Social reforms aimed at changing the social, political, or economic status of women in India were important both to British colonial rule and to nascent nationalist movements. Debates over practices such as widow immolation, widow remarriage, and child marriage, as well as those governing marriage and property within different religious communities, continued to exert profound influence on Indian society and politics throughout the 20th century. In this collection, eminent historians Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar bring together some of the most important scholarly articles and primary...
Social reforms aimed at changing the social, political, or economic status of women in India were important both to British colonial rule and to na...
The first full-length autobiography in Bengali, "Amar Jiban" ("My Life") was written in the early nineteenth century by an upper-caste rural housewife named Rashundari Debi. Published in 1868 when she was 88 years old, the book is a fascinating snapshot of life for women in the nineteenth century. Debi, who gave birth to eleven children--her first was born when she was 18-years-old, the last when she was forty-one--ruminates on her very individual understanding of "bhakti "as well as the new times that were unfolding around her. Offering a translation of major sections of this remarkable...
The first full-length autobiography in Bengali, "Amar Jiban" ("My Life") was written in the early nineteenth century by an upper-caste rural housewife...
