Rukhmabai: Debate Over Woman's Right to Her Person Sudhir Chandra

Justice Pinhey's verdict rescinding Dadaji Bhikaji's claim to restitution of conjugal rights over his wife, Rukhmabai, snowballed in the late 19th century into a verbal duel between the Anglo-Indian press and the native press. While the Anglo-

Indian press was exultant at the proven moral superiority of the British legal systemt the native press was alarmed at the threat of socio-cultural subversion of Hindu family and society the judgment posed. Only in the writings ofMalabari and a few other reformers do wefind a justification of the verdict based on native discourse of conjugal norms.

I pronounce a hard-hitting and morally charged and early marriages in India, marriages in verdict. Ever since he heard the case on England were between persons of mature ON September 21, 1885, an extraordinary Saturday, he had been "looking into the age, and consequently the nuptial and the judgment was delivered by Justice Pinhey authorities'' which had convinced him that consummation of marriage were not normally of the Bombay High Court in a suit for "the plaintiff cannot maintain this action". separated much in time. He regretted - and restitution of conjugal rights. Filed a year- Having given the verdict straightaway, he this is important - that "the practice of and-a-half before, the suit involved Dadaji proceeded to elaborate the grounds thereof. allowing suits for the restitution of conjugal Bhikaji and Rukhmabai who, during the 11 It waw a "misnomer", Pinhey began, "to rights", which had "originated in England years that they had been married, had never call this a suit for the restitution of conjugal under peculiar circumstances", was at all lived together. When in March 1884 Dadaji rights". According to the practice in England transplanted in India. It had "no foundation made the first legal move to claim the and British India, a suit for restitution of in Hindu law - the religious law of the parties company of his wife, Rukhmabai refused on conjugal rights was one that, in the event of to the suit" before him. "Under the Hindu the ground of his poverty - be was unable separation and living apart after cohabitation, law", he emphasised, "such a suit would not "to provide her lodging, maintenance and cither spouse could bring against the other. be cognisable by a Civil Court". Indeed, for clothing" - and bad health, which was such The suit filed by Dadaji was not of that many years after he came out to India - in that she could not ''safely live with him". To character. In a narrative reflective of his 1851 - the courts did not admit such suits. They began doing so only in the wake of the these contingent objections Rukhmabai axiomatics Pinhey observed: post-1857 judicial and legal reconstruction soon added a principle of cardinal im- The parties to the present suit went through that occasioned the amalgamation of the portance. She questioned the validity of her the religious ceremony of marriage eleven supreme and sadar courts into the high courts. marriage with Dadaji. Married when she was years ago when the defendant was a child of eleven years of age. They have never 11, before she had "arrived at years of Pinhey's regret about the transplantation cohabited. And now that the defendant is a discretion", she refused to be bound to it. in India of English legal practice was woman of twenty-two, the plaintiff asks the A marriage - even a Hindu marriage - ought heightened by the fact that it had been Court to compel her to go to his house, that not to be binding on a spouse who had not discredited in England, Crystallised in Sir he may complete his contact with her by consented to it. James Hannens judgment in Weldon vs consummating the marriage. The defendant, The case came up for hearing on September Weldon,2 English opinion against the practice being now of full age, objects to ratifying had resulted in the Matrimonial Causes Act 19. The same morning The Times of India and completing the contract entered into on - Stat 47 and 48 Vic, cap 68 - of August carried a long letter by 'A Hindu Lady' her behalf by her guardians while she was which detailed the tragic plight of Hindu of lender age. 1884. The act removed the penal provisions women. To make sure that it did not escape Having unabashedly shown his sympa- of the law which subjected to imprisonment the readers' attention, The Times of India thies, sympathies natural in one favouring and/or attachment of property a spouse who 1 carried an editorial to commend the letter. marriage as a contract and consent as essen- disregarded the court's directive to resume 3 Given the importance of the premier Bombay tial to it, Pinhey unburdened his shocked cohabitation. The act had in fact rendered daily, and the everyday routine of Anglo- sensibility in morally charged diction: "almost inoperative' the practice of allowing 4 Indian officials, it can be assumed that Pinhey It seemes to me that it would be a barbarous, such suits. must have read the letter and the editorial a cruel, a revolting thing to do to compel a However salutary the changes in England, before leaving for the court, and that the young lady under those circumstances to go and whatever the position under the Hindu proceedings in the case later in the day must to a man whom she dislikes, in order that law, Pinhey knew that he was bound by the have confirmed the impressions of the he may cohabit with her against her will ... unregenerated English law that still obtained morning's reading. It was, however, on legal grounds that in India. All he could do was to refuse to The following day was a Sunday and the Pinhey avoided doing what appeared to him enlarge its application ever so little to include hearing in the case resumed on September 21. barbarous, cruel and revolting. As he examined institution within the meaning of restitution After the evidence and the arguments for the case law over the agonising weekend, he of conjugal rights. Legally not incumbent, the plaintiff had been presented, Latham, the found that no court had ever ordered "a such an enlargement would be morally advocate-general, got up to present woman, who had gone through the religious reprehensible. In his impassioned words, he Rukhmabai's defence. Before he could speak, ceremony of marriage with a man, to allow was not bound. the judge told him: that man to consummate the marriage against „.to carry the practice further than I find Mr Advocate-General, unless you are her will". Neither the law nor the practice of support for in the English authorities, particularly anxious to make some remarks the courts in England and India would there- especially when the granting of the relief for the assistance of the court, I think I need fore justify him in "making such an order" prayed would produce consequences not trouble you as I am prepared to dispose or Dadaji in "maintaining the present suit". revolting not only to civilised persons, but of the case at once. Pinhey realised the futility of expecting an even to untutored human beings possessed The advocate-general naturally evincing English precedent that wouldbe "on all fours" of ordinary delicacy of feeling... I am certainly no such anxiety, Pinhey proceeded to with the suit before him. For, unlike infant not disposed to make a precedent, or to

Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2937 extend the practice of the Court in respect collaborators to the false evidence tendered Happily Justice Pinhey "declined to allow of suits of this nature beyond the point for by them. But he was ill-prepared for an the law to be made an instrument of torture". which I find authority. appeal in the name of the plaintiffs "He showed", the paper continued, "that a Secure in the belief that he had devised innocence. It brought forth the wrath that had suit of this kind was a creation of the English a legal way out of a moral dilemma, Pinhey been welling up since the week-end; law, which was intended to refer only to was 'glad' that5 When the plaintiff found that the young lady persons of mature age, who accepted the was unwilling to share his home, he should responsibilities of marriage with their eyes in the view of the law which I take, I am not have tried to recover her person, as if she open". "There was", moreover, "'no authority not obliged to grant the plaintiff the relief had been a horse or a bullock (The Times in English law to support a case like this, which he seeks, and to compel this young of India, September 25, 1985). and his lordship did not wish to extend the lady of twenty-two to go to the house of the law further". He also said that there was plaintiff in order that he may consummate the marriage arranged for her during her II "nothing more barbarous than to compel a young lady to go to a person whom she helpless infancy. Pinhey's judgment immediately aroused disliked". diametrically opposed reactions. It was for The moral exuberance of Pinhey's oration The Times of India jaw in the judgment some a bold declaration of the Indian belonged in the tradition of those trenchant "a shrewd blow at the whole system of infant woman's right to personal freedom and judicial pronouncements - a classic example marriage' that could not "fail to have a most dignity. For others it was an assault on the being Justice Maule's oft-quoted speech in wholesome influence in the direction of sanctity and integrity of Hindu marriage and Regina vs Hall (1845), exposing the in- reform': equitousness of English matrimonial laws,6 family that threatened to turn the whole which churned the conscience of Victorian society upside down. The more perceptive With the use of a little firmness and common England and facilitated many an important among the latter realised the urgency of sense. Mr Justice Pinhey has, in the course of a morning's work, probably done more legislative intervention. However, the anxiety challenging thejudgment to seek its reversal. for the amelioration of the wretched condi- to provide his moralism with the cover of The prospect of appeal worried the former; tion of Indian womanhood than has eve, yet law led Pinhey to explain not only the "why' They did not want the charter Pinhey had been accomplished. (The Times of India, but also the "why not' of his verdict. Worried given Indian women to be aborted. September 22, 1885). lest his sympathy for the "enlightened and The result in the Dadaji Bhikaji vs cultivated'lady be misunderstood-asindeed Rukhmabai case was now a subject of The celebration of Pinhey's verdict it was and on purpose - he took pains to contentious social debate. No longer two overpitched its moral righteousness. clarify that he had not accepted her entire anony mous Iitigants, the wife and the husband Comparatively little attention was paid to its defence. For example, he was in no doubt now emblemised the opposing socio-cultural foundation in law. This was to an extent that Dadaji was a poor man and had given divisions which their private dispute had unavoidable in view of the resounding 'much false evidence' about his pecuniary helped sharpen. It would henceforth concern moralism of the verdict. But there was position; and that his uncle had on the same these opposing forces, as much as the something in the cultural arrogance of the point given, 'if possible, evidence less individual litigants, to seek a resolution average Englishman and woman in India and credible still'. Yet, poverty was 'not