R eformist , R edemptive , R evolutionary There are different kinds of social movements. They can be classified as: (i) redemptive or transformatory; (ii) reformist; and (iii) revolutionary. A redemptive social movement aims to bring about a change in the personal consciousness and actions of its individual members. For instance, people in the Ezhava community in Kerala were led by Narayana Guru to change their social practices.
Reformist social movements strive to change the existing social and political arrangements through gradual, incremental steps. The 1960s movement for the reorganisation of Indian states on the basis of language and the recent Right to Information campaign are examples of reformist movements. Revolutionary social movements attempt to radically transform social relations, often by capturing state power. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia that deposed the Tsar to create a communist state and the Naxalite movement in India that seeks to remove oppressive landlords and state officials can be described as revolutionary movements.
As you might discover when you try to classify a social movement in terms of this typology, most movements have a mix of redemptive, reformist and revolutionary elements. Or the orientation of a social movement may shift over time such that it starts off with, say, revolutionary objectives and becomes reformist. A movement may start from a phase of mass mobilisation and collective protest to become more institutionalised. Social scientists who study the life cycles of social movements call this a move towards ‘ social movement organisations’ .
How a social movement is perceived and classified is always a matter of interpretation. It differs from one section to another. For instance, what was a ‘mutiny’ or ‘rebellion’ for British colonial rulers in was ‘the first war of Independence’ for Indian nationalists. A mutiny is an act of defiance against supposedly legitimate authority, i.e., the British rule.
A struggle for independence is a challenge to the very legitimacy of British rule. This shows how people attach different meanings to social movements.