Arya Samaj

The most profound reform movement in the late 19th century India was the Arya Samaj. It started in the western India and the Punjab, and gradually spread to a large part of the Hindi heartland.

It was founded by Dayanand Saraswati (1824-83). In 1875, he wrote Satyarth Prakash (or the light of truth) and in the same year founded the Bombay Arya Samaj.

The Lahore Arya Samaj was founded in 1877. Subsequently, Lahore became the epicentre of the Arya movement. Dayanand opposed a ritual-ridden Hindu religion and called for basing it on the preaching of the Vedas. Only Vedas, along with their correct analytical tools, were true. He attacked puranas, polytheism, idolatry and domination of the priestly class. He adopted Hindi for reaching out to the masses. He also opposed child marriage. He was fiercely opposed to multiplicity of castes which he thought was primarily responsible for encouraging conversion of lower castes into Christianity and Islam.

After Dayanand’s death in 1883, the Samaj lay scattered. Most important attempt to unite the Samaj and its activities was the founding of the Dayanand Anglo Vedic Trust and Management Society in Lahore in 1886. In the same year, this society opened a school with Lala Hansraj as its principal.

However, some leaders of the Samaj were opposed to Anglo Vedic education. They were Munshi Ram (Swami Shraddhanand), Gurudatt, Lekh Ram and others. They argued that the Arya Samaj’s educational initiative must focus on Sanskrit, Aryan ideology and Vedic scriptures and should have little space for English learning. This militant wing thought that Dayanand’s words were sacrosanct and his message in Satyarth Prakash could not be questioned.

While the moderate wing led by Lala Hansraj and Lajpat Rai pointed out that Dayanand was a reformer and not a rishi or sadhu. Conflicts also arose over the control of the DAV Management Society. These differences finally led to a formal division of the Arya Samaj in 1893 when Munshiram broke away along with his supporters to initiate a gurukul-based education. Therefore, after 1893 the two wings of the Arya Samaj were - DAV group and Gurukul group.

Munshi Ram and Lekh Ram devoted themselves to popularizing of the teachings of the Vedas and began an Arya Kanya Pathsala at Jalandhar to safeguard education from missionary influence. In 1902, Munshi Ram founded a Gurukul at Kangri in
Haridwar. This institute became the centre of the gurukul education wing of the Arya Samaj in India. It was here that Munshi Ram adopted sanyas and became Swami Shraddhanand.

The two wings of the Arya Samaj, i.e. DAV wing and the Gurukul wing had differences on the question of education but were united on important political and social issues of the time. The Arya Samaj as a whole opposed conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity and therefore advocated re-conversion of recent converts to Hinduism. This process was called shuddhi.

They also advocated greater usage of Hindi in Devanagari script. In the 1890s, the Arya Samaj also raised the issue of cow slaughter and formed gaurakshini sabhas (or the cow protection societies) for protection of cows. The Arya Samaj led a prolonged movement against untouchability and advocated dilution of caste distinctions.