Behind the Veil Also by Anindita Ghosh

Behind the Veil Also by Anindita Ghosh:

POWER IN PRINT: POPULAR PUBLISHING AND THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN A COLONIAL SOCIETY, c.1778–1905 Behind the Veil

Resistance, Women and the Everyday in Colonial South Asia

Edited by

Anindita Ghosh Lecturer in Modern Extra-European History, University of Manchester Editorial matter, selection, introduction and Ch.8 © Anindita Ghosh 2007, 2008. All remaining chapters ©their respective authors, 2007, 2008. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-55344-6

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street , London, EC1N 8TS Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be lia- ble to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. South Asian edition first published 2007 by PERMANENT BLACK 'Himalayana' Mall Road, Ranikhet Cantt Ranikhet 263645 [email protected] This edition published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, Houndmills, Basinsgtoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin's Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36317-9 ISBN 978-0-230-58367-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230583672 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ghosh, Anindita, 1967- Behind the veil: resistance, women, and the everyday in colonial South Asia/ [edited by] Anindita Ghosh. p. cm. Originally published: Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. Includes index.

2. Women—India—History. 3. Women—India—Social conditions. I. Title. HQ1742.B44 2008 305.48'8914—dc22 2008015067

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii Note on Contributors ix 1 Introduction ANINDITA GHOSH 1 2 From the Symbolic to the Open: Women’s Resistance in Colonial Maharashtra PADMA ANAGOL 21 3 Small Acts of Rebellion: Women Tell their Photographs GERALDINE FORBES 58 4 Wicked Widows: Law and Faith in Nineteenth-century Public Sphere Debates TANIKA SARKAR 83 5 Subtle Subversions and Presumptuous Interventions: Reforming Women’s Health in Bhopal State in the Early Twentieth Century SIOBHAN LAMBERT-HURLEY 116 6 Gender, Subalternity, and Silence: Recovering Convict Women’s Experiences from Histories of Transportation, c. 1780–1857 CLARE ANDERSON 139 7 The Litigious Widow: Inheritance Disputes in Colonial North India, 1875–1911 NITA VERMA PRASAD 161 vi CONTENTS 8 A World of their Very Own: Religion, Pain, and Subversion in Bengali Homes in the Nineteenth Century ANINDITA GHOSH 191 Index 223 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

he idea for this volume originally sprang from my earlier work on print and popular culture in nineteenth-century Bengal, T where I was consistently confronted with the problem of ‘fit- ting’ women into my overall study of subaltern groups. When trying to tackle the issue I realized how often and easily women were appen- ded as ‘just another’ group to larger studies of the subordinated, un- less there was a specific feminist perspective at work. Further research on women’s reactions to the modernizing regime of the Bengali bhadralok, and emerging work on the subject, made me convinced that the story of women in colonial India had only been half told. An isolated chapter in my book on Bengal was not enough. Similar evidence for the rest of India had to be brought to- gether. A conference I was able to organize in the summer of 2004, in Manchester, enabled me to achieve this. There was much heated dis- cussion on the subject of ‘resistance’, but all the participants agreed that the project should be taken forward from extant histories of organized, ‘successful’ movements by women, and examine the over- whelming evidence—writings, rituals, and symbols of deviance and subversion in women’s lives. I am grateful to the Society for South Asian Studies, British Aca- demy, and the University of Manchester for funding the conference. Nadeem Noor’s one-man team was amazing in managing the event. Sukumar was extremely helpful with the posters. Many thanks to the contributors for their patience and to Rukun for being so extraordi- narily efficient. viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As always Partha provided steadfast support and encouragement. Finally, this book is for my mother, whose silent but staunch everyday resistance to dominating regimes—even benevolent ones—has proved inspiring. NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

Padma Anagol teaches modern Indian history at the School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University. She has published widely in gender and women’s history of India and is the author of a monograph titled Feminism, the Politics of Gender and Social Re- form in Colonial India 1850–1920. She is on the Editorial Committee of South Asia Research; Cultural and Social History; Women’s History Review and a consultant for BBC History Magazine. Clare Anderson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Historical Studies, University of Leicester. She holds a personal research fellowship from the Economic and Social Research Council, working on ‘British penal settlements in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, 1773– 1906’. This is her main research interest, though more recently she has become interested in prisons in early colonial India and Mauritius. She is the author of several chapters and articles that discuss these themes, as well as Convicts in the Indian Ocean: Transportation from South Asia to Mauritius, 1815–53 (2000) and Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism in South Asia (2004). Geraldine Forbes is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at the State University of New York Oswego. Her first book, Positivism in Bengal (1976) was selected for the prestigious Rabindra Puroskar awarded by the West Bengal government. Among her publications on the history and lives of Indian women are Women in Modern India (1996) in the New Cambridge History of India series, The Memoirs of Dr Haimabati Sen (with Tapan Raychaudhuri, 2000), Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal, An Indian Freedom Fighter Recalls Her Life x NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

(1994), Shudha Mazumdar, Memoirs of an Indian Woman (1989), and A Historian’s Perspective: Indian Women and the Freedom Movement (1997).

Anindita Ghosh is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Manchester. Her published work in the form of journal articles and contributions to edited volumes focuses on the commercial verna- cular book market in Bengal, and the social history of print in colonial India. Her monograph based on these themes is Power Print: Popular Publishing and the Politics of Language and Culture in a Colonial Society, 1778–1905 (2006).

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the Nottingham Trent University. The primary focus of her research is the emergence of a Muslim women’s movement in South Asia from the late nineteenth century, with a particular eye on Bhopal. Within this framework, she has written widely on education, social and political organizations, the culture of travel, missionaries, and personal narratives, including (edited, with Avril Powell), Rhetoric and Reality: Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia (2006), A Princess's Pilgrimage: Nawab Sikandar Begum's 'A Pilgrimage to Mecca' (2008), and Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal (2007).

Nita Varma Prasad obtained her doctorate in South Asian and Mid- dle Eastern history from the University of California, Berkeley. She is Assistant Professor of History at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.

Tanika Sarkar is Professor of Modern History at the Centre for Hist- orical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has published several monographs, including Bengal 1928–1934: The Politics of Protest (1987); Words to Win: The Making of Rashsunadri Debi's 'Amar Jiban' (1995); and Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Religion, Community, and Cultural Nationalism (2001).