The babu speaks a patter of Bengali and English

But he berates the English with all his heart.

These sports are but nocturnal; wiping his mouth, in the morning
The babu is respectful and sober* again.
Translated by Supriya Chaudhury.

TARABAI SHINDE
(ca. 1850-ca. 1910) Marathi

Though Jotirao Phule mentions Stri Purush Tulana (A Comparison of Men

and Women), 1882, in the second issue o( Satsar, the journal of the Sa-
tyashodhak Mandal, which he started in 1885, this extraordinary work by
a courageous and original feminist thinker and critic remained virtually
unknown until 1975 when it was found and republished by S. G. Malshe.
We know very little about Tarabai Shinde's life. Malshe draws on oral
evidence to suggest that she was born into a high-caste, well-to-do Mar-
atha family and that she was an only child. She studied Marathi, Sanskrit,
and English and was obviously well read in classical and modern literature.
She married very young and seems to have soon lost regard for her hus-
band. She had no children. There are stories, perhaps apocryphal, that
speak of her as a fiercely independent and self-confident person who rode
a horse and wielded a sword as well as most soldiers could. Of the rich-
ness, the variety, and the clarity of her intellect, as of the vitality of her
personality, we have no dearth of evidence in the only work this philos-
opher, social analyst, and literary critic left behind.
Stri Purush Tulana, an essay of about forty pages published in book form,
was initially written in response to an article that appeared in the
Pune Vaibhav, a weekly known for its extremely orthodox and antireform-
ist politics, following an incident over which there was charged discussion
in the city. It is difficult to tell from the reports of that time whether the
accused, Vijayalakshmi, had had an abortion or whether she had commit-
ted infanticide, but the court sentenced her to death. The Pune Vaibhav
came out with a virulent article attacking her, and women in general, for
their "new" loose morals. Tarabai Shinde's response shows, first, how
men are invariably guilty of the very vices they accuse women of, and,
next, that men are often responsible even for the few vices women do

*The Bengali word is bhadra, an untranslatable term of social reference, implying

a variety of attributes such as decent, gentlemanly, respectable.

TARABAI SHINDE • 221

have. It is an impressive riposte. She writes, she says, out of pride for her
sisters and to clearly establish that women are braver than men.
Though every day we see new and more terrible examples of men's vio-
lence, audacity, and cunning, yet no one pays any attention to these; instead
people continue to heap the burden of all wrongs onto the women them-
selves.
Parts of the essay suggest she is speaking of her own experience—of
being married to a man who did not come up to her expectations or hold
her interest—and other parts obviously refer to Vijayalakshmi's situation.
It is possible that contemporary readers would have associated many other
sections of this long essay with specific incidents and specific people.
Tarabai speaks of herself as a "powerless dull woman, prisoner within
a Maratha household." Even so, she says, in the face of male treachery,
duplicity, and faithlessness, she is forced to adopt a crude and blunt man-
ner: "I cannot restrain myself from writing in such fiery language." But
in any case she prefers her direct rough-hewn language and style to the
sophisticated diction, manufactured by male conspiracy, of "standard"
language. She makes no plea to the men that they pay attention to her
work. In fact, she does not count on their goodwill or chivalry. If they
are true to the images of rationality and objectivity they project, she says,
they will be forced to accept her arguments. But if they respond from self-
interest or merely retort out of wounded pride, she warns, she will
continue her battle against male injustice and sow the seeds of universal
sisterhood. In that battle, reason will be her sword and her shield.
Tarabai is as irreverent as she is incisive. She subjects both God and man
to the same devastating logic and the same scathing wit. The critic Maya
Pandit describes her writing as "racy and absolutely full of fire. She uses
many idiomatic expressions and phrases that occur particularly in the lan-
guage of women. The syntactic structure is conditioned by the balance of
ideas." Other scholars claim that the style of her argument and the rhe-
torical diction link her work to that of the reformer Jotiba Phule. In fact,
in the second issue of Satsar, Jotiba criticizes men who attacked Tarabai
without even reading what she had to say carefully.
Stri Purush Tulana is probably the first full-fledged and extant feminist
argument after the poetry of the bhakti period. But Tarabai's work is also
significant because, at a time when intellectuals and activists alike were
primarily concerned with the hardships of a Hindu widow's life and other
easily identifiable atrocities perpetrated on women, Tarabai Shinde, ap-
parently working in isolation, was able to broaden the scope of the
analysis to include the ideological fabric of patriarchal society. Women
everywhere, she implies, are similarly oppressed.
Most of the second half of her essay is translated here. It moves on from
a response to the accusations against Vijayalakshmi and Tarabai's own

