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
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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 xxxiii

1 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 1

2 ILM and Literary Criticism 37
3 ILM and the Life Literary 61
4 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 89
5 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 123
6 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 151
7 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 175
8 Mothering India 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 Educa-
tional Foundation (USIEF) staff in New Delhi and in Kolkata for their orien-
tation, 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 particu-
lar, my best thanks go to Supriya Chaudhuri, who made many opportu-
nities—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, welcom-
ing, 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 gra-
ciously 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 Interli-
brary 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 inspira-
tion.
 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 (here-
after, ILM) (creative and nonfiction), assistant editor (second run), and biog-
rapher of prominent Indians, including her mother. 4

xi
xii Introduction

Samuel Satthianadhan was an important influence on Kamala’s profes-

sional and intellectual development, beginning with his negotiation of Chris-
tianity, Western civilization, and Indian nationalism: “One of the most seri-
ous 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 Eu-
rope 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 as-
sertion, “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 soci-
ocultural 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 estab-
lish 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 prob-
lems 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
 Introduction xiii

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 life-
long 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 peri-
odical. 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 In-
dian 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 an-
nounced 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 peri-
od of thinly stretched finances, Padmini recalls that their time in England was
rich with cultural, social, and aesthetic experiences, enhanced by their hum-
ble lodgings being a popular gathering place for Indian students. 11 The cou-
rage 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 re-
percussions 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’ Maga-
zine [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
xiv Introduction

was only one of many challenges and expectations, including Indian wom-
en’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 Non-
co-operation movement,” prompting some to complain that she “always re-
fuses 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 educa-
tion and living standards and to establish cottage industry cooperatives for
women geared toward economic self-sufficiency. Distinct from public plat-
forms 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 commen-
tary 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 nega-
tive 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” (Por-
trait 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 profession-
alism are unusual and exemplary. 14 If Satthianadhan was not a cutting-edge
 Introduction xv

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 ven-
erable 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, Krupa-
bai (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). Kama-
la 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 plat-
form. 16
Distinct from the short-lived movements of “extremists,” Kamala main-
tained 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 tradi-
tions” of Indian womanhood while promoting a modernizing spirit of autono-
my and self-sufficiency (Sengupta, Portrait xii). Distinct from the highly
public profile of her friend, nationalist-activist Sarojini Naidu, Kamala pre-
ferred “serving her country” from the platform of home, family, and commu-
nity (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, campaign-
ing, 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”
xvi Introduction

1929: 319). 17 Preferring to cultivate social solidarity and avoid divisiveness,

Kamala acknowledged and incorporated conservative views regarding wom-
en; in this, she aligns with such activists as Rokeya Hossain (who denounced
purdah but wore a burkah in public) and Rukhmabai (who refused an ar-
ranged 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, lib-
eral, and radical activism was a perpetual concern. 18
As nationalist separatism intensified prior to independence, Satthianad-
han 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 contribu-
tions 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 radical-
ly 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 de-
grading customs.’ Child marriage, the purdah, lack of education and restric-
tions 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 mod-
ernization, nationalism, and independence. More progressively, “She has al-
ways believed in the healthy companionship and mixing of boys and girls,
thus breaking the barriers between men and women, which has been the root-
cause of so much orthodox unhappiness in India” (Pioneer 123). 20 Kamala
was “a good woman, who treated domestic obligations as of higher impor-
tance 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
 Introduction xvii

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 wom-
an” 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 oppo-
site of what is man. If women should ever grow to be like men, then rever-
ence 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 pro-
portion 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 pla-
cate and include various perspectives, with a view toward facilitating harmo-
ny 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 indepen-
dence 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 wom-
anhood 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 Satthi-
anadhan under ILM’s rubric of self-representation and editorial policy, the
column aptly and inclusively titled “Ourselves.”

***
xviii Introduction

The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, 1901–1938 records Indian women’s sociopoli-

tical 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 indi-
vidual self-sufficiency; swadeshi, communal self-sufficiency; and satyagra-
ha, 24 national self-sufficiency (unification and independence) through nonvi-
olent 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 frame-
work? Is sociocultural authenticity even possible, or is mimicry the inevita-
ble result? Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha situates his discussion of mim-
icry 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 per-
sons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste . . . opinions . . . morals
and . . . intellect” (Minute on Indian Education). Macaulay’s vision encapsu-
lates 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 accep-
tance 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 au-
thentic—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 differ-
ences. These “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies
of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and
 Introduction xix

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 determin-
ing 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, ver-
nacular presses, which in turn fueled the proliferation of nationalist propa-
ganda. 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; em-
phasis 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 con-
sciousness 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 con-
cept of the place of the individual within it. The new literature sought to
contain within itself all three, antiquity, continuity, contemporaneity, at one
xx Introduction

and the same time, but it was not always possible to harmonize the multiple
currents that came together in the process. (333)

Dalmia’s insights are proportionately complicated when viewed in the con-

text 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 boun-
daries is for some “synonymous with ambiguity,” a slight shift in perspec-
tive—“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 respon-
sibilities: “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 Satthianad-
han’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 reveal-
ing insights.
Partha Chatterjee offers a comparable image for conceptualizing “cultural
ambidexterity” by positing that “the various cultural forms of Western mod-
ernity 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 nation-
alist 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 compromis-
ing 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
 Introduction xxi

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, contribu-
tors, and audience—represents more than the limitations implied by the colo-
nial and indigenous patriarchal imperatives by which women were bound,
neither factor alone adequately revealing “the real complexities and contra-
dictions 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 dis-
tinction 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 communica-
tion 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 frame-
works to the Indian Woman Question:

It is certainly ironic that an approach that has done so much to criticize Orien-
talist 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 ideolo-
gies 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 interdisci-
plinary underpinnings of the genre. My study evidences ILM’s incorporation
of issues raised by such disciplines as history, sociology, and political sci-
xxii Introduction

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 national-
ism. 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 mis-
sion directed at the colonized (the empire writes), my discussion illuminates
how the point logically extends to Indian women’s periodicals and the na-
tionalist and independence movements (the empire writes back)—of particu-
lar 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
 Introduction xxiii

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, accep-
tance, and cooperation were proportionally difficult to maintain and nego-
tiate 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 wom-
en” at a time when

the position of women in India was deplorably low . . . [bound by] the com-
mon 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 intensifi-
cation 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” emphasiz-
ing 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 re-
forms 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 “culti-
vate elements of culture and modern living and wean them away from ignor-
ance and gossip” (Ramakrishna, “Women’s” 86). While some like Kamala
promoted certain Western influences as a primary component of both mod-
ernization and the preservation—alternatively, reconception or refashioning
xxiv Introduction

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 contextual-
ization are primary critical approaches—than with investigating the contribu-
tions 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). Simi-
larly, 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 reevalua-
tions of certain starting premises. First, compared with the long, slow process
of establishing education opportunities for Indian males, the progress of fe-
male 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 envi-
sioned 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 informa-
tion, 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 imi-
tations 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
 Introduction xxv

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 com-
mentary, journalism, travel memoirs and letters, biography and autobiogra-
phy).
The third assumption requiring a perspective adjustment involves a clus-
ter 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. Para-
doxically, 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 wom-
en’s nationalism as reflected in their writing, I had hoped to avoid religious
issues altogether, but that proved impossible, the question of religious toler-
ance and coexistence being central to the culture’s modernizing debates. In
terms of modern advances, Indian Christians were considered the best (up-to-
date) 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 think-
ing 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 national-
ism 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 shock-
ing 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 wom-
anliness—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,
xxvi Introduction

and, above all, the preservation, rejuvenation, and articulation of Indian iden-
tity. These points are addressed in ILM’s emphases on domesticity and litera-
cy, on social reform and political activism, and through its analyses of the
world’s first democracy—America—vis-à-vis its incipient youngest democ-
racy—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 wom-
an-centered periodicals, which for over a century were edited by men; re-
flecting 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, women-
edited periodicals reflected the concerns of first-wave feminism, social re-
form, and imperial relations. Dating from the mid-nineteenth century, Indian
women’s periodicals (also edited by men) traced a similar dynamic concern-
ing 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 contextu-
alization 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 vernacu-
lars; 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, An-
glo-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-
 Introduction xxvii

rated East and West, ancient and modern, Angel-in-the-House and New
Woman resulted in an ambivalent gender ideology uncertainly poised be-
tween 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 non-
fiction. 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 anal-
yses, and reviews of new work by or related to women. ILM offered a
welcoming resource to facilitate the intellectual “awakening” of Indian wom-
en; 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 ex-
cluded) to a sympathetic audience. As portrayed through the journal’s liter-
ary aspects, its promotion of self-reliance, self-development, and a coopera-
tive spirit eclipsing racial, religious, caste, class, economic, social, and politi-
cal 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 innovative-
ness 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, repre-
sented by two primary avenues of women’s activism: first, Ladies’ Philan-
thropy, expressed through such social events as “At-Homes” and “Purdah
Parties,” and by community activities and projects sponsored by ladies’ soci-
eties and associations. A second, more intensive, activism was Women’s
Mission to Women, involving advocates’ commitment to improving the stat-
us of widows and orphans; to addressing the medical, legal, and educational
needs of purdahnashins; and to subverting the sexual exploitation of vulner-
able women and girls. Aiming to institute permanent, meaningful change in
the lives of poor, abandoned, and otherwise disenfranchised women, “wom-
en’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-sufficien-
cy for India’s strikingly prolific widow population.
Whereas chapters 2 and 3 consider the “awakening of Indian woman-
hood” through intellectual and literary frameworks, and chapter 4 surveys
women’s early social organizing and activism, chapter 5 reveals the increas-
ing incompatibility between imperial and national interests. “ILM and Indian
xxviii Introduction

Identity Politics” investigates the publication’s endeavor to maintain its poli-

cy of tolerance or, at least, respectful coexistence as the independence move-
ment intensified and choosing sides became less an option than an impera-
tive. 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 conser-
vatives 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 con-
siderations are several questions: How to modernize India without compro-
mising its essential cultural identity? How is that identity defined? Who is
doing the defining and to what sociopolitical ends? 38 Such cultural introspec-
tion surfaces in the pages of ILM, whose promotion of a healthy East-West,
ancient-modern balance—believed by many necessary to secure India’s glo-
bal 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 educa-
tion. “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 wom-
anliness, and how to modernize India without compromising its essential
cultural identity.
Moving the focus beyond regional and national to the Western hemi-
sphere, “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 indepen-
dence 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
 Introduction xxix

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 re-
spect—an endeavor analogous to nationalist activists’ nonviolent, noncoop-
erative approach to independence. The final numbers of the publication Ka-
mala 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-forgot-
ten yet significant chapter in Indian literary history. Whereas ILM’s 1901
inception eulogized the late Queen Victoria by praising her motherly nurtu-
rance 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 mutual-
ly 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 pro-
vides 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 Satthianad-
han . . . [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-
xxx Introduction

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), Padmi-
ni 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 social-
izing 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
 Introduction xxxi

of the family as a space for emotional fulfilment” compelling and attractive, prompting com-
parisons 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 pres-
ident 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 assas-
sination 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 Wom-
an” (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 pos-
sible, 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 (Ko-
sambi, 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 civil-
izing 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-
xxxii Introduction

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 self-
development 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 writ-
ing 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 tradi-
tional 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 bibliogra-
phy, 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 simi-
lar)—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 Kama-
la 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 inconsisten-
cies. 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.

xxxiii
xxxiv Reader’s Note

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 comple-
mented by women represented as writing within the structures dominated (tex-
tually and extra-textually) by men. . . . [Periodicals] history chronicles women
taking on those structures and in some ways reformulating them, but remain-
ing situated firmly within the dominant patriarchal ideology. (Shevelow, Wom-
en 198)

An understanding of these dynamics is essential to appreciating ILM’s pro-

motion 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 modern-
izing and nationalist progress. Insofar as “‘India cannot be free until its
women are free and women cannot be free until India is free’” (Sinha, “Read-
ing” 7), the conundrum posed by the Indian Woman Question and the soci-
ocultural angst it generated demanded resolution. The following contextual-
ization of Indian women’s periodicals generally and ILM specifically is pred-
icated 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 maga-
zines, the development of Indian women’s magazines, and the inception of
the Indian Ladies’ Magazine.

1
2 Chapter 1

Kamala Satthianadhan, Editor

Padmini Satthianadhan Sengupta, Assistant Editor

 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 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 long-
entrenched silencing that woman-centered journalism, stimulated by wom-
en’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” (Bal-
laster, 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 nineteenth-
century 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 suit-
able for women readers” (177), and in the process “set out to define their
readers. Reading the magazine both produced femininity and was its signifi-
er” (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 Victo-
rian 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 innova-
tiveness, popularity, and social impact. 1 That British publishing firms regu-
4 Chapter 1

larly sent books for distribution in the Indian market (schools, libraries, and
private consumers) is well established, 2 but what has not yet been deter-
mined—and is beyond the scope of this study—is the availability and circu-
lation 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 circu-
lated 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, educa-
tional, and social reform networks). The following discussion aims to contex-
tualize 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 under-
pinning early women’s periodicals included “the domestic treatise, and the
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 5

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 charac-
teristic 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 (Bee-
tham, Magazine 21). Consistent with the emphasis on women of leisure is the
absence of articles on such practical matters as childcare, cooking, or dress-
making, 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’ “accom-
plishments” 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 honor-
able, 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 purport-
edly exalted position: “The new vision of Womanhood, compounded of piety
and domesticity, had a profound effect upon the character of women’s maga-
zines, 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 Domes-
tic 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
6 Chapter 1

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 knowl-
edge,” 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 nineteenth-
century 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 (nonfunc-
tional 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 econom-
ic capital extended to debates about the propriety and desirability of female
education and definitions of women’s work, resulting in the enduring para-
dox 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 la-
bor, Victorians arrived at a singular solution: women do need specially de-
signed instruction, and this they can acquire at home through woman-cen-
tered 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 wom-
en’” (Beetham, Magazine 89). Its editorial aim was to provide “useful, prac-
tical” instruction so that readers’ “understanding and judgment will not be
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 7

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 innova-
tive 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). Ru-
skin’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 ave-
nues 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 ex-
amples 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 Bes-
sie Raynor Parkes, and its editors included E. G. Anderson, Barbara Bodi-
chon, 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-
8 Chapter 1

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 chap-
ter. 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), be-
fore shifting into the more militant tactics of suffrage activism. Features in
ER address such issues as employment, politics, suffrage, education, eco-
nomics, women’s news (domestic and foreign), topical essays, and corre-
spondence—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, “Insti-
tutionalizing” 25–26). IM declared itself “mainly occupied with educational,
literary and social matters . . . a source of encouragement . . . and of stimu-
lus” (23–24). This editorial statement anticipates ILM’s own; indeed, an-
nouncements 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 self-
promotion. 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
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 9

“as the natural expression of the female self” (180), it also promoted journal-
ism 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 “rela-
tively 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). Posit-
ing 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 Em-
pire.’”
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 Ga-
zette) and critiqued by Matthew Arnold as a decline in literary standards,
exerted a democratizing force on periodicals’ editorial policies, in part re-
sponding 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 facil-
itated 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 in-
vention 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 ex-
panding reader base, one preoccupied with increasing literacy and bound by
working-class economic limitations, extended to female readership—a pat-
tern 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 exper-
tise 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 . . .
10 Chapter 1

and in this important matter of the promotion of intercourse between Euro-

pean 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’” (Woman-
hood 1903: 301). A year later, ILM announced a second co-sponsored com-
petition 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 con-
sumed not only the content of women’s magazines but the revenue-generat-
ing 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 ra-
cism” 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” (Bee-
tham, Magazine 168). This confluence of factors—Anglo and Indian, gender
and imperialism, ethnocentrism and racism—coalesced to shape Kamala Sat-
thianadhan’s culturally accommodating editorial platform. Into this social
climate stepped newly literate Indian women who were exhibiting intellectu-
al 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 contri-
butions 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 (Wom-
anhood). Together, these factors comprise what Beetham terms an editorial
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 11

“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 necessi-

tates 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 indige-
nous 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 ex-
pression and imperialists’ determination to suppress print matter that was
deemed seditious, treasonous, or insurrectionist over a two-hundred-year pe-
riod. As the British quickly realized, the growth of the periodical press paral-
leled 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 national-
ism 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 Censor-
ship 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
12 Chapter 1

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 Regu-
lations 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 news-
papers 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 complex-
ities, “government” was transitioning from the East India Company (a com-
mercial 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 inten-
sified 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 mil-
lion 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 censor-
ship. The VPA targeted seditious printed matter deemed to foster “disaffec-
tion” 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 vernac-
ular 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 sup-
pression of nationalist solidarity—and the resulting boycott and burning of
English-imported goods, Minto’s Newspapers (Incitement to Offenses) Act
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 13

(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 Row-
latt Act or Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act (March 18, 1919) pro-
vocatively associated nationalist activists—including the press—with terror-
ists 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 dis-
perse the nationalist movement but to galvanize it, moving beyond critical
commentary in the periodical press to a period marked by strikes and boy-
cotts, 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 cli-
mate 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 wom-
en were instrumental in raising literacy and as platforms for presenting social
and political issues. Magazines promoted such Victorian values as “well-
regulated domesticity . . . discipline, order, efficiency, organization, regular-
ity, 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 facilitat-
ed “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 Victo-
rian-informed colonial discourse. The conjunction of these two factors repli-
cated Angel-in-the-House ideology, wherein “intensity or passion” was sub-
limated within a “sweet sexless and moral motherhood” (59) offered in lieu
of the modern womanly woman.
14 Chapter 1

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 educat-
ing 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 cur-
riculum favored “dress, housekeeping and marital relationship” over “gener-
al knowledge” instruction, thereby disseminating information that was selec-
tive and circumscribed by separate spheres ideology.
Nineteenth-century women’s magazines in Bengal trace a similar devel-
opment, being “edited, and also largely written, by men” and thus “less
indicative of the concerns of women’s own communication than of the sub-
jects male social reformers deemed appropriate for a female audience” (Sree-
nivas, “Emotion” 61). 21 Bhadralok reformers 22 established and edited vari-
ous woman-centered periodicals aimed at the instruction of women, for ex-
ample, 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 wom-
en” 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 edito-
rial policies irresistible, from its advocacy of widow remarriage and inter-
caste 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
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 15

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. Subsequent-
ly 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 be-
yond their accustomed seclusion, while also featuring more women contribu-
tors.
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 periodi-
cals

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 di-
alogue, 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 straightfor-
ward: the intensification of nationalist activism as a result of hardening Brit-
ish 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 English-
language 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). Subse-
quent woman-edited journals include Grihalakshmi (1903), the “first illustra-
tive journal in Telugu,” emphasizing women’s reform and domesticity; Sa-
vithri (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-
16 Chapter 1

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 consolidat-
ed 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 publish-
ing, in both English and regional vernaculars. 29 So thoroughly was English
language entrenched in Madras’s cultural history that the region was subse-
quently 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 seeming-
ly 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,
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 17

1881–1985), founded by nationalist G. S. Iyer, was the first Indian-owned,

Tamil-language paper. The short-lived nationalist organization Madras Ma-
hajana 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 devel-
oped the Dravidian or Self-Respect movement, which criticized Brahmin
conservatism and Hindu superstitions and advocated on behalf of the “Un-
touchable” caste. In 1937, the INC party came into power in Madras, intro-
ducing 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 coher-

ence—rooted both in language and political traditions—from precolonial cen-
turies. The centralizing impetus of British rule helped to strengthen this coher-
ence, 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 Enlight-
enment; 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 wife-
hood” (62); far from contesting women’s roles, they promoted female educa-
tion 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 Vic-
torian literature), Indian traditionalism (as seen through Indian classical liter-
ature), 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
18 Chapter 1

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 vulner-
ability. 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 gen-
teel 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 Cou-
sins—and Indian activists—Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, Kamaladevi Chatto-
padhyaya, 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 wom-
en’s advocates, including Kamala, found problematic. 32 Like ILM, which
facilitated translations of articles into vernaculars (Telegu, Tamil, Malaya-
lam) 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 ad-
vancement” (“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 sociocul-
tural 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.
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 19

Stri Dharma is distinguished by two signature, ultimately incompatible,

departures from ILM’s editorial policy: its conservatism on the Indian Wom-
an Question and its political radicalism. In the first instance, it claimed that
“true liberation would come through the realization of women’s responsibil-
ities to family” (Tusan, “Writing” 625–26), a primary issue in Indian Woman
Question discourse. While it is true that ILM’s editor, contributors, and read-
ers largely agreed that woman’s realm is home and family, most also agreed
that modern women had an ethical responsibility to contribute to the well-
being 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 under-
mine progressive legislation abolishing sati, preventing child marriage, and
promoting widow remarriage. 34 For all its ostensible radicalness, “Stri Dhar-
ma encouraged readers to look specifically to India’s past for guidance re-
garding women’s political and cultural advancement” (632)—a position Sat-
thiadnadhan warned could have a negative impact on modernization. Wheth-
er through life-saving legislation or cultural restoration, Anglo interference
in Indian culture increasingly found rejection as nationalist separatism hard-
ened 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 alien-
ation; to that end, she advocated a gradualist path toward change based on
persuasion rather than antagonism. For instance, whereas Stri Dharma fore-
grounded 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 Satthianad-
han defended her politically muted editorial principles—“since there are oth-
20 Chapter 1

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 woman-
hood), and for its struggles with financial viability (its demise in 1935 antici-
pating 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 Eng-
lish-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 peri-
od, Francesca Orsini notes, “Women’s journals . . . were deeply affected by
the call to political participation and acquired a sharp nationalist edge” (“Do-
mesticity” 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 way-
side; 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, frugal-
ity” (maintaining the domestic status quo), while women address social re-
forms (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 domes-
ticity, while women advocate curriculums aimed at developing “the total
personality” (“Women’s” 85–86). During the pre-independence era, wom-
en’s periodicals “supplemented, or even supplanted, formal education. . . .
[They] reached out to girls and women educated informally . . . and provided
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 21

them with a range of information and topics much wider than the curricu-
lum . . . [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, Vivekavath-
if, Intimations to Women, and Anasuya) to regional concerns (Penmati Poti-
ni, 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 inter-
ests 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 In-

dian women, with a solitary Indian woman at the editorial helm; its contribu-
tors 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] multi-
plicity of writers,” resulting in a “split between the functions of editor and
writer”; fin de siècle magazines were distinguished by a “collection of fea-
tures written by other hands than those of a single editor-persona” (Sheve-
low, Women 149, 151). In Satthianadhan’s case, “the [editorial] persona
remained at the periodical’s center as its controller and its principle of organ-
ization, 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
22 Chapter 1

survey of women’s periodicals, West and East, and in the specific sociopoli-
tical 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 nation-
al—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 tradi-
tion 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 ideolo-
gies 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 under-
pinning 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, articu-
lations of cultural identity, and the independence movement. Like the histori-
cal moment marked by Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (1897), ILM represents a
crystallization of forces: the empire’s broadest expansion and incipient de-
cline 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 so-
cial 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
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 23

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 domes-
ticity 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 national-
ist discourse on the ‘woman question’” (65). Unique and original in its syn-
thesis 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 gender-
based 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—cook-
ery recipes, needlework patterns, home remedies, and women’s news not
being typically regarded as politically subversive. Launched “on the trou-
blous waters of Indian Journalism,” its editorial principles reveal an innova-
tive, 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 impos-
sibility; 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 occa-
sional editorial asides (distinct from editorial columns) typically made a
corrective statement, encouraged commentators to remain civil, invited dis-
cussion 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 so-
cial custom:
24 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 ob-
jecting 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, wom-
en’s social reform activities, and news of professional advances in the public
sphere; instructive articles addressing all aspects of domesticity (food prepar-
ation and nutrition, clothing, childrearing, health, hygiene, and sanitary re-
form); 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 explora-
tions 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 analy-
ses 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 ideol-
ogy conflict with modernization and nationalist activism; on the other, wom-
en’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,
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 25

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” in-
clude taking the Angel out of the House and into the streets to benefit the
community. This introduces a crucial fourth element to the swaraj (individu-
al)/swadeshi (communal)/satyagraha (national) nexus: seva or self-less ser-
vice 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 Ma-
dras 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 intercultu-
ral 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 (Banga-
lore), Voice of India (Delhi), Subodha Patrika (Bombay), Daily Telegraph
(London), The Indian Daily News (Calcutta), Times of Malabar, Indian Mes-
senger (Calcutta), Indian Social Reformer (Bombay), The Indian Daily Tele-
graph (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-
26 Chapter 1

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 sub-
scribe” (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 Guar-
dian praised this

new venture in Oriental Journalism . . . mark[ing] an epoch in the emancipa-

tion of Indian womanhood . . . we hope this new venture, published in Eng-
lish, . . . 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 Brit-
ain and America whose hearts are large enough to care for the welfare of the
people of India’s ancient civilization. (Bombay 1904: n.p.)
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 27

The “influential section of India’s women” includes English-educated na-

tives 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 es-
sential for mobilizing an independence movement in a country as vast, multi-
cultural, and multilingual as India. 45
Kamala periodically offered editorial self-assessments, followed by ap-
peals for suggestions for improvement or, during economic struggles, in-
creased 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 success-
ful 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 (quar-
terly) 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, prob-
ably in order to economize. From 1912 through 1917, ILM was published
quarterly, to which Kamala objected that “Quarterly numbers of the Maga-
zine 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
28 Chapter 1

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 wom-
en, 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 con-
sciousness of each individual, and this is the lofty aim that her magazine
“caters for.” Her sensitivity toward social conservatism prompts a compara-
tively 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 anticolonial-
ism becomes a means to reify misogynistic practices in the name of national-
ism. Arguably, however, this privileging of social over political and conser-
vative 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 inclina-
tion to a relatively organized movement tied to the nationalist agenda, alter-
nated 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 advo-
cates 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:
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 29

“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 indepen-
dence” (“Female Solidarity” 1931: 432). 53 Women must cultivate gender
solidarity and distance themselves from the sorts of sectarianism and intoler-
ance, exclusivity and violence historically driving men’s political endeavors.
In a striking challenge to the mother worship underpinning Indian national-
ism, 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 compris-
ing Indian culture and rejected by others as representations of an alien con-
queror 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 mem-
bers, females (particularly widows and orphans) and “Untouchables” or Har-
ijans (“children of God”). 56 These humanistic principles define the maga-
zine’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 proselytiz-
ing was avoided), social reforms, women’s emancipation, and Indian nation-
alism; 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, national-
ization, independence—depended on a lofty, moralistic ideal of womanhood,
such as that articulated by Ruskin, Patmore, and Tennyson; as a result, ten-
sions 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 Sat-
thianadhan 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 . . .
30 Chapter 1

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 incongru-
ities . . . [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 alterna-
tive 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 pro-
vided 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 English-
women’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 simi-
larly “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-articula-
tion, its resistance evidenced by incorporating Western and Eastern ideolo-
gies as well as conservative, liberal, and reformist perspectives, and by its
aim to construct an alternative, culturally relevant conceptualization of In-
dian 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”
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 31

(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 atten-
tion 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 concep-
tualize, interpret, and widen their sphere while clinging hesitantly to an out-
moded 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 consu-
mers, 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 periodi-
cals 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 peri-
odicals. 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 institu-
tions (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).
32 Chapter 1

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 bureau-
cracy, and militancy. What was previously unofficial became official in 1858, when the compa-
ny 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 criti-
cism” 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, combin-
ing 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, refer-
ring to people of respectability (“gentlefolk”), on some levels analogous with Western middle
classes or bourgeoisie. “The model of the bhadramahila [gentlewoman] was strongly influ-
enced 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-
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 33

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); “rad-
ical-critical phase” (first half of the twentieth century); and return to domesticity (post-indepen-
dence) (“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 collabo-
rated 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 applica-
tions 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 transla-
tion 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 translat-
ed 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
34 Chapter 1

aping of Western manners and were thereby regarded with suspicion, consequently, national-
ism 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 ar-
rangements with Tamil Zenana Magazine, Indian Christian Intelligencer (Madras), “the Mala-
yalam 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 inconse-
quential.
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, “Read-
ing” 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 Sundara-
raman, “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 encour-
aging . . . 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 apa-
thy . . . 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.
 Women’s Periodicals, West and East 35

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 com-
petitive 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 heteroge-
neity” 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 “femi-
nist” (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 spark-
ing 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” (Hari-
jans, Dalits, Depressed, or Scheduled Classes), a population of fifty million during the national-
ist 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 empow-
erment 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 compar-
able 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 Wom-
an . . . 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” (Rajagopalaswa-
my 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,” di-

37
38 Chapter 2

vorce being permitted to men but not to women (Murthi 1936: 51). Accord-
ingly, 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-the-
House.

