Pandita Ramabai

Concept of Gender
Prepared by Dr. Hemasri Devi
Asstt. Prof. Deptt. of Political Science
Pub Kamrup College
 Introduction

• Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati (23 April 1858 – 5 April 1922) was an

Indian social reformer.
• She was the first woman to be awarded the titles of Pandita as a
Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of
the University of Calcutta.
• She was one of the ten women delegates of the Congress session of
1889.
• Pandita Ramabai was a social worker, scholar and a
champion of women's rights, freedom and education
during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Recognized as one of India's most influential woman
reformers, she was the first to promote the welfare
and education of Indian widows.
• She was the rare woman who had learned Sanskrit, the
ancient Hindu liturgical language reserved for Brahmin
men; the rare Brahmin to marry out of caste; the rare
widow who remained in public view, defying customs;
and the rare Indian woman to decide, on her own, to
convert to Christianity.
• In the late 1890s, she founded Mukti Mission at Kedgaon
village (Pune).
• Kaisari-i-Hind Medal for community service in 1919,
awarded by the British Colonial Government of India.
• She is honored with a feast day on the
liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on 5
April, and she is remembered in the Church of England with
a commemoration on 30 April.
• On 26 October 1989, in recognition of her contribution to
the advancement of Indian women, the Government of India
issued a commemorative stamp.
• A road in Mumbai is also named in her honour. The road
connecting Hughes Road to Nana Chowk, in the vicinity of
the Gamdevi locality is known as Pandita Ramabai Marg.
• She was born Rama Dongre on April 23, 1858.
• Her Parents: The Sanskrit scholar Anant
Shastri Dongre and his second wife
Lakshmibai Dongre.
• Though it was the period where learning to be
limited to men and for women to be married
off at a young age, Rama’s father, Anant
Shastri Dongre, kept her at home and taught
her Sanskrit.
• Ramabai was only 16 years old when she lost both
her parents to famine.
• She and her brother Srinivas made a livelihood
reciting Sanskrit scripture. They moved to Calcutta in
1878, where word spread of Rama’s mastery of the
Hindu holy books. Sanskrit scholars at the University
of Calcutta gave her the titles Pandita (scholar) and
Saraswati (for the goddess of learning).
• She became involved in social reform and education
circles in Bengal. Bai was added to her first name as a
term of respect.
• After her brother Srinivas died in 1880, Ramabai
decided to marry a Bengali lawyer, Bipin Behari
Medhvi, who was a shudra – a low caste.
• Ramabai wanted to improve the status of women
in India. She wanted to create awareness and
address the issues that were being faced by Indian
women due to outdated and oppressive Hindu
traditions.
• She stood against the practice of child marriage,
which resulted in many child widows who led a
miserable life.
• Along with her husband, she planned to start a
school for child widows. However tragedy struck
in 1882, when her husband Medhvi died due to
Cholera.
 Her Journey of Social Activism

