Corso di Laurea magistrale in Lingue e Letterature Europee, Americane Postcoloniali Tesi di Laurea Pandita Ramabai, the High-Caste Hindu woman who gave voice to Indian women’s appeal The most controversial Indian woman of her times, Sanskrit scholar, social reformer, Christian convert who tried to improve women’s life with her unique life path Relatrici Ch.ma Prof.ssa Sara De Vido Ch.ma Prof.ssa Bruna Bianchi Laureanda Elisabetta Bernardi Matricola 829467 Anno Accademico 2019 / 2020 Pandita Ramabai, the High-Caste Hindu woman who gave voice to Indian women’s appeal The most controversial Indian woman of her times, Sanskrit scholar, social reformer, Christian convert who tried to improve women’s life with her unique life path 1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1 1. Ramabai’s early life and the becoming of Pandita Saraswati .......................... 7 2. First reform activity in Maharashtra and the publication of Stri Dharma Niti (1882) .............................................................................................................. 18 2.1. Stri Dharma Niti (Morals for Women 1882) ............................................ 22 3. Ramabai’s voyage to England and the meeting with Christ ............................ 31 4. Ramabai’s American period and her reforming agenda in The Hight-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) .................................................................................... 50 4.1. The High Caste Hindu Woman ............................................................... 54 4.1.1 Chapter I, Prefatory Remarks . ......................................................... 57 4.1.2 Chapter II, Childhood . ..................................................................... 58 4.1.3 Chapter III, Married Life . ................................................................ 61 4.1.4 Chapter IV, Woman's place in Religion and Society . ...................... 64 The Rakhmabai Case . ............................................................................... 67 4.1.5 Chapter V, Widowhood . ................................................................... 72 4.1.6 Chapter VI, How the condition of women tells upon society . .......... 81 4.1.7 Chapter VII, The Appeal . ................................................................. 84 5. Ramabai’s return to Maharashtra and the opening of the Sharada Sadan ……………………………………………………………………………….88 6. Ramabai’s Mukti Mission and the last years of activity ................................... 99 7. Ramabai’s legacy, her testimony today and final conclusion ........................ 122 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 129 WEBOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 133 FILMOGRAPHY ................................................................................................ 133 Introduction One of the biggest challenges I have faced is trying to delineate an honest and sincere portrait of a multifaceted figure like Pandita Ramabai, analysing her adventurous life, her multiple activities and social engagement but, above all, her incredible mission and passion for Indian women’s rights. This particular topic has always been a dearest one to me, an issue which continues to resonate in my head and that I face every day in every field of life; growing up and developing a personal opinion about my gender and how it is perceived and treated by our society I have become more and more passionate about the great, but often hidden personalities of incredible women who were able to make a change, giving women a voice when they were not heard, creating a path to follow for future generations, fighting against the restrictions and the limits of their society. In my research, which focuses in particular on Indian women and their long and constant struggle for their social improvement and the recognition of their rights, I have been lucky enough to “meet” Pandita Ramabai, through her own writings and the incredible work of Dr. Meera Kosambi1, a recognised Indian sociologist and one of the most eminent scholars who studied and wrote about Pandita Ramabai, her incredible life and her multiple achievements. I concentrated my study on Kosambi’s latest, and unfortunately last work2, published posthumously in 2016, which traces a clear and comprehensive biography of the Indian reformer, including some of her most important writings and letters, extremely interesting in order to fully understand Ramabai’s perspective and feelings. 1 Meera Kosambi (1939-2015) was an important sociologist and retired as a Professor and Director, Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT University, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. She was trained in India, Sweden, and the USA, and specialized in urban studies and women’s studies. 2 Meera Kosambi, “Pandita Ramabai, Life and landmark writings”, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2016, 308 pages. 1 In my work I will try to delineate and describe the most important phases of her life, mainly following Dr. Kosambi’s analysis and works, in an attempt to give a brief, but exhaustive presentation of this great woman, her revolutionary impact on India social reforms and her role in the colonial and feminist spheres. Dr. Kosambi argued that Ramabai’s exclusion from the social histories and reform discourses on Western India has to be found not in her adult conversion to Christianity, as many are tempted to think, but in her feminism so she tried to present Pandita giving voice to her own words, letting her present herself to the reader through some of her most important writings and, at the same time, tracing her ideological and social impact considering the various contexts where she was active. The eminent scholar then underlined the exceptional role played by this incredible Indian woman who, despite being alone and unaided by the political and social figures of her time, was able to identify and define with accuracy, precision and consistently the issues of Indian women, which had been considered and described as a sort of oriental cliché to the Western audience. The multiple trajectories of Pandita’s life, her feminism and the development of her ideologies converged and, in many occasions, crushed with the structures of religion, patriarchy, nationalism and internationalism, which made the analysis and the description of her existence and, above all, of her achievements in the social field, very complex, challenging but, at the same time, fascinating. In the introduction to her last work3, Kosambi stresses the “unique pattern”4 of Ramabai’s life as she was born into a pan-Indian, orthodox, Sanskritic, Hindu family then, when she was only six months old her parents started a long pilgrimage which would take the family to travel across India. When she was a young woman in her 20s, she went to live in Maharashtra where tried to find her own place in the community. In her adult years she started giving voice to her personal need for religious research because she became acquainted with the most important reformist monotheistic religious movements of the time, the Brahmo Semaj5 in Bengal and 3 Ibidem, Introduction, pp. 1-5 4 Ibidem, Introduction, pp. 2 5 Brahmo Samaj, (Sanskrit: “Society of Brahma”) Brahmo also spelled Brahma, theistic movement within Hinduism, founded in Calcutta [now Kolkata] in 1828 by Ram Mohun Roy. The Brahmo Samaj 2 Prarthana Semaj6 in Maharashtra. After her husband’s death, when she was in her mid-twenties, she decided to leave India in order to study in England, where she also converted to Christianity. Her international activities then moved to the U.S.A., a country which welcomed her giving her the financial aid and the support she needed to start her project of a residential school for upper-caste Indian girls, especially young widows, in her native India. After three years in America and a long journey back, also visiting Japan, Ramabai returned to India and started her activity. In the meanwhile, she had described her long staying in America and her various and distant journeys to foreign countries in both English and Maharathi, gaining the interest of her American and Indian audience. In addition, the considerable amount of economic resources she had been given for her cause during her successful sojourn in the U.S.A., helped her gain a better position and a sort of recognition among the public leaders of Maharashtra, who had strongly criticised her religious conversion, so she could run her residential home within the Hindu society. Ramabai’s school offered a chance for emancipation to upper-caste Hindu women, giving them the means to improve their situation and free themselves from the social, but especially familiar oppression they suffered. From a geographical and spatial point of view, Pandita’s biography takes the reader from the heart of British colonial empire, her native India, to its administrative centre, England, then to the U.S., to other peripheral and distant countries like Japan and Australia. does not accept the authority of the Vedas, has no faith in avatars (incarnations), and does not insist on belief in karma (causal effects of past deeds) or samsara (the process of death and rebirth). It discards Hindu rituals and adopts some Christian practices in its worship. Influenced by Islam and Christianity, it denounces polytheism, image worship, and the caste system. The