Writing Stri Dharma: International feminism, nationalist politics, and women's press advocacy in late colonial India

Women's History Review

Volumn 12, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 623-649

  Tusan, Michelle Elizabeth ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247459438     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020300200377     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. Women's magazines, Stri Dharma, 5 April 1922, p. 82
2. Geraldine Forbes (1996) Women in Modern India, pp. 72-75 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
3. Barbara N. Ramusack (1981) Catalysts or Helpers? British Feminists, Indian Women's Rights, and Indian Independence, in Gail Minault, (Ed.) The Extended Family, pp. 124-130 (Columbia: South Asia Books)
4. K. Visweswaran (1990) Family Subjects: an ethnography of the 'women's question' in Indian nationalism, pp. 1-4, PhD thesis, Stanford University
5. For more on British advocacy journalism, see Michelle Elizabeth Tusan (1999) The Making of the Women's Political Press: gender and advocacy journalism in Britain, 1858-1930, PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley
6. On the origin of these male-run movements, see Forbes, Women in Modern India, pp. 10-64
7. Antoinette Burton (1994) Burdens of History, pp. 97-125 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press)
8. Kumari Jayawardena (1995) in The White Woman's Other Burden (New York: Routledge) has argued using the example of Margaret Cousins that by the 1920s and 1930s 'Western women committed to Indian nationalist causes, women's rights and female education became an accepted feature of the local scene ... It was clearly an era where gender roles of Western women in a colonial situation were no longer merely those of missionaries and "maternal" social reformers' (p. 155)
9. Stri Dharma, 1 January 1918, p. 4
10. Leila J. Rupp (1997) Worlds of Women, p. 34 (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
11. D. Jinarajadasa (1918) Suggestions for Conducting a Branch Meeting, Stri Dharma, 1 January 1918, p. 8
12. Notes and Comments, Stri Dharma, 9 July 1926, p. 129
13. 'Citizenship,' and 'Separate electors' were printed in the devanagari (Hindi) script with the English spelling in parenthesis. I would like to thank Shobna Nijhawan for this insight. For general treatment of this subject, see Orsini, What Did They Mean by 'Public?': language, literature, and the politics of nationalism, Economic and Political Weekly, February 13, p. 409 and Vasudha Dalmia (1997) The Nationalisation of Hindu Traditions (Delhi: Oxford University Press)
14. Anonymous, 'Recollections and Reminiscences,' WIA Golden Jubilee Celebrations, 1917-1967, Madras, 1967. British Library India Office, MSS Euro F341/186
15. Margaret (nee Gillespie) and James Cousins met in Dublin and were married on April 9, 1903. Margaret was born in 1878 in Boyle, County Roscommon and received her degree in music from the Royal University, Dublin. After meeting James she began associating with the radical literary set in Dublin and participating in counter-cultural movements such as temperance, anti-smoking, vegetarianism, and pacifism. See the Cousins's dual biography, We Two Together (Madras: Ganesh, 1950) and Catherine Candy (1996) The Occult Feminism of Margaret Cousins in Modern Ireland and India, 1878-1954, PhD thesis, Loyola University, Chicago
16. Cousins & Cousins, We Two Together, pp. 129-130
17. Mrs. Margaret Cousins and Her Work in India, compiled by 'One Who Knows,' (1956), pp. 1-4 (Madras: MLJ Press). (Mrs.) Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy was most likely to have been the author. Women received the vote by province starting with Bombay and Madras in 1921
