrahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj & reformers · 4 questions
HighAnti-caste movements & leaders · 3 questions

The X-Ray ranks all 928 sub-topics of the UPSC syllabus by what UPSC has asked since 2016. The 60 Prelims Core sub-topics are behind 51% of Prelims questions.

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The same topic in Mains

Modern Indian historyGS 1 syllabus
Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularismGS 1 syllabus

Read it in NCERT

Class 12 Indian Society, Chapter 3cited in 1 explanation