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 In-
dian 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 Wal-
ter Scott, “O woman! / When pain and anguish wring the brow, / A minister-
ing 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 national-
ism, employed to emphasize the degraded status of woman and its negative
impact on modernization. 3 Through literary criticism, primary Victorian
 ILM and Literary Criticism 39

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 soci-
ety—a concept evocative of purdah. 5 Opponents claimed women are mascu-
linized and unsexed by cerebral pursuits, which render them socially incom-
patible with men, biologically unfit for childbearing, ill-suited for domestic-
ity, 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 un-
thinkable 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 woman-
hood” 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 ac-
cording to conventional patriarchy, the ideal of educated womanhood dis-
placed 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:
40 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 unques-
tioned—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 pur-
pose—to claim his lawful property and assert his conjugal rights—by pre-
senting 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). De-
prived of maternal guidance by her mother’s early death—a standard Victo-
rian device to account for female deviance—Ida fails to recognize that her
duties are marriage and motherhood, not intellectual pursuits. She “repudi-
ates 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 advanc-
ing female education, Ida’s example is presented as self-aggrandizing rather
than philanthropically admirable; the prince not only does not share her
 ILM and Literary Criticism 41

vision, but also mourns her exchange of “fame for spouse and . . . great deeds
for issue . . . [for] what every woman counts her due, Love, children, happi-
ness” (“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 appar-
ently 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 en-
trenched 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 Guine-
vere, 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 Guine-
vere 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 re-
garded 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
42 Chapter 2

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 substitu-
tion, 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 “uncon-
sciously”) 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 mar-
vels 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,
 ILM and Literary Criticism 43

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 autono-
mously, Dora lives only for “the happiness of others.”
An alternative interpretation highlights darker aspects of the poem. En-
raged by Dora’s disobedience, her uncle rejects his penniless niece and as-
serts 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 posi-
tioned to become “fallen.” Concerned about Uncle’s negative influence over
the child, they convince him to soften his harsh, unforgiving ways, manifest-
ing 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 uncondi-
tional. 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
44 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. (Nali-
ni 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 atti-
tudes 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 disem-
powering 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 “edu-
cate at least their sons,” but “the intellectual education of [Indian] girls has
been a plant of slow and hindered growth” (McDougall 1917: 78). Tenny-
son’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-
 ILM and Literary Criticism 45

cused from incarceration and not forced to live with her spouse; she re-
mained 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. Rukh-
mabai 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 of-
fered 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 oblivi-
ous 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 comple-
mentarity 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 Christ-
like 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 In-
dian 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 con-
trolled by censors and chaperones) fails to compensate for the telling asser-
46 Chapter 2

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 bright-
ness, 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 hus-
band” (“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 modes-
ty” 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 In-
dian 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 An-
gel in the House, which outlines the process of courtship, wooing, engage-
ment, marriage, and the newlywed period (including the couple’s first shop-
ping 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
 ILM and Literary Criticism 47

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 bene-
fit 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 denigra-
tion of females (at best the incarnation of evil, at worst an exorbitant expen-
diture with no profitable return), but also with the Christian concept of origi-
nal 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 har-
pies parading the streets, claiming their “rights,” and unsexing themselves. In
Ruskin’s words, women “must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinc-
tively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development but for self-renuncia-
tion” (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 neces-
sary to overthrow British imperialism—is denigrated as exemplifying West-
ern 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
48 Chapter 2

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 Mis-
sion to Women,” which posits that it is the responsibility of Angels-in-the-
House 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 unattrac-
tive qualities of both races” (1908: 186). This false dichotomy poses man’s
personal Angel against what some regard as sociopolitical activism and oth-
ers 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 Satthia-
nadhan’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 ar-
chaic chivalric code perpetuated by Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore (Satthia-
nadhan, “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 men-
defenders” 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:
 ILM and Literary Criticism 49

a woman who wears “mannish” clothes, smokes cigars, rattles out slang, gam-
bles . . . 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 she-
goddess-and-he-worshipper are as “unnatural and abnormal” as the Indian
woman who worships her husband as a god, the Eastern equivalent of Mil-
ton’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 fanta-

sies—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 ulti-
mately as steeped in Angel-in-the-House ideology as those of Patmore, Ten-
nyson, 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 pub-
lication 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
50 Chapter 2

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 welcom-
ing 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 impressive-
ly 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 princi-
ples 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 criti-
cism of Indian texts. Throughout the pre-independence era, Vasudha Dalmia
notes, “The notion of a national literature had acquired a political and cultu-
ral 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] ‘autobiogra-
phy’” (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 illus-
trating 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 vener-
able past (333).
Literary analyses of women characters measured tradition against con-
temporary 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, includ-
ing sacred texts—Bible, Vedas, Koran—and literary classics, East and West.
 ILM and Literary Criticism 51

“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 inferi-
or; while Indian poetry was “born amid the sublime majesty and silence of
the ‘eternally radiant Himalayas’ in the near vicinity of the ‘blue holy Gan-
ges’” (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 “spuri-
ous” 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 Maha-
barata:
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.
52 Chapter 2

Surely, this critic must have been reading Ruskin, Tennyson, and Patmore—
certainly not Homer—while writing this assessment of India’s classic Maha-
barata.
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 Kas-
turba Gandhi and Vijaya Pandit would approve (184). 28 If Sita personifies
the Angel-in-the-House, Draupadi is the New Woman, chaste despite en-
forced 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,” put-
ting 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 con-
sistency of her views. 29
Along with editorial focus on “the Indian ideals of womanhood, as repre-
sented in the ancient literature of India,” Shakespeare was a prominent inter-
est, including thematic studies, character archetypes, and representations of
women. 30 Other British literature studies include Elizabeth Barrett and Rob-
ert 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 cultu-
ral 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 pos-
sibilities there are yet left undeveloped in India’s daughters” (“Toru Dutt”
 ILM and Literary Criticism 53

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 “pas-
sionately fond of books” and severely incapacitated by illness, she was none-
theless “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 . . . expres-
sion 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 sentimen-
tality, 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”
54 Chapter 2

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 move-
ment. She upheld the most grotesque practices, she idealized some of the
least useful customs of Hindu society. . . . Mrs. Besant has been a back-
engine 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
 ILM and Literary Criticism 55

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 romanti-
cization of traditional practices implies tragic repercussions. 38 In ILM, In-
dia’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 implica-
tions 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 di-
amonds and black coal—are of the same chemical compound but yield color-
coded 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 na-
tion’s literature, its “autobiography.” But as Lady Benson warned, this litera-
ture 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-
56 Chapter 2

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. Pandi-
ta 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 vari-
ous “Son(s) of the Soil.” “Women’s Part in Our National Progress” chal-
lenges 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 “de-
grading 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 Char-
treuse” ll. 85–86). During ILM’s first run, the editor, contributors, and read-
ers 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.

 ILM and Literary Criticism 57

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 blasphe-
mous 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 Wom-
an.”
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 intro-
duce 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-year-
old 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
58 Chapter 2

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 “compan-
ionate marriage,” see Sabha (“Our Wives” 1905).
19. A contributor posited that Indian women should be educated about India instead; Kama-
la 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 connec-
tion 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 perpetu-
ally impure, but these flaws could be remedied if the wife worshipped her husband and per-
formed 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).
 ILM and Literary Criticism 59

Corelli’s literary sins include her defiant abuse of punctuation, emphases, exclamation, hyper-
bole; 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 Wom-
en, 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 Spens-
er,” 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 associat-
ed 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 wom-
anhood (Roy, Indian 128).
35. See Jain, “Sister Nivedita.”
36. While sati represented a battlefield for “colonial and countercolonial discourses,” wid-
ows 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
60 Chapter 2

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 criti-
cism, 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 linguis-
tic, analytical, and literary skills, and articulate concerns about Indian Wom-
an 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-reli-
ance, 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
62 Chapter 3

genres from the West, such as the short story and novel but also in editorials
and essays which thematized the issues raised by the encounter. This adapta-
tion and assimilation of western genres to the Indian tradition and situation
were part of a larger shift in social and historical consciousness. (Nationaliza-
tion 224)

The idea of hybridization—“adaptation and assimilation”—contests claims

that Indian writing in English is unoriginal or derivative: “To view the phe-
nomenon as a mere imitation of formal conventions would reduce its mean-
ing, 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 stan-
dards were exacting, she was more interested in providing a nonthreatening
venue for women’s self-expression than in attracting established or well-
connected authors; the results, in terms of literary quality, were mixed, senti-
mentalism 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, self-
development, 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
 ILM and the Life Literary 63

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 facili-
tating inner growth that finds expression through public utterance and social
activism.
ILM welcomed contemporary women’s writing, both creative and nonfic-
tion journalism; its positive, upbeat tone aimed more at encouraging and
facilitating women’s self-expression than critiquing its literary professional-
ism: “We are anxious to encourage Indian ladies, who are beginners in writ-
ing, 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 inexpe-
rienced 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 novel-
ist,” Samuel Satthianadhan’s first wife, Krupabai: 4 “We have now an in-
creasing 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
64 Chapter 3

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 inter-
nationally acclaimed, award-winning Indian women’s writing throughout the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries eloquently attests to that insightful pre-
diction.

POETRY

Poetry enjoys a prominent place in ILM, from original new work to reprints
of poems by such established authors as Tennyson, Barrett, Browning, Nai-
du, and Toru Dutt. Evidencing Satthianadhan’s commitment to publishing
work relevant to “the customs and manners of Indian women, and interpreta-
tive 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 Wom-
en 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 un-
furled” (1934: 165). In contrast, lines by Assamese poet Jamuneswar Khata-
niyar 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”:
 ILM and the Life Literary 65

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 trem-
bling 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 in-
stincts, 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)
66 Chapter 3

Superstitions that widows are polluted, tainted, and in some way contag-
ious—even if still virgins—render their presence inauspicious, rejected, hat-
ed; 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 depen-
dence, and no advocate—does not contest it either. Although sati was de-
clared 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, choos-
ing 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 pres-
sure that allowed her no alternative.
A more rebellious response to social expectations is “The Brahmin Wid-
ow” 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 /
 ILM and the Life Literary 67

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 con-
viction) 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 polar-
izing commentary of Katherine Mayo. 9
In a lighter vein, “Lines by a Modern Indian Woman” rejects such ambig-
uous 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 Sulta-
na (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 ad-
vice 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, ulti-
mately embracing a patriotism in which the iconic Mother India synthesizes
68 Chapter 3

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, In-
dia’s ancient poetic legacy, ordinary men and women, boys and girls—punc-
tuated by a refrain expressing pride, honor, worship, reverence, and the will-
ingness “to die for thee” (1929: 281–82). Poems “To the Women of India”
more specifically situated nationalism with the awakening of Indian woman-
hood: “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 fore-
grounds 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 Daugh-
ter of India” she evokes Mother India, who veils her face with clouds and
withholds her “grace” from the world:
 ILM and the Life Literary 69

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 awak-
ening 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 In-
dia,” 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 be-
tween 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 “Invo-
cation” 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 nationalist-
patriotic impulse also finds expression in poetry celebrating Indian scenes:
70 Chapter 3

“Travancorea,” “Moonlight at Hathab” by Mila, “Kunchinjunga at Sunset”

and “The Ganges” by Albers; historical events: “Death of Shah Jehan” (Al-
bers); 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 be-
tween 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
 ILM and the Life Literary 71

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 hap-
py 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 melodra-
ma 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 jew-
els” (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 incomprehen-
sion”; 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 en-
tirely in the productions of men whatever their excellences in other respects.
The difference in style is also marked and unmistakable” (1909: 122). Over a
72 Chapter 3

century later, critics continue to debate such points, albeit with far less confi-
dence. But there is a thematic consistency in ILM’s short fiction that con-
forms 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 mar-
riage (parental intervention), and the inevitability of fate (divine interven-
tion). 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 child-
hood, the two young adults are now “falling” in love. Uncle blames Vasanti-
ca 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 mar-
riage.
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
 ILM and the Life Literary 73

when he carries her into the house, his physical proximity arouses “unaccus-
tomed 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 ex-
pansively 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 submis-
siveness 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 regard-
ing Hari was shrewd and immediate; cruelly crushed, she adapted the path of
integrity presented as instinctual in a “good” woman, however poorly educat-
ed. 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 male-
driven narrative, lacking agency in a story without instructive purpose.
From its title “What Might Have Been,” readers quickly guess the out-
come of this tormented meditation by a Hindu widow faced with a monu-
mental 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
74 Chapter 3

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. Re-
markably, 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 appreciat-
ed by some one” (9).
To the author’s credit and attesting to the unnaturalness of widow ideolo-
gy, 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 mean-
while, 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 remar-
riage (as opposed to celibacy) is curious, given that the justification for early
marriage and continuous childbearing is to avoid lost opportunities for pro-
creation, 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 purpose-
fully 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 wid-
ow 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
 ILM and the Life Literary 75

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 good-
bye, 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 posi-
tion, 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 mo-
mentous 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 envi-
sioned in Tennyson’s The Princess and anticipating Charlotte Perkins Gil-
man’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
76 Chapter 3

are permitted to disturb the peace; child-marriage is illegal, girls go to uni-

versities, 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 pro-
voking; its subversiveness prompted “Padmini” to rewrite the end of “Sulta-
na’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-seek-
ing, men followers”—are incapable of defending the country. When the men-
drudges 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 conven-
tional divisions of labor—because it is selfish to expect men to do house-
work, that being women’s “duty.” And so “Ladyland became Gentlemen-
and-Ladyland. . . . Men and women . . . were on an equal footing. . . . And I
woke up from my dream” (116). While illustrating the urge toward hetero-
sexual 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 wom-
en “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 expedi-
ent genre for conveying complex themes through dialogue than prose narra-
tive. 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
 ILM and the Life Literary 77

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 in-
laws). She has the education to be a New Woman but, confronted by tradi-
tional 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 Maithi-
li?” (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—appro-
priate 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 edu-
cated 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 ar-
ranged marriage only to validate the idea of kismet or predestination by
“falling in love” with each other anyway. Nalini determines to see her in-
tended 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-re-
turned 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 repul-
sive, 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
78 Chapter 3

not that great a gamble, given prior parental approval was already in place.
The couple’s determination to exercise free will—meeting before the cere-
mony, flaunting convention by eloping—is further compromised by the im-
plication that “true love” is always and inevitably dictated by fate, whether
that is orchestrated by rebellious young moderns or by custom-bound match-
makers. 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 re-
fuses to shave her head and wear widow’s clothes. The priests have pro-
claimed 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 re-
jected for its potential to scandalize the community—both for Urmila’s lack
of humility and “proper” motivation and for breaking off marriage negotia-
tions. 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 mod-
ern 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 unas-
sailable. 22
Far from “rude” and blasphemous, the logical Urmila convinces her
mother by outlining the economic vulnerability of Indian women, particular-
ly widows (perhaps Mother herself someday), wherein neither priests nor the
law will come to their rescue, much less male relatives; she rejects a supersti-
tious 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 humour-
ing him, while you get your way” (587). That men are in charge is a superfi-
cial 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.
 ILM and the Life Literary 79

Urmila clinches her argument with an allusion to Tennyson’s The Prin-

cess—“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 na-
tionalism personified as Shakti or Mother India. 23 The mother-daughter di-
alogue 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 threat-
ened by imperatives to modernize, reformists view custom as static and
regressive, and each endeavors to define Indian identity within those pola-
rities.
Unfortunately, the play’s swift, artificial conclusion undercuts the sensi-
tivity 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 every-
one wins. However, the fate of the splendid Urmila, which readers are en-
couraged 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!”; Moth-
er agrees, little sister is relieved, and Urmila, her free will thoroughly tram-
pled 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
80 Chapter 3

here is maintaining the status quo, and one’s hair, without the family losing
face with the priesthood.
Further emphasizing the (usually unacknowledged, generally uncon-
sulted) superior judgment of women, The Brigand’s Wife by R. S. Swarnam-
bal 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 pas-
sage” (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 under-
stand 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 im-
prisoned 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 prepos-
sessing,” 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, weep-
ing, 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 hus-
band from his self-inflicted woes. Ultimately, such autonomy and self-direc-
tion 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-
 ILM and the Life Literary 81

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 mar-
riage 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 pur-
ity 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 ex-
tremes 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 oth-
ers brokering an arranged marriage—thus validating the assumed inevitabil-
ity 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 random-
ness and the conventional futility it engenders. Without perceiving him, Leila
arrives, praying to the goddess Lakshmi in distress that her father “has of-
fered 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 to-
ward the tidy alignment of fate and free will, the troubling juxtaposition of
her intimate prayer with his self-aggrandizing voyeurism jarringly romanti-
cized 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
82 Chapter 3

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 endem-
ic 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 syn-
thesis—blending the advancements of Western civilization with the respon-
sibilities 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 opportu-
nities to illustrate or model alternative possibilities—respectfully yet critical-
ly—are repeatedly overlooked, as in unchallenged critiques of female auton-
omy.

SERIALIZATION

An exception to such lost opportunities is Detective Janaki by K. S., a fif-

teen-part story (1933–1934) of sufficient length and depth to foster character
and plot development as well as significant thematic threads. The overarch-
ing “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 com-
mitment 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 pre-
vail 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 assis-
tance to women variously compromised by cultural expectations, social mis-
understandings, manipulative relatives, and men bent on their sexual ruin.
Clients consult her about marital difficulties, lost children, religious fanati-
cism, cross-caste unions, questions of biological heredity, and ancient family
secrets. As a woman balancing marriage and career—actually using the for-
 ILM and the Life Literary 83

mer as a smokescreen for the latter—Janaki understands the finer points of

confrontations Indian women negotiate daily, emphasizing their disempow-
erment 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 partner-
ship.

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 girl-
hood.
With greater psychological depth, “Women in Southern India” depicts the
indoctrination of baby girls into an unquestioned “awe and respect” of par-
ents and “reverence for religion” (Quraishi 1902: 181). Education leads fe-
males “astray” and is linked with “wickedness and immodesty”; aside from
basic arithmetic, girls are not taught writing, music is “forbidden,” and physi-
cal 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
84 Chapter 3

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 de-
sign, she does not comprehend the moral, mental, physical, and social disad-
vantages, 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 book-
knowledge . . . was too loving to disturb me” (182). Considering the readi-
ness with which any sort of aberrant female behavior is attributed to educa-
tion 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 physi-
cally absent father to the intellectually absent mother, Aasimah’s experience
replicates that of the fictional Vasantica, including her haphazard, uncontex-
tualized 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, ignor-
ance 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 suffi-
cient 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 compatibil-
ity or social status but on financial convenience, Aasimah reveals that the
 ILM and the Life Literary 85

“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 com-
pares strikingly with the romanticized denouements presented elsewhere in
ILM’s pages—like Jane Austen’s novels, essential to the structural frame-
work (“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 “undeviat-
ing kindness” toward the aged and poor; and mourning customs and the lack
of performing arts. She asserts that zenana women are “happy in their con-
finement, 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 strang-
ers” (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 impris-
oned. 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 romanti-
cized as the essence of Indian nationalism, while socially and politically
disenfranchised; she whose sole responsibility toward her daughter is to en-
sure her passivity and get her married, regardless of the appropriateness of
the union. Exchanged between men and passed from mother to mother-in-
law, girls represent the most troubling example of cultural divide and con-
quer 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 abso-
lutely” over this “future usurper of her own authority.” The rift between
86 Chapter 3

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 Moth-
ers” 1929: 72). Given the centrality of maternal ideology in Indian identity
politics, the social criticism here evidenced in mother-daughter relations sug-
gests that the unarticulated happily ever after myth poses a far more insidious
threat to national cohesion than imperialism, patriarchy, and novels com-
bined.

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 inter-
course 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 penulti-
mate 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 degrad-
ing in the extreme” (“Women’s Part” 1913: 34).
 ILM and the Life Literary 87

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 ap-
proach, Gandhi urged open-mindedness about justifiable critiques (sanitary and health re-
forms). 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 “Misunderstand-
ings” (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 infant-
marriage 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 astound-
ing” (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).
88 Chapter 3

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 repre-
sentations 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 conver-
sion” to Christianity (Orsini, Hindu 50).
27. “Our sisters and daughters have begun bobbing their hair, smoking cigarettes, and enjoy-
ing 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 wom-
en, “women’s missionaries” adapted Western models of philanthropy to In-
dian contexts, facilitating sustenance (housing, food, clothing, and health
care), education, and skills training for economic self-sufficiency among
India’s tragically prolific widow population.

89
90 Chapter 4

Weaving khaddar

While “the life literary” offered a relatively nonthreatening means of self-

expression, its emphasis on practical articulation dovetailed with moderniz-
ing 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-
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 91

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 (In-
dian . . . Editorial 1905: 27). Along with European, British, and American
women “who take a deep practical interest” in India, ILM addresses econom-
ically 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 uneducat-

ed 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 An-
archy 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. Al-
though 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 “up-
lift” and its link with nationalism. 4 The imperative that women of a certain
92 Chapter 4

social status assume responsibility for communal and national moral purity
casts Indian women’s role during this period as something more than Victo-
rian 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 philanthro-

py. . . . 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, liter-
ary and philanthropic work of the women of the West,” with “special promi-
nence . . . given to such work carried on by Indian women” (Introduction
1901: 2). From the Western perspective, the concept of “Ladies’ Philanthro-
py” 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 dis-
agreeable 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 chil-
drearing responsibilities is itself a feminine endeavor, one more conducive to
familial solidarity than “fetishization,” she concludes with the inevitable ap-
peal 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
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 93

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, Do-
mestic (girls, women, mothers, women of other nations), and Ethical. The
largest category is Social, and includes ladies’ associations, reform organiza-
tions, 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 wom-
en on behalf of Indian womanhood. These women facilitated efforts to uplift
the less fortunate through fundraising and other contributions to female edu-
cation, medical and childcare facilities, and craft-making cooperatives. Par-
ticipation 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 break-
down of attendees’ national, racial, and religious affiliations and social stat-
us), 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 musi-
cal performances, a lecture or an “informing” paper (for example, Macrae’s
“Benefits of Zenana Lectures and Social Intercourse between Hindu and
94 Chapter 4

English Women”), and refreshments. Part of the proceedings might be trans-

lated, 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 “garland-
ing” 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 East-
ern 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 exer-
cise. . . . 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’ associa-
tions 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). Al-
ternatively, 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
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 95

Mussalmans”: “the strictest purdah arrangements were made. . . . The gate-

way 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 interac-
tions 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 La-
dies” 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’ Indus-
trial Class in Karachi provided free classes in “reading, writing and sums . . .
96 Chapter 4

[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 orga-
nizing, 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 unedu-
cated women to promote interdining, 17 social reform, education, and, as ad-
vocated 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 Scav-
engers” in Gujarat established an ashram and Bhangi school 18 “wherein all
the municipal servants and their children” receive instruction in music, sew-
ing, and “a habit of cleanliness” (“Social Work” 1929: 41). Calcutta Wom-
en’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, offer-
ing 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 progressive-
ness outlined in its editorial policy. But this point is easily clarified: one of its
prominent themes concerns relations between Raj women and Indian wom-
en, and among Indian women of different religious and sociocultural con-
texts: 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 coop-
eration with men, ILM promotes an international sisterhood that transcends
geosocial boundaries. 20 In terms not of elitism but of the greater good, Satthi-
anadhan viewed any endeavors to facilitate common ground among women
as progressive and in the national, no less than imperial and international,
interest.
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 97

At-Homes and Purdah Parties served an essential (and class-specific) pur-

pose 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 at-
tended, 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 wom-
en, she provoked an editorial outcry. 22 Steel condemns resident Englishwom-
en’s “utter aloofness from national interest,” claiming that “purely philan-
thropic 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 prac-
tical, 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 lan-
guages prior to arrival. 23 Steel’s point reflects an earlier era when Anglo-
Indian civil servants were required to complete just such a course of educa-
tion; since then debates over whether Indians should learn English or the
English should learn Hindustani and vernaculars continued to be unre-
solved. 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 West-
ern. . . . 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—every-
thing Western.
98 Chapter 4

While evidence of women’s organizing shows Steel’s accusation of “utter

aloofness” to be off the mark, 25 Satthianadhan’s conclusion that responsibil-
ity 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 Inter-
course” 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 be-
yond . . . 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 la-
dies’ 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 improve-
ment 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 neces-
sitated a population of academically and medically trained native Indian
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 99

women to minister to women’s physical and mental needs. Ladies’ Philan-

thropy provided women with opportunities to network through socializing
and entertaining, typically involving the socially prominent and economical-
ly privileged, aimed at communal solidarity and permitting participation be-
yond 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 Rama-
bai’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 nonso-
cialite 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 ne-
glected 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 victi-
mized by “kitchen accidents”; reconsidering the bride-price (or the bride
herself) after marriage, a husband could with impunity orchestrate the “acci-
dental” death of his wife (saris being notoriously flammable), keep her dow-
ry, 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 mar-
riage was consummated after the first menses, making child-wives into girl-
mothers; 33 while the biological and genetic deterioration resulting from such
100 Chapter 4

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” (“In-
fant Mortality” 1916–1917: 343). 36 Second, and at the other extreme, early
marriage is implicated in overpopulation, producing numbers disproportion-
ate to the means of subsistence and thus fueling chronic poverty; whereas in
the West one generation spans roughly thirty to thirty-five years, India typi-
cally 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 child-
widows; 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 suf-
fered 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 prac-

tices is seen in young girls who were widowed even before sexual consum-
mation (as in the story “Shudra”). Statistics offered in ILM include 859 one-
year-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 va-
riety of punitive measures, including near starvation. 40 For many widows,
sati—self-immolation or being buried alive—was preferable to such an exis-
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 101

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 ac-
cepted custom. ILM printed a memorial “against the practice known as Ka-
naya-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 conscious-
ness, 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 sociopoliti-
cal 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 ideol-
ogy 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
102 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 op-
pression of women perpetuated. 45 Regarding zenana life, Susie Sorabji con-
structs a bleak picture of “many inmates all herded together . . . individual-
ity . . . merged in that of others . . . [spirits] crushed by a tyrannizing mother-
in-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 them-
selves 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 cul-
ture’s health nationally.
Caste plays a significant role in India’s widow culture, and those unfamil-
iar 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 ar-
rangement, financially holding the bride’s family hostage for years. Hus-
bands have unlimited license to harass the in-laws, while the bride is silenced
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 103

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 bride-
widow rejected these attitudes and devoted her life to ameliorating the disad-
vantages 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 Pundi-
ta . . . ‘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 educa-
tion 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
104 Chapter 4

emancipation of Hindu women, which she supported by quotations from the

ancient Hindu Sastras”—emancipation from exploitation and superstition un-
supported 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 contempo-
rary mainstream Hindu society” diminished her work’s impact, a loss to self
and community “both tragic and mutual” (10). Ramabai’s attempts to insti-
tute 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” (Ana-
gol, Emergence 38). Her nationalist loyalty was suspect because she re-
nounced 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 attrac-
tions of Western civilization but by its potential models for the uplift of
Indian females, an essential precursor to the nationalist project. Her assess-
ment 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 depen-
dence 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)
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 105

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 Chris-
tians 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 wom-
en and children), missions or homes of learning “based on a kind of Tolstoy-
an 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 moth-
ers. 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
106 Chapter 4

think of. They have their own printing press, they print their own magazines
and books . . . the cause [sic] of her untiring efforts, self-reliance, her strong
faith upon God, her strength of character and her education. (“Description”
1910: 49) 58

In effect, Mukti Mission was a striking realization of Hossain’s Ladyland.

