PROPONENTS OF FORMAL FEMALE EDUCATION IN COLONIAL INDIA

Rassundari Devi is among the earliest woman writers in Bengali literature. Her autobiography Amar Jiban (My Life) is known as
the first published autobiography in Bengali language and that too by an Indian woman.

Rassundari Devi lived in times when social reform had barely touched the lives of upper class/caste women in India. Education
was unimaginable for women and a literate woman was synonymous with a wicked/cursed woman. But Rassundari refused to
remain an unlettered woman all her life. She taught herself to read and write, and constructed for herself an identity independent
of her husband and children. She not only earned literacy by sheer dedication and hard work, but also used it for self-discovery.

Rassundari taught herself to read at the age of twenty-six.

The most authentic source to know about Rassundari Devi’s life is her own autobiography in which she has recorded all the major
events of her life.
Birth and Life
Rassundari Devi was born to a rural zamindari family in the small village of Potajia in Pabna (western Bangladesh) in 1809/1810.
She lost her father Padmalochan Roy when she was only a small child. She was raised by her widowed mother with whom she
developed a deep emotional attachment for life. Her mother was a very religious woman who taught her to remember God in good
and bad times. Rassundari’s writing is full of references to her mother and to God, both functioning as her significant other in
structuring her thoughts and actions.
Rassundari never received a formal education – educating girls was considered a sacrilegious act in her days. However, as a child,
she would sit with the young boys in the outer room of her parents’ house where a missionary woman came to teach. She would
listen to the boys repeating alphabets written on the board and try to learn. Unfortunately, the school was soon burned down
bringing an end to whatever little access she had to literacy. Rassundari’s later encounter with the written word proved that she
had quite a good memory as she was able to recognize many of the alphabets she had learned back in childhood.
Rassundari was married at the age of twelve to a man named Nilmani Roy who belonged to a well-to-do landed household in
Rajbari, Faridpur. The marriage took her to the far off village of Ramdia where, as she mentions in her autobiography, people
were kind and caring enough. Still the grief of separation from her beloved mother and that too at such a tender age was too much
to overcome, and she would cry all the time. A Vaishnavite like her husband and his family, Rassundari was deeply religious. Her
firm faith in God’s grace along with her unbreakable spirit helped her carry on in all the challenging times.

Rassundari would perform her domestic duties, but felt a strange desire for something she knew was forbidden to her. The

desire to gain literacy!

At the age of fourteen, Rassundari Devi faced no choice but to assume responsibility of the entire household as her mother-in-law
had lost her eye-sight and become bedridden. She now had to do all the housework from cleaning to cooking to attending to guests
and looking after everyone’s comfort. The family was a large one. There were servants but they were not allowed to enter the
inner premises of the house. Her workload increased as she became a mother at the age of eighteen. She bore 12 children, of
whom 7 died early. Unassisted and confined to the antahpur of the house, Rassundari kept performing her domestic duties, but
felt a strange desire for something she knew was forbidden to her. The desire to gain literacy! The desire to be able to
read Chaintanya Bhagavata on her own.
One day, her husband left his Chaintanya Bhagavata in the kitchen before going out. Rassundari gathered courage, detached a
sheet from the book and hid it in the khori of the kitchen. Then she stole one of the palm leaves on which her son practiced
handwriting. By comparing the words written on the two sheets and with people’s speech, by recollection and recognition of the
letters she had learned in childhood, by constant effort and determination, Rassundari taught herself to read at the age of twenty-
six. She learned to write years later when her son expressed his annoyance about her not answering his letters.
Rassundari was widowed at the age of 59 and a few months after her husband’s death, she finished and published the first version
of her autobiography Amar Jiban in 1868. A final version was published in 1897.

