*Author: Sapna Pandey*

Abstract: This article aims to focus on a personality who is claimed to be the maker of
Modern India based on her only writing (Stri-purush Tulana), which rests on the literary
quality and political resonance.

Keywords: Tarabai shinde, Stri- purush tulana.

INTRODUCTION

Simone De Beauvoir, who is considered to be the pioneer in the field of feminist discourse
by 20th century of Europe, one can trace feminism in India through the attempts of a
personality who can be called a Fierce feminist i.e. Tarabai Shinde. Vidyut Bhagwat points
out that ‘appeared almost a century before Simone de Beauvior’s The Second Sex,
Tarabai’s forthright polemical style stands in sharp contrast to de Beauvoirs’.

Going back to the era of the early 19 th century where the Britishers came to hold a
significant position and started inducing the ideas of western liberalism. It attracted the
interest of educated Indian elites and they heavily showed interest in western education,
eliminating social obscures of the society, etc. The 19th century was a period where women
were subjected to forced widowhood, denial of education, sexual violence, and norms
which prescribed how they should behave both in the private and public sphere, which
meant her “Boundaries”. Uma Chakravarti argues that taming women from the public
sphere has been achieved over time and in phases.

The question of Westernization was closely linked to Hindu women’s notions of India’s
‘Golden Age’. Concepts of ‘liberty’, ‘bondage’, ‘slavery’, and ‘freedom’ were analyzed in
some detail, though a great deal of ambiguity is apparent in their writings. Thus, Anandibai
Prabhu Desai expressed discontent with terms like bandhivasan (bondage) and dasvatva
(slavery), which she argued were constantly used to express the condition of Indian
women. According to her, these did injustice to Indian women while the terms swatantra
(freedom) and mokaleek (independent) were standard expressions used to describe the
position of Western women. However, she offers no alternative definition. Other women
like Girijabai Kelkar, after examining women’s role in the ancient, medieval a,nd modem
times, come to the conclusion that, ‘the concept of equality is a new term that Indians have
learned from the West in politics alone, but as far as practice is concerned, equality
between male and female has been in our country from ancient times onwards.
During that period the emancipation of women became a center of attraction amongst the
reformers. Those sincere attempts like widow remarriage, abolishing child marriage,
education for young girls, etc. can be clubbed under on broad expression “women’s
upliftment”, as a common approach not only by Indian elites but also by the Britisher as
well.

During this turbulent phase only Tarabai Shinde, one of the few women, dared to speak out
against religion at a time when zealots were many and dissenters were few. What she
called for was altogether different and more radical from this common approach. She
called for equality or parity between men and women. It is important to understand the
difference between both approaches. If we look at the idea of upliftment, it by no means
the equal status of the women in terms of social, political and economical terms. The idea
was to elevate some of the social evils which had their roots in ancient times through
establishing schools, samaj, etc. Whereas the idea of Tarabai was more radical and
germane as mentioned earlier.

The so far introduction is not sufficient to understand what makes her so discrete,
therefore, it’s important to look at in what kind of environment she was brought up, ideas
revolving and experience along with other factors.

Tarabai was born in the 1830s into an elite Maratha family, in the town of Buldana, in the
Berar region of the present day state of Maharashtra. Her family owned some land and her
father, Bapuji Hari Shinde, worked as a senior clerk in the office of the deputy
commissioner of Buldana. He was apparently also a member in Jyotirao Phule’s
Satyashodhak samaj, a reformist and anti-Brahmin society set up in 1873 by Jotirao Phule,
though we don’t know how active a member he was. She was married at a young age and
she had a form of marriage called ghar jamai, which is different from the traditional form of
marriage within the patriarchal society, as this form appeals to the husband to live in the
house of the bride instead adopting of “new” house by women and therefore she was less
confined than she might otherwise have been.

British historian Rosalind O’Hanlon, the translator of Trabai’s text, revealed that Phule’s
admired Tarabai and her writings too. According to O’Hanlon, the discourse of Tarabai not
only emphasized on the gender which served as a significant element in the construction
of colonial hegemony but it also provided “key groups of Indian and British men alike with a
common language in which they were able to discuss and agree on important aspects of
the Indian social order”.