Originally intended to serve only high-caste Hindu widows, the mission sub-
sequently 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 in-
mates, along with an instructive display of “pictures giving an idea of cus-
toms 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 os-
tracization and poverty, might (perhaps already had) succumb to prostitu-
tion. 59
However unintentionally, Pandita Ramabai in her life and work inevitably
courted controversy, and when she set about reforming institutions and prac-
tices 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 “fo-
cus 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 move-
ment; 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 [pub-
lic] 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
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 107

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 ena-
bled in America. While some Indians objected to foreign intervention, Rama-
bai sought the most expedient path to realizing her goals: those who com-
plain 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 vocation-
al 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-relat-
ed 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 preju-
dices of the people”—meaning, strict observance of dietary and other consid-
erations based on caste hierarchies and separatism rather than egalitarian
“leveling” (“Mission” 1905: 339). 64 Karve’s marriage to child-widow Godu-
bai Natu, one of Ramabai’s pupils, further linked the two reformers’ institu-
tions. Alternative versions of the scheme include the Sikh Widows’ Home in
Amritsar “for teaching the friendless beings who seek shelter within its por-
tals, various useful and simple arts, such as tailoring, lace-making, embroid-
ery . . . 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-
108 Chapter 4

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 Chucker-
butty rescued over three hundred female famine and plague victims (ca.
1900), “widows and orphans . . . a brave work, nobly conceived and splen-
didly 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 wid-
ows 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 crimi-
nalization 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 child-
widows of the soil” (184). Also like Ramabai, Subbalakshmi did not distin-
guish 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 educa-
tional, 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 wom-
en’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 useful-
ly . . . 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.
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 109

“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). Con-
fronting 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 promi-
nent 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 collab-
orate 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 seem-
ingly unassailable entitlements accorded Hindu priests and temples; she
introduced a bill banning “toddy-drawing” from temple trees 73 and prohibit-
ing 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 incom-
patible 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 abomina-
tion 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 ignor-
ance and illiteracy of the masses and the neutrality of the [British] Govern-
ment 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.
110 Chapter 4

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 self-
sufficiency; 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, dona-
tions are invited “to continue this work of human salvage.” Adding to operat-
ing expenses are girls who are “in danger of being drawn to a life of dishon-
or” 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, Madras-
sians 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 acti-
vism; 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
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 111

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 protec-
tion 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-headed-
ness 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 per-
spective, her writing “is unique . . . clear, forcible, and epigrammatic, and she
excels in condensing ideas in short pithy statements” (“Miss Cornelia Sorab-
ji” 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 culti-
vation 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 vernacu-
lar . . . 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 polar-
izing, yet they anticipate Gandhi’s conservative, antimodern, anti-West plat-
form, which many felt served less to define and promote Indian identity than
112 Chapter 4

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 cos-
mopolitanism 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 No-
ble (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 All-
India Women’s Conference, and among those jailed for participating in sat-
yagraha 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 woman-
hood” (“Lady Dufferin” 1911: 244). 91 The National Association for Supply-
ing 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 outpa-
tient facilities—all designed exclusively for women-only patients and medi-
cal staff. In a happy contrast with previous standards of female medical care,
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 113

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-hon-
ored 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 illus-
trates a unifying trend among females of all religions, races, and socioeco-
nomic statuses: the imperative to move beyond personal and familial self-
improvement to participate in communal and national progress was as sym-
bolic 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. . . . Hither-
to they had depended upon the goodwill, and favour of men for their advance-
ment, 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’ Phi-
lanthropy and Women’s Mission to Women were necessary preludes to the
comparatively rigorous expressions of political activism leading to indepen-
dence. Historian Geraldine Forbes wrote that women’s organizations pro-
vided 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 essen-
tial precursors: the formation of Indian identity politics and the vicissitudes
of “social intercourse,” East and West.
114 Chapter 4

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 quick-
ly 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 in-
creasingly 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 wom-
en 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 wom-
en’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 indiffer-
ence 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 Mohamme-
dans” (“Parsee” 1908: 302), while Karkal Catholic Ladies’ Association “for social and intellec-
tual 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 physi-
cally 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
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 115

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 neces-
sitated 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 sen-
tences,” 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
116 Chapter 4

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, ultra-
sound, 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 infanti-
cide.
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 criminal-
izing 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 Calcut-
ta,” 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.”
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 117

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 mal-
ice, 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 devada-
sis 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 cul-
ture, 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 per-
forming Hindu rituals and reciting verses from the Shastras, in accordance with caste prohibi-
tion 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).
118 Chapter 4

Physical hardship, personal loss, and rejection by the Hindu community, posed against Chris-
tian 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 Maharash-
tra’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 conver-
sion 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 ortho-
doxy 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 disap-
proval 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 regres-
sive 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 In-
dustries 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 eco-
nomics. 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 peripher-
al, 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—high-
caste 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).
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 119

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 re-
sources, 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 be-
tween women of all classes” (155). For Maratha Brahmins, caste “pollution was more disturb-
ing 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 Balikash-
ram.”
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 reform-
minded 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 “per-
petual widowhood,” but “neither the political extremists nor the moderates will work energeti-
cally 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 . . .
120 Chapter 4

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 suppress-
ing 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 relig-
ious 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 promi-
nent 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 anti-
women’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.
 ILM and Women’s Social Activism 121

87. On Butler, see Burton (Burdens).

88. See “Miss Mary Carpenter” and “National Indian Association.” See also Burton, “Insti-
tutionalizing Imperial Reform.”
89. The Florence Nightingale Village Sanitation Fund was established “for the encourage-
ment 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 af-
ford 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. Contribu-
tors’ commentary was central to this aim, and the tone ranged from refresh-
ingly assertive to impressively articulate to contentiously acrimonious. Pri-
mary debates include relations between East and West—particularly the mu-
tual dissatisfactions of Anglos and Indians from their relative sociopolitical
perspectives—and critiques of the practice and ideology of purdah as a pri-
mary obstacle separating the two groups. Regarding purdah, some Western-
ers 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 compro-
mising its essential cultural identity. ILM’s promotion of a healthy East-
West, ancient-modern balance, viewed as necessary to secure India’s posi-
tion among modern nations, was difficult to reconcile with a pursuit of cultu-
ral autonomy increasingly driven by the rejection of all things not Indian.

123
124 Chapter 5

Rural occupations depicted in ILM

Aptly symbolizing her signature synthesis of Raj and swaraj, Satthianad-

han 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 125

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 Jallianwal-
lah 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 criti-
cal 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
126 Chapter 5

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 con-
text, 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 incomprehen-
sible . . . we cannot follow each other’s line of reasoning . . . we should feel it a
duty to do more to promote Social intercourse. (“Social Intercourse . . . Eng-
lish” 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 over-
come”:

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 inter-
course 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.
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 127

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 func-
tions, 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 wom-
en’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 wom-
en,” positing that “until he emancipates his own womankind, he cannot rea-
sonably expect to be allowed on a familiar footing in an Englishman’s
house” (“Social . . . India” 1917: 283). Kamala objects to the term “con-
tempt,” stating that Indian men “love and respect” their women but, due to
educational disparities, couples have little to say to one another; men “under-
estimate” women, but this is changing with increased female literacy (“Edi-
tor’s Answer” 1917: 285). Another regrets that “there is practically no social
intercourse between the two races . . . caste, custom, and tradition rise be-
tween us. . . . As long as Indian men do not bring their wives with them to
128 Chapter 5

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 unoffi-
cial social relations, Mrs. Lamont (Besley) 7 investigates the ways this sepa-
ratism is perpetuated. Socially isolated memsahibs viewed Indian woman-
hood according to the only examples they interacted with: their ayahs (nan-
nies) and other female servants, who were low class and illiterate. 8 These
women gossip in the bazaars, ridiculing the ill-understood habits of memsa-
hibs, 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 insur-
mountable. 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 ethnocentric-
ity from any perspective by definition obstructs mutual comprehension, In-
dians’ 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 repeat-
edly passed over for government positions (“Social . . . Anglo-Indians” 1907:
252). But among women, it was the practice and ideological mindset of
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 129

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 an-

swer, 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 propaga-
tion 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 prac-
tice, the remedy for which was the imperial civilizing mission. But as pre-
sented in ILM, the custom highlights not the moral but the ethical conse-
quences 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). Ibra-
him 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
130 Chapter 5

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 purdahna-
shin’s life in stark outlines: “Marriage before girlhood . . . seclusion; knowl-
edge 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 need-
ing 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 Words-
worth; “‘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 re-
verse 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 infan-
tilizes, dehumanizes, and animalizes women, who—illiterate, ignorant, un-
healthy, and antisocial—are “sunk in subjection and ignorance” (10). Qurai-
shi concludes that “the continuance of Purdah” in the modern era “is a
positive hindrance to the cause of progress and enlightenment” (11).
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 131

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 sys-
tem . . . [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 moral-
izing 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 in-
fluence 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 mere-
ly 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 Mahom-
edan 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, con-
verse 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 mod-
esty. Just as the abolition of polygamy is a matter of nationalism—“polyga-
my 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-
132 Chapter 5

dated by entrenched custom both defended and challenged as central aspects

of Indian identity politics. The “need of the day” is the “harmonious blend-
ing” 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 them-
selves, 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, iner-
tia, 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” fore-
grounding 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 justifica-
tions for women’s concealment behind veils and curtains: protection from the
impertinence and vulgarity of the unrestricted gaze; from the rude insinua-
tions, the exploitation of powerlessness, and the absence of comparable reci-
procity, 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 asso-
ciated 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 133

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 fran-
chise, 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. Frus-
trated 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 com-
fort—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 knowl-
edge 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 commen-

tary 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. Wom-
en’s potent influence in the march of progress cannot now be overlooked as
they are breathing a new life of Nationalism. (“Purdah” 1930: 294)
134 Chapter 5

The ambition “to eclipse men” is a notable shift away from nationalist-
proscribed gender solidarity—a solidarity nonetheless at odds with India’s
culture-defining gender separatism that is more aligned with Western femi-
nism. Distinct from the forces driving earlier debates about sati, widow re-
marriage, 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 artifi-
cially, 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 Confer-
ence, 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, facilitat-
ed in part by wide-ranging features on the topic in women’s periodicals, the
unique editorial platform they afforded, and the public theater of indepen-
dence activism that welcomed the burgeoning “energy of half our popula-
tion.” 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 135

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 Orien-
tals are not allowed to forget the immeasurable superiority of the Occiden-
tals”; 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 inter-
acting 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 po-
tential to thwart personal growth and development; as for contempt and
superiority, such blanket generalizations serve no purpose in advancing so-
cial relations, instead fueling suspicion, misperceptions, and distrust. Where
contempt is conveyed, goodwill is absent; better to look elsewhere for au-
thentic, 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 conquer-
or 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 responsibil-
ities, protect their interests, take pride in themselves, and assert equal foot-
ing—always already in place—with Englishwomen: “Realize the full nobil-
ity 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”
136 Chapter 5

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 Eng-
lish 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 atti-
tudes 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 bureau-
crats (“Social” 1903: 36). 34 This provocative commentary inspires the accu-
sation 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 re-
gard,” 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” (“So-
cial” 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 philan-
thropy, culturally specific perceptions, thwarted social intercourse: all partic-
ipants 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” discus-
sion, 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 137

Muslims disagree. This being the case even among and within Muslim com-
munities, the metaphor extends logically to the “almost insuperable difficul-
ty” 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 com-
plaining of the absence of social intercourse between Europeans and Indians,
unless the position of Indian women themselves is raised, and a better under-
standing is brought about among the various Indian communities them-
selves” (“Editorial” 1903: 94). By insisting that the uplift of Indian woman-
hood presupposes East-West social intercourse, the editor takes the unfortu-
nate comment above—“they must be treated as children”—to a more prag-
matic 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 sur-
rounds them! . . . Their conduct in India and the exclusive life they lead here
are . . . unnatural and assumed . . . [they] fail from day to day in the perfor-
mance 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 sister-
hood: “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 re-
sponds: “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).
138 Chapter 5

Another “rejoinder” reiterates the claim that the problems of social inter-
course 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 nobil-
ity of their womanhood and this cannot be until many of their existing preju-
dices against Western life, manners and people are dispelled. (Besley, “Social”
1903: 316)

While these comments might seem to reverse the expectation that the “ad-
vance” 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 self-
scrutiny, 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 them-
selves, 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 Wom-
an, 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 womanli-
ness 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 139

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, wom-
an-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 re-

flect the “instinct for self-preservation” that is essential in politically forma-
tive periods but fosters divisiveness in an increasingly globalized world com-
munity.
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
140 Chapter 5

that more open social relations will not contaminate or pollute anyone in-
volved 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 liber-
ty” of English ladies, and questions purdah’s role in prohibiting social inter-
course. The irrepressible Muslim contributor Shahinda provides a lively eye-
witness 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 pageant-
ry as “absurd and ridiculous,” adding slyly that the latter featured jewel-
bedecked elephants “by the hundred,” while the Delhi Durbar’s loftiest par-
ticipants—“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 inter-
course. 44
Although gender emphases by far represent most of the articles debating
this issue, ILM’s focus on social intercourse also features broader commen-
tary 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 punctu-
ality,” 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 141

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 re-
torts, “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 hab-
it . . . 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 inter-
course 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, prag-
matic), domestic arrangements (nuclear family), and nationalism (“In Union
is Strength . . . which we Indians have not yet been able to grasp”) (“Eng-
land” 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 emancipat-
ed, 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
142 Chapter 5

not what our forefathers have been, and have taught us; but what heritage we
are going to leave to the future generations. (180) 50

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 sociocul-
tural tolerance or exchange. A further complication is young Indians whose
“undesirable political influences” foster political tensions in the “host” coun-
try. 52
Social exchanges rarely move past politeness: “What do we Indian wom-
en 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 ex-
changes 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 romanti-
cized 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 unproduc-
tive, 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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 143

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 meaning-
less, 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 ex-
change 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 inter-
course 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 ex-
change 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 in-
surmountable 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
144 Chapter 5

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 indepen-
dence, 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 cus-
tom . . . 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 discus-
sion 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 Asso-
ciation, 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,” “Wom-
en’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
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 145

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 criti-
cism 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 preserv-
ing one’s “joy in life” in order to cope with the challenges: “It is indeed a sad lot for English-
women 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 “inde-
pendent . . . 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).
146 Chapter 5

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 “com-
plete ignorance” by this practice stymies India’s global competitiveness, “dignity . . . modes-
ty . . . 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 purdah-
nashins 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 arrange-
ment” is “absurd and unnatural” (“Polygamy” 1931: 120). Nor is extending divorce to wom-
en—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).
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 147

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 strate-
gies 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 emulat-
ing,” Englishwomen’s “apparent freedom” ultimately reduced to the objective of “getting mar-
ried” (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 wom-
en 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
148 Chapter 5

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 em-
pire; 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 corre-
sponding . . . [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 contempora-
neous 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. Sha-
hinda 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 expressive-
ness” (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 national-
ists. 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 circum-
stances” (Ahmed, Social 151).
 ILM and Indian Identity Politics 149

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 (“Eng-
lish 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-re-
turned” 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 “stand-
offishness,” 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 inter-
course 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” rang-
ing from pity to prurience (“Types” 1907: 3). She attempts to lend fuller
character to Indian women by outlining a series of subcategories: the se-
cluded 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 child-
bearing premature, her wifehood demoralized by a mother-in-law bent on her
submissiveness (4). The final category is the widow, ranging from the “un-
happy, sullen, useless” to those “who will be among the most potential fac-
tors 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.

151
152 Chapter 6

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). Al-
though in the context of India’s cultural variables Bengal is but one example,
it represents the earliest and most palpable responses to the colonial encoun-
ter—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 privi-
leged, 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 chan-
nel . . . 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 superior-
ity 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 wid-
ow remarriage—now featured an “increasing equation of scripture and law,
the conflation of tradition with Brahmanism, and the conviction of the exis-
tence 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 oppor-
tunism 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 . . . experi-
enced 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 153

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 “be-
came linked to the intimate relations of husbands and wives, such that antico-
lonialist sentiment was woven into the very fabric of discussions about con-
jugality” (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 middle-
class woman and her more profligate western counterpart” (Dalmia, Nation-
alization 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 ven-
eration 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” (Mur-
shid, 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 atti-
tude 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 repre-

sented 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 do-
mestic sphere was regarded as “the center . . . of a superior spiritual cul-
ture . . . 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 in-
fluences” (Chatterjee, Texts 11–12). Extending this logic to educational insti-
154 Chapter 6

tutions, schooling effectually invaded the inner realm of female minds while
necessitating their absence from the inner sanctum of home: “Seeking zeal-
ously 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 emancipa-
tion 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 centu-
ries. 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 establish-
ing 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 statis-
tic in 1879, Brahmo Public Opinion asked: “What proportion do these
schools bear to the number of women whose claims we are to-day advocat-
ing? 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 ignor-
ance 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 point-
less investment because they were destined for childbearing and domestic
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 155

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 influ-
ences, resisted that path (Burke and Quraishi, British 46). 7 As a result, edu-
cated 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 oppor-
tunities. This trend was confronted in 1903 by educator Susie Sorabji in a
speech to the Mahomedan Educational Conference in Bombay: “the con-
sciousness 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 Glad-
stone, 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 Mus-
lims, 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 rever-
ence, 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
156 Chapter 6

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 dark-
ens 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 eco-
nomic 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 govern-
ment’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 enlighten-
ment,” by others as blatant religious indoctrination, and by still others as
simply part of a benevolent civilizing mission. True of both moralizing mod-
ernists and conservative nationalists, the emphasis on women seemed to
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 157

signify “a new and thoroughly modern concern for their rights as individu-
als,” but that implication is “mistaken,” such concern instead serving to
reconstitute and reify “patriarchy and caste much more than liberating wom-
en into modernity” (Mani, Contentious 195).
Not entirely altruistic, the literacy project of Christian missions was pred-
icated 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 them-
selves “make women’s education a priority if they wanted to preserve their
culture and religion from the influence of Christianity” (Viswanathan, “Be-
ginnings” 10). Insofar as female education represented “a vital nation-build-
ing 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 en-
lightened race” (Basu and Ray, Women’s 188). 13 In 1879, Bethune College
offered higher education for women who, despite being intellectually qual-
ified, 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 com-
mon 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 in-
creased 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 miracu-
lous, to say the least.
158 Chapter 6

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 respon-
sibility 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 wom-
en . . . 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 national-
ists and imperialists. Considerations of class and caste deepen the issue be-
cause female education involved those “from the upper strata” almost exclu-
sively, revealing complicitous links between Brahminic authority and coloni-
al administration: “the vedic or brahminical tradition was meticulously ‘re-
covered’ (or invented) to suit contemporary ends,” while “the official dis-
course 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 sep-
arate 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 “Vic-
torian 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 159

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 devel-
opment 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 para-
dox. . . . 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 coun-

try, 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 to-
ward education, by the urge to test professional and personal boundaries, and
by the development of political consciousness.
160 Chapter 6

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 for-
getting 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, irrespon-
sible, 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 “grie-
vous 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 strug-
gles, it is unfair to compare this “Girl” with the “essentially peaceful, slow in
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 161

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 glo-
balization 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, “Mod-
ern” 1929: 164). Some modern women thrive on the shock value of uncon-
ventionality, “a gesture of protest against the insufferable doctrine of wom-
an’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 quarter-
century later, the emergent “Women of Today” endorse “reform and recon-
struction,” 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 mes-
sages, 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 con-
demned 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
162 Chapter 6

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 Draupa-
di; 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 Draupa-
dis.” 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 consis-
tently 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 remem-
ber 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 un-
marriageable: “there are few things more damaging to a girl’s social popular-
ity . . . 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 insecur-
ity 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 163

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 stu-
dents and workers that provided a safe, home-like environment. 24 By assert-
ing 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 ob-
serves 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.
164 Chapter 6

When, in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft had the temerity to argue that edu-
cated 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 re-
forms for women. The same pattern unfolded in nineteenth- and twentieth-
century 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 fe-
male education has no purpose beyond making life easier for men and boys
and that personal gratification and self-development are not legitimate pur-
suits, 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 man-
made “truism” or, like Wollstonecraft, view domesticity as the path to realiz-
ing a more liberal, if gradualist, educational goal leading to female empower-
ment?
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 com-
munity, to nation and world—to develop him- or herself to the fullest capac-
ity, 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 inherent-
ly 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, inde-
pendence, 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 165

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 capabil-
ities . . . [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 incon-
venience 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; ar-
guing against advanced degrees for Indian women, Flora Annie Steel advo-
cates 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). Chinnam-
ma 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 in-
stinctive, 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 hin-
drance 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 ver-
nacular” as well as Sanskrit (in order to appreciate the past) and English (in
order to converse intelligently and to incorporate modern advances in hy-
giene and domestic arrangements (156). But Besant’s priority is the “pros-
perity” 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 re-
main a “hindrance” and a “danger” to a culture engaged in the fight of its life
166 Chapter 6

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 contamina-
tion 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 con-
tributor 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 cor-

seted,” liable to “break from its bounds at the slightest touch of wider exter-
nal 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 educa-
tion 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 167

vital importance” and the “vast intellectual gulf” separating males from fe-
males 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 wom-
en’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” be-
cause 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 individu-
ality is unlikely to be woman herself. As for English education, which curric-
ulum 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 woman-
hood” 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 ac-
quire 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
168 Chapter 6

undermined. Some commentators regarded social interactions between wom-

en, 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 Educa-
tion” 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 in-
stance, 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-support-
ing, 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
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 169

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 necessi-
tates 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 real-
ized 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 in-
clude that it promotes “intercourse between English women and Indian wom-
en”—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 educa-
tion 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 pre-
ventability 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—ignor-
ance—had catastrophic consequences: Saraladevi Ghosal notes that the “dif-
ficulties 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
170 Chapter 6

ignorant women . . . will never be known. But how can they be held respon-
sible 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 pro-
vides a “powerful instrument for the social reform of India,” while preserv-
ing and elevating India’s rich linguistic heritage. 45 The Ruskinesque vision
of women as “queens of our hearths and homes” permits just enough educa-
tion “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 Vizia-
nagram, 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 “in-
sight . . . 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 them-
selves intellectually, to “walk abreast of the times . . . shake off ignorance,”
and rise above obstacles. Female education debates were impassioned, in-
tense, 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, indefati-
gably, throughout the pages of The Indian Ladies’ Magazine.
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 171

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). Con-
servatives 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 respect-
ing women.”
8. Woman is associated with heart rather than mind and thus by definition “requires im-
provement”: “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 virtu-
ally 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
172 Chapter 6

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 “rein-
scribed the absolute equation of women and maternity” (Beetham, Magazine 181).
20. “Wonder of It All” (1929: 5) investigates post–World War I materialism and modern-
ism, 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 remar-
riage): “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 “denational-
ized,” 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).
 ILM and the Indian Woman Question 173

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, single-
handed, 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 antinational-
ist (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 regenera-
tion 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
174 Chapter 6

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, domes-
tic 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 In-
dian 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 in-
clude first woman doctor Anandabai Joshi, Christian converts and educators
Pandita Ramabai and Lilavati Singh, Swami Vivekananda (with Hindu con-
vert Sister Nivedita), journalist Saint Nihal Singh, Hindu widow Parvati
Athavale, Gandhi’s “lieutenant” Sarojini Naidu, women’s health care re-
former Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, Muslim socialite Atiya Fyzee-Rahmin,
scholar Sudhindra Bose, and nationalist activist Kamaladevi Chattopad-
hyaya. 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 stud-
ying Indian travelers’ pre-independence writing about America. 1

175
176 Chapter 7

Given this study’s focus on Indian Ladies’ Magazine articles, not all of
the commentary discussed in this chapter draws directly from items pub-
lished in ILM. Supporting materials that were not featured in ILM’s pages
aim to contextualize relations between India and America in the period lead-
ing up to Indian independence. Those relations, originally defined by Chris-
tian missions (domestic and foreign), shifted to incorporate an expressly
political connection as Indian nationalists sought American support for inde-
pendence from Britain. These secondary accounts address gaps in the histori-
cal narrative of Indian-American relations by highlighting significant, in-
fluential figures who regularly appeared in ILM’s articles and reports, includ-
ing 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 Chattopad-
hyaya, whose American experiences postdate ILM’s final number, but whose
political commentary on the eve of Indian independence provides an insight-
ful 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 rele-
vant to constructing a coherent narrative of pre-independence, Indian-
American 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”
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 177

(Victoria) with “America, the continuous Coronation of a living queen” (Lib-

erty) (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 indepen-
dence 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 non-
whites (249). 3 Although such a focus, typically associated with the antebel-
lum 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 soci-
ety. 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-
178 Chapter 7

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, with-
out 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, inde-
pendence, 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 submis-
sion) over Western individualism (female combativeness), Bernard fuels
conservatives’ antipathy to all things Western, targeting modernization gen-
erally 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 fol-
lowing 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 iden-
tity—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] pres-
ence, . . . 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 negotiat-
ing 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 in-
dulge in chewing gum), cultural misapprehension, social faux pas, and ear-
nest 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 libera-
tion of Indian women from their state of backward bondage” (“Dr. Ananda-
bai” 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
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 179

