Chapter : 4. Print Culture and The Modern World
Women and Print
(a) Women and Print :
(i) Women education : Writers started writing about the lives and feelings of women and this increased the number of women readers. Women got interested in education and many women schools and colleges were set up. Many journals started emphasizing the importance of women education.
(ii) Women writers : In East Bengal, in the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen. Later, she wrote her autobiography "Amar Jiban" which was published in 1876, was the first full-length autobiography published in the Bengali language.
From the 1860s, many Bengali women writers like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women. In the 1880s, in present day Maharastra, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows. The poor status of women was also expressed by Tamil writers.
(iii) Hindu writing and women : Hindu printing began seriously only from the 1870s. Soon, a large section of it was devoted to the education of women.
(iv) New journals : In the early 20th century, the journals written by women became very popular in which women's education, widowhood, widow remarriage etc, were discussed. Some of them offered household and fashion lessons for women.
(v) Teachings for women : In Punjab, Ram Chaddha published Istri Dham Vichar to teach women how to be obedient wives. The Khalsa Tract Society published cheap booklets with a similar massage. In Bengal, an entire area in central Calcutta – the Battala – was devoted to the printing of popular books. Peddlers took the Battala publications to homes, enabling women to read them in their leisure time.
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