Beyond Purdah?: Women in Bengal, 1890-1939 (SOAS Studies on South Asia) 0195637208, 9780195637205

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SOAS Studies on South Asia

Beyond Purdah?

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SOAS Studies on South Asia Terence J. Byres, ed., The State and Development Planning in India Nigel Crook, India's Industrial Cit~s. Essays in Economy and Demography Michael Hutt, ed., Nepal in tht Nineties. Versions of tht Past, Visions of tht F11t11re Sudipta Kaviraj, Tht Unhappy Consciousness. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India Peter Robb, ed., Rural India. Land, Power and Society under British Rule Peter Robb, ed., Society and Ideology. Essays in South Asian History presented to Professor K.A. Ballhatchet Peter Robb, ed., Dalit Movements and tht Meanings of Labour in India

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SOAS Studies on South Asia

Beyond Purdah? Women in Bengal 1890-1939

Dagmar Engels

DELHI

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BOMBAY

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CALCUTIA 1996

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UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Oxford Uniwrsity Press, WGlton Strut, Oxford OX2 6DP

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1116 C> Dagmar Engels 1996

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Laserset by S.J.I. Services, New Delhi 110 024 Printed at Wadhwa International, New Delhi 110 020 and published by Manzar Khan, Oxford University Press, Y.M.C.A. Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 ()()1

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PREFACE

om in a country where masculinity is venermen', Est.ys on Eq114/ity, LAto, imd Ed1101tion, Toronto, 1984, p.zn. The relation between sOcial. and politial progtess was 111ised in Bengal during the Age of Consent Debate in 1890--91, see chapter 7. lt gained particular prominence during the controversy between 1llll and Gokhale, see S.A. Wolpert, ,TWak and Goklulk: Rerlolution and Reform in the Making of Madan lndiA, Berkeley, 196i, pp.38ff. The connection has also been established by Indian post-Independence women historians: V. Mazwndar, 'The Social Reform Movement in India-From Ranade to Nehru'; B.R. Nanda (ed.), lndiAn Women; From PurdlJh to Modernity, Dellii, 1976, pp.41 ~; R.K. Shanna., N11itnuilism, SociAl Reform •nd lndiAn Womm, Delhi, 1981. "James Mill, The History ofBritish lndiA, 4th ed., London, 1840, pp.46-7, quoted in Borthwick, 1984, p.27; S.N. Mukherjee, 'Raja Rammohun Roy and the Status of Women. in Bengal In the Nineteenth Century'; M. Allen, S.N. Mukherjee (eds.), Women in lndiil ind NqMI, Canberra, 1982. pp.153-78, 161, 168ff; A. Sen, lswllr Chandra Vi"Y-g•r ind Isis Elus~ Mi/atones, Gtlcutta. 1977. ,. For the most perceptive study on the reception of western thougllt by Bengali intellectuals, see T. Raychaudhuri, Ewrope R.mmsideml. Peruptions -of the West ill Ninetmith Century Beng•I, Delhi, 1988; on Vivekananda iD particular, see B. Southard, 'Vivekananda: The Search for Ethical Values and National Progress under Indigenous Leadership', J.P. Sharma (ed.), lndit1itl111/s Ind ldetls in Modern lndil, Calcutta., 1982, pp.12>47. '"A. ~ JSWQT Chandra Vrdyaig•r and hil Elws~ Milestones, p.87. 21 S. Sarkar, 'Rammohun Roy and the Break with the Past', V.C. Joshi (ed.), Rammohwn Roy •nd the Procas of Modernization in lndiA, Delhi, 1975, pp.~. 66ff. 22 L. Mani, 'The Production of an Official Discourse on Sati in Early Nineteenth Century Bengal', f.conomU: and Po/iliC41 Weekly, 'Review of Women's Studies', 21, \7, 26 April 1986, pp.32-40; and 'Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India', IC. Sangari, S. Vaid (eds.), Recasting Women. ESS1ys in C.OloniAI History, Delhi, 1989, pp.88-126. 23 T. Sarkar, 'Nationalist Iconography: Image of W:>men in nineteenth