one of favourable from their point of view, no matter England which ensured that certain the reasons' for the rejection of Dadaji "s how prolonged or expensive the litigation significant aspects of the verdict were 9 claim. "A poor man", Pinhey felt constrained became, relegated to the zone of their cognitive to reassure, "has as much right to claim his What Pinhey's verdict provoked was a blindness. Thus, The Times of India justified wife as a rich man to claim his".7 'war in discussion'. (Native Opinion, April 11, the English law of restitution of conjugal If Pinhey's cautious concluding remarks 1887). This was not simply a 'civil war', rights in terms of the obligation of mature were meant to offset the flamboyance of his one in which antagonistic positions were men and women to honour responsibilities judgment, the effect was more than neutra- taken by different groups in Indian society they had accepted with open eyes. It lised by an outburst from him moments with regard to the conception of a desirable overlooked Pinhey's lament that a lav/ which after the conclusion of the judgment. The Hindu/Indian order and the modalities of had long been discredited, and recently sheer force of this outburst made it inseparable achieving it. It was also a cultural war between changed, in England, still operated in India. from the morally charged judgment of which the rulers and the ruled in which the two Similarly, Pinhey's assertion that restitution it was not a part. Gaining a fame and a sought to distinguish their social institutions, suits were alien to Hindu law was ignored notoriety that enshrined it in popular ideals and values from those of the other to as if it had not been made at all. remembrance longer than the judgment proclaim their own superiority. It soon This is reflected even more sharply in an proper, the outburst was sparked off when developed, in the parlance of our own day, editorial as The Times of India stayed with Dadaji's counsel, Vicaji, took exception to into a well-organised semiotic war. Pinhey's verdict for the second consecutive the award of costs to Rukhmabai. Referring The Times of India was the first to comment day. Humanising the verdict, as it were, to Pinhey's ruling that in Dadaji's case a suit on the verdict, one of the most laudatory. almost to the point of denuding it of any for restitution of conjugal rights did not lie, Its remarks set the pattern, generally, for the legality, the paper commented: Vicaji pleaded: discussion of the case in the Anglo-Indian Mr Justice Pinhey has decided that a young press. In a flattering editorial the following I submit to your lordship that this is not a case girl married in her twelfth year, and without day, the Bombay daily described the judg- in which the plaintiff should he ordered to any consent of her own to a man unable to ment as "the embodiment of righteousness pay costs. He has been acting under advice maintain her and in a feeble state of health and common sense'. Offering in touching of counsel who considered the suit would lie. could not ten years afterwards, when she had terms a brief account of Rukhmabai's tragic arrived at years of discretion, be forced to After the inconsistencies and lies in the life, it referred to the letters of 'A Hindu live with him. evidence for the plaintiff, revealing the Lady' - though maintaining the mystery of despicability of those among whom he was the pseudonym - to remark that she Having secured both law and morality on being asked to despatch Rukhmabai, this for never dreamt of a harder case than this when the side of the English - and oblivious to the Pinhey was the last straw. He had done well, she told us that the evil custom of infant denunciation of the British' Indian legal in the judgment, to limit the expression of marriage had destroyed the whole happiness machinery that the following, italicised praise his displeasure about Dadaji and his of her own life in a pitiable manner. for Pinhey's verdict implied - The Times of

2938 Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 India proceeded to attack Hindu laws and It had legally' established that "a girl whose Hindu laws and customs, indeed about the society; marriage has gone no further than a formal very character of the Hindus. Displaying the ceremony in her infancy cannot in after- The Hindu marriage laws are as unjust as other side of English humour - by no means they are unnatural. But a distinct step in years be compelled against her will to accept uncommon in contemporary Anglo-Indian advance has been gained by Mr Justice the position of a wife". writing, especially when it was directed at Pinhey's decision... And for the first time, The Pioneer, too, exhorted the Indian India and Indians - the Lahore daily tended so far as we remember, in India, the law reformers, anxious to remove the abuses of to employ for effect exaggeration rather than distinctly refuses to be made the instrument their marriage customs, to make use of understatement. Assuming an air of high of this persona] degradation, (italics added, Pinhey's verdict. Explaining how the judg- neutrality and seeming not to be sparing The Times of India, September 23, 1885). ment could yield 'a great deal', the paper Pinhey either, it wrote: worked out its logic: Now that an English judge had struck for Whatever may be Mr Justice Pinhey's social reform and a brave Indian girl, inspired The next step would be to establish the shortcomings, in the matter of jealous by English ideas and example, had stood up argument that a woman who cannot be Hindoos who bite off the noses of their 'to vindicate the rights of Indian woman- compelled by law to accept the position of mistresses, it cannot be denied that he has hood', it was for the Indian reformers to a wife is not a wife in the legal sense, and most notably helped forward the cause of build on these gains. For if utilised properly that, therefore, should her so-called husband social reform... die, she cannot become a widow. This posi- the agitation commenced by the Rukhmabai With gleeful sarcasm the Gazette then tion, once established by law, would have case could produce 'very far-reaching con- described how the stepdaughter of a "well enormous effect upon the evils of Hindu sequences'. Their responsibility was parti- known native doctor in Bombay was mar- womanhood. The force of the baneful custom cularly grave, the paper warned, in view of is almost entirely owing to the claims which ried, at the mature age of eleven years, to the plaintiffs rumoured intention to appeal infant marriages give to family property. a man suffering from symptoms of con- (The Times of India, September 25, 1885). But, unless the law recognises the marriage, sumption, and unable to support her...". Not This was the general pattern of reporting the claims to property would be valueless, failing to mention the bit about the barbarity on the case in the Anglo-Indian press. This and thus the one great incentive to infant of compelling a young lady, the Gazette was so partly because of the wide reliance marriages would be removed. continued:13 on The Times of Indians coverage of the The idea of establishing any comparison case, because the city's other leading daily, Further, trusting that the reformers would between the marriage of an English man and Bombay Gazette, was lukewarm about it.10 not 'overlook the importance of this simple woman of mature years, and two native More important than that, there was an overall argument', the Pioneer advised them to "take every means to secure that Justice Pinhey's children of nineteen and eleven, would strike similarity in the Anglo-Indians' stance with most people as preposterous (emphasis respect to the country of their temporary decision shall be upheld, and subsequently 12 added). domicile. carried to its logical conclusion.'' Thus, despite local professional rivalry, Coming from the powerful Anglo-Indian Yet again, true to the pattern, there is in the Bombay Guardian reacted to the case in press, especially the Pioneer with its virtual these spirited comments not a trace of a manner not distinguishable from that of position as an official organ, the advice to comprehension of Pinhey's criticism of The Times of India. It claimed, unjustifiably Indian reformers revealed an all too glib English and appreciation of Hindu laws on that for years it had been 'singular' in its reliance on the rhetoric of moral-cultural the subject. The Civil and Military Gazette opinion that the government should "recog- superiority. The reformers could well have rivalled The Times of India in undermining nise nothing as marriage in which the turned Pinhey's judgment to their advantage the legal basis of Pinhey's verdict. For marrying parties were not of marriageable if it became a precedent for future judicial example, it wrote: "From the evidence it age, and in which they did not voluntarily decisions. But while its validity hung in the appeared that the present plaintiff was not make the compact". Someone was needed balance, they could hardly have done more able to maintain his wife; and a decree to 'break the ice', and Pinhey had done just than their self-righteous declaimants to was accordingly given for the defendant that. Of course, this could not have been prevent its reversal. Malabari, the great with costs" (Civil and Military Gazette, possible without Rukhmabai's refusal "to crusader for the cause of Indian women whose September 30, 1885). be sacrificed". In taking "this noble stand", stakes in the Rukhmabai case could not have That the Anglo-Indian response with regard the Guardian wrote, "she has very ably fought been lower than those of the Anglo-Indian to this case should be similar seemed but the battle, not for herself merely, but for the declaimants, understood this when he wrote natural to the Indian Daily News. Owned by millions of her sisters."11 as he anxiously awaited the outcome of the a merchant and tending to cover business and In far-away Allahabad the Pioneer was appeal against the Pinhey verdict; sports more than politics, the News was a quick to grasp that the problem lay in "the It is lucky for Rukhmabai that she has counsels sober Anglo-Indian daily. "European awkward grafting of our English marriage Iike Messrs In verarity and Telang. The latter, sympathy", it wrote, "is naturally on the laws upon a Hindu marriage system to who has his whole heart in the business, may side of the Judge's decision". Providing which they were never intended to apply". be trusted to do all he can for her. But it is proper salience to Pinhey's admonition that But, betraying the typical Anglo-Indian lack hard to see what can be done, unless the final a woman was not a horse or a bullock, and of receptivity to those portions of Pinhey's Court of Appeal refuses to recognise quoting verbatim his stirring refusal to do judgment that related to the English and unconsummated infant marriages (Indian something 'barbarous', the News found the Hindu laws with respect to restitution of Spectator March 6, 1887). verdict 'thoroughly' in accord with 'Euro- conjugal rights, it could see nothing wrong Farther off in Lahore, the Civil and Military pean notions of justice and equity'. It added with the English and right with the Hindu Gazette, second to none in imperial pride, its own precious commentary: "It is abhorrent laws. It regretted that the unfortunate grafting saw eye to eye with The Times of India to to European ideas that a girl bound as a child, had made English laws an instrument to the extent of being close to plagiarism. There before she could possibly exercise any compel English judges in India to "give legal was one difference, however. While draw- personal choice in the matter, to a man whom sanction to some of the glaring iniquities of ing freely upon the comments and reports she grows up to detest, should be forced to Hindu customs". Luckily Pinhey's 'far- of its Bombay contemporary, occasionally go and live with that man". reaching and most salutary decision' had employing the same words even, the Gazette Unlike its Anglo-Indian contemporaries, shown a way out of the awkward situation. was aggressively revelling in its tone about however, the News was sympathetically

.Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2929 inclined towards the husband as well. It Hindus as they were most directly affected this decision is calculated to alarm the Hindu wrote: by the judgment. community, who have all along been under But the fact can scarcely be conveniently put Hostile reactions to Rukhmabai and to the impression, and very justly so, that their out of sight that the man also has a grievance. Pinhey's verdict came from all over the marital relations were to be governed by their He is saddled with a wife who is not a wife country. The earliest and, perhaps, the best own ancient laws whose protection was ... not in the sense that she is a burden upon argued critique appeared in the Native secured to them by legislative enactment and him ... but in the sense that she is still legally Opinion. This Anglo-Marathi weekly from by the decisions of the Highest Courts in his wife. Mr Justice Pinhey's judgment, Bombay was controlled by Vishwanath India and in England. We think that the though it debars him from access to his wife, Narayan Mandlik (1833-89), a leading Hon'ble Judge in departing from that law has does not sever the marriage tie. So if the authority on shastric and Anglo-Hindu laws. fallen into the error of mistaking his functions, young wife is a victim of the unfortunate His long introduction to the Vyavahar ... Mr Justice Pinhey has tried to legislate and marriage custom of the country, the husband Mayukha, which he translated into English, not to interpret existing laws; and when a is only a degree less a victim. and the scholarly appendices at its end, bear judge attempts to do so then there is an end With its exceptional ability to empathise, witness to his understanding of shastric and to alt stability. The single decision of Mr the Indian Daily News was quick to infer: customary laws.15 Often considered an arch Justice Pinhey will convulse the whole 'The case points very clearly to the necessity reactionary - in the Rukhmabai case community. Husbands and wives would be for legislative interference in the matter of controversy he unabashedly stood behind deprived of all their rights under the Hindu infant marriage".14 But even the News could Dadaji - Mandlik was, in fact, not opposed Law and Mr Justice Pinhey will have done see in the judgment little besides the triumph to social reform per se. Living in a subject all this in the Court-house and not in the of 'European notions of justice and equity'. country, however, he believed in the pri- Council-chamber. 16 If the concluding sentences in the excerpt The whole stress in the Anglo-Indian macy of political reform. Moreover, as sound like rebutting The Times of India's reading of Pinhey's verdict was on the against social legislation, he favoured the exultation about a momentous morning's oppressive social system of the colonised idea of 'reform from within'. For this we work by Pinhey, the Native Opinion was, and on the possibilities of changing it that, have the testimony of Narayan Ganesh indeed, reacting to its Anglo-Indian 'brother'. in a morning's work, an English judge had Chandavarkar (1855-1923) who, as editor of The Opinion disputed Pinhey's propo- opened for those among the colonised who the progressive Anglo-Marathi weekly Indu sitions - calling them 'serious inaccuracies' cared to reform their society. It is not that Prakash, was locked in a running battle with - "that a suit of this kind was a creature of these papers literally hlacked out those Mandlik during the Rukhmabai case, as also 17 English law, and that there was no decision portions of the judgment that castigated the on numerous other occasions. Behramji Malabari (1853-1912), the great crusader of on this point". "Suits for restitution of English legal practice imported into India conjugal rights", it rebutted, "have often and emphasised the non-admissibility of Indian women's cause who had made Rukhmabai is case his own, thought other- been brought in Indian courts and those courts restitution suits in Hindu law. The blacking have often given relief to the plaintiff- wise. 'Mr Mandlik's career', he wrote, 'is out was more imperceptible. It occurred in husbands". These 'Indian decisions' showed known to have been devoid of every liberal the act of reading. 18 'conclusively' that such suits were "founded sentiment. We have little reason to It was a reading that celebrated Pinhey's upon the Hindu and the Muhamadan Laws disbelieve Chandavarkar. But during the judgment, but without grasping his analysis which, nobody can deny, are peculiarly Rukhmabai controversy - which is when of developments in India and England that Indian". It was, in fact, 'taken as settled Malabari assailed Mandlik - the Native gave him the strength to deliver such a beyond all dispute' that the 'Hindu Law Opinion wrote as if determined to prove judgment. It could come up to the point of authorities' recognised such claims. Malabari right. highlighting his ruling that in India a suit for There were decisions in which the Calcutta restitution of conjugal rights was 'a creation Those who viewed Pinhey's verdict as a and Bombay High Courts had, under the of the English law'; but without facing the threat to their domestic and social life ignored Hindu law, granted, 'as well against grown inference that the rulers who created the law its legal base even more than did those who up as against minor wives', the kind of relief could not escape responsibility therefore. welcomed itas an occasion for self-laudation. prayed for by Dadaji. The pointed reference The entire blame, in this reading, rested Their anxiety, in fact, was aggravated by the to minor wives was designed to take care with Hindu laws and customs. So complete ways in which the judgment was projected of Rukhmabafs argument that she had been was the imagined contrast between the in the Anglo-Indian press, The verdict was married when she was incapable of giving English and native sensibilities that, in the also, to an extent, designedly misconstrued. intelligent consent. These decisions, the face of palpable evidence to the contrary, it But it was a misconstruction for which many Opinion added, had issued from judges like was believed that Pinhey's verdict had no Hindus were predisposed; it did not strain "Justice Couch, Melvill, West, and Mitter, supporters among Indians. The very logic their credulity. Ironically enough, even these men who, it must be allowed, know Hindu that prompted the English, to hail the verdict Hindus missed the respect for their law that law and custom at least as well, if not better led them to assume that the natives would was implicit in Pinhey's ruling that suits for than the Hon'ble Mr Justice Pinhey" be hostile to it. restitution of conjugal rights, only recently This appeal toestablished judicial authority discredited in England, were unknown to was capped, appropriately enough, by a Ill Hindu law. What worried them was the fear reference to the privy council, the highest Precisely those reasons that caused the of socio-cultural subversion following the judicial tribunal for colonial India. This Anglo-Indians to celebrate Pinhey's judg- judge's refusal to force a Hindu woman to related to the Moonshee Buzloor Ruheem vs ment impelled sections of Hindus/Indians to cohabit with her husband. Shumsoonissa Begum case, which was to condemn itstrongly. What the Pioneer called The Native Opinion, in a powerful indict- prove adecisive authority in favour of Dadaji the simple argument' of the judgment ap- ment, declared that the verdict, 'to say the at the appellate stage in his case. This was peared to these Hindus/Indians as the thin least of it', involved 'a revolution in the a Muslim case in which a man had inveigled end of the wedge. Beginning with aquestion- marital laws of Hindus'. It was 'entirely a rich widow with five children into marrying ing of the traditional customs of marriage, subversive of the principles that have him six months after the death of her first they feared, it would destroy the foundations governed society for ages'.'Apart from the husband. They lived together for some years, of Hindu/Indian society. Theinitial,and main, merits of the particular case', the weekly during which time the man managed opposition, however, came from among the warned: fraudulently to make away with a great part

2940 Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 of his wife's fortune. He then commenced judicial decision that their law, the application not be afraid to see the fabric of their society to ill-use her, virtually making her a prisoner of which has thus been secured to them, is turned topsy-turvy all at once." in the house. Following magisterial to be overridden upon a question which so The weekly admitted that the judge had intervention, she quit the husband's roof, materially concerns their domestic relations. neither accepted the issue of poverty nor with bare clothes on her back, and took up "We can safely say", the weekly charged, referred to the husband's state of health. But separate residence. Meanwhile she obtained "that the decision of Mr Justice Pinhey is it shrewdly related the two issues to the a decree of five lakh rupees against the man. calculated to do what the Privy Council have question of the wife's dislike of her husband. At this stage he brought a case of restitution so solemnly deprecated". Pinhey, we will recall, had admitted with of conjugal rights against her. His pleader It further countered Pinhey's position injudicious candour his abhorrence for argued that the case must be decided about restitution suits being a creation of the forcing a woman into the arms of a husband according to Muslim law, which did not British in India with the assertion that she disliked. But he had found in law an permit a wife to separate from her husband, formerly also, 'when there were no courts escape from what seemed to him an immoral except upon a divorce; cruelty being no like the present', claims for restitution of course. The wife's dislike was no ground for ground for the court to set aside the Muslim conjugal rights were recognised by Hindu his verdict. The Native Opinion, however, law. law authorities. To these authorities, which treated the moral impulse behind Pinhey's The Native Opinion, significantly, spared consisted of caste heads, deserted 'Hindu judgment as its legal rationale. It ascribed its readers all these crucial details and quickly husbands always carried their complaints', Rukhmabai'sdislike for Dadaji to his poverty moved on to the privy council after quoting and the 'authorities always compelled the and poor health, the sole grounds on which briefly from the Calcutta