222 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

introductory observations to a more general critique of patriarchal culture
in her time. She begins by taking up for consideration two verses that she
felt epitomized the misogyny of the culture and refuting them, point by
point. The first verse comes from the Ramvijaya (The Victory of Ram), a
sixteenth-century Marathi text written by Shridhar, the prolific pandit of
Pandharpur. The second is taken from the Sanskrit Sataka Trayam (Three
Centuries of Verses), compiled by the poet Bhartrhari.
Tarabai also has the distinction of being the first Indian feminist literary
critic. Her "exposure of male stereotypes and images of women," Vidyut
Bhagwat points out, "appeared almost a century before Simone de Beau-
voir's The Second Sex. Besides, Tarabai's forthright polemical style stands
in sharp contrast to de Beauvoir's."

STRI P U R U S H T U L A N A
(A Comparison o f M e n and Women)

Let me ask you something, Gods! You are supposed to be omnipotent

and freely accessible to all. You are said to be completely impartial.
What does that mean? That you have never been known to be partial.
But wasn't it you who created both men and women? Then why did
you grant happiness only to men and brand women with nothing but
agony? Your will was done! But the poor women have had to suffer
for it down the ages.
One comes across several charges against women both in the written
literature and in everyday discourse. But do men not suffer from the
same flaws that women are supposed to have? Do men not cheat as
women do? Theft, incest, murder, robbery, deception, fraud, swindling
of government funds, taking bribes, changing truth to falsehood and
falsehood to truth—do men not do any of these? . . .
First, if, as you claim, a woman has more power than a device for
witchcraft or black magic, let me ask you, you who are endowed with
an intellect far more powerful than hers, what have you not achieved
with your intellect? You who have made possible what was believed
to be impossible, of what worth can a woman's power be before your
valiant deeds? O f none.
Second, it may be true that women are a whirlpool of suspicion. But
that is because they are uneducated and all kinds of doubts inhabit their
minds. But even then, it must be borne in mind that their suspicions
are usually and necessarily about their own relationships. But if one
casts just a fleeting glance at the webs of doubt in your minds, one's

TARABAI SHINDE • 223

eyes will surely be dazed. Your minds are full of all kinds of treach-
erous plans. "Let's bluff this moneylender and pocket a thousand ru-
pees from him." Or, "Let's tell that jagirdar such and such a thing and
swindle him out of some five hundred rupees." Or, "Let's he to that
officer about that particular case and change his judgment in X's fa-
vor." Or, "Let's register those false documents instead of the true
ones." Or, "That woman Y, what a coquette she really is! What airs
she gives herselfl Must corner her one of these days, and see whether
some affair with her can be managed. My current affair has begun to
bore me. This is the chance to end it once and for all and begin a new
one." Such disgusting thoughts never enter a woman's mind. This is,
of course, not to say that all the women in the world are as luminous
as the sun and as pure as the waters of the Holy Ganges. But even if
one takes into account the entire female community in the world, it
would be difficult to come across more than 10 percent of them who,
hke you, are caught in the whirlwind of such insidious perfidies, though
not a single one of you is free of them.
Third, women are called the acme of impudence. But does your own
species lack this quality in any measure? A judicious comparison would
reveal the balance weighted far heavier on your side in this respect. Fourth,
women are considered a megapohs of inadvertent acts. But what about
you, the dastardly, perfidious, treacherous people that you are? You, who
would not hesitate even for a moment in cutting somebody's throat im-
mediately after winning his confidence. Do you never commit such in-
sidious acts? You speak as if you are Holy Temples of Reason! Bravo!
Bravo, indeed! You consider yourselves erudite and judicious, don't you?
Yet can you find a match, anywhere, at any time, for the perfidious acts
that you commit every day? O n top of all this, you have the audacity to
call yourselves judicious! What can anyone say?
Granted, women are as stupid as buffaloes in the cow pen! They are
ignorant and do not know how to read or to write. But does that mean
God did not grant them even an iota of intelligence? Thoughtless and
rash they may sometimes be, but even then they are far preferable to
you. Yes! To you who are the bastions of erudition and wisdom! Why,
one has only to visit a prison to get a proof of this! The prisons are
packed to capacity with such people. One can't even find a place to
stand there, they are so packed! As for the "wisdom," the "knowl-
edge" that they have, it's a little too much, if you really ask me! Ev-
eryone there has a "wise" head on his shoulders, and a "wise" deed
to his credit! Some come there because they have printed false notes,

