The Indian Ladies' Magazine, 1901-1938: From Raj to Swaraj 1611462215, 9781611462210

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The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1901–1938

Kamala Satthianadhan, M.A.

The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1901–1938 From Raj to Swaraj Deborah Anna Logan

LEHIGH UNIVERSITY PRESS Bethlehem

Published by Lehigh University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2017 by Deborah Anna Logan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 9781611462210 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611462227 (electronic) TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For all women writers, East and West, then and now.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: Kamala Satthianadhan and The Indian Ladies’ Magazine

xi

Reader’s Note 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Women’s Periodicals, West and East ILM and Literary Criticism ILM and the Life Literary ILM and Women’s Social Activism ILM and Indian Identity Politics ILM and the Indian Woman Question America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown Mothering India

1 37 61 89 123 151 175 213

Conclusion: End of The Indian Ladies’ Magazine

241

Appendix A: Indian Ladies’ Magazine Specifications

247

Appendix B: Press Releases

249

Appendix C: ILM Publication and Subscription History: First Series (1901–1918) and Second Series (1927–1938)

253

Bibliography

257

Index

279

About the Author

293 vii

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Fulbright Scholars awards program for its generous funding of a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Grant in 2012. I am particularly grateful to the United States–India Educational Foundation (USIEF) staff in New Delhi and in Kolkata for their orientation, support, encouragement, and guidance during my tenure in India. Through USIEF’s efforts, I traveled widely throughout the country, speaking at various colleges and universities and meeting many wonderful professors and students. The intellectual and cultural exchanges were and continue to be priceless, a truly rare and precious opportunity to forge international relations that continues to grow with time. I also express my deepest gratitude to the English Department at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, my India sponsors, for their support of my research, their encouragement and suggestions, and their lovely friendship. In particular, my best thanks go to Supriya Chaudhuri, who made many opportunities—social, cultural, intellectual—available to me. I was also fortunate to meet the late Jasodhara Bagchi, whose impressive work on Indian feminism continues to inspire, and it was through her that I met the historian Geraldine Forbes. In every way, my experience at Jadavpur was supportive, welcoming, and gracious. In Kolkata, I am grateful to the staff at the National Library, at St. Xavier University Reading Room, at the Asiatic Society, and at the Ramakrishna Mission Library and Reading Room. My very special thanks also to Mr. P. Meenakshisundaram, librarian at Connemara Public Library, Chennai. Mr. Meenakshisundaram most graciously corresponded with me before and after my visit, arranged for my access to Indian Ladies’ Magazine holdings, and was generous in his support of my work. I am very thankful to have met and worked with him. ix

x

Acknowledgments

Special thanks also to my friend Kheersana Yumlembam of Mumbai, who helped me locate libraries, sources, and resources related to this project, which included putting me in touch with the honored feminist scholar and Ramabai specialist Meera Kosambi. At the British Library Humanities, Rare Books, and Music Reading Room, my presence over several years’ worth of visits while working on this project was so ubiquitous that the staff not only knew me by sight, but also knew my requests before I even asked. Any researcher attempting to comb through mounds of material in a tight time frame understands how essential it is to be working with staff who are professional and courteous, as well as kind and friendly. My gratitude to all! My thanks also to Nehru Memorial Library in Delhi, Garrett Theological Seminary Library at Columbia University, and to Selina Langford of Interlibrary Borrowing at Western Kentucky University. Also at Western Kentucky University, I am grateful for generous funding for this project in the form of an RCAP Grant (2012, 2013) as well as a sabbatical (2012), and also for a QTAG grant for follow-up work at the British Library (2015). For various forms of research support, I thank Rob Hale, English Department Head; David Lee, Potter College Dean; and Professor Gordon Baylis. Finally, but not least, I thank my family—Jake, Lauren, and Zack—for being my inspiration.

Introduction Kamala Satthianadhan and The Indian Ladies’ Magazine

“Kamala Satthianadhan” There are no thoughts of mine you have not shared, No dreams to which you have not given birth; All things together we have feared or dared; Hand in hand have weathered want and dearth. Always you have given of your best; Our childhood days are dreams of pure delight; Alone and single-handed set at rest Our youthful doubts, and set our problems right. —Padmini Satthianadhan Sengupta (Portrait 79)

Hannah Ratnam Krishnamma (1880–1950) 1 was initially homeschooled by her unconventional father, who—in lieu of a traditional dowry—provided an education aimed at economic self-sufficiency. Hannah graduated with a BA from Noble College in 1898 (Sengupta, Portrait 23) and was the first South Indian woman to graduate with an MA in English (1901) (33). 2 Her name was changed to Kamala Satthianadhan on her marriage (1898) to widower Samuel Satthianadhan (1860–1906), a professor at Noble College, with whom she wrote Stories of Indian Christian Life (1899). 3 Their daughter Padma (Padmini) Satthianadhan Sengupta (1905–1988) figured prominently in Indian literary history as a writer for The Indian Ladies’ Magazine (hereafter, ILM) (creative and nonfiction), assistant editor (second run), and biographer of prominent Indians, including her mother. 4 xi

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Samuel Satthianadhan was an important influence on Kamala’s professional and intellectual development, beginning with his negotiation of Christianity, Western civilization, and Indian nationalism: “One of the most serious dangers . . . is that of denationalization,” he wrote; “Let us . . . enjoy the benefits of the Western Christians, but let this not blind us to our duties as Indian Christians” (Sketches 56). 5 Kamala similarly “stressed the need for being national in outlook while adapting the best from the West” (Sengupta, Portrait 16). Samuel’s sojourn at Cambridge University and travels to Europe and America shaped his theory that the “real character” of Westerners must be experienced “in their very homes and by their firesides,” where their “genuine qualities come out” (Holiday 99); 6 this prompts Padmini’s sly assertion, “It is no wonder then that Kamala was steeped in Victorian ideals, not too narrow but quite puritanical” (Sengupta, Portrait 29). But she had also “studied Sanskrit and Telugu literature and had imbibed the romance of the grand and romantic mythology of her country.” Just as Kamala’s sociocultural and intellectual development synthesized East and West, so also do Victorian and Indian literary influences find expression in ILM’s editorial platform. Samuel’s second important influence was to encourage Kamala to establish ILM in 1901: a journal for women would be of immense value at the dawn of the twentieth century . . . the position of women was definitely unsatisfactory, and the reformers and pioneer men and women who wished to improve their status required a practical journal to publicise and co-ordinate their efforts. The Magazine would help the cause of women, propagate the work for Social reform, introduce new ideas, bring general notice to bear on important problems of the day. It would also reach the nooks and corners of the orthodox homes, especially as many of its articles were to be translated into the Indian languages and could be read by women who knew no English. (Sengupta, Portrait 41)

From its inception, ILM prospered popularly, if not financially; 7 in order to compensate for its modest profit margin following Samuel’s sudden death in 1906, 8 Kamala began tutoring a Rani in a mofussil town to support her family. Of her resilience and intrepidity, Padmini writes: “When, added to the mere virtue of being a mother, she is educated, talented and takes up a man’s burden on her feminine shoulders, at the same time retaining all the chaste modest traditions,” respect for her increases exponentially (Portrait xii). In her aim “to arouse in the Rani an interest in the world outside, despite her being kept in strict purdah,” Kamala emphasized social responsibility, the “duty for us women to perform from our homes even though we keep our purdah” (2). Although the custom of females’ physical seclusion was not sanctioned by Muslim, Hindu, or Christian religious texts, the conceptual

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underpinnings of the practice permeated Indian cultural perspectives on womanliness and was accepted as an indicator of male economic status and female sexual purity. Defining womanliness within this context was a lifelong concern of Kamala’s, her urge toward modernization both guided and thwarted by archaic gender roles and by her own unique position in Indian society as a single, female head of household and editor of a women’s periodical. That position—tenuous at best—worsened considerably when she was suddenly dismissed as tutor, leaving the family without resources. 9 The episode’s reminder of the dispensability and economic vulnerability of Indian widows (of any caste, religion, or education level) compelled to support their children contrasts starkly with the entitlement of the rich and privileged and their accompanying lack of accountability. Kamala was determined to gratify Samuel’s wish that their children be educated in England, the obstacles to which were many (economic, logistic, and professional). In a 1915 letter to her readers, “Dear Friends,” she announced that her sister, Mrs. S. G. Hensman (MA of Madras), would be taking over the editorship during her sojourn in England. But war-related travel complications intervened for several more years and arrangements for an interim editor collapsed; ultimately, giving up the magazine altogether was the only option. Once travel sanctions lifted in 1918, Kamala’s journey to England marked the conclusion of ILM’s first run. 10 Throughout this period of thinly stretched finances, Padmini recalls that their time in England was rich with cultural, social, and aesthetic experiences, enhanced by their humble lodgings being a popular gathering place for Indian students. 11 The courage and tenacity of this singular woman in undertaking such a journey alone, seeing the commitment to her children’s education through to its conclusion, and securing the means to do so, are remarkable. True of both mother and daughter, Padmini observes, “What better dowry can a girl possess than culture and the highest education to her credit?” (Pioneer 117). In 1923, the family returned to an India that “had greatly changed . . . the cry for freedom had become a part of every loyal Indian whether they were politicians or not” (Sengupta, Portrait 159). 12 By the time ILM began its second run in 1927, the nationalist mood had shifted so profoundly and irreversibly that the repercussions continue to be investigated a century later. In this sociohistorical context, Kamala wondered if her “Dear Friends” would still find “keen interest and pleasure” in ILM (Indian Ladies’ Magazine [Reviews] 1901: 49): would this once-timely enterprise adapt to the new sociopolitical climate or cease as a literary anachronism? Padmini, in her new role as assistant editor, wrote that Kamala “restarted her Magazine . . . but with despondence [fearing] it would be lost in the glitter of the more spectacular publications of the day” and doubting her ability to “run the journal on up-to-date lines” (Portrait 175). But in this era of global economic depression and the impending Second World War, stylistic competitiveness

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was only one of many challenges and expectations, including Indian women’s increasing participation in public expressions of nationalist activism. A very private person content to participate from within her small familial and social circle, Kamala “had no call to become an active member of the Nonco-operation movement,” prompting some to complain that she “always refuses to go to Conferences. She must sacrifice her home for public work” (181). But she “disliked Conferences and Committees. . . . She hated any form of show. . . . Kamala’s dread of appearing on platforms became almost an obsession with her. . . . She was almost always in the background.” It was on the communal level that she worked throughout her life to improve education and living standards and to establish cottage industry cooperatives for women geared toward economic self-sufficiency. Distinct from public platforms in lecture halls, this was her way of manifesting women’s “serious responsibility in the process of nation-building” (159). 13 While it is true that Padmini’s biographical writings about Kamala border on reverential, it is also true that her intelligent, sensitively written commentary provides shrewd insights into the woman and the historical era she helped shape: My aim has been to throw a little light on the problems, the vital subjects of interest, the prominent personalities, the ways of the people and the customs and traditions which affected that person. So that with the biography of one woman out of nearly 400 million inhabitants at least a microscopic part of India’s social history has been reported. . . . [This is] my homage to this extraordinary but ordinary woman who was so loved by us and played so dynamic a part for Three Score and Ten Years in the Southern Presidency of India. (Portrait xii–xiii).

As a Hindu widow, Kamala could have chosen “to immerse herself in negative mourning for the rest of her life”; as an educated Christian, she might have pursued political activism in the public realm. Instead, she chose the middle way “of economic independence and creating a happy home” (Portrait 3–4). Although her “love of silence, her serenity and independence were her main characteristics . . . hers was a positive dynamic personality. Neither did she believe in self-effacement or . . . martyrdom,” as was expected of Indian widows (22); as Sundararaman wrote: “Self-sacrifice is indeed a great virtue; but it is a grave error to mistake it for self-obliteration” (“Hindu” 1901: 85). As a Christian, Kamala was not held to the same standards as Hindu widows, and yet by choice she “wore only white, grey and dark red saris for many years”; she loved fresh flowers but “could not bring herself to wear . . . [them] in her hair,” according to Indian ladies’ signature style (Lakshmi “Writings”: n.p.). Given that the customs and attitudes dictating widows’ lives were so deeply entrenched, her independence and professionalism are unusual and exemplary. 14 If Satthianadhan was not a cutting-edge

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or politically correct figure in the momentary, popular sense, her example manifests purposeful contributions to women’s and nationalists’ endeavors nonetheless. Kamala’s familial and intellectual credentials reflect the eclectic mix comprising the rich sociocultural fabric of Madras (see chapter 1). The venerable Satthianadhan family was well respected and highly regarded as Christian-Hindu educators and social workers. 15 These family ties yielded several links with British royalty: Kamala’s parents-in-law, Anna and W. T. Satthianadhan, because of their missionary and education work in South India, were presented to Queen Victoria in 1878. Pleased with her copy of Saguna (1887–1888), a novel by Samuel Satthianadhan’s first wife, Krupabai (1862–1894), the queen requested more of her work (Desouza, Album viii). Sengupta writes of the 1906 visit to Madras by the Prince and Princess of Wales and details Kamala’s participation in Lady Ampthill’s Purdah Party welcoming the princess (subsequently Queen Mary) (Portrait 35–36). Kamala served as translator to the princess, for which she was given a signed portrait, featured as the frontispiece for ILM’s coronation number in 1911. In 1941, Kamala was herself honored for contributions to education and the promotion of women’s issues by receiving both the MBE and Coronation Medal. Well educated and articulate, traditional yet liberal minded, she was positioned between East and West, ancient custom and modern innovation, Christian humanism and Hindu cultural authority, British imperialism and Indian nationalism; not uncritically, she embodied all those influences at once, and it was this idiosyncratic synthesis that shaped ILM’s editorial platform. 16 Distinct from the short-lived movements of “extremists,” Kamala maintained that “advance cannot be from the circumference to the centre, but from the centre outwards; and then only will it last” (“Ourselves” 1930: 274). For her, this imperative was deeply personalized: a widowed mother, educated and talented, she was committed to “retaining all the chaste modest traditions” of Indian womanhood while promoting a modernizing spirit of autonomy and self-sufficiency (Sengupta, Portrait xii). Distinct from the highly public profile of her friend, nationalist-activist Sarojini Naidu, Kamala preferred “serving her country” from the platform of home, family, and community (3); while she remained rooted in her penchant for domestic tranquility and the promotion of womanliness—her activism channeled through ILM and communal social work—other newly liberated women took to the streets as protesters, to podiums as lecturers, to conferences as policymakers, and to jails as political prisoners. Her critique of women who are rarely at home might well describe Naidu and others more engaged in traveling, campaigning, conferencing, and politicizing than in housekeeping: “Why did she ever get married if she felt that she could never stay at home? . . . We do draw the line at married ladies constantly leaving their homes” (Amicus, “Work”

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1929: 319). 17 Preferring to cultivate social solidarity and avoid divisiveness, Kamala acknowledged and incorporated conservative views regarding women; in this, she aligns with such activists as Rokeya Hossain (who denounced purdah but wore a burkah in public) and Rukhmabai (who refused an arranged marriage and remained single but adapted widow’s garb when her rejected spouse died). For all women reformers, striking a viable balance between traditional values and modernization and between conservative, liberal, and radical activism was a perpetual concern. 18 As nationalist separatism intensified prior to independence, Satthianadhan was among those conflicted by the expectation that she choose between Raj and swaraj; to purists, compromise was not an option. Kamala was extremely proud of having been the first to publish many of Sarojini Naidu’s poems, repeatedly according “our Indian poetess” pride of place in ILM, complete with elaborately designed graphic presentations: “The contributions of no lady writer to our columns are so well appreciated by our readers as the beautiful verses from . . . [her] pen” (“Sarojini” 1902: 250). That the militant and influential Naidu later dissociated herself from the struggling ILM was a painful betrayal to Satthianadhan; aptly symbolizing their radically divergent paths, Naidu was imprisoned for her political activism at the same time that Satthianadhan was honored by the British government (1941) (DeSouza, Album xi). 19 Kamala saw Indian women as “‘handicapped in every way by evil degrading customs.’ Child marriage, the purdah, lack of education and restrictions on widows crippled the country. Hindu women themselves were [loath] to change these customs, because they thought it their Dharma or duty to practice them” (Sengupta, Portrait 48). ILM confronted these entrenched customs with tact, sensitivity, and concern for the individual, familial, and communal costs involved both in perpetuating them and in thwarting modernization, nationalism, and independence. More progressively, “She has always believed in the healthy companionship and mixing of boys and girls, thus breaking the barriers between men and women, which has been the rootcause of so much orthodox unhappiness in India” (Pioneer 123). 20 Kamala was “a good woman, who treated domestic obligations as of higher importance than public service,” wrote Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; “If each woman strives to tame the savageness . . . of her own family, [she] will have helped to make gentle the life of this world. The refinement of man by woman is said to be the essence of civilization . . . cultivating one’s own garden, to use Voltaire’s phrase” (Foreword ix). 21 Given her own synthesizing example of professionalism and domesticity, Kamala’s frequent assertion that woman’s place is in the home recalls Samuel’s view that authentic social exchange occurs in the domestic realm; this point is central to understanding her often contradictory negotiation of woman’s place—in private and public realms, in

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terms of oppression and liberation, and as the crucial prerequisite to India’s modernization and independence. For example, outlining “Different Pictures of Women” in the midst of women’s suffrage debates and World War I, she compares the “manly woman” or “man-like women” to the womanly woman, who is gentle and reticent, like a “hedge-sparrow,” that “sweet elusive something that is the very opposite of what is man. If women should ever grow to be like men, then reverence would be at an end, ideality would vanish, romance would perish” (“Different” 1916: 20). But in the same article, she praises the “man-woman suffragette,” which has “produced the war-woman—the women engine cleaners, the women farmers, the women road-sweepers” who have kept the economy and society functioning while men are at war: “women of the present day are showing themselves capable of better things. . . . All honour to them,” particularly “the heroism of the nurses.” In this new world order, there is no room for the fastidious lady, “whose fineness flourished in proportion to her uselessness” (21). And yet a year later, she objects to “Indian women competing with men in all the departments of public life. We are old fashioned and maintain that woman’s proper sphere is the home, and in that sacred retirement, her activities should be unceasing” (“Indian” 1917: 166). Indian women are superior to “superfluous” European single women, who take “advantage of the war to compete with men” (167); but again in the same article, she contradicts herself, asserting, “It is only a matter of time. Indian girl graduates must persevere and break down this last barrier to women’s activities.” Such mixed editorial messages indicate an urge to placate and include various perspectives, with a view toward facilitating harmony rather than stoking controversy or alienation. This characteristic marks ILM’s contributions to Indian women’s periodicals history, and it may well also account for its demise. 22 ILM’s editorial principles reveal a timely synthesis of Angel-in-the-House domestic ideology and New Woman rights and responsibilities with the “awakening” of Indian women to the modernizing, nationalist, and independence movements. While she baulked at radical female militancy, whether English suffragists or Indian freedom fighters, Kamala viewed Victorian gender ideology as a suggestive model for the modernization of Indian womanhood that would preserve and protect (rather than compromise, as was popularly feared) its defining qualities. 23 This collection of binaries—ancient and modern, East and West, women and men—is gathered by Kamala Satthianadhan under ILM’s rubric of self-representation and editorial policy, the column aptly and inclusively titled “Ourselves.” ***

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The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1901–1938 records Indian women’s sociopolitical evolution through their writing, ranging from the Victorian fin de siècle British Raj and Edwardian New Woman through the period preceding the Quit India movement (1942). These developments implicated a certain class of women, those educated in English language studies either as a result of privileged economic circumstances or through access to Christian missions or secular government schools. Three primary and interrelated concepts shaped the articulation of Indian identity during this period: swaraj or individual self-sufficiency; swadeshi, communal self-sufficiency; and satyagraha, 24 national self-sufficiency (unification and independence) through nonviolent civil disobedience. 25 As the first English-language magazine produced by an Indian woman for Indian women—one welcoming to Western readers and contributors and explicitly inviting cross-cultural “social intercourse” involving a wide variety of topics and issues—ILM early anticipated and subsequently recorded women’s participation in the nationalist movement, from center (individuals and families) to circumference (communities and nation). 26 Applied to English-language writing and literature, postcolonial studies explore such ideas as mimicry and hybridity in the endeavor to theorize intersections of imperialism, nationalism, and identity politics. If English is a writer’s acquired, nonnative language, to what extent does that voice succeed in conveying authentic self-expression through an alien linguistic framework? Is sociocultural authenticity even possible, or is mimicry the inevitable result? Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha situates his discussion of mimicry in Thomas Macaulay’s 1835 proposal to “form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern,—a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste . . . opinions . . . morals and . . . intellect” (Minute on Indian Education). Macaulay’s vision encapsulates the dynamic in which cultural authenticity that is acquired secondarily is always already precluded by the very fact of being colonized. Regardless of how articulate, the “mimic man” will never realize assimilation and acceptance but remain marginal and virtual in both cultural contexts: indeed, “to be Anglicized is emphatically not to be English” (Bhabha, Location 87). Any attempt to validate sociolinguistic syntheses by definition fails, perhaps at best yielding some hybridization of influences, none of which are fully authentic—that is, “almost the same” as the original, “but not quite” (89). Therefore, Bhabha suggests, What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and

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innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. (Location 2)

The “articulation of differences” within the search for similarities underpins ILM’s entire project, from interpreting English social mores to Indians through Victorian literature to interpreting Indian social mores to Anglos through Indian literature. Hybridization is neither monolithic nor just a haphazard combination of various factors; not either/or, it is something specific to itself, and determining what that something is poses a unique challenge to postcolonial studies. In his study of colonial periodicals, David Finkelstein shows how attempts by the East India Company to control missionary activities resulted in their going underground, which in turn stimulated the growth of indigenous, vernacular presses, which in turn fueled the proliferation of nationalist propaganda. Some critics credit “this print capitalism with introducing into India the ideologies and practices of Enlightenment Europe, thereby subordinating India to western material and discursive forces” (Finkelstein, Negotiating 13). And yet it is well established that it was the availability of “western material and discursive forces,” employed by prominent English-educated activists, that succeeded in achieving the nationalists’ goal of independence from those very forces. As Finkelstein notes, “the print culture which emerged did not merely mimic British forms: instead, it was hybrid and hence it cannot be accounted for in such simple terms. . . . Not a pale shadow of . . . Europe . . . it needs to be studied on its own terms” (Finkelstein, Negotiating 13; emphasis added). This is the scholarly conversation in which my study of ILM participates. As an aspect of those “discursive forces,” Vashuda Dalmia’s commentary on Hindi literature is relevant to this analysis of ILM: the “adoption of newer literary genres from the West,” such as the short story, novel, editorials, and essays, represents the “adaptation and assimilation of western genres to the Indian tradition and [contemporary] situation” and participates in “a larger shift in social and historical consciousness. To view the phenomenon as a mere imitation of formal conventions would reduce its meaning, for the new forms signaled new areas of literary occupation” (Nationalization 224; emphasis added). The purpose of this new literature was not imitation alone, for if they were moulded by the new experience, they also moulded experience. . . . Literature had indeed become an enterprise which sought to write the autobiography of the nation. The historical consciousness of the community was being forged here as also a sense of past achievement, as well as a new social and political awareness and a new concept of the place of the individual within it. The new literature sought to contain within itself all three, antiquity, continuity, contemporaneity, at one

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Dalmia’s insights are proportionately complicated when viewed in the context of competing articulations of India’s autobiography: that of nationalism (in the vernaculars), of colonialism (English), and of imperialism (“multiple currents”). In his commentary on “slippages of meaning,” Finkelstein notes that, while the idea of porous or fluid (rather than rigidly defined) discourse boundaries is for some “synonymous with ambiguity,” a slight shift in perspective—“hybridity is a form of cultural ambidexterity”—greatly enhances our ability to grasp and comprehend meaning (Finkelstein, Negotiating 14–15). Kamala Satthianadhan phrases this dynamic in terms of rights and responsibilities: “The Western individual is born into certain rights; the Indian is born into certain obligations or responsibilities, to religion, to parents, to family, to caste, to village, often also the Raj. . . . Why judge English and Indian races by each other’s standards? Each has a standard of its own and must be taken on its own merits” (Sengupta, Portrait 141, 155). Efforts “to bridge the gap between domestic and Anglo-Indian spheres . . . took the form of offering spaces where competing voices could be heard” (Finkelstein, Negotiating 15), and this gets to the heart of ILM’s ideological endeavor. In the aim to reconcile “texts with contexts” (18), this study keeps circling back, to weave, reweave, and incorporate the various threads shaping Satthianadhan’s editorial policies in the shifting contexts of the time, the place, and the intellectual environment. Neither neat nor linear, this investigation may not provide definitive or “tidy” answers, but it does offer provocative and revealing insights. Partha Chatterjee offers a comparable image for conceptualizing “cultural ambidexterity” by positing that “the various cultural forms of Western modernity were put through a nationalist sieve and only selectively adopted, and then combined with the reconstituted elements of what was claimed to be indigenous tradition” (Lineages 86). This selective process reconciled such cultural dichotomies as “spiritual/material, inner/outer, alien/indigenous” in order to “justify and legitimize these choices from the standpoint of a nationalist cultural politics” (87). For example, whereas the West’s materialism, technology, economics, and science defined its cultural superiority, the East could adapt that materialism to promote modernization without compromising its “distinctive spiritual essence”; nationalist reform is then characterized by “the selective appropriation of Western modernity. . . . It was not a dismissal of modernity but an attempt to make modernity consistent with the nationalist project” (Chatterjee, Nation 120–21). In this study, these ideas are further complicated by gender and religion. For many Indians, being Hindu by race and Christian by choice, like Kamala

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Satthianadhan, was a contradiction in terms; as my discussion shows, the orthodox attitude toward Hindu-Christian women was that even prostitution was preferable to voluntary conversion. The magazine—its editor, contributors, and audience—represents more than the limitations implied by the colonial and indigenous patriarchal imperatives by which women were bound, neither factor alone adequately revealing “the real complexities and contradictions implied in their ideological position” (Bannerji, “Fashioning” 59). For the purpose of interpreting the cultural endeavor signified by ILM, it is “far more interesting . . . to side-step the notion of colonial discourse, which works so well to read the administrator, but not the administered”; this distinction is particularly relevant to a study that emphasizes a social category— woman—even further removed from the “babus” or mimic men of Bhabha’s theoretical framework than Christianity. Under Kamala Satthianadhan’s editorship, ILM incorporates “the best from the West and leaves the rest,” just as it scrutinizes native customs oppressing women, both views being central in the endeavor to “uplift” Bharat Mata (Mother India). The magazine neither upholds English cultural authority at the expense of traditional cultural mores nor retreats from a candid critique of either perspective. Far from a blend of fundamentally incompatible cultural influences randomly placed together, what ILM strives for is something more elevated, perhaps even utopian: a level of communication and understanding that transcends social, cultural, religious, gender, class and caste, economic and geographical limitations, as glimpsed by one with an experiential perspective on her own culture that was in turn shaped by and articulated through English language and literature. Padma Anagol’s commentary on “the agency of Indian women” (Emergence 9) hints at the extraordinary vision enabled by the application of English conceptual frameworks to the Indian Woman Question: It is certainly ironic that an approach that has done so much to criticize Orientalist essentialism has also reinforced the stereotype of the passive Indian woman. . . . The dismissal of native male voices as “shadows of imperial sovereign selves” or “distorted mimics” goes some way in explaining the disdain towards any form of recovery of women’s voices. . . . How are we to characterize subaltern women’s movements that made use of Western ideologies and colonial law, justice and administration? (8)

The question is crucial to this investigation of ILM and what it did and did not accomplish, the measure of which is less important than the fact of the endeavor in the first place. The primary aim of this project is to investigate a specific chapter in women’s periodicals history, one that illustrates the wide-ranging interdisciplinary underpinnings of the genre. My study evidences ILM’s incorporation of issues raised by such disciplines as history, sociology, and political sci-

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ence viewed from a postcolonial perspective, but the publication is primarily a literary (creative and nonfiction) journal, and it is from that framework that this discussion is offered, through applying various perspectives (literary criticism, social activism, Indian identity politics, Indian-American relations) to ILM’s contents. Temporally, the primary literary influence is Victorian through post-Edwardian, thus the project participates in postcolonial studies of British India and pre-independence Indian nationalism. Much of that scholarship, as Priya Joshi observes, remains “curiously silent on one crucial aspect of the historical and textual record . . . the effect upon or the response of Indian women to the massive efforts extended on their behalf” (In Another Country 194), both by the imperial civilizing mission and by Indian nationalism. 27 My focus on Kamala Satthianadhan and her magazine highlights such responses by investigating ILM’s unique editorial policy, one that “aims for” Indian women, by Indian women, while welcoming commentary by women and men to form “a bond of union” East and West—a stunningly capacious invitation to participate in a conversation that transcends geopolitical and sociocultural boundaries (“Ourselves” 1901: 2). 28 ILM is predicated on the idea of promoting cooperative discourse and on giving voice both to those who presume to speak for others and, more to the point, to those endeavoring to speak for themselves, many for the first time. 29 The scope of this study encompasses 1901 (death of Queen Victoria) through 1938 (when ILM ceased publication). ILM not only contributes to literary history generally and periodicals history specifically, it also offers a wealth of reflections on and responses to national and international events culminating in World War I and preceding World War II (1939) and Indian independence (1947). Periodicals written and produced by women shaped “ideas about national citizenship and its responsibilities in the social and political realm,” notes Antoinette Burton; their content was “constitutive of certain historically and culturally specific identities” (Burdens 100). While Burton writes of Englishwomen’s periodicals and the imperial civilizing mission directed at the colonized (the empire writes), my discussion illuminates how the point logically extends to Indian women’s periodicals and the nationalist and independence movements (the empire writes back)—of particular relevance, in the case of ILM, when the medium is the English language and the editorial platform is substantially predicated on English studies and literary analyses. ILM is a significant sign of its times, and its recuperation for postcolonial, English-speaking audiences, East and West, participates in the broader scholarly restoration of women’s writing that has fallen into decay or, worse, disappeared altogether. 30 ILM’s first run spanned 1901 through 1918, a period when patriotism—to the intelligentsia, at least—meant loyalty to the empire and was not yet considered inconsistent with the nationalist impulse to define an exclusionary brand of Indianness; 31 but by 1927, its renewed publication after a hiatus of

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nine years required that Sattianadhan confront a radically altered postwar nationalist consciousness. 32 Her personal identification with Indian, English, Hindu, and Christian influences and her editorial policy of tolerance, acceptance, and cooperation were proportionally difficult to maintain and negotiate once Indian nationalism became more sharply distinguished by cultural separatism. Sengupta emphasizes the timeliness of ILM’s first run (1901–1918), terming it “a powerful weapon for the emancipation of women” at a time when the position of women in India was deplorably low . . . [bound by] the common custom-ridden traditions of the day. . . . One can imagine especially the dark dismal realm of women, containing child-wives, widows, illiteracy, superstition and ignorance, and the veiled hushed quarters of Purdahnashins into which Kamala literally penetrated, and, to a great extent, dispelled the gloom. (Portrait 5)

Once initiated, sociocultural shifts affecting Indian women’s status were seismic, and by ILM’s second run (1927) many felt that the time for mending “social intercourse” between women East and West—a central idea debated in the magazine—was past. Satthianadhan’s editorial and ideological values remained consistent throughout her career, at times requiring that she defend them: I am sometimes blamed for not concentrating more on the [political] activities of Indian women: but . . . since there are other papers to do that, my journal can enlarge upon the general aspect, and upon the inward advance of Indian women and their preparation for increased responsibilities . . . mere intensification is not enough without extending [influence] . . . both are needed. . . . Indian womanhood . . . should be based, not only on our ancient ideals, but also on some of the forward movements of Western nations. (“Ourselves” 1930: 275–76) 33

The focus on women’s “inward advance” distinguishes ILM from the society or fashion pages typically associated with women’s journalism, Kamala’s insistence on practical “preparation for increased responsibilities” emphasizing the comprehensiveness of her editorial vision. Women deserve civil rights, but rights involve responsibilities, and to assume them women must be adequately prepared through education and critical thinking, social reforms and political activism. The concept of rights and responsibilities is central to the swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha nexus; by emphasizing “the growth of the total personality,” women’s periodicals endeavored to “cultivate elements of culture and modern living and wean them away from ignorance and gossip” (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 86). While some like Kamala promoted certain Western influences as a primary component of both modernization and the preservation—alternatively, reconception or refashioning

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of—Indian womanliness, others rejected such syntheses as out of step with the isolationism they believed essential to nationalist identity. Given its woman-centered focus, ILM’s participation in the gendered “discourse of colonial modernity” highlights the centrality of the Indian Woman Question within the nationalist paradigm (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 90). Because this book explores the accomplishments of colonial-era Indian women writing in English, with a view toward their contributions both to literary history and nationalist objectives, its emphases have less to do with abstract literary analysis—although close reading and historical contextualization are primary critical approaches—than with investigating the contributions of writers, reformers, and social activists busily networking decades before Mahatma Gandhi officially sanctioned their public participation. Anindita Ghosh studies “the possibilities of using literature as historical source material,” arguing that literature offers “an entry-point into the many mental worlds of the reading and writing communities” (Power 296). Similarly, my project considers the compelling “possibilities” afforded by an historical moment that combines English Victorian literature with the Indian Woman Question and emergent nationalism. While researching this topic, my expectations were variously challenged, necessitating periodic reevaluations of certain starting premises. First, compared with the long, slow process of establishing education opportunities for Indian males, the progress of female education was exponentially delayed; indeed, there were so few Indian women writing in English during the nineteenth century—prior to Toru Dutt at mid-century, virtually no such writing survives—that I extended my initial Victorian framework to incorporate the colonial, pre-independence period (through 1940s). While the intellectual influence of Victorian ideology in India was delayed by decades, once instituted, it spread at an accelerated rate, making the temporal focus relevant despite the chronological disparity. The second factor concerns disciplinary emphases, as I initially envisioned a study grounded exclusively in literary criticism. After working through many volumes of critical commentary about Indian women writing in English, much of it rehearsing otherwise available biographical information, much of it either accusing authors of being imitative, unoriginal, and derivative or defending them against those very charges, I chose to pursue my interest in what they did accomplish, rather than where they were thought to have failed. While some ILM entries do exhibit what Homi Bhabha would term linguistic and literary mimicry—superficial, poorly contextualized imitations of Western modes and standards—I follow Satthianadhan’s lead in privileging the message over the medium and in valuing content over style; a weak rhyme or awkward iamb interests me far less than the originating, culturally specific impulse of a literary hybrid that continues to develop and thrive in the twenty-first century. ILM being a welcoming, nonjudgmental resource, the fact of the articulation is itself the primary point, and central to

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that dynamic is the exploration of Indian nationalism and identity politics— especially regarding female social mores—through an alien language and mindset. Genres through which this study is conducted include both literary (fiction, poetry, drama) and nonliterary (criticism and analyses, social commentary, journalism, travel memoirs and letters, biography and autobiography). The third assumption requiring a perspective adjustment involves a cluster of related factors: religion, education, class, and caste. While not every English-educated author converted to Christianity, some did, the most direct access to such an education being through Christian mission schools. Paradoxically, the English-educated intelligentsia, schooled in Enlightenment values and secular humanism, reigned at the forefront of the nationalist movement even while considered suspect by orthodox conservatives, who feared the influence of foreign religious ideologies conveyed through an alien linguistic and pedagogical model. 34 This being a study of Indian women’s nationalism as reflected in their writing, I had hoped to avoid religious issues altogether, but that proved impossible, the question of religious tolerance and coexistence being central to the culture’s modernizing debates. In terms of modern advances, Indian Christians were considered the best (up-todate) educated, followed by Hindus, with Muslims a distant third—the latter two groups fearing religious “contamination” through Western education. Clearly, religion (including morals and ethics) mattered a great deal in terms of access to education and the relative corresponding attitudes that either facilitated or thwarted social reform and modernization. Regarding class and caste, those women with access to English education were not necessarily well-off, but they were privileged as regards access to liberal-humanist thinking and progressive attitudes toward women; they were not, like the vast majority of Indian women, locked in a perpetual struggle to secure their next meal. However we define “privilege,” those women writers with access to English education and the time to write comprised a miniscule portion of the female population, the remaining millions being illiterate in this or any other language. 35 Finally, my discovery of The Indian Ladies’ Magazine gave shape and substance to my interests in Victorianism and imperialism, Indian nationalism and British India, and Indian women’s writing in English. Viewed through the lens of Indian womanhood, ILM combines the primary Indian Woman Question debates from the mid-Victorian period through the shocking Girl-of-the-Period, from the notorious New Women through militant suffragists, and from women’s release from purdah to their incarceration as political prisoners. This nexus of interests is linked by a concern with womanliness—how the term is defined according to tradition, how it requires redefining according to the spirit of the age, how a synthesis of East and West, ancient and modern can be yoked to modernization, emancipation,

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and, above all, the preservation, rejuvenation, and articulation of Indian identity. These points are addressed in ILM’s emphases on domesticity and literacy, on social reform and political activism, and through its analyses of the world’s first democracy—America—vis-à-vis its incipient youngest democracy—India. Chapter 1, “Women’s Periodicals, West and East,” contextualizes ILM within a history of its predecessors and contemporaries, British and Indian. In England, that history begins with the mid-eighteenth-century rise of woman-centered periodicals, which for over a century were edited by men; reflecting social changes in the age of industrialization, editorial platforms shifted from addressing ladies of leisure to Angels-in-the-House, and from New Women to militant suffragettes. By the late nineteenth century, womenedited periodicals reflected the concerns of first-wave feminism, social reform, and imperial relations. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century, Indian women’s periodicals (also edited by men) traced a similar dynamic concerning the status of women, in this instance shaped by indigenous and colonial influences (culture, religion, language, literature) and by the intensifying nationalist movement. It is the Indian example that requires further contextualization in relation to the rapid growth of the native press and imperial attempts to suppress nationalist propaganda. By the fin de siècle, Indian women were not only writing for journals but editing them in the vernaculars; as the first English-language journal, The Indian Ladies’ Magazine was unique: “the only one of its kind in India,” proclaimed Kamala, “a fitting mouthpiece for the advanced womanhood” (Indian 1908: 304). As such, ILM provided intellectual and practical preparation for the more onerous physical and spiritual demands of satyagraha. 36 As my discussion of ILM in the context of Madras’s colonial history and anticolonial activism reveals, the magazine offers significant cultural insights into pre-independence India, regionally and nationally. “ILM and Literary Criticism” (chapter 2) presents an editorial platform that synthesized Victorian Angel-in-the-House domestic ideology with New Woman rights and responsibilities, and both with the evolving role of Indian women in modernization and nationalism. Interestingly, while the examples of Sita, Draupadi, and other classical Indian heroines are regularly presented as emulable models, the impulse to define modern Indian womanhood is more prominently reflected in the Victorian gender ideology promoted by John Ruskin, Lord Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, and Marie Corelli. As an English-language publication, ILM was positioned to address English, Anglo-Indian, 37 and Indian editorial considerations; ideologically, its dominant framework stressed the contentious “truism” that woman’s place is in the home—the most basic commonplace linking East and West. Thus ILM’s editorial platform is both predicated on and anxious about a gender ideology that is increasingly out of step with the time; that its critical values incorpo-

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rated East and West, ancient and modern, Angel-in-the-House and New Woman resulted in an ambivalent gender ideology uncertainly poised between the known drawbacks of traditionalism and the unknown risks of modernism. Chapter 3, “ILM and the Life Literary,” investigates ILM as a literary journal featuring creative writing (poetry, fiction, drama) and creative nonfiction. Many full-page poetry features, framed in engraved designs, were offered in each number, as were short stories and “fancies” (or “reveries”), serialized novelettes or long stories and dramas, character sketches and analyses, and reviews of new work by or related to women. ILM offered a welcoming resource to facilitate the intellectual “awakening” of Indian women; here women could safely break their silence, practice newly acquired linguistic, analytical, and literary skills, and articulate concerns about Indian Woman Question debates (debates from which women were typically excluded) to a sympathetic audience. As portrayed through the journal’s literary aspects, its promotion of self-reliance, self-development, and a cooperative spirit eclipsing racial, religious, caste, class, economic, social, and political differences evidences ILM’s syntheses of secular humanism with Indian nationalism long before the latter term acquired its more exclusionary “Quit India” currency. Chapter 4, “ILM and Women’s Social Activism,” outlines the innovativeness of this highly ambitious publication—at once a product of its time, ahead of its time and, dramatizing the speed with which Indian women internalized Victorianism and modernism to defeat imperialism, by the late 1930s slipping into redundancy. ILM’s underpinning of Victorian gender ideology evidences shifting attitudes about women and social reform, represented by two primary avenues of women’s activism: first, Ladies’ Philanthropy, expressed through such social events as “At-Homes” and “Purdah Parties,” and by community activities and projects sponsored by ladies’ societies and associations. A second, more intensive, activism was Women’s Mission to Women, involving advocates’ commitment to improving the status of widows and orphans; to addressing the medical, legal, and educational needs of purdahnashins; and to subverting the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. Aiming to institute permanent, meaningful change in the lives of poor, abandoned, and otherwise disenfranchised women, “women’s missionaries” adapted the philanthropic models of American and British women social workers to promote sustenance (housing, food, clothing, and health care), education, and skills training leading to economic self-sufficiency for India’s strikingly prolific widow population. Whereas chapters 2 and 3 consider the “awakening of Indian womanhood” through intellectual and literary frameworks, and chapter 4 surveys women’s early social organizing and activism, chapter 5 reveals the increasing incompatibility between imperial and national interests. “ILM and Indian

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Identity Politics” investigates the publication’s endeavor to maintain its policy of tolerance or, at least, respectful coexistence as the independence movement intensified and choosing sides became less an option than an imperative. Ongoing debates aired in ILM include East/West relations (specifically, confronting the mutual dissatisfactions of Anglos and Indians from their relative sociopolitical perspectives), critiques of the practice and ideology of purdah as a primary obstacle separating the two groups (promoted by conservatives as the only security for ensuring female chastity and condemned by liberals for inhibiting modernization), and the interplay of attitudes shaped by Western Orientalism and Eastern Occidentalism. Underpinning these considerations are several questions: How to modernize India without compromising its essential cultural identity? How is that identity defined? Who is doing the defining and to what sociopolitical ends? 38 Such cultural introspection surfaces in the pages of ILM, whose promotion of a healthy East-West, ancient-modern balance—believed by many necessary to secure India’s global position among modern nations—was viewed by others as difficult to reconcile with a pursuit of cultural autonomy increasingly driven by the rejection of all things not Indian. All these concerns are intimately linked with debates about female education. “ILM and the Indian Woman Question” (chapter 6) investigates those debates: to be educated or not, for how long and with what teachers, in what facilities and with what curriculum and materials, in what language and for what purpose? The greatest challenge posed by the Indian Woman Question was how to educate females without compromising social concepts of womanliness, and how to modernize India without compromising its essential cultural identity. Moving the focus beyond regional and national to the Western hemisphere, “America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown” (chapter 7) records Indians’ travels to the United States during the mid- to late colonial period. Their purposes were varied: some came for education or to raise funding for Indian social programs, some were cultural ambassadors and others social commentators, and some were tourists while others sought to forge political relations. Travelers’ accounts were especially valued for their first-person reports of the fledgling society that had overturned the mighty British Empire: America’s example was irresistible, alternately “superlative” and disappointing, a model of what and what not to be and do once independence is achieved. 39 Links between the two countries are intriguing: whereas America’s independence ended Britain’s first empire, India’s independence ended its second and last. 40 “Mothering India” (chapter 8) concludes this study by highlighting two primary perspectives: first, the culmination of Indian women’s “awakening,” shifting from tentative literary expressions to hands-on political activism often resulting in arrests and incarceration, and second, the demise of The

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Indian Ladies’ Magazine. In January 1938, on the eve of the second war to end all wars, ILM ceased publication, with no extant explanation or fanfare. That the magazine ended, in the words of T. S. Eliot, “not with a bang but a whimper” (“Hollow Men”), belies the timeliness of a publication that aimed to synthesize traditional culture with universal tolerance and mutual respect—an endeavor analogous to nationalist activists’ nonviolent, noncooperative approach to independence. The final numbers of the publication Kamala Satthianadhan had nurtured through its thirty-year precarious existence record an undimmed editorial voice; feisty to the end, her energetic critiques of Hitler and Mussolini represent an impressive final bow for a now-forgotten yet significant chapter in Indian literary history. Whereas ILM’s 1901 inception eulogized the late Queen Victoria by praising her motherly nurturance of her colonial brood, its final numbers are distinguished by an iconic turn to Mother India, whose children uplift not only themselves and Bharat Mata but also promote world peace, international cooperation, and a mutually supportive global community. Clearly, the recuperation and preservation of this singular example of Indian women’s pre-independence cultural and literary history is in itself a worthwhile undertaking, as the evidence offered in the following chapters attests. More broadly, this study contributes to ongoing scholarly endeavors aimed at “preserving items of women’s material culture” (Forbes, Women 5), specifically those “eminently perishable magazines” that are vulnerable to neglect or, worse, to disappearing without a trace. ILM offered a unique platform for Indian women writers, many of whom have disappeared from historical records that foreground the Gandhi/Nehru nexus as if that alone accomplished independence. The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1901–1938 provides eloquent evidence to the contrary, evidence of the unglamorous and less dramatic contributions of the “other” half of the population, the Indian women socialites, social workers, socialists, and satyagrahis who for decades established and developed the foundation for India’s nation building. The issues as presented in ILM are neither linear nor chronological, but best envisioned as a length of khaddar: a bit rough, a bit uneven, and thoroughly swadeshi. 41 NOTES 1. Kamala was eighteen when she married Samuel in 1898. Sengupta notes that she died at age seventy, on Republic Day (January 26), three years after independence (1947). 2. According to The Hindu (Chennai), Hannah Ratnam Krishnamma, “the first woman postgraduate from Madras Christian College . . . was none other than . . . Kamala Satthianadhan . . . [who] found[ed] India’s first women’s magazine, The Indian Ladies Magazine” (Oct. 23, 2011). There are several inconsistencies here. First, because Madras Christian College did not accept women graduate students until 1939, the granting institution would have been the University of Madras, with whom MCC was affiliated; Sengupta does not specify the institu-

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tion. Second, ILM was not the first women’s magazine, although it was the first by an Indian woman in English. Third, Sengupta notes 1901 for Kamala’s MA degree, whereas The Hindu (Oct. 3, 2011) lists 1903. 3. Theirs was an arranged marriage, predicated on Kamala’s condition that she finish her university degree. Following the Indian tradition of a husband renaming his bride, Hannah became Kamala (also the title of a novel by Samuel’s first wife, Krupabai). Eunice DeSouza and E. M. Jackson’s Stories of Indian Christian Life investigates East and West influences within the Indian Christian community, with a view toward aligning Christian principles with daily social practices. 4. Along with Portrait of an Indian Woman (biography of Kamala Satthianadhan), Padmini Satthianadhan Sengupta wrote biographies of Pandita Ramabai, Sarojini Naidu, Toru Dutt, H. K. Mukarji, and D. J. M. Sengupta. Other books include Women Workers of India and Pioneer Women of India. 5. See also Chatterjee on “the home and the world” (Nation, 120) and R. Tagore’s book of the same title. 6. Exposure by Indian men and women to the benefits of female education through socializing with Anglos in their homes was often advocated, although taboos against interdining and class/caste mixing were prohibitive: “all European gentlemen who desired the ‘amelioration of native society’ should allow intelligent Hindus a sight of what female education had done in their own domestic circle, by occasionally introducing them to their families” (Borthwick, Changing 33). 7. ILM was at best self-supporting and at worst operated at a deficit for which Kamala personally attempted to compensate; profit was less a concern than keeping the journal in print. 8. On Samuel Satthianadhan, see Sengupta (Portrait 51–55) and DeSouza (Album). 9. Kamala’s six-year tenure with the Rani ended when Padmini developed a rash (Portrait 95). Sengupta implies that it was the Rajah who insisted on their abrupt departure; Kamala was deeply hurt by the episode, further exacerbated by the Rajah’s refusal to permit her presence at the Rani’s deathbed (at the latter’s request). 10. During the war, the government refused travel documents for women and children, except in cases of “urgent necessity” (“Women and Children” 1916: 178). 11. See Kamala’s series “My Impressions of England” in The Hindu (1925). 12. During the 1920–1921 civil disobedience movement, “nationalists began to consciously organize women” (Kumar, History 64). 13. Satthianadhan’s accomplishments are varied: she established Pallavaram girls’ school and served as its principal; she served on the board for women’s education, and for the Madras and Andhra University Senates; and she was Honorary Magistrate of Madras and Vizianagram. 14. See also Devendra Das, Sketches. 15. See Jackson, “Caste.” 16. The Satthianadhans, Jackson writes, “oscillated from generation to generation between anglicisation and what they viewed as Indian tradition. In this they are a paradigm of many Indian families, Hindu and Christian” (“Caste” n.p.). Their reform interests include “the state of Indian society, social problems, female education, child marriage, caste, the dilemmas of Indian Christians and missionaries, the ‘Indianness’ of the Church” (Desouza, Album ii). 17. “Domestic Industry among Indian Ladies” claims that women who are not content to stay at home “fall” from domestic paradise “into a hell of remorses and worries”; if they must read, it should be only as a last resort, thus rendering her a “wife in the real sense of the word” while placating her mother-in-law (Lakshmi, “Domestic” 1910: 386). 18. On Kashibai Kanitkar’s “tremendous success in the public arena,” having “learnt this new role of appeasing the old without rejecting the new,” see Anagol (Emergence 63). 19. Naidu’s brother, poet Harindranath Chattopadhyaya (married to Kamaladevi), regularly contributed poems and dramas to ILM. 20. “The cooperation . . . between Western men and women in public affairs is practically unknown in India” (“Maharani” 1911: 114). Excepting divorce, Satthianadhan pronounces the Western gender relations model “worthwhile, with all its perplexities. . . . The bittersweet companionship of the West is to be preferred . . . to the insipid-sweet associations of the East” (Amicus, “Companionship” 1929: 652–53). Indian travelers to the West found “the perception

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of the family as a space for emotional fulfilment” compelling and attractive, prompting comparisons between companionate marriage (modern) and the extended family configuration (traditional), as debated in India (Talwar, “Feminist” 206). 21. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975), vice chancellor of Andhra University, vice president of India (1952–1962), and president of India (1962–1967). Kamala, “by running an ideal home and editing a Ladies’ Magazine . . . prepared for the emancipation of women, which is the most significant feature of our time” (Foreword ix). 22. Kamala is hardly unique on this point. Recent work repeatedly concludes that, whether orchestrated by male or female editors, women’s periodicals (from mid-eighteenth century through the present) are largely characterized by contradictory, mixed messages regarding “womanliness.” Even the most seemingly progressive publications operate from a framework that ultimately reifies the domestic, maternal, angelic, separate spheres model: in J. S. Mill’s terms, “the constant reassertion of the dominant ideal of femininity itself acts as proof that it is neither nature, nor self-evident, nor even secure” (Ballaster et al., “Women’s” 85). See also Beetham (Magazine), Beetham and Boardman (Victorian), and Shevelow (Women). 23. According to Rabindrinath Tagore, “females being needful, and males barely necessary, nature indulges male creatures in their fighting propensity to kill one another”; but when women assert gender equality, it is at the cost of their womanliness, causing the world to lose “its equilibrium” (“Glimpse” 1932: 104). Incidents of radical female violence, including assassination attempts and shootings, bombings and arsenal raids, challenged traditional notions of womanliness: “It is with feelings of regret and of shame that we read of the Comilla shooting outrage by two women of India. This wanton act is a serious ‘blot on the womanhood of India’ . . . where women, among all women, are so celebrated for tender-heartedness and generous mercy” (“Comilla” 1931: 257). See Kumar (History 46–47, 86–92), “Bina the Woman” (1932), and “Unrest in India” (ILM). 24. Chatterjee defines satyagraha as “resistance to oppressive rule by disobeying unjust laws or orders, to accept the punishment that might result without retaliating with violence, but to resist again. Properly organized, satyagraha can assume the form of mass popular resistance to state authority. But it explicitly avoids the path of violence” (Lineages 53). 25. To Mahatma Gandhi, these concepts meant “self-government within the empire, if possible, and outside, if necessary” (Burke and Quraishi, British 193); for Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it was “almost interchangeable . . . with Hindu-Muslim unity” (240). The Swarajist Party platform emphasized “spinning and weaving, the removal of Untouchability and the promotion of Hindu-Muslim unity” (254). 26. Kashibai Kanitkar observes that the “reform climate . . . prioritized and privileged nationalism as a male project over social issues,” the latter regarded a feminine concern (Kosambi, Introduction 41). 27. “British feminists played a particularly significant role . . . seeing in the condition of Indian women a cause that they could use to enhance their own participation and status within empire” (Joshi, Another 173). According to Forbes, “Colonial histories have narrated the civilizing mission of the British as rescuing Indian women from their own culture and society” (2). See also Burton, Jayawardena, and Murshid (239). 28. ILM’s audience includes “European ladies who take a deep practical interest in . . . the emancipation of their Indian sisters. . . . It is hoped that the Magazine will serve as an effective link” between the two (“Ourselves” 1901: 25). While “the majority of literary contributions will be by [Indian and English] ladies,” also featured are contributions “by eminent Indian gentlemen” and Western male writers. 29. Priya Joshi’s critique of the “gender colonialism” of Burton, Jayawardena, and other scholars objects to “an account of empire that replaces the exploits and triumphs of European males with those of European females . . . essentially coloniz[ing] gender as a singularly Western category while reducing empire to a neutered monolith in which the colonized woman has neither voice nor agency” (Another 194–95). 30. Geraldine Forbes records revisiting Indian archives only to find that material had “gone missing” in the interim (Women 5), which I too have experienced in this research. 31. The “new militancy of nationalism ascribed a measure of odiousness to the westernized life-style” (Raychaudhuri, Europe 332). The “True Indian” values Indian philosophy, woman-

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hood (“unaccomplished but wise and noble”), cooking, and music (“True” 1915: 38–39). ILM promoted a mutually beneficial synthesis of East and West as conducive to personal selfdevelopment no less than to national modernization and international relations. 32. According to the 1920 Indian National Congress, “inasmuch as non-co-operation has been conceived as a measure of discipline and self-sacrifice without which no nation can make real progress . . . this Congress advises adoption of swadeshi in piece-goods on a vast scale” and encourages spinning to supply the need for cloth (qtd. Burke and Quraishi, British 223). For noncooperation to work, unity—solidarity, cooperation—among Indians of all social levels was essential. 33. Compare Satthianadhan’s statement with Elizabeth Manning’s in the National Indian Association’s Indian Magazine: “while other periodicals relating to India treat of political, religious, or commercial subjects, this Magazine . . . is mainly occupied with educational, literary and social matters . . . we therefore commend the Indian Magazine to its supporters in India and in England, with the hope that, by the help of their exertions, it may become more and more a source of encouragement to workers in good movements, and of stimulus to others to go and do likewise” (Burton, “Institutionalizing” 23–24). Sengupta (Portrait) records associating with the Mannings during their London school years. 34. Nehru, Gandhi, and Jinnah were educated in England. Western education was linked with denationalization, but “it would be obviously incorrect” to accuse nationalist leaders of being denationalized (Raychaudhuri, Europe 170). Because education in England required extraordinarily privileged socioeconomic circumstances, few men and far fewer women had the opportunity, Sarojini Naidu and Cornelia Sorabji being two exceptions. 35. Indian Christian girls have an advantage over non-Christians in terms of the education and social opportunities “necessary for the enlargement of the mind”; they are not bound by “the evils of infant marriage and the prohibition of widow-remarriage” (“Indian Christian Children” 1911: 208). 36. Activists’ participation in satyagraha included picketing, sit-ins, boycotting, scuffling with police, lathi beatings, and arrests resulting in incarceration. 37. “Anglo-Indian” refers to English people living in India and does not imply mixed race; the logical counterpart—Indo-Anglicans—was not typically employed to denote Indians writing in English or living in England. 38. “Only education can bring prosperity. Free and compulsory primary education should be given all over India” (“Primary Education” 1929: 392). 39. Partha Chatterjee writes, “While non-Western nationalists agreed that many of the traditional institutions and practices in their societies needed to be thoroughly changed for them to become modern, they also insisted that there were several elements in their tradition that were distinctively national, different from the Western, but nevertheless entirely consistent with the modern” (Lineages 193). 40. “Much of the motive force of British expansion after 1765 was provided by the need to pay for the British Indian army”; shifting the economic burden to the colonies “precipitate[d] a series of conflicts which liberated the Americans but enslaved the Indians” (Bayly, Imperial 97). S. Ahmed links imperialism with “military expenditures and war debts” financed by colonial economies (Stillbirth 2). According to the “logic of capital,” India’s commodities— silk and cotton, tea and salt, opium and grain—provided “the superprofits they needed to finance their debts” (16–17). 41. Khaddar: unbleached, handwoven cotton fabric, favored by nationalists; made from natural, local materials and traditionally produced, khaddar symbolized Indian self-sufficiency while foregrounding the economic ruin of indigenous textile industries by England’s power mills.

Reader’s Note

In keeping with the consistency of ILM’s editorial platform throughout its twenty-eight-year existence, I have not chronologically separated its first run from its second in my analyses; this study demonstrates that articles from the second run (1927–1938) complement, support, and enhance articles from the first (1901–1918) and vice-versa. While this complementarity illustrates how little had changed over a more than thirty-year period regarding conservative attitudes toward women, I also highlight notable shifts in those attitudes. Article dates are provided parenthetically, as well as in the primary bibliography, to enable readers to readily contextualize authors’ commentary. All parenthetical citations referencing ILM articles are listed first by author name (where available) or second by title (abbreviated and alphabetical), followed by year and page, as in (Satthianadhan, “Women” 1901: 1). Articles with generic attributions—“By an Indian (or English) lady” (or gentleman or similar)—are listed by title (parenthetically and in the primary bibliography). Such attributions as “Shahinda” (in quotes) indicate a pseudonym, and these items are listed by author; any item whose author is identified by initials (H. P. K.) is listed by title. Editor Satthianadhan may also be identified as Kamala Satthianadhan, Kamala, K.S., The Editor, or Amicus; 1 she sometimes employed her maiden name: Hannah Ratnam Krishnamma, H. R. K., or H. R. Krishnamma. Miss Hannah Krishnamma (also H. K.) is Kamala’s niece. A note about spelling: Readers may note occasional spelling inconsistencies. The name “Joshi,” for example, is in some sources spelled “Joshee”; Stri may also be Stree; Saraladevi may also be Sarala Devi. I have aimed for consistency as much as possible, exceptions being quotes from secondary sources, which are offered as they are in the original.

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NOTE 1. Because the pseudonym “Amicus” is employed editorially, I attribute the columns’ commentary to Kamala Satthianadhan.

Chapter One

Women’s Periodicals, West and East

The history of India’s periodical press during the nineteenth century provides significant insights into late-century Indian Woman Question debates, the women’s press being initially driven and controlled by men. This was true both East and West, comprising a narrative that begins with men . . . writing by, for, and as women. Their writing was complemented by women represented as writing within the structures dominated (textually and extra-textually) by men. . . . [Periodicals] history chronicles women taking on those structures and in some ways reformulating them, but remaining situated firmly within the dominant patriarchal ideology. (Shevelow, Women 198)

An understanding of these dynamics is essential to appreciating ILM’s promotion of female learning and articulation as the universal panacea for all social concerns—even the “unsexing” of “war-women” and “man-woman suffragettes” (“Different” 1916: 20–21)—and especially for India’s modernizing and nationalist progress. Insofar as “‘India cannot be free until its women are free and women cannot be free until India is free’” (Sinha, “Reading” 7), the conundrum posed by the Indian Woman Question and the sociocultural angst it generated demanded resolution. The following contextualization of Indian women’s periodicals generally and ILM specifically is predicated on the history of English women’s magazines, the direct predecessor of and influence on the Indian women’s press. Three parallel developments are, then, considered in this chapter: the evolution of English women’s magazines, the development of Indian women’s magazines, and the inception of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine.

1

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Kamala Satthianadhan, Editor

Padmini Satthianadhan Sengupta, Assistant Editor

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3

Whether hailing from the modernizing West or traditional East, women— the ostensible fulcrum on which the fates of empires and nationalist identity politics depended and about whom seemingly all men had something to say—were prevented from speaking for themselves. It was out of this longentrenched silencing that woman-centered journalism, stimulated by women’s increasing literacy and articulation, found its place in print media, a public discourse to be privately consumed without having to leave the home. Distinguished from newspapers’ associations with masculinity and current public affairs (news), magazines (characterized by features) were viewed as feminine and private, thus “female political influence came to be defined precisely by the avoidance of party political statement or commentary” (Ballaster, Women’s 61); this aspect of separate spheres ideology is reflected in ILM’s urge to identify itself with social rather than political labels. While it was men who initiated and controlled women’s eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury periodicals, the very existence of periodicals for women “reified gender difference. . . . In dividing the world of periodical publication, the women’s periodical was both a sign of that division and an agent active in perpetuating it” (Shevelow, Women 152). The contents of early women’s periodicals “implicitly registered a determination of what material was suitable for women readers” (177), and in the process “set out to define their readers. Reading the magazine both produced femininity and was its signifier” (Beetham, Magazine 18). A brief overview of women’s periodicals history—not comprehensive but, rather, highlighting representative achievements and pivotal trends— reveals the originating English and Indian influences that preceded ILM, which in turn added its own unique contributions to the genre. Denise Quirk writes that a colonial circuitry of people, practices, and goods between Britain and India and the colonies provided a material and discursive framework for Victorian patterns of national identity formation. The Victorian women’s periodical press played an important role in this circuitry by creating a virtual community of participants and readers that linked . . . colonial society in India and Victorian society in England as it produced a shared national (imperial) identity. (“True” 167)

Central to my entire project is the notion of a “shared national . . . identity” cultivated through cross-cultural comprehension and acceptance, as well as through rejection. That the balance of power was skewed toward imperial identity was vigorously contested from the inception of the periodical press in India. It is important to note that the following discussion investigates plausible editorial influences on ILM, with titles selected on the basis of their innovativeness, popularity, and social impact. 1 That British publishing firms regu-

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larly sent books for distribution in the Indian market (schools, libraries, and private consumers) is well established, 2 but what has not yet been determined—and is beyond the scope of this study—is the availability and circulation of British women’s magazines in India—before, during, and beyond the fin de siècle. 3 It seems likely that Anglo-Indian women brought such magazines with them or had them sent from home and that they were circulated within the Anglo-Indian community, including English-language and Christian mission institutions—if not available commercially, then they were so in school and lending libraries. 4 As an English-educated Hindu-Christian fluent in several languages, Kamala would have had access to such networks, just as she had access to literary books published in England; as Sengupta notes, she was a member of the Literary Society of Madras, 5 from whose lending library she received several boxes of books weekly. Regarding the vernacular examples, Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu journals would have been accessible to her, as would networks of intelligentsia spread throughout the subcontinent, particularly in South India 6 and in Calcutta, with its strong ties to Madras (in terms of government bureaucracy as well as Christian, educational, and social reform networks). The following discussion aims to contextualize ILM within a history of its predecessors, British and Indian, English and vernacular, as well as to illustrate its signature hybridity, comprising an innovative contribution to women’s periodical publishing in India. WOMEN’S PERIODICALS, WEST In terms of periodization, the early history of English women’s magazines reflects shifting attitudes toward women and their place in society, ranging from privileged ladies of leisure to the motherhood/domesticity/morality triad, and from participating in communal social and philanthropic work to political involvement in women’s rights and responsibilities. Dating from the eighteenth century, English woman-centered periodicals were an extension of conduct manuals, material written primarily by men (sometimes in the guise of a female voice) to instruct privileged-class females on appropriate social decorum, and thus intended to cement and preserve the gendered status quo. 7 Responding to the era’s accelerating debates about female education, early publications were designed to be instructive and to be consumed in the home, precluding “public social structures” like schools (Shevelow, Women 148). In practice, “polite” female education accomplished little beyond basic literacy, being “designed not to challenge but to reinforce the conception of natural differentiation of social functions between the sexes”; through this reinforcement of separate spheres ideology, “women were educated for the home, in the home.” Along with conduct literature, textual influences underpinning early women’s periodicals included “the domestic treatise, and the

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serious, often religious, tracts on women’s duties” (Ballaster, Women’s 88). Representative early women’s periodicals include Female Spectator (1744–1746), Ladies’ Magazine (1749–1753), Ladies’ Monthly Museum (1798–1806), and New Lady’s Magazine (1786–1795). A revealing characteristic linking these publications was the delineation of readers as ladies (indicating dependency) rather than as women (implying agency)—a point illustrating the gendering of genres (newspapers versus magazines) and the negotiation of female respectability and class in public and private realms, as seen in the very title Indian Ladies’ Magazine. 8 The point is central to ILM’s grafting of English middle-class Victorian domestic ideology onto Indian debates about modernization and nationalism during the Edwardian and interwar periods. 9 As the genre evolved away from the single narrative voice and essay format typical of the eighteenth century, it incorporated a greater “variety of authorial voice” with an array of features that served to standardize the “woman’s magazine formula”—“the illustrated life, fiction in serial and short-story form, poetry, reviews, and illustrated ‘modes’” or fashions (Beetham, Magazine 21). Consistent with the emphasis on women of leisure is the absence of articles on such practical matters as childcare, cooking, or dressmaking, all eventually staples of the woman’s magazine “formula,” but at this time, features addressing “accomplishments” (rudimentary levels of fine art and music performance) and “fancywork” (nonfunctional or decorative needlework) stressed activities signifying “the wealth and status a woman enjoyed . . . by virtue of her husband. Her cultural capital was the mark of his economic capital” (30). Early nineteenth-century trends marked a shift away from ladies’ “accomplishments” as a measure of respectability and toward the idea of women’s “intellectual development” as a “duty” with moral connotations. Cultural attitudes inspired by utilitarianism legitimated domestic activities as honorable, but specifically unpaid, work; thus magazines in their instructional capacity presented domesticity as purposefully linked with class, gender, nation, feminine virtue, and the “woman-centred home” (Ballaster, Women’s 84). Cynthia White highlights a darker aspect of Victorian women’s purportedly exalted position: “The new vision of Womanhood, compounded of piety and domesticity, had a profound effect upon the character of women’s magazines, narrowing their scope and eliminating all mental stimulus” (Women’s 42). This trend is illustrated by such periodicals as The Christian Lady’s Magazine and The Mother’s Magazine (both 1834), The Magazine of Domestic Economy (1836), and The New Monthly Belle Assemblee and The Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times (both 1847). However, as White notes, whereas initially “the women’s press remained an upper-class institution,” that shifted with the mid-century trend toward affordably priced magazines aimed at middle-class women. A major figure in this endeavor was editor

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Samuel Beeton, whose various mid-century magazines record “the changing meaning of womanhood” and the “consolidation of that tradition in both middle- and upper-class reading” (Beetham, Magazine 6). 10 Along with the utilitarian drive toward the absorption and dissemination of “useful knowledge,” this “consolidation” was further fueled by Victorian conduct manuals, such as those by Sarah Ellis. 11 Contrasting with the religious tone of eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury predecessors, mid-century women’s magazines developed a more secularized vision of woman’s duty; distinct from the ornamental, women were to keep busy with more practical contributions to domestic economy. For example, Beeton’s Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (EDM) featured sewing patterns and instructions, marking a shift from fancywork (nonfunctional needlework) to sewing clothing for one’s self and family (functional). While home was still associated with leisure, the dynamic emphasized man’s leisure, home being cast as a sanctuary from the spiritually compromising forces of the marketplace, and woman’s “work” being to create that space. The EDM was particularly influential; credited with “establishing the format of the middle-class domestic magazine in the 1850s,” it evolved to “target working-class women” as well, extending its social influence through World War I (Ballaster, Women’s 83). 12 EDM served as a “manual of practical instruction, moral guide, and source of pleasure,” precluding the need to find either guidance or entertainment beyond the self-contained island of home and thus cementing the rationale underpinning separate spheres ideology (Beetham, Magazine 68). Earlier, gendered concepts of cultural and economic capital extended to debates about the propriety and desirability of female education and definitions of women’s work, resulting in the enduring paradox that respectable women cannot work outside the home for remuneration because they must work, unpaid, in the home to secure man’s comfort. To negotiate the conflicting demands of domesticity, education, and unpaid labor, Victorians arrived at a singular solution: women do need specially designed instruction, and this they can acquire at home through woman-centered publications featuring carefully controlled content. While a minimal level of education might be desirable for efficient household management, it was deliberately circumscribed to reify women’s subordinate status and curb ideas that might be intellectually liberating. Too much insight, in other words, might lead women to question the “naturalness” of the entire system. In a variation of middle-class domestic concerns and a seeming return to earlier class-specific standards, Samuel Beeton also published Queen (from 1861 through 1970, under various names), a magazine “dedicated to a female sovereign and claimed to be ‘for women,’ ‘about women’ and ‘EDITED by a LADY.’ It constructed a readership of ‘ladies’ rather than ‘domestic women’” (Beetham, Magazine 89). Its editorial aim was to provide “useful, practical” instruction so that readers’ “understanding and judgment will not be

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insulted by a collection of mere trivialities” (Burton, “Institutionalizing” 54). Queen introduces the idea of “ladies’ illustrated newspapers” by bringing “the concept of the lady, the techniques of illustration and the category of news into dynamic relationship with each other” (Beetham, Magazine 89). One important innovation of Queen was its inclusion of news items that “ladies can read and profit by” (92), thus challenging the gendered divide between “masculine” newspapers reporting on public, political realms and feminine publications addressing domestic and moral concerns. Also innovative was the column “What Women Are Doing,” which offered “reports on education, literature, public campaigns and debates about political and social rights as well as Society news” (93), thus invoking a broader community of women—a device later employed by Satthianadhan in ILM (the columns “News and Notes,” “Current Comments,” and “What Is Being Done,” for example). The idea that women’s philanthropy (charity or volunteer work) was now accepted as a type of domestic activity pursued beyond the home is reflected in Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies (1865), which posited that “ladies must extend their responsibilities for the material and moral welfare of their inferiors to women outside the home as well as those within it” (109). Ruskin’s cultural authority proved so extensive as to heavily influence ILM, its readers, and its contributors half a world away and half a century later. Both EDM and Queen are further notable for featuring commentary on India, highlighting “how Indian spaces helped to define and redefine the relationship between private and public spheres” (Chaudhuri, “Issues” 51). Such attention to imperial matters at the domestic level indicates “the avenues and the methods through which views of India filtered into domestic British discourse in the second half of the nineteenth century and helped to fashion a gendered legitimation of British rule in India” (52). 13 Antoinette Burton adds that “the treatment of India in women’s magazines, especially articles of an instructive or didactic nature, created and recreated gendered and racialized identities for their readers” (“Institutionalizing” 53). By also offering advice about clothing, housekeeping, and health and sanitary matters to Englishwomen traveling to India, EDM and Queen “more than most made frequent use of and reference to India in their features and columns” (53). In their one-directional orientation (from metropolis to colony), these two examples are distinguished from The Indian Magazine (discussed below), which aimed more explicitly to facilitate discourse or conversation between Anglos and Indians on matters relevant to both, an organizing principle that was also central to ILM. The Englishwoman’s Review (ER) (1866–1910) was co-founded by Bessie Raynor Parkes, and its editors included E. G. Anderson, Barbara Bodichon, and J. Boucherette; among its contributors were Lydia Becker, F. P. Cobbe, Dinah Craik, and Emily Davies. Given what the Waterloo Directory terms its “Radical Feminist” orientation, ER seems less likely to have influ-

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enced Satthianadhan than magazines with a more domestic and less overtly political agenda. But the term “Radical Feminist” is misleading in that it is relative to the broader history of feminist activism, of which the first-wave era (mid-nineteenth century through end of World War I) was but one chapter. For example, in its earlier iteration, First Wave Feminism focused on women’s education, employment, and woman-centered legislation (that is, Married Women’s Property Act and Contagious Diseases Acts repeal), before shifting into the more militant tactics of suffrage activism. Features in ER address such issues as employment, politics, suffrage, education, economics, women’s news (domestic and foreign), topical essays, and correspondence—all of which were featured in ILM. Whereas Kamala could not condone female violence in any society, for any reason, the reformist aims of her magazine certainly aligned with those presented in ER; nor would she consider female education and sanitary reform either “radical” or “feminist” causes but, rather, ordinary common sense. While not an exclusively women’s publication, The Indian Magazine (1871–1933; later Indian Magazine and Review), published by the National Indian Association in England, addressed both men and women, and it bears inclusion here as an influential periodical aimed at bridging both cultures. Its exclusive focus on India, on British and Indian relations, and on facilitating conversations and debates pertaining to “social intercourse” in which voices from all sides, Indian and English, male and female, participated, cast IM as an obvious influence on ILM. Founded by social reformer Mary Carpenter, the National Indian Association—through its public meetings and journal and its networking resources for Indian students and visitors in England— was “truly exceptional” in that “it served as a public space where Indian men and occasionally Indian women could speak to, engage with, and in many cases contest the interpretations of Indian society and culture that apparently well-meaning English reformers offered as unalterably true” (Burton, “Institutionalizing” 25–26). IM declared itself “mainly occupied with educational, literary and social matters . . . a source of encouragement . . . and of stimulus” (23–24). This editorial statement anticipates ILM’s own; indeed, announcements of the London-based IM were a regular feature in ILM (often on the back or inside cover), presented in conjunction with ILM’s own selfpromotion. According to Burton, “the magazine had by 1886 become one of the chief public faces of secular reform for India in Victorian Britain” aimed at “‘aiding social progress and education in India’” (24–25). Sociopolitically, Woman (1890), whose motto “Forward but not too fast” might well have been ILM’s own, presented itself as an advocate for the modern woman while rejecting associations with “anti-man” sentiments (feminism), political extremism (suffragists), and superficiality (society pages and “fashion plate” features), targeting instead the “intelligent but womanly woman” (Beetham, Magazine 177). While presenting domesticity

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9

“as the natural expression of the female self” (180), it also promoted journalism as a desirable activity for women, encouraging them “to write for public print” by offering essay competitions and publishing the winning papers (185). All these features and innovations are found in ILM, adapted to the concerns and issues relevant to Indian women. But a complicating factor is Woman’s nationalistic conception of womanliness, which ranged from “relatively serious articles” about the social status of Chinese and Indian women to “more frivolous ‘Letters from Abroad’ . . . in which the ‘natives’ are viewed as exotic, victimized and childish but always as ‘other’” (182). Positing a definition of womanliness that is “always white and British as well as middle class” assumed global proportions, given Woman’s distribution “‘throughout the English-speaking world’ and especially in the ‘Indian Empire.’” By the late nineteenth century, such magazines as Woman at Home (1893–1920) “renegotiated the meaning of the English Domestic Woman in terms of the New Journalism and the era of the New Woman” (Beetham, Magazine 157). New Journalism, attributed to W. T. Stead (Pall Mall Gazette) and critiqued by Matthew Arnold as a decline in literary standards, exerted a democratizing force on periodicals’ editorial policies, in part responding to the impact of the 1870 education bill and a resulting rise in lower-class literacy. At this time, shifts in women’s legal and educational status “supplied the great impetus to expansion; technological advances facilitated it” (White, Women’s 60). New Journalism introduced “typographical and textual innovations” such as “cross heads, interviews, bold headlines, illustration, indices and specials” designed to attract and maintain the interest of this new class of reader (Brake and Demoor, Dictionary 443). Applied specifically to the expanding female reading sector, they produced “the invention of completely new types, like the ladies’ papers, the broadsheet format, the girls’ magazine or the cheap domestic magazine” (Beetham and Boardman, Victorian 3). The concern with periodicals’ relevance to an expanding reader base, one preoccupied with increasing literacy and bound by working-class economic limitations, extended to female readership—a pattern of outreach similarly evidenced in ILM. An example of New Journalism specific to ILM’s history is Womanhood: An Illustrated Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, Medicine, Hygiene and the Progress of Women (1898–1907), “conducted by” Ada Ballin, “Editress.” Womanhood featured “General Articles”; “Prescriptions and Hints”; drama, fiction, poetry; and advice on “What to Buy.” A regular contributor to both Womanhood and ILM was Mrs. Besley (alternatively, Lamont), whose expertise included medical hygiene and sanitary reform in India. Womanhood is also notable for its collaboration with ILM, co-sponsoring an essay contest addressing “social intercourse” East and West; so similar were their editorial aims that the two “might appropriately be described as ‘sister’ journals . . .

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and in this important matter of the promotion of intercourse between European and Indian Ladies both the journals will work together hand in hand. An article on the subject of Social Intercourse is being published simultaneously this month in ‘Womanhood’ and the ‘Indian Ladies’ Magazine’” (Womanhood 1903: 301). A year later, ILM announced a second co-sponsored competition addressing the “Indian Problem of Social Intercourse” (Womanhood 1904: 11). By the fin de siècle, notes Ballaster, the explosive growth of the popular press, underpinned by the editorial standards and typographical innovations of New Journalism and fueled by efficient mass distribution, cheap modes of production, and rising literacy resulted in a print culture revolution especially beneficial to women’s periodicals. Women bought, wrote for, read, and consumed not only the content of women’s magazines but the revenue-generating products they advertised. Demonstrating a compelling intersection of timing and cross-cultural factors, in England this revolution synthesized “the evangelical tradition embodied in various mothers’ magazines” that equated “femininity with Christianity” with “the more explicit nationalism and racism” reflecting late-century imperialism (Beetham, Magazine 7). A century and a half earlier, the instructional aim of “The Lady’s Geography” (Lady’s Magazine) was to enlighten Englishwomen on such “subjects of general conversation” as the “nature of our conquests” (Shevelow, Women 179); by the 1890s, “native” populations throughout the world attested to imperial prowess but were represented as “not fully human . . . part of the exotic scenery or as objects of charity but never as the potential friends or sisters which other ‘white women’ in the same place were presumed to be” (Beetham, Magazine 168). This confluence of factors—Anglo and Indian, gender and imperialism, ethnocentrism and racism—coalesced to shape Kamala Satthianadhan’s culturally accommodating editorial platform. Into this social climate stepped newly literate Indian women who were exhibiting intellectual agency through writing and beginning to articulate for themselves, despite the best efforts of men and women, East and West, to do so for them. This selection of Englishwomen’s periodicals illustrates particular contributions to literary history prior to ILM. Despite being unable to determine with any certainty what English periodicals Satthianadhan might have had access to, there are obvious correspondences between these examples and her own: features offering sewing patterns and recipes (as in Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine); news and current events (Queen); promotion of both domestic and philanthropic activities (Woman at Home); women’s issues and news, domestic and foreign (Englishwoman’s Review); secular, intercultural reforms (Indian Magazine); promotion of women’s writing (Woman); New Journalism’s content, features, and technological innovations (Woman at Home); and the promotion of European and Indian social intercourse (Womanhood). Together, these factors comprise what Beetham terms an editorial

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“formula”—a quite malleable one that Satthianadhan adapted to her own purposes, applied to Indian womanhood, and continually experimented with in the endeavor to keep ILM relevant and timely. WOMEN’S PERIODICALS, EAST Shifting this discussion of periodicals history from England to India necessitates a consideration of the threat to political stability posed by the rapid growth of periodicals publishing both at home and abroad. As Bayly notes, it was “at the point of intersection between political intelligence and indigenous knowledge [that] colonial rule was at its most vulnerable” (Empire 322), necessitating a finely tuned wariness on both sides. Julie Codell writes of the “dialogic or, rather, multi-logic” qualities of the press in India: “The most popular and powerful determinant for bridging ‘home’ or ‘mother’ country and its colonial peripheries was the press . . . through their own English-medium and vernacular presses, colonized populations generated and composed their own identities that were not simple hybrids of ‘British’ and ‘Other’ . . . not simply mimicking British ways, but critiquing, ridiculing, resisting, modifying, and upending them” (Codell, Imperial 17, 20). This brief overview of imperial legislation designed to curb, manage, or outright censor Indian periodicals demonstrates the tenacity of Indian nationalist expression and imperialists’ determination to suppress print matter that was deemed seditious, treasonous, or insurrectionist over a two-hundred-year period. As the British quickly realized, the growth of the periodical press paralleled both imperial expansion and, more to the point, its critique. 14 Given periodicals’ function to provide “information on a range of social relations and institutions in which readers were caught up at that particular historical moment” (Beetham and Boardman, Victorian 1), Indian editors confronted a range of issues from imperialism and its expansion to nationalism and its suppression. In 1761, about a century and a half after British arrival in India, the first printing press was introduced in the country. James Hickey established the first Anglo-Indian newspaper, The Bengal Gazette, in 1780; within two years, the paper was seized and Hickey expelled by the unofficial governing body, the East India Company, which disapproved of his criticisms of colonial governance. 15 The Anglo-Indian press persisted, with papers established in Madras (1785) and Bombay (1789). The first official legislation designed to curtail freedom of the press was the Censorship of Press Act (1799; repealed 1818), enacted in response to the French presence in India during the period also marked by the Peninsular Wars; this act initiated a long and complex history of press censorship. Of nineteenth-century British censorship of the Indian press, N. Gerald Barrier writes: “the government was ambivalent about whether and how to

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supervise the circulation of ideas within Indian society. Caught between a tradition that favored a free press and anxiety over all but the most innocuous criticism, the British swung back and forth from strict controls to virtual freedom of expression” (Banned 4). For example, the 1823 Licensing Regulations Act required official licensing of a press, the principal target being vernacular newspapers and Indian editors; its aim was to suppress nationalist propaganda. Repealed in 1835, it was replaced by the more liberal Metcalf’s Press Act. Metcalf’s vexed legacy incorporates conflicting stances: freedom of the press versus strict censorship to preserve imperial solidarity. Some blamed this “Liberator of the Indian Press” for a leniency that facilitated or enabled the Sepoy Uprising (1857–1858). In terms of India’s periodicals press, writes Natarajan, this defining historical moment “was responsible for driving a wedge between English-owned and Indian newspapers and creating a distinction between the English language and Indian languages journals” (History 50). The next notable legislation was the 1857 Licensing Act, 16 which allowed the government to suppress the publication and circulation of any printed matter at its discretion. Adding to the complexities, “government” was transitioning from the East India Company (a commercial entity) to Crown control, in the process shifting the status of India from an unofficial collection of territorial acquisitions to the official conquest of the subcontinent as a colony. Ten years later, control of the press intensified with the 1867 Registration Act, which stipulated that all printed matter provide the name and address of printer and publisher, both of whom were to be officially registered. And ten years after that, following complaints of government mishandling of the 1876–1877 famine (an estimated 10.3 million deaths [Davis, Late Victorian 7], further exacerbated by the exorbitant expenditure of the 1877 Delhi Durbar), the Vernacular Press Act (VPA; 1878) signaled yet another shift from suggested guidelines to harsher censorship. The VPA targeted seditious printed matter deemed to foster “disaffection” or “antipathy” and permitted fines and property seizure against printers and publishers. Extending Natarajan’s point about the 1857 act, the VPA further refined the “distinction between the English-language and the vernacular press” (Chatterjee, Nation 25). The establishment of the Indian National Congress (1885), the initial aim of which was to strengthen relations and understanding between English and Indians, instead heralded an intensification of nationalist activism, which was in turn met with increased government suppression. In 1898, Sections 124A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code declared it a criminal offence to “incite hate” among differing religious and ethnic groups as well as against the government. 17 Following the 1905 Bengal Partition—a more physical suppression of nationalist solidarity—and the resulting boycott and burning of English-imported goods, Minto’s Newspapers (Incitement to Offenses) Act

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(1908) aimed to suppress “objectionable material” that could lead to physical violence or rioting. 18 Undeterred, Indian nationalism continued to expand throughout World War I, prompting the Defense of India Act (1915) for the suppression of political activism and public criticism of government. The long history of nationalist articulation in the press and government efforts to censor it came to a point in 1919—literally the point of no return for either side. The Rowlatt Act or Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act (March 18, 1919) provocatively associated nationalist activists—including the press—with terrorists and revolutionaries; suspects could be held for years without being charged and had no recourse against the government. Within three weeks (April 6, 1919), Mahatma Gandhi called for an All India Strike (Rowlatt Satyagraha), during which Indians fasted and all businesses were closed. Although the strike was based on noncooperation and nonviolence, reactions in the Punjab were more pronounced (April 11); as a result, on April 13, imperial troops opened fire on a gathering of unarmed families and religious pilgrims at Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar, killing several hundred people and wounding many hundreds more. The immediate effect was not to disperse the nationalist movement but to galvanize it, moving beyond critical commentary in the periodical press to a period marked by strikes and boycotts, marches and bonfires, beatings and arrests. The Dandi Salt March (1930) was followed by the Indian Press Emergency Powers Act (1931 and 1932) for the suppression of civil disobedience propaganda. 19 In such a climate of paranoia and accelerating verbal and physical violence, it is no wonder that ILM’s coverage of this stunning event was so muted. As was true of Englishwomen’s periodicals, those targeting Indian women were instrumental in raising literacy and as platforms for presenting social and political issues. Magazines promoted such Victorian values as “wellregulated domesticity . . . discipline, order, efficiency, organization, regularity, and economy” (Seth, Subject 142) as part of the nationalist project. From the late nineteenth century forward, educated middle-class women found that “print media, [by] creating a bridge between the public and the private, offered them a wide communicative space” that extended the boundaries of separate spheres ideology (Bannerji, “Fashioning” 50). This in turn facilitated “an extensive network and a general fund of communicative competence” that included the introduction of “the journal/magazine, with the purpose of creating another social, moral and cultural space for and by women.” Wherever on the subcontinent women’s print culture arose, Indian women’s self-expression was bound both by culture-specific patriarchy and by Victorian-informed colonial discourse. The conjunction of these two factors replicated Angel-in-the-House ideology, wherein “intensity or passion” was sublimated within a “sweet sexless and moral motherhood” (59) offered in lieu of the modern womanly woman.

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Some examples of this phenomenon include the enduring StreeBodh (1850s through 1950s), a Gujarati women’s journal written and published by male social reformers, cultural revivalists, and nationalists aimed at educating and preparing women “to become good wives and mothers” (Shukla, “Cultivating” 63). StreeBodh avoided coverage of reformist activism on such contentious issues as widow remarriage, female infanticide, and child brides; it “never carried anything on any of the contemporary struggles for reforms. It did not support or even take note of any of the major events in the area of social reforms in the second half of 19th century,” and was thus designed to “limit the sphere of women to home and family and not involve them in the larger issues outside” (64–65). StreeBodh’s platform aimed not at “raising the status of women” but at the “construction of an indigenous version of ideal Victorian women as perceived by modern Indian men” (65). 20 Its curriculum favored “dress, housekeeping and marital relationship” over “general knowledge” instruction, thereby disseminating information that was selective and circumscribed by separate spheres ideology. Nineteenth-century women’s magazines in Bengal trace a similar development, being “edited, and also largely written, by men” and thus “less indicative of the concerns of women’s own communication than of the subjects male social reformers deemed appropriate for a female audience” (Sreenivas, “Emotion” 61). 21 Bhadralok reformers 22 established and edited various woman-centered periodicals aimed at the instruction of women, for example, Masik Patrika (1854–1858) 23 and Bambodhini Patrika (1863–1923). Designed to provide “suitable” reading material for newly literate women, topics included literature and language, history and geography, science and astronomy, hygiene and housekeeping, childcare and social problems, and religion. As the “first Bengali periodical fully devoted to the cause of women” and the first to publish writing by women, the long-lived Bambodhini Patrika (BP) was particularly influential: “the religious liberalism it showed was really remarkable compared to other contemporary periodicals . . . [it was] devoted to social questions in general and to the modernization of women in particular” (Murshid, Reluctant 235). 24 This description so closely resembles that of ILM as to make BP’s influence over Satthianadhan’s editorial policies irresistible, from its advocacy of widow remarriage and intercaste marriage to its denunciation of child marriage, polygamy, and dowries and its challenges to unexamined social customs and superstitions. BP also anticipates ILM’s dual (Raj and swaraj) patriotism, its writers maintaining that “British rule in India was established as providence wished it” (236), a fatalistic attitude that shifted drastically in 1905 with the polarizing Bengal Partition and the swadeshi movement it sparked. In Andhra, located in the southeast region near Madras, Satihitabodhini (Telegu) was established in 1883, “a journal exclusively meant for women” and published by Veeresalingam, the male editor and author of many of its

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articles addressing “woman and her problems” (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 81). Most of its articles were written by men aiming to educate women readers about morality, homemaking, health care, and childcare. Subsequently absorbed into Telugu Zenana (1893), the publication purveyed the same material, one notable difference being the focus on purdah women; in this iteration, instructive articles aimed to modernize and socialize women beyond their accustomed seclusion, while also featuring more women contributors. Francesca Orsini notes, “One can argue, even more than schools, it was the women’s press that played a crucial role in acquainting women with the world beyond the familiar, with the world of history and with contemporary India” (Hindu 245). This point is revealed through the evolution of the Indian women’s press, increasingly in the hands of women, by women, and for women. Tharu and Lalitha observed that women-produced women’s periodicals were a key instrument in the transformation and progression of the women’s movement in India. . . . Unlike those women’s magazines edited by men, which were didactic in nature and usually intolerant of discussion and dialogue, the journals produced by women for women created an environment that allowed them to express their views unmediated by the menfolk that retained control over many other aspects of their lives. (Anagol, Emergence 73).