Amar Jiban (My Life)

Amar Jiban was written and published in two parts. The first consisted of sixteen rachanas or compositions. The second part came
out in the year 1906, consisting of fifteen rachanas or compositions. Every composition is preceded by a devotional poem
dedicated to her Dayamadhav, the Vaishnav godhead whom Rassundari Devi had chosen.
Written in chaste Bangla, Amar Jiban narrates the life story of a nineteenth century woman’s struggle for literacy. It portrays the
changing world of rural Bengal and situates women there. About the title of the book, Tanika Sarkar writes:
“The book calls itself – with a thundering audacity – My Life. It makes a bold and a bald statement, presumptuous in the extreme,
in a woman householder. A woman, moreover, who is not connected to a figure of religious or temporal significance, who cannot
claim any miraculous powers or capacities. The life of such a woman would not be written – far less read – before the 19th
century.” (Sarkar, 1999)
Rassundari has narrated her life story in two ways. On one hand, she writes that God’s mercy and benevolence towards her has
made it possible for her to achieve literacy. On the other hand, she also shows how she has made her own decisions in life by
learning to read despite the fear of family disapproval and social ostracism. She praises God’s leela, but also recounts all the hard
work and self-determination she has put in to learn reading.
Scholars like Tanika Sarkar and Meenakshi Malhotra have observed that Rassundari Devi creates the persona of a “bhakt”
(devotee) for herself, and presents all the small and big events of her life as exemplars of God’s mercy or leela, including her
access to the written word. Thus, her transgressive act of learning to read becomes an instance of godly intervention, a divine
purpose, a consequence of God’s will and mercy. That is why, in the text, “the prayers tend to occur before she narrates some
departure she makes from given norms, so as to take away the sting from her transgression.” (Sarkar, 1999)
Rassundari Devi has written Amar Jiban in retrospection. The struggle to learn to read is being described when she has already
mastered the art of writing. She describes the past in terms of vivid immediacy of feelings; she ignores dates, time, and other
factual details, and focuses on descriptions of her everyday household life. And yet sentimentality is not something Rassundari
would indulge in while writing. Amar Jiban is written in a dispassionate, objective style. The prose is well-connected, coherent
and polished.
Tanika Sarkar observes that “her (Rassundari’s) writing is quite removed from the everyday, colloquial forms – not only in the
syntax and in grammatical constructions, but also in the very nature of the prose that she uses. It is not, in any noticeable way,
gender marked.” (Sarkar, 1999)
Rassundari Devi: An Early Feminist
Rassundari Devi’s life is a series of actions and decisions that are serious departures from the patriarchal social norms of her time
and are, therefore, ‘transgressions’ punishable by the society.
Rassundari Devi learned to read and write amidst the popular belief in those days that women who gained literacy brought disaster
upon their families and were punished by God with widowhood. Not only did she learn to read, but she also decided to record the
events and details of her everyday domestic life in a book and got it published. She had the audacity to disclose her life in print.
By doing this, she entered the public sphere which was strictly forbidden to upper class Hindu women. A published work no
longer remains a private act of writing but enters the public domain where it is open and available for perusal and interrogation by
anyone. So there are three major “transgressions” that Rassundari Devi commits according to patriarchy: reading, writing, and
entering the public sphere.

