INTRODUCTION
During the eighteen and nineteenth
centuries the position of women was stumpy and many social evils prevailed in
the society. Christian Missions and missionaries who came to India during the
first half of the Nineteenth century were deeply involved in reforming the
Indian society as they viewed it. Foremost among them was the British Baptist
Missionary William Carey who began his Ministry at Serampore in 1800 along with
two other colleagues.[1]
I)
BACKGROUND
OF INDIA DURING BEGINNING OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
i.
STATUS
OF WOMEN IN ANCIENT INDIA
In ancient India, women
enjoyed equal status with men in all aspects of life. Rigvedic verses
suggest that women married at a mature age and were probably free to select
their own husbands. Scriptures such as the Rig Veda and Upanishads mention several women sages and seers. There are very
few texts specifically dealing with the role of women. Works by ancient
Indian grammarians such as Patanjali and Katyayana suggest that women were educated in the early Vedic period. According to studies, women enjoyed equal status and
rights during the early Vedic period. However in approximately 500 B.C., the status of
women began to decline with the Smritis (esp.Manusmriti), and with the Islamic invasion of Babur and the Mughal empire.[2]
ii.
STATUS
OF WOMEN IN IMPERIAL PERIOD
The
Indians came in contact with the Britishers in later half of the 18th
century; the position of Indian women had reached the maximum degree of
deterioration. The patriarchal joint family, the custom of polygamy and its
concomitant with koolinism, the purdah, the property structure, early marriage,
self immolation of widows (sati) or a state of permanent widowhood all these
contributed to the lower social position of woman. Not only social institutions
and customs thwarted the free growth of her personality, but the prevailing
ideology also assigned the Indian women as inferior status. She was denied
independent personality. The prevailing conception of women, whether Hindu or
Muslim was basically feudal in character. She was regarded unfit for
participation in social, political or religious functions of any significance.[3]
iii.
SHIFT
IN THE STATUS OF WOMEN
The
British established a modern capitalist economic system and modern state in
India which generated a new climate for bringing about a change in the old,
traditional, feudal and in egalitarian social structure prevailing in the Indian
society. No doubt the British rulers enunciated these new principles and tried
to bring about changes in Indian society, and the new judico-economic frame
work at least provided a climate and incentive for the Indians to launch new
movements for the reconstruction of Indian society including uplifting the
status of women.[4]
II)
SOCIAL
EVILS
i)
Child
Sacrifice
On 20th August 1802 the
Governor –General of India, Lord Wellesley passed a regulation prohibiting the
practice of sacrificing children by drowning or throwing them to the sharks at
the island of saugor (sagar) and other places. The Governor deputed Carey in
1801 to inquire into the sacrifice of children to the Ganges. On the basis of his
report that practice was prohibited.
ii)
Widow
Burning
In 1818 the Serampore Trio entered
into the field of journalism. Joushua Marshman and his son started a weekly
news paper in Bengali called Samachar Darpan and an English monthly The Friend
of India. These two journals became instruments in the hands of Carey and colleagues
to promote social reforms. One such matter which caught their attention was ‘satisahagamana’,
the burning alive of Hindu widow on the funeral pyres of their husbands. In an
entry dated April 1, 1799 Carey describes in his diary the first time he
witnessed the practice of sati. From that time on wards, he began to protest
against it. The first number of The friend
of India carried an article on widow burning, Which was described as a
powerful and convicting statement of the real facts and circumstances of the
case. And the paper continued to keep the matter before the public by reporting
actual cases as they appeared. As a result, protest against this practice grew-
Raja Ram Mohan Roy and a few enlighten Hindus also raised their voices against
it. So in 1829, Lord William Bentinck issued an order prohibiting ’sati’ in the
company’s territories.[5]
III)
MISSION
AND SOCIAL CHANGE
i)
Among
Zenna Mission
Zenana: The literal meaning of the
word zenana is “of the women” or “pertaining to women”. The
Zenana missions were by women missionaries, who went to Indian women in their
own homes with the aim of converting them to Christianity. The Baptist Missionary
Society inaugurated
Zenana missions to India in the early 19th century. The concept was later taken
up by other churches such as the Church of England (the Church of England
Zenana Missionary Society, London) and extended to other countries such as
China.[6]
In
the first half of the Nineteenth century, efforts were made to reach women in
the zenana(Zenana are the inner apartments of a
house in which the women of the family live). In 1834, the society
for Promoting Female Education in the East was started in England at the
instigation of Dr. David Abeel. This society sent one Miss.Barton in 1842 to
Bombay to work among women deprived of any kind of freedom. In 1852 Lady
Kinnaird began school for girls at Dowager, and as a result of this, the Church
of England Zenna Missionary society and Zenna Bible and Medical Mission were
started. The Baptist Zenna Missionary society began its work in 1867.These were
attempts to improve the status of women.
ii)
Girl
Children
Christian
mission took up the cause of Temperance too. An organization called Indian
National Women’s Christian Temperance Union was actively functioning to promote
the cause of women. It had a meeting in Pune in 1896, where it expressed its
concern over girl child abuse. The Society for the Protection of Children in
India was started in 1898 in Caltcutta with a view to protect girl children
from inhuman practices and vices.
iii)
Temple
Girls
One
of the systems prevalent in the Hindu Society was the Devadasi system,
according to which parents dedicated one of their children, normally a girl
child, to a deity, and that child came to be named as ‘Devadasi’. One of the
persons among the Protestant missionaries who found the Devadasi system as a
social evil was Amy Carmichael.