The explanation for this shift from male to female editors seems straightforward: the intensification of nationalist activism as a result of hardening British imperialism through civil and press restrictions. As male reformers turned away from overseeing women’s activities and toward more overtly political pursuits, women began organizing on their own behalf, forming societies, calling meetings, reading books, and publishing magazines. 25 As a result, “there was an articulate group of women able to make their voices heard through public institutional channels hitherto confined to men,” seen for example in the Bengali magazine Antahpur (1898), “edited and conducted by the ladies only” (Borthwick, Changing 54, xi). While Kamala Satthianadhan’s 1901 claim to be the first woman editor of an Englishlanguage magazine remains uncontested, it was followed by Hindu Sundari (1902–1945), edited by M. Ramabai, who (erroneously) proclaimed it the “first journal for women edited by a woman editor”; it was best known for its popular literature, stories, and songs (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 83). Subsequent woman-edited journals include Grihalakshmi (1903), the “first illustrative journal in Telugu,” emphasizing women’s reform and domesticity; Savithri (1904), a “comprehensive women’s journal” edited by feminist activist P. Lakshminarasamamba; Stri-Darpan or “The Mirror of Women” (1909–1928), which focused on female education and political activism; Vi-

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vekavathi (1908) and Intimations to Women (1912), both edited by Christian missionaries; and Anasuya (1914), which emphasized “women’s cause . . . love of learning . . . [and] literary works to promote knowledge among women” (84). Included in this group is Stri Dharma (1918; discussed below) and Soundarya Vatlli (1919), both of which bridged the social reform era of women’s periodicals (through 1919) with the explicitly politicized period that followed. 26 That latter period is aptly represented by the Hindi magazine Camd (Allahabad, 1922–1940s), termed by Orsini “the boldest and most radical of all” (“Domesticity” 138). 27 This sampling hints at the range of women’s journalistic activities throughout the subcontinent, the variety of languages and expressions of nationalism attesting to a thriving movement. My discussion now turns to a more specific region, the southeast, of which Madras is the cultural center with a unique history of colonialism and nationalism, of Raj and swaraj, as expressed in and navigated by ILM. FROM MADRAS TO CHENNAI From 1639, the history of Madras was connected with that of the East India Company, following the building of Fort St. George along the Coromandel Coast. A major English settlement, it was designed to facilitate and protect trade interests and, as a result, established English language, culture, and influence in the region. In the eighteenth century, after resolving a series of skirmishes and wars with the French and Hyder Ali, 28 the English consolidated their territorial holdings in the region by establishing Madras Presidency, with the city of Madras as its capital. By the 1830s, Christian missions were well established in the region, particularly in terms of education and publishing, in both English and regional vernaculars. 29 So thoroughly was English language entrenched in Madras’s cultural history that the region was subsequently marked by its vigorous opposition to the twentieth-century campaign to make Hindi India’s national language. 30 But Madras was also a center for nationalist and reformist activities— added to the prominent Anglo influence, a combination of the same seemingly incompatible factors mirrored in ILM. The development of nationalist activism was especially notable during the nineteenth century—for example, the Madras Native Association established by G. Chetty in 1852, which agitated (protest meetings, presentations of grievances to Parliament) against the excesses and abuses of the East India Company; Chetty also established the first Indian-owned newspaper in Madras, The Crescent (1844). Another paper, The Hindu—Madras (English), was established in 1878; popular, widely circulated, and critical of British policies, it began publishing daily in 1889, and still continues today. Swadesamitran (Friend of Self-Rule,

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1881–1985), founded by nationalist G. S. Iyer, was the first Indian-owned, Tamil-language paper. The short-lived nationalist organization Madras Mahajana Sabha (1884) was absorbed into the first Indian National Congress (INC) in Bombay (1885); attesting to its strong nationalist leanings, Madras subsequently hosted INC meetings in 1887, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1908, 1914, and 1927. Another notable presence was the Theosophical Society that, from 1886 forward, was based in Madras, where Annie Besant also established the Home Rule League in 1916. During the 1920s and 1930s, E. Naicker developed the Dravidian or Self-Respect movement, which criticized Brahmin conservatism and Hindu superstitions and advocated on behalf of the “Untouchable” caste. In 1937, the INC party came into power in Madras, introducing a more militant brand of nationalism that declared the Hindi language mandatory, which sparked riots, demonstrations, and arrests. Of the region’s synthesis of ancient and modern, Mytheli Sreenivas notes: the Tamil districts of the Presidency maintained a degree of cultural coherence—rooted both in language and political traditions—from precolonial centuries. The centralizing impetus of British rule helped to strengthen this coherence, and the city of Madras . . . developed into a nodal point of Tamil politics, commerce, Western education, and culture during the nineteenth century. (Wives 3)

This was the vexed, complex, and idiosyncratic sociopolitical and cultural environment in which ILM was conceived, launched, and, in 1938, came to an end. Sreenivas situates three regional women’s magazines (all monthly) within this sociopolitical context: two in Tamil—Penmati Potini (Woman’s Enlightenment; from 1891) and Matar Manorancini (Brightener of Women’s Minds; from 1899)—and the third, ILM in English (from 1901). As “part of an urban print culture,” they represented “a modern communicative space” stemming from the region’s “culture of print capitalism, . . . [which] used nationalist ideologies as a legitimating paradigm . . . and developed out of engagements with the ‘woman question’ in the context of colonialism” (“Emotion” 60–61). They shared a common aim: “In identifying the purpose of female education, all three magazines focused on motherhood and wifehood” (62); far from contesting women’s roles, they promoted female education in order to “become more ‘efficient’ and ‘capable’ wives and mothers” and investigated models of “appropriate domesticity” (63). These models divide into three distinct avenues: English domesticity (as seen through Victorian literature), Indian traditionalism (as seen through Indian classical literature), and the “emergence of nationwide women’s organizations” such as the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC), established in Delhi in 1927. Closer to home and more immediately relevant to this discussion of women’s

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periodicals was the Women’s Indian Association, founded in Madras in 1917. Distinct from woman-centered and woman-edited journals in regional vernaculars, Kamala’s claim that the English-language ILM is the first and for years only one of its kind emphasizes both its uniqueness and its vulnerability. When ILM ceased publication after 1918, another English-language magazine arose in its place that same year: Stri Dharma (Woman’s Duty), published in Madras by the Women’s Indian Association. 31 Categorized as nationalist, feminist, and pro-Congress, with “Hindu sympathies” (Doughan and Sanchesm, Feminist 41), Stri Dharma shifted emphasis away from genteel ladies and toward the socially responsible modern woman; it not only filled the gap left by ILM, but did so in ways that were both politically radical and socially regressive. Stri Dharma’s editorial board was an Anglo-Indian collective composed of British feminists—Annie Besant and Margaret Cousins—and Indian activists—Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, and Dhanvanthi Rama Rao; ideologically, it was associated with the Theosophists, an outside influence accepted by the orthodox because of its conservatism regarding the status of Indian women, a factor many women’s advocates, including Kamala, found problematic. 32 Like ILM, which facilitated translations of articles into vernaculars (Telegu, Tamil, Malayalam) and featured a Telegu section in the magazine, Stri Dharma also offered a vernacular section (Hindi, Telegu, Tamil); for both magazines, the dearth of literate translators and readers precluded more than minimal success in that multilingual endeavor. 33 In her analysis of Stri Dharma, Michelle Tusan aligns this “anti-colonial, pro-nationalist journal” with “advocacy” journals “made popular by British feminists in the late nineteenth century,” publications described as “both ‘for and by women’” in support of their “educational, legal, and economic advancement” (“Writing” 624). Without crediting the standards established by such prior national and regional influences as those listed earlier, much less the most obvious example, ILM—indeed, she asserts that Stri Dharma was “based on a model of journalism pioneered by British feminists” (628)— Tusan praises SD for its synthesis of Anglo “advocacy” with Indian sociocultural concerns and political radicalism, notably highlighting the influence of the radical “British feminists” on its editorial board (623) to the exclusion of the Indian women activists with whom they were ostensibly collaborating. Stri Dharma’s signature “Reports of Women’s Activities” in its “Notes and Comments” column, its inclusion of the Muslim women’s community, its valuation of traditional culture, its advertisements urging Indian-made over imported goods, and its English-language format are all to be found in ILM, whose temporal and regional precedent cast it as SD’s most obvious creative and ideological influence.

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Stri Dharma is distinguished by two signature, ultimately incompatible, departures from ILM’s editorial policy: its conservatism on the Indian Woman Question and its political radicalism. In the first instance, it claimed that “true liberation would come through the realization of women’s responsibilities to family” (Tusan, “Writing” 625–26), a primary issue in Indian Woman Question discourse. While it is true that ILM’s editor, contributors, and readers largely agreed that woman’s realm is home and family, most also agreed that modern women had an ethical responsibility to contribute to the wellbeing of the community, the nation, and the world, and for that they not only needed education, but also to leave the home. Alternatively, such prominent and influential Anglo women as Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins, and Sister Nivetida advocated a reification of traditional values for Indian women in order to reverse the culturally compromising threat of Anglicization; some orthodox conservatives interpreted this position as an opportunity to undermine progressive legislation abolishing sati, preventing child marriage, and promoting widow remarriage. 34 For all its ostensible radicalness, “Stri Dharma encouraged readers to look specifically to India’s past for guidance regarding women’s political and cultural advancement” (632)—a position Satthiadnadhan warned could have a negative impact on modernization. Whether through life-saving legislation or cultural restoration, Anglo interference in Indian culture increasingly found rejection as nationalist separatism hardened and cross-cultural collaborations, as illustrated by the editorial aims of both ILM and Stri Dharma, came to represent an unsavory collusion rather than healthy cooperation. 35 The second distinguishing quality of Stri Dharma—quite at odds with its appeal to conservatives—was its political radicalism: as an “international feminist news medium targeted at Anglo-Indian, Indian, and British women readers,” it embraced feminism, women’s suffrage, and radical nationalist activism (Tusan, “Writing” 623). Such ideas were associated with the West and thus anathema to conservatives and moderates, for whom the physical “spectacle” of suffragist activism—shocking to Westerners as well—further evidenced the moral superiority of Indian standards of womanly decorum. Satthianadhan aimed at a moderate platform that was inclusive rather than polarizing, arguing that because the vast proportion of the Indian population was conservative, this perspective required accommodation rather than alienation; to that end, she advocated a gradualist path toward change based on persuasion rather than antagonism. For instance, whereas Stri Dharma foregrounded such episodes of Gandhian civil disobedience as the Dandi Salt March, 36 the event was only marginally addressed in ILM, which aimed to balance the interests of Raj and swaraj; ILM’s commentary on suffragism deplored Englishwomen’s unwomanly militancy and dissociated respectable Indian womanhood from public displays. It is likely that, when Satthianadhan defended her politically muted editorial principles—“since there are oth-

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er papers to do that” (“Ourselves” 1930: 275–76)—she was referring to Stri Dharma. In relation to ILM, the example of Stri Dharma is significant for its timing (filling the gap in Madras women’s English-language periodicals left by ILM in 1919), for its differences (supplying the need for a more radical political presence), for its similarities (reifying traditional values of Indian womanhood), and for its struggles with financial viability (its demise in 1935 anticipating that of ILM in 1938). Did Stri Dharma fail because it was too radical, too neoconservative, too alienating? Did ILM cease soon after because it was too conciliatory, too inclusive, and too old fashioned? True also of The Indian Magazine (which ceased publication in 1933), both magazines strove to facilitate communication and cooperation between Anglos and Indians, men and women, East and West, a position increasingly untenable as Indian women “began to question the authority of those British women who claimed to speak for India,” insisting the “leadership of the Indian feminist movement should rest in the hands of the women whom it claimed to serve” (Tusan, “Writing” 631). Increasingly, cross-cultural collaborative activism was forced to retreat when confronted by the separatism dividing colonials from nationals: “By 1936, although Indian feminism continued, demand for English-language feminist journals had diminished” (642). 37 The demise of Stri Dharma and of ILM might also be attributed to civic upheavals and impending war, exacerbated by the economic vicissitudes and political crises of the era; the final years of both magazines were marked by appeals for subscriptions and economic support. 38 During the interwar period, Francesca Orsini notes, “Women’s journals . . . were deeply affected by the call to political participation and acquired a sharp nationalist edge” (“Domesticity” 145). Confronted with this call, ILM maintained its commitment to Victorian concepts of womanliness, as well as to Indian identity politics, but with a conservatism that precluded a “sharp . . . edge.” As cultural separatism intensified, those unable to maintain that “edge” fell by the wayside; nor did SD’s comparative sharpness prevent its failure. Offering revealing insights on editorial gendering, Ramakrishna outlines primary differences distinguishing male from female editors: men adapt an “instructional and sermonizing tone,” while women are “more positive in their expression of support”; men promote “chastity, house-keeping, frugality” (maintaining the domestic status quo), while women address social reforms (infant marriage and motherhood, widowhood, childrearing); 39 men view females as ignorant and superstitious, while women see themselves as weak and exploited; men grudgingly concede minimal education for domesticity, while women advocate curriculums aimed at developing “the total personality” (“Women’s” 85–86). During the pre-independence era, women’s periodicals “supplemented, or even supplanted, formal education. . . . [They] reached out to girls and women educated informally . . . and provided

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them with a range of information and topics much wider than the curriculum . . . [they] supported and reported widely on women’s activities and institutions, emphasizing the links between words and actions” (Talwar, “Feminist” 138–39). From private education to public articulation, women’s periodicals provided the “safest and most immediately available place for even modestly-educated women to vent their views” (Orsini, “Domesticity” 138) and express themselves, unmediated either by men or memsahibs. This sampling of Indian women’s periodicals, chosen from a wide range of publications representing the many geographic and linguistic variables comprising India, resonate with the influences that characterize ILM. From women’s issues (Bambodhini Patrika and Satihitabodhini) to women editors (Antahpur, Hindu Sundari, Grihalakshmi, Savithri, Stri-Darpan, Vivekavathif, Intimations to Women, and Anasuya) to regional concerns (Penmati Potini, Matar Manorancini, and Stri Dharma), ILM shares a rich literary history with both West and East, while also situating itself squarely in the Woman Question and nationalist debates of the time and the place. THE INDIAN LADIES’ MAGAZINE, 1901–1918; 1927–1938 Her object was to bring the women of India, women of different tongues, beliefs and communities in touch with each other and to promote their interests as well as give them an opportunity of developing their literary abilities. —“Mrs. Satthianadhan” (1914: 3)

ILM was Satthianadhan’s singular endeavor—by Indian women, for Indian women, with a solitary Indian woman at the editorial helm; its contributors were about equally divided between Indian and Anglo writers, with the contents aimed at topics of interest and relevance to Indian females. As a characteristic of New Journalism, the “displacement of the essay-periodical, with its single persona” shifted to a “miscellaneous structure . . . [and] multiplicity of writers,” resulting in a “split between the functions of editor and writer”; fin de siècle magazines were distinguished by a “collection of features written by other hands than those of a single editor-persona” (Shevelow, Women 149, 151). In Satthianadhan’s case, “the [editorial] persona remained at the periodical’s center as its controller and its principle of organization, but the variety of offerings evidences the growing tendency towards diversification which reached its fuller expression in the magazine” (175). Magazines, journals, and periodicals are by definition specialized, aimed at a focus audience and thus designed to record “lived culture or social relations of a particular time and place”; for ILM, such particularization involved recording “the changing position of women both in its material specificity and in its often inverse representation in the discourses which legitimize their social status” (Sangari and Vaid, Recasting 4). As seen in this

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survey of women’s periodicals, West and East, and in the specific sociopolitical circumstances of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Madras, the temporal, spatial, and ideological circumstances reflected in ILM include “middle class reforms . . . [the] private sphere . . . cultural nationalism . . . [and] a redescription of women”—conservative and radical, local and national—together casting this publication as the record of a “hidden history” whose “role in redefining gender and patriarchies” has been underestimated and underutilized (9). In the largely middle-class endeavor to preserve tradition while modernizing, to articulate “new” womanhood through the lens of Indianness, and to facilitate the nationalist agenda through nonviolent means, it is significant that “the morally ennobling texts of English culture” are what provide a foundational model linking ancient with modern and East with West. Here it is British Victorian literature that is seen as “ennobling”— despite its alien language, values, and imperial ideology and specifically because of the separate spheres’ underpinnings aligning Eastern and Western perspectives in unexpected and compelling ways. As a result, in India as in England, both “tradition and modernity have been . . . carriers of patriarchal ideologies,” wherein “change is made to appear as continuity. . . . The ideologies of women as carriers of tradition often disguise, mitigate, compensate, contest, actual changes taking place” (17). This simultaneous promotion of change and retrenching of tradition accounts for the mixed messages underpinning the magazine’s varied perspectives. ILM debuted in July 1901, six months after Queen-Empress Victoria’s death. Offering a unique blend of timely influences, including such Victorian staples as gender ideology (separate spheres, Angel-in-the-House, and New Woman), fin de siècle Raj politics and imperialism, and the rise of Indian nationalism in concert with conscious recuperation of ancient Indian values, ILM reflects on and participates in India’s urge toward modernization, articulations of cultural identity, and the independence movement. Like the historical moment marked by Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (1897), ILM represents a crystallization of forces: the empire’s broadest expansion and incipient decline parallels the shifting of centuries-long, culturally endorsed oppression of Indian women into what was fondly termed “the awakening of Indian Womanhood.” 40 This awakening initially found expression through the social activities of privileged Indian women in the period prior to and during the independence movement between the world wars. ILM illustrates not only those parallels between imperial decline and Indian women’s “uplift,” but also the points wherein the two intersect, collide, and diverge. In its tripartite emphases—Indian women’s emancipation, loyalty to the British Raj, and promotion of Indian nationalism—ILM thus negotiates seemingly incompatible agendas, with predictably uneven results. Such ideological challenges unsettled traditional notions of “women’s culture,” necessitating modernizing iterations of female community that

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found expression in women’s magazines (Sreenivas, “Emotion” 60). Given its Madras origins, ILM was “very much rooted in the culture and politics of the Tamil region,” while also promoting a broader-ranging “English domesticity as a model for its readers to replicate” (62–63). While this cluster of influences constitutes “the particularity and modernity of the magazine’s domestic ideal,” ILM also “became part of, and helped to produce, a nationalist discourse on the ‘woman question’” (65). Unique and original in its synthesis of Eastern and Western values and frameworks, it was “the only one of its kind in India . . . a fitting mouthpiece for the advanced womanhood of India” (Indian 1908: 304). Frequent contributions signed by “an Indian Lady” or “an Indian Girl” and other generic or gender-neutral pseudonyms recall the authorial device used to protect female modesty and avoid genderbased ridicule of “presumptuous” women putting themselves forward in print; but ILM also offered many examples of New Women bold enough to sign their names. As “a monthly journal conducted in the interests of the women of India,” ILM’s content might seem innocuously apolitical—cookery recipes, needlework patterns, home remedies, and women’s news not being typically regarded as politically subversive. Launched “on the troublous waters of Indian Journalism,” its editorial principles reveal an innovative, globalizing perspective far in advance of most women’s magazines, then or now: The main object of the Magazine will be to help advance the cause of the women of India. The new influences that are at work in this land, owing to its connection with Great Britain, have not appreciably affected the women, . . . men having . . . benefited more . . . in the matter of education and social development. But a nation of educated and enlightened men alone is an impossibility; and, if the people of India are to advance, and take their rightful place among civilized nations, they should realize that “the woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink together.” (“Introduction” 1901: 1)

The pointed reference to Tennyson’s The Princess (ll. 3081–82) indicates ILM’s aim to investigate “social and other evils which the daughters of India have been laboring under for centuries past” and to advocate “their claims for better education and for greater freedom to develop all that is best in their character.” The Tennysonian allusion, as chapter 2 reveals, is hardly random. Satthianadhan endeavored to print divergent perspectives, and her occasional editorial asides (distinct from editorial columns) typically made a corrective statement, encouraged commentators to remain civil, invited discussion from readers on controversial topics, or voiced a disclaimer that the opinions printed do not necessarily represent ILM’s views. Her commitment to presenting conservative viewpoints illustrates particular sensitivity to social custom:

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Chapter 1 We are anxious that, in the columns of this Magazine, the conservative Indian view, regarding the position and status of women, should be prominently set forth, for this view, rightly or wrongly, is the view held honestly by not only a large number of our countrymen who have not come under Western influence, but also by a very considerable section of our countrymen who have benefited largely by the new influences at work in India. (“Hindu Ideal” 1901: 85) 41

Entertaining the “old-fashioned conservative ideal” does not imply Kamala’s advocacy of that view; while proposing “our respectful consideration,” she cautions against the assumption that this is “a purely Hindu ideal” rather than “the universal ideal of mankind.” Thirty-three years later, she was still objecting to the idea that “Hindu girls should be kept illiterate and in purdah till Hindus had learnt to protect them, and the community had developed a spirit of racial prestige and self-respect” (“Ideals” 1934: 148–49). Her persistence in featuring news items about female infanticide, sati, child marriage, widow abuse and remarriage, and intercaste marriage demonstrates the courage of her convictions about crimes against women that continued despite laws and punishments to the contrary—the category “crimes against women” being a concept not necessarily embraced by orthodox conservatives. 42 In terms of features, prominent emphases include female education, women’s social reform activities, and news of professional advances in the public sphere; instructive articles addressing all aspects of domesticity (food preparation and nutrition, clothing, childrearing, health, hygiene, and sanitary reform); current national and world events (political, scientific, economic); and news of the achievements and endeavors of women throughout the world (see appendix A). Self-scrutiny (swaraj) finds expression through explorations of religious, philosophical, moral, and ethical thought; through features on self-reliance (Victorian writer Samuel Smiles [Self Help] and American Transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson, for instance); and through analyses of “Indian ideals of womanhood, as represented in the ancient literature of India” (“Introduction” 1901:1). From ILM’s first number through its last, it is the syntheses of ancient and modern gender politics that prove most challenging to navigate: on the one hand, compulsory, universal marriage and traditional separate spheres ideology conflict with modernization and nationalist activism; on the other, women’s present and future accomplishments are consistently undercut by the assertion that, social work and political activism notwithstanding, women’s rightful place is in the home, creating a haven for her husband and producing sons for the nation. According to Ruskin, woman’s “first duty is in her home . . . man secures it, and woman tidies it. . . . [She] who despises her home duties . . . is not a true woman . . . how revolting is Tennyson’s description of the women’s-rights woman . . . [a] detestable . . . scald [sic]” brawling in the street (“Friendly Chats” 1901: 45). Yet in the same year,

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Satthianadhan admits that, while most Indian women are fated to be wives and mothers, others have special gifts and deserve opportunities to develop and express them—not for personal aggrandizement, of course, but for the national good (“Aims . . . Education” 1901: 149). “Special gifts” delicately subsumes the ultimate social anomaly, unmarried women (by choice or circumstance, including widows), whose professional “opportunities” include taking the Angel out of the House and into the streets to benefit the community. This introduces a crucial fourth element to the swaraj (individual)/swadeshi (communal)/satyagraha (national) nexus: seva or self-less service to those unable to help themselves. Seva aligns with the concepts of ladies’ philanthropy and women’s mission to women (discussed in chapter 4). From its first number, ILM enjoyed the “cordial sympathy” expressed by the Indian press, extending “from Bengal and Bombay, from the Punjab and the North-West Provinces, and even from Ceylon and Burmah . . . and the Southern Presidency . . . our sincere thanks to all the Journals, English and Indian, for the kind way they have welcomed this humble effort on the part of Indian ladies to advance the cause of their own countrywomen” (“Ourselves” 1901: 25). Commentary from the Madras press praised the endeavor and encouraged its support: “We hope that educated India will give the Magazine its ungrudging, generous and hearty support” (Madras Standard); The Madras Mail agreed: “The first number is excellent in every respect. . . . We trust that the Magazine will have a long and useful life and be of great assistance in realizing the object for which it has been started. . . . The venture has much to commend it, and we hope that it will achieve the success it so well deserves.” The Madras Diocesan Record emphasizes its intercultural approach: “We warmly commend The Indian Ladies’ Magazine to the ladies of England and of India.” Both style and content inspire praise: “The print and the paper make the dainty Magazine a pleasure to read, while the level of style and thought in the articles is high,” writes the Madras Times; “if the claims of Indian women continue to be clearly, forcibly, and . . . ‘manfully’ put, and as winningly and gracefully, as in the first number, the man would be indeed dense and unworthy who would reject them with scorn.” The Hindu concludes: “The enterprise is indeed one of the noblest and . . . is calculated to produce immense benefit to the nation.” 43 Press commentary from further afield includes the Daily Post (Bangalore), Voice of India (Delhi), Subodha Patrika (Bombay), Daily Telegraph (London), The Indian Daily News (Calcutta), Times of Malabar, Indian Messenger (Calcutta), Indian Social Reformer (Bombay), The Indian Daily Telegraph (Lucknow), Kayastha Samachar (Allahabad), London Times, and The Education Review (see appendix B). A prominent thread emerging from this commentary is praise for the magazine’s sociocultural progressiveness: The Dnyanodaya (Bombay) urges missionary and other English ladies to sub-

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scribe to ILM “to understand better the problems of Indian Womanhood”; the London Times cites its “most comprehensive” promotion of “social progress and culture of the women of India”; and the Mysore Herald notes its political and religious tolerance: its “contributions, mostly from the educated ladies of India, are free from sectarian bias . . . we hope the Magazine will command great encouragement in India” (Indian 1901: 87). London’s Daily Telegraph praises its “commendable effort” on behalf of promoting “the education progress of women in India. . . . The editress is able to claim that most of the contributors to her columns will be ladies. It is published in English, which is being more and more widely understood in the Southern Presidency” (Indian 1901: 185) In terms of style, Indian Witness (Calcutta) appreciates its signature “photo-engravings”: “not many magazines are edited with better taste and judgment than this. Every Indian lady who can read English should subscribe” (Indian . . . Reviews 1902: 249). 44 Readers praised the “keen interest and pleasure” of this “excellent undertaking. . . . [The] endeavour to lessen the gulf between the sexes, and bring about that which calls into active and healthy play the intellect and latent faculties of a half of the human race” is a “worthy task. . . . Will not her reward be great?” (Indian . . . Reviews 1901: 49). Critics agreed that ILM’s aims were timely, well-executed, progressive, and ambitious: to promote women’s social reforms and patriotic values—Raj and swaraj—and to do so through an editorial policy based on tolerance, liberalism, and modernization within the context of traditional, conservative, and culturally defining Indian values constitutes a substantial, and daunting, undertaking. On timeliness, the National Indian Association notes that “the idea of starting such a Magazine was excellent. Even a few years ago the scheme could not have been carried out with much hope of success. But the rapid progress in the knowledge of English among Indian ladies . . . [and] their increased facility of literary expression . . . have caused the idea to become a promising reality” (“National” 1902: 196). Two years later, Bombay Guardian praised this new venture in Oriental Journalism . . . mark[ing] an epoch in the emancipation of Indian womanhood . . . we hope this new venture, published in English, . . . understood alike by the educated classes of Bengal, Bombay, Madras and northern India—will become the bond of union it aspires to be amongst the influential section of India’s women. It is certain also to prove of interest to such European Ladies as take a real interest in their Indian sisters, and will doubtless find a warm welcome amongst the number of women in Great Britain and America whose hearts are large enough to care for the welfare of the people of India’s ancient civilization. (Bombay 1904: n.p.)

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The “influential section of India’s women” includes English-educated natives and Anglo-Indians while excluding the illiterate, vernacular-speaking masses. Satthianadhan’s claim that “the future of the women of India rests largely with this educated class” (“Introduction” 1901: 2) anticipates Sarojini Naidu’s insight that a common language, even or perhaps especially that of the colonizer—and wielded by India’s reformist, intellectual elite—was essential for mobilizing an independence movement in a country as vast, multicultural, and multilingual as India. 45 Kamala periodically offered editorial self-assessments, followed by appeals for suggestions for improvement or, during economic struggles, increased subscriptions. In 1905 she wrote: It is with great pleasure that we find, that the Magazine last year has been much better supported than in the previous years. Still it needs a great deal more of help. . . . Our contributors, both European and Indian, have been very kind and their large-hearted and energetic efforts to help on the course of the Magazine will, we feel sure, be continued, till the Magazine becomes successful in its object . . . of helping . . . the promotion of the interests of the women of India. Suggestions for making the Magazine more interesting and helpful will be eagerly welcomed. (“New” 1905: 27).

A year later, she attests to ILM’s continued vigor but regrets that enterprises such as ILM can accomplish little in the face of mass illiteracy. To expand its effectiveness—there is “much to be done in it, much to be improved; much to be added, much to be left out”—she again seeks suggestions “to make the magazine more useful” (“New” 1906: 28–29). For Kamala, the First World War years posed difficulties beyond the economic challenges suffered worldwide. Plans to educate her children in England were thwarted throughout this period due to government strictures on nonessential overseas travel; it was not until 1919 that she was finally able to realize her goal. Editorial commentary reflects the uncertainty of ILM’s future during this period; in 1915, she turned the editorship over to her sister, Mrs. S. G. Hensman, in anticipation of traveling. Hensman edited four (quarterly) issues before Kamala returned as editor. Kamala hopes “the friends of the Magazine will interest themselves in it and write for it and get new subscribers for it” (“Change” 1916: 2). This is the only time in ILM’s history (that I am able to verify) that the magazine was edited by someone other than Kamala Satthianadhan. 46 While ILM was a monthly magazine throughout most of its existence, there are two instances of experimenting with an alternative frequency, probably in order to economize. From 1912 through 1917, ILM was published quarterly, to which Kamala objected that “Quarterly numbers of the Magazine seem to be so much out of touch with each other” (“Editor’s” 1916: 55). Proposing a return to monthly publication, she outlined one drawback: a rise

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in subscription rates, “now when paper is so expensive”; again demonstrating her collaborative spirit, she invites readers’ opinions on this change. 47 The second instance of frequency shift was from 1932 to 1938, when ILM was published bimonthly. ILM’s strong debut did not disappoint, although it suffered, inevitably, from the global economic vicissitudes of two world wars. During its second run (1927–1938), its reception was comparatively muted, reflecting dramatic shifts in the sociopolitical climate and readers’ inclinations. Once again, “Amicus” (the editor) invites suggestions for improvement (content and style) while emphasizing the need for more subscriptions; not just for women, the magazine is also intended for men, to help them better comprehend women’s issues, and, if “not intellectual enough” for some, it must also be accessible to “simpler and less educated minds” (“Indian” 1929: 600). 48 A more ideological critique concerns its editorial platform: we do not specially advocate woman’s rights and privileges, especially the political aspects 49 . . . as brought forward in other Magazines. . . . ILM is meant to be a social magazine. Of course, politics . . . must enter into the social life of the people. . . . [But] the advance of Indian women must be Intensive as well as Extensive. 50 There is no use of merely theorizing, or in talking largely. There must be practice, and the sincere acting-out of principles. (601)

Insofar as ILM presents models for such acting out, Kamala’s insistence on this point is central to her editorial platform, no less than to her own social, political, and religious principles: national change begins within, in the consciousness of each individual, and this is the lofty aim that her magazine “caters for.” Her sensitivity toward social conservatism prompts a comparatively nonconfrontational approach to fostering social and political change without alienating those who are integral to the process; it also, distinct from Stri Dharma, avoids the trap of cultural essentialism, in which anticolonialism becomes a means to reify misogynistic practices in the name of nationalism. Arguably, however, this privileging of social over political and conservative over liberal during India’s most intensely political transformation may well account for ILM’s struggles to maintain its appeal to so broadly defined an audience. Indian women’s “upliftment,” once shifted from an ideological inclination to a relatively organized movement tied to the nationalist agenda, alternated between cooperation with men (nationalist solidarity based on shared Indianness, as distinct from the gendered separatism characterizing Western feminism) and gender solidarity (in which patriarchy was regarded a shared adversary that crossed geopolitical lines). 51 Even the most adamant advocates of nationalist gender solidarity recognized that patriarchal privilege required constant wariness on their part, given men’s resistance to any shifts in that privilege resulting from modernization and women’s emancipation:

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“if the social structure of our country is to be reformed, it must be with the help of women rather than men. The evils of child marriage, of the dowry system, of enforced widowhood, 52 of untouchability itself will disappear, as women get educated, not only in literacy, but also in economic independence” (“Female Solidarity” 1931: 432). 53 Women must cultivate gender solidarity and distance themselves from the sorts of sectarianism and intolerance, exclusivity and violence historically driving men’s political endeavors. In a striking challenge to the mother worship underpinning Indian nationalism, Rameshwari Nehru warns that the one sociocultural constant “in all regions and at all times” is the universal subjection of women; despite the “lip homage that is paid to her, woman has never had a fair deal from the world of men” (Gandhi 10, 28). Some might dismiss ILM’s content as innocuous or inconsequential, but it is a mistake to underestimate its political significance, despite Kamala’s protests to the contrary. ILM raises some key issues along with its chutney recipes and embroidery patterns; for example, Indian identity politics, which are deeply implicated in concepts of religion and language. 54 Christian and English influences were accepted by some as among the variables comprising Indian culture and rejected by others as representations of an alien conqueror and thus culturally threatening. 55 Indian English speakers and writers were linked with Christian and Enlightenment principles that challenged strict caste hierarchies by welcoming Indian society’s least privileged members, females (particularly widows and orphans) and “Untouchables” or Harijans (“children of God”). 56 These humanistic principles define the magazine’s ostensibly apolitical agenda and anticipate the views of such activists as M. K. Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar. 57 Satthianadhan’s editorial platform advocated religious tolerance (belief systems were discussed to promote interfaith understanding, but proselytizing was avoided), social reforms, women’s emancipation, and Indian nationalism; articles addressing the issues and concerns of Parsis, Jains, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims attest to ILM’s egalitarianism. 58 She promoted the popular Victorian idea that everything—unification, modernization, nationalization, independence—depended on a lofty, moralistic ideal of womanhood, such as that articulated by Ruskin, Patmore, and Tennyson; as a result, tensions between Angel-in-the-House, New Woman, and “shrieking sisterhood” ideologies figure prominently in ILM’s debates about cultural interaction, female education, the purdah system, and sociopolitical activism. While Satthianadhan facilitated and published translations of articles into vernacular languages, ILM’s orientation remained linguistically English and stylistically Western. “All my women readers and myself are educated, as is proved by our ability to use this foreign language,” she wrote. “Our number, when compared with the total of Indian women with no pretensions to education is insignificant; but we, in ourselves, are not insignificant” (“Women’s . . .

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Lady” 1929: 282). The provocative phrase “this foreign language” evokes the ideas that the English language was both a symbol of India’s political subjection and, ironically, a potent means through which to pursue and achieve modernization and independence. Echoing Kamala’s admiration of Macaulay’s English, 59 “An Indian Educationist” observes: There is no country in the world that presents so striking an anomaly as India does in respect to its intellectual development . . . the strangest of incongruities . . . [is] a vast population being compelled . . . to pursue higher studies by means of an entirely foreign language [English]. . . . The Indian intellect is undergoing a silent but a most marked transformation, and that is all the result of Macaulay’s Minute. (“Estimate” 1905: 367–68)

There are certain benefits to this circumstance: “We have had our prejudices overthrown, our intellectual tastes purified,” and gained access to the achievements of the West—a cluster of influences leading toward, rather than away from, the cultural solidarity necessary for national autonomy. 60 ILM was launched amid “high” imperialism and “high” Victorianism, when patriotism was not yet inconsistent with loyalty to the British Empire, and, while there are many ways of accounting for the shift toward an alternative loyalty, the focus this study is concerned with is Indian women: their awakening, their emergence, their self-scrutiny and self-empowerment, their emancipation, and their social and political activism as evidenced in their writing. The Victorian Angel-in-the-House and Edwardian New Woman provided useful models for those processes, until they were made redundant by the impulse to define Indianness by rejecting outside influences—what is not Indian in order to distinguish what is. Antoinette Burton writes that Englishwomen’s periodicals of the time reveal “the very structures by which . . . British feminists exercised control over Indian women” (Burdens 112); the same idea applies to Indian women’s periodicals edited by men, which similarly “exercised control over Indian women.” As the first Indian women’s English-language publication edited by a woman, Indian Ladies’ Magazine openly contests such control and asserts women’s agency for self-articulation, its resistance evidenced by incorporating Western and Eastern ideologies as well as conservative, liberal, and reformist perspectives, and by its aim to construct an alternative, culturally relevant conceptualization of Indian womanhood. Given such a context, it is inevitable that ILM’s women authors can be seen to exhibit both “complicity and antagonism, convergence and contradiction,” casting them “simultaneously [as] objects and subjects of their own discourse” (Bannerji, “Fashioning” 51). But in the spirit of center to circumference, more relevant is the influence and palpable impact of such a collective on broader communal attitudes, wherein “education, social work, and . . . feminist politics . . . derive from the typology, subjectivity and form of agency constructed in the pages of these eminently perishable magazines”

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(61). Cynthia White writes of the “classic formula” shaping the content of women’s magazines from their inception, “confin[ing] themselves almost entirely to servicing women in their domestic role” and paying “little attention to the possibilities of widening their sphere of influence” (Women’s 88). Caught between the conflicting demands of tradition and modernization, “intermediate” women were “confused and uncertain” about how to conceptualize, interpret, and widen their sphere while clinging hesitantly to an outmoded version of respectability. ILM represents a concerted effort to address that conundrum, in effect contesting that formula even while it was under construction. Under Satthianadhan’s editorship, ILM strives to transcend and redefine anachronistic definitions of womanliness within the framework of emerging Indian identity politics; if its success in doing so is difficult to measure, the record of its autonomous voice stands nonetheless. The remainder of this discussion now turns to applied readings of ILM through a variety of sociocultural and political lenses that illustrate the depth and breadth of its wide-ranging editorial platform. NOTES 1. On the growth of British popular press, its targeting of women as readers and as consumers, and its dual roles as entertainment and instruction, see Beetham and Boardman, Victorian Women’s Magazines. 2. See Priya Joshi, In Another Country and Sara Suleri, The Rhetoric of British India. 3. During the era of British India, many London-based magazines “were sent abroad to be read throughout the world where English was spoken” (Beetham and Boardman, Victorian 3). At this time, there is no extant research, to my knowledge, addressing which magazines were circulated in the colonies, where, and when. If, as Priya Joshi states of British novels in India, “there is little ‘hard’ data [to] corroborate or amplify” women’s access to them “in public library circulation records of reading” (Another 288), records of notoriously ephemeral periodicals publications may well be nonexistent. Although literary historians strive “to locate a sustained intellectual history of reading alongside broader social and political trends . . . these data have proven extremely elusive” (294), and particularly so in India. 4. In India, “The English-language press suffered competition from imported British periodicals. Customs figures indicate that by 1843 India was the single largest colonial export market for British publishers . . . it was common to find” the top British quarterlies available “within 4-1/2 months after their appearance in England” in Anglo-Indian homes and institutions (Finkelstein and Peers, Introduction 11). ILM’s largest subscribers were schools and libraries throughout India. 5. The Madras Literary Society was established in 1818. Joshi notes that “the number of scientific and literary societies in the Madras Presidency increased . . . from 146 institutions in 1887 to 401 in 1900” (“Reading” 292). 6. Madras Presidency incorporated the South India region, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, and Lakshadweep. 7. On early women’s periodicals, see Alison Adburgham, Women in Print. See also chapter 7, “Periodical Press,” in Kate Flint, The Woman Reader 1837–1914. 8. “Of fifty ‘female’ titles published between 1800 and 1850, twenty-seven included the word ‘lady’ but none included ‘woman’ . . . [by being] ‘addressed particularly to the ladies’ they assumed the primacy of gender . . . [and] connotations of high status” (Beetham, Magazine 27).

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9. See Orsini on “Indian versions of the Victorian woman” being produced in “reformed households” (Hindu 260). 10. The Beeton publishing franchise included Isabella (1836–1865), author of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (initially published serially in EDM, 1859–1861), and her husband Samuel (1831–1877), women’s magazine editor and publisher. 11. Sarah Ellis’s conduct manuals include The Women of England, Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (1839), Daughters of England (1842), Wives of England (1843), and Mothers of England, Their Influence and Responsibility (1843), all designed to inculcate Victorian gender ideology from the cradle to the grave. 12. On EDM, see also Kathryn Ledbetter, British Victorian Women’s Periodicals. On EDM and Queen, see Denise Quirk, “‘True Englishwomen’ and ‘Anglo-Indians’: Gender, National Identity, and Feminism in the Victorian Women’s Periodical Press.” 13. “Representations of British ideals served to justify Empire at home and imperial control abroad, and the press was a major venue for such representations and their political uses” (Codell, Imperial 20). See also Viswanathan (“Beginnings” 114–18). 14. A domestic reflection of such imperial concerns similarly aimed to suppress critical material (covert or overt) produced by the periodical press: “From the 1790s onward the demand for newspapers and magazines grew in the face of government attempts to restrict it through Stamp Acts and taxes on paper and advertising” (Ballaster et al., Women’s 78). These “taxes on knowledge” were rescinded by 1862. 15. The East India Company’s official function in India was to facilitate, monitor, and protect British trade interests. Throughout the era termed “British India,” this commercial designation shifted to increasingly aggressive territorial aggrandizement, government bureaucracy, and militancy. What was previously unofficial became official in 1858, when the company was deposed in favor of Crown rule, making India an official colony of the empire. 16. The challenge on both sides was to clarify the difference between “tolerance of criticism” and taking “precautions against sedition” (Natarajan, History 50). 17. These revisions threatened imprisonment or fines or both for anyone who “by words, either spoken or written . . . promotes or attempts to promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of Her Majesty’s subjects” (Natarajan, History 137–38). Applied to the periodical press, “The publication of alarmist statements, statements inciting members of the armed forces, statements provoking any class or community against any other class or community, was also brought under the penalty of the law” (139). 18. According to Chandrika Kaul, by 1905 “over 1,500 newspapers and periodicals were being published annually in English and the vernaculars” (Media 128), with an estimated two million subscribers. See Barrier (Banned 9–10). 19. On the government’s influence over and manipulation of British press coverage of India through World War I and the “interaction of the India Office with Fleet Street” (3), see Kaul, Reporting the Raj. Circulation of vernacular papers rose from 299,000 (1885) to 817,000 (1905). See also Barrier, Banned. 20. This ideal synthesized “the virtues of new and old, based on traditional Hindu womanly qualities mixed with modern features derived from the Victorian image of the ‘perfect lady.’ The ideal Victorian lady embodied many of the characteristic virtues of a Hindu wife, combining moral goodness with a basic education and social presence . . . it was an ideal that appealed to Bengali reformers anxious for social change but wary of too radical a disruption of woman’s traditional role” (Borthwick, Changing 56–57). 21. “It is estimated that between 1856 and 1900, about four hundred works by educated women were published. During the same period, twenty-one periodicals devoted to women’s issues and edited by women themselves were in circulation in Bengal” (Ghosh, Power 100). The term “works” is not defined, and may refer to any piece of writing from a poem to a novel. 22. Bhadralok: a class distinction specific to Bengalis during the British colonial era, referring to people of respectability (“gentlefolk”), on some levels analogous with Western middle classes or bourgeoisie. “The model of the bhadramahila [gentlewoman] was strongly influenced by the Victorian ideal of womanhood, transmitted through the colonial connection and adapted to suit the social conditions of Bengal. . . . They implicitly resisted simple westerniza-

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tion, and attempted to harmonize what they valued in traditional society with what they saw as worthy of imitation in the ways of Victorian Women” (Borthwick, Changing 359). 23. See Chatterjee, Texts (57). 24. Bamabodhini Patrika’s regular subscribers averaged between 500 and 600 (Murshid, Reluctant 234). 25. Language “became a zone over which the nation first had to declare its sovereignty and then had to transform in order to make it adequate for the modern world” (Chatterjee, Nation 7). On promoting Hindi as the national language and the relation of Hindi journals to the nationalist movement, see Orsini’s The Hindu Public Sphere (52–68). 26. Orsini outlines three “phases of women’s journals”: reformist (nineteenth century); “radical-critical phase” (first half of the twentieth century); and return to domesticity (post-independence) (“Domesticity” 137). 27. Orsini’s discussion of Camd illustrates Kamala’s cause for concern: “in size (100 pages) and format . . . [it] surpassed all previous women’s journals and resembled mainstream Hindi literary journals” (“Domestic” 147); it attracted the “best and newest writers” and “changed the coordinates of literature for women . . . by extending the boundaries of ‘what women should know’ and ‘what women should say.’” Whereas in 1930 ILM’s subscription base averaged about 300, that of Camd was 15,000. 28. France and England grappled for political ascendancy in the region. Hyder Ali (1720–1782), sultan of South India, was an aggressively militant anticolonialist who collaborated with French forces against the British. His son, Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), continued his father’s campaign until defeated by the British in 1799. 29. Samuel Satthianadhan, in History of Education in the Madras Presidency, records 1,185 mission schools with 38,005 students in 1852, numbers superior to the other presidencies. By 1891, Madras “had higher literacy figures than the other presidencies,” which rendered it “a full participant in the social ferment of the country” (Long 6–7). 30. Writing of the Hindi language movement, Orsini notes: “In nationalist terms, language and literature were the means to define and communicate the agenda for progress . . . the strength of literature showed the strength of the nation, the life of the language was the life of the nation” (Hindu 5). This in turn “inspired the growth of journals and of a new kind of ‘useful literature’ aimed at the progress of the self and the community. . . . Education and the press were identified as the two main avenues of activism” (20). 31. Membership in the Women’s Indian Association included both Indian and European women; see Forbes (Women 72–75). Stri Dharma’s circulation averaged about 500 (Tusan, “Writing” 627), roughly comparable to ILM’s. 32. “The dangers of endorsing a philosophy without taking account of its practical applications is verifiable through the work of the Theosophists as represented in Annie Besant’s rhetoric and work” (Anagol, Emergence 36). Pandita Ramabai commented, “it looks as if the world is going backwards, when one hears English women, like Mrs. Besant” pronouncing upon Indian widows (Anagol, 37). 33. Some ILM articles were originally speeches and talks in the vernaculars, translated into English: for example, “Mussalman Women in Southern India” by Quraishbi, “being the translation of an Urdu paper read before the Moslem Debating Society, Chepauk, Madras” (1902). Alternatively, Brander’s health series, “specially written for Indian Ladies,” was to be translated for “the leading Vernacular Magazines as well” (1902). 34. The criminalization of sati in 1829, Kumar writes, “prompted the conservatives to close their ranks and launch a counter-movement to have the anti-sati law revoked . . . they resolved to ostracise those Hindus who had openly violated the principles of their religion” (193). Chatterjee distinguishes between the “inner domain of national culture” (education, family, women) and the outer domain of politics, legislation, and government intervention (Nation 9). Sati, for example, was of the “inner,” national jurisdiction; British laws (“outer,” imperial) banning sati constitute unacceptable interference in the private realm. Nationalists “asserted that only the nation itself could have the right to intervene in such an essential aspect of its cultural identity.” Whether the Indian Woman Question was a political or social issue was intensely debated: “The new politics of nationalism ‘glorified India’s past and tended to defend everything traditional’; all attempts to change customs and life-styles began to be seen as the

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aping of Western manners and were thereby regarded with suspicion, consequently, nationalism fostered a distinctly conservative attitude toward social beliefs and practices, the movement toward modernization was stalled by nationalist politics” (116). See also Sreenivas (Wives 9). 35. Representing another example of collaboration: ILM regularly posted notices of new women’s magazines: Parda Nashin, Maharani Magazine, Stree Bodhe, The Ladies’ Realm, Khatoon (“a high-class Urdu Monthly conducted in the interests of Indian Women”), Zamana (“a high class Urdu magazine”), “The Tamil Zenana Magazine” (a “high class” monthly in Tamil), Friend of the Women of Bengal, and Anahpur (“a monthly illustrated Bengali journal for ladies, recommended for the Brahmo and other Hindus and lady missionaries who would benefit by understanding this perspective better”). See also “Translations,” announcing arrangements with Tamil Zenana Magazine, Indian Christian Intelligencer (Madras), “the Malayalam Monoroma (Kottayam), and the “Vidya Vinodini (Ernakulam) for the translation of some of the articles that appear in the Indian Ladies’ Magazine” (1901: 55). 36. “Gandhi employed Stri Dharma to help him reach this growing female constituency. Throughout his campaigns, Gandhi found the WIA a useful ally, praising the work of this organization and its leaders in rallying women to act. . . . The eagerness of SD’s editors to print Gandhi’s directives enabled him to target an often overlooked constituency, women” (Tusan, “Writing” 637). While SD served “as a mouthpiece for Gandhi” (639), it apparently escaped the scrutiny of press censors, perhaps dismissed as a women’s periodical and therefore inconsequential. 37. Following the Katherine Mayo (Mother India) episode, “Indian women activists were deeply suspicious of Western women’s show of solidarity with Indian women” (Sinha, “Reading” 28). 38. “The travails of women’s journals included their limited circulation and the resultant financial problems” (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 86). 39. “Infant marriage is the root of most other social evils, and anything tending to mitigate its prevalence is sure to have a beneficial effect on them also. With the education of women will gradually follow too the elevation of the so-called lower castes, whose chief disability to rise now is their own willing bondage to ancient superstitions” (“Social Reform” 1901: 17). 40. The phrase was in popular use prior to Chattopadhyaya’s Awakening of Indian Women (1939); see “Awakening of Indian Womanhood” (1908). See also Margaret Cousins’s The Awakening of Asian Womanhood (1922). 41. See “Hindu Ideal of Womanhood” (Row 1901; and Sarma 1901). According to Sundararaman, “the time for action has come and so [we] are dividing into two distinct and even irreconcilable parties,—the part of the West and the part of the East. Under these conditions our views must necessarily diverge, especially on this question of the ideal of womanhood, for the fate and fortune of a society depend primarily on the character and status of its women and on their aims and views regarding life and duty” (1901: 66–67). 42. Intermarriage is here presented as a nationalist issue: “The celebration of inter-racial and inter-provincial marriages is to be welcomed as auguring well for the strengthening of the new sentiment of Indian nationality. Unfortunately there have not yet been many such. It is encouraging . . . that they are steadily becoming popular. And we gladly chronicle the latest instance thereof. . . . The parties in this case, however, were Christians” (“Intermarriage” 1903: 64). See also “Mixed Marriages in India.” On sati, see Lata Mani (Contentious). After thirty years of “awakening,” women’s progress is minimal: Indian women must accept blame for “their apathy . . . conventionalism . . . conservatism. . . . [They] do not even come forward to accept . . . the opportunities of advancement given them . . . [while others] are working hard for the abolishing of social evils” and have “found a rich field in political service and swadeshi propaganda” (“Advance” 1933: 163–64). 43. Press commentary was gathered from ILM’s cover announcements. 44. Photographs included prominent women (“Distinguished Women” series) and girls noted for political, academic, and professional accomplishments (“Some Prominent Indian Lady Tennis Players,” for example), as well as Indian geographical and religious sites, urban scenes, rural activities, and villagers. 45. Although language debates were central to nationalist discourse, the topic is beyond the scope of this study, particularly the question of Hindi- versus English-language instruction.

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However, as will be evident throughout my discussion, the question of educating women in English raised issues that are specific to India’s colonial and nationalist periods. On Hindu nationalism, see Orsini (Hindu) and Dalmia (Nationalization). Ghosh studies “how in a competitive colonial environment, print-languages and literature afford opportunities to indigenous groups for consolidating power, along multiple axes of class, gender, and community. In the process, what is unearthed is a narrative of dissent, struggle, and conflict among various contending speech communities” (Power 2). 46. On ILM’s uncertain status during World War I, see “Ourselves” (1915) and “Change of Editors” and “Monthly Journal” (both 1916). 47. “I think it will have to be Rs.4 a year, including postage, for inland subscribers, and Rs.4¼ for foreign subscribers” (“Editor’s” 1916: 55). 48. Binaries invoked in discourse analysis (self, other) belie the “complexity and heterogeneity” of the contexts involved and reveal the “limitations of theorizing the colonial encounter” from any centric perspective (Mani, Contentious 5). One way that Satthianadhan confronted such limitations was through articles and photographs featuring India’s predominantly rural village population; yet as long as this population remained illiterate and impoverished, it continued to be “talked about” rather than to participate in debates relevant to its interests (“Ourselves” 1930). 49. Kamala’s perspective on “political aspects” of rights and privileges—that women’s privileges should be earned, not demanded—resonates with those who reject the term “feminist” (for example, Sarojini Naidu and Vijaya Pandit). The distinction is fallacious in that it accepts and endorses traditional gender hierarchy: men always already have those rights and privileges, and it is they who decide whether or not women have earned them—a deeply problematic dynamic. 50. The terms “internal” and “external” would make more sense here. 51. “The rise and fall of a Nation depends upon” its women (“Indian Women” 1911: 152). 52. See “Enforced Widowhood.” 53. On economic independence, see “Women and Reform”; Rau, “Modern”; Vijaya Pandit (1936); and Gangadharan, “Indian Women” (1929: 11). 54. For features and columns, see appendix A. 55. Sengupta writes that despite Christian missionaries’ arrogance, “their influence was great” in terms of improved social, educational, and medical standards (Story 151). See Fuller’s Wrongs and “Duty of Indian Women” (ILM 1909). Some credit colonization itself with sparking the nationalist movement: “it is our contact with the West and . . . comparatively peaceful British rule that accounts for the present widespread national awakening and the national yearning for a nation’s rights and privileges” (“Dhruva” 1909: 277). 56. To “fight the evil of untouchability . . . woman should speak out about this publicly and prevent it in her home and teach her children to reject the custom and its baggage” (“Women and Untouchability” 1933: 101). See ILM’s “Gandhi and the Harijans”; “Untouchability”; “Our Friends Among the ‘Untouchables’”; “Ideals of Indian Women”; “Depressed Classes Mission”; and “Infantile Mortality.” 57. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), prominent activist on behalf of “Untouchables” (Harijans, Dalits, Depressed, or Scheduled Classes), a population of fifty million during the nationalist movement (Burke and Quraishi, British 195). 58. It is also true, however, that the December numbers were termed the “Christmas Issue.” 59. Satthianadhan’s writing style was “much influenced” by Macaulay: “I have studied Macaulay’s English carefully. . . . He was not a favourite in India but his English is beautiful” (Sengupta, Portrait 39). 60. “For more than two-hundred years English has been a vehicle of creative expression for many of our poets and writers . . . it is as much a language of India as any other indigenous language . . . [and] has helped them to receive recognition” nationally and internationally (Das, Sketches i).

Chapter Two

ILM and Literary Criticism

My Ideal Woman was a creature of my own imagination, a thing of dreams, who like a lily floated upon the river of my thoughts, to put it in the watery way of sentimental Tennyson. —R. K. Mitter (1929: 345)

Satthianadhan’s editorial platform clearly states ILM’s aims for the empowerment and uplift of Indian women. A particularly revealing articulation of this purpose is evidenced through a distinctly Victorian literary criticism infused with moral instruction, the lines “woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink together” offering a most potent example (“Introduction” 1901: 1). 1 In “Locksley Hall,” Tennyson reverses the dynamic to illustrate a comparable result: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. (ll. 45–48)

The idea is especially relevant in India, where a husband is “the woman’s god; there is no other god for her. This god may be the worst sinner and a great criminal; still he is her god, and she must worship him” (“Indian Woman . . . Country” 1912: 34). Speaking for Islam, Quraishi agrees: he “might be the vilest of men, still, she must respect him as her lord” (“Women” 1902: 182). Rabindranath Tagore notes that both Indian literature and social custom compel brides to worship their husband, who “is to them not a person but a principle like loyalty, patriotism or such other abstractions” (Rajagopalaswamy 1929: 348). As conceptualized by the term Pativratya (virtuous wife), woman’s role is to “toil on from day to day . . . never swerving . . . from the path of mute obedience to unworthy and morally-wretched husbands,” di37

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vorce being permitted to men but not to women (Murthi 1936: 51). Accordingly, the “Bengalee Woman” is the embodiment of “deathless devotion” and “unquestioning obedience”: “Hers is not the reason why / Hers is but to do and die [sic],” her chastity, purity, and service to “her lord” rendering her “verily an angel” (Ghosh 1908: 75). 2 Tennyson might well marvel at such appropriation of his jingoistic war poem to celebrate Indian Angels-in-theHouse.

G. R. Joyser extends the point to literacy: “By association with the low, our mind becomes low. . . . By association with a wife . . . uneducated and . . . undeveloped, man can only fall . . . by keeping women low, man also becomes low. . . . He is a brute indeed” (“Duties” 1917: 11–12). As an English-language publication, ILM addressed English, Anglo-Indian, and Indian concerns, but its dominant framework both stresses and contests the entrenched, universal “truism” that woman’s place is in the home. From Shakespeare, “A ministering angel shall my sister be” (Hamlet v.1), to Walter Scott, “O woman! / When pain and anguish wring the brow, / A ministering angel thou!” (Marmion vi.30); and from George Eliot, “the happiest women like the happiest nations have no history” (“George Eliot” 1916: 280), to Robert Louis Stevenson, “do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain common work . . . daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life” (“Place of Women” 1911: 300), ILM’s editorial platform is both predicated on and anxious about a gender ideology that is increasingly out of step with the modern era. As this chapter reveals, Tennyson’s was not the only voice of Victorian separate spheres ideology invoked in the service of Indian nationalism, employed to emphasize the degraded status of woman and its negative impact on modernization. 3 Through literary criticism, primary Victorian

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texts shaping ILM’s editorial platform include Tennyson’s The Princess (1847) and Idylls of the King (1859–1885), Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House (1854–1862), John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies (1865), and, oddly, gender commentary by Marie Corelli. 4 The Princess investigates the idea that women, facing ridicule for their presumptuous educational ambitions, can evolve intellectually and socially only through isolationism, by removing themselves from mixed, public society—a concept evocative of purdah. 5 Opponents claimed women are masculinized and unsexed by cerebral pursuits, which render them socially incompatible with men, biologically unfit for childbearing, ill-suited for domesticity, and prone to mental illness. 6 Indeed, the poem’s bizarre cross-dressing device hints at what happens to men when women assert their right to read books: also unsexed, the bonneted and befrocked prince and his cronies are virtual harem eunuchs, fraternity brothers out for a lark. Scholars continue to debate whether The Princess represents serious gender commentary (and if so, pro- or antifeminist) or just a harmless literary romp, its conventional denouement dictating that Angels-out-of-the-House is, ultimately, an unthinkable proposition. According to Sattianadhan’s “Tennyson’s Ideal of Womanhood,” the “woman is the complement of the man. . . . Any attempt to thwart this ‘eternal law’ will be met with failure” (1901: 158). The Princess is a “sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,” while Ida herself is a “miracle of noble womanhood” led astray by the ideas that “the woman were an equal to the man” and “knowledge was all in all,” prompting her to establish a women’s college to elevate females to an equable “pedestal with man” (159). But when this “burlesque [with] a solemn close” concludes with everyone pairing up according to conventional patriarchy, the ideal of educated womanhood displaced by a vague happily ever after, how can Ida’s shift from nobility to commonality be reconciled? Tennyson’s views on women are “narrow” but “large-hearted,” Kamala posits, and if he ridicules Ida’s scheme, surely it is without malice; he evades the question of gender equality by emphasizing complementarity, as in the ubiquitous lines, “woman’s cause is man’s . . . woman is not undevelopt man”—although he does ask, “When did woman ever yet invent?” Kamala insists that Ida has been gravely misjudged, and there is truth in her claims that “women had hitherto been subjected to years of wrong . . . men were only deceivers”; the notion that women do need separatism and isolation in order to avoid ridicule and insult while pursuing education is troubling but persuasive: “in the shadow will we work, and mould / the woman to the fuller day.” Ida’s commitment to sisterhood and the uplift of women employs the compelling rhetoric of suttee:

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Chapter 2 Oh if our end were less achievable By slow approaches, than by single act Of immolation, any phase of death, We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it, To compass our dear sisters’ liberties. (160)

When her utopia turns dystopian through her “dear sisters’” betrayal and their acquiescence to ordinariness, she terms herself “a Queen of farce!” Kamala concludes: whatever may be said, the Prince is not worthy of the Princess. She deserves a man with a grander nature . . . more in touch with her own . . . we lose patience with him. . . . Ida is accused of too much . . . her submission is too much . . . the Prince is too condescending—in fact, the poet shaped the events to suit his own ideas. Ida only asked “space and fair play for her scheme.” If this had been given . . . the College would have been a useful institution with the princess as a perfect head of it.

The most refreshing insights here differentiate the man from the poet, the ideology from the poem, the fictional character from the real woman, and the thwarted opportunity from the smug denouement. “Tennyson’s Princess Ida: A Character Study” features an alternative and far more conventional view, in which the prince’s behavior is unquestioned—his legal right to claim the bride in an arranged marriage contracted by their fathers in infancy aligning with Indian custom. But his pragmatic purpose is here romanticized, thus obscuring the prince’s mercenary purpose—to claim his lawful property and assert his conjugal rights—by presenting him as “devotedly” “in love,” albeit with one he has never met, whose character he does not know, whose dreams and goals do not interest him; he is wounded, infantilized, emasculated by Princess Ida, who is “hard, proud, conceited, and wanting in womanly tenderness” (1910: 216). Deprived of maternal guidance by her mother’s early death—a standard Victorian device to account for female deviance—Ida fails to recognize that her duties are marriage and motherhood, not intellectual pursuits. She “repudiates the obligations of all pre-contracts”; she is irritated “that men should treat women, either as vassal, or babes to be dawdled” and incensed that women allow themselves to be “household stuff. . . . Live chattels, mincers of each other’s fame, forever slaves at home and fools abroad.” Ida’s rejection of both the prince and her doting but foolish father is deemed by this author unladylike and disrespectful, although no critical scrutiny investigates the disrespect accorded her through her commodification by these two men. Willing to “die any death to prove her devotion” to the cause of advancing female education, Ida’s example is presented as self-aggrandizing rather than philanthropically admirable; the prince not only does not share her

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vision, but also mourns her exchange of “fame for spouse and . . . great deeds for issue . . . [for] what every woman counts her due, Love, children, happiness” (“Tennyson’s” 1910: 217). Like Queen Guinevere (Idylls of the King), Ida “had a will, and maiden fancies” linked with intellectual ambitions, an ominous combination; like King Arthur, Ida “dreamt of men and women working side by side as equals” (217–18). This critic asserts that, while the prince is one-dimensional (a man in love), the princess has two sides: the hard (masculine) and the soft (feminine), the latter predominating by the poem’s conclusion due to a proliferation of cooing babies and wounded men in need of nursing. The women’s college upends established social order, but once Ida embraces her “true” nature—meaning, she relinquishes her dreams of advancing women’s education in exchange for “what every woman counts her due”—the prince’s self-aggrandizement is mollified and the two apparently embark on a fairy tale ending, although the poem declines to elaborate that point. 7 Princess Ida is intellectually gifted—not a man hater of the “shrieking sisterhood” but committed to social justice and grieved by entrenched indifference to female oppression: Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, No woman named: therefore I set my face Against all men, and lived but for mine own. Far off from men I built a fold for them: . . . till a rout of saucy boys Brake on us at our books, and marred our peace, Masked like our maids, blustering I know not what Of insolence and love, some pretext held Of baby troth, invalid, since my will Sealed not the bond—the striplings! for their sport!—

The Princess accommodates everyone, apparently: New Women bound to Victorian men; social progress thwarted and political status quo reinstated; gender solidarity derailed by divide and conquer; fairy tale endings of both the utopian and dystopian varieties. A more ominous cautionary tale is provided by Tennyson’s Queen Guinevere, a “daughter of the gods” rendered “lowly” by adultery: “What a fall was there! and what an object lesson to frail womankind!” (“Queen” 1908: 139). Inauspiciously, and quite the reverse of the studious Ida, girlish Guinevere romanticizes about heroes (“maiden fancies”) and fails to recognize her future king in a vast crowd of “fair knights,” the mystical implication being that a deserving bride would have no such uncertainty. Like Ida’s prince, Arthur succumbs to “love at first sight”—a point, oddly, not similarly regarded as youthful fancies. Despite the rhetoric of romance, Arthur claims Guinevere’s hand from her father “as a reward” for his military prowess, prompting the critic to admit, “Perhaps Guinevere’s consent has not been asked. In those days, —as now in our India—it was not the custom to consult

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girls about their marriage” (140). Whether Guinevere is a trophy wife or destiny’s pawn, Arthur sends the fairest of all the fair knights, the heartthrob and notorious ladies’ man Lancelot, to fetch her on his behalf, prompting the author to exclaim, “What a man this Sir Lancelot is! . . . great in spite of his sins” (140–41). Though Guinevere is “a little disappointed” by the substitution, she and Arthur marry and commence living happily ever after—until she is again “disappointed,” finding Arthur “cold, high, self-contained, and passionless, not like him, not like my Lancelot,” a man of “warmth and colour.” When her “guilty love” becomes public knowledge (141), “nothing can excuse the queen,” who has “spoilt the purpose” of Arthur’s life: “She falls and sins, and nothing can excuse her,” her fall—like that of “our mother Eve”—igniting universally destructive consequences, despite her ostensible powerlessness. The “object lesson” is twofold: first, because no reliance can be accorded female chastity—the signature justification for purdah—she who prefers a flesh and blood spouse for her flesh and blood life has “a great flaw in her nature”; and second, she who seeks to define a life purpose of her own apparently has the power to bring down civilization (“Queen” 1908: 141). The author does concede that Arthur may be “a little at fault” (albeit “unconsciously”) because he is so “perfectly pure . . . his head in the clouds of ideals and dreams.” At the convent, Guinevere fell at Arthur’s feet and “groveled with her face against the floor”; he chastises her “for her own sake” but he “loves her still” (142), although he knows nothing about her other than the disappointment she represents. He urges her: “purify thy soul . . . and know / I am thine husband—not a smaller soul, / Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, / I charge thee—my last hope.” Thus does Arthur assert his property and conjugal rights by proclaiming that her commitment to celibacy offers some measure of redemption for him being cuckolded by his best friend. 8 Eve-like, “Her sin is the shame of all women”; she alone destroys Arthur’s Roundtable, plunging the kingdom into “death, darkness, confusion, and the old bloody heathenism” that results from “the passing of Arthur”: one marvels that a trophy wife can wield such power (“Love and Pain” 1917: 70). Surely Guinevere should have kept her “disappointments” to herself and, in true Victorian fashion, simply “suffer and be still.” 9 A lesser-known Tennyson poem is “Dora,” whose title character “must be dear to our Indian Ladies” for proving “it is not necessary to do great public deeds to be really useful in the world. A quiet home life . . . [is] the noblest and most useful life in the world. . . . There is no sacrifice like the sacrifice of a noble woman, who forgets self and lives for the happiness of others” (Padmini, “Dora” 1907: 98). 10 In Dora’s words, I would not have the restless will That hurries to and fro, Seeking for some great thing to do,

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Or secret thing to know, I would be treated as a child And guided where I go.

Orphaned Dora is taken in by her gruff, hardened uncle to be raised with her cousin William; neither Indian nor matchmaker, her uncle determines that Dora and William will marry. Interestingly, Dora’s “fate” is to love this man (there is no basis for comparison, as she has met no other), who loves Mary and chooses romantic love over filial piety; hers is the “self-renouncing love” of the meek, “that type of womanhood . . . sacrificed for the happiness of others. . . . A meek acceptance of life as it comes to them, a calm fulfillment of duty, a noble self-denial, these are the secrets of the lives of such women.” In quick succession, William marries, is disowned by his father, has a child, and dies; driven by her unconditional love, the “very timid” Dora disobeys her uncle by reaching out to her “rival” and bringing the hapless mother and son into her uncle’s household, thus facilitating reconciliation, her uncle’s repentance, and familial peace. Although quite capable of acting autonomously, Dora lives only for “the happiness of others.” An alternative interpretation highlights darker aspects of the poem. Enraged by Dora’s disobedience, her uncle rejects his penniless niece and asserts ownership over his grandson: “You knew my word was law, and yet you dared / To slight it. Well—for I will take the boy; / But go you hence, and never see me more.” Exemplifying woman’s mission to women, Dora pledges her support to William’s wife Mary, who, in her jealousy, had “thought ‘Hard things of Dora,’” but who now comprehends the depth of her selflessness (Balm 1904: 18); cast out by the patriarch, both economically compromised women—homeless, lacking economic resources—are positioned to become “fallen.” Concerned about Uncle’s negative influence over the child, they convince him to soften his harsh, unforgiving ways, manifesting the civilizing effect expected of Angels-in-the-House. Balm writes, “Dora is represented as the type of a woman, possessing all those kindlier qualities which constitute the glory of her sex . . . meek, gentle, patient, forbearing, sympathetic, generous, and faithful.” Her very self-negation leads her to be rejected by William, cast out by her uncle, and misjudged by Mary, yet her “sympathy and compassion for the sufferings of others” is unconditional. In her fidelity to William, Dora “remained unmarried till her death,” a metaphorical widow; hinting at contemporary widow remarriage debates, her example “presents a strong contrast to that of Mary, who ‘took another mate.’” Like Dora, Tennyson’s Elaine (“Lancelot and Elaine”) is indeed a girl, with the makings of a sweet and charming woman in her, but no time is given her to develop herself. From a child into a girl, then into a woman, she is quickly transformed by the stern hand of sorrow. . . . How many

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Chapter 2 such there are in the world. They love and are repulsed, and, without a moan, they droop and die. And yet, they have lived in the world, and their example of purity and constancy may well be studied with advantage by all women. (Nalini 1906: 8)

The long tradition of silencing women is entrenched in cultures throughout the world, and this critic’s point that, if their voices cannot be heard, then their example should be studied, begins to break that silence. Perhaps it is not surprising that only women characters are so assessed; although men and women are repeatedly cast as complementary parts of a whole, there is no comparable investigation of male characters, their behaviors, and their attitudes toward women. 11 Both The Princess and Idylls of the King feature heroines who are exchanged between men without their consent as spoils of war, political pawns, or in payment of debt; both Ida and Guinevere are critically condemned for resisting the indignity of losing their autonomy, and there is little attempt to comprehend their perspectives or motivations. The perpetual virgin Dora and unrequited Elaine illustrate that fairy tale romance is predicated on the sacrifices of women who relinquish their dreams (at best) or expiate their sins through a living death (as nuns or widows). During a period associated with Indian women’s “awakening,” this critical trend in ILM is unsettling, given the centrality of social reforms addressing the disempowering aspects of marital practices and gender relations and the imperative to shift those traditional priorities for the national good. The history of Indian nationalism exhibits that the exhilaration of pursuing liberty was chronically vexed by anxiety about the consequences of actually achieving it. “Proposed Indian University for Women” notes that most nations “educate at least their sons,” but “the intellectual education of [Indian] girls has been a plant of slow and hindered growth” (McDougall 1917: 78). Tennyson’s lines—“If Time be heavy on your hands, / Oh teach the orphan boy to read, / Or teach the orphan girl to sew” (“Clara, Clara Vere de Vere”)— express “the usual ideal”: “The boy’s intellect was to be developed; the girl was to learn a serviceable hand work.” More than a half-century later, these same lines “might be quoted without irony to describe what is still . . . the educational ideal” in India (79). 12 What was unimaginable in Tennyson’s poetry played out in a real-life rebellion against being legally divested of free will. Rukhmabai (1864–1955) was married at age eleven but refused to be “collected” by her spouse on the grounds that the arrangement was made without her consent (in Princess Ida’s words, a “troth, invalid, since my will / Sealed not the bond”). 13 The resulting media frenzy and court cases publicly aired this polarizing episode, dividing traditionalists from reformists, and the seemingly unassailable sway of entrenched custom from the urge toward modernization and independence for both Indian women and Mother India. 14 Interestingly, Rukhmabai was fined by the courts for her audacity but ex-

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cused from incarceration and not forced to live with her spouse; she remained single and took up “serviceable hand work”—not as a seamstress but as a physician. 15 To Charles Kingsley’s claim that “men must work and women must weep” (“The Three Fishers”), Satthianadhan retorts: “He might have added that, in the intervals of weeping, there would be a good deal of time for thinking and theorizing, for which the workers will not have much leisure” (“Westernized” 1929: 636). 16 But Kamala’s use of Tennysonian gender ideology is selective; for example, she never confronts the rabid misogyny of “Locksley Hall”: Weakness to be wrought with weakness! Woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain— Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain. Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. (ll. 149–52)

But evidencing the ways Victorian gender ideology contributed to Indian women’s “awakening,” the compelling example of the respected Dr. Rukhmabai neatly dismisses the “shallower brain” theory and its associations with weakness and lack to manifest a genuine, real-life New Woman. Distinct from Tennyson’s recalcitrant women, Ruskin and Patmore offered a bland vision of female submission to muscular patriarchy, in which women remained as absent and silent as purdahnashins or pativratas, while male narrators pronounced authoritatively on their proper role. C. Gopala Menon praises “Of Queens’ Gardens,” which depicts woman “as the guiding and purifying power in a state of society founded on principles of right” (1902: 52). There is no debatable Question here, only a Problem to be solved: “woman has always been a problem to man and to herself,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that Tennyson has already established that she is “naturally fitted to occupy . . . the home”; yes, she should be educated, if only to “endow her sons with capacity to enter the world, and her daughters with capacity to train their sons to enter the world.” Ruskin’s assertion of complementarity between men and women—“each has what the other has not, each completes the other and is completed by the other”—ostensibly rests on the cultural authority of Plato, Dante, Homer, Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Scott, Spencer, Goethe, and Wagner (all men, all in the Western tradition). The “true dignity” of woman is variously expressed through her Christlike role as “savior of the world” and as domesticated queen whose realm is within the “Garden Gate . . . a sacred place, a vestal temple . . . of the hearth” (Menon 1902: 53). This author ignores the profound disjunction between an unabashed promotion of the Angel-in-the-House with the awakening of Indian New Women actively shaping the era of nationalism in the public realm. Ruskin’s progressive advice that females should be “let loose” in the library and encouraged to develop physically out in the natural world (duly controlled by censors and chaperones) fails to compensate for the telling asser-

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tion that man’s knowledge is “foundational and progressive,” while woman’s is “general and accomplished”—by implication, regressive and superficial. Truly, “is there a grander teacher than Ruskin, who has a higher conception of woman’s place in the world? He venerates women with the devotion of a knight to his lady”; truly, what sort of modernizing model is so anachronistic as to predate even the discovery of the New World? (Menon 1902: 53) A “Son of the Soil,” who also writes in “the watery way of sentimental Tennyson” (Mitter 1929: 345), paints his “Ideal of Indian Womanhood” as “an angel that hovers over the domestic hearth with wings of aerial brightness, outspread as if in protection from chilling blasts. . . . A true woman has her education in two schools, the school of the parents and that of the husband” (“My Ideal” 1903: 383). Like Ruskin’s domesticated queen, this angel need never leave home; she “is a commonwealth in herself. . . . Her kingdom is the home she adorns with her gentle presence,” while her “retiring modesty” manifests the idea, “‘thus far and no further’” (385). Commentary from 1917 reveals subtle shifts from “watery” romanticizing to a more utilitarian and nationalist perspective, notably extending Ruskin’s views on the purpose of female education: “to educate them as human beings, to educate them as wives and mothers and to educate them as members of a nation” (“Ideal” 1917: 113). After World War I, distinctions between the ethereal (ornamental fine ladies) and the real (nationalist activists) increasingly predominate Indian Woman Question discourse. Linking both is the revolutionary concept that women are first and foremost autonomous “human beings.” “Suggestions for English Reading” recommends Coventry Patmore’s Angel in the House, which outlines the process of courtship, wooing, engagement, marriage, and the newlywed period (including the couple’s first shopping expedition as budding conspicuous consumers) as practiced in the West: “if you could realize that God never meant woman to be a mere appendage of man, but that he and she were to make one perfect being; each giving what is wanting in the other . . . then you would see she is just as needful as he is to the perfect whole” (1903: 353). Eastern gender separatism confounds and vexes Westerners’ attempts to correlate the wedding of lovers by choice with arranged marriages of convenience; 17 that Indian women “dare not” even speak their husband’s name is itself a sign of the bondage of “you who . . . are equal to him in every respect.” 18 The author does have a point, although the alternative recommendation—Coventry Patmore—simply replaces one hobbling mindset with another. Another “Suggestion” recommends Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies, an “entrancing little volume”; its lofty ideals are beyond the reach of most mortals, yet “we ought all to . . . try to live up to it . . . to become more like Ruskin’s ideal woman each day” (1903: 285). 19 On the off chance that more unabashed promotion of conventional separate spheres ideology is required, the author quotes Patmore’s Angel in the House on the evils of thriftless women who have “cheapen’d Paradise!” No hint is offered

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indicating the quote’s relevance to the topic at hand, rendering it gratuitous at best. Framed by an image of a winged angel, “Ruskin on Womanhood” by Navaratnam admits Ruskin’s tendency toward “very peculiar . . . ‘eccentric’ views” but assures readers that “Of Queen’s Gardens” is an exception (1908: 274). The discussion emphasizes Ruskin’s preface, directed at young girls whose unquestioning obedience is essential to their self-improvement. For example, girls should get over the idea that they are special and any other “insolent . . . foolish persuasions that . . . hold your empty little heart”; avoid idleness and cruelty; learn “kitchen economy” and needlework so as to benefit the poor; strive always to “make yourself a better creature”; and remember that “your accomplishments are acquired, not for your own sake, but for others.” Ruskin’s punitive rhetoric resonates not only with cultural denigration of females (at best the incarnation of evil, at worst an exorbitant expenditure with no profitable return), but also with the Christian concept of original sin—that sin that renders all humans always, already fallen; that sin by which “our first mother” Eve coolly damned all humanity for eternity. 20 According to this thinking, women can never atone for the suffering inflicted on the world by that fruit-eating, illiterate woman seeking knowledge; if women do require knowledge, it should be limited to that which “may enable her to understand and . . . aid the work of men” (277). Navaratnam asserts that ILM’s readers are most emphatically not New Women (a “perversion”) and should distance themselves from Western harpies parading the streets, claiming their “rights,” and unsexing themselves. In Ruskin’s words, women “must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development but for self-renunciation” (277): thus is the Angel-in-the-House promoted for its compatibility with traditional Indian separate spheres gender ideology, while its logical extension—the modern, self-sufficient New Woman, an active contributor to, rather than a chronic drain on, society, exhibiting the wherewithal necessary to overthrow British imperialism—is denigrated as exemplifying Western decadence. A confounding array of mixed messages, to be sure. “Ruskin on Women by an Indian Lady” rehearses similar points, from women’s mission and rights to independence and “servile obedience”; the conclusion invokes “the sweetness, the sympathy and the love of Ruskin as he preaches his gospel of truth and beauty,” evidencing the Christian rhetoric underpinning Angel ideology (“Ruskin” 1904: 344). Extending the idea that man’s work is to protect his home and woman’s work is to keep it clean, this author encourages moral tidiness on a communal level, urging women “to alleviate the misery . . . and assuage the griefs of her broken-hearted sisters and tend the children . . . blighted by the heavy dew of ignorance, poverty and vice.” While hesitant to actually endorse New Women, some writers (like this one) effectually do so by implication: that the Angel-in-the-House

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must lead inevitably to the Angel-out-of-the-House was a concept difficult for some to accept. Concerning intellectual development, to say thus far and no further is unrealistic (“My Ideal” 1903: 385): once awakened, where is the line to be drawn, who will draw it, and with what justification? Both the Angel and New Woman align with the Victorian concept of “Women’s Mission to Women,” which posits that it is the responsibility of Angels-in-theHouse to extend their moral influence beyond the nuclear family domestic realm (seva). Self-reliance, self-scrutiny, and self-development were primary values of the period, approved for the advancement and progress of men but requiring limitations be placed on women. 21 Biva Roy also rejects the “New Woman” as an aberration: “We would rather have our mothers and sisters as ‘angels in the house,’ ministering to the wants of their dear ones, with pure thoughts and ennobling grace, than see them reducing themselves to the level of cheap imitations of a Western woman, with the superficial and unattractive qualities of both races” (1908: 186). This false dichotomy poses man’s personal Angel against what some regard as sociopolitical activism and others condemn as “cheap imitations.” Given such emphases on the most conventional and conservative aspects of Tennyson, Patmore, and Ruskin, the caustic gender commentary of Marie Corelli poses a striking but ultimately unoriginal counterpoint. 22 In Satthianadhan’s review article “Marie Corelli and the Advance of Women,” Corelli defines “the Life Literary” as the “right of free opinion and . . . ability to express that opinion”; she condemns reigning gender ideology, claiming that Eve offers a classic case of blaming the victim, most “Adams” are cowards, and chivalry (in the Ruskinian sense) is “unnatural and abnormal” (1905: 19). 23 Men dictate and enforce the physical and intellectual limitations of women’s existence, then belittle their comparative physical weakness and lack of creative activity; man is vain, “like the peacock,” strutting around a universe of which he believes he is the center, waiting “for the pea-hen to worship him” (20). Without contesting Corelli’s comments, Satthianadhan objects to her lack of womanliness and “large-heartedness,” urging that women “must be gentle, must forgive.” Alternatively, Corelli’s “advocacy of women’s rights is grandly done”— an interesting assessment because her advocacy derives from that same archaic chivalric code perpetuated by Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore (Satthianadhan, “Marie” 1905: 20). Kamala admits that men do “tread her [woman] down, do try to make little of her,” but insists there are also “brave mendefenders” who support woman’s cause; she seems anxious about the more radical potential of the New Woman, assuring readers that, although Corelli seems to be a man hater, she also “hates the mannish woman,” a far more objectionable figure:

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a woman who wears “mannish” clothes, smokes cigars, rattles out slang, gambles . . . drinks . . . is lost altogether. But the woman whose dress is always becoming and graceful, whose voice is equable and tender, who enhances whatever beauty she possesses by exquisite manner, unblemished reputation, and intellectual capacity combined, raises herself not only to an equality with man, but goes so far above him that she straightway becomes the goddess and he the worshipper. This is as it should be. Men adore what they cannot imitate. (20–21)

Corelli of all people should know that chivalric relationships based on shegoddess-and-he-worshipper are as “unnatural and abnormal” as the Indian woman who worships her husband as a god, the Eastern equivalent of Milton’s “He for God only, She for God in him” (Paradise Lost IV. 299). 24 Idolizing, enshrining, and image worship do not reflect the relations of real people: Man creates his own image of woman, whom he wishes to worship. . . . [But] while Man only spends half his time consorting with or loving this Myth, we spend nearly all our time—that is if we wish to be loved—in . . . playing the Myth . . . the acid test . . . is whether or not we enjoy being that Myth which the man thinks is a woman. (“Myth” 1932: 355)

Such manipulativeness—women performing a myth to satisfy men’s fantasies—betrays authentic human interaction while reifying gender relations based on deception and dishonesty. Satthianadhan rejects part of Corelli’s gender ideology (she “despises” men) and glosses over the implication that women should use their feminine wiles to get what they want from men; she accepts that “womanliness” should be preserved at all costs. This wide-eyed look at an unapologetic “man hater” whose underlying principles are ultimately as steeped in Angel-in-the-House ideology as those of Patmore, Tennyson, and Ruskin concludes with a rousing recommendation to “take Marie Corelli’s advice and be essentially women . . . for love of womanliness . . . in time, our proper place . . . will be given to us . . . we shall be fully endowed with the power and the capability to fulfil the great and noble duties we owe the world” (“Marie” 1905: 21). 25 Surely, the implications of whether women deserve elevated status by virtue of being human, earn that status through demonstrated merit, or wait to have it bestowed upon them by men are distinctions requiring serious scrutiny, particularly in a woman-centered publication aimed at empowerment. 26 Emphasizing the centrality of these influences to ILM’s platform, Kamala later wrote: “It cannot be denied . . . that the greatest freedom to women has been found in the Christian religion” (“Christianity” 1928: 211). Contrasting with Gandhi’s objection to prostitutes’ public activism, Christ welcomed and respected all women, regardless of circumstance or “sin,” as did Pandita

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Ramabai; with remarkable self-assurance, Kamala declares that Christ “did not have much use for the masculine type of woman, or for that type . . . [claiming equality] with men. He liked the domestic type, from whom comes that gentle and kind and helpful companionship, which has been so admired by great men, like Ruskin and Tennyson. . . . [Women’s] spirit of service percolates to the world through the divine inspiration of motherhood” (214). Such commentary again highlights Kamala’s signature desire to have things both ways, without compromise: whereas Christianity may be more welcoming to women than other religious traditions, it also underpins that same patriarchy that by definition marginalizes them throughout the world. The collective influence of Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore is impressively malleable: as with these prominent voices of Victorian patriarchy, so too with Christ; and as with Christ, so too with Bharat Mata. “Dream of Indian Women by a Daughter of India” dramatizes how women’s demand for equal rights sparks a battle of the sexes that prompts Mother India to manifest herself, weeping in distress at the “discordance” created by her daughters’ demands for gender parity. Once both sides agree to compromise, Mother India smiles, radiant as the sun, while quoting none other than John Ruskin on separate spheres gender ideology, wherein man’s work relates to the state and woman’s to the home (“Dream” 1930: 231). Invoking Christian principles in support of conservative gender ideology is curious enough; elevating a Ruskin-quoting Bharat Mata to that level is, as Alice in Wonderland might say, curiouser and curiouser. Along with contextualizing Indian themes and issues in the frameworks of English social mores and literary devices, ILM also featured literary criticism of Indian texts. Throughout the pre-independence era, Vasudha Dalmia notes, “The notion of a national literature had acquired a political and cultural significance which was intimately linked to the importance attached by the British themselves to their own literature . . . [this] had come to be viewed as embodying the cultural history of the nation . . . [its] ‘autobiography’” (271). India’s literary autobiography—a far more ancient tradition only recently translated into English—finds expression in such ILM features as literary criticism, reviews, and character analyses of ancient figures illustrating their relevance to modern India. This aspect of nationalist practice “aimed at discovering and occupying Bharat as a cultural landscape,” thereby shaping “the narrative of the emergent nation” while highlighting its venerable past (333). Literary analyses of women characters measured tradition against contemporary discourse on the real and ideal, ancient and modern, fictional and mythical, and literary and sacred womanhood. 27 Portrayals of women in ancient literature ranged from India and Persia to Greece and Rome, including sacred texts—Bible, Vedas, Koran—and literary classics, East and West.

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“Indian and Homeric Epics” compares the Ramayana and Mahabarata with the Iliad and Odyssey, each tradition comprising a thorough national encyclopaedia. . . . Epic poetry . . . [is] “the literary bread and water,” without which a nation cannot long subsist. . . . [It embodies] the complete and faithful expression of a whole ancient period . . . a system which represents poetically those ideas of a people, which the philosophical systems expound theoretically. (1906: 92)

But the writer’s critical agenda is less comparative than hierarchical, notably claiming the superiority of East over West. Whereas the Indian classics are attributed to Rishis, supernatural holy poets from an ancient mystical time, the Greek classics are by “ordinary” (albeit mythical) humans and thus inferior; while Indian poetry was “born amid the sublime majesty and silence of the ‘eternally radiant Himalayas’ in the near vicinity of the ‘blue holy Ganges’” (92), the Greek tradition is geographically limited to the mundane and secular Mediterranean Sea. Further, the Greek oral tradition makes it difficult to separate “the genuine from the spurious” and is thus of dubious worth: a curious claim because traditions both East and West survived many centuries of oral transmission before being recorded; why one should be more “spurious” than the other is unclear. Whereas the Homeric is “characterized by a classic directness and simplicity . . . majestic grandeur,” the Indian epics “excite the wonder and imagination, by their exaggerated narrative” (93) and are superior in that they convey moral values, as opposed to wars (both Iliad and Mahabarata are war epics) and fantastical exploits (as in Ramayana and Odyssey). Indian heroines like Damayanti, Savitri, and Sita evidence “the purity and happiness of domestic life in ancient India . . . a capacity in Hindu women for the discharge of the most sacred and most important duties in life” (“Indian and Homeric” 1906: 93), rendering them superior to Helen or Penelope. And yet, like Sita, Helen was forcibly abducted—a political pawn exchanged between men, while Penelope fended off manipulative suitors through two decades of chaste weaving. Rather than literary hierarchies, a more fruitful analysis might look for points of similarity, as in these lines from the Mahabarata: A wife is half the man, his truest friend, A loving wife is a perpetual spring Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss; A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion In solitude; a father in advice; A mother in all seasons of distress; A rest in passing through life’s wilderness.

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Surely, this critic must have been reading Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore— certainly not Homer—while writing this assessment of India’s classic Mahabarata. Although written in 1934–1935, Kamala’s character analyses of Sita and Draupadi directly employ the Victorian Angel and New Woman frameworks. The answer to “What Would Sita Have Done in the Modern World?” is admirably definitive: she would have hated the present-day demand for equal divorce rights with men . . . she would have recognized the limitations of women, their physical weaknesses, their differences of mental and spiritual attributes from men. She would have . . . asked women to attend to their special duties of home and children first. (“Sita” 1934: 183)

Sita was no “speechifier” like certain modern women activists; she “loved to work like an ordinary drudge” and eschewed luxury, qualities of which Kasturba Gandhi and Vijaya Pandit would approve (184). 28 If Sita personifies the Angel-in-the-House, Draupadi is the New Woman, chaste despite enforced polygamy (involved in an arranged marriage to five brothers) and untrammeled by women’s signature inferiority complex; outspoken and opinionated, she “would have loved standing on the lecture-platform,” putting her courage, persistence, and determination in the service of nationalism (“Draupadi” 1935: 262). As with her commentary on Christ’s preference for the domesticated womanly woman, Kamala’s certainty about the analogy between Victorian ideology and India’s mythical heroines evidences the consistency of her views. 29 Along with editorial focus on “the Indian ideals of womanhood, as represented in the ancient literature of India,” Shakespeare was a prominent interest, including thematic studies, character archetypes, and representations of women. 30 Other British literature studies include Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning; Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Blake and Rossetti; Jane Austen and George Eliot; American authors Longfellow, Whitman, Hawthorne, Poe, and Emerson; and, backed by the literary authority of Edmund Gosse, the quintessential Indian “poetesses” Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, both praised for their English literary skills and revered for applying them to Indian cultural contexts. 31 The career of the short-lived Toru Dutt casts her in a Keatsian light—like the British Romantic, her precocious poetic brilliance is tragically eclipsed by the scourge of the era, consumption. As “India’s greatest songstress,” this “fragile exotic blossom” lacked only the “mellow sweetness” of maturity: “Every patriotic Indian should be proud of Toru Dutt and the fact that it was reserved for a woman to achieve success as an English poet shews the possibilities there are yet left undeveloped in India’s daughters” (“Toru Dutt”

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1903: 49). 32 Interestingly, Dutt’s Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan “must be considered her chief legacy to posterity”; it is her rendering of Indian lore into English that is seen as her great contribution to literary history. 33 This “Indian poetess” is an inspiration: Nothing is so decisive [a] test of the degree of civilization and ethical culture to which a nation has attained than the position assigned to women and the education given to them. . . . The position of women here is not what it ought to be . . . [given] their limited sphere of action, and the cramped and narrow conditions of life under which they have been living for generations. . . . The promise of intellectual brilliancy she gave was great . . . we have just cause to be proud of her as a distinguished daughter of India. (1902: 265)

Such praise provokes a seemingly inevitable caveat: although Toru was “passionately fond of books” and severely incapacitated by illness, she was nonetheless “adept at house-keeping, and did every kind of domestic work, which girls should do.” In terms of editorial opportunities, the promotion of female domesticity is one Kamala Satthianadhan rarely overlooks. By the time Sarojini Naidu emerged as the “poetess of modern India,” the compulsion to minimize her accomplishments by allusions to housekeeping was out of fashion and, in her case, irrelevant. Like Toru Dutt, she employed English-language and poetic forms to produce a “purely Indian . . . expression of tropical and primitive emotions” (Parikh 1933: 9). Because East and West “are skillfully interwoven” in her persona, she represents “real Eastern womanhood” and embodies “the very highest culture that one can think of, having been the product of both Oriental and Occidental civilizations” (11). 34 But it is important to note that Naidu’s reign as poetess was as short-lived as Toru Dutt’s because she very early shifted her energies away from literature and toward politics—and most emphatically not toward housekeeping. Some entries posing as literary criticism substitute critique with sentimentality, like “Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poet and Artist.” Although the author holds an MA degree, her purpose is not literary criticism but simply to “remark upon” passages that “appeal to me,” whose “charm can no more be explained than the difference between the pitch of two notes in music can be explained to a deaf man” (Krishnamah 1905: 242). Thus Rossetti’s poetry “reminds me of the old Grecian charm of a rare beauty . . . memories of sorrow . . . a note of lingering sadness, a cadence of melancholy music, which clings to one like the faint sweet scent of violets” (241)—commentary that defies theoretical grounding or objective meaning and implies mimicry (in Bhabha’s sense of the term). Similarly, P. R. Krishnaswami waxes poetic about Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility: while it is true that “there is a delicate touch of pathos in the pages devoted to Marianne’s illness,” at least “Miss Jane never deviates into those extraordinary pictures of horror and grief which many novelists take pleasure in dwelling on” (“Jane Austen”

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1910: 170). Fortunately, “the vulgar and often unintelligible poor class of England did not attract . . . [her] fancy,” nor does she “break into those grotesque effusions with which some of the greatest novelists weary the reader . . . her narration is uniformly elegant.” Interestingly, today it is what Austen did not say—between the lines, between the words, post–happily ever after, the “vulgar” and “unintelligible”—that inspires the greatest critical attention. ILM’s signature welcoming of contemporary women’s writing was not without standards, however, as evidenced by a review of The Position of Women in Indian Life by the Maharani of Baroda (1911). Despite the royal author’s seeming progressiveness, her book does not address what the title promises, its primary message (according to the critic) being that Eastern women should adapt Western perspectives in order “to achieve a higher position in public than they at present hold” (“Position” 1911: 135). Royalty of another sort—Irishwoman Margaret Noble or Sister Nivedita, a Hindu convert, devotee of Swami Vivekananda and part of his inner circle—earned negative criticism for romanticizing the plight of girl widows. Nivedita’s The Web of Indian Life (1904) is “a well-meaning but ill-advised book,” whose “romantic veneration” of girl widows “is likely to do much harm to the unthinking, balanceless, half-educated people . . . who are guided not so much by reason as by sentiment” and superstition: [this] book will afford fresh materials for misleading. . . . Sister Nivedita see[s] romantic beauty or poetry in the life of a child widow, or a child wife; but they alone who are victims of these pernicious, inhuman practices . . . know what they really are. The lot of the child-widow is the ineffaceable blot upon the social structure of Hinduism. (“Well-Meaning” 1904: 126) 35

Widowhood’s “nobility of character” is in reality “a world of undeniable and pitiful misery. . . . If India is to be reborn, will new India be related to the old in this fashion?” (127). 36 While Nivedita sympathized “with all that was best in Hinduism, and wished to introduce methods of education for girls in India . . . without [their] being denationalized,” she denies autonomy to the widow, who should be living not for herself or her daughters, but for her sons. Similarly, the influential and publicly vocal Annie Besant “is mainly responsible for much of the mischievous results of the reactionary movement. She upheld the most grotesque practices, she idealized some of the least useful customs of Hindu society. . . . Mrs. Besant has been a backengine to the Hindu race, and the deadening effects of her influence have been felt not only in social reform, but along all lines of national activity” (“Annie Besant” 1901: 87). Given that educated, conservative Indians “set much store by her views,” her advocacy of female education designed solely

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to “draw out their special capacity of emotion, their capacity for feeling” fuels the “dogged conservatism, fossilized orthodoxy which will not move men who will only stand fixed in their conceit . . . [this is] dangerous to India’s future” (“Mrs. Besant” 1902: 196–98). As with Nivedita, Besant’s endorsement of Hindu tradition promotes “culturally defining” practices at the expense of those victimized by them, in the process harming the voiceless and unrepresented. 37 Given reformists’ efforts to prohibit child marriage, raise the age of consent, and promote widow remarriage, Western romanticization of traditional practices implies tragic repercussions. 38 In ILM, India’s female royalty and well-connected Hindu fundamentalist converts and sympathizers were given a fair hearing, but they were also scrutinized with a vigor comparable to the emotionally and sociopolitically charged implications of their high-profile, sometimes regressive, pronouncements. Critiques of Anglo-Indian fiction challenge the supposition that Anglos “know” the “real” India any better than Indians “know” the “real” West. A review of The Sanyasi begins with this observation: “All novels written by foreigners about India and its people are interesting, because they more or less express the consensus of opinion among them concerning the character of the Indian nation” (“Mrs. Penny” 1904: 25). The novelist Mrs. Penny wavers between thinking Indians “very bad” and promoting tolerance while making “excuses for our weaknesses,” but “there is criticism and criticism; and criticism can in its turn be criticized again.” For instance, English faults are dismissed as random behavioral quirks, whereas Indian faults are racial and ineradicable; thus a dishonest Hindu servant translates into all Hindus being uniformly dishonest and immoral. Driven by emotional excess, they lack self-discipline, which is why they must be “despotically ruled” for their own good (26). The operative hyperbolism here—“All novels”—cleverly dramatizes the essentializing pattern in which the white West always already manifests morally evolved characters, while brown India is reduced to racial stereotypes. To employ Mrs. Penny’s analogy, humans—like white diamonds and black coal—are of the same chemical compound but yield colorcoded products of greater or lesser sociocultural worth. Kamala Satthianadhan expressed concern about the damaging effects of idealization, whether of ancient or contemporary womanhood, indicating her awareness of literature’s capacity to promote harmful messages at women’s expense. Of the “splendid epic poem” Ramayana, she writes, “Its beautiful poetry uplifts our hearts; and its great and good men and women fill us with worthy ideals” (Ramayana 1911: 127), points central to concepts of a nation’s literature, its “autobiography.” But as Lady Benson warned, this literature must be read critically: “‘the danger . . . lies in forgetting that these are poetical descriptions, not historical facts; that much that is described in them is the lofty creation of a poetical mind, or minds . . . not . . . actual facts. They give rise to poetic license and creative imagination and mental exaggera-

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tion.” Her concern is with the ignorant and illiterate, whose lack of context precludes their understanding such texts as fiction rather than fact, giving rise to superstition and discontent with the state of the modern world. Benson cites two Indian commentators to bolster her points: Sir Madhava Row— “Whatever is not true is not Patriotic”—and Sir Subramani Iyer—“How can Indian women benefit by the high ideals of Indian womanhood presented in India’s epic poems, if they have no education, no intellectual work to do, nothing to learn, and are simple mothers?” Satthianadhan disagrees, arguing against the use of “noble Rama . . . beautiful Sita . . . faithful Lakshmana . . . devoted Bharata” as mere allegories when “all can be taken as ideals of life” (128), as substantive and not simply poetic imagination. But the caution is equally applicable to Victorian Angels, an imaginary ideal as damaging back in England as in its transplanted iteration in India. That ILM’s dedication to empowering women often relies on “poetical” imagination attests to the broader ambiguity regarding women’s status at the time. The “life literary” was a defining characteristic of ILM that provided an important resource for women’s intellectual and critical development. Pandita Ramabai insisted that “there was no golden age for Hindu women”—the myth was invented by “19th-century nationalists selectively constructing great ancient traditions . . . as a source for nationalist claims” (Kafka, Outside 8). 39 That modern myth-making incorporated the Victorian Angel, a concept easily adaptable to the “Ideal of Indian Womanhood” as constructed by various “Son(s) of the Soil.” “Women’s Part in Our National Progress” challenges such veneration of ancient womanhood: to articulate a more realistic, practical version of modern Indian women, “let us take into account only the average woman” (1913: 34). 40 Contemporary perceptions of woman are “degrading in the extreme. A woman is a slave. . . . So long as we do not strenuously take steps to uplift them and provide them with a better social outlook,” national progress is exponentially delayed. ILM’s critical values incorporated East and West, ancient and modern, Angel-in-the-House and New Woman, resulting in an ambivalent gender ideology uncertainly poised between the known drawbacks of Victorianism and the unknown risks of modernism—in Matthew Arnold’s words, “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, / The other powerless to be born” (“Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse” ll. 85–86). During ILM’s first run, the editor, contributors, and readers seemed to prefer it that way; its second run more clearly evidenced the irreconcilable fissures dividing real from ideal and ancient from modern when confronted with the stark realities demanded by independence. NOTES 1. Tennyson, The Princess ll. 3081–82.