By disclosing her life in print, she entered the public sphere which was strictly forbidden to upper-class Hindu women.
Rassundari also made a notable departure from the common patriarchal belief that female worship can only be expressed in the
form of rituals like vrats (fasts), penance, and cooking bhoga (food for god). Rassundari rejected these conventional, ritualistic
forms of woman’s devotion that served in maintaining the patriarchal social structures, and established an intellectual relationship
with her God by learning to read Chaitanya Bhagavata. (Malhotra, 2016) She chose to engage in a kind of worship where she is an
active participant (like her husband and other men), not a passive devotee.
Many Bengali male authors and poets who came after Rassundari Devi wrote about the greatness of a housewife by positing her
as ‘grihalakshmi’ or the domesticated goddess. Patriarchy has always presented the figure of a grihalakshmi as an ideal woman
whose salvation and satisfaction lay in her endless servitude, and whose happiness lies in the happiness of her husband (master)
and children. Rassundari Devi, in her writing, demystifies the figure of the grihalakshmi by presenting her domestic duties as
labour which is tiresome, repetitive, unrecognised, and far from emotionally fulfilling. Her assertion that “I did everything in a
spirit of duty” is indicative of her emotional detachment from the household work. “Instead of viewing labour in an aesthetic and
romanticized way as male writers like Tagore tended to do, Rassundari deconstructs the iconic figure of the housewife in Amar
Jiban.” (Malhotra, 2016) She also demythifies the nurturing maternal figure by describing her work of feeding and looking after
children as physically laborious. In this manner, Rassundari’s lifewriting contests the male representation of women in literature.
Rassundari Devi’s lifewriting is a testimony of the odds against education of women of her generation. After describing all the
steps, she took to gain literacy including the stealing of sheets and palm leaves, she writes: “Wasn’t it a matter to be regretted,
that I had to go through all this humiliation just because I was a woman? Shut up like a thief, even trying to learn was considered
an offence. It is such a pleasure to see the women today enjoying so much freedom. These days parents of single girl child take so
much care to educate her. But we had to struggle so much just for that.”
In the words of Debarati Sen,“Child marriage and the deep scar that it left on its young victims had probably never had a better
spokesperson than Rassundari. She exposes the shallow motives behind this evil practice which were the fear of female sexuality
and the anxiety to control it.”
Rassundari describes her child marriage and the agony of separation from her mother thus:
“If I am asked to describe my state of mind, I would say it was very much like the sacrificial goat being dragged to the altar, the
same hopeless situation, the same agonized screams.” She adds, “People put birds in cages for their own amusement. Well, I was
like a caged bird. And I would have to remain in this cage for life. I would never be freed.” In fact, the metaphor of a bird being
caged is quite dominant in Rassundari’s autobiography. She saw herself as a prisoner of marriage from where she wished to break
free and transcend her worldly duties as a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law to meet her God.
Rassundari Devi has described her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in a very detailed and frank manner at a time when
they were considered taboo topics for women to speak. Writing about her pregnancy and sharing it with the public by publishing
is certainly a very feminist thing to do. Moreover, “she recalls with great wonder how her body flowered and bore fruits through
divine intervention; which could be also a veiled reference to her satisfied sex life.” (Debarati Sen)
Rassundari Devi, while writing about the hardships she had to face as a child bride and the risks she had to take to gain literacy,
rejoices in the fact that the times are changing and some parents have started educating their daughters. Rassundari Devi is
definitely an advocate of women’s right to education, though she doesn’t mention it explicitly in her autobiography. Rassundari
Devi’s life story is an inspiration and a testimony of a woman’s will power to fight all odds in order to gain education and
liberation.
Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati (1858-1922): Indian Christian social reformer, educator and Bible translator

Ramabai Dongre (Dongre was her family name, Medhavi her married name) was born into a high-caste Hindu family. Her father

was a wandering professional reciter of Hindu epic and mythological texts. After her parents’ death in the 1874 famine, she and

her brother continued the family tradition. Going to Calcutta in 1878, the titles “Pandita” and “Sarasvati” were bestowed on her as

an acknowledgement of her learning. She joined the Brahmo Samaj (a reformist Hindu association) and in June 1880 married a

man of much lower caste than hers. Her only child, Manorama, was born in April 1881. Less than a year later her husband died of

cholera, leaving her in the unenviable situation of a high-caste Hindu widow.

Through the influence of Nehemiah Goreh’s apologetical writings she became intellectually convinced that whatever was true in

the Brahmo theology was actually Christian in origin, and in 1883, during a visit to England, she was baptized in the chapel of the

(Anglican) Community of St. Mary the Virgin in Wantage, England, some of whose members she had met in Poona (Pune). She

was in Europe to pursue a medical degree, which in the end her deafness made impossible. From 1883 to 1886 Ramabai was in

the formal sense an Anglo-Catholic, lecturing and studying social reform and education. In 1887 she published her first English

book, The High-Caste Hindu Woman, a merciless indictment of Hindu India’s treatment of its women, which was persuasive

because it was written from the inside.

