Conservative Hindus and orthodox Muslims both opposed female literacy in nineteenth-century India, yet their specific fears were different. What did each group fear, and what do these different fears reveal about the social role print had come to play?
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · 2026-06-26 15:04 · grounding rag
Model Answer
Conservative Hindus feared that a literate girl would be widowed — literacy was associated with bad omen or misfortune for women.
Orthodox Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances — i.e., they would be morally misled through secular fiction.
These different fears reveal that print had become a powerful social force capable of both challenging tradition and spreading new ideas. Hindus feared literacy itself as a symbol of transgression, while Muslims feared the content of print. Both groups recognised that print could change women's thinking, threatening male authority and traditional social order.
Source: Chapter 5, Section 8.1 — Women and Print
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Explanation
- The question has two parts: state each group's specific fear (1 mark each), then draw a conclusion about print's social role (1 mark).
- Both fears are directly stated in the passage: "Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances."
- The inference (third mark) requires you to show that both fears, though different in nature, confirm print had become a real force for social change — threatening patriarchal control over women.
- Avoid padding; the answer above is well within the 60–90 word target.