High Court wives to go and live with their husbands', - so the weekly insisted - she had refused judgment. Because of the pivotal role of this (strikingly enough, husbands alone are to live with him. It twisted the argument case in the disposal of the issue raised by mentioned in this context.)20 about 'dislike' to contend that Pinhey had Pinhey, and also because it helps us locate On the question of how the traditional given his verdict because of the husband's him within a certain juridic genealogy, we authoritiesenforcedtheirdecisions,however, straitened circumstances and other extra- may follow the high court verdict in greater the forthright Hindu weekly suddenly became judicial considerations: detail than did the Opinion. The judges, vague. Instead of specifying the penalties, Now as to the allegation of the husband's 1 C Steer and W S Seton-Karr, observed: '' it wrote that these were "at least as effectual ability to maintain, we are glad the Judge in their effects as imprisonment'. The quaint does not hold that the poverty of the husband Are we to compel the Defendant to return was a good answer to resist his claim. The to her Husband, convinced as we are that she tautology of 'effectual in theireffccts' apart, inability to maintain is a relative term and should not be forced to return? If under the the invocation of traditional legal procedure can be used in almost every case. What may Mahorriedan Law no Wife can separate herself carried an oblique disapproval of imprison- be competence to one may be poverty to from her Husband under any circumstances ment for contumacy in restitution cases, a another, and if such an indefinite definition whatsoever, the law is clearly repugnant to punishment which was a gift of the British. were held good in such suits society would natural justice. The Mahomcdan Law giving The Native Opinion faulted Pinhey also be sorely disarranged. With regard to dislike no relief to a Wife, be the conduct of the on the merits of the case. It assumed, as did wc may remark that there is only one case Husband ever so bad, it is a case to be so many others, that the judge's 'mind was in which a wife can resist her husband's disposed of by equity, and good conscience. swayed by the fact that the defendant was claim to conjugal rights and that is in the ease married when a minor'. From that assumption And on these principles, we have no hesitation of cruelty which involved danger or fear of it drew the inference that the judge must, in saying, that the grounds upon which the danger to her person by the violence of the Defendant has separated from her Husband therefore, have considered the marriage of husband.,. Wc think the learned Judge justify her in that step, and that we should Dadaji and Rukhmabai invalid. Perhaps completely misunderstood the law on the he making the Court the engine of a grievous realising the effect the argument would have subject. like or dislike having nothing to do injustice, if we gave the Plaintiff free power on people for whom gods and goddesses with the matter , we cannot but think that and control over the person of the Defendant, were more than mere mythological figures, Pinhey was influenced by considerations by ordering her to return to him. it pointed out that 'Hindu gods are married other than judicial. The Native Opinion demonstrated how, in when they are minors'; and mischievously As for considerations other than judicial, overruling this verdict, the privy council had added: 'the Hindu Law does not give them the orthodox weekly mocked Pinhey' s sense enunciated the guiding principles of the any relief on that ground.' This done, it asked 'policy of the law in British India'. This with a tlourish: The question is, granting of moral outrage so as to deny him even the policy forbade the disposal of certain that the defendant was a minor when married, courage to defy law in the service of justice categories of cases in accordance with equity as all Hindu wives are, was it a valid marriage and conscience. Pinhey, it contended, had and good conscience: 'i e, according to what or not?' It proffered the decisive answer: 'If 'committed a grave error', and it dramatised the judge may think the principles of natural it was a valid marriage, and according to the implications of the error in a way that justice require to be done in the particular Hindu Law it indisputably was, the right of would appeal to the conservative instincts 21 case'. Instead, the privy council directed the husband in this case admits of no dispute.' of its readers: that: With concerns exactly the opposite of the His decision in fact amounts to saying that in suits regarding marriage and caste, and all Pioneer 's, the Opinion dreaded the 'mon- any Hindu wife might any day refuse to go religious usages and institutions, the strous' consequences that would follow if to her husband. It is according to him enough Mahomcdan Laws with respect to the marriages contracted during minority were if she says that she dislikes him. The learned Mahomedans and the Hindu Laws with regard declared invalid. Of several such con- Judge does not seem to have seen the to the Hindus arc to be considered as the consequences of his judgment. It goes to the sequences, it mentioned only one: 'the right general rules by which Judges arc to form root of the marital lie and is entirely subversive of maintenance of wives and widows would their decisions... of the principles that have governed society be rendered null and void'. A consummation for ages. The Opinion further quoted with relish the such as this, it wrote sarcastically, might not privy council's strictures against the high appear 'sufficiently alarming' to 'certain These implications could arguably be court, maintaining that nothing was: persons'."But" it harangued, "a judge must teased out of Pinhey's judgment. The Native more likely to give just alarm to the deal with the whole country and its people Opinion, in any case, was confident enough Mahomcdan community than to learn by a and not with a few people who may perhaps of the correctness of its analysis to predict

Economic and Political Weekly November 2V 19% 2941 that, if appealed, the judgment stood little The Mahratta substantiated its charge by having indicated the threat to the 'Hindu chance of being stayed. Nonetheless, its was ascribing to Pinhey tfie view that "among wives' and widows' right to maintenance, an alarmist analysis; one produced by an Hindus the performance of the marriage the Mahratta quoted the following elabo- anxiety about the very survival of cherished ceremony is merely a contract which might ration of part of the same point from the values and institutions. Hence, the note of be set aside before consummation". With his Indian Nation of Calcutta: panic and the resultant inclusion of issues 'knowledge of local customs', the learned Where a man possessed of property has that should have been ignored as irrelevant judge should have known that: ' A Hindu married a girl of eight or nine, and died in view of Pinhey's verdict, e g, poverty and marriage, once entered, can never be before consummation of marriage, it would ill-health, if not dislike as well. In this state dissolved.' Instead, the Mahratta com- be dangerous to hold that the infant widow of anxious excitement, it was difficult to plained: "It is merely a principleof the English was not entitled to her husband's property, realise that the critical distinction between law, English custom that Mr Justice Pinhey because the marriage-contract had not been Ihe restitution and the institution of conjugal had consulted in the present case". completed. rights, as made by Pinhey, did not necessarily We have seen that what Pinhey had done More and more Hindu critics of Pinhey imply questioning the validity of marriages was to refuse to extend the application of stressed the risk posed by his verdict to the performed before years of discretion. The an English legal practice. In spite of using rights of Hindu wives in general, not just distinction was intended as a justification the term 'contract' for both Hindu and English widows. For, the denial of the rights - indeed, for not extending the application of a marriages - of the Mahratta's scrupulous the very status - of a wife on the ground of discredited alien legal practice. use of entered, rather than contracted, for non-consummation of marriage could ensue That, in spite of the judge's intention, the Hindu marriage - Pinhey never assumed that even while the husband was alive. This distinction admitted of being interpreted as Hindu marriage was a bond that could be argument assailed the verdict where it was subversive of the Hindu custom of infant and dissolved. If anything, he had invoked the supposed to be strongest. It sought to early marriage, is evident from the similarity Hindu law, and recalled with regret its demonstrate that even in terms of humani- on this point in the triumphant Anglo-Indian supersession by the British Indian law courts tarianism, a plane at which the Mahratta and the alarmist Hindu views of it. This in matters relating to restitution of conjugal itself sympathised with the verdict, Pinhey interpretation - so powerful was its hold - rights. In fact, after lashing out at Pinhey for had harmed the interests of a whole class of survived powerful arguments to ihe contrary forgetting the fundamental point about the hapless Hindu girls, those who had been from Latham and Tclang before the appel late indissolubility of Hindu marriage, the married before the years of discretion and court. Mahratta itself remarked; "The wife, then, whose marriage had not been consummated. may refuse to live with her husband, but for Representing the fears and ruffled feelings Besides his humanitarianism, Pinhey's all that she is debarred from marrying of sections of Hindus, and backing its understanding of marriage as a contract also another". demolition of Pinhey's judgment with im- was attacked. The Mahratta mounted this pressive legal erudition, the Native Opinion What else had Pinhey done? After all, the offensive from an unlikely angle. It began set the pattern for those opposed to Indian Daily News had been quick to grasp by criticising the judge for having disregarded Rukhmabai and Pinhey. Alarm was the something that made it sympathise with the the authority of parents and guardians.lt was dominant feeling in this response. Alarm got husband as well, and call for a change in the Rukhmabai's legal guardians who 'had the better of whatever confusion there was existing law, i e, that Pinhey's decision had entered into the contract for her and on her about the verdict; and it also submerged the not disencumbered Dadaji because the behalf'; but the fact had received 'no occasional admission of the humanitarian marriage tie that bound him to Rukhmabai consideration' from the judge. Giving its dimensions of the case and the verdict. This was beyond severance. At no stage in the defence of traditional parental authority a is exemplified by the Mahratta, an Anglo- litigation, it may be noted,did Rukhmabai's sudden switch, the weekly directed the focus Marathi weekly that appeared from Poona defence ever take the position that the on hard material factors. Dadaji's family under the guidance of Lokamanya rejection of Dadaji's plea for the restitution must have incurred on the marriage what in Balgangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), then fast of