Two years later she returned to India, and with American support, opened a non-proselytizing institute for the education of young

Hindu widows. This was the Sharna Sadan (Abode of wisdom) in Bombay. It soon moved to Poona. The more famous orphanage,

Mukti (Salvation) opened at Kedgaon in 1898. In the meantime, Ramabai herself had passed through a second conversion, this

time an evangelical one, and for the remainder of her life her Christianity was close to the Keswick “holiness” pattern. A

Pentecostal-style revival began at Mukti Bible translation. Because her health was poor, the running of Mukti was left mainly to

others. Her daughter Manorama died in 1921, and Ramabai herself died the following year.

Savitribai Phule was the first female teacher in India, Indian social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra. Along
with her husband, Jyotiba Phule in Maharashtra, she played a vital role in improving women's rights in India. She is considered to
be the pioneer of India's feminist movement. Savitribai and Jyotiba together founded one of the early modern Indian girls' school
in Pune, at Bhidewada in 1848. She strived to abolish discrimination and unfair treatment of people on the basis of caste and
gender.
She and her husband were pioneers of women's education in India.[5][6] They started their first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at
Tatyasaheb Bhide's residence or Bhidewada.[

Savitribai Phule was a trailblazer in providing education for girls and for ostracized portions of society. She became the first

female teacher in India (1848) and opened a school for girls with her husband, Jyotirao Phule. She went on to establish a shelter

(1864) for destitute women and played a crucial role in grooming Jyotirao Phule’s pioneering institution, Satyashodhak Samaj,

(1873) that fought for equality of all classes. Her life is heralded as a beacon of women’s rights in India. She is often referred to

as the mother of Indian feminism.

Savitribai was born in Naigaon, a small village in the state of Maharashtra, India. As a young girl, Savitribai displayed a strong

sense of curiosity and ambition. Savitribai was married to Jyotirao Phule in 1840 at the age of nine and become a child bride.

She moved to Pune with him soon after.

Savitribai’s most prized possession was a book given to her by a Christian missionary. Impressed by her enthusiasm to learn,

Jyotirao taught Savitribai to read and write. Savitribai undertook teachers’ training at Ahmednagar and in Pune. She became a

qualified teacher after she passed her 4th examination in 1847.

Determined to change the condition of women in the country, Savitribai, along with Jyotirao, a man of social reform himself,

opened a school for girls in 1848. She became the first female teacher of India. This caused waves of fury in society.

In 1853, Savitribai and Jyotirao established an education society that opened more schools for girls and women from all classes, in

surrounding villages. Her journey was not an easy one. She was abused and had dung thrown at her on her way to school.

Savitribai simply changed into the spare saree she carried with her every day and continued on her journey.
Sympathising with the plight of widows in India, Savitribai opened a shelter for them in 1854. After years of continuous reform,
she paved the way to build a large shelter in 1864 for destitute women, widows and child brides cast aside by their families. She
educated them all. She also adopted Yashwantrao, the son of a widow sheltered in this institution.

Oppressed classes were forbidden from drinking water from the common village well. Jyotirao and Savitribai dug a well in their
own backyard for them to drink water from. This move caused a furore in 1868.

Savitribai was instrumental in shaping Satyashodhak Samaj, The Truthseeker’s Society, a brainchild of Jyotirao’s. The Samaj
primarily aimed at eliminating discrimination and the need for social order. In 1873, Savitribai started the practice of
Satyashodhak Marriage, where couples took an oath of education and equality.

Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed. She was declared to be the best teacher in the state by the British government in 1852. She
received further praise from the government in 1853 for her work in the field of education.
In 1890, Jyotirao passed away. Defying all social norms, she lit his funeral pyre. She carried on Jyotirao’s legacy and took over
the reigns of Satyashodhak Samaj.
The bubonic plague spread across Maharashtra in 1897. Not one to be a mere spectator, Savitribai rushed to affected areas to help.
She opened a clinic for plague victims in Hadapsar, Pune.