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2. “Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die” (Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” 1854). 3. Indian marriage is “considered sacred” and therefore beyond “the attacks of blasphemous reason” (Rajagopalaswamy 1929: 347). There are three reasons to marry: love (anathema to arranged marriages), procreation (corrupted by the racial degeneracy and maternal-infant mortality resulting from child bride motherhood), and companionship (essentially impossible given gender separatism and inequitable education) (348). See P. Satthianadhan, “Indian Woman.” 4. See “Some Opinions of Woman.” Viswanathan (7) comments on the use of English literature as a secular means for conveying moral discipline: “By what reasoning did literary texts come to signify religious faith, empirically verifiable truth, and social duty? Why introduce English in the first place only to work at strategies to balance its secular tendencies with moral and religious ones?” (10). 5. See Hossain, “Sultana’s Dream”; “Women’s Part in Our National Progress”; Mudeliar’s “Women and Social Service”; and “Freedom for Indian Women.” 6. “There was a time when it was considered that the pursuit of literature would ‘unsex’ a woman. . . . Only a few exceptional women were occupied . . . in literary work. . . . Harriet Martineau was the first of her sex to enter upon the routine every-day work of literature” (“Women’s Work” 1905: 255). See Banerjee (Parlour 111); Subramaniam; and “Personal Recollections” (Brahmo Public Opinion 1879: 278–79). 7. East and West, many agreed with Tangaswami that “Woman would become the most hateful, heartless and disgusting of human beings, were she allowed to unsex herself . . . where would be the protection”—whether she needed or wanted it or not—“which man was intended to give the weaker sex?” (“Victoria” 1929: 633). 8. In the words of the unstable narrator of “Locksley Hall,” “Is it well to wish thee happy? – having known me—to decline / On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!” (ll. 43–44). 9. See also “Ideals of Indian Women”; Marar, “Tennyson’s ‘Maud’”; “A Dream of Fair Women”; and “Enid . . . Tennyson’s Idylls.” 10. “Padmini” is a pseudonym unrelated to Padmini Satthianadhan (b. 1905), whose writing was featured after 1927, when she became ILM’s assistant editor. 11. Of Lord and Lady Macbeth, “the woman’s is the more unforgivable crime . . . she thinks only of him,” but this does not “condone the lusts and evils of ambition” (“Wasted” 1937: 242); she thus unwomans herself (244). 12. The article praises Karve’s endeavors while regretting his use of the “pretentious” word “university,” so off putting to critics of female education. While insisting on women teachers, it specifies that teaching should be a vocation to the exclusion of all else; those who are married or anticipate marriage or are widowed are not suitable, as they cannot maintain the continuity necessary to make it work (McDougall 1917: 79). 13. “The law . . . treated Indian women as the chattels of men. A man could institute a suit for the possession of a wife. Restitution of conjugal rights was not refused for cruel treatment of [by] husbands. She had either to live with her husband or in one of His Majesty’s prisons” (“Women’s Problem” 1929: 445). See “Karumbie,” whose determination to marry for love or “remain free and unfettered” leads to her ruin (1910: 292). See also the case of the eleven-yearold Bengali bride Phulomnee, who died in 1889 as a result of her thirty-five-year-old husband’s brutal assertion of his “conjugal rights.” 14. Behramji Malabari’s editorials about the Rukhmabai case influenced the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885) and the Age of Consent Act (1891). See Malabari, Infant Marriage; Gidumal, Behramji M. Malabari; and Burton (Heart, ch. 4) on his “colonial encounter” in London. Florence Nightingale wrote: “The women of India can only be reached by educated ladies of their own country. . . . It is to them . . . that we must appeal to convince their countrywomen . . . of the evils of the present marriage system, and to suggest the remedy” (Introduction vii–viii). 15. Rukhmabai wrote that if the government “shirks its responsibility . . . there can be none left to protect the women of India from the tyranny of these abominable customs” (“Infant” 10). The editor responded: “The incontrovertible fact that 22,000,000 [widowed] girls and women

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are condemned to lifelong and unnatural misery calls for legislation. . . . But the social reformer of India must, as we before insisted, be Hindu not English” (Times of India 16–17). Rukhmabai is praised for the “lofty tone of her invective . . . virility of her arguments . . . indignant scorn. . . . Her letter is about as good a piece of vigorous English as has ever come from a native pen, and that the writer is a woman speaks volumes for the future of Hindu women” (16). 16. Britain refused to intervene in the Rukhmabai case, prompting Ramabai’s observation that it can and does intervene when it is profitable and/or convenient to do so: “Should England serve God by protecting a helpless woman against . . . ancient institutions, Mammon would surely be displeased, and British profit and rule in India might be endangered. . . . Let us wish it success . . . [albeit] at the sacrifice of the rights and the comfort of over one hundred million women” (High-Caste 35). Millicent Fawcett, referring to girl-brides who died or were crippled by sexual consummation, notes that British “advocates of doing nothing” are less interested in the fates of little girls than in “the restitution of conjugal rights” to the husband (“Infant” 719). When an Englishman criticized Rukhmabai for rejecting her husband “without having tried to live with him,” Fawcett retorted that one may “try” oleomargarine or “tenpenny claret,” but “neither in the East nor in the West can you ‘try’ a husband” (720). 17. See Punkajam, “Married Women.” 18. “Her name can never be mentioned in conversation with her husband or her son; it would be an insult to ask them directly after her health” (MacDonald 1910: 61). On “companionate marriage,” see Sabha (“Our Wives” 1905). 19. A contributor posited that Indian women should be educated about India instead; Kamala countered that both perspectives are necessary (“Letter . . . Reply” 1903: 157–58). Rao wrote: “We shall be foolish . . . unpatriotic, if we do not import from abroad what is lacking in our country . . . Western science with all its implications. But we should not . . . throw away our own precious heritage” (“Indian” 1929: 521–22). See also Macrae (“Ladies’ . . . Benefits” 1902). 20. See the subversive “Eve: Character Sketch by an Indian Lady” (1905) in which Adam is dim-witted and lethargic, while Eve is intelligent and energetic; it is she who names the natural world. The punishment for her intellectual curiosity was not ejection from Eden or “travail” in childbirth but the subjection of women to men. Adam’s lazy dullness elicits no comparable punishment. 21. Humans live communally but “we are each of us alone, each a unit; the great human combat must be fought alone and each human soul must be single”; we are responsible for our own lives but must not “add to the cumulative human misery by our self centeredness and preoccupation” (“Individual Responsibility” 1906: 85). 22. Corelli’s commentary on “Sovran Womanhood” paraphrases Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore: “surely there should be no strife between two halves of a perfect whole. . . . One is not greater or less than the other; each has the qualities necessary to make both happy . . . [not] rivals or combatants . . . [but] friends and helpers . . . we should be careful not to repel ‘Sovran man’ by our so-called advancement . . . for every man is our naturally born admirer and worshipper, and it rests entirely with ourselves to keep him so” (Corelli, The Ladies Realm). 23. Corelli’s idea of imaginary love reflects the longing to recreate our originating connection with the divine through human relations; such idealism falters “on the plane of sensual passion, which exhausts itself rapidly” (“Marie Corelli” 1905: 99). Like the chivalric code, idealized (imaginary) love enables us “to believe persistently in good” rather than “drowning in the black waste of suicidal despair,” but once consummated, the ideal is destroyed when the “dull reality” of familiarity sets in. See also “Some Lessons from Marie Corelli.” 24. Tryambakayajvan, author of the eighteenth-century Streedharmapaddhati (The Perfect Wife), “argued that women’s minds were fickle, that their menstrual cycles kept them perpetually impure, but these flaws could be remedied if the wife worshipped her husband and performed menial chores with religious merit . . . labor on household tasks, collect cow dung with her hands, and smear it on the walls, sort grain till nightfall” (Raman, Women 53–54)—the very tasks that enabled man’s physical comfort. 25. Kamala barely defends Corelli against a Westminster Review article condemning her as an author of little “repute” with “only moderate claims to attention,” a “social menace” whose books should be universally banned to “protect public morality” (“Marie Corelli” 1906: 296).

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Corelli’s literary sins include her defiant abuse of punctuation, emphases, exclamation, hyperbole; her lack of substance; and a sensationalism that appeals only to “the unthinking classes . . . [who] are not logical . . . or discriminating.” An “imperfectly-developed individual” who has “meditated little and thought less,” her writing is “conventional and stage-struck.” While Kamala agrees that some of her books are unsuitable for young readers, others “aspire to high purity and idealism,” but she offers no titles (297). She does reject as “too drastic” the charge that Corelli “‘has lost her womanliness’”—the Westminster reviewer perhaps having raised the issue of her reputed lesbianism. See also Tangaswami (“Ideal Women” 1928). 26. Corelli never married; she detested effeminate men, masculine women, and New Women, and was reputedly a lesbian: “Her sensational writings . . . are taken as typical of everything Western. But she is not quite a fair representative of the best of English lady novelists” (“Marie Corelli” 1903: 92). See “Miss Marie . . . Sovran Woman.” 27. ILM featured articles on the Vedic maiden and wife, and heroines of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity: Sakuntala, Nur Jehan, Uma, Dhurgontee, Damayanti, Sita, Laksmi, Martha and Mary, St. Cecelia, and Ruth. See also “Women of Ancient India,” Aiyar’s “Indian Epics,” “Women in Dravidian Literature,” “Biblical Duties . . . Wife,” and Quraishi’s “Women in Islamic History.” 28. Kasturba Gandhi urged women to channel their activism into staying home and spinning cotton. Vijaya Pandit (1900–1990), herself busy on the lecture circuit, urged women to accept their physical inferiority and stay at home. 29. Sengupta similarly synthesizes Victorian, Christian, and ancient Indian values: “The calm quiet atmosphere of an Indian home with its serene women is a haven of refuge from the outside world” (Portrait 21). 30. See “Our Special” (1906: 127), which offers Shakespearean advice for Hindu wives. Character studies include Ophelia, Juliet, Cordelia, “Katharine the Shrew,” Desdemona, Portia, Octavia, Celia, Olivia, Hero, and Virgilia. See also “Shakespeare’s Ideal,” “Heroines of Spenser,” and “Milton’s Comus.” 31. Edmund Gosse, a minor literary figure, was more a “gentleman of letters” or litterateur than author; his promotion of these two poets (also Ibsen and Gide) contributed to their early and enduring fame. Another minor figure, Arthur Symons, infantilizes Sarojini Naidu in her “clinging dresses of Eastern silk . . . this child of seventeen to whom one could tell one’s troubles and agitations as to a wise old woman, for in the East maturity comes early, the child has already lived through all a woman’s life” (qtd. Morton, Women 97). Such “maturity” resulting from early puberty was variously attributed to hot climate, religion, custom and tradition (child-marriage and motherhood), superstition, astrological omens, spicy food, or to all those factors together. 32. Mulk Raj Anand credits Dutt with moving beyond the derivative imitativeness associated with early Indian writing in English, calling her “the first poet in India to realize her Indian consciousness, as she was the first to perceive the possibilities of applying European technique for the expression of her native genius,” a process refined by Naidu’s “mingling of all those streams of thought” (29), and epitomized by Tagore, the first non-European winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). 33. See also Lal Behari Day, Bengal Folktales; Cornelia Sorabji, Indian Tales of the Great Ones; Kamala Satthianadhan, Indian Tales of Animals; and Maharani of Cooch Behar, Bengal Dacoits and Tigers. 34. An alternative perspective considers Naidu’s “emergence in colonial, imperial, and bourgeois nationalist contexts” in terms of the “ambivalent seductions of a figure excessively and unsatisfactorily English and simultaneously never properly” representative of Indian womanhood (Roy, Indian 128). 35. See Jain, “Sister Nivedita.” 36. While sati represented a battlefield for “colonial and countercolonial discourses,” widows themselves remained marginal, talked “about” rather than participants in the debates that concerned them (Mani, Contentious 1). 37. Besant’s opinions privileged Hinduism (over other indigenous religions) and “women’s self-sacrificing nature” rather than their emancipation (Kumar, History 55–57). She rejected Christianity for atheism, separated from her husband, advocated birth control, and lived openly

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with her lover, prompting the question: How was it that she was an accepted, even revered, voice in conservative Indian society? Asserting that Western education was unsuitable for Indian girls, she “idealized the Indian woman as a chaste mother and selfless Sita” whose purpose is to “raise the future male leaders of India” (Raman, Women 117), while she herself did as she pleased. See “Besant” (1901). 38. See “Female Education and Age of Marriage” on the Hindu Marriage Reform League; also Kosambi’s “Girl-Brides,” the Rukhmabai case, and instances of child-brides who died as a result of sexual consummation. 39. On the mediocre social and education reforms permitted to Hindu women: “in order to counter the critique of Indian civilization by the colonial rulers, the educated Hindu middle class on the one hand introduced some reforms . . . and on the other hand, designed a ‘glorious’ Indian past, and prescribed role-models for contemporary women” (Ray, Women xxxiv). The same dynamic applies to middle-class Muslims, who “also turned to a ‘glorious’ past age, the pristine days of early Islam. . . . The projected model woman, chaste, rational and pious, was extolled as a ‘heavenly gem’” (xxxv). See also Murshid (Reluctant 176) and Chatterjee (Nation 131). 40. See Joshi (Another ch. 5); also Bandyopadhyay (Plassey 381).

Chapter Three

ILM and the Life Literary

Not in the railways or the canals or the postal system or cricket or Christianity but rather in English and Indian literatures is to be found the deepest impress of the British Raj, the most permanent and authentic record of its process and proceedings. —Harish Trivedi

From the first page of each number, ILM asserted itself as a literary magazine by foregrounding poetry printed beneath an elaborately engraved masthead; many full-page poetry features, similarly framed in engraved designs, are offered in each number, as are short stories and “fancies” or “reveries,” serialized novels and dramas, character sketches and analyses, literary criticism, and reviews of new work by or related to women. ILM represented a welcoming resource to facilitate the intellectual awakening of Indian women; here women could safely break their silence, practice newly acquired linguistic, analytical, and literary skills, and articulate concerns about Indian Woman Question debates—debates from which women were themselves typically excluded—to a sympathetic audience. As portrayed through ILM’s literary aspects, its promotion of self-reliance, self-development, and a cooperative spirit eclipsing racial, religious, caste, class, economic, social, and political differences evidences a synthesis of secular humanism with Indian nationalism long before the latter term acquired its more exclusionary “Quit India” currency. Of cultural responses to the “colonial encounter,” Vasudha Dalmia notes: One vital forum for thrashing out these questions was the literary periodical, itself a new genre, which . . . offered space for a variety of experimental modes. The mutual actions and reactions of the colonial and the indigenous worlds found their most creative expression in the adoption of newer literary 61

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The idea of hybridization—“adaptation and assimilation”—contests claims that Indian writing in English is unoriginal or derivative: “To view the phenomenon as a mere imitation of formal conventions would reduce its meaning, for the new forms signalled new areas of literary occupation,” most significantly the harnessing of modern literature to Indian nationalism.

Kamala Satthianadhan, herself a published author, 1 crafted ILM into a welcoming resource for women writers. While her literary and editorial standards were exacting, she was more interested in providing a nonthreatening venue for women’s self-expression than in attracting established or wellconnected authors; the results, in terms of literary quality, were mixed, sentimentalism being a seemingly mandatory developmental stage when finding one’s authorial voice. But her vision to produce a magazine by women, for women, one based on a spirit of mutual respect, encouragement, and regard, casts ILM as an eloquent vehicle for such timely values as self-reliance, selfdevelopment, and communal cooperation. Marie Corelli’s definition of “the life literary” as the “right of free opinion and . . . ability to express that opinion” (“Marie” 1905: 19) reflects Satthianadhan’s editorial principles, fostering an environment that helped prepare Indian women intellectually for the comparatively physical and spiritual demands of satyagraha. Corelli’s quaint phrase for the life of the mind had special resonance for ILM’s readers, who were English educated in varying degrees and welcomed opportunities to practice their linguistic skills. Its agenda being to provide instruction, intellectual engagement, and analyses of gender and social roles, ILM’s genres include

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short stories, delineating different phases of Indian life . . . articles descriptive of the customs and manners of Indian women, and interpretative [sic] of their inner life. . . . It is hoped that The Indian Ladies’ Magazine will afford a medium for the expression of the best thoughts and aspirations of these ladies, and that it will also be the means of developing the literary talent among them, of the existence of which recent years have given remarkable indications. (“Introduction” 1901: 2)

Subsequently, Satthianadhan emphasized a more pivotal role than merely fostering creative expression—that of developing a correspondence between modern rights and opportunities and their attendant responsibilities by facilitating inner growth that finds expression through public utterance and social activism. ILM welcomed contemporary women’s writing, both creative and nonfiction journalism; its positive, upbeat tone aimed more at encouraging and facilitating women’s self-expression than critiquing its literary professionalism: “We are anxious to encourage Indian ladies, who are beginners in writing, to send contributions to our columns. . . . We trust several of our sisters in different parts of India will avail themselves of this means of expressing their thoughts and ideas in English” (“Our Special” 1902: 123). 2 Here was a venue where women could write and publish anonymously (as many wished to do) and where they were encouraged to participate in discourses that concerned them directly. Original creative writing by women was a central organizing feature; consistent with her aim to “encourage young and inexperienced writers to express their views,” Kamala praised ILM’s “vigorous writers . . . [just] what we want in this age of modernism” (“Ourselves” 1930: 274). Self-articulation is essential to nation making, especially where an alien language and culture are concerned. “Anglo-Indian Novelists and the Inner Life of Hindus” reveals literary missteps by English authors who purport to know the “real” India; because “the Hindu lives, moves and has his very being in an atmosphere of ceremonious religion,” they are prompted to such literary renderings as a Brahmin who “silently throws away his food when the shadow of a European has fallen upon it,” while another “drives away the scent of the polluting presence by rubbing himself with cow-dung” (“Anglo” 1903: 369). 3 Anglo authors fail to see the poetry in “ceremonies of the humbler folk” or the “picturesque material” of Hindu plays, festivals, and fairs (370); today, alternatively, some would term praising “humbler folk” and the “picturesque” as blatant Orientalism. To a critique citing the absence of a “higher life of Hinduism,” the editor’s spirited rejoinder urges reading Kamala: A Story of Hindu Life (1894), “written by India’s only lady novelist,” Samuel Satthianadhan’s first wife, Krupabai: 4 “We have now an increasing number of educated Indian men and women who are able to do justice to the inner life of Hindus in the form of fiction.” Not only will Indian

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authors “excel Anglo-Indians even in English fiction-writing,” but Indian women writers will “excel” Indian men: “for already we have signs of first class literature being produced by Indian ladies.” The proliferation of internationally acclaimed, award-winning Indian women’s writing throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries eloquently attests to that insightful prediction. POETRY Poetry enjoys a prominent place in ILM, from original new work to reprints of poems by such established authors as Tennyson, Barrett, Browning, Naidu, and Toru Dutt. Evidencing Satthianadhan’s commitment to publishing work relevant to “the customs and manners of Indian women, and interpretative of their inner life,” typical themes include praise of the natural world, spiritual and religious meditations, grief over the vicissitudes of love and life, the hope represented by children, existential angst, and the human condition. Unique to the publication and its audience were poems addressing the plights of child-widows, satis, purdahnashins, “the awakening of Indian women,” and the redemption of Mother India; thus, in ILM, poetry served as a medium for addressing and confronting social and political issues specific to women’s experience during the late colonial era. ILM’s array of purdah poems includes a rousing excerpt by Zebunissa Begum, a fifteen-year-old Muslim girl whose “Appeal to the Men and Women of India” calls for the abolition of purdah: “From behind the purdah oh, women of India, hie, / In your goodness does India’s future lie. / God made for us all this beautiful world, / Arise! let the banners of freedom be unfurled” (1934: 165). In contrast, lines by Assamese poet Jamuneswar Khataniyar highlight the languor facilitated by enforced passivity: In silence my hopes rise and sink, In silence I find my heart’s delight, In silence I walk through eternal night, In silence I bear my defeat and triumph. In silence I die and in silence am born.

Together, these two poems contrast the ebullience of youthful pragmatism with the defeat and futility engendered by stasis, one burning with energy, one sputtering in ennui. The woman-centered poetry of Christina Albers was regularly featured in ILM. “The Childwife” is “sweet and frail . . . so shy . . . so pale. . . . Her ways all too subservient, / Her manners all too grave.” Denied “the rosy dawn” of maidenhood, she is forced by custom to assume burdens that “waste her young strength too soon”:

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Relentlessly the veil is drawn When stale tradition calls. The matron lists its stern command, The Maiden shyly takes her stand, And lo, the purdah falls. (1911: 297)

Also by Albers, “The Purdahnasheen” is “radiant” and “fair.” “Softly she moves” amid opulent surroundings, this “daughter of the East,” spectacularly clad in silks and jewels. But the seductive hyperbole shifts abruptly: “through all this beauty rings a sigh, / There comes a whisper of unwritten woes. . . . The death wail sounds, lo yonder passing bier!” bearing “a frail young form, a child . . . [in] her thirteenth year”: Child, mother, wife—who sleeps that shroud beneath, (Withered too soon her young life’s bridal wreath) Child and child-mother sleeping side by side. Low lies the land where childhood is no more, . . . Which saps the nation’s life-blood to the core. (1912: 89)

Neither custom and tradition nor religious rhetoric can conceal that purdah is a nationalist issue: “Freedom lies crushed where woman fettered stands”; to restore its former greatness, India must “loosen the fetters from those trembling hands. . . . For woman’s hands weave nations; where they fail . . . songs of daring [turn] into dismal wail.” Sarojini Naidu’s “Purdah Nashin” similarly evokes imagery conveying opulence and “languid and voluptuous ease”; but whereas, in the midst of her luxuriating, Albers’s “daughter of the East” is haunted by the specter of premature death, Naidu’s rendering offers an alternative vision. No matter how shielded the purdahnashin is from the “thieving light of eyes impure,” time itself “lifts the curtain unawares. / And sorrow looks into her face”; she may veil her tears as she veiled her entire existence, but time has no regard for this or any other life-denying human pretense (1904: 263). Time leaves its mark on all faces, whether veiled or not; on all bodies, whether concealed or not; and on all lives, whether cloistered or not: Naidu implies that the purdahnashin has no one to blame but herself—for her betrayal of youthful resilience, for her passive acceptance of a lifestyle contrary to healthy instincts, for relinquishing her birthright to unexamined custom. Christina Albers also critiques the status of widows—here a child—who are similarly sacrificed “at the altar of custom”: Mine is the garb of death; the deadly white With ghostly folds around my form is clinging; My feeble hand pollutes the festal rite, And at the sounds from hymeneal altars ringing My young heart quails, I step into the night. (“Widow” 1911: 148)

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Superstitions that widows are polluted, tainted, and in some way contagious—even if still virgins—render their presence inauspicious, rejected, hated; this ten-year-old child-widow embarks alone on her “weary road . . . with the dead”: So long, so long, the barren stretch of years, So bleak the days whence love and hope are banished, So lone the hours bathed in the widow’s tears, So dark the night when the last star has vanished, So cold the heart that struggles with its fears!

Bereft of her dreams of bridal flowers and the promise of a full, happy life, the bride-widow with “mad heart, amid the hot tears flowing, / Implores the angry gods for one last boon,” some form of deliverance; but in silence “I bow my head and sighing take my doom”: Through haunting dread there clings one last desire, And knows my anguished soul but one salvation, To rest my weary head upon the pyre, Pass through the burning flame to liberation, And melt my bleeding heart in the last fire.

This poem reflects a number of themes concerning Indian widows. As a child bride–widow, she should be playing with toys and learning lessons at school, not grappling with life and death issues appropriate to mature adults. As a female, she has no autonomy: from birth, her life is arranged by her parents and destined only for marriage; her own death (real, metaphorical) soon follows, as she has no identity separate from her husband (living or dead). Because no one in her environment questions this, she—with undeveloped intellect, mental and physical immaturity, ingrained passivity and dependence, and no advocate—does not contest it either. Although sati was declared illegal (from 1829), one ambivalent argument in its favor reasons that widows are better off dead than facing decades of abuse and rejection by their in-laws. Just as the narrator accepts reigning social standards, so too does she accept the fabrication that resting her head “on the pyre” will secure her liberation—if not spiritually, at least physically. With tragic irony, choosing death is the only autonomous decision she is permitted in the entirety of her young life, though many are not permitted even that choice; and yet what is presented as a choice is ultimately simply succumbing to the social pressure that allowed her no alternative. A more rebellious response to social expectations is “The Brahmin Widow” by A. P. Smith. As one who is herself guilty of abusing widows, the narrator wishes she had “been kinder” now that she herself is “that wretched thing— / That symbol of misfortune—that nameless being / A Brahmin widow” (1902: 240). Is this God’s decree? Is she karma’s victim? What past deeds deserve such punishment? She rejects the expectation that she “wear /

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The garment, grey, of Resignation”; casting about in desperation, she wishes for a son to restore her status—or perhaps she can escape this fate altogether simply by converting to Christianity, as if fate and dogma (or religious conviction) can be changed like clothing. 5 In the end, she succumbs to sati, believing that this, at least, will save her husband (if not herself) from hell— the tragic irony again being that not even her afterlife is hers to arrange. “Our Indian poetess” Sarojini Naidu also addressed “Suttee,” evoking more controversy than pity. 6 The eponymous sacrificial victim addresses her dead spouse as “Lamp of my life. . . . Tree of my life. . . . Life of my life,” asking pointed questions that of course remain unanswered: Must I live in the dark? Can “the blossom live when the tree is dead”? When two “who are but one” are separated, “Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone?” This widow expresses more than the grief and mourning associated with loss: she asserts she has no soul of her own, only a physical body to be disposed of, her worth measured solely by marital status. Such self-pity does not accord with the values of swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha that promote self-discipline and self-control for the good of the family and community, the state and nation, the redemption of Mother India and world peace. 7 Naidu’s message is inconsistent with nationalist modernizing, 8 in effect participating in the Orientalizing associated with Sister Nivedita and Annie Besant and the polarizing commentary of Katherine Mayo. 9 In a lighter vein, “Lines by a Modern Indian Woman” rejects such ambiguous concepts as dogma and fate by blaming woman’s degraded status on man, “Who orders all our life and death” (1929: 196). Stern and stubborn, man denies woman her rights in order to preserve his accustomed comforts, all in the name of protecting her from her inherent “weakness.” This utopian “Modern Cynic,” like Tennyson’s Princess Ida and Rokeya Hossain’s Sultana (discussed below), envisions alternative gender relations, “How friends we’d be and comrades too” once women have “rights of liberty”: I see life in which does meet Sweet records, promises as sweet, No child-marriages to spoil our good, No legal-bonds to be withstood No need for us to use our wiles, But pleasures gained, and hearts all smiles. (197)

For this author, those willing to employ feminine wiles to acquire what they want by subversion impede the progress of all women, Marie Corelli’s advice notwithstanding. As these poetic examples reveal, both the “uplift” of Indian womanhood and the modernization of gender relations were cast as primary issues in the nationalist project. Social reform was an ever-widening sphere, beginning with individuals and families and incorporating communities and states, ultimately embracing a patriotism in which the iconic Mother India synthesizes

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modern politics and independence with a glorified female principle. “Song to India” by Padmini Satthianadhan exemplifies this idea through a series of vignettes—laborers at dawn, farmworkers at sunset, houses of worship, India’s ancient poetic legacy, ordinary men and women, boys and girls—punctuated by a refrain expressing pride, honor, worship, reverence, and the willingness “to die for thee” (1929: 281–82). Poems “To the Women of India” more specifically situated nationalism with the awakening of Indian womanhood: “Awake, arise, ye women of the land. . . . Bestir yourselves. . . . Inspire your sons and make them warriors brave” (1929: 341). Mothers, daughters, and sisters are called upon to assist men “to allay the poverty and sore distress” throughout India: “Strive to work for light and liberty. . . . For in your hands our India’s future rests.” Kamala Satthianadhan’s variation on this theme is designed to be sung to the Christian hymn “The Church’s One Foundation”: Far-famed in song and story, Ye daughters of her land, Are gems of India’s glory, And warriors in her band. Rise, then, and come to aid her, Help ye your men to lead, Come flocking in to serve her, Support her in her need. (“To the Women” 1932: 259)

Satthianadhan advises, “Be women in your kindness, / Be men in courage strong,” and concludes by invoking “earth’s Almighty God.” Another view of patriotism celebrates the accomplishments of “Indian Women in Days of Yore,” when “maidens of this land, / Chaste, heroic souls . . . / dwelt unshackled and unvei’led, / At perfect liberty! No customs spoiled / Their actions; ’neath no evil laws they toiled” (“Indian Women” 1933: 55). To recuperate the greatness of Sakuntala, “great-souled” Sita, Draupadi, Rukmini, Subhadra, and the “beauteous wife of Arjun,” “Let us throw aside the unbecoming laws / That bind our women down”; now, as then, “maidens had no cause / To dwell in dark seclusion, hampered on all sides / With customs that all common sense derides.” This sentiment foregrounds a regressive brand of nationalism content to remain rooted in past greatness, without the requisite critical scrutiny and modernization needed to ensure that past oppression is not repeated, so that “the wrongs of Indian women may live no more.” 10 Alternatively, while Christina Albers praises “India’s Children”—“The offspring of an ancient, noble race” who “link the future to the glorious past, / And wake the ancient greatness of the nation” (1902: 54)—in “The Daughter of India” she evokes Mother India, who veils her face with clouds and withholds her “grace” from the world:

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Once she reigned free with graces heaven-given, But when the conqueror came, and war and strife, She veiled her face and stepped into oblivion. (“Daughter” 1906: 251)

While men fought wars, this idealized daughter tended the national “hearth fire” by guarding the stories of India’s ancient civilization: “Unflinchingly she held her gentle sway, / Preserving for her sons a land, a nation . . . come, as once you went, Queen of the East, / Clad in your virtues and your tender grace.” Without employing the term “Mother India,” Albers casts her iconic spirit in that compelling framework, true also of Sarasvati Singh’s “Mother Mine” and Lalita Gupta’s “Bharat Mata” (discussed in chapter 8). But such worship of the past must of necessity implicate the “Duty of Indian Women in the Present Crisis”: “During our long sleep our dreams have been of our mighty Past . . . will not our awakening bear the fruit of these great and noble thoughts?” (1909: 276). Bringing that nobility to fruition requires the awakening of “our national consciousness” by educating girls in both “Indian ideals” and “Western progress,” synthesizing the spirit (not the act) of sati with modern swadeshi. A more pragmatic rendering of nationalism’s feminine principle is “Woman’s Burden” by Zoe Bose, with its obvious nod to Kipling: 11 “Take up thy woman’s burden, / . . . Prepare for heaven’s guerdon, / By thy share of its woes and tears” (1905: 375); it is woman’s “lot” to suffer quietly and with patient renunciation so as to comfort others and “soften / The discords in life’s song.” ILM even featured a poem addressed to Katherine Mayo, American author of the notorious Mother India (1927), a book aimed at “proving” India’s incapacity for self-rule and thus undermining American support for its independence. 12 Despite the many beauties of “our dear India,” Miss Mayo can only write “about our sins and faults alone. . . . Of cruelty and sorrow and disease, / . . . that we may weep and groan.” She saw no virtue, only “evil customs” and “gruesome ugly tales.” The poet advises shunning Mayo’s book and pitying her injustice (“Miss Mayo” 1929: 596). Two early poems by “Myra” marking the 1902 coronation of King-Emperor Edward VII and Queen Alexandra anticipate the growing disjunction between Raj and swaraj: first is “God save our King and Queen! / Bless them thro’ shade and sheen, / On Life’s new way!” followed by “Under Indian Skies,” in which Indians beg to be excused from the coronation celebrations because they are too busy working for their next meal (1902: 372). Reflecting on the impending Second World War, Susie P. David’s “Invocation” articulates another sort of patriotism, one dedicated to a spirit of Indianness not unduly influenced by foreign “armaments and empires o’er the sea” (1936: 127). This spirit seeks the freedom of heart and soul to die “for poor and hapless, sad humanity . . . the inner fire / Which shows me truly far Eternity . . . [the] calm of peace beyond all earthly price!” The nationalistpatriotic impulse also finds expression in poetry celebrating Indian scenes:

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“Travancorea,” “Moonlight at Hathab” by Mila, “Kunchinjunga at Sunset” and “The Ganges” by Albers; historical events: “Death of Shah Jehan” (Albers); and mythology: “Damayanti and the Swan” by H. Kavery Bai, “Waters of Lethe” by Bose, “Queen Kaikeyi’s Demand” by S. U. Singh, “The Veena” by Kshama, “Queen Tissarakshita’s Jealousy” by P. Seshadri, and Sarojini Naidu’s “Damayanti to Nala.” More esoterically, speculation about the human condition was another popular topic. Kamala Satthianadhan’s “Compensation” seeks to determine the “sublime birth / Of human thought” so as to understand fate, nature, and science; she concludes that “if the heart’s not true— / We could not pass life’s test,” rendering such comprehension useless—which is probably why humans are not permitted “sublime” insight in the first place (1935: 67). When Susie P. David, in “Monument of Life,” considers “the day when I shall be / No more,” she is surprised to find that “the world does like a splendid vision rise; / Its endless beauty renewed every day” (1935: 259). Soothing melodies, hope and love, “Kind faces, gentle voices and calm eyes” construct a “mighty Monument of life” so poignant that “my heart to itself still more endears.” H. Kaveri Bai’s “The Soul’s Everest” finds the human heart analogous to “Himalaya’s pride,” the hazards and challenges of the physical climb mirroring the “Self, that must / Hold on to that invisible line / Which stretches from a Hand Divine” (1934: 49). More overtly religious is Padmini Satthianadhan’s “Nature’s Message,” in which comparisons between universal vastness and human insignificance raise questions about “God’s plan and spiritual law” (1931: 207). She finds an answer to this doubt in the sights and sounds of nature: “And what is Nature, but the voice of Him . . . the deep profound / Message that resounds from God.” More assertively, Albers’s meditation on faith and doubt states, “There is a Law based on eternal Love, / That has existed since the dawn of time,” linking earth with heaven and human hearts with the divine (“Sacrifice” 1903: 17). While the signs of this covenant are everywhere in the natural world, it is only humans who can choose whether to “struggle for gold and false renown / Or . . . work for a cause real and true”: Because you see not to-day a result, Do not think that your work has no gain; For a noble act will never be lost, Nor a true word e’er spoken in vain.

Many ordinary humans pass away ungratified by palpable evidence of their labor or contributions; as we are inspired by their selfless example, so also will we inspire those yet to come: “let the labours of the single life / Be lent to the uplifting of the race.” Also central to the human condition are unrequited love: “You lov’d me once, but well I know / You do not love me now” (“Ajit”); motherhood, with

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echoes of Wordsworth: “Such a light divine. . . . Pierces through my heart. . . . Then the world doth seem / A celestial dream” (Gupta, “To a Baby” 1907: 408); pain and loss: Naidu’s “To the God of Pain,” Gupta’s “Fonts of Pain,” and “To my Dear Sister” by “A”; and depression: “why do some for ever brood / And think of naught but grief. . . . For life is full of lovely things. . . . With, oh, such glorious happenings” (P. Satthianadhan, “Life’s Recompense” 1932: 303). ILM also featured fancies (or reveries), poetical prose meditations more evocative of a mood or environment than of a palpable message. These dream-like fantasies particularly suited Satthianadhan’s inner world, “a happy though lonely one . . . [with] neither mistrust nor hate in it” (Sengupta, Portrait 59). This “radiant realm” is expressed through the “ideals of love, faith, hope, trust, and charity. She felt that far too little love and kindness were evident in the world.” One of the more striking and haunting fancies is “Nilambuja” by Sarojini Naidu; its purple prose is excessive but provocative and the narrative is deeply sensual, almost hallucinatory. Nilambuja walks alone on the shore, “her movements . . . full of a slumberous rhythm, as if they had caught the very cadence of the waters. A strangely attractive figure, delicate as the stem of a lotus, with an indescribable languor pervading like a dim fragrance, the grace of her flower-like youth” (1902: 168). The melodrama consists not in action but description: her eyes “unfathomably beautiful,” her face a “sensitive oval . . . singularly expressive,” her soul “lyric,” her heavy, coiled hair smelling of incense and passion flowers, her “dusky jewels” (amethysts) and somber purple sari creating “a clinging vapour of dreams hung about her like a veil, investing her with a glamour . . . remote and mystic, and touched with immemorial passion.” She returns to her room amid “a murmur of love mingled with a sense of regret, of incomprehension”; she stands “in her temple of dreams . . . an unknown loneliness,” engulfed in “passion for humanity, for knowledge, for life . . . for the eternal beauty of the universe” (169–70). Such ambiguity of purpose and languorous sensuality—the passage of youth, the disappointed hopes, the unfulfilled dreams—render her the embodiment of sadness and regret rather than the promised joy of fulfilled womanhood. One is hard pressed to articulate what this piece means, beyond an insubstantial, momentary impression, like a musical tone poem or a fast-receding dream fragment (170). FICTION With impressive certainty, S. G. Welinkar asserts that women writers “have a peculiar vein of observation, reflection and suggestion, which you miss entirely in the productions of men whatever their excellences in other respects. The difference in style is also marked and unmistakable” (1909: 122). Over a

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century later, critics continue to debate such points, albeit with far less confidence. But there is a thematic consistency in ILM’s short fiction that conforms to a model based on social traditions, concepts of womanliness, the pitfalls of education and novel reading, 13 and ambivalent portrayals of the apparently seamless alignment between “true” love (free will), arranged marriage (parental intervention), and the inevitability of fate (divine intervention). Whether fiction or nonfiction, the magazine’s pattern of presenting progressive ideas only to undercut them by invoking the cultural authority associated with Indian conservatism frustrates and perplexes modern readers, for whom its fiction is far less honest, immediate, and complex than its poetry. In “Vasantica. A Story” by “Padmini,” an uncle takes in his orphaned niece Vasantica and raises her with his son Hari; playmates during childhood, the two young adults are now “falling” in love. Uncle blames Vasantica for this calamity, implying her behavior must have been indecorous to invite such unsanctioned attentions; he forbids the alliance, determined that Hari will marry “up” or be disinherited. He arranges Vasantica’s marriage to another nephew, “England-returned” Rama Rao, but she refuses under the delusion that she actually has any choice in the matter. 14 Uncle accuses her of reading “too many novels and love stories. . . . [Her] mind is sick” (1917: 72); she longs for romantic adventures like “falling” in love with Hari— surely not something so unromantic as an arranged marriage. 15 Given men’s much-touted agency over “weak” women, the question must be asked: Why, as her guardian and protector, is it not her uncle who is responsible for these breaches of decorum, for the accessibility of novels, for the unchaperoned proximity of the cousins? And where is her aunt during all this? 16 Convinced of Hari’s loyalty (she finds his surreptitious whispers—“you are mine, are you not?”—irresistibly flattering), she is shocked by his reaction to the threat of disinheritance: his face revealed “a weakness and infirmity of purpose . . . his eyes faltered and drooped . . . and he half-turned away.” The best he can manage is “I like you very much, but—but . . .” (74). Stunned by this sudden insight into his character, Vasantica leaves as Hari mutters, “you cannot say that you did not want to marry me. . . . Marriage or no marriage, you will always be mine.” In quick succession, Uncle proves to be manipulative and Hari exploitative, while Vasantica narrowly escapes a potentially ruinous situation—all of which neatly positions her to succumb to the arranged marriage. Hari is sent to England and Vasantica is banished into purdah, where she is wracked with anguish over the implication that it was she who had breached decorum. In a bizarre sequence of events, she is alone in the garden when a robber tries to kidnap her; she faints and wakes having been rescued by, of all people, her rejected suitor, Rama Rao. Naturally, Vasantica is struck by his manly courage, his “quiet strength and absolute integrity”; and

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when he carries her into the house, his physical proximity arouses “unaccustomed thrills” (75–76). She vaguely suspects all this has been an elaborate hoax masquerading as a romantic adventure staged entirely for her benefit, and this proves to be the case, although the duplicity is not revealed until after their marriage. Finding her in the arms of her rescuer, purdah breached (thanks to the paid cooperation of the household staff), Uncle feigns shock and dismay, asserting that the only way she can preserve her honor is to marry Rama immediately: thus is her superstitious romanticism again used against her. “Proving” the inevitability of fate and the superior wisdom of Uncle’s marriage negotiations, the two of course “fall” in love (that they had no choice but to acquiesce is unexamined); but the vengeful Hari returns to threaten their union. Vasantica fears the consequences of Rama learning about her thwarted connection with Hari (82), and Hari cruelly plays on those fears, effectually blackmailing her and well knowing that even a hint of scandal is irreparable to a woman’s reputation; but when she tries to confess, husband Rama expansively asserts that he knew all along and dismissed it as a “child’s love.” Otherwise well written, the story’s conclusion is most odd: despite every indication that the couple will “live happily ever after” now that Vasantica has presumably learned her lessons (obey her uncle, avoid Hari, accept Rama), Rama casually announces his intention to join the army, prompting her to agree “bravely, but with a sinking heart.” Is this a test of her submissiveness or a punishment for past sins? A likeable, spirited character now thoroughly subdued by the men in her life, Vasantica—with her partial, selective education and lack of guidance—is as naïve and vulnerable after marriage as she was before; whether an orphan under her uncle’s protection or safely married off, she is still prey to vague fears, worried about being held to a mysterious code of conduct she does not fully understand, and beset by romanticized notions of love and adventure. And yet her instinct regarding Hari was shrewd and immediate; cruelly crushed, she adapted the path of integrity presented as instinctual in a “good” woman, however poorly educated. Unfortunately, this story replicates other missed opportunities in ILM to establish a more enlightened perspective on Indian womanhood: Vasantica is manipulated overtly by the men in her life and covertly by the author’s failure to address why she had access to the dreaded, corrupting novels in the first place but not to the critical skills necessary to interpret them. Also unaddressed is why Vasantica and Hari were unchaperoned, and yet the fault is hers alone. Ultimately, she is just another female character in a maledriven narrative, lacking agency in a story without instructive purpose. From its title “What Might Have Been,” readers quickly guess the outcome of this tormented meditation by a Hindu widow faced with a monumental decision—to remarry or not. She ponders, “either way, I shall be full of trouble. If I say ‘yes’ to him I shall know no peace, knowing I have

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transgressed our law. If I say ‘no,’ shall I ever forget the wide prospect of happiness which may have opened out before me had I consented?” (1901: 8). As a widow, she is “the most despicable creature on earth,” universally rejected, despised as inauspicious, and barred from any sensual gratification (including adequate nutrition). The status of wife is its polar opposite. Remarkably, there is a man, “in this cruel, unjust world, such a wonderful man as wants to marry me,—me, a poor widow! And he does not seem to do it out of pity, but out of—I dare not say the word. . . . It is so sweet to be appreciated by some one” (9). To the author’s credit and attesting to the unnaturalness of widow ideology, the narrator does not completely internalize the fate assigned her by society; she misses her jewels and pretty clothes and is delighted that she has managed to keep her long hair. She wants to be educated, to learn to read, although “books are not for women, much less for widows!” (9). An added complication (or compensation, depending on perspective) is her son, who her suitor promises to treat as his own, while her in-laws “despise” her and will teach her son to do the same. She arrives at what can only be regarded a foregone conclusion: “there is an inscrutable destiny at work in this world. . . . Everyone must bear their lot . . . if I do not marry again, and thus keep from sin, in the next life I may be a happier woman . . . in the meanwhile, there is my dear boy. His care shall be my object in life. Ah! sweet my child! I live for thee!” 17 The unexamined association of “sin” with remarriage (as opposed to celibacy) is curious, given that the justification for early marriage and continuous childbearing is to avoid lost opportunities for procreation, the “destruction” of potential life through regular menses being tantamount to murder. 18 Such a perspective would seem to be highly relevant to India’s millions of young widows languishing without solace or resources. While poignant (if self-indulgent) in its dramatization of widowhood, this story blurs the lines between “our law”—social custom—and official law, the 1856 Widow Remarriage Act, which recognized and legitimated widow remarriage. Here, imperial law bows to social custom: whether a widow or remarried, she will be ostracized, regardless of her devotion to the child. This story raises complex issues without the critical scrutiny needed to purposefully examine them. That female passivity, fear of communal ostracism, and maternal “instinct” prevail results in another lost opportunity to challenge tradition—one for which “Sudah, the Child-Widow,” another tale about widow remarriage, more than compensates. Five-year-old Sudah is married to a sixty-year-old man who dies, leaving her a virgin-widow. “What is marriage,” she asks her father, “is it to lock me up in a dark room?” (Renhanatram 1909: 17). Father feigns shock at so “dismal” a view of marriage, especially to so wealthy a man—indeed, this is quite a lucrative match, more so for the father than for the daughter. After an exhausting stretch of rituals and relatives, the narrator dismisses the principle

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players with no lack of irony: “The bride is married, away to the feast.— Exeunt the guests.” Near baby that she is, the bride wants only a nap, and later recalls nothing about the hubbub but that she was at the center of it. Four years later, Sudah is unchanged—taller, more serious, plying her needle while her father reads; in an instant, this domestic scene shifts from charming to tragic: the rich spouse has died of old age and her father falls “into a deep swoon” from which he never recovers. Sudah—a child-bride-virgin-widow and now an orphan deserted by her callous mother—finds a happy reprieve when placed with her married sister Kamala. Life with Kamala and Hem is a pleasant round of domesticity in a kind, compassionate household; although her bizarre status casts Sudah as a “little woman,” she effectually experiences childhood for the first time when twelve-year-old Ganesh joins the family prior to leaving for school. Given the usual trappings associated with fate—including all those factors that led Sudah to this place at this time—perhaps it is not surprising that the two become inseparable friends, climbing trees, clambering over walls, eating fruit, playing games. So in tune are they that, when Ganesh kisses her goodbye, it seems the most natural thing in the world, and yet she is, most appropriately, covered in blushes. Clearly, this is Sudah’s true fate—not that other situation, that earlier life, so unnatural and not of her making. When Ganesh returns six years later, a distinguished scholar with an official position, readers forgive him that impetuous kiss as he proves to be serious about Sudah. The playmates’ former lack of inhibition shifts to embarrassment, blushes, and lingering glances; when Ganesh asks permission to marry her, everyone is surprised—yet, interestingly, the concern is not about dowry or widow remarriage but whether “they love each other” (18). While this story, like others in ILM, avoids confronting the lack of female autonomy in momentous events like marriage, there is some measure of compensation in exchanging a lucrative match between a five-year-old girl and sixty-year-old man for one more age appropriate and intrinsically attuned. Other stories suggest that fantasy is more feasible than a realistic happy ending. One of the best-known utopian fantasy tales is “Sultana’s Dream” by Muslim author, social reformer, and political activist Rokeya Hossain, first published in ILM in 1905. Like the gender-switched utopian society envisioned in Tennyson’s The Princess and anticipating Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915), “Sultana’s Dream” features a narrator who goes to sleep in her Calcutta zenana but wakes up in Ladyland. Here, women enjoy public lives while men are relegated to “their proper place,” shut up indoors and tending to housework and childcare. Sultana realizes that, in her society, men relegate women to the zenana to keep them safe (from men), but in Ladyland, it is those who pose the danger to society who are locked up, while women are at liberty. Virtue reigns in Ladyland, and all is orderly and clean; women enjoy good health and longevity, and not even malarial mosquitoes

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are permitted to disturb the peace; child-marriage is illegal, girls go to universities, and women study science and create inventions (like “air-cars” and farms run by electricity). With the men locked up, there is no crime or war, no coveting or jealousy or quarrelling; but when Sultana awakens in her Calcutta zenana, Ladyland proves to be but a utopian dream. 19 This fanciful tale, credited as one of the earliest and most insightful feminist science fiction writings, is entertaining, poignant, and thought provoking; its subversiveness prompted “Padmini” to rewrite the end of “Sultana’s Dream” in a capitulation reminiscent of Tennyson’s The Princess. In “An Answer to Sultana’s Dream,” the narrator dreams she visits Ladyland, where the women are uniformly unhappy, sad, tired, and miserable because “there are no men to admire us” or “men-friends” to comfort them; they are angry that their “wretched children” turn away from them toward the men (“Answer” 1905: 115). Confronted with rumors of an impending invasion, the queen fears that these self-absorbed, vain women—emphatically not strong, independent, and self-sufficient but “feeble, weak, admiration-seeking, men followers”—are incapable of defending the country. When the mendrudges hear of this, they falsely claim all the babies are sick, thus tricking the women warriors to throw “down their arms and rush . . . to the houses,” betrayed by that most insidious of “female instincts,” the maternal. Everyone agrees to adapt a policy of equal rights for all—meaning a return to conventional divisions of labor—because it is selfish to expect men to do housework, that being women’s “duty.” And so “Ladyland became Gentlemenand-Ladyland. . . . Men and women . . . were on an equal footing. . . . And I woke up from my dream” (116). While illustrating the urge toward heterosexual solidarity as a desirable expression of nationalism, this rejoinder to Hossain highlights the impulse to reify the gendered divisions of labor of separate spheres ideology, which most assuredly does not put men and women “on an equal footing.” Men who resort to subversive means to maintain or reinstate the status quo are hailed as heroes, women who resist are “selfish,” and the gender parity this author envisions is just another dystopian dream. DRAMA According to ILM contributor Susan Lazarus, “The stage exerts a wholesome influence on society” (“Stage” 1910: 164); drama merits a more prominent position in the magazine than fiction, from elaborate serialized plays to short vignettes for children. For ILM’s authors, playwriting offers a more expedient genre for conveying complex themes through dialogue than prose narrative. In the one-act drama The Graduate Wife by Kamala, Maithili lies in bed, reading and moaning: “Why is the human body so frail? We develop our minds and they get too big for our frames. I really think we women are too

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weak to make our way singly in this world” (1929: 107). She expresses exactly the objections of those opposed to female education, except that she has already had an education and is clearly not enlightened by it, nor is she compelled to “make [her] way singly.” Her husband Gopal indulges her, playfully countering her insistence that her life is worthless; because they married without his mother’s consent, Maithili accepts the superstition that breaking tradition has brought all this misery on her. She is good for nothing, no one understands her, and she is universally disliked (at least by her inlaws). She has the education to be a New Woman but, confronted by traditional expectations, she lacks the courage of her convictions, preferring to wallow in self-pity and uselessness. The drama takes a curious turn when all this whining proves to be the result of a hallucinatory fever that suddenly breaks: Maithili recovers, her relieved in-laws are more forthcoming in their affection, she becomes a math tutor to Gopal’s brother, takes up gardening with his sister, and they all live happily ever after—in Gopal’s words, “All’s well that ends well, eh Maithili?” (113). The moral of this play is that woman can have a modern education and read books, but because that alone will make her “sick,” she must also be an obedient daughter-in-law, loving wife, and selfless sister-in-law—appropriate compensations for flirting with New Womanhood. There are several conflicting messages here: the educated Maithili uncritically accepts the claim that education “unsexes” females, she is as superstitious as an illiterate, her self-absorption literally makes her sick—but once she channels her educated insights into assuming a traditional gender role, her maladies are cured. Interestingly, her in-laws also learn something from this episode, prompting them to treat her with the kindness and respect of a family member rather than the harshness typically doled out to daughters-in-law. Still, one doubts whether Maithili was able to appreciate Gopal’s Shakespearian allusion after all. Padmini Satthianadhan’s Strange Contradiction! rehearses a common theme in which both bride (Nalini) and groom (Gopal Raj) resist their arranged marriage only to validate the idea of kismet or predestination by “falling in love” with each other anyway. Nalini determines to see her intended before embarking on a life spent “producing future heirs to the State of Sripur” (1935: 191); he being neither a “fat fool” nor an “England-returned rake” and she suitably attractive, the two “fall in love.” When Nalini is caught in the intrigue, the wedding to this “bold modern hussy” is canceled by Gopal’s mother (193), prompting the rebellious couple to elope. There are several “strange contradictions” here: the lovers resist not the tradition but its method; they see each other only once and very briefly—they know nothing about each other, but because neither seems physically repulsive, they decide this is “love at first sight” and elope. As the basis for a lifetime commitment, this is as dubious as the original plan—although it was

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not that great a gamble, given prior parental approval was already in place. The couple’s determination to exercise free will—meeting before the ceremony, flaunting convention by eloping—is further compromised by the implication that “true love” is always and inevitably dictated by fate, whether that is orchestrated by rebellious young moderns or by custom-bound matchmakers. 20 Another drama that seems progressive but ultimately reifies the status quo is Our Children by Kamala. The dialogue negotiates Hindu orthodoxy— Mother and her fear of the priests—and the urge toward modernization and reform—her daughter Urmila, a twenty-year-old Brahmin widow who refuses to shave her head and wear widow’s clothes. The priests have proclaimed that Urmila must observe the customs of widowhood or risk the family’s excommunication; Mother—uneducated, unthinking, and in thrall to the priesthood—lamely explains, “God has thought it best to punish you for your sins, though I do not know what sins you could have committed” (1929: 584). 21 Although Urmila rejects the imperative to submit to a fate based on religious dogma, she is outraged that her ten-year-old sister is about to be married to a forty-year-old man and proposes cutting her hair in exchange for Janaki’s continuing school instead. Self-sacrificing as it is, her plan is rejected for its potential to scandalize the community—both for Urmila’s lack of humility and “proper” motivation and for breaking off marriage negotiations. After all, she posits boldly—and, as it turns out, prophetically—what difference does it make, since all females are ultimately interchangeable? When Urmila condemns religious superstition and social custom—“our modern utilitarianism . . . [based on] money, and position” (585)—her mother is shocked; of social reformers, her mother exclaims, “May they be cursed! . . . the priests are priests. They are the men of God” and thus presumably unassailable. 22 Far from “rude” and blasphemous, the logical Urmila convinces her mother by outlining the economic vulnerability of Indian women, particularly widows (perhaps Mother herself someday), wherein neither priests nor the law will come to their rescue, much less male relatives; she rejects a superstitious fate in favor of informed free will. She reminds her ostensibly timid mother that she had earlier persuaded her reform-minded father to act not according to reason but to custom, and she can now do the reverse: “Women can do anything they like with men, mother. Let father think you are humouring him, while you get your way” (587). That men are in charge is a superficial perception: “is not the woman the Shakti of the house? In the woman’s hand lies the power of the world.” This Corelli-like thinking appeals to Mother, whose very conventionality is here turned against her: while the weight of custom is certainly formidable, reform is not a negation of religion but a return to originating principles that have been perverted by worldly agendas and by a priesthood some viewed as self-serving.

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Urmila clinches her argument with an allusion to Tennyson’s The Princess—“if she be small, slight-natured, miserable—”; irritated, her mother rejects “this Tennyson” and insists women “are only meant for the house, and the kitchen” (588). Urmila agrees, but with a crucial caveat: “We do have our houses to see to, but we have also to see to India. . . . Only if women are free, can India be free. . . . I have a heart which wants to serve all India. . . . Help me . . . to set India free.” By introducing the concept of nationalism, Urmila connects a frightened child-bride, a rebellious girl-widow, a custom-bound mother, and an ineffectual father to the broader consideration of Indian nationalism personified as Shakti or Mother India. 23 The mother-daughter dialogue is a skillfully executed exchange between one bound by unexamined traditions that are not sanctioned by scripture and one engaged in the process of examining and questioning those very customs with a view toward both originating and modernizing principles. More than an intellectual exercise, both perspectives are central to nationalist debates: conservatives feel threatened by imperatives to modernize, reformists view custom as static and regressive, and each endeavors to define Indian identity within those polarities. Unfortunately, the play’s swift, artificial conclusion undercuts the sensitivity with which the issues have been handled thus far: Urmila is deemed the more “suitable” bride (the bridegroom being hopelessly entranced by her wonderful, uncut hair); everyone agrees that she’s the “right” age, being “only” half his age (rather than, as with her sister, a quarter); little sister continues her education; Father is happily relieved of providing a dowry (not expected for a widow); and Mother is thrilled that everything worked out in such a way as to please “Our Children,” placate the priests (perhaps: if they sanction widow remarriage), and satisfy social decorum—apparently everyone wins. However, the fate of the splendid Urmila, which readers are encouraged to regard as the best possible solution, is troubling: speaking only to Father, groom (while still engaged to Janaki) asks, “will you—give her [Urmila]—to me?” and Father responds with alacrity, “Yes, settled!”; Mother agrees, little sister is relieved, and Urmila, her free will thoroughly trampled in the rush to wind up the plot, has no alternative but to submit yet again, with a notably hesitant “Ye—yes” (592–93). It is true that the groom was also denied second thoughts: when he observes, “You can surely make her obey you,” Mother asserts that Urmila has a will of her own that must be indulged; given the remarkable fluidity of his affections, no doubt he can marry in haste and consider at leisure whether such willfulness is a blessing or a curse. 24 Best of all, according to Mother, now “our Urmila need not look like a widow. Oh! I am so glad!” Despite the gravity of the issues rehearsed in this play (child-marriage, widow-remarriage, religious reform, marriages based on convenience rather than mutual regard), what is being celebrated

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here is maintaining the status quo, and one’s hair, without the family losing face with the priesthood. Further emphasizing the (usually unacknowledged, generally unconsulted) superior judgment of women, The Brigand’s Wife by R. S. Swarnambal features Karaman, chief of the brigands, and Leela, his wife. Although not exactly a criminal, Karaman plays a dangerous game as an Indian Robin Hood who steals plundered goods from the rich and gives them to the poor. The couple’s married life plays out in a “spacious cavern deep-hidden by high precipitous rocks, and reachable only by a narrow subterranean passage” (1928: 223); here Leela languishes when Karaman leaves her alone, which is most of the time. Their conversation reveals recurring issues: you don’t love me as I love you (she says, specifically); “Women never understand men” (he replies, generically); she weeps (emotional); he urges her “not to worry thy pretty head” and leaves on his next adventure (patronizing and pragmatic); resigned to the familiar pattern, she invokes God’s blessing and returns to her solitude. But on this occasion, Leela’s misgivings, fueled by a series of ill omens that feed her superstitions, prove valid when Karaman is captured and imprisoned in King Alladin’s castle. Interestingly, for all her earlier weeping and clinging, Leela’s response to the calamity is calm: “I must think this out deeply” (225); the result, while transparent, is clever, revealing Leela as less a whining woman than a strong character determined to rescue her husband. We next see her dressed as a “young minstrel, very handsome and prepossessing,” a “fair youth” the king wishes to retain as court singer (226); the minstrel declines, pleading “I am a rover” who cares neither for gifts nor position but only to seek “my heart’s delight, my heart’s desire.” Presenting the minstrel with his signet ring, the king releases “him”; the minstrel shows the ring to the jailer, Karaman is released, and the couple return to their lair. The play’s swift conclusion offers a fascinating role reversal: Karaman, emasculated by his own game (imprisoned) and Leela, asserting herself with courage and intelligence (liberator); Karaman, thinking Leela is dead, weeping, wailing, fainting, and Leela (still disguised as the youth) realizing he does truly love her; Karaman so grateful for this reprieve that he says, “Thou canst demand anything from me,” and Leela promptly responding, “leave this career this very minute, and . . . give thyself up completely to me” (230). He agrees, they pledge their love, and commence living happily ever after, whether in a cave or not is unclear. Leela’s cross-dressing caper is glossed over as acceptable, being no more than a clever strategy to rescue her husband from his self-inflicted woes. Ultimately, such autonomy and self-direction must be dismissed as anomalous because she is, as the title emphasizes, less a self-directed agent than somebody’s wife. 25 A similar dynamic unfolds in New Wine by Padmini Satthianadhan, which dramatizes conflicts arising in an arranged marriage between a tradi-

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tional, uneducated Indian wife and a university-educated husband. Lalita prefers a quiet family life of reading and playing Indian music; Keshub is an “Oxford-returned” snob who drinks and parties, hates his job, and loves jazz and flirting with “modern girls” like Pamela, who have “got the goods” (1936: 139). 26 Compared with Pamela’s bobbed hair and flamboyant foxtrot, Lalita is a Victorian prude; when Keshub elopes with her, Lalita moans: “I’m an Indian. Once married, we always remain faithful to our husbands, no matter what they do” (143). But the errant husband returns as abruptly as he left, disgusted by Pamela’s narrative of “all the men she had conquered”; he could not tolerate being another notch on her already-crowded bedpost. 27 What concerns Keshub then is that he is not Pamela’s first and only lover; what concerns Lalita is that Keshub is her first and only lover, and she can countenance no other. Bored with predictable Lalita, Keshub is attracted to the New Woman but repulsed by her sexual prowess; his return to the marriage is based less on family values than on his inability to tolerate Pamela’s lack of sexual exclusivity. Once Lalita promises to try to like jazz and he to read books, the inviolability of arranged marriage is reasserted, Eastern purity triumphs over Western decadence, and Occidentalism is put in its proper place as a clear threat to Indian identity. Insofar as “new wine” (Western influence) cannot be placed in “old bottles” (Eastern tradition), both extremes are here reduced to simplistic caricatures ultimately based on false dichotomies. 28 Despite ILM’s commitment to scrutinizing traditions and customs that disempower women, yet another play defends arranged marriage. Was it Fate? by Kamala reiterates the idea that individual choice or free will, if legitimate, will naturally align with fate—meaning, the choice made by others brokering an arranged marriage—thus validating the assumed inevitability of a proper arrangement. Gopalan, an eligible bachelor, Western-dressed and England-returned, meditates at a temple on the burden of choosing a bride from a number of candidates he does not know: “Marriage after all is a lottery. . . . Shall I wait on Fate? But, do I believe in Fate? I do not know. This English education does unsettle our minds” (1930: 251). Insofar as marriage is “a lottery,” education (English or other) challenges that randomness and the conventional futility it engenders. Without perceiving him, Leila arrives, praying to the goddess Lakshmi in distress that her father “has offered me to this new man without even asking me.” Hiding in the shadows, Gopalan finds her “tender . . . girlish . . . thrilling . . . I wonder if she is one of my many admirers?” (252). Thus is the narrative arc headed unerringly toward the tidy alignment of fate and free will, the troubling juxtaposition of her intimate prayer with his self-aggrandizing voyeurism jarringly romanticized as love at first sight. A series of episodic plot twists and mistaken identities ensue, blamed pointedly not on Gopalan’s education but on Leila’s: “This indeed is what education is bringing you all to,” her father rages. “All

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your new-fangled notions about freedom, and mixing with men. . . . You, Indian girls, are not in a position yet to get freedom” (257). Ultimately, was it due to fate or convenience that the two protagonists assert their free will by “falling in love” with the mate already chosen for them? The question, like the custom, remains unexamined. In each of these dramas, the urge toward progressivism is thwarted by that same unexamined conformity with tradition—an outcome seemingly endemic to Indian identity politics, which entertains modernist thinking but fails either to see it through to a logical conclusion or to entertain its potentialities. By associating modernization with Western decadence, the East-West synthesis—blending the advancements of Western civilization with the responsibilities of Indian citizenship, promoted by ILM as the most viable path to modernization—is repeatedly undermined. Kamala’s acknowledgment of conservative sensibilities is central to her editorial platform, but opportunities to illustrate or model alternative possibilities—respectfully yet critically—are repeatedly overlooked, as in unchallenged critiques of female autonomy. SERIALIZATION An exception to such lost opportunities is Detective Janaki by K. S., a fifteen-part story (1933–1934) of sufficient length and depth to foster character and plot development as well as significant thematic threads. The overarching “romance” has to do with Janaki: her mother dead, her father ineffectual, and her stepmother callous and manipulative, the young woman decides to escape by arranging her own marriage of convenience through a newspaper advertisement. The terms of this business arrangement are based on a commitment to friendship (not love or romance), a pact that relieves both parties of inconvenient social pressures; in effect, Janaki interviews her future spouse to gauge his suitability for her purpose. While “true love” does prevail at the narrative’s conclusion, it is only after a long, carefully articulated process of developing mutual trust and loyalty, and, especially for Janaki, the opportunity to mature professionally, as her husband promotes her autonomy by encouraging her to develop as a detective. While the romance arc is a constant, it offers a refreshing alternative to the arranged marriage plot and provides the framework for, rather than substance of, the primary narrative. Substance is provided by the cases Janaki solves, cases involving assistance to women variously compromised by cultural expectations, social misunderstandings, manipulative relatives, and men bent on their sexual ruin. Clients consult her about marital difficulties, lost children, religious fanaticism, cross-caste unions, questions of biological heredity, and ancient family secrets. As a woman balancing marriage and career—actually using the for-

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mer as a smokescreen for the latter—Janaki understands the finer points of confrontations Indian women negotiate daily, emphasizing their disempowerment and vulnerability; as the courage implied by her bold, unconventional marriage arrangement indicates, she is an extraordinary woman in terms of comprehension, intellect, and sensitivity, and she is fortunate in her choice (albeit random) of a man who supports, rather than curtails, her inclinations. Of the many attempts to realize a viable “New Woman” throughout ILM, Detective Janaki is the most successful and satisfactory example. The story’s emphasis on friendship over romance challenges the subversive implication that marriage is a lottery, whether decided by fate or free will, by astrologers or matchmakers, or by random classified advertisements. Here romance grows, but only after mutual acceptance and support, friendship and partnership. NONFICTION The consequences of failing to confront social convention are dramatized in several sobering, nonliterary pieces on Muslim girlhood. “Bibi: A Moslem Girl” aims to establish that Muslim households in India are “not so dark as it is often painted” (1902: 112). Though upper-class, Bibi’s life is purportedly “typical” for Muslim girls; her education, “first lessons in domestic life,” is modeled through playing with dolls, enacting their weddings, tea parties, and other social events. Following such “training,” a girl is considered “finished” and marriageable by age fifteen, after which she remains “innocent of that sublime Love, the light of which has never shone in her heart and perhaps never will. Society, thou art cruel but thy word is law!” (115). Playing with dolls stands in for both intellectual education and preparation for married life; what begins with the charm of girlhood ends abruptly with the gloom of married life, an unconvincing portrayal of the lighter side of Muslim girlhood. With greater psychological depth, “Women in Southern India” depicts the indoctrination of baby girls into an unquestioned “awe and respect” of parents and “reverence for religion” (Quraishi 1902: 181). Education leads females “astray” and is linked with “wickedness and immodesty”; aside from basic arithmetic, girls are not taught writing, music is “forbidden,” and physical education “entirely neglected”; ill equipped intellectually and physically, they are “buried in the gosha” (purdah) to await marriage and motherhood. So trained by her parents, the Muslim girl does not question that her husband is second only to God: “he is her lord on earth and she must obey him in all things without question or delay. . . . He is faultless and she must never complain.” Her only purpose is to serve him and, should she fail, “she will be condemned to perpetual damnation.” Romantic love is not a factor; far from

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a cause for celebration, the wedding is a “tedious . . . intolerable . . . lengthy ceremony” during which the bride’s silence, passivity, and listlessness are intensely scrutinized as tests or proofs of her modesty and chastity. By design, she does not comprehend the moral, mental, physical, and social disadvantages, the “gross superstition and narrow prejudices” under which she exists; perhaps she is thus rendered virtuous, but then she has never been tempted, not having had exposure to broader experiences (182). The author concludes that facilitating the uplift and enlightenment of such women is a matter of national duty but, more to the point, of human compassion. The consequences of a Muslim girl receiving a modern education are dramatized in the autobiographical “My Mournful Lot” by Aasimah, which outlines a worst case scenario of arranged marriages. Her story does not present a vaguely utopian “happily ever after” but rather the dystopian reality of a cautionary tale aimed at “warning my countrymen against the dangerous consequences of consigning more of my sisters” to a similar fate (1903: 181). Aasimah enjoyed a happy, privileged childhood; well educated, she read novels (although against her father’s wishes, having been deemed “not fit for girls”), while her mother, “an old-fashioned lady, innocent of all bookknowledge . . . was too loving to disturb me” (182). Considering the readiness with which any sort of aberrant female behavior is attributed to education and novel reading, this “confession”—disobeying her father, who keeps novels in the house but is often absent; evading her mother, who is illiterate and provides no guidance—implies she has no one to blame but herself for the outcome of her arranged marriage, which is unrealistic. From the physically absent father to the intellectually absent mother, Aasimah’s experience replicates that of the fictional Vasantica, including her haphazard, uncontextualized education. But Aasimah’s awareness of her parents’ collective ineffectuality “had made me callous as regards my matrimony.” Eve-like, “my miseries were acquired with my new knowledge even as in the case of our first parents” (183)—emphasizing that, for women categorically denied autonomy, ignorance is bliss. Nineteen and still unmarried due to her father’s “weakness of character,” she is “at last betrothed not to a brilliant graduate” but to one “with whose personality mother had been impressed” (184), apparently sufficient grounds for a lifetime commitment. Her father is irresponsible, her mother is inept, and both are so desperate to marry her off (so as to save face in the community) as to be satisfied with any candidate at this point; bowing to the inevitable, Aasimah’s “passive resistance . . . was quite conveniently ascribed to . . . maidenly modesty.” As Quraishi notes, the Muslim girl is to be “passive in everything connected with her marriage ceremony . . . her silence is to be interpreted as consent” (“Women” 1902: 182). As a result of this arranged marriage based not on intellectual compatibility or social status but on financial convenience, Aasimah reveals that the

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“blessings of wedded life” have evaded her: “I might as well have remained a maid. . . . My life has not changed from what it was during my girlhood” (1902: 184). Of this unconsummated union, she anticipates only resignation to “my Kismat” and to remaining a “married maiden”; whatever the sexual proclivities or disinclinations of the groom, Aasimah has no other purpose in life than to avoid scandal: “I shall . . . regard my lot,” she concludes, “as a matter of course against which there is no use complaining.” Of the various possible morals to this narrative, the most prominent is resignation to men’s investment in the ownership and control of women. Such stark realism compares strikingly with the romanticized denouements presented elsewhere in ILM’s pages—like Jane Austen’s novels, essential to the structural framework (“happily ever after”) but never actually articulated. Just as idealized women are not real women, so too is marriage no fairy tale. Also nonfiction is Shahinda’s “Something about India and Its Customs,” which emphasizes Muslim culture, including health and exercise in India’s ennui-inducing climate; “patriarchal manners” toward women and “undeviating kindness” toward the aged and poor; and mourning customs and the lack of performing arts. She asserts that zenana women are “happy in their confinement, contented and satisfied with the seclusion . . . obedient wives, dutiful daughters, affectionate mothers, kind mistresses, sincere friends, and liberal benefactresses” (1905: 87); Muslim ladies “who have any regard for the character, or honour of the house keep themselves from the eye of strangers” (1905: 117). From age four, the single aim for girls is to preserve their “reputation unblemished by concealing them from the eyes of men”; not only does the apparent uncontrolled rapacity of men remain unexamined, but one wonders, along with Rokeya Hossain’s Sultana (“Ladyland”), why it is the little girls (the victims), not the grown men (the victimizers), who are imprisoned. Shahinda, herself a wealthy Muslim, privileged, educated, and well traveled, here promotes a lifestyle to which she herself is not subject and to which she brings no thoughtful critical analysis. A consistent theme shared by these examples highlights men’s signature ineffectuality. Indeed, it is the mother who provides the link perpetuating patriarchal entitlements at the expense of the daughter; she who is romanticized as the essence of Indian nationalism, while socially and politically disenfranchised; she whose sole responsibility toward her daughter is to ensure her passivity and get her married, regardless of the appropriateness of the union. Exchanged between men and passed from mother to mother-inlaw, girls represent the most troubling example of cultural divide and conquer and the powerlessness it engenders. The mother must train her daughter “to be a good daughter-in-law . . . [in this] her own reputation is at stake” (Kosambi, “Women” 38); the lack of female solidarity continues with the mother-in-law—her reputation in turn being at stake—who “dominates absolutely” over this “future usurper of her own authority.” The rift between

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mothers—who are ill, absent, deceased, “priest-ridden,” uneducated, selfish, and emotionally unavailable 29—and daughters—who are unprotected, caught between tradition and modernization, lacking informed choices, and pressured by the weight of unexamined custom 30—is well worth exploring. Ideally, mother must prepare daughter “for the dignity of womanhood,” and daughter must learn “from her own noble example”; but in practice, “no greater indictment of woman in her degradation can be found . . . [than this] undignified behavior” by women toward other women (“Women as Mothers” 1929: 72). Given the centrality of maternal ideology in Indian identity politics, the social criticism here evidenced in mother-daughter relations suggests that the unarticulated happily ever after myth poses a far more insidious threat to national cohesion than imperialism, patriarchy, and novels combined. NOTES 1. Satthianadhan wrote Stories of Native Christian Life (with Samuel); Padma (novel); Lives of Great Men in India; Lives of Great Women in India; Tales of India; Tales of Animals; and Stories of Ancient India. 2. According to a subsequent policy statement, ILM’s object is to “encourage social intercourse between the men and women of India, and between the women of India and their foreign sisters.” Contributors include educated women as well as “young and inexperienced writers.” Discussions of “womanliness” aim to synthesize “our ancient ideals” with the modernization offered by Western nations (“Ourselves” 1930: 274). 3. Not such an exaggeration: as a result of English lessons taught by missionary Miss Hurford, Ramabai Ranade—an educated, prominent social reformer—took “a purificatory bath in the evening after every such ‘polluting’ contact” (Kosambi, “Indian” 62). Ramabai Sarasvati participated in those lessons, and it was through Hurford’s efforts that she was sponsored by the Anglican sisterhood at Cheltenham. 4. See Eunice de Souza, Satthianadhan Family Album; and Joshi, In Another Country (ch. 5, 172–204). 5. Kamala Satthianadhan’s novel Padma proposes a similar solution (Sengupta, Portrait 13). 6. The Golden Threshold (1905). 7. Other reformers (Martineau, Joshi, Ramabai, Gandhi) argued the reverse: relinquishing spiritual-moral-ethical culpability to any authority outside one’s self (husband, son, priest) constitutes false complacency. Spiritual responsibility is an individual matter and the penultimate test of self-reliance. 8. Sinha notes the conundrum posed to Indians who, out of principle, condemned Mayo’s conclusions while also promoting some of those very points as part of the nationalist platform, such as reforming child-marriage and purdah customs (“Reading” 23). The accuracy of Mayo’s allegations were less an issue than their being articulated by a foreigner. 9. Naidu’s commentary is notoriously inconsistent; she stated that “loyal women would not wish to survive their husbands” and urged nationalists to “remember that the spirit of Padmini of Chittor [a sati] is enshrined with the manhood of India,” thus no patriotic sacrifice is too small (Raman, Women 78). Alternatively, she asserts that men in ancient India “had sufficient worth in them . . . what sort of men do we find now? They are not men at all . . . [but] the degenerate descendants of ancient heroes” (“Mrs. Sarojini … Reform” 1907: 266). See also “Domestic Life in India” (1903). 10. Hindu goddesses are idealizations, whereas the “conception of [real] women is degrading in the extreme” (“Women’s Part” 1913: 34).

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11. Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899). 12. Mayo’s Mother India (1927) challenged India’s “fitness” for independence by arousing the fears of racists, sexists, anti-immigrationists, and eugenicists. While condemning her approach, Gandhi urged open-mindedness about justifiable critiques (sanitary and health reforms). Kamala wrote: “We honour Miss Mayo for her courage in not caring for resentments and accusations; we congratulate her on her public spirit in ‘shouldering the task’ of ‘holding the mirror’ to that part of the human race which is a ‘physical menace’ to the world . . . but we do deny her the self-presumption that she is ‘in a position to present conditions and their bearings,’ and we do not for a minute admit her ‘plain speech’ as the ‘faithful wounds of a friend’; for she is no friend of ours” (qtd. Sengupta, Portrait 179–80). See “Misunderstandings” (1933) and Sinha, “Reading.” 13. Indian literature “abounds in caustic portrayals of the novel-reading educated woman who imitated the memsahibs” (Raychaudhuri, Perceptions 10). 14. “England- (or Oxford-)returned” refers to men returning to India after being educated in England; some were dismissive of home culture and viewed as pompous and overbearing, denationalized and Westernized. Others were inspired by the “wonders of Western civilization” to work for “enlarged moral and intellectual ideas” at home (“England and India” 1906: 9). 15. Borthwick notes the alignment between educated women, who learned “nonproductive” activities (novel reading) rather than practical skills, and “the degenerate, luxurious lives led by illiterate zenana women” (Changing 104). 16. In “certain quarters,” periodical literature was considered “offensive” and “insidious,” while “novel-reading . . . produces the most pernicious results . . . none ought to read novels” (Ramunni, “Newspapers” 1904: 85). Alternatively, fiction reading “has done as much as any other . . . study to fix my views of things in general and the best things in particular. . . . The best fiction . . . is suggestive, stimulating and correct in its appreciation of the forces that are working in contemporary life” (Welinkar, “Position” 1909: 122). 17. Some men opposed widow remarriage because the additional competition compromised the marriageability of their own daughters. A contributor observed, “It is strange that infantmarriage is peculiar to India and India alone. . . . In Vedic literature there is not the slightest evidence for the practice” (“Widow and Infant Marriage” 1903: 317). According to 1903 census statistics, three-quarters of married Indian males were under fifteen; of females aged five to ten, one in ten were married; aged ten to fifteen, two in five were married; aged fifteen to twenty, four in five were married; aged twenty to thirty, six in seven were married. More than one in six was a widow (across all groups). On “sin” and social prejudice, see also Murshid (Reluctant 186–89). 18. In a historical overview of the widow reform movement, Rajendra Vatsa condemns the “tyranny of forced widowhood” and the “slaves of custom” who perpetuate it (“Remarriage” 713). Through reason (reexamining the shastras) and “humane sensibilities” (714), reformers aimed to help widows “in a practical manner” (716). 19. Indian women’s progress is impeded by men who blur the concepts of patriotism and religion: “it is . . . regrettable that these men were not born in that part of the earth, where women rule over men” and shut them up “lest they . . . grow immoral or mischievous” (“Freedom” 1911: 274–75). 20. On love at first sight and destiny, see also “The Lotus Lake” (1911). 21. See Vatsa, “Remarriage and Rehabilitation.” 22. In India, “a very perceptible development of the feminine mind is taking place. [But] in the more conservative classes of Indian women, it is as yet a very slow development, inasmuch as they lack the courage to break through the traditions of centuries” (“Tradition” 1917: 281). 23. Comparative analyses of attitudes toward women in sacred texts reveal “a certain” consistency: “Koran regards women frankly as made for men’s pleasure. . . . Buddhism is deprecatory but not hostile. . . . Jainism is decidedly that of a misogynist. . . . Hindu texts . . . exhibit all shades from rapt praise to envenomed diatribe,” a range “as violent as it is astounding” (Gupte, “Ethnographic” 1910: 301–2). Common to all is the imperative that women must be kept illiterate; if women knew “what degrading and Machiavellian things are said about them in the standard works of orthodoxy, they would not be the staunch supporters of it that they have ever been.” See “Folk-Lore of Women” (1917).

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24. J. S. Mill: “what is contrary to women’s nature to do, they never will be made to do” (Subjection 12). 25. See Tharu and Lalita (Introduction) and Sarkar (Hindu) on the dearth of literary representations of women freedom fighters whose activism was to some laudable and to others an embarrassment. 26. The female counterpart to the “England-returned man” was “shameless, flirtatious,” competitive, and Westernized, yet still preferable to those tainted by “prostitution or conversion” to Christianity (Orsini, Hindu 50). 27. “Our sisters and daughters have begun bobbing their hair, smoking cigarettes, and enjoying themselves in company with their men friends and seem to be averse to undertaking the duties of a home,” forsaking Indian womanliness to “become a brown memsahib” (Seth, Subject 144). The “slave mentality” of imitating Western women manifests in “that most ugly fashion,” the bob—as if “the whole prosperity of the western world must be due to bobbed hair” (“Indian . . . Fashions” 1932: 396). 28. Matthew 9:17: “Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.” Lalita represents an “old bottle” that cannot tolerate “new wine,” nor is Keshub the “new bottle” he fancies himself to be: his limitations are as traditional and conventional as those of his mother and wife; he cannot tolerate in Pamela the very qualities that attract him to her. 29. “Home Life of Women in India” asserts that “it is the stunted influence of the ignorant mother that makes the Indian home so very unattractive at present” (1904: 385). 30. In Cynthia White’s term, “intermediate” women (Women’s 88).

Chapter Four

ILM and Women’s Social Activism

Our first aim should be to live for our country-women, for such a lot depends upon them. —“Description” (1910) Philanthropists of the Hindu or Mahomedan faith . . . are not wanting. There are some . . . who, when they can do little in money matters, have done and are doing wonders by their self-sacrifice. —“Diand” (1910)

ILM’s underpinning of Victorian gender ideology replicates two primary avenues of women’s activism: first, Ladies’ Philanthropy, seen in such social events as “At-Homes” and “Purdah Parties” and in community activities and projects sponsored by ladies’ societies and associations. A second, more intensive activism was Women’s Mission to Women, involving advocates’ endeavors to improve the status of widows and orphans; to address women’s medical, legal, and educational needs; and to subvert the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. Aiming to institute permanent, meaningful change in the lives of poor, abandoned, and otherwise disenfranchised women, “women’s missionaries” adapted Western models of philanthropy to Indian contexts, facilitating sustenance (housing, food, clothing, and health care), education, and skills training for economic self-sufficiency among India’s tragically prolific widow population.

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Weaving khaddar

While “the life literary” offered a relatively nonthreatening means of selfexpression, its emphasis on practical articulation dovetailed with modernizing imperatives to take women’s “uplifting” beyond domestic interiors to communal and national platforms. As Sita Raman notes, samajs or women’s social activism “centered around the theme of dedicated service to disadvan-

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taged women and children. . . . The first feminist stirrings were expressed in literature, and by teaching girls, forming clubs to assist less fortunate women, and supporting female suffrage and Indian freedom” (“Crossing” 134, 137). ILM’s aim to advance the status of Indian women depended on “the help of ladies, whether Indian or European . . . their large-hearted and energetic efforts” as contributors and subscribers being central to its success (Indian . . . Editorial 1905: 27). Along with European, British, and American women “who take a deep practical interest” in India, ILM addresses economically privileged and educated Indian women, together comprising “the class of readers for whom this Magazine is intended”: Though . . . the great mass of . . . Indian women are completely uneducated 1 . . . a considerable number . . . are taking advantage of the opportunities afforded them of a liberal English education. . . . The future of the women of India rests largely with this educated class . . . who, without losing what is distinctly Indian, have come under the best influences of the West. . . . ILM will afford a medium for the expression of the best thoughts and aspirations of these ladies . . . [and] serve as an effective link between European ladies and their Indian sisters . . . for the emancipation and the uplifting of the women of India rest chiefly with them. (Introduction 1901: 2)

These statements evoke several allusions familiar to the English educated: Macaulay’s 1835 aim to “form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern,—a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste . . . opinions . . . morals and . . . intellect” (Minute on Indian Education); Matthew Arnold’s 1869 appeal in Culture and Anarchy to “acquaint . . . ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit” (70); and the inception of the Indian National Congress (1885), whose members pledged to interpret the Raj to illiterate masses—to “serve as an effective link”— while convincing them to accept the inevitability of its permanence. Although likely inconceivable to Satthianadhan when she first wrote these words in 1901, English education proved to be the means not of solidarity with Britain but of independence from it. 2 While sharing the class and caste considerations that enabled women’s social work, there are three primary categories of educated women: wealthy society women, poor high-caste women, and the rising generation of girls pursuing education and the professions. 3 In 1854, Sir Charles Wood asserted, “The importance of female education in India cannot be over-rated. . . . By this means a far greater proportional impulse is imparted to the education and moral tone of the people than by the education of men” (“Despatch” 188). A half-century later, ILM eloquently illustrated how entrenched this essentialist concept had become in popular discourse articulating Indian women’s “uplift” and its link with nationalism. 4 The imperative that women of a certain

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social status assume responsibility for communal and national moral purity casts Indian women’s role during this period as something more than Victorian sentimentalism but something less than the comparative militancy of the satyagraha movement a few decades later. LADIES’ PHILANTHROPY: AT-HOMES AND PURDAH PARTIES Women have come to hold an increasingly important position in philanthropy. . . . It is now no longer a pastime or a pleasant occupation with no special responsibility attaching to it . . . [but] a very highly organized department of work.—Welinkar (1909: 25)

ILM’s initial policy statement specified the centrality of the “social, literary and philanthropic work of the women of the West,” with “special prominence . . . given to such work carried on by Indian women” (Introduction 1901: 2). From the Western perspective, the concept of “Ladies’ Philanthropy” is rooted in Victorian gender ideology; 5 in the endeavor to keep the increasingly restive women of the privileged classes out of the professions and work force, employment for remuneration was tainted with various disagreeable qualities, from “unsexing” and stridency to an egregious breach of social decorum sufficient to ruin a lady’s reputation. Padmini Satthianadhan asks, Is it right for a woman to devote all her energies to the creation of a happy home, and to ignore entirely any activity which does not come within the circle of her domestic world? Does she lose her feminine charm, if her interests carry her into the strenuous field of politics or social service? Does she become masculine, if she advocates freedom for women and equal rights with men? (“Indian Woman” 1930: 451)

Progressive women advocate participation in public affairs, while traditional women prefer to stay home; while men claim to admire the former, it is the latter that they marry. Some modernizing women “go too far . . . clamouring for independence and neglecting their homes”; at the other extreme are “wives who are ignorant and uneducated,” not “congenial” companions, who “make a fetish of their homes and children.” Positing that socializing with one’s husband—“companionate marriage”—apart from domestic and childrearing responsibilities is itself a feminine endeavor, one more conducive to familial solidarity than “fetishization,” she concludes with the inevitable appeal to Tennyson: “woman is not undevelopt man, / But diverse. . . . The woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink together.” Another author counters that woman’s sphere is too limited: “The most womanly woman is she who has the widest sympathy, the profoundest knowledge, and the most compassionate justice. . . . Womanliness . . . means

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forgetfulness of self . . . but the objects held up to women’s devotedness, have been hitherto so contracted that the self-sacrifice has sometimes been little else than etherealized selfishness” (“Glimpse” 1932: 265–66). 6 Some women recognized the logical imperative for Angels-in-the-House to take their reform-minded, morally substantive skills to the streets; by evading the “filthy lucre” of remunerated employment, volunteerism and charity work got women out of the house to work for the greater good. Although men grumbled at women’s new freedom to move about in the public realm, they were hard pressed to deny such local civilizing missions while they were themselves engaged in global civilizing missions. As studied and adapted by Indian travelers to the West (see chapter 7), the development of women’s philanthropy in nineteenth-century America and England offered viable models for the mobilization of Indian women’s social activism. The range of topics addressed under ILM’s index category “Specially Concerning Indian Women” includes Educational, Physical, Aesthetic, Domestic (girls, women, mothers, women of other nations), and Ethical. The largest category is Social, and includes ladies’ associations, reform organizations, and the philanthropic activities of Indian women. The wives of leading political and ruling figures (Vicerenes, Maharanis) and of commercial and industrial leaders 7 exemplify the important work of socially influential women on behalf of Indian womanhood. These women facilitated efforts to uplift the less fortunate through fundraising and other contributions to female education, medical and childcare facilities, and craft-making cooperatives. Participation by both Eastern and Western women was essential to the success of these endeavors: “One of the best ways of promoting social intercourse between Europeans and Indians and to ameliorate the sad condition of our ladies is the establishment of Ladies’ Associations” (“Ladies’ Associations” 1910: 392). As Pandita Ramabai discovered during her American tour: The formation of ladies’ associations—a significant sign of the times . . . has been of material assistance in quickening the progress among Indian women. How pleasant it is to read about the doings of these associations! Women of all nationalities . . . meet together and pleasantly spend their time in various ways that promote social intercourse and materially add to their intellectual, moral and physical being. (Ramunni, “Advancement” 1905: 237)

ILM’s accounts of At-Homes and Purdah Parties 8 followed a general pattern: late afternoon arrival, reception, and introductions (with a breakdown of attendees’ national, racial, and religious affiliations and social status), set in an environment that was invariably “tastefully” decorated and attended by ladies resplendent in colorful fashions and elaborate jewels. 9 After opening remarks and perhaps a prayer were traditional dance and musical performances, a lecture or an “informing” paper (for example, Macrae’s “Benefits of Zenana Lectures and Social Intercourse between Hindu and

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English Women”), and refreshments. Part of the proceedings might be translated, depending on the audience (for instance, if the featured speech was in Malayam, it might also be presented in English). 10 Optional entertainment could include a magician; a magic lantern show; gramophone, Pathaephone, or Bioscope presentation; and group singing (hymns, folk songs, the National Anthem). The closing ceremony involved sprinkling of Attar, distribution of pan supari, and presentation of flower garlands—typically, much “garlanding” went on at such events. 11 There was little distinguishing At-Homes from Purdah Parties, both events being arranged by women, for women, although an At-Home might sometimes feature a male speaker or special guest, whereas Purdah Parties were strictly for women. In the endeavor to promote female solidarity, the requirements of purdahnashins were scrupulously observed, inclusiveness being viewed as essential to gender and nationalist solidarity. Whether Eastern or Western, Jain, Hindu, Muslim, or Christian, such associations were committed to the idea that woman must “take her stand on a higher platform than one of mere drudgery and work unrelieved by . . . intellectual exercise. . . . New forces . . . [are] at work; there . . . [is] a great awakening” (“Narasapur” 1907: 342). Princess Ida’s manifesto resonates with Indian women’s increasing resistance to being regarded mere “household stuff. . . . Live chattels, . . . laughing-stocks of time. . . . But fit to darn, to knit, to wash, to cook. . . . / For ever slaves at home and fools abroad” (“Open Letter” 1902: 219). As noted by the Maharani of Cooch Behar, “in cementing the bonds of national union, we, women of India, have an influence not less potent than that of men. We meet each other in our homes; we learn to know and respect and love each other within the walls of the Zenana; and we strengthen those ties which hold together a nation” (“Speech” 1907: 260). Ladies’ associations include Bazmi-Ittihad (Ladies Union Society) organized by Begum Saheba of Murud to promote communal interaction, social reform, female education, “progress and unity, sports and pastimes, philanthropy,” as well as “instruction in fancy needle-work and embroidery” (“Bazmi” 1909: 53). Alternatively, the Ladies’ Association of Palghaut was designed to encourage “social intercourse between Indian women of various castes, Brahmins, Nairs, Tiyyas, Christians, and European ladies” (“Ladies’ . . . Palghaut” 1907: 152). A report of a Purdah Party in Hyderabad observes that women dressed not to flatter men but “to delight and please each other. . . . [A] scene like this makes one realize that the old order has indeed passed away and new modes and new ideals are taking its place” (“Purdah . . . Hyderabad” 1909:107). A Purdah Party in Shalimar Gardens (Lahore) included some New Women—“enlightened in their ideas, well informed, pleased to meet their sisters of various nationalities and religions” (“Purdah . . . Shalimar” 1905: 374). 12 Another Purdah Party was reported in “Lady Minto and the

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Mussalmans”: “the strictest purdah arrangements were made. . . . The gateway was mounted with the Union Jack, supported, on both sides, by the Crescent, and the Lion and Sun of Persia, depicting the friendly relations that exist between the three great Muslim Powers” (“Lady Minto” 1909: 310–11). In her welcoming speech, the hostess emphasized gender solidarity: We meet here today with the great common bond of womanhood between us . . . the same through all the world . . . you have it in your power to determine what the character of your children should be, and on their character will depend not only their own future, but the future of their race. . . . I rejoice . . . that you . . . are resolved to use your powers and opportunities in the highest and purest interest of your country.

