art of travel

the organisation, Satyashodhak Samaj of the Phules. In 1882, Tarabai wrote a long essay titled “Stree-purush Tulana” (a comparison between men and women). It was in response to an article in a conservative newspaper about a young Brahmin widow who had been sentenced to death for murdering her illegitimate child. Upper-caste widows were forbidden to remarry and were vulnerable to sexual abuse. Tarabai’s hard-hitting essay based on her firsthand experience as a social worker opened a can of worms. Her essay, which had a print run of 500 copies, and shed a harsh light on the hypocrisy of the society, fell into oblivion at the behest of the powerful until it was revived more than 60 years after Tarabai’s death.

3. Bhikaiji Cama (1861-1936) – Born into an elite Parsi family in Bombay (now Mumbai), Bhikaiji Cama was married to a wealthy pro-British Parsi lawyer at the age of 20. She became involved in social work during the famine and plague of the 1890s, and went to London for treatment after she herself contracted the plague. There she met Indians like Dadabhai Naoroji who were opposed to British rule in India. This didn’t go down well with her husband who wanted her to give in writing that she would stay away from all anti-British activities. Bhikaiji Cama instead chose to go to Paris from where she sent pro-independence literature and guns concealed in toys to support the resistance that was smuggled into India through the French territory of Pondicherry. She was also instrumental in the design of an Indian flag that was first flown in Frankfurt in 1907. In her 70s, she returned to India due to her failing health, where she died. A staunch advocate of gender equality, Bhikaiji Cama donated a significant portion of her wealth to the Avabai Petit orphanage for girls in Bombay.

4. Dr. Rukhmabai (1864-1955) – Rukhmabai from Mumbai was the second Indian woman doctor who opposed the oppressive tradition of child marriage. She was married at age 11 to a man eight years her senior. When Rukhmabai reached puberty just a few months into her marriage, her husband wanted to consummate the marriage but her step-father, a well-known doctor opposed it. As a 12-year old Rukhmabai continued her studies and hobnobbed with the progressive minds of her parent’s social circle. When she was 20, her husband filed a case against her for conjugal rights. This high-profile court case sparked intense debates within society, in newspapers, and even in British women’s magazines. In 1887, citing Hindu laws, a British judge ruled in favour of her husband and asked Rukhmabai to go and live with her husband or face six months in jail. She said she would prefer to go to jail. This came as a shocker for the vast majority who blamed it on her education and declared her as a threat to the Hindu religion. Later she decided to appeal to Queen Victoria, who eventually overruled the court’s decision and declared the marriage null and void. Rukhmabai went on to study medicine at the London School of Medicine from where she graduated in 1894. She retired in 1929, at the age of 65 after serving as Chief Medical Officer in two women’s hospitals of Gujarat. The publicity and the debate generated by Rukhmabai’s court case led to the enactment of the “Age of Consent Act” in 1891, which changed the age of consent from 10 to 12 years across British India.

5. Akka Mahadevi (1130-1160) – Born nearly nine centuries ago in what is now Karnataka, Akka Mahadevi was a poet and an ardent devotee of Shiva. But she was completely against the caste system and the exclusive rights of the upper caste in matters related to religion. Akka Mahadevi composed around 430 poems, many of which reflect her ideas about home and marriage. In one, she talks about how she wanted time off from her husband to worship Shiva and interact with scholars. In another, she talks about how she abandoned her home in pursuit of Shiva. While the details of her marriage are sketchy, it is beyond doubt that Akka Mahadevi didn’t care at all about the institution of marriage and she made no bones about it. In one of her poems, she wrote:

“Take these husbands who die,
decay, and feed them
to your kitchen fires!”
Akka Mahadevi is an iconic figure in the vernacular literature of Karnataka and was lovingly referred to as Akka (elder sister) by her contemporaries.