3. 'Social Reform'

, A f) 3. 'Social Reform' The liberal and democratic ideals of the Enlightenment in Eu- rope have usually been cited by historians as the inspiration for 'social reforms' initiated in nineteenth century India. Susie Tharu and K.Lalita point out that these reforms have often been viewed as arising not out of "the politics of exploitation or oppression" but from "an ethical concern for regeneration."1 Yet the extraordinary energy with which the colonial intelligentsia debated questions of social reform concerning women, for example sati, widow remarriage or child marriage, i.e. issues which concerned primarily upper caste, middle class women, cannot be under- stood as separate from, and indeed is deeply embedded in, the wider changes in the political economy of colonial India. The de-industrialisation of India that transformed it from a manufacturing nation into a raw material producer, the assign- ment of property rights to zamindars that underwrote their feudal powers and reduced the rights of tenants, the develop- ment of enclaves of capital in plantations and mines, the active discouragement of industry, and the constant effort of the British to widen their circle of indigenous collaborators — these are somp of the event? *b*1 fonm the context for the period of "social reform". These transformations in the economy produced serious realignments in the nature of the family and in gender relations. Alongside these material changes, the ideology of the patriarchal nuclear family gained ground through the efforts of colonial administrators, missionaries and educators. The ideal of companionate marriage, for example, took root amongst those classes of Indians who received a colonial education and began to staff the imperial machine, the emerging Indian intelligentsia. As the nineteenth century wore on, the early optimism of liberal intellectuals such as Ram Mohun Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar gave way to a growing disillusionment with the 50 WOMEN AND LAW IN COLONIAL INDIA 'Social Reform' and the Women's Question * 51 progressive potential of British rule in India. This disenchant- but later made shifts, accommodations, and even took lessons ment with the limited opportunities offered by colonialism de- from the more absolute forms of patriarchal domination in India. veloped a strand of nationalism which^anika Sarkar has called Fearful of the limited, but significant, advances made by British "nationalist revivalist." rationalist revivalism regarded the women in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as well as the household, and specifically conjugality, as "the last independent increasing clamour for constitutional changes by Indians them- space left to the colonised Hindu".2 Indian patriarchy was there- selves, the colonial zeal for reform was considerably diluted at fore recast to reflect some of these contradictory ideals, offering the turn of the century. Analyses which pay attention to these women new responsibilities towards race and nation and new compulsions complicate our understanding of social reform, opportunities for education, producing the middle class Indian clearly acknowledging limitations so that reform may no longer woman as the bearer of an Indian tradition, a spiritualised, be seen as unequivocally "good" for women in particular or uncolonised Other who could be deployed as part of the combat- Indian society as whole, but as instituting new possibilities even ive arsenal of nationalist politics. Viewed in this light, the efforts as it defined new boundaries. of early Indian reformers more appropriately constitute the A more serious challenge to the long-held notion of the nine- bridgehead of cultural nationalism. The nationalists, as Partha teenth century as the century of "social reform" has arisen from Chatterjee has remarked, established their hegemony over the 3 the increasing attention paid to the writings of women of the home even before they launched their political battles. period. Women's writings rarely reflected the same concerns as Yet the separation of the spheres of the public and private, those which so seriously engaged their male counterparts in the hegemonised by the colonialists and nationalists respectively, earlier part of the century. Legislation was never seen as an cannot be exaggerated. A formulation like this cannot account adequate mode of transforming Indian society, and the institu- for the fact that the colonisers also protected their own private/ tion of marriage, however democratised, was not always con- domestic sphere, especially the domain of women, from the ceived as the only framework for the resolution of women's indigenous population even if it went against prevailing prac- problems. The wiitings therefore provide fresh insights on the tices in Britain itself. Second, and more important, such a formu- emerging subjectivities of women, enabling a far sharper evalua- lation cannot account for the willingness of the British to inter- tion of the nineteenth century impulse to reform. cede in the domain so well protected by the nationalists, as