Although the Maharani of Cooch Behar specified enhanced solidarity among Indian women, these examples show that the inclusion of various races, castes, and religions, East and West, was central to the social dynamic. As one hostess poetically noted, “Just as a fair maiden is made all the more beautiful by wearing a necklace set with rubies and diamonds intermixed, so let Mother India for ever be beautiful by similar social gatherings of the ladies of the East and the West” (“Ladies . . . Palghaut” 1909: 392). Some organizations favored more practical, instructional activities: “A desire was expressed that a knowledge of cookery and sewing should be spread among the members . . . by practicing sewing at the monthly meeting” (“Trivandrum” 1909: 100). Participants produced needlework (plain for the poor and fancy for fundraising events), studied languages and first aid, and in the interest of developing one’s physique for the good of the nation, ladies’ sports (tennis, croquet, badminton) were discreetly conducted in private back gardens. 13 Whereas such events aimed at promoting “social intercourse” among disparate groups within the privileged classes, others fostered interactions with women who were not privy to social gatherings. The Self-Help Society of Bangalore organized a sewing cooperative for poor women to learn and produce fine needlework and become self-supporting instead of “begging or worse” (“Self-Help” 1910: 20); the Hindu Ladies’ Social Club of Bombay facilitated opportunities to “encourage the advancement of the useful arts and all sorts of needle-work, and particularly to sew garments for distribution amongst the Homes of the poor and the destitute” (“Hindu Ladies” 1903: 266); other women volunteered as lady visitors at female wards in hospitals and prisons and at girls’ schools and libraries. 14 Women philanthropists pursued various other hands-on activities: Parsee ladies visited “the poorer quarters” of Bombay to “distribute aid” to the sick and destitute, to teach needlework with a view toward paid employment, and to facilitate placing poor children in schools (“Women’s Work-Room” 1912: 247). 15 Organized to promote economic self-sufficiency, the Widows’ Industrial Class in Karachi provided free classes in “reading, writing and sums . . .

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[and] needle-work, while all, whatever their abilities, were to receive a fixed wage, sufficient for their necessities” during their training (Bose, “Widows’” 1914: 114). The needlework and crafts they produced were sold to support and broaden the endeavor, which included teacher training classes: “there is no section of the community who needs our untiring efforts to alleviate their misfortunes more . . . providing them with work . . . and bringing them into personal contact with genial, sympathetic womanhood supplies a long-felt need in their lives” (115). 16 Whereas the dates of these articles reflect an early period of social organizing, later reports indicate a broadening of social work efforts and a shift away from the jewels, silks, and refreshments characterizing earlier women’s meetings. P. P. Mudeliar promotes mixed gatherings of educated and uneducated women to promote interdining, 17 social reform, education, and, as advocated by Rokeya Hossain, to replace “jewel-mania” with endowments to “help young widows or to encourage female education” (1914: 111). Other activities respond to the nationwide movement to address the concerns of “untouchables”; for example, a group promoting “Social Work among Scavengers” in Gujarat established an ashram and Bhangi school 18 “wherein all the municipal servants and their children” receive instruction in music, sewing, and “a habit of cleanliness” (“Social Work” 1929: 41). Calcutta Women’s Conference conceived an ambitious program to establish “a school, a dispensary and a library for every small village,” along with “compulsory education . . . [and] wholesome substantial food” (“Notes . . . Calcutta” 1936: 102). True of all these endeavors, such work requires “womanly” tact, for “the poor must have our sympathy and not our contempt” (103). 19 Initially, ladies’ social events received extensive coverage in ILM, offering enthusiastic accounts of delicacies consumed, entertainments enjoyed, and fashions worn. Lists of attendees comprise a Who’s Who of Indian society, and at times ILM seemed to idolize the privileged and their elegant soirees, bordering on gossipy “society” pages at odds with the progressiveness outlined in its editorial policy. But this point is easily clarified: one of its prominent themes concerns relations between Raj women and Indian women, and among Indian women of different religious and sociocultural contexts: how to facilitate them, how to foster them, how to handle language and other communications challenges, how to negotiate social differences that are further complicated by traditions bound by caste customs and taboos. Despite the caveat that Indian women’s nationalism was predicated on cooperation with men, ILM promotes an international sisterhood that transcends geosocial boundaries. 20 In terms not of elitism but of the greater good, Satthianadhan viewed any endeavors to facilitate common ground among women as progressive and in the national, no less than imperial and international, interest.

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At-Homes and Purdah Parties served an essential (and class-specific) purpose by providing women with activities under the rubrics of intellectual self-improvement, moral development, social networking, and communal philanthropy. In 1905, “Progress of Indian Ladies” proclaimed that much good is “achieved by Indian women . . . sinking all differences of caste and religion and working together for a common good cause . . . they are not going to leave the cause of India’s daughters entirely in the hands of men” (“Progress” 1905: 226). A quarter-century later, gender separatism is more palpable: “Are the men in India going to help the cause of the Indian woman, or are they just going to smile over her endeavours? Human nature being what it is, men having conservative tendencies are universally the same; and the Indian is no exception; unless he is goaded into action, precious little is done by him” (Rau, “Modern” 1929: 165). Nationalist solidarity between men and women does, after all, have its limits. Resident Englishwomen, including those affiliated with men in high government positions—like Lady Minto and Lady Stanley 21—not only attended, but also hosted At-Homes and Purdah Parties and participated in the communal outreach activities of ladies’ associations. Thus when Flora Annie Steel denounced the negative drain on Indian society by Anglo-Indian women, she provoked an editorial outcry. 22 Steel condemns resident Englishwomen’s “utter aloofness from national interest,” claiming that “purely philanthropic aims alone will not suffice as a basis for closer intercourse and comprehension between the English and the Indian peoples” (“Mrs. Steel” 1903: 330). She voices a popular critique of women’s activities, which some claimed represent self-aggrandizing busy work when what is needed is practical, hands-on social work; as the previous discussion reveals, women’s organizations quickly evolved from socializing rooted in self-improvement to social work performed out in the community. In her view, Anglo-Indian women’s presence in the country should be predicated on more than mere attachment to a bureaucrat; they should be required to pass examinations measuring their comprehension of Indian history, society, religions, and languages prior to arrival. 23 Steel’s point reflects an earlier era when AngloIndian civil servants were required to complete just such a course of education; since then debates over whether Indians should learn English or the English should learn Hindustani and vernaculars continued to be unresolved. 24 Such an education as Steele proposes would make those masters and mistresses pause in their present ruthless condemnation and destruction of many things which are but the Eastern equivalents of Western virtues. . . . But such an enquiry . . . must be mutual and Indians should also engage in a similar enquiry and not condemn wholesale . . . everything Western. . . . So long as Hindu women are kept in ignorance they are likely to view with even stronger prejudice—than the English do of things Indian—everything Western.

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While evidence of women’s organizing shows Steel’s accusation of “utter aloofness” to be off the mark, 25 Satthianadhan’s conclusion that responsibility for the “bringing about of a better state of things rests as much upon the Indians as upon the English” (331) anticipates debates on “Social Intercourse” between East and West and on female education in India (see chapter 5). Of course, such charitable and philanthropic activities were beyond the vast majority of India’s female population who, impoverished and illiterate, were locked into a hand-to-mouth existence of grueling labor and perpetual semistarvation. Not bound by such unrelenting deprivations, the readers of ILM viewed their philanthropic activities less as ends in themselves than as a means to achieve broader goals: Our foremost aim must be to make individual members, workers, to elevate individual wives and mothers into higher and broader views of life, and to enlarge their horizon. Meetings alone will not suffice to do this; there must be personal contact, personal influence, personal sympathy, hand to hand and heart to heart. . . . One of the highest and most important duties is to work for our neighbours. . . . The blessed gift of influence must . . . stream out beyond . . . our own home. (Macrae, “Ladies’” 1902: 126) 26

With far greater diplomacy, these sentiments reinforce Flora Annie Steel’s commentary about “closer intercourse and comprehension” than is feasible in ladies’ society meetings. Similarly, while praising the social aspects of ladies’ associations and clubs, the Maharani S. P. Bai advised attendees to remember “the vast mass of girls and women all over India to whom life brings little pleasure and nothing of the liberation and power of education,” urging them to work for “the elevation of their less fortunate sisters” (1937: 12). Distinct from society ladies involved in philanthropic work, for some Indian women, this imperative was not just one among many social interests but a calling, a vocation, a lifelong commitment. 27 WOMEN’S MISSION TO WOMEN: RESCUE AND REDEMPTION No social reform is possible by means of resolutions in conferences. Men may speak out, but it is for women to act. . . . The movement towards social reform must come from the women of India.—(“Social Reform” 1917: 281)

During her 1866 tour, social reformer Mary Carpenter highlighted a key issue thwarting female progress in India: “The grand obstacle to the improvement of Female schools . . . is the universal want of female teachers” (qtd. Singh, “Lighten” 1910). 28 This crucial insight extends in various directions: the strict gender separatism defining nineteenth-century Indian culture necessitated a population of academically and medically trained native Indian

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women to minister to women’s physical and mental needs. Ladies’ Philanthropy provided women with opportunities to network through socializing and entertaining, typically involving the socially prominent and economically privileged, aimed at communal solidarity and permitting participation beyond the domestic realm (although not too far beyond). The aims of these organizations were varied, from society events and fundraisers to learning new skills (swaraj) and teaching skills to the poor (swadeshi). Like Ladies’ Philanthropy, Women’s Mission to Women is another concept rooted in Victorian gender ideology, one indicating a deeper level of commitment and requiring lifelong dedication to facilitating social change through palpable reformist activities. In England, Pandita Ramabai was surprised to learn that “fallen” women were not shunned or outcast, as in India, but actively sought out by “women’s missionaries” determined to rescue, recuperate, and prepare them for social respectability and economic self-sufficiency. 29 The Christian humanist message of compassion and care resonated powerfully with Ramabai’s developing ethos concerning the categorically ostracized, “redundant” girls and women of India. That ILM does not fall into the social gossip genre is evidenced by its extensive coverage of the unglamorous, homely work being done by nonsocialite Indian women, those “toiling in the trenches” to promote sanitary reform in villages, to establish widows’ homes and girls’ schools, and to eradicate such customs as child-marriage, female infanticide, sex-trafficking, devadasis, sati, widow abuse, and “accidental” kitchen deaths. 30 With few or none to defend them, females lived a precarious existence from the cradle to the grave; “Female Infanticide in India” reminds readers that the topic is not one of the “abominations of a bygone day” but an ongoing occurrence: “In regard to the destruction of girls, India has a sad and humiliating history. . . . There is no sanction in the Hindu Shastras for this inhuman crime . . . [it is] purely social and domestic” (1901: 24). Regarded as burdens requiring a dowry to make them marriageable, 31 girls who were permitted to live (or somehow managed to survive) suffered an array of mistreatment from neglected health and malnutrition to verbal and physical abuse; a girl’s birth was cause for mourning, not celebration, and her early marriage (despite the dowry involved) relieved parents of economic stress sooner rather than later. But marriage offered no safe haven for brides brutalized by in-laws or victimized by “kitchen accidents”; reconsidering the bride-price (or the bride herself) after marriage, a husband could with impunity orchestrate the “accidental” death of his wife (saris being notoriously flammable), keep her dowry, and marry a more lucrative prospect. For many brides, their very lives depended on their parents’ ability to pay and to keep on paying. Regardless of the age at which infants or children were betrothed, 32 marriage was consummated after the first menses, making child-wives into girlmothers; 33 while the biological and genetic deterioration resulting from such

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premature practices is apparent, custom prevailed, “justified” by the concern that each menstruation represents loss of potential life and was therefore sacrilegious. 34 Early marriage is implicated in three primary, preventable social problems, beginning with maternal and infant mortality—in India, one of the worst records in the world. 35 In Madras, one-third of newborns died in their first year, “owing to the ignorance of the vast majority of women, who know neither to regulate their own lives through pregnancy, nor how to bring up an infant, while barbarous methods of midwifery add to the mortality . . . [as does] insanitary surroundings, superstitious practices and poverty” (“Infant Mortality” 1916–1917: 343). 36 Second, and at the other extreme, early marriage is implicated in overpopulation, producing numbers disproportionate to the means of subsistence and thus fueling chronic poverty; whereas in the West one generation spans roughly thirty to thirty-five years, India typically produces three generations in the same timeframe: a girl-bride, her children, and her grandchildren (“Overpopulation” 1914: 132). The third major social problem caused by early marriage is the proliferation of childwidows; while the consequences of child-marriage are serious enough in couples of comparable age, the custom of older men (sometimes many decades older) marrying young girls is far more insidious. Some girls suffered irreparable physical damage or even death as a result of excessive force during sexual consummation; further, extreme age disparity soon resulted in early widowhood. ILM reports on an organization of young men whose aim is to put down these old foggees with white beards who come forward to usurp with the aid of their money, girls of quite raw age and understanding from the hands of their foolish, selfish and avaricious parents. . . . Though the law does not style this a rape and the social customs do not call this a system of barter and sale of girls, in the moral sphere they are nothing but clandestine transactions. (“Old” 1910: 68–69) 37

Other evidence of the toll on reproductive vitality exacted by such practices is seen in young girls who were widowed even before sexual consummation (as in the story “Shudra”). Statistics offered in ILM include 859 oneyear-old widows; between one and two years old, 1,039; between two and three, 1,886; three to four, 3,732; four to five, 8,180; five to ten, 78,407; and ten to fifteen, 227,367 (“Greater . . . Widowhood” 1914: 132). 38 Like widows of any age or circumstance, these girls were castigated, punished, ostracized, and rejected for the remainder of their lives as a result of circumstances beyond their control. Following the “ceremony of disfigurement” when they are relieved of their jewelry, colorful clothing, and even their hair, 39 widows suffered physical, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse through a variety of punitive measures, including near starvation. 40 For many widows, sati—self-immolation or being buried alive—was preferable to such an exis-

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tence, while premature marriage and motherhood was itself a form of sati: “early immolation on the altar of marriage leaves an Indian girl at the age of 25 a dowdy immobile being, who looks more like a grandmother than a mere mother of six babies” (“Advance” 1933: 162). 41 Sex-trafficking broadened the field of female exploitation, in which the dowry problem was resolved through prostitution: “the long standing evil practice of selling girls to highest bidders without the least consideration of age, status or education” was common in communities “mostly composed of illiterate, poverty-stricken masses tied down by custom and clinging to it for good or for evil with a tenacity which is peculiar to specially backward classes” (“Sex-Trafficking” 1905: 29–30). Such parents may wish to act otherwise, but “the want of moral courage leads them to pursue its opposite” (“Widows” 1916–1917: 251); confronted by the combined forces of caste and religion, few could resist the temptation to pursue a repellant but accepted custom. ILM printed a memorial “against the practice known as Kanaya-Vikraya” (bride-purchase) wherein a young girl was “offered as bride by her cruel avaricious parents. . . . It is neither a religious necessity nor a stringent duty. . . . Disposing of girls in such a way for money considerations is strictly prohibited by the Shastras” (“Memorial” 1901: 88). 42 Also in this category is the “dedication” of girls as devadasis to the “worship of certain Hindu gods and goddesses”; considered brides wedded to the deity, the girls “cannot contract another marriage . . . [and] are practically condemned to a life of infamy” (“Devadasi” 1906: 30). As a result, in the popular consciousness, devadasi was loosely synonymous with temple prostitute, the girls doubly victimized by “celibate” priests and married male “devotees.” 43 One of the period’s most intensely debated issues was determining an appropriate age of consent for girls, complicated not only by the sociopolitical and economic powerlessness of females completely lacking autonomy, but also by their ignorance: the ignorance of women is a serious obstacle to progress . . . woman must be pushed on with greater vigour . . . the limit of marriageable age for girls must be raised to twenty and . . . the seclusion of women . . . must disappear if society is to advance on proper lines . . . a degree of advancement of public sentiment which can be hardly said to exist at present. (“Female Ignorance” 1911: 278–79)

Clearly, “public sentiment” posed a formidable obstacle to links between child-marriage, purdah, and national health. Of such “thralldom of customs,” one commentator questions the “justice and equality” of Indian sexual ideology in relation to emergent nationalism: We have offered to do something some day . . . when the stars are propitious and the Shastras agreeable, we, Indian patriots, will do something to mitigate

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Chapter 4 the unthinkable, but . . . actual horrors of our marriage customs. Meanwhile, let us go on “educating public opinion”—a process started . . . [by] Rajah Rammohun Roy. . . . Individually we shall do nothing that is troublesome or inconvenient, even in the interest of those nearest and dearest to us. How then shall we serve the country at large? How tackle national and international problems? (“Horrors” 1910: 21)

Although many early nineteenth-century reforms initiated by Rammohun Roy eventually became official public policy, 44 India’s largely rural village population (uneducated, traditional, and impossible to police) enabled such practices to continue long after being declared illegal. “Girl-life in India” asks, “What more important question is there in the life of women, than that of their girl-life? . . . Should we not try to improve the girl-life of our women, that fulcrum, . . . of the Social Regeneration of India? . . . it is the backward position of its women, which is the drawback to the regeneration of Society in India” (“Girl-Life” 1904: 280). Girls endure an “inactive, monotonous, useless life”: as a bride, hers is a “grumbling stagnant submission,” and she becomes in turn a “frightened wife . . . indulgent mother . . . [and] tyrannical and querulous” mother-in-law (281); thus is the cycle guaranteeing the oppression of women perpetuated. 45 Regarding zenana life, Susie Sorabji constructs a bleak picture of “many inmates all herded together . . . individuality . . . merged in that of others . . . [spirits] crushed by a tyrannizing motherin-law. Verily there is no tyrant like the one who has herself been tyrannized over” (“Female Education” 1904: 242). 46 Men avoid this environment, with its “petty jealousies, petty strifes, ceaseless gossip, unending turmoil,” yet it is they who have established the system and, perversely, the women themselves who perpetuate it. 47 Unhealthy, illiterate mothers produce unhealthy, illiterate children: whether one is motivated by nationalism or humanism, these points construct the basis of sanitary and education reform debates specifically, the “uplifting” of Indian womanhood generally, and the culture’s health nationally. Caste plays a significant role in India’s widow culture, and those unfamiliar with the system are surprised to learn that the highest social level, the Brahmin, instead of offering the best treatment of widows, is associated with the worst. For Brahmins, the most withering curse between enemies is “May God send you half a dozen daughters!”; among friends, he who has daughters “to give” receives “the utmost pity and sympathy” (Sankarasastry 1911: 290). Instead of joyful anticipation, lying in was the most anxious time for couples dreading a girl child rather than the preferred boy; girls are taught they are “a curse and cause of despondency”; dowry customs mean “financial peril,” many expensive gifts being expected over and above the initial arrangement, financially holding the bride’s family hostage for years. Husbands have unlimited license to harass the in-laws, while the bride is silenced

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by threats and beatings: “the conclusion is irresistible that a Brahmin bride is the most pitiable creature in the world” (291). 48 But one such Brahmin bridewidow rejected these attitudes and devoted her life to ameliorating the disadvantages and sufferings of Indian widows, regardless of caste, and that was Pandita Ramabai. 49 If the high-society element of At-Homes and Purdah Parties represents India’s version of Angel-in-the-House ideology, the indefatigable reformer Ramabai represents “the New Women of India”: “a thinker . . . a heroine, . . . whose name deserves to be enshrined . . . in the home of every one of her Indian sisters” (“Pandita Ramabai” 1901: 40–43). It is most revealing that the 1901 ILM issue celebrating the life and legacy of the late Queen-Empress Victoria and welcoming the ascension of Queen Alexandra also highlights the work of Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati (1858–1922), the brilliant Hindu widow whose unconventional childhood was spent walking the length and breadth of the subcontinent, learning the ancient sacred texts and reputedly committing to memory about twenty thousand verses. 50 Fluent in Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, English, Marathi, Kanarese, Hindustani, and Bengali, Ramabai surpassed the intellectual accomplishments of even the most learned men: “she alone of all the women of India bears the title of Pundita . . . ‘a statesmanlike servant of God, and one of the great personages of her generation’ . . . [she] has 2,000 women and girls under her charge, and the little school that she began seventeen years ago for the child widows of India has grown into a populous village” (“Ramabai” 1907: 307). Her courage and clarity were peerless: as a young high-caste Brahmin widow with a child to support, Ramabai rejected the dehumanizing existence defining Indian widowhood; she traveled extensively overseas, converted to Christianity, and devoted her life to the recuperation of girls and women considered redundant or superfluous in Indian culture. 51 The life and work of Pandita Ramabai seem designed for this assessment: “In the Indian Christian community, is seen the finest fruit of English Education, so far as women are concerned, and in the Brahmin community where individuals have had the courage of their convictions” (“Tradition” 1917: 281). Kamala Satthianadhan, another Hindu-Christian widow who chose a life of service to her countrywomen, wrote of Ramabai: “The true greatness of her character shone out when her husband died and left her a young widow. She never allowed selfish sorrow to submerge her; she not only fought for herself, but for the thousands of suffering women around her” (“Pandita Ramabai” 1901: 40). Kamala might well apply these points to herself. In 1882, Ramabai published her first book, Morals for Women; she founded Arya Mahila Samaj women’s society for promoting female education and the prohibition of child-marriage; and she presented an appeal to the Hunter Commission recommending Indian women’s medical training, which culminated in the Countess of Dufferin Fund. 52 She was committed to “the

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emancipation of Hindu women, which she supported by quotations from the ancient Hindu Sastras”—emancipation from exploitation and superstition unsupported by religious texts (“Pandita Ramabai” 1901: 41). Ramabai wrote that the Shastras, epics, and Puranas, the poets, preachers, and the orthodox all agree that “women of high and low caste, as a class were bad, very bad, worse than demons, as unholy as untruth, and that they could not get Muksha [salvation]. . . . The only hope of . . . liberation from Karma . . . was the worship of their husbands” (“Indian Woman” 1912: 33–34). On the contrary, note her admirers, “What nobler work can there be than that of Pandita Ramabai with her Widows Home, and her Rescue Home for the unfortunate foolish women who are degraded in the eyes of society?” Scholar Meera Kosambi argues that the “outrage” of orthodox Brahmins over Ramabai’s challenges to custom “ultimately defeated her” (Kosambi, Pandita 7) and that it is debatable to what extent she achieved her goals, given the sociocultural marginalization facilitated by her conversion to Christianity: 53 “The inevitability of her frontal collision with the contemporary mainstream Hindu society” diminished her work’s impact, a loss to self and community “both tragic and mutual” (10). Ramabai’s attempts to institute cultural reforms were perceived as a series of betrayals: “birth, family, lineage, caste and class, religion, the traditional order . . . [and the] nation” (Ramabai Sarasvati, Pandita Ramabai’s America xi); conservative Hindu men “feared the way in which she represented a model of an independent, self-willed, assertive woman that directly threatened their authority. While Hindu women could be controlled in a manner that suited them, Christian women were not subject to the same authority, and it is this autonomy that may have accounted for their hostility towards Ramabai and her work” (Anagol, Emergence 38). Her nationalist loyalty was suspect because she renounced certain aspects of Hinduism, true also of her idiosyncratic brand of Christianity; 54 some critics claimed she contributed to the Orientalizing of Indian women by critiques and reforms aimed at confronting unexamined, regressive customs. 55 Ramabai was motivated not by the superficial attractions of Western civilization but by its potential models for the uplift of Indian females, an essential precursor to the nationalist project. Her assessment of “How the Condition of Women Tells upon Society” does not mince words: Those who have done their best to keep women in a state of complete dependence and ignorance, vehemently deny that this has anything to do with the present degradation of the Hindu nation . . . in spite of the proud assertions of our brethren that they have not suffered from the degradation of women, their own condition betrays but too plainly the contrary. (Qtd. Adhav, Pandita 98)

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The unborn child “cannot escape the evil consequences” of a mother whose health is compromised by seclusion, dependence, and ignorance. Here the focus is not feminism, Orientalism, or Occidentalism but humanism and nationalism; insisting that women must ultimately stand up for themselves, she outlines the primary requirements for Indian women’s emancipation: “Self-Reliance . . . Education . . . and Native Women Teachers. . . . The one thing needful . . . is a body of persons from among themselves who shall make it their life-work” (99). Ramabai’s approach was not intended to confront or challenge patriarchy but to “improve the condition of women within the frame of patriarchy” (Talwar, “Feminist” 205); given the unlikelihood of changing the causes perpetuating India’s widow culture, she focused on reshaping the effects. Here was a population considered redundant but perfectly poised to fill the need for women teachers, social workers, and medical practitioners, a social category to be utilized in the national interest, a valuable resource not to be squandered. When Ramabai returned to India from the West, she rescued the helpless and discarded (widows, orphans, famine victims, devadasis) made vulnerable by plague, famine, and sex-trafficking; 56 established homes for the blind, the aged, and the “fallen”; taught herself ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and translated the Bible into Marathi; wrote Marathi textbooks for girls; and and instituted kindergarten programs. Rejected by orthodox Hindus as a Christian convert and therefore a cultural traitor and by orthodox Christians for rebelling against church doctrine (she famously resisted exchanging one “tribe” of priests—Hindu—for another—Christian), Ramabai found sympathy, respect, and support in ILM’s welcoming virtual community of women reformists. 57 Among her many accomplishments, Ramabai founded Sarada Sadan (for widows), Kripa Sadan (for prostitutes), and Mukti Sadan (for destitute women and children), missions or homes of learning “based on a kind of Tolstoyan concept of the model self-sufficient community” (Kumar, History 43); women were educated and taught skills that would enable them to become economically self-reliant as teachers, housekeepers, nurses, wives, and mothers. Padmini Satthianadhan wrote, “it was due to the efforts of this dauntless Indian woman that the great wrongs of the Hindu woman were made known to the world at large. Her institutions were more or less the first of their kind to give industrial education to Indian women” (“Two Great Ramabais” 1937: 100). Of a visit to Mukti Mission, another wrote, There were about 1,500 of these destitute people . . . all dependent on Pandita Ramabai. It is really marvelous how such extensive work with different branches of industry is carried on by a woman at the head. It is really a colony, where women spin their own cotton, weave their saris, sew, dye, bake, farm, churn butter, and carry on almost every other kind of industry that you can

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In effect, Mukti Mission was a striking realization of Hossain’s Ladyland. Originally intended to serve only high-caste Hindu widows, the mission subsequently welcomed “all who apply. . . . Ramabai commands . . . respect . . . [she has] accomplished great things . . . [and] taught the Hindus much in the way of more sanitary living” (“Ramabai Association” 1908: 370). The home featured an exhibition of needlework and weaving accomplished by its inmates, along with an instructive display of “pictures giving an idea of customs which are largely responsible for the condition of women in India.” Besides sanitary reforms, Ramabai promoted morality—both spiritual and economical—confronting the expectation that widows, in their extreme ostracization and poverty, might (perhaps already had) succumb to prostitution. 59 However unintentionally, Pandita Ramabai in her life and work inevitably courted controversy, and when she set about reforming institutions and practices responsible for the subjection of Indian women, she did so from a variety of contexts: knowledge of the Hindu Shastras, which did not sanction crimes against women; European Enlightenment views on human dignity and civil rights; and Christian humanism, in which every person—regardless of class, caste, race, gender, age, marital status, or religion—is a child of God and deserves to be valued as such. For some, such attitudes signify common sense, while for others, they pose a deliberate threat to the integrity of what Sister Nivedita termed “the web of Indian life.” Ramabai’s subsequent “focus on lower caste famine victims rather than upper caste widows made her activities peripheral to mainstream society” (Kosambi, Pandita 12); 60 thus although Sarada Sadan was “the pride of the Western Presidency and the envy of the rest of the country,” its defining egalitarianism also provoked outrage: the positive defect inherent in the scheme as being a part of the Christian propagandism 61 greatly detracted from its merit as a national education movement; and to this defect is to be traced the recoil in public opinion which, on the not unreasonable suspicion that the religious scruples of the Brahmin wards were not respected, 62 had ceased to look upon the institution as a help to the community. (“Mission” 1905: 338)

Reformer Kashibai Devdhar agrees that negative “public sentiment” worked against the scheme: “as there was no proper awakening of the [public] mind at that time, her attempt failed and she was obliged to seek help at the hands of foreigners” (Kashibai, “Early Marriages” 1904: 146). But the

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implication that Ramabai solicited Western help after “failing” to launch her scheme in India is misleading; her commitment to recuperating widows was conceived in India, nourished in England, and developed and materially enabled in America. While some Indians objected to foreign intervention, Ramabai sought the most expedient path to realizing her goals: those who complain it is “not at all creditable to our country to have to appeal to foreign charity” ought instead to be proud of the Ramabai Association’s confidence in her “ability, business integrity, and absolute consecration” to her vocational commitment (“Ramabai Association” 1901: 56). As Padmini Sengupta enumerates, along with introducing the kindergarten and Braille systems, Ramabai established industrial training centers for children, she was one of the first woman delegates to the Indian National Congress (1889), and she was a strident critic of government mishandling of famine- and plague-related epidemics. She promoted women physicians and teachers and in every way facilitated the “uplifting” of Indian women and of India through its women (Kosambi, Pandita 326). It is estimated that she rescued more than three thousand people during her career; in 1919, Ramabai was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind for “her initiative in providing for the lessening of economic waste by her demonstration that the millions of widows might be educated and thus made valuable to the community, instead of being a burden to the family and a blight on the nation” (Butler, Pandita 83). Anglo-Indian writer Maud Diver adds: “her fine education scheme was by no means crushed to earth, as many supposed. . . . She has worked with undaunted energy and increasing success” to accommodate not only “helpless” females but the blind, deaf, aged, and otherwise incapacitated (xi–xiii). 63 Envisioning one’s goal and finding the means to realize them can hardly be termed a failure; Ramabai’s work did succeed, if not as a national model then as an originating inspirational prototype. For example, Professor Karve’s Widows’ Home Association is “based on the model of Pandita Rama Bai’s ‘Sarada Sadan,’ but scrupulous regard is paid to the feelings and prejudices of the people”—meaning, strict observance of dietary and other considerations based on caste hierarchies and separatism rather than egalitarian “leveling” (“Mission” 1905: 339). 64 Karve’s marriage to child-widow Godubai Natu, one of Ramabai’s pupils, further linked the two reformers’ institutions. Alternative versions of the scheme include the Sikh Widows’ Home in Amritsar “for teaching the friendless beings who seek shelter within its portals, various useful and simple arts, such as tailoring, lace-making, embroidery . . . by means of which they are enabled to earn an honourable and honest living” (“Sikh” 1909: 304). Other versions include the Hindu Widows’ Home, established by Parvatibai Athavale; the Poona Seva Sadan and Seva Sadan Nursing and Medical Association, founded by Ramabai Ranade; 65 and the Poona Widow’s Home superintended by Kashibai Devdhar. 66 The Daughters of India Orphanage in Allahabad, “the counterpart of what Pundi-

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ta Ramabai is doing in the Bombay Presidency,” was founded by Miss Sarat Chuckerbutty “for the moral and spiritual training of destitute Indian widows and orphans” (“Woman’s Work” 1901: 19). Like Ramabai, Miss Chuckerbutty rescued over three hundred female famine and plague victims (ca. 1900), “widows and orphans . . . a brave work, nobly conceived and splendidly carried out” (20). 67 “I have no doubt,” noted one writer, that she “has been inspired by Pandita Ramabai” (“Description” 1910: 49). 68 Sister R. S. Subbalakshmi’s report on “Government Brahmin Widows’ Hostel” at Egmore asserted, “The condition of our women and Indian widows is a hard thing to describe” (1913: 182). 69 A well-educated Brahmin, “brought up very delicately” and widowed at eleven, she was shocked to learn about the treatment of and attitude toward widows: “my eyes having been opened by a liberal education, I realized the evils existent in our social organization, especially the fate of young widows.” Education is a “valuable gem . . . a happiness . . . a consolation” that could lessen the prevalence of suicide among widows—women whose fate was not improved by the criminalization of sati, which avoids the “root of the evil.” Like Ramabai and other reformers working on behalf of widows, Subbalakshmi posited that through “a liberal education and raising their condition,” these women will be useful to society while securing a purposeful life for themselves (183). Her appeal for funds to continue and expand the hostel’s work urged that “friends and sympathizers . . . send their young widowed daughters and sisters . . . thus making the home a success and a boon to the young childwidows of the soil” (184). Also like Ramabai, Subbalakshmi did not distinguish between Brahmin widows and those “of the soil.” Similar endeavors include an order of Indian Sisters of Mercy and a House of Service for training and placement “as lady missionaries for educational, medical and other good work on unsectarian lines . . . [and] the principle of self-help” (“Sisters of Mercy” 1907: 197). This was established by Behramji Malabari, “one of those few prominent men in our country . . . gifted with . . . originality and far-sightedness . . . energy and practical common sense.” Mrs. Ali Akbar praised such efforts “for cultivating and manifesting those traits of true womanhood, love and service,” urging “all our Indian sisters . . . to support this Home of Service in all ways possible” (“Hindu Ladies” 1909: 252). “Temple of Service” also praises Indian women’s study of Western philanthropic modalities and their ability to adapt them to India’s culture-specific needs (1929: 485). All these reformers recognized that India’s social system results in a proliferation of young widows, whose lives “are spent . . . not very usefully . . . if not in actual misery and sin” (Kashibai, “Early Marriages” 1904: 145); insofar as the status of women reflects the progress of civilization, 70 Indian society’s general preference for the inertia of custom and its resistance to modernization became a defining paradox of the nationalist movement.

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“Too much importance cannot be attached to the proper education of our girls,” wrote the Maharani of Mysore, especially true of widows rehabilitated through teacher training programs: “I look forward to the time when they will be regarded not as objects of pity, but as a special and privileged class devoted and set apart for the promotion of education and all other good works. 71 . . . The lessons that they have learnt at school will help to make them good and wise women, whatever position in life they may be called upon to fill” (“Maharani . . . Education” 1908: 336). 72 Given this impressive network of programs designed to provide certain categories of women with alternatives to ostracization, penury, and infamy, Pandita Ramabai—one of the first to recognize the need and to do something about it—truly is, in Padmini Sengupta’s phrase, the “Mother of Modern India” (Story 157). Confronting those who critique Ramabai’s means at the expense of her ends, Kamala wrote: “India should be proud of producing such a noble character, who is as great in her deeds of active benevolence as she is in her learning. When the history of India comes to be written there will indeed be a prominent place given in it to this widow woman” (“Indian Women” 1901: 3). Another prominent reformer was Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy (1886–1968), the first “lady Deputy-president of the Madras Legislative Council” and a pioneering activist in women’s medicine and social work. Willing “to collaborate with anyone, whether upper or lower caste, European or Indian, who shared her credo of non-sectarian work for women and children” (Raman, “Crossing” 139), Reddy is known for her campaigns challenging the seemingly unassailable entitlements accorded Hindu priests and temples; she introduced a bill banning “toddy-drawing” from temple trees 73 and prohibiting the “dedication of girls [devadasis] in temples . . . in the interests of religion, morality, health and even humanity” (“Reform” 1937: 254). 74 Those aware of “the misery behind the veil of silence” suffered by devadasis must be held accountable for perpetrating such “evils” and “sufferings that are certainly avoidable, if knowledge and education of the right kind on these matters are imparted to the erring members of our society” (“Home . . . Madras” 1934: 120); this “lingering vestige of medieval serfdom” is incompatible with “modern notions of freedom and voluntary regulation of life” (“Dr. . . . Achievement” 1929: 447). The “marriage” of “little girls to gods” consigned them “to a life of shame and infamy . . . an unqualified abomination and the degradation, misery, and immorality directly traceable to it is appalling. No denunciation . . . can therefore be too strong” (“Devadasis” 1911: 307). Reasons for the perpetuation of the custom include “the ignorance and illiteracy of the masses and the neutrality of the [British] Government towards social evils” (“Dr. . . . Legislator” 1931: 433). 75 Reddy’s assertion that temple reform will occur once India becomes self-governing is not supported by previous attempts to instill in the population a more humane attitude toward women, whether by reason, sentiment, or legal compulsion.

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Those social reform issues requiring legislation in the absence of voluntary compliance—sati, infanticide, and age of consent—were no less fraught with resistance than sex-trafficking, child-brides, and rape; to this dismal litany, ILM adds the prohibition or thwarting of female education, yet “another form of suttee.” In 1906, Kamala Satthianadhan wrote: “The following may be a straw, but it shows which way the wind blows. . . . [The] millions of helpless widows who are driven by adverse circumstances to lead a life of destitution” represents a significant resource that should be brought into the nationalist fold (“Widows” 1906: 138). The 1930s marked a major shift in attitudes linking widows with prostitution; when the “Madras Act” for “Suppression of immoral traffic in women and children” closed down many brothels, one result was the shortage of “rescue homes to receive unfortunate . . . destitute girls . . . who are themselves not offenders, but are the victims of others’ lust, greed and wickedness” (“Madras” 1930: 334). 76 One such home, the Madras Seva Sadan, provided poor adult women with the means for respectable selfsufficiency; these “needy and neglected women” were regarded a potential resource to be trained for “India’s social and industrial uplift”: We train them to become nurses, midwives and teachers. Music is taught and instruction imparted in handicrafts, such as, needlework sewing, cutting and garment-making, weaving, embroidery . . . rattan work and mat-making. . . . It is both heartening and heartbreaking to witness the change which ordinary human kindliness will work in starved human souls. (“Madras” 1930: 46) 77

As always, for women more involved in fundraising than rescue work, donations are invited “to continue this work of human salvage.” Adding to operating expenses are girls who are “in danger of being drawn to a life of dishonor” and need special accommodations, as they “cannot be mixed with other girls,” the proximity of innocent or chaste girls to those who are sexually experienced being viewed as a ruinous influence (“Madras” 1934: 61–62). 78 Because the upper age limit at Children’s Aid Society was sixteen, Madrassians must assume the “voluntary burden of lifting these poor women out of the slough into which they have fallen. . . . In saving these helpless women, we will [also] be serving ourselves.” A more vexed example of a woman reformer is Oxford-educated Cornelia Sorabji (1865–1954), who offers a unique instance of pioneering social activism; born into a privileged, wealthy, liberal-minded Christian-Parsi family noted for its contributions to female education, Cornelia was the first woman graduate of the University of Bombay, the first Indian to attend Oxford, the first woman to earn a law degree, and India’s first woman lawyer. 79 Her professional progress was a source of great pride and inspiration in ILM: “The Benchers of Lincoln’s Inn have made a notable departure in granting

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permission to an Indian Lady, Miss Cornelia Sorabji, to frequent their library and use books therein. The lady to whom this exceptional privilege has been extended is a very remarkable personage” (“Cornelia” 1903: 236). Sorabji devoted her law practice to representing purdahnashins, whose seclusion and illiteracy rendered them particularly vulnerable to exploitation in business and legal matters. As legal adviser to the Court of Wards, Government of Bengal, Sorabji worked “directly with Purdah women . . . easily the victims of fraud” to protect and defend their rights and interests (“Cornelia Sorabji” 1904: 29–30). 80 Recalling the English legal category “women, children, and idiots,” the position of the purdahnashin “is that of an infant . . . the protection accorded her is that accorded to infants or lunatics” (“Miss . . . Scheme” 1903: 251–52). Such women were victimized by unscrupulous male family members who, even while claiming women’s seclusion and ignorance is for their own protection, ostensibly act on their behalf but instead rob them of property and financial resources. 81 Sorabji’s “high qualities of cool-headedness and sound practical wisdom” especially suited her to work on their behalf (252). Kamala Satthianadhan praised Sorabji’s learning—she “has few equals among lady writers” (“Gosha . . . Sorabji” 1901: 152); from a literary perspective, her writing “is unique . . . clear, forcible, and epigrammatic, and she excels in condensing ideas in short pithy statements” (“Miss Cornelia Sorabji” 1903: 92–93). From nonfiction articles in “leading English journals” to creative nonfiction (Love and Life behind the Purdah, 1902, and Sun Babies, 1904) and fiction (Shubala, 1920), her writing comprises “literature of a high order” (“Cornelia Sorabji” 1904: 324). 82 Because offering readers exemplary models of English language use was a primary concern, ILM featured not only good writing, but also transcriptions of speeches and lectures, the cultivation of public speaking skills among women being considered integral to their development. 83 In her lecture to the National Indian Association in England, Sorabji “wields” the English language “gracefully and effectively,” the matter and manner are “fascinating,” containing “shrewd and profound remarks on the present condition of India—intellectual, material, moral and social” (“Lecture” 1901: 82–83). But while she highlights the difficulties of “A Sacred Town in Cutch,” “Famine Sights and Scenes,” and “India’s Present Social Condition,” she condemns Indians’ “exodus to England” as a “hideous error . . . the most hopeful India is not the India in England, but the India of the fields, and the weaving looms, and the caste system: the vernacular . . . which conserves the good and the true and the individual” (84). More provocatively, Sorabji endorsed Katherine Mayo’s Mother India, which was one of the reasons contemporaries found her to be more an “individualist” than a nationalist (Sinha, “Reading” 18). 84 Sorabji’s politics could be polarizing, yet they anticipate Gandhi’s conservative, antimodern, anti-West platform, which many felt served less to define and promote Indian identity than

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to keep the country in a nonprogressive, uncompetitive position. 85 Of the “Indian Portia” and her politics, Kamala “often remarked that . . . [she] was perhaps too Western and too critical of India” at a time when candor was more likely to provoke defensiveness than gratitude (Sengupta, Portrait 41–42). As a personal choice, some educated Indians preferred Western cosmopolitanism to India of the fields and looms, 86 and Cornelia Sorabji was among them. While celebrated as one of the country’s great social reform pioneers, her pro-imperialist stance and critiques of India taint her legacy as a woman of great achievements. ILM also featured the work of Englishwomen like Josephine Butler (1828–1906), whose Association for Moral and Social Hygiene was based on principles of “equal . . . moral standards for men and women, liberty with responsibility; [and] respect for human personality” (“News . . . Countries” 1936: 174); 87 similarly, Miss Shepherd’s investigation of Indian military brothels conducted “a detailed enquiry into ‘tolerated vice areas’ . . . [like] rescue homes and industrial colonies . . . for girl victims,” thus confronting “the long-continued evils of custom, ignorance, superstition, and economic stress” (“Traffic” 1935: 74). Mary Carpenter (1807–1977) helped establish the Bengal Social Science Association, the National Indian Association (NIA), 88 Indian girls’ schools, and prison reforms. Florence Nightingale’s (1820–1910) work on sanitary reform for Indian villages and irrigation schemes targeted India’s largest and neediest population. 89 Other notable women include Annie Besant (1847–1933), member of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Home Rule League; Irishwoman Margaret Noble (1867–1911) (Sister Nivedita), affiliated with Swami Vivekananda; and Irish suffragist turned Indian freedom fighter Margaret Cousins (1878–1954), founder of the National Women’s Association and the AllIndia Women’s Conference, and among those jailed for participating in satyagraha during the 1930s. 90 Rounding out these examples is Lady Dufferin (1843–1936), Vicerine of India (1884–1888) and founder of the Countess of Dufferin Fund, based on Pandita Ramabai’s appeal to the Hunter Commission to provide medical education to Indian women. The availability of skilled female doctors, nurses, and midwives was crucial to the well-being of women and children: “In no other country is female medical aid so very poor as in India; and as a result we see the mortality among women and children so very high. . . . Indian lady doctors know the needs, and susceptibilities of Indian womanhood” (“Lady Dufferin” 1911: 244). 91 The National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India facilitated medical training for Indian women, organized dispensaries and cottage hospitals for women and children, and established female wards in existing hospitals and outpatient facilities—all designed exclusively for women-only patients and medical staff. In a happy contrast with previous standards of female medical care,

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ILM notes that “female medical education . . . has been most beneficial to the women of this country, and particularly to purdanashin ladies . . . [bringing] welcome relief to the needy and the distressed behind the purdah” (“Women Doctors” 1902: 130). Before the Purdah Question shifted from a time-honored custom into a movement for its abolition in the interest of national progress, the social opportunities provided by Purdah Parties proved to be as essential in their way as access to medical and legal resources enabling women to participate in the community beyond the zenana. 92 ILM’s dual emphasis on society ladies and women social workers illustrates a unifying trend among females of all religions, races, and socioeconomic statuses: the imperative to move beyond personal and familial selfimprovement to participate in communal and national progress was as symbolic of women’s emancipation as that of greater India’s. Not only was it women’s patriotic duty to exert their moral influence in the home and family, it was also politically expedient that they do so outside the home for the benefit of the sex, race, and national agenda. Of Ladies’ Philanthropy and Women’s Mission to Women, Kamala Satthianadhan observed, “A new era of activity has dawned for Indian ladies . . . [that will] prove a great stimulus to the progress of India’s daughters . . . even into the zenana the light of culture and progress has penetrated” (“Women’s Activities” 1905: 224). ILM’s record of women’s activities clearly shews how much can be achieved by . . . their sinking all differences of caste and religion and working together for a common good cause. . . . Hitherto they had depended upon the goodwill, and favour of men for their advancement, but now that they have been awakened, they are likely to put forth efforts of their own, which it would not be possible for men to resist. (226)

Women claiming for themselves what they had previously hoped to receive from men represents perhaps the most dramatic shift signaling a new spirit of the age. This development reflects the broader realization that Ladies’ Philanthropy and Women’s Mission to Women were necessary preludes to the comparatively rigorous expressions of political activism leading to independence. Historian Geraldine Forbes wrote that women’s organizations provided a “training ground . . . [for] leadership roles in politics and social institutions . . . [which] in turn, played an important role in the construction of the Indian nation” (64). This discussion now turns to another set of essential precursors: the formation of Indian identity politics and the vicissitudes of “social intercourse,” East and West.

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NOTES 1. Female literacy rates circa 1800 were estimated at 1 in 100,000; by 1900, an estimated 6 out of 1,000 Indian females could read and write. Ramakrishna cites “only 0.48 per cent in 1901” (“Women’s” 82). See also Everett (Women 31–33). 2. Britain’s failure to take the INC seriously “hastened . . . more militant tendencies . . . [and] the assertion of traditional values from within Indian civilization” (Parry, Delusions 21). It was the Western-educated, disenfranchised intelligentsia who established INC, which quickly shifted from a tool to strengthen imperial relations to a means for achieving independence. 3. High-caste Brahmin women, like “distressed” English gentlewomen, could not work for remuneration without losing caste, respectability, and reputation. Liberal-minded families increasingly prioritized girls’ higher education and professional training over early marriage. 4. Essentialism refers to unexamined acceptance and perpetuation of gender stereotypes; here the conundrum was how to reconcile the claim that women belong at home with their participation in the public realm. One can “have it both ways,” but the unwillingness to critically examine tradition and custom is inconsistent with intellectual endeavors. Some women found it expedient to embrace essentialist concepts outwardly, under cover of which they could pursue whatever activism they wished. Such simplistic polarities as Western materialism/ Eastern spirituality, outer/inner, home/marketplace, and domestic purity/worldly contamination construct “false essentialisms . . . propagated by nationalist ideology” (Chatterjee, “Nationalist” 252). 5. See F. K. Proschaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England. 6. The author quotes The Englishwoman’s Review (“Womanliness”). Woman’s sphere has “so many boundaries . . . on which so much pressure is exerted, that it runs the chance of being, like the earth, a decidedly ‘oblate spheroid’” (104). While this sphere is assumed to have “universal application, the same in all ages and in every land,” it in fact “rises or falls according as the intellectual or the sensuous qualities prevail in man.” 7. For example, Lady Mehrbai Dorab Tata (1879–1931), social activist on behalf of women’s issues. 8. Satthianadhan encouraged At-Homes, Purdah Parties, and ladies’ associations organized for “periodical lectures, social gatherings and circulation of important magazines”—like ILM— “thereby promoting mutual sympathy and a spirit of toleration” (“At-Homes” 1903: 96). 9. “Somehow it comes naturally to even the most uneducated of Indians to achieve the most artistic and tasteful scheme of decoration with the simplest of materials—harmony of colour, symmetry of form, choice of objects . . . [a] peculiarly Indian dignity” (“Christmas” 1928: 230–31). 10. Some objected that ladies’ meetings with bilingual papers and proceedings are awkward and boring, defeating the purpose of social exchange: “Owing to the language differences, we were put to such desperate shifts and . . . heroic remedies in order to understand one another” (“Letter . . . Editor” 1917: 234). Language issues are “responsible for the slowness with which English and Indian ladies come to mutual acquaintance or friendship. . . . The apparent indifference of Indian ladies to meeting us is due more to the language question than anything else”— which of course works both ways. 11. Attar: rose water. Pan-supari: Indian snack composed of areca nut, spices, and sweets wrapped in betel leaf. See P. Naidu, “Thamboolam.” 12. “Clubs for Indian Women” critiques their tendency to be conservative, unwelcoming to remarried widows, unamenable to physical activity, and unappealing to younger women, whereas it is educated, younger women who can energize such organizations by inspiring practical social reform (Murthy 1931: 115–16). 13. The appropriateness of female physical exercise was intensely debated: “Parsee girls of Bombay are playing tennis and badminton, to the great scandal of the Hindus and Mohammedans” (“Parsee” 1908: 302), while Karkal Catholic Ladies’ Association “for social and intellectual improvement” engaged in “gentle indoor exercises” (“Karkal” 1904: 324). “Girl-Life in India” presents exercise as a national imperative: “We have to make our women strong physically and morally, mothers of strong and healthy children” (1904: 282); women in sports “will ultimately tend to create a better physical and more virile race . . . and will bring India in line

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with the foremost civilized nations of the world” (“Special Notes” 1935: 90). See Bernard, “Physical Exercise for Girls”; “Physical Culture for Women”; “Women in Sport”; “Are We Overdoing Sport?”; “Advance of Indian Women”; “Lady Wrestlers”; Ramaswamy, “Physical Education”; “Croquet for Ladies”; “Physical Culture for Women”; “Practical Hints on Physical Exercise.” 14. “The spirit of reform can best be shown by the range of subjects discussed: women’s education, higher education, liberty of women, dancing girls, child-rearing, literature, marriage, bride and bridegroom purchase money, social reform, Ladies’ Associations” (Kanna 1912: 15). 15. See also “Parsee Ladies.” 16. “In this era of great epidemics, an inordinate number of upper caste women . . . had been left widowed” (Raman, “Crossing” 137). According to the 1911 Census, 19 percent of Hindu women and nearly 18 percent of Muslim women were widows (147n34). On purdah women’s craft making, see “Women’s Work in the Handi-Crafts.” 17. To prevent “contamination” of orthodox dietary requirements, a mixed assembly necessitated different menus, preparation sites, dishes and cookware, servers, and dining areas. Westerners viewed interdining as essential for cultivating social intercourse. Kamala hosted social gatherings for “the low and the high . . . sitting cheek by jowl with the former, so that the higher caste people could not grumble” (Sengupta, Portrait 184). See Mudeliar, “Women” 1914; also “Malabar Nayars” on interdining and intermarriage. 18. Bhangi: the lowest caste of street sweepers and scavengers. 19. See “Work among Women in Calcutta.” 20. “Let women then try to build up a feeling of international unity” through women’s networking, organizations, and the International League of Nations (“Place of Women” 1933: 208). 21. Lady Minto: Mary Caroline Grey (1858–1940), Fourth Countess Minto. Earl Minto was Governor General of India (1905–1910). Lady Stanley: Beatrix Taylour (1877–1944), married to George F. Stanley, Acting Viceroy of India (1934). 22. “By giving up ourselves to the passing pleasure of the moment . . . leading a frivolous aimless life . . . we hinder the progress of our Empire” (“Social . . . English Lady” 1901: 57). See both Paxton, “Complicity,” and Burton, “White Woman’s.” 23. “The difference of language proves an insurmountable difficulty” (Chapman, Sketches 21). Englishwomen are “utterly at a loss as to what to say . . . [after] preliminary civil sentences,” they are reduced to “smiles and signs” (23); some argued that parents whose daughters are likely to go to India should get them instruction in those languages, along with or instead of European. 24. See Chengalvarayan on vernacular languages. 25. “We naturally expect greater sympathy and support from English ladies resident in India . . . [but] we do not agree with Mrs. Steel . . . that they are rigidly exclusive and . . . too shallow and frivolous to do much good” (“Social” 1901: 29); alternatively, “the number of English ladies who really wish to be of some direct use to their benighted Hindu sisters is very insignificant.” See also “Mrs. Steel” (1903). 26. “Amicus” suggests that some women seek education and privileges only because it is fashionable; they “fall back into their old routine” of dependency when it is convenient to do so (“Work” 1929: 315). 27. Reform must come from within, “individual and collective,” from home industries to national swadeshi: “sentiment must be backed with practical and cultural work”; once reform becomes politicized, nationalists must “discard . . . primitive and out-of-date methods” in order to be competitive in the modern world. Certain aspects of tradition must “give way to the progressive,” starting with attitudes toward “untouchables” and women (Ali, Cultural 282). See “Scrutator” on “talking about” versus “doing” practical work; also Kumar (History 53). 28. Women teachers were less well trained than men, and their teaching was hampered by an inherent perpetuation of inferiority: “special textbooks for females . . . meant that the content of female education became increasingly differentiated from that of men and probably suffered a decline in standard” (Borthwick, Changing 83). 29. “The public in this country have to be educated up to charity of thought, word and deed towards woman . . . to make things easier and not more difficult for those who have fallen in the

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eyes of the world and wish to rise to self-respect again” (“Contribution . . . Life” 1932: 358). Elizabeth Gaskell, Christina Rossetti, Florence Nightingale, and Mary Carpenter are among the better-known Western “women’s missionaries” to the “fallen.” 30. The dynamic persists: in 1999, 99 percent of abortions in India were females (Kafka, Outside 20)—a distressing exhibition of modern scientific technology (amniocentesis, ultrasound, surgical abortions) harnessed to cultural misogyny and justified as population control. Alternatively, “the education of girls is the country’s best hope for curbing population growth” (Kamdar, qtd. Kafka, Outside 53). See Garrett’s “Infant Marriage in India” on female infanticide. 31. On substituting female education for dowry, see “Dowry to the Bridegroom,” “Dowry,” and commentary by Rokeya Hossain and Sister Susie. On the association of dowry with prostitution (both of which commodified sexual relations), see Rao, “Dowry System” (1937: 276). On bride-murder and blackmailing of in-laws, see “Anti-Dowry.” See also “Marriage Dowry.” 32. On the betrothals of infant-brides (one aged two, another eighteen months) to grooms in their thirties, Englishwomen’s Review wrote: “It is against such monstrous customs that brave Pundita Ramabai is struggling” (“Foreign” 1889: 424). 33. The Age of Consent Bill was designed to protect young girls from husbands determined to assert “conjugal rights,” both female submission and male assertion being “enjoined by religion as a sacred duty” (Kosambi, “Girl-Brides” 1858). Opponents viewed the bill as an attack “on the modesty, virtue and holy sacraments” of Indian females (1860) while dismissing physiological, biological, and racial degeneration as nonissues. Sexual consummation between grown men and young girls is “depraved . . . preposterous . . . wicked barbarities,” as are “the artificial means employed to fit child-wives for the earliest possible intercourse with their husbands” (1861–62). Those who claimed religious authority for such thinking pointed to Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation pledging not to intervene in native religious matters; as a social issue “condemned by every system of law and morality in the world, it is religion and not morality which must give way” (1864–65). Commentary by Dr. Smith of Madras Medical College (ca. 1890) anticipates that by Katherine Mayo: “a people born out of early marriage are unfit for self-government” and are not “a respectable type of the human race” (1863). See also “Age of Consent.” 34. “Prepubertal marriages for girls and immediate post-pubertal consummation of marriage was mandatory in order to harness their sexuality” (Kosambi, Pandita 6). Because females’ primary function was procreation, “every post-menstrual fertile period was to be utilized, starting with the very first. . . . Failure to conceive . . . was tantamount to killing a potential foetus” (Kosambi, “Girl-Brides” 1860). As justification for early consummation, such criminalizing of potential feticide (unfertilized, “wasted” eggs) jars oddly with the prevalence of female infanticide, child-marriage, forced consummation, marital rape, and girl-motherhood. 35. The underlying causes of maternal and infant mortality are “ignorance and poverty”; women need to understand the importance of fresh air, physical exercise, good nutrition, and personal and domestic hygiene: “only a healthy body can lodge a healthy mind . . . [and] make a healthy home . . . the firm pillars of a nation” (“Infantile” 1917: 61–62). On the physical damage caused by child-marriage and motherhood, see also Kumar, History (24–25); Devendra Das, Sketches (91–96); and “Don’t Marry Young” (1916: 132–33). 36. Dr. Baliga, who stressed the preventability of infant mortality, wrote of an unnamed presidency in which “more than 10 lakhs of people and 3 lakhs of infants . . . die every year, mostly from preventable diseases,” while an additional three lakhs die “below age” (1930: 272); one lakh equals one hundred thousand. See also “Women and Baby Mortality in Calcutta,” which reports the mortality rate for mothers aged ten to fifteen was 50 percent and for infants was 70 percent (1917: 55). Statistics offered in “Child Mortality in India” collected by the World Bank show that in 2001, India’s rate was 2.5 million, reduced to 1.5 million by 2012—a dramatic reduction, but still a stunning statistic. Female infant mortality continues to exceed that of males. 37. See “Indian Ladies and Their Future” by S. T. R. (1907: 322–23) on progress in female education and the drawbacks of early marriage. 38. See also “Horrors of Our Marriage Customs.”

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39. “Is there another country in the world where a woman’s head is so shorn? . . . The widow still undergoes a sort of extinction [symbolic sati], when her husband dies and her head is shorn” (Venkateswaran, “Brahmn” 1929: 636–37). 40. Naidu calls Indian widowhood “a national disgrace” (“Hindu Widows” 1904: 261). Widows are required to fast one hundred days out of the year, “committing slow suicide” when they could be trained as teachers and doctors, serving India as well as maintaining themselves (“Widows” 1916–1917: 251–52). 41. Some claimed that such treatment was a matter of ignorance and superstition, not malice, yet customs involving widows’ hair and appearance and their association with bad luck, ill omens, the evil eye, and inauspiciousness were pursued with great vigor nonetheless. The alignment linking widows (a social status acquired by circumstance) with “untouchables” (a social status into which one is born) is compelling. 42. See “Pledging of Child Labour” on children forced to work in order to pay parents’ debts. 43. Devadasis are credited with preserving classical music and dance through matrilineal connection with their daughters (biological or adopted; see chapter 8). Some “parents sold daughters to temples or as performers for the affluent. . . . British missionaries viewed devadasis with opprobrium, male nationalists were apologetic, and women nationalists tried to save their fallen sisters” (Raman, Women 49–51; see also 71–72 and 106). Reforming colonials and Evangelicals condemned devadasis’ “filthy communications” and insisted they “be excluded from colonial schools . . . fearing that caste girls would be tainted by ‘depraved prostitutes’ even before puberty” (72). In 1900, there were 1,573 temple dancers in Madras, considered to be “the common property of the priests” (Kaur, Women 23). 44. For example, the abolition of sati (1829), the Widow Remarriage Act (1856), the Female Infanticide Act (1870), the Age of Consent Act (1891), and the Child Marriage Restraint (Sarda) Act (1929). 45. “The Difficulties of Indian Women” begin with early marriage: they are permitted no time to prepare for “the duties of marriage,” compared with English girls, for whom girlhood is “the season of culture, when the judgment has to be formed, the intellect disciplined, and feelings and passions brought under strict control” (1904: 381). See also Miss Sidgwick’s series on English girls. 46. See Rao’s “British Girls and Their Ways”; Quraishi’s “Women in Southern India,” in which the persecuted wife takes revenge on a mother-in-law who has grown too old to defend herself; and the Rukhmabai case. “The status of the wife in the joint family was . . . very low . . . she was supposed to do every thing according to her mother-in-law’s wish” (Murshid, Reluctant 152). Alternatively, “the modernized daughter-in-law is making the mother-in-law’s life miserable” by challenging traditional standards. 47. “The fault lies with the men, for though many talk, yet few set an example; but it lies with the women also. We leave it to the men to do everything, showing a sad lack of . . . ambition on our part. It is obviously our duty to bestir ourselves and show the men that they owe it to us as our right to place us on the same level with themselves” (“Difficulties” 1904: 382). See Sen, “Zenana System.” 48. Wollstonecraft wrote: “such is the blessed effect of civilization! The most respectable women are the most oppressed . . . from being treated like contemptible beings, [they] become contemptible” (Vindication 262). 49. Ramabai represents a “series of overlapping encounters . . . Hinduism and Christianity, rationalism and dogma, individualism and church hierarchy. . . . Indianness and western culture, nationalism and colonial rule, feminism and patriarchy” (Kosambi, “Indian” 61), yet she “maintained a consistent anti-colonial and nationalist stand” (68). 50. Ramabai’s family was ostracized because of her father’s determination to educate his wife and daughters and to avoid child-marriage. Their wandering existence depended on performing Hindu rituals and reciting verses from the Shastras, in accordance with caste prohibition against manual labor for Brahmins, a lifestyle untenable during the 1874–1877 famine: there was “no secular education to enable us to earn our livelihood . . . pride of caste and superior learning and vanity of life prevented our stooping down to acquire some industry. . . . We were too weak to move, and too proud to beg or work” (India’s Sunny Plains 66–67; 73).

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Physical hardship, personal loss, and rejection by the Hindu community, posed against Christian emphases on salvation, compassion, and redemption led her to conclude that “no caste, no sex, no work, and no man was to be depended upon to get salvation . . . but God gave it freely to any one and everyone who believed in His Son” (Ramabai Sarasvati, Testimony 66). 51. In the Punjab (1881), nearly 25 percent of females over fifteen were widows; of these, it was the upper-caste widows who were most vulnerable to “neglect . . . maltreatment and . . . sexual abuse . . . [and] constituted a readymade recruiting ground for prostitution” (Kishwar, “Arya” 9). 52. There was a “general apathy towards women entering the medical profession . . . guarded jealously as the last bastion of male territory” (Gourlay 118); first women doctors Elizabeth Blackwell (England) and Anandabai Joshi (India) acquired their medical degrees in America. See Billington, “Women Medical Students in England”; Kosambi, “Meeting” (9); “Women’s Education in India”; Raman, Women (85); and “National . . . Dufferin Fund.” 53. Kosambi attributes Ramabai’s “exile from the collective consciousness” and Maharashtra’s “century-long conspiracy of silence” to her Christian conversion (“Indian” 61). According to Professor Karve: “even the remarriage of widows was not so objectionable as their conversion to Christianity” (Chakravarty 331). 54. As a Christian, “Ramabai distances herself from the doctrine but not the culture of Hinduism” (Kosambi, Introduction 37); she similarly distances herself from Christian orthodoxy while embracing its ideology of compassion and love. Her synthesis of the two was highly idiosyncratic, baffling orthodoxy on both sides and presenting a compelling example of “hybridity.” 55. Compare with Joshi’s endorsement of child-marriage in America, Vivekananda’s disapproval of Ramabai’s egalitarian approach to recuperating Indian women (see chapter 7), and the Katherine Mayo episode. At stake is the delineation between constructive criticism of regressive practices and cultural denigration, both of which provoked defensiveness. 56. Ramabai personally sought out these vulnerable females, but “there is little evidence that Hindu social reformers themselves did anything concrete for famine victims” (Chakravarty 337). See also “Woman’s Work.” 57. Anglican sponsor Sister Geraldine complained of Ramabai’s “dangerously inflated . . . pride and vanity . . . want of candour and sincerity . . . [and] deceitfulness” (Kosambi, Pandita 114–15). Ramabai maintained, “I am . . . a member of the Church of Christ, but am not bound to accept every word that falls down from the lips of priests or bishops . . . as authorized command of the Most High” (Letters 59). Geraldine claimed Ramabai manipulated her by “pretending” to convert in exchange for sponsorship in England; she was unprepared for a convert whose keen intellect and appetite for theological debate outweighed her capacity for passive obedience. See Burton’s Heart, Chatterjee’s Empire, and N. Menon, Introduction. 58. See Kosambi (Introduction 30); Martineau’s “Female Industry”; and ILM’s “Home Industries for Women.” 59. Widow remarriage “evoked the age-old belief in the greater lust of women—allegedly eight times as intense as that of men” (Raychaudhuri, Europe 67); no scientific data support this extraordinary claim. Widows’ real or imagined sexual deviance (although not that of the men who used them) contributed to such problems as abortion, infanticide, prostitution, and suicide. Links between widowhood and prostitution resulted from “missionary views on Indian women as permissive” (Raman, Women 79), yet the issue was not promiscuousness but economics. According to an 1869 report in Amrita Bazaar Patrika—thirteen years after passage of the Widow Remarriage Act—90 percent of Calcutta’s prostitutes were widows; the report caused a public “furor,” but instead of prompting any “positive rehabilitory action,” it was suppressed rather than the situation remedied (Kumar, History 36). 60. The term “mainstream” is misleading, as the entire endeavor was by definition peripheral, beginning with the widows (of whatever caste) themselves. Ramabai realized her “dream of self-reliance for women” but failed appreciably to reach her intended social category—highcaste widows (Kosambi, “Indian” 65). See also “Home for Women in Madras,” established “to rescue young women and girls irrespective of caste, creed, or community from surroundings calculated to bring about their moral ruin” (1934: 120).

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61. The secular Sarada Sadan was supported by the Christian-based American Ramabai Association for ten years; once reconstituted as the Mukti Mission, it was an openly Christian institution (Kosambi, “Indian” 65). See Frykenberg (Editor’s Preface 36, 49–53). 62. Religious taboos forbidding physical proximity (food and living quarters) between castes were not strictly observed in Ramabai’s democratic institution, where more immediate survival issues predominated. Given that “Brahmin wards” were as ostracized, without resources, and vulnerable to sexual exploitation as their “untouchable” counterparts, critiques about the spatial niceties of caste seem inappropriate. The resulting challenge to traditional authority was used as political leverage to force Ramabai to relocate and establish Mukti Mission; on Sarada Sadan’s status as a secular versus proselytizing institution, see Anagol (Emergence 37–40). See also Savritribai Phule (ostracized for teaching Dalits) and Tharu and Lalita on Bengali reformists’ aim to eliminate “unregimented and indecorous intercourse between women of all classes” (155). For Maratha Brahmins, caste “pollution was more disturbing than devotion to Christ” (Frykenberg, Editor’s Preface x). 63. Ramabai’s aim to educate women for self-sufficiency appealed to low-class women, but “upper class/caste families were unwilling to contemplate economic independence for their wives and daughters” (Forbes, Women 54). 64. See “Professor Karve”; “Indian Lady Lecturers”; and “Visit to the Anadha Balikashram.” 65. In terms of precursors, western India’s SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) is linked with “the early cooperative and cottage industry movement that the Seva Sadan of Ramabai Ranade represented” (Anagol, Emergence 224). 66. Kashibai Devdhar promoted post-pubertal marriage to counter the “growing physical deterioration of the race and to minimize . . . early widow-hood” (1904: 260). Even reformminded families were more concerned about the repercussions of challenging social custom than protecting the health and well-being of their daughters. See “Don’t Marry Young” and “Hindu Widows’ Home, Poona.” ILM’s photo of the latter depicts little girls doomed to “perpetual widowhood,” but “neither the political extremists nor the moderates will work energetically for the emancipation of the child-widow from the despotism of a barbarous custom of hoary antiquity . . . may [you] be helped by your Indian subscribers, among whom are not a few that are wealthy, to continue to do the good work which you have so long carried on” (“Poona Widows’ Home by an Indian” 1908: 92). 67. See “Miss Carr’s Scheme for the Education of Indian Widows,” “Widow Teachers in India,” Editorial Notes (1904), “Mysore Widows’ Home,” and Subbalakshmi, “Government Brahmin Widows’ Hostel.” 68. On Ramabai, see “Englishwomen in India by an English Lady” (1906). 69. Sister Subbalakshmi Ammal (1886–1969) established the Sarada Widows’ Home (1912), subsequently named Brahmin Widows’ Hostel. Convent educated but not a Christian convert, the sister was so termed “in recognition of her dedication to her chosen work. . . . Although the model of the Catholic nun attracted her in her childhood, as an adult . . . [she] drew her spiritual sustenance and philosophy of action from reformed Hinduism” (Forbes, Women 57). See also Raman on her efforts “to exchange lives of victimized drudgery for the dignity of the teaching profession. . . . She wished to serve those who had no other institutional recourse” (“Crossing” 138). 70. According to James Mill, “among rude people, the women are generally degraded; among civilized people they are exalted. . . . Nothing can exceed the habitual contempt which the Hindus entertain for their women . . . they are held, accordingly, in extreme degradation” (qtd. Seth, Subject 309–10). 71. “Average Indian women prefer the Eurasian or European teacher to the Indian Christian teacher, especially if the last is from the depressed classes. Prejudice is a difficult thing to eradicate” (“Women . . . Time” 1917: 281). On “utter indifference” to women teachers, see Padmini Satthianadhan (“Woman Teacher”). See Kishwar on government schools, avoided by upper-caste girls “because of the presence of male teachers and inspectors” and attended by low-caste girls attracted by “the prospect of employment as teachers” (“Arya” 9). 72. Englishwomen’s Review notes that Maharani’s College, Mysore (1881), did not result from the “philanthropic efforts of Europeans . . . [it is] a purely indigenous institution . . .

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managed by natives, and regulated according to native ideas, for the education of their girls” (“Education” 1904: 14). The curriculum reflects the Maharani herself, who “combines high Western refinement with the most cherished type of Indian excellence,” including traditional music. See also “Education . . . Mysore”; “Maharani’s . . . Mysore”; and M. Shama Rao (“H. H. Maharani” 1902). 73. Toddy-drawing: tapping trees to procure sap that, when fermented, produced the alcohol arrack. Conducted on temple properties, the practice was particularly hypocritical, given that alcohol is anathema to Hindus. Some advocated regulation (arrack was notorious for being adulterated by toxic additives leading to blindness and death) and taxing rather than suppressing the practice by criminalizing it. 74. On devadasis, see Ramesh and Faiyaz, “The Devadasis.” 75. Victoria’s 1858 proclamation that the government would not intervene in Indian religious matters enabled conservatives to defend traditional practices as religious, rather than social, custom—despite scholars having established that the sacred texts do not sanction or advocate sexual abuse or exploitation of women. 76. See “Suppression of Immoral Traffic.” 77. On contributions to the nationalist movement by “fallen” women and prostitutes see Bandyopadhyay, “‘Fallen’”; Sangari and Vaid, Recasting; Albinia, “Womanhood”; and Nanda, Kamaladevi. 78. Another Victorianism: administrators of orphanages and work-houses maintained that mixing “unspoiled” females with “fallen” ones tended to contaminate the former rather than rehabilitate the latter. 79. Benjamin Jowett wrote to Sorabji, “Life is short, and youth . . . shorter . . . get something done as soon as you can for Hindu women” (“Miss Cornelia” 1903: 92–93). On Sorabji’s “colonial encounter” at Oxford, see Burton (Heart ch. 3). 80. Sorabji’s appointment as legal adviser to the Court of Wards in Bengal “deserves prominent mention in a journal, which has for its main object, the record of Woman’s progress in India” (“Miss Sorabji’s” 1904: 385). See “Miss Cornelia Sorabji in Madras”; also Sorabji’s Between the Twilights (1908) and The Purdahnashin (1917). 81. According to the Widow Remarriage Act, “unless a dying husband permitted his widow to remarry . . . [she] lost her right to maintenance from his family property” (Raman, Women 79). To file a dispute, widows must appear in public before a magistrate (which they would not do) and so “relied on male relatives to plead their case . . . fine legal distinctions became loopholes for family men to dispossess a widow of her customary rights,” which were not guaranteed until 1956, a full century after the passage of the act. 82. See “Cornelia” (1904); Dhawan, Indian, on Sorabji’s short fiction; and “Love and Life” (review). 83. Women’s public speaking skills were encouraged for personal and political growth in order “to be good debaters . . . [and] enable women entering the legislature to take a proper part in their work. . . . Debating societies should be . . . [organized] in various constituencies” (AIWC 1935: 196). See also “Indian Lady Lecturers” and Punkajam, “Woman Speaker.” 84. Sorabji, “a self-confessed ‘loyalist’ of the British Raj, could not share entirely Mayo’s sweeping contempt for Hindu civilization and culture” (Sinha, Specters 17). But her link with Mayo prompted petitions against her by university women, the “very constituency that she had most hoped to attract to her Institute for Social Service” (18). She “pathologize[d] Hindu women in the same terms as many Britons did” and was “anglophilic, antinationalist, and antiwomen’s suffrage” (Burton, Heart 17). 85. The Indian National Congress was a direct result of British modernization; railways, postal and telegraph services, and the English language made the intelligentsia “aware of the institutions and freedom movements of other lands” (Burke and Quraishi, British 90). Gandhi, after benefitting from an English education, advocated the exact reverse: “India’s salvation consists in unlearning what she has learned during the last fifty years. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such-like have all to go” and the privileged classes to return to peasant life (187). 86. This is true of socialite Sarojini Naidu as well, although her reputation seems not to have suffered as a result.

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87. On Butler, see Burton (Burdens). 88. See “Miss Mary Carpenter” and “National Indian Association.” See also Burton, “Institutionalizing Imperial Reform.” 89. The Florence Nightingale Village Sanitation Fund was established “for the encouragement of village sanitation in India” (“Late” 1910: 300). 90. On Margaret Cousins, see Jayawardena, White Woman’s. 91. See Kariekar, “Kadambini,” on female education and “unsexing”; also “Women in Medicine.” 92. Sorabji argues that women workers must be adequately remunerated: they “cannot afford to give their services honorarily and should be trained if they are to serve efficiently . . . social service must be made a career and a profession” (“Work” 1935: 568–69). As Nightingale understood of nursing reforms, intensive training, exacting standards, and sufficient earnings facilitated respect for and legitimation of the profession.

Chapter Five

ILM and Indian Identity Politics

Man desires rest after the stress of life; but woman wakes suddenly to find that she has never lived at all . . . she has not carried out a hundred splendid plans. —Kamala Satthianadhan

As the independence movement intensified and the imperative to choose between Raj and swaraj sharpened, the dynamic was reflected in ILM’s endeavor to maintain its policy of tolerance and mutual respect. Contributors’ commentary was central to this aim, and the tone ranged from refreshingly assertive to impressively articulate to contentiously acrimonious. Primary debates include relations between East and West—particularly the mutual dissatisfactions of Anglos and Indians from their relative sociopolitical perspectives—and critiques of the practice and ideology of purdah as a primary obstacle separating the two groups. Regarding purdah, some Westerners were perplexed and frustrated by a perceived elitist separatism designed to thwart social interaction, while others (Besant, Nivedita) promoted such traditions under the rubric of Indian nationalism. For conservative Eastern commentators, purdah guaranteed female chastity, while liberals condemned the practice for inhibiting modernization; from both perspectives, the custom was fundamental to debates about how to modernize India without compromising its essential cultural identity. ILM’s promotion of a healthy EastWest, ancient-modern balance, viewed as necessary to secure India’s position among modern nations, was difficult to reconcile with a pursuit of cultural autonomy increasingly driven by the rejection of all things not Indian.

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Rural occupations depicted in ILM

Aptly symbolizing her signature synthesis of Raj and swaraj, Satthianadhan organized a concert in 1917 to benefit both the financially ailing ILM and British war charities. 1 According to Padmini, “she felt she must support the cause of the allies and not embarrass the British Government, for her code

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was never to strike at others during times of misfortune” (Portrait 100); despite being “blamed for this to quite an extent by her nationalist friends,” Kamala “continued to attend knitting parties and send out comforts to troops.” 2 She also printed Viceroy Chelmsford’s appeal that readers “unite and assist the empire. . . . The German menace is one about which we are all concerned . . . [we must] do all that is in our power to assist the Government” (“Viceroy” 1918: 252–53). 3 By 1918, ILM’s first run, World War I, and the British Empire were all spiraling to an end, the latter facilitated in quick succession by the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre (1919), inception of the Non-Cooperation movement (1920), and Irish independence (1922). In this context, the identification of Indian women’s political activism with social intercourse between East and West highlighted the increasingly fluid boundaries distinguishing social from political realms. This chapter investigates the early stages of Indian women’s satyagraha through two primary avenues, beginning with the communication difficulties vexing women’s “social intercourse” and fueled by the mutual “othering” of Orientals and Occidentals. The second factor is purdah, broadly defined as the sequestration of Indian women (not limited to Muslims) in private domestic spaces by compulsion, choice, or custom. Simply put, there can be little social intercourse—far less political activism—when education and personal liberty are as disparate as they were between East and West in early twentieth-century India. SOCIAL INTERCOURSE, EAST AND WEST Along with its grounding in Victorian gender ideology, in creative and critical literature, and in the accomplishments and path-breaking endeavors of women from drawing rooms and slums to classrooms and institutions, ILM provides a significant resource for investigating the primary debates of the period. Women East and West strove to transcend caste, class, and racial divisions to mend the sociocultural isolationism historically characterizing their relations. Tennyson’s lines—“East and West without a breath / Mix their dim Lights like Life and Death / To broaden into endless day” (In Memoriam)—seemed a hopeful antidote to Kipling’s “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” (“Ballad of East and West”). But despite the best intentions of those involved, as ILM’s many features on the topic reveal, “social intercourse” was a highly contentious issue, fraught with accusations, mutual recriminations, wounded egos, blame, and frustration, requiring the peace-making efforts of various commentators. Primary points of dissension included seemingly insurmountable sociocultural differences, like which side should make the most concessions—native Indians or alien Anglos, colonized or colonizers? How should disparities in language and

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education between the two groups be addressed and remedied? To what degree should Western influences be permitted to infiltrate Indian culture without compromising its social integrity? Most polarizing was the purdah system—an institution incomprehensible to the British who, given the context, resented the claim that it was they who were perceived as “standoffish.” Accordingly, the collaborative spirit underpinning women’s associations and social work was hardly a seamless relationship, as one Englishwoman noted: We have for generations made India the country of our adoption, and yet we cannot say now that we really understand its people . . . we do not cultivate Social Intercourse between themselves and ourselves . . . the White Woman— has she no burden to bear . . . [or] duty to perform . . . towards her Aryan sister? . . . many of our customs are to them repulsive and incomprehensible . . . we cannot follow each other’s line of reasoning . . . we should feel it a duty to do more to promote Social intercourse. (“Social Intercourse . . . English” 1901: 57–58)

Similar commentary by an Indian lady outlines some of the obstacles to social intercourse with Western women that are “almost impossible to overcome”: Our manners, our customs and our language are entirely different from theirs. . . . They wonder at us and our want of refinement as they call it, and we wonder at their curious social etiquette, their conventionality and the freedom that they, ladies, enjoy; so that they cannot realize and place themselves in our position, nor we in theirs. (“Social Intercourse . . . Indian” 1901: 58)

The author’s claim that there are “not many feelings in common and our sympathies lie entirely apart” is one partially addressed by ILM’s appeals to such shared interests as motherhood and domestic concerns. Significantly, this writer recognizes that culpability for social alienation is mutual: “we, each of us, create a barrier of caste, creed and social prejudice round us and make ourselves exclusive.” English ladies have “very curious ideas about India’s . . . dusky population,” while Indian ladies “see them spending their time in a round of amusements, which have no attractions for us” (59). But despite this admission, responsibility for its remedy remains one-sided; the conclusion that English ladies should try harder to sympathize with Indians’ “pursuits and . . . mode of life” (but not the reverse) perpetuates a circular dynamic that never finds resolution. The abstract concept of social intercourse thus becomes oddly subjective, depending on one’s perspective: from the Eastern view, it is the West that should try harder, and from the Western, the reverse. This polarization offers no solution at all, and so the debate continued, unresolved.

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As Governor of Bombay (1819–1827) Lord Elphinstone announced, “he would receive no gentlemen at Government House receptions who came without their wives. This action is believed to have led to a disfavor of the purdah system” (“Awakening” 1908: 337). 4 Apocryphal or not, the point epitomizes East-West social difficulties in British India: as the ruling class, the English expected that their social customs, at least during official functions, would predominate. Although a fundamental part of those customs involved mixed public social events, for Indians “the European habit of permitting women to a share in all social activities is a bar to intercourse with people who will not allow their women out of the zenana” (“Social Customs” 1905: 305–6). 5 The issue extends to food and refreshments: “It is idle to talk of intimate social relations with people who believe that the mere act of breaking bread with you, the very beginning of mutual courtesies all over the world, except in India, is a sin.” Hindus’ cultural traditions and religious taboos prompt them to regard foreigners as “interlopers”: “many Indians consider themselves defiled by the touch or glance of a European. . . . [They] surround their homes by an impenetrable barrier by refusing to eat with Europeans or interchange ladies’ society, which are the two chief features of English social intercourse” (“Social . . . Anglo-Indians” 1907: 252–53). The author’s hopeful, but probably unrealistic, solution implicates both sides, calling for a mutual “hearty recognition of brotherhood, of the common wants of a common humanity, and the banishment of the spirit of inflated pride, whether of religion, race, colour or nationality.” Unaddressed is the universal ethnocentrism that by definition precludes “a common humanity.” While taboos against “interdining” were unlikely to undergo any sudden appreciable shift, Indian gender separatism was so thoroughly ingrained as to define life from the cradle to the grave; cultural differences on this point gave rise to various assumptions. Socially, Englishmen viewed Indian women’s absence as an insult to their women, while Indian men viewed English women’s presence as an insult to their masculinity; Indian women are “backward” and fear the polluting effects of English women, who are “fast,” superficial, shallow; English women are “unsexed” by their education and contemptuous of traditional values; Indian women are illiterate and threatened by new ideas. “An Englishwoman in India” objects to “orientals’ contempt for women,” positing that “until he emancipates his own womankind, he cannot reasonably expect to be allowed on a familiar footing in an Englishman’s house” (“Social . . . India” 1917: 283). Kamala objects to the term “contempt,” stating that Indian men “love and respect” their women but, due to educational disparities, couples have little to say to one another; men “underestimate” women, but this is changing with increased female literacy (“Editor’s Answer” 1917: 285). Another regrets that “there is practically no social intercourse between the two races . . . caste, custom, and tradition rise between us. . . . As long as Indian men do not bring their wives with them to

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social gatherings, it is natural that their intercourse is restricted to our men only, and is therefore . . . official,” not social (Besley, “Social” 1903: 302). 6 Leaving aside the issue of mixed assemblies to focus on women’s unofficial social relations, Mrs. Lamont (Besley) 7 investigates the ways this separatism is perpetuated. Socially isolated memsahibs viewed Indian womanhood according to the only examples they interacted with: their ayahs (nannies) and other female servants, who were low class and illiterate. 8 These women gossip in the bazaars, ridiculing the ill-understood habits of memsahibs, with other female servants who in turn report back to their purdah ladies, confined in the zenana and prevented by “the strict laws of Oriental etiquette from all direct communication with the outer world” (“Women” 1903: 127). 9 Thus are accounts of memsahibs and purdahnashins reduced to the bazaar gossip of illiterates; thus do “all” Indian women appear backward and “all” Englishwomen frivolous. 10 Indian women worship men as gods, while the memsahib expects deference “of all men as her rightful due”—and so on and so on, the obstacles multiplying until they seem hopelessly insurmountable. Mrs. Besley defended Anglo-Indian women against charges of frivolity, noting they have given up their time, their money, their youth, and often their health, in works of love and philanthropy, helping India’s sick and blind, aged, poor, and deformed, and they have brought the light of knowledge to many untutored souls. . . . [T]he growth of an empire does not depend only on its Government, but . . . on the individual life and experience of its subjects. (Besley, “Social” 1903: 303) 11

To facilitate greater understanding, “English and Indian women should not depend for their knowledge of each other upon hearsay and bazaar gossip, but should gain that knowledge from personal intercourse with each other.” Memsahibs do not wish to impose Westernization (“we do not want Indian women to sink their own individuality and become entirely Westernized”), although they do wish to demonstrate “in a true and clear light the Western ideas of social and domestic life. . . . We want them to see us as we are,” rather than as conveyed through ignorant gossip. Yet insofar as ethnocentricity from any perspective by definition obstructs mutual comprehension, Indians’ capacity to comprehend the West “as we are” is as vexed an issue as Westerners seeking to experience the “real” India during a two-week tour. One comprehensive litany of grievances rehearses the “chief barriers” to social intercourse: “race, language, manners, and custom . . . a different outlook on life [and] religion . . . [and] British self-assertion and want of tact,” compounded by the frustration of English-educated Indian men repeatedly passed over for government positions (“Social . . . Anglo-Indians” 1907: 252). But among women, it was the practice and ideological mindset of

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purdah that posed the greatest obstacle to cultural exchange—less a matter of social interaction than of its association with inexperience and illiteracy. “BEHIND THE VEIL, BEHIND THE VEIL” Tennyson’s tantalizing allusion to inscrutable mysteries—“What hope of answer, or redress? / Behind the veil, behind the veil” (In Memoriam LVI) 12 — speaks for cultural outsiders molded by Victorian morality, for whom the zenana woman represented not chastity but “moral degeneracy”: Not only did she live a life of idleness . . . her entire existence was seen as suffused with sensuality . . . [these] women are only created for the propagation of the species, and to satisfy men’s desires . . . young Hindu women do not possess sufficient firmness, and . . . regard for their own honour, to resist the ardent solicitations of a seducer. 13 (Dubois in Gupta, Sexuality 37)

Such salacious views of rampant female sexuality were a fiction created by Westerners who would not have had access to zenanas in the first place; the romanticization of purdahnashins lent itself perfectly to demonizing the practice, the remedy for which was the imperial civilizing mission. But as presented in ILM, the custom highlights not the moral but the ethical consequences of such cloistering to the intellect, health, well-being, and progeny of purdahnashins. Featured commentary includes Indians and Anglos, male and female, all arguing that the central nationalist issue—not only thwarting social intercourse but implicating individual, communal, and national health—was purdah. 14 Tikka Sahib of Nabha observed, “nearly all our social differences arise out of . . . the caste system, and the status of woman. . . . The present mental condition of our women is not without its bearing on their social degradation” (Tikka 1911: 49). The system constitutes “a blasphemy against womankind” based on “a low opinion of her nature and . . . distrust about her fidelity” (50). 15 As for the progress of Indian civilization and nationalism, the author predicts that “as public opinion grows, people will see . . . [purdah’s] injurious and baneful effects and set their faces against it as . . . an open insult to our intelligence and equally derogatory to men and women.” Dismantling the zenana system is essential for modernization and will have “the most far-reaching consequences on the social and political future of India . . . [whose present] social system is hopelessly at variance with the ideas of modern civilization” (“Emancipation” 1907: 305–6). Ibrahim Quraishi agrees that “it is a low and degraded view of humanity” in which “no reliance can be placed on woman’s virtue . . . [resulting in] the supreme suspicion with which each member of the community regards the motives of every other member” (“Purdah” 1904: 9). More insidiously, under the guise of protecting helpless females, “purdah gives men opportunities of

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tyrannizing over women without the fear of incurring social odium”—under the guise of religious custom, women had no legal recourse against such tyranny. Admitting that her few weeks’ sojourn in India precludes authoritative commentary on its cultural practices, Mrs. Ramsay MacDonald offers her views on “Womanhood in India” nonetheless. She presents the purdahnashin’s life in stark outlines: “Marriage before girlhood . . . seclusion; knowledge of the outside world gainsaid only at second-hand, or by peeping through corners and crevices” (1910: 63). Although the article’s subtitle promises to reveal “The Power behind the Veil,” what it offers instead is a bleak vision of disempowerment, despite the alternative “examples always before them in the womenfolk of the British Raj.” 16 Another Englishwoman, “Miss Sahib,” asks how communication is possible between women who are educated and free and those who are illiterate and imprisoned. She rejects the claim that “Indian women love their captivity and dread to change,” positing that their artificial separation from the natural world is the first factor needing to be remedied (“Visit . . . Zenana” 1903: 109). 17 Communing with nature is communing with God; it promotes mental clarity and physical health, cures morbidity, and develops “strength and steadfastness of purpose” (110). “‘Come forth into the light of things,’” she urges, quoting Wordsworth; “‘Let Nature be your teacher,’” an increasingly popular perspective once physical health and well-being became identified with nationalist ideals. 18 A scholarly analysis of “The Purdah System” by Md. Ibrahim Quraishi discredits its religious associations as exclusively Muslim; although “it has acquired among the sentimental races of the Orient, the prestige of a religious custom” (1904: 11), it is not Islamic in origin nor is it sanctioned by the Koran, which “affords no warrant for the seclusion of women, as it prevails now among the pretentious and fashionable Mussalmans of India” (7). 19 What the Koran does specify is that both men and women should be equally modest and chaste rather than the current double standard. As an entrenched social custom lacking loftier justification, the effects of purdah are the reverse of dignity, nobility, and sexual purity: “By withdrawing the good and virtuous women from their legitimate functions in the social economy, it has helped the growth of that unhappy class of beings, whose existence is alike a reproach to humanity and a disgrace to civilization” (9). 20 The existence of this class of women “who shall not be named” evokes Victorian society’s Madonna-Harlot dichotomy, apparently the only two categories available to women, East or West. The system is uneconomical and extravagant, it infantilizes, dehumanizes, and animalizes women, who—illiterate, ignorant, unhealthy, and antisocial—are “sunk in subjection and ignorance” (10). Quraishi concludes that “the continuance of Purdah” in the modern era “is a positive hindrance to the cause of progress and enlightenment” (11).