his conjugal rights would bring her the 'their poor circumstances' must have been emerging as a nationalist leader with pro- freedom to enter into - or contract - a new 'a heavy expenditure'. Employing the nounced Hindu leanings and opposed to marital relationship. She herself had no language of contract with abandon, the official interference in socio-religious affairs illusion in this regard. Such a freedom, she Mahratta argued somewhat facetiously; despite admitting the need for social reform. knew all too well, belonged exclusively to If he cannot get his conjugal rights restored, Writing a fortnight after the Native Opinion the husband, whether or not restitution was 22 so much money becomes a dead loss to him. had launched its attack, the Mahratla tied ordered. The following from a letter of hers Can he file a suit against the legal or natural itself into knots; but without for a moment which appeared in the London Times merits guardians of his wife for compensation? If losing the clarity of its opposition to Pinhey's perusal in this regard: they are dead, are heirs made liable? If they verdict. The Poona weekly was glad to see ... a man can marry any number of wives at are not, who is to reimburse him for the that the verdict had not 'commended itself a time, or whenever he chooses to do so, pecuniary loss which he has suffered? to the majority of our Hindu brethren'. At keeping all of them with him, or driving away Coming back to the status of Hindu the same time, it cIaimed to stand' for reform', those for whom he does not care much; while admitting that the verdict appealed to its a woman is wedded once for all. She cannot marriages, now threatened by this verdict, 'humanity on social and religious grounds'. remarry even after the death of her first the Poona weekly observed in a pragmatic In the same sentence, a barecommaseparating husband,21 nor can she deny to live with him tone: the two statements, it also added that it felt even on reasonable grounds.... Is it not Infant marriages will not be discontinued in 'forced to condemn' the verdict. The reason: inhuman that our Hindu men should have the space of a dozen years more. Are all the 'Mr Justice Pinhey has not understood the every liberty while women are tied on every marriages that take place, in which the bride's spirit of Hindu laws,' He had sought to hand for ever? [Times, April 9, 1887). age happens to be 11 or 12, or less, liable introduce reforms 'by violent means', and to the same construction? Instead of turning to the glaring sexual endeared himself to 'a certain set of reformers' inequality of the traditional arrangements, It concluded with the hope that, becausc - obviously those whom the Native Opinion the alarmist Hindu response spelt out the 'weighty considerations like these' had not had accused of revelling in the topsy-turvying ominous consequences that Pinhey's verdict found 'any weight with the learned Judge', of their society. would have for women, The Native Opinion 'a strong protest will be made all round

2942 Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 against the decision' (Mahratta, October 11, confine the controversy within the limits of turned out to be a masterpiece of vacillation 1885). abstract legalism, concrete humanitarian rather than, what one would have expected, The realism of the observation that infant considerations kept obtruding irresistibly. a passionate defence of the verdict. The marriages would notdisappearwithin another And it made a difference if the victim was writer, signing himself 'K' drew attention dozen years may have been informed by a an accomplished and cultivated young lady. to the 'unconventional tone' of the judgment desire for their eventual disappearance, But The disclosure about the identity of 'A which, he was sure, would receive 'admiring the question about the validity of marriages Hindu Lady' was first made by the Bombay plaudits' from 'our youthful reformers'. effected when the brides were 11 or 12 Guardian in the course of commenting on Even more, it would be 'consecrated by the belonged to a different class. It related to a Pinhey's judgment. However, The Times of Hindu girls of the period as their charter of crucial contemporary distinction between India, which alone was supposed to know, emancipation from the thraldom of matri- infant and early marriage, one in which only chose to evade the issue. 'Whoever she may monial slavery'. But for the more orthodox infant marriage was treated as undesirable. be'. it said, the 'Lady' wanted her name to it would be 'a matter of very grave reflection'. Early marriage, on the contrary, was con- be kept secret (The Times of India, September That 'K' identified himself among the sidered essential for the functioning of joint 25, 1885). Rukhmabai's advisers may have orthodox is suggested at this point by the family, the linchpin of Hindu social organi- calculated that it would be best to reveal the mock sarcasm with which he describes them sation. Those who thought along these lines identity and harness the resultant sympathy as "those old-world people who still cling could not accept a verdict that seemed to when the lady, in the event of an appeal, was to the superstition that Hindu society is not question so pivotal a custom. threatened with defeat rather than in the hour after all the whited sepulchre as it appears Among the first to relate Pinhey'sjudgment of an uncertain triumph. For the moment, to their latter day prophets". Still he could with the institution of joint family was an consequently, the Bombay Guardian's dis- not shrug off the reformers' concerns and anonymous correspondent to an Anglo- closure was no more than a rumour. the women's pain. Joining issue with Pinhey, Indian paper of Bombay. Observing that But for those aware of the subversive 'K' made with impressive succinctness a 'however justifiable it might be in equity', potential of the case and the verdict, this was point that Vicaji, Dadaji's counsel, had the judgment was certainly not so in law', a disconcerting rumour which needed to be somewhat struggled to argue before Pinhey. he repeated the usual charges relating to the squashed. As always in such situations, the If the marriage between Dadaji and role of extra-judicial considerations, i e, first reaction was to deny its veracity. The Rukhmabai was considered not consum- poverty, ill-health and dislike; also that the man who quickly sensed danger and moved mated, it was so 'according to the English judgment, even if 'chivalrous', was based on to counter it was K R Kirtikar, once a protege notion of that act'. He illustrated the point 'a misconception of the manners, customs, of Rukhmabai's stepfather, Sakharam with a hypothetical scenario: "If the husband and usages obtaining in Hindoo society'. He Arjun, and now a hostile witness. Kirtikar had died the next year, the girl would have continued {we may note the frequency with spoke with the authority of one who knew been pronounced a widow by the Hindu and which the word 'Hindoo' recurs); Rukhmabai's family as an insider. In a letter English law. and would have all her rights ... amongst the Hindoos the marriage of a to the Bombay Gazette he affirmed that, 'as and privileges secured to her". "But", he woman after twelve is a very rare pheno- far as I know' (and he professed to know continued, "the Fates reserved a better destiny menon. So the 'years of discretion' plea of a great deal), Pinhey's decision, legal or for the fortunate girl, and, being well- the learned judge cannot hold good in the illegal, safe or dangerous', had 'no connection connected and well-befriended, she ventured ease of u Hindoo ludy. What might seem whatever' with the 'Hindu Lady' (Bombay to take advantage of the general advancement good from an English point of view cannot of the time and emancipate herself from the Gazettet October 6, 1885). certainly be adapted to the altered circum- prevailing ignorance, which is the badge of stances and peculiar constitution of Hindoo her sisterhood, by seeking the protection of IV society. The joint family system in vogue the high court against the suit tiled by her amongst the Hindoos imposes certain The Civil and Military Gazette saw in the husband to compel her to live with him". restraints upon the social liberty of individual alarmist Hindu response the true reflection 'This', 'K' stressed, 'cannot but redound to members of a Hindoo family, and the of 'the native mind' on the issues involved her credit'. plaintiff's adherence to this traditional in Pinhey's judgment. The Bombay Gazette, But, at the same time, 'K' interpreted system should not interfere with his right likewise, believed that the "native papers Pinhey's judgment, with obvious anxiety, as to call his wife to live with him under the unanimously disapprove of the judgment of establishing that a Hindu marriage - 'a solemn family roof. Mr Justice Pinhey in the case of Rukhmabai compact' to which thespouses plighted 'their The anonymous correspondent ended with and her poor illiterate husband" (Bombay faith before God and man' - could be legally a demand for 'rigorous action in the matter Gazette, October 5, 1885). This summed up broken. Condemning what seemed to him 24 of infant marriages'. He did so because, in the English feeling in this regard. The number the basis of Pinhey's reasoning, he wrote; his view, the necessity, for such action had of Indian journals that supported the judgment been 'proved' by the Rukhmabai case (which was admittedly small as compared to those That gentleman had nothing to allege against did not involve infant marriage). This shows which either opposed it strongly or displayed the validity of the marriage according to the the loose logic that marked much of the an ambivalent attitude. In terms of their Hindu law. nor anything against the conduct debate on this case. This lack of rigour was visibility, however, the former were not the of the husband towards his wife. But because shared by many of Rukhmabai's supporters kind that could be missed easily. The the wife was an enlightened woman and the husband an illiterate man, the kindhearted also, though she herself was very clear that explanation for the general English assess- Judge had his imagination up in arms against her tragedy was due to early rather than to ment of the Indian reaction, therefore, seems the claims of the husband, and thinking that infant marriage. to lie more in the mode of English perception it would be like delivering up an ox or a In addition to questioning the defensibility than in the reality of Indian reaction. bullock to a driver to order the woman to of the judgment from every possible point The most visible, and also the most deter- obey her husband, disallowed the claim and of view, not excluding its equity and huma- mined, Indian supporter of the judgment was sent away the wife rejoicing. nitarianism, the critics of Pinhey and Malabari's Indian Spectator. However, Rukhmabai had to grapple with the problem owing to Malabari's absence from Bombay The verdict, 'K' commented, did 'infinite posed by the identification of the much when Pinhey unexpectedly cut short the credit to the Judge's heart', but not to his acclaimed 'A Hindu Lady' as no other than proceedings in the case and delivered his legal acumen'. A judge was 'always sup- Rukhmabai. For, however hard they tried to judgment, the first write-up in the Spectator posed to base his decisions on law'.

Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2943 After this pious pronouncement, however, Such is the glorious uncertainty of English constrained by the need for discretion about 'K' himself countered Pinhey's ruling with law! (Indian Spectator, September 27,1885). the legality of the judgment. an extra-legal argument; an argument that This was, perhaps, the most articulate He, rather, sought to salvage the situation was designed as a moral-cultural offensive. expression of a mind that oscillated between by directing his attack on that 'mode of He alluded to Smollett's Memoirs of a Lady the extreme positions with both of which it hunting down an unwilling wife' which in of Quality in which the second husband of seemed to sympathise. Others, too, felt drawn law was called restitution of conjugal rights. a wayward lady rushes post-haste to con- in opposite directions; at times without being Prepared to concede, in theory, its legality summate the marriage; and caustically added quite aware of their own vacillations. For in adult marriages, he considered its enforce- that, being illiterate, Dadaji did not have the example, the Kaiser-i-Hind, a Gujarati ment in cases of unconsummated infant 25 advantage of such examples. With this piece weekly from Bombay, was happy that Pinhey marriage indefensible. In the absence of intel- of sarcasm 'K' manoeuvred to implicate not had by his judgment dealt a severe blow at ligent consent of the parties, these 'nominal' only Pinhey's judgment but an entire people the objectionable Hindu practice of infant marriages were 'not binding even according and their civilisation for whom, as he would marriage. But it also dreaded the prospect to the Shastras'. Stressing the importance of have it, a physical act was the validating that, 'swayed by personal motives', the consummation even from a shastric point of moment of something so sacrosanct as millions of Hindu girls married in their view, and borrowing an argument employed, marriage. "In plain English", he wound up infancy 'may with impunity break the sacred as we shall see, by Raghunath Rao, Malabari the argument, ''the husband had not matrimonial bond' (excerpts, The Times of observed: "The wife becomes of the same perpetrated a legalised rape' on his Hindu India, September 28, 1885). gotra, etc, with the husband after wife, and therefore an English Judge finds The alarm caused about the stability of consummation". it in his wisdom to cut asunder the solemn family and society, it would seem, was wider Implicit in the description of infant connection of a holy wedlock". than the spread of the type of Indian papers marriages as nominal was a questioning of Turning upside down the comment about that were unrelenting in their criticism of the their validity. Malabari was going farther equity and justice vis-a-vis law in the context verdict. The appreciation of the emancipatory than Pinhey. He was actually doing what of Pinhey's judgment, 'K' remarked: potential of Pinhey's judicial mediation was Pinhey never meant to do; the underlying "Verily, if this is really a triumph of law, we not always untouched by an apprehension logic of his judgment notwithstanding. doubt very much whether it would be of the risks to which it exposed domestic and Having questioned the validity of 'nominal' considered a triumph of justice". Calling for social relations. This dual realisation26 did marriages, Malabari sensed his chance to strict adherence to law on the part of the not result in cultural withdrawal. Hence the strike at the related evil of enforced widow- judge, 'K' had appropriated justice for the happiness about Rukhmabai's emergence hood as well. Deriving from the shastras the cause of that Hindu orthodoxy with which from ignorance and the invocation of Justice conclusion that both the supporters and heidentified himself. And this after conceding Tucker's censure of attempts to abuse means opponents of Pinhey were drawing from his that its humanitarianism was the one ground of progress, like education, for selfish verdict, he broached the issue: "It is a question on which Pinhey's judgment appeared personal ends and socially corrosive whether she becomes widow according to virtually unassailable. purposes. the Shastras on the death of the nominal 'K' then referred to a case of restitution It is possible that those who betrayed husband". He ended his note with the prayer: of conjugal rights which a Parsi woman had ambiguity, moving uneasily between ap- "I for one would devoutly pray that the brought against her husband. The latter proval and anxiety, constituted a very large judgment might be upheld on appeal, so as "demurred to the claim, on the ground, section of the society. And the number of to remain a worthy precedent to open our amongst others, that he had received a liberal those who were ambi valent in this way belies eyes to the evils of the disastrous custom" education in India ... and had, moreover, the contention that disapproval was the sole (Indian Spectator, October 4, 1885). gone to England, passed his examination, Indian reaction to Pinhey's decision. In the same hurried despatch Malabari and joined the Medical Service of Govern- There was a more emphatic repudiation also mentioned, so fleetingly as to risk missing ment and that he was moving in a respectable of the Anglo-Indian view of the Hindu/Indian the reader's attention, what he would later educated society, for which his wife was not response. It came from Indians who yielded develop into a powerful argument. Having a fit companion". The case was decided to none in supporting the verdict; and their described restitution of conjugal rights as against the wife by Justice Tucker on the support rested on a better perception of the 'hunting down an unwilling wife', he ground of domicile, as the wife lived in rationale behind the verdict. The Indian followed Pinhey to assert that this was an Bombay while the husband was a resident Spectator led the Indian defence of Pinhey's English practice. But owing to an error, which of the mofussil. But, 'K' emphasised, with judgment With an expeditiousness that spoke reflects the depth to which faith in the justice regard to the plea of educational incom- of his sense of urgency, Malabari despatched and humanity of the English had been patibility "the Judge was plain-spoken to a a signed note - something he rarely did - internalised, what appeared in the degree, and virtually told the husband that which appeared in the paper in the very next Indian Spectator was the exact opposite. he was bringing education into discredit and issue after the one carrying 'K's' comments. The sentence, instead, ran: "This mode of disgrace by a vaiIing himself of such an excuse Recording his 'entire1 disagreement with hunting down an unwilling wife is un- for putting away his legally married wife". 'K', and addressing him as a 'correspondent' English". The compositor, we can imagine, Having cited what he thought was an in an effort to dissociate the Indian Spectator could not possibly believe Malabari to mean appropriate precedent, and assuming that a from his views, Malabari described the 'English' in a context like this. It must have similar incompatibility was the basis of judgment as 'sound in equity and not in- been an inadvertent slip on his part. And, Rukhmabai's defence and of Pinhey's deci- consistent with common sense'. Coming from as one taking pride in his thankless job and sion, 'K' concluded on a note completely a master polemicist and ardent champion of not doing it mindlessly, the compositor opposite to the one with which he had begun. Rukhmabai's cause, this looked lukewarm. appears to have made the requisite correc- After reminding the reader that the case But, handicapped by the unavailability of the tion, confident of earning the boss' s gratitude mentioned by him was between Parsis, he text of the judgment in Punjab - perhaps for averting a politically embarrassing lamented. relying on the report in the Civil and Military misprint. Little would he have expected to But in the present instance it is a Hindu wife Gazette of September 30 which mixed receive, rather, an explanatory correction for who alleges the plea, and the benevolent excerpts from the judgment with comments insertion in the following week's issue. It quixotry of another Judge allows its validity. thereon - Malabari must have been read:

2944 .Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2929 In my paragraph on the Hindu lady's case, outburst, especially the one relating to horses between Rukhmabai and her 'ancient please read English for un-English. What I and bullocks: prototype', he dilated on the differential mean is that a barbaric relic of English law It would not perhaps be so wrong if our working of the two systems: should not influence the administration of conservative friends described the connection Damayanti accepted the husband of her Indian laws (Indian Spectator, October 11, as slave and slave-owner. In that capacity choice, when she was old enough to exercise 1885). they might insist upon the slave being driven her judgment. Rukhmabai never lived with Malabari' s correction exuded a confidence home to the owner, or rather the owner's her husband since the sham marriage, did not that was missing in the previous week's uncle,27 to be suffocated, dismembered and know him, had no opportunity of studying misprinted reference to English law. There offered up on the altar of Custom. his character. Damayanti bccame Nala Raja's was reason for the confidence. Still without wife, in fact, loved him with a woman's As if realising, at the height of this burning the text of Pinhey's judgment when he sent, whole love.... Rukhmabai's nominal husband rage, his own helplessness to alleviate the from Amritsar on October 5, the correction is said to have gone to the bad, ruining his sufferings he saw all around, sufferings that and his second despatch on the case, Malayan mind and body for ever .... Rukhmabai appeared to embody so much the had received a comforting opinion from an "What right", in a situation like this, more for the threat to her legal victory, Englishman who had spent "nearly 20 years "have we, as honest observers, to ask Malabari cried from the depth of his heart: in India, both as Judge of a Presidency High Rukhmabai to follow the example of Court, as well as a legal practitioner". The Just fancy the little rebel delivered into the Damayanti?" Malabari answered the ques- judgment, this 'highly respected English hands of Dadaji Bhikhaji, his uncles, aunts, tion witha warning: "Buteven if worse came lawyer' believed, was 'sound and irreversible sisters and cousins. It makes one's blood to the worst, no law or authority can make curdle only to think of the outrage. If 1 had morally as well as legally'; even if it was Damayantis of nominal Hindu wives". a child in that predicament, I would far rather not 'so exhaustive from the latter point of He followed this up with his favourite she died before my eyes. view'. strategy of reversing the case to expose the As against Malabari, who was nervously This is not a propagandist's hyperbole. role of gender in this systemic injustice; a praying that the judgment be upheld, his What he had seen, since his own sad strategy that Rukhmabai also used effectively English authority hoped that the rumour of childhood, of the cheerless existence of in the letters of 'A Hindu Lady'. He invited appeal was not without foundation: "for the daughters-in-law in the joint families of the his readers to suppose that, instead of her appeal will serve to keep up public interest day, was reason enough for Malabari to fear husband, Rukhmabai 'herself had turned out in the question, and at the same time be the for the little rebel.28 Hence, the allusion to incurably diseased and unacceptable', and means of informing the public more fully on the combine of uncles, aunts, sisters and completed the scenario: the subject". The appeal, he predicted, would cousins who often made life more miserable What would the husband and his friends have "undoubtedly be dismissed on the ground for the woman than did her husband. Besides, done? Why, they would have discarded the that it is not, in fact or in law, a suit for he well knew the sinister Narayan Dhurmaji wife like a burnt stick, and supplanted her restitution of conjugal rights, but a suit for who headed the household in which, if ordered with one or more new wives. specific performance of a marriage contract". by the law court, Rukhmabai would be They were galled because, for once, the He explicated his argument: required to live. wife had the best of the bargain; though they Now a mercantile or other contract may, as Malabari wasted no sympathy in dealing should have remembered that even this was a general rule of law, be specifically en- with those whom he called orthodox Hindus. 