Ingole, Anagha, ‘Imagining a New Ethic of Sociality: The Non-Brahmin Educated Woman in 19th-Century Western India’, Sage Journals, Vol 58, Issue no. 13, April 1, 2023
While many scholars have discussed how subaltern literature has challenged and helped us imagine a new version of history, Anagha Ingole’s article deciphers the writings of three non-Brahmin educated women, whose writings, distinct from Brahmin writings of their time questioned the dominant narrative of womanhood in historiographies. The author explains that these women, through a writing style different from that of upper-caste women of that period, broke away from concepts of tradition, nationality and culture on the one hand, and liberalism and modernity on the other.
Two readings of womanhood
In the 19th century, two contrasting perspectives on Indian womanhood emerged. The European viewpoint perceived women in India as confined by Brahminical orthodoxy and Hindu traditions, requiring reform. The reformist narrative aimed to modernise women, believing that introducing them to education and liberal enlightenment would guide society towards progress. Women became symbols of a society’s moral health.
However, nationalist historiography rejected such an understanding of Indian womanhood. It reimagined womanhood as emerging from colonial encounters while distinguishing it from the narratives of traditional memsahibs or lower-class/caste women. The new Indian woman became the protector of Indian culture and nationalism. Indian womanhood was the placeholder for the inner core of nationalism that was spiritual and cultural, distinct from the outer core of nationalism that dealt with state and political economy.
Yet, the author explains that both historiographies shared commonalities — they recognised the necessity of modernity and neglected women’s experiences. Even when their experiences were considered, the intersection of gender and caste was overlooked, limiting the narratives to upper-caste women’s experiences.
Scholars like Partha Chatterjee suggest that lower-caste women could not grasp the virtues of freedom. Their resistance against caste issues merged with anti-colonial narratives. While the woman’s question could not neglect lower-caste women’s experiences, it did not play a key role in shaping the intellectual discourse on womanhood. Hence, the onus of telling the Dalit experience and its difference and relevance in the overall narrative around womanhood shifted to Dalit feminist scholars.
Changing the narrative
The author clarifies that it was not as if women never wrote and shared their narratives. But Brahmin or upper-caste women typically adhered to a set pattern, writing autobiographies that downplayed their roles and emphasised domesticity. In contrast, non-Brahmin feminist writers like Savitribai Phule, Tarabai Shinde, and Mukta Salve broke conventions in their writing forms and included non-conventional and explosive topics of discussion, questioned the societal norms of patriarchy and discussed caste discrimination.
Savitribai Phule chose poetry and verses as her form of writing. Education, women’s liberty and oppression of the lower castes were recurrent themes. Even when she used literary conventions, she would write on non-conventional subjects. She used the powada (a poetic metre to sing the glory of warriors/kings) to write about the English language and twisted prayer forms to speak of the injustice done to the untouchable Shudra castes. Mukta Salve wrote about how the Peshwas tormented the Mangs and Mahars and her hope for liberation.
Tarabhai Shinde, although constrained by language limitations, fearlessly expressed her views as a writer, offering critiques of orthodox male writers and challenging patriarchy and its deep-seated connections to religion, caste, and societal norms — an unexplored territory in the country’s literary landscape.
As these writers were not conventional when it came to their writing forms or subjects, their works often encountered scepticism.
Reimagining the role of education
One of the most important features of their writing was their approach to the meaning of education.
Initially wary of education due to their anxiety around caste purity, Brahmins eventually recognised its importance for government jobs, prosperity, and social status. To reconcile this conflict, Brahmins conveniently separated the inner and outer spheres, finding new justifications for their engagement with the English language and education. In parallel, as education became a means to ascend the social and economic ladder, it had become attractive to non-Brahmin communities as well. This limited non-Brahmin aspirations towards education to the Brahmin’s utilitarian conception of education.
But while Savitribai Phule supported English education, it was not just as a means of expanding employment prospects. Education was enabling, it helped one look at their past critically, gave non-Brahmins access to history, and also helped them to communicate with other non-Brahmins. English education helped challenge the position given to non-Brahmins in society as the mythical history that limited their possibilities and capabilities was no longer blindly internalised as facts.
Mukta Salve looked at education as a way of healing from the caste oppression that her community had endured and hoped that it would create a new morality, distinct from that created by the Brahmins.
Thus, education in non-Brahmin women’s writings had a different motivation from that of orthodox Brahmins. It had the power to heal, and the ability to transform the inner spiritual world characterised by caste hierarchy and question the interpretation of history.
Attacking double-standards
While Tarabhai Shinde does not dwell on the subject of education in depth, she points out the double standards of men who prohibit women’s education, as they can easily step in and out of tradition. The writings by these women discuss how the deplorable condition of women and non-Brahminical castes is woven into religious beliefs and practices. Orthopraxy (right action) and orthodoxy complement each other when it comes to women. They explain how the 19th century was a period when men were seen to be glorious in every aspect, while women were considered to be a negative influence, an object to be owned and a force to be tamed with physical and psychological violence. Prohibition on remarriage, the lack of independence, and the crude restrictions on widowed women were examples of this.
Tarabhai Shinde’s writings stand out as one of the strongest voices among non-Brahmin women to challenge this structure. Taking the examples of honourable women in the Shastras, she explains how women are vilified and belittled for vices they cannot overcome. She points out that such vilification is not limited to a single woman but stree jati as a whole within the Brahminical order. These writers appeal to society to understand how it denies women humanity, treats them as unequal and subjects them to violence.
They point out the hypocrisy in men’s ability to transcend the orthopraxy of religion, while rules for women become stricter. Men could corrupt dharma by working under the British or travelling across the seas, while women were expected to uphold traditions and cultures and in general, hold the fort. These writers demand consistency and equality for women in resisting the orthopraxy in Hinduism.
Through the writings of three non-Brahminical women, the author discusses a subaltern narrative of womanhood that defies looking at women as symbols of the moral health of society or as flag-bearers of nationalism and culture. And in doing so, she shows how writings of non-Brahminical feminist scholars, unlike that of Brahminical women, asserted a position for womanhood in history by reimagining the morality of Hindu society and challenging the notion of women being mere subjects for liberal law and education to act upon.
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