Lecture and Explanation, Reading to be covered: Omvedt, Gail, 2011, Hinduism as Patriarchy: Ramabai, Tarabai and the Early Feminism, in, Understanding Caste: From Buddha to Ambedkar and Beyond, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi
Keywords: Gail Omvedt, Feminism, Patriarchy, Hinduism, Brahmanism, Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, Pandita Ramabai, Tarabai Shinde
The University of Delhi, Bachelor of Arts, Sociology of India: Images and Reality
Gail Omvedt is one of the renowned authors of the current time. Gail Omvedt wrote extensively on the Indian movement, deprived section of the people, downtrodden people, women and other marginalised people and movements. Credit also goes to Gail Omved for unearthing the forgotten personalities like Ramabai, Tarabai, Savitribai Phule, Jyotiba Phule, and many others. She gave new shape and ideologies to the Indian movement.
Brief Biography of Gail Omvedt
Dear students it is always good to know the brief biography of any writer or thinker to understand him/ her in a better way. Gail Omvedt born in the USA and came to India for her PhD work. Her PhD Thesis was on “Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Western India, 1873-1930” Please find her brief biography here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Omvedt You can read her blog here https://seekingbegumpura.wordpress.com/
In this chapter, Gail Omvedt is describing early feminism in India. If you read the article very careful then you will find that she is talking about different kinds of feminism in India. These feminisms are inspiring to empower the girls and women towards gender justice. We have many types of feminism but we are not going into that detail here.
Pg. 30
The article is beginning with a pamphlet written by Jyotiba Phule in 1885 in response to attacks on two women, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai.
Pandita Ramabai (23.04.2858 to 05.05.1922)
Pandita Ramabi was Brahmin by caste. Pandita Ramabai founded Arya Mahila Samaj in 1882 and shortly after that she went to England and converted to Christianity.
Tarabai Shinde (1850 to 1910)
She was the daughter of one of Phule’s Maratha colleagues in the Satyashodhak Samaj.
She wrote a small book Stri-Purush Tulana (Comparison of Women and Men) in 1882 and attacked the Hindu patriarchal society.
Ø Pandita Ramabai got a wider reaction from the English educated Brahmins.
Ø Tarabai Shinde got reaction among Marathi literate people including Phule’s own Satyashodhak Samaj.
Ø Phule defended both Ramabai and Tarabai for her writing.
The feminism of Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule
Both Jyotina Phule and Savitribai Phule was the early feminist of India. Jyotiba Phule supported both Pandita Ramabai and Tarabai Shinde. Both were rebellion women. Jyotiba Phule’s wife was illiterate during the marriage. He educated her wife Savitribhai Phule and refuses to give divorce even after they had no children. The Phule family opened their well for Dalits to take water from.
According to Gail Omvedt, Savitribai Phule was the first feminist in many ways in Maharashtra.
Savitribai Phule founded a school where everyone was welcome without discrimination including Dalit Boys and Girls. She taught Dalit boys and girls enthusiastically. She had faced many hurdles and abuse in this journey. Brahmin women used to throw cow dung to her. Savitribai Phule died while serving a plague patient. Both Ramabai and Tarabai fought against patriarchy.
Pandita Ramabai
Even after converting to Christianity, Pandita Ramabai was accepted among the Brahmin intellectuals. She also continued both the Brahmin and Hindu habits and identity. However, she continues to attach to orthodox Brahminical and Hindu texts,s which were degrading humanity and women.
Pg. 32
Pandita Ramabai was one of the first to actually embody a vision of a casteless, classless, and patriarchy-free society in a functioning community.
Pg. 33
Tarabai Shinde
Stri-Purush Tulana is the only available to book by her and the sound of a voice not-so-far-heard.
Tarabai raised the voice against exploitation and ill-treatment of widows including sexual harassment. Traabai also raised the question of exploitation in the name of Sri Dharm. For her, all kinds of Stri Dharm is against the freedom and equality of women. Here Tarabai raised the question of exploitation of Draupadi. In her book, Stri-Purush Tulana did not directly question Hindu scriptures based on conceptual analysis, but a satirical attack on them in a language of familiarity.
Pg. 34
Tatabai has said that Ramayan and Mahabharat is Brahmanical texts and they made these worldly texts sacred texts. And after they got sanction from there to attack women.
#PLEASE-NOTE: For many scholars, the sacred text is responsible for the attack on women. They are getting inspiration, sanction, and justification from there.
Tarabai raised the question that it was a woman, Savitri, who went to the court of YAM in order to save the life of her husband. But leave aside Yama’s court; have you heard of any men who have even taken a step on the path towards it?
Pg. 35
Unlike the Arya Samajists, for instance, Ramabai could not see the present state of women simply as ‘degeneration’. Unlike the Brahmo Samajists and men like Gandhi, she could not turn to idealised versions of the Vedas and Upanishads to convince herself that the ‘essence’ of Hindu spiritualism could be saved from its casteist and patriarchal excrescences.
Pandita Ramabai, like Jyotiba Phule and the later militant Dalit, had to reject Hinduism.
Similarly, Tarabai Sinde, could not see Rishi and God as a symbol of divinity without accepting her own position as inferior.
Hindu Nationalism of the 19th century forced even the moderate social reformer of the upper caste to retreat from the women movement. WHY? Gail Omvedt has said that the Sita and Savitri is still the ideal symbol of upper-caste elite women. WHO? Those, who were part of the Hindu Nationalism,.
Pg. 36
Dalit Panthers (BOOK LINK)) raised the voice of the Dalit communities in militant ways. This means that they were not only raised the voice but also organized to resist the exploitations and give the answer to the exploiter. Or you can that they have used physical force in their movement. Dalit Panthers also worked for social and cultural reform, including issues of women.
Pg. 38
What of Jyotiba Phule’s confidence, though, that education would lead even Brahman women to throw away the Shastra? For some, it has undoubtedly happened. Yet education has not proved to be the great dissolver of patriarchy that it was expected to be, perhaps because education in independent India has been limited, focused on rote memory only, and fashioned within the framework of the successfully constructed Brahmanic Hinduism.
#ASSIGNMENT :
1. Write a brief introduction to the First Women Doctor.
2. Write a brief introduction of Bal Gangadhar Tilak on Women’s Education.
3. Write a brief introduction of Savitribai Phule.
4. Dear students, please find and read about “Dola Pratha” (“डोला प्रथा”) on the internet.
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