it did in restoring the conjugal rights of Dadaji in the famous Rakhmabai Imperialism and a critique of Indian womanhood case of the late nineteenth century. The colonial judicature often The bulk of the early productions of British writers were aimed intervened to preserve Indian patriarchy, and sometimes to chal- at highlighting the peculiarities of Hindu tradition and espe- lenge it, as the case law seems to suggest. Finally, the modalities cially the "barbarities" to which the Indian woman was subject. of power in the princely states were quite different from ihc A strategy which was followed by nearly all imperial poweis in areas under direct British rule, and the willingness of indigenous the nineteenth century was the denigration of politically and bureaucracies to enter the field of social reform through legisla- economically subjugated cultures by foregrounding the position tion, where the colonial State feared to tread, led to a far less of women in those societies, compared with the more obvious defined separation of private and public domains. freedoms of the European woman. This was done by singling More recent scholarship also analyses competing discourses out the most extraordinary of cultural practices for attention, on particular issues4 to trace the commonalities between the which were then taken as emblematic of the culture as a whole, ways in which colonialists, nationalist reformers and traditional and worthy of reform. intellectuals addressed questions concerning the status of women. In India, the most obvious practice which warranted the early The British reformers in the early part of the nineteenth century reforming attention of colonial and missionary authorities was were confident of their legal authority in transforming the social, the practice of widow immolation, to which Hindu religious 52 WOMEN AND LAW IN COLONIAL INDIA 'Social Reform' and the Women's Question 53 ideology had attached great symbolic value and reinscribed as The abolition of sati sati. Excessive reformist concern with widow immolation in Widow immolation held peculiar fascination for the colonial India bore remarkable resemblance to the early expressions of official not just because there was a particular horror attached to horror by Western missionaries when they encountered the Chi- a woman being publicly burnt alive, but since the practice ap- nese practice of curtailing female mobility through footbinding. peared to enjoy the sanction of the sastras. Halhed's version of In a similar fashion, the practices of veiling and clitoridectomy in the digest for use by English judges concluded its chapter on the the Arab world and the North African region was the focus of duties of women by saying: much colonial concern. The focussed attacks of the Evangelicals, Utilitarians and It is proper for a woman, after her husband's death, to burn Anglicists in India were on those practices which were declared herself in the fire with his corpse; every woman who thus indicative of the sexual depravities of the Indian people. Fore- burns herself shall remain in Paradise with her husband 3 most among these Were the early age of marriage, the multiplic- crores and 50 lakhs of years by destiny; if she cannot bum, ity of wives or husbands and in some Indian households, the she must in that case preserve an inviolable chastity, if she always remains chaste, she goes to paradise, and if she mysteries of the zenana or women's quarters. Even more strik- 5 ing to the colonial observers was the fact that those practices does not preserve her chastity she goes to hell. which appeared particularly unjust to women had their roots in For a long time, the British refused to legislate on sati, fearful pervasive Indian notions about the insatiable sexual appetites of of social revolt. Yet this was at odds with its self-proclaimed role women. Thus, upper caste fears about the incorrigible sexuality as the force that introduced "civilisation" to India. Therefore, of widows led to the imposition of extraordinary constraints and one early compromise was to make an elaborate distinction regulations on the lives of these women. between'good' (scripturally sanctioned) and 'bad' sati. The conviction that interference with religious practices of the The first recorded enquiry about the practice took place in indigenous people would be to risk the continuation of British 1789. In exactly forty years the practice was outlawed.6 Widow rule in India, (a matter of grave concern to the earliest colonial immolation was outlawed in Calcutta proper from as early as authorities) often yielded, as British rule became more secure, to 1798 because the city fell under the jurisdiction of British Law. direct and forceful interventions in the social life of Indians. In M.H.Brooke, the Collector of Shahabad, uncertain about the part, this was enabled by the emergence of the Indian middle status of regions beyond Calcutta, prohibited the burning of a class which recognised the need for reform in their social prac- widow and sought approval for his action.

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