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 unac-
ceptable—being exacerbated by the dearth of professionally trained Indian
women practitioners. In 1883, at age eighteen, Anandabai sailed to the Unit-
ed 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, methodi-
cally 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 diffi-
culty 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 ambiva-
lence 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-
180 Chapter 7

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 Philadel-
phia 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 audi-
ence—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”: “Pri-
vate 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 prudent-
ly suppressed by a public conservative stance for ‘nationalistic’ reasons”
(Pandita 23). Aside from the unsubstantiated “criticism of everything In-
dian” (far from those punitive mission teachers, these women were gathered
to support Joshi’s enterprise), this statement avoids confronting a more sig-
nificant 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 en-
gaged 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 prac-
tices 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 involv-
ing Anandabai’s husband Gopal, “a source of embarrassment” whose “pres-
ence added to his wife’s difficulties in every way” (Dall, Life 63). 14 Gopal
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 181

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 experi-
ence 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 extraordi-
nary 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, Introduc-
tion 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 wom-
en 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 Ameri-
ca’s signature individualism and self-sufficiency, a model not to be mim-
icked 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 tu-
berculosis; 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-
182 Chapter 7

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 antici-
pated that Anandabai’s “nobility of character and high purposes of life
should endear her to all of her country-women” and prompt others to “cher-
ish . . . 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 connec-
tion with Anandabai Joshi and the resulting life-shaping American experi-
ences; 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 wom-
anhood. There were few first-run ILM numbers that did not feature Rama-
bai’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 Eng-
land 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 subti-
tled “A Kinswoman of the Pundit Ramabai,” was intended “to aid the pro-
jects of her friend and cousin, the Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati” (iv); in turn,
Ramabai’s The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) was dedicated in memori-
am to Anandabai Joshee, MD.
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 183

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 with-
in” and cannot be attained through servitude or submission to others; thus
women are “weak, ignorant and subservient, in as far as they exchange self-
reliance for reliance on anything out of themselves” (Society 295). 21 This
point, echoed by Joshi, resonated with Ramabai, for whom the cultural ex-
pectations 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 advance-
ment. Every woman must exert herself courageously for her own advance-
ment, 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 “superflu-
ous” women a significant resource for cultural transformation, rather than the
chronic burden they were considered to be. 23 Distinct from Joshi’s “defen-
sive 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 Amer-
ica, touring, studying, lecturing to missionary and philanthropic organiza-
tions, and fundraising in support of her aim to create an establishment in
which Indian widows would be self-sufficient, productive members of soci-
ety.
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
184 Chapter 7

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 con-
structive 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 “nat-
ural” 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’ pul-

pits . . . 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
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 185

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 organ-
izations 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 advance-
ment” (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 aboli-
tionist annual The Liberty Bell features the iconic American symbol of “lib-
erty 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-
186 Chapter 7

sions” to untraveled and uneducated Indians, who are unable to conceptual-

ize 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 Lever-
ing asserts that “the American girl enjoys complete liberty, by liberty she
meant not destruction but construction. . . . She moves freely with her broth-
ers 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 self-
respect” (“Mrs. Sarojini” 1907: 267). To the West, Eastern gender separatism
indicated an unhealthy obsession with sex; to the East, Western gender egali-
tarianism offered proof of a similar obsession, a view expressed by Swami
Vivekananda. 37
Vivekananda made history by attending the World Conference of Relig-
ions 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 enormous-
ly 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 emulat-
ing (as opposed to mimicking) this Western example while adapting it to
Indian contexts, thereby subverting the worrisome influence of Christian
missionary teachers.
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 187

This commentary compares curiously with that reported in a 1933 article,

“Misunderstandings.” Here Vivekananda’s pronouncements on American fe-
males 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 immedi-
ately 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 devel-
op; 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 awak-
ened India. Indeed, such commentary would strike Western minds as project-
ing 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 per-
ceptual 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 “ma-
ligns India in America” (Nivedita 1:36). Vivekananda implies that Ramabai
is dishonest in her dealings with American missionaries, warning Nivedita,
188 Chapter 7

“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 Vivek-
ananda? 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?” (“In-
fant” 10). At the Chicago meeting, Vivekananda directly contradicted Rama-
bai’s claims in High-Caste Hindu Woman by denying the existence of “op-
pressive 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 character-
ized 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 bril-
liance 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 refu-
sal 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
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 189

Some commentary on America was more factual and impressionistic than

analytical, like that examining the country’s “heterogeneous races and com-
munities” (“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 “associative-
ness” and “combinations” best seen in volunteerism, social work, and philan-
thropic activities. Standards of education are impressive where applicable,
but the masses remain illiterate; co-education works well, reflecting compar-
atively positive attitudes toward women in a culture in which “[social] inter-
course between the sexes is more easy and unrestrained” than in older soci-
eties. This author is not alone in associating American periodical publica-
tions 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 pros-
perity . . . 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 ob-
servers 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 Chris-
tian convert who traveled to America, first in 1899 and again in 1909, fund-
raising 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 perfor-
mance 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
190 Chapter 7

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 consump-
tion. 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 cumber-
some” 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 de-
vices can help emancipate Indian womanhood “from the thralldom of unnec-
essary 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 Amer-
ica.” 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 industri-
alization, 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-reli-
ance, “self-made” women and men; distinct from India’s labor-defined caste
system and its large female population not “engaged in gainful labor” (un-
paid “drudgery” not having economic value), 46 work and workers are re-
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 191

spected—“manual work is not despised”—in fact, “national prosperity” de-

pends 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 pros-
perity and work ethic, dismissed by less investigative minds as crass “West-
ern 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 histo-
ry; young India would do well to emulate America’s scrappy, “can-do” atti-
tude. For Singh, Westernization is not the point: the willingness to risk what-
ever 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 hus-
bands “testify that their wives render them invaluable service by earning
192 Chapter 7

money.” To the claim that “men do not like brilliant women,” Singh coun-
ters:

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 conclu-
sion—“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 national-
ism had entered a more militant phase. Parvati Athavale’s 1918 American
experience differed markedly from that of her predecessors: as a Hindu wid-
ow, 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 coun-
trymen 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-
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 193

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 commen-
tary 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 “Shahin-
da,” 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 devel-
opment 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 hetero-
geneity 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—separat-
ing the thoughtful assessments of some Indian visitors from Fyzee’s ill-
spirited pronouncements and frivolous pique reveals her position to be as far
194 Chapter 7

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” per-
sona 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 conclu-
sion, as this book repeatedly evidences, clearly unsupported by reality. Of the
various American women’s organizations, Appasamy foregrounds the relig-
ious, 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 wid-
ows 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 At-
Homes and Purdah Parties, Philanthropy and Women’s Mission to Women to
the comparative activism of such organizations as AIWC (All India Wom-
en’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, wom-
en 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.
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 195

William Astor, this “bluest-blooded Aristocracy . . . a caste” in which inter-

marriage and interdining are forbidden and whose members uniformly vaca-
tion at Newport, Rhode Island, was dedicated to excluding the socially un-
worthy. 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 uto-
pian 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, “Read-
ing” 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 nation-
alist 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 pri-
mary factor shaping earlier Indo-American interactions. But the late 1920s
marked a more political tone, as Indian nationalists sought broader support
196 Chapter 7

for independence from Britain. The counterpoint to Katherine Mayo’s on-

slaught 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 woman-
hood based on her signature wit, rhetorical gifts, and cosmopolitanism. Nai-
du 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 mod-
ern, 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 na-
tionalists. 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. Vin-
cent-Millay, W. E. B. DuBois, Kahil Gibran, Cecil B. DeMille); she pro-
nounces 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 Li-
brary, 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 pro-
claimed to the world a Declaration of Independence . . . not only political
independence of the country from a foreign rule, but also social, religious,
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 197

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 “suffer-
ing . . . poverty stricken . . . fallen children of humanity” (Letters 211), it did
not accommodate the “disenfranchised children of America,” the emancipat-
ed blacks of the “Great Migration” from the South, who live in slums, unedu-
cated and impoverished. 65 In Cincinnati, Naidu aligned herself with Harriet
Beecher Stowe: “My message is also a message of deliverance from bond-
age . . . 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 un-
folding 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 indepen-
dence, 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 commen-
tary 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-
198 Chapter 7

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 self-
discipline 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 develop-
ments 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 jump-
on-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, “Nightin-
gale’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 West-
ern sisters, here or in America, the more I have been impressed by the similar-
ity of thought and ideal. (“Women of Orient” 1932: 299).

Naidu’s nationalist legacy is certainly vexed, due to her trademark idiosyn-

crasies and inconsistencies. While known for her rhetorical gifts, her insub-
stantial 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 re-
sponsive” (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
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 199

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 stylish-
ly 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 acknowl-
edging it 69—“she maintained a reserve and dignity throughout”—not accord-
ing 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’ ambas-
sador to the United States, Naidu might have exercised more dignified diplo-
macy and less social affectation; as a prominent presence in the indepen-
dence 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 cur-
rent 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 Chica-
go World’s Fair, her American experiences were limited by congress obliga-
tions. As a “freedom-loving people,” most Americans “have real sympathy
for India. They revere and respect our leaders,” particularly Gandhi, Tagore,
200 Chapter 7

and Naidu. 71 In a departure from the usual complaints about American jour-
nalism, 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 sentimen-
tality, 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 Mis-
sion to Women, a “genuine, spontaneous and loving appreciation for the
women’s work, a tribute that woman paid to woman. Even though I discov-
ered 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 cri-
tique 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 perma-
nently brings a comprehensive perspective to this discussion. Sudhindra
Bose, professor at the University of Iowa (1913–1946), struggled with pro-
fessional 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 com-
mentary.
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
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 201

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 plat-
form. . . . 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) perspec-
tives 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 ac-
costing 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 educa-
tion, labor, and social welfare (70). For Bose, “‘force and frankness’ are
traits he identified as specially American and admired for their social qual-
ities 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 individ-
ual talent, energy, and ambition” (103).
While Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya’s 1940–1941 American experiences
postdate the final number of ILM, her commentary offers an insightful con-
clusion 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
202 Chapter 7

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 working-
class 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 pio-
neer . . . [who] writes with the authority of one who has worked and suffered
for the cause with singular devotion.” Given her passport difficulties, Kamal-
adevi was clearly perceived as a political threat by British authorities; once in
America, her visa was extended, thanks to diplomatic pressure (Bakshi, Ka-
mala 218). But her movements were closely monitored and, on returning to
India, she was arrested and sentenced to solitary confinement for her “sedi-
tious” critiques of British imperialism.
Kamaladevi was prominent in Washington’s political circles, associating
with diplomats and congressional representatives and developing a friend-
ship with Eleanor Roosevelt (including tea at the White House and an invita-
tion 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” (Bom-
bay 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 ex-
clude women is “a purely oriental innovation” (298). Neither rich or debased
nor self-indulgent or shrieking, the American woman “commands our admi-
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 203

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 question-
able 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 destruc-
tion” 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 whites-
only rail car), “living in Negro homes and sharing in their community
life. . . . I was a guest in the . . . tumble-down shacks of Negro Share-
Croppers” (iv–v). In a region still undeveloped, rural, and unindustrialized,
sharecropping was a vestige of chattel slavery, retaining all its outward as-
pects 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 back-
ground 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 unor-
thodox approach.
All people in this nation of immigrants negotiate ethnic preservation and
cultural assimilation, Old World and New World values; they are young and
204 Chapter 7

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 sig-
nature qualities of “Americanism” (36). Less savory are the rampant capital-
ism, the monopolies and conglomerates poised to create a new form of impe-
rialism: “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 unwel-
coming 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, “Inter-
national” 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 “awak-
ening to the dignity of labour” had repercussions internationally, making the
advance of Indian women “an item of interest to foreigners . . . [and] dispel-
ling that ‘unfortunate ignorance outside in general’” (72). Kamaladevi under-
stood 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-
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 205

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 cul-
tures” (Murthi 1936: 50). Some condemn Western influences as “unmitigat-
ed 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 popu-
lation 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 bewil-
dering humanity . . . nationalities . . . creeds and customs” (1905: 165)—a
description replicating the very heterogeneity that defines America. 80 Hari-
das 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.
206 Chapter 7

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 West-
ern 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 English-
woman 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 behav-
ior 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).
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 207

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 kin-
folk . . . 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 Wom-
en.”
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 instru-
ments. . . . 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 meta-
phors 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 half-
century, 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 aboli-
tionist 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, immediate-
ly 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”; “every-
one 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
208 Chapter 7

femininity, making the distinction ostensibly complimentary even while evoking disempower-
ment. The dynamic defies geopolitical boundaries: women of great accomplishment like Har-
riet 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 frame-
work 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 educa-
tion (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 revo-
lution 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 (Fryken-
berg) 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 diametri-
cally 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 organiz-
ing 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 nation-
alism was variously expressed: “patriotic indignation” over the subjection of India (1882);
demanding financial compensation from the British for impoverishing India (1883); condemn-
ing “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-
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 209

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 conjugal-
ity). . . . 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 unassail-
able” 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 “Con-
cerning 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 Har-
vard 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
210 Chapter 7

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’ con-
trol—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, organiza-
tion . . . 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. West-
ern 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” (Line-
ages 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 wom-
en’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 seren-
ity . . . of a worthy and ennobling kind” with “the aggressiveness, the worldliness, the restless-
ness, 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 Preven-
tion 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).
 America, the Superlative and the Jewel in the Crown 211

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 establish-
ment 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 alli-
ance. 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 dis-
prove (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 (prevent-
ability of contagious disease) and external (responsibility to the global community) perspec-
tives. But Indians did not relish hearing this from outsiders: “Women activists in India repeat-
edly 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 econo-
my and a national ideology based on religious principles (1911: 354–57). Women must work
212 Chapter 7

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 antago-
nize. 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, “Read-
ing” (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 ex-
tending 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 lin-
gam), Krishna worship (a deity associated with theft, promiscuity, and adul-
tery), and the fetishization of sexuality through child-marriage and mother-
hood. Queen Victoria represented an “unseen, remote and foreign mother to
Mother India,” her sexuality sublimated in her domestic, national, and impe-
rial broods (Sarkar, Hindu 252); in her roles as Queen-Empress and wid-
owed, aging mother, “Victoria became the signifier neither of the aristocrat-
ic, nor the erotic, but of the maternal body. . . . Domestic femininity both
validated the empire and was validated by it” (Beetham, Magazine 162–63).

213
214 Chapter 8

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 em-
phasizes 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, caress-
ing-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.
 Mothering India 215

Such impressions were not limited to cultural outsiders; in his quest to

discover India, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote of “terrifying glimpses of dark corri-
dors . . . 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 rever-
ence 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 Woman-
hood” 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 cra-
dle 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 ma-
tron. 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 national-
ism and social reforms, women and tradition, Chowdhury-Sengupta notes
that some Indians idealized England as “a motherland ‘greater than heaven
216 Chapter 8

itself’”; links between Queen Empress and Bharat Mata clarify “the disloca-
tions 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 na-
tionalist agenda . . . are rich in their complex and contending formulations of
Mother India” (20–21). One such early nationalist was Kamala Satthianad-
han, 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 Respon-
sibilities,” 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 associ-

ation with purity and morality has broader implications: the shift from patri-
archal imperial relations to the mothering of cultures “infantilized” by colo-
nization, 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:
 Mothering India 217

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 em-
brace”:
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 conscious-
ness raising.
The ILM article mourning the passing of Queen-Empress Victoria also
welcomed Queen Alexandra, followed in turn by Queens Mary and Eliza-
beth, but none of these women inspired the regard accorded Victoria, signal-
ing 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 Pen-
nell 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,
218 Chapter 8

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 treat-
ment . . . [and] sympathetic relations” (Chatterjee, “Right” 1908: 17). Al-
though all parties involved “ought to meet on the common platform of hu-
manity . . . 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 high-
lights 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 mythol-
ogized Mother India” (37). In a tripartite portrayal of that myth, Bharat
Lakshmi represents the glorious past and Bharat Mata represents the de-
graded 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 soci-
ocultural 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
 Mothering India 219

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 remark-
able 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 accus-
tomed 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 unwom-
anly 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 local-
ly 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 “awaken-
ing” 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)
220 Chapter 8

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 be-
tween political activism and womanliness, making the latter notably contin-
gent 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 gath-
ered in its back pages attests to ILM’s tenuous finances, it also reflects
indigenous industrial and material growth, the expansion of swaraj-swade-
shi-satyagraha, and the shifts in imperial relations resulting from both. 20
Given India’s history of foreign invaders culminating in Britain’s piece-
meal 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-em-
powering 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
 Mothering India 221

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 Mymens-
ing 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 Ben-
gali 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 wom-
en “to realize their responsible position as mothers, wives and sisters, and
remember that the future of Aryavarta [India] depends upon them” (“Swa-
deshism” 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 organiza-
tions 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 enter-
prising cloth vendors offered ready-made khaddar for those without the time
or inclination to weave it themselves, but who wished to display their politi-
cal (or economic) sympathies. Another commentator directly confronts the
political implications, citing “two theaters of interest” associated with swa-
222 Chapter 8

deshism: “one political, the other industrial,” meaning Indian textile indus-
tries, 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 considera-
tions 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). Culpa-
bility, interestingly, rests with Indians’ “conservative tendencies”:

expensive marriages . . . love of ornaments . . . want of enterprise . . . prepon-

derance 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 conser-
vative 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 im-
poverishing their family for generations through ostentatious weddings and
jewels, those justifying illiteracy and anachronistic agrarianism as the preser-
vation 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” (“Opportu-
nity” 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.
 Mothering India 223

In their initial, less visible pursuit of self-improvement (Emerson’s “pri-

vate 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 guaran-
teed 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” inter-
est, 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 nation-
al 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, needle-
work—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 compel-
ling application of swadeshism. Recalling Nightingale’s transforming nurs-
ing from its associations with alcoholism and “casual” prostitution to a pro-
fession 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 associa-
tions, to preserve its defining nationalistic qualities, and to restore its ancient
honored status, newly refurbished for the modern world. 33 The terms devad-
asis 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 Chris-
tian 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
224 Chapter 8

joy” (Tagore, “Nautch” 1908: 232). By the 1930s, attitudes had shifted suffi-
ciently 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 accu-
sations 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 Rhadha-
Krishna Ballet, and with American dancer Ruth St. Denis, who performed
Indian dance throughout the world, helping to popularize what was access-
ible 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 Regional-
ly, organizations were devoted to the preservation and promotion of vernacu-
lar 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 regu-
larly published in ILM, reflecting Satthianadhan’s quiet rebellion against
bureaucratic denigration of performing arts. 37 From national dance and mu-
sic to literature and embroideries, there was a strong grassroots, women-
centered 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 Awaken-
ing” 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
 Mothering India 225

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 ignor-
ance 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” pro-
poses a more politically expedient solution to education debates, urging “ec-
onomic 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 ex-
pressed 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 ritual-
isms? . . . 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, theo-
retically 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-
226 Chapter 8

umnist Sister Susie urged readers to exchange jewelry, silk saris, and “flap-
ping 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 consid-
erations—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 wom-
en’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 partic-
ipation 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 Chat-
topadhyaya 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 deliberate-
ly 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 Satthianad-
han 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 “scarce-
ly touches on political questions” (“Viceroy” 1918: 252–53). The Dandi
 Mothering India 227

episode offers a significant example: the magazine’s first mention of the

event, two months after the fact, consisted of a notice about Kasturba Gan-
dhi’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 re-
flected 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 Picket-
ers” 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 ab-
sence 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 incar-
ceration 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 participat-
ing in the satyagraha movement. . . . This aspect of the crisis makes the
Indian question worldwide in its interest” (611). Women’s physical partici-
pation 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 de-
spite ongoing arrests:
228 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 responsibil-
ities 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 womanli-

ness that are out of tune with the spirit of the age, nationally and internation-
ally. But it is one victory in an ongoing conflict: that same year, the Wom-
en’s Indian Association was again rebuffed by the International Union of
Women, which rejected its request to “support the claim of India for self-
government” despite its relevance to international peace (“Vienna” 1930:
110). Although predicated on the “indivisible unity of sisterhood,” such epi-
sodes 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 inde-
pendence, 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 fig-
ures 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 advance-
ments, 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 os-
tensibly celebrating their autonomy. Mussolini seeks proof of women’s apti-
tude 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
 Mothering India 229

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 to-
wards 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 Satthia-
nadhan 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 Musso-
lini.” 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 appar-
ent 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 po-
litical 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 accom-
plish 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
230 Chapter 8

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 pub-
lic realm exercised a civilizing effect over a notoriously male bastion; a half-
century 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 asser-
tive 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 self-
disciplined 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 cam-
paigns . . . 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, moderniz-
ing 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 investi-
gate 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
 Mothering India 231

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 citizen-
ship 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 spuri-
ous 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, swade-
shi, 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 “Wom-
en and Communal Differences,” Padmini Satthianadhan examines “unfortu-
nate bad feeling” between Muslims and Hindu men over a football match:
“To us women—the situation seems incomprehensible, and the want of pub-
lic 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 In-
dian 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
232 Chapter 8

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 “con-
veniently and discreetly” exist behind the veil of cultural invisibility. 61 Illit-
erate, impoverished, “denied even the possibility of ‘a decent human exis-
tence,’ 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 “ante-
diluvian” attitudes: “Even among the educated classes, the existence of wom-
an 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, prohibi-
tion 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 un-
thinkable is now praised as a compelling example of what women can and do
accomplish: “The militant tactics of the Suffragists in Europe and the un-
questioning 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 hetero-
sexual solidarity it is because, as conservatives rightly feared, educated wom-
en become critical thinkers who then “question the superiority of man.”
Center to circumference, satyagraha involves individual swaraj, commu-
nal swadeshi, and national activism; a fourth quality extends to the interna-
tional community, specifically confronting the warfare that “has disgraced
Western civilization” (“Women’s War” 1930: 612). The AIWC urged “wom-
en 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 (Istan-
bul) vowed solidarity in the “service of peace and amity . . . the world . . .
 Mothering India 233

[must] exclude war as a means of settlement of dispute” (“Women and

Peace” 1936: 9). Practical recommendations ranged from international disar-
mament to eradicating rhetoric in children’s textbooks that promoted “ani-
mosity 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 broad-
casting 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, patri-
otism 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 brother-
hood 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 civiliza-
tion” 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 his-

torical “alternation of power” between East and West (Ambravaneswar,
234 Chapter 8

“Ideal” 1912: 202). Humanity’s long history of warfare is what fueled glo-
balization, implicating religions, social influences, intellectual advances, cul-
tural assimilation, commercial exploitation, colonialism, and imperialism. In
the mid-nineteenth century, Eastern values were reinvigorated by “the ami-
cable 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 ex-
pense 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 “Prome-
thean 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 tumultu-
ous period leading up to World War II was marked by “gloom and apprehen-
sion,” casting “discredit on this much-vaunted century of Progress” (Amirud-
din, “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 materi-
alistic 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-
 Mothering India 235

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 follow-
ing 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 “sexual-
ization” of Christianity (mother of God, son of God) as by Hinduism’s Kali and Indian nation-
alism’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 indepen-
dent: 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 Sean-
Bhean 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
236 Chapter 8

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’ Associa-
tion”; “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 upbring-
ing . . . 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 mother-
land, 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 boun-
daries intact”—preserving the status quo in the guise of social progress and modernization—
while promoting the false dichotomy distinguishing “internal cohesion” from “external differ-
ences” (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 wom-
en, 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
 Mothering India 237

problem is vital to the restoration of British industry and trade and the reduction of unemploy-
ment. . . . 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 prosper-
ity, 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 criti-
cism as “evidences of Indian obstructionism. . . . His high concept of the imperial responsibil-
ities . . . 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 re-
marked 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 hand-
crafts and organizing bazaars and exhibitions of indigenous arts and crafts.
27. “As nationalistic activity escalated, British administrative measures became more strin-
gent. 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 therapeuti-
cally 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 “Hin-
du 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 advoca-
cy 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 Srini-
vas, “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, Wander-
ings. “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 compul-
sory marriage as the solution for prostitution. Most such commentary relies on unexamined
platitudes and clichés rather than critical analyses.
238 Chapter 8

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 Vernacu-
lar Drama”; “Women as Men-Actors”; and S. Banerjee, Parlour on the 1876 Dramatic Perfor-
mances Control Act (184–88) and aesthetic values (198).
37. Vernacular theater was particularly lively in West Bengal (Kolkata) and, in the nine-
teenth 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 be-
neath 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,” exem-
plifying “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
 Mothering India 239

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 eco-
nomic 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 appropri-
ately 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 “An-
nie Besant” (1909: 266).
52. See Gangadharan, “Indian Women and Economic Independence”; “Marriages”; E. Man-
nin, “Should Married Women Work?”; “Should Married Women Earn?”; “Sri Sarada Vidya-
laya, 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 inter-
ests.
54. Petitioned to allow women into the Bombay Corporation, members “proposed the im-
possible 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).
240 Chapter 8

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 orga-
nizing and economizing result from domestic and family management; they have “innate intel-
ligence” and “peculiar capacity” to assume public responsibilities. They should “not be hin-
dered” 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-Em-
press Victoria through 1930s satyagraha, The Indian Ladies’ Magazine sud-
denly 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 indepen-
dence and democracy movements while championing nationalist identity;
particularly striking is the development associating women with peace, ex-
tending 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 con-
strained by a population 98 percent illiterate and impoverished. Its history is
marked by editorial appeals indicating Kamala’s struggles to keep the en-
deavor stable; as early as 1908, it was “not progressing financially,” requir-
ing 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
242 Conclusion

“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 represent-

ing 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 profes-
sions, 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 indus-
try—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 press-
worthy 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 Chris-
tianity and never denying it, they identified themselves fully with national
 Conclusion 243

aspirations” (Portrait 53). But nationalist ethnocentrism viewed the Christian

presence differently: Indian Christian women “began to be marginalized rap-
idly both within the women’s movement as well as in the broader national
campaign that still engaged with social reform activities” (Anagol, Emer-
gence 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 cross-
cultural 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 dissoci-
ated 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 re-
plied:

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 wom-
en’s sudden surge of political activism adequately accounts for ILM’s appar-
ent 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 out-
look 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-
244 Conclusion

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 wis-
dom . . . 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 con-
cern 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), validat-
ing 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 ad-
vancements prior to and during their participation in swaraj, swadeshi, and
satyagraha. Its emphases on defining womanliness and modernizing woman-
hood 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 pack-
ets of salt in defiance of British law, forming cordons that police were reluc-
tant to break, calmly waiting to be arrested, willingly jailed as political pris-
oners. These events herald an attitudinal shift in which womanliness is as-
sured 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
 Conclusion 245

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 frame-
work: “Our wives now promise to be, not what their mothers and grand-
mothers 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 outstand-
ing 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-Victo-
rian, early Edwardian extremes of imperialism and India’s emancipation,
unification, and independence provided that “special environment,” permit-
ting 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 per-
sonal significance of India’s independence highlighting her own private swa-
raj:

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 so-
cial 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—consti-

tuting 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.
246 Conclusion

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 legiti-
mate, 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 Wom-
en’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 custom-
bound 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 Li-
brary, 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 deteriora-
tion). 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 competi-
tions, 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; de-
scriptive sketches (India’s geographic sites, cultural customs and practices,
247
248 Appendix A

shrines, memorials); Distinguished Women and Their Work; Education; In-

dian Cookery; death notices of notable women, scientific and health discov-
eries, pending marriages, financial reports for the Ramabai Association, aca-
demic 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; eti-
quette; advice columns.
Second-run coverage (from 1927) includes “illustrations and articles:
general, literary, educational, descriptive, character sketches . . . correspon-
dence and discussion, . . . articles for men, children’s columns, household
hints, cookery, needlework, book reviews, health notes, chess notes, gram-
mophone 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, Bom-
bay, 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 Mission-
ary 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 publica-
tion 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 pub-

lished 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 wel-
come 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 hesita-
tion 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 wom-
en’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 in-
creased facility of literary expression and their greater familiarity with Eng-
lish people, have caused the idea to become a promising reality. The illustra-
tions help to make the Magazine popular.”
Indian Witness (Calcutta): “The first number is edited with good judg-
ment 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 sup-
port. . . . 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 In-
dians 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 treat-
ment, 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 Presi-
dency, which so often comes in suddenly ahead of clever Bengal, able Bom-
bay, 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 sub-
scription lists, this table is incomplete.

