[1 ]Sumit Sarkar, "Women's Question in Nineteenth Century Bengal" in A Critique
of Colonial Reason (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1985) 71-76. See also Ghulam
Murshid, Reluctant Debutante Response of Bengali Women to Modernization,
1849-1905 (Rajshahi: Rajshahi UP, 1983).
[2 ]This line of argument has been elaborated by Partha Chatterjee, "Nationalist
Resolution of the Women's Question" in K. Sangari & Sudesh Vaid eds.
Recasting Women (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990) 233-253. Also see
"The Nation and Its Women" and "Women and the Nation" in his The Nation and
Its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993) 116-134; 135-157.
[3 ]Tanika Sarkar, "The Hindu Wife and Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism
in Nineteenth Century Bengal" in Studies in History, 8, 2, n.s. (1992)
213. In several other articles too Tanika Sarkar challenges the thesis that the
Indian nationalists had resolved the women's question. See her articles,
"Rhetoric Against Age of Consent Resisting Colonial Reason and Death of a
Child-Wife" in Economic and Political Weekly, Sept. 4, (1993) 1869-1878;
"Book of Her Own. A Life of Her Own: Autobiography of a Nineteenth-Century
Woman" in The History Workshop Journal, Issue 36, (1993) 35-65.
[4 ]A general consensus exists among scholars on this issue. See for example,
Meredith Borthwick, Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849-1905
(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984). Other scholars such as Partha Chatterjee and
Dipesh Chakrabarty have largely subscribed to this argument.
[5 ]See Partha Chatterjee, "Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question" in
Recasting Women, op. cit.
[6 ]The Bengali middle-class ideologues envisioned the "new woman" as one
embodying the nurturing, sacrificing virtues of the ideal Hindu wife and mother
as well as fulfilling the help-mate role of the Victorian lady. See Meredith
Borthwick, Changing Role of Women In Bengal 1849-1905 (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1984).
[7 ]Some of the British domestic economy manuals are A New System of Practical
Domestic Economy and Servants (London, 1823); Mrs. William Parkes'
Domestic Duties or Instructions to Young Married Ladies on the Management of
their Households (London, 1825); Mrs. Isabella Beeton's Beeton's Book of
Household Management, (London, 1861); Beeton's The Domestic Service
Guide (London, 1865); G. Oram, Master's and Servants (London, 1858);
The Book of Domestic Duties, London, 1865; Emma F. Angell Drake's
What a Young Wife Ought to Know (London, 1901). I thank Simonti Sen for
pointing out the resemblance between British and Bengali domestic economy
manuals.
[8 ]However, this is not to deny that there were a few texts which were addressed to Hindu women only.
[9 ]In the main body of the paper I have given the dates of publication of the
Bengali texts according to the English calendar. In the Bibiliography and
footnotes, I have retained the dates as shown in the texts which mostly
followed the Bengali calendar.
[10 ]It should be pointed out, however, that Islamic texts such as Maulana Ashraf
Ali's Bihishti Zewar were fundamentally different from the other advise
books that flourished in late nineteenth-early twentieth century Bengal. As
Barbara Daly Metcalf has argued, unlike the advise manuals, Bihishti Zewar
did not enhance the gender differences by upholding women's self-sacrifice
and making her the guardian of a moral world. Rather Ashraf Ali entrusted the
moral guardianship to anyone, man or woman, who abided by the essential
doctrines and standards of Islam through knowledge, discipline and
self-control. See Barbara Daly Metcalf, "Introduction" in Perfecting Women
Maulana Ashraf' Ali Thanawi's Bihishti Zewar (Berkeley: U of California P,
1990) 1-42.
[11 ]For a discussion on "new" family see Pradip Kumar Bose, "Sons of the Nation:
Child Rearing in the New Family" in Partha Chatterjee ed. Texts of Power
(Minneapolis/London: U of Minnesota P, 1995) 118-144.
[12 ]For example, for similar processes in England and France, see Theresa
Mcbride, The Domestic Revolution The Modernization of Household Service in
England and France 1820-1920 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1976); for
England, Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes Men and Women
of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991);
Also by Leonore Davidoff, The Best Circles: Society, Etiquette and the
Season (London: Croom Helm, 1973); for the United States, Mary P. Ryan,
The Empire of the Mother: American Writing About Domesticity (New York:
Harrington Park Press, 1982); for Japan, Kathleen B. Uno, "Women and Changes in
the Household Division of Labor" in Gail Lee Bernstein ed. Recreating
Japanese Women, 1600-1945 (Berkeley: U of California P, 1991) 1-29.
