Reform or Restoration? Arya Samaj, Caste, and the Making of Modern Hindu Nationalism

-Ramphal Kataria

Independence Without Emancipation: Caste, Class, and the Limits of Indian Nationalism

Abstract

This article critically examines the Arya Samaj (1875) as a nineteenth-century Hindu reform movement that sought to modernise Hinduism while preserving its foundational hierarchies. It argues that the Arya Samaj’s selective reformism—grounded in Vedic infallibility and Varna ideology—failed to dismantle caste oppression and instead contributed to the consolidation of Hindu communal identity. Drawing on B R Ambedkar’s critique and the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Romila Thapar, Gail Omvedt, and Christophe Jaffrelot, the article situates the Arya Samaj within the genealogy of Hindu revivalism and demonstrates its ideological continuity with contemporary Hindutva politics.

1. Introduction: Reform without Rupture

The Arya Samaj, founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in Bombay in 1875, is often celebrated as a progressive Hindu reform movement that challenged superstition, ritualism, and priestly dominance. Yet, its historical significance lies less in radical social transformation and more in its role as an ideological mediator between colonial modernity and Hindu revivalism.

This article argues that the Arya Samaj represented reform without rupture—a project that modernised Hindu self-representation while leaving intact the core structures of caste hierarchy and religious supremacy. By recasting Hinduism as rational, monotheistic, and Vedic, the movement defended Hindu social order against colonial critique and missionary intervention, while simultaneously laying the foundations for modern Hindu nationalism.¹

2. Colonial Context and the Arya Samaj’s Intellectual Project

The late nineteenth century marked a profound crisis for Brahmanical Hindu authority. Christian missionaries, Orientalist scholars, and colonial administrators subjected Hindu practices to unprecedented scrutiny, portraying them as irrational, superstitious, and morally inferior.²

Dayanand Saraswati’s response was neither wholesale acceptance nor rejection of modernity. Instead, he sought to reconstitute Hinduism from within, anchoring it exclusively in the Vedas, which he proclaimed eternal, infallible, and scientific. In Satyarth Prakash, he rejected Puranic traditions, idol worship, and popular devotional practices, while asserting that all true knowledge—including scientific truth—originated in the Vedas.³

As Romila Thapar has noted, such revivalist projects often involved the construction of a singular, homogenised Hinduism out of diverse and historically contested traditions.⁴ This process was not merely theological but deeply political, as it transformed Hinduism into a coherent civilisational identity capable of collective mobilisation.

3. Caste Reform or Caste Preservation?

3.1 Varna versus Caste: A False Distinction

The Arya Samaj opposed birth-based caste discrimination but defended Chaturvarnya, arguing that social divisions should be based on merit (guna) and occupation (karma). This distinction between caste and Varna has frequently been interpreted as evidence of the movement’s progressive intent.

However, as B R Ambedkar argued forcefully, this distinction is conceptually untenable and politically misleading. Retaining the categories of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra—even under a merit-based framework—inevitably reproduces hierarchy. These labels are historically saturated with meanings of purity, pollution, and inherited privilege, which cannot simply be redefined away.⁵

For Ambedkar, genuine reform requires the destruction of caste categories themselves, not their reinterpretation.

3.2 Ambedkar’s Systemic Critique of Chaturvarnya

Ambedkar’s critique of the Arya Samaj’s Varna ideology operates on multiple levels:

First, he demonstrates the impracticality of classifying individuals into four fixed social categories. Human capacities are too diverse and fluid for such rigid classification. The historical fragmentation of four Varnas into thousands of castes itself exposes the failure of Varna theory.⁶

Second, Ambedkar argues that Chaturvarnya cannot survive without coercive enforcement. Religious texts such as the Manusmriti and narratives like the killing of Shambuka in the Ramayana reveal that Varna order historically depended on violent penal sanctions.⁷

Third, Ambedkar exposes Chaturvarnya as a system of structural oppression. Shudras were denied education, arms, and property—the three essential means of emancipation. What was presented as a division of labour was in reality a division of power designed to permanently disable the lower orders.⁸

Finally, Ambedkar rejects the Arya Samaj’s claim that caste is a later distortion of Hinduism. For him, caste is sanctified by Hindu religious doctrine itself. As long as the Vedas are treated as infallible, social equality remains impossible.⁹

From this perspective, the Arya Samaj’s reformism offered Dalits moral uplift without material or political empowerment.