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Other Muslim commentators agreed. The Aga Khan condemned purdah’s “baneful influence . . . [and] attributed the present backward condition of his co-religionists to this evil. Among the mischievous consequences of the system . . . [is] the degrading effect on the intelligence of Muslim women, which resulted in their ‘permanent waste’ to the community” (“Purdah System” 1903: 268). The Statesman offers an unusual perspective, arguing that the more “fatal consequence” of purdah is men’s loss “of the refining and moralizing influence of women” and consequent loss of credibility in relations with Western nations: “a community which shuts up its women must, of necessity, be hopelessly handicapped” (Statesman 1903: 268). Women’s influence over men is “most salubrious”; societies based on gender separatism suffer diminished “manners, morals and manly qualities”—in effect, they are emasculated. Of purdah as the remedy for women’s presumed promiscuity, an Englishwoman writes: “if woman has to come under such suspicion merely because she is a woman, surely the remedy lies in the men’s own hands” (“Letter . . . Social Intercourse” 1917: 284). Interestingly, purdah was not limited to Muslim women but was adapted as a sort of status symbol among high-caste Hindu families as well: “The prevalence of the practice . . . in Bengal should be attributed, we fear, to the desire on the part of the Hindu families to copy the example of their Mahomedan neighbours” (“Hindu Purdah” 1911: 100). As an “institution which has outlived its usefulness . . . [it] can scarcely be defended at the present day when a settled form of government has been established throughout India and when life and property are quite as safe . . . as in any other part of the world”; it is time to liberate Indian women “from the evil effects of this baneful institution.” 21 Purdah replicates separatism on many levels: “In every Indian household the male sex and the female sex live apart, sit apart, converse apart, work apart, eat apart and visit apart; and this social separation running throughout life deprives both sexes of a large share of happiness; and deprives the female sex of interchange of thoughts and of participation in the knowledge of the male sex” (“Purdah and Polygamy” 1904: 111). A purdah woman is a caged bird, objectified as “all sex and nothing else”; 22 to educate purdah women is not to unleash their innate immorality, as some claim, but to replace seclusion with “strength of character” tempered by inherent modesty. Just as the abolition of polygamy is a matter of nationalism—“polygamy is a lower form of family arrangement and must be abandoned if we wish to reach a higher state of civilization . . . [it is] a vice and an evil” (111)—so too does purdah, “a pernicious custom,” signify a “want of patriotism” (Nila 1903: 22). 23 The two practices symbolize evolutionary stasis: “men who place their women in an absolutely inferior position are themselves inferior to men who do not . . . the caste system was made a peg on which to hang homilies about the essential superiority of the European” (“Social Customs” 1905: 305–6). Thus are practices vaguely associated with religion and vali-

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dated by entrenched custom both defended and challenged as central aspects of Indian identity politics. The “need of the day” is the “harmonious blending” of East and West, in which India maintains and fortifies “the essence of her own culture” while adapting “such characteristics of Western civilization as had been conducive to the latter’s progress,” like civic responsibility, universal education, and the progress of women (“East and West” 1935: 267). Some commentators argued that, until purdah women liberated themselves, no substantial change in attitude could be facilitated. 24 Whether or not purdahnashins actually enjoyed their cloistered existence is secondary to their reasons for maintaining a practice not based on religious ideology; familial and communal pressure, fear of ostracization, custom, lethargy, inertia, futility—these states underlie the compulsion to persist in a lifestyle so clearly detrimental to human health and development. Another writer agrees, offering a crucial caveat: “Until the ladies of India themselves begin to see the evils of the system, it will be impossible, without injury, to abolish. . . . The remedy lies in . . . the inculcation of respect for the rights of honour of women themselves, and their education” (“Female Education” 1912: 75). 25 This is an interesting assertion, the ideas of “respect” and “honor” foregrounding a rarely visited issue: Indian men’s widely practiced ogling, with impunity, of women in public. While some “young men are learning more and more to respect womanhood,” their “conduct . . . most admirable,” many others seem to regard all women as their personal property to stare at: Even in this purdah-ridden Bengal, many of our educated men would perhaps like to bring out their wives, if they were sure that they would not be exposed to ill-bred vulgar curiosity . . . [seen] any day during a rail-way journey. The impertinent curiosity and vulgar stares which follow Indian ladies, even under male escort, at railway stations, do not certainly give much encouragement to respectable Indians to bring out their ladies in public. . . . Respect for women connotes the highest standard of manliness. (“Awakening” 1908: 336–38) 26

Clearly, aside from “ignorance” and “superstition,” there are other justifications for women’s concealment behind veils and curtains: protection from the impertinence and vulgarity of the unrestricted gaze; from the rude insinuations, the exploitation of powerlessness, and the absence of comparable reciprocity, agency, or self-defense; from the gazers’ assumed and seemingly unassailable sense of entitlement. Such disrespect toward Indian women and the men who accompany them extends to non-Indian women, who are warned against “asserting . . . social influence” in those parts of India associated with political and religious extremism, places where Indian men’s “ideas of manners do not . . . include any sense of respect towards ladies of his own or any other race.” 27

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Indian women not only began to see “the evils of the system” but to do something about them. Notices in ILM marked the progress of a movement that was slow to ignite but quick to gain momentum. For example, extreme social conservatism in Bihar province made it a place where purdah was “very prevalent . . . the cause of much female mortality” (AIWC 1929: 391). So “deep is the conservatism” that its minister opposed the women’s franchise, prompting Bihar women to establish an Anti-Purdah League: “Purdah has to go. Of that there is no doubt. . . . We trust that anti-purdah-leagues will be widely formed, specially in the provinces in Northern India to abolish the pernicious custom” (“Bihar” 1929: 86). Other evidence of the growing “Influence of Purdah Women” occurred at a Muslim conference addressing the question of India’s independence. Frustrated by the interminable proceedings that failed to result in resolution, the purdah ladies, “silent witnesses in the gallery,” threatened to come out of the purdah and pass the resolution for complete independence, if the men had not the courage to do so. This had a magical effect and the resolution was forthwith adopted by the conference . . . bear[ing] testimony to the immense influence wielded by the Indian Muslim women . . . it gives the lie to the argument that the women are opposed to the removal of the purdah. (“Influence” 1928: 267–68)

On the contrary, claims the author, it is Muslim men who are “keener on the perpetuation of the purdah system” to preserve their own accustomed comfort—apparently “of greater importance than India’s political goal.” But this resistance gradually shifts, most significantly in regard to female education: in these days of enlightenment it is not possible for any community—unless it chooses to be utterly destroyed—to shut women away from the light of knowledge which alone distinguishes man from the lower creation. If women are the wealth of a nation—and no sane man now disputes the fact—then how can any community afford to neglect its very wealth and thus put an end to its own prospects in this world?

ILM’s report of a Round Table Conference 28 offers more dramatic commentary on women’s emancipation: Muslim ladies, some of them belonging to the most orthodox families, not only threw away the veil, but also sat at dinners, luncheons, and tea-parties, face to face, with men. . . . We cannot shut our eyes to the UPRISING behind the Purdah and ZENANAS and the enthusiasm of souls “cabined, cribbed and confined” 29 to eclipse men in the outer world in every activity of life. Women’s potent influence in the march of progress cannot now be overlooked as they are breathing a new life of Nationalism. (“Purdah” 1930: 294)

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The ambition “to eclipse men” is a notable shift away from nationalistproscribed gender solidarity—a solidarity nonetheless at odds with India’s culture-defining gender separatism that is more aligned with Western feminism. Distinct from the forces driving earlier debates about sati, widow remarriage, child-marriage, and age of consent, those petitioning for purdah’s complete abolition are “not of the Anglicized type,” as might be expected, but Muslims and Hindus themselves. Mahatma Gandhi urged Indians to avoid “all attempts at Europeanization,” but he also insisted that “purdah must go”: if we want our women to develop along Indian ideals . . . no serious step for their welfare can be taken unless the veil is torn down, and it is our conviction that if once the energy of half our population, that has been imprisoned artificially, is realized, it will create a force which . . . will be of immeasurable good. (“Freedom” 1930: 302–3)

Whereas most commentary criticizing purdah appeared during ILM’s first run, these second-run examples (antipurdah activism, Round Table Conference, Gandhi) dramatize certain palpable effects of intensifying nationalist and modernizing movements. Attesting to the unique spirit of the age, this centuries’ old custom was largely overturned in just a few decades, facilitated in part by wide-ranging features on the topic in women’s periodicals, the unique editorial platform they afforded, and the public theater of independence activism that welcomed the burgeoning “energy of half our population.” 30 ORIENTALISM AND OCCIDENTALISM: A COMPARABLE (MIS-)KNOWLEDGE 31 To cultivate friendly relations, all that is needed is a little blindness to each other’s faults and a generous recognition of each other’s services. —Mrs. Tyabjee (1901: 29)

While a significant deterrent to social intercourse between East and West, purdah was symptomatic of a larger problem: mutual ethnocentrism and its signature antagonism, social hierarchies, and often clumsy attempts to forge meaningful, cross-cultural relations. The challenges of Anglo and Indian social relations were discussed throughout ILM’s existence, but the year 1903 featured the most extensive coverage of the topic—given widespread press coverage of that year’s Delhi Durbar and the cultural exchanges it generated, the timing was not coincidental. Commentators from both sides— East and West, men and women—voiced the frustrations of attempting to

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transcend the colonized and colonizer framework to develop a more socially cohesive society. The problems plaguing social intercourse, according to one insightful Parsi woman, constitute “a question of Imperial importance” (“Social” 1903: 385); indeed, unless resolved, the lack of social unity anticipates imperial decline. The Parsi community is regarded as forward thinking, well educated, and liberal, and the author considered herself fortunate that she is not a purdahnashin and thus free to mix socially. Oddly, she claims to have many English friends and yet “very little real friendship exists” because “the Orientals are not allowed to forget the immeasurable superiority of the Occidentals”; surely, there can be no genuine friendship to begin with in such a case. She states that “modern” Parsi ladies are “quite equal” to meeting and interacting with English ladies, but the “advance should come from them”; no rationale is offered for this assertion, which neglects to address such social obstacles as language barriers, “interdining” prohibitions, and limited access to private domestic spaces. Social exposure to Englishwomen “makes the present generation of natives desire to be free,” but those natives are also deterred by Anglos’ perceived aloofness and superior attitude: “Contempt on the one side combined with shyness on the other, are the present conditions” (386). 32 Indian women’s characteristic “shyness” was vigorously critiqued by reformers (Naidu and Satthianadhan, for example) who perceived its potential to thwart personal growth and development; as for contempt and superiority, such blanket generalizations serve no purpose in advancing social relations, instead fueling suspicion, misperceptions, and distrust. Where contempt is conveyed, goodwill is absent; better to look elsewhere for authentic, genuine social interaction than to wait for an “advance” that may never come. Comments by another “Indian Lady” both clarify and complicate why it is the English who should initiate “a better understanding”: there can never be social parity between British and Indians “because the one is the conqueror and the other the conquered . . . to the shy, sensitive Indian mind, the signs of condescension and patronage, the manner of a superior to an inferior are plainly discernible” (“Social” 1903: 386). English ladies should scrutinize their behavior and attitude in this regard, but, the author also insists, “shy” and “sensitive” are not acceptable bases on which to retreat, albeit from an uneven playing field. Indian women need to “wake up” to their responsibilities, protect their interests, take pride in themselves, and assert equal footing—always already in place—with Englishwomen: “Realize the full nobility of your womanhood. . . . But do not sink your individualities and do not simply be copies of another type. Be true to your own national instincts and characteristics.” Englishwomen were also “sensitive” to the sociopolitical disparities among women for which they were held accountable. “An English Lady”

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wrote, “I do not think that Indian ladies realize, from our point of view, the difficulties there are to be overcome before English and Indian ladies can mix freely as friends”; admittedly, one problem is “the superiority we English show towards Indians, and our habits of looking down on the natives” (“Social” 1903: 35). But what is to one Indian lady “condescension and patronage” is to this writer an expression of sympathy; of Indian women, she wrote, there are “many, and how sadly many, on whom I look with profound pity. But I do not look down on them, I pity and long to help them; still I think that till they are educated to meet the requirements of a general intercourse with their more cultured European and Indian sisters, they must be treated as children.” Coupled with an expression of compassion easily lending itself to condescension, the allusion is unfortunate and confusing: for instance, she may well be referring to the masses of illiterate, desperately poor women in the 98 percent of Indian society unaffected by educational advantages (and if so, she should have made that clear). But the term “children” is laden with imperialistic baggage: in English literature featuring Indian characters, “the foremost character trait . . . is that they are like little children,” a term applied “to virtually all” Indians; the “image of the Indian as a child fitted in very nicely with the British image of himself as a strong all-knowing leader” (Greenberger, British 42). 33 This Englishwoman’s admission of superior attitudes is also complicated, here by class considerations: she rejects the “‘Shibboleth’ of a ‘conqueror and the conquered’; it never enters the mind of any true gentleman or woman when associating with Indians,” although there is no accounting for the racism of low-class recruits and low-level bureaucrats (“Social” 1903: 36). 34 This provocative commentary inspires the accusation that her idea of social intercourse is not reciprocal but one way, that way being Western, and it is at this point that the editor intervenes, rejecting the suggestion that “where there is pity there cannot be sympathy and regard,” and noting that the author is well known as “one of the best friends India’s daughters could have among English ladies resident in India” (“Social” Editor’s Reply 1903: 156). The matter is dropped, unresolved, but the exchange is instructive for the semantic challenges it illustrates, arising even between native English speakers. Mutual defensiveness, frustrated philanthropy, culturally specific perceptions, thwarted social intercourse: all participants in these debates commit social and linguistic faux pas that kept both sides, despite good intentions, perpetually at odds with each other. A timely article by Mrs. Tyabjee pleads for a more “amicable” discussion, urging that, rather than mutual recriminations, each community should examine how its own attitudes and behaviors contribute to the problem. A case in point is her own Muslim community that, far from homogeneous, has many variations in custom, depending on sect, geographical location, and sociocultural traditions and practices; for example, one constant shared by these communities is gender separatism, on the finer points of which fellow

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Muslims disagree. This being the case even among and within Muslim communities, the metaphor extends logically to the “almost insuperable difficulty” of East-West relations. Mrs. Tyabjee recommends self-evaluation on all sides, “conducted in a friendly and conciliatory spirit . . . each community should . . . discover its own faults and remedy them” (“Social” 1903: 67). Again intervening editorially, Satthianadhan writes: “There is no use complaining of the absence of social intercourse between Europeans and Indians, unless the position of Indian women themselves is raised, and a better understanding is brought about among the various Indian communities themselves” (“Editorial” 1903: 94). By insisting that the uplift of Indian womanhood presupposes East-West social intercourse, the editor takes the unfortunate comment above—“they must be treated as children”—to a more pragmatic level. Kamala’s claim that “social Intercourse, like charity, should begin at home” returns the discussion to culture-specific issues (like purdah and female education), emphasizing that internal sociocultural reforms will naturally facilitate broader external relations between East and West. But not all participants in this debate regard mutually satisfactory “social intercourse” as a desirable goal. Izzetta, a “Moslem Lady,” responds that a “friendly and conciliatory spirit” is unacceptable: It has always been a matter of great surprise and wonderment to me as to why the European ladies in India assume a marvelous indifference towards this multifarious and infinitely interesting mass of Indian humanity which surrounds them! . . . Their conduct in India and the exclusive life they lead here are . . . unnatural and assumed . . . [they] fail from day to day in the performance of their duty—and I shall indeed call it their duty—which they owe to us, their backward sisters! (“Social” 1903: 257)

It is difficult to interpret the shift from that commentary to this: “I look forward to the European ladies to make a beginning and teach us this new mode of life which . . . promises to be more useful and productive of good to us and to our country” (258). Izzetta’s stridency is in part explained by her earlier rejection of solidarity with Indian men in favor of international sisterhood: “the stability and advancement of our community solely depends upon us, the women. . . . What astonishes us is the aloofness of European ladies . . . a closer association . . . will work wonders towards the advancement and civilization of India” (“Speech” 1901: 146–47). Once again, Kamala responds: “what is wanted is as much readiness on the part of Indian ladies to co-operate with English ladies as of interest on the part of the latter in everything concerning the welfare of Indian women, and hence the blame should not be laid entirely at the door of English ladies . . . if only Indian ladies bestir themselves and cooperate with English ladies much could be accomplished” (Izzetta, “Social” 1903: 258).

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Another “rejoinder” reiterates the claim that the problems of social intercourse are the fault of neither West nor East, and that blame and mutual recrimination serve only to avoid confronting the heart of the problem: The great problem that India still presents to us, cannot be solved, neither can the gulf which still yawns between East and West be bridged over, until the daughters of India take part in this movement of bringing East and West together—until our Indian sisters have awakened to the full dignity and nobility of their womanhood and this cannot be until many of their existing prejudices against Western life, manners and people are dispelled. (Besley, “Social” 1903: 316)

While these comments might seem to reverse the expectation that the “advance” should be made by Englishwomen as the “conquering” race, there are a number of factors suggesting the contrary. Due to the extreme absence of autonomy, independence, and education in even the most privileged Indian women’s lives, so very striking to Englishwomen—who were themselves laboring under the triple yoke of Victorianism, patriarchy, and imperialism— the issue becomes, as other commentators have posited, a matter of selfscrutiny, self-sufficiency, self-worth, self-reliance, and recognition of one’s “dignity and nobility,” the core values of swaraj. 35 Early and late, Kamala stresses a central priority: “Advance cannot be from the circumference to the centre, but from the centre outwards; and then only will it last. Women must claim it for themselves” (“Ourselves” 1930: 274). The dignity and nobility are already there, and Indian women must recognize and claim it for themselves, not wait for its bestowal by an imagined superior. Nor are these qualities predicated on whether one is an Angel-in-the-House, a New Woman, a widow or orphan, a spinster or bride; this part of the social intercourse debate has to do with acquiring the education and insights leading to a healthy sense of self-worth, although it continues to be framed in a vaguely defined notion of “womanliness.” As is true of women throughout the world, Eastern women’s increasing advantages came with responsibilities and obligations; articulating womanliness in the contexts of swaraj, swadeshi, and satyagraha is crucial to the progress of emancipation and modernization. Japanese culture, for example, was only a few decades earlier all but unknown and is now one of the “foremost nations of the world . . . this is due to the influence of the West. . . . Japanese women have not lost their womanliness and simplicity of home life in spite of the progress they have made . . . though they have advanced on Western lines [they] have still retained all that is best and noblest in their own native civilization” (“Influence . . . Japan” 1911: 100). 36 Reflecting the expanding globalization marking the era, ILM’s wide-ranging notices of women’s accomplishments throughout the world convey the importance of cultivating nationalistic pride along with a more capacious worldview. One

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need not embrace or adapt Western or Eastern or any other views, but rather cultivate an open-minded, intellectual investigation of cultures throughout the world, the antithesis of either the unquestioned rejection or embrace of all things Western because they are Western, of all things Eastern because they are Eastern, of all things other because they are other. O. Kandaswami Chetty extends Mrs. Tyabjee’s point on variability within Muslim communities to incorporate the millions of Indians who “do not form a homogeneous body . . . [and] are notorious for their diversity. . . . I should be a bold man indeed to say that I know the natives of India” (“Roots” 1902: 21). Such cultural insight applies to Europeans, who are similarly not “all of one type”; failure to appreciate this point poses “a serious disadvantage . . . a source of danger . . . an impediment to . . . progress” (22). Chetty emphasizes the importance of mutual accessibility between East and West, in terms not of the public sphere of official functions, but of the private, domestic, woman-centered sphere, as expressed decades earlier by Samuel Satthianadhan: The Englishman can never hope to retain his hold upon the heart of the country unless he reveals himself in his home life, and the Indian can never hope to get the fullest benefit of India’s connection with England unless he allows himself in his home life to be influenced by the European. 37

Understandably, gender separatism, social exclusivity, and isolationism reflect the “instinct for self-preservation” that is essential in politically formative periods but fosters divisiveness in an increasingly globalized world community. In a striking contrast to ILM’s romanticized references to Tennyson’s poetry, Mr. Chetty confronts a troubling passage from “Locksley Hall,” whose embittered narrator, born in some “wild Mahratta battle” (is he mixed race?), rejects the modern “march of mind” and proposes “going native” in a sunny, presumably colonial, region: There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race . . . I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains! Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—(165–68; 175–78)

“I believe,” the author asserts hopefully, “no Englishman would like to use words so strong about the people of India.” 38 In terms of cultural insights, these lines reveal “the strength and the depth of the feeling which guards the Englishman against everything that tends to the degeneration of his type.” 39 Of course, this is just as applicable to Indians as to the English, suggesting

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that more open social relations will not contaminate or pollute anyone involved because acute wariness about “degeneration of . . . type” is mutual: “on the one hand . . . the Englishman’s insularity, his sense of superiority, his natural reserve and his political arrogance, and on the other . . . the Indian’s conservatism, his narrow exclusiveness and his suspicion of foreigners” (23). 40 Chetty concludes that cultivating a spirit of reciprocal gain rather than fear of loss will enable Indians to “relax those social customs like caste and the seclusion and repression of women, which to him represent barriers in the way of a free social intercourse, and [freely] receive the European in his house . . . without any fear of social degeneracy or loss of political prestige” (25). 41 Commenting on the elaborate pageantry of the Delhi Durbar, 42 Sir Edwin Arnold notes the contrast between Western ladies’ visible presence and the conspicuous absence of Eastern “ladies of rank,” who “chose seclusion and the retirement of the ‘curtain’” (“Indian Ladies” 1902: 128). 43 Coverage of these events praises the imperial spectacle, marvels at the “stupendous liberty” of English ladies, and questions purdah’s role in prohibiting social intercourse. The irrepressible Muslim contributor Shahinda provides a lively eyewitness account of the Delhi Durbar’s purdah section for those curious to know what goes on behind the curtains and veils. With elaborate detail, Shahinda lists names and titles, describes fashions and jewels, refreshments and amusements; she rejects the Durbar’s comparison with Mughal pageantry as “absurd and ridiculous,” adding slyly that the latter featured jewelbedecked elephants “by the hundred,” while the Delhi Durbar’s loftiest participants—“no disrespect meant”—“went on borrowed animals” (“Delhi” 1903: 282). Shahinda’s engaging wit notwithstanding, her commentary throughout ILM is opinionated rather than investigative, antagonistic rather than diplomatic, defensive rather than open minded, attitudes that preclude the potential for sociocultural reciprocity. The disparity marking women who are seen (including Shahinda herself) from those who are not seen—and its social, cultural, national, and imperial significance—remains unaddressed, further thwarting that perpetually elusive common ground of social intercourse. 44 Although gender emphases by far represent most of the articles debating this issue, ILM’s focus on social intercourse also features broader commentary aimed at making East and West more mutually comprehensible. The West is a “land of luxury” characterized by “a necessary rush for work and a corresponding rush for pleasure. Time is of great value”; the East features “slow-moving traffic . . . [its] long-skirted inhabitants, careless of time, and seemingly having nothing to do, lolling against tree trunks in the streets and against the doorways” (Hensman 1931: 16). Indians are “wanting in punctuality,” which does not accord well with Englishmen’s equation of time with money; socially, “If an Englishman goes to an Indian Club, he is rather taken

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aback by the . . . convention observed there; or rather by the absence of such,” but he’ll be warmly and genuinely welcomed, distinct from the social stiffness at English clubs (“East and West” 1935: 115). An Englishman retorts, “The natural conservatism of the Briton in India is often mistaken for snobbery. . . . Other minds besides the Oriental have failed to realize that such silence is not rudeness, but a national trait” (“Indian Aspirations” 1930: 59). 45 Perhaps valued even more than a subdued manner is another “national trait”—queuing, of which Indians seem constitutionally incapable: “the habit . . . of failing to queue up properly, all scrambling to be first” represents an egregious breach of etiquette. “Those who know Great Britain realize that its inhabitants are thoroughly used to queuing up, to taking things in proper turn” (60). Blaming the failure to queue as a major obstacle in social intercourse may seem ludicrous (even the most passionate queuers rarely openly reprimand queue breakers, preferring to maintain an offended silence to which the culprits are uniformly oblivious), but the concept does offer insight into what is and is not culturally defining on a basic level. But “until these points are discussed candidly and sympathetically”—meaning perhaps until Indians conform to the queue—“distrust and suspicion with all the vile things that feed on these growths, must continue.” 46 As one who had lived in Britain, E. I. Tampoe outlines life in England according to climate (dreary, cold), character (disciplined, independent, pragmatic), domestic arrangements (nuclear family), and nationalism (“In Union is Strength . . . which we Indians have not yet been able to grasp”) (“England” 1934: 177). 47 The British are culturally insular, high-principled, and honorable; seemingly “cold and reticent,” they make reliable and sincere friends. “No nation can rise above its women, who are the unconscious controllers of the future destinies of men,” and British women are emancipated, educated, and devoted to social service. 48 There “no young men and women loiter about in the streets. . . . If they do, the Police soon deal with them” (179); the British regard all labor as noble, compared with India’s caste system in which one’s work makes one “untouchable.” Tampoe urges that Indians examine their cultural assumptions and prejudices in order to comprehend the immense “task that now lies before them”; 49 rather than blaming the West for their problems while expecting the West to fix those problems, now is the time to “begin setting our own house in order, and work out our own salvation.” Just as Indian women must assume responsibility for their own emancipation, so too must the nation: Our diseases have been carefully diagnosed . . . the remedies are in our own hands, and if we fail to administer them correctly, we shall have none to blame but ourselves. We have wasted too much time and energy, blaming others for causes and results, for which we alone stand responsible. . . . The crucial test is

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Blaming others cements the victim mentality, while the surest way to subvert social hierarchies is to assert autonomy rather than awaiting its bestowal by another, whether politically (empire, nation) or socially (gender relations). 51 Mrs. Ali Akbar considers an alternative perspective: that of Indians in England, the impression their behavior makes, and their contributions to misunderstanding and ill feeling between the two races: “there are faults on our side also” (“Indians” 1908: 128). At home, Indians studiously avoid the English because our social system won’t allow of our asking them to our homes. . . . Allowing the stranger to meet our women . . . argues a level of advance and social progress . . . at which we have not arrived . . . we expect a lot more than we are prepared to give, and then we wonder they do not thankfully close in with the bargain.

True also of the English living in India, Indians in England are perceived as stiff, exclusive, distant, more intent on seeking out their own kind than on sociocultural exchanges, preferring to replicate “home” than to experience “away,” conveying defensive superiority, and unwilling to explore sociocultural tolerance or exchange. A further complication is young Indians whose “undesirable political influences” foster political tensions in the “host” country. 52 Social exchanges rarely move past politeness: “What do we Indian women know of them? We meet them occasionally at social or other gatherings; we shake hands with them, we bow, smile, and then we each go our way” (“Mem-Sahibs” 1908: 209–10). The Times of India asserts that all women “suffer much misery and pain and degradation through the strict observance of social institutions invented by men for their own advantage . . . what wonder . . . that the few English friends who try to ameliorate the condition of Indian women should find them timid, languid, melancholy, sickly, devoid of cheerfulness?” (“Social Intercourse” 1885: 15). For others, social exchanges are at best a sham and should be abandoned altogether. “A Daughter of the Land,” citing “the ‘governing spirit,’ that looms so large in the English mind” as the reason for alienation between East and West, rejects romanticized notions of common ground: “It is true we have no ideas in common with them . . . it is better that there should be no intercourse whatever between us and the governing nation” (“English and Indian Women” 1908: 144). Social intercourse with Western women is “overrated” and unproductive, threatening to cause “Indian ladies . . . to lose their shy modesty,” the values and ideals of East and West being “diametrically opposite to one another” (Roy, “Social Intercourse” 1908: 185). Guests at social gatherings

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are bored, and “nothing is gained by trying to hide or gloss over it”; to both Indian and English women, each other’s conversation is “entirely meaningless, and smacks of superficial trivialism.” 53 An Anglo-Indian woman agrees: “I doubt whether the less valuable friendship . . . that springs from mere social intercourse, is worth the effort on both sides . . . long hours spent in aimless and uninteresting conversation between people who have not an idea in common, is so appalling that one is driven to seek an alternative” (“English and Indian” 1908: 101–2). Her concluding suggestion—to exchange mutually bewildering social events for gatherings organized around a specific purpose (women’s philanthropy, for example)—seems reasonable; but it is this assertion—“we must have amusements, and we are entitled to ask that they should amuse us”—that provokes uncharacteristically sharp editorial outrage: “I think the cultivation of our friendship is worth a better effort than would be devoted to the seeking of recreation. . . . But if . . . social intercourse with us is still looked upon in such a futile—we might say, frivolous—way, then by all means, drop your efforts” (“Editor’s Note” 1908: 102). The Englishwoman’s language is ambiguous: Does “they” refer to Indian women, whose responsibility it is to keep the Anglo-Indians amused, and it is this that prompts Kamala’s vigorous response? If so, this is a most distasteful display of arrogance. Or might “they” refer to the antecedent “amusements”? If so, the idea that amusements ought to be amusing is a fair enough expectation. Or perhaps the author alludes to Indian women’s claim that Englishwomen’s “amusements” are irrelevant, bizarre, and unappealing. Like Kamala, “Another Anglo-Indian Woman” responds to the first option with “a hot blush of shame and indignation” and advises readers to “leave such women severely alone. There never can be any pleasant social intercourse where there is such an utter absence of sympathy, tact, and courtesy” (“Letter . . . Englishwoman” 1909: 255). Without doubt, at least part of such dustups must be attributed to linguistic nuances; all participants in this exchange are guilty of overdetermined responses to a well-intended, though awkwardly phrased, commentary. Another “Daughter of the Land” observes that “nothing much came” of previous debates about East-West social intercourse; women’s social events rarely led to lasting or meaningful connections, and cultural alienation was and is mutual: “To her I am an unknown quantity, as she is to me” (“Unrest in India” 1908: 358). The English are indifferent and contemptuous, the Indians retreat behind “caste customs and traditions,” both constructing insurmountable obstacles to social intercourse: “No popular games or sports draw the two together. No political movement makes them act in union. . . . No social functions smooth away the difficulties that beset us on both sides” (359). Is there a way to move past the stalemate? Manmohini Chatterjee argues that “we women . . . must take up . . . right social relations” on which the progress of India depends and questions the

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concept’s plausibility “between people whose language, social customs and manners are entirely different. . . . The negative reply is as embarrassing as the affirmative. The one involves utter despair of attempts, and the other utter ignorance of facts” (“Right” 1908: 14). Chatterjee concludes by appealing to “the common platform of humanity . . . to the sum total happiness of the human race” (17). While nationalism is essential for unification and independence, it also fosters separatism, isolationism, and, in extremis, war; from a twenty-first-century perspective, those pleading from broader motives like interdependence and common humanity in the global community during the world wars era seem either utopian or naive. The appeal to shared humanity is a powerful sentiment, but, to paraphrase Mrs. Ali Akbar, it “argues a level of advance and social progress” at which neither East nor West have arrived, even a century later. In the context of India, in order to grow intellectually and socially, women need to confront, acknowledge, and resolve their own enthnocentrism: The problem of Indian Social reform is one for the women of India to solve. To enable them to solve it, all that they need is sufficient general education to realize that the world is not all Indian nor the world’s inhabitants all Hindus. They must be relieved of the ignorance which presents every existing custom . . . as inevitable, and all deviations . . . not only heterodox but immoral” (“Social Reform” 1901: 17). 54

To be educated is to be “relieved of . . . ignorance,” but just as the Purdah Question was finding resolution, the Female Education Question took its place as the central conundrum of “womanliness.” As the following discussion reveals, with men—not women—controlling the discourse, the issues shift, but the mindset stays the same. NOTES 1. See “Concert in Aid of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine” (1917: 122 and 148). 2. See also “War Relief Work. Bombay Women’s Branch” and “Ladies’ War Relief Association, Secunderabad.” 3. On the war effort, see “Indian Nurses,” “Our Day” (fundraising for the Red Cross), “Club for Nurses,” “Christmas,” “Roll of Honour,” “Madras and the War Relief Fund,” “Women’s Part in the War,” “Union Jack Fete,” “End of the War,” and “Women’s War Work.” See also “H. M. the Queen: Message to the Women of India”: “The history of India is full of the heroism and courage of its women in the past. The war has shown that their spirit is unabated” (1918: 478–79). During World War I, “about one million Indians fought . . . and 146 million pounds was contributed from Indian revenues” (Parry, Delusions 23). 4. Ramabai stipulated that meetings at Sarada Sadan “could be attended by men only if accompanied by the womenfolk of their families” (Kosambi, “Women” 39). 5. “If an Englishman’s house is his castle, an Indian’s house is very often a woman’s prison” (“Alienation” 1917: 292). 6. An Englishwoman writes with some asperity about differing perceptions of social versus “official” boundaries, warning that British officials are “incorruptible” and any Indian hoping

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for professional favors or advancement through his wife’s friendship with a memsahib had better think again (“English and Indian” 1908: 101–2). Kamala rejects cultural stereotyping on either side, but later counters: “Indians do not distinguish between the social and the official relationship between themselves and Englishmen,” causing them to experience official criticism as a personal affront (“Editor’s Answer” 1917: 318). 7. Articles attributed to Mrs. C. K. Besley and Mrs. Lamont (or Lamount) refer to the same individual. She held various degrees in health and hygiene, a topic on which she wrote and lectured; see Editorial Notes (1904: 91). 8. “My Ayah is not a bad one . . . she is fond of baby . . . of telling lies . . . [and] of gossip. . . . Especially . . . with her fellow-servants. . . . I have no doubt they were laughing at our foibles . . . let us not forget that every action of ours is criticized . . . by those whom we would least like to do so” (“Character . . . Ayah” 1901: 15). 9. Lamont asks: How can “mothers of the East and the West rightly train their sons to be in sympathy with each other, when they (the mothers) know little or nothing of each other?” (“Women” 1903: 127). 10. To the claim that “Englishwomen in India might do more than they are doing at present to bring about friendly and cordial relations,” an Indian woman counters: “Englishwomen do all that can be well expected of them in existing circumstances,” given the limitations of purdah (“India and Anglo-India” 1906: 64); they could “be more cordial,” but “it is not easy for a foreigner to take part in Indian society.” 11. “Mem-Sahibs in India” endure such sacrifices as long separations from spouse and children (1908: 208). One author draws an analogy between Indian purdah women and the alienating situations of Englishwomen in India, “who often live a crippled and lonely life away from their children, within a defined and social prison of their own” (“Social” 1917: 285). An “Englishwoman in India” advocates a sense of humor, vigorous physical exercise, and preserving one’s “joy in life” in order to cope with the challenges: “It is indeed a sad lot for Englishwomen in India”; Indians should acknowledge their challenges and sacrifices, and Anglos should interact socially (1929: 396–97). Memsahib missionaries “braved poverty, intense heat, and other adversities to teach Indian women”; they “fell ill, died at an early age, or returned to Britain. . . . They earned half the pay of male counterparts, and marriage even to a missionary meant losing both their jobs and the return fare to Britain” (Raman, Women 67, 69). See “Social Intercourse” (1907); Gilmour, “Families and Exiles” (294–310); and Chaudhuri and Strobel. 12. “If we want to have the higher thought of the nineteenth century clearly gripped . . . we cannot do better than go to Tennyson and especially to his greatest work, In Memoriam” (“Thoughts” 1903: 12). 13. The author here specifies Hindu women, for whom the practice was less common than among Muslim women; although defended with religious zeal, its source was racial and social, cultural and regional, not religious. Zenana refers to the women’s quarters in a dwelling; purdahnashin refers to a female shielded from view by a barrier (veil, burkah, cloth screen, window draperies). To be seen was tantamount to inviting sexual contact; to remain concealed proved one’s chastity. 14. Not sanctioned by the Koran, purdah is “that mode of life which keeps womankind in absolute seclusion . . . ladies are not permitted to leave the zenana . . . or appear in sight of men excepting a few of their closest kindred” (Quraishi, “Purdah” 1904: 6). See Hydari, “Purdah System.” 15. See also “Alienation.” 16. If India emulates the West in anything, it should be in terms of “the liberty of women there” (“Freedom” 1911: 275) and the “comradeship” between men and women, whose social interactions are not “by definition” sexualized. Kamala characterizes English women as “independent . . . capable, efficient and quick,” their freedom of choice, “self-respect,” and “scope for action, the chance . . . to develop their talents and do good to others” offering viable role models for Indian women (Sengupta, Portrait 143). 17. “The two greatest barriers to social intercourse between English and Indian ladies are . . . the purdah system, and religion. Or, I should say not religion,—for with education comes toleration, but caste restrictions supercede that” (“Visit” 1903: 109).

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18. William Wordsworth, “Tables Turned.” Of two perspectives on purdahnashins, the first terms them “down-trodden and crushed,” ignorant, illiterate, inactive, and unhealthy; they “prefer to be shut off” from the world rather than “mingle with it” because they know nothing else (“On Purdah” 1929: 307). In the second view, purdah is an insidious practice that, like carbon monoxide, causes a “painless death.” Although keeping half the population in “complete ignorance” by this practice stymies India’s global competitiveness, “dignity . . . modesty . . . sweet womanliness must be maintained at all costs” (308). 19. “Mir Sultan” challenges religious justifications for purdah. Nor is the practice Indian in origin: “The word Purdah is absolutely foreign to our language. There is no trace of this word in the earliest Sanskrit literature. The word came into our vocabulary from the Persian language and the Purdah System was introduced into our country after the Mughal conquest” (AIWC, “Purdah” 1929: 391). Whether imported or indigenous, purdah reflects a hybrid of influences and attitudes deeply rooted throughout Indian society, ranging from the essence of Indianness and anti-Western womanliness to the antithesis of nationalist modernization. 20. The phrasing is ambiguous: while “that unhappy class of beings” could refer to purdahnashins themselves, it is also a classic phrase in Victorian “fallen woman” discourse referring to prostitutes. That the same phrase links women imprisoned as living symbols of chastity to those who have irretrievably lost it is ironic. East and West, prostitutes pay the price for “good” women’s purity, while the common catalyst—men—are never called to account. 21. A standard justification for purdah is that, during eras marked by foreign invasions, it was the only way to keep women safe from sexual exploitation. 22. “Surely, a Purdah woman raises more curiosity in the hearts of men, by hiding her face from them, than if she faced them openly. . . . It is a pity that so many families in India still adhere to Purdah, and cause such a barrier between the sexes” (Punkajam, “Purdah” 1932: 293). 23. Polygamy is not a viable remedy for a shortage of marriageable men: “such an arrangement” is “absurd and unnatural” (“Polygamy” 1931: 120). Nor is extending divorce to women—available only to men—a desirable path to gender equity (Amicus, “Divorce” 1932: 324); better to eliminate both polygamy and divorce than to extend both practices to women. See Nila, “Indian Purdah,” and Nilkanth, “Brahmin Marriage Ritual,” both of which condemn the coercion of illiterate women into making vows during wedding ceremonies, the purport of which they do not understand intellectually. 24. For many, purdah “is dearer than life itself and synonymous with their honour . . . incalculably tragic results would follow a premature and total abolition of the system”; the custom deprives women “of the very qualities that are indispensable to those who live in the world . . . a safeguard desirable and necessary till they are able to replace it by education which is the spiritual safeguard of the emancipated” (Naidu, Foreword). 25. Punkajam writes of “a charming enlightened woman . . . [who] preferred to observe Purdah, because . . . her husband wished her to do so . . . [purdah women] cannot make up their minds to break an old custom” (“Purdah” 1932: 293). Claiming to be helpless against the rigidity of custom derailed reform discussion and emphasized purdah’s unassailability. Some argued that women need to assert their own freedom rather than waiting for it to be granted— self-assertion being the ultimate test of self-reliance and self-sufficiency—at once the most effective and most difficult position from which to act. Rokeya Hossain “harshly critiqued women who had been dragged . . . out of purdah in a blind imitation of the Europeans. It does not show any initiative . . . they are as lifeless as they were before. When their men kept them in seclusion they stayed there. When the men dragged them out by their ‘nose-rings’ they came out. That cannot be called an achievement by women” (qtd. Kafka, Outside 53). 26. See “Women and Railway Travelling” on legislation to reserve first- and second-class compartments for women on night trains, with doors and windows that fasten from inside— offering some measure of safety but preventing the air circulation crucial in that climate. Poorer women traveled third class and were offered no protection. 27. Anandabai Joshi recounts the rude stares and verbal abuse she experienced as a school girl. People stopped and stared, laughed and ridiculed, threw pebbles and food, spat at her, and “made gestures too indecent to describe”; Europeans did not accost her, but “the boldness of my Bengali brethren is unsurpassable” (Kosambi, “Anandabai” 3194).

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28. The London Round Table Conferences were organized by the Simon Commission to discuss India’s possible shift to dominion status. Absent from the first conference (November 1930 to January 1931) were representatives from the Indian National Congress, who refused to participate while Gandhi was imprisoned. Gandhi and Naidu attended the second conference (September to December 1931), representing INC, but INC again declined attending the third conference (November to December 1932). INC “was the best organized, most numerous and strongest political force in India and was recognized as such in America and elsewhere. No conference purporting to represent all the interested parties could be legitimate without it” (Burke and Quraishi, British 287). 29. “I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in / To saucy doubts and fears” (Shakespeare, Macbeth [3:4:25–26]). 30. For a comparison of women’s status in India and China, see Jones, “Nationalism.” See also Krishnaswami, “Behind.” 31. Of Indian literature in English, Trivedi considers “the assimilative or subversive strategies through which we coped with their orientalism . . . [and] our own Occidentalism” resulting in a “comparable (mis-)knowledge with which we empowered ourselves to resist the West, and not entirely unavailingly either” (1, 6). Lata Mani writes of the “importance of the Other to the Western sense of self, history, and culture” (3)—in other words, ethnocentrism—a concept by definition as applicable to the East or to any other geographic location. 32. “Some Indian ladies follow the example of their Parsi sisters, and mix in general society; but they do so at their own risk, and are subject to obvious misunderstandings” (“India and Anglo-India” 1906: 64). 33. “The British . . . knew what was right for the Indians just as a father would for his children . . . it was dangerous for the Indian child to be given authority over himself . . . but if punished immediately, he would recognize the error of his ways” (Greenberger, British 42–43). According to Kipling, the Indian is “‘half devil and half child’ . . . lacking in self-discipline. . . . The task of looking after the child, in an age moulded by the public-school spirit, could not be performed without the help of the rod; hence the rationale for the use of force in keeping India within the Empire” (“Ballad” 5). 34. Mirza Abu Talib Khan wrote of the “overbearing insolence which characterizes the vulgar part of the English in their conduct to Orientals” (qtd. Ali, Cultural 11). British civil servants in India were “indoctrinated into a sense of imperial responsibility and . . . greatness” and were discouraged from becoming “Indianized” (Bearce, British 39). 35. While the “model of the Victorian family . . . was admired as something worth emulating,” Englishwomen’s “apparent freedom” ultimately reduced to the objective of “getting married” (Raychaudhuri, Perceptions 10, 13). East and West, women were revered but powerless, marital status being the only framework defining their lives. Rokeya Hossain emphasized commonalities rather than differences between disparate groups, perceiving that Western women too were “victimized . . . despite outward appearances . . . [they] also suffered oppression from their menfolk . . . manmade legislation . . . [and] male rulers’ exclusionary laws” (Kafka, Outside 50). 36. See Takahira, “American Women and American Friendship for Japan.” On cultural reciprocity, see “England and India, a Comparison.” 37. Open-mindedness to Western influences raises alternative possibilities: What is useful and relevant? Superficial or gratuitous? What resonates with and/or deviates from established tradition? See also “English Homes” on the thawing of Anglos’ “frostiness” in their home environment. 38. Tennyson does refer to a contiguous part of the Eastern world—“Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay”—where British imperialism had only a marginal presence; China is not associated with the tropics, “dusky” natives, or savages, suggesting it serves as a poetic substitute for India (Mahratta). 39. The “fear of ‘degeneration’ and ‘racial degradation’ was one of the most pervasive themes in the intellectual and political life of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain . . . hysteria about . . . ‘race suicide’ gained in intensity around the turn of the century” (Bates 10, 245). Such fears targeted filth, contagion, disease, birth control, and eugenics—a cluster of related

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points designed to provoke British imperialists and their American mouthpiece, Katherine Mayo. 40. Of poor social intercourse, Richard Cobden claimed, “the British sense of superiority was the root of the evil” (Bearce, British 237). Writing in the London Times in 1857, William Russell was more specific and unsparing: “Our Christian character in Europe, our Christian zeal in Exeter Hall, will not atone for usurpation and annexation in Hindustan, or for violence and fraud in the Upper Provinces of India” (238). London’s Exeter Hall was the central headquarters for missionary activities aimed at converting the “heathens” populating the empire; annexations included Sind (1843), Punjab (1849), Nagpur (1853), and, a crucial tipping point, Oudh (1856). 41. “Imperial sentiment . . . involved the conviction that Britain was now showering on India the blessings of British liberty . . . character, and . . . constitution” (Bearce, British 41), a one-way imposition. Satthianadhan objected to those English who sought contact only “to improve the Indians alone” and cautions against “patronizing superiority” without “the corresponding . . . [aim] to improve oneself” (“Social Intercourse” 1917: 285). 42. “We have not the slightest doubt that whilst Britons . . . will thrill with pride at reading about the great Durbar, they will at the same time not fail to bring to mind that most striking poem by their Imperial Poet—Rudyard Kipling, entitled ‘Lest we forget’” (“Indian Ladies” 1902: 128). The correct title is “Recessional” and “Lest we forget” the refrain; the poem reminds imperialists of the Christian values underpinning the civilizing mission. Romesh Dutt considers the ostentatious 1897 Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the context of the contemporaneous plague, during which an estimated 12.5 million Indians died; during the 1903 Delhi Durbar, “tens of thousands” of plague victims “were still in relief camps.” This was predated by the 1876–1877 famine and the 1877 Delhi Durbar. 43. See Sir Edwin Arnold (“Indian Ladies”); also Pillar, “Trivandram.” 44. Highly stylized photographs of an unveiled Shahinda appeared frequently in ILM. Shahinda was a prominent commentator who defended unexamined marginalization of women without herself observing those standards. 45. Due to the “internalization of Victorian morality . . . public display of emotion began to be frowned upon, especially if it was physical . . . [signaling] British distaste for expressiveness” (Kumar, History 36). Kumar implies that prudishness was another British imposition, but this study repeatedly illustrates that it is what most resonated with established Indian ideas about womanliness in Victorian ideology that was readily adapted by reformists and nationalists. See also Kishwar on efforts to “produce an indigenized version of the Victorian housewife rather than create any indigenous educational theory or practice” (“Arya” 10). 46. Kamala writes that there are “queues in London for everything. . . . One understands by them the passion for order and method. . . . I have once or twice inadvertently transgressed the rules of the queue, and I have been instantly, but courteously, called into order, and felt like a ‘foreign fool’ in consequence” (Sengupta, Portrait 122). Although she claims the English do not observe queue etiquette outside of England, an Anglo-Indian is chagrined by “Indian servility” when he is moved to the front of a line simply because he is British (“Indian Aspirations” 1930: 60). 47. See also “English Character by an Indian Visitor to England” on British nationalism, domestic organization, concept of time, and reserved manner (due perhaps to an inhospitable climate). 48. Welinkar writes: “Take care of your women and the race will take care of itself” (1909: 120). Concepts of womanliness depend on the domestic sphere: “Spare me, oh Lord, the crowded way / The busy mart where men contend; / For me the home, the tranquil day, ‘A little sock to mend’” (Katherine Lynch, “A Woman’s Prayer”). Given women’s progress in public spheres, the author doubts whether there are many who are content with the “little sock.” 49. While some Indians focused on “unprogressive and static” perspectives intended to preserve the past rather than “develop anything new,” Western culture “through a different process of historical development . . . had become dynamic and revolutionary . . . [prepared] to think new thoughts and create new institutions in the face of changing and challenging circumstances” (Ahmed, Social 151).

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50. “Indians blamed England for woes that were deeply rooted in their own culture . . . the chains that bound them were of their own making” (Seth, Subject 147). 51. “Amicus” writes of Orientalism toward Indian women, “fostered and carried too far by the Miss Mayos and the begging propagandists of the world,” and of Englishwomen who are disengaged while in India, knowing they will soon return to their “real” life in England (“English Women” 1929: 22). 52. Kamala notes: “Some ideas rise like a wall between the Englishman and the Indian; but the fault is on both sides. Indians are rightly accused of keeping too much to themselves in London, in Cambridge, in Oxford. But do not the British segregate themselves from Indians in India?” (Sengupta, Portrait 139). See “England and India, a Comparison” on “England-returned” students, some dismissive of India as a result of Western influence and others inspired to work for its modernization. For some, English education fosters “false notions of gentility” and for others an appreciation for the “dignity of labor” (1906: 10). 53. Superficiality works both ways: British assumptions about “the aloofness, ignorance . . . simplicity . . . childishness” of Indian women shaped their perspectives even prior to actual contact. Both sides “put a wrong construction” on the other: Indians denounce English “standoffishness,” and the English complain of Indians’ exclusivity; Indians term a “woman nicely dressed, according to Western ideas” a “frivolous, scatter-brained individual whose sole aim in life is her own pleasure” (Izzetta, “Social” 1903: 257–58), while to Westerners traditional Indian dress validates women’s presumed sensuality. See also “Social Gathering,” “Letter to the Editor,” and Biva Roy, “Social Intercourse.” 54. H. H. the Dowager Maharani of Mandi asserts: “The same God was worshipped by everyone; but the ways of approach to Him were many. Why then despise other religions than our own? Did not the same sun shine on the world, even while its heat affected things in different ways?” (1935: 150).

Chapter Six

ILM and the Indian Woman Question

Until educated Indians are prepared to give their women all the privileges of enlightenment and culture which they themselves so freely enjoy, social intercourse between European and Indian ladies will be a mere sham. —“Social Intercourse” 1903: 61

Cornelia Sorabji wryly noted that there are only two social categories of Indian females: wife and widow, a configuration precluding differences of age, race, and caste, much less individuality (“Miss Cornelia” 1903: 349). To the outside world, writes Padmini, Indian womanhood “is a closed book,” its cloistered air of inscrutable mystery fueling speculative “imaginings” ranging from pity to prurience (“Types” 1907: 3). She attempts to lend fuller character to Indian women by outlining a series of subcategories: the secluded purdahnashin, excluded by choice from society; cultivated, educated women (deemed Westernized and denationalized); 1 and the “sweet, true” domestic woman who earns “chivalry and respect.” But the predominant “type” is the “ordinary every-day Hindu woman . . . quite unwelcome to her father,” her childhood brief and education minimal, her marriage and childbearing premature, her wifehood demoralized by a mother-in-law bent on her submissiveness (4). The final category is the widow, ranging from the “unhappy, sullen, useless” to those “who will be among the most potential factors of the regenerating forces of India” (5). 2 Because each “type” is defined solely by marital status—the unmarried being beyond the pale—Padmini’s attempt to present womanhood as something more fully fleshed out than Sorabji’s monism succeeds only in reifying the “type.” And this is what constitutes the foundation of the Indian Woman Question.

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FEMALE EDUCATION AND MODERNIZATION In the endeavor to articulate and resolve the Indian Woman Question, two intersecting developments resulted from confrontations between the imperial government and Bengali culture: the evolution of the bhadralok class and the establishment of girls’ schools (private, government, and missions). Although in the context of India’s cultural variables Bengal is but one example, it represents the earliest and most palpable responses to the colonial encounter—responses first to modernization along Western lines through education and second to the preservation of cultural integrity. The geographic center for language and curriculum debates was Bengal generally—implicating privileged, upper-caste Brahmins—and Calcutta specifically, the capital of British colonial governance. Out of this combination of sociocultural, political, and economic factors emerged the Bengal Renaissance, “stirred by the force of new ideas . . . from the western horizon. . . . The shock which roused Bengal mainly came through literature and . . . its energy followed the same channel . . . for its expression” (Dunn qtd. Basu and Ray, Women’s xii). Central to this rejuvenating movement, with its dual emphases on cultural reclamation and reformist modernization, were debates aimed at clarifying the place of Indian women within both frameworks. Composed of Brahmins and educated professionals, the bhadralok class was distinguished by its synthesis of Western intellectual influences with traditional cultural values, the latter emphasizing an Eastern moral superiority symbolized by females’ sexual purity. Although the women of this class, the bhadramahila, experienced a comparatively modern lifestyle marked by education and social privileges, in practice “the authority and superiority of husband were never challenged. . . . Despite the modern wife’s increasing involvement in social activities, she remained fundamentally committed to her domestic roles” (Murshid, Reluctant 166). Renaissance-inspired social reform—originally grounded in such issues as child-marriage, sati, and widow remarriage—now featured an “increasing equation of scripture and law, the conflation of tradition with Brahmanism, and the conviction of the existence of a prior Hindu golden age and its fall as precipitated by an Islamic tyranny”—a vacuum in turn filled by British economic and political opportunism and exacerbated by the imposition of alien standards of morality (194). As a result of such conflation and despite lofty rhetoric proclaiming the moral superiority of Indian females, “women’s upliftment . . . experienced a reversal” by remaining enmeshed in the very practices and attitudes ostensibly under reformists’ scrutiny (201). By the fin de siècle and the inception of ILM, the bhadraloks “were ready to accept new ideas and reform . . . but were quite conservative in relation to their attitudes towards their family and women” (Murshid, Reluctant 203), attitudes reflected in Satthianadhan’s appeal to conservatives’ views even

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while insisting on the primacy of women’s empowerment through education. As family structure shifted away from the extended family and toward a companionate marriage and nuclear family configuration, nationalism “became linked to the intimate relations of husbands and wives, such that anticolonialist sentiment was woven into the very fabric of discussions about conjugality” (Sreenivas, “Emotion” 68). 3 As evidenced in ILM, while “the roles held up as the model for virtuous women were drawn from the sanskritic Puranic tradition, they were permeated with Victorian morals and mores,” albeit qualified by sharp distinctions between the “respectable Hindu middleclass woman and her more profligate western counterpart” (Dalmia, Nationalization 248–49). ILM reflects modernists’ yoking of Victorian gender ideology to nationalism’s evolving identity politics, seen in its emphases on “improving” articles, reformist consciousness raising, and morally robust literature with a purpose. 4 But as Victorians themselves were aware (if reluctant to admit), the veneration of women in the name of social purity and sexual morality served less to protect females from the world’s corrupting influences than to prevent their participation in the male-driven public realm economy. East and West, Angel-in-the-House ideology cast women as “more than man’s equal, in that she was elevated to be an object of veneration. This annulled the possibility of any serious consideration of the issue of parity” (Dalmia, Nationalization 250). Bhadraloks’ seeming progressiveness, being systematically undercut by conservatism, was “half-hearted,” effectually aiming to “update society without disturbing the social institutions to any significant amount” (Murshid, Reluctant 160). In the words of Partha Chatterjee: [the] new politics of nationalism “glorified India’s past and tended to defend everything traditional”; all attempts to change customs and life-styles began to be seen as the aping of Western manners and were thereby regarded with suspicion. Consequently, nationalism fostered a distinctly conservative attitude toward social beliefs and practices. The movement toward modernization was stalled by nationalist politics. (Nation 116)

From a wide range of perspectives, the Indian Woman Question represented the means for nationalists to establish and assert an alternative moral superiority over the contaminating threat posed by the West. These ideas are particularly relevant to Indian women’s education debates because the domestic sphere was regarded as “the center . . . of a superior spiritual culture . . . the sphere of women and family where man was sovereign, a status he had lost in the outside world dominated by foreign rulers” (Jayawardena, White 7). Thus was the “nationalist cultural project” ostensibly rooted in “the inner spaces of the community”—the family, because only in the home could citizens’ “spiritual character” find purification from “outside, corrupting influences” (Chatterjee, Texts 11–12). Extending this logic to educational insti-

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tutions, schooling effectually invaded the inner realm of female minds while necessitating their absence from the inner sanctum of home: “Seeking zealously to protect that inner space from colonial incursion, the nationalist tended to see the school as a source of alien culture . . . and moral corruption” (12). Even granting its necessity or desirability, female education needed to be monitored, managed, and contained within the domestic sphere, and it was in response to the latter idea that the women’s periodical press flourished (see chapter 1). Clearly, the Indian Woman Question “had less to do with women than with what women were seen to signify . . . a privileged status in nationalist discourse . . . a potent signifier . . . an icon” of womanliness defined by chastity and promoted as an indicator of moral superiority over the West (Seth, Subject 130, 135). Female education was less valued in itself than for its auxiliary benefits to boys and men, making the following assertion in Bengal Magazine highly revelatory: [educated males] are led by the impetus . . . to go on improving their minds . . . [uneducated females] are led by the impetus of ignorance. . . . The emancipation and elevation of women, is the life-blood of modern civilization. . . . Mental equality, or parity . . . is an essential and indispensable element of domestic happiness . . . male education, without its counter-part . . . is really a curse, and will only demoralize the country and add to its vice and misery. (487–92)

Although for many female education was a nonissue, this divisive topic was in fact energetically contested throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Following the 1813 East India Company charter renewal, a time when the literacy rate for Indian women was estimated at one in one hundred thousand, the missionary movement promoted female education by establishing girls’ schools in Bengal (1818), Serampore (1819), and Calcutta (1821). 5 By 1836, there were thirty mission schools for girls—progress to be sure, but grossly disproportionate to the growing population; invoking the same statistic in 1879, Brahmo Public Opinion asked: “What proportion do these schools bear to the number of women whose claims we are to-day advocating? Not even one to one hundred thousand” (268). William Adam, in his Report on the State of Education in Bengal (1835, 1836, 1838), asserted that most Indian girls receive “no instruction at all. Absolute and hopeless ignorance is in general their lot” (qtd. Basu, “Emotion” 183). Explanations vary, from entrenched custom, superstition, religious dogma, and prejudice to the claim that female education is “unnecessary, dangerous and unorthodox.” Marriage being culturally mandatory, boys need education for employment, but girls’ education “had no economic function” and was therefore a pointless investment because they were destined for childbearing and domestic

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drudgery or isolation in purdah—a realm of invisibility erroneously excluded from the “logic” of economics (184). 6 Debates on female education were sharply divided along religious lines. Following the 1857 Sepoy Uprising, Hindus pursued Western education “even more vigorously than before,” while Muslims, fearing Christian influences, resisted that path (Burke and Quraishi, British 46). 7 As a result, educated Hindus were exposed to “a variety of invigorating Western values, including the spirit of inquiry which encouraged the challenging of outmoded concepts” (63), while Muslims valued past achievements over present growth and future development and were excluded from employment opportunities. This trend was confronted in 1903 by educator Susie Sorabji in a speech to the Mahomedan Educational Conference in Bombay: “the consciousness of the nation is being aroused . . . to the suicidal folly of keeping the women of India in the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy”; if men are not going to support female literacy, women will, and “their earnest plea must find a responsive echo in the hearts of all true patriots” (“Female Education” 1904: 241). Sorabji’s talk itself exemplifies what an educated woman sounds like, from authoritative citations and literary allusions to such rhetorical strategies as deductive reasoning. Citing Prime Minister Gladstone, she notes that men are associated with brute force and women with a “higher sphere of being”; for national evolution, there is “no single test so effective as the position . . . assign[ed] to women. . . . If India would take her place in the vanguard of civilization she must put woman in the place God meant her to occupy.” Sorabji concludes that “ability to read is one great distinction between human beings and brutes,” thus those who endeavor to keep women illiterate are themselves brutes. Sorabji’s persuasive appeals include nationalist pride, evolutionary progress, and patriotism; she incorporates statistics—of sixty million Muslims, only four thousand girls are in school—and sentimentality, as when she turns from Western womanhood’s iconic queen of the hearth “with tear-filled eyes” to the sad spectacle presented by India’s zenanas (242). It is especially desirable that “the literature of a land where woman is held in such reverence, honoured, loved, confided in [England], should flood the East where she is not thus honoured,” for instance Ruskin’s “vision of woman sitting crowned . . . Queen of her husband, of her sons,” wielding “the stainless scepter of womanhood” (244–46). 8 Ignorance and illiteracy are not inherent but remediable: I am pleading for my sisters, the gentlest, meekest, most neglected in the civilized world . . . they cannot plead for themselves, and I am here to do it for them, in the name of womanhood. . . . It is not a personal question, but a national one. . . . Indeed there can be no national progress, so long as this evil exists. 9

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Along with Ruskin’s ubiquitous Sesame and Lilies, Sorabji invokes literary allusions that became staples in these debates: “For the hand that rocks the cradle, / Is the hand that rules the world” (William Ross Wallace); 10 and Tennyson’s The Princess: “The woman’s cause is man’s. . . . If she be small, slight natured, miserable, how shall men grow?” (243). She rightly predicts that English will be the “universal language” and India’s population must adapt or fall behind: “Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do or die”— yet another invocation of Tennyson’s battle hymn, the “Charge of the Light Brigade.” Similarly, Mrs. Ali Akbar urges Muslims “to awake” and confront “that sentimental barrier which has been keeping us away from receiving Western education . . . a sine qua non for existence in India” (“Appeal” 1907: 64). Lack of modern education impedes “the walk of life,” and Muslims must “walk with the time . . . [it is] the sacred duty of every one . . . to be taught and to teach this great truth that without it we must go to the wall” (65). Thirty years later, little had changed: Begum Mir Amiruddin similarly notes that the “time-spirit” demands the assumption of “civic responsibilities” and yet the “tragedy of India was that only 12% of its men and 2.9% of its women were literate” (“Social” 1937: 194). According to ILM, “Once woman can take her place and play her part in the public life of such a great country as India, then her true greatness will come before the world. Till then the ignorance and superstition which darkens the country and prevents its development will remain and no progress will be made. Redemption must come from within” (“Women’s Status” 1929: 507). There is nothing new in this insight—the very destiny of India and the solution to its problems are “in the hands of the women”: “For literary revival, for political regeneration, for social advancement, for economic development, for industrial progress, for everything touching the life of man in India, Indian woman is the fountainhead” (Rangier, “Indian” 1914: 82). Yet in practice, “jealous Brahmins shamelessly aver” that intellectual “liberty is a bane to womankind,” a patronizing sentiment indicating that such liberty is the province of men only. Clearly, prejudice against female education was hardly limited to the Muslim community. Debates on the Indian Woman Question deepened and complicated “the moral challenges of British colonial rule” (Kafka, Outside 2). Illustrating incompatible agendas are the claims about suitable curriculums for Indian girls: that mission schools required Bible study along with reading, writing, spelling, geography, and needlework clearly conflicted with the government’s official “policy of religious neutrality” (Viswanathan, “Beginnings” 10). The aim to instill English moral values through education was viewed by some as “social control in the guise of a humanistic program of enlightenment,” by others as blatant religious indoctrination, and by still others as simply part of a benevolent civilizing mission. True of both moralizing modernists and conservative nationalists, the emphasis on women seemed to

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signify “a new and thoroughly modern concern for their rights as individuals,” but that implication is “mistaken,” such concern instead serving to reconstitute and reify “patriarchy and caste much more than liberating women into modernity” (Mani, Contentious 195). Not entirely altruistic, the literacy project of Christian missions was predicated on the expectation that conversion would follow. 11 Concerned with instilling morality in a “decadent” culture, mission schools aimed to attract “respectable” Hindu girls but encountered resistance from those fearing Christian proselytizing; this dynamic made clear that Hindus must themselves “make women’s education a priority if they wanted to preserve their culture and religion from the influence of Christianity” (Viswanathan, “Beginnings” 10). Insofar as female education represented “a vital nation-building task, part of the regeneration of enslaved India” (13), it was preferable to confront that directly and educate their girls themselves rather than leave it to those with alternative agendas. 12 Efforts to ameliorate Indians’ resistance to that agenda include the Calcutta Hindu Female School, a secular institution established by John Bethune in 1849; the curriculum was based on managing household accounts, instructing children, and improving hygiene standards, subjects deemed “necessary for enlightened mothers and hence for an enlightened race” (Basu and Ray, Women’s 188). 13 In 1879, Bethune College offered higher education for women who, despite being intellectually qualified, were barred from men’s colleges; and in 1883, it produced the first women college graduates—not only in India, but anywhere in the empire. 14 At the time of Charles Wood’s 1854 Despatch on Indian education, the intense resistance to female education, in “modern” England no less than in “backward” India, revealed the moralizing ideological underpinnings common to both: The importance of female education in India cannot be over-rated; and we have observed with pleasure the evidence which is now afforded of an increased desire on the part of many of the natives to give a good education to their daughters; by this means a far greater proportional impulse is imparted to the education and moral tone of the people than by the education of men. (Qtd. Basu and Ray, Women’s 188) 15

Arguably, the persistent emphasis on females’ morality—first, for their roles as wives and mothers, then in relation to community, nation, and empire— perpetuates the social trappings that had held women back for centuries, East and West. But it is also true that this very emphasis was ultimately turned to women’s advantage; the speed with which Indian women achieved social and civil rights, education, the franchise, and emancipation in the early twentieth century—moving them in a few decades from centuries’ long stagnation to the forefront of the nationalist and independence movements—was miraculous, to say the least.

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The cultural threat associated with mission schools was in part addressed by such secular institutions as Bethune College (although, if government funded, still suspect), but the call for Indians themselves to assume responsibility for female education featured an alternative that was, in nationalist terms, deeply significant. In 1879, Brahmo Public Opinion asserted that “Western education is silently and imperceptibly working a mighty change in our society,” but then pointedly asked: “What have we done for our women . . . a question which every educated Native of India is bound to put to himself and to answer?” (“What” 268). Voiced six years prior to the first Indian National Congress, the query foregrounds self-scrutiny of indigenous practices over blaming outside influences: “this question, so momentous, so intimately connected with India’s future,—so closely allied to India’s past, so essentially necessary for the regeneration of India, should seriously engage the attention of the present generation.” Melodramatically, the author evokes Bharat Mata, newly awakened “after a slumber of ages,” who, inspired by the “glad tidings of Western civilization,” weeps to find her once-honored daughters now banished, suppressed, “pent up” in zenanas, “shut out” from knowledge, victimized, shackled, enslaved, and hopeless: “what have we done to raise them, to elevate them, to free them from the superstition of ages?” The point is significant for two reasons: first, “they are human beings whose condition is pitiable and calls for amelioration”; and second, their ignorance poses an impediment to nationhood and the still-futuristic vision of independence. 16 But another perspective reveals an interesting collusion between nationalists and imperialists. Considerations of class and caste deepen the issue because female education involved those “from the upper strata” almost exclusively, revealing complicitous links between Brahminic authority and colonial administration: “the vedic or brahminical tradition was meticulously ‘recovered’ (or invented) to suit contemporary ends,” while “the official discourse of imperial government and its interests structured the recovery” of that tradition (Tharu and Lalita, Women 151, 158). Complicating these issues are obvious parallels between Victorian Angel-in-the-House and Indian separate spheres ideologies, both designed to keep females secluded in domestic spaces and jealously guarded by patriarchs East and West. Domestic space, reconstituted in “exclusively religious terms, had complex and problematic connections with caste, [and] tradition”; for example, modernizing advocates urged women’s study of English, through which they were exposed to “Victorian norms of feminine propriety,” the moral values those norms conveyed, and the “imperialist ambitions” underpinning them (158). But even while promoting those norms, conservatives countered that “there was no useful purpose served by teaching women that language, since it was spoken only outside the household” (163), beyond the domestic realm to which they were relegated. 17 ILM emerged in the thick of these contradictory positions, itself

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representing the palpable results of female education, literacy, and “the new nationalist mood of self-confidence it inspired” through women’s writing. Such awakening—both advocated and mediated by ILM—is inspiring and triumphant, confusing and irresolute, perhaps as ambivalent, contradictory, and perplexing to its contemporary audience as to postcolonial perspectives. Many arguments favoring Indian female education resonate strikingly with Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which advocates social parity between men and women, rejects the sexual double standard in favor of mutual chastity (monogamy), and promotes the education of women so as to enhance their roles as wives and mothers; 18 in both England and India, acceptance of the idea that females’ personal development and intellectual growth was in itself a sufficient reason for education was still decades in the future. In 1882, Dadabhai Naoroji, Parsi education reformer and founding member of the East India Association (Britain) and of the Indian National Congress, posited: The time will come when natives generally will see the benefit of female education as a great social necessity to rise in civilization and to advance social happiness and progress, and will understand that women had as much right to exercise and enjoy all the rights, privileges, and duties of this world as man, each working toward the common good in her or his respective sphere. But that time has not yet come. (Qtd. Basu and Ray, Women’s 188–89)

In 1897, there were less than ninety Indian women in university programs; by 1915, the number was 457. Thirty years later, Sarojini Naidu wrote: No country in the world today presents so strange or so sad a paradox of history as India: and the position of the women forms the heart of the paradox. . . . The vast legion of Indian women whether of lowly or lofty rank are immured in a labyrinth of ignorance and prejudice, oppressed by the threefold misery of social injustice, legal disabilities and economic dependence from which adequate redress has long been overdue. . . . In a land where men lack liberty, women are doubly enslaved. (Foreword i)

Attitudes and circumstances were slow to change: “Theoretically, no country, no religion, holds womanhood in such high honour as Hindu India does,” wrote Margaret Cousins, but “practically, woman stands in a contradictory or ambiguous position” (Awakening 95). Poised at the historical moment—the fin de siècle—characterized by imperial expansion and the end of Victoria’s reign, Indian womanhood was defined by “awakening,” by the impulse toward education, by the urge to test professional and personal boundaries, and by the development of political consciousness.

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FEMALE EDUCATION AND WOMANLINESS Let us learn English . . . to make us intelligent and companionable wives, good mothers capable of giving the proper bent to growing minds, economical housewives and enlightened and useful citizens of the world.— “Ammal” 1908: 233

Writing of conservatives’ cultural isolationism and resistance to female education, Satthianadhan draws an analogy with China’s Great Wall: If India is to march with the times and according to her own wish abreast of them . . . [then] Walls around a continent . . . [are not] possible at this time of the world’s history. . . . A nation cannot form itself, unless it is willing to understand and also to share the various responsibilities of existing nations towards each other and her own in relation to them all. (“Editor’s Answer” 1917: 285)

The rights of nationhood in the modern world are inextricably bound to the responsibilities of global well-being, but what precludes facilitating “social intercourse” nationally and internationally is addressing the conundrum posed by the intersection of modernism and female education, Indian identity politics and womanliness. Consistent with ILM’s Victorian framework, Eliza Lynn Linton’s critique of “The Girl of the Period” (1868)—those type-writing, bicycle-riding “fast” girls seeking education, a profession, and economic independence in the public realm—finds a counterpart in “The Girl of Today,” that “‘strutty’ and strong-minded” type whose education poses the “grave danger of a girl forgetting the importance of being the center of a home of her own . . . the best feminine material should be embraced in . . . motherhood” (“Girl of Today” 1902: 31). 19 Even worse is the “Border-Line Girl”—troublesome, irresponsible, wayward, incorrigible, requiring “constant care to keep . . . [from] going wrong . . . fond of amusement, dress and display . . . easily turned aside from the right path and into the wrong one” (Border-Line 1909: 72). But worst of all are the “Bad-Mannered Girls of To-Day,” who exhibit a “grievous falling-off in manners . . . they thrust elders aside. . . . They dress like schoolboys . . . swagger about” like “low” types and are vulgar and cruel; concluding that “there is a great lack of chivalry in young women towards men,” the aggrieved author not only reverses the gendered dynamics of the chivalric code, but also apparently writes of a culture wherein purdah does not exist (Harrison 1918: 303). A decade later, “The Girl of Today” continued to raise alarms as “one of the most arresting and startling problems of this age” (Tampoe 1929: 415). 20 Given the demands of modernism, war, emancipation, and economic struggles, it is unfair to compare this “Girl” with the “essentially peaceful, slow in

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progress and untroubled” previous generation, but it is nonetheless true that she who “forsakes her home . . . [squanders] her supreme opportunity in life” (415), her purpose being not to compete with man, but to complete him. Such unabashed Victorianism was insupportable in the year when economic globalization assumed its most sobering presence. Published the same year, “Some Thoughts on the English Woman of Today” praises women who reject the “seclusion, inferiority complex and pettiness of Victorian England” in favor of dress reform, the franchise, civil rights, and peace activism (1929: 461). 21 Social reforms depend as much on women’s literacy as on their economic autonomy (“Women and Reform” 1931: 432); modern young women want “to be economically free . . . to do something useful in life, apart from marrying . . . undoubtedly a result of the time-spirit” (Rau, “Modern” 1929: 164). Some modern women thrive on the shock value of unconventionality, “a gesture of protest against the insufferable doctrine of woman’s inferiority” (Murthi, “Conflict” 1936: 51). Yet interestingly, woman’s rejection of “servile obedience to man” represents “a welcome departure from the deaf, dumb, and . . . blind woman of the past, who lived not for herself, but for her husband, whose duty of obedience killed outright the spontaneity of life.” Previously, as Cornelia Sorabji noted, there were only two social categories for females—wife and widow. Now, “We are in an age of transition and experiments for the advancement of women . . . the Indian girl has not yet realised herself” (“Miss Cornelia” 1903: 349). A quartercentury later, the emergent “Women of Today” endorse “reform and reconstruction,” and it is only the “foolishly conservative” who persist in the “old institutions” (Chinnamma, “Women” 1931: 471). Whether in the context of Victorian England or British India, female education was either the remedy for or the cause of social problems, both options raising the specter of unwomanliness. Writing of “College Girls,” Satthianadhan encourages the “growth of the young spirit of India” and the modernizing, patriotic ideals they represent (1934: 244). Kamala and Sarojini Naidu were not always in accord, but they did agree that Indian women’s signature self-deprecating humility, “evasion of duty, polite and spurious modesty should be given up; and responsibility shouldered.” Some feared that education, if not tied to the very attitudes needing to be modernized, would lead inevitably to daring behavior and, in turn, confused and uncertain responses. For instance, the “Modern Indian Girl” negotiates mixed messages, having aroused both admiration and contempt—not only by dancing at a mixed assembly, but also by doing so with an Englishman (Punkajam 1931: 361–62); of those in attendance, what some viewed as modern, others condemned as bold and thus surely disreputable. Modern girls become “Modern Women” who go to the city to shop and eat in restaurants 22 and are thus “faithless”—if not sexually, then to their children, their homes, and their domestic responsibilities. “Pure womanhood,” the author concludes, “the

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great central idea of the human race . . . is ceasing to inspire the heart of our modern women” (Satyanarayana, “Opinions” 1936: 162). The view that “pure” womanhood can only be maintained by a cloistered existence serving one “master” contends with the idea that “true” womanhood expresses itself in the service of self, family and community, and the nation and the world, an attitude rapidly gaining momentum during this period. Kamala’s version of “The Modern Indian Girl” anticipates her analyses of Sita (1934) and Draupadi (1935) as exemplary ancient models for modern Indian womanhood (discussed in chapter 2). Here as well the Victorian framework incorporates Angel-in-the-House Sita and New Woman Draupadi; to confront the modern era, “We want more than the Sita-type wives and mothers: we want them to be wider types” (1931: 384). Draupadi offers an alternative, being at once womanly, wifely, and politically astute, although viewed by conservatives as “a little too proud”; such Indians “prefer meek Griseldas and patient Sitas, not disobedient Godivas, or masterful Draupadis.” Perhaps the education of modern college girls “is not . . . suited to a wife and mother. But . . . wifehood and motherhood are not the be-all and end-all of a woman’s life” (385)—a stunning assertion by one who consistently aims to have it both ways and thus repeatedly undercuts her own most progressive articulations. 23 It is not her warning against being “forward . . . presumptuous . . . arrogant” or manly that resonates, but something more visionary: “If they learn to be Draupadis, as well as Sitas; and if they remember to be Sitas, even while aspiring to be Draupadis, all will be well” (387). Yes, perhaps Indian women can have it both ways. Traditionally, an educated woman was a social pariah, perhaps even unmarriageable: “there are few things more damaging to a girl’s social popularity . . . than the reputation of being clever”; men flee from her “as from the plague” (“Clever Girls” 1905: 274). But “she’s so clever!” exclaims Susie Sorabji, urging a girl’s return to school; “That is just it,” replied the father, “we do not know what harm she may do with the knowledge she acquires” (“Female” 1904: 243). “Clever” girls not only provoke jealousy and insecurity in men, they also turn into “clever” women who are “trying to be in the fashion” by working in the public realm but shunning unpaid social work (Amicus, “Work” 1929: 315). “No man will marry you if you show that you are too clever,” warned one; but “I thought that men would like to marry clever ladies,” replied the other. No, said the first; “Men are jealous of ladies” who are more clever than they (317). Thus it is men who need to modernize by reevaluating the perceived threat posed by educated women, and while modern females easily combine “cleverness” with “womanliness,” it takes “more than the ‘average man’ to see it!” (“Clever Girls” 1905: 274). Perhaps the most perplexing social deviant of all is the “Bachelor Girl” who rejects the marriage-motherhood-domesticity path altogether in favor of career and independence: “efficient and keen on her work, she is capable of

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leading a happy free life, without forever being on the lookout for a husband” (Rohini 1934: 57). There have always been “Bachelor Girls” or spinsters; what is new is the gradual acceptance of this status as legitimate rather than a cause for pity: singleness is seen less as an unavoidable tragic destiny than a conscious choice, evidenced by the establishment of female hostels for students and workers that provided a safe, home-like environment. 24 By asserting that Indian women who assume civic and social responsibilities along with their new rights raise their value—“when man sees that a woman is not to be had cheap, her worth will naturally increase”—Rohini misses the point that this new generation of women does not need male approval to provide self-worth. Alternatively, writing of the “marriage problem,” Rohini observes that sometimes single working girls “get tired of working, even if she be ever so modern and independent . . . she is willing to marry any man that offers—merely for a home and comfort, and not for love . . . we take our hats off, however to those women who can face and fight life bravely, and who do not make a convenience of marriage and a husband; but marry because they are genuinely in love, or not marry at all” (“This” 1936: 219). 25 Progress in female education came with steep caveats: self-improvement was acceptable only in order to serve “her lord” as his “helpmate,” to make his home comfortable and his sons successful. Her “proper place” will be bestowed upon her—perhaps—at his discretion and convenience; whereas self-improvement leads inevitably to independence and autonomy, women are stymied by the imperative of self-renunciation. Even prominent Indian women activists—Sarojini Naidu and Vijaya Pandit, for example, whose lives did not include Angel-in-the-House domesticity—rejected associations with the term “feminist” and a distinctly non-Indian “shrieking sisterhood.” 26 “Amicus” contextualizes these points with Indian womanhood: We must remember we are Indians, and that what suits other nations . . . may not suit our temperaments. . . . But women must not let themselves be put aside too much by their men, as they are apt to be in Indian families . . . they also have their own rights and privileges. . . . I admit that our men have, by their rather selfish behavior, laid themselves open to such treatment . . . but let us try not to have sex-antagonism in India. (“Our Daughters” 1928: 247–49)

That selfish men “put aside” women is an interesting admission, though not surprising, given the strict gender separatism shaping Indian society and resulting misogynistic attitudes and behaviors; and while “unity in diversity” (to subvert divide and conquer) was the new catchphrase, Western influence was alternately courted for its modernism and rejected as incompatible with Indian identity. ILM’s policy of encouraging alternative views inevitably conveyed mixed messages, posing women’s advancement against the claim that they belong at home.

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When, in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft had the temerity to argue that educated women make better wives and mothers, thus contributing directly to national well-being, she was dismissed as a “hyena in petticoats” (Walpole, Letters #2956). Just as British women were idolized as Angels-in-the-House, so too were Indian women praised for the chastity and purity modeled through unquestioning obedience to a gendered moral code. Although the details vary, East and West are implicated as thoroughly in this dynamic as if they had deliberately collaborated on it. Wollstonecraft no doubt tailored her insights to make them palatable to a patriarchal audience; this makes sense, given that in the “progressive” West, men deserved liberté, égalité, fraternité and slaves deserved emancipation, but even liberal activists baulked at reforms for women. The same pattern unfolded in nineteenth- and twentiethcentury India, shaping more than a century of discourse on whether or not females should be educated: If not, why not? If so, why? How much, for how long, to what level of achievement? What curriculum and for what purpose? With what teachers, and in what environment? Should the female curriculum be the same as males’ or designed to suit them only for domestic pursuits? Education was never needed in the past for domesticity—why now? It is difficult to envision a concept more essentialist than the insistence that female education has no purpose beyond making life easier for men and boys and that personal gratification and self-development are not legitimate pursuits, yet those involved in this discourse, from conservative to liberal and progressive, tempered their remarks with the assertion that women belong at home. Did these commentators, East and West, genuinely believe this manmade “truism” or, like Wollstonecraft, view domesticity as the path to realizing a more liberal, if gradualist, educational goal leading to female empowerment? When Satthianadhan reported on widow remarriages, she did so not by detailing the bride’s trousseau but rather her education history and vocational path. 27 For her, education is a universal right, exclusive of gender, race, religion, and caste; it is every human’s responsibility—to family and community, to nation and world—to develop him- or herself to the fullest capacity, to make the most of his or her abilities and gifts, with no material justification required. Yet her commentary is consistently qualified by the claim that woman’s place is in the home, and while there is nothing inherently objectionable about domestic, “womanly” women, the failure to explore the considerable baggage attached to this universalized type is problematic in a woman-centered publication aimed at modernization, emancipation, independence, and open-minded tolerance. Seemingly everyone had something to say about female education in India, the lack of which was believed to facilitate racial deterioration; of siblings born into the same family, “the girl goes down and the boy goes up in life simply because the one has education and the other has not” (“Female

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Education” 1912: 73). Another writer objects to “fathers who spend no small amount of money and time upon the education of their sons” but fail “to raise their daughters above the level of mere playthings or household drudges”; for such fathers, education is not a matter of “evolution of the higher capabilities . . . [but] an investment of personal capital” that pays off for a boy but not for a girl (“Few” 1903: 18). National prosperity is not possible when half the population is “sunk in ignorance,” and yet many men feared the inconvenience of disrupted domesticity, convinced that education would make women “unwomanly and neglectful of their household duties” (“Higher” 1908: 347). Anglo-Indian women pronounced forcefully on female education; arguing against advanced degrees for Indian women, Flora Annie Steel advocates only so much education as will enhance and “not suppress . . . womanly qualities” (“Mrs. Steel . . . Gentleman” 1904: 376). On the contrary, one respondent claims, “the cultivation of the mind and of all that is bright and valuable in it, is the foundation on which the fabric of social life is built . . . a woman is a woman, whether a BA or MA, or a simple drudge within the four walls of the harem . . . her instinct as a woman is never lost” (377). Chinnamma agrees: “a university stands for an ideal of character and culture. . . . A bad woman is bad in any walk of life and a moral character can only gain additional assets by education”; the only thing masculine about such women is the “courage and indomitable will” to pursue education, regardless of the obstacles (“Women” 1931: 472). Similarly, an Indian woman posits, “Men are supposed to be improved by study. They do not lose their manliness. Why should women lose their womanliness? . . . True womanliness is instinctive, something that will not be corrupted by external agencies. . . . Why put obstacles in her way?” (“Mrs. Steel . . . Woman” 1904: 378). 28 The formidable Annie Besant asserts it is “obvious” that ignorance is “a hindrance and a danger to a nation”; ignorant mothers breed ignorant children, which compromises national prosperity (Besant, “Education” 1901: 155). Her recommendations include “thorough and literary knowledge of the vernacular” as well as Sanskrit (in order to appreciate the past) and English (in order to converse intelligently and to incorporate modern advances in hygiene and domestic arrangements (156). But Besant’s priority is the “prosperity” of males, 29 not females: “none can over-estimate the effect on a boy of a mother who is pure, pious, wise, and strong.” Education will likely prompt Indian women to question such cultural expectations as compulsory marriage, in which women need not think or earn for themselves, only find a man to do so for them. Why educate Indian women to be “the bread-winners they will not be” instead of making them “more useful as the wives and mothers they will be?” Why “injure the sweet grace of the Indian woman” (156) through intellectual awakening? Perhaps it is preferable that they remain a “hindrance” and a “danger” to a culture engaged in the fight of its life

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for survival in the modern era, rather than risk the threat of intellectual contagion or compromised “grace.” 30 Is education indeed incompatible with womanliness, and are Indian women particularly susceptible to contamination by Western education and ideas? Who stands to gain by such thinking, and who stands to lose? The path of nationalist modernization is simply not navigable while cluttered with such attitudes—perpetuated, significantly, by commentators on all sides—excluding the women themselves. 31 Speaking from her own experience, Kamala contests Besant’s claim “that university education for girls is perfectly useless. . . . There is no reason it should unfit the women for their duty as mothers and wives . . . why should it make them proud and vain of their own learning and inclined to look on the world as only made for themselves?” (“Education” 1902: 306). Another contributor agrees, aligning Besant’s claim with comments by Mr. S. Moorthy, who admits that education helps women adjust “to the spirit of the modern age,” but argues that English education should be eliminated or limited to the most basic “social amenities of life,” so that “the comfort of gentlemen . . . will not suffer . . . the chief things she must do is make herself look pretty and prepare herself to be a matron” (“English Education . . . A Reply” 1905: 253). On the contrary, according to one “Reply,” education is not “purely utilitarian” but a sufficient end in itself: Let women be educated to induce them to love study and reading. Let them take a pleasure in it, so that all their qualities and abilities may be drawn out, to enable them to fructify in whatever direction possible, not simply to enable them to be the proper mistresses of a home. A well developed woman . . . in mind, as . . . in body is a grand sight. Who knows what work such a woman may be enabled to do? (254)

Whereas Steel’s and Besant’s idea of womanliness is “sheltered and corseted,” liable to “break from its bounds at the slightest touch of wider external aims” (“Mrs. Steel” 1904: 379), Satthianadhan urges that woman “should not in the least be afraid of cultivating her own mind, fearing that she may lose her husband’s love. And a man should never hesitate to allow his wife to be educated owing to his fear of her becoming unwomanly, for true education raises rather than degrades or effaces womanliness” (“Education” 1902: 305). On the contrary, “education in its true sense is a development of the mental, moral, and physical qualities,” leading the student “to understand and appreciate nature and human conduct, to delight in and follow art, and to help and support the cause of humanity” (“Higher” 1908: 347). Education is a primary human right and self-development is its attendant responsibility. That said, “Present Condition of Female Education in India” warns against premature complacency about the progress of women’s education, the practical benefits of which have as yet extended to very few. The status of female education is “extremely backward”; until it is viewed as a “matter of

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vital importance” and the “vast intellectual gulf” separating males from females is closed, India will continue to languish amid the more progressive nations of the modern world (1901: 6). Now is the time to confront fears about “the loosening of social ties, the upheaval of customary ways, and the disturbance of the domestic equilibrium,” to cultivate trust in Indian women’s inherent integrity, and to accept that purdah of the mind no less than of the body is an anachronism. Mrs. Justice Benson of Madras stated: You are content with poetic ideals of womanhood written hundreds of years ago . . . [what about] the precious present, and a bright possible future? If India is to have no future, then by all means leave the women ignorant . . . every day you postpone the education of your women, you postpone in equal measure and exact proportion that bright future; for “a nation rises no higher than its mothers.” (1904: 290) 32

The appeal to morality and motherhood constitutes more essentialism, to be sure, but yoked to the nationalist movement it was irresistibly compelling, even to reluctant conservatives. A related debate considers the parameters of female education: Indian women’s “qualities are . . . more of the heart than of the head, and in supplying her with the latter we must take care not to kill the former” because education may prompt her to question and “despise her time-honoured customs and religion” (Roy, “Social” 1908: 185). 33 If she must be educated, the content should be limited to “her own race . . . her own vernacular . . . her own individuality”—unarticulated is the fact that who defines that individuality is unlikely to be woman herself. As for English education, which curriculum is more “nationalist” and therefore to be pursued and which more “imperialist” and therefore to be avoided? “English Education for Indian Ladies” addresses these concerns, including the fear that educated women will “lose their equilibrium and be deprived of the true graces of womanhood” and the claim that educated Indian men are no longer satisfied with uneducated wives: The education required is not the elementary knowledge which our girls acquire in schools, but a liberal and sound education. There can be no “harmony or true delight among unequals.” . . . [A] thorough education which enlarges the mind . . . [and] checks all narrow views, engendering a liberal spirit, is what is necessary for men as well as women. (“English” 1904: 302)

For those to whom militant suffragism is anathema, the author advises: “If the real value of education is rightly appreciated, no evil results need be apprehended” (303); surely, not even casual social encounters with Western women could contaminate the “shy modesty” and purity of Indian women, whose qualities, if authentic in the first place, could not possibly be so easily

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undermined. Some commentators regarded social interactions between women, East and West, to be more crucial to negotiating gender, racial, religious, political, and sociocultural differences than those between women and men—the editor of ILM being among them. A candid article “By an Indian Lady” avoids the usual skirting of issues characterizing commentary on female education to offer a refreshingly direct approach: Reformers . . . do not seem to have foreseen . . . that the effects of education would be to produce self-consciousness, restlessness, and a craving for new experiences. Some of the idealists hoped that educated women would make better wives and mothers and citizens . . . just as perhaps some British officials hoped that educated Indians would make efficient clerks, accountants, and subordinates. The educated Indian wants his rights . . . and the educated woman wishes . . . to assert and realise her individuality. (“Women and Education” 1929: 282)

On the contrary, both reformers and antireformers understood perfectly well what accompanies broadening one’s intellectual horizons, a primary factor driving opposition to female education: critical thinking and analyses by design prompt students to question unexamined assumptions about, for instance, one gender being held in subjection to the other. By terming the better wives-mothers-citizens argument the product of idealists, the author also confronts a long-simmering discontent among educated Indians. Educated Indian men want the promised positions to which they have, through their education, earned the right, just as educated Indian women fully expect to apply their intellectual liberation to the circumstances of their lives. Despite concerns about authenticating Indianness and womanliness, it was this class of intelligent, educated, patriotic, underutilized, and discontented Indians that channeled the benefits and drawbacks of imperialism into the nationalist movement. Truly, the master’s tools—language, literature, Enlightenment humanism—were here most successfully employed to dismantle the master’s house. 34 Commentary about educated women recalls the circumstances of Pandita Ramabai, an essentially friendless young widow-mother without resources; rudely propelled into unsought autonomy and compelled to be self-supporting, her independent choices earned her more criticism and condemnation than support and encouragement: the surprise felt was as a betrayal, when an educated woman forces the public to face the issue, by changing her religion, 35 or marrying, or throwing over her marriage, contrary to approved tradition . . . an intellectual education . . . [results in] freedom and responsibility, consciously to use the opportunities of her life and learn from joy and sorrow . . . it has given us the courage to say of

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our hostile critics, “they say—let them say.” (“Women and Education” 1929: 284–85) 36

Just as opponents feared, educated women are not likely “to acquiesce in that social order, by which her life is more ordered for her by others, than she has any hand in ordering it herself.” 37 Traditional, idealized womanhood is a heavy burden, predicated on minimizing impulses and curbing opportunities and “the only possible answer from the heart is a sigh of despair”; in contrast, modern education equips one to confront the rights and responsibilities of the new world order, which means “being useful and independent in Modern India.” The result is not unmitigated joy because education stimulates “needs and desires” as well as disappointments. The quest for knowledge necessitates a shift from innocence to experience, and the mindset that seeks to educate while preserving a state not of innocence but of ignorance is naive, unrealistic, and unsuited to the modern era. 38 Confrontations with Western civilization have “introduced new conditions of life for us,” rendering India’s “saintly” Angels-in-the-House “unequal to the larger duties which we expect of our womankind” (“Recent Speech” 1903: 29). Tennyson’s Ulysses realized there is no retreating from experience: “all experience is an arch where through / Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades / For ever and for ever when I move” (“Ulysses” ll. 19–21). Similarly, with education, the possibilities are endless, whereas lack of education is just “suttee in another form,” a living death (“Suttee” 1905: 227). English-language education posed unique threats and opportunities to the modernizing and nationalist movements. Typical arguments in its favor include that it promotes “intercourse between English women and Indian women”—here to be encouraged rather than avoided—and leads to “a greater advance . . . in respect of Anglo-Oriental sympathy”; it provides access to European modern literature and emancipation from intellectual seclusion; and it fosters social reform (“Should We” 1905: 225). Objections that education for domesticity is unnecessary were met by this compelling argument: English education makes modern scientific and medical advances in sanitary reform, health and personal hygiene, diet and home remedies, and the preventability of certain diseases accessible. 39 What could be more relevant to nationalist endeavors than strengthening the health of India’s citizens, one by one, home by home, from center to periphery? 40 The alternative—ignorance—had catastrophic consequences: Saraladevi Ghosal notes that the “difficulties that Government is experiencing in carrying out proper sanitary arrangements in connection with the plague . . . [are] due chiefly to the ignorance and superstition of the women of the household” (“Miss Ghosal” 1901: 51). 41 Resilient health underpins national vitality and requires the open-minded institution of simple, inexpensive, and common sense sanitary reforms: “How far the heavy death-toll from plague . . . may lie at the door of

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ignorant women . . . will never be known. But how can they be held responsible when they have never been taught the evils of the insanitary condition of their houses, and the danger concealed in infected clothes?” (“Wanted” 1902: 312). 42 Aside from public health crises, ignorance about preventable diseases affects all women, from the most common childbirth in a rural hut to confinement in the most economically privileged zenana. 43 Drawing Indian women’s signature obedience to their husband into the service of language and literacy debates, one author suggests that it is men who should take the initiative. If husbands urge their wives to learn English, they will because “facility in the English language has political, literary, intellectual, scientific, social and philosophical benefits . . . it is obvious that it is the English language we must cultivate, though the vernaculars are by no means to be neglected” (“Value” 1903: 117). 44 This dual strategy represents a viable compromise: it promotes modernizing intellectual growth and provides a “powerful instrument for the social reform of India,” while preserving and elevating India’s rich linguistic heritage. 45 The Ruskinesque vision of women as “queens of our hearths and homes” permits just enough education “for the social amenities of life” so as not to spoil the “absolute devotion, the charming simplicity and the artless grace which characterized Indian women in ancient times” (“Clever Girls” 1905: 274). In the modern world, such preoccupation with ancient India and Victorian England stymies present action and limits visions of the future. The Ladies’ Conference in Allahabad, presided over by the Rani of Vizianagram, rehearsed all of these ideas, adding a distinctive point to the better wives and mothers appeal: at this crucial nation-making time, women who “look on with folded hands, mute and inglorious, . . . clog the wheel and drag it backwards” (“Seventh” 1910: 243). The time for retreating behind custom, as if that in itself is sufficient justification for sociopolitical ennui, is past. Female illiteracy is antinationalist and unpatriotic, and it is every woman’s responsibility to “rise above custom and convention” for India’s greater good; now, “her duties pass beyond the home and extend far into the world . . . reform should proceed from within” (244). Women lack “insight . . . general culture . . . courage . . . desire for progress” and must be enlightened to the significance of these points to nationalization; the Rani urges women to participate in private and public realms, to cultivate themselves intellectually, to “walk abreast of the times . . . shake off ignorance,” and rise above obstacles. Female education debates were impassioned, intense, and of such enduring tenacity as to suggest that, if there was any progress, it was barely perceptible. But the Rani’s perspective was actively taken up, as seen in Indian travelers’ commentary on America (chapter 7), in the militancy of nationalists’ “mothering” of India (chapter 8) and, indefatigably, throughout the pages of The Indian Ladies’ Magazine.

