Anglophone Indian Women Writers, 1870–1920

254 Pages·2013·10.083 MB·English

by  Ellen Brinks

ANGLOPHONE INDIAN WOMEN
WRITERS, 1870–1920
The result of extensive archival recovery work, Ellen Brinks’s study fills a
significant gap in our understanding of women’s literary history of the South Asian
subcontinent under colonialism and of Indian women’s contributions and responses
to developing cultural and political nationalism. As Brinks shows, the invisibility
of Anglophone Indian women writers cannot be explained simply as a matter of
colonial marginalization or as a function of dominant theoretical approaches that
reduce Indian women to the status of figures or tropes. The received narrative
that British imperialism in India was perpetuated with little cultural contact
between the colonizers and the colonized population is complicated by writers
such as Toru Dutt, Krupabai Satthianadhan, Pandita Ramabai, Cornelia Sorabji,
and Sarojini Naidu. All five women found large audiences for their literary works
in India and in Great Britain, and all five were also deeply rooted in and connected
to both South Asian and Western cultures. Their works created new zones of
cultural contact and exchange that challenge postcolonial theory’s tendencies
towards abstract notions of the colonized women as passive and of English as a
de-facto instrument of cultural domination. Brinks’s close readings of these texts
suggest new ways of reading a range of issues central to postcolonial studies:
the relationship of colonized women to the metropolitan (literary) culture; Indian
and English women’s separate and joint engagements in reformist and nationalist
struggles; the “translatability” of culture; the articulation strategies and complex
negotiations of self-identification of Anglophone Indian women writers; and the
significance and place of cultural difference.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Anglophone Indian Women
Writers, 1870–1920
ELLEN BRINKS
Colorado State University, USA
R
O
UT Routledge
L
E
D Taylor & Francis Group
G
E
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
.
Copyright © Ellen Brinks 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Ellen Brinks has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brinks, Ellen, 1957-
Anglophone Indian women writers, 1870-1920.
1. Indic literature (English)–19th century–History and
criticism. 2. Indic literature (English)–20th century–
History and criticism. 3. Indic literature (English)–
Women authors–History and criticism. 4. Women and
literature–India–History–19th century. 5. Women and
literature–India–History–20th century.
I. Title
820.9'9287'0954-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brinks, Ellen, 1957-
Anglophone Indian women writers, 1870-1920 / by Ellen Brinks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-4925-6 (hardcover)
1. Indic literature (English)–Women authors–History and criticism. 2. Women and
literature–India–History. I. Title.
PR9488.B75 2013
820.9'92870954–dc23
2012026158

ISBN 9781409449256 (hbk)
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Translating Hindustan: Toru Dutt’s Poems and Letters 25
2 Gendered Spaces and Conjugal Reform in Krupabai Satthianadhan’s
Kamala: A Story of Hindu Life 59
3 Feminizing Famine, Imperial Critique: Pandita Ramabai’s
Famine Essays 91
4 The Imperial Family Begins in the Nursery: Cornelia Sorabji’s
‘Baby-fication’ of Empire 123
5 The Voice of India: Sarojini Naidu’s Nationalist Poetics 171
Epilogue 209
Bibliography 215
Index 231
This page has been left blank intentionally
List of Figures
4.1 “John Bull’s Christmas Family Party” (from Punch December 27,
1884), reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd. 129
4.2 “Baby Uganda” (from Punch April 21, 1894), reproduced with
permission of Punch Ltd. 131
4.3 “Nurse Gladstone” (from Punch August 25, 1883), reproduced
with permission of Punch Ltd. 132
4.4 Watercolor portrait from the cover of Sun Babies (1920), courtesy
of Richard Sorabji 163
4.5 “Let the Child Come” from Sun Babies (1920), courtesy of
Richard Sorabji 165
This page has been left blank intentionally
Acknowledgments
This book has been an exciting and rewarding intellectual journey for me for
a number of years now. I have received such helpful support from colleagues,
friends, and my home institution Colorado State University, and they all deserve
my heartfelt thanks.
My first thanks go to Jim and SueEllen Charlton for their outstanding leadership
on a Fulbright and Department of Education sponsored trip to India with fellow
educators back in 2003, including a substantive, rich seminar on Indian culture and
history in the months beforehand. This trip not only opened my eyes to the diversity
of the Indian subcontinent and gave me the subject of this book, but it made me want
to share my deep interest in South Asian cultures with others afterwards.
Both the English department and the Dean’s office in the College of Liberal
Arts funded my attendance at many conferences over the past seven years, as I was
drafting different portions of the manuscript. They generously supported summer
research and writing, including funding for travel twice to the British Library in
London. Bruce Ronda, Louann Reid, and Ann Gill have been especially committed
advocates of this project over the years and deserve special acknowledgment.
I would also like to thank the Program for Women’s Studies and Gender Research
at Colorado State for their acknowledgment of the project’s value and the award of
the Patsy Boyer Scholarship lecture. To Bruno Navasky and Rudrani Sarma I owe
the beauty of the cover design.
I am incredibly fortunate to have many wonderful colleagues at Colorado
State. Without their conversations, this project would have been stalled at various
points. A big thanks especially to Mary Vogl, Maricela DeMirjyn, Leif Sorenson,
Carol Mitchell, Roze Hentschell, and Pattie Cowell. My largest debt of gratitude
is owed to my colleague and friend Aparna Gollapudi, who has been an incisive
reader and enthusiastic champion of this project over the years. She has improved
this manuscript immeasurably.
Ashgate Publishing has been a delight to work with at all stages of the production
process. Beatrice Beaup, Whitney Feininger, and Gail Welsh responded quickly and
professionally to all my various queries. I especially want to single out Ann Donahue
and Pam Bertram for their hard work, responsiveness and valuable expertise.
Earlier versions of Chapters 2 and 3 appeared in academic journals. Most
of Chapter 2 appeared in “Gendered Spaces in Kamala: The Story of a Hindu
Child Wife,” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 30.2 (2008) © Taylor and Francis.
For permission to reprint material from “Feminizing Famine, Imperial Critique:
Pandita Ramabai’s Famine Essays,” South Asian Review 25.1 (2004), I thank K.D.
Verma, editor of South Asian Review.