FIRST SERIES

Year Vol Available Missing Location a Frequency Total Subscribers b

pages
1901– 1 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 378 471
1902c
1902– 2 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 396 566
1903
5 1–4/ Columbia monthly
6–12
1903– 3 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 390 616
1904
1904– 4d 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 388 546
1905
1905– 5e 1–12 10/Apr BritLib monthlyf 376 789
1906
1906– 6 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 457 614
1907
1907– 7 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 410 532
1908g

253
254 Appendix C

Year Vol Available Missing Location a Frequency Total Subscribers b

pages
1908– 8 1–9 10–12 BritLib monthly 367 430
1909
1–12h 0 Kolkata monthly
i
1909– 9 1–12 0 BritLib monthly 397 505
1910
1–12 8? Kolkata monthly
1910– 10 1–11 [1] BritLib monthly 360 336
1911
1–12 0 Kolkata monthly
j
1911– 11 1–4, 6–12 5 BritLib monthly 305 353
1912k
1–12 5? Kolkata monthly
1912– 12 1–11 12/Jun Kolkata quarterlyl
1913
1913– 13m 1–4 0 Kolkata quarterly
1914
1914– 14 1–3 4n Kolkata quarterly
1915
1915– 15 1–4 0 Kolkata quarterly
1916o
4 1–3 Columbiap 272
1916– 16 1–4 Kolkata quarterly
1917
1–2 Columbia quarterly
3–8 Columbia Monthlyq 179
s t
1917– 17 1–12 Kolkata monthly
1918r
#5 Nov? Columbia 57
u
1918 18 1–12 Kolkata monthly
 Appendix C 255

SECOND SERIES

Year Vol Available Missing Location Frequency Total Subscribers

pages
1927– 1 not found
1928
1928– 2 1–3/6–7/ 4–5/8w Connemara monthly? 670 228
1929v 9–12
5–12 1–4 BritLib monthly 211–
670
1929– 3 1–12 0 BritLib monthlyx 1–618 266
1930
1–3/7/ 4/5–6/8/ Connemara
9–10 11–12
1930– 4 1–9z 10–12 BritLib monthly 1–498 320
1931y
1931– 5 2–12 1, 9 BritLib monthlybb 1–344 42
1932aa
BritLib bimonthlycc 345–
598
1933dd 6 1–6 Connemara bimonthly 1–312 410
1–6 0 BritLib bimonthly
ee
1934 7 1–6 0 Connemara bimonthly 1–258 249
1–6 0 BritLib bimonthly
1935ff 8 1–6 Connemara bimonthly 1–222 351
1–6 0 BritLib bimonthly
1936 9 1–6 0 BritLib bimonthly 1–260 145
1937 10 1–6 0 Connemara bimonthly 288[?]
gg
10 2–6 1 BritLib bimonthly
1938 11 1 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” (gen-
erally, 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, Tri-
pilcane, 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

PRIMARY SOURCES

Note: When author names (including pseudonyms) are given, articles are
listed alphabetically according to the author’s last (or only) name; note that,
in ILM’s tables of contents, authors are sometimes listed with the title or,
alternatively, printed only at the end of the article. All other entries, whether
anonymous, generic (“by an Indian woman”), or with initials only (H. V. P.)
are listed alphabetically according to the first primary word in the title. In
cases in which articles can be attributed to such regular features as Current
Comments (CC), News and Notes (N&N), What Is Being Done for India’s
Daughters (What), or Editorial Notes or any variation (Ed.), abbreviations
are offered to complement the citation. Entries lacking complete citation
information are notated with question marks; in some instances, the material
likely originated in one of the editorial columns, titles in that category not
always being listed separately in tables of contents. Numbering is sometimes
erratic, reflecting shifts between monthly, bi-monthly, and quarterly publish-
ing schedules and patterns throughout ILM’s career; see appendix C.

Aasimah. “My Mournful Lot” 1903 [III.6]: 181–84.

Advance of Indian Women 1933 [Jul.–Aug. VI.4]: 161–62.
Advantages of Lady Doctors 1914 [XIV.2–3]: 83–85.
Age of Consent (N&N) 1911 [X.9]: 278–79.
Aims of Indian Women’s Education 1901 [I.5]: 149.
AIWC, All India Women’s Conference (Ed.) 1935 [VIII.6]: 196.
———. Dr. M. Reddy (N&N) 1931 [Jan. IV.6]: 377–80.
———. International Congress (N&N) 1931 [Jan. IV.6]: 377–80.
———. Purdah (N&N) 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 391.
———. Rabindranath Tagore 1934 [VII.1]: 32.
———. Sarojini Naidu (N&N) 1930 [Mar. III.8]: 395–96.
———. Vijaya Pandit (N&N) 1937 [Jan.–Feb. X.1]: 22.

257
258 Bibliography

Aiyangar, G. N. “Women’s Role in the Sanitation of a Town” 1937 [Nov.–Dec. X.6]: 266–69.
Aiyar, A. C. N. “Woman’s Share in India’s Awakening” 1908 [VIII.5]: 149–51.
Aiyar, V. A. “Indian Epics in Relation to Modern Thought” 1907 [VI.7]: 253.
Akbar, Mrs. Ali. “Appeal to the Indian Mussalmans” 1907 [VII.2]: 64–65.
———. “Indians in England. A Muslim Lady’s Views” 1908 [VIII.4]: 127–29.
———. “Newspapers, and Their Influence on Women” (Selection) 1908 [VIII.1]: 32–33.
Albers, Christina. “The Childwife” 1911 [X.10]: 297–98.
———. “Daughter of India” 1906 [VI.2]: 54.
———. “India’s Children” 1902 [II.2]: 54.
———. “The Purdahnasheen” 1912 [XI.4]: 89.
———. “Sacrifice” 1903 [III.1]: 17.
———. “The Widow; or, Sacrifice at the Altar of Custom” 1912 [XI.7]: 148.
Alienation of Purdah (N&N) 1917 [XVI.8]: 292.
Ambravaneswar, S. “Ideal of the Future” 1912 [XI.9]: 202–7.
American-Indian Woman (N&N) 1929 [Aug. III.1]: 42.
American Opinion of Indian Women 1932 [Jul.–Aug. V.10]: 464–65.
American Women in Trade 1906 [V.8]: 274.
Amicus [K. S.]. “Companionship in Marriage” 1929 [II.12]: 652–53.
———. “Divorce and Polygamy” 1932 [Feb. V.7]: 324–25.
———. “English Women and Indian Women” 1929 [Aug. III.1]: 21–23.
———. “Friendly Chats.” 1901 [I.2]: 45.
———. “Indian Ladies’ Magazine” 1929 [June II.11]: 600–601.
———. “Our Daughters” (Friendly Chats) 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 247–50.
———. “Women in Politics” (N&N) 1929 [Aug. III.1]: 44.
———. “Work for Indian Women” 1929 [Jan. II.6]: 315–20.
Amiruddin, Begum Mir. “Fellowship: The True Basis of Peace” 1937 [Nov.–Dec. X.6]:
240–41.
———. “A Lecture on Modern Times” 1937 [Jan.–Feb. X.1]: 8–9.
———. “Social Problems” 1937 [Sept.–Oct. X.5]: 194–95.
Ammal, Sri Muttu Lakshmi. (N&N) 1908 [VII.7]: 233.
Amraoti Swadeshi (What) 1905 [V.5]: 157.
Anglo-Indian Novelists and the Inner Life of Hindus 1903 [II.12]: 369–70.
Anglo-Vernacular School in Hyderabad (CC) 1937 [Sept.–Oct. X.5]: 199–200.
Annie Besant (N&N) 1901 [I.1]: 23; 1901 [I.3]: 87; 1929 [May II.10]: 566 and [III.2]: 86. Also
(What) 1905 [IV.12]: 386.
Anti-Dowry Movement (N&N) 1917 [XVI.6]: 209.
Appasamy, Kirubai. “Social Ape in America” 1929 [May II.10]: 523–25.
———. “Women’s Clubs in America” 1929 [Mar. II.8]: 409–14.
Appeal for Support to Swadeshi (N&N) 1930 [IV.4]: 221.
Appeal to Our Readers (Ed.) 1931 [Dec. V.5]: 231.
Arnold, Sir Edwin. “Indian Ladies” 1902 [II.4]: 127–28.
———. “Indian Ladies and the Coronation” 1902 [II.3]: 92.
———. “Indian Ladies and the Delhi Durbar” 1902 [II.6]: 204.
Asian Women’s Conference (N&N) 1931 [Jan. IV.6]: 377.
At-Homes (N&N) 1903 [III.3]: 96.
Awakening (What) 1907 [VI.9]: 342.
Awakening of Indian Womanhood (What) 1908 [VII.10]: 336–38.
Awakening of Women (Ed.) 1902 [II.6]: 202.
Baa. “Should Women Drive Cars?” 1929 [Sept. III.2]: 62.
Bai, H. Kavery. “The Soul’s Everest” 1934 [VII.2]: 49.
Bai, Maharani S. P. “Less Fortunate Sisters” (CC) 1937 [Mar.–Apr. X.2]: 12.
Baliga, Dr. “Infant Mortality in India” 1930 [Dec. IV.5]: 271.
Balm, Stephen. “Tennyson’s Dora” 1904 [Jul. IV.1]: 17–18.
Bates, Crispin. “Beyond Representation: Colonial and Postcolonial Constructions of Indian
Identity.” www.academia.edu/303578.
Bazmi-Ittihad, Ladies’ Union Society 1909 [IX.2]: 53.
 Bibliography 259

Bengali Swadeshi (What) 1905 [V.4]: 126.

Bernard, Miss. “Physical Exercise for Girls” 1902 [I.8]: 232–35.
Bernard, Napoleon. “Future of Woman in India” 1930 [Jan. III.6]: 235–36.
———. “Toward a Future for Woman and Man” 1930 [Jul. III.12]: 592.
Besant, Annie (What) 1909 [IX.8]: 266.
Besant, Dr. Annie. “Education of Women” 1901 [I.6]: 155–56.
Besley, Mrs. C. [Lamont] “Rejoinder” 1903 [II.10]: 316–18.
———. “Social Intercourse between English and Indian Women” 1903 [II.10]: 302–4.
Bibi: A Moslem Girl by A. M. K. D. 1902 [II.4]: 112–15.
Bihar Anti-Purdah League (N&N) 1929 [Sept. III.2]: 86.
Billington, Mary. “Women Medical Students in England” 1902 [I.10]: 288.
Bina the Woman by N. R. D. 1932 [Feb. V.8]: 364–65.
Bombay Corporation (What) 1906 [VI.1]: 31.
Bombay Guardian [Review] 1904: n.p.
Border-Line Girl (N&N) 1909 [IX.2]: 72.
Bose, Zoe [Zoi]. “Widows’ Industrial Class in Karachi” 1914 [XIII.?]: 113–15.
———. “Woman’s Burden” 1905 [IV.12]: 375.
Brander, Mrs. I. “Health in the Home” (series) 1903 [II.7]: 213; [II.8]: 242; [II.9]: 278; [II.10]:
307; [II.11]: 338; [II.12]: 381; [III.1]: 13.
British Commonwealth League (N&N) 1930 [Jun. III.11]: 557–58.
“Buy Indian” 1905 [IV.12]: 395.
Carpenter, Mrs. B. F. “The Late Dr. Anandabai Joshi” 1905 [V.7]: 209–11.
Catechism upon Tuberculosis 1909 [IX.2]: 58.
Catholic Ladies’ Association, Karkul 1904 [III.11]: 353.
Change of Editors 1916 [Jul.–Sept. XVI.1]: 2.
Character Note: The Ayah 1901 [I.1]: 14–15.
Chatterjee, Manmohini. “A Right Relation between the British and the Indian People” 1908
[VIII.1]: 14–17.
Chaudhuri, Srimati. “Music in India” 1912 [XI.1]: 30–34.
Cheapness of Women (N&N) 1909 [IX.6]: 206–9.
Chengalvarayan, Pandit. “Vernacular as the Medium of Instruction” 1930 [Aug. IV.1]: 2.
Chetty, O. K. “Roots of Social Intercourse” 1902 [II.1]: 21–25.
Child Heroine 1934 [May–Jun. VII.3]: 121.
Chinnamma, R. “Women of Today” 1931 [Mar. IV.8]: 471.
“Christmas” by K. S. 1917 [XVIII.5]: 55.
Christmas Camp 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 230–31.
Clever Girls by S. R. 1905 [IV.9]: 274.
Club for Nurses, Basra (Ed.) 1917 [XVIII.5]: 88.
College Girls (Ed.) 1934 [Nov.–Dec. VII.6]: 244.
Comilla Shooting (N&N) 1931 [V.5]: 257.
Companionship between Men and Women by W. R. R. S. 1933 [VI.3]: 108.
Concerning Indian Women (1903: 91).
Concert in Aid of the ILM 1917 [XVII.?]: 122, 148–49.
Conference: All-India Mahila Kavi Sammelan, Allahabad 1933 [May–Jun. VI.3]: 139.
Conferences: Dr. Reddy (Ed.) 1935 [VIII.1]: 267.
Contribution of Indian Women to Modern Life 1932 [V.8]: 357.
Cornelia Sorabji (N&N) 1903 [II.7]: 236; (What) 1904 [IV.1]: 29; 1904 [III.10]: 324.
Croquet for Ladies 1903 [II.9]: 297.
Current Comments. Listed by article title, denoted (CC).
Dr. Anandabai Joshee by an Indian Woman 1934 [VII.1?]: 315–16.
Dr. Koch’s Views on Tuberculosis 1901 [I.4]: 112.
Dr. Muthulakshmi as Legislator (N&N) 1931 [V.9]: 433.
Dr. Muthulakshmi’s Achievement (N&N) 1929 [Mar. II.8]: 447.
Dancing Girls in Temples (N&N) 1930 [Aug. IV.1]: 44–45.
Dancing in India 1933 [Nov.–Dec. VI.6]: 303.
David, Susie P. “Invocation” 1936 [IX.4]: 127.
260 Bibliography

———. “Monument of Life” 1935 [VIII.1]: 259.

Day, Lal Behari. Bengal Folktales (CC) 1937 [Sept.–Oct. X.5]: 199–200.
Death of Mr. Ravi Varma 1905 [IV.7]: 226; 1906 [VI.4]: 132.
Depressed Classes Mission, Bombay 1908 [VIII.3]: 87.
Description of Work in Bilaspur 1910 [X.2]: 48–50.
Devadasis (N&N) 1911 [X.10]: 307.
———. (What) 1906 [VI.1]: 30.
Devdhar [Deodhar], Kashibai. “Early Marriages” (N&N) 1904 [III.8]: 260–61.
Devi, Satyabala. “All-India Academy of Music” 1912 [XII.2]: 57.
———. “Indian Music in America” 1914 [XIV.?]: 56.
Dhruva 1909 [VIII.8]: 277.
“Diand”: A Criticism 1910 [IX.7]: 236.
Different Pictures of Women (Ed.) 1916 [XVI.1]: 20.
Difficulties of Indian Women (Our Special) 1904 [III.12]: 381.
Distinguished Women Series (photographic essay) 1931 [Oct. V.3]: n.p.
Domestic Life in India 1903 [II.9]: 297.
Don’t Marry Young (N&N) 1917 [XVI.4]: 132–33.
Dowry 1934 [Jan.–Feb. VII.1]: 322.
Dowry to the Bridegroom 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 392.
Dream of Indian Women by a Daughter of India 1930 [Jan. III.6]: 226–31.
Duty of Indian Women in the Present Crisis 1909 [VIII.8] 276–77.
East and West (Ed.) 1935 [VIII.1]: 267; [VIII.4]: 114–15.
Eastman, “American Indian: A Woman among Them” 1909 [IX.3]: 95–98.
Editor’s Answer 1917 [XVI.7]: 233–35; [XVI.8]: 283–85; 1917 [XVII.1]: 318.
Editor’s Note (Ed.) 1908 [VIII.4]: 102.
Editor’s Page 1916 [XVI.2]: 31–65.
Editorial. Listed by article title, denoted (Ed.).
Editorial Note (Ed.) 1909 [IX.6]: 198; 1929 [III.4–5]: 282.
Editorial Notes (What) 1905 [IV.7]: 224.
Editorial Policy (N&N) 1930 [Jan. III.6]: 272–76.
Education of Indian Women (What) 1907 [VI.8]: 302–3.
Education of Our Girls (Ed.) 1902 [I.10]: 305–6.
Emancipation (What) 1907 [VI.8]: 305–6.
Emerson, R. W. “We Shall One day See” 1929 [Jun. II.11]: 575.
End of the War 1918 [XVII.?]: 415.
Enforced Widowhood by a Lady Student 1906 [VI.5]: 172.
England and India, a Comparison by an Indian 1906 [VI.1]: 8–9.
English and Indian Women by a Daughter of the Land 1908 [VIII.5]: 144.
English and Indian Women by an English Lady 1908 [VIII.4]: 101–3.
English Character by an Indian Visitor to England 1905 [V.2]: 54.
English Education for Indian Ladies in Relation to Modern Thought 1904 [III.10]: 302–3.
English Education Necessary for Indian Women? A Reply 1905 [IV.8]: 253–54.
English Homes by a Sojourner in England 1902 [II.5]: 134–37.
English Language (CC) 1937 [Sept.–Oct. X.5]: 199–200.
Englishwoman in India (N&N) 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 396–97.
Englishwomen in India 1901 [I.1]: 19–20.
Englishwomen in India by an English Lady 1906 [VI.4]: 112–13.
Enid: Tennyson’s Idylls by an Indian Lady 1905 [V.7]: 245–50.
Enlightened Bengali (What) 1907 [VI.11]: 417.
Estimate of English Education in India 1905 [IV.12]: 365–69.
Eve: Character Sketch by an Indian Lady 1905 [V.6]: 179–81.
Every Distinction (N&N) 1930 [Sept. III.7]: 337.
Female Education 1912 [XI.2–3]: 73–75.
Female Education and Age of Marriage 1912 [XI.9]: 217–18.
Female Education in Mysore 1905 [IV.8]: 252.
Female Ignorance (N&N) 1911 [X.9]: 278–79.
 Bibliography 261

Female Infanticide in India 1901 [I.1]: 24.

Female Solidarity (N&N) 1931 [Feb. IV.7]: 432.
Few Words about the Education of Women by G. A. R. 1903 [III.1]: 18.
Folk-Lore of Women 1917 [XVI.8]: 268.
Fortunate Women (Ed.) 1936 [IX.5]: 193.
Freedom for Indian Women by P. K. M. 1911 [X.9]: 274–75.
Freedom for the Women of India (N&N) 1930 [Dec. IV.5]: 302–3.
Friendly Chats: The Home 1901 [I.2]: 45.
From the Editor’s Table. Listed by title, denoted (Ed.).
Fuller, Sir B. “New Women of India” 1912 [XII.?]: 129–31.
Fuller’s Wrongs of Indian Womanhood [Review] 1901 [I.1]: 15–16.
Function of Women in the National Upbuilding by an Indian Gentleman 1907 [VII.6]: 186–87.
Fyzee. See also Shahinda.
Fyzee, Miss. “Some Observations . . . England and India” 1907 [VII.6]: 185–86.
Fyzee-Rahamin, Begum. “National Academy of Indian Music” 1917 [XVII.3–4]: 51.
———. “Present Condition of Indian Music” 1916 [XV.4]: 86.
———. “Scheme for Founding a National Academy of Indian Music” 1918 [?]: 210–11.
Gandhi (N&N) 1931 [Mar. IV.8]: 493.
Gandhi and the Harijans 1934 [?]: 323.
Gangadharan, H. “Indian Women and Economic Independence” 1929 [Aug. III.1]: 11–12.
General Impressions of America by an Indian Visitor 1906 [V.8–9]: 285–88.
George Eliot (CC) 1916 [?]: 280.
Ghose, A. K. “Hindu Women” (What) 1907 [VI.10]: 385.
Ghosh, A. P. “Bengalee Woman” 1908 [VIII.3]: 75.
Girl of Today (N&N) 1902 [II.1]: 31.
Girl-Life in India, “By a Girl” 1904 [III.9]: 280–82.
Glimpse of Tagore’s Ideal Womanhood 1932 [V.6]: 265–66.
Gosha System: Cornelia Sorabji (N&N) 1901 [I.5]: 152.
Gourlay, Jharna. Florence Nightingale and the Health of the Raj. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.
Government of India on Female Education 1904 [III.11]: 327.
Great Lady Sahib: Queen Alexandra (N&N) 1915 [XV.1]: 19–20.
Great Women of India. Ed. S. Madhavananda. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2008.
Greater . . . Widowhood 1914 [XIII.?]: 132.
Gupta, Lalita. “Bharat Mata’s Awakening” 1906 [VI.6]: 203.
———. “Fonts of Pain” 1911 [XI.6]: 161.
———. “To a Baby” 1907 [VI.11]: 408.
Gupte, B. A. “Ethnographic Survey of India” 1910 [IX.9]: 301–2.
Gwalior Mahila Hindi Sahitya Sammelan Ladies’ Society 1931 [IV.7]: 397.
H. H. Dowager Maharani of Mandi 1935 [Sept.–Oct. VIII.5]: 150.
H. M. The Queen: Message to the Women of India 1918 [XVII?]: 478–79.
Harrison, F. “Bad-Mannered Girls of To-Day” 1918 [XVII?]: 303.
Hatchell, Mrs. “Evils of Child-Marriage” 1908 [VIII.7]: 234.
Hensman, H. K. “Links Old and New” 1931 [Apr. IV.9]: 15–17.
———. “Mrs. Besant” 1932 [Nov.–Dec. V.12]: 548.
Higher Education of Women by H. K. 1908 [VII.11]: 347–49.
Hillis, Mrs. N. D. “Successes of American Women” 1911 [X.12]: 354–57.
Hindu Ideal of Womanhood (Ed.) 1901 [I.3]: 85.
Hindu Ladies’ Social and Literary Club 1908 [VII.10]: 321–22; 1909 [IX.8]: 249–52.
Hindu Ladies’ Social Club, Bombay 1903 [II.8]: 266.
Hindu Purdah 1911 [XI.3]: 100.
Hindu System of Music 1905 [IV.9]: 267.
Hindu Widows: Naidu (N&N) 1904 [III.8]: 260–61.
Hindu Widows’ Home, Poona (Ed.) 1903 [II.10]: 332; 1906 [VI.4]: 132.
His Honour . . . Ferozepur 1911 [X.8]: 240.
Hitler . . . Hess (CC) 1936 [IX.4] 148–55.
Home for Women in Madras 1934 [May–Jun. VII.3]: 120.
262 Bibliography

Home Industries for Women by an Indian Gentleman 1908 [VIII.4]: 107.

Home Life of Women in India (Ed.) 1904 [III.12]: 385.
Home Occupations for Hindu Ladies by W. S. H. 1910 [IX.10]: 316–18.
Horrors of Our Marriage Customs (N&N) 1910 [X.1]: 20–21.
Hossain, Rokeya. “Sultana’s Dream” 1905 [V.3]: 82–86.
Hydari, A. “Purdah System” 1905 [IV.7]: 222.
Ideal of Indian Womanhood in the Home, Social and National Life 1917 [Feb. XVI.4]: 89.
Ideals: Guinevere 1912 [XII.4]: 76–77.
Ideals of Indian Women 1934 [Jul.–Aug. VII.4]: 148–49.
India and Anglo-India by an Indian Lady 1906 [VI.2]: 64.
Indian 1917 [XVI–XVII.?]: 166–67.
Indian and Homeric Epics by H. K. 1906 [VI.3]: 92–95.
Indian Aspirations and the Social Factor by S. J. 1930 [Sept. IV.2]: 58–61.
Indian Christian Children by an Indian Christian Lady 1911 [X.7]: 206–8.
Indian Christian Community by Sour-Sweet 1930 [Oct. IV.3]: 143–47.
Indian Christian Ladies, Their Fashions 1910 [X.1]: 18–19.
Indian Christian Women’s Work-Room, Bombay (N&N) 1912 [XII]: 247–49.
Indian Dancing 1933 [Sept.–Oct. VI.5]: 231–32.
Indian Folk Songs 1934 [Nov.–Dec. VII.6]: 234–36.
Indian Homes in Health and Disease 1912 [XI.8]: 195–97.
“Indian Ladies and Their Future” by S. T. R 1907 [XVI.9]: 322–23.
Indian Ladies’ Magazine [Reviews] (N&N) 1901 [I.2]: 49, [1:3]: 87, and [I.6]: 185; 1902 [I.8]:
249; 1908 [XII.?]: 304.
Indian Ladies’ Magazine (Ed.) 1905 [V.1]: 27; 1909 [VIII. 9]: 352; and (N&N) 1908 [VII. 9]:
304; 1916 [Oct.–Dec. XVI.2]: 55; 1929 [II.?]: 600.
Indian Lady Lecturers (Ed.) 1904 [IV.5]: 153.
Indian Lady’s Appreciation 1901 [I.2]: 49.
Indian Music and the Veena 1903 [III.3]: 90.
Indian Musical Competition, Bombay 1915 [XV.?]: 72–75.
Indian Nurses (Ed.) 1917 [Jul. XVII.1]: 319.
Indian Woman as a Factor in the Religious Life of Her Country 1912 [XII.1]: 33–37.
Indian Women (CC) 1917 [XVI.5]: 47.
Indian Women by N. J. N. 1911 [XI.5–6]: 152–53.
Indian Women and Western Fashions 1932 [Mar.–Apr. V.8]: 396.
Indian Women Doctors 1916? [?]: 126–27.
Indian Women in Days of Yore by an Indian Woman 1933 [VI.2]: 55.
Indian Women Past and Present [Ramabai] 1901 [I.1]: 3–4.
Indian Women’s Exchange by a Bengali Lady 1909 [VIII.8]: 281–82.
Indian Women’s Victoria Memorial 1901 [I.6]: 154.
Individual Responsibility by S. R. 1906 [VI.3]: 84–85.
Indo-American National Association 1908 [VII.12]: 392–96.
Infant Mortality 1916–1917 [XVII.?]: 343.
Infantile Mortality 1917 [Nov. XVIII.5]: 61–65.
Influence of the West on Japan 1911 (N&N) [XI.4]: 100.
Influence of Purdah Women (N&N) 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 267–68.
“Intermarriage” (N&N) 1903 [III.2]: 64.
International Women’s Conference, Prague (N&N) 1929 [Oct. III.3]: 218–19.
Introduction to ILM (Ed.) 1901 [I.1]: 1–2.
Izzetta. “Social Intercourse” 1903 [II.8]: 257–58.
———. “Speech by a Muhammadan Lady” 1901 [I.5]: 146–47.
Jain, Kapoor. “Sister Nivedita” 1930 [May III.10]: 455–60.
Joyser, G. R. “Duties of Women” 1917 [XVII. 3–4]: 9–13.
Kamala [Satthianadhan]. “Compensation” 1935 [May–Jun. VIII.3]: 67.
———. The Graduate Wife 1929 [Oct. III.3]: 107–13.
———. “Indian Woman and Co-Operation” 1935 [Mar.–Apr. VIII.2]: 28–29.
———. “Influence of Women on Public Life” 1933 [VI.1]: 6.
 Bibliography 263

———. “Modern Indian Girl” 1931 [Feb. IV.7]: 383.

