Women writers & education

The book explores the various ways in which women in India responded to education, especially English education, and the efforts they took to step out of the traditional space society enforced on them.

I N her introduction to Influence of English on Indian Women Writers: Voices from Regional Languages , the book’s editor, K. Suneetha Rani, presents a comprehensive bird’s-eye view of the English discourse in India in the 19th and early 20th centuries to throw light on how the education of women was discussed and debated from different perspectives, with the main focus on English education.

She points out how a dichotomy was created when women were provided English education to make them better wives, daughters and daughters-in-law where previously they had been denied education because it was felt that it would corrupt them and lead to the collapse of the institution of the family. Thus, voices raised for and against English education targeted the domesticity of women.

Citing women writers, Suneetha Rani shows how women took to English to use it as a weapon against prejudices and a way towards change. Although English education did not immediately bring about any significant change in the status of women or remove social evils and prejudices, it threw open new areas of knowledge and skill.

The introduction serves as an excellent backdrop to the 12 essays in the volume that examine the English discourse and the woman question from different angles as put forth by women in their writings. The volume also discusses movements that influenced women’s issues in the regional context and their response in different languages and genres.

In the first chapter, “Language, Reform and Nationalism: Indian Women’s Writing in the Nineteen Century”, C. Vijayasree probes the subtexts of the books written by 19th century women writers to show how they were influenced by the dominant discourses of their time. She supports her argument by analysing Swarnakumari Devi’s Kahake and Shevantibai Nikambe’s novel Ratanbai: A Sketch of a Bombay High Caste Hindu Young Wife.

In the next chapter, titled “Women of Reform”, Alladi Uma addresses the question of “education as reform” for women with a special focus on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She compares Dasigal Mosavalai ( Web of Deceit , 1938) in Tamil by Muvalur Ramamirthammal (who was born in a non-devadasi family but forced into prostitution) and two books in English, My Experience as a Legislator (1930) and Autobiography (1964), by Dr S. Muthulakshmi Reddy (who was born of a devadasi mother and a Brahmin father) to Kanyasulkam (1897/1909), a Telugu play on the evil practice of child marriage by Gurajada Appa Rao (a Brahmin male writer interested in social reform). She makes the point that education made housewives better and helped devadasis free themselves from “institutionalised slavery and exploitation” and that men took to reforming courtesan women to save the man and the family woman.

The seventh chapter, “Writing Self: Writing for others”, also examines these two books by Muthulakshmi Reddy. Paromita Bose presents Muthulakshmi Reddy as a doctor, legislator and social worker in an attempt to understand the close connection between her personal life, her identity and her involvement in the women’s movement.

In the third chapter, “Colonised: The Bengali Woman Writer in British India”, Sanjukta Dasgupta draws the reader’s attention to the fact that women’s lack of education was because of male preferences and priorities and on conservative casteism and religious affiliations. She presents the life and career graphs of the women activist writers Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Swarnakumari Devi (Rabindranath Tagore’s elder sister) to show that their ability to read and write in English empowered them and enabled them “to traverse intellectually and linguistically beyond the cultural lines of control”.

In the next essay as well, “Rokeya’s Dream: Feminist Interventions and Utopias”, Somadatta Bhattacharya uses relevant biographical details of Rokeya Hossain to illustrate how women through their writings and activities challenged the nationalist discourse and the colonial hegemony. The essay examines Rokeya Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream (1905) and Padmarag (1924). The author discusses Rokeya Hossain’s views and writings as an educator and feminist writer “that question both the colonial authority and nationalist deifications of Indian Woman” against the backdrop of a new woman who is neither Westernised nor vulgar and framed by the nation’s struggle against colonialism.

In the essay “Marathi Women Novelists and Colonial Modernity: Kashibai Kanitkar and Indirabai Sahasrabuddhe”, Meera Kosambi gives an account of Maharashtra’s social reform movement in the mid 19th century, which was an offshoot of English education, and reveals how in spite of it being treated as an entirely male project , there were a few literate and articulate women who through their fiction and non-fiction writings established a parallel discourse to the mainstream reform discourse. Meera Kosambi discusses the works of Kashibai and Indirabai that show what constituted their vision of a better future for women. Her main argument is that these writers through their writings gifted to Marathi literature the concept of gender equality.