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NOTES 1. “The ‘new woman’ was to be modern, but she would also have to display the signs of national tradition and therefore would be essentially different from the ‘Western’ woman” (Chatterjee, Nation 9). 2. See also Punkajam’s “Random Portraits” (series). 3. “The history of reform . . . does not seem very inspiring, freighted as it is with many kinds of patriarchal assumptions, and involved as it is in recasting women . . . for companionate marital relationships and attendant familial duties” (Sangari and Vaid, Recasting 18–20). Conservatives believed that “the very institutions of home and family were threatened under the peculiar conditions of colonial rule” (Chatterjee, “Nationalist” 241). 4. “Contemporary literature, official documents, the growth of publishing all indicate a diffusion and absorption of romantic and Victorian sentimental discourse and forms. . . . As Bengali women expressed themselves often through the patriarchal Bengali mode, so they relied on certain ‘colonial’ concepts as well, their ethos at times was Victorian” (Bannerji, “Fashioning” 59). 5. According to Nivedita, “The missionaries . . . are not in a position to discriminate rightly the elements of value in the existing training of the Oriental girl for life” (Letters 1.913). For modern literacy statistics, see Everett (Women 31–33). 6. Women’s knowledge “could not serve as a means for external advancement, because there was no place for them in the public domain”—the educated woman perhaps “enhanced her husband’s status,” but not her own (Borthwick, Changing 44). 7. “All Indians who had received a Western education admired English literature, British political institutions and . . . achievements . . . [those] who had visited . . . loved Britain” (Chapman, Sketches 25). No “distinguished” Muslim women are represented in Chapman’s book: “the Mahometan community as a whole have been backward in availing themselves of educational advantages, and are even more conservative than the Hindus in their views respecting women.” 8. Woman is associated with heart rather than mind and thus by definition “requires improvement”: “And so it is to the morally ennobling texts of English culture that middle class women are to turn . . . the easy absorption of Victorian structures of feeling into the structures of Indian myth” is related to social reform and “acculturation” through the “English literary” model in the context of middle-class separate spheres ideology (Sangari and Vaid, Recasting 13). 9. Rokeya Hossain established Sakhawat Memorial School for Muslim girls; in her request for contributions to purchase “an omnibus carriage” to protect students from public visibility, she urged that more schools be established for females by females: “It is women’s work essentially” (“Omnibus” 1911: 277). See also “Women of the Time.” 10. Naidu wrote: “Educate your women and the nation will take care of itself, for it is true today as it was yesterday and will be to the end of human life that the hand that rocks the cradle is the power that rules the world” (“Education” 18–20). 11. See Forbes, “Education for Women” (Women ch. 2); and Jayawardena (White ch. 2). 12. In terms of female education, “private enterprise has done little, and Government virtually nothing, the former being riddled with ignorant superstition and the latter prevented from interfering with our religious and social institutions. It is therefore encumbent upon us to take the initiative” (Brahmo, “Higher” 500). Partha Chatterjee writes of “the teaching of English literature as the formative spiritual influence on a colonized elite,” noting that nationalists tended to regard schools “as a source of alien cultural influence and moral corruption. Virtually as a mirror image of the colonial view of the school as the only reliable disciplinary institution for counteracting the unhealthy influences of a native culture, the nationalist thought of the home as the proper domain where the ‘spiritual character’ of the new citizen of the nation would be cleansed of outside, corrupting influences . . . the official view tended to construct the schoolroom as an extension of the state, while the nationalist sought to bring it under the domain of family and community” (Texts 11–12). 13. See also “Work for Indian Women” on Indian Women’s University, Saradeswari Asram, Union of Madras, and Women’s Indian Association. See also Kishwar on Arya Samaj and “a

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special kind of education” designed to help women adapt to “the new demands made by the educated men of the family without losing their cultural moorings”; this was modeled on “the Victorian ideal of womanhood” and separate spheres ideology (“Arya” 9–10). 14. “If early marriages are stopped, and women given university education, there is no doubt that the Indian women will easily take their place by the side of their more advanced European sisters” (EN 1909: 198). An “Indian Lady” regrets there is “not more open discussion on the real effects of higher education . . . [and] intellectual freedom,” those amorphous qualities that are not measurable by statistics (“Woman and Education” 1929: 283). 15. “A society which accepts intellectual inanition and moral stagnation as the natural condition of its womankind cannot hope to develop the high qualities of courage, devotion and self-sacrifice which go to the making of nations” (Risley qtd. in Forbes, Women 14). 16. To the extent that the bhadralok class “accepted the British definition of civilization . . . the present position of women became a stumbling block in their advancement toward the goal of a ‘civilized’ society” (Borthwick, Changing 30). 17. Women began attending INC meetings in 1889; conducted in English, the content was inaccessible to “most middle-class women” (Borthwick, Changing 342). “Traditional custom has been but little affected by the study of English. . . . The force of environment is much more compelling . . . reform has been the outcome of residence in the West. . . . In India, woman’s functions have been limited to those connected with reproduction. She is secluded from her environment and has no influence upon it” (Fuller, “New” 1912: 129–31). 18. See “Men and Women” (Brahmo Public Opinion 1880: 26–27). 19. Linton criticized “women’s rightists” and “fashion-conscious” women and thus “reinscribed the absolute equation of women and maternity” (Beetham, Magazine 181). 20. “Wonder of It All” (1929: 5) investigates post–World War I materialism and modernism, boredom and ennui, restlessness and vapidity, in which popular culture supplants nature and younger generations seem morally adrift. 21. See also “Vijaya Pandit” (1936) and Gangadharan, “Indian Women” (1929). 22. The idea that stay-at-home Indian women in this era spent their time traveling to cities to shop and eat in restaurants is more rooted in Western capitalist economy than in Indian political economy. 23. Dowager Maharani of Mandi asks: “Why should marriage be the aim of all girls?” Girls should live “like bachelors” until age eighteen, “forming their character” before choosing their mate (1935: 150). 24. See “Women Students’ Hostels in Madras.” 25. See “Bringing Up of Children” by Padmini Satthianadhan. 26. Negro World (“British”) hailed Naidu as a “Feminist Leader”; Naidu insisted “she was not a feminist and would never be one, as the demand for granting preferential treatment to women was an admission of their inferiority” (AIWC, “Sarojini” 1930: 395). Vijaya Pandit urged women to accept their “natural weaknesses. . . . I am not a feminist . . . we should not fight men for our rights; we should develop ourselves” (1936: 12). Gandhi favored activists like Naidu and Pandit, “whose presence would be symbolic of their support to women without posing any challenge to male authority,” like Kamaladevi (Nanda, Kamaladevi 84). More to the point, feminism is not predicated on “preferential treatment” but on the fair opportunity to achieve equality through merit, unimpeded by gender. 27. ILM regularly noted unconventional marriages (interracial, intercaste, widow remarriage): “Despite the doleful warnings that college training makes women unattractive, one of the prettiest of June weddings was that of . . . ” (“Weddings” 1902: 64). 28. Western-educated Indian women are considered “Anglicized” and thus “denationalized,” conclusions apparently not applicable to “England-returned” Indian men (Kumarappa 1929: 633). To avoid “unsexing,” “women should be educated on national lines . . . since . . . destined by nature to be the conservators of the race and its heritage” (635). Kamala disagrees: “if there is to be true companionship between men and women, they must both be educated in the same direction” (“Westernized” 1929: 636). See also Banerjee (Parlour). 29. On familial privacy and childrearing in relation to nationalism, see Bose, “Sons of the Nation.” 30. See Besant, Education of Indian Girls and “Annie Besant” (1905).

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31. Besant, a highly educated woman pursuing a vocation in the public realm (in a country other than her own) that did not involve the kitchen, nursery, or sewing basket, promotes ultraconservative nationalism at the expense of Indian women’s emancipation. 32. The modern counterpart to ancient heroines is Pandita Ramabai, “who, alone, singlehanded, a Hindu widow herself, pleaded . . . for the education of the widows of India, and now her home for them numbers nearly 2,000 occupants” (“Mrs. Benson” 1904: 290). 33. See “Function of Women”; also Padmini Satthianadhan, “Have Women a Mission?” 34. That Western-educated Indians expected equitable treatment was “a shock to which the British officials could not easily adjust” (Parry, Delusions 51). While their education was “regarded more as a means to secure a Government appointment than as an end in itself,” it produced “a class of [un- or underemployed] men who are discontented, and hence disloyal” (“Estimate” 1905: 367). See also Viswanathan (Masks 164–65). Regarding English literature, Kalinnikova notes the impulse to “use the opponent’s weapon against the opponent . . . that person, who drinks it in full, learns to hate slavery” (24). 35. Indian women who converted solely out of loyalty to their spouse “did not arouse such strong emotions. . . . It was only women who decided for themselves who were perceived as dangerous. . . . At the core of the controversy was the question: who has custody of women? Can women be permitted to decide for themselves?” (Chakravarty 329–30). 36. Ramabai argued that it was crucial for Indian women to comprehend intellectually the “depth of [their] degradation,” their “real condition,” in order to institute meaningful change. Such critiques of Indian women’s status were considered disloyal, unpatriotic and antinationalist (Kosambi, Pandita 23). 37. A range of efforts to manipulate and control Ramabai failed: from the Hindu orthodoxy she rejected to the Anglican Christianity she embraced only conditionally, and from public figures, community leaders, and the politically influential, none could contain Ramabai, whose allegiance was to God as she perceived that idea, not to man or manmade institutions. See also Chakravarty, Rewriting. 38. See Navalkar, “How I Got My Degree”; also Ramunni, “Advancement.” 39. The compromised health of infants born to undeveloped child-brides contributed to physical and biological decline: high rates of infant and maternal mortality, vulnerability to disease, short life expectancy, and generational weakening. Many conditions were preventable through basic sanitary and sociocultural reforms. In ILM, see Lamont, “Personal and Public Health”; “Indian Homes in Health and Disease”; “Catechism upon Tuberculosis”; “Women’s Role in the Sanitation of a Town”; “Romance of the Malarial Parasite”; “Women’s Part in Public Health”; “Infantile Mortality”; “What You and I Can Do for India”; “Rate of Infant Mortality”; “Dengue Fever”; “Dr. Koch’s Views on Tuberculosis”; “Waldemar Haffkine”; Brander’s series “Health in the Home”; Hatchel, “Evils of Child-Marriage”; Deodhar, “Early Marriages”; and also Rukhmabai (New Review). 40. P. K. Bose writes of fin de siècle emphases on women and “proper home management, child rearing, dietary habits, hygiene. . . . The family thus became the site for national regeneration and mothers were accorded a crucial role in it” (qtd. Chatterjee, Texts 123). P. Majumdar adds that family is the “repository of civilizational values and the spiritual essence of the national culture,” an “ideological force” (124). 41. See also “Miss Ghosal’s Scheme” (1901 and 1903); “News and Notes” (1902: 31); and Kumar, History (38–40). 42. The “repressive measures” of British soldiers responding to plague (to which Ramabai objected) were defended as “absolutely necessary,” although they “came in conflict with caste prejudices of the Hindus” (Burke and Quraishi, British 69). The need to implement sanitary precautions was essential to curbing the plague, but it was undertaken in a ham-fisted way that trampled the cherished beliefs of illiterate peasants and exacerbated their fear and distress. 43. “Child-Welfare Work” advocates magic lantern and cinema shows to educate illiterates about preventable diseases, sanitation, and hygiene. In India, “one in every five children born in a year dies within the year. Of these, one in every three dies within the first month. . . . India . . . is suffering more from a famine of intellectuality, than [of] money . . . health is a national asset” (Lazarus 1928: 235). Good health is humans’ birthright, while “dirt is the rendezvous of all

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contagious germs . . . the nursery of every disease and epidemic” (236–37); disease is not a matter of angry deities or bad karma. See Ghose, “Hindu Women.” 44. Alternatively, Indian men should teach their wives English so they can “help their husbands, brothers, sons” (“Social” 1901: 29–30). Similarly, to emancipate “women’s minds from the trammels of ignorance . . . men . . . can defy custom and prejudice . . . [and] introduce reforms in the home” (“Higher” 1908: 349). 45. “Higher Education of Women” suggests a curriculum including Hindu and English languages and literature (ancient and modern), arithmetic, history, geography, hygiene, domestic economy, physiology, health, sanitation, needlework (plain and fancy), music, drawing, painting, and instruction in “sick-nursing” (1908: 347).

Chapter Seven

America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown

America will soon be a Greater Britain.—“English Character” (1905)

Indians who traveled to the United States during the mid- to late colonial period produced memoirs and recorded commentary that was idiosyncratic, critically acerbic, culturally revealing, and politically relevant vis-à-vis Indian independence. What did these travelers seek in America? How did visitors from one of the world’s oldest civilizations relate to the youngest? In what ways did that fledgling democracy inspire what would soon become the largest? What was the attraction in America for Indian travelers who were alternately impressed by its urban sophistication, appalled by its racism, amazed by its unexplored geographical expanses, and both charmed and repelled by its inhabitants? The following discussion explores such questions through the lenses of American “ingenuity,” Indian “awakening,” and the political promise inspired by independence and democracy. Travelers include first woman doctor Anandabai Joshi, Christian converts and educators Pandita Ramabai and Lilavati Singh, Swami Vivekananda (with Hindu convert Sister Nivedita), journalist Saint Nihal Singh, Hindu widow Parvati Athavale, Gandhi’s “lieutenant” Sarojini Naidu, women’s health care reformer Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, Muslim socialite Atiya Fyzee-Rahmin, scholar Sudhindra Bose, and nationalist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya. The title “America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown” draws on Chattopadhyaya’s travel memoir wherein she confronts American exceptionalism, commentary that provides a provocative framework for studying Indian travelers’ pre-independence writing about America. 1

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Given this study’s focus on Indian Ladies’ Magazine articles, not all of the commentary discussed in this chapter draws directly from items published in ILM. Supporting materials that were not featured in ILM’s pages aim to contextualize relations between India and America in the period leading up to Indian independence. Those relations, originally defined by Christian missions (domestic and foreign), shifted to incorporate an expressly political connection as Indian nationalists sought American support for independence from Britain. These secondary accounts address gaps in the historical narrative of Indian-American relations by highlighting significant, influential figures who regularly appeared in ILM’s articles and reports, including Ramabai (whose American travels predate the magazine’s inception), Athavale and Fyzee-Rahmin (who traveled during ILM’s interwar hiatus), Indian scholar Sudhindra Bose (who emigrated to America), and Chattopadhyaya, whose American experiences postdate ILM’s final number, but whose political commentary on the eve of Indian independence provides an insightful and incisive coda to this discussion. These notable individuals were prominently featured throughout ILM’s pages, and if by accidents of timing their commentary on America was not printed therein, it is nonetheless relevant to constructing a coherent narrative of pre-independence, IndianAmerican relations. A few Americans (all men) contributed articles to ILM, voicing a variety of attitudes popular at the time. A cheeky comparison of “Two Types of Woman” by Edward Russell 2 contrasts “India, the tomb of a dead queen”

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(Victoria) with “America, the continuous Coronation of a living queen” (Liberty) (1903: 300). Of the latter’s global impact, “The whole world lives by the making of her robes and she wears her best clothes all the time. . . . An Indian woman’s dress knows no change . . . educated chiefly in the domestic sense . . . her world is her home and her family.” Confronted by the modern world, such “clinging” Padminis “would tilt over and break,” representing as they do an ethereal “womanly woman” (301). In contrast, the “audacious American angel . . . wants heaven and earth at the same time. . . . All possibilities are in her nature.” Whether the metaphorical vehicle is clothing and women or ancient East and modern West, Russell’s levity is notable for one assumption that was clear as early as 1903: England had already been supplanted by America as a world power, decades before Ireland’s independence and nearly a half-century before India’s sovereignty effectually sealed the empire’s decline. Other commentary by Americans offers less wit and more substance. Written at Satthianadhan’s request, Edwin Ridley’s “Letter from America” asserts: “It is no small compliment to be invited . . . to contribute a paper on . . . American life and customs” (1908: 248). As an insider aiming to clarify certain idiosyncrasies likely to perplex outsiders, Ridley outlines the complexities of states’ rights versus federal laws to explain certain “shameful violations and outrages” perpetrated by some white Americans against nonwhites (249). 3 Although such a focus, typically associated with the antebellum era, seems an odd introduction to American society, Ridley’s purpose is to confront what many foreign tourists were quick to notice and perhaps experience: racism. The “genuine American heart and mind is generous and humane to a high degree,” he writes, while “the crimes and brutality of that class of ‘Americans’ which so shock and offend the susceptibilities of foreigners are to be attributed mainly to the passions and ignorance of men who are in no true sense Americans at all.” Because the country is composed of immigrants from all over the world, this “class of wretches . . . [the] very worst and lowest types” of bigots, are not representative of American society. 4 While visible racial differences in India are comparatively subtle (to outsiders at least), racism is more palpable in societies like America, where differences in skin color are as obvious as black and white. Ridley confronts the point that racism continues to flourish long after the Civil War, its effects extending to people of all shades and hues, whether citizens of or visitors to the United States. Exhibiting an alternative perspective on America, Napoleon Bernard fuels popular backlash against Western women by posing a provocative question: What has the American women’s movement achieved? Even if woman gains prestige and fame by activism, the “fundamental problem” is still “her relation to Man” (“Future” 1930: 235). Bernard’s intention is not to celebrate the achievements of American women but to highlight their fail-

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ures: because “she wishes to deceive herself, or men of public affairs . . . she . . . trades upon the powers of her sex” (236). Because all women are intellectually defective, the American woman will “meet her Waterloo, without understanding it,” offering “a great field of study through which Indian women leaders may profit, if they will”—a model not to emulate but to avoid. Bernard asserts that “American Feminists personify defiance, independence, energy and [a] will for combativeness . . . [they are] infantile . . . antagonistic, uncreative, exploitive . . . without sound purpose or vision” and riddled with “moral and ethical inconsistencies and conflicts” (“Toward” 1930: 592). As an American, he considers himself qualified to voice such commentary, although no comparable cultural validation is apparently needed to pronounce upon Indian women, whose “rare inner beauty, depth, wisdom, inclination and time” facilitate “mutual understanding between Woman and Man.” By thus privileging Eastern cooperation (female submission) over Western individualism (female combativeness), Bernard fuels conservatives’ antipathy to all things Western, targeting modernization generally and Indian women’s emancipation specifically. But his conclusion, grounded in signature American individualism, oddly undercuts that idea: “the individual precedes . . . the collective . . . and owes no allegiance to it other than for . . . self-development and harmonious living” (595). The following examples illustrate that a century of women’s commentary on this very point preceded Mr. Bernard’s unoriginal observations. 5 As these articles suggest, the idea of America was regularly investigated in ILM, being linked with the endeavor to articulate Indian national identity—emphatically not in terms of Great Britain but of the “greater” Britain promised by American democracy. Anupama Arora notes that, by traveling to the United States “at a time when there was a negligible [Indian] presence, . . . these sojourners’ writings simultaneously provided an ethnographic portrait of America for Indian audiences as well as . . . a more nuanced picture of Indian manners and morals to American audiences, thus negotiating the demeaning descriptions of India often paraded in Western travel accounts” (89). 6 The result is a rich collection of hyperbole (contrary to some accounts, not all Americans are godless capitalists, nor does everyone indulge in chewing gum), cultural misapprehension, social faux pas, and earnest attempts to establish meaningful cross-cultural relations. The example of Anandabai Joshi (1865–1887) inaugurates a series of Indian assessments of America’s democratic “experiment” in the context of India’s incipient independence movement. Joshi’s radicalism was suitably qualified by her signature womanliness and her commitment to “the liberation of Indian women from their state of backward bondage” (“Dr. Anandabai” 1934: 315). At a time when “any forward action . . . [by] a woman was both ridiculed and spoken against,” she combined such masculine qualities as “grit . . . perseverance . . . intelligence . . . efficiency . . . [and] energy” with

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womanly “sweetness and patience”; although her lifespan was as brief as poet Toru Dutt’s, Joshi’s remarkable example continues to inspire. Intellectually precocious, Anandabai began her studies at age five with her tutor, kinsman Gopal Joshi; when he was transferred, she feared “she would never be able to study again” (“Dr. Anandabai” 1934: 315). Opposed to her studies, her mother urged their marriage, which occurred four years later; 7 at thirteen, Joshi gave birth to an infant whose death, she asserts, “was due to want of proper medical help” (316). This personal tragedy sparked her determination to study medicine, the inadequacy of women’s health care in India—where male physicians treating female patients was culturally unacceptable—being exacerbated by the dearth of professionally trained Indian women practitioners. In 1883, at age eighteen, Anandabai sailed to the United States, “the first high-caste woman” to visit America, one neither baptized into the Christian religion (an example of Christian sponsorship without the expected conversion) nor chaperoned by a male relative, 8 thus challenging gender stereotypes, East and West. Her mother predicted that, unchaperoned, she would “fall” into an “unchaste life,” but such attitudes only strengthened Joshi’s determination to show Americans “what we Indian ladies are like” (Dall, Life 72). 9 Prior to embarking, Joshi presented a talk at Serampore College, methodically outlining her purpose and addressing objections to her unprecedented actions. 10 Because Indian women are “naturally averse” to treatment by male doctors and also to English and American women doctors (due to differences in manners, customs, and language), she determined to qualify herself to address that need, and for this she must go to America. 11 She rejected the threat of ostracization or excommunication from Hindu society for traveling overseas and doing so alone, for undertaking medical study (women being particularly “degraded” by the study of bodily functions), and for the difficulty of maintaining Hindu dietary standards: “I have determined to live there exactly as I do here . . . [with] my customs and manners, food and dress. I will go as a Hindu and come back and live among my people as a Hindu.” This extraordinarily self-possessed woman envisioned a “straight and smooth way. I fear no miseries . . . [or] dangers. . . . If this life is so transitory like a rose in bloom, why should one depend upon another? Every one must … walk on his own feet” (Dall, Life 71). The impulses driving Anandabai were internal: “I will see America, the dream of my life, and I will stand or fall as I deserve” (76). To that end, she sold her wedding jewelry and booked passage to America. Joshi’s nationalism, so eloquently expressed (“I will go . . . and come back . . . a Hindu”), was central to her American experiences; her ambivalence to Christianity was prompted in part by her mission school education: “I love these Mission ladies for their enthusiasm and energy, but I dislike blindness to the feelings of others . . . [they are] very headstrong, and con-

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temptuous” of other faiths (Dall, Life 51). Joshi’s ambition came to the attention of Mrs. B. F. Carpenter of New Jersey, for whom the Christian spirit was not predicated on conversion; it was she who arranged Joshi’s visit, provided her a home, and helped facilitate her studies at the Philadelphia Women’s Medical College. 12 Along with rigorous studies conducted in a foreign language, Joshi struggled with the cold climate and the difficulties of maintaining a strict vegetarian diet; socially, whereas Londoners had urged her to dress “exotically” for fundraising events, the Americans— amazed by her elegant English, “despite” her native dress—were relieved that she did not wear a nose ring (36–37; 114). 13 While Joshi’s “perfect dignity was never sacrificed to the indulgence in curious questions, or rude stares” (Dall, Life 95), there were two points that strained goodwill on both sides. When, during an 1884 public lecture, Joshi defended the “advantages” of child marriage and motherhood, the audience—gathered in support of her endeavor to reform Indian maternal-child health practices through medical education and its dissemination—was stunned by her endorsement of the very system by which she herself had been compromised and which her presence in America was designed to remedy. Her private admission that “her own indifferent health, and that of upper class women in general could be attributed to the practice of child marriage” (“Mrs. B. F. Carpenter” 1906: 236–37) was clearly contrary to her public stance, which Meera Kosambi terms “defensive nationalism”: “Private capitulation to a sympathetic Mrs. Carpenter could not translate into a public capitulation to ethnocentric missionaries who equated enlightenment with criticism of everything Indian . . . a private reformist belief was prudently suppressed by a public conservative stance for ‘nationalistic’ reasons” (Pandita 23). Aside from the unsubstantiated “criticism of everything Indian” (far from those punitive mission teachers, these women were gathered to support Joshi’s enterprise), this statement avoids confronting a more significant nationalist point: contrasting with her Serampore speech, Joshi here allows the weight of entrenched social custom to trump established scientific validation of the biological degeneration and largely preventable maternal and infant mortality resulting from premature marriage and motherhood. If it was indeed her aim to promote Indian nationalism to those Americans engaged in financing her education, no issue was more ill-suited to the purpose than this one. Biographer Caroline Dall and mentor Dr. Rachel Bodley were among those perplexed and disheartened by this public endorsement of practices so at odds with their mentee’s medical studies and personal experience; no medical degree is needed to arrive at this insight, rendering the episode deliberately provocative. The incident segues into a second, related point: strained relations involving Anandabai’s husband Gopal, “a source of embarrassment” whose “presence added to his wife’s difficulties in every way” (Dall, Life 63). 14 Gopal

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publicly denounced Christians, who have “manufactured all the vices, and exported them to countries where simplicity and innocence reigned” (159); he charged that Anandabai’s American sponsors surreptitiously introduced meat into her food to compromise her religious beliefs. 15 Insofar as Joshi endured Christian arrogance and zealotry, she was certainly right to adapt a “defensive” nationalist stance, but her weapon of choice (defense of child marriage and motherhood) generated only negative backlash. It also served to validate “demeaning” stereotypes, as did Gopal himself: [his] conduct and conversation were calculated to strengthen the belief already held by many people, that the average Hindu is not likely to be benefited by visiting Europe or America, and that it will take years of education and experience to counteract the effects, on the minds of Indian men, of the belief in their absolute superiority to women, in which they have been trained for so many generations. (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 63)

Despite (or because of) Joshi’s challenges to Hindu orthodoxy, her extraordinary achievement as the first Indian woman doctor was repeatedly framed within her role of “a conventional wife, submissive to her husband,” thus enabling her to remain “firmly within the Hindu fold” (Kosambi, Introduction 7). Her legacy replicates the mixed messages often conveyed in ILM: as a womanly woman, she “reinforced the belief that even a highly educated and capable woman must not cross conventional boundaries”; yet as the first Indian woman doctor, she did just that, “carv[ing] out a new space for women within the patriarchal framework” (Kosambi, “Meeting” 19). Her public exhibition of “defensive nationalism” aligns with her private “unwillingness to probe the depths of India’s social problems (and especially to discuss them with outsiders)” (Kosambi, Introduction 15–16). And yet she saw clearly the effects of and plausible remedies for those problems: “When I think over the sufferings of women in India in all ages, I am impatient to see the Western light dawn as the harbinger of emancipation . . . no man or woman should depend upon another for maintenance and necessaries” (Dall, Life 38). 16 “Western light,” as other Indian commentators emphasize, refers to America’s signature individualism and self-sufficiency, a model not to be mimicked but adapted to Indian contexts. Some measure, at least, of Anandabai Joshi’s short life was self-directed; amid the challenges of medical studies, her “intense interest in everything related to the colored races in this country” led her to travel to Saratoga, New York, where she met Native Americans, and to the Indian industrial training school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania (Dall, Life 167). In 1887, just beginning her work as India’s first Western-trained woman doctor, Anandabai died of tuberculosis; interestingly, given her idiosyncratic nationalism, her ashes were conveyed to America and buried in Schenectady, New York. A poignant example of a woman bound by cultural limitations and liberated by educa-

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tion, driven by determination and an enormous vision, Joshi prophesized that she would achieve the means (education) but not live long enough to realize the ends (medical practice): “I think I shall not live long. To live and be useful is of the grace of God, but to die is the direct proof of his grace” (46–47). Joshi’s admirers strove to reconcile her untimely death with her barely exercised potential; a popular perspective viewed her life as a “sacrifice” on behalf of her countrywomen that “could not have been in vain,” having “influenced many others to follow her example” (“Dr. Anandabai” 1934: 316). Maud Diver posits that because “lives are measured by intensity rather than by duration . . . [Joshi] accomplished much. She had sacrificed her life that others might be saved from the suffering brought about by ignorance and superstition; she had opened up new possibilities for such as should have courage to follow in her steps” (232). Eulogistically, Mrs. Carpenter anticipated that Anandabai’s “nobility of character and high purposes of life should endear her to all of her country-women” and prompt others to “cherish . . . the well being of all Indian women for her sake” (Carpenter 1905: 210). Truly, “only a high-caste Hindu woman herself can conceive what heroism was involved in Mrs. Joshi being the first woman of her caste to venture forth at all, and then to come alone.” Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was just that woman. Although ILM did not feature articles expressly devoted to Ramabai’s American years, her inclusion here is warranted in three regards: her connection with Anandabai Joshi and the resulting life-shaping American experiences; her ubiquitous presence in ILM articles, notices, and columns during its first run; and her application of American women’s philanthropy, social work, and education innovations to Indian frameworks 17 —specifically for the rescue and recuperation of the culture’s most despised category of womanhood. There were few first-run ILM numbers that did not feature Ramabai’s work, her influence, her many and varied projects, and her relationship with the American Ramabai Society. Ramabai’s legacy is infused with her American travels, being palpably shaped by the insights she gleaned from, and the lifelong connections she established with, Americans. When Joshi graduated from medical school in 1886, Dr. Bodley invited Ramabai to attend, thus initiating her own distinctive contributions to Indian women’s history. Inspired by Joshi’s example, she had first traveled to England to study medicine, and then on to America. 18 Caroline Dall’s Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee (1888), written on the occasion of Joshi’s death and subtitled “A Kinswoman of the Pundit Ramabai,” was intended “to aid the projects of her friend and cousin, the Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati” (iv); in turn, Ramabai’s The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) was dedicated in memoriam to Anandabai Joshee, MD.

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Joshi did not write a travel memoir about her American experiences, 19 but Ramabai did, although it was not available to English-speaking audiences until over a century later. The book was not influenced by de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835), as implied by Kosambi and Frykenberg, but by Harriet Martineau’s Society in America (1837). 20 Writing of American women, Martineau claimed that personal growth can “arise only from within” and cannot be attained through servitude or submission to others; thus women are “weak, ignorant and subservient, in as far as they exchange selfreliance for reliance on anything out of themselves” (Society 295). 21 This point, echoed by Joshi, resonated with Ramabai, for whom the cultural expectations of widowhood dictated that she choose between metaphorical sati, the living death of a punitive existence atoning for the “sin” of outliving her spouse, and a life of service driven by self-directed spiritual agency. Indeed, in Stri Dharma Niti 22 (Morals for Women, 1882), she effectually paraphrases both Martineau and Joshi: women “must not look to others for our advancement. Every woman must exert herself courageously for her own advancement, as self-reliantly as possible” (Kosambi, “Indian” 65). Ramabai’s purpose was to assess the progress of American women and to study kindergarten systems with a view toward their applicability to Indian women and children. She envisioned that India would find in its “superfluous” women a significant resource for cultural transformation, rather than the chronic burden they were considered to be. 23 Distinct from Joshi’s “defensive nationalism,” Ramabai’s Hindu-Christian synthesis likely facilitated her American reception; from the moment “the earnest little lady” 24 appealed to “the Great Father of all the nations of the earth” during a public speech, she endeared herself to the Americans (Kosambi, Pandita 20). Although her decision to travel to America in 1886 provoked vigorous opposition from her Anglican sponsors in Cheltenham, 25 she insisted, “it is my duty to go there . . . if I do not go, I shall greatly injure the cause of my countrywomen. . . . I must not be the cause of shutting the way which is open. . . . How to teach the children and their mother is the thing for me to be learnt at present” (Letters 163, 173). 26 She stayed nearly three years in America, touring, studying, lecturing to missionary and philanthropic organizations, and fundraising in support of her aim to create an establishment in which Indian widows would be self-sufficient, productive members of society. Ramabai’s second book, The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887), written in English and published in America, resulted in the formation of the American Ramabai Association, established to fund just such rehabilitative homes. 27 Long before the term “Orientalism” acquired its vexed modern connotations, Ramabai warned: “Let not my Western sisters be charmed by the books and poems they read. There are many hard and bitter facts which we [Indian women] have to accept and feel. All is not poetry with us. The

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prose we have to read in our own lives is very hard” (High-Caste 43). This was especially true of Hindu widows, a “hated and despised class of women” that, once educated, she anticipates are “by God’s grace to redeem India” (qtd. Adhav, Pandita 26). High-Caste offers “incisive feminist analysis of the upper-caste woman’s seamless oppression through all stages of her life, a deconstruction of sacred Hindu books and their misogynist bias, and a constructive agenda for women’s education” (Kosambi, Introduction 22). 28 Her American reception “elicited generous support, contrasting sharply with the treatment she had received in England” and fueling a “perception of America stepping in to compensate for Britain’s failure” (23). Whereas Britain views the Hindu woman as “one of a conquered race,” America “regards her as an equal and a comrade.” In 1889, 29 Ramabai returned to Maharashtra to establish Sarada Sadan, a “Sisterhood for helping the widows and helpless women” (Letters 90); she also delivered a series of lectures on America, which “have done much toward reducing the prejudice some of our best educated men had toward my work” (185). 30 These lectures comprised her third book, United Stateschi Lokasthiti ani Pravasavritta (The Peoples of the United States), begun in America, completed and published in India (1889), written in Marathi, and not published in English until 2003. 31 Philip Engblom writes that Ramabai’s American travel memoir aimed “to educate her compatriots at home about what was then still largely a blank space in their cognitive map of the world” (xix); High-Caste Hindu Woman similarly aimed to educate Americans about India, which was in turn “largely a blank space in their cognitive map of the world.” Together, these books demonstrate Ramabai’s insightful analyses of cultural interactions during the early phase of Indo-American relations. Ramabai’s travel memoir responds to Martineau’s analysis of American society by assessing women’s progress in the half-century between their respective visits. 32 She praises American women’s status, their “courage, powers of endurance and unceasing effort” resonating with Sarasvati, the Hindu Goddess of Wisdom (Peoples 168). 33 As with Martineau’s alignment of women with slaves, Ramabai contests assumptions that oppression is “natural” to subalterns of any category, an attitude “so deeply entrenched” that women “believe that their condition is as it should be. . . . One cannot even begin to imagine how evil is slavery which destroys self-respect and desire for freedom—the two God-given boons to humanity!” (196). While standards of female education had improved since the 1830s, it was accompanied by vigorous resistance; women wishing to read or study were subjected to curses, censure, criticism . . . from newspapers, preachers’ pulpits . . . public speakers . . . religious meetings, and . . . neighbours; and this continues even now . . . bravo American women! . . . relying only on the strength of persistent effort and resolve, they clashed against thousands of

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obstacles . . . and cut a trail for themselves. I say once again, bravo American women! (173–74)

Similarly, America’s work ethic—the “dignity of labor”—was a popular theme employed by Indian reformers promoting economic self-sufficiency over caste prejudice. Women’s progress was not “achieved through lounging on soft beds with feather cushions . . . [but] by facing unpleasant allegations, enduring endless hardships and making persistent efforts” (Peoples 175). She hoped such defining self-reliance and industriousness would inspire “the diligence and desire to serve our Mother India . . . in the hearts of my dear country-men and -women” (54). Further, although American women’s legal rights lack progress, their charitable, philanthropic, and social reform organizations displayed gains of another sort, representing a “collective effort . . . to promote their own welfare and that of their society” (190). She viewed America as “more progressive” than Britain and therefore a “more suitable model for a colonized India to follow in its pursuit of freedom and advancement” (Kosambi, Preface ix). 34 The name of Ramabai’s institution, Mukti Mission—a term translated by Kosambi as “salvation” and by Frykenberg as “liberty”—offers a symbolic point on which to conclude. Of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Martineau wrote: “the oppressed . . . look to him as the Jews looked to Moses . . . the Moses of the coloured race . . . to bring them out of bondage” (Writings 48; 124). Similarly, Ramabai wrote to daughter Manorama about meeting Civil War activist Harriet Tubman, who “led many slaves out of slavery into the free land, like Moses of old. . . . I hope my child will . . . be as helpful to her own dear countrywomen” (Letters 208). 35 Frykenberg notes, “No single word . . . so epitomized or symbolized Ramabai’s life . . . as ‘liberty’ (mukti)” (xi). The cover image of Maria Weston Chapman’s abolitionist annual The Liberty Bell features the iconic American symbol of “liberty and justice for all”; so too does the cover art of Ramabai’s periodical Mukti Prayer Bell. 36 In Ramabai’s words: “I shall not allow anyone to lay hand on my personal liberty. . . . Nothing can ever silence the inner voice which is so strongly and loudly speaking to me” (Letters 124; 166). Even if she had never traveled to America, her life and work manifested the idea that individual autonomy—fidelity to one’s “inward witness” and commitment to individuality over conformity—is clearly the path toward broader communal advancement, stability, and cohesion. Writing in Position of Women in Indian Life (1911) about her Western travels, the Maharani of Baroda noted striking differences between societies East and West: first is “the position of woman . . . as represented by her share in the organizations for human welfare” or social work, followed by “the cooperation which exists between men and women in public affairs [that] is practically unknown in India” (vii). The challenge is to convey “such impres-

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sions” to untraveled and uneducated Indians, who are unable to conceptualize ideas so alien to their social experience. Perhaps few would contest the propriety of women’s participation in “organizations for human welfare,” but gender cooperation highlights what some perceived as crucial to nationalist solidarity and what others viewed as an explicit threat to that solidarity. Speaking to an audience of Indian women, American doctor Idafaye Levering asserts that “the American girl enjoys complete liberty, by liberty she meant not destruction but construction. . . . She moves freely with her brothers and their friends, commanding respect from all of them, keeping a strong check or hold on her own self and preserving intact her honour and selfrespect” (“Mrs. Sarojini” 1907: 267). To the West, Eastern gender separatism indicated an unhealthy obsession with sex; to the East, Western gender egalitarianism offered proof of a similar obsession, a view expressed by Swami Vivekananda. 37 Vivekananda made history by attending the World Conference of Religions at Chicago in 1893, risking excommunication (as had Joshi a decade earlier) by crossing the “dark water” to participate in a Western-organized event. His comprehension of the significance of representing Hinduism on the world stage was insightful and timely, the long exclusivity of both the culture and the religion giving rise to speculative inaccuracies. An enormously popular figure then and now, Vivekananda’s relevance, for the purposes of this study, is threefold: his commentary on American women, his views on Ramabai, and his influence over his acolyte, Sister Nivedita (Irishwoman Margaret Noble), who was herself an influential voice in Indian culture. In terms of the Indian Woman Question, Nivedita’s affiliation with the Swami had vexed implications; together, they represent a cultural ideology that aimed not to emancipate or reform but to strengthen the traditional “web of Indian life,” true also of another Irishwoman, Annie Besant. A 1906 notice of Vivekananda’s Madras speech on female education cites his commentary on the “culture” of American women: “They are like the flowers and blossoms of the twentieth century, and those flowers are very beautiful in every respect. . . . [They] do not marry so early as here . . . [but] devote all their youth to education” (Vivekananda 1906: 66). American girls resist marriage as “the greatest bondage” and, in the public realm, they are to be found everywhere, as clerks and teachers: “Why should we not try to train such women-teachers among ourselves?” Indian women must “take a stand against foreign influence. . . . It is upon them, that the glory of the future generation greatly depends.” While he seems to praise the American example only to reject it, the point can better be understood in the context of emulating (as opposed to mimicking) this Western example while adapting it to Indian contexts, thereby subverting the worrisome influence of Christian missionary teachers.

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This commentary compares curiously with that reported in a 1933 article, “Misunderstandings.” Here Vivekananda’s pronouncements on American females are sweepingly derogatory and surprisingly definitive, prompting one to wonder how much access he had to these women, for how long, and under what circumstances. He begins with something of a compliment—“I should very much like our women to have your intellectuality”—which he immediately undercuts: but not if it must be at the cost of purity . . . our women are not so learned but they are more pure. . . . When I look about me and see what you call gallantry, my soul is filled with disgust. Not until you learn to ignore the question of sex and to meet on a ground of common humanity, will your women really develop; until then they are playthings . . . all this is the cause of divorce. (1933: 267)

If he had actually addressed American women in this way, how did they respond? As an ambassador of Hinduism to the West, such verbal aggression is hardly designed to forge American sympathy and support for newly awakened India. Indeed, such commentary would strike Western minds as projecting concerns about Indian culture onto America, aggressively rejecting the latter’s comparatively egalitarian ideology (gender, class) while accepting its financial support for Indian social projects. Whereas the dichotomy posed by education and sexual purity is false, the implication that child marriage and motherhood and female illiteracy prevent “gallantry” and divorce in turn perpetuates Western perceptions of the East’s storied preoccupation with sexuality. The association between Vivekananda and Nivedita dramatizes this perceptual divide along culture and gender lines. Of her priorities, Nivedita wrote: “I used to think that I wanted to work for the women of India . . . [but] today I want to do things only because they are my Father’s [Vivekananda] will” (Letters 1:299). Regarding Indian womanhood, Vivekananda’s will is ultraconservative: next to celibacy, motherhood is the highest state, while marriage is “nothing but a great austerity” (1:216). 38 First and foremost, Nivedita serves an ideologue committed to reifying Hindu tradition rather than facilitating the “awakening” of Indian women, with its implied threat of Western contamination. The dynamic in which Western women speak and act for Eastern women is here exacerbated by Indian men telling them what to say and do, as critiqued in ILM’s review of Nivedita’s The Web of Indian Life (“A Well-Meaning but Ill-Advised Book” 1904: 126). From such a perspective, Ramabai’s work on behalf of Indian women, aimed at their emancipation from unexamined custom, constitutes a cultural betrayal; by airing publicly the degraded status of Indian widows, she “maligns India in America” (Nivedita 1:36). Vivekananda implies that Ramabai is dishonest in her dealings with American missionaries, warning Nivedita,

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“don’t cheat these Western people—don’t pretend it’s education and ABC that you want money for” when it is in fact “Indian spirituality” (1:219); perhaps this is why Satthianadhan made a point of highlighting Ramabai’s scrupulous honesty in her financial dealings with the American Ramabai Association. 39 To her credit, Nivedita observes that, by implementing her own plan to establish an industrial school in India, “Ramabai’s [projects] must not be destroyed” (1:350). 40 What accounts for the perceptual disparities between Ramabai and Vivekananda? Indian women are the greatest victims, wrote Rukhmabai; “Yet when foreigners (i.e. non-Hindus) are touched with pity at our hard lot, and try their utmost to relieve us from the tyranny under which we groan, why will our own people shut their eyes . . . indifferent and unconcerned?” (“Infant” 10). At the Chicago meeting, Vivekananda directly contradicted Ramabai’s claims in High-Caste Hindu Woman by denying the existence of “oppressive practices imposed on widows in India . . . [his] travels in the U.S. to collect funds for his work were a counter to the appeals Ramabai had earlier made” (Chakravarty, Rewriting 333). He argued that Indian widows do have property rights, 41 they are not ill treated, and their very widowhood—far from punitive—represents an enviable state of spiritual elevation characterized by “endurance, fortitude, selflessness and serenity” (335). 42 Ramabai’s cultural “betrayal” fosters a “poor opinion” of the country by articulating social oppression sanctified by religion and then accepting money from “an alien faith which respectable high-caste Hindus would be repelled by”; so phrased, Ramabai’s project certainly seems duplicitous and mercenary and her integrity questionable. And yet Vivekananda himself was not so repelled by Americans (or their religion) as to refuse their money, which he qualified as the “voluntary, free will offering from people of calm judgment, intellectually convinced of the importance of . . . [his] work” (Chakravarty, Rewriting 334). That Ramabai’s reputation withstood such attacks leaves unresolved the intentions of a man promoting his own agenda while discrediting hers: Why was this renowned Hindu spiritual leader threatened by a reformist Brahmin widow? Was it her Christian conversion or her unapologetic autonomy? Her intellectual brilliance or her ambitious plans for addressing the Widow Problem? While some found Sister Nivedita’s example troubling (Westerners viewed her white widow sari alienating and eccentric, as was her unabashed worship of the Swami), to Vivekananda she represented the ultimate conquest over the most corrupt example of womanhood: that of the West. The antithesis was Ramabai—unrespectable, of “alien” faith, autonomous, steadfast in her refusal to subscribe to any “tribe of priests.” 43 It was not Ramabai who betrayed India’s heritage but who was herself betrayed “by the ‘narrow’ bias of a nationalism which itself was merely a construct of upper-caste men” (342). 44

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Some commentary on America was more factual and impressionistic than analytical, like that examining the country’s “heterogeneous races and communities” (“General Impressions” 1906: 286). Much of America’s immigrant population comprises “the poorer working classes . . . the very dregs and offscourings” of Europe, prompting the government’s efforts to curtail the influx of social “refuse,” an attitude inconsistent with America’s grounding in democracy, liberty, equality, and fraternity. Living in a fast-paced culture driven by ambition for “material pursuits” and a “passion for utility,” Americans excel at organizing and mobilizing, their signature “associativeness” and “combinations” best seen in volunteerism, social work, and philanthropic activities. Standards of education are impressive where applicable, but the masses remain illiterate; co-education works well, reflecting comparatively positive attitudes toward women in a culture in which “[social] intercourse between the sexes is more easy and unrestrained” than in older societies. This author is not alone in associating American periodical publications with low-brow interests, illiteracy, and popular culture, material that does not offer “solid thinking matter” (287). There is no national religion, although Christianity is unofficially so, being associated with “national prosperity . . . and ethical standards” (288); this “emotional stimulus” casts America as the leader “in philanthropy and active benevolence among the nations of the world”—a democratizing social leveling that is for some observers profoundly inspiring and for others deeply threatening. It was that same spirit of “active benevolence” that drew certain Indian visitors to America, hoping to follow Ramabai’s example and secure funding for philanthropic projects at home. Lilavati Singh (1868–1909) was a Christian convert who traveled to America, first in 1899 and again in 1909, fundraising on behalf of higher education for Indian women; she was affiliated with American missionary Isabella Thoburn (1840–1901), an educator in India sponsored by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society. Singh, who had earned an MA in English literature at Allahabad and taught English at Lucknow, experienced her first public speaking event in America (attended by President W. H. Harrison), reports of which provide more impression than substance: “Miss Singh appeared in her graceful and very becoming Indian costume”; her voice “distinct,” her manner “quiet,” she spoke about higher education for Indian women to an audience impressed by her “intelligent familiarity” with English literature (“Lilavati” 1910: 227). Singh’s performance was “dignified, but simple . . . forcible, but modest . . . strong . . . [not] pretentious”; her knowledge and “mastery of the English language” were impressive, as was her “charming personality, her simple teachableness, her love and appreciation of all goodness.” Such emphases on “costume” and “teachableness” over “mastery” and accomplishment are today jarring but typical of a time when “cognitive maps” East and West were even more severely limited by gender bias than by ethnocentrism. What is striking about

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Singh’s example is its brevity, a stark reminder of the fragility of human health East and West during the fin de siècle, when geocultural exchanges almost inevitably implied biological vulnerability. After years of living in India where she established mission schools and colleges, Isabella Thoburn died of cholera in Lucknow (1901); Lilavati Singh, while visiting frigid Chicago, “went home” permanently in 1909, another victim of consumption. 45 Saint Nihal Singh (b. 1884) was neither fundraiser nor politician but a professional Indian journalist known for his extensive travels in America, Japan, and China. His commentary is unique for its candid objectivity and its comparative analyses of women’s status internationally. “Lighten the Indian Woman’s Burden” offers an unusual discussion of labor-saving “institutions” in the Occident that could replace methods that are “out-of-date and cumbersome” in India (1910: 76). Distinct from traditionalists who insist female drudgery is synonymous with nobility and purity, Singh urges labor-saving modernization for Indian women, most of whom “know nothing but constant, irksome drudgery” according to ancient modes that accomplish precious little for the effort involved. Preparing fuel for heating and cooking, churning and spinning, needlework and mending, washing and scrubbing—so long as they are “doomed” to such “drudgery . . . Hindostan’s glorious future will remain in abeyance.” Women are bound to “inconsequential things,” leaving little time for their children and none for self-development, much less to “further the progression of the nation.” As Singh claims, “the cornerstone of American and European prosperity . . . is its emancipated and intelligent womanhood” (77), while Indian girls suffer from “arrested development.” Distinct from some critics of the West, Singh urges, “Let us cease to malign others as materialists” and instead pause to consider how labor-saving devices can help emancipate Indian womanhood “from the thralldom of unnecessary housework”—for women, for the rising generation, for the nation. ILM’s readers no doubt read such commentary with great interest. Also by Singh is a comparative study of “Opportunity in India and America.” American culture is “essentially industrial and commercial” rather than artistic or in pursuit of “higher realms of thought,” endeavors for which there is minimal leisure class support (1911: 346). As citizens of a new country, one barely a generation removed from the era-defining inception of industrialization, Americans’ primary focus is on earning a living, thus they “do not dissociate life from work”; people are assessed according to the work they “do” (the typical greeting is not “how” do you do, but “what” do you do?) because “all wealth, advancement, strength and refinement . . . ultimately rests on labor.” American nationalism is defined by individualism, self-reliance, “self-made” women and men; distinct from India’s labor-defined caste system and its large female population not “engaged in gainful labor” (unpaid “drudgery” not having economic value), 46 work and workers are re-

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spected—“manual work is not despised”—in fact, “national prosperity” depends on this shared work ethic. “Peerless, unrivalled . . . [a] land of promise and plenty,” America is synonymous with opportunity, as “Rajah” Waldo Emerson proclaimed. 47 Both Anandabai Joshi and Pandita Ramabai were impressed with America’s democratizing work ethic, an example they hoped would inspire Indians to exchange the ennui fostered by imperialism and the fatalism of caste ideology for the energetic activism required to overthrow Britain and redeem Mother India. 48 Singh’s commentary is significant for its investigation of America’s prosperity and work ethic, dismissed by less investigative minds as crass “Western materialism” versus superior “Eastern spirituality.” 49 He considers the motivations underpinning Americans’ desire to establish their families in a state of economic well-being and security in the (then) youngest country in the world; whereas many wealthy and successful Americans were born in poverty and worked hard to achieve education and professional status, Indian culture is predicated on a hereditary organization that depends on everyone knowing their “place” and staying in it, “without education and a chance to rise in the world” (“Opportunity” 1911: 347). For Americans, poverty is not cause for despair but a “spur, enlarging and ennobling their minds and setting them free from the bonds of ignorance” (348); this “gospel of success through work” anticipates the nation-making efforts of the Gandhi-Nehru era, from individual swaraj to national satyagraha. The necessary precursor for meaningful change in India is the willingness to take risks, like those exhibited during the Gold Rush: “What we need is the intelligent prospector, imbued with the American spirit of ‘risking it,’ of taking a chance. . . . The people of Hindostan need an inspiration . . . [a] push” to take the initiative, to get behind the swaraj movement, to take a stand. Whereas America lacks a comparable ancient history, it is actively “engaged in making” modern history; young India would do well to emulate America’s scrappy, “can-do” attitude. For Singh, Westernization is not the point: the willingness to risk whatever is required for the cultural shifts leading to independence within Indian contexts is the point. Finally, Singh’s “What Women Are Doing in America” continues the narrative thread addressed by Ramabai. A community in the state of Maine replicates a real-life “Ladyland” run by women: “In every department of life—profession, trade, business, commerce and finance—women are the presiding geniuses” (1907: 130). 50 Here husbands and wives are friends and partners, familially and professionally, a dynamic elevating women’s status and permitting “their mental and spiritual evolution” (131); while offering no opinion on the evolution of the men involved, Singh asserts that women’s domestic responsibilities exhibit no “signs of being neglected,” while husbands “testify that their wives render them invaluable service by earning

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money.” To the claim that “men do not like brilliant women,” Singh counters: the woman intelligent enough to want to do something isn’t sitting up all night wondering what men care about . . . the ideal that woman is just born to cater to the stomachs of men . . . [and] darn their stockings . . . is passing away . . . development of brain and brawn, of artistic and aesthetic instincts, of the inclination and capability to engage in gainful occupations and earn bread . . . [are] the proper and legitimate ideals for womanhood. (133)

An obvious question concerns the socioeconomic dynamics of this seemingly utopian (for men), potentially dystopian (for women) arrangement: because women are literally doing all the work (notably, for all their achievements, “their” housework does not suffer), what do the men do, because they are clearly neither “men drudges” nor primary wage earners? 51 Singh’s conclusion—“American women take themselves seriously. They regard themselves as being worth while for their own sakes”—requires reassessing Western individualism’s perceived threat to Indian womanhood as the New World version of swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha. In America, every economically self-sufficient individual by definition works for the greater good, making the niceties of separate spheres ideology (Victorian or Indian, gender or caste) a luxury few can afford. 52 It was from Ruskin’s Unto This Last that “Gandhi drew the lesson . . . that a life of labour is most commendable and that all labour is of equal worth” (Burke and Quraishi, British 183), but according to the logic of global economics, all labor is not of equal worth, nor should Ruskinian romanticization obscure the drudgery assigned to women, child workers, and harijans everywhere, then and now. 53 The American travels of two women who were well-known in ILM’s circle are not accounted for in the magazine, as their journeys coincided with its hiatus (1919–1927). Their commentary reflects a time when the world was struggling to process the impact of the Great War, and Indian nationalism had entered a more militant phase. Parvati Athavale’s 1918 American experience differed markedly from that of her predecessors: as a Hindu widow, sister-in-law of educator and social reformist Professor Karve (whose work was prominently featured in ILM), and an affiliate of his Institute for Widows, Parvati aimed to replicate Ramabai’s success in America thirty years previous, “to present the cause of India’s widows” and raise funding in support of homes for Hindu (distinct from Christian or secular) widows (Athavale, My Story 68). Lacking sponsors, Athavale funded her travels across the country by working as a chambermaid, thus experiencing a more intimate perspective on American culture than most Indian visitors, who moved in comparatively rarified circles. She was criticized by fellow countrymen for betraying her caste through performing such humble work (to which she responded, it “is not that working in filth for its removal is degrad-

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ing, but the being willing to live in it [that] is degrading” [139]). She was harassed to convert to Christianity; during an illness, she was surprised to be nursed by her woman employer, and she was impressed by single females who do not “give in to despondency” but “take up duties as citizens of their country” (123). Attesting to American egalitarianism, this foreign, itinerant chambermaid also commanded platforms at women’s clubs and conferences, speaking about her work with Indian widows. 54 Parvati Athavale’s commentary on America offers a candid assessment of the country’s challenges, its achievements, its promise, and its potential as a model for Indian social and political modernization. Alternatively, Atiya Fyzee-Rahmin, who visited America in 1919, found no redeeming qualities in the country at all. Fyzee wrote for ILM as “Shahinda,” assuming a frivolous, madcap persona as the Muslim socialite voice of the magazine; socioeconomically privileged and well educated, she stressed the significance of travel (an option available to few Indians) “to the development of a nationalist consciousness” (“America”) while expressing her ambivalence toward Western culture (broadly defined as anywhere north or west of India). Shahinda’s defiant brand of nationalism is offered with great passion, but with little substance and no critical thought; for instance, American women are “more bounded by convention than any other people in the world.” 55 As the most heterogeneous nation in the world, to what part of the country does she refer: rural or urban? What economic class, ethnicity, race? Of what education level, professional status, age? From Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon, there is no avoiding the incessant “chewing gum . . . jazz music . . . latest fox-trot. . . . There is no originality, no individuality. And then the Americans boast of freedom!” (“America”). Its defining heterogeneity notwithstanding, America is “hidebound in conventions . . . Indian woman laughs at American freedom. Women there are far less free than their Indian sisters.” Echoing Gopal Joshi, she claims that “Western civilization is destroying all that is beautiful in life . . . there is no real culture” (“America”); her own elevated social position precludes the ability to comprehend that, for those preoccupied with securing life’s necessities, the arts are a luxury beyond their reach (true of ancient civilizations no less than those in their infancy). 56 Indian women, she claims, “are free to think for ourselves . . . [but] American women are slaves to convention . . . [it] is a godless place.” Where Singh saw a viable model adaptable to Indian social progress, and Ramabai and the Maharani of Baroda found inspiration in American women’s organizations, family relations, and civic institutions, Fyzee sees domestic degradation: if American women stayed home where they belong, their society would not be in need of “fixing.” The gulf—more accurately, the grand canyon—separating the thoughtful assessments of some Indian visitors from Fyzee’s illspirited pronouncements and frivolous pique reveals her position to be as far

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removed from that of most Indian women as it is from most American women. Because she offers no comparative cultural analysis, the viability of her commentary must be gauged accordingly. Shahinda’s “cutting-edge” persona reifies the sociocultural conservatism specific to the upper 1 percent of Indian society’s privileged elite, a perspective that finds little resonance at home or abroad. Contributor Kirubai Appasamy wrote two articles based on his 1919 American experiences, both published in ILM in 1929. Distinct from Fyzee, his “Women’s Clubs in America” contrasts American women’s commitment to social work with that of Indian women, the latter being “always in a sleeping state, . . . dormant . . . in a state of coma” (1929: 409)—a conclusion, as this book repeatedly evidences, clearly unsupported by reality. Of the various American women’s organizations, Appasamy foregrounds the religious, observing that “the welfare and well-being of any church depends upon how active its women are” in facilitating Sunday schools, community social events, missionary work, fundraising, and church suppers (410). In India, the author notes dryly, there is “no danger of overtasking our women for church catering as long as we have the caste system,” attitudes toward interdining being what they are. While some clubs are socially motivated and others aim at self-improvement, civic clubs facilitate external improvements (roads, tenements, parks, utilities); the Red Cross focuses on community health and disaster relief; the SPCA and SPCC advocate for those unable to do so themselves; and from the DAR (“a very conservative organization”) to the YWCA, the “management is entirely in the hands of the women, a sort of Cranford” (413–14). 57 The allusion to Elizabeth Gaskell’s Victorian tale of a manless community run by “the Amazons” evokes its hilariously timid widows and spinsters, far removed from the militancy of Hossain’s “Ladyland.” American women’s organizing “improves their mind and keeps them alert and alive. It breeds a catholicity of vision. These clubs form a place where new things are all the time discussed.” Such is also the case in India: far from “dormant,” female activism had been evolving for decades, shifting from AtHomes and Purdah Parties, Philanthropy and Women’s Mission to Women to the comparative activism of such organizations as AIWC (All India Women’s Conference) and Women’s Division of the Indian National Congress. The tone of Appasamy’s second paper, “Social Ape in America,” offers a striking shift from thoughtful cultural analysis to a clichéd condemnation of Western materialism and social climbing. From Eve onward, he states, women have been dissatisfied with the life “God had assigned to them” (1929: 523), and so they climb—the Tree of Knowledge for the forbidden fruit to which all women aspire, and the Tree of Social Ambition to which all American women aspire. The “Social Ape” wants to be accepted into New York City’s social aristocracy, “The Four Hundred” composed of the original Dutch and English settlers’ descendants; under the influence of socialite Mrs.

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William Astor, this “bluest-blooded Aristocracy . . . a caste” in which intermarriage and interdining are forbidden and whose members uniformly vacation at Newport, Rhode Island, was dedicated to excluding the socially unworthy. 58 This includes the “proud, but poor” aristocrats forced to resort to “new money,” generally by marrying their daughters to titled Europeans or, alternatively, to inventors of motorcars (525). The Gilded Age—the “robber barons” of the fin de siècle, the Edwardian era, and the “Jazz Age,” whose monopolies made them fabulous fortunes and whose wives orchestrated New World society—was predicated on the idea of America’s privileged 1 percent edging out the “huddled masses” and “wretched refuse” continually washing up on its shores. 59 The American South was a penal colony populated by “impecunious aristocrats” and “undesirables”; the “backward white classes of the Kentucky mountains” are a missing link in the evolutionary chain; and the “Jews, opera singers, movie stars” are eager to “get rich quick in the ‘land of opportunity’” (524). To sum up Appasamy’s view, the world’s most utopian society is populated by its most dystopian undesirables. Such assertions are perplexing: the article’s history is selective, its racism and sexism are strident, its contempt for “high society” and “new money” is as virulent as its dismissal of the “huddled masses” comprising the “melting pot” of America’s short-lived history, all of which jar awkwardly with the narrative credibility of his previous article. Harriet Martineau might say (as she did of Charles Dickens after reading his American Notes) that Appasamy seems not to have met any real, ordinary people in America. Without doubt, his commentary is preferable to Fyzee’s shallow rancor, but what motivates such criticism? One plausible provocation is the “Indophobic” Katherine Mayo, the American writer who channeled her “white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant” bias into Mother India (1927); she was “a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants” although not of the New York Four Hundred (Sinha, “Reading” 9). 60 What does Mayo’s link to America’s founding militants signify for India’s incipient independence? By what qualifications was she positioned as the American spokesperson vis-à-vis India and the British Empire? 61 Mayo generated deep ambivalence against America among India’s intelligentsia, and yet hers was a singular voice that continues nearly a century later to be fueled by largely undeserved attention. At best, she was a catalyst for nationalist mobilizing, her very divisiveness sparking Indian solidarity; 62 at worst, her significance has been vastly overdetermined. 63 There was a distinct shift in Indo-American relations coinciding with the second run of ILM (1927) and the American tour of Sarojini Naidu (1928–1929). Sponsorship by or resistance to Christianity—particularly in terms of generating American funding for Indian social work—was a primary factor shaping earlier Indo-American interactions. But the late 1920s marked a more political tone, as Indian nationalists sought broader support

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for independence from Britain. The counterpoint to Katherine Mayo’s onslaught against India’s “suitability” for self-rule was Naidu, whose tour aimed unofficially to disprove international perceptions of India caused by Mayo’s book and officially to present an alternative model of Indian womanhood based on her signature wit, rhetorical gifts, and cosmopolitanism. Naidu did not write a formal American travel memoir, but she did write a series of letters to Gandhi, clearly composed for publication in Young India, as were speeches, newspaper notices, and other communications printed in ILM. Prior to her journey, Naidu vowed to be a “good ambassador . . . [and] to interpret the Soul of India to a young nation striving to create its own traditions. . . . India has an imperishable gift to make to the new world” (Letters 81). She negotiated a precarious balance between ancient and modern, East and West, in which America was uniquely positioned between Britain’s first and second empires and the dissolution of both. While it was not yet clear what role America would play in this developing drama, its sympathy and support for independence were keenly sought by Indian nationalists. Naidu arrived in America on October 26, 1928, the “Little Mother of Young India” poised to disprove Mayo’s claims by exemplifying Indian modernity (Letters 85–87). Naidu’s style in the American letters is gushing and dramatic: she’s a name dropper (associating with Ruth St. Denis, Jane Addams, Edna St. Vincent-Millay, W. E. B. DuBois, Kahil Gibran, Cecil B. DeMille); she pronounces London “dowdy” and Paris “tawdry” compared with New York’s “rich elegance”; she exults in America’s “new vitality,” its “beautifully groomed” women and their “questing air”; unfazed by bobbed, gum-chewing flappers, she finds Broadway “mad, crude, glittering, blinding in its tumult of colored lights, a veritable jazz of crazy illuminations” (Letters 209–10). From a “glamorous fete” on the Ile de France with the cinema crowd to Bohemian receptions, and from poetry readings to the Pierpont Morgan Library, where she “fell down and worshipped” its manuscript holdings of Shelley, Byron, Keats, and Scott, Naidu surely impressed New York’s literati (224). 64 But she also had work to do and, at the World Alliance for Peace, her militancy flared on behalf of “Enslaved India,” which “would continue to be a danger to world peace and make all talk of disarmament a mockery. . . . [Until] India’s banner . . . [hangs] among other world symbols of liberty, there could and would be no more peace in the world” (“Peace” 1936: 93). Naidu “emphasized on the need of better understanding between India as a representative of the old world and America as the spokesman of the new”: Like the founders of your Republic . . . the Young India of today has proclaimed to the world a Declaration of Independence . . . not only political independence of the country from a foreign rule, but also social, religious,

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cultural and moral freedom for the expression of man himself. (Sarojini . . . America 1929: 265).

In the Midwest, Naidu pronounced Chicago “splendid and spacious and full of culture,” but though Hull House may be the refuge of all the “suffering . . . poverty stricken . . . fallen children of humanity” (Letters 211), it did not accommodate the “disenfranchised children of America,” the emancipated blacks of the “Great Migration” from the South, who live in slums, uneducated and impoverished. 65 In Cincinnati, Naidu aligned herself with Harriet Beecher Stowe: “My message is also a message of deliverance from bondage . . . of self-deliverance [from] every kind of . . . bondage.” Yet as Anupama Arora notes, the analogy with Harriet Beecher Stowe—a free white woman writing of black slaves’ experience—highlights Naidu’s own outsider position in relation both to the colonized (her own people, who she claims do not appreciate or understand her) and the colonizers (the Anglo ascendancy to which she will never belong, however many English-style poems she writes), with whom she “shares little” (96). From California to Detroit, from Canada to Washington, DC, from the Midwest to the South, Americans responded positively to the spectacle of self-determination unfolding in India, to its spiritual leader Gandhi, and to its ambassador Naidu, who admitted to being more comfortable in the upper echelons of American society, among those “who are influential and moulders of public opinion” (Letters 211). Marking the January 1929 meeting of the Indian National Congress in Lahore, gathered to announce its intention of declaring independence, 66 ILM published “Mrs. Naidu’s Message from America.” Thrilled to be one of the first to speak via radio from America to India, Naidu appeals to all those meeting “throughout the momentous week of deliberation on behalf of the nation” to remember that “the eyes of the entire world are watching the fate and future of India . . . whether in affirmation or denial of great common world ideals of democratic progress . . . to accomplish peace and accord” (1929: 451). Along with letters and newspaper reports, Naidu made a point of having her hosts write to Gandhi assessing her performance; it is unclear whether this accountability was for her sake, for his, or for those who questioned the relevance of a socialite-poetess to the independence movement. 67 Although she complains of being underappreciated by her compatriots, some commentary foregrounds social skills that were crucial to her role as a link between Western modernism and Gandhian ideology: Naidu “is an ambassador of cultural unity, mutual understanding and cooperation between eastern and western nations . . . she is a Citizen of the World” (7–8). “She is the most cosmopolitan of India’s political leaders. . . . Hers is a nationalism that readily flows into the broad international current” (193). As Hindustan’s “poetess-politician-peacemaker . . . the world’s greatest living woman ora-

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tor” (81), she is “a citizen of the world who yielded to none in her attachment to the motherland” (Rajyalakshmi, Lyric 34). But Naidu’s critics had other concerns; her madcap, drama queen persona (not unlike Fyzee’s) detracted from her more serious purpose, and some struggled to reconcile the cosmopolitanism of a wealthy socialite with either the gravitas required of international diplomacy or the signature ascetic selfdiscipline of swadeshism (she famously preferred silk to khaddar, curry to gruel, and a suite at the Taj Hotel to a dirt floor ashram). Her commentary reveals inconsistencies and instability of position, a tendency to speak to the occasion rather than to the idea of truth associated with swadeshism. For instance, she declares that India “must not remain aloof and apart from the invigorating influence of the new political, scientific and cultural developments of the West” (32), but at the All India Women’s Conference, she provokes anti-Western sentiment: “those child countries of Europe and those kindergarten countries of America . . . expected me to fit into their notion of what an Indian woman should be, a timid woman, a modest woman, a jumpon-to-a-chair-at-a-mouse woman who had come to learn from them” (AIWC, “Sarojini” 1930: 395). Although elsewhere her words reveal her to be star struck by the “veritable jazz” that is America, to her countrywomen she portrays herself as a “modern Indian woman who travels to the West to teach ‘those child countries’ rather than be tutored by them” (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 88). Naidu’s boasts about putting Americans in their place—in effect, bullying them into submission as an ally against Britain—is assuredly not the way to forge diplomatic relations. Naidu’s views on Occidental women range from haughty dismissal to warm solidarity. In one of her more capacious pronouncements, she claims: there is no difference between the Eastern woman and the Western woman. Beneath all the differences of race, creed and colour lies the bond that unites all women: a truly mystical sisterhood which makes all womanhood one . . . indivisible . . . devotion, courage, self-sacrifice, the heroic virtue of quiet, daily drudgery, and the more epic ability to face grave and unexpected crises . . . [these] are qualities of all womanhood. The longer I have talked to my Western sisters, here or in America, the more I have been impressed by the similarity of thought and ideal. (“Women of Orient” 1932: 299).

Naidu’s nationalist legacy is certainly vexed, due to her trademark idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. While known for her rhetorical gifts, her insubstantial language begs the question of intellectual depth and sincerity: rather than sociocultural analysis, she assesses American women superficially— “attractive . . . noble, illustrious, beautifully groomed, splendid, deeply responsive” (Letters 97). Similarly, “educated Negroes” are sentimentalized— “so cultured, so gifted, some of them so beautiful, all of them so informed with earnest and sensitive appreciation of all that is authentic in modern ideas

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of life,” leaving readers not a little perplexed as to what exactly this means. Of uneducated Negroes (the vast majority in 1928) or African American women of any status, she had nothing to say. She traveled widely and stylishly and associated with the highest tier of American society and institutions, thus aligning her perspectives on the country with those of Atiya Fyzee (privileged, inauthentic, disconnected). 68 As for the Americans, most were too preoccupied with the business of earning a living to be impressed by so rarified a spectacle of sophistication; considering the important work of bringing pre-independence India to the forefront of Americans’ “cognitive map,” gushing transports over British writers’ manuscripts in a library to which very few Americans had access was unlikely to be very effective. Of Naidu’s American tour, Ela Sen wrote: “Though it is true that part of her mission in America was to lecture against Miss Mayo’s libelous book on India”—in fact, Naidu had determined not to dignify the book by acknowledging it 69—“she maintained a reserve and dignity throughout”—not according to some newspaper accounts 70—“and refused to be hustled in the true American style”—an Occidentalism begging for explication—as is this: “Many of her revelations were eye-openers to the American public, whose thoughts had never been able to range into such wide spheres” (Testament 118–19). Such unsubstantiated claims impede the forging of international bonds by perpetuating, rather than investigating, hierarchical stereotypes; to dismantle such hierarchies requires as candid an examination of Eastern Occidentalism as of Western Orientalism. As the Indian nationalists’ ambassador to the United States, Naidu might have exercised more dignified diplomacy and less social affectation; as a prominent presence in the independence movement, her impressive rhetoric might have offered less flourish and more substance. A year later (1929), Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy (1886–1968) sailed into New York harbor, en route to the Chicago National Council of Women; she records the usual first impression of people “always on the move. Life is one of rush, full of business and social activities” (Reddy, Autobiography 88). American journalists avidly sought her responses to queries about Gandhi, the caste system, child marriage, and untouchability, as well as India’s current political climate; she was not the first to marvel at the discrepancies between her spoken words and what was printed in the newspapers. Distinct from other Indian visitors, her purpose was not to tour, secure funding, socialize, or politicize, but to attend the “very comprehensive and . . . rather overcrowded” Congress of Women, its organizing theme being “Can Women Plan for a Civilised World?” While she did meet some notable people— “Lady” Rockefeller and Jane Addams, for instance—and attended the Chicago World’s Fair, her American experiences were limited by congress obligations. As a “freedom-loving people,” most Americans “have real sympathy for India. They revere and respect our leaders,” particularly Gandhi, Tagore,

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and Naidu. 71 In a departure from the usual complaints about American journalism, Reddy observed that the “political situation and the events in India were better reported” than in Britain (91); nor is America lacking in artistic sensibility (as some visitors claim), in her view also superior to Britain’s. The controversy generated by Mayo’s Mother India raged on, and Reddy confronted questions about “whether it was a true picture” of Indian life (Reddy, Autobiography 92); as a physician favoring science over sentimentality, she understood the validity of some of Mayo’s commentary about sanitation and disease prevention. 72 She notes that American women “have been watching with keen interest the Women’s movement in India,” and she is pleased to be dubbed the “Jane Adam [sic] of India.” Reddy was most impressed by the conference’s international manifestation of Women’s Mission to Women, a “genuine, spontaneous and loving appreciation for the women’s work, a tribute that woman paid to woman. Even though I discovered that spirit in the cultured and enlightened womanhood of every country and nation, the American women seem to possess it immensely and could not help giving expression to the same” (93). Her impressions of American women were positive; she was treated with respect and admiration, “given a place of honour and distinction at every party and every place.” Because of the rarity of Indian visitors, “India is still to many in America a land of romance, mystery and fabulous wealth”—from the perspectives of travelers from the East, terms similarly applied to America. There was much to critique about America, as her contemporaries demonstrated, but Dr. Reddy preferred to contemplate promise and potential rather than fault or lack. With her sights focused on women’s capacity to mobilize and to affect more than local or national reform, she was among those who envisioned no less than global reform. Neither the voice of conservative Hinduism (Vivekananda) nor of cosmopolitanism (Naidu), Reddy’s participation in discourse related to women, sanitary reform, medicine, and world peace offers a compelling and palpable example of India’s “fitness” for self-rule. An Indian traveler who came to America as a student and stayed permanently brings a comprehensive perspective to this discussion. Sudhindra Bose, professor at the University of Iowa (1913–1946), struggled with professional and economic inequities tied to his race and immigrant status; his position was further compromised by the 1923 Naturalization Act declaring Indians ineligible for American citizenship (Sabin, “Sounds” 105). The act adversely impacted all Indian immigrants who had lived, studied, worked, and established businesses in anticipation of American citizenship—like the West Coast Sikh farming communities cited by Naidu in her American commentary. Bose’s Mother America: Realities of American Life as Seen by an Indian (1934) records his unique position vis-à-vis Indian and American cultures. Despite its allusive title, the book is emphatically “NOT a rejoinder to the

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production of Miss Mayo” (vii) but a commentary on his adopted country: “to know America or any other country one must live in it, sympathize with it, understand its history, know its problems and above all appreciate its ideals” (xii). Many accounts of America have been written by those “who have only seen the country from train windows and . . . the lecture platform. . . . Such visitors do not know America”—a further validation of the authenticity of Parvati Athavale’s experiential accounts and the limitations of Fyzee’s and Naidu’s “train windows” (big cities and monuments) perspectives on the country. For Bose, it was not New York’s “rich elegance” or Chicago’s “splendid” culture but the Midwest heartland and the “unofficial civic institutions” where the genuine spirit of America is to be found (Sabin, “Sounds” 108). Bose emphasizes the “progress of American women” as shaped by the distinct needs of a newly established country, where everyone worked and anything beyond primary subsistence was a luxury; 73 in America, “woman’s sphere is . . . to do whatever she can and thus prove the intentions of the Creator” through self-reliance (54–55). American women’s progress from domestic to public spheres signifies national social evolution; far from accosting turbaned men in the streets (typical, according to Alice Pennell), 74 gum-snapping flappers (ubiquitous, according to Fyzee), or cocktail parties on the Isle de France (about which Naidu gushed), modern American women had earned recognition through promoting public policies related to education, labor, and social welfare (70). For Bose, “‘force and frankness’ are traits he identified as specially American and admired for their social qualities as well as literal effectiveness” (98); far from indicating decadence, “American innovations in education, work, social life, and politics” offered young people “more practical and more egalitarian opportunities than were available either in England or colonial India” (100). Bose finds particularly engaging the “cheerful informality” of American speech that certain others found objectionable (109); what Ela Sen calls “hustling” in the “true American style,” Bose regards as Americans’ signature “openness to individual talent, energy, and ambition” (103). While Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya’s 1940–1941 American experiences postdate the final number of ILM, her commentary offers an insightful conclusion to this collection of pre-independence observations about the New World. Kamaladevi represents the Indian New Woman, one who prefers striking out in uncharted territory to choosing between similarly untenable options. Sister-in-law to Sarojini Naidu, this militant nationalist-socialist and founding member of the All India Women’s Conference (1926) was famed for her role in the Dandi Salt March and subjected to many arrests and incarcerations; a more lasting legacy is her work recuperating Indian cottage industries, which she made a national priority. 75 A “woman of aggressive speech” (Nanda, Kamaladevi 83), Kamaladevi was one of the more colorful

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nationalists who saw in America much that might be useful to the formation of modern India. She did not subscribe to Joshi’s “defensive nationalism” or the Christian alliances of Ramabai or Lilavati Singh; to Athavale’s workingclass humility, Fyzee’s aristocratic disdain, or Naidu’s social affectations; and what she lacked in social graces, she more than made up for in political savvy. In her report of the 1931 International Congress of the Women’s League for Peace and Freedom, Kamaladevi notes the blatant marginalization of Indian delegates representing the All India Women’s Conference: “thanks to the work of Miss Mayo and other similar propaganda, there was a good deal of misunderstanding about India and Indians” (AIWC, “International” 1931: 377). 76 The episode helped shape her life’s work by dramatizing the crucial need for Indian women to speak for themselves, and a decade later her book The Awakening of Indian Women (1939) did just that. Promotional copy for the book anticipates her eminent suitability as India’s unofficial ambassador to America: her “intelligence” and “eloquence . . . will do good to our cause and will bring India and America” closer. Pandit Nehru termed her “a pioneer . . . [who] writes with the authority of one who has worked and suffered for the cause with singular devotion.” Given her passport difficulties, Kamaladevi was clearly perceived as a political threat by British authorities; once in America, her visa was extended, thanks to diplomatic pressure (Bakshi, Kamala 218). But her movements were closely monitored and, on returning to India, she was arrested and sentenced to solitary confinement for her “seditious” critiques of British imperialism. Kamaladevi was prominent in Washington’s political circles, associating with diplomats and congressional representatives and developing a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt (including tea at the White House and an invitation to FDR’s third inauguration). When she participated in activist groups (Conference on Cause and Cure of War, the International Disarmament Committee, and the National Federation of University Women), “such crowds came that the people had to be turned away for lack of space” (Bombay Chronicle, June 17, 1940). She studied various government programs related to children, women, and domestic issues, in turn lecturing on the status of those issues in India (221). A cultural observer, she visited prisons and mental institutions, participated in radio broadcasts, gave Indian poetry readings, and met with population control advocate Margaret Sanger. Her thoughtful assessment of American women updates Martineau’s postcolonial analysis and Ramabai’s post–Civil War analysis to the modern era. She confronts critics of Western feminism (like Napoleon Bernard and Atiya Fyzee) by noting that women pursue “larger social causes . . . not narrow sex interests” (America 297), the latter exhibited by men whose efforts to exclude women is “a purely oriental innovation” (298). Neither rich or debased nor self-indulgent or shrieking, the American woman “commands our admi-

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ration because of her self-reliance and resourcefulness. Her freedom is of a real and vital character” (323). America, the Land of Superlatives (1946) offers insightful critiques of an ideology Kamaladevi finds admirable in principle but sometimes questionable in practice. America offers “diversities and contrasts . . . thrills . . . shocks . . . hopes and despairs. . . . It is not all glamour and glory . . . its basic problems remain as unsolved as our own. . . . We have as much to absorb from it as to discard. Where distance has lent enchantment, I hope this attempt at a close-up will serve to bring discernment and clarity” (iii–v). Her analysis is shrewd: America has as much to answer for as any other country, and it should neither be idolized nor condemned. What is worth emulating might profitably be adapted to Indian paradigms: “America has been the magnet of the world since Columbus took the wrong turning and bumped into the old New World . . . [it] continues to be a . . . land of destiny to which come the Great Pilgrims of the world” (14–15). Its founding organized around a set of principles, the country is unique among nations and cannot be forced into a uniform category or standard comparative analysis, but rather assessed according to its distinctive features. This Kamaladevi does with impressive political acumen. More palpably than her predecessors, Kamaladevi interacted with African Americans and Native Americans. She visited “the Red Indian reservation” in New Mexico, observing that their “resemblance to Asian culture was extremely strong” (America 222). Native Americans are “the Disinherited,” representing the defeat of “ancient man” by “superior weapons of destruction” and prompting her prediction that modern man, by privileging force over humanism, will be the next to be “Disinherited” (294). 77 The Negro Committee responded enthusiastically to the “very practical inspiration” of her actions and speeches; in defiance of the era’s pronounced racism, she traveled extensively in the South (notably refusing to move from the whitesonly rail car), “living in Negro homes and sharing in their community life. . . . I was a guest in the . . . tumble-down shacks of Negro ShareCroppers” (iv–v). In a region still undeveloped, rural, and unindustrialized, sharecropping was a vestige of chattel slavery, retaining all its outward aspects but human ownership: the “social degradation that results from such a state of bondage can be well imagined” (196). American racism is not so surprising, given that the South “is still caught in the psychological background of having lost its war. It has the highest proportion of Negroes and also of illiterates” (16). The Bombay Chronicle praised her relations with “these struggling people” to whom “she has considerably endeared India” (221), forging a meaningful international link through her refreshingly unorthodox approach. All people in this nation of immigrants negotiate ethnic preservation and cultural assimilation, Old World and New World values; they are young and

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restless, energetic and enthusiastic, with a keen awareness of the importance of time: “They think, live and build in superlatives” (America 28). Success is determined by effort and measured in accomplishments: “The physical and psychological . . . conquest of this new continent moulded the people’s sentiments and ideologies,” making individualism and self-reliance the signature qualities of “Americanism” (36). Less savory are the rampant capitalism, the monopolies and conglomerates poised to create a new form of imperialism: “Little grains of sugar like little drops of oil move mighty kingdoms and shift mighty flags” (Uncle Sam’s 41; 51–52). To become a “liberating and democratizing force in the world,” Americans must “liberate themselves from the shackles” of oil, rubber, tin, monopolies and robber-barons, “For it is to the people of America that the peoples of the world look, it is in them that they signify faith, not in the Almighty Dollar” (America 362). America has a responsibility to “every fallen and ravaged country [that] has looked to it for succor; every nation in distress” (345–46). By the 1930s, the country was poised to represent the new world order, and yet it continued to “defer to Britain’s prior claims . . . unwilling to offend England and ‘interfere’ in her sphere.” Repeatedly, she asks, “What about India, the Crux of the problem?” (361). But to much of the West, India was still a sociogeographic vagary removed from the “logic” of political economy; it was up to Indians to speak and act for themselves, to make themselves heard, to manifest the principles of swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha, and to assert India’s emergence as a major player on the world stage. Kamaladevi offers a compelling conclusion to her report of that unwelcoming 1931 Women’s Congress, wherein the marginalized Indian delegates found an alternative form of eloquence to make themselves heard. 78 At a peace demonstration, they were instructed to march under the Union Jack; determined to participate but not under that condition, the women stayed up all night and “made out of their sarees the national flag of India . . . a poor shriveled thing no doubt . . . but representative of their land” (AIWC, “International” 1931: 377). Incorporating this revealing event, Satthianadhan’s 1935 assessment of Indian women’s progress since 1920 posits that “the progress of fifty years” was accomplished in the space of fifteen: “Women must be animated by a desire to help themselves, instead of being passive supplicants for help” (“Women’s Activities in India” 1935: 73). This “awakening to the dignity of labour” had repercussions internationally, making the advance of Indian women “an item of interest to foreigners . . . [and] dispelling that ‘unfortunate ignorance outside in general’” (72). Kamaladevi understood the crucial necessity of articulation, verbal and nonverbal: if some found that “aggressive,” so much the better. The contradictory ambivalence exhibited in ILM—modernization, but within traditional gender relations—reflects the mixed messages women of the era negotiated. “Conflict in Womanhood’s Ideals” summarizes the gen-

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dered conundrum defining the nationalist project: “The impact of the West on the Indian mind has led to some very necessary intellectual unrest and created the need for . . . a new synthesis, which will reconcile and build into an organic system the progressive elements in indigenous and exotic cultures” (Murthi 1936: 50). Some condemn Western influences as “unmitigated evil” and some reject unexamined traditionalism as “retrogressive,” yet the truth “lies midway between the two extremes.” But while admitting that Indian womanhood, defined exclusively by marital status and “built upon the foundations of a philosophy of defeatism,” is itself a primary obstacle to cultural progress, Murthi speaks for many by drawing the line at divorce, the West’s signature solution to gender incompatibility: “if divorce becomes an accepted and established institution, marriage will lose its stability, and home-life will be built upon the quicksands of the whims of foolish young men and women. That is what it seems to be in America!” (52). 79 For some, American womanhood offered an inspirational model worth emulating; for others, that example was worse than democracy, class and caste equality, and economic parity put together. Indeed, the very idea of Kamaladevi meeting with Margaret Sanger—two women “of aggressive speech” discussing population control—threatened to annihilate civilization, East and West. Echoing Ramabai’s caution against Western romanticization of Indian womanhood, Krishnamma warns that those who interpret “The Charm of the East” through its mysticism, “romance,” and “mystery” must understand that “this is only the background for the living picture—the living mass of bewildering humanity . . . nationalities . . . creeds and customs” (1905: 165)—a description replicating the very heterogeneity that defines America. 80 Haridas Mazumdar, another naturalized citizen, wrote: “One of my fondest hopes has been that Free India may become a bastion of democracy in the Orient as America has been in the Occident, and that the two Republics may cooperate with each other and with other nations for the promotion of peace and justice, freedom and well-being” (viii). The issue is not sociocultural antagonism but the remarkably timely synthesis linking the renaissance of ancient Indian “lore” not with Ruskinian ideology but with American transcendentalism: Emerson and Thoreau with Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the Boston Tea Party and the American Civil Rights movement with the Dandi Salt March, the rejection of imperialism by reinventing the wheel of civilization through the lens of democracy. Although today India’s path to democracy continues to be as tangled as America’s, the commitment to democratic ideology envisions a utopianism built not on the backs of slaves and harijans and women and children but on principles of social equity. That by definition is a work in progress: the American and Indian “experiments” certainly have a long way to go—but how far, indeed, both have come.