While carrying a 10-year-old plague victim to the clinic in her arms, she contracted the disease herself. On March 10, 1897,
Savitribai Phule breathed her last. Her life and work are a testament to social reform and female empowerment in Indian society.
She remains an inspiration for many women rights’ activists in modern times.

Dhondo Keshav Karve (18 April 1858 – 9 November 1962), popularly known as Maharshi Karve, was a social reformer in
India in the field of women's welfare. He advocated widow remarriage and he himself married a widow. Karve was a pioneer in
promoting widows' education. He founded the first women's university in India, the SNDT Women's University (SNDT Women's
University, also called by its full name Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University, is a women's
university in the city of Mumbai, India). in 1916. The Government of India awarded him with the highest civilian award,
the Bharat Ratna, in 1958, the year of his 100th birthday. He organized a conference against the practice of devdasi. He started
'Anath balikashram' an orphanage for girls. His intention was to give education to all women and make them stand on their own
feet. Through his efforts, the first women university was set up in 20th century.
The appellation Maharshi, which the Indian public often assigned to Karve, means "a great sage".

Anne Besant
Annie Besant (née Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's
rights and Home Rule activist, educationist, and campaigner for Indian nationalism.[1][2] She was an ardent supporter of both Irish
and Indian self-rule.[1]
For fifteen years, Besant was a public proponent in England of atheism and scientific materialism. Besant's goal was to provide
employment, better living conditions, and proper education for the poor.[3] She became a prominent speaker for the National
Secular Society (NSS), as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a
book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. Thereafter, she became involved with union actions, including the Bloody
Sunday demonstration and the London matchgirls strike of 1888. She was a leading speaker for both the Fabian Society and the
Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). She was also elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the
poll, even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.
In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular
matters waned. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject. As part of her
theosophy-related work, she travelled to India. In 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu School, and in 1922 she helped
establish the Hyderabad (Sind) National Collegiate Board in Bombay (today's Mumbai), India. She soon gathered round her a
band of Indians to work for the regeneration of the country and in 1898, after much planning, founded the Central Hindu School
and College in Benares (now Varanasi). A few years later she started the Central Hindu School for Girls. Theosophists from
overseas came to help her in the work of the college, which was established with the object of impressing India’s past glory on the
minds and hearts of the students. A brilliant band of workers gathered round her, including Dr Bhagavan Das, his brother
Govinda Das, Gyanendra Nath Chakravarti, Upendranath Basu, I. N. Gurtu, and P. K. Telang, all of whom worked in an honorary
capacity. Later the college became the nucleus of the Hindu University, and in recognition of Mrs Besant’s services to Indian
education the degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred upon her in 1921.
The Theosophical Society Auditorium in Hyderabad, Sindh (Sindh) is called Besant Hall in her honor. In 1902, she established
the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years, she established
lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international
headquarters were, by then, located in Adyar, Madras, (Chennai).
Besant also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress.[1] When World War I broke out in 1914,
she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India, and dominion status within the British Empire.
This led to her election as president of the Indian National Congress, in late 1917. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United
States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, who she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha.
Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. After the war, she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes
of theosophy, until her death in 1933.
Mataji Maharani Tapaswini, initially called Gangabai, was a Brahmin woman hailing from the Deccan region of British India.
She was born in 1835 in Vellore District of Tamil Nadu. She was well versed in Sanskrit language and the sacred scriptures,
related to the Hindu religion. Gangabai wanted to propagate a pattern of female education compatible with the Hindu religious and
ethical laws. With this intent, she came to Kolkata. Unlike some other reformers of that time, Gangabai believed that Hindu
society could be regenerated from within.