In the essay “Mukta Salve: The Early Emergence of a Protest Voice in Mid-nineteenth Century Bombay Presidency 1855”, Omprakash Manikrao Kamble discusses the situation in the mid 19th century when disadvantaged sections of society voiced their protest against social hegemonies and demanded education, specifically, English education. He focusses on Mukta Salve, a 14-year-old girl who studied only up to the third standard, and her pioneering essay on the plight of Mahars and Mangs of the Bombay Presidency. Mukta Salve’s essay is used as the point of reference to explain the discourse of education and hegemony that influenced colonial modernity as it proved to be a significant point in the Dalit movement and for modern education in India.

Mukta Salve was taught and trained by both Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule and grew up to be highly philosophical and thoughtful. Her essay made people criticise the attitude of upper castes towards lower castes.

In the essay “Reconfiguring Boundaries: Education, Modernity and Conjugality in Lalithambika Antharjanam’s Agnisakshi & Zeenuth Futehally’s Zohra”, Jinju S. analyses the impact of education on the lives of women in the pre-Independence India of the 20th century by comparing Lalithambika Antharjanam’s famous Malayalam novel Agnisakshi (1977) and Zeenuth Futehally’s Zohra (1951), one of the earliest novels in Indian Muslim women’s writing in English.

The protagonist of Agnisakshi , Devaki, is from a Namboodiri family, and Zohra is an upper-class Hyderabadi Muslim woman. Both are well-educated and enthusiastic about learning, but their marriages stand in the way of their quest for knowledge. Jinju is of the opinion that it is hard to say whether Devaki and Zohra would have found happiness in their married life if they had been uneducated or had not gone against tradition. But English education did broaden their minds and changed the way they perceived life and the world, leading to dissatisfaction and doubts. The essence of disagreement between tradition and modernity in relation to the women’s question is “the female need for choice and personal expression outside the roles defined for them”.

In the ninth chapter, “Securing Pass Marks: Education for women in the Early Modern Kannada Novel”, Nikhila H. discusses what education meant for women in the colonial period and how it represented a new femininity by following the course of the debates, discussions and pronouncements on the subject in four early novels in Kannada that represent different regions under different political units: Indirabai: Athava Saddharma Vijayavu (Gulvadi Venkat Rao, 1899), Indira (Kerur Vasudevacharya, 1908), Sadguni Krishnabai:Uttama Gruhini (Shantabai Neelagara, 1908) and Nabha (Nanjanagud Tirumalamba, 1914).

The protagonists of the four novels are educated women; the objective third person narrative at no point describes their thoughts or the inner musings. The setting is symbolic with no specific place or time and the characters are representative of ideas. There are no inner conflicts and confusions arising out of new ideas and new modes of thinking. These novels, Nikhila says, show “what education made of the woman, but… not what she made of education”. Her focus is on what was considered appropriate for women in the name of modern education, how women were expected to transform through the new modes of learning and make visible its impact on them.

The essay “Women and English Education in Coorg/Kodagu: A Discussion of Alternate Modernities during 1834-1882” by Sowmya Dechamma C.C. talks about why and how Coorgs were open to giving their daughters an English education at a time when mainstream nationalists were questioning whether even boys should be given such an education. It discusses how different communities understood and adopted modernities differently.

Yogitha Shetty’s essay, “Nation, Ideal Womanhood and English Education: Revisiting the First Tulu Novel, Sati Kamale”, is an analysis of the dominant Hindu nationalist sentiments recounted in the first Tulu novel, Sati Kamale (1921) by Paniyadi. The novel criticises the colonial modernity introduced to the natives of South Canara in the form of English education. It is full of debates and discussions on nationalism that were used in the attempt to make young men want to sacrifice their lives for their country, but its main ideology is “the mystical notion of female virtue and power appended by indigenous/desi education”.

All that is evil in the society, according to Sati Kamale and Paniyadi, springs from the Westernisation process brought about by the foreign education system. Although the novel speaks for women’s education, it favours desi education only.

Dfficulties in learning English

Jasbir Jain’s essay, “Between Language and Parole: The Forked Road to Development”, delineates the common difficulties in learning English, especially in the context of rural India or the deprived sections of society. It talks of the numerous purposes for which a language is learnt and how accessibility is not equal or same for all. Beginning with the issues relating to the individual, the writer moves to classroom learning and then to globalisation, raising many critical questions regarding language and education.

The author concludes that it is necessary to be bilingual to make one’s presence felt. But learning a new language is difficult because the home environment and the conditions required for learning are different. Serious efforts at social and governmental levels would alone bridge the gap between the two. “The inspiration exists; it is ambition that needs to be stirred to match the potential with the dream.”

Influence of English on Indian Women Writers not only records the various ways in which women from different sections of society responded to education, especially English education, but also the efforts they took to step out of the traditional space society enforced on them.