[13 ]For discussion along these lines see Ann Stoler, "Domestic Subversions and
Children's Sexuality" in Race and the Education of Desire (Durham,
London: Duke UP, 1995) 137-164; Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, "Below
Stairs: the Maid and the Family Romance" in The Politics and Poetics of
Transgression (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986) 149-170; James Clifford,
Predicament of Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1988).
[14 ]Partha Chatterjee has elaborated this point in his Nationalst Thought and
the Colonial World A Derivative Discourse? , op. cit. See also
Dipesh Chakrabarty, "The Difference-Deferral of (A) Colonial Modernity: Public
Debates on Domesticity in British Bengal" in History Workshop 36 (Autumn
1993) 1-34.
[15]It is important to point out that the women's
journals mentioned above were
primarily vehicles of Brahmo opinion and were directed towards women of Brahmo
families.
[16 ]The Brahmos were a Hindu reformist sect in nineteenth century Calcutta. The Brahmo religion was founded by Raja Rammohun Roy in the 1830's and professed
monotheism. Many of the early social reformers in Bengal who were at the
forefront of the social and cultural movements against oppression and
degradation of Indian women were Brahmos. Brahmos were both praised and
denounced by the orthodox faction for their liberalist, modern attitude towards
women and their emulation of Western life-styles.
[17 ]Keshabchandra Sen has also prescribed the ideal behavior towards servants in a tract called Sukhi Parivar [Happy Family] (Calcutta: Sadharan
Brahmo Samaj, 1886).
[18 ]Hilary Standing, Dependence and Autonomy Women's Employment and the Family in Calcutta, (London: Routledge, 1991) 67.
[19 ]Nirmala Banerjee, "Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and
Marginalization" in K. Sangari and Vaid eds. Recasting Women (ew
Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990) 269-302.
[20 ]Meredith Borthwick, op. cit., 198.
[21 ]For the British example, see Theresa M. McBride, The Domestic Revolution
The Modernization of Household Service in England and France 1820-1920 (New
York: Holmes and Meier, 1976) 18-33.
[22 ]Anandachandra Sen Gupta, "Parivar Barger Prati Kartavya"
("Responsibilities towards Members of the Family") in Grihinir Kartavya
(Calcutta: no date) 69. In the text the author uses the term chhotolok
to describe the servants. I have translated the term as persons of "low
birth". In Bengali, chhotolok suggests the opposite of
bhadralok, i.e. "respectable middle-class," and the term has a
pejorative connotation. All translations from Bengali are mine.
[23 ]Ambikacharan Gupta, Grihastha-Jivan, Amulya Jnan-Bhandar (Calcutta:
Udaycharan Paul, 1887) 24-27.
This article only contains a representative sample among the numerous manuals
which preached the moral behavior of women towards servants. A few examples
are---Surendranath Ray, Narir Swarga (n.d.); Kalimohan Bhattacharya,
Swami-Strir Kathopokathan (1330 B.S.); Uma Devi, Balika Jivana
(1334 B.S.); Nandalal Mukhopadhyaya, Swami-Stri (1340 B.S.).
[24 ]For a better understanding of this issue see Partha Chatterjee, Bengal
1920-1947 The Land Question, (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1984) Preface.
[25 ]The same paternalistic tone taken with servants is characteristic of other
colonial contexts, such as Northern Rhodesia, as well as of Victorian England.
For Northern Rhodesia, see Karen Tranberg Hansen, Distant Companions
Servants and Employers in Zambia, 1900-1985 (Ithaca/London: Cornell
University Press, 1989).
[26 ]Bouniceau-Gesmon , Domestiques et Maitres (Paris: 1896) p. 168. Cited
in Theresa M. McBride, The Domestic Revolution The Modernization of
Household Service in England and France 1820-1920 (New York: Holmes and
Meier, 1976) 24.
[27 ]Flora Annie Steel & G. Gardiner, The Complete Indian Housekeeper and
Cook (London: William Heinemann, 1909, 7th ed.) 3.