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NOTES 1. “Much of the motive force of British expansion after 1765 was provided by the need to pay for the British Indian army”; shifting the economic burden to the colonies “precipitate[d] a series of conflicts which liberated the Americans but enslaved the Indians” (Bayly, Imperial 97). S. Ahmed links imperialism with “military expenditures and war debts” financed by colonial economies (2). According to the “logic of capital,” India’s commodities—silk and cotton, tea and salt, opium and grain—provided “the superprofits they needed to finance their debts” (16–17). 2. Possibly Charles Edward Russell (1860–1941), an American journalist whose work included commentary on India, winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1928), and a founder of the NAACP. 3. An enduringly contentious issue is whether individual states’ laws supersede those of the federal government. For instance, the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) was passed by a federal congress heavily weighted toward Southern interests (perpetuating slavery); the law required even Northern abolitionists to betray black people whose skin color indicated they “must” be escaped slaves. Massachusetts refused to obey the law, arguing that, on the basis of its moral repugnance to slavery, its state policies preclude federal law. 4. While Ridley does not mention the Ku Klux Klan by name, this description fits. 5. Beginning with Harriet Martineau’s Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). 6. See also “Indo-American National Association.” 7. Alternatively, biographer Caroline Dall states that Joshi’s early betrothal and marriage made her fear “I should never learn anything more, and I would rather have died” (viii), implying that her studies took precedence over her roles as wife and mother. 8. Traveling alone was less a deliberate challenge to convention than a practical matter. Gopal’s first responsibility was to his elderly parents; Anandabai’s American sponsors were not responsible for his travel expenses. Gopal subsequently joined her in America. 9. Anandabai’s mother aimed “to domesticate her for her future wifely role, by means of harsh physical chastisement ranging from blows and kicks to beating with sticks and branding with live charcoal” (Kosambi, “Meeting” 5). Aside from deep intellectual disparities between mother and daughter, for Joshi, child marriage and motherhood provided a welcome escape from maternal domestic abuse. 10. “For a Brahmin woman to appear in public at all was . . . a grave misdemeanor,” and as justification for her “departure from the ways of her fathers [it] was doubtless a graver still” (Dall, Life 81). 11. See “Advantages of Lady Doctors” and “Indian Women Doctors.” True also of Englishwoman Elizabeth Blackwell, America proved more welcoming than England or India for women medical students. 12. Anandabai “severely denounced” Christian missionaries’ “contempt . . . and bigot[ry]”; their “wholesale denunciations” of Indian religions “cannot fail to rouse the indignation” of the very people they seek to reach (Diver, Englishwoman 224–25). Compare Carpenter’s attitude with that of Joshi’s travel companions, who made her sixty-day journey to America a misery by relentless pressure to convert. See “Mrs. B. F. Carpenter”; also Kosambi (“Meeting” 15). 13. See Burton (Heart 60). 14. If marriage removed her from an abusive mother, it kept her in the same circumstances. Anandabai wrote to Gopal of “the trauma of marital violence . . . she had experienced . . . at his hands . . . [which] she bore . . . silently because Hindu women had no ‘right’ to speak and . . . they could not leave” (Chakravarty, “From” 122–23). Twenty years her senior, Gopal’s behavior toward her was “eccentric, inconsiderate and occasionally violent” (Kosambi, “Meeting” 6); his “rough treatment” included “flinging broken pieces of wood . . . books . . . chairs” at her (Kosambi, “Women” 40). Caroline Dall alludes to the situation without providing details, while ILM avoids the topic altogether, emphasizing instead Anandabai’s womanliness. 15. See Kosambi’s comparative analysis of Joshi’s two biographers (“Meeting”); American Caroline Dall and Indian Kashibai Kanitkar (“Anandabai”); also Raman, “Crossing” (85–86).

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16. Distinct from Western women, Indian women “have no letters to write, or books to read. They do not receive or make calls, except among their own female relatives. They do not speak with men, even with their own husbands, in presence of somebody” (Dall, Life 58). In America, Joshi found relief from the “restraints” of family life, with its “envious or dissatisfied kinfolk . . . the thousand observances and deferences required of the married woman” (96–97). Ramabai wrote similarly in her 1883 letter to Bartle Frere, published as “Cry of Indian Women.” 17. If Ramabai was “a lone crusader for modernizing Indian social institutions along American lines” (Kosambi, Introduction 34), her vision was by definition hybridic, evidenced by her dress (combining blouse and sari) and her adapting Indian musical instruments and devices to Christian hymns: she strove to “indigenize Christianity and transform its alien cultural trappings into a more recognizable Indian garb, because she saw its true message as transcending denominational, cultural and racial divides” (Kosambi, Pandita 26). Ramabai also presented a kirtan, “religious discourse in verse usually accompanied by musical instruments. . . . She defended her action on the ground that women in small towns were not only timid but also had no concept of modern-day notions of lectures and meetings” (Anagol, Emergence 46). See also Satthianadhan’s “To the Women” (discussed in chapter 3). Similarly, Franscina Sorabji constructed a “forerunner of the Montessori schools” adapted to students’ individual needs: “an education that was Indian in character, using Indian symbols and metaphors instead of the usual English primers that were full of imagery that was alien to Indian children”; these examples reveal how “Indian Christian women during this period were not turning their back on their culture, but rather modifying it to fit their own beliefs” (49). 18. Ramabai’s plan to study medicine was thwarted by deafness, which was first discovered in England. When strained relations with the Cheltenham Anglicans (her sponsors) necessitated an alternate path, America offered her other opportunities. 19. Joshi’s “American experiences reached a wide readership through excerpts from her letters, which were published in a local newspaper by her husband” (Kosambi, Introduction 15). 20. On Martineau, see Ramabai (Peoples 167). A comparison of tables of contents reveals how closely Ramabai modeled her study after Martineau’s. Although separated by a halfcentury, there are compelling links between Martineau and Ramabai: one British and one Indian, one Unitarian turned agnostic and one Hindu turned Christian, one a passionate abolitionist and one whose passion was to redeem India’s female outcasts; both were intellectuals, public figures, and deaf, both critical of British mismanagement in India, and both plagued by criticism and controversy. Martineau saw in the New World a model for modernizing the Old World; fifty years later, Ramabai viewed Western women’s social reform activism as a viable prototype for modernizing Indian womanhood. Whereas Martineau assessed England’s loss of its first empire through the lens of American independence, Ramabai considered similarities between its first and second empires vis-à-vis British imperialism and Indian nationalism. 21. Izzetta claims: “it is nobody’s but our own fault that we are not educated . . . [we must] account to our God for what we have thought, felt and done . . . as minutely on the Great Day as the men. None will come to our rescue then” (“Speech” 1901: 146–47). Nalini agrees that “women as well as men are responsible for their lives, for the talents and gifts given them, which they are on no account to waste . . . she has duties outside the home as well . . . they are joint-partners with man in making the world better and that sex has nothing to do with the arrangement. But all are agreed that the first duties of woman are at home, and these are the duties of maiden, wife and mother” (“True Ideal” 1903: 88). Such progressiveness, immediately undercut by traditional conservatism, is prevalent throughout ILM’s pages. 22. Published in India, the book financed Ramabai’s journey to Cheltenham. 23. “Swaraj cannot be attained” when half the population is “stricken by paralysis”; “everyone must rise to the occasion. . . . The women of India who are suffering from innumerable disabilities and are the victims of bad customs and unjust laws, are incapable of performing the duty of fighting for Swaraj. . . . Instead of being an asset, she is a burden” (Nehru, Gandhi 12–13). 24. Kosambi objects to patronizing references to the small stature of Joshi and Ramabai, and yet—East and West, then and now—female diminutiveness is aesthetically associated with

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femininity, making the distinction ostensibly complimentary even while evoking disempowerment. The dynamic defies geopolitical boundaries: women of great accomplishment like Harriet Martineau (“the little, deaf woman from Norwich”), Harriet Beecher Stowe (“the little lady who started the big war”), and Sarojini Naidu (the “Little Mother of Young India”) are best accommodated in patriarchal frameworks if they are small. See also Ramabai’s commentary on Western women’s corsets and tiny waists (Peoples 111). 25. By challenging the “boundaries of empire and . . . power relations in imperial culture,” Ramabai’s “colonial encounter” at Cheltenham replicates imperial relations through the framework of unquestioning religious obedience, further vexed by gender and race (Burton, Heart 3). An individualist, Ramabai was an outlier—a Hindu Christian critical of both traditions, a rebellious, opinionated subject of the British Empire seeking “aid and comfort” from the enemy that America represented. See Burton (Heart ch. 2). 26. Like Joshi, Ramabai mourned the illiteracy of her “suffering sisters” (Gould, “Pundita” 270). See her introduction to Fuller’s Wrongs; also Kanitkar (Kosambi, Introduction 41). While in America, she studied Froebel’s kindergarten system; see also Susie Sorabji on female education (1903: 244). 27. On American women missionaries in India, see Flemming. 28. High-Caste Hindu Woman presents “a graphic picture of oppressed Indian womanhood to her Western readers with a trained ethnographer’s eye . . . without sacrificing her nationalist pride and right to interrogate colonial rule” (Kosambi, Pandita 3). But “oppressed Indian womanhood” predated “colonial rule” and was an entirely separate issue. Oppression, Ramabai perceived, came from within the culture and was perpetuated by the women who internalized it. 29. Ramabai toured New England, the Midwest and mid-South, Canada, and the West Coast. She returned to India via Japan and Hong Kong in 1889. 30. According to Englishwoman’s Review, Ramabai’s home for widows represents “a revolution in the customs of centuries,” as do her public lectures at Poonah on “America and American Women” (1889: 424). 31. Essentially forgotten for over 110 years, Ramabai’s American memoir was treated to two English-language editions in the same year (2003): Pandita Ramabai’s America (Frykenberg) and Pandita Ramabai’s American Encounter (Kosambi). While I quote from Kosambi’s edition (designated Peoples), its index rendering it the more scholar-friendly of the two, the introductions to both are most insightful, and their availability is of inestimable value to scholars of British imperialism, Indian nationalism, and American ascendancy. 32. Kosambi’s misleading assertion that “Martineau and Ramabai reached almost diametrically opposite conclusions about American women” alludes to that “intervening . . . eventful half-century” but fails to investigate the rich implications of the Civil War era (Introduction 34). American women’s rapid social development through public service and reform organizing began with Garrisonian feminist abolitionism (1830s) and fully evolved during and after the war (1860s–1880s). Deeply impressed by American women’s social work, Ramabai adapted its practices to her own endeavors in India. 33. By invoking Hindu goddesses Sita and Sarasvati, Ramabai parallels American women’s progress with “a similar effort by Indian women by locating it within the existing tradition of empowered female figures” (Kosambi, Pandita 26). 34. Peoples is Ramabai’s “most nationalistic text” (Kosambi, Introduction 33). Her nationalism was variously expressed: “patriotic indignation” over the subjection of India (1882); demanding financial compensation from the British for impoverishing India (1883); condemning “colonial power as exploitative, mercenary and patriarchal” in regard to the Rukhmabai case (1887); and equating British famine policy with sati (1900). Written in Marathi, People’s long absence may be explained by the various iterations of the Vernacular Press Act (1878), which was designed to suppress “seditious” or anti-British commentary by punishing both author and press with fines, imprisonment, or transportation. 35. Peoples does not record this meeting. See the chapter “Domestic Conditions” on racism in India and America. Perhaps Ramabai was inspired by Jotirao Phule’s pamphlet Slavery (1869), dedicated in both Marathi and English to “The Good People of the United States, as a token of admiration for their Sublime Disinterested and Self-sacrificing Devotion in the cause of Negro Slavery; and with an earnest desire, that my countrymen may take their noble exam-

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ple as their guide in the emancipation of their Sudra Brothers from the trammels of Brahmin thralldom” (Kosambi, Introduction 12). 36. See Fryckenberg (Pandita xi; 42n95) and Kosambi, Introduction (30). 37. Satthianadhan advocates the social mixing of boys and girls as practiced in the West over Eastern gender separatism; similarly, Ramabai was impressed by Western conceptions of “family life,” its intergenerational interactions, and its impact individually and communally. 38. Nivedita phrases the sentiment more poetically: “In India the sanctity and sweetness of Indian family life have been raised to the rank of a great culture. Wifehood is a religion; motherhood, a dream of perfection; and the pride and protectiveness of men are developed to a very high degree” (qtd. Everett, Women 65–66). What Ramabai views as institutionalized victimization, Nivedita presents as sainted females protected by chivalric males. 39. From 1888, material support from the American Ramabai Society was granted for ten years, at which time the project was reevaluated; Ramabai returned to Boston briefly in 1898 for this purpose (Great Women 406); see also Frykenberg (Pandita 47); “Ramabai Association” (1901); and Jayawardena (White ch. 3). The American Ramabai Society provided proof of the authenticity of Ramabai’s claims on behalf of Indian widows by “publicizing the letters of distinguished scholars and reformers like Max Mueller, Miss Manning, B. Malabari, and D.K. Karve” (Anagol, Emergence 36). 40. Vivekananda’s “views became more pronouncedly ambivalent . . . [he was] increasingly an apologist for Hindu orthodoxy’s views on women’s status. He upheld the ideal of the voluntary sati and extolled the worship of maternality (as opposed to companionate conjugality). . . . He antagonized [Indians] . . . by his denial of the ill-treatment of [Hindu] widows . . . and by his glorification of . . . [their] enforced renunciation” (Roy, Indian 119–20). His anticolonialism was “expressed in almost racist terms”; he claimed “India’s moral superiority in his lectures in the United States and tried to explain away India’s unwholesome social customs” (Raychauduri, Europe 344). 41. There was no such legislation: “the status of the Hindu mother was so high and unassailable” that formal law was considered unnecessary (Chakravarty 336). The scope of the problem is striking: in 1891, just prior to the 1893 Chicago conference, there were an estimated 23,000,000 widows in India (Enock, Cannibalism 16). See also “Review” (1901:16) and “Concerning Indian Women” (1903: 91). 42. Vivikenanda popularized the idea that “the condition of Hindu widows has greatly been misrepresented. . . . True, their condition is deplorable, but not so dark as has been printed . . . the widow represents holiness and all that is most to be reverenced. It is among widows that Hinduism finds its saints . . . the national ideals which our forefathers the ancient Aryas set up for ourselves and which we are following today” (“Hindu Widows” 1906: 134). For 23,000,000 widows, conditions cannot be both deplorable and not that bad. To condone institutionalized suffering (poverty, malnutrition, routine fasting), to term the victims saintly and holy, and to invoke the cultural authority of the ancients constitutes a cruel mockery of widows’ suffering. See also Anagol (Emergence 36 and 36n61). 43. After rejecting Hinduism’s “tribe of priests,” Ramabai resisted attempts to force her submission to Christianity’s “tribe of priests.” 44. Vivekananda “mounted attacks on Bengali social reform for adopting Western values and forms, and being elitist; combining this with paeans to the glory of Aryan India and Hinduism” (Kumar, History 37). Alternatively, Burke and Quraishi praise his “moral courage to acknowledge that it was not the British but the Indians themselves who were primarily responsible for India’s degradation. . . . He chided his countrymen for thinking that they could do without the rest of the world” (British 66). Distinct from his conservatism on gender issues, the Swami urged cultural exchanges of Eastern spirituality and Western materialism (science and technology, living standards, business integrity, and collective organizing) for the benefit of both. 45. According to Knowles, Singh attended Radcliffe College, the women’s section of Harvard University (“Late” 1909: 26). 46. Because Indian women’s labor (domestic, agricultural) “did not bring in a wage, their work did not appear in official records” (Raman, Women 80). Those praising the “dignity of labor” were often those who most resisted suitable remuneration; that men must be educated to

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earn a living while women “bear no part of the economic burden is a total fallacy. Because the services and the sacrifices of women as mothers, cannot be translated in terms of rupees, it does not follow that their share of the economic burden is less than that of men. . . . We must . . . get rid of the notion that Nature has set apart women for household work and men for outdoor business . . . the individuality of women ought to be respected in education as much as that of men” (“Some Aspects” 1910: 335). 47. In older societies, the class one is born into defines economic status and professional or working life, but in America, socioeconomic upward mobility was promised to all who worked “hard enough.” In theory, the American dream is in part mythical; the reality—that hard work and passionate commitment must also align favorably with factors beyond individuals’ control—is far more complex. 48. Begum Amiruddin states: “Indians should shake off their lethargy, and become more active . . . be indefatigable in emulating . . . [the] intense patriotism . . . discipline, organization . . . duty and civic responsibility” demonstrated in the West (“Conferences” 1935: 267). 49. Chatterjee discusses the “basic dichotomy between Western materialism and Eastern spiritualism which was central to the construction of non-Western nationalist ideology. Western materialism was easily connected to an individualist way of life and criticized for its lack of regard for social obligations, mutual dependence, and the solidarity of the social whole” (Lineages 194). See “The Wonder of It All.” 50. “American Women in Trade” states that “out of 303 occupations in which men are engaged,” women worked in 300 of them (1906: 274). 51. “Ramabai Ranade stressed that the only way to counter the public opposition to women’s education was for educated women to demonstrate that their learning would not, in any way threaten domestic life. Indeed, an educated woman was under an obligation to carry on household work perfectly, and maintain the virtues of obedience and loyalty to the men of the family, in order to demonstrate that education did not erode traditional conceptions of modesty and humility” (Anagol, Emergence 62). 52. Of “Female Labor,” Girish Chunder Ghose writes: “The American lady . . . is woman only in sex and amiability. Her mind . . . occupations . . . rights and privileges are on a broad equality with those of men . . . she works for her bread” in business, trade, the press, and medicine; “civilization owes to her a lasting debt . . . ages must roll away before we can . . . realize it in our own country” (qtd. Borthwick, Changing 332). 53. See also “Progress of American Women” (1936). 54. See also Grewal (Home and Harem), and Burton (Heart; and Burden). 55. See “American Opinion of Indian Women” (1932) on thinking for one’s self. 56. See also Sundararaman, who contrasts Hindu civilization, “a great power for the good of mankind,” characterized by “contentment, simplicity of life, silent suffering, and sweet serenity . . . of a worthy and ennobling kind” with “the aggressiveness, the worldliness, the restlessness, and the hard-heartedness which characterize Western Communities in their dealings with the rest of the human race” (“Hindu” 1901: 66–67). 57. SPCA: Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. SPCC: Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. DAR: Daughters of the American Revolution. YWCA: Young Women’s Christian Association, which offered secure all-female hostel accommodations for working women and students. 58. Ela Sen critiques “a certain class of American woman. . . . Equipped with intellectual capabilities, education and unlimited energy, they exercise none of these in leading, as they do, a life of indolent ease. . . . This wastage of human intellect and energy is heinous and criminal” (Gunpowder Women). That “certain class” is a rarified minority, to be sure; whether or not Sen’s commentary results from personal eyewitness experience is unclear. 59. “The New Colossus,” a sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849–1887), is engraved on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. Liberty, the “Mother of Exiles,” proclaims: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-toss’d to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (ll. 10–14).

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60. Membership in Society of Mayflower Descendants (est. 1897) is available to those who can prove they are descended from the 102 pilgrims involved in the 1620 journey and establishment of Plymouth Colony. 61. Mayo “believed that Britain and the U.S. shared a common destiny and responsibility towards the ‘backward’ non-white people of the world” (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 90). 62. On Mayo posing both a “serious setback” and a catalyst to nationalism, see Seth (Subject 149). On her book’s link with the Sarda Act (1929), see Sinha (“Reading” 27). 63. There are indications that the 1927–1928 series “The West as I Saw It” by Ratnam Cornelius began with accounts of America. To date, I have not located any numbers of ILM from 1927. 64. See “Sarojini Naidu in America” (1928) on her reception in New York City. 65. Great Migration: the period between the world wars was marked by the movement of Southern African Americans—west to California, north to Chicago, and east to New York— seeking to escape the South’s racism and pursue economic opportunities. 66. On January 26, 1929, the INC declared its intention for independence. One year later (January 26, 1930) marked the official Declaration of Independence and raising of the Indian flag. Twenty years after that (January 26, 1950, the day of Kamala Satthianadhan’s death), the Indian Constitution was passed and the Republic of India established. 67. While Naidu’s appeal made her the first Indian woman president of the INC (1925), her prominence in the nationalist movement was not without controversy. 68. While Naidu “denounces British oppression and colonialism at every opportunity, she strangely refuses to afford a similar agency to African Americans” (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 94). See “Mrs. Sarojini Naidu in America”; “Sarojini Naidu in America”; and “Entertain.” 69. Naidu’s purpose was not to refute Mayo’s claims but to “embody a model of enlightened modern Indian womanhood” (Arora, “Nightingale’s” 89) and promote an Indo-American alliance. Her concern “was not to prove that Indian women were not subject to certain oppressive practices but to challenge Mayo’s right to speak for ‘Indian womanhood’ . . . [she] could, by virtue of her own example, serve as the best unofficial ambassador for India in the United States” (Sinha, “Reading” 22). 70. On Naidu’s public commentary in America, see “British Methods in India” and “Peace Impossible.” The latter met with both “cheers and some expressions of disapproval from the gathering of 1,200 persons.” At one point she shouted: ‘We will not suffer exploitation any longer. India is out for self-redemption.” See also her statement at the World Alliance for Peace, where she declares there will be no peace until India is free; such episodes are difficult to reconcile with Gandhian nonviolent noncooperation, her diplomatic purpose being to disprove (not validate) Mayo’s claims regarding India’s unfitness for self-rule. 71. According to Haridas Mazumdar, Americans “enthusiastically received the patriotic message of India’s distinguished sons and daughters” (qtd. Bakshi, Kamala 219). 72. While Mayo’s approach was offensive and confrontational, some of her observations were valid. Sanitary reform was central to independence discourse, from both internal (preventability of contagious disease) and external (responsibility to the global community) perspectives. But Indians did not relish hearing this from outsiders: “Women activists in India repeatedly challenged Mayo’s right to speak for Indian womanhood even while they argued that there was an urgent need for the reform of women’s position in India” (Sinha, “Reading” 20). This dynamic was in place long before Mayo; when introducing American Dr. Idafaye Levering at an Indian women’s meeting, Naidu “dwelt on the appropriateness or otherwise of an American lady speaking on the condition of Indian women” (“Mrs. Sarojini Naidu” 1907: 266). Levering condemned infant marriage, concluding that “India could hold her own against any civilized nation of the world” once the condition of its women is ameliorated (267). Although Levering, like Reddy, spoke from the perspective of health and sanitation reforms, the line between religion and social custom proved difficult to navigate. Even as an insider, Cornelia Sorabji— who agreed with Mayo on the need for sanitary reform—was perceived as a threat to cultural solidarity. See also Seth (Subject 156–57). 73. Hillis attributes “Successes of American Women” to puritan thrift in household economy and a national ideology based on religious principles (1911: 354–57). Women must work

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twice as hard as men for half the recognition: “public opinion grants her its favor grudgingly, and she works against greater odds.” See also “Place of Women.” 74. Alice Pennell’s Doorways of the East (1931) features a turbaned Indian man confronted by an American woman in the street; his exotic headgear is apparently what earns him an invitation to her house party. 75. Kamaladevi’s recuperative work included handicrafts, textiles including carpets and embroidery, folk dance, music, and theater. See Jayawardena (White pt. V) on Western socialist women activists. 76. India’s “international personality” (Imperial War Cabinet, Imperial Conferences, Peace Treaties, and admission to the League of Nations) was without “real substance” because its representatives “were either officials or nominees of the government” (Burke and Quraishi, British 257). Nationalists like Kamaladevi faced opposition from international organizations, as their activism aimed at independence from Britain, whom other nations preferred not to antagonize. By 1931, international reactions to India’s 1930 Declaration of Independence, followed by the Dandi Salt March, carried greater weight than Mayo’s commentary. See Sinha, “Reading” (31). On Indian efforts to enlist American support for independence, see Nadkarni, “‘World-Menace’”; also Kumar (History 266). 77. See also Eastman, “American Indian: A Woman among Them” 1909: 95-98. 78. The “politics of Indian nationalism . . . [and] modern Indian womanhood . . . enabled women of the nationalist bourgeois class to intervene in the often patronizing and imperialist attitudes adopted by international women’s groups” (Sinha, “Reading” 27). 79. One contentious issue of “equal rights” was divorce, available to Indian men but denied to women. If anything, argued some, eliminate the divorce option altogether, rather than extending it to both genders. 80. To the English, Amicus writes, “India is a land of mystery . . . something to be feared . . . tigers, snakes, wild men, cursing priests, inevitable fate and dreaded religious rites,” its women “ignorant . . . uneducated . . . inefficient . . . superstitious . . . not quite clean” (“English Women” 1929: 22).

Chapter Eight

Mothering India

We shall one day see that the most private is the most public energy, that quality atones for quantity and grandeur of character acts in the dark and succours people who never saw it. —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1929: 575)

MOTHERING INDIA: VICTORIA, THE GOOD Tennyson praised Queen Victoria’s purity and serenity, peace and reverence, and her roles as “Mother, Wife, and Queen” (“To the Queen” l. 28). While such emphases would seem to dovetail with the mother cult underpinning Indian nationalism and gender relations, East and West were as incompatible on this point as on many others. Christians were so anxious about sexuality as to insist on Mother Mary’s virginity, her sexuality thoroughly excised from Anglo-Christian iconography, so blasphemous were its implications. 1 Easily imagined is Anglo-Indians’ horror when confronted with Hinduism’s sexually explicit temple architecture, devadasis, phallic idolatry (Siva lingam), Krishna worship (a deity associated with theft, promiscuity, and adultery), and the fetishization of sexuality through child-marriage and motherhood. Queen Victoria represented an “unseen, remote and foreign mother to Mother India,” her sexuality sublimated in her domestic, national, and imperial broods (Sarkar, Hindu 252); in her roles as Queen-Empress and widowed, aging mother, “Victoria became the signifier neither of the aristocratic, nor the erotic, but of the maternal body. . . . Domestic femininity both validated the empire and was validated by it” (Beetham, Magazine 162–63).

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Hindmata, textile map of India

In contrast, Hinduism’s mother force, Kali, is fierce and destructive, her rage stoked by hot climate and spicy food and expressed through rampant sexuality: Anglos’ “abhorrence of child-marriage, polygamy, purdah, erotic art, festivals which appeared lascivious and sexuality in religious ritual emphasizes that sexual mores represent the area of greatest sensitivity in cultural encounters” (Parry, Delusions 60). “British imaginings” about those sexual mores were so well entrenched as to render Mayo’s book redundant long before it was written (63). On the one hand is the “horrific-beautiful, caressing-murdering symbolization of the totality of the world-creating-destroying eating-eaten one” associated with racial degeneration, poverty, and sexual indulgence; on the other is a “benign . . . Blessed Mother, immaculate . . . uncontaminated by the darker principle” (55), symbolized by Victoria the Good, the Great White Queen. 2 The debates outlined in this study indicate that the political implications of such mutual “imaginings” ought to have been obvious to all involved.

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Such impressions were not limited to cultural outsiders; in his quest to discover India, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote of “terrifying glimpses of dark corridors . . . primeval night . . . there is the fullness and warmth of day about her. . . . Shameful and repellent, she is occasionally perverse and obstinate, sometimes even a little hysteric, this lady with a past” (qtd. Parry, Delusions 68). For some commentators, like Krishnaswami, Indians’ ostensible reverence for womanhood functions as a pretense for culturally sanctioned abuse: “the Hindu speaks of religiously worshipping her . . . [but] in real life far from worships his woman. It is the ideal that inspires him” (“Indian Womanhood” 1917: 288). 3 Insofar as woman “has been divinely virtuous,” it is because “man has put her to a severe test. If she has been over-patient, he has been over-arrogant. She has been capable of complete self-abnegation, while he has been developing into the most selfish of animals” (289). According to a “Mere Man”: every woman is a Devi, a goddess, because she is a potential mother. . . . But the land that adores and worships women as mother, is also a land where motherhood is debased, degraded and trampled underfoot by the selfishness of man, religion, and society . . . soiled . . . with the filth and mire of false ideals . . . [women] acquiesced in this degradation . . . allowed themselves to be debased. (“Women as Mothers” 1929: 70).

Far more vulnerable are widows, as even the mercurial ultranationalist Naidu complains: it seemed incredible to any thinking mind that it was possible for the sons of a country that had produced a law-giver like Manu who taught the ideals of justice, a country that had produced Lord Buddha who taught the ideals of love, to have so far forgotten and to have fallen so low that they had lost the instincts of their chivalry to which the Hindu widow had a claim, first for the weakness of her sex, and next for the sake of her suffering. 4 (Qtd. Sengupta, Women 182)

Widow abuse manifests the entrenched misogyny females endure from cradle to grave: “Are these men, who talk, but never do anything on their sisters’ behalf, the champions of reform and progress? Our regeneration will be in imagination until we learn how to honour woman, as wife, mother and matron. With her we rise, but without her we are spirited away into oblivion, unknown and unwept” (Shastri, “Women’s” 1904: 334). Queen Victoria and Mother India, and the rich mother cult associations of both, offer a provocative avenue through which to consider the shift from empress and empire to Bharat Mata and independence. In terms of nationalism and social reforms, women and tradition, Chowdhury-Sengupta notes that some Indians idealized England as “a motherland ‘greater than heaven

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itself’”; links between Queen Empress and Bharat Mata clarify “the dislocations and contradictions within nationalism. . . . To ignore the significant space granted to the empress by early nationalists is to ignore an important dimension of the discourse on motherhood. Early attempts at framing a nationalist agenda . . . are rich in their complex and contending formulations of Mother India” (20–21). One such early nationalist was Kamala Satthianadhan, whose career was defined by negotiating Raj ideological influences and the political imperatives of nationalist consciousness. According to one English commentator, “India can never regain its olden prowess, until it restores to woman the freedom she once enjoyed, until she is taught to again walk forth with proud, uncovered face, and take her place before the whole world as . . . [man’s] equal mate and comrade” (“Mrs. Wilcox” 1911: 307). Three temporal links informed nationalist discourse: India’s former glory, present degradation, and future recuperation in relation to the Indian Woman Question. Of “Modern Indian Woman and her Responsibilities,” Rau observes, “Once upon a time,” the outside world did not exist for Indian women, but “today the average educated woman in India cannot possibly hope to remain either in the forced seclusion of her purdah or in her voluntary martyrdom, . . . even if she wishes to do so” (1929: 164). Indian women’s long sleep and dramatic awakening is itself a narrative of mythic proportions. What does the future hold for these women, for the nation, and for world peace? In its first number, ILM offered homage to the late Queen Victoria, the “beloved” Empress who has permanently “gone behind the veil”: all that was noblest and greatest in the British Raj was inseparably associated with . . . Victoria the Good . . . more than a queen . . . the very embodiment of Motherhood on the throne. . . . Though far away in a strange land, there was not a single woman, who had not formed for herself a definite conception of this Queen among Kings—the favourite of the gods. (“Life . . . Queen” 1910: 26) 5

While unabashedly pro-imperial, the reference to motherhood and its association with purity and morality has broader implications: the shift from patriarchal imperial relations to the mothering of cultures “infantilized” by colonization, and the rejection of Mother Victoria (regardless how “good”) in favor of Mother India (despite how bedraggled). Wrapped in her emerald green cloak, its very “fabric” the land itself, Ireland’s mythical Cathleen ni Houlihan mourned her children’s lack of initiative to redeem their mother; 6 so too does Mother India, in her saffron sari, mourn her offspring’s collective passivity by allowing a foreign mother to usurp her place. 7 Lalita Gupta’s “Bharat Mata’s Awakening” personifies the moment of India’s rising:

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In a Himalayan valley, on a bed of sylvan green Lay the Bharat Mata weeping, beauteous as a fallen queen: Forsaken by her sons and daughters and forsworn by kith and kin; Just a poor unhappy mother grieving for her children’s sin. (1906: 203)

Thunder and lightning wake her sleeping children who, “with one accord, called her gently by her name, / Mother rise! beloved mother! and forgive us in our shame.” Mother India, like all women, “must be gentle, must forgive”; accordingly, “All her children—poor and stricken, in her arms she did embrace”: And they knelt there sore repentant—knelt there lowly at her feet, Hailing her in accents ringing through the lowlands soft and sweet: ’Twas the magic of her beauty, burst them forth into that song— Into that long forgotten anthem—Bharat’s Patriotic song! 8

Once beyond attempts to establish social intercourse between an East and West uneasily united within one empire, once beyond mutual recriminations for disappointed expectations based on cultural centrism, and once enmeshed in the self-scrutiny leading to palpable action, the swaraj movement rapidly gained momentum. Manifesting what represents in world history a most original expression of nationalism is the relative militancy of satyagraha, a militancy defined by nonviolence, noncooperation, and cultural consciousness raising. The ILM article mourning the passing of Queen-Empress Victoria also welcomed Queen Alexandra, followed in turn by Queens Mary and Elizabeth, but none of these women inspired the regard accorded Victoria, signaling the spirit of an age moving inevitably toward independence. 9 Writing of the death of Queen Mary’s husband George V (1936) and the ascension of her son Edward VIII as king and emperor, Padmini Satthianadhan notes: “she is a Queen, but she is a mother also, and with a mother’s love she commends her son to the peoples of the Empire, when he is just entering upon the most difficult and onerous duty which a man can be called upon to discharge” (“Advance” 1936: 49). 10 But for this king, romantic love trumped monarchic duty, and Edward reigned just under a year before abdicating—if not a cause of, certainly a compelling reflection of, imperial decline. As with royalty, so too should “Mem-Sahibs” assume a maternal role: “Let a sense of Empire and responsibility possess you. . . . India is England’s adopted child . . . you . . . [cannot] escape the responsibility which parentage gives you” (“Mem-Sahibs” 1908: 209–10). A variation of the mother-child personification of imperial relations is that of a married couple. 11 Alice Pennell wrote, just as “an autocratic man looks upon his wife as his possession,” especially if she has a fortune, so too is India’s wealth the dowry in her union with England—thus is India “the wife with a fortune” (133). 12 In return, England as bridegroom endows its bride India with certain goods (railroads,

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industry) to seal their contract, in exchange for which she must provide unquestioning compliance. Because this is not a love match but an arranged marriage, a loveless business deal, the husband is uninterested in establishing “esteem and friendship” with the wife, who seeks “cordial social treatment . . . [and] sympathetic relations” (Chatterjee, “Right” 1908: 17). Although all parties involved “ought to meet on the common platform of humanity . . . for the progress and benefit of the human race,” the groom’s indifference and the bride’s unmet expectations anticipate the specter of disunion endemic to mismatched couples. The absence of conjugal accord is compellingly dramatized by India’s signature social problem: widowhood. Bharat Mata, “the heroic mother of dauntless sons” whom she “commends” to the restoration of India, represents the shift from the revered fecundity of Annapurna to the despised desiccation of widowhood (Chowdhury-Sengupta, “Mother” 22). 13 With her sons, Mata appeals to the “kind Empress Victoria,” asking, “Where are you Mother—Oh goddess of England? Look upon your orphaned Indian children with mercy” (29). Her poignant appeal to the shared values of maternal ideology highlights a unique paradox: Victoria is a “kind” but absent parent, protector of the vulnerable, but also symbolically culpable for India’s collective orphaned state; she may be benevolent, but her Anglo-Indian offspring seek no kinship relations with Bharat Mata’s brood. As sovereign, wife, mother, and the embodiment of widowhood, “Victoria existed, at least within the discursive construct of self-hood in early nationalism, on the same plane as the mythologized Mother India” (37). In a tripartite portrayal of that myth, Bharat Lakshmi represents the glorious past and Bharat Mata represents the degraded present. Who and what represents the future? MOTHERING INDIA: BHARAT MATA While mother cult ideology East and West “belonged to the world of myth,” it was variously employed: by some to harness “real women” to the “colonial state machinery” and by others to reify concepts of traditional womanliness (Bagchi, “Representing” 66). The function of Mother India’s spirit is to provide “constant solace” to her sons, who have been humiliated by colonial subjection (71). But the humiliation of India’s daughters is the more relevant point, stemming less from “colonial subjection” than from such internal sociocultural imperatives as conjugal “subjection.” A remarkable articulation exposing links between Raj and swaraj is a declaration by Sikh girl students asserting their “bounden duty to uphold the dignity and honour of the Union Jack, which is truly an emblem of peace and justice”: Indian women . . . only a decade or two ago were perhaps little better than slaves . . . British Government . . . took the lead in the emancipation of slaves

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of the world, and the advent of the British Raj in India has meant practically the identical thing for the Indian women. That sati, female infanticide, and selling daughters are now acts punishable by British law represents a remarkable alignment between the sacred doctrines of our Gurus . . . [and] our kind rulers. (“His Honour” 1911: 241)

While this declaration links religious beliefs with legislation and patriotic fervor, the question of female education provoked other cultural concerns, primarily a notion of womanliness that was anachronistic and inhibiting, individually and nationally. Conservatives’ fears that Indian women would be negatively impacted—that their values and priorities would change—by exposure to European influences, to new ideas and innovations, to alternative perspectives and life choices reflects men’s concern about how their accustomed comfort would be effected. 14 Women were “unsexed” by intellectual endeavors, a case in point being the shocking public exhibitions embroiling English suffragists with male bureaucrats in public: “their crazy and unwomanly behavior . . . [is] the natural outcome of . . . female education. . . . Anything more abhorrent to the Indian mind than the behavior of these female agitators for political power we can hardly conceive” (“Women in England and India” 1908: 367). 15 One explanation for suffragists’ outrageous behavior is that women outnumber men, necessitating their education and employment for self-sufficiency. As rate- and taxpayers, they can vote locally but not nationally; tired of being dismissed as second-class citizens, “a nuisance indeed they have made themselves, a very vulgar nuisance too.” 16 In contrast, Indian women expect to be supported in marriage and so have no need of education, jobs, or votes—or so they are told by Indian men; they do not grapple with authorities in public and, if they must be educated, it is in a way that preserves their womanliness (368). 17 Such commentary evades a crucial point: the ease with which Indian women won the franchise was due in part to those Englishwomen willing to be labeled “a very vulgar nuisance” in order to achieve equitable civil rights for a broader sociocultural category than their own. 18 In a pointed rejection of Tennysonian ideology, “An Indian Lady” argues that it is time for Indian men to accept the inevitability of women’s “awakening” and either encourage and support them or get out of their way: Man may long for the charming spectacle of a woman sitting at her spinning wheel . . . [by the] fireside . . . like a lady of Shalott, 19 . . . watch[ing] the rushing tide of life and the slow advance of civilization as a vision reflected before her in a mirror, without ever coming into actual contact with it. . . . [But] women have [always] been workers. . . . No protection has ever saved . . . woman from . . . troubles . . . anguish . . . [and] heartbreak. (“Will Indian Women” 1911: 81)

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Women’s lives and work are not the stuff of romances; however “charming” the “spectacle,” they suffer “heartbreak” from which no man can protect them. In his message to the ILM, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “As with men, so with women: their salvation lies in their own hands” (“Message” 1929: 399); the woman who worships her husband abdicates spiritual autonomy and relinquishes her moral responsibility to secure personal, communal, national, and global redemption. This includes the imperative to exercise her vote—a hard-fought right for some, easily won and vaguely understood by others. From social clubs and picketing to voting and incarceration, Indian women’s commitment to nationalist endeavors overturned negative associations between political activism and womanliness, making the latter notably contingent upon the former. The intersection of various factors—the rise of Indian nationalism, the weakening of the British Empire, the policy of nonviolent noncooperation, and the advancements of Indian women—combined to shape the unique circumstances resulting in independence. Despite ILM’s avoidance of overt politicization, its contents reflected the growing incompatibility between Raj and nationalist interests. Everything in its pages was politicized by virtue of its founding ideology: to record the progress and promote the interests of Indian women in the context of the Raj, of Indian nationalism, and of world events. While the increasing prevalence of advertisements discreetly gathered in its back pages attests to ILM’s tenuous finances, it also reflects indigenous industrial and material growth, the expansion of swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha, and the shifts in imperial relations resulting from both. 20 Given India’s history of foreign invaders culminating in Britain’s piecemeal annexation of the subcontinent, identity politics was a primary idea underpinning the independence movement. Although in radically different ways and with alternative results, Lord and Lady Curzon contributed to this discourse. 21 Lady Curzon’s famous peacock dress, worn at the 1902 Delhi Durbar, was an exclusively Indian-made product, “consisting of embroidered silk of many colours in the style of peacock feathers. . . . Our Vicereine . . . has been indefatigable in her efforts to prop up the decaying native industries of the country” (“Lady Curzon” 1902: 130). Of course, far more extensive propping up was needed, and the swadeshi movement—boycotting imported goods and promoting Indian-made products—presented the most self-empowering means to do so. 22 Before the satyagraha and Quit India movements of the 1930s and 1940s, swadeshi had a vigorous rehearsal in 1905, and that was due to Lord Curzon’s polarizing policies. 23 Of all British policies in India, one of the most egregious was the 1905 Bengal Partition, Curzon’s blatant move to weaken intensifying nationalism among Bengali intelligentsia. 24 An irrevocable turning point in British and Indian relations fueling popular discontent and straining the credulity of even the most loyal native Raj supporters, the episode is reflected in Kamala’s

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editorial reports of public reactions. 25 As a result of Curzon’s onslaught— although without actually articulating the connections between the two— announcements and reports of swadeshi meetings and calls for boycotting foreign goods appeared in ILM. In Amraoti, five hundred ladies convened on behalf of swadeshi, praising “patriotic efforts . . . throughout India” and resolving that “as worthy mothers it was their sacred duty to strengthen the cause . . . our ladies . . . have taken most kindly to the Swadeshi movement” (“Amraoti” 1905: 157). A young men’s organization carried “Swadeshi goods on their heads from door-to-door,” selling them at cost to the poor (“Our Special” 1905: 274); the Rudrakar Ladies’ Association vowed “to eschew foreign articles of luxury” in favor of those “procurable in India”; and ladies’ swaraj meetings from Calcutta and Patna to Dacca and Mymensing resonated with the smashing of foreign-made choories (glass bangles). Bengali women assumed an “energetic” role in the movement, disseminating “Swadeshi propagandism” and teaching each other “mechanical arts” with a view toward self-sufficiency (“Enlightened” 1907: 417). One thousand Bengali ladies gathered at Mary Carpenter Hall in support of swadeshi, to discuss “the history and geography of India with the help of a map” and to sing national songs (“Bengali” 1905: 126). 26 Another group proclaimed that “Swadeshism would prove to be the Salvation of India,” urging Indian women “to realize their responsible position as mothers, wives and sisters, and remember that the future of Aryavarta [India] depends upon them” (“Swadeshism” 1906: 137). In the midst of debates about purdah, female education, and social intercourse between East and West, other forces came to the fore, anticipating a new era of comparative militancy. Such activism reveals dramatic shifts in the national mood, as expressed through the activities of women’s associations and clubs, the very organizations dismissed by some as frivolous, self-indulgent, or anachronistic. These swadeshis viewed their activism as patriotic—loyalty to India, not to Raj or empire—an emphatically political gesture, though disguised as an innocuous economic strategy to bolster India’s “national industries.” Considering that the Bengal Partition was a deliberate act of political aggression and Indians’ immediate response was to initiate swadeshi, the concern to separate politics from economics is disingenuous—although, given the various acts designed to suppress nationalist activism (see chapter 1), certainly in Indians’ best interests. An advertisement from the “Buy Indian League” on behalf of the All India Spinners’ Association urged ILM readers to patronize only Indian products, assuring them that swadeshi is “entirely dissociated from politics. Its program was purely economical” (“Buy Indian” 1905: n.p.). Some enterprising cloth vendors offered ready-made khaddar for those without the time or inclination to weave it themselves, but who wished to display their political (or economic) sympathies. Another commentator directly confronts the political implications, citing “two theaters of interest” associated with swa-

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deshism: “one political, the other industrial,” meaning Indian textile industries, all but obliterated by British interests (“Swadeshism” 1907: 43). But the assertion that “Swadeshism has no political significance” and that it is only the “uncritical mind” that associates the two is startling: “[it] has, for its object, the improvement of the commercial prosperity of India, by a revival of the dormant mercantile and indigenous genius of the people, and by an able management of the labour and resources of the country” (44). Because the “commercial prosperity of India” really means that of England’s power loom manufactures, distinctions between political and economic considerations are specious at best; such semantic hair splitting is about as transparent as a length of cotton gauze. That said, given imperial paranoia as reflected in the 1905 Partition, freedom of the press was not unconditionally guaranteed but dependent on the diplomacy with which these events were handled in print. 27 Still a prominent issue in 1929, the porous boundaries separating the political from the economic connotations of swadeshi prompts Amicus’s warning that “patriotic emotion” and “prejudice” detract from the real issue, which is India’s poverty: “A sadder spectacle has never been revealed to human vision. The majority of the working-classes live on one meal a day, [and] not a few could afford even this luxury” (“Women” 1929: 44). Culpability, interestingly, rests with Indians’ “conservative tendencies”: expensive marriages . . . love of ornaments . . . want of enterprise . . . preponderance of agricultural population. . . . India exports raw material, and imports all the necessities of life. . . . Swadeshism hopes to stem the tide of incoming foreign articles. . . . The absence of commercial knowledge . . . is little short of calamity. We are completely banished even from our own markets. . . . We have sulphur and wood . . . but we have no matches. Our own cotton is given to us in the shape of cloth. (44–45)

Aside from challenging earlier assertions about the importance of the conservative voice, these comments are striking for emphasizing India’s collusion in its economic slavery, implicating those bemoaning their victimhood while enabling their adversary, those condemning Western materialism while impoverishing their family for generations through ostentatious weddings and jewels, those justifying illiteracy and anachronistic agrarianism as the preservation of Indian identity, and those resisting the contamination of modernism without recognizing the crucial need for adaptability. As Nihal Singh wrote of Americans, poverty is not a disgrace but a “spur, enlarging and ennobling their minds and setting them free from the bonds of ignorance” (“Opportunity” 1911: 348). As the principle of swaraj attests, one can do little to change others, but changing one’s self is enormously empowering to the collective.

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In their initial, less visible pursuit of self-improvement (Emerson’s “private energy”), ILM’s readers experimented with pickle and curry recipes from the Cookery Column; 28 knitting projects for woolen baby booties and bonnets, their unsuitability to India’s climate notwithstanding; and patterns and instructions for fancy work and sewing, including a tennis sari guaranteed to preserve one’s modesty during the rigors of the game. With her trademark hyperbolism, Shahinda declared, “I do not know what women would do without needles,” whether for the plain sewing every “womanly woman delights in,” patchwork (“a praiseworthy economy”), or fancy work (lace, embroidery); and although she terms darning an “inexplicable” interest, those compelled to exercise that domestic economy may beg to differ (“Ladies’ Work” 1905: 52). Needlework “soothes many a worry and quiets many a storm,” fostering mental contentment, “artistic productions in national embroideries,” and household thrift. By taking up one’s needlework, “Grim care, disquietude, moroseness, and all such rust of life may be scoured off” (“Embroidery” 1902: 17). 29 As for what to do with all those homemade projects, one author recommends women’s exchanges such as in America, where women “who do not care to become known as workers for gain” can sell their products—foodstuffs (pickles, preserves), arts and crafts, needlework—to other ladies in a private home bazaar or informal market to benefit themselves, their families, or the poor (“Home Occupations” 1910: 316). 30 In the spirit of swadeshi, one author agrees that establishing Indian women’s exchanges “would be a great boon” by giving women “a market for their handiwork” while providing buyers with authentic “country-made articles” (“Indian . . . Exchange” 1909: 282). 31 Given its vexed position East and West, classical dance offers a compelling application of swadeshism. Recalling Nightingale’s transforming nursing from its associations with alcoholism and “casual” prostitution to a profession defined by rigorous qualifications, moral respectability, patriotism, and civic responsibility, advocates of Indian dance sought a similar paradigm shift. 32 This movement faced formidable challenges: to acknowledge the present degradation of dance, to purge its real and imagined illicit associations, to preserve its defining nationalistic qualities, and to restore its ancient honored status, newly refurbished for the modern world. 33 The terms devadasis and temple dancers, nautch and private entertainments, classical dancers and prostitution were notoriously fluid, alternately delighting (male) and shocking (female) Anglo-Indians. In their own form of boycotting, the Christian Women Workers’ Union of Bombay “issued to all Englishwomen . . . a ‘protest’ calling attention to the evils of the nautch,” urging that they refuse to “attend any function of which . . . [it] forms part” (“Nautch” 1908: 232). Educated nationalists viewed the matter differently, claiming dance is central to national life, its absence “leaving us bereft of the spontaneous language of

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joy” (Tagore, “Nautch” 1908: 232). By the 1930s, attitudes had shifted sufficiently to incorporate the matter into nationalist agendas: Any art of culture worth surviving will certainly hold its own against all times and against all conditions. Our attempt should be to free it from its ugly associations and the incrustations of ages which now keep it dim and repulsive to many, so that the divine art may be learned, practiced by royal ladies and by all good and noble women, as it was by goddesses of old . . . [and] command the respect and admiration of the world. (“Nautch” 1933: 20–22) 34

The restoration of Indian dance as a revered art was variously expressed during this period. An article about male dancer Uday Shankar rejects accusations of “nudity,” “voluptuous vagaries,” and “vulgar contortions” (“Indian Dancing” 1933: 231). Shankar, regarded a national treasure, was affiliated with Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, with whom he produced the RhadhaKrishna Ballet, and with American dancer Ruth St. Denis, who performed Indian dance throughout the world, helping to popularize what was accessible to few audiences. Syntheses of aestheticism, nationalism, and modernization in the fine, 35 performing, and literary arts include establishing the National Academy of Indian Music, music being “a reflex of the manners and traditions of the people and their mode of thought” (“National Music” 1917: 51). 36 Regionally, organizations were devoted to the preservation and promotion of vernacular language and literature, such as the “Gwalior Mahila Hindi Sahitya Sammelan” society “for popularizing the study of Hindi literature” (1931) and the “All-India Mahila Kavi Sammelan in Allahabad” (1933) devoted to Hindi poetesses. Plays and dramas featuring female protagonists were regularly published in ILM, reflecting Satthianadhan’s quiet rebellion against bureaucratic denigration of performing arts. 37 From national dance and music to literature and embroideries, there was a strong grassroots, womencentered effort to distinguish between what is Indian, what is not, what needs preservation or eradication, and what requires revision and recasting in the interest of establishing India’s nationalist persona in the modern world. To be sure, this was a heady, exasperating, and inspiring period in Indian history. 38 But while such examples of cultural self-valuing were as central to the independence movement as more overtly political activities, other voices conveyed more conservative messages. “Woman’s Share in India’s Awakening” claims that “woman is a potent factor in every Indian home; and man who controls the world, is conquered by woman” (Aiyar, “Woman’s” 1908: 150). But such ostensible woman worship shifts to anti-Western sentiments of the sort promulgated by Gopal Joshi and Atiya Fyzee; to fend off the contaminating onslaught of Western influence, Indians should teach women in vernaculars and Indian lore, specifically not English and Western studies: “We do not want our women to become literary luminaries and science

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prodigies, so as to enable them to question the superiority of man . . . we do not need that our finer sex should have to trouble their heads with complex problems for which they are naturally unfit.” Of course, if women truly are “naturally unfit,” there can be no danger of exposing them to “complex problems” in the first place. Progressiveness is stymied by qualifications: it is men’s patriotic duty to rescue women who are “miserably and hopelessly sunk in the ocean of ignorance and superstition” (151), but not to the extent that they “question the superiority of man.” This is surely one of the more confounding pieces of nationalist, anti-imperialist, anti-Western, misogynist rhetoric to be found in ILM, begging the question of even its commitment to journalistic tolerance and credibility. Illiterate poor women—the 98 percent—are “sunk into the abyss of ignorance and superstition, religious bigotry, hatred of foreign women, contempt for education” and fear of moral pollution (Shastri, “Women’s” 1904: 331); such cultural parochialism and narrow ethnocentrism “rest upon an unsound foundation.” 39 The “Function of Women in the National Upbuilding” proposes a more politically expedient solution to education debates, urging “economic revival, social re-arrangement, religious reform” through “the aid, sympathy and cooperation of the mother-heart” (1907: 186). Not passive, worshipful women, educated or not, in the vernaculars or other languages, living in silence and concealment, but those whose “womanliness” is expressed through active, visible participation in the swadeshi movement: Unless . . . [they] become ardent and unflinching swadeshites, the swadeshi movement would be doomed to failure . . . how can there be religious or social revival or . . . reform so long as most of the people are allowed to remain in absolute ignorance, content with pre-Adamite superstitions and puerile ritualisms? . . . To rid society from the clutches of custom and priests, the first and the last thing . . . is to rid women from those fell clutches. (187)

A practical contribution to “National Upbuilding” is the wearing of khaddar or Indian-made clothing, offering a potent protest against Raj policies, theoretically multiplied by the millions comprising India’s population. But it is that very 98 percent who cannot afford the luxury of swadeshism: people who are grinding out their lives daily confronting the vicissitudes of an agrarian economy and who have neither the time nor the wherewithal to take up hand weaving for political or any other statements. If they buy anything at all, they buy what is cheapest—and that, perversely, is likely to be imported from the English midlands. As for the privileged, the Women’s Indian Association promoted wearing khaddar and Indian-made garments (“Appeal . . . Swadeshi” 1930: 221), while Punkajam praised “well-to-do” women who volunteered at swadeshi shops to promote the “Buy India” program (“Swadeshi” 1932: 479). Echoing Rokeya Hossain’s commentary on the slave mentality of style, fashion col-

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umnist Sister Susie urged readers to exchange jewelry, silk saris, and “flapping slippers” for clothing and footwear that support “an active, working life” (1928: 256). 40 Those with wealth and privilege should “benefit . . . the destitute and the needy”; rather than adorning themselves ostentatiously, they should “distribute the money among the poor . . . [or] to some useful and deserving institution.” Such suggestions negotiate a fine line between the caste-inscribed identity of traditional Indian styles, their appropriateness to physical activity, and potential conflicts between ancient and modern considerations—not least of which are compromising attitudes toward women and women’s complicity in perpetuating them. 41 This socioliterary history of ILM demonstrates that women were active in the nationalist movement from its earliest stages, generally behind the scenes. Yet despite Mahatma Gandhi’s conviction that their participation was crucial to independence, he and other male Congress leaders resisted women’s inclusion in public activities that threatened concepts of “womanliness,” claiming their presence “would complicate things”—exactly what “things” is not articulated (“National Cause” 1930: 610). 42 Women “protested against their arbitrary exclusion,” terming it “unnatural” and antithetical to “the awakened consciousness of modern womanhood” and insisting on full participation in “conferences, congresses . . . commissions” as well as “marches . . . imprisonments . . . demonstrations.” A significant turning point occurred with the 1930 Dandi Salt March, when appeals by Naidu and Chattopadhyaya convinced Gandhi of the appropriateness and desirability of women’s participation on the front lines; if the time was right to move away from ashram and spinning wheel to undertake more public displays, it was also right for Indian women to take their organizational expertise out of their homes and into the streets. 43 Just as English suffragists were willing to go to jail for their principles, so too were Indian women; and when they deliberately broke laws and courted arrest, British authorities were surprised but quick to oblige. Female behaviors described as unwomanly a generation earlier were now drawn into the service of nationalist activism; the courage to act publicly on one’s convictions for the furtherance of Indian independence became the new, highest expression of womanliness. 44 Padmini Satthianadhan wrote: “We, who are today reaping the benefit of the spade-work done by our first great women-reformers, can hardly fathom the hardships and the sacrifices they underwent on our behalf . . . how great is the debt we owe to those early pioneers” (“Two Great Ramabais” 1937: 100–101). Applied to incarcerated women satyagrahis, such sentiments dramatize the lightning speed with which the nationalist movement progressed once the “other” half of India’s energy base was released from private realms into public service. 45 As demonstrated by its muted responses to public controversies, ILM avoided sensationalizing political events: by design, the publication “scarcely touches on political questions” (“Viceroy” 1918: 252–53). The Dandi

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episode offers a significant example: the magazine’s first mention of the event, two months after the fact, consisted of a notice about Kasturba Gandhi’s visit to Delhi, unaccompanied by her still-imprisoned husband. While she encouraged activists “to be non-violent in thought, word and deed and carry on the great struggle for the emancipation of India till Swaraj was won,” she specified that women should spend less time politicizing and more “at home . . . spinning and weaving” (“Kasturba” 1930: 556–57). Thus was women’s activism encouraged only to be qualified by the fear that, once released from mental purdah, they would resist going back to sleep. 46 While emphasizing women’s special power or Shakti, “Gandhian ideology also restricted the scope of their political involvement and growth. The spinning wheel became a symbol of women’s participation in the regeneration of the country without having to leave their homes . . . [their] strength lay in their weakness . . . these momentous happenings in public life were hardly reflected in women’s writing” (Tharu and Lalita, Women 181). An exception to that claim is ILM’s report—strategically printed next to the Kasturba Gandhi item—of a street protest by purdah women who, learning of Gandhi’s arrest, “picketed the gates of the civil and criminal courts,” rendering authorities “helpless, the roads being blocked against them” for hours (“Purdah Picketers” 1930: 557). How best to respond to such events perplexed observers on all sides. The British Commonwealth League 47 in London regretted Sarojini Naidu’s absence from its 1930 meeting due to her imprisonment for participating in the Salt March, expressing “sympathy and hope . . . that her sacrifice would not be in vain . . . few events have given so much cause to ponder over the happenings in India” (“Sarojini” 1930: 557–58). At the London Round Table Conference, Indian ladies’ groups passed resolutions “condemning the incarceration of Mahatma Gandhi . . . demanding that all political prisoners . . . be unconditionally released; . . . participation while Mr. Gandhi and others were in prison, would be regarded as a betrayal” (“Women’s War” 1930: 614). The imperative that women “must be gentle, must forgive” was stretched to the breaking point: “Sir John Simon and his colleagues will be interested to know that some of the prominent members of the AIWC—‘the vanguard of progressive women,’ to use their own phrase—are now in jail for participating in the satyagraha movement. . . . This aspect of the crisis makes the Indian question worldwide in its interest” (611). Women’s physical participation in satyagraha may have “complicated things” for the men, stunned the British, and alienated foreign women peace conveners, but it proved to be a primary point on which the outcome of the independence movement turned. The aftermath of the Salt March continued to unfold throughout the year. A September notice chronicles how the Congress continued to function despite ongoing arrests:

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Chapter 8 On the arrest of Mrs. Perinben Captain, the late president of the Congress Committee, Mrs. Hansa Mehta was chosen to act in her place. 48 The fact that two women have successively held this most difficult position is a proof that, in every field, women are not only capable of taking a part, but also in leading the most vital and tremendous undertakings either within or without the pale of the law. Throughout the present struggle, women have more than proved by their actions that they are thoroughly capable of assuming all the responsibilities to which they have been putting forth their claim for the past years, in their efforts to obtain equality and freedom. (“Women’s Congress” 1930: 109)

This is bold progress indeed, rendering archaic those concepts of womanliness that are out of tune with the spirit of the age, nationally and internationally. But it is one victory in an ongoing conflict: that same year, the Women’s Indian Association was again rebuffed by the International Union of Women, which rejected its request to “support the claim of India for selfgovernment” despite its relevance to international peace (“Vienna” 1930: 110). Although predicated on the “indivisible unity of sisterhood,” such episodes indicate the need for Indian women to manifest and to maintain their presence nationally and internationally. And this they did, by assembling in public and presenting themselves for arrest, by traveling throughout the world, attending conferences, presenting papers, and advocating Indian independence, and by “forging a sisterhood” based on the “gender constraints . . . that bound women across the globe” (Raman, “Crossing” 131–32). To an India absorbed in the greatest struggle of its history, world events in the turbulent 1930s and 1940s were both remote and central to its own process, seen in Satthianadhan’s commentary on such prominent world figures as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Rudolph Hess. As the privileges of women increase, so too do their responsibilities, particularly regarding seva or “service to the world” as it disintegrates into the second “war to end all wars” (“Place of Women” 1933: 207). Yet despite women’s advancements, Signor Mussolini asserts unequivocally that woman’s place is still in the home, “the dearest and sweetest form of activity, . . . which she holds most at heart . . . as ‘reggitrice’ or ‘reggitora,’ . . . ‘she who holds the reins’”—a transparent turn of phrase disempowering women even while ostensibly celebrating their autonomy. Mussolini seeks proof of women’s aptitude for politics, art, and music, but alas, he finds none, due to the limitations of the female mind, woman’s propensity toward emotional instability, and her signature lack of participation in the public realm. Similarly, Herr Hitler is intent on “putting woman back into her [domestic] niche in Germany” while, with a comparable lack of originality, his deputy Rudolf Hess outlines the Nazi ideal of womanhood: men seek “women whom they could succeed in loving . . . genuine comrades and mothers . . . not limited or characterless, but . . . spiritually competent to stand by their men’s side . . . [and] make their men’s lives more beautiful and richer” (“Hitler” 1936: 154–55). Aside from

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the absence of a comparable concern about what women seek, the ease with which “love” stands in for female submission, maternalism, and patriotism is striking. German men were emphatically opposed to professional women, who are “repulsive and ‘manified’ or ridiculous caricatures” (155). And yet despite Nazi emphasis on women’s uniform relegation to domesticity (church, kitchen, and childcare), German girls “are being encouraged towards a military attitude . . . ‘martial . . . games of a purely masculine nature, propaganda marches of a military type, roll calls and inspections are the order of the day in girls’ training’” (“Military Training” 1936: 70). 49 Satthianadhan wryly observes that Mussolini is at least “an admirer of women’s special qualities . . . the talents . . . [and] charms of womanhood” (“Place of Women” 1933: 208), but she declines to engage with such sexism—even passing up the opportunity to agree that woman’s place is in the home— instead advising that women “work on to the best of our ability, wherever we are placed.” Rather than planning and theorizing, she advises, “Let us settle down to practical work, achieving what we can . . . in spite of Signor Mussolini.” 50 During World War I, the “Woman of the Future” evoked “great fear in men’s minds . . . extremely repugnant to the average man, . . . [she] will destroy the home, and . . . [wreak] havoc in the outside world by glutting the market with cheap labour and ousting men from their natural position” (1917: 69). Then, as now, the attitude was tenacious: British novelist Ursula Bloom agreed with Mussolini that women have not succeeded in proving themselves in the public sphere and in fact are responsible for the economic crisis that keeps many men unemployed—a crisis fueled by women’s apparent willingness to work for less money. 51 Every woman wants to be married and queen of her home, she posits with Ruskinian gravity, but who will marry her if men are unemployed because of working women? With women underpaid and unmarried, where will society be then, according to the logic of economics? While Bloom’s analogy with this pantheon of male fascists seems odd, her gender politics reflect the feminist backlash of an era that recognized—and resented—the significance of women’s participation in political endeavors. 52 Responding yet again to “the old fear that women will lose their womanliness . . . [and] the doubt whether women’s capability will stand the new strain put on it,” 53 Satthianadhan counters: “We know how Herr Hitler is seeking to limit the advance of women; we have read also about the fears of Signor Mussolini that women will never be able to accomplish much . . . [but our] task . . . is just to go on ahead, fearless of opposition and undaunted by criticism” (“Women” 1934: 313). Satthianadhan considers the place of women in public life, as they sit on institutional boards and work on committees and in the professions alongside men; 54 while some commentary is essentialist, it can also be viewed as investigating tentative strategies for negotiating what was for most Indian

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women unexplored territory. For example, women (characteristic shyness and self-effacement notwithstanding) should avoid contentious exchanges that will put men on the defensive or wound their egos—perhaps they might even consider “feeding his vanity” by appealing to “male chivalry” (the ends justifying the questionable means, as Marie Corelli advocated). Previously, Ramabai asserted that American women journalists’ participation in the public realm exercised a civilizing effect over a notoriously male bastion; a halfcentury later, Satthianadhan agrees that female “modesty can tone down bombastic talk; her pity and mercy can temper justice; her tact and kindliness can smoothen roughness” (“Women” 1934: 314). 55 But she also offers assertive advice for women who are exploring this new frontier: they must learn “to conquer timidity and reserve, to combat shyness, to give up . . . [their] inferiority complex”—reversing earlier fears that Indian women will lose their signature “shy modesty” by leaving the home. 56 Women should be selfdisciplined and businesslike; they should not “claim extra privileges . . . on the score of . . . womanhood,” flirt or invite admiration, gossip or engage in husband hunting: “Will such requirements undermine her womanliness? I do not think so.” 57 Here the “womanly woman” has been modernized to assume the responsibilities that accompany modern privileges: We know for certain how effective women were, and are, in swadeshi campaigns . . . women must take part in every section of national life; but they must use their advantages wisely and prudently, keeping their own nationality without undue foreign imitation; fraternizing happily with men and ready to shoulder equally the burdens of office, yet preserving their own womanliness by never neglecting their homes, which should indeed be their first duty. (“Influence of Women” 1933: 8)

Such back pedaling is consistent throughout her career, with bold, modernizing articulations of women’s status invariably qualified by relegating females to the home, “their first duty” on which “preserving . . . womanliness” depends. This was a point that Kamala seemed unable or unwilling to investigate candidly, representing another attempt to “have it both ways” that was both unsatisfactory and damaging to women’s progress. One consequence of such thinking is that, a century later, women throughout the world still find that the common price of admission to the marketplace and the professions is predicated on the assumption that they now work two jobs, the paid (now, as then, underpaid) in the public realm and the unpaid in the domestic realm. 58 When Padmini Satthianadhan, the New Woman to Kamala’s Victorian Angel, asks, “Have Women a Mission to Fulfill?” her answer attempts to synthesize the two: “A woman’s mission is as much to keep a good home as to have a say in the matters of her country” (1937: 191). Women’s role as arbitrator in the domestic realm especially enables them “to understand the intricacies of certain aspects of life” in the public realm that “man’s nature

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may not be able to understand” (192); they are particularly well suited to navigate public relations on the global stage. 59 Just as Victorian Women’s Mission to Women involved the privileged rescuing the poor and “fallen,” so too does Indian Women’s Mission to Women aim to instill “strong citizenship and patriotic feeling . . . a desire to help in the uplift of their country.” But she claims with refreshing clarity that this “cannot be secured as long as women insist on cloaking themselves in orthodoxy, and adhering to some antediluvian ideas to which they give the excuse of religion.” A related issue is Indian women’s signature “inferiority complex” (in Naidu’s unsparing terms, “Stupid humility, evasion of duty, polite and spurious modesty”), a corrective for which, Padmini proposes, is ministering to the suffering (seva) among India’s teeming masses: “Let us not hereafter labour under the misapprehension that the woman’s only proper sphere is the home, and that her activities must necessarily and profitably be limited to the home . . . we, the educated section of our sex, who have got the knowledge to give to others and the capacity to serve, must find time . . . to serve those who stand badly in need of such service” (“Misapprehension” 1929: 320). Those educated women who avoid public and communal responsibilities “should search their hearts for practical ideals of service to humanity” (“College Girls” 1934: 244); as long as there are orphans crying and widows wailing, as long as there exists the need for village reforms, literacy campaigns, swadeshi, and the revival of arts and crafts, there is no excuse for avoiding the responsibilities of social activism. The concept of female solidarity was not new, and in its modern iteration the earlier alignment between Indian men and women, united against empire and world, was increasingly subjected to critical analysis. Regarding “Women and Communal Differences,” Padmini Satthianadhan examines “unfortunate bad feeling” between Muslims and Hindu men over a football match: “To us women—the situation seems incomprehensible, and the want of public spirit and esprit-de-corps almost un-understandable,” particularly at a time when all must unite to “work for India as our motherland” (1937: 150). While football requires teamwork, its participants are vehemently divided along opposing “party” lines: “I stress the word men, because, as we have realised, women have not evidently got this sense of disunion” (151). 60 Indian women’s voices are still only a “whisper . . . lost in a babble of loud . . . men’s voices,” yet that whisper represents “the fundamental truth of real citizenship, on which alone can the ideals of a nation be built. . . . May we not . . . hope that men may take an example from women . . . forget their communal prejudices, and work towards the good of India, regardless of caste, race and creed?” The long history of tensions between Hindus and Muslims, so tragically played out in the 1947 partition—and here poignantly anticipated through the symbolism of a football game—brings some clarity

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to all those debates about social intercourse, the complexities of which were as much internal (communal) as external (colonial). A paper on “Women’s Status” warned against complacency about Indian women’s progress (education, literacy, gainful employment), which affected only about 2 percent of the population: neither education nor literacy have “yet percolated to the greater mass of Indian women” (1936: 6), who “conveniently and discreetly” exist behind the veil of cultural invisibility. 61 Illiterate, impoverished, “denied even the possibility of ‘a decent human existence,’ with no thought for the expression of the individual self, how can such women take part in India’s life?” Also sobering is a reminder that the tiny privileged minority are themselves hobbled by the persistence of “antediluvian” attitudes: “Even among the educated classes, the existence of woman is trammeled by custom, tradition, religion and social convention. She is . . . born only to be married and to bear children . . . [which] has obviously to be altered if women are to progress.” 62 Even the franchise is a mockery of gender parity, as misogynist attitudes persist despite liberating legislation: “Every distinction, restriction, prohibition or permission, based upon sex must be abolished, and no legislation national or international, must be allowed to pass any more laws having a sex basis . . . [women] want to . . . enjoy all the advantages of citizenship [and to] shoulder all its burdens” (“Every” 1930: 337). Such an articulation marks a stunning advance in attitudes within one generation; what was earlier unthinkable is now praised as a compelling example of what women can and do accomplish: “The militant tactics of the Suffragists in Europe and the unquestioning sacrifices of women in India in the civil movement not long ago [Dandi], are instances . . . of the swift and efficient action, which women are able to accomplish.” If international gender solidarity trumps national heterosexual solidarity it is because, as conservatives rightly feared, educated women become critical thinkers who then “question the superiority of man.” Center to circumference, satyagraha involves individual swaraj, communal swadeshi, and national activism; a fourth quality extends to the international community, specifically confronting the warfare that “has disgraced Western civilization” (“Women’s War” 1930: 612). The AIWC urged “women all over the world to pray that India may be free to spin the thread of her own destiny”; nonviolent noncooperation is the medium, and the goal is world peace. Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy specified the “vital importance of disarmament for the peace and the happiness of the world,” for which Indian women should “give their whole-hearted support and sympathy” (AIWC 1930–1931: 202). The crucial work for women is to forge “international unity” through networking and organizations such as the International League of Nations (“Place of Women” 1933: 208). The Twelfth Congress of International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship (Istanbul) vowed solidarity in the “service of peace and amity . . . the world . . .

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[must] exclude war as a means of settlement of dispute” (“Women and Peace” 1936: 9). Practical recommendations ranged from international disarmament to eradicating rhetoric in children’s textbooks that promoted “animosity against another nation” in favor of books advocating “a spirit of understanding among races, nations, and classes”; and from “unalterable faith in the League of Nations” to the “propagation of peace through broadcasting and cinemas.” Those women in a position to do so redefined the maternal imperative according to their own perception of the spirit of the age: Remember that the children you bring up . . . have to live in the world, and it is the mother’s right and obligation to see that the world is fit for her children to live in. It cannot be, so long as there is oppression, disease, pauperism and war. That is why the woman is in her right place when she assembles with other women to consider these problems. It is as much her place as the kitchen or the childbed. (Sahodari, “News” 1936: 27) 63

Speaking for the rising generation, K. Krishnan’s “Mission of Youth” features a young idealist distressed by such polarities as the caste system and universal brotherhood, religious tolerance and narrow-minded bigotry, patriotism and ethnocentrism. The protagonist asserts that one cannot “forget one’s mother when she is alive and adopt another . . . [but] one must not cling to the idea that his mother alone is the best of all mothers! Universal brotherhood through nationhood should be the motto of the young” (1935: 197). Nearly a century later, such impulses toward global responsibility beyond geopolitical boundaries still seems sadly premature—not in spirit, surely, but in terms of progress toward its palpable realization. That said, it is the gradually evolving understanding of the proper roles for women—not as prescribed by others, but by and for themselves and for the children they bring into the world—that fostered a vision in which world peace became imaginable. Tagore posits that the “unbalancing of civilization” stems from the privileging of masculinity over femininity, the latter typically regarded “merely decorative”: woman must come into the bruised and maimed world of the individual. She must claim each one of them as her own—the useless and the insignificant, the lowliest and the lost. The world with its insulted individuals has sent its appeal to her . . . the rudely-elbowing age of relentless capacity will give way to that of a generous communion of minds and means, when individuals will not be allowed to be terrorized into abject submission by idealistic bullies. (AIWC, “Rabindranath” 1934: 32)

A prescient analysis of such “unbalancing of civilization” considers the historical “alternation of power” between East and West (Ambravaneswar,

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“Ideal” 1912: 202). Humanity’s long history of warfare is what fueled globalization, implicating religions, social influences, intellectual advances, cultural assimilation, commercial exploitation, colonialism, and imperialism. In the mid-nineteenth century, Eastern values were reinvigorated by “the amicable agreement between the Land of the Rising Sun [Japan] and the Empire on which the Sun never sets” (203), a hopeful indication that eventually East and West will evolve into a peaceful, collaborative world order, based on equality, self-improvement, and adaptability. Whereas “The Ideal of the East” is quietism, contemplation, and duty to family and nation at the expense of participating in the global community (204), “The Ideal of the West” emphasizes individualism and human achievement, sometimes at the expense of “moral . . . and . . . ethical principles” (205). The West’s “Promethean spark . . . applied to the dormant energies of the East, will conduce to the development of the perfect humanity”; as for “The Ideal of the Future,” East and West are complementary forces “made for each other,” designed to fuse “the best elements of both” to create a new global community. 64 The possibilities are “boundless” and the difficulties “appalling,” but mutually beneficial synthesis is not only worthwhile in itself but crucial to the survival of the human race. A quarter-century after Ambravaneswar’s prophetic insights, the tumultuous period leading up to World War II was marked by “gloom and apprehension,” casting “discredit on this much-vaunted century of Progress” (Amiruddin, “Fellowship” 1937: 240). While the spirit of nationalism is essential to mobilizing for independence, that same concept is what fuels the coming war; the current era of “ultranationalism” and “supermaterialism” represents “a magnified form of individual selfishness, reinforced by the current materialistic trend” and fostering “aggression and aggrandizement.” The “enemies of peace”—greed, pride, and arrogance—“cannot be killed with guns”: Religion . . . [is] the true basis of peace . . . the weaving of the righteousness in the whole fabric of human relations, the creation of a spirit of goodwill and fellowship among men, and the cultivation of the mind that builds bridges of understanding across chasms of prejudice. . . . The heart of man is the untaken fort; against it all power is useless except the power of religion.

World religions are based on peace and nonviolence, values perverted by the murder and destruction historically conducted by man in the name of God; whether religious or geopolitical, any form of separatism displays ignorance of humans’ fundamental interdependence: “Life is a unity and man is part of that life . . . part of that one world process. . . . The Universe is an organism and the well-being of one country is as important . . . as that of any other. The integrity and prosperity of each . . . is essential for the happiness of the world” (240–41). And yet, as Padmini Satthianadhan expressed in her Christ-

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mas poem, the time is marked by global degeneration into the Second World War: instead of angels’ “joyous tidings” celebrating the Prince of Peace, it is a time of “hatred and the lust for power. . . . We hear of naught but death from dawn to dawn” (“Glad Tidings” 1936: 209). From a more secular standpoint, Sarojini Naidu urges women to extend their personal, communal, and national development internationally: “Is this not then a great work for Indian women today?” (“Place of Women” 1933: 208–9). Vijaya Pandit agrees—“Let us work for equality and freedom for our sex by all means”—while also emphasizing the bigger picture: “Let us not forget the more important issue of equality and freedom for humanity . . . let us help to make the world beautiful to live in” (AIWC, “Vijaya” 1937: 22). India’s global presence and embrace of internationalism resulting from the independence movement seems to have caught observers throughout the world by surprise, assuming as many did that—far from taking on the issue of world peace—women would settle back into their traditional roles following independence, as if female emancipation was only a temporary rhetorical means to a palpable sociopolitical end. 65 NOTES 1. Compare with the Muslim viewpoint, as ideologically alienated by the implied “sexualization” of Christianity (mother of God, son of God) as by Hinduism’s Kali and Indian nationalism’s Bharat Mata. 2. Gilmour notes that Anne Wilson, “a perceptive memsahib, came close to the truth when she noted that Victoria ‘was worshipped by Her people in India, who identified Her with their gods, and to whom She was an incarnation of Motherhood’” (Ruling 7). Sarkar writes of the shift from the imperial Mother Goddess, “the Great Queen Victoria, on whom a formidable load of emotional effusion was lavished” to “Mother India, a mother more authentic, more giving and very close to the Indian child” (“Nationalist” 2011). 3. “The ideas of Hindu revivalism, long an important part of women’s movement ideology, also involved female subordination to men. While there were elements of Hindu tradition that honoured women, the honor usually stemmed from service to a man” (Everett, Women 65). 4. Manu is not the best example, having decreed that “a woman must never be independent: in childhood she must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, and in old age, after the death of her husband, to her son . . . because at the time of her creation, the Creator gave her a love of her bed, her seat, and of ornament, and endowed her with impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct” (Kosambi, “Women” 38). In the Western tradition, it is Eve’s curiosity and disobedience for which humanity must pay the price for eternity. 5. See “Social Intercourse” (1901: 121) and “Victoria Guild” (1902: 122); also “Life and Character of Queen Victoria,” “Indian Women’s Victoria Memorial,” “Women’s Memorial to Queen Victoria”; S. Banerjee, Parlour; and Burke and Quraishi, British. 6. W. B. Yeats’s 1902 play (in collaboration with Lady Gregory) Cathleen ni Houlihan dramatizes the feminine personification of Ireland (also named Kathleen, Caitlin, and SeanBhean Bhocht or the Poor Old Woman). 7. The “map of India itself has been iconized in the feminine and divine form of Bharat Mata or Mother India, with its own characteristic iconographic marks” (Chatterjee, Lineages 154). See also Ramaswamy, Goddess. 8. “Bande Mataram” (Hail! Mother India) by Bankimchandra Chatterjee. 9. See “A Great Lady Sahib: Queen Alexandra.” The “intensely patriotic” Queen Mary, in her own form of swaraj, wore clothing made exclusively of British materials and by British

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workers (“Queen Mary” 1910: 123). Chaudhuri (“Shawls”) notes that memsahibs typically refused to adopt Indian-made fabric, styles, or furnishings, and yet there existed a lively export trade of such goods shipped to and consumed in England. What in India suggested cultural assimilation and thus disloyalty (wearing and using Indian products), in England implied the visualization of ownership (colonization), acquired or discarded like a suit of clothing or other commodities. 10. See Padmini Satthianadhan, “Reign of George V”; Pillar, “Trivandram Ladies’ Association”; “Some Incidents in the Life of Our Gracious Queen Mary”; and “Ode to Queen Mary.” 11. India “was placed in a master and servant, teacher and pupil, parent and child or . . . husband and wife relationship that justified the imposition of discipline, education and upbringing . . . the ‘civilizing mission’” (Fischer-Tine and Mann, Colonialism 6). 12. Pro-imperialist Alice Pennell (sister of Cornelia and Susie Sorabji) implies it is the “bride” who is endowed with—rather than bereft of—her fortune. 13. To the ancients, Annapurna represented a “superlative abundance of food . . . [now] no longer available for her children. The struggle for freedom . . . gets expressed as a struggle for food” (Sarkar, “Nationalist” 2012). 14. Indian identity politics offer variations on this theme: “That household is our motherland, that family is our India” (Sarkar, Hindu 36). Bengali nationalism was based on “the politics of relationships within the family. . . . Conjugality . . . [consists of] the apparent absolutism of one partner and the total subordination of the other,” thus replicating colonial relations (37; 39). See J. Bagchi on the “mythicising of . . . motherhood that nationalism borrowed from the prevalence of the mother cult in Bengal” (“Representing” 65). Charu Gupta writes of the “regulation of female sexuality in order to control women, justify domination and subordination, and uphold community ‘honour’”; in this way, nationalism keeps “ethnic boundaries intact”—preserving the status quo in the guise of social progress and modernization— while promoting the false dichotomy distinguishing “internal cohesion” from “external differences” (7–8). 15. Given the threat suffragism posed to patriarchal hegemony, it is not surprising that such accounts were sensationalized in the press. “Unwomanliness” was a standard charge against women anywhere attempting to widen the margins of their existence. See also “Letter from South African Indian Women’s Protest.” Gandhi, interestingly, was “greatly impressed by the courage of women protesting at the House of Commons and of their determination to serve time in prison for their cause” (Burton, Burdens 199). 16. On the economic challenges of working Englishwomen, see “Cheapness of Women.” 17. Women’s economic independence is a necessary end in itself: “education should be achieved, not in order to increase their fascination and thus attract a husband more easily, but in order . . . to earn their own livelihood . . . and thus be free and independent” (“Vijaya . . . Economic” 1936: 107). Education must prepare women to “meet the demands” of modern life, develop their personality, and cultivate critical thinking. 18. Because “women have not had to fight for the vote in India, as they had to fight elsewhere” (Ali, Cultural 306), many failed to comprehend the urgency of exercising that right. See also “Dr. Besant on Indian Women’s Progress,” “Women’s Franchise,” Wright’s “Some Thoughts,” Rao’s “Indian Women and Nationalism,” and “Women’s Activities in India.” 19. Tennyson’s cloistered Lady of Shalott was condemned to be locked alone in a tower, weaving tapestries and, like a purdahnashin, cut off from the outside world. 20. A notable advertisement in ILM was for the Deccan Assurance Co., Ltd., “The only assurance company which accepts women’s lives on the same rates of premium as men” (1930–1931). One reason women’s lives were regarded as less insurable was the high rate of maternal mortality; see “Current Comments” (1937: 159). 21. British American Mary Victoria Curzon, Baroness (1870–1906), Vicerine of India. George Nathaniel Curzon, First Marquess (1859–1925), Viceroy of India (1899–1905). 22. India Calling comments on Indian freedom, advancement, and self-determination, and on the nonviolence of the Civil Disobedience Movement, despite police brutality against women, the elderly and unarmed, and the incarcerated. The author evades the question of mutual animosity by emphasizing material concerns: “an early settlement of the Indian constitutional

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problem is vital to the restoration of British industry and trade and the reduction of unemployment. . . . Magnanimity will be met with magnanimity. England must rise to the occasion” (26). 23. See also S. Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903–1908. 24. Curzon’s instructions to the military highlight his lack of diplomacy: “Your task is to fight for the right . . . to remember that the Almighty has placed your hand on the mightiest of his ploughs, in whose furrows the nations of the future are germinating and taking shape . . . to feel that somewhere among those millions you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a spring of patriotism, a dawn of intellectual enlightenment, or a stirring of duty where it did not before exist—that is enough, that is the Englishman’s justification in India” (qtd. Couto, “Clinging” 37). See also Kumar, History (41–42). 25. Like Macaulay, Curzon did not care “to understand Indian sentiment”: he viewed criticism as “evidences of Indian obstructionism. . . . His high concept of the imperial responsibilities . . . was embarrassing to the British in India and provoking to the Indian at a particularly sensitive period in national development” (Natarajan, History 142–43). In 1905, Gokhale remarked that Curzon “has no sympathy with popular aspirations, and when he finds them in a subject people, he thinks he is rendering their country a service by trying to put them down” (qtd. Natarajan, History 143). 26. The swadeshi movement “would not have succeeded at all without the aid of women” (Borthwick, Changing 354–55). The 1905 partition was “the most significant political event” in the “mobilization of the bhadramahila [gentlewomen]” (348), linking women as consumers with swadeshi. The event also highlighted women as producers: recuperating traditional handcrafts and organizing bazaars and exhibitions of indigenous arts and crafts. 27. “As nationalistic activity escalated, British administrative measures became more stringent. Suppression of nationalist papers was an inevitable step . . . to check this rising tide of political subversion” (Singh, “Political Activism” 53). Chapman and Allison’s commentary on The Pioneer is relevant to ILM: “female direct action in the form of boycotts, pickets, burning of cloth and other forms of civil disobedience presented a dilemma”; editorial accounts aimed to report such events without seeming to “condone violence” or to publicize “illegal activities” (681). ILM’s muted coverage favored “peaceful self-emancipation . . . [and] the emerging citizenship of women” (education, conferences, social reforms) over more overt forms of civil disobedience. See Natarajan (History 137–38). 28. ILM’s cooking and needlework articles featured both Eastern and Western traditions. 29. See Fyzee, “Some Observations.” During World War I, fancy work was used therapeutically by sufferers of a uniquely modern malady, shell shock (see “Needlework Cure”). 30. Gandhi noted that Ruskin’s Unto this Last (1860), which promotes traditional arts and crafts over industrialization, was influential in shaping his ideological platform. See also “Hindu Ladies’ Social and Literary Club”; “Mabila Samaj Fancy Fair”; and “Women’s Section of the Industrial and Agricultural Exhibit.” Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya is known for her advocacy of traditional arts and crafts, promoting their protection and preservation of authenticity as a matter of national honor. 31. Satthianadhan contributed to a number of women’s cooperatives in Madras, including cottage industries, gardens, poultry raising, and needle working (Sengupta, Portrait 186). 32. “Revive the Dance” proposes that the study of ancient music and dance be mandatory. See “Sacred Dances of the Ancient Tamils,” “Indian Dancing,” “Dancing in India,” and Srinivas, “Kathakali . . . Malabar.” 33. One perspective considers prostitution necessary for preserving communal morality, effectually sacrificing the few (prostitutes) for the good of the many (Angels-in-the-House). East and West, man escapes scrutiny despite being the central organizing factor in the equation. See Banerjee (Parlour); Kumar (History 36); Kishwar (“Arya” 10); and Das, Sketches of Hindoo Life. See also Nautch Women; Nautches; Fuller, Wrongs; and Fanny Parkes, Wanderings. “Miranda, or ‘the Ideal Woman’” posits that once every woman understands the worth of her “jewel” or “dower” (chastity), “the problem of Dancing-girlism . . . [will] stand resolved of its own accord” (1913: 28); ignoring a host of complications, Chinna Kanna proposes compulsory marriage as the solution for prostitution. Most such commentary relies on unexamined platitudes and clichés rather than critical analyses.

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34. See “Dancing Girls in Temples” and “Nautch Dance.” 35. On fine arts, see “Mr. Ravi Varma,” “Death of Mr. Ravi Varma”; “Two Pictures by Mr. Ravi Varma”; “Paintings of Ravi Varma”; “Ravi Varma the Indian Artist”; Rohini, “Art as a Career for Indian Women”; and Guha-Thakurta, “Recovering the Nation’s Art” (in Chatterjee, Texts). Raja Ravi Varma, a “prince from Kerala in the south,” was regarded the “best Indian representative” of the “Western academic school” of painting patronized by “the rich, the landlords and the ‘rajas’ and ‘maharajas’” (Banerjee, Parlour 193–94). 36. See “Correspondence from Satyarala Devi”; “Music in India”; “Indian Music”; Fyzee, “Scheme”; “Indian Musical Competition”; “All-India Academy of Music”; “Place of Music in Education”; “Singing”; “Historical Position of Female Singers”; “School of Indian Music”; “Indian Music and the Veena”; “Hindu System of Music”; “Value of Music”; “Music and Dance in India.” On stage acting, see “Thespian Art”; “Art and the Stage”; “Modern Vernacular Drama”; “Women as Men-Actors”; and S. Banerjee, Parlour on the 1876 Dramatic Performances Control Act (184–88) and aesthetic values (198). 37. Vernacular theater was particularly lively in West Bengal (Kolkata) and, in the nineteenth century, was vigorously suppressed for its capacity to publicize nationalist propaganda beyond the limitations of the press. The Dramatic Performances Act (1879) was still in place well after independence. See Banham (Cambridge 184). 38. See also “Speech of H. H. the Maharani of Cooch Behar” on Indian literature, history, arts and industries. 39. Rau asks how the comparatively few educated Indian women are “going to bridge over the gulf” separating them from their “less fortunate sisters. The thought itself is appalling, and one cannot imagine without a certain amount of concern, the amount of labour, energy and time involved in raising the average standard” (“Modern” 1929: 164). A half-century later (1970s), female literacy in India was at 20 percent. 40. Hossain emphasized education over “the hoary tradition of purdah,” the latter based on the “selfishness of men and mental slavery of women” (Ray, “Voice” 429, 435); their jewelry symbolizes shackles and chains, “badges of slavery” (434), the money for which should be invested in their education. She argued that “marriage was not the ultimate goal, family was not the ultimate end” (439) for women. See also “Craze for Jewels” and B. Bagchi’s “Towards Ladyland.” 41. Europeans viewed the sari as immodest, as it left women vulnerable to exposure from the waist up. Indian Christian women (Kamala, Ramabai) wore English-style long-sleeved, high-necked blouses beneath their saris; some Bengali women wore petticoats and shoes beneath theirs. Because traditional dress represented “a distinctively Indian feminine identity,” any deviation—even critiques of elaborate jewelry—implied Westernization (Seth, Subject 144). Similarly, Muslim women’s dress is “hardly sufficient or decent” for public wear without a burkha; their “meager but time honoured attire” signified disempowerment and limitations (Quraishi, “Mussalman” 1903: 183). See also Sister Suzie (1929); “Indian Christian Ladies, Their Fashions”; and Chatterjee (“Nationalist” 240). 42. Gandhi required compliance and control and “Kamaladevi was too independent,” exemplifying “how Congress [INC] sought to checkmate the women’s movement while formally supporting it” (Nanda, Kamaladevi x). He disapproved of her divorce and preferred to cultivate women activists “whose presence would be symbolic of their support to women without posing any challenge to male authority” (84). Naidu was scrutinized by nationalists who questioned the appropriateness and relevance of her cosmopolitanism, materialism, and bohemianism to the nationalist agenda; though not divorced, she was rarely at home while engaged in liberating Mother India, instead reveling in the public spotlight. 43. According to the British Commonwealth League, “whatever might be one’s views on the merits of the present movement, the country might well be proud of the part women were playing alongside men” (1930: 557–58). 44. An estimated twenty thousand women satyagrahis were arrested and imprisoned in 1930–1931 (Kumar, History 80). 45. Accounts of Gandhi’s attitude toward unrespectable women satyagrahis differ radically. In 1921, he met with a group of devadasis and accepted the money and jewelry they had collected for the nationalist cause. But in 1925, he rejected “the inclusion of the prostitutes of

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Barisaal in the cause of the Congress party . . . on the ground of their immorality” (Sangari and Vaid, Recasting 22); unchaste women “engaging in ‘humanitarian work’ before they reformed themselves” are “obscene” thieves who “stole ‘the virtue of society’” (Kumar, History 83–84). Liberal or progressive commentary on uplifting “untouchables” did not extend to sexually compromised females of any age or caste, whose state was assumed to result from moral laxity rather than socioeconomic circumstance. 46. Despite the international sociopolitical fracturing it represented, the World War II era was more remarkable for gender solidarity than for nationalist agendas, the latter involving the reification of separate spheres in the name of patriotism. East and West, nationalist identity politics were obsessed with female sexuality to an extent that would have made the Victorians blush. Women were allowed outside the home to participate in nation building (harvesting salt, building airplanes, making bombs) and, when the war was over and independence won, pushed back into the domestic realm, their once-crucial assistance now posing a threat to male economic supremacy. 47. British Commonwealth League (est. 1923) grew out of the suffrage movement and promoted education and civil rights for women and girls. 48. Perinbehn Captain (1888–1958), grand-daughter of Dadabhai Naoroji; a founder of National Women’s Association (1921) and first woman president of Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee (1930). Hansa Mehta (1897–1995), active in AIWC and the Congress; participant in the Civil Disobedience movement (1930, 1932, 1940). 49. Rohini asks why woman’s progress is so easily undermined: “No sooner does a Hitler take a nation into command and say that woman’s place is the three ‘Ks,’ kirche, kuche, und kinder, than women give up all their hard-won liberty . . . she renounces all that she herself fought for so vigorously . . . and flouts all those who would strive to defy her dictatorial idol” (“Are Women” 1936: 91). See “New Type”; also Hillis (“Successes”) on working women whose “selfishness” keeps the needy and destitute unemployed. If homemaking were appropriately remunerated, Hillis posits, all women would marry and global economic problems would be resolved. 50. Begum Amiruddin notes that, despite women’s progress in other parts of the world, the reverse is true of Italy and Germany, where according to Goering, “‘Women are fit to be masters only of pots and pans’” (“Lecture” 1937: 9). 51. Why this is so remains unexamined, as do the motivations prompting women to become prostitutes (immorality? economic desperation?). See Besant, “Education of Women” and “Annie Besant” (1909: 266). 52. See Gangadharan, “Indian Women and Economic Independence”; “Marriages”; E. Mannin, “Should Married Women Work?”; “Should Married Women Earn?”; “Sri Sarada Vidyalaya, Madras”; and “Madras Seva Sadan.” 53. The “strain” placed on females by education and professions refers to the Victorian idea that mental exertion compromises reproductive capacities and thus threatens annihilation of the human race. Fin de siècle eugenics applied this thinking to imperialist and nationalist interests. Perhaps Amicus is here being facetious: “Woman’s home is a sanctuary where great and noble men are to be reared. It is not possible for the average woman to interest herself in politics, unless she is unmarried, or childless, or has grown-up children, or is in circumstances that drive her to make her own living” (“Women in Politics” 1929: 44); see also Amicus, “Work for Indian Women” on women who neglect husband, children, and home to pursue political interests. 54. Petitioned to allow women into the Bombay Corporation, members “proposed the impossible condition that the ladies who aspired to be civic fathers . . . should remain single . . . [taking] a vow of celibacy for . . . the prosaic privilege of transacting municipal business” (“Bombay Corporation” 1906: 31). Alternatively, the Bishop of Durham claimed that childless women lack the “indispensable condition of motherly character” and this makes them unfit for “public life.” See also Rao, “Indian Women and Nationalism.” 55. Admitting women to the Bombay Corporation “will be a check against garrulity on the part of male corporators . . . [and] exercise a sobering and chastening influence” (“Bombay Corporation” 1906: 31).