Amy
Carmichael (1867-1951) came to India in 1895 as a missionary of the Church of
England Zenna Missionary Society (CEZMS). From 1900 she made Dohnavur in
Trinelveli District, Tamil Nadu as her base. In March 1901 she got an
opportunity to redeem a seven year old girl from a Devadasi house at a village
near Pannaivilai. That was the beginning of near work in rescuing temple girls,
otherwise Known as Devadasis. She founded what Devadasi system was and how it
operated. She termed it as ‘deified sin’. So she began to redeem the temple
girls with the help of a team of India women who had formed a band under her
relationship. Though she had to face legal battles in such a ministry, she
persisted in it. She began to highlight the plight of the temple girls through
her writings which influenced the thinking of many in the missions as well as
in the government circles. As a result very soon it was made illegal to
dedicate a young child to a deity.
In
1925 she ceased to be a missionary of the CEZMS. As a result she formed
Dohnavur Fellowship in 1926, which got registered as a legal organization in
1927. The Dohnavur fellowship became the nucleus of various activities of
social upliftment of girls from the clutches of the Devadasi system and
adopting abandoned children. Unfortunately Indian History books do not give the
credit due to Amy Carmichael in this reformatory act.
iv)
Upper
cloth revolt
According
to tradition, the low caste Shanar women of Travancore were not permitted by
the upper castes to wear any clothing above the waist. When shanars were
converted to Christianity by the LMS missionaries they were requested to wear
clothing on the upper portions of their body. When they began to wore dress to
cover their breasts, it led to a wide spread conflict with the higher castes
which came to be known as “Upper cloth revolt”.[7] The
first revolt happened in 1822, the inferior classes are not allowed to wear
upper cloth or ornaments like those of higher class. The missionary ladies did
not like the native Christian females to expose their bodies like heathen
women. They devised a plain loose jacket with loose sleeves and taught them to
wear it. Some women in addition to the jacket wore an additional cloth or scarf
over the shoulder called Thollcheelai( Shoulder cloth). On 23rd 1828 many high caste
people (Nairs) attacked Christians (Shanars), and one was stripped and others
made to lay bare their breasts, as it was considered an assumption of the
privilege of the Nair women and other castes. When Christian women went out
they were forced to remove the upper cloth or tored.[8] The
Governor of Madras G.E. Trevelyan intervened and in 1859 a proclamation was
issued to permit the shanar women to wear upper cloth, called ‘kuppayam’,
similar to the one worn by the Muslim women in Malabar.
These
kind of activities gave encouragement and confidence among a few of the
out-caste people and low-caste people in South India to fight for their right
to lead a human life with dignity and self respect and to get out of the
shackles of bondage of high caste people.
v)
Education
Protestants
Missions from the beginning of their activities in India felt the need for
girl’s education. In the early stages, missionaries’ wives and a hand full of
single women either as missionaries or as individuals started schools for girl
children. Mrs. Hannah Marshman is much remembered in the Serampore Mission for
her pioneering role in girl’s education through the village schools also. Miss.Mary
Ann Cook began 1821 educational institutioins for girls in Calcutta.
Women
as missionaries were sent out only from 1860 onwards. So from the second half
of the Nineteenth century, women’s education too began to be given importance.
In fact, Christian Missions were the pioneers in the field of women’s
education. Since 1870, a large number of schools and colleges were established
for women by the protestant Churches and missions throughout India. To name a
few: Sarah Tucker College, Palayamkottai, Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow,
Women’s Christian College, Chennai. Some of the first women graduates of Indian
Universities were also products of Christian Colleges. The Christian
educational work for girls gave an impetus to both the Government and other
agencies to venture into that line.
vi)
Medical
work
The
contribution of Christian Missions in the field of Medical work especially for women
and children is outstanding. Mission workers in zenna brought to light the
special need of medical aid for women. As a result lady medical missionary
doctors began to arrive in India. The American Episcopal Methodist Mission was
the first to send out a fully qualified Lady Doctor, Clara Swain. She began her
work in 1870 at Bareilly where a women’s hospital was opened in 1874 on a land
given by the Nawab of Rampur. This was an early example of the generous help
which medical missions have again and again from non Christians.
Sarah
Seward sent by the American Presbyterian Mission, arrived in 1871 at Allahabad.
The undenominational Zenna and Bible Medical Mission founded by two British
societies and the Churh of England Zenna Missionary society started to work
among women since 1880 and built hospitals for women and children in many
places all over the country. When the British Methodists took up Medical work
in the former Mysore State at Mysore city and Hassan (1906), their hospitals
were for women and children.