[28 ]Dinesh Chandra Sen, Grihasree (Calcutta: Gurudas Chattopadhyay &
Sons, 1324 B.S. 10th ed.) 103.
[29 ]Ibid., 104. "Beara" is a Indianized form of the word "bearer". The importance
of the "bearer" in the homes of British officials is evident in the detailed
descriptions contained in the domestic-economy manuals written for British
women in India. See for example, Flora Annie Steel & G. Gardiner, The
Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, op. cit., 56-62.
[30 ]Prasannamayi Debi, Sekalér Katha , in Antahpur (Jaistha,
1308 B.S.):107-110.
In her personal life Prasannamayi Debi was known for her kindness towards the
less privileged sections of the society. After her death, in the condolence
meeting that was held, her daughter cited several examples of her charity and
kindness towards the domestic servants in particular. See "Swargagata
Prasannamayi Debi" in Antahpur 4, no.6 (Ashad 1308 B.S.):130-131.
[31 ]Indira Debi Chaudhurani, Jivan-Katha (Life-Story), written between
1953-55; published in Ekkshan [Saradiya], (1399 B.S.) 90. Indira Debi
Chaudurani, in her father's side, belonged to the famous Thakur family of
Calcutta. Thakur family was one of the wealthy and intellectual families of old
Calcutta. It is the family of the famous poet Rabindranath Thakur (Better known
as Tagore in the West). Indira Debi-Chaudhurani is his niece.
[32 ]Binaybhusan Sarkar, "Amadér Adhunik Samaj Samvandhé Du-ti
Katha" in Bamabodhini Patrika (1328 B.S.):173-181.
[33 ]I borrow the term "distant companion" from Karen Tranberg Hansen, who uses this term to describe servants in Zambia in her work Distant Companions:
Servants and Employers in Zambia 1900-1985 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP,
1989).
[34 ]An example of servants wielding power over housewives can be gleaned from the writings of one contemporary woman. Speaking of the tolerance of the women
of the past, Hemanta Kumari Sen Gupta wrote that women of earlier generations
had to put up with a myriad of relatives living in the same household. She
described them as hard-working and efficient people who "performed all the
domestic chores themselves . . . . Some families had one or two maids who were
entrusted with the responsibility of child-care. The housewives feared the
maids just as they feared their sisters-in-law. Some of the maids were quiet
and affectionate. But some of them were querulous. They would drive the young
women crazy by torturing them in many ways. The wives bore with all these
secretly due to their stupidity. Many will be surprised to hear about the
tolerance of the wives of that time." --Hemanta Kumari Sen Gupta,
"Sekaler Ramani", in Antahpur (Baisakh, 1308 B.S.):82-89.
[35 ]A similar process was described in the context of nineteenth century England
by Theresa McBride, op. cit., 28-29.
[36 ]Late Banalata Debi, "Ramanir Paribarik o Samajik Kartavya" in Antahpur
6, no. 1(Baisakh 1310 B.S.): 9-13.
[37 ]Muktakeshi Debi, "Woman's Domestic Responsibilities" in Antahpur 4, no. 11 (Agrahayan 1308 B.S.): 251-256.
[38 ]Atul Chandra Sen, Swamir Patra (Calcutta: Chakrabarty, Chatterjee
& Co. Ltd., 1926) 36-37.
[39 ]Ibid., 103.
[40 ]"Nitisikshar Prakrista Upai" in Bamabodhini Patrika, no.368 (1302
B.S.):166-168.
[41 ]Rajanikanta Chattopadhyaya, Ramani Darpan (Calcutta, no date)
Introduction and 3-8.
[42 ]Ishan Chandra Basu, Jananir Kartavya (Calcutta: 1327 B.S.) 306.
A stronger condemnation of servants and their negative influence on children
was often articulated by women writers. See for example, Prasannatara Gupta in
"Strilokér Kartavya" in Mahila, Part 10 (Sravana 1310 B.S.):288;
Late Muktakeshi Debi's "Ramanir Garhasthya Kartavya" in Antahpur
(Agrahayana 1308 B.S.):251-256.
[43 ]See for example, Narishiksha, 2nd Part, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Victoria
Press, 1884) 148-151.
[44 ]The word dasi in Bengali literally means maid. It is also used as a
suffix or a last name of women born into non-Brahmin castes.