224 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

some have taken bribes,^ some for having eloped with someone else's
wife, some for having been in a rebellion, some for poisoning people,
some for treason, some for perjury, some for impersonating kings and
deceiving the public, some for murders. . . . O r would it be more cor-
rect to say that the government has most reverently offered you an
honorable place in this prison, I mean, this palace, of merriment for
committing such great, why, such superbly valiant deeds? N o w tell
me, what woman ever commits such atrocious deeds? Can you show
me any prisons that claim to hold only women prisoners in their fold?
I am sure the number of such women will not be more than a hundred
at the most for every two thousand men.
Furthermore, we need to ask, what is the greatest crime that women
commit? Adultery. That is the highest peak of their criminal ventures.
They behave recklessly only because of such inclinations. But then,
who takes the first step of sowing the seed of such designs in their
minds? Who else but you? However shameless a woman may be, she
will never throw herself into the arms of a strange man. That is an
eternal truth. Do you know what a woman's idea of happiness is? First,
a husband of her choice. One w h o m she can love. Once their hearts
are united, she will not worry about poverty. She will endure any

*Look, the government employs you for various jobs. It pays you salaries ranging
from ten rupees to a couple of thousand, according to your qualifications, puts
its complete trust in you, and agrees to whatever terms and conditions you make!
Why? For merely putting your signatures across some papers here and there!
Now, is it any of the government's fault that you pocket the pay and insist upon
taking bribes as well? You never hesitate in accepting anything—just anything—
as bribe. From hard cash to horses, cows, cloth, gold, and even pots and pans!
And in the absence of any of these, even shoes! No one can escape from your
clutches. You have no scruples whatsoever in extracting bribes from both the
rich and the poor. Now doesn't this prove beyond any doubt that you are treach-
erous? That you commit treason? Further, if you fail to get any of these things,
you are willing to accept as bribes any other thing, like provisions for a day,
guavas, a couple of sticks of sugarcane, or even wood, jaggery, or even the husk
of grain! But you will make people cough up something and grab it. Do you
ever let anybody escape without paying up? Never! By hook or crook, grab you
will—anything that you can lay your hands on! Do you know what you are?
Shmy beggars! Yes, that's what you are! All the paper in the world wouldn't be
enough to write a panegyric on these most noble, excellent and commendable
merits of yours! Why, there won't be any place in the world large enough to
stock all those papers! The entire world would overflow with them. And the
oceans won't be sufficient to make ink to write that eulogy! And armies of car-
penters will have to be employed to carve pens to write it with!

TARABAI SHINDE • 225

calamity for him. She will suffer hunger or thirst and put up with any
kind of harassment for the sake of the man she loves. She will be happy
even in the worst circumstances possible. But she will never, in her
remotest dreams, think on her own of committing that crime. But let
me tell you something. Can adultery really be considered an act of the
most heinous nature? O u r shastras* certainly do not seem to think so!
There is no need to think that such things did not happen in the past.
In fact, those very shastras that you so very glibly quote are full of the
most supreme confusion regarding this problem. For example, the
shastras most freely sanctioned such practices in several circumstances.
Suppose a king died, leaving behind him a queen who did not have a
son, she could select any rishi** of her choice and beget sons from him
in order to augment the family. And she could keep him till she had
as many children as she wanted. What was this if not adultery? But
wasn't it sanctioned by the shastras? N o w , instead of sanctioning such
things, had they sanctioned widow remarriages, that would have made
even the kingdom of the deceased king stronger. As you know, many
of our states, jahagirs, inams, and other hereditary revenue rights were
dissolved by the government for want of legal heirs. N o w that could
easily have been avoided and even the country need not have become
a slave [had widows been allowed to remarry]. The estates and prop-
erties of many were seized by the government and added to the trea-
sury, for lack of legal heirs. Besides, many times it so happened that
when a king died, he left behind him a bunch of widows and there
was no one to protect that crowd. What happened then? You men
swooped down on them like a swarm of locusts and caused downright
ruin. Those royal women, whose feet were never soiled with earth,
were as beautiful as goddesses; but your insatiable lust reduced them
to nothing but beggars in exile.
Another charge against women is that they are extremely mean
minded and shallow. But they are never obsessed by such thoughts as
" H o w will I get promoted to a higher office? How will I get more
money? When will I rise to dizzy heights in public esteem? When will
people address me as 'Sir' or 'Sahib' and speak humbly and meekly to
me?" Women never waste their lives as you do, trying to achieve such
impossible things. Then why do you pretend all these things are ab-

