Socio-Religious Reform Movements of 19th-Century India — Part 6: South India and Ramakrishna Mission

5. South India

5.1 Veerasalingam Pantulu (Andhra)

In the South, a leading light of the social reform movement in the early stages was Kandukuri Veerasalingam Pantulu (1848–1919). Unlike many of his contemporaries in Calcutta or Bombay, Veeresalingam was born in a poor family and was a school teacher for the major part of his life. Prolific in writing, he produced a large number of tracts and pamphlets on social reform in the Telugu language — earning recognition as the Father of modern Telugu prose literature. His missionary zeal on widow remarriage, female education, and the general upliftment of women and removal of social vices made him the father-figure of later Andhra social reformers. His activities were also connected to the Prarthana Samaj network emanating from Maharashtra.

5.2 Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement (Tamil Nadu)

Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy Naicker (1879–1973), popularly known as Periyar, was the most radical voice against caste hierarchy and Brahmin domination in 20th-century Tamil Nadu. Having resigned from the Indian National Congress over the issue of Brahmin domination, he founded the Self-Respect Movement (Suyamariyathai Iyakkam) in 1925. The movement opposed caste discrimination, religious superstition, and the subordination of women. It promoted rationalism, inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, and the rights of lower-caste communities.

Periyar later founded the Dravidar Kazhagam (1944) with a strong Dravidian identity. By the early 20th century, a number of caste associations in Tamil Nadu — such as the Kongu Vellala Sangam of the Gounder caste — played a significant role in reform movements that were not unconnected with the social elevation of the castes concerned. These caste associations, originally concerned with internal reforms, slowly graduated into strong political forces. Periyar's movement was distinctly more radical than earlier reformers — moving beyond religious critique to a thoroughgoing social and political challenge to Brahmin hegemony.

5.3 Sree Narayana Guru (Kerala)

Sree Narayana Guru (1856–1928) was one of the greatest social reformers of Kerala. Born into the Ezhava community — considered untouchable by the Brahmin-dominated social order — he provided spiritual and social leadership to the lower castes of Kerala. His rallying cry — "One caste, one religion, one God for man" (Oru jathi, oru matham, oru daivam, manushyanu) — embodied a universal humanist vision that transcended all caste and religious divisions.

Sree Narayana Guru consecrated temples for lower-caste communities who were denied entry to mainstream temples, using religious action to challenge social inequality. The Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, founded in 1903, became the institutional vehicle for the social, educational, and economic upliftment of the Ezhava community and other lower-caste groups in Kerala. The Guru's philosophy combined Advaita Vedanta with a humane social vision — his call for one caste for mankind remains one of the most powerful anti-caste statements in Indian intellectual history.

6. Pan-India: Ramakrishna Mission and Swami Vivekananda

Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1834–1886) was a mystic and spiritual teacher who stressed universalism in religions and denounced religious particularism. Though his primary concern remained with religious salvation rather than social salvation, his message was deeply humanistic.

His disciple Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) — born Narendra Nath Datta — became one of the most powerful voices of the age. Vivekananda condemned the caste system and people's obsession with rituals and superstitions. He famously represented Hinduism at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago (1893), where his address affirmed the dignity of Indian civilisation before a global audience.

In 1896 he founded the Ramakrishna Mission to carry on humanitarian and social work. The Mission's motto was to provide social service — it opened schools, hospitals, orphanages, and libraries in different parts of the country. The Mission combined the spiritual inspiration of Ramakrishna with the rational social reforming impulse of the age, becoming a model of service-oriented religious organisation.

Vivekananda's message — that India could rise only through the strength of its people and a synthesis of Eastern spirituality with Western science — deeply influenced the subsequent nationalist movement. He was in many senses the bridge between the reform movements of the 19th century and the political nationalism of the 20th.