[45 ]Sibnath Sastri, Atmacarit (original in Bengali ) trans. by Suniti Devi and Nisith Ranjan Ray (Calcutta: Rddhi India, 1988) 15.
[46 ]Sibnath Sastri, "Grihadharma" (Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1881) Also republished in Sibnath Racanasamgraha (Calcutta: Saksharata Prakashan,
1979) 57.
[47 ]Ibid., 57.
[48 ]Satishchandra Chakrabarty, Lalana-Suhrid (Calcutta: 1254 1st ed.
B.S., 1307 B.S. 7th ed.) 99-100.
[49 ]Leonore Davidoff, "Class and Gender in Victorian England: The Case of Hannah
Cullwick and A.J. Munby" in Worlds Between Historical Perspectives on Gender
and Class (New York: Routledge, 1995) 103-154.
[ ] Rachel Meyer is a doctoral student in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Texas.
[50 ]See Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and
Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);
Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks
for `Indian' Pasts?" in Representations 47 (Winter 1992):1-26; Dipesh
Chakrabarty, "The Difference-Deferral of (a) Colonial Modernity: public debates
on domesticity in British Bengal" in History Workshop: A Journal of
Socialist and Feminist Historians 36 (Autumn 1993):1-34; Murshid Ghulam,
The Reluctant Debutante: Response of Bengali Women to Mosernization
(Rajshahi: Rajshahi University Press, 1983); Meredith Borthwick The
Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984); Gail Minault, "Sayyid Mumtaz `Ali and Tahzib
un-Niswan: Women's Rights in Islam and Women's Journalism in Urdu" in
Religious Controversy in British India, ed. Kenneth Jones (Buffalo: SUNY
Press, 1992).
[51 ]Chakrabarty, "The Difference-Deferral of (a) Colonial Modernity," 2.
[52 ]See Chatterjee, Chakrabarty 1992, 1993.
[53 ]For more information on religious and social reform movement in colonial
India see Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), Kenneth Jones, The New
Cambridge History of India, Vol III: Socio-religious Reform Movements in
British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Stephen Hay,
Sources of Indian Tradition: Volume Two Modern India and Pakistan (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
[54 ]Chatterjee, 118.
[55 ]See Nita Kumar, "Widows, Education and Social Change in Twentieth Century
Banaras," Economic and Political Weekly Vol 26(17) (1991):19-25.
[56 ]Ibid., 19.
[57 ]Chakrabarty, "The Difference-Defferal of (a) Colonial Modernity," 9.
[58 ]See Kumar, Ghulam, Borthwick, Margaret Urquarhart, Women of Bengal: A Study of the Hindu Pardanashins of Calcutta (Calcutta 1926),and Malavika
Karlekar, Voices from Within: Early Eprsonal Narratives of Bengali Women
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991).
[59 ]Karlekar, 59.
[60 ]Pandita Ramabai, The High-Caste Hindu Woman (Bombay: Maharastra State Board for Literature and Culture, 1981 reprint), 49.
[61 ]See Chatterjee, Chakrabarty 1992, 1993.
[62 ]Karlekar, 2.
[63 ]Parvati Athavale, My Story: The Autobiography of a Hindu Widow (New York: G.P. Putnam's, 1930), 134.
[64 ]Ibid., 146.
[65 ]Ibid., 147.
[66 ]Lata Mani, "Contentious Traditions," in Recasting Women: Essays in
Colonial History, ed. Sudesh Vaid and Kumkum Sangari (New Delhi: Kali for
Women, 1989), 118.
[67 ]Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India
(Berkeley:University of California Press, 1994), 85.
[68 ]See Minault.
[69 ]Mani, 90.
[70 ]Ibid., 102.
[71 ]Ibid., 105.
[72 ]Karlekar, 37.
[73 ]Sudhir Chandra, The Oppresive Present: Literature and Social Consciousness
in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), 96.
[74 ]Ibid., 74.
[75 ]Ibid., 96.
[76 ]See Chandra, Rosalind O'Hanlon, "Issues of Widowhood: Gender and in Colonial Western India," in Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday
Social Relations in South Asia, ed. Douglas Haynes and Gyan Prakash
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
[77 ]Chandra, 104.
[78 ]See O'Hanlon.
[79 ]See van der Veer.
[80 ]Chakrabarty, "Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History," 9.
[82]Chatterjee, 138.
[83]Ibid., 138.
