Prelims · Modern India & the freedom struggle · 12 questions

Social & religious reform movements

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Prelims 2016 · Q58

Easy

Satya Shodhak Samaj organized

Answer & explanation

Answer: (c) an anti-caste movement in Maharashtra

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

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?

Answer & explanation

Answer: (b) 2 and 3 only

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 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