———. “Music and Dance in India” 1931 [Sept. V.2]: 58.
———. Our Children. 1929 [Jun. II.11]: 583–93.
———. Was it Fate? 1930 [IV.5]: 250–61.
———. “What Would Draupadi Have Done in the Modern World?” 1935 [Jan.–Feb. VIII.1]:
262.
———. “What Would Sita Have Done in the Modern World?” 1934 [Sept.–Oct. VII 5]:
183–84.
———. “Women’s Contribution to Public Life” 1934 [Jan.–Feb. VII.1]: 313–14.
Kanna, Chinna. “Bharati Samajam, Vizagapatam” 1912 [XII.1]: 15.
Karkal Ladies [LN] 1904 [III.10]: 324.
Karumbie, a Social Tragedy by A. P. S. 1910 [IX.9]: 291–93.
Kasturba Gandhi (N&N) 1930 [Jun. III.11]: 556–57.
Kelakvar, Dr. K. “Training of Nurses” 1908 [VII.8]: 257.
Khan, Aga. “Purdah System” 1903 [II–III?]: 268.
Knowles. “The Late Miss Lilavati Singh” 1909 [Jul. IX.1]: 26–27.
Krishnamah, Miss. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti” 1905 [IV.8]: 241–44.
Krishnamma, Hannah. “The Charm of the East” 1905 [V.5]: 165–66.
Krishnammah, Miss. “School of Indian Music” 1902 [II.5]: 149.
Krishnan, K. “Mission of Youth” 1935 [Nov.–Dec. VIII.6]: 197.
Krishnaswami, P. R. “Behind the Indian Veil” (series) 1912–1913 [XII.?]: 117, 149, 181, 208.
———. “Indian Womanhood and National Awakening” 1917 [XVII]: 288–89.
———. “Jane Austen. A Study” 1910 [X.6]: 168–71.
Kumarappa, Ratnam. “Westernized Indian Women” 1929 [Jul. II.12]: 633–35.
Ladies’ Association, Palghaut 1907 [VI.9]: 337; 1909 [VIII.9]: 392–93.
Ladies’ Association (What) 1904 [III.9]: 287; 1906 [VI.5]: 173–74; 1907 [VII.5]: 152.
Ladies’ Associations (N&N) 1910 [IX.12]: 392.
Ladies’ Exhibition (What) 1904 [IV.4]: 125.
Ladies’ War Relief Association, Secunderabad (N&N) 1917 [Aug. XVII.2]: 56.
Lady (Milton, Comus) 1905 [V.2]: 34.
Lady Curzon (N&N) 1902 [II.4]: 130.
Lady Dufferin (N&N) 1911 [X.8]: 244.
Lady Macbeth 1916 [Apr.–Jun. XV.4]: 78.
Lady Minto (What) 1909 [VIII.8]: 310–11.
Lady Physicians 1911 [X.8]: 244.
Lady Stanley (N&N) 1908 [VII.7]: 233.
Lakshmi, Nilkanta. “Domestic Industry among Indian Ladies” (Our) 1910 [IX.12]: 385–86.
Lamont (Lamount), Mrs. [Besley]. “Personal and Public Health” 1904 [IV.6]: 181.
———. “Women of the East and the West” 1903 [III.4]: 127.
Late Miss Florence Nightingale’s Will (N&N) 1910 [IX.9]: 300.
Lazarus, R. “Child-Welfare Work” 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 234–37.
Lazarus, Rev. Dr. J. “Work for Indian Women” 1917 [May XVI.7]: 224–27.
———. “The War and Women” 1917 [XVII.3–4]: 7–9.
Lazarus, Susan. “The Stage . . . a Wholesome Influence” 1910 [X.6]: 164–68.
League of Peace 1916–1917 [XVII.?]: 425–26.
League of the Empire 1908 [VII.12]: 396–97.
Lecture by Miss Cornelia Sorabji 1901 [I.3]: 82–84.
Letter . . . Editor by an Englishwoman and Reply 1917 [XVI.7]: 233–34.
Letter . . . Editor. Social Intercourse 1917 [Jul. XVII.1]: 316–19.
Letter . . . Editor and Reply 1917 [Jun. XVI.8]: 283–87.
Letter . . . Editor and Reply [LN] 1903 [III.5]: 157–58.
Letter . . . Editor by another Anglo-Indian Woman 1909 [VIII.7]: 255–56.
Letter . . . Editor by an Englishwoman 1909 [VIII.7]: 256–57.
Life and Character of Queen Victoria 1910 [IX.11]: 364–67.
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“Love and Life behind the Purdah by Cornelia Sorabji” by O. K. C. [Review] 1902 [II.4]:
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Mrs. B . F. Carpenter and the late Dr. Anandabai Joshi 1905 [V.7]: 236–37.
Mrs. Benson on the Education of Indian Girls (Ed.) 1904 [III.9]: 290.
Mrs. Besant on Indian Womanhood (Ed.) 1902 [I.7]: 195–98.
Mrs. Besant’s Latest Utterances 1903 [II.9]: 299–300.
Mrs. Kashi Bai Devdhar . . . Poona Widows’ Home, Madras 1904 [IV.5]: 145–48.
Mrs. Naidu’s Message from America (N&N) 1929 [Mar. II.8]: 451.
Mrs. Parvatibai Athavale 1904 [IV.5]: 141.
Mrs. Penny’s “The Sanyasi” [Review] 1904 [IV.1]: 25–27.
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu in America (N&N) 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 389–90.
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu on Social Reform (What) 1907 [VI.7]: 266–67.
Mrs. Satthianadhan, M. A. by an Indian Lady 1914 [XIV.1]: 3.
Mrs. Steel . . . NIA, London by an Indian Gentleman 1904 [III.12]: 376–78.
Mrs. Steel . . . NIA, London by an Indian Lady 1904 [III.12]: 378–80.
Mrs. Steel on Anglo-Indian Women (N&N) 1903 [II.10]: 330–31.
Mrs. Tyabjee on Social Intercourse [Ed.] 1903 [III.3]: 94.
———. 1901 [I.1]: 29.
Mrs. Wilcox (N&N) 1911 [X.10]: 307.
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McDougall, Eleanor. “Proposed Indian University for Women” 1917 [Jun. XV.4]: 78–80.
Macrae, Sylvia. “Ladies’ . . . Benefits” 1902 [II.4]: 126.
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Maharani Chimnabai Gaekwad II of Baroda 1911 [XI.5] 114.
Maharani of Mysore on Female Education (What) 1908 [VII.10]: 336.
Maharani’s College, Mysore by F. K. O. 1902 [II.3]: 90; 1904 [IV.6]: 191.
Maharani’s Girls’ College, Mysore 1901 [I.2]: 53; 1903 [II.9]: 273; 1903 [III.6]: 196.
Mahatma Gandhi and the Women of India 1934 [Jan.–Feb. VII.1]: 342.
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Marie Corelli [LN] 1903 [III.3]: 92.
Marie Corelli and the Advance of Women by K. S. [LN] 1905 [V.1]: 19–21.
Marie Corelli and Westminster Review (Ed.) 1906 [V.11]: 296–97.
Marie Corelli on “Imaginary Love” by an Indian Lady 1905 [V.4]: 99–101.
Marriage Dowry by Paterfamilias 1905 [V.4]: 123.
Marriages for Women (N&N) 1928 [Dec. II.5] 271.
Memorial: Kanaya-Vikraya (N&N) 1901 [I.3]: 88.
Mem-Sahibs in India, by an Indian Lady 1908 [VII.7]: 208–10.
Menon, C. G. “Ruskin on Woman and Her Education” 1902 [II.2]: 52–55.
Military Training for German Girls [N&N] 1936 [IX.2]: 70–71.
Mir Sultan (What) 1905 [V.3]: 92.
Miss Carr’s Scheme for the Education of Indian Widows [Ed.] 1903 [II.8]: 265–66.
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———. Portraits of Indian Women by H. R. K. [Review] 1905 [IV.11]: 349–52.

———. Scheme for Legal Aid by a Lawyer 1903 [II.8]: 251–52.
Miss Ghosal on the Education of Indian Girls 1901 [I.2]: 50–51.
Miss Ghosal’s Scheme for Bengalee Red Cross Ambulance Corps 1903 [III.10]: 324.
Miss Ghosal’s Scheme for Indian Girls’ School (Ed.) 1901 [I.4]: 118–19.
Miss Marie Corelli on “Sovran Woman” 1901 [I.2]: 43.
Miss Mayo by an Indian Girl 1929 [Jun. II.11]: 596.
Miss Sorabji’s Appointment (Ed.) 1904 [III.12]: 385.
Mission of Hindu Widows 1905 [IV.11]: 337–40.
Misunderstandings between Indian and Foreign Women 1933 [Nov.–Dec. VI.6]: 267.
Mitter, R. K. “My Ideal Woman” 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 345.
Mixed Marriages in India 1932 [Nov.–Dec. V.12]: 553.
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Mudeliar, P. P. “Miranda, or ‘the Ideal Woman’” 1913 [XIII.1]: 26–28.
———. “Women and Social Service” 1914 [XIV.?]: 111–15.
Murthi [Murthy], Prof. M. Sri Ram. “Clubs for Indian Women” 1931 [Oct. V.3]: 115–16.
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Nautch (What) 1908 [VII.7]: 232.
Nautch Dance (Ed.) 1933 [Jan. VI.1]: 20–22.
National Association . . . Dufferin Fund 1904 [III.9]: 283–85.
National Cause and Women 1930 [Jul. III.12]: 610.
National Indian Association [Review] 1902 [II.6]: 174, 196.
———. Ladies’ Branch, Bombay 1905 [IV.10]: 305–6.
National Music (CC) 1917 [Aug. XVII.2]: 51.
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Needlework Cure 1917 [XVII.3–4]: 48.
New Type of Womanhood 1932 [Feb. V.7]: 322.
“New Volume” (Ed.) 1905 [V.1]: 27.
“New Volume of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine” (N&N) 1906 [VI.1]: (28).
News about Women in Foreign Countries 1936 [IX.2]: 70–71.
News about Women in India 1935 [VIII.5]: 170.
News and Notes articles listed by title, denoted (N&N).
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Nilkanth, R. M. “Brahmin Marriage Ritual” 1903 [III.11]: 358.
Notes from Women’s Conference, Calcutta 1936 [IX.3]: 102–5.
Nursing for Indian Ladies by a Daughter of India 1929 [Nov.–Dec. III.4–5]: 172.
Ode to Queen Mary 1911 [XI.6]: 108.
Old Foggees (N&N) 1910 [X.2]: 68–69.
Omnibus (N&N) 1911 [X.9]: 277.
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Open Letter to Educated Indians by an Indian Lady 1902 [I.8]: 219.
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Our Special Contributors’ Column 1902 [II.4]: 123; 1905 [IV.9]: 274; 1906 [XI.4]: 127–28.
Ourselves 1901 [I.1]: 2 and [I.2]: 25; 1915 [XV.1]: 41–42.
———. (Ed.) 1930 [Dec. III.6]: 274–76.
Our Wives as They Promise to Be 1906 [XVI.5]: 165.
Overpopulation 1914 [XIII.?]: 132.
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———. “Types of Hindu Women” 1907 [VII.1]: 2–5.
———. “Vasantica. A Story” 1917 [XVIII.5]: 77–84.
Paintings of Ravi Varma 1935 [Jan.–Feb. VIII.1]: 275.
Pandita Ramabai and her Work 1901 [I.2]: 40–43.
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Parsee Ladies’ Tennis (N&N) 1908 [VII.9]: 302.
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Physical Culture for Women 1905 [IV.12]: 381.
Pillar, P. “Trivandram Ladies’ Association and Coronation Celebration” 1912 [XI.8]: 194.
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Pledging of Child Labour (N&N) 1932 [V.12]: 592.
Polygamy 1931 [Oct. V.3]: 119.
Poona Widows’ Home by an Indian 1908 [VIII.3]: 92.
Position of Women in Indian Life by Maharani of Baroda [Review] (N&N) 1911 [XI.5]: 135.
Practical Hints on Physical Exercise 1906 [V.12]: 369.
Present Condition of Female Education in India by an Indian Educationist 1901 [I.1]: 5–6.
Primary Education (N&N) 1929 [II.7]: 392.
Professor Bendall (N&N) 1904 [III.7]: 229.
Professor Karve (N&N) 1912 [XII.?]: 130.
Progress of American Women [N&N] 1936 [IX.2]: 70.
Progress of Indian Ladies 1905 [IV.7]: 226.
Punjab Society (What) 1906 [VI.6]: 223.
Punkajam. Lazy Wife 1930 [Nov. IV.4]: 203.
———. Married Women 1931 [Nov. V.4]: 194.
———. Modern Indian Girl 1931 [Jan. IV.6]: 361–62.
———. Purdah Women 1932 [Jan. V.6]: 293.
———. “Random Portraits of Indian Women” [series].
———. Swadeshi 1932 [Jul.–Aug. V.10]: 479–80.
———. Woman Speaker 1931 [Sept. V.2]: 92.
Purdah (N&N) 1930 [Dec. IV.5]: 294.
Purdah and Polygamy in Islam 1904 [IV.4]: 111.
Purdah in Hyderabad (N&N) 1909 [IX.3]: 107.
Purdah Party, Hyderabad 1907 [VII.4]: 106–7.
Purdah Party, Shalimar Gardens by K. M. B. 1905 [IV.12]: 374.
Purdah Picketers (N&N) 1930 [Jun. III.11]: 557.
Queen Guinevere by an Indian Lady 1908 [VIII.5]: 139–43.
Queen Mary (N&N) 1910 [X.4]: 123.
Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra 1901 [I.2]: 26–28.
Quraishi, Md. Ibrahim. “Purdah System” 1904 [IV.1]: 6–11.
———. “Women in Southern India” 1902 [II.6]: 181–83.
Rajagopalaswamy, K. “Indian Marriages” 1929 [Feb. II.7]: 347.
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Ramunni, T. K. “Advancement of the Women of India” 1905 [IV.8]: 236–37.
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———. “Newspapers and Magazines” 1904 [IV.3]: 85.
Rangier, Chittur. “Indian Women and Their Foreign Sisters” 1914 [Jan.–Mar. XIII.3]: 82–84.
Rao. “Dowry System” 1937 [Nov.–Dec. X.6]: 276.
Rao, D. S. R. “British Girls and Their Ways” 1907 [VII.1]: 10–13.
———. “Indian Women and Nationalism” 1929 [May II.10]: 519–22.
Rao, M. C. N. “Industries for Indian Homes” 1908 [VII.8]: 264.
Rao, M. Shama. “H. H. Maharani of Mysore” 1902 [II.4]: 100.
Rao, S. N. “Dignity of Womanhood” 1914 [Jan.–Mar. XIII.3]: 72–74.
Rau, R. L. “Hindu Marriage Reform” 1930 [Apr. III.9]: 429.
———. “Modern Indian Woman and Her Responsibilities” 1929 [Oct. III.3]: 164.
Ravi Varma the Indian Artist 1901 [I.6]: 161; 1903 [II.7]: 234.
Realm of Women 1933 [Sept.–Oct. VI.5]: 233.
Recent Speech on Female Education 1903 [III.1]: 29.
Reform (CC) 1917 [XVI.6]: 206; 1917 [XVI.5]: 165; 1917 [XVI.7]: 240.
Reform in Hindu Temples, Reddy [CC] 1937 [Nov.–Dec. X.6]: 245.
Renhanatram, T. S. “Sudah, the Child-Widow” 1909 [IX.1]: 17–19.
Reply . . . Izzetta 1903 [II.8]: 257–58.
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Ridley, Edwin. “Letter from America” 1908 [VII.8]: 248–50.
Rippmann, W. “English as the International Language” 1914 [Jan.–Mar. XIII.3]: 79–81.
Rohini. “Are Women Their Own Worst Enemies?” 1936 [May–Jun. IX.3]: 91.
———. “Art as a Career for Indian Women” 1933 [Mar.–Apr. VI.2]: 58.
———. “Bachelor Girl” 1934 [VII.2]: 57.
———. “This Marriage Problem” 1936 [Nov.–Dec. IX.6]: 219.
Roll of Honour by K. 1917 [May XVI.7]: 228.
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Roy, Biva. “Social Intercourse” 1908 [VIII.6]: 185–86.
Ruskin on Women by an Indian Lady 1904 [III.11]: 343–44.
Russell, Edmund. “Two Types of Woman: American and Indian” 1903 [II.11]: 360–61.
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Sacred Dances of the Ancient Tamils 1929 [Sept. ?]: 101.
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———. (N&N) 1930 [Jun. III.11]: 557–58.
———. America (N&N) 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 264–65.
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———. “Christianity and Women” 1928 [Dec. II.5]: 211–15.
———. “Dear Friend” 1933 [Aug. VI.7]: n.p.
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———. “Bringing Up of Children” 1938 [XI.1]: 4–5.
———. “Glad Tidings of Great Joy” 1936 [IX.6]: 209.
———. “Have Women a Mission to Fulfill?” 1937 [Sept.–Oct. X.5]: 191–92.
———. “Indian Woman and Her Home” 1930 [May III.10]: 451.
———. “Life’s Recompense” 1932 [V.7]: 303.
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———. “Ladies’ Work” 1905 [V.2]: 52.
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 Index

Akbar, Mrs. Ali, 108, 142, 143, 156, 258 social equality, xxvii, 93, 106, 182, 183,
Albers, Christina, 64, 65–66, 68, 69, 184, 185, 189, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197,
69–70, 258 200, 201, 202, 203, 205, 207n17,
Ali, Hyder, 16, 33n28 207n20, 208n32; transcendentalism, 24,
Allahabad, 15, 25, 107, 170, 189, 224, 251 205; women, 90, 92, 93, 177, 182–184,
Ambedkar, B. R., 29, 35n57 185–187, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 198,
America / Americans, 90, 92–93, 106, 170, 200, 201, 202, 204, 206n11, 207n16,
175–205; democracy, xxv, xxviii, 176, 208n32, 208n33, 210n50, 210n52,
178, 185, 189, 190, 192, 195–197, 199, 210n58, 223, 229, 249; work ethic
200, 201, 203, 205; education, 118n52, (“dignity of labor”), 149n52, 185,
182, 184, 201, 206n11, 207n17, 190–191, 192, 195, 198, 201, 203, 204,
208n26; immigrants, 189, 200, 202; 206n1, 209n46, 210n47, 210n50,
independence, xxviii, xxxiin40, 175, 210n52, 210n53, 210n56, 211n73. See
176, 181, 185, 195, 206n1, 207n20; also Athavale; Bose; Chattopadhyaya;
Indian travelers, xxviii, 90, 93, 170, feminism; Fyzee; Joshi; Mazumdar;
175–205, 206n8, 206n12, 207n16, Naidu; Nivedita; Ramabai; Reddy; L.
207n17, 207n19, 208n25, 210n52, Singh; S. Singh; Vivekananda; war;
210n58, 211n68, 211n70; women’s social activism
individualism, 183, 185, 187, 193, 195, Amicus (Kamala Satthianadhan), xxxn20,
196–197, 199, 201, 202, 203, 207n16, xxxiii, xxxivn1, 28, 115n26, 146n23,
222; literature, 24, 52, 69, 189, 199, 149n51, 162–163, 212n80, 222, 239n53
206n2, 229; materialism, xx, 114n4, Amiruddin, Begum Mir, 156, 210n48, 234,
190, 191, 194, 203, 209n44, 210n49, 239n50, 258
210n56, 222, 234; philanthropy, xxvii, Anglo-Indians, xix, xx, xxvi, xxvii, xxxn6,
90, 92, 106, 119n61, 176, 182, 183, xxxiin37, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20,
189, 193–194, 195, 201, 202; race, 177, 21, 23, 26–27, 31n4, 32n12, 38, 97,
183, 189, 195, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 135, 140,
206n1, 208n35, 211n65, 211n68; 147n37, 148n46, 169, 178, 213, 214,
relations with India / Indians, 26, 106, 218, 223, 249; literature, 55, 63, 106;
147n39, 176–178, 187, 190, 191, social relations, xx, xxvii, xxxn6, 7, 18,
195–196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 207n19; 19, 20, 123, 125, 134, 145n10, 145n11,

279
280 Index

147n32; women (memsahibs), 3, 207n20, 208n31, 208n34, 211n68,

18–19, 20, 33n33, 38, 87n13, 88n27, 212n76, 215, 216, 218–221, 225, 226,
97, 106, 124, 125–144, 144n6, 145n10, 235n9, 237n25, 237n27; Chelmsford,
145n11, 147n32, 160, 165, 169, 213, Viceroy, 124; Curzon, Lady, 220,
215, 217, 223, 235n2, 235n9. See also 236n19; Curzon, Lord, 220, 236n19,
British Raj; caste; social intercourse 236n21, 237n24, 237n25; Minto, Lady,
Appasamy, Kirubai, 194–195 12, 94, 97, 115n21. See also Anglo-
Arnold, Matthew, 9, 56, 91, 140 Indian; Orientalism; ethnocentrism;
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 140, 148n43, 249 British royalty
arts and crafts, Indian. See Indian arts and British royalty, xv, 217, 236n10;
crafts Alexandra, Queen, 69, 103, 217, 235n9;
Athavale, Parvatibai, 107, 175, 176, 192, Edward VIII, King, 69, 217; Edwardian
200, 201, 264, 271 era, xviii, xxi, 4, 30, 69, 147n39, 194,
Austen, Jane, 52, 53, 84 217, 245; Elizabeth, Queen, 217;
George V, King, 217, 236n10; Mary,
Bengal, 11, 25, 26, 32n20, 32n22, 37, Queen, xv, 144n3, 217, 235n9, 236n10;
57n13, 59n33, 110, 112, 119n62, Victoria, Queen-Empress, xv, xxii,
120n80, 131, 132, 146n27, 152, 154, xxviii, 22, 103, 116n33, 120n75, 159,
171n4, 209n44, 220, 221, 236n14, 213–218, 235n2, 235n5, 241; Wales,
238n37, 238n41, 249, 251; bhadraloks, Prince and Princess of, xv
14, 32n22, 152–153, 172n16; Burton, Antoinette, xxii, xxxin29,
bhadramahilas, 32n22, 152, 237n26; xxxiin33, 6, 7, 8, 30, 120n84, 208n25,
Partition (1905), 12, 14, 220, 221, 236n15
237n26; periodical publications, 11, 14, Butler, Josephine, 106, 112, 121n87
15, 32n21, 34n35, 154. See also Curzon
Besant, Annie, 16, 18, 19, 33n32, 54, Calcutta (Kolkata), 3, 25, 26, 75, 96,
59n37, 67, 112, 123, 165–166, 173n31, 116n36, 118n59, 152, 154, 157, 220,
186 250, 251
Bhabha, Homi, xviii, xx, xxiv, 53 Carpenter, Mary, 8, 98, 112, 115n29,
Bharat Mata (Mother India), xxi, xxviii, 121n88. See also National Indian
50, 69, 158, 213–235, 235n1, 235n7 Association
Blackwell, Elizabeth, 118n52, 206n11 caste and class, xii, xx, xxi, xxv, xxvii,
Bodley, Dr. Rachel, 180, 182 xxxn6, xxxn16, 14, 16, 24, 29, 34n39,
Bombay (Mumbai), 11, 16, 25, 26, 95, 107, 58n16, 61, 82, 91–97, 101, 102–104,
110, 114n13, 127, 155, 223, 239n54, 106–109, 111, 113, 114n3, 115n16,
239n55, 249, 251 115n17, 115n18, 117n43, 117n50,
Bose, Sudhindra, 173n40, 175, 176, 118n51, 118n60, 119n62, 119n63,
200–201 119n71, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 135,
British Commonwealth League, 227, 139, 141, 143, 145n17, 151, 152, 156,
238n43, 239n47 158, 164, 172n27, 173n42, 179, 182,
British Raj, xv, xvi, xviii, xx, xxi, xxv, 182–195, 199, 204, 208n28, 225, 231,
xxviii, xxxin27, xxxiin40, 7, 8, 11, 14, 233, 238n45; Brahmins, 16, 63, 66, 78,
15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31n3, 31n4, 91, 94, 102–108, 114n3, 115n16,
32n13, 32n15, 32n19, 32n22, 33n34, 117n43, 117n50, 118n51, 118n60,
35n55, 47, 58n16, 61, 69, 77, 91, 96, 119n62, 119n63, 119n69, 119n71, 131,
120n84, 120n85, 123, 124, 125, 127, 146n23, 152, 156, 158, 179, 182, 183,
130, 140, 144n6, 147n33, 147n34, 184, 188, 206n10, 208n28, 208n35;
147n38, 147n39, 148n41, 148n47, 152, British and Indian relations, xii, xix, xx,
156, 161, 168, 171n7, 202, 206n1, xxi, xxvi–xxvii, xxxn6, xxxn16,
 Index 281