Gangabai’s Contribution towards the Society

For the sake of saving her motherland, Gangabai left her home and came to Jhansi where she became an intimate companion
of Rani Laxmi Bai, who was a distant maternal aunt of hers. Being united with Rani Laxmi Bai, Gangabai bravely fought the
rebellion of 1857. After Laxmi Bai’s death, Gangabai came to Nepal, in the company of Nana Saheb, and she spent almost 30
years of her life in volatile for practicing the hardest sadhanas, which probably gave her the name of Tapaswini Mata. There she
was preparing for her next mission in life, which was carried out in Kolkata.

Formation of Mahakali Pathshala

With the aim of women's education, she came to Kolkata in 1890 and set up the Mahakali Pathshala (Great Mother Kali School)
of Bengal. It was founded in 1893 and this school and its many branches have often been said to mirror a "genuine Indian attempt"
at developing female education. This school received no financial assistance from foreigners and employed no foreign teachers.
Founders of the institution opposed the concept of co-education and the use of one syllabus for both sexes. Their aim was to
educate girls on strictly national lines in the hope that they might regenerate the Hindu society. This was a project consistent with
those of nationalist revivalists, who did not automatically oppose reformation in the name of resisting colonial knowledge. Despite
their differences with the liberal reformers, they too believed in the relationship between progress and female education and
looked to a future where Indian women would play a larger role in the affairs of the country. In May 1897, Swami
Vivekananda came to visit the Mahakali Pathshala and appreciated Gangabai’s effort to establish a new path for developing the
women education.

Gangabai’s Method of Educating Women

Gangabai’s notion of an ideal education for women was translated into a syllabus which included knowledge of sacred literature
and history; an understanding of the myths and legends that spoke about the duties of the daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, and
mother; and practical skills such as cooking and sewing. This syllabus was praised by Hindu gentlemen of the middle-class who
believed that much of the female education which existed at the time demoralized and denationalized young Hindu women.
Cooking lessons were especially popular in the light of the prevalent belief that educated girls avoid the kitchen.

Expansion of Mahakali Pathshala

Financial support for this institution grew rapidly and within ten years there were 23 branches with 450 students. As the school
expanded, it published its own Bengali and Sanskrit textbooks. Gangabai turned more and more to supervision while the actual
administration of the school was left in the hands of an illustrious board of trustees presided over by the Maharaja of Darbhanga,
Bengal's largest landlord.

Affiliation of Mahakali Pathshala The Mahakali Pathshala rose to prominence due to the significance it attached to religious
studies, homemaking prowess and the Purdah system. In 1948, the Mahakali Pathshala achieved the status of affiliation to the
educational authority of the University of Calcutta. The existence and popularity of this school in the early years of the twentieth
century was an indicator of the fact that the conservative elements were finally making room for the concept of female education
which was fast gaining ground.