[84]See Karlekar; Aparna Basu, "A Century's Journey: Women's Education in Western
India 1820-1920," in Socialism, Education and Women: Exploration in Gender
Identity, ed. Karuna Chanana (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1988); Srabashi
Ghosh, " `Birds in a Cage': Changes in Bengali Social Life as Recorded in
Autobiographies by Women," Economic and Political Weekly 21 (October
1986):WS 88-96; Meenakshi Mukerjee,The Unperceived Self: A Study of Five
Nineteenth-Century Biographies," in Socialisation, Education and Women:
Explorations in Gender Identity, ed. Karuna Chanana (New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 1988); Tanika Sarkar, "A Book of her Own. A Life of her Own:
autobiography of a nineteenth-century woman," History Workshop: A Journal of
Socialist and Feminist Historians 36 (Autumn 1993):35-64.
[86]See Kumar.
[87]O'Hanlon, 101.
[88]Basu, 75.
[89]Ibid., 76.
[90]Ramabai, 29.
[91]Ibid., 32.
[92]Ibid., 38.
[93]Ibid., 42.
[94]Ibid., 47.
[95]Ibid., 39.
[96]Athavale, 30.
[97]Ibid., 19.
[98]Ibid., 51.
[99]Ibid., 52.
[100]Ibid., 21.
[101]See Mani, O'Hanlon.
[ ] Yvette C. Rosser is a doctoral student in the Department
of Curriculam and Instruction at the University of Texas.
[102]Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda in Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1991) 24.
[103]David L Elliott and Arthur Woodward, eds. Textbooks and Schooling in the United States: Eighty-nineth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of
Education ,Part I. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) 4.
[104]It wasn't until the mass education experiments of the twentieth century that non-elites had access to education. Prior to the modern era, education was the
exclusive domain of the upper classes, in England, Greece, Rome, India, the
USA, etc.
[105]David L Elliott and Arthur Woodward, eds. Textbooks and Schooling ,4.
[106]M. K. Gandhi as cited by Dharampal in The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous
Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century (New Delhi: Sita Ram Goel for
Biblia Impex Private Limited, 1983) vi.
[107]Gail Minault points out that a redirection of the sources of patronage from
princely endowments to government funding influenced the kind of choices that
were made.
[108]See Gloria Gannaway, Transforming Mind: A Critical Cognitive Activity. Series in Language and Ideology, (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey,
1994).
[109]Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education, 73.
[110]The India Review 11 (November 1918): 290.
[111]Krisha Kumar, Origins, of India's Textbook Culture, Occcasional Papers on History and Society No. 47 (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
1987) 13.
[112]Richey, J.A., (ed.), Selections from Educational Records, Part II
1840-1859, (New Delhi: Published for the National Archives of India by the
Manager of Publications, 1965) 301.
[113]Sir Thomas Raleigh, Lord Curzon of India, (London: Macmillan, 1906) 316.
[114]See P.J. Marshall, Problems of Empire, (London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1968).
[115]Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education, 26.
[116]The same pedagogical imperative was applied to the population of England as well as to Indian subjects. In India, as in England, only the elites were
deemed worthy of imbibing gifts that a western education would bestow,
education of the working class was not considered cost-effective. Education
was not offered to the urban poor in England until later. The poor were seen
as a possible threat to social order that needed moral training more than
intellectual development.
[117]Kalyan K. Chatterjee, English Education in India: Issues and
Opinions, (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1976) 1.
[118]P. L. Rawat, History of Indian Education, (Agra: Ram Prasad and [119]Kalyan K. Chatterjee, English Education in India, 2.
[120]Ibid., 4.
[121]Henry Sharp, Selection from Educational Records, Part I,
(Calcutta:Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1920) 137.
[122]Josselyn Hennessy, "British Education for an Elite in India," in
Governing Elites,, ed. Rupert Williams, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1969)136.
[123] P.L. Rawat, History of Indian Education, 128.
[124]A.N. Basu, ed., Indian Education in Parliamentary Papers, Part I,
(Bombay: 1952)145.
[125]Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education, 25.
[126]Kalyan K.Chatterjee, , English Education , 10.
[127]Ibid.,11.
[128]Ibid., 8.
[129]Ibid., 15.
[130]Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education, 30.
[131]Some Utilitarians, such as Mills, advocated translating English literature into the vernacular.