• Ramabai moved to Pune after her husband’s death. In

1881, she founded the Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya
Women’s Society), for promoting the cause of
women’s education and to stop child marriages.
• In 1882, Lord Ripon’s Education Commission was
appointed to look into education. Ramabai petitioned
the commission to promote women’s education.
• She also suggested training of teacher and appointment
of women school inspectors. She also argued that under
the existing social environment only women can
medically treat women, therefore Indian women should
be admitted to medical colleges.
• Ramabai’s words created a great sensationin the
Indian society and the news also reached Queen
Victoria. Soon there was a Women’s Medical
Movement started by Lady Dufferin.
• She travelled to every part of India to spread her
message and motivate the women.
• In 1883, she visited England to start medical
training. During her stay in UK, she converted to
Christianity.
• In 1886, she travelled to the United States from
UK, to attend the graduation of the first female
Indian doctor, Anandibai Joshi.
• She stayed in US for two years, during which
she translated textbooks and gave lectures
throughout the United States and Canada.
• She also wrote and published one of her most
important books, and her first book in
English, The High-Caste Hindu Woman. The
book described the sad plight of women,
including child brides and child widows. The
book was dedicated to Dr. Anandibai Joshi,
who died in 1887, six month after she returned
to India.
• Ramabai Associations were formed in major
American cities to raise funds to run a Widow’s
Home for upper-class Hindu widows in India.
• In 1889, she returned to India and established
‘Sharada Sadan’, a home for destitute women.
Her daughter Manorama returned to India after
completing higher studies in the United States and
became Principal of the High School under
Sharada Sadan.
• In 1896, during a severe famine in Maharashtra,
Ramabai rescued thousands of outcast children,
child widows, orphans, and other destitute
women. They were given shelter in Mukti and
Sharada Sadan.
• In 1897, Ramabai went to USA again to revive
the Ramabai Association. Upon her return she
built a new building Kripa Sadan within the Mukti
complex to house and rehabilitates destitutes.
• By 1900, the Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission had
more than 1,500 residents and more than 100
cattle. It is active even to this day. It provides
housing, education, vocational training and
medical services, for widows, orphans, blinds and
many needy groups.
• In 1912, Pandita Ramabai established Christian
High school at Gulbarga, Karnataka where her
daughter Manorama became the Principal.
 The High Caste Hindu Woman
• Pundita Ramabai’s landmark book The High Caste Hindu
Woman, was published by J. B. Rodgers Printing Co., Philadelphia,
in 1887. It has an introduction by Rachel L. Bodley (Dean of
Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania). Its seven chapters
describe the life of a high caste Hindu woman, and analyse Hindu
sacred texts – such as the ‘code of Manu’ – which prescribe the
rules for that life.
• Ramabai’s other notable works
• Stree Dharmaneeti (Marathi Version) (1882)
• Pandita Ramabai’s American Encounter: The Peoples of United
States (1889)
• Pandita Ramabai’s America: Conditions of Life in the United States
• The Wrongs of Indian Motherhood
• Trying to Be Saved by Their Own Merit.
To understand the life of a Hindu woman, she
writes in Chapter I: Prefatory Remarks, it is
necessary to know about the religion and
social customs of Hindus – “There is not an
act that is not performed religiously by them.”
Although they might disagree on other
prescriptions, she observes, most sacred Hindu
texts agree on matters concerning women.
• In Chapter II: Childhood, Ramabai
writes that “A son is the most coveted
of all blessings that a Hindu craves, for
it is by a son’s birth in the family that
the father is redeemed.” This places a
burden of anxiety on mothers in India
at the prospect of childbirth – they
must bear a son to win the approval of
their husbands.
• About the birth of daughters, she writes: “In a
home shadowed by adherence to cruel custom
and prejudice, a child is born into the world;
the poor mother is greatly distressed to learn
that the little stranger is a daughter, and the
neighbors turn their noses in all directions to
manifest their disgust and indignation at the
occurrence of such a phenomenon.
• The mother, who has lost the favor of her
husband and relatives because of the girl's
birth may selfishly avenge herself by showing
disregard to infantile needs and slighting
babyish requests. Under such a mother the
baby soon begins to feel her misery, although
she does not understand how or why she is
caused to suffer this cruel injustice.”
• In Chapter III: Married Life, Ramabai cites Manu in
saying that the marriageable age of a Hindu girl is
between eight and 12 years. She writes that marriage is
the only ‘sacrament’ administered to a Hindu woman
with the utterance of Vedic texts. Thereafter, she
becomes the property of her husband and his kin: “The
girl now belongs to the husband's clan; she is known by
his family name, and in some parts of India the
husband's relatives will not allow her to be called by
the first name that was given her by her parents ;
henceforth she is a kind of impersonal being. She can
have no merit or quality of her own.”
• Ramabai comments on the status prescribed
for women in the Manusmriti and the Vedas,
in Chapter IV: Women’s Place in Religion
and Society: “Those who diligently and
impartially read Sanskrit literature in the
original, cannot fail to recognize the law-giver
Manu as one of those hundreds who have done
their best to make woman a hateful being in
the world's eye.” A woman is denied literature
and sacred scriptures, and relegated to
housekeeping.
• In Chapter V: Widowhood Ramabai writes
that “We now come to the worst and most
dreaded period of a high-caste woman’s life”
–. A time of punishment for the sins
committed by a woman in her former life. The
widow is considered inauspicious – her head is
shaved, she is not allowed ornaments or bright
garments, she must not eat more than one meal
a day and is confined to the house.
• Ramabai writes: “If the widow be a mother of
sons, she is not usually a pitiable object; although
she is certainly looked upon as a sinner, yet social
abuse and hatred are greatly diminished in virtue
of the fact that she is a mother of the superior
beings….. The widow-mother of girls is treated
indifferently and sometimes with genuine hatred,
especially so, when her daughters have not been
given in marriage in her husband's life-time. But it
is the child-widow or a childless young widow
upon whom in an especial manner falls the abuse
and hatred of the community as the greatest
criminal upon whom Heaven's judgment has been
pronounced.”
• In Chapter VI: How the Condition of
Women Tells upon Society, Pandita Ramabai
asks how “these imprisoned mothers” may be
expected to raise children better than
themselves. She says that the most crucial
needs of women are self-reliance, education
and ‘Native Women Teachers’ who “make it
their life-work to teach by precept and
example their fellow-countrywomen.”
• In the seventh chapter, titled The Appeal, the
author says, “We, the women of India, are
hungering and thirsting for knowledge; only
education under God’s grace, can give us the
needful strength to rise up from our degraded
position.” In this concluding chapter, Pandita
Ramabai appeals to other Indians, friends,
benefactors, educators and philanthropists, to
support women’s.