4. Social Reform and Upper-Caste Anxiety

The Arya Samaj did advocate widow remarriage, opposed child marriage, and promoted women’s education. These reforms were significant but limited in scope. They largely addressed concerns internal to upper-caste Hindu society, particularly its respectability under colonial rule.¹⁰

Unlike the radical anti-caste movements led by Jyotiba Phule or later by Periyar, the Arya Samaj refused to confront Brahminism as a system of domination. Gail Omvedt notes that such reform movements sought to improve Hindu society without challenging upper-caste control over land, labour, and knowledge.¹¹

Dalit exploitation, landlessness, and exclusion from education and power remained marginal to the Arya Samaj’s agenda.

5. From Reform to Communal Mobilisation

By the late nineteenth century, the Arya Samaj increasingly shifted its focus from internal reform to external religious assertion.

5.1 Shuddhi and the Politics of Religious Boundaries

The Shuddhi (reconversion) movement sought to “reclaim” Hindus who had converted to Islam or Christianity—often Dalits and Adivasis escaping caste oppression. Conversion was reframed as betrayal, and Hinduism was reconstructed as a closed, embattled community.¹²

This marked a decisive shift: social inequality within Hinduism was subordinated to the defence of Hindu religious boundaries.

5.2 Cow Protection and Anti-Islamic Polemics

Cow protection campaigns and Dayanand’s sharp critiques of Islam in Satyarth Prakash further intensified communal antagonism. These movements transformed theological disagreement into political hostility, contributing to communal riots and hardened identities.

Christophe Jaffrelot argues that such mobilisation converted religious identity into a political category, laying the groundwork for organised Hindu nationalism.¹³

Jawaharlal Nehru captured this contradiction when he described the Arya Samaj as both reformist and revivalist—progressive in method but conservative in orientation.¹⁴

6. Arya Samaj and the Genealogy of Hindutva

Although the Arya Samaj did not explicitly advocate a Hindu state, its ideological legacy is deeply embedded in Hindutva politics:

Vedic infallibility → cultural nationalism

Shuddhi → ghar wapsi

Cow protection → moral vigilantism

Defence of Hinduism → Hindu Rashtra

The movement normalised the idea of Hinduism as a singular, superior civilisation under threat—an assumption central to Hindutva ideology.¹⁵

In contemporary India, Arya Samaj institutions often function as cultural legitimizers of majoritarian politics, providing a rationalist vocabulary to exclusionary nationalism.

7. Conclusion: Reform without Emancipation

The Arya Samaj represents a paradigmatic case of reform without emancipation. It modernised Hinduism without democratising it, challenged ritual without dismantling hierarchy, and mobilised reason in the service of religious supremacy.

As Ambedkar warned, reform that refuses to annihilate caste merely rearranges inequality. In this sense, the Arya Samaj did not fail inadvertently; it succeeded in preserving Hindu social order under the guise of reform.

Understanding this legacy is essential in an era where Hindutva increasingly defines national identity. Without the destruction of caste and religious supremacy, reform becomes not a path to justice but a mechanism of domination.

References

1.     Ambedkar, B R (2014): Annihilation of Caste, Navayana.

2.     Ambedkar, B R (1948): The Untouchables, Thacker.

3.     Hansen, T B (1999): The Saffron Wave, Princeton University Press.

4.     Jaffrelot, Christophe (1996): The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Penguin.

5.     Jaffrelot, Christophe (2007): Hindu Nationalism: A Reader, Princeton University Press.

6.     Jones, Kenneth W (1976): Arya Dharm, University of California Press.

7.     Nehru, Jawaharlal (1946): The Discovery of India, Oxford University Press.

8.     Omvedt, Gail (1994): Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, Sage.

9.   Pandey, Gyanendra (1990): The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, OUP.

10.  Saraswati, Dayanand ([1875] 1984): Satyarth Prakash.

11.  Thapar, Romila (1989): Interpreting Early India, OUP.

12.  Thapar, Romila (2009): The Past as Present, Aleph.