"Social and religious reform in colonial India has often been written about without an effort to highlight the wide-ranging debates that affected it. The volume is thus the first work to focus on 'reform' as a disputed concept. It traces the critical contestations around the phenomenon of reform as it affected the largest community of British India - the Hindus. The essays identify major issues within the history of socio-religious reform that grew into passionate public debates."--BOOK JACKET.

This book analyses religious law in colonial India, exploring how it encouraged gender equality and a rethinking of the relationship between state and society.

The book is an anthology of research papers presented in various symposia and journals and define various facets of nationalism and social reform in a colonial situation. These essays also consider the antecedents of Indian nationalism within the colonial power structure as developed in the 19th century and early 20th century.

Part of the PHISPC series on modern Indian history, this volume provides an overview of the history of social, economic, and political thought prior to the development of disciplinary categories in social sciences.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.