The Transformation of Domesticity As an Ideology: Calcutta, 1880-1947
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The Transformation of Domesticity as an Ideology: Calcutta, 1880-1947. by Sudeshna Baneijee Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Arts of the University of London for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Oriental and African Studies, London Department of History 1997 /BIBL \ {uDNm) \tmiV ProQuest Number: 10672991 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10672991 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This study of the ideology of domesticity among the Bengali Hindu middle-class of Calcutta between 1880 and 1947 problematises the relation between anti-colonial nationalism and domesticity by contextualising it in a social history perspective. The thesis argues that the nationalist domestic ideology of the class was not a mere counter-discursive derivative of colonial power/knowledge. Its development was a dialectical process; in it the agency of the lived experience of domesticity, as the primary level of this group’s reproduction of its class identity, material anxieties, status, and gender ideology, interacted with nationalist counter- discursive abstractions. This dialectic, the thesis argues, made the domestic ideology of the colonial middle class a transforming entity. Indeed, because of this dynamism, early nationalist essentialisations regarding domesticity disintegrated during the late colonial period (1920-1947). Anti-colonial nationalism, crystallised by the late 19th century, spiritualised domesticity as a part of an essential ‘inner-domain’ that was upheld in order to culturally exteriorise the ‘materialist5 colonial sphere. But this interiorisation and spiritualisation was not a one-way process in which lived domesticity was passively inscribed from above by a preconceived nation. While nationalist abstractions sought to ‘recast’ the home, the lived domesticity of the class, in its turn, inscribed its agency on nationalism by acting as the fundamental lived unit which was paradigmatically extended to imagine and order the middle- class-led nation. Given this dialectic, there was the possibility of the nationalist idealisation of the home changing if the lived situation of the class became substantially transformed. Contesting the ahistoricity of recent studies on nationalist domesticity, this thesis argues that such a transformation actually did come about in the period after the First World War. Under its impact, the dominant perception of domesticity changed, creating a discursive transformation that sidelined the ideology formulated in the late 19th-century. The spiritualist rhetoric disintegrated. So did the binary division that had projected the colonial sphere as the only ‘outside’ as against a harmonious ‘inside’ in which domesticity, community and the nation existed in an idealised continuum. Thus, a domestic ideology, that anti-colonial consciousness had deeply integrated with the class’s self-justification and claim to ‘natural leadership’, disintegrated largely under pressure. Consequently, it left behind the deep imprint of some of its expectations in the 3 middle-class consciousness. The disintegration thus generated a sense of disorientation rather than a liberating feeling for the middle-class majority on the eve of political independence. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 7 Glossary 8 Explanatory Notes 11 Introduction 12 1. Ordering Domesticity for the Nation, 1880-1915 40 2. From the Spiritual to the Secular: Domesticity, 1917-1947 80 3. The ‘Outside’ Transformed 122 4. Ordering the Woman’s Domain 165 5. The Search for Order and Justification, 1920-47 220 Conclusion 261 Bibliography 270 Acknowledgements This thesis derives ultimately from my participant-observation that was always intrigued by the contradictions and complexities of the Bengali middle-class mentality, particularly in the Calcutta. My association with academia tended to contribute a criticality to this interest. But it was the patience, encouragement and insightful advice of my supervisor, David Arnold, that helped the interest to materialise into a sustained PhD project. A Commonwealth scholarship at the Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, London and later, a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust provided the funding for this thesis. A study leave of three and a half years granted to me by my employers, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, enabled me to avail of the scholarship and complete the work. I am also grateful to my colleagues in the Department of History at Jadavpur for ungrudgingly bearing the extra burden of departmental duties that my long absence imposed on each of them. I should also take this opportunity to thank them for their valuable suggestions regarding source materials for my thesis. I am grateful to the staff of the British Library, the India Office Library and Records, the University of London Library and the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. I take this opportunity to particularly thank Dipali Ghosh of the India Office Library. I also thank the staff of the West Bengal State Archives, the National Library, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishat Library, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj Library, the Central Library, Jadavpur University and the Uttarpada Public Library. Raktim Sur, Baishali Datta and Kakofi Sinha Roy assisted me at different stages of my field-work in copying from source materials, too brittle to withstand xerographic reproduction; without their sincere assistance it would not have been possible for me to collect so much material in the short duration of my field-trip. I am deeply indebted to the numerous individuals, many of them octogenarians, who patiently agreed to be interviewed for hours in connection with this thesis. I thank all those families in Calcutta who gave me access to their cherished collection of personal memorabilia. Friends in London have helped me cope with the malaise of the isolating experience of thesis-writing. Baju and Zelpha have always enthusiastically welcomed my invasion of their time and household. I am also particularly indebted to Vibhuti, Joydeep, Erika, Supriya, Jane, Antigoni, Lopa, Anindita, John, Salima, Mustafa, Tanmoy, Ara, Sanjukta, Bhaswati, Charu, Subhadra, Aishwaij, Ajay, Rashmi, Amit, Jayati, Manjari, Suhit and Daud. Tanmoy, Ara, Daud, Subhadra, Charu and Sanjukta have, moreover, given valuable comments on the drafts 6 of the different chapters of this thesis. The responsibility for errors in the work, however, is entirely mine. Debdas has borne all the inconvenience of single-handedly managing our home in Calcutta so that I could devote all my time to the thesis. Arka has bravely endured two long stretches of separation from his mother. The two big family-circles - parental and adoptive (by marriage) - that I belong to have been unfailing sources of encouragement. My mother and mother-in-law have been two of the greatest sources of strength and inspiration for me. Finally, this thesis would never have been completed without Bonti shielding Arka from the stark reality of my absence with her soothing presence. London Sudeshna Baneijee 1997 Abbreviations ABP Amrita Bazar Patrika BE Bengali Era BLAP Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings BPTUC Bengal Provincial Trade Union Congress CMC The Calcutta Municipal Corporation CMG Calcutta Municipal Gazette EPW Economic and Political Weekly UDHG Unpublished Diary of Hemendraprasad Ghosh WBSA West Bengal State Archives RCRC-1920 Report o f the Committee Appointed to Enquire into Land Values and Rents in Calcutta , 1920. IESHR Indian Economic and Social History Review Glossary abhijata/abhijata bhadralok: big zamindars and other Calcutta notables adharma: antithesis of dharma andar: segregated women’s quarter in the Bengali household artha: wealth; material resources ashrama: any one of the stages into which the Vedic texts divided the human life-cycle in this world badhu: bride bahir: the outside; the world outside the women’s apartment battala: the world of inexpensive presses in Calcutta bhadralok: a social group whose gentility was defined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in terms of upper-caste status, (often) a zamindari or an intermediary tenurial right in land and abstention from manual labour brahmacharya: abstinence from sensual pleasure; abstinence from sex before and outside marriage chakri; office work, predominantly understood as clerical chakure/chakre: one who subsists on chakri dashakarma: Brahmanical life-cycle rituals dharma: the totality of duties determined by one’s station in the Vedic cosmological understanding of life garhasthya: domesticity; the stage of marital-reproductive existence of the male goonda: a blanket description by the police of criminals comprising smugglers, thieves, pick pockets, cocaine-dealers and toughs gotra: a clan-like unit which shares the name of an original Brahman priest-preceptor grhadharma: dharma of the householder grhalakkhi: housewife idealised as goddess Lakkhi grhastha: (male) householder; middle class