Rewriting History

Pandita Ramabai was one of India's earliest feminists. Honored with the title of Saraswati in Calcutta in 1879, she soon alienated the men who had initially supported her. A high-caste Hindu widow, Ramabai converted to Christianity, an act that was seen not only as a betrayal of her religion but of her very nation. A classic study, Rewriting History does more than introduce one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India; it rescues Ramabai from the marginalization of her contemporaries. Arguing that this controversial figure has been actively suppressed in the writing of India's pre-independence history, Uma Chakravarti liberates Ramabai with an acute and nuanced critique of the power relations and hierarchies within a colonized society. Thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed, Rewriting History is essential reading for those interested in gender, class, and caste in nineteenth-century India.