Abstract 2014 Subhasree Ghosh

Subhasree Ghosh, Asutosh College, University of Calcutta, India

Countering gender inequality in nineteenth century colonial India: Some rethinkings

Inequality is intrinsic to the social fabric of South Asia, manifested through class, caste, gender. With the recent spate of violence against women in India, the question of gender disparity has become a much debated and discussed issue amongst the common man on the street. Coming from a state (West Bengal) which has the dubious distinction of topping the list in India so far as crimes against women are concerned, I wish to explore through this paper, with nineteenth century colonial India as the backdrop, how this gender inequality translated into violence in the name of child-marriage, premature sexual intercourse, repeated child-births, mental torture and the measures adopted by the British administration to counter this inequality through legislations that would offer some semblance of relief to the child-wives and women and girls in general. Going against the grain of current historiography, which sees 1857 as the cut-off period so far socio-legal legislations were concerned (Thomas R. Metcalfe) or laments the ‘sudden disappearance’ of the ‘women’s question’ from the agenda of public debate ‘toward the close of the century’ (Partha Chatterjee), this paper argues that the women’s question was very much alive in the second half of the nineteenth century with a plethora of legislations namely, the Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870; The Indian Majority Act, 1875; The Indian Limitation Act, 1877, Age of Consent Act, 1891, passed in this span to counter the ill-effects of religiously-sanctioned customs and rituals. The second half of nineteenth century, hence, cannot be treated as a clinical break so far as the pre-occupation with the women’s question is concerned. In defence of this argument, the paper will endeavour to look into the question of marriage and cohabitation, through the prism of socio-legal reforms in the spatial time-zone of nineteenth century by relooking into the fact as to how the colonial government attempted to counter gender violence—the methodology adopted, the opposition faced—to analyse whether one can trace an element of continuity throughout the nineteenth century. Culling information from archival sources, biographies and autobiographies, newspapers, I would show how the government tried to raise the age of cohabitation through repeated attempts spread out throughout the nineteenth century and how the ‘women’s question’ very much remained a contentious issue being debated in the public sphere, a potent arena of which was the legislative assembly.

Around 1772, the then governor of Bengal Harry Verelst, raised a very relevant question, “Shall we disregard the condition of a wife, incapable of governing herself?” (Verelst, 1772, 139). A little over hundred years down the line, Sir Andrew Scoble, echoed the same sentiment on the floor of the legislative assembly, when he argued in favour of outlawing marital rape, since a wife needs to be treated “not as wife, but as a human creature…” (Abstract, 1891, 86). By passing a multitude of laws throughout the entire radius of nineteenth century, right from Regulation VII of 1819 which brought marriage under criminal jurisdiction by providing for imprisonment, not exceeding one month, to persons found guilty of deserting their wives and families and intentionally neglecting to support them, to the Age of Consent Act of 1891 which raised the age of consent from ten to twelve, the colonial government tried to elevate the status of a wife from being a deaf, dumb, mute creature to a human being with feelings and emotions, desires and needs.

In current historiography, the social space in the later half of the nineteenth century, have been neatly packed off into the inner/home and the outer/world with the nationalists “…situating the ‘women’s question’ in an inner domain of sovereignty, far removed from the arena of political contest with the colonial state.” (Partha Chatterjee, 1992, 117). This paper attempts to counter this contention. A case in point is the Age of Consent Act of 1891. By delving into the passage of the Act, I would endeavour to prove that the ‘women’s question’ was very much in-situ within ‘the arena of political contest with the colonial state.’ The thrust of this Act, as a matter of fact, came from the indigenous society, with petitions being submitted to the government by a host of social reformers and nationalists, namely, Berhamji Malabari, Gopal Hari Deshmukh, M.G. Ranade, K.T. Telang, Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunath Row, which goaded the colonial administration to undertake measures and raise the age of consent and prompted the latter to introduce the Bill in the legislative assembly in January 1891. As was wont in the case of previous legislations, namely, the fierce opposition from some segment of the Indian society, the passage of this Bill, too, was fraught with dissensions, the most prominent voice being that of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The Bill was ultimately passed into an Act in March 1891 with support from a sizeable section of the Indian society. When one looks into the trajectory from 1819 to 1891, one can thus weed out evidences of continuity being woven into the socio-legal tapestry and herein lies the validity and the need to relook into and mull over the existing theories of 1857 being a disjuncture so far as government forays into the domestic sphere is concerned as also nationalists fierce guarding of the personal domain from government interference. I argue, that the tussle that characterised the first half of the nineteenth century continued well into the later half of the decade and that there was considerable noise made by both sides on the ‘women’s question.’