• ‘Modernity’ assumes that local ties and parochial perspectives give way to universal commitments and cosmopolitan attitudes; 
• that the truths of utility, calculation, and science take precedence over those of the emotions, the sacred, and the non-rational; 
• that the individual rather than the group be the primary unit of society and politics; 
• that the associations in which men live and work be based on choice not birth; 
• that mastery rather than fatalism orient their attitude toward the material and human environment; 
• that identity be chosen and achieved, not ascribed and affirmed; 
• that work be separated from family, residence, and community in bureaucratic organisation

OR

• The idea of female education was debated intensely. Reformers argued that for a society to progress women have to be educated. Some of them believed that in pre-modern India, women were educated. Others contested this on the grounds that this was so only of a privileged few. Thus, attempts to justify female education were made by recourse to both modern and traditional ideas.
• They actively debated the meanings of tradition and modernity. Jotiba Phule thus recalled the glory of pre-Aryan age while others like Bal Gangadhar Tilak emphasised the glory of the Aryan period. 
• Muslim social reformers actively debated the meaning of polygamy and purdah. For example, a resolution against the evils of polygamy was proposed by Jahanara Shah Nawas at the All India Muslim Ladies Conference. 
• Debates within communities were common during this period. For instance, sati was opposed by the Brahmo Samaj. Orthodox members of the Hindu community in Bengal formed an organisation called Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British arguing that reformers had no right to interpret sacred texts.