xxxiin37, 3, 7, 10, 11, 16, 18–20, 21, 175, 179, 188, 189, 192, 206n12;
27, 31n4, 32n12, 38, 55, 63, 96, 104, education, xiv, xviii, xxv, xxixn2,
106, 117n50, 123, 125–144, 145n11, xxxiin35, 3, 15, 16, 35n55, 119n69,
145n17, 147n37, 148n46, 152, 158, 148n42, 156–157, 175, 176, 179, 186,
169, 173n42, 190, 197, 208n28, 213, 189, 206n12; Hindu / Indian, xv, xx,
218, 223; foreign influences on, xxv, xxxn3, xxxn16, xxxiin35, 3, 59n29,
xxvii, xxxn6, xxxn16, 29, 34n39, 61, 86n1, 103, 117n49, 118n53, 118n54,
94, 104, 106, 109, 117n50, 125, 152, 119n69, 119n71, 173n37, 183, 189,
158, 164, 185, 190, 192, 194, 208n28, 207n17, 207n20, 208n25, 238n41, 242;
225; inter-dining, xxxn6, 94, 95, 96, 97, women, 49, 50, 94, 104, 105, 213, 223,
115n17, 119n62, 127, 135, 172n27, 235n1. See also gender ideology;
194–195; intermarriage, 24, 34n42, 82, philanthropy; religion
115n17, 172n27, 195; “untouchables” colonialism, xix–xxviii, xxxin27, xxxin29,
(harijans, scheduled classes, dalits), 16, xxxiin40, 3, 11–20, 31n4, 32n22,
29, 34n39, 35n56, 35n57, 91, 96, 103, 34n45, 35n48, 57n14, 59n34, 59n36,
106, 115n18, 115n27, 117n41, 117n43, 60n39, 61, 64, 117n43, 117n49,
119n62, 119n63, 119n71, 141, 192, 120n79, 139, 152, 153, 156, 158,
205, 238n45. See also social intercourse 171n3, 171n4, 171n12, 175, 201,
Chapman, Maria Weston, 115n23, 171n7, 206n1, 208n25, 208n28, 208n34,
185, 237n27 218–219, 231, 233, 236n14; anti-
Chatterjee, Partha, xx, xxxn5, xxxin24, colonialism, xxvi, 18, 28, 33n28,
33n23, 33n25, 33n34, 60n39, 114n4, 59n36, 117n49, 152, 209n40, 211n68;
118n58, 153, 171n1, 171n3, 171n12, “colonial encounter”, 35n48, 57n14,
173n40, 210n49, 217, 235n7, 238n35, 61–62, 120n79, 152, 208n25, 214; post-
238n41 colonialism, xviii–xx, xxi, xxii, 158,
Chattopadhyaya, Kamaladevi, xxxn19, 18, 202, 240n58. See also British Raj
34n40, 120n77, 172n26, 175, 176, conferences, xiii, xv, 98, 133, 212n76, 226,
201–203, 204, 212n75, 212n76, 226, 237n27, 247; All-India Women’s
237n30, 238n42, 243 Conference, 17, 112, 194–202; Calcutta
Chicago, 186, 188, 189, 197, 199, 200, Women’s Conference, 96; Chicago
209n41, 211n65 National Conference of Women, 199;
Christian / Christianity, xi–xviii, xx, xxii, Ladies’ Conference, Allahabad, 170;
xxv, xxixn2, xxxn3, xxxn16, xxxiin35, London Round Table, 133, 134,
3, 5, 10, 15, 16, 29, 34n35, 34n42, 147n28, 227; Mahomedan Educational
35n55, 47–50, 59n27, 59n29, 59n37, Conference, 155–156; World
61, 66, 67, 86n1, 88n26, 94–110, Conference of Religions, Chicago, 186,
117n49, 117n50, 118n53, 118n54, 188, 209n41
119n61, 119n69, 119n71, 148n40, Cooch Behar, Maharani of, 59n33, 93, 94,
148n42, 155, 157, 173n37, 175–180, 95, 238n38, 258
183, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 201, Corelli, Marie, xxvi, 38, 48–49, 58n22,
206n12, 207n17, 207n20, 208n25, 58n23, 58n25, 59n26, 62, 67, 78, 229.
209n43, 210n57, 213, 223, 235n1, See also literary criticism; gender
238n41; Anglican, xxxiin37, 86n3, ideology, Victorian
118n57, 173n37, 183, 207n18; Biblical Cousins, Margaret, 18, 19, 34n40, 112,
allusions, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 121n90, 159
58n20, 59n27, 84, 194, 213, 234,
235n1, 235n4; conversion, xx, xxv, 54, Dall, Caroline, 179–182, 206n7, 206n10,
66, 88n26, 103, 104, 105, 118n53, 206n14, 207n16
118n57, 119n69, 148n40, 157, 173n35,
282 Index

Dandi Salt March (1930), 13, 19, 201, 205, ethnocentrism : British “aloofness”, xx, 97,
212n76, 226, 232. See also Gandhi, M. 98, 131, 135, 137, 138, 141–143,
K. 148n40, 148n41, 149n53, 243; eastern,
Delhi (New Delhi), 12, 17, 134, 140, 10, 30, 87n17, 97, 107, 119n71, 126,
148n42, 220, 226 127, 128, 132, 134, 138, 139, 141, 142,
Delhi Durbars, 12, 134, 140, 148n42, 220 144, 147n31, 147n39, 148n40, 148n41,
Devdhar, Kashibai, 106, 107, 119n66 154, 159, 173n42, 174n44, 180, 185,
Diver, Maud, 106, 182, 206n12 189, 222, 225, 231, 233, 234, 242,
Draupadi (Mahabarata), xxvi, 52, 68, 162 246n10; racialism, 57n3, 99, 109,
Dufferin, Lady, 103, 112, 118n52 116n33, 119n66, 129, 147n39, 164,
Dutt, Toru, xxiv, 52–53, 59n32, 64, 178 173n39, 209n44, 214, 216; western, xii,
xx, xxi, xxiii, xxvii, xxxn20, xxxin29,
East India Company, xix, 11, 12, 16, xxxin31, 19, 30, 32n22, 47, 54, 69, 80,
32n15, 154, 159 82, 87n14, 88n27, 89, 92, 93, 97, 108,
education, xi–xvi, xxv, xxviii, xxxiin34, 111, 114n4, 115n29, 123, 126,
xxxiin38, 3–9, 16, 17, 20, 23, 29, 30, 128–131, 132, 138, 142, 147n31,
33n30, 53, 71, 76, 83, 89, 91, 93, 98, 147n37, 148n49, 149n53, 152, 153,
105, 106, 108, 112, 115n14, 116n30, 158, 169, 171n7, 175–205, 222, 224,
120n85, 125, 127, 135, 144, 145n17, 232, 238n41, 242. See also British Raj;
146n24, 152–170, 172n14, 174n45, caste; essentialism; Indian identity
181, 182, 186, 187, 189, 191, 193, 201, politics; Indian nationalism;
207n17, 210n58, 225, 247, 248; and Occidentalism; Orientalism; separatism
Christian missions, xv, xxv, 16, 35n55,
106, 108, 110, 119n72, 156, 179; famine, 12, 105–107, 111, 117n50,
curriculum debates, xxviii, 14, 20, 118n56, 148n42, 208n34
119n72, 152, 156, 157, 164, 166, 167, feminism, xxxin27, 7, 8, 10, 15, 18–20, 28,
171n4–171n8, 171n13, 172n14, 34n37, 35n49, 39, 46–47, 54, 58n19,
174n45; English language, 8, 33n30, 59n26, 76, 86n2, 88n26, 88n27, 89, 90,
97, 125; western, xxv, 81, 91, 103, 92, 94, 104, 105, 117n49, 134, 135,
120n85, 131, 149n52, 155, 156, 158, 140, 146n19, 147n35, 155, 163, 171n1,
167, 171n7, 173n34, 207n17, 210n51, 172n28, 177, 183, 185, 186, 187, 198,
210n58, 236n11, 237n27, 239n47, 202, 205, 207n16, 208n32, 229,
239n53, 243. See also health and 238n41, 243, 246n10; American, 28,
hygiene; Indian identity politics; Indian 134, 177, 202, 246n10; British,
nationalism; purdah; women, Indian xxxin27, 18, 18–20, 28, 30, 59n26, 134,
Eliot, George, 38, 52 202, 229, 246n10; first wave, xxvi, 7;
Eliot, T. S., xxviii and gender solidarity, 28, 34n37, 41,
Ellis, Sarah, 5, 32n11 76, 85, 94–97, 113, 134, 137, 185, 198,
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 24, 52, 190, 205, 228, 231–233, 239n46; Indian, 15,
213, 223 18–20, 30, 35n49, 90, 105, 117n49,
“England-returned”, xii, xxv, xxxiin34, 163, 172n26, 183, 238n41; second
59n37, 80–81, 87n14, 91, 103, 110, wave, 246n10; women’s suffrage, xvii,
120n79, 120n85, 149n52, 172n28 xxvi, 1, 7, 19, 47, 90, 120n84, 133, 157,
essentialism, xxi, xxiii, xxvii–xxviii, 160, 219, 232, 236n18, 239n47. See
xxxiin32, 27, 28, 33n34, 91, 114n4, also gender ideology; separatism
143, 158, 164, 167, 229, 234, 245. See fin de siècle, xviii, xxvi, 3, 10, 21, 22, 152,
also ethnocentrism; Indian identity 159, 173n40, 189, 195, 239n53
politics; Indian nationalism free will, 44, 71, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82
 Index 283

Fyzee-Rahmin, Atiya, 175, 176, 193–194, 92, 103, 113, 138, 153, 158, 162, 163,
195, 198, 200–201, 202, 224, 237n29, 164, 169, 176, 230, 237n33, 243;
238n36, 261, 268, 274. See also Angel-out-of-the-house, 24, 47, 113,
“Shahinda” 161, 170, 231; fallen women, 43, 47,
98, 105, 110, 115n29, 117n43, 120n77,
Gandhi, Mohandas K., xxiv, xxix, xxxin25, 120n78, 146n20, 197, 217, 230;
xxxiin34, 13, 28, 29, 34n36, 49, 52, feminine “wiles”, 49, 67, 177; Girl-of-
86n7, 87n12, 111, 120n85, 134, the-Period, xxv, 160; and influence on
147n28, 172n26, 175, 191, 192, 195, Indian nationalism, 67–68, 111, 131,
197, 199, 205, 207n23, 211n70, 220, 204; New Woman, xvii, xviii,
226, 227, 236n15, 237n30, 238n42, xxv–xxvi, 9, 21–22, 29, 30, 41, 45–48,
238n45, 244 52, 56, 59n26, 76, 77, 80, 82, 94, 103,
Garrison, William Lloyd, 185, 208n32 138, 162, 171n1, 201, 230, 243, 245;
Gaskell, Elizabeth, 115n29, 194 rights and responsibilities of, xvii, xx,
gender ideology: Christian, 48, 50; xxiii, xxvi, 4, 28, 35n49, 47, 50, 63, 67,
domestic, xv–xvii, xx, xxv, xxvi, 76, 92, 110, 120n81, 138, 156, 159,
xxxn6, xxxn17, xxxin22, xxxin23, 162, 163, 169, 172n26, 188, 210n52,
4–10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 30, 33n26, 212n79, 228, 232–233, 239n47, 243;
39, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 75, 90, separate spheres, xxxin22, 3, 4, 6, 13,
92, 93, 98, 114n4, 125, 126, 128, 139, 14, 21, 22, 24, 38, 46, 47, 50, 76, 158,
148n48, 151, 152, 153, 154, 158, 161, 171n8, 171n13, 192; spinsters
162, 164–165, 166, 169, 176, 191, 193, (“bachelor girls”), 138, 162, 172n23,
201, 206n9, 209n46, 210n51, 213, 223, 194; “unsexed”, 1, 3, 6, 19, 29, 39, 40,
228, 230, 239n46, 240n59, 244, 246n6, 47, 49, 57n6, 57n7, 57n11, 59n26, 77,
246n8; misogyny, 28, 44, 87n23, 92, 121n91, 127, 161, 163, 164–166,
116n30, 163, 181, 183, 215, 224; 167, 172n28, 178, 202, 219, 226, 228,
patriarchy, xx, 1, 13, 21, 28, 39, 43, 45, 233, 236n15, 245. See also literature,
49, 82, 85, 105, 117n49, 138, 147n35, English
156, 158, 164, 171n3, 171n4, 181, gender ideology, Indian, xxvi, 38, 47, 56;
207n24, 208n34, 216, 236n15, 246n5; female autonomy, and “shyness”, xii,
womanliness, xii, xv, xxiii, xxv, xxviii, xiv, xv, xix, 5, 20, 22, 32n20, 46, 51,
xxxin22, xxxin23, 8, 20, 30, 48, 49, 64–65, 69, 75, 78, 83, 84, 97, 116n33,
58n25, 71, 86n2, 88n27, 92, 114n6, 129, 130, 131, 135, 138, 142, 146n18,
138, 144, 146n18, 146n19, 148n45, 148n46, 161, 167, 168, 198, 201,
148n48, 154, 160–170, 178, 206n14, 210n51, 223, 229, 231, 238n41,
218, 219, 220, 225, 226, 228, 229, 230, 238n45, 240n62, 241; female
236n15, 240n57, 243, 244; “womanly autonomy, lack of, xvi, xxxin22, 4, 5, 6,
woman”, xvii, 8, 13, 52, 92, 164, 176, 8, 17, 20, 90, 92, 98, 152, 179, 191,
181, 223, 229, 240n57, 240n62. See 193, 201, 246n8; and Indian identity
also America, women; gender ideology, politics, xvi, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi,
British; gender ideology, Indian; xxxin26, 20, 22, 28, 30, 37–56, 67, 69,
woman, ideal 76, 79, 80, 85, 91, 96, 101, 105, 127,
gender ideology, British (Victorian), xvii, 130, 131, 133, 136, 138, 139, 144, 152,
xx, xxvi, xxvii, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 17, 22, 163, 173n31, 212n78, 213, 215, 218,
32n11, 44–45, 49, 50, 52, 89, 92, 98, 220, 236n14, 245, 246n5; Woman
125, 141, 147n35, 148n47, 152, 153, Question (Indian), xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxv,
158, 169, 187–188, 209n40; Angel-in- xxvii, xxviii, 1, 19, 33n34, 46, 61,
the-house, xvii, xxvi, 13, 22, 24, 29, 30, 151–170, 171n1–174n45, 186, 216;
37, 38, 39, 43, 45–47, 49, 52, 55, 56, women’s work, xxxn4, 5–6, 38, 44, 47,
284 Index

50, 52, 53, 55, 70, 75, 76, 92–98, 99, 142, 152, 153, 154, 191, 209n40;
105, 106, 110, 114n3, 115n16, 115n27, culture, and solidarity, xv, 28, 30, 76,
118n56, 119n69, 121n92, 141, 154, 92, 94, 98, 211n72; language (Hindi), 3,
156, 162, 164, 165, 166, 171n9, 16, 18, 33n25, 33n30, 34n45, 97, 103,
174n45, 189–192, 198, 200, 201, 174n45, 224; literature, xix, 33n25,
209n46, 210n47, 210n51, 210n52, 33n27, 33n30, 50, 63, 87n23, 88n25,
210n57, 211n73, 212n75, 219, 220, 174n45, 224; orthodoxy, xii, xvi, xx,
222, 223, 225, 228, 229, 230, 237n28, xxv, 18, 19, 24, 54, 78, 87n23, 103,
237n29, 237n31, 239n49, 239n52, 104, 105, 115n17, 118n54, 154,
240n57, 240n62, 246n3, 246n7, 173n37, 181, 209n40, 230; priesthood,
246n10, 247, 248 16, 63, 66, 78–79, 85, 86n7, 94, 101,
Ghosal, Saraladevi, 169, 173n41, 265 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109,
Gupta, Lalita, 69, 216–217 114n3, 117n43, 117n50, 119n62,
119n67, 119n69, 146n23, 152, 156,
health and hygiene, xxvii, 7, 14, 24, 33n33, 158, 188, 206n10, 208n35, 209n43,
85, 87n12, 89, 99, 101, 102, 105, 109, 212n80, 225; race, xv, xx, xxv, xxxn6,
114n13, 116n35, 119n66, 128, 34n41, 34n45, 54, 55, 57n15, 93, 103,
129–132, 145n7, 146n18, 169, 173n39, 104, 117n49, 119n66, 120n84, 144,
173n43, 174n45, 175, 179, 180, 189, 148n40, 155, 159, 173n42, 179, 183,
211n72, 247, 248; consumption 188, 191, 200, 207n20, 208n25,
(tuberculosis), 52, 173n39, 181, 189; 209n44, 231, 235n3; religion, xii,
disease, 7, 69, 116n36, 147n39, 169, xxxin25, 29, 33n34, 54, 59n27, 59n37,
173n39, 173n43, 200, 211n72, 233; 60n39, 63, 78, 86n10, 87n23, 89, 99,
education and training, 98, 103, 105, 101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 114n13,
107, 108, 112, 116n33, 118n52, 117n49, 117n50, 118n54, 119n69,
179–180, 181, 182, 206n11, 207n18, 120n73, 127, 134, 145n13, 155, 171n7,
210n52; nursing, xvii, 105, 110, 112, 173n37, 181, 183, 184, 186–188, 192,
144n3; plague, 105, 106, 107, 148n42, 208n33, 209n40, 209n42, 209n43, 213,
162, 169, 173n42; sanitary reform, 7–9, 214, 215, 235n1; sacred texts, 50, 51,
24, 87n12, 96, 102, 106, 112, 120n73, 87n17, 87n18, 99, 101, 103, 106,
121n89, 169, 173n39–173n43, 174n45, 117n50, 158, 183; spirituality, xx, 51,
189, 200, 211n72, 247; women doctors, 80, 114n4, 152, 185, 191, 209n44,
112, 117n40, 118n52, 175, 179, 181, 210n49; temples, 81, 101, 109, 117n43,
185, 206n11; women’s medical issues, 120n73, 213, 223, 238n34; women, xvi,
xxvii, 9, 35n55, 89, 93, 109, 112, 24, 32n20, 34n35, 34n41, 51, 56,
121n91, 169, 179, 181, 200, 248. See 57n15, 59n30, 59n37, 60n39, 86n10,
also purdah; Ghosal; Joshi; Levering; 87n23, 88n25, 94, 95, 97, 103, 104,
Mayo; Naidu; Nightingale; Ramabai; 105, 106, 108, 115n25, 118n56,
Reddy; Sorabji 119n70, 120n79, 129, 131, 144,
Hensman, Mrs. S. G., xiii, 27, 140 145n13, 151, 152, 157, 171n7, 173n43,
Hess, Rudolph, 228, 262 179, 181, 182, 183, 190, 206n14,
Hindu / Hinduism: culture, xv, xxii, 208n28, 208n33, 209n40, 209n41,
xxxn16, 16, 18, 24, 33n34, 54, 55, 209n42, 214, 215, 235n3; women, and
59n37, 60n39, 63, 94, 95, 99, 104, chastity, xii, xxvii, 20, 37, 42, 43, 51,
114n13, 117n49, 118n54, 120n84, 127, 58n25, 80, 83, 91, 114n4, 123, 129,
131, 134, 145n13, 152, 157, 171n7, 130, 145n13, 146n20, 152, 153, 154,
173n42, 179, 181, 187, 188, 209n40, 164, 167, 187, 190, 216, 237n33. See
210n56, 213, 231, 235n3; culture, and also women, Indian
moral superiority, xvii, 19, 51, 117n50, Hindu Marriage Reform League, 60n38
 Index 285

Hitler, Adolf, xxviii, 228, 229, 239n49, and west, synthesis of, xii, xv, xviii,
243 xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvii, xxxin31, 16, 21,
Home Rule League, 16, 112 29, 34n45, 61, 62, 79, 80, 113, 117n49,
Hossain, Rokeya, xv, 57n5, 96, 116n31, 123, 125–144, 145n9, 145n10, 149n51,
146n25, 147n35, 171n9, 194, 225, 149n52, 152, 153, 160, 163, 217;
238n40, 262, 271, 277; Sakhawat female education, xxiv, xxv, 78, 101,
Memorial School for Girls, 171n9; 119n71, 127, 132, 133, 144, 145n9,
“Sultana’s Dream” (Ladyland), 67, 75, 152–170; independence, xvi, xxvii, 13,
76, 85, 106, 191, 194, 238n40 22, 44, 61, 143, 207n20, 208n34, 220,
Hunter Commission, 103, 112 222, 234, 235; modernization, xvi, xxv,
hybridity, xviii, xix, xx, xxiv, 3, 11, 62, xxvi, xxxin31, 4, 22, 34n45, 60n39, 68,
118n54, 132, 140, 146n19, 147n36 78–79, 125, 131, 133, 148n49, 152,
153, 155–156, 160, 163, 197, 212n78,
Indian arts and crafts, xxxin31, 5, 80, 93, 222, 224, 234; and religion, xii, 10, 29,
95, 96, 107, 110, 114n9, 117n43, 131, 146n19, 149n54, 234, 235n1;
119n72, 192, 207n17, 212n75, 214, swaraj-swadeshi-satyagraha, xviii, 67,
220, 223–224, 231, 237n26, 237n30, 91, 138, 141, 203, 217, 220, 234. See
237n32, 238n35, 238n36, 238n37, 247, also British Raj; caste; essentialism;
249; dance, classical, 93, 212n75, ethnocentrism; Occidentalism; social
223–224, 237n32, 238n34, 247; intercourse; Indian nationalism
devadasis, 99, 101, 105, 109, 117n43, Indian Ladies’ Magazine, xviii–xxix, 63,
213, 223, 238n45; fancywork, 5–6, 10, 176; American commentary on,
22, 47, 74, 94, 95, 107, 110, 156, 176–178; articles discussed, 257–271;
174n45, 190, 223, 237n28, 237n29, editorial platform, xii, xv, xvii, xx, xxi,
237n31, 247, 248; fine arts, 5, 212n75, xxi–xxvi, xxvii, xxxin28, xxxin31,
223–224, 238n35, 247; khaddar xxxiii, 3, 6, 8–10, 14, 19–20, 21, 22–23,
weaving, xxix, xxxin25, xxxiin32, 26, 28, 29, 31, 37, 38, 52, 53, 61–71,
xxxiin41, 59n28, 190, 198, 219, 221, 82, 86n2, 92, 96, 123, 134, 156, 163,
225–226, 244; music, xxxin31, 5, 80, 220, 242, 243, 249–252; end of, xxviii,
83, 93, 96, 110, 117n43, 119n72, 17, 241–245; first run, xiii, xxii, xxxiii,
174n45, 207n17, 212n75, 224, 237n32, 56, 125, 134, 182, 242, 247; inception
238n36, 247; nautch, 223, 224; of, 21–31; publication and subscription
needlework, plain, 6, 10, 95–96, 110, history, 20, 27, 28, 33n27, 241, 242,
223; performing arts (theater), 63, 253–256; reception history, 25–27, 28,
212n75, 224, 238n36, 238n37. See also 34n43, 249–252; second run, xi, xiii,
Indian identity politics xxiii, xxxiii, 28, 56, 134, 195, 242,
Indian identity politics, xviii, xxi, xxv, 20, 246n4, 247, 248; specifications,
30, 123–144; and caste prejudice, 10, 247–248
30, 87n17, 97, 107, 119n71, 126, 127, Indian National Congress, xxxiin32, 12,
128, 134, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 16, 91, 106, 112, 114n2, 120n85,
147n31, 147n39, 148n40, 148n41, 154, 147n28, 158, 159, 194, 197, 211n66,
159, 173n42, 174n44, 180, 185, 189, 211n67
222, 225, 231, 233, 234, 242, 246n10; Indian nationalism, xii, xv, xvi, xix, xx,
“center to circumference”, xv, 30, 138, xxi, xxii, xxiv–xxvii, xxxin26, xxxin31,
169, 170, 232, 244; conservatism, xvi, xxxiin41, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 22, 28,
xxvii, 16, 28, 33n34, 60n39, 68, 78–79, 29, 33n34, 34n42, 34n45, 35n60, 38,
82, 85, 101, 111, 123, 131, 139, 143, 44, 59n37, 61, 62, 65, 79, 85, 96, 101,
145n10, 148n49, 149n53, 153, 181, 119n72, 123, 125, 129, 131, 139, 143,
183, 192, 201, 215, 222, 236n14; east 146n19, 148n45, 152, 153, 157, 158,
286 Index

159, 160, 171n12, 173n31, 176, 178, Kipling, Rudyard, 69, 87n11, 125, 147n33,
180, 181, 188, 192, 193, 195, 197, 199, 148n42
204, 207n20, 208n31, 208n34, 212n78, Krishnamma (Krishnammah), Hannah
213, 220–221, 224, 225, 236n14, (niece), 53, 205, 263–259
237n26, 245; civil disobedience, xviii, Krishnamma, Hannah Ratnam (Kamala
xxxn12, xxxin24, 13, 19, 236n22, Satthianadhan), xi, xxixn2, xxxiii, 274
237n27, 239n48; militant nationalism, Krishnaswami, P. R., 53, 147n30, 215
xxv, xxvi, 7, 16, 33n28, 114n2, 142,
167, 180–183, 192, 195, 201, 232, 244; Lakshmi (Hindu goddess), xiv, xxxn17, 81
noncooperation, xiii, xxxiin32, 13, language, xii, xxi, xxiv, 16, 17, 21, 29,
211n70, 217, 220, 232; pre- 33n25, 33n30, 34n45, 63, 96, 97,
independence, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xxix, 20, 114n10, 115n23, 126, 128, 135, 152,
50, 175, 176, 198, 201; propaganda, 179; differences, 12, 21, 114n10,
xix, xxvi, 11, 13, 34n42, 238n37; Quit 115n23, 126, 135, 143, 179, 198;
India, xviii, xxvii, 61, 220; solidarity, English, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxvi, 3, 12, 15,
xxxiin32, 12, 28, 91, 94, 95, 97, 134, 16, 18, 20, 29–30, 31n4, 35n60, 38, 53,
137, 185, 195, 198, 210n49. See also 63, 111, 120n85, 142, 156, 158, 168,
Indian identity politics; satyagraha; 169, 170, 174n45, 189, 208n31, 249;
swaraj; swadeshi vernaculars, Hindi, xix, 3, 15–16, 18,
Indian women. See women, Indian 33n25, 33n30, 34n45; vernaculars,
Ireland, 125, 176, 216, 235n6 Indian, 12, 16, 29, 33n25, 33n30,
Irish, 54, 112, 125, 176, 186, 216, 235n6. 35n60, 146n19, 174n45, 224;
See also Besant; Cousins; Nivedita vernaculars, Marathi, 103, 105, 184,
Islam / Muslim, 59n27, 60n39, 85, 130, 208n34, 208n35; vernaculars, Tamil, 3,
140, 152, 266; Mahomedan, 89, 131, 16, 17–18, 22, 31n6, 34n35;
155; Mohammedan, 114n13; Moslem, vernaculars, Telugu, xii, 14, 15
83, 137, 259; Muslim, xii, xxv, Levering, Dr. Idafaye, 185, 211n72
xxxin25, 18, 29, 60n39, 64, 75, 83–85, Linton, Eliza Lynn, 160, 172n19
94, 115n16, 125, 130–131, 133–134, literary criticism, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, 37–56,
136, 139, 140, 145n13, 155–156, 56n1–60n40, 61, 247. See also Corelli;
171n7, 171n9, 175, 193, 231, 235n1, Patmore; Ruskin; Tennyson
238n41, 258. See also purdah literature in ILM (“life literary”), xxiv,
xxvii, 6, 14, 15, 33n27, 33n30, 34n45,
Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre (1919), 13, 57n6, 61–85, 86n1–88n30, 90, 111,
125 115n14, 146n19, 152, 247; drama, xxiv,
Joshi, Anandabai, 178–183, 190, 201, xxvii, xxxn19, 9, 61, 76–82, 224,
206n7, 206n9, 206n12, 206n15, 238n36, 247; fiction, xxiv, xxvii, 5, 9,
207n16, 207n19, 207n24, 208n26 50, 63, 71–76, 87n16, 111, 120n82;
Joshi, Gopal, 179, 180, 193, 206n8, nonfiction, xxi, xxvii, 63, 71, 83–85,
206n14, 224 111; poetry, xxiv, xxvii, 5, 9, 40, 41,
42–43, 44, 45, 51, 53, 55, 61, 64–71,
Kanitkar, Kashibai, xxxn18, xxxin26, 139; serialization, 5, 32n10, 61, 76, 82.
206n15, 208n26 See also Corelli; Rossetti; Ruskin;
Karve, Professor D. K., 57n12, 107, Tennyson
118n53, 192, 209n39; Institute for literature, English: influence of, xviii, xix,
Widows, 192 xxi, xxiv, xxvi, 17, 21, 37–56, 57n4, 63,
khaddar. See arts and crafts, textiles 125, 135, 155, 168, 169, 171n4, 171n7,
Khataniyar, Jamuneswar, 64 171n8, 171n12, 173n34, 174n45, 189;
and romantic love, 40–43, 46, 57n3,
 Index 287