18. Reddy was born in Madras and received a progressive education. Her father, S. Narayanasami, broke with tradition and sent her to school at an early age. She received her BA from Maharaja's College and her MD from Madras Medical College in 1912. In 1914 she married Dr. T. Sundara Reddy on the condition that he agreed to allow her to continue to practice medicine and remain involved in politics while she raised a family. Reddy (1964) Autobiography of Dr. (Mrs.) Muthulakshmi Reddy, pp. 109-110 (Madras: MLJ Press). Note: two spellings are used in English: 'Reddy' and 'Reddi.' I have used the former as she did in her autobiography
19. Reddy (1930) My Experience as a Legislator, p. 5 (Madras: MLJ Press)
20. Interview by Ruth Woodsmall: December 7, 1930, p. 5. British Library India Office, MSS Euro F 341/157
21. Reddy, Autobiography, p. 87
22. Interview with Woodsmall, p. 3
23. Critics such as Radhabai Subbarayan accused those at the journal of 'devoting more time to Party politics than to the Women's movement. This is a great pity as they were doing very good work for the improvement of the status of women, socially and politically.' Mrs. K. Radhabai Subbarayan to Eleanor Rathbone, April 24, 1931. Fawcett Library, Rathbone collection, Folder 5, no. 7
24. Stri Dharma, 16 September 1933, p. 549
25. Mr. K. Sundaram Aiyar, Women's Place in Indian Language Journals, Stri Dharma, 15 January 1932, p. 138
26. Raka Ray (1999) Fields of Protest: women's movements in India, p. 3 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press)
27. Stri Dharma, 15 March 1932 and 11 September 1928
28. Orsini, 'What Did They Mean by "Public"'?, pp. 409-416
29. Stri Dharma, 17 January 1934, p. 123
30. M. Reddy, 1917-1967, WIA Golden Jubilee Celebration, p. 22. British Library India Office, MSS Euro F341/186
31. Shakuntala Devi Agraval, Spinning Wheel and Spindle, Stri Dharma, 15 June 1932, pp. 441-442
32. See the following articles in the Hindi sections of Stri Dharma: True Purity and Holiness, 11 September 1928, pp. 282-285
33. Notes and Comments, 11 October 1928, pp. 337-338
34. Need for change, 12 November 1928, pp. 30-33
35. Against the Custom of Pardah, 11 July 1928, pp. 173-175
36. The Progress of Hindu Society, 13 October 1930, pp. 552-555
37. Summary of M. Reddy's Ceremonial Address, 14 April 1931, pp. 260-266
38. Women's Right to Vote, 15 March 1932, pp. 273-276
39. Celebration of 'Child Protection Week,' 15 May 1932, p. 390
40. Lisa Tickner (1987) The Spectacle of Women: imagery of the suffrage campaign, 1907-1914, pp. 55-60 (London: Chatto & Windus); Laura E. Nym Mayhall (2000) Defining Militancy: radical protest, the constitutional idiom, and women's suffrage in Britain, Journal of British Studies, 39, pp. 353-369. For the USA
41. see Margaret Finnegan (1999) Selling Suffrage, pp. 139-168 (New York: Columbia University Press)
42. Partha Chatterjee (1999 reprint edition) The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question, in Kumkum Sangari & Sudesh Vaid (Eds) Recasting Women, pp. 238-239 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press)
43. Leela Kasturi & Vina Mazumdar (Eds) (1994) Women and Indian Nationalism, p. xlv (New Delhi: Vikas)
44. Mrinalini Sinha (1994) Reading Mother India: empire, nation, and the female voice, Journal of Women's History, 6, pp. 6-7
45. Sumit Sarkar (1985) The Women's Question in Nineteenth Century Bengal, in Kumkum Sangari & Sudesh Vaid (Eds) Women and Culture, pp. 157-172 (Bombay: SNDT Women's University), makes a similar argument in his study of nineteenth-century male reformers in Bengal. The question of liberalism's influence on the writing of Indian history has been taken up more recently by Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) Provincializing Europe, p. 16 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), who considers liberal ideology as an unavoidable 'heritage which affects us all,' both 'indispensable and inadequate in helping us to think through the experiences of political modernity in non-Western nations.'