There was a considerable amount of influence of Phule’s on her ideas, literature, and
expression. The Phules in 1854 started a shelter for upper-caste widows who were
forbidden from marrying and were almost excluded from mainstream society. Later, they
involved Tarabai in both these initiatives, which served an almost common conviction. Even
though their approaches were complementary to each other, Phule believed that
brahmanic norms oppressed the lower caste, however, for Tarabai it oppressed the
women’s most as it had been divided by men.

Unlike some parts of India, we get a picture of Maharashtrian women who were active in
the public sphere and who had abilities and political resourcefulness in casting themselves
before they were cast by man as put by Padma Anagol. With political resourcefulness they,
could set up organizations like Arya mahila samaj, schools, etc. where discourses and
penetration of ideas started on the ground level. Women started making use of law and
state procedures in framing their rights to livelihood, property, etc.

By the late 19th century we also had a handful of Brahmin women who had become doctors
and teachers in Maharashtra. These pioneers called for the emancipation of women from
the oppression within the household.

Those were the days which did not fabricate to women and herself ideas or decisions
accepted in the mainstream society. The 1880s was a decade when the vernacular press
began to report an increasing number of women being arrested and charged with
infanticide. One such event occurred in Surat where an upper-caste widow, was sentenced
to death for having an abortion. After this a series of articles were published in The Pune
Vaibhar, insulting women for their, “new loose morals,” and portraying the Indian woman as
detestable. The event of surat, strikes one of the earliest notes of revolt, a defining moment
in the paradigm of feminist insurgency as it is accepted that Tarabai wrote her book in
response to this article to show Indian society that there are double-standards for men and
women and that women deserve more rights.

Some of the female intellectuals noted it and took action in various ways. Some were angry
about the government’s tendency to arrest women for this offence and some started
questioning the society and wrote treatises questioning contemporary gender relations as
Tarabai Shinde had done. Tarabai’s Stree Purush Tulana (A Comparison Between Men and
Women), was originally written in Marathi, in response to the unfair treatment of women. It
was written in 1882 and remained unknown till 1975. Malshe found this essay and he
republished it in 1975. It was later on tranlsted in English by a British historian named,
Roselind O’Hanlon.

In her writing one can see the furious and frenzied anger towards the societal norma and
beliefs towards women and their status. Through this book, Tarabai urges the reader to
consider the fact that the suppositions made by men claiming themselves to be ordained,
divine and whole are incorrect. She has pointed out several socially created and fabricated
flaws that women supposedly have and demolished them.

The book is an open challenge to the patriarchal norms that prohibited women’s freedom.
She was successful in constructing a counter-model for ‘womanhood’ and this model
provided a picture that was different from the pre-existent notions. She rejected the idea of
men’s superiority in gender relations while at the same time, recognizing the fact that
women have their issues to be addressed. However, none of these issues makes her
inherently inferior to men and this remains her central argument, throughout her book.
Thus, making Tarabai Shinde a revolutionary figure.

She clarified the purpose of writing, “God brought this amazing universe into being, and it
was He who also who created men and women both. So is it true that only women’s bodies
are home to all kinds of wicked vices? Or have men got just the same faults as we find in
women? I wanted this to show this clearly, and that is the reason I’ve written this small
book, to defend the honour of my entire sister countrywomen. I’m not looking at particular
castes or families here. It’s just a comparison between women and men”. She said that
men conspired against women to maintain their dominance in society.

CONCLUSION

Tarabai states in her writing: our mouths and minds are full of ideas of reforms and other
stuff for the emancipation of women, but the question arises, is anyone doing anything for
it? Veraciously she questions the meetings where people are using flamboyant and fancy
words … but is it really making any change in Society? She also questions the Samaj and
Organisation in the name of ‘women upliftment’. What’s the use of them?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Ramchandra Guha, Makers of modern India, 2010

• Reeta kumari, A Case Study of Tarabai Shinde in Maharashtra: A Research
Hypothesis, 2017
• Manisha Kale, Tarabai Shinde’s ‘A comparison of men and women’: A milestone in
Indian feminism, 2014
• Anupama Rao, Gender and Caste, 2003
• Uma Chakravarti, Caste, Gender and Patriarchy
• Shelly Parul Bhadwal, Words as Weapon: Tarabai Shinde’s Stri Purush Tulana and
Gender Politics in Nineteenth Century India, 2017