Although Hindu society displayed great resilience and courage in the past centuries in adapting itself to new challenges, it found itself at the crossroads in the nineteenth century. The impact of western ideas, culture and humanism made in roads in the caste-stratified society shaking it to its roots. The British social policy was hesitant and to an extent ambivalent at the turn of the nineteenth century in India, it however became assertive and robust particularly after the suppression of the Mutiny. This book is a study of one of the worst social evils, namely female infanticide which was prevalent among a section of Hindus in the present Uttar Pradesh and which was suppressed by the enforcement of social legislation spreading over nearly a century. Apart from tracing the growth of British social policy in India with reference to the practice of female infanticide, the study focuses attention on the complexities of the problems of social legislation and social reform in India. Significant changes in caste relationship and behaviour patterns occurred as a consequence of these processes.
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