Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Swami Vivekananda in 1897. It is an organisation which forms the core of worldwide spiritual movement known as the Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement.
The mission conducts extensive work in healthcare, disaster relief, rural management, tribal welfare, elementary and higher education and culture. The mission bases its work on the principles of Karma Yoga. The headquarter of it is situated at Belur Math in West Bengal.

Raja Rammohun Roy was deeply moved by the conditions of widows in our society. He began a campaign against the practice of Sati. He tried to prove that the practice of widow burning had no sanction in ancient texts. Many Britishers supported Rammohun. In 1829, the practice of Sati was banned by the then Governor of Bengal William Bentinck.

In 1927, BR Ambedkar started a temple entry movement because Brahman priests were outraged when the Dalits used water from the temple tank. Ambedkar led three movements for temple entry between 1927 and 1935 through which, he wanted to make everyone see the power of caste prejudice within society.

The first schools for girls were opened in the mid-19th century.
People feared to send their girls to school as:
(i) They feared that schools would take girls away from home, prevent them from doing their domestic duties.
(ii) They felt that girls should stay away from public places. Girls had to travel through public place in order to reach school and this would have a corrupting influence on them.

In the pre-printing age when books, newspapers and pamphlets were not readily available, people could adopt some methods in which social customs and practices would be discussed.
The methods were:
(i) General meetings.
(ii) Face to face discussions.
(iii) Cultural programmes

(i) Jyotiba Phule argued that the Aryans were foreigners, who came from outside the subcontinent and defeated and subjugated the true children of the country, those who had lived here from before the coming of the Aryans.
(ii) As the Aryans established their dominance, they began looking at the defeated population as inferior, as low-caste people. According to Phule, the upper caste had no right to their land and power. In reality, the land belonged to indigenous people, and so-called low castes.
(iii) Phule claimed that before Aryan rule, there existed a golden age, when warriors and peasants tilled the land and ruled the Maratha countryside in just and fair ways.

(i) During the course of the 19^th century, Christian missionaries began setting up schools for tribal groups and lower-caste children. These children were equipped with some resources to make their way into a changing world.
(ii) At the same time, the poor began leaving their villages to look for jobs that were opening up in the cities. There was work in the factories that were coming up and jobs in municipalities.
(iii) There were new demands of labour as drains had to be dug, roads had to be laid, buildings were to be constructed, and cities needed to be cleaned.
(iv) This required coolies, diggers, carriers, bricklayers, sewage cleaners, sweepers, palanquin bearers, rickshaws pullers. The poor from the villages and small towns, among which many were from low castes, began moving to the cities where there was new demand for labour. Some of them also went to work in plantations in Assam, Mauritius, Trinidad and Indonesia.
(v) The army, too, offered opportunities. A number of Mahar people, who were regarded as untouchable, found jobs in the Mahar Regiment.

Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was a social reformer, philosopher, academician, philanthropist and a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. His works and contribution for the upliftment of women are as follows:
(i) He did a lot for the education of women, as he believed that it was our primary duty to educate a woman because she was the real teacher of her child. He opened and ran many schools for girls at his own expense.
(ii) Vidyasagar strongly protested against polygamy and child marriage.
(iii) It was due to his effort, the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act 1856 was passed which allowed the widows to remarriage. He had also opposed the sati system.
Ishwarchandra worked endlessly to provide equal education to all men and women irrespective of their caste, religion and gender. He believed that the status of women and all kinds of injustice and inequalities that they face could be changed only through education.