REDEFINING SILENCE AND SELF-REPRESENTATION: A DISQUISITION ON FEMALE RESISTANCE IN COLONIAL INDIA THROUGH A FEMINIST LENS

Abstract

“How are we fallen! fallen by mistaken rules,

And Education’s more than Nature’s fools;

Debarred from all improvements of the mind,

And to be dull, expected and designed;

And if someone would soar above the rest,

With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed,

So strong the opposing faction still appears,

The hopes to thrive can ne’er outweigh the fears.”

(Virginia Woolf, 1929)

The paper endeavours to construct a social and legal discourse through ‘history from below’ and theory of social representations. This work would primarily focus on an autobiography, ‘Amar Jiban’ by Rashsundari Devi and a collection of Indian stories entitled, ‘Love and Life behind the Purdah’ penned by Cornelia Sorabji. The exploits displayed through their works reflects courage, strength and a revolutionary spirit as their struggles were unique in their own way. Amar Jiban is the first autobiography written by a Bengali woman, “and very probably, the first full-scale autobiography in the Bengali language.” Rashsundari Devi’s work belonged to a time when it was considered a ‘sin’ for women to be literate. Rashsundari became a widow at fifty-nine and she finished the first version of her autobiography the next year, in 1868. She added a second part and a new version came out in the year 1897, when she was eighty eight.

The other work that the paper would refer to is of Cornelia Sorabji, the first female graduate from Bombay University; the first woman to study Law at the prestigious Oxford University  and she was the first female advocate in India and was also the first woman to practice Law even in Britain. She emerged as a ‘Woman of many accomplishments’ during a time when her being a female acted as an obstruction at achieving her passion and dream, not only in India, but in England as well. Cornelia Sorabji advocated for various social reforms that were mainly centred on women, like education for girls, legal rights for women subject to seclusion (purdahnashins), abolition of child marriage, and voiced strongly for protection and support for widows.

The female voice in women’s writings provides insights and perspectives which are of profound importance as far as issues related to gender are concerned. Their compelling narratives would be a formidable tool to understand and analyse the idea of identity, sexuality, marriage, family, social life and legal status during colonial India. The literary masterpieces would be used in the context of various social and legal reforms of the period that had an impact on women during the period. It would also explore their journey of ‘transgression’ that continues to provide an inspiration to women in contemporary times knowingly (in case of Cornelia Sorabji) or unknowingly (Rashsundari Devi).