*The term shastra here refers to ancient books of law, guidelines for moral, social,
and political action; compilations belonging to the postvedic period.—Ed.
**Rishi is a sage, seer.—Ed.

226 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

solutely unknown to you and charge women with being the sole p r o -
prietors of "reckless vanity"?
The fifth charge against women is that they are the treasure houses
of transgressions. But in fact, it is you who fit that description best.
It's you who cause women to transgress. Let me substantiate this. Many
fathers give away their beautiful and very young daughters, who are
hardly ten or eleven years old, to men who are eighty or ninety in
exchange for a purse of gold. They do it with an eye only on his
wealth. Their reasoning is, "Even if the husband dies, there's no need
to worry. She will be rolhng in money. She will be able to get the best
of things to eat, and be able to wear nice clothes—at least for a few
days. She will have nothing to worry about. So what if she doesn't
have a husband?" That is what they think. So without any scruples,
they give their daughters away to such old men as lambs to a tiger.
But once he w h o is her love, her real happiness, passes away, what
meaning does life hold for her? The only man to delight in her new
clothes, admire her, and consider her more precious than his Hfe is her
husband. Without him her life is like a desert. Then why would she
hanker after those dry festivities? It might seem far better in the past
when women used to burn themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres.*
At least when one was reduced to a heap of ashes along with the
husband, there was nothing left to worry about. In this world who is
there who would love a woman as much as the husband does, apart
from her mother, of course? That is a fact. But what about her who
loses both? Who can she depend on when the red-hot fire of youth is

*What a great service the Sarvajanik Sabha in Pune has rendered to women! In
their journal, or whatever it is that they publish annually or biannually, they very
pompously declared, "It would be better if the government allowed women to
burn themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands." But tell me, if you want
women to do that, why don't you propose the same plan for yourselves? Why
do you want to survive your wives? To knead cow dung and pat it into cakes
for your own cremation? Why shouldn't you burn yourselves on the pyres of
your wives? Better you than her. Because her passing away proves to be far more
detrimental than yours. Do you want to know how? Well, she is always survived
by her young children. Who would look after them for her?
There is a proverb, "Let a prosperous father die but even a pauper of a mother
should never die." If the father dies, the mother will endure any amount of grief and
sorrow but maintain her children. But what do you do in such circumstances? If
your wife dies today, you rush to bring another the very next day and render your
children homeless. Don't you? Admit it now! Already there is a great outcry about
this! In fact it's you who should be thrown into that pyre before your wives.