57n13, 58n23, 64, 70, 71–83, 87n20, 99–100, 101, 103, 109, 114n3, 116n33,
162, 217. See also Anglo-Indian 116n34, 116n35, 117n44, 117n50,
literature; individual authors 118n55, 130, 134, 152, 172n23, 179,
literature, Indian, xii, xix, xx, xxviii, 37, 180, 187, 199, 206n9, 213, 214; child-
50, 55, 61–85, 87n13, 147n31, 238n38; motherhood and maternal mortality, 20,
Mahabarata, 50–52; and mimicry, 57n3, 59n32, 65, 74, 99, 100, 112,
xviii–xix, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxxin28, 11, 116n34, 116n35, 116n36, 173n39, 179,
21, 29, 45, 53, 59n26, 61, 171n7, 180, 187, 206n9, 236n20;
173n34, 181, 186; Ramayana, 50, 51, companionate, xxxn20, 58n18, 67, 75,
55; Shastras, 87n18, 99, 101, 103, 106, 92, 152, 171n3, 209n40; consummation
117n50; Vedas, 50, 59n27, 87n17, 158. / marital rape, 57n13, 58n16, 60n38,
See also hybridity 100–101, 109, 116n33, 116n34;
Lucknow, 25, 189, 249, 251 divorce, xxxn20, 52, 146n23, 187, 204,
212n79, 238n42; dowry, xi, xiii, 28, 75,
Macaulay, Thomas, xviii, 29, 30, 35n59, 79, 99, 101, 102, 116n31, 217; inter-
91, 237n25 caste, 24, 34n42, 115n17, 195;
Madras (Chennai), xiii, xv, xxvi, xxixn2, polygamy, 14, 52, 131, 146n23, 214
xxxn13, 3, 11, 14, 16–26, 31n5, 31n6, Martineau, Harriet, 57n6, 86n7, 183, 184,
33n29, 99, 109, 110, 116n33, 117n43, 185, 195, 202, 207n20, 207n24, 208n32
118n60, 120n80, 166, 186, 237n31, Mayo, Katherine, 34n37, 67, 69, 86n8,
242, 249, 250, 251; Literary Society, 3, 87n12, 111, 116n33, 118n55, 120n84,
31n5; Presidency, xiv, 16, 17, 25, 31n5, 147n39, 149n51, 195, 199, 200, 202,
31n6, 33n29, 109, 250, 251 211n61, 211n62, 211n69, 211n70,
Maharani of Baroda, 54, 185, 193 211n72, 212n76, 214; Mother India,
Position of Women in Indian Life, 54, 185 34n37, 69, 87n12, 111, 195, 200
Maharashtra, 118n53, 184 Mazumdar, Haridas, 205, 211n71
Mahomedan. See Islam Mill, James, 119n70
Malabari, Behramji, 57n14, 108, 251 Mill, John Stuart, xxxin22, 88n24
Mandi, Dowager Maharani of, 149n54, Mohammedan. See Islam
172n23 Moslem. See Islam
marriage customs, Indian, xxxn20, Mother Cult, 13, 17, 59n31, 74, 100, 126,
xxxiin35, 14, 24, 41, 44, 46, 57n3, 162, 167, 180, 187, 209n38, 213, 216,
57n12, 57n14, 58n18, 59n31, 66, 235n2; English / British, 4, 40, 160,
72–74, 78, 82–84, 87n17, 87n18, 92, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217–218, 235n2;
99, 101, 114n3, 115n14, 116n30, Indian, 57n3, 83, 116n34, 167,
117n44, 119n66, 146n23, 151, 152, 180–181, 187, 209n38, 213, 215, 216,
154, 162, 165, 168, 172n14, 172n27, 235n2, 236n14, 245; Irish, 216, 235n6.
186, 187, 204, 206n7, 206n14, 211n72, See also Bharat Mata
213, 219, 222, 237n33, 238n40, 245, Muslim. See Islam
247; age of consent, 54, 57n14, 101, Muslim women. See purdah
109, 116n33, 117n44, 134; arranged, Mussolini, Benito, xxviii, 228, 229
xv, xxxn3, 40, 46, 57n3, 71, 72, 77, 80,
81, 82, 165, 217; betrothal, infant, Naidu, Sarojini, xv, xvi, xxxn4, xxxn19,
xxxiin35, 20, 34n39, 87n17, 100, 109, xxxiin34, 27, 35n49, 52, 53, 59n31,
116n32, 117n44, 211n72; bride-murder 59n32, 59n34, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71,
/ “kitchen accidents”, 99–100, 116n31; 86n9, 117n40, 120n86, 135, 146n24,
child-marriage, xvi, xxxn16, xxxiin35, 147n28, 159, 161, 163, 171n10,
14, 19, 20, 24, 28, 34n39, 54, 59n31, 172n26, 175, 195–201, 207n24,
67, 74, 75, 78–79, 82–84, 86n8, 211n64, 211n68, 211n69, 211n70,
288 Index

211n72, 215, 226, 227, 231, 235, periodicals, British, xxii, xxvi, 1, 3–10, 12,
238n42, 243, 246n9, 257, 261, 264, 13, 20, 30, 31n3, 31n4, 32n14, 32n17,
265, 266, 267, 271, 274, 276; letters, 32n18; and Beeton, Samuel, 5–7,
195–201; poetry, xvi, 52, 53, 59n32, 65, 32n10; The Christian Lady’s Magazine,
67, 71; political activism, xv, xvi, 27, 5; Englishwoman’s Domestic
35n49, 59n34, 67, 86n9, 117n40, 135, Magazine, 6–7, 10, 32n10, 32n12;
146n24, 159, 161, 163, 171n10, Indian Magazine, xxxiin33, 7, 8, 10, 20,
172n26, 195–201, 211n67, 211n68, 242, 250, 272; Intimations to Women,
211n69, 215, 226, 227, 231, 235, 15, 21; Ladies’ Magazine, 4; Ladies’
238n42, 243, 246n9; relationship with Monthly Museum, 4; The Lady’s
Gandhi, 147n28, 175, 195, 197, 226, Newspaper and Pictorial Times, 5;
227; travels to America, xv, 175, London Times, 25, 148n40, 250; The
195–201, 211n70 Magazine of Domestic Economy, 5; T
Naoroji, Dadabhai, 159, 239n48; East he Mother’s Magazine, 5; New Lady’s
India Association, 159. See also Indian Magazine, 4; The New Monthly Belle
National Congress Assemblee, 5; Queen, 6, 7, 10, 41;
National Indian Association, xxxiin33, 8, Woman, 8, 10; Woman at Home, 9, 10;
26, 111, 112, 121n88 Womanhood, 9, 10
Nehru, Jawaharlal, xxix, xxxiin34, 28, 191, periodicals, Indian, xvii, xxii, xxiii, xxvi,
202, 207n23, 215 xxxiin33, 1, 3, 8, 11–21, 30, 31n4,
Nightingale, Florence, xxiii, 57n14, 112, 32n14, 221, 237n27, 238n37, 250;
115n29, 121n89, 121n92, 181, 198, 223 Anasuya, 15, 21; Antahpur, 15, 21;
Nivedita, Sister (Margaret Noble), 54, 67, Bambodhini Patrika, 14, 21; The
106, 112, 123, 171n5, 175, 186, Bengal Gazette, 11; Bombay Chronicle,
187–188, 209n38; The Web of Indian 202, 203; Camd, 15, 33n27; and James
Life, 54, 106, 187 Hickey, 11; Defense of India Act
Noble, Margaret. See Nivedita (1915), 13; Incitement to Offenses Act,
noncooperation. See Indian nationalism 12; Indian Press Emergency Powers
Act (1931), 13; Licensing Regulations
Occidentalism, xxi, xxvii, 26, 53, 63, 67, Act, 11; Metcalf’s Press Act, 11; Press
104, 105, 125, 127, 128, 134–144, Act (1799), 11; Registration Act
147n31, 147n34, 149n51, 169, 171n5, (1867), 12; Rowlatt / Anarchical &
183, 199, 202–203, 240n62. See also Revolutionary Crimes Act (1919), 13;
essentialism; ethnocentrism, western Vernacular Press Act (1867), 12;
Orientalism, xxvii, 53, 80, 105, 125, Vernacular Press Act (1878), 208n34;
134–144, 147n31, 190, 198, 199, 205, The Crescent, 16; Grihalakshmi, 15, 21;
243. See also essentialism; Hindu Sundari, 15, 21; The Hindu,
ethnocentrism, eastern xxixn2, xxxn11, 16, 25; Madrassian,
16–21; Masik Patrika, 14; Matar
Pandit, Vijaya, 35n49, 52, 59n28, 163, Manorancini, 17; and modernization,
172n26, 235, 243 xxiii, 13, 14, 15; and nationalism, xxii,
Parkes, Bessie Raynor, 7 xxvi, 11–13, 15, 21, 134; Penmati
Patmore, Coventry, xxvi, 29, 38, 45, 46, Potini, 17; Satihitabodhini, 14, 21;
48, 49, 50, 52, 58n22; The Angel in the Savithri, 15, 21; Soundarya Vatlli, 15;
House, 38, 46 StreeBodh, 14; Stri Dharma, 15, 18–21,
peace, peace activism, xxviii, 67, 125, 160, 28, 33n31, 34n36, 183, 242; Stri-
196, 197, 200, 202, 204, 205, 211n70, Darpan, 15, 21; Swadesamitran, 16;
212n76, 216, 218, 227, 228, 232–235, Telugu Zenana, 14; Times of India,
237n27, 240n65, 241, 242. See also war 57n15, 142; vernacular, 3, 20, 32n18,
 Index 289

97; Vivekavathi, 15, 21; women’s 208n28; Kripa Sadan, 105; Morals for
periodicals, xxxin22, 1–31; women’s Women, 103, 183; Mukti Sadan,
periodicals, and gendering of genre, 3, 105–106, 119n61, 119n62; The Peoples
4, 15, 20, 21, 31n3, 32n21, 34n36, 38, of the United States, 184, 185, 207n20,
39, 134, 153, 250 207n24, 208n31, 208n34, 208n35;
philanthropy, xxvii, 90, 92, 106, 119n61, rescue homes, 93, 102–108, 118n55,
176, 182, 183, 189, 193–194, 195, 201, 118n56, 118n60, 119n63, 173n32,
202; Christian, 119n61, 176, 179, 187, 173n36; Sarada Sadan, 105, 106, 107,
189, 195, 196, 206n12, 207n17, 119n61, 119n62, 119n65, 144n4, 184
211n73; civic, 119n61, 182, 189, Ranade, Ramabai, 86n3, 107, 119n65,
193–194, 198, 199, 209n39, 210n57 210n51
Punjab, 13, 25, 118n51, 148n40 Rani of Vizianagram, 170
purdah (Gosha), 83, 111; anti-purdah Reddy, Dr. Muthulakshmi, 18, 109, 175,
League, 133, 134; medical / educational 232; medical reforms, 199, 200,
/ legal issues, xxv, xxxin25, 29, 60n39, 211n72; social reforms, 109, 211n72,
83–84, 85, 94, 112, 115n16, 125, 128, 232; travels to America, 175, 199, 200
129, 130–131, 133–134, 136, 145n11, religion : Jain, 29, 87n23, 94; Parsi, 29, 95,
145n13, 145n17, 146n19, 110, 114n13, 135, 147n32, 159; and
146n23–146n24, 155–156, 171n7, superstition, xxiii, 14, 16, 34n39,
171n9, 220, 226, 231, 235n1, 54–55, 59n31, 66, 73, 76, 78–80, 83,
238n40–238n41; physical confinement, 103, 112, 117n41, 132, 154, 156, 158,
xxvii, 14, 24, 64, 65, 123, 125, 128, 169, 171n12, 182, 224–225. See also
130–131, 133, 134, 140, 145n10, Christianity; Hinduism; Islam
145n11, 145n14, 145n17, 146n21, Roy, Rammohun, 101, 102, 117n44
146n22, 146n25, 154, 216, 236n19; Rukhmabai, xv, 44, 45, 57n14, 57n15,
purdahnashins, xxvii, 45, 64, 65, 94, 58n16, 60n38, 117n46, 173n39, 188,
110, 129, 130, 135, 145n13, 146n18, 208n34
146n20, 151, 236n19; veiling, xxiii, Ruskin, John, xxvi, 6, 24, 29, 38, 45–50,
64–65, 65, 68–69, 71, 109, 129–134, 52, 58n22, 155, 156, 170, 192, 205,
140, 145n13, 148n44, 216, 232; zenana, 229, 237n30; “Of Queen’s Gardens”,
14, 34n35, 39, 75, 85, 87n15, 93, 94, 45; Sesame and Lilies, 6, 38, 46, 156
102, 112, 113, 117n47, 127, 128,
129–130, 133, 145n13, 145n14, 155, Sanger, Margaret, 202, 204
158, 165, 169. See also Islam; women, Sanskrit, xii, 103, 146n19, 152, 165
Indian Sarasvati. See Ramabai, Pandita
Satthianadhan family, xi–xii, xv, xvi, xvii,
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, xvi, xxxin21 xx, xxi, xxviii, xxixn2, xxxn4, xxxn8,
Ramabai, Pandita, xxxn4, 33n32, 49, 56, xxxn13, xxxn16, xxxn20, xxxiii,
58n16, 86n3, 86n7, 93, 98, 102–108, xxxivn1, 2, 6, 10, 15, 19, 21, 27, 33n29,
112, 116n32, 117n49, 117n50, 118n53, 53, 55, 59n33, 62, 63, 67, 70, 86n4,
118n54, 118n55, 118n56, 118n57, 86n5, 103, 110, 111, 113, 123, 139,
118n60, 119n62, 119n63, 144n4, 168, 211n66, 215, 241, 245, 247, 256, 273,
173n32, 173n36, 173n37, 173n42, 175, 277
176, 182–193, 201, 202, 205, Satthianadhan, Kamala, xi–xxviii,
207n16–210n51, 229, 238n41, 247; xxixn1–xxxin24, 10, 15, 27, 53, 55,
American Ramabai Association, 59n33, 62, 67–68, 70, 71, 86n1, 86n5,
119n61, 182, 183, 187, 209n39; Arya 91, 98, 103, 110, 111, 113, 114n8, 123,
Mahila Samaj, 103; High Caste Hindu 124, 135, 136, 148n41, 152, 160, 161,
Woman, 58n16, 182, 183, 184, 188, 164, 177, 187, 204, 207n17, 209n37,
290 Index

211n66, 215, 224, 228–229, 237n31, separatism, xxvii, xxxin22, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14,
241, 245, 246n2, 247, 251, 262, 264, 21, 22, 24, 38, 39, 46, 47, 50, 57n3, 65,
267, 277; on female education, xiii, xv, 66, 76, 97, 98, 107, 123, 127, 128,
58n19, 127, 166–170, 172n28, 242; on 130–131, 134, 136, 138, 139, 145n11,
ILM’s editorial platform, xii–xiii, xvii, 158, 163, 166, 171n13, 185, 192,
xxi, xxviii, xxxn7, 10, 15, 18, 27, 209n37, 239n46. See also essentialism;
27–28, 30, 33n27, 49, 62, 63, 82, 111, ethnocentrism; Occidentalism;
123, 142, 226, 241–242, 243, 246n4; on Orientalism; social intercourse
nationalism, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xx, Sepoy Uprising, 12, 155
xxiii, 24, 28, 124, 138, 144n6, 148n46, seva (service), 24, 47, 228, 231
149n52, 215, 220, 241, 242, 243, “Shahinda”, xxxiii, 85, 140, 148n44, 193,
246n9; Stories of Indian Christian Life, 223, 261, 268, 274. See also Fyzee
xi, 86n1; syntheses of Anglo-Indian Shakespeare, 38, 45, 52, 59n30, 147n29,
influences, 29, 44–45, 49, 52, 67, 68, 247
70, 82, 115n17, 124, 149n52, 162, 215, Shakti (female principle), 78, 79, 226
238n41, 241, 243; on women’s issues, Simon Commission (Sir John Simon),
xii, xiv, xv–xvii, xxiii, xxvi, xxxin22, 7, 147n28, 227
18, 24, 28, 33n27, 35n49, 44, 48, 49, Singh, Lilavati, 175, 189, 201
52, 53, 55, 62, 82, 103, 110, 113, 123, Singh, Saint Nihal, 175, 190–192, 193, 222
127, 137, 138, 145n16, 161, 230, Sita (Ramayana), xxvi, 51, 52, 55, 59n27,
238n41, 240n59, 242, 243, 245. See 59n37, 68, 162, 208n33, 263; and
also Amicus; Krishnamma, Hannah Rama, 55
Ratnam social intercourse (Anglo and Indian
Satthianadhan, Krupabai, xv, xxxn3, 63 relations), xxi, xxiii, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 19,
Satthianadhan, Padmini (Padma), xi–xiv, 21, 35n48, 50, 86n2, 93, 94, 95, 98,
xxxn4, xxxn9, 57n10, 67–68, 70, 77, 113, 115n17, 123, 125–128, 129, 131,
80, 92, 105, 106, 108, 119n71, 124, 134, 135–138, 139–144, 145n10,
151, 172n25, 173n33, 217, 226, 145n17, 148n40, 148n41, 151, 160,
230–231, 234, 236n10, 243, 246n4, 189, 217, 220, 231, 247; and British
267–268, 276–277. See also Sengupta, colonialism, xx, xxiii, 7, 13, 59n36,
Padmini Satthianadhan 146n20, 158, 171n4; and Indian
Satthianadhan, Samuel, xi, xii, xv, xxxn8, nationalism, xx, xxi, 19, 21, 22, 30,
33n29, 63, 139, 256, 277 34n45, 35n48, 46, 50, 59n36, 63, 91,
satyagraha, xviii, xxiii, xxvi, xxix, 144, 154, 164, 207n17, 211n72, 215,
xxxin24, xxxiin36, 24, 62, 67, 91, 112, 216, 220. See also caste; Anglo-Indian
125, 138, 141, 191, 192, 203, 217, 220, relations
226, 227, 232, 238n44, 238n45, 241, Sorabji, Cornelia, xxxiin34, 59n33, 110,
244. See also Indian identity politics; 111, 120n79, 120n80, 120n82, 120n84,
Indian nationalism 121n92, 151, 160, 211n72, 236n12;
Scott, Walter, 38, 45, 196 Institute for Social Service, 120n84
Sen, Ela, 199, 201, 210n58 Sorabji, Franscina, 207n17
Sengupta, Padmini Satthianadhan, xi–xii, Sorabji, Suzie, 102, 155, 162, 208n26,
xv, xvi, xx, xxii, xxixn1, xxixn2, 236n12
xxxn4, xxxn8, xxxn9, xxxiin33, 3, Steel, Flora Annie, 97–98, 115n25, 165,
35n55, 35n59, 59n29, 71, 86n5, 87n12, 166
106, 108, 111, 115n17, 145n16, Stevenson, Robert Louis, 38
148n46, 149n52, 215, 237n31, Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 197, 207n24
241–242, 243, 245, 246n2, 246n4, swadeshi, xviii, xxiii, xxix, xxxiin32, 14,
246n9, 276, 277–278 24, 34n42, 67, 69, 98, 115n27, 138,
 Index 291

192, 198, 204, 220–223, 225, 230, 231, 117n44, 119n66, 134, 152, 169, 183,
232, 237n26, 237n27, 244. See also 208n34, 209n40, 218; widow
Indian identity politics; Indian remarriage, 14, 19, 24, 43, 54, 74, 75,
nationalism 79, 87n17, 87n18, 117n44, 118n53,
swaraj, xvi, xviii, xxiii, xxxin25, 14, 16, 118n59, 120n81, 134, 152, 164
19, 24, 26, 67, 69, 98, 123, 124, 138, Wollstonecraft, Mary, 117n48, 159, 164;
191, 192, 203, 207n23, 217, 218, 220, Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
222, 226, 232, 235n9, 244, 245. See 117n48, 159
also Indian identity politics; Indian woman, ideal / idealized, xxxin22, 14, 24,
nationalism 29, 32n20, 32n22, 34n41, 35n56, 37,
39, 44, 46, 47, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57n9,
Tagore, Rabindranath, xxxin23, 37, 59n32, 58n25, 59n30, 59n37, 69, 84, 86n2,
199, 223, 233 86n10, 134, 142, 165, 167, 169,
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, xxvi, 23, 24, 29, 171n13, 192, 204, 207n21, 209n42,
37, 38, 39, 40–50, 52, 57n2, 58n22, 64, 215, 228, 233, 237n33, 240n62, 242;
67, 75, 76, 79, 92, 125, 129, 139, Biblical, 41, 42, 45–50, 52, 58n20,
145n12, 147n38, 156, 169, 213, 219, 59n27, 84, 194, 213, 235n1, 235n4;
236n19; “Dora”, 42–44; Idylls of the fairytale, 39, 40–41, 44, 45, 73, 75, 77,
King, 38, 40–42, 44; “Locksley Hall”, 80, 84, 85; mythological, xxvi, 49–52,
37, 44–45, 57n8, 139; The Princess, 23, 59n27, 81, 86n10, 101, 184, 208n33,
38–41, 44, 67, 75, 76, 79, 92, 94, 156; 215, 218, 224, 235n2, 235n7. See also
“To the Queen”, 213; “Ulysses”, 169. mother cult; gender ideology; Sita;
See also gender ideology, British; Draupadi
literature, British women, Indian: “awakening” of, xvii,
theosophy / theosophists, 16, 18, 33n32, xxvii, xxviii, 22, 30, 34n41, 34n42, 44,
272 45, 61, 64, 67, 69, 94, 106, 132, 158,
Thoburn, Isabella, 189 159, 165, 175, 187, 204, 215, 219, 244;
“awakening” and “uplift” of, xxviii, 22,
untouchables. See caste and class 28, 37, 39, 56, 67, 83, 90, 91, 93, 102,
104, 106, 136, 152, 238n45;
Vivekananda, Swami, 54, 112, 118n55, exploitation of, 99–110, 215;
175, 185–188, 200, 209n40–209n44 prostitution, 24, 99–101, 108–110,
116n34, 117n44, 118n59, 218; sex
Wallace, William Ross, 156, 171n10 trafficking, 99, 105, 109, 116n34,
war, 22, 28, 143, 211n65, 241; American 117n44, 118n59, 218; female
Civil War, 177, 185, 202, 208n32; infanticide, 24, 99, 109, 116n34,
World War I, xvii, xxii, 6, 7, 13, 27, 117n44, 118n59, 218; literacy of, xxiii,
32n19, 35n46, 46, 125, 144n3, 172n20, xxv, xxxn17, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 24, 27,
192, 229, 237n29, 241; World War II, 28, 33n29, 35n48, 38, 47, 55, 63, 77,
xiii, xxii, 69, 234, 239n46, 246n10. See 84, 87n15, 87n23, 91, 98, 101, 102,
also peace 109, 110, 114n1, 127–128, 130, 135,
widowhood, Indian, xiv, 33n34, 54, 73, 146n18, 146n23, 154–157, 158, 160,
103, 106, 107, 115n16, 117n40, 165, 167, 170, 171n5, 173n42, 173n43,
119n66, 173n32, 183, 192, 209n40, 187, 189, 203, 208n26, 222, 225, 231,
209n41, 209n42, 215; child- 232, 238n39, 241; and 1856 Widow
widowhood, 54, 64, 66, 79, 100, 103, Remarriage Act, 74, 117n44, 118n59,
107; sati / suttee, 19, 24, 33n34, 34n42, 120n81. See also Indian arts and crafts,
39, 59n36, 64, 66, 67, 69, 86n9, 99, devadasis; Indian arts and crafts,
100, 108, 109, 117n39–117n41, nautch; marriage customs, Indian;
292 Index

widowhood, Indian 189, 210n57; and political activism, xv,

Women’s Indian Association, 17, 18, xxviii, 3, 15, 19, 30, 33n30, 98, 113;
33n31, 171n13, 225, 228 Purdah Parties, xv, xxvii, 89, 92, 93–97,
women’s social activism, 89–113, 226; 103, 112, 114n8, 194; Self-Employed
American, 92, 177, 190, 207n20; Women’s Association (SEWA),
British, 20, 92, 125, 160, 190, 207n20, 119n65; Women’s Mission to Women,
212n76, 237n27; At Homes, 89, 92, xxvii, 24, 47, 89, 98–113, 194, 200,
93–97, 103, 114n8, 194; Indian, 230. See also America, philanthropy
89–113; ladies’ philanthropy, xxvii, 6, Wood, Sir Charles, 91, 157; “Despatch on
24, 92–98, 113, 128, 135, 142, 182, Indian Education”, 157
189, 194; ladies’ societies (samaj), Wordsworth, William, 52, 70, 130, 146n18
xxvii, 89, 90, 94–96, 98, 103, 110, 113, World Alliance for Peace, 196, 211n70
 About the Author

Deborah Anna Logan is a professor of English at Western Kentucky Uni-

versity, where she teaches Victorian literature and culture and world litera-
ture. 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 Marti-
neau’s correspondence, plus an additional sixteen volumes of Martineau’s
fiction and nonfiction writing and a volume on Florence Nightingale’s politi-
cal activism. Since 2007, she has served as editor and general manager of
Victorians Journal of Culture and Literature (formerly Victorian Newslet-
ter). Her most recent publication is a reset, annotated edition of Maria Wes-
ton 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).

293