'a bargain struck without her knowledge or forced: in other words, a party injured by For them he had only ridicule and anger. He consent'. Bccause she, and not the husband, breach of a contract has his option to claim preferred to meet them on their own ground. was educated and endowed with a little damages for the non-performance of it; or He joined issue with a 'usually sensible and fortune, it seemed essential to bring her under. imparti al' writer who had chided Rukhmabai, he may proceed to enforce the fulfilment of Bolstered as it was by a structure of its terms in specie. But a marriage contract as Malabari characteristically put it, 'for traditionally transmitted values with their (being a contract sui generis) cannot be disowning her husband in name' because he ultimate sanction in religion, the system of enforced specifically. Such is the invariable had become poor and diseased. This injustice was oppressive enough on its own. law of England, British India, America - in 'preacher' had waxed eloquent on 'the wifely What the adversaries of Rukhmabai were short, of every civilised nation (Indian sacrifices' of Damayanti, and advised attempting was to 'put the machinery of law Spectator. October 11, 1885). Rukhmabai to follow the example of her into motion' in order to 'smother her famed mythological progenitor. A man of Never in doubt about its morality, and now religiously'. Taking exception to such utili- faith, Malabari confessed that he was a great reassured about the legal strength oi the case, sation of law, Malabari wrote with angry admirer of Damayanti and believed her story Malabari was soon in his element as he disdain: "How pious and chivalrous they are to be true. "But", he countered, "we cannot sprang to defend Rukhmabai with full force. who sermonise upon the story of Nala expect every Hindu girl to be a Damayanti Combining his appeal to the shastras with Damayanti!" in this Kali-yuga." He did not, in saying this, an invocation of civilised laws in general, Knowing, as he did, the intimate details derogate the Hindu women of his day he developed the argument about the of the dispute and the actants therein, Malabari Rather, he turned the argument against the nominality of infant marriages to mount an let it be known to his readers that the prime orthodox and the system they upheld: offensive. It was 'distressing', he began, that villain in the case was not Rukhmabai's Rukhmabai should be described by 'generally For, they are never tired of assuring us that husband. The 'discredited husband', he intelligent public writers' as the plaintiffs Manu and the other wise law-makers ordained believed, was urged, 'against his wishes, to wife, because: the present rigid injustice against women, destroy her life's happiness.' The man who ... the most essential part of the ceremony, because they knew women would be invisibly directed this murky drama was according to the Hindu and all other civili- dangerous enemies of society in the Kali- Dadaji's uncle, a vicious man whom sed marriage laws, the consent of the yuga, if treated like human beings. Rukhmabai 'naturally dreads with a mortal parties, having been wanting, Rukhmabai is The problem. Malabari countered, was not dread'. less the plaintiffs wife than I am his first that the quality of womanhood had declined Assured by the English authority of the cousin. over the centuries, but that the system of soundness of Rukhmabai's case, and still The mocking start soon developed into a injustice had produced results contrary to praying 'hourly' that Pinhey's judgment was moral outrage which resonated of Pinhey's those expected of it. Pointing to the contrast upheld and 'dignified into a salutary

.Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2945 precedent', Malabari discovered yet another conception of Hindu marriage, the Dewan tional' socio-cultural and the colonial legal 34 ground tor optimism. 'At any rate', he told Bahadur argued: "As in all contracts, so in systems. himself and others, "I trust that no Englishman a Hindu marriage contract are consent and Notes will be guilty of betraying the poor Iamb into consummation the requisite elements". Hindu what may prove perhaps worse than a law, he contended, prohibitedconsummation [This paper is based on parts of a book-length slaughter-house" (Indian Spectator, during the first three days of the marriage. study of the Rukhmabai case. Tentatively titled November I. 1885). The bride became of the bridegroom's gotra, The Brutal Embrace: The Debate on a Woman 's Rights in Colonial India, the first draft of the In less than six months the fate of these pinda and sutaka - and this was his decisive study is over. Of the many debts incurred during and opposite prayers, hopes and expecta- evidence - after 'actual personal consum- 1 this study, I particularly wish to acknowledge two tions was provisionally settled when the mation on the fourth night or thereafter here Research for this work in England was made appellate court set aside Pinhey's verdict. (Indu Prakash, October 26, 1885). possible by the Charles Wallace (India) Trust, The law of British India took another year This was a powerful argument that and in India mainly by the Indian Council of after that to order Rukhmabai to go to her anticipated, and neutralised, the most obvious Historical Research. To these organisations, and husband or else face the risk of imprisonment and common argument against Pinhey's to R E Cavaliero and Irfan Habib who facilitated for six months.30 The brave young woman judgment; which was that in imagining these grants, I am immensely grateful ] let it be known, at a time when passive consummation as essential to the institution 1 'A Hindu lady' was no other than Rukhmabai resistance and satyagraha lay away in future, of conjugal rights, he had brought in an alien This was her second letter on the subject, the that she would rather submit herself to the notion and disregarded the fact that the rights first one having appeared on June 26, 1885 The timing of the letter was clearly meant to maximum penalty admissible under the law of the husband and the wife were complete coincide with the hearing in the case, and it than obey thecourt's verdict. Even the viceroy the moment the Hindu marriage ceremony seems to have had the desired effect on Pinhey. was rattled. "I hope", he wired his law was performed. The editor of The Times of India at this time member, "you are keeping your eye on the It is true that, both in terms of general was Henry Curwen. A man with some literary Rukhmabai case. It will never do to allow acceptance by the caste Hindu society and pretensions and a grandson of Wordsworth, 31 Curwen was taking personal interest in her to be put into prison". And organised the view taken by the higher British Indian Rukhmabai's case. Hindu orthodoxy considered it discreet to judiciary, the progressive exegesis of Hindu 2 57 L J 9 P and D. hail the court's verdict as a vindication of law and practice offered by the likes of 3 See Douglas M Ford, Matrimonial Law and Hindu marriage; afraid of Rukhmabai's Telang and Raghunath Rao lost out to the Guardianship of Infants, London, 1888, martyrdom, it advised Dadaji not to press for reactionary and constricted intepretations. pp 53-56 her imprisonment on ground of contumacy. That, however, cannot be a reason for taking 4 Olive M Stone has pointed out that because in comparison to men it was more difficult for The battle that had begun with Pinhey's the latter as the real Hindu law and practice. women in England to obtain divorce under the judgment was this time renewed with ag- Which is what the ruling people's view of Divorce Act of 1857, they were tempted to gravated stridency. But that is a later phase the Rukhmabai case generally tended to be use the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1884 as of this social drama with which we cannot after Pinhey's judgment was set aside. In a a less cumbersome route to separation and/or deal here. Clearly, the socicty was deeply characteristic fit of collective superiority and divorce. See Family Law: An Account of the Law of Domestic Relations in England and divided over a woman's awareness and resultant blindness for inconvenient details, Wales, London, 1977, p 122. assertion of the inviolability of her person. the very people who had earlier celebrated 5 for Pinhey's judgment and proceedings in the Even before the drama had unfolded fully, Pinhey's verdict now sympathised with the case, see The Indian Law Reports, Bombay the Bombay Chronicle had predicted a serious judges, all Englishmen, who reversed that Series, Vol IX, pp 529-35. clash of opposing social forces. While its verdict. These helpless judges, it was now 6 See Lawrence Stone, Road to Divorce; England Anglo-Indian 'brothers' continued to believe maintained, 'unhappily, had no alternative', 1530-I987; Oxford, 1992, pp 368-69; also Roderick Phillips, Untying the Knot: A Short that the Indian reaction was one of opposition bound as they were by their oath to administer History of Divorce, Cambridge, 1991, pp 127 to Pinhey's verdict, the Chronicle expected 33 the Hindoo laws' (emphasis added). 28. "strong forces' to be 'arrayed on the different Suddenly, and completely, they forgot 7 See The Indian Law Reports. Bombay Series, 32 sides' so that: Pinhey's categorical demonstration of two Vol IX, pp 529-35. The battle will be one of tremendous crucial facts: that such restitution suits did 8 While Rukhmabai was from the outset consequences to the social institution of the not lie in Hindu law; and that what the courts conscious of the larger issues in this case, even Dadaji, it may be noted, presented himself in Hindus, and willdraw in the arena of the fight administered in such cases was a discredited his Exposition as one fighting for the sanctity some of the best intellects of the race. t English law. of Hindu marriage and family. For example, What we need to remember is that in this Such, ironically, is the hold of the belief he wrote: "If religious pledges are to go for battle some of the finest orthodox Hindu in the progressive role of the colonial legal nothing, then where does morality begin? It intellects stood behind Rukhmabai and mediation in India, that in our own day, too, is both a precept and a divine law lo the Hindus that it is a wicked and an undutiful act on the supported Pinhey's judgment in her favour. Rukhmabai continues to be seen as a victim In the appellate court Tel ang's entire defence part of girls or women to form matrimonial of Hindu law. This is neither to debunk the connections without the consent of their parents of Rukhmabai rested on an exegesis of Hindu colonial legal mediation perse, nor to idealise or relatives.. Non-Hindus do not understand law.The self-consciously conservative Hindu Hindu law. Both need to be problematised. this matter; it has formed no part of their in him had grasped the profound socio- For it was the misogyny of Hindu socio- religious training; but to a Hindu it is at once cultural significance of this case, and he was domestic reality buttressed by the misogyny conscience, reason, and religion. No censure which non-Hindus may apply to the system, keen to offer through his defence of of English jurisprudence that created the Rukhmabai what he thought was the true no ridicule which they can throw upon it, can situation in which Rukhmabai struck for her change the faith in this doctrine of the Hindu Hindu law with regard to conjugal relations. rights as a person and offered herself as a who values his religion. The true Hindu wilt Similarly, Dewan Bahadur R Raghunath martyr to the cause of her Indian sisters. A suffer martyrdom for it. (appeal with boldness Rao, whose orthodoxy no one could have detailed analysis of the rival arguments in to all my co-religionists, for they alone can understand my feelings and the power of the had the hardihood to question, offered a her case, the conflicting judicial decisions, doctrine which I have endeavoured to shastric defence that even Pinhey, despite his and the wide spectrum of public responses explain." (p 10). conviction that the kind of suit filed by in India and England offers a chance to 9 The 'orthodox party' in Bombay collected Dadaji did not lie in Hindu law, could not critique, in terms of what they did to/for funds and offered considerable assistance to have anticipated. Radicalising the very women, the deadly dialectic of the 'tradi- Dadaji soon after Pinhey's judgment so that