TARABAI SHINDE • 227

burning in the pallav of her sari? This, then, is the fate of the women
who are married off to old husbands. . . .
Many rich men get their favorite daughter married to a boy of rather
humble origin and keep the couple in their house because they love
their daughter. Everything goes well while the boy and the girl are
both young and immature. But once she comes of age, this daughter
of the rich man, clever, pampered, and used to wealth right from her
birth, starts realizing the difference between herself and her husband.
N o w , that boy is a wretched creature of a lowly origin and is ignorant
of the real comforts in life. As a result of the marriage, he is able to
experience them for the first time. It is probably solely because of the
good deeds he had done in a previous birth that he married into such
a family. But his behavior is far from becoming to his newly acquired
prosperity. The wretched creature is used only to the coarsest things
in life! Even if a donkey is fed twice a day and decorated with silken
threads, a saddle, a plume of feathers, and silver knobs, will it ever
equal a noble horse though it be lean and on the brink of death? Nat-
urally she doesn't like him, since he is a rough patch on a delicate
shawl—and then the inevitable happens. I don't have to write about
that extensively. All those ridiculous and despicable things that result
from such a state of affairs are public knowledge. N o w of what use is
the father's pampering to the daughter? Had he found a suitable hus-
band for her in the first place it would have been better. He would
have the joy of seeing her happily settled in her married life.
You would not like a bad, ugly, cruel, uneducated wife, full of vices;
why then should a wife like such a husband? Just as you desire a good
wife, she also longs for a good husband. Let me remind you of some-
thing. When you are young and your parents are very poor, they are
greatly worried about your marriage. At that time, they borrow heav-
ily and somehow manage to marry you off. In such circumstances you
can hardly expect to get a beautiful girl for a wife. At that time, even
a wife who is as ugly as an owl seems like a Venus to you. But later
on, when you are blessed by the goddess Saraswati, and have become
"learned" and educated, when you get promoted in your job, you are
ashamed of this first wife. Because you are wealthy now, you consider
her to be worthless. She is nothing more to you than a servant or a
cook whom you can hire to keep house for you for a few small coins.
For you, she is just a slave you have bought for a thousand rupees. Per-
haps you love even your dog or your horse more than your wife.
A wife is nothing but a dark corner or a heap of rubbish in the house.
Who cares for her? But why would a rich man care for his wife? For

228 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

him wives come a dime a dozen. The rich are ready to be bridegrooms
any day—indeed every day. It is only because Yama, the God of Death,
doesn't have time to carry off their wives so fast. Otherwise they
wouldn't mind tying the knot thrice a day. Such men find it very
difficult to call an ugly wife their own. When they were poor, in the
past, nobody took any notice of them. But now that they have ac-
quired wealth and prestigious jobs, they have risen in pubHc esteem.
So they want a wife who will match that pomp with her beauty. Just
watch all those silly pranks they get up to at the time of their second
or third marriages. N o w tell me, do women ever behave in this fash-
ion? Whether in prosperity or in poverty, they always behave obedi-
ently, according to your commands. Have you ever heard of a woman
running off with another man just because her husband is ugly or poor?
N o w who deserves to be blamed? Women or men?
The sixth argument against women is that a woman is enveloped in
a hundred guises of fraud and deceit. My friends, as far as these par-
ticular merits are concerned, the honor of the first rank undoubtedly
goes to you. H o w can I describe your deceit? O n e comes across it
virtually at every step. Oh, what guises you don! Those yellow-black
stripes that you draw on your body—like a tiger! You are a Gosavi, a
fakir, a Haridas, a brahmachari, a sadhu, a dudhahari, a Giripuri, a
bharati, a Nanak, a kanfate, a yogi* . . . what a fanfare you create. You
smear your body with the so-called holy ash, grow your hair long into
a mass of matted locks, proclaim that you have renounced the world,
and roam all over cheating and deceiving people with your beguiling
tricks. "Who's this?" "Ramgirkarbuwa." "Who's that?" "Shastri-
buwa." "And this?" "The great sage, Ganpatbuwa Phaltankar, a ma-
hasadhu!" "That one there?" "A follower of Nanaka." Somebody just
has to say "Look at his virtues! They defy any description! He's won-
derful. Besides, he is free from all worldly desires. He has great magical
powers," and so on. That is enough of an introduction for a credulous
public! Then the fake sadhu goes on prolonging his stay, putting on
grander and grander pretensions. He gorges himself with rich, sweet
food like a fat tomcat, and then begins his "worship." That is, reposing
in a corner, he closely eyes all the women who come for an audience
with him, and selects a few beautiful ones whose names he reiterates
on his rosary. That's the end! All gods are forgotten promptly and
forever. And these "goddesses," in the form of beautiful women, oc-

*These titles for holy men are Tarabai's satirical inventions.—Ed.

TARABAI SHINDE • 229

cupy that place. In his eyes, their lovely, smiling faces and in his heart
a burning desire for money. Torn between these two cravings, the
sadhu hovers between the worlds of sanity and madness. . . .

