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Pandita Ramabai was one of India’s earliest feminists. Honored with the title of Saraswati in Calcutta in 1879, she soon alienated the men who had initially supported her. A high-caste Hindu widow, Ramabai converted to Christianity, an act that was seen as not only a betrayal of her religion but of her very nation.
A classic study, Rewriting History does more than introduce one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India; it rescues Ramabai from the marginalization of her contemporaries. Arguing that this controversial figure has been actively suppressed in the writing of India’s pre-independence history, Uma Chakravarti liberates Ramabai with an acute and nuanced critique of the power relations and hierarchies within a colonized society. Thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed, Rewriting History is essential reading for those interested in gender, class, and caste in nineteenth century India.
A classic study, Rewriting History does more than introduce one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India; it rescues Ramabai from the marginalization of her contemporaries. Arguing that this controversial figure has been actively suppressed in the writing of India’s pre-independence history, Uma Chakravarti liberates Ramabai with an acute and nuanced critique of the power relations and hierarchies within a colonized society. Thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed, Rewriting History is essential reading for those interested in gender, class, and caste in nineteenth century India.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Caste, Gender and the State in Eighteenth Century Maharashtra
Caste Contestation, Class Formation, Nationalism and Gender
Law, Colonial State and Gender
Men, Women and the Embattled Family
On Widowhood: the Critique of Cultural Practices in Women’s Writing
Structure and Agency: A Life and a Time
Bibliography
Index
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