Subbalakshmi was born at the remote Thanjavur village of Rishiyur, the other view was Mylapore in Madras as the first daughter
of Visalakshi and R. V. Subramania Iyer (a civil engineer. Her father, R.V. Subramania Iyer was employed in the Public Works
Department of the Madras Presidency),. They belonged to an orthodox Tamil Brahmin family from the Thanjavur district.
Subbalakshmi was ranked first in the public examination in the Chingleput District, for the fourth standard of the Madras
Presidency at the age of nine. She was married while very young, as was customary, but her husband died soon after. In April
1911, she became the first Hindu woman to graduate from the Madras Presidency and she did this with First Class Honors
from Presidency College, Madras.
In 1912, she founded the Sarada Ladies Union to provide a meeting ground and platform for housewives and other ladies to
promote consciousness among them regarding social problems and to encourage them to educate themselves and the Sarada Illam
or Widow's Home, which rehabilitated and educated child widows in Madras. Later, in 1921 or 1927, she established the Sarada
Vidyalaya under the aegis of the Sarada Ladies Union. In 1922 she inaugurated the Lady Willingdon Training College and
Practice School and was its first principal. She also established the Srividya Kalanilayam, a school for adult women
at Mylapore in 1942, and while she was the president of the Mylapore Ladies Club, she formed the Mylapore Ladies Club School
Society, in 1956, which was then renamed as the Vidya Mandir School, in Mylapore. In addition, she was involved in setting up a
social welfare center for women and children in Madambakkam village. near Tambaram, in 1954.
While she was in government service as Headmistress of the Lady Willingdon Training College and Superintendent of the Ice
House Hostel, Subbalakshmi was prohibited from joining the Women's Indian Association. To keep her school running
Subbalakshmi compromised on her beliefs and efforts against child marriage. Nevertheless, using her fluency in Tamil, she made
efforts to abolish child marriage and to encourage education of girls. The historic, first conference, of the then newly established
All India Women's Conference, called the "All India Women's Conference on Educational Reform", was held at the Fergusson
College, Poona in January 1927. Subbalakshmi was one of the fifty eight prominent delegates attending this meeting. She actively
supported the Child Marriage Restraint Act, passed in 1930, and appeared before the Joshi committee which formulated the Act
instrumental in raising the marriageable age of girls to fourteen and boys to sixteen. After retirement, she was involved in the
activities of the Women's Indian Association, through which she befriended Annie Besant and others. She served as a nominated
member of the Madras Legislative Council from 1952 to 1956.

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain[a] (Bengali: রোকেয়া সাখাওয়াত হোসেন; 9 December 1880[b] – 9 December 1932), commonly known
as Begum Rokeya,[c] was a prominent Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educator, professor, teacher and women empowerment and
political activist for Bengali Muslim girls from East Bengal, undivided Bengal in present-day Bangladesh.
She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women's liberation in South Asia. Rokeya is considered as the pioneer feminist of Bengal .
She advocated for men and women to be treated equally as rational beings, noting that the lack of education for women was
responsible for their inferior economic position.[3] Her major works include Matichur (A String of Sweet Pearls, 1904 and 1922), a
collection of essays in two volumes expressing her feminist thoughts; Sultana's Dream (1908), a feminist science fiction novella
set in Ladyland ruled by women; Padmarag ("Essence of the Lotus", 1924) depicting the difficulties faced by Bengali wives;
[5]
and Abarodhbasini (The Confined Women, 1931), a spirited attack on the extreme forms of purdah that endangered women's
lives and self-image.[2]
Begum Rokeya was an advocate of women's rights in the Indian subcontinent during the British rule. Through her charismatic and
resilient leadership, she defied all obstacles put up by a society that barred women from pursuing their dreams. With a sound
knowledge of the history of the region and the challenges facing the time and society in which she lived, she was a woman far
more advanced and progressive than her contemporaries.

Through her writings, she raised her voice against the challenges and had the vision for the emancipation of Bengali Muslim
women at a time when it was unthinkable for anyone to think so. She showed how a misinterpretation of Islam and a deep-seated
patriarchal mindset in society combined to keep women behind doors, and deprived of their rights.

Rokeya held education to be the central precondition of women's liberation, establishing the first school aimed primarily at
Muslim girls in Kolkata. She is said to have gone from house to house persuading the parents to send their girls to her school in
Nisha. Until her death, she ran the school despite facing hostile criticism and social obstacles. [2][6]
In 1916, she founded the Muslim Women's Association, an organization that fought for women's education and employment. [2]
[7]
In 1926, Rokeya presided over the Bengal Women's Education Conference convened in Kolkata, the first significant attempt to
bring women together in support of women's education rights.[7] She was engaged in debates and conferences regarding the
advancement of women until her death on 9 December 1932, shortly after presiding over a session during the Indian Women's
Conference.[7]
Bangladesh observes Rokeya Day on 9 December every year to commemorate her works and legacy.[8] On that day, Bangladesh
government also confers Begum Rokeya Padak on individual women for their exceptional achievement.[9] In 2004, Rokeya was
ranked number 6 in BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time.[10][11]