TheDaak review

Shinde, Tarabai. “A Comparison between Women and Men”. A Comparison between Women and Men: Tarabai Shinde and the Critique of Gender Relations in Colonial India. Trans. Rosalind O’Hanlon. OUP: Delhi, 1994. Print. ISBN: 9780195647365, 156 Pages.

By Sneha Roy

A Comparison Between Women and Men is the translation of Tarabai Shinde’s Stree Purush Tulana published in 1882 originally written in Marathi. It was translated by Rosalind O’Hanlon in 2007. Shinde wrote the book as a response to a newspaper article in Pune Vaibhav which was known for publishing articles with no regard for women’s rights. An article in this newspaper villainized a young widow (Vijaylakshmi) who was compelled to kill her child to avoid shame. This piece of writing angered Shinde to an extent that she penned a book chiding the masculine readership and their hypocrisy towards women in an increasingly patriarchal society. This review aims to analyze the relevance of this revolutionary 19th century text in the context of the women’s movement in contemporary India. Tarabai’s account is not just an attack on Brahmanism like her contemporary Jyotirao Phule but also reflects her political marginality as a woman. The oppressors in each of their cases were different as they came from different social locations. For Phule, it was the Brahmanic religion as it oppressed people from the lower caste and for Shinde, it was the men who oppressed women. Marginalization took place at different levels which is why the lens of intersectionality becomes important. Shinde, an upper caste Brahmin was enraged by the power men wielded on women’s agency. She fought against the systemic discrimination of women under  patriarchal society. She critiqued the politics of gender in colonial society by indicating that men had gained a ‘new range of powers’  under the British which made them conceited as they tried to confine women to their houses depriving them of such benefits, shackling them in a rigid religious culture for which they had no regard. This new range of powers included ‘men traveling in trains, dressing like babus’ (p. 93-94), a blatant mimesis of the western culture hence they were in no position to claim that they were defenders of dharma. 

The title of the book is refreshing as she places ‘women’ before ‘men’ which is not the case when spoken colloquially. The language she uses also has special significance. It is unabashedly unfiltered and relatable targeted towards having a wider readership and audience, especially amongst the menfolk. She is fearless in critiquing their ignorance towards issues faced by women. She does not make a plea to men but writes as though she is criticising them for their ignorance in an attempt to open their eyes to the sheer hypocrisy on their part while making the lives of women unlivable. While  Indian men imbibed the ways of the English, women were to be shackled in patriarchal traditions;  yet it was the Indian man who was considered the flag bearer of dharma. 

In her own words, she wrote the book in a ‘very biting language’. Shinde, in the introduction,  states that the aim of her book is to ‘honour all my sister country women’ (p. 75). Shinde aspired to speak on behalf of all Indian women as she was deeply troubled by the behaviour of the menfolk and the gross narratives that newspapers spun villainizing women in their articles. She was not particularly interested in investigating  larger intersectionalities as she says, ‘I’m not looking at particular castes or families here. It is just a comparison between women and men’ (p.75).  Shinde wanted to point out the differing lifestyles of women and men  during the colonial period shedding light on the hypocrisy of men. One could say that such a narrative was her perception as a privileged woman who had access to education but it was revolutionary as this text became an exemplar of the exercise of agency by a woman who steered away from the stereotypical image of a ‘bhadramahila’. As stated earlier, she chose to place women before men in the title of her book, which itself is a radical move.

Tarabai describes herself as ‘a poor woman without any real intelligence, who’s been kept locked up and confined in the proper old Maratha manner’. Such a self perception is valid because Tarabai was educated because of the freedom that was given to her on account of her privileges and views of her father. It was a relative freedom that flowed from the whims of the men in her life. She then mentions that she was still expected to behave as a traditional Maratha woman and follow the socio-cultural norms of being a woman. She lacked the socially acceptable  feminine qualities, probably due to her exposure to literature. Her outspoken nature portrayed her as ‘a tough , independent and somewhat pugnacious woman.’ She wrote, 

‘these days the newspapers are always writing about poor helpless women and the wicked things they do. Why won’t any of you come forward and put a stop to these great calamities?’(p. 79)