2946 Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 he could appeal against it. This move was 22 To the extent it continues to be remembered, 27 This refers to Narayan Dhunnaji, Dadaji's master-minded by V N Mandlik who secured and as part of anlndia n femmist consciousness. maternal uncle and an unscrupulous mani- a one-line appeal for funds fromDadaji and that is discovering its illustrious genealogy, pulator, who had master-minded the very idea circulated it among the circle of his friends. the Rukhmabai case remains more of an of litigation. See Ganesh Rainkrishna Havaldar, .Rao Saheb unresearched legend. As invariably happens 28 Here is a random reading list for those who Vishwanath Narayan Mandlik Yanche Charitra in such situations, the facts and the significance wish to be acquainted with contemporary (in Marathi), Mumbai, 1927, Vol II, pp 860- of the case, and the role of certain characters accounts of the existential reality within the 61. involved therein, tend to be overstated. Thus, Hindu joint family. The list includes fiction, 10 Bombay Gazette, Octobers, 6.1885. In 1887, in the inaugural issue of the Indian Journal diary and reminiscences. G M Tripathi, following appeal against Pinhey's verdict, of GenderStudies (January-June 1994) which, Sarasvatichandra (the four volumes of this when Rukhmabai was threatened with the appropriately enough, opens with a paper on first major novel in Gujarati came out bet- prospect of imprisonment because of her refusal the 19th century triumvirate of Pandita ween 1887 and 1901), Mumbai, 1985; to obey the court's verdict, the Gazette became Ramabai, Rukhmabai and Anandibai Joshi, Kantilal C Pandya and others (eds), one of her most powerful supporters. Meera Kosanibi describes the Rukhmabai case Govardhanram MadhavramTripathi ' s Scrap 11 Bombay Guardian, excerpted in The Times of as the first ever divorce case in India. She also Book, Bombay, 3 vols, 1957, 1959; Ranade: India, September 28, 1885 and in Civil and tells us that, following a compromise verdict His Wife's Reminiscences, English translation Military Gazette, October 12, 1885. in the case, Rukhmabai's marriage with Dadaji (from Marathi) by Kusumavati Deshpande, 12 Pioneer, reproduced in Civil and Military was dissolved. It was not a divorce case and New Delhi, 1969; Hari Narayan Apte, Pan Gazette, October 2, 1885. the marriage was never dissolved. For, as Lakshyant Kon Gheto (Marathi novel which 13 Civil and Military Gazette, September 28, Rukhmabai herself put it with unconcealed appeared in 1890), Hindi translation, entitled 1885. Rukhmabai was the stepdaughter of anguish - as Latham had earlier done before Kaun Dhyan Deta Hai by Srinivas Kochkar, Sakharam Arjun. the appellate court - the Hindu woman, once New Delhi, 1961.1 have discussed this in my 14 Indian Daily News, September 29, 1885; The married, was tied for life. Marriage for her, The Oppressive Present: Literature and Social Times of India, October 2, 1885, reproduced in Malabari's burning phrase, meant a 'brutal Consciousness in Colonial India. New Delhi, this from the News. embrace'. Similarly, keeping up a tradition in 1992 (reprint 1994), pp 74-82. 15 V N Mandlik, Vyavahar Mayukha or Hindu- which Pinhey's judgment was generally 29 Malabari is exceptional in the turn he gave to Law, New Delhi (reprint), 1982. First published misunderstood by its supporters as well as the argument about 'Kali-yuga'. Usually the in 1880. Founded by him in 1864, the Native critics, Kosambi says that an 'additional argument rested on an initial admission of the Opinion continued to be edited by Mandlik argument' employed by the judge was that degeneration that had come about in the until 1871 His influence over the weekly, Rukhmabai's 'marriage had been performed character of women, as of men, so that they however, never waned. It was particularly in her childhood and without her choice' were no longer capable of living up to the marked during the Rukhmabai case 23 Here Rukhmabai is getting carried away, if she ideals of old. For example, even the most controversy. is not making a polemical point. She could not committed advocates of widow marriage 16 Noticing Telang's now famous lecture, 'Must possibly have forgotten the marriage of her argued that since Hindu women were unable Social Reform Precede Political Reform' own widowed mother with Sakharam Arjun. to lead a life of austerity and celibacy after Mandlik noted with satisfaction:.. the learned 24 Reproduced in Civil and Military Gazette. losing their husbands, and often fell into lecturer tried to show that though reform may October6,1885. Just to get an idea of rhetorical evil ways, causing such problems as foeti- be necessary in social matters as well as in differentiation in the articulation of the same cide and infanticide, it was much better to let our political situation, it is the political reform point, we may considerthe following from this them have the option of remarriage. This is to which our energies should be directed in letter: "The poor and the rich are equal in the precisely the logic why the ParasharSamhita, the first instance" And further:"... the lecturer's eye of the law, and the mere facts of the failing with its less rigorous code of conduct, is conclusion is the one which we had arrived health of the plaintiff and his inability to considered the authoritative shastric text for at when this journal was started and which was maintain his wife on a liberal scale, Kali-yuga. adopted and has been adhered to as the incommensurate with his limited resources, 30 In the paper cited above Meera Kosambi says governing policy of this paper", Native certainly do not deprive him of his rights ...the that 'notice was served on Rakhmabai to join Opinion, February 28, 1886. mere dismissal of the plaint on grounds of her husband or undergo six months' 17 Ganesh L Chandavarkar, A Wrestling Soul: poverty and sickness of the plaintiff, and the imprisonment". What the judge, Farran, did Story of the Life of Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, dislike of the lady for her husband, is likely was to order Rukhmabai to 'go or return' - Bombay, nd. pp 79-80. to produce mischievous results in future. Hence the wording took care of Dadaji's prayer for 18 Indian Spectator. December 18, 1887. the judgment, if not reversed on appeal, will the institution or restitution of his conjugal Referring to the Madhavbag meeting where, set up a mischievous precedent for other proud rights - to her husband's house within one under Mandlik's chairmanship, a rabidly anti- aristocratic ladies to desert their husbands month and inform the court accordingly. There social reform position was taken, and even the because they are poor." was no mention, and legally could not have sober Telang was shouted down, the spectator 25 'K' seems to have forgotten the exact details been, of the punishment that might follow, if wrote: "The sin of the Madhavbag meeting of the story he was referring to. The lady was the husband so petitioned, on ground of will stick to this aged pleader, and he will have an innocent wench of 15 when her first husband contumacy. No such notice was ever served. to account for it to a higher tribunal than to insisted on making love to her after they had Apart from the organised Hindu orthodoxy's the public of Bombay. We would never have run away to a remote place. Afraid that irate anxiety not to make Rukhmabai a martyr, her said a word against him even in this connection with their 'stolen' marriage, the lady's father influential Indian and European friends and had he acted from conviction; but we must would track them down, the husband was supporters, who had formed the Rukhmabai decline to believe that a man of Mr Mandlik's obviously in no mood to oblige his father-in- Defence Committee with a view to taking her intelligence could conscientiously favour the law with any chances. As the protagonist- case to the Privy Council, had pre-empted the views emitted at that meeting of illiterate Banias narrator put it. possibility of her imprisonment by taking the and Bhattias " case once again to the appellate bench in ... the bridegroom gave me to understand, 19 11 Moore s Indian Appeals, 558-61. appeal against Farran's order. that there was a necessity for our being 20 This assertion was placed in its proper 31 Home Department, Judicial Proceedings, June bedded immediately, in order to render the perspective by Latham and Telang, especially 1887, Nos 189-92 (National Archives of India) marriage binding, lest my father should the latter, when they defended Rukhmabai in 32 Bombay Gazette, excerpted in The Times of discover and part us before consummation. the appellate court . I have discussed this briefly India. September 28, 1885. I pleaded hard for a respite till the evening, in my 'Whos e Laws?: Notes on a Legitimising 33 Taking its cue from the London Times, the objecting to the indecency of going to bed Myth of the Colonial Indian State' Studies in Queen, a leading women's magazine wrote before noon; but he found means to invalidate History, 8, 2. ns (1992), pp 192-94, passim. this in its issue of March 19,188 7 after Justice all my arguments.... (Tobias Smollett, The Farran, in deference to the appellate court's 21 Native Opinion, September 27,1885 The fear Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, London, reversal of Pinhey's verdict, had ordered of subversion is further reflected in the 1930, Vol II, p 41). Opinion 'sangr y outburst, in its issue of October Rukhmabai to go to her husband. 11 26 Gujarati, an Anglo-Gujarat1885, againsi weeklt they Sind starte Timesd in fo3r4 takinMayg I leave the reader here with the assurance afavourable view of Pinhey's judgment: "Why 1880 to champion the cause of Hindu that The Brutal Embrace seeks, among other not seek to establish a system of divorce orthodoxy, observed that Pinhey's 'revolu- things, to provide a narrative that critiques instead?' tionary' judgment was a double-edged weapon both.

.Economic and Political Weekly November 2, 1996 2947