IP_ Tagore Issue - Final.indd - high commission of india mauritius

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Rabindranath’sRole inWomen’s EmancipationKATHLEEN M. O’CONNELLRabindranath’s role in the liberation of Bengali women wasa seminal one. Initially, he exposed the plight of women andargued for their autonomy through his letters, short stories,and essays. Through his novels, he was able to construct newand vital female role models to inspire a new generation ofBengali women. Later, by his act of admitting females intohis Santiniketan school, he became an innovative pioneerin coeducation.The Jorasanko Tagorefamily played a seminalrole in almost all theinnovative socio-culturalchanges that occurred in19 th century Bengal, andfemale emancipation was noexception. Dwarkanath Tagore(1794-1846), the grandfather ofRabindranath, was advocatingwomen’s education and socialreform regarding women asearly as 1842, following histrip to Europe. Rabindranath’sfather, Debendranath (1817-1905), though conservativeby nature, supported theBethune school for women’seducation, and permitted theparticipation of his daughtersand other female members ofthe family in various forms ofeducation and social work.This essay displays Tagore’s paintingsMost notable was the liberatingrole of Rabindranath’s brother,Satyendranath (1842-1923),whose wife Gnanadanandini(1851-1941) became a rolemodel for modern femalebehavior. Not only didGnanadanandini redesignBengali female dress to make itmore appropriate for travellingbeyond the antahpur (innercourtyard) she contributedarticles on female educationaland social reform to severaljournals and travelled toEngland with her three childrenwithout the accompaniment ofher husband. Rabindranath thusgrew up in a household wherethe norms concerning womenwere changing rather rapidly.Rabindranath made his firsttrip to England in 1878, at theage of 17, and some of hisINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 81
earliest statements regardingthe need for Bengali women’sindependence come in a seriesof letters written to his family.After attending a party whereBritish men and women mixedfreely, Tagore wrote a lettercontrasting the free mixing thatoccurred between men andwomen in England and theisolation of Bengali women,who were confined to purdahand separated from the outsideworld. Wrote Rabindranath:It is only natural that men andwomen should seek amusementtogether. Women are a part of thehuman race and God has createdthem as part of society. To considerthe enjoyment of free mixingbetween people to be a cardinalsin, to be unsociable and to turnit into a sensational matter is notonly abnormal, it is unsocial, andtherefore in a sense uncivilized.Men are engrossed in all mannerof amusement in the outsideworld, while women are like theirprivately owned tamed animals,chained docilely to the walls of theinnermost chambers of the houses.(Rabindranath Tagore, Letters froma Sojourner in Europe, ed. SupriyaRoy, Visva-Bharati, 2008: 88).In response to criticism ofthis letter, which had beenpublished in Bharati, thenedited by his older brotherDwijendranath (1840-1926), hewrote:The Editor has said that keepingwomen in purdah is not anoutcome of the selfishness ofmen, it is but a natural outcomeof the demands that the duties ofhouseholding place on one. Thisis a very old excuse providedby those against liberation ofwomen; but I feel that it need notbe pointed out that to considerthe practice normal to enter intopurdah, surrounded by walls forthe rest of one’s lifetime, severingall contacts with the rest of theworld, is in itself very abnormal(ibid, p.100).Following his return to India,Tagore was put in chargeof the family estates in EastBengal. There, for the first time,Rabindranath had an extendedexposure to rural society andto the sufferings of rural peoplein general and rural women inparticular. This was the periodwhen many of his short storieswere written and we find himportraying the plight of orphansand widows such as Ratan inthe ‘Postmaster’ and Kusum in‘Ghater Katha’ (‘The Tale ofthe Ghat’) or the abuses of thedowry system and child-wivesas illustrated by the abuse ofNirupama in ‘Dena Paona’(‘Profit and Loss’), as well as therepression of female learningportrayed through the characterof Uma in Khata (‘ExerciseBook’). Rabindranath’s mostradical short story ‘Strirpatra’(‘A Wife’s Letter’) came later.Here the transformation of itsmain female character Mrinal– an upper caste woman – isportrayed, from submissivewife to autonomous individual.Mrinal chooses to live apartfrom the joint family as aresult of the oppressivenessto a female relative that shewitnessed within the family.It should be noted thatRabindranath also encouragedfemale writers, and as a resultof his encouragement, thefeminist writings of Sarat KumariChaudhurani (1861-1920) werepublished in such journals asSadhana and Bharati.When Rabindranath started hisschool in Santinketan in 1901,he had wanted to include girlsas well, but it did not provepractical until 1909, when afurther blow to the traditionalimage of the Brahmacharyashramoccurred with the admission ofwomen. 1 The first six girls – who1 Both P.K. Mukhopadhyay and HimangshuMukherjee put the opening of the girl’s schoolin 1908, but Amita Sen, who lived in the ashramduring this period, gives it as 1909.had close associations with theashram – were boarded in oneof the cottages, where they werelooked after by Ajit Chakravarti’smother and Mohit Chandra Sen’swife Susheela. What made theexperiment so radical was thatthe girls were not put in separateclasses but rather joined the boysin classes, sports and mandirservices. Further impetus for thewomen’s program came whenRathindranath was married tothe talented Pratima Devi (1863-1969) in 1910, and she begantaking a prominent role in theashram activities, particularly indrama and the arts.Rabindranath continued hisexploration of the femalepsyche in his writings. Thepublication of his novelGora was significant for itsdelineation of young femalecharacters and the manner inwhich they interacted withthe society around them. Suchcharacters as Lolita, Sucharitaand Anandamayee are shownin the process of shapingnew identities and personalautonomy as they developedalternate ways of interactionwith men and society. Thedevelopment of such vitalcharacters signalled theINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 82 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 83
Page 9 and 10: play-acting in the school. Theyplay
Page 11 and 12: to everybody. Once Tagorewas asked
Page 13 and 14: uying its rights, publishing tensub
Page 15 and 16: RABINDRANATH TAGOREAS A PAINTERSANJ
Page 17 and 18: whitewash on the walls, andthese wo
Page 19 and 20: totality of visual language are sou
Page 21 and 22: IN SEARCH OFA NEW LANGUAGEFOR THEAT
Page 23 and 24: a gap of almost eighteenyears. The
Page 25: The Scientist in TagorePARTHA GHOSE
Page 29 and 30: popularity as a poet can begauged f
Page 31 and 32: Painting by Tagore on board S.S. To
Page 33 and 34: oad basis of Hindu culture.Brahmois
Page 35 and 36: Gandhi and TagoreAMARTYA SENRabindr
Page 37 and 38: Touched by TagoreMARTIN KÄMPCHENCr
Page 39 and 40: Mit freundl. Genehmg: National Gall
Page 41: or ‘The Course of History inIndia
Page 45 and 46: Tagore andRural ReconstructionUMA D
Page 47 and 48: TAGORE AND HIS TIMES:THE IDEA OF AS
Page 49 and 50: Benoy Kumar Sarkar, writingin the M
Page 51 and 52: Chinese bird-chirping was heardfrom
Page 53 and 54: In 1923, cultural celebrities,Mr. H
Page 55 and 56: Tagore with the students of the San
Page 57 and 58: Tagore andTechnical EducationB.N. P
Page 59 and 60: in the curriculum becauseone can ac
Page 61 and 62: Paintings by Tagore (above & right)
Page 63 and 64: Tagore:From the 21st Century Perspe
Page 65 and 66: atmosphere of the earth is one andt
Page 67 and 68: Mira: Tagore’s youngest daughter1

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