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56. On Indian women’s signature “inferiority complex,” see “Child Heroine” and “Indian Women.” 57. Between Indian women of wealth and leisure and the drudgery of poor women, “Which here are the womanly women?” (“Womanliness” 1877: 106). 58. On the “shatter[ing of] post-colonial complacency about the improving status of women and . . . the legitimacy of nationalist models of reform and ‘development,’” see Sangari and Vaid, Recasting (2). 59. Kamala argued that women’s “peculiar adaptability” and “practical knowledge” of organizing and economizing result from domestic and family management; they have “innate intelligence” and “peculiar capacity” to assume public responsibilities. They should “not be hindered” by customs or men but permitted to depend upon themselves (“Indian Women” 1935: 29). See P. Satthianadhan, “Have Women a Mission?” 60. “As with all historical empires, there are only two ways in which the civilizing imperial force can operate: a pedagogy of violence and a pedagogy of culture” (Chatterjee, Lineages 245). This dynamic is also gendered. 61. See “Social Problems in India”; Burke and Quraishi, British (154); “Depressed Classes Mission, Bombay”; and “Infantile Mortality.” 62. “While early nineteenth century reformers argued that women’s difference from men was no reason for their subjection, later reformers argued that it was precisely this difference which made women socially useful (as mothers), and hence proper care for their conditions of being was socially necessary . . . the ‘womanly woman’ . . . the ideal ‘Aryan’ woman . . . was defined by reformers, revivalists and nationalists alike, using a mixture of Anglicism and Orientalism” (Kumar, History 2, 8). Womanly virtues are “defined by the concepts of order, efficiency and cleanliness, and the housewife herself the hardworking upholder of these same standards” (Walsh, “Virtuous” 355). 63. See also “World Educational Conference, Tokyo” (1937: 256). 64. See “England and India, a Comparison.” In the past, Europe learned from Asia, and now Asia must learn from the West, its influence being inevitable to modernization; and so the pendulum marking cultural ascendancy continues its arc from one to the other and back again. 65. See also “League of Peace” and “League of Nations.”

Conclusion End of The Indian Ladies’ Magazine

After tracing the progress of Indian women from the death of Queen-Empress Victoria through 1930s satyagraha, The Indian Ladies’ Magazine suddenly ceased after January 1938 without explanation—although world wars, international economic depression, fascism, Nazism, imperialism, and a host of related factors clearly intensified the financial fragility long plaguing the magazine. That Kamala Satthianadhan persisted in promoting cooperation and peace making during one of the most relentlessly martial periods in human history suggested to some a regrettably unpatriotic adherence to an Anglicized-Christian-humanist value system. But to others, it represented an informed effort to instill certain modernizing values into India’s independence and democracy movements while championing nationalist identity; particularly striking is the development associating women with peace, extending from individual and family to the global community. From its inception, ILM was itself a cottage industry, its fiscal viability measured by modest standards, its popularity assured but its circulation constrained by a population 98 percent illiterate and impoverished. Its history is marked by editorial appeals indicating Kamala’s struggles to keep the endeavor stable; as early as 1908, it was “not progressing financially,” requiring her to absorb expenses “out of my own pocket” and prompting the proposal to publish bimonthly rather than monthly (Indian 1908: 304). 1 With characteristic humility, Kamala asks not for contributions but suggestions and advice, appealing to “the kindness of the public, whom I now ask to help me.” Insofar as women “must be gentle, must forgive,” her keen literary sensibility was not matched by rigorous business savvy. 2 When World War I intensified the strain on ILM’s finances, Kamala appealed to each reader to 241

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“procure us one new subscriber” so that ILM could continue to be “a vehicle” for recording the activities of Indian women and “an instrument for the furtherance of their progress in every way” (“Ourselves” 1915: 41). Sengupta writes that ILM did not gain the real support that a business venture should. . . . Despite her own financial difficulties, she continued to pour hard-earned money into the venture. Kamala received no other encouragement than that of a small annual subscription from her regular subscribers, and of course contributions of free articles from her faithful writers. (Finkelstein, Negotiating 44–45)

During its second run (1927–1938), ILM’s ideological purpose remained consistent: to help forward the cause of women’s education in India, partly by representing and interpreting the inner life of Indian womanhood . . . partly by making itself a mouthpiece for the aspirations of the educated section, in whom our chief hope lies; partly by bringing forward the example of the social, literary and philanthropic work of women of the West; and partly by holding up the ancient ideals of Indian womanhood. (Menon 1902: 53)

Contemporary topics included Girl Guides, women in sports and the professions, and women’s roles in preserving cottage industries, in developing new technologies such as cinema and photography, and in peace activism. 3 But again, appeals concerning “the sad state of our finances” soon followed; production costs outweighed subscriptions, and ILM—still a cottage industry—remained unsupported by any “company or committee of promoters” (“Appeal” 1931: 231). That it was still “one of the very few [English] papers in India” for women and by women compellingly aligns it with more pressworthy demonstrations of nationalism; but in an open letter to subscribers, she admits that it continues under “very difficult circumstances” and asks “whether the journal should be continued or not” (“Dear Friend” 1933: n.p.). ILM’s advertisements promoted Indian-made products and businesses and provided some minimal revenue, but the most poignant advertisement was for the magazine itself, a plaintive “To Let” being all that adorned quarter, third, half, and even full pages in its commercial section. Sengupta’s biography does not account for the end of ILM. By the late 1930s, Kamala’s health was beginning to decline; in 1939, she attempted war relief work but her “badly deteriorated” health “could not stand the strain” (Sengupta, Portrait 184). Aside from finances and health, there are other considerations accounting for ILM’s end. 4 Kamala’s very ethnicity and faith represented a cultural anomaly: “Kamala and her husband never considered their community apart from the nation. While professing their faith in Christianity and never denying it, they identified themselves fully with national

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aspirations” (Portrait 53). But nationalist ethnocentrism viewed the Christian presence differently: Indian Christian women “began to be marginalized rapidly both within the women’s movement as well as in the broader national campaign that still engaged with social reform activities” (Anagol, Emergence 55). Perhaps Kamala’s reluctance to participate in more public activist displays was not due solely to her retiring personality. True also of Stri Dharma (Madras) and The Indian Magazine (London), ILM promoted crosscultural cooperation as its defining value; significantly, within a five-year period, all three magazines failed. Plausibly, the increase in anti-Western sentiment during the 1930s to some degree accounts for their collective end. Another consideration is ideological: ILM’s concept of womanliness seems only marginally adapted to an intensely politicized era. 5 That era was more welcoming to prominent nationalists like Sarojini Naidu, who dissociated herself from ILM at its most vulnerable; when Padmini confronted her— “If great women like you had but continued to write for it, or had even encouraged Kamala . . . it would not have been discontinued”—Naidu replied: The Magazine was once one of the most important publications in the country. It was needed to awake the women of India, to right their wrongs and to announce the clarion call of reformers; but it is needed no longer now. The women of the country think they know everything. They do not wish to be taught any longer. I am glad Kamala stopped the Magazine when she did. (Sengupta, Portrait 43)

Naidu’s bluntness spares no one, from the implication that Indian women’s sudden surge of political activism adequately accounts for ILM’s apparent redundancy to avoiding personal responsibility for helping to seal the struggling magazine’s fate. Padmini asks: had it not been the pioneer organ of women’s journalism in English in India, had it not fought for the rights of women, the happiness of the home, for justice and honesty, for unity in domestic, social and political fields, for the spread of enlightenment and education, for a healthy happy uninhibited outlook on life? Had it not held out a hand across the seas, when ignorance of India and her ways were still so common abroad, and bridged the gulf between the Occident and the Orient? . . . Had it not devoted pages to international friendship, and criticized fearlessly the tendency for the English to live as superior exiles in the country of their adoption, not willing really to become friends of India? . . . Had it not fulfilled the simple but much-ignored fact that Indian women were an integral part not only of their own homes; but of their province, country and the world? (Portrait 45)

Of course, the answer to these questions is yes, ILM certainly had realized all these accomplishments. Yet in the context of Indian women freedom fight-

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ers’ high-profile travels, politicizing, and incarcerations, some of Kamala’s neutralizing commentary ranges from contradictory to regressive. 6 As an activist, Naidu’s “impassioned utterance[s]” delivered with “force and wisdom . . . hope and courage” shocked audiences, coming “from the mouth of a woman . . . [outraged] that her sisters . . . should be cribbed, cabined and confined [sic]” (“Woman’s Call” 1904: 262–63). In contrast, Kamala’s concern with gentleness, forgiveness, and conservative viewpoints lacked the edginess and the capacity to shock associated with Naidu, Kamaladevi, and Vijaya Pandit. In 1933, she reiterated her commitment to accommodating conservative viewpoints: “there is no denying that the home is first of all the sphere of a woman that must form the bed-rock of her career,” but she adds, “woman has as good a brain as man . . . endurance and a moral character . . . is she then to waste her brain only on the home?” (“Advance” 1933: 161). 7 Kamala’s uneasy synthesis of New Woman and Victorian Angel continues through ILM’s end, her defiant commentary against Hitler and Mussolini’s pronouncements on “what woman really needs” undercut by promoting those same values herself. A pioneering endeavor in many regards, ILM ultimately “remained within the contours of bourgeois ideology articulated by the petty bourgeois male reformers” of the era (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 86), validating Naidu’s implication that ILM had become an anachronism; and when what “was once one of the most important publications in the country” ceased publication, few seemed to notice. As Geraldine Forbes notes, “The first generation of educated women found a voice: they wrote about their lives and about the conditions of women. The second generation acted. They articulated the needs of women, critiqued their society and the foreign rulers, and developed their own institutions” (Women 61). 8 Although they were the same age, the divergent paths of Kamala and Naidu replicate this shift. 9 The Indian Ladies’ Magazine records the rich period of women’s advancements prior to and during their participation in swaraj, swadeshi, and satyagraha. Its emphases on defining womanliness and modernizing womanhood served many purposes, reflected in Indian women’s exodus from the home into the streets, boycotting liquor stores and foreign goods shops, wearing khaddar, chanting slogans and organizing marches, peddling packets of salt in defiance of British law, forming cordons that police were reluctant to break, calmly waiting to be arrested, willingly jailed as political prisoners. These events herald an attitudinal shift in which womanliness is assured not by staying at home but by going out to reclaim and uplift Mother India, from center to periphery, one woman at a time. Mahatma Gandhi wrote: “The part played by women is indescribable. When the history of this movement comes to be written the sacrifices made by the women of India will occupy the foremost place . . . their wonderful awakening has fortified me in my faith that God is with us in this struggle” (Gandhi 1931: 493). From

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domestic ideology to militant activism and the wide range of developments linking the two, ILM’s contributions are central to that historical record. While ILM’s early influences were shaped by Victorian ideology, the Indian New Woman had less to do with “shrieking sisterhoods” than with a quintessentially nationalist expression of Indian identity. In 1906, the “new Indian womanhood” could only be envisioned within the marriage framework: “Our wives now promise to be, not what their mothers and grandmothers were, but what they themselves are going to be, which is naturally looked upon with envy and admiration . . . mixed with a certain amount of ignorant contempt” (“Our Wives” 1906: 165). Later in life, Kamala’s private assessment of the cost to women of gender-based custom is surprisingly grim: “Man wants his comforts, while woman longs for compliments. Man desires rest after the stress of life; but woman wakes suddenly to find that she has never lived at all . . . she has not carried out a hundred splendid plans” (Sengupta, Portrait 177). Typically, Indian women’s fate was bound solely by marriage and motherhood, but there are others—“some of them outstanding personalities, to whom a special environment is necessary to evolve their spiritual and other capabilities to their fullest, to fulfil their task” (“Aims . . . Education” 1901: 149). The self-effacing editor must herself be counted among those “outstanding personalities”; the era bridged by the high-Victorian, early Edwardian extremes of imperialism and India’s emancipation, unification, and independence provided that “special environment,” permitting a degree of evolution and development that—distinct from “better wives and mothers”—was fully an end in itself. Kamala Satthianadhan died on Republic Day, January 26, 1950, the personal significance of India’s independence highlighting her own private swaraj: to her freedom meant that we could look an Englishman in the face and no longer feel an inferiority complex. Indian women would also achieve the social freedom for which she had worked these long years—the liberation of her sisters from the wrongs they had suffered—for would not a free India also mean the raising of the status of women, as our Constitution proved a while later? With one stroke of the pen all discriminations were wiped away and women were to hold an equal position with men. 10 (Sengupta, Portrait 194)

It is this transformation—personal, communal, national, and global—constituting the most crucial and inspiring chapter in India’s history that was so eloquently articulated by and recorded in The Indian Ladies’ Magazine. NOTES 1. Between 1912 and 1917, ILM was published quarterly; from 1932 to 1938, it was published bimonthly.

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2. In preparation for sailing to England (1919), Satthianadhan sold their house “for half its real value, as the buyers obviously took advantage of Kamala’s lack of business acumen” (Sengupta, Portrait 103). 3. See “Work for Indian Women” by K. S. 4. During ILM’s second run, Kamala—who lived with her son, a civil servant—moved frequently throughout the country; she also wrote for Illustrated Weekly of India (Sengupta, Portrait 162). Padmini may have hastened ILM’s decline by resigning as co-editor in 1935 to write for India Monthly Magazine. 5. Chatterjee writes: “The new patriarchy advocated by nationalism conferred upon women the honour of a new social responsibility, and by associating the task of ‘female emancipation’ with the historical goal of sovereign nationhood, bound them to a new, and yet entirely legitimate, subordination” (“Nationalist” 248). 6. After the war, will women “tamely settle down to domestic life”? Woman must be educated in order “to understand and appreciate her true destiny in the scheme of existence” (Lazarus, “War” 1917: 7–9). 7. See also Sister Susie (1929); “Woman’s Sphere”; and Philip, “Some Problems in Women’s Work.” 8. Although a topic beyond the scope of this study, the post-independence third generation confronted a postwar backlash that intensified the domestic realm imperative. Yet women’s education opportunities continued to increase and intellectual influence expanded, producing subsequent generations of women activists and authors, scholars and politicians. 9. “Gradually . . . as Mrs. Naidu’s interests veered towards politics and Kamala refused to follow her, the two friends, who were born in the same year and died within a few months of each other, at the age of 70, drifted apart. Kamala had no call to be a politician. She felt that freedom could not be achieved unless the social evils prevailing in India at the time were eradicated” (Sengupta, Portrait 42). 10. Theoretically: legal emancipation (external) is one thing, but eradication of custombound prejudice (internal) is quite another. In post–World War II India—as anywhere else in the world, East and West, that was implicated in the war—those “war women” who had worked in public realms for relief programs, nationalization, and independence were sent back to the home in a feminist backlash that in turn gave rise to Second Wave Feminism. And so the pattern continues.

Appendix A Indian Ladies’ Magazine Specifications

The Indian Ladies’ Magazine. Edited by Kamala Satthianadhan. Madras: Methodist Publishing House. “A Monthly Journal conducted in the interests of the women of India. Published on the 12th of each Month. Subscriptions India/Ceylon/Burmah 4Rs. English 6 shillings. American $1.50.” Printed in two columns (first run), each number approximately thirty to thirty-five pages; second run printed without columns, page counts similar but varying with monthly, bimonthly (1932–1938), and quarterly (1912–1917) issuing. Location: To my knowledge, copies of ILM are available in only four collections: Union Theological Seminary (Columbia University), British Library, Connemara National Library in Chennai (lacking tables of contents; extremely fragile but shrink wrapped for protection), and National Library in Kolkata (not protected, severely damaged by insects and advanced deterioration). Unless uncatalogued somewhere, some ILM issues are apparently lost to posterity. See appendix C for detailed location information. Categories/columns/departments: Editorial (News and Notes, Editorial Notes, Current Comments, What Is Being Done for Indian Women, notices from the Editor, reader correspondence); literature (stories, poems, dramas, fancies, book reviews, literary criticism); announcements of essay competitions, conferences, social organizations, and political events; texts of speeches, addresses, and conference proceedings; news of women’s activities and accomplishments, regional/national/international; character sketches (biographical, social categories, literary); travel writings and memoirs; descriptive sketches (India’s geographic sites, cultural customs and practices, 247

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shrines, memorials); Distinguished Women and Their Work; Education; Indian Cookery; death notices of notable women, scientific and health discoveries, pending marriages, financial reports for the Ramabai Association, academic and social reform achievements, graduations; Street Scenes in South India; What Is Being Done by and for India’s Daughters; Womanhood; Women in Shakespeare; Series (“How English Girls Live,” Travels in Japan and Kashmir, Social Intercourse East and West); Some Useful Household Hints for Indian Ladies; Some Useful Hints for Mothers; Friendly Chats, Home Talks (nursing, first aid); Our Needlework Column, Our Cookery Column, and Varieties (household hints); Women of the Time; News about Indian Women; Wit and Wisdom; children’s pages, gardening, health and sanitary reform; sport; science; scriptural exegesis; music, dance, fine art; astronomy; cinema and record reviews; instructive and historical articles; chess, crosswords, and games; animal rights; fashion, needle working; etiquette; advice columns. Second-run coverage (from 1927) includes “illustrations and articles: general, literary, educational, descriptive, character sketches . . . correspondence and discussion, . . . articles for men, children’s columns, household hints, cookery, needlework, book reviews, health notes, chess notes, grammophone notes, medical articles.”

Appendix B Press Releases

Bombay Guardian: “We hope this new venture, published in English— which is the language understood alike by educated classes of Bengal, Bombay, Madras and Northern India—will become the bond of union it aspires to be amongst the influential section of India’s women. It is certain also to prove of interest to such European Ladies as take a real interest in their Indian sisters, and will doubtless find a warm welcome among a number of women in Great Britain and America whose hearts are large enough to care for the welfare of the people of India’s ancient civilization.” The Dnyanodaya (Bombay): “It has artistic merit as well as the merit of good quality . . . there is room for such a Magazine. We hope every Missionary Lady and many English Ladies will become subscribers, for it will help them to understand better the problems of Indian womanhood.” Subodha Patrika (Bombay): “The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, hailing from Madras, is an example of the capacity of our educated women to voice the feelings, grievances and aspirations of their sex. . . . The get-up of the Magazine is creditable to the feminine sense of beauty.” Daily Telegraph (London): “Sir Edwin Arnold . . . says of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine: ‘Those who turn the pages of this charming little publication will be surprised at the variety of intellectual topics, and more or less intelligent ideas about the natural capacities of Indian ladies, and the best way to expedite social freedom for them.’” The Indian Daily Telegraph (Lucknow): “The Indian Ladies’ Magazine is ‘very well printed, and is written with much ability and fancy.’”

249

250

Appendix B

London Times: “The Indian Ladies’ Magazine is a new periodical published in Madras. . . . Its object is to promote in every way it can the social progress and culture of the women of India . . . [it] is bright and interesting.” The Indian Daily News (Calcutta): “We have now to welcome an even more remarkable evidence of the culture of the southern satrapy in the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, a delightful and charming publication edited by a native lady of Madras. Its object is to advance the cause of the women of India, and if the first volume is to be accepted as an earnest of future excellence we are confident that object will be achieved. . . . The Magazine is sure of a welcome in every cultured household, Native or European.” The Voice of India: “It speaks much for the progress of female education in India, and of the cause of Indian womanhood in general, that Indian ladies should come forth and seek to participate in the higher life of the country by starting periodicals conducted mainly by themselves . . . we have no hesitation in saying that it will prove a valuable accession to the ranks of Indian journalism.” The Hindu (Madras): “The enterprise is indeed one of the noblest and . . . is calculated to produce immense benefit to the nation.” Daily Post (Bangalore): “There are innumerable topics upon which women’s views upon women’s interests are sufficiently apparent to make the scope of such a Journal eminently useful and profitable.” The Indian Magazine and Review: “This useful Magazine is now in its third year. The idea of starting such a Magazine was excellent. Even a few years ago the scheme could not have been carried out with much hope of success. But the rapid progress in the knowledge of English among Indian ladies, and their general development, as well as in many cases their increased facility of literary expression and their greater familiarity with English people, have caused the idea to become a promising reality. The illustrations help to make the Magazine popular.” Indian Witness (Calcutta): “The first number is edited with good judgment and most tastefully gotten up in every respect. We sincerely trust it may speedily win its way, as it deserves, to a large circulation and assured support. . . . The Indian Ladies’ Magazine for January is a splendid number, containing several excellent articles of which some are illustrations with photo-engravings executed in the best style. . . . Not many magazines are edited with better taste and judgment than this. Every Indian lady who can read English should subscribe for it.” Daily Telegraph (London): “A difficulty that has long been realized by those actively concerned with the educational progress of women in India, has been that of finding books other than their own classics for those who have mastered rather more than elementary knowledge. It is noteworthy, therefore, that this week’s mail brings with it a commendable effort to meet this want, in the new Indian Ladies’ Magazine, which will appear on the 12th

Appendix B

251

of each month in Madras. The editress is able to claim that most of the contributors to her columns will be ladies. It is published in English, which is being more and more widely understood in the Southern Presidency.” Madras Standard: “We hope that educated India will give the Magazine its ungrudging, generous and hearty support.” The Madras Mail: “The venture has much to commend it, and we hope that it will achieve the success it so well deserves. . . . The first number is excellent in every respect. . . .We trust that the Magazine will have a long and useful life and be of great assistance in realizing the object for which it has been started. . . . The venture has much to commend it, and we hope that it will achieve the success it so well deserves.” Madras Diocesan Record: “We warmly commend The Indian Ladies’ Magazine to the ladies of England and of India.” Indian Social Reformer (Bombay): “The articles treat of the past, present and the future in a tone of healthy, but not morbid, optimism. We should very much like to see the Magazine widely read by Indian ladies.” —K. Natarajan, Esq., BA The Indian Daily News (Calcutta): “The Magazine is sure of a welcome in every cultured household, native or European.” Voice of India: “Judging from its varied and thoughtful contents we have no hesitation in saying that it will prove a valuable accession to the ranks of Indian Journalism.” —B. Malabari, Esq. Kayastha Samachar (Allahabad): “We would appeal to all educated Indians to support the present deserving venture of Mrs. Satthianadhan’s, which . . . would soon be a power in the land in all matters pertaining to the cause of Indian women.” —S. Sinha, Esq. Indian Messenger (Calcutta): “The new Magazine promises, from its first number, to be an interesting and useful journal. . . . The aim of the Magazine is certainly a noble one and it is needless to say that there is ample scope and opportunity for any one who aspires to help the noble and urgent work of the advance of the cause of the women of India.” The Education Review: “The stories, sketches and prose . . . no less than the more solid matter, are well calculated, both in subject-matter and treatment, to appeal to every class of reader and to help on the cause which the Magazine has specially in view. We are glad to note that arrangements have been made with Tamil and Malayalam Magazines for the translation of some of the articles.” The Indian Daily Telegraph (Lucknow): “Madras, the Benighted Presidency, which so often comes in suddenly ahead of clever Bengal, able Bombay, and solid Hindoostan has just produced the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, edited, and, in a great part, written by Native Ladies. It has, we think, the most attractive cover in India, is very well printed, and is written with much ability and fancy.”

252

Appendix B

Madras Times: “The print and the paper make the dainty Magazine a pleasure to read, while the level of style and thought in the articles is high. . . . We can only add that if the claims of Indian women continue to be clearly, forcibly, and—the expression is not out of place—‘manfully’ put, and as winningly and gracefully, as in the first number, the man would be indeed dense and unworthy who would reject them with scorn.”

Appendix C ILM Publication and Subscription History: First Series (1901–1918) and Second Series (1927–1938)

Because some numbers of ILM are unavailable or lacking contents and subscription lists, this table is incomplete. FIRST SERIES Year

Vol

Available Missing Location a Frequency Total Subscribers b pages

1901– 1 1902c

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

378

471

1902– 2 1903

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

396

566

5

1–4/ 6–12

Columbia

monthly

1903– 3 1904

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

390

616

1904– 4d 1905

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

388

546

1905– 5e 1906

1–12

10/Apr

BritLib

monthlyf

376

789

1906– 6 1907

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

457

614

1907– 7 1908g

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

410

532

253

Appendix C

254 Year

Vol

1908– 8 1909

Available Missing Location a Frequency Total Subscribers b pages 1–9

10–12

BritLib

monthly

1–12h

0

Kolkata

monthly

1–12

0

BritLib

monthly

1–12

8?

Kolkata

monthly

1–11

[1]

BritLib

monthly

1–12

0

Kolkata

monthly

1–4, 6–12 5

BritLib

monthly

1–12

5?

Kolkata

monthly

1–11

12/Jun

Kolkata

quarterlyl

1913– 13m 1–4 1914

0

Kolkata

quarterly

1914– 14 1915

1–3

4n

Kolkata

quarterly

1915– 15 1916o

1–4

0

Kolkata

quarterly

4

1–3

Columbiap

i

1909– 9 1910

1910– 10 1911

1911– 11 1912k

1912– 12 1913

1916– 16 1917

s

1917– 17 1918r u

1918

18

j

Kolkata

quarterly

1–2

Columbia

quarterly

3–8

Columbia

Monthlyq

Kolkata

#5 Nov?

Columbia

1–12

Kolkata

430

397

505

360

336

305

353

272

1–4

1–12

367

179

t

monthly

57 monthly

Appendix C

255

SECOND SERIES Year

Vol Available Missing Location

1927– 1 1928

Frequency Total Subscribers pages

not found 1–3/6–7/ 9–12

4–5/8w

Connemara monthly?

670

5–12

1–4

BritLib

monthly

211– 670

1–12

0

BritLib

monthlyx

1–618 266

1–3/7/ 9–10

4/5–6/8/ Connemara 11–12

1930– 4 1931y

1–9z

10–12

BritLib

monthly

1–498 320

1931– 5 1932aa

2–12

1, 9

BritLib

monthlybb

1–344 42

BritLib

bimonthlycc

345– 598

1928– 2 1929v

1929– 3 1930

1933dd 6 ee

1934

1935ff

7

8

1–6

Connemara bimonthly

1–6

0

BritLib

1–6

0

Connemara bimonthly

1–6

0

BritLib

1–6 0

BritLib

bimonthly bimonthly

1936

9

1–6

0

BritLib

1937

10

1–6

0

Connemara bimonthly

1938

2–6

11

1

1

BritLib

1–258 249

bimonthly

1–6

10

1–312 410

bimonthly

Connemara bimonthly

gg

228

1–222 351

1–260 145 288[?]

bimonthly

BritLib

NOTES a. BritLib: British Library. Kolkata: National Library of India. Columbia: Burke Library. Connemara: National Library, Chennai. b. Subscriptions, listed by name, affiliation, and amount under “Acknowledgments” (generally, a monthly feature reflecting subscriptions from the previous month or months), are calculated in terms of the numbers involved. Some government or educational agencies ordered multiple subscriptions. That some subscribers paid less or more than the current subscription rates complicates arriving at accurate numbers. The numbers offered here are less precise than generally indicative of the journal’s circulation. c. First published by Methodist Publishing House, Madras.

256

Appendix C

d. No index for volume 4. e. No index for volume 5. f. Samuel Satthianadhan died suddenly on April 4, 1906; #10 was published in May (not April), and June should have been #12 but was #11. g. A notable increase in advertisements, gathered together as backmatter. h. National Library, Kolkata: holdings range from March 1909 (8.8) to May 1909 (7 [sic] .9); no April or June. i. The 1909–1910 index, vol. IX is mistakenly printed VIII. j. Only eleven numbers published, #5 missing but numbering continues. k. A note on the copy states #5–Nov. “was not published”; the next number is 6–Dec., the “Christmas and Coronation Number.” l. July through May. Subsequently published in July, October, January, and March. m. 1913, vol. 13, quarterly: 13.1 Jul.; 13.2 Oct.; 13.3 Jan. 1914; but 13.4 Mar. 1914 is not recorded. Volume 14: 14.l Jul; 14.2 Oct. n. “We have not been able to publish the fourth quarterly number of this Volume” (“Dear Friends” 1915: 2). o. Vol. 15, 1915–1916: 15.1 Jul.; 15.2 Oct.; 15.3 Jan.; 15.4 Apr. Handwritten note on copy: “There was no issue for April–June 1915 vide letter read from the publisher on 11–12–15.” Columbia: vol. 16: 16.1 Jul.; 16.2 Oct.; then monthly 16.3 Jan. forward. p. 1916: vol. XVI: two numbers under the quarterly system: 16.1 Jul.-Sept.; 16.2 Oct.-Dec. 1916. 1917 monthly: 16.3 Jan.—16.8 Aug. q. Note numbering shifts in Columbia holdings: for 1916, vol. 15.4 Apr.-Jun.; 16.1 Jul.Sept.; 16.2 Oct.-Dec. For 1917: 16.3 Jan.; 16.4 Feb.; 16.5 Mar.; 16.6 Apr.; 16.7 May.; 16.8 Jun. r. Volume 17, 1917–1918: 17.1 Jul.; 17.2 Aug.; 17.3–4 Sept.-Oct.; and 17.5 Nov. s. Vol. 17.1 (July) should be numbered pp. 1–32 (not 297–328); #2 begins at p. 33. t. May and June published together. u. Kolkata’s holdings for 1917–1918 are bizarrely numbered: 1917: 18.2 Nov.; 19.6 Dec. Then 1918: 10.7 Jan.; 11.8 Feb.; 12.9 Mar.; 18.10 Apr.; 14.11 May-Jun.; 16.12 Jul.; 17.13 Aug.; 18.14 Sept.; 14.15 Oct.; 16.16 Nov.; and 16.17 Dec. v. 1928: first available 2.5 Dec./pp. 211–80. w. 1928–1929 volume 2, numbers 5–12 Dec. 1928–Jul. 1929. x. Volume 3.4–5 Nov.-Dec. published together, pp. 151–222. y. Printed Empire Press, Calicut. z. Cover design change. aa. “Published courtesy of Professor D. Venkata Rao, Rajahmundry, Ampthill Press, Tripilcane, Madras.” Vol. 5, 1931–1932: 5.1 Sept. Unexplained gap from May–Aug 1931; June 1932 missing. bb. Monthly Aug.–Feb., then bimonthly. cc. March through December. dd. Printed by Chingleput Press. ee. Jan.–Feb. 1934: 7.1 pp. 1–48. Pages 311–34 (continued sequentially from previous year) should be 1–24 (correct on table of contents). ff. Jan.–Feb, 1935: 8.1. Pages numbered 259–284 but should be 1–26. gg. Vol. 10, 1937 and vol. 11, 1938 bound together: 10.2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (no #1) and 11.1 only.

Bibliography

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Index

Akbar, Mrs. Ali, 108, 142, 143, 156, 258 Albers, Christina, 64, 65–66, 68, 69, 69–70, 258 Ali, Hyder, 16, 33n28 Allahabad, 15, 25, 107, 170, 189, 224, 251 Ambedkar, B. R., 29, 35n57 America / Americans, 90, 92–93, 106, 170, 175–205; democracy, xxv, xxviii, 176, 178, 185, 189, 190, 192, 195–197, 199, 200, 201, 203, 205; education, 118n52, 182, 184, 201, 206n11, 207n17, 208n26; immigrants, 189, 200, 202; independence, xxviii, xxxiin40, 175, 176, 181, 185, 195, 206n1, 207n20; Indian travelers, xxviii, 90, 93, 170, 175–205, 206n8, 206n12, 207n16, 207n17, 207n19, 208n25, 210n52, 210n58, 211n68, 211n70; individualism, 183, 185, 187, 193, 195, 196–197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 207n16, 222; literature, 24, 52, 69, 189, 199, 206n2, 229; materialism, xx, 114n4, 190, 191, 194, 203, 209n44, 210n49, 210n56, 222, 234; philanthropy, xxvii, 90, 92, 106, 119n61, 176, 182, 183, 189, 193–194, 195, 201, 202; race, 177, 183, 189, 195, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 206n1, 208n35, 211n65, 211n68; relations with India / Indians, 26, 106, 147n39, 176–178, 187, 190, 191, 195–196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 207n19;

social equality, xxvii, 93, 106, 182, 183, 184, 185, 189, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205, 207n17, 207n20, 208n32; transcendentalism, 24, 205; women, 90, 92, 93, 177, 182–184, 185–187, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 198, 200, 201, 202, 204, 206n11, 207n16, 208n32, 208n33, 210n50, 210n52, 210n58, 223, 229, 249; work ethic (“dignity of labor”), 149n52, 185, 190–191, 192, 195, 198, 201, 203, 204, 206n1, 209n46, 210n47, 210n50, 210n52, 210n53, 210n56, 211n73. See also Athavale; Bose; Chattopadhyaya; feminism; Fyzee; Joshi; Mazumdar; Naidu; Nivedita; Ramabai; Reddy; L. Singh; S. Singh; Vivekananda; war; women’s social activism Amicus (Kamala Satthianadhan), xxxn20, xxxiii, xxxivn1, 28, 115n26, 146n23, 149n51, 162–163, 212n80, 222, 239n53 Amiruddin, Begum Mir, 156, 210n48, 234, 239n50, 258 Anglo-Indians, xix, xx, xxvi, xxvii, xxxn6, xxxiin37, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26–27, 31n4, 32n12, 38, 97, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 135, 140, 147n37, 148n46, 169, 178, 213, 214, 218, 223, 249; literature, 55, 63, 106; social relations, xx, xxvii, xxxn6, 7, 18, 19, 20, 123, 125, 134, 145n10, 145n11, 279

280

Index

147n32; women (memsahibs), 3, 18–19, 20, 33n33, 38, 87n13, 88n27, 97, 106, 124, 125–144, 144n6, 145n10, 145n11, 147n32, 160, 165, 169, 213, 215, 217, 223, 235n2, 235n9. See also British Raj; caste; social intercourse Appasamy, Kirubai, 194–195 Arnold, Matthew, 9, 56, 91, 140 Arnold, Sir Edwin, 140, 148n43, 249 arts and crafts, Indian. See Indian arts and crafts Athavale, Parvatibai, 107, 175, 176, 192, 200, 201, 264, 271 Austen, Jane, 52, 53, 84 Bengal, 11, 25, 26, 32n20, 32n22, 37, 57n13, 59n33, 110, 112, 119n62, 120n80, 131, 132, 146n27, 152, 154, 171n4, 209n44, 220, 221, 236n14, 238n37, 238n41, 249, 251; bhadraloks, 14, 32n22, 152–153, 172n16; bhadramahilas, 32n22, 152, 237n26; Partition (1905), 12, 14, 220, 221, 237n26; periodical publications, 11, 14, 15, 32n21, 34n35, 154. See also Curzon Besant, Annie, 16, 18, 19, 33n32, 54, 59n37, 67, 112, 123, 165–166, 173n31, 186 Bhabha, Homi, xviii, xx, xxiv, 53 Bharat Mata (Mother India), xxi, xxviii, 50, 69, 158, 213–235, 235n1, 235n7 Blackwell, Elizabeth, 118n52, 206n11 Bodley, Dr. Rachel, 180, 182 Bombay (Mumbai), 11, 16, 25, 26, 95, 107, 110, 114n13, 127, 155, 223, 239n54, 239n55, 249, 251 Bose, Sudhindra, 173n40, 175, 176, 200–201 British Commonwealth League, 227, 238n43, 239n47 British Raj, xv, xvi, xviii, xx, xxi, xxv, xxviii, xxxin27, xxxiin40, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31n3, 31n4, 32n13, 32n15, 32n19, 32n22, 33n34, 35n55, 47, 58n16, 61, 69, 77, 91, 96, 120n84, 120n85, 123, 124, 125, 127, 130, 140, 144n6, 147n33, 147n34, 147n38, 147n39, 148n41, 148n47, 152, 156, 161, 168, 171n7, 202, 206n1,

207n20, 208n31, 208n34, 211n68, 212n76, 215, 216, 218–221, 225, 226, 235n9, 237n25, 237n27; Chelmsford, Viceroy, 124; Curzon, Lady, 220, 236n19; Curzon, Lord, 220, 236n19, 236n21, 237n24, 237n25; Minto, Lady, 12, 94, 97, 115n21. See also AngloIndian; Orientalism; ethnocentrism; British royalty British royalty, xv, 217, 236n10; Alexandra, Queen, 69, 103, 217, 235n9; Edward VIII, King, 69, 217; Edwardian era, xviii, xxi, 4, 30, 69, 147n39, 194, 217, 245; Elizabeth, Queen, 217; George V, King, 217, 236n10; Mary, Queen, xv, 144n3, 217, 235n9, 236n10; Victoria, Queen-Empress, xv, xxii, xxviii, 22, 103, 116n33, 120n75, 159, 213–218, 235n2, 235n5, 241; Wales, Prince and Princess of, xv Burton, Antoinette, xxii, xxxin29, xxxiin33, 6, 7, 8, 30, 120n84, 208n25, 236n15 Butler, Josephine, 106, 112, 121n87 Calcutta (Kolkata), 3, 25, 26, 75, 96, 116n36, 118n59, 152, 154, 157, 220, 250, 251 Carpenter, Mary, 8, 98, 112, 115n29, 121n88. See also National Indian Association caste and class, xii, xx, xxi, xxv, xxvii, xxxn6, xxxn16, 14, 16, 24, 29, 34n39, 58n16, 61, 82, 91–97, 101, 102–104, 106–109, 111, 113, 114n3, 115n16, 115n17, 115n18, 117n43, 117n50, 118n51, 118n60, 119n62, 119n63, 119n71, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 135, 139, 141, 143, 145n17, 151, 152, 156, 158, 164, 172n27, 173n42, 179, 182, 182–195, 199, 204, 208n28, 225, 231, 233, 238n45; Brahmins, 16, 63, 66, 78, 91, 94, 102–108, 114n3, 115n16, 117n43, 117n50, 118n51, 118n60, 119n62, 119n63, 119n69, 119n71, 131, 146n23, 152, 156, 158, 179, 182, 183, 184, 188, 206n10, 208n28, 208n35; British and Indian relations, xii, xix, xx, xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxxn6, xxxn16,

Index xxxiin37, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18–20, 21, 27, 31n4, 32n12, 38, 55, 63, 96, 104, 106, 117n50, 123, 125–144, 145n11, 145n17, 147n37, 148n46, 152, 158, 169, 173n42, 190, 197, 208n28, 213, 218, 223; foreign influences on, xxv, xxvii, xxxn6, xxxn16, 29, 34n39, 61, 94, 104, 106, 109, 117n50, 125, 152, 158, 164, 185, 190, 192, 194, 208n28, 225; inter-dining, xxxn6, 94, 95, 96, 97, 115n17, 119n62, 127, 135, 172n27, 194–195; intermarriage, 24, 34n42, 82, 115n17, 172n27, 195; “untouchables” (harijans, scheduled classes, dalits), 16, 29, 34n39, 35n56, 35n57, 91, 96, 103, 106, 115n18, 115n27, 117n41, 117n43, 119n62, 119n63, 119n71, 141, 192, 205, 238n45. See also social intercourse Chapman, Maria Weston, 115n23, 171n7, 185, 237n27 Chatterjee, Partha, xx, xxxn5, xxxin24, 33n23, 33n25, 33n34, 60n39, 114n4, 118n58, 153, 171n1, 171n3, 171n12, 173n40, 210n49, 217, 235n7, 238n35, 238n41 Chattopadhyaya, Kamaladevi, xxxn19, 18, 34n40, 120n77, 172n26, 175, 176, 201–203, 204, 212n75, 212n76, 226, 237n30, 238n42, 243 Chicago, 186, 188, 189, 197, 199, 200, 209n41, 211n65 Christian / Christianity, xi–xviii, xx, xxii, xxv, xxixn2, xxxn3, xxxn16, xxxiin35, 3, 5, 10, 15, 16, 29, 34n35, 34n42, 35n55, 47–50, 59n27, 59n29, 59n37, 61, 66, 67, 86n1, 88n26, 94–110, 117n49, 117n50, 118n53, 118n54, 119n61, 119n69, 119n71, 148n40, 148n42, 155, 157, 173n37, 175–180, 183, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 201, 206n12, 207n17, 207n20, 208n25, 209n43, 210n57, 213, 223, 235n1, 238n41; Anglican, xxxiin37, 86n3, 118n57, 173n37, 183, 207n18; Biblical allusions, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 58n20, 59n27, 84, 194, 213, 234, 235n1, 235n4; conversion, xx, xxv, 54, 66, 88n26, 103, 104, 105, 118n53, 118n57, 119n69, 148n40, 157, 173n35,

281

175, 179, 188, 189, 192, 206n12; education, xiv, xviii, xxv, xxixn2, xxxiin35, 3, 15, 16, 35n55, 119n69, 148n42, 156–157, 175, 176, 179, 186, 189, 206n12; Hindu / Indian, xv, xx, xxxn3, xxxn16, xxxiin35, 3, 59n29, 86n1, 103, 117n49, 118n53, 118n54, 119n69, 119n71, 173n37, 183, 189, 207n17, 207n20, 208n25, 238n41, 242; women, 49, 50, 94, 104, 105, 213, 223, 235n1. See also gender ideology; philanthropy; religion colonialism, xix–xxviii, xxxin27, xxxin29, xxxiin40, 3, 11–20, 31n4, 32n22, 34n45, 35n48, 57n14, 59n34, 59n36, 60n39, 61, 64, 117n43, 117n49, 120n79, 139, 152, 153, 156, 158, 171n3, 171n4, 171n12, 175, 201, 206n1, 208n25, 208n28, 208n34, 218–219, 231, 233, 236n14; anticolonialism, xxvi, 18, 28, 33n28, 59n36, 117n49, 152, 209n40, 211n68; “colonial encounter”, 35n48, 57n14, 61–62, 120n79, 152, 208n25, 214; postcolonialism, xviii–xx, xxi, xxii, 158, 202, 240n58. See also British Raj conferences, xiii, xv, 98, 133, 212n76, 226, 237n27, 247; All-India Women’s Conference, 17, 112, 194–202; Calcutta Women’s Conference, 96; Chicago National Conference of Women, 199; Ladies’ Conference, Allahabad, 170; London Round Table, 133, 134, 147n28, 227; Mahomedan Educational Conference, 155–156; World Conference of Religions, Chicago, 186, 188, 209n41 Cooch Behar, Maharani of, 59n33, 93, 94, 95, 238n38, 258 Corelli, Marie, xxvi, 38, 48–49, 58n22, 58n23, 58n25, 59n26, 62, 67, 78, 229. See also literary criticism; gender ideology, Victorian Cousins, Margaret, 18, 19, 34n40, 112, 121n90, 159 Dall, Caroline, 179–182, 206n7, 206n10, 206n14, 207n16

282

Index

Dandi Salt March (1930), 13, 19, 201, 205, 212n76, 226, 232. See also Gandhi, M. K. Delhi (New Delhi), 12, 17, 134, 140, 148n42, 220, 226 Delhi Durbars, 12, 134, 140, 148n42, 220 Devdhar, Kashibai, 106, 107, 119n66 Diver, Maud, 106, 182, 206n12 Draupadi (Mahabarata), xxvi, 52, 68, 162 Dufferin, Lady, 103, 112, 118n52 Dutt, Toru, xxiv, 52–53, 59n32, 64, 178 East India Company, xix, 11, 12, 16, 32n15, 154, 159 education, xi–xvi, xxv, xxviii, xxxiin34, xxxiin38, 3–9, 16, 17, 20, 23, 29, 30, 33n30, 53, 71, 76, 83, 89, 91, 93, 98, 105, 106, 108, 112, 115n14, 116n30, 120n85, 125, 127, 135, 144, 145n17, 146n24, 152–170, 172n14, 174n45, 181, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191, 193, 201, 207n17, 210n58, 225, 247, 248; and Christian missions, xv, xxv, 16, 35n55, 106, 108, 110, 119n72, 156, 179; curriculum debates, xxviii, 14, 20, 119n72, 152, 156, 157, 164, 166, 167, 171n4–171n8, 171n13, 172n14, 174n45; English language, 8, 33n30, 97, 125; western, xxv, 81, 91, 103, 120n85, 131, 149n52, 155, 156, 158, 167, 171n7, 173n34, 207n17, 210n51, 210n58, 236n11, 237n27, 239n47, 239n53, 243. See also health and hygiene; Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism; purdah; women, Indian Eliot, George, 38, 52 Eliot, T. S., xxviii Ellis, Sarah, 5, 32n11 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 24, 52, 190, 205, 213, 223 “England-returned”, xii, xxv, xxxiin34, 59n37, 80–81, 87n14, 91, 103, 110, 120n79, 120n85, 149n52, 172n28 essentialism, xxi, xxiii, xxvii–xxviii, xxxiin32, 27, 28, 33n34, 91, 114n4, 143, 158, 164, 167, 229, 234, 245. See also ethnocentrism; Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism

ethnocentrism : British “aloofness”, xx, 97, 98, 131, 135, 137, 138, 141–143, 148n40, 148n41, 149n53, 243; eastern, 10, 30, 87n17, 97, 107, 119n71, 126, 127, 128, 132, 134, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 147n31, 147n39, 148n40, 148n41, 154, 159, 173n42, 174n44, 180, 185, 189, 222, 225, 231, 233, 234, 242, 246n10; racialism, 57n3, 99, 109, 116n33, 119n66, 129, 147n39, 164, 173n39, 209n44, 214, 216; western, xii, xx, xxi, xxiii, xxvii, xxxn20, xxxin29, xxxin31, 19, 30, 32n22, 47, 54, 69, 80, 82, 87n14, 88n27, 89, 92, 93, 97, 108, 111, 114n4, 115n29, 123, 126, 128–131, 132, 138, 142, 147n31, 147n37, 148n49, 149n53, 152, 153, 158, 169, 171n7, 175–205, 222, 224, 232, 238n41, 242. See also British Raj; caste; essentialism; Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism; Occidentalism; Orientalism; separatism famine, 12, 105–107, 111, 117n50, 118n56, 148n42, 208n34 feminism, xxxin27, 7, 8, 10, 15, 18–20, 28, 34n37, 35n49, 39, 46–47, 54, 58n19, 59n26, 76, 86n2, 88n26, 88n27, 89, 90, 92, 94, 104, 105, 117n49, 134, 135, 140, 146n19, 147n35, 155, 163, 171n1, 172n28, 177, 183, 185, 186, 187, 198, 202, 205, 207n16, 208n32, 229, 238n41, 243, 246n10; American, 28, 134, 177, 202, 246n10; British, xxxin27, 18, 18–20, 28, 30, 59n26, 134, 202, 229, 246n10; first wave, xxvi, 7; and gender solidarity, 28, 34n37, 41, 76, 85, 94–97, 113, 134, 137, 185, 198, 228, 231–233, 239n46; Indian, 15, 18–20, 30, 35n49, 90, 105, 117n49, 163, 172n26, 183, 238n41; second wave, 246n10; women’s suffrage, xvii, xxvi, 1, 7, 19, 47, 90, 120n84, 133, 157, 160, 219, 232, 236n18, 239n47. See also gender ideology; separatism fin de siècle, xviii, xxvi, 3, 10, 21, 22, 152, 159, 173n40, 189, 195, 239n53 free will, 44, 71, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82

Index Fyzee-Rahmin, Atiya, 175, 176, 193–194, 195, 198, 200–201, 202, 224, 237n29, 238n36, 261, 268, 274. See also “Shahinda” Gandhi, Mohandas K., xxiv, xxix, xxxin25, xxxiin34, 13, 28, 29, 34n36, 49, 52, 86n7, 87n12, 111, 120n85, 134, 147n28, 172n26, 175, 191, 192, 195, 197, 199, 205, 207n23, 211n70, 220, 226, 227, 236n15, 237n30, 238n42, 238n45, 244 Garrison, William Lloyd, 185, 208n32 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 115n29, 194 gender ideology: Christian, 48, 50; domestic, xv–xvii, xx, xxv, xxvi, xxxn6, xxxn17, xxxin22, xxxin23, 4–10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 30, 33n26, 39, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 75, 90, 92, 93, 98, 114n4, 125, 126, 128, 139, 148n48, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 161, 162, 164–165, 166, 169, 176, 191, 193, 201, 206n9, 209n46, 210n51, 213, 223, 228, 230, 239n46, 240n59, 244, 246n6, 246n8; misogyny, 28, 44, 87n23, 116n30, 163, 181, 183, 215, 224; patriarchy, xx, 1, 13, 21, 28, 39, 43, 45, 49, 82, 85, 105, 117n49, 138, 147n35, 156, 158, 164, 171n3, 171n4, 181, 207n24, 208n34, 216, 236n15, 246n5; womanliness, xii, xv, xxiii, xxv, xxviii, xxxin22, xxxin23, 8, 20, 30, 48, 49, 58n25, 71, 86n2, 88n27, 92, 114n6, 138, 144, 146n18, 146n19, 148n45, 148n48, 154, 160–170, 178, 206n14, 218, 219, 220, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 236n15, 240n57, 243, 244; “womanly woman”, xvii, 8, 13, 52, 92, 164, 176, 181, 223, 229, 240n57, 240n62. See also America, women; gender ideology, British; gender ideology, Indian; woman, ideal gender ideology, British (Victorian), xvii, xx, xxvi, xxvii, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 17, 22, 32n11, 44–45, 49, 50, 52, 89, 92, 98, 125, 141, 147n35, 148n47, 152, 153, 158, 169, 187–188, 209n40; Angel-inthe-house, xvii, xxvi, 13, 22, 24, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 43, 45–47, 49, 52, 55, 56,

283

92, 103, 113, 138, 153, 158, 162, 163, 164, 169, 176, 230, 237n33, 243; Angel-out-of-the-house, 24, 47, 113, 161, 170, 231; fallen women, 43, 47, 98, 105, 110, 115n29, 117n43, 120n77, 120n78, 146n20, 197, 217, 230; feminine “wiles”, 49, 67, 177; Girl-ofthe-Period, xxv, 160; and influence on Indian nationalism, 67–68, 111, 131, 204; New Woman, xvii, xviii, xxv–xxvi, 9, 21–22, 29, 30, 41, 45–48, 52, 56, 59n26, 76, 77, 80, 82, 94, 103, 138, 162, 171n1, 201, 230, 243, 245; rights and responsibilities of, xvii, xx, xxiii, xxvi, 4, 28, 35n49, 47, 50, 63, 67, 76, 92, 110, 120n81, 138, 156, 159, 162, 163, 169, 172n26, 188, 210n52, 212n79, 228, 232–233, 239n47, 243; separate spheres, xxxin22, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, 38, 46, 47, 50, 76, 158, 171n8, 171n13, 192; spinsters (“bachelor girls”), 138, 162, 172n23, 194; “unsexed”, 1, 3, 6, 19, 29, 39, 40, 47, 49, 57n6, 57n7, 57n11, 59n26, 77, 92, 121n91, 127, 161, 163, 164–166, 167, 172n28, 178, 202, 219, 226, 228, 233, 236n15, 245. See also literature, English gender ideology, Indian, xxvi, 38, 47, 56; female autonomy, and “shyness”, xii, xiv, xv, xix, 5, 20, 22, 32n20, 46, 51, 64–65, 69, 75, 78, 83, 84, 97, 116n33, 129, 130, 131, 135, 138, 142, 146n18, 148n46, 161, 167, 168, 198, 201, 210n51, 223, 229, 231, 238n41, 238n45, 240n62, 241; female autonomy, lack of, xvi, xxxin22, 4, 5, 6, 8, 17, 20, 90, 92, 98, 152, 179, 191, 193, 201, 246n8; and Indian identity politics, xvi, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, xxxin26, 20, 22, 28, 30, 37–56, 67, 69, 76, 79, 80, 85, 91, 96, 101, 105, 127, 130, 131, 133, 136, 138, 139, 144, 152, 163, 173n31, 212n78, 213, 215, 218, 220, 236n14, 245, 246n5; Woman Question (Indian), xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxviii, 1, 19, 33n34, 46, 61, 151–170, 171n1–174n45, 186, 216; women’s work, xxxn4, 5–6, 38, 44, 47,

284

Index

50, 52, 53, 55, 70, 75, 76, 92–98, 99, 105, 106, 110, 114n3, 115n16, 115n27, 118n56, 119n69, 121n92, 141, 154, 156, 162, 164, 165, 166, 171n9, 174n45, 189–192, 198, 200, 201, 209n46, 210n47, 210n51, 210n52, 210n57, 211n73, 212n75, 219, 220, 222, 223, 225, 228, 229, 230, 237n28, 237n29, 237n31, 239n49, 239n52, 240n57, 240n62, 246n3, 246n7, 246n10, 247, 248 Ghosal, Saraladevi, 169, 173n41, 265 Gupta, Lalita, 69, 216–217 health and hygiene, xxvii, 7, 14, 24, 33n33, 85, 87n12, 89, 99, 101, 102, 105, 109, 114n13, 116n35, 119n66, 128, 129–132, 145n7, 146n18, 169, 173n39, 173n43, 174n45, 175, 179, 180, 189, 211n72, 247, 248; consumption (tuberculosis), 52, 173n39, 181, 189; disease, 7, 69, 116n36, 147n39, 169, 173n39, 173n43, 200, 211n72, 233; education and training, 98, 103, 105, 107, 108, 112, 116n33, 118n52, 179–180, 181, 182, 206n11, 207n18, 210n52; nursing, xvii, 105, 110, 112, 144n3; plague, 105, 106, 107, 148n42, 162, 169, 173n42; sanitary reform, 7–9, 24, 87n12, 96, 102, 106, 112, 120n73, 121n89, 169, 173n39–173n43, 174n45, 189, 200, 211n72, 247; women doctors, 112, 117n40, 118n52, 175, 179, 181, 185, 206n11; women’s medical issues, xxvii, 9, 35n55, 89, 93, 109, 112, 121n91, 169, 179, 181, 200, 248. See also purdah; Ghosal; Joshi; Levering; Mayo; Naidu; Nightingale; Ramabai; Reddy; Sorabji Hensman, Mrs. S. G., xiii, 27, 140 Hess, Rudolph, 228, 262 Hindu / Hinduism: culture, xv, xxii, xxxn16, 16, 18, 24, 33n34, 54, 55, 59n37, 60n39, 63, 94, 95, 99, 104, 114n13, 117n49, 118n54, 120n84, 127, 131, 134, 145n13, 152, 157, 171n7, 173n42, 179, 181, 187, 188, 209n40, 210n56, 213, 231, 235n3; culture, and moral superiority, xvii, 19, 51, 117n50,

142, 152, 153, 154, 191, 209n40; culture, and solidarity, xv, 28, 30, 76, 92, 94, 98, 211n72; language (Hindi), 3, 16, 18, 33n25, 33n30, 34n45, 97, 103, 174n45, 224; literature, xix, 33n25, 33n27, 33n30, 50, 63, 87n23, 88n25, 174n45, 224; orthodoxy, xii, xvi, xx, xxv, 18, 19, 24, 54, 78, 87n23, 103, 104, 105, 115n17, 118n54, 154, 173n37, 181, 209n40, 230; priesthood, 16, 63, 66, 78–79, 85, 86n7, 94, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 114n3, 117n43, 117n50, 119n62, 119n67, 119n69, 146n23, 152, 156, 158, 188, 206n10, 208n35, 209n43, 212n80, 225; race, xv, xx, xxv, xxxn6, 34n41, 34n45, 54, 55, 57n15, 93, 103, 104, 117n49, 119n66, 120n84, 144, 148n40, 155, 159, 173n42, 179, 183, 188, 191, 200, 207n20, 208n25, 209n44, 231, 235n3; religion, xii, xxxin25, 29, 33n34, 54, 59n27, 59n37, 60n39, 63, 78, 86n10, 87n23, 89, 99, 101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 114n13, 117n49, 117n50, 118n54, 119n69, 120n73, 127, 134, 145n13, 155, 171n7, 173n37, 181, 183, 184, 186–188, 192, 208n33, 209n40, 209n42, 209n43, 213, 214, 215, 235n1; sacred texts, 50, 51, 87n17, 87n18, 99, 101, 103, 106, 117n50, 158, 183; spirituality, xx, 51, 80, 114n4, 152, 185, 191, 209n44, 210n49; temples, 81, 101, 109, 117n43, 120n73, 213, 223, 238n34; women, xvi, 24, 32n20, 34n35, 34n41, 51, 56, 57n15, 59n30, 59n37, 60n39, 86n10, 87n23, 88n25, 94, 95, 97, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 115n25, 118n56, 119n70, 120n79, 129, 131, 144, 145n13, 151, 152, 157, 171n7, 173n43, 179, 181, 182, 183, 190, 206n14, 208n28, 208n33, 209n40, 209n41, 209n42, 214, 215, 235n3; women, and chastity, xii, xxvii, 20, 37, 42, 43, 51, 58n25, 80, 83, 91, 114n4, 123, 129, 130, 145n13, 146n20, 152, 153, 154, 164, 167, 187, 190, 216, 237n33. See also women, Indian Hindu Marriage Reform League, 60n38

Index Hitler, Adolf, xxviii, 228, 229, 239n49, 243 Home Rule League, 16, 112 Hossain, Rokeya, xv, 57n5, 96, 116n31, 146n25, 147n35, 171n9, 194, 225, 238n40, 262, 271, 277; Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls, 171n9; “Sultana’s Dream” (Ladyland), 67, 75, 76, 85, 106, 191, 194, 238n40 Hunter Commission, 103, 112 hybridity, xviii, xix, xx, xxiv, 3, 11, 62, 118n54, 132, 140, 146n19, 147n36 Indian arts and crafts, xxxin31, 5, 80, 93, 95, 96, 107, 110, 114n9, 117n43, 119n72, 192, 207n17, 212n75, 214, 220, 223–224, 231, 237n26, 237n30, 237n32, 238n35, 238n36, 238n37, 247, 249; dance, classical, 93, 212n75, 223–224, 237n32, 238n34, 247; devadasis, 99, 101, 105, 109, 117n43, 213, 223, 238n45; fancywork, 5–6, 10, 22, 47, 74, 94, 95, 107, 110, 156, 174n45, 190, 223, 237n28, 237n29, 237n31, 247, 248; fine arts, 5, 212n75, 223–224, 238n35, 247; khaddar weaving, xxix, xxxin25, xxxiin32, xxxiin41, 59n28, 190, 198, 219, 221, 225–226, 244; music, xxxin31, 5, 80, 83, 93, 96, 110, 117n43, 119n72, 174n45, 207n17, 212n75, 224, 237n32, 238n36, 247; nautch, 223, 224; needlework, plain, 6, 10, 95–96, 110, 223; performing arts (theater), 63, 212n75, 224, 238n36, 238n37. See also Indian identity politics Indian identity politics, xviii, xxi, xxv, 20, 30, 123–144; and caste prejudice, 10, 30, 87n17, 97, 107, 119n71, 126, 127, 128, 134, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 147n31, 147n39, 148n40, 148n41, 154, 159, 173n42, 174n44, 180, 185, 189, 222, 225, 231, 233, 234, 242, 246n10; “center to circumference”, xv, 30, 138, 169, 170, 232, 244; conservatism, xvi, xxvii, 16, 28, 33n34, 60n39, 68, 78–79, 82, 85, 101, 111, 123, 131, 139, 143, 145n10, 148n49, 149n53, 153, 181, 183, 192, 201, 215, 222, 236n14; east

285

and west, synthesis of, xii, xv, xviii, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxxin31, 16, 21, 29, 34n45, 61, 62, 79, 80, 113, 117n49, 123, 125–144, 145n9, 145n10, 149n51, 149n52, 152, 153, 160, 163, 217; female education, xxiv, xxv, 78, 101, 119n71, 127, 132, 133, 144, 145n9, 152–170; independence, xvi, xxvii, 13, 22, 44, 61, 143, 207n20, 208n34, 220, 222, 234, 235; modernization, xvi, xxv, xxvi, xxxin31, 4, 22, 34n45, 60n39, 68, 78–79, 125, 131, 133, 148n49, 152, 153, 155–156, 160, 163, 197, 212n78, 222, 224, 234; and religion, xii, 10, 29, 131, 146n19, 149n54, 234, 235n1; swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha, xviii, 67, 91, 138, 141, 203, 217, 220, 234. See also British Raj; caste; essentialism; ethnocentrism; Occidentalism; social intercourse; Indian nationalism Indian Ladies’ Magazine, xviii–xxix, 63, 176; American commentary on, 176–178; articles discussed, 257–271; editorial platform, xii, xv, xvii, xx, xxi, xxi–xxvi, xxvii, xxxin28, xxxin31, xxxiii, 3, 6, 8–10, 14, 19–20, 21, 22–23, 26, 28, 29, 31, 37, 38, 52, 53, 61–71, 82, 86n2, 92, 96, 123, 134, 156, 163, 220, 242, 243, 249–252; end of, xxviii, 17, 241–245; first run, xiii, xxii, xxxiii, 56, 125, 134, 182, 242, 247; inception of, 21–31; publication and subscription history, 20, 27, 28, 33n27, 241, 242, 253–256; reception history, 25–27, 28, 34n43, 249–252; second run, xi, xiii, xxiii, xxxiii, 28, 56, 134, 195, 242, 246n4, 247, 248; specifications, 247–248 Indian National Congress, xxxiin32, 12, 16, 91, 106, 112, 114n2, 120n85, 147n28, 158, 159, 194, 197, 211n66, 211n67 Indian nationalism, xii, xv, xvi, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiv–xxvii, xxxin26, xxxin31, xxxiin41, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 22, 28, 29, 33n34, 34n42, 34n45, 35n60, 38, 44, 59n37, 61, 62, 65, 79, 85, 96, 101, 119n72, 123, 125, 129, 131, 139, 143, 146n19, 148n45, 152, 153, 157, 158,

286

Index

159, 160, 171n12, 173n31, 176, 178, 180, 181, 188, 192, 193, 195, 197, 199, 204, 207n20, 208n31, 208n34, 212n78, 213, 220–221, 224, 225, 236n14, 237n26, 245; civil disobedience, xviii, xxxn12, xxxin24, 13, 19, 236n22, 237n27, 239n48; militant nationalism, xxv, xxvi, 7, 16, 33n28, 114n2, 142, 167, 180–183, 192, 195, 201, 232, 244; noncooperation, xiii, xxxiin32, 13, 211n70, 217, 220, 232; preindependence, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xxix, 20, 50, 175, 176, 198, 201; propaganda, xix, xxvi, 11, 13, 34n42, 238n37; Quit India, xviii, xxvii, 61, 220; solidarity, xxxiin32, 12, 28, 91, 94, 95, 97, 134, 137, 185, 195, 198, 210n49. See also Indian identity politics; satyagraha; swaraj; swadeshi Indian women. See women, Indian Ireland, 125, 176, 216, 235n6 Irish, 54, 112, 125, 176, 186, 216, 235n6. See also Besant; Cousins; Nivedita Islam / Muslim, 59n27, 60n39, 85, 130, 140, 152, 266; Mahomedan, 89, 131, 155; Mohammedan, 114n13; Moslem, 83, 137, 259; Muslim, xii, xxv, xxxin25, 18, 29, 60n39, 64, 75, 83–85, 94, 115n16, 125, 130–131, 133–134, 136, 139, 140, 145n13, 155–156, 171n7, 171n9, 175, 193, 231, 235n1, 238n41, 258. See also purdah Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre (1919), 13, 125 Joshi, Anandabai, 178–183, 190, 201, 206n7, 206n9, 206n12, 206n15, 207n16, 207n19, 207n24, 208n26 Joshi, Gopal, 179, 180, 193, 206n8, 206n14, 224 Kanitkar, Kashibai, xxxn18, xxxin26, 206n15, 208n26 Karve, Professor D. K., 57n12, 107, 118n53, 192, 209n39; Institute for Widows, 192 khaddar. See arts and crafts, textiles Khataniyar, Jamuneswar, 64

Kipling, Rudyard, 69, 87n11, 125, 147n33, 148n42 Krishnamma (Krishnammah), Hannah (niece), 53, 205, 263–259 Krishnamma, Hannah Ratnam (Kamala Satthianadhan), xi, xxixn2, xxxiii, 274 Krishnaswami, P. R., 53, 147n30, 215 Lakshmi (Hindu goddess), xiv, xxxn17, 81 language, xii, xxi, xxiv, 16, 17, 21, 29, 33n25, 33n30, 34n45, 63, 96, 97, 114n10, 115n23, 126, 128, 135, 152, 179; differences, 12, 21, 114n10, 115n23, 126, 135, 143, 179, 198; English, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxvi, 3, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 29–30, 31n4, 35n60, 38, 53, 63, 111, 120n85, 142, 156, 158, 168, 169, 170, 174n45, 189, 208n31, 249; vernaculars, Hindi, xix, 3, 15–16, 18, 33n25, 33n30, 34n45; vernaculars, Indian, 12, 16, 29, 33n25, 33n30, 35n60, 146n19, 174n45, 224; vernaculars, Marathi, 103, 105, 184, 208n34, 208n35; vernaculars, Tamil, 3, 16, 17–18, 22, 31n6, 34n35; vernaculars, Telugu, xii, 14, 15 Levering, Dr. Idafaye, 185, 211n72 Linton, Eliza Lynn, 160, 172n19 literary criticism, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, 37–56, 56n1–60n40, 61, 247. See also Corelli; Patmore; Ruskin; Tennyson literature in ILM (“life literary”), xxiv, xxvii, 6, 14, 15, 33n27, 33n30, 34n45, 57n6, 61–85, 86n1–88n30, 90, 111, 115n14, 146n19, 152, 247; drama, xxiv, xxvii, xxxn19, 9, 61, 76–82, 224, 238n36, 247; fiction, xxiv, xxvii, 5, 9, 50, 63, 71–76, 87n16, 111, 120n82; nonfiction, xxi, xxvii, 63, 71, 83–85, 111; poetry, xxiv, xxvii, 5, 9, 40, 41, 42–43, 44, 45, 51, 53, 55, 61, 64–71, 139; serialization, 5, 32n10, 61, 76, 82. See also Corelli; Rossetti; Ruskin; Tennyson literature, English: influence of, xviii, xix, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, 17, 21, 37–56, 57n4, 63, 125, 135, 155, 168, 169, 171n4, 171n7, 171n8, 171n12, 173n34, 174n45, 189; and romantic love, 40–43, 46, 57n3,

Index 57n13, 58n23, 64, 70, 71–83, 87n20, 162, 217. See also Anglo-Indian literature; individual authors literature, Indian, xii, xix, xx, xxviii, 37, 50, 55, 61–85, 87n13, 147n31, 238n38; Mahabarata, 50–52; and mimicry, xviii–xix, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxxin28, 11, 21, 29, 45, 53, 59n26, 61, 171n7, 173n34, 181, 186; Ramayana, 50, 51, 55; Shastras, 87n18, 99, 101, 103, 106, 117n50; Vedas, 50, 59n27, 87n17, 158. See also hybridity Lucknow, 25, 189, 249, 251 Macaulay, Thomas, xviii, 29, 30, 35n59, 91, 237n25 Madras (Chennai), xiii, xv, xxvi, xxixn2, xxxn13, 3, 11, 14, 16–26, 31n5, 31n6, 33n29, 99, 109, 110, 116n33, 117n43, 118n60, 120n80, 166, 186, 237n31, 242, 249, 250, 251; Literary Society, 3, 31n5; Presidency, xiv, 16, 17, 25, 31n5, 31n6, 33n29, 109, 250, 251 Maharani of Baroda, 54, 185, 193 Position of Women in Indian Life, 54, 185 Maharashtra, 118n53, 184 Mahomedan. See Islam Malabari, Behramji, 57n14, 108, 251 Mandi, Dowager Maharani of, 149n54, 172n23 marriage customs, Indian, xxxn20, xxxiin35, 14, 24, 41, 44, 46, 57n3, 57n12, 57n14, 58n18, 59n31, 66, 72–74, 78, 82–84, 87n17, 87n18, 92, 99, 101, 114n3, 115n14, 116n30, 117n44, 119n66, 146n23, 151, 152, 154, 162, 165, 168, 172n14, 172n27, 186, 187, 204, 206n7, 206n14, 211n72, 213, 219, 222, 237n33, 238n40, 245, 247; age of consent, 54, 57n14, 101, 109, 116n33, 117n44, 134; arranged, xv, xxxn3, 40, 46, 57n3, 71, 72, 77, 80, 81, 82, 165, 217; betrothal, infant, xxxiin35, 20, 34n39, 87n17, 100, 109, 116n32, 117n44, 211n72; bride-murder / “kitchen accidents”, 99–100, 116n31; child-marriage, xvi, xxxn16, xxxiin35, 14, 19, 20, 24, 28, 34n39, 54, 59n31, 67, 74, 75, 78–79, 82–84, 86n8,

287

99–100, 101, 103, 109, 114n3, 116n33, 116n34, 116n35, 117n44, 117n50, 118n55, 130, 134, 152, 172n23, 179, 180, 187, 199, 206n9, 213, 214; childmotherhood and maternal mortality, 20, 57n3, 59n32, 65, 74, 99, 100, 112, 116n34, 116n35, 116n36, 173n39, 179, 180, 187, 206n9, 236n20; companionate, xxxn20, 58n18, 67, 75, 92, 152, 171n3, 209n40; consummation / marital rape, 57n13, 58n16, 60n38, 100–101, 109, 116n33, 116n34; divorce, xxxn20, 52, 146n23, 187, 204, 212n79, 238n42; dowry, xi, xiii, 28, 75, 79, 99, 101, 102, 116n31, 217; intercaste, 24, 34n42, 115n17, 195; polygamy, 14, 52, 131, 146n23, 214 Martineau, Harriet, 57n6, 86n7, 183, 184, 185, 195, 202, 207n20, 207n24, 208n32 Mayo, Katherine, 34n37, 67, 69, 86n8, 87n12, 111, 116n33, 118n55, 120n84, 147n39, 149n51, 195, 199, 200, 202, 211n61, 211n62, 211n69, 211n70, 211n72, 212n76, 214; Mother India, 34n37, 69, 87n12, 111, 195, 200 Mazumdar, Haridas, 205, 211n71 Mill, James, 119n70 Mill, John Stuart, xxxin22, 88n24 Mohammedan. See Islam Moslem. See Islam Mother Cult, 13, 17, 59n31, 74, 100, 126, 162, 167, 180, 187, 209n38, 213, 216, 235n2; English / British, 4, 40, 160, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217–218, 235n2; Indian, 57n3, 83, 116n34, 167, 180–181, 187, 209n38, 213, 215, 216, 235n2, 236n14, 245; Irish, 216, 235n6. See also Bharat Mata Muslim. See Islam Muslim women. See purdah Mussolini, Benito, xxviii, 228, 229 Naidu, Sarojini, xv, xvi, xxxn4, xxxn19, xxxiin34, 27, 35n49, 52, 53, 59n31, 59n32, 59n34, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 86n9, 117n40, 120n86, 135, 146n24, 147n28, 159, 161, 163, 171n10, 172n26, 175, 195–201, 207n24, 211n64, 211n68, 211n69, 211n70,

288

Index

211n72, 215, 226, 227, 231, 235, 238n42, 243, 246n9, 257, 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 271, 274, 276; letters, 195–201; poetry, xvi, 52, 53, 59n32, 65, 67, 71; political activism, xv, xvi, 27, 35n49, 59n34, 67, 86n9, 117n40, 135, 146n24, 159, 161, 163, 171n10, 172n26, 195–201, 211n67, 211n68, 211n69, 215, 226, 227, 231, 235, 238n42, 243, 246n9; relationship with Gandhi, 147n28, 175, 195, 197, 226, 227; travels to America, xv, 175, 195–201, 211n70 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 159, 239n48; East India Association, 159. See also Indian National Congress National Indian Association, xxxiin33, 8, 26, 111, 112, 121n88 Nehru, Jawaharlal, xxix, xxxiin34, 28, 191, 202, 207n23, 215 Nightingale, Florence, xxiii, 57n14, 112, 115n29, 121n89, 121n92, 181, 198, 223 Nivedita, Sister (Margaret Noble), 54, 67, 106, 112, 123, 171n5, 175, 186, 187–188, 209n38; The Web of Indian Life, 54, 106, 187 Noble, Margaret. See Nivedita noncooperation. See Indian nationalism Occidentalism, xxi, xxvii, 26, 53, 63, 67, 104, 105, 125, 127, 128, 134–144, 147n31, 147n34, 149n51, 169, 171n5, 183, 199, 202–203, 240n62. See also essentialism; ethnocentrism, western Orientalism, xxvii, 53, 80, 105, 125, 134–144, 147n31, 190, 198, 199, 205, 243. See also essentialism; ethnocentrism, eastern Pandit, Vijaya, 35n49, 52, 59n28, 163, 172n26, 235, 243 Parkes, Bessie Raynor, 7 Patmore, Coventry, xxvi, 29, 38, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 58n22; The Angel in the House, 38, 46 peace, peace activism, xxviii, 67, 125, 160, 196, 197, 200, 202, 204, 205, 211n70, 212n76, 216, 218, 227, 228, 232–235, 237n27, 240n65, 241, 242. See also war

periodicals, British, xxii, xxvi, 1, 3–10, 12, 13, 20, 30, 31n3, 31n4, 32n14, 32n17, 32n18; and Beeton, Samuel, 5–7, 32n10; The Christian Lady’s Magazine, 5; Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, 6–7, 10, 32n10, 32n12; Indian Magazine, xxxiin33, 7, 8, 10, 20, 242, 250, 272; Intimations to Women, 15, 21; Ladies’ Magazine, 4; Ladies’ Monthly Museum, 4; The Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times, 5; London Times, 25, 148n40, 250; The Magazine of Domestic Economy, 5; T he Mother’s Magazine, 5; New Lady’s Magazine, 4; The New Monthly Belle Assemblee, 5; Queen, 6, 7, 10, 41; Woman, 8, 10; Woman at Home, 9, 10; Womanhood, 9, 10 periodicals, Indian, xvii, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, xxxiin33, 1, 3, 8, 11–21, 30, 31n4, 32n14, 221, 237n27, 238n37, 250; Anasuya, 15, 21; Antahpur, 15, 21; Bambodhini Patrika, 14, 21; The Bengal Gazette, 11; Bombay Chronicle, 202, 203; Camd, 15, 33n27; and James Hickey, 11; Defense of India Act (1915), 13; Incitement to Offenses Act, 12; Indian Press Emergency Powers Act (1931), 13; Licensing Regulations Act, 11; Metcalf’s Press Act, 11; Press Act (1799), 11; Registration Act (1867), 12; Rowlatt / Anarchical & Revolutionary Crimes Act (1919), 13; Vernacular Press Act (1867), 12; Vernacular Press Act (1878), 208n34; The Crescent, 16; Grihalakshmi, 15, 21; Hindu Sundari, 15, 21; The Hindu, xxixn2, xxxn11, 16, 25; Madrassian, 16–21; Masik Patrika, 14; Matar Manorancini, 17; and modernization, xxiii, 13, 14, 15; and nationalism, xxii, xxvi, 11–13, 15, 21, 134; Penmati Potini, 17; Satihitabodhini, 14, 21; Savithri, 15, 21; Soundarya Vatlli, 15; StreeBodh, 14; Stri Dharma, 15, 18–21, 28, 33n31, 34n36, 183, 242; StriDarpan, 15, 21; Swadesamitran, 16; Telugu Zenana, 14; Times of India, 57n15, 142; vernacular, 3, 20, 32n18,

Index 97; Vivekavathi, 15, 21; women’s periodicals, xxxin22, 1–31; women’s periodicals, and gendering of genre, 3, 4, 15, 20, 21, 31n3, 32n21, 34n36, 38, 39, 134, 153, 250 philanthropy, xxvii, 90, 92, 106, 119n61, 176, 182, 183, 189, 193–194, 195, 201, 202; Christian, 119n61, 176, 179, 187, 189, 195, 196, 206n12, 207n17, 211n73; civic, 119n61, 182, 189, 193–194, 198, 199, 209n39, 210n57 Punjab, 13, 25, 118n51, 148n40 purdah (Gosha), 83, 111; anti-purdah League, 133, 134; medical / educational / legal issues, xxv, xxxin25, 29, 60n39, 83–84, 85, 94, 112, 115n16, 125, 128, 129, 130–131, 133–134, 136, 145n11, 145n13, 145n17, 146n19, 146n23–146n24, 155–156, 171n7, 171n9, 220, 226, 231, 235n1, 238n40–238n41; physical confinement, xxvii, 14, 24, 64, 65, 123, 125, 128, 130–131, 133, 134, 140, 145n10, 145n11, 145n14, 145n17, 146n21, 146n22, 146n25, 154, 216, 236n19; purdahnashins, xxvii, 45, 64, 65, 94, 110, 129, 130, 135, 145n13, 146n18, 146n20, 151, 236n19; veiling, xxiii, 64–65, 65, 68–69, 71, 109, 129–134, 140, 145n13, 148n44, 216, 232; zenana, 14, 34n35, 39, 75, 85, 87n15, 93, 94, 102, 112, 113, 117n47, 127, 128, 129–130, 133, 145n13, 145n14, 155, 158, 165, 169. See also Islam; women, Indian Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, xvi, xxxin21 Ramabai, Pandita, xxxn4, 33n32, 49, 56, 58n16, 86n3, 86n7, 93, 98, 102–108, 112, 116n32, 117n49, 117n50, 118n53, 118n54, 118n55, 118n56, 118n57, 118n60, 119n62, 119n63, 144n4, 168, 173n32, 173n36, 173n37, 173n42, 175, 176, 182–193, 201, 202, 205, 207n16–210n51, 229, 238n41, 247; American Ramabai Association, 119n61, 182, 183, 187, 209n39; Arya Mahila Samaj, 103; High Caste Hindu Woman, 58n16, 182, 183, 184, 188,

289

208n28; Kripa Sadan, 105; Morals for Women, 103, 183; Mukti Sadan, 105–106, 119n61, 119n62; The Peoples of the United States, 184, 185, 207n20, 207n24, 208n31, 208n34, 208n35; rescue homes, 93, 102–108, 118n55, 118n56, 118n60, 119n63, 173n32, 173n36; Sarada Sadan, 105, 106, 107, 119n61, 119n62, 119n65, 144n4, 184 Ranade, Ramabai, 86n3, 107, 119n65, 210n51 Rani of Vizianagram, 170 Reddy, Dr. Muthulakshmi, 18, 109, 175, 232; medical reforms, 199, 200, 211n72; social reforms, 109, 211n72, 232; travels to America, 175, 199, 200 religion : Jain, 29, 87n23, 94; Parsi, 29, 95, 110, 114n13, 135, 147n32, 159; and superstition, xxiii, 14, 16, 34n39, 54–55, 59n31, 66, 73, 76, 78–80, 83, 103, 112, 117n41, 132, 154, 156, 158, 169, 171n12, 182, 224–225. See also Christianity; Hinduism; Islam Roy, Rammohun, 101, 102, 117n44 Rukhmabai, xv, 44, 45, 57n14, 57n15, 58n16, 60n38, 117n46, 173n39, 188, 208n34 Ruskin, John, xxvi, 6, 24, 29, 38, 45–50, 52, 58n22, 155, 156, 170, 192, 205, 229, 237n30; “Of Queen’s Gardens”, 45; Sesame and Lilies, 6, 38, 46, 156 Sanger, Margaret, 202, 204 Sanskrit, xii, 103, 146n19, 152, 165 Sarasvati. See Ramabai, Pandita Satthianadhan family, xi–xii, xv, xvi, xvii, xx, xxi, xxviii, xxixn2, xxxn4, xxxn8, xxxn13, xxxn16, xxxn20, xxxiii, xxxivn1, 2, 6, 10, 15, 19, 21, 27, 33n29, 53, 55, 59n33, 62, 63, 67, 70, 86n4, 86n5, 103, 110, 111, 113, 123, 139, 211n66, 215, 241, 245, 247, 256, 273, 277 Satthianadhan, Kamala, xi–xxviii, xxixn1–xxxin24, 10, 15, 27, 53, 55, 59n33, 62, 67–68, 70, 71, 86n1, 86n5, 91, 98, 103, 110, 111, 113, 114n8, 123, 124, 135, 136, 148n41, 152, 160, 161, 164, 177, 187, 204, 207n17, 209n37,

290

Index

211n66, 215, 224, 228–229, 237n31, 241, 245, 246n2, 247, 251, 262, 264, 267, 277; on female education, xiii, xv, 58n19, 127, 166–170, 172n28, 242; on ILM’s editorial platform, xii–xiii, xvii, xxi, xxviii, xxxn7, 10, 15, 18, 27, 27–28, 30, 33n27, 49, 62, 63, 82, 111, 123, 142, 226, 241–242, 243, 246n4; on nationalism, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xx, xxiii, 24, 28, 124, 138, 144n6, 148n46, 149n52, 215, 220, 241, 242, 243, 246n9; Stories of Indian Christian Life, xi, 86n1; syntheses of Anglo-Indian influences, 29, 44–45, 49, 52, 67, 68, 70, 82, 115n17, 124, 149n52, 162, 215, 238n41, 241, 243; on women’s issues, xii, xiv, xv–xvii, xxiii, xxvi, xxxin22, 7, 18, 24, 28, 33n27, 35n49, 44, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 62, 82, 103, 110, 113, 123, 127, 137, 138, 145n16, 161, 230, 238n41, 240n59, 242, 243, 245. See also Amicus; Krishnamma, Hannah Ratnam Satthianadhan, Krupabai, xv, xxxn3, 63 Satthianadhan, Padmini (Padma), xi–xiv, xxxn4, xxxn9, 57n10, 67–68, 70, 77, 80, 92, 105, 106, 108, 119n71, 124, 151, 172n25, 173n33, 217, 226, 230–231, 234, 236n10, 243, 246n4, 267–268, 276–277. See also Sengupta, Padmini Satthianadhan Satthianadhan, Samuel, xi, xii, xv, xxxn8, 33n29, 63, 139, 256, 277 satyagraha, xviii, xxiii, xxvi, xxix, xxxin24, xxxiin36, 24, 62, 67, 91, 112, 125, 138, 141, 191, 192, 203, 217, 220, 226, 227, 232, 238n44, 238n45, 241, 244. See also Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism Scott, Walter, 38, 45, 196 Sen, Ela, 199, 201, 210n58 Sengupta, Padmini Satthianadhan, xi–xii, xv, xvi, xx, xxii, xxixn1, xxixn2, xxxn4, xxxn8, xxxn9, xxxiin33, 3, 35n55, 35n59, 59n29, 71, 86n5, 87n12, 106, 108, 111, 115n17, 145n16, 148n46, 149n52, 215, 237n31, 241–242, 243, 245, 246n2, 246n4, 246n9, 276, 277–278

separatism, xxvii, xxxin22, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, 38, 39, 46, 47, 50, 57n3, 65, 66, 76, 97, 98, 107, 123, 127, 128, 130–131, 134, 136, 138, 139, 145n11, 158, 163, 166, 171n13, 185, 192, 209n37, 239n46. See also essentialism; ethnocentrism; Occidentalism; Orientalism; social intercourse Sepoy Uprising, 12, 155 seva (service), 24, 47, 228, 231 “Shahinda”, xxxiii, 85, 140, 148n44, 193, 223, 261, 268, 274. See also Fyzee Shakespeare, 38, 45, 52, 59n30, 147n29, 247 Shakti (female principle), 78, 79, 226 Simon Commission (Sir John Simon), 147n28, 227 Singh, Lilavati, 175, 189, 201 Singh, Saint Nihal, 175, 190–192, 193, 222 Sita (Ramayana), xxvi, 51, 52, 55, 59n27, 59n37, 68, 162, 208n33, 263; and Rama, 55 social intercourse (Anglo and Indian relations), xxi, xxiii, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 19, 21, 35n48, 50, 86n2, 93, 94, 95, 98, 113, 115n17, 123, 125–128, 129, 131, 134, 135–138, 139–144, 145n10, 145n17, 148n40, 148n41, 151, 160, 189, 217, 220, 231, 247; and British colonialism, xx, xxiii, 7, 13, 59n36, 146n20, 158, 171n4; and Indian nationalism, xx, xxi, 19, 21, 22, 30, 34n45, 35n48, 46, 50, 59n36, 63, 91, 144, 154, 164, 207n17, 211n72, 215, 216, 220. See also caste; Anglo-Indian relations Sorabji, Cornelia, xxxiin34, 59n33, 110, 111, 120n79, 120n80, 120n82, 120n84, 121n92, 151, 160, 211n72, 236n12; Institute for Social Service, 120n84 Sorabji, Franscina, 207n17 Sorabji, Suzie, 102, 155, 162, 208n26, 236n12 Steel, Flora Annie, 97–98, 115n25, 165, 166 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 38 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 197, 207n24 swadeshi, xviii, xxiii, xxix, xxxiin32, 14, 24, 34n42, 67, 69, 98, 115n27, 138,

Index 192, 198, 204, 220–223, 225, 230, 231, 232, 237n26, 237n27, 244. See also Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism swaraj, xvi, xviii, xxiii, xxxin25, 14, 16, 19, 24, 26, 67, 69, 98, 123, 124, 138, 191, 192, 203, 207n23, 217, 218, 220, 222, 226, 232, 235n9, 244, 245. See also Indian identity politics; Indian nationalism Tagore, Rabindranath, xxxin23, 37, 59n32, 199, 223, 233 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, xxvi, 23, 24, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40–50, 52, 57n2, 58n22, 64, 67, 75, 76, 79, 92, 125, 129, 139, 145n12, 147n38, 156, 169, 213, 219, 236n19; “Dora”, 42–44; Idylls of the King, 38, 40–42, 44; “Locksley Hall”, 37, 44–45, 57n8, 139; The Princess, 23, 38–41, 44, 67, 75, 76, 79, 92, 94, 156; “To the Queen”, 213; “Ulysses”, 169. See also gender ideology, British; literature, British theosophy / theosophists, 16, 18, 33n32, 272 Thoburn, Isabella, 189 untouchables. See caste and class Vivekananda, Swami, 54, 112, 118n55, 175, 185–188, 200, 209n40–209n44 Wallace, William Ross, 156, 171n10 war, 22, 28, 143, 211n65, 241; American Civil War, 177, 185, 202, 208n32; World War I, xvii, xxii, 6, 7, 13, 27, 32n19, 35n46, 46, 125, 144n3, 172n20, 192, 229, 237n29, 241; World War II, xiii, xxii, 69, 234, 239n46, 246n10. See also peace widowhood, Indian, xiv, 33n34, 54, 73, 103, 106, 107, 115n16, 117n40, 119n66, 173n32, 183, 192, 209n40, 209n41, 209n42, 215; childwidowhood, 54, 64, 66, 79, 100, 103, 107; sati / suttee, 19, 24, 33n34, 34n42, 39, 59n36, 64, 66, 67, 69, 86n9, 99, 100, 108, 109, 117n39–117n41,

291

117n44, 119n66, 134, 152, 169, 183, 208n34, 209n40, 218; widow remarriage, 14, 19, 24, 43, 54, 74, 75, 79, 87n17, 87n18, 117n44, 118n53, 118n59, 120n81, 134, 152, 164 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 117n48, 159, 164; Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 117n48, 159 woman, ideal / idealized, xxxin22, 14, 24, 29, 32n20, 32n22, 34n41, 35n56, 37, 39, 44, 46, 47, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57n9, 58n25, 59n30, 59n37, 69, 84, 86n2, 86n10, 134, 142, 165, 167, 169, 171n13, 192, 204, 207n21, 209n42, 215, 228, 233, 237n33, 240n62, 242; Biblical, 41, 42, 45–50, 52, 58n20, 59n27, 84, 194, 213, 235n1, 235n4; fairytale, 39, 40–41, 44, 45, 73, 75, 77, 80, 84, 85; mythological, xxvi, 49–52, 59n27, 81, 86n10, 101, 184, 208n33, 215, 218, 224, 235n2, 235n7. See also mother cult; gender ideology; Sita; Draupadi women, Indian: “awakening” of, xvii, xxvii, xxviii, 22, 30, 34n41, 34n42, 44, 45, 61, 64, 67, 69, 94, 106, 132, 158, 159, 165, 175, 187, 204, 215, 219, 244; “awakening” and “uplift” of, xxviii, 22, 28, 37, 39, 56, 67, 83, 90, 91, 93, 102, 104, 106, 136, 152, 238n45; exploitation of, 99–110, 215; prostitution, 24, 99–101, 108–110, 116n34, 117n44, 118n59, 218; sex trafficking, 99, 105, 109, 116n34, 117n44, 118n59, 218; female infanticide, 24, 99, 109, 116n34, 117n44, 118n59, 218; literacy of, xxiii, xxv, xxxn17, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 24, 27, 28, 33n29, 35n48, 38, 47, 55, 63, 77, 84, 87n15, 87n23, 91, 98, 101, 102, 109, 110, 114n1, 127–128, 130, 135, 146n18, 146n23, 154–157, 158, 160, 165, 167, 170, 171n5, 173n42, 173n43, 187, 189, 203, 208n26, 222, 225, 231, 232, 238n39, 241; and 1856 Widow Remarriage Act, 74, 117n44, 118n59, 120n81. See also Indian arts and crafts, devadasis; Indian arts and crafts, nautch; marriage customs, Indian;

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Index

widowhood, Indian Women’s Indian Association, 17, 18, 33n31, 171n13, 225, 228 women’s social activism, 89–113, 226; American, 92, 177, 190, 207n20; British, 20, 92, 125, 160, 190, 207n20, 212n76, 237n27; At Homes, 89, 92, 93–97, 103, 114n8, 194; Indian, 89–113; ladies’ philanthropy, xxvii, 6, 24, 92–98, 113, 128, 135, 142, 182, 189, 194; ladies’ societies (samaj), xxvii, 89, 90, 94–96, 98, 103, 110, 113,

189, 210n57; and political activism, xv, xxviii, 3, 15, 19, 30, 33n30, 98, 113; Purdah Parties, xv, xxvii, 89, 92, 93–97, 103, 112, 114n8, 194; Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), 119n65; Women’s Mission to Women, xxvii, 24, 47, 89, 98–113, 194, 200, 230. See also America, philanthropy Wood, Sir Charles, 91, 157; “Despatch on Indian Education”, 157 Wordsworth, William, 52, 70, 130, 146n18 World Alliance for Peace, 196, 211n70

About the Author

Deborah Anna Logan is a professor of English at Western Kentucky University, where she teaches Victorian literature and culture and world literature. She has published three monographs: Fallenness in Victorian Women’s Writing (1998), The Hour and the Woman: Harriet Martineau’s “somewhat remarkable” Life (2002), and Harriet Martineau, Victorian Imperialism, and the Civilizing Mission (2010). She has edited six volumes of Harriet Martineau’s correspondence, plus an additional sixteen volumes of Martineau’s fiction and nonfiction writing and a volume on Florence Nightingale’s political activism. Since 2007, she has served as editor and general manager of Victorians Journal of Culture and Literature (formerly Victorian Newsletter). Her most recent publication is a reset, annotated edition of Maria Weston Chapman’s biographical Memorials of Harriet Martineau (2015). The Indian Ladies’ Magazine 1901–1938: From Raj to Swaraj results from a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship (Kolkata, 2012).

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