Medical
Missions found medical work as a very helpful and hopeful line of approach to
Muslim women and so in the areas largely populated by Muslims such as the North
West and in Kashmir, the CMS, the church of Scotland Mission and the American Presbyterians
built hospitals in many places especially for women and children.
Since medical
work required trained doctors, nurses and other types of medical workers,
Christian Medical Colleges and nurses’ Training Institutes were formed in
certain centers. Dr. Edith Brown and Miss Green field founded in 1894 at
Ludhiana the North India School of Medicine for Christian women, a fully fledged
medical School for women doctors, compounders and nurses. It became an
affiliated institution with the Punjab University. Dr. Ida Scudder of the
American Arcot Mission founded a medical school for women at Vellore. It soon
became a union institution. Ten other missions joined in the venture and
extended their cooperation to the American Arcot Mission.
vii)
Handicrafts
A
few mission societies embarked on the idea of starting a kind of small scale
industries in order to provide economically weaker communities a means of
livelihood. They were also intended to be rehabilitation work for widows and
destitute women. The woven Fabrics industry of the British Methodists at
Ikkadu, Tiruvallur near Chennai, Lace-making and embroidery industry at
Thiruvananthapurm (LMS) and Dummengudem, Andhra Pradesh (LMS) are notable
examples in this category.[9]
IV)
CONTRIBUTION
OF INDIAN CHRISTIAN WOMEN
Through
all the above mentioned efforts and programmes the Christian missions improved
the lot of the women as a whole in India. No one has done more for the
emancipation of women in India than PanditaRama Bai(1858-1922).
i) Early life of
Ramabai:-
Bai was born in Maharastra in a Maratha Brahmin family, and her father taught
her Sanskrit. She lost her parents and a sister in the severe famine 1876-77.
Along with her brother she went to Calcutta in 1878. She had a good contact
with Christians and Brahmo Samaj. She got married to a lawyer who was not her
caste and after 19 months of happy married life she was left widow with her
daughter. She returned to Pune and was associated with Prarthana samaj and
became an advocate of social reforms, especially the education and
rehabilitation of child widows.
ii) Conversion into
Christianity:-
She
had been attracted by the activities of Christians and by the preaching of
Nehemiah Goreh. In 1883 she got baptism along with her daughter. She went to
England, America and studied kinder garden training.
iii) Concern for women:- She gave lectures on
women’s life in India and hoped to work among child –widows. With the help of
some sympathizers she opened Sarada Sadan (Home of Wisdom) in Bombay. Because
of false accusation the support was withdrawn. In 1896 during the famine she
toured famine areas and rescued orphan girls who were more in number. She
formed a settlement called ‘mukti’ at Kedgaon. It provided variety of
occupations such as farming, weaving and sewing, rope making. Mukthi mission
still continues. She was unique and conferred the title ‘Pandita’ which had
never been accorded to women before. Never in history had any women Hindu, Muslim,
Christian displayed such outstanding powers of leadership to one aim, uplifting
women in general and widows in particular.[10]
CONCLUSION
The mission and missionaries toiled for the social
progress which helped the people to grow economically. They got freed from the
clutches of evil structures and were able to live with human dignity. The new
education system and the school produced lot of leaders who are serving in the
society. The social evils such as Child marriage, sati, devadasi system were
abolished. The missions and missionary activities made great impact on people
and they contributed to society. The
activities of mission and missionaries made a lot of renaissance in the society
and in the life of people. Only those who are converted are privileged and
through this many got converted to Christianity but rather not of conviction. Many
social evils were abolished how ever there are evils such as eve-teasing, vitriolage, violence, rape, molestation,
in this contemporary planet. It is our task to eradicate these evils from
society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AGUR, C.M, Church history of Travancore, New Delhi Asian Educational
services,1990
Jeyakumar, Arthur D, History of Christianity in India, New
Delhi, ISPCK, 2002.
Firth,
C.B, An introduction to India Church
History, Madras , The Christian Literature Society, 1961.
L.I.
Bhushan and Rambha Prasad, Concern for
status among educated women (New Delhi: Classical publishing company, 1993), 16-17
WEBLIOGRAPHY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenana
(11/09/13 6:23 pm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_India
(11/09/13 6:24pm)
[1]
D.Arthur Jeya Kumar,History of Christianity in India
(Chennai:Meripporul Achakam, 2007), 71
[3] L.I. Bhushan and Rambha Prasad, Concern for status among educated women
(New Delhi: Classical publishing company, 1993), 16-17.
[4] L.I. Bhushan and Rambha Prasad,
Op.cit.
[5]
D.Arthur Jeyakumar,Op.cit., 71-72.
[7]
D.Arthur Jeyakumar,Op.cit.,
72-75.
[9] D.Arthur Jeyakumar,Op.cit.,77
[10] D.Arthur Jeyakumar,Op.cit.,78.
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