A tulsi necklace around the neck, God's name on your lips . . . with
this paraphernaha you roam around in the guise of a Haridas, but what
are you really? Nothing but beggars! Respectable-looking beggars! You
go to Kashi, don't you? But just because you have shaved off your
mustache and your beard, do you think you are absolved of all sin? . . .
Once you become sannyasis, you shouldn't hanker after any
worldly ambitions. With your holy saffron clothes, your staffs and
pails of holy water in your hands, you declare that all the creatures in
this world are the manifestations of God. You sit on the ghats after
bathing in the river, smearing yourselves with sackfuls of ash, pre-
tending to be lost in meditation. But at the first sound of tinkling
anklets, don't your eyes race up all the fifty steps of the ghat? The buwa
is so utterly flustered that he drops the pail of holy water from his
hand. . . . With what words can I describe your guile? You will assure
somebody that he is like a brother to you, but at the same time wish
for his ruin in your heart. You call another your father, but with your
eye on his purse. And when you are friends with someone, you eye
everything, from his dog to his wife, with malicious desire. There are
very few among the male sex who are pure. One should hear your
gossip with your friends. "Why, that Mr. X shows off so much these
days! What fun if he is ruined! H o w that Mr. Y has risen! What a
marvel it is! There were times when that son of a donkey didn't have
enough food to eat! But now the son of a bitch goes around in a t w o -
horse carriage!" This is your favorite hobby, isn't it? The moral of the
story is, with evil in your mind, like a crow, you roam around looking
for the weaknesses of people to wreck them. D o women ever behave
like that? Tell me. Did any woman ever disguise herself as a sadhu and
carry any man off? Give me just one example. . . .
The next argument against women is this: A woman is temptation
incarnate. All right. A woman is full of charm from top to toe. Every-
thing about her—her limbs, her voice, her gait, her speech—fascinates
and attracts men like a magnet, like a honeycomb attracts a honeybee.
But is that any of her fault?
If a great brahmachari sadhu is asked to choose between a pot of
gold coins and a beautiful woman, he will undoubtedly forsake the pot
of gold for the golden complexion. . . .
In these days, because of the spread of education and because of the

230 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

printing press, many works of fiction have been published. For ex-
ample, Manjughosha, Muktamala, the play Manorama, and so on. N o w it
is true that no story becomes really interesting without a sprinkling of
romance, humor, and pathos. But the composers of these stories should
at least check whether such stories are plausible, or whether they have
any historical vahdity, before starting the composition.
Let's take a look at Manjughosha first. Manjughosha is the favorite
daughter of an emperor. Is it possible that she could deceive her old father
and impudently run away with Vasantamadhava in his airplane? Wouldn't
she have any sympathy for her old father, who treated her with so much
love and affection? She was known as virtue incarnate; then how could
she desert her jeweled palace and forsake its pleasures for a strange prince
whose name and origin she did not know? Didn't the image of her old
father rise before her eyes when she left? Didn't she feel guilty in any
way? Dear readers, you can judge for yourselves the truth of such a story.
It's thousands of years since the Dwaparyuga ended and the KaByuga
began.* Even the EngHsh rule in this country is two hundred and fifty
years old. The writer of this book, I'm sure, was born in this century
itself But I'm sure that all our ancestors put together couldn't ten gen-
erations ago visualize anything like Vasantamadhava's airplane.
The English people have invented many machines: trains, airplanes,
and so on. But even they haven't got the trick of using an airplane for
anything they want to. You can decide for yourselves how incredible
it is to imagine that Vasantamadhava mastered its entire intricate mech-
anism for the sole purpose of carrying off Manjughosha.
Another book in the same tradition is Muktamala. Muktamala was
the daughter of a famous knight. Her husband had been thrown into
prison as a result of the king's wrath. In her attempts to meet him, she
got into the clutches of the despotic officer Bhadraksha. He tortured
her and kept her prisoner in a thick forest. But she never surrendered
her virtue, which is a woman's true religion. It is probably the inten-
tion of the writer to demonstrate this. N o w what I want to debate is
this. A woman is as frail as an ant compared to the towering strength
of a man; why, all the strength in the whole of her body would be less
than the strength contained in the arm of a man. If such a lustful tiger
chased a poor helpless cow in a lonely and unprotected place, would
he refrain from killing her as well?

•Dwaparyuga is the third of the world's four ages; Kahyuga is the present age.
Ed.