 The juxtaposition in the use of words, ‘poor helpless’, and ‘wicked’ is almost ironic, given  the times she was writing in. Women were confined to their homes behind the purdah because they needed constant protection, but at the same time were also blamed for every evil in society (p.87). This also expresses her disdain for print media which created or popularised  norms like pativrata and the ‘right’ conduct of women. This later evolved to a Victorianized pativrata. Marriage assumed particular importance in late pre-colonial India. Marriage was often used as a tool to consolidate power.  The character of women was often determined by print media through articles written about the lives of women from the male gaze. The portrayal of women as bhadramahila emerged first among reformist circlesin Bengal but was diluted by the time it reached other parts of the country which were increasingly Brahminical. Victorianized pativrata, a ‘patchwork solution’was a new form of womanhood that was a fusion of older Brahminical values of pativrata, of feminine self-sacrifice and devotion to the husband, with Victorian emphasis upon women as enlightened mothers and companions to men in their own ‘separate sphere’ of their home. The ‘educated wife’ rapidly gained traction. The establishment of schools for girls received backlash from conservatives like Tilak because they feared that it would make them ‘insubordinate’ and devoid of  traditional virtues. Insubordination was just a mask, men seemed to be worried that educated women would not tolerate atrocities. Education was to be limited so that one could follow ‘Victorianized pativrata’. 

The reformist movements were influenced by the prevailing socio-cultural norms of the times. Shinde referred to them as ‘a spare tit on a goat’ (p. 85). The ‘educated wife’ was an easy escape wherein girls were sent to schools but prevented from entering the public sphere. This is a reality in many remote villages in India even today. Gender relations are not transformed but are circumscribed by the prevailing ideas of patriarchy wherein women are empowered within the socio-cultural constraints. One settles for a ‘patchwork’ without reaching for an ‘alternative modernity’ because a transformation or a rupture does not take place. A woman is not given a chance to exercise her agency because most of the decisions in her life are made by the men in her life. Tarabai Shinde’s father Bapuji Hari Shinde was a member of the Satyashodhak Samaj, the reformist and anti-brahmin ‘truth-seeking society’ set up in Western India in 1873 by the Poona radical Jyotirao Phule. It is doubtful that she would have learned to read and write without her father’s reformist commitments. Despite this ‘relative freedom’, Tarabai refers to herself as someone who has been ‘kept locked up and confined in the proper old Maratha manner’. Regardless of such shortcomings, she was relatively free to pursue her education: reading, writing, and publishing texts that were often not received in great light in marital homes. 

Tarabai Shinde addresses issues like patriarchy and widow remarriage. She writes, women should be treated with dignity not shoved into a room with a barber who would shave her and wipe the Kumkum off her head (p. 79). Her account of Vijayalakshmi, the widow who had to murder her child to be accepted in society, brings out the plight of widows in the early 19^th century. Women were often married at a young age to very old men for a price paid to the fathers of the brides.  They were treated like cattle. Here she also addresses problems like child marriage. Shinde elaborates on the caste system which is relevant in the Indian context even in contemporary times wherein the women’s question becomes heterogenous and has to be seen in the light of intersectionality. She also criticised Hindu religious scriptures that portrayed women without any agency of their own. Stree Purush Tulana is an explosive text, subject to many controversies at the time. It is bold, unfiltered and an honest account of the plight of women in pre-colonial and colonial times. It is relevant even today as one of the first modern Indian feminist texts  that helps us locate feminism as a movement in the 19^th century. As a movement, Indian feminism, in the 19th century, dealt  with pressing issues such as widow remarriage, patriarchy in familial institutions, reclamation of agency in a society built to confine women in the private sphere, as women’s bodies were considered  markers of honour wherein every aspect of becoming a woman was  dictated by norms set and regulated by men. The book is a great start for establishing the ideology of the movement, and  understanding the formation of its social base. It also places a yardstick before us on the issues discussed, helping us measure the progress we have (or have not) made tackling such issues in the 21^st century. 

Bibliography

1. Bhargava, Rajeev. (1997). Are There Alternative Modernities, IIC-Asia Project Seminar on Culture, Democracy and Development in South Asia.
2. O’Hanlon, R. (2007). A comparison between women and men: Tarabai Shinde and the critique of gender relations in Colonial India. Oxford University Press.