Missionaries Impact on Dalit Protest Movement
With the advent of East India Company, European missionaries brought for the first time widening educational opportunities to which all could have access in spite of the open resentment expressed by the Brahmans. They emphasised how the Hindu religion had deprived the lower castes of their rights in matters relating to religion and education. They portrayed India as a loser in the race for human advancement and higher civilisation thanks to its orthodoxy, and its self-seeking priesthood. This idea preached by the missionaries was also echoed in James Mill’s History of British India. For Jotirao Phule and others who attended these schools, the Company rule naturally appeared as opening up new opportunities for their own advancement and for fighting high caste oppression, which could just not have been dreamt of earlier. The missionaries in particular highlighted the discrepancies and contradictions within Hindu beliefs and expressed humanitarian concern for the social consequences of so...
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