46. Madhu Kishwar (1985) Gandhi on Women, Economic and Political Weekly, October 5, pp. 1696-1697
47. Jim Masselos (1985) Indian Nationalism, pp. 180-181 (New Delhi: Sterling)
48. Thomas Weber (1997) On the Salt March, pp. 370-378 (New Delhi: Harper Collins)
49. Manmohan Kaur (1992) Women in India's Freedom Struggle, pp. 162-164 (New Delhi: Sterling)
50. See Kishwar, 'Gandhi on Women,' p. 1697 and Weber, On the Salt March, p. 378. That number increases dramatically when taken over a longer period. During the first ten months of 1930, according to another source, 17,000 women were convicted for taking part in civil disobedience protests
51. see S.K. Chatioadhayam (1972) The Struggle for Freedom, Women's Forum, 10, p. 84
52. Chatioadhayam, 'The Struggle for Freedom', p. 86
53. Stri Dharma, 16 December 1932, p. 70. Gandhi used the press extensively in his campaigns and his importance as a journalist has been well documented
54. See G.N.S. Raghavan, (1994) The Press in India: a new history, pp. 47-50 (New Delhi: Gyan)
55. M. Chalapathi Rau (1968) The Press in India, pp. 69-76 (Bombay: Allied Publishers)
56. and Weber, On the Salt March, pp. 370-378, 395-404
57. Gandhi (1906) Brave Women, reprinted in Pushpa Joshi (Ed.) (1988) Gandhi on Women, p. 4 (New Delhi: Navajivan)
58. Gandhi left out reports of vandalism for his Gujarati readers. As suffragette violence escalated he openly criticized the WSPU, choosing instead to support the Women's Freedom League (WFL), a militant organization associated with Stri Dharma that rejected the use of violence. James Hunt (1978) Gandhi in London, pp. 137-140 (New Delhi: Promilla)
59. See, for example, the following items in Stri Dharma: The Power of Swadeshi, 14 April 1931, pp. 238-241
60. Condemnation of all Violent Methods by Gandhi, 14 June 1931, p. 348
61. Dress, 13 October 1930, pp. 538-539
62. Drink in Ancient India, 15 January 1932, p. 140
63. Work of Good Government from a Mother's Point of View, 15 April 1932, pp. 311-312
64. The Women Who Follow Gandhi, 16 August 1933, pp. 412-413
65. Jana Matson Everett (1979) Women and Social Change in India, pp. 114-119, 123 (New York: St. Martin's Press) discusses Stri Dhrama's support of civil disobedience
66. For more on Gandhi's reform ideology, see Amrit Srinivasan (1994) Women and Reform of Indian Tradition: Gandhian alternative to liberalism, in Kasturi and Mazumdar (Eds) Women and Indian Nationalism, pp. 1-15
67. Cousins (1939) Towards Progress and Freedom, in Kamaladevi Chattopadhyayya (Ed.) The Awakening of Indian Women, p. 51 (Madras: Everyman's Press). British Library India Office, MSS Euro F341/106
68. Stri Dharma, 15 November 1931, p. 12
69. Masselos, Indian Nationalism, pp. 151-183
70. On April 27, the Indian Press Act of 1910, repealed in 1922, was reinstated for a period of six months. When Gandhi made public the idea of publishing alternative newspapers outside of the jurisdiction of the act it was supplemented by the New Sheets and Newspapers Ordinance Act on July 2. Weber, On the Salt March, pp. 402-403
71. Stri Dharma was never censored during its publication. C.A. Bayly (1996) Empire and Information, pp. 178, 228, 316, 358 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) has argued that the British undervalued and often ignored information offered to authorities by and about women during the nineteenth century. This trend most likely continued during the nationalist period, thus allowing publications like Stri Dharma to go unnoticed by authorities
72. Benedict Anderson (1992) Imagined Communities, p. 6 (London: Verso)
73. Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy & Angela Woollacott (Eds) (1999) Feminisms and Internationalism, pp. 1-2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
74. Margaret Cousins, News from Headquarters, Stri Dharma 11 April 1928, p. 21. Cousins's leadership in the All Indian Women's Conference was also questioned by Indian women leaders who did not want a non-Indian woman as president Forbes, Women in Modern India, p. 81
75. See Ramusack, 'Catalysts or Helpers?', p. 143
76. Stri Dharma, 18, October/November 1935, p. 406
77. WIA Annual Report, 1934-36, British Library Indian Office, MSS Euro F341/186
78. The last journal number I have located was the April 1936 issue, although David Doughan & Denise Sanchez (1987) Feminist Periodicals, p. 41 (New York: New York University Press) claim that the journal continued through August of that year. The WIA became part of AIWC after independence