TARABAI SHINDE • 231

 Why, even your gods are treacherous. N o wonder you are the same.
Indra impersonated Gautama to seduce a virtuous wife hke Ahalya.
Didn't His HoHness, Lord Krishna, go and ruin the virtue of a great
wife Hke Chandrawal, who loved her husband so much? No, if you
start wrecking houses treacherously, what can a woman's pativratad-
harma* do? H o w can a woman protect her true religion, her loyalty to
her husband?
Krishna at least is a God. He holds in even balance sins and moral
achievements. He is omnipotent and knows the truth. A woman could
save herself from your hands only if God himself takes pity on her and
cuts you into tiny pieces at such times. Otherwise she can't even dream
of being rescued. Such stories are true only in books. The preacher
tells us from his pulpit that eating aubergines is forbidden in the Pur-
anas and one shouldn't eat them. But the moment he is back from his
preaching, all that he has said is promptly forgotten and he stuffs him-
self with a hearty meal of those very vegetables. Obviously what he
preaches is only for other people to follow. What use is such knowl-
edge? And who follows such dicta? Who cares about the sufferings of
a woman? She can escape a tyrant only by smashing her head at his
feet. Otherwise escape is impossible. So what is the intention behind
writing such books? They are based on such obviously childish logic.
One who knows the ways of the world can easily see how false the
whole thing is.
Let us now turn to the play Manorama. The playwright has delineated
four types of situations here. In the first, the couple Manorama and
Ganapatrao are shown to have come to a good end because they are
both cultured and educated. The couple Godubai and Ramrao Phadnis,
on the other hand, are most ill matched. This is apparently to show
how young wives ignore their old husbands and how contemptuously
they treat them. Later on the writer presents elaborate descriptions of
Godubai reveling in her native vileness after Ramrao's death, her be-
coming a laughingstock in the court of law, the police inspector's style
of working, and the testimony of Saraswatibai and Tuka the barber.
In the third situation, we have the couple Gangu and poor Vinayakrao.
Gangu doesn't love her husband because of his poverty, and through
the machinations of Saraswatibai, she becomes friendly with loafers

*Pativratadharma refers to a wife's religion. This is a concept somewhat Hke that

of "virtue" with many dimensions and many implications. A wife's religion is
the worship of a husband, whom she must consider a god.—Ed.

232 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

and runs off to Karachi to openly become a whore. There, once again
we find descriptions of the false affections of whores, their false words,
their hollow promises, and so on.
The fourth section consists of the account of Rambhatji's daughter-
in-law Thaku, who is a widow. Later she becomes pregnant and after
going through every kind of suffering imaginable, she dies in extreme
distress of some horrible disease in Bottlebhoy's hospital in Bombay.
All these different types of stories have been cooked up by the dram-
atist, but the question is. To what end? In fact, by writing such a play
the writer has exposed himself in public and made himself a butt of
ridicule. It's true that a clenched hand contains a million, every house
has skeletons in its cupboards, and every house has some darkness and
some Hght. Every house, however, also has a widow—either a sister,
or mother, or daughter-in-law, or daughter. A stigma to one is a stigma
to all. What a grand achievement it is that this author has managed to
malign all widows by one stroke of his pen! Who can claim that all
parents will learn their lesson from this play and get their daughters
married only to good and virtuous husbands; and that Lady Luck will
smile upon all women as she did on Manorama!
Similarly, old dogs like Ramrao will never learn a lesson from the
play just because they see how Ramrao married a young adventuress
only to have his prestige auctioned off in the crowded court of law.
That will never stop them from marrying young girls in their old age.
There shouldn't be any doubt that those who marry when they are so
old will be disgraced and subjected to ridicule both in private and in
public. But it is impossible to beHeve that all women will run away
from husbands who are inferior to them.
N o w it is hardly surprising that Thaku died in the hospital. After
all, she was going to die anyway. Either at home or in the hospital.
Dear authors, please don't imagine, even in your wildest dreams, that
you will be able to strike terror into the hearts of people and persuade
them never to do such things again simply by writing such stories.
In short, it is you who are vice incarnate. Why blame women? Women
like Anadibai, the aunt of the Peshwas who was notorious for her mur-
derous deeds, are far less in number than similar men. There will not be
more than ten women like Vijayalakshmi in a hundred, either.
And even if a woman is guilty of any monstrous deeds, she is, none-
theless, superior to man. Once you win her over with your various
tricks, and become the king of her heart, she trusts you implicitly and
loves you with every fiber of her being. Then you become the most
precious thing for her, next to her virtue, of course. She offers you

TARABAI SHINDE • 233

nothing less than her hfe. H o w can she see through your treacherous
game? Because at such times you behave hke a slave to her. You win
her favors with such an obtrusive and officious manner that you are
ready to even lick her shoes. Yes, your love knows no bounds, but for
how long? Until your lust is satiated. Once your desire is fulfilled, and
she becomes pregnant, you leave all the worrying and suffering to her
and hide your face like a scorpion, behind a stone. When that mortified
woman, innocent as a deer, crushed to death by that burden on her
soul, begs the wicked man, that beast in disguise, to help her, he an-
swers her with such indifference as if it were none of his concern.
"What can I do about it? You have sinned and now you must suffer
for it." Ah, what an answer! What must she feel when she hears such
words from the same mouth that had uttered words dripping with
love, which she regarded with utmost love, for which she was pre-
pared to throw away her life and soul? They are not words, they are
poisoned arrows. Think of her condition when she hears such words.
But what can the poor woman do? Utterly destitute, she had no cour-
age left but to abandon the child, her own flesh and blood, to save the
honor for which she has to undergo so severe a punishment.
Here under the British rule, not a leaf can be moved without a wit-
ness! But in such delicate affairs, witnesses are conspicuously absent.
The government also deserves to be blamed for this. They have passed
a law that the punishment given to him who offers a bribe will be
double that given to him who accepts it. Similarly, I would suggest
that they should pass a law in such cases as well by which the man
should get twice as much punishment as woman gets. Why shouldn't
it be so? Even in ancient civilizations like Rome and Greece such crimes
used to be punished most severely. I have one suggestion to offer in
this regard. The government should brand the stupid prattling mouths
of these men with red-hot irons. This will strike terror in their hearts
and such crimes will never be committed! Think of that miserable
woman who later on spends her life in some godforsaken corner, or
in the jail, mourning her fate, weeping her heart out, trying to wash
the stains off her character. All her honor is torn to rags by such pubhc
disgrace. Many commit suicide, many abandon their relatives, give up
their wealth, and go into exile. Even a cobra is preferable to you. At
least it kills immediately. But the poison that you inject into her afflicts
her with intolerable agony and causes her to die a slow, slow death.
Thus, you are more treacherous than even a poisonous snake. You can
judge who has a more generous mind. Will you ever suffer as much as
she does for you?

234 • REFORM AND NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS

 Never, never will you be so kind! Never can you be so generous!
N o sooner have you ruined one than you are ready to go after another.
Then you won't remember the first one even in a dream. But a w o m -
an's love is as deep as an ocean. She will value the man she loves even
more than her own life. He may torture her, but she will always be
on his side. Thus her heart is always full of tender love for him, but
look how she's rewarded.
I'm sure there are very few men who are ruined by women. But it
would be difficult even to guess at the number of women ruined by
men. You are far too clever for women. You are, in fact, nothing but
scoundrels of the first order! You are so cunning that you will pass
through a sugarcane field without letting those sharp leaves touch you,
let alone scratch you. You organize big meetings every day, deliver
impressive speeches, offer unwanted advice to all and sundry, and do
a hundred other such stupid things. You are nothing but learned asses!
Yes, that's what you are really. It is said that it's always dark just under
a lamp! You are no exception to that rule! If only you realized how
much evil you contain, it would break your heart! . . .
Translated by Maya Pandit.

SWARNAKUMARI DEVI
(1856-1932) Bengali

The history of modern Bengali literature and culture is inextricably inter-

twined with the history of the Tagore family of Jorasanko, which was to
Bengali society what the Medici family was to Europe during the Renais-
sance. The most illustrious member of the family was undoubtedly Swar-
nakumari Devi's younger brother, the poet and novelist Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941), but Swarnakumari herself, novelist, poet, play-
wright, songwriter, and journalist, was one of the most distinguished lit-
erary figures of the time, and a torchbearer in the tradition of women's
writing in Bengal. As Anurupa Devi (1882-1942), also a famous name in
Bengali literature, put it, "The advent of Swarnakumari on the literary
scene of Bengal heralded a new era for women. Many women had written
poems and stories before her, but these were looked upon patronizingly.
She was the first writer to show up the strengths of women's writing and
raise women's creations to a position of respect."
During her lifetime Swarnakumari's novels were as popular as those of

SWARNAKUMARI DEVI • 235