The 1890s saw two literary interventions in English by pioneering Indian women; these were the novels, Ratanbai: A Sketch of a Bombay High-Caste Hindu Young Wife written by Shevantibai Nikambe and Saguna: A Story of Native Christian Life by Krupabai Satthianadhan. Both writers, who were Brahmin converts to Christianity, were deeply involved in debates on female education. Their texts too focus on gendered social reform, especially on female education, as a liberating, emancipatory process. However, while Ratanbai seeks to re-cast high-caste Hindu wives into companionate helpmeets with the help of education, the thrust in Saguna is far more radical, as it problematises very sharply, questions pertaining to conversion, colonialism, female subjectivities and colonial modernity. Written against the backdrop of female reformist writing, these texts throw light on the contradictions within the native female social reform project.
AnagolPadma (1998). Indian Christian women and indigenous feminism, c.1850–c.1920. In MidgleyClare (Ed.), Gender and imperialism (pp. 79–103). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
2.
AnagolPadma (2005). The emergence of feminism in India, 1850–1920. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate.
3.
AthavaleParvatibai (1986 [1928]). Mazi kahani [Hindu widow: An autobio-graphy]. AbbottJustin E. (Trans.). New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House.
4.
BillingtonFrances Mary (1973 [1895]). Woman in India. New Delhi: Amarko Book Agency.
5.
BorthwickMeredith (1984). The changing role of women in Bengal, 1849–1905. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
6.
ChakravartiUma (1998). Rewriting History: The life and times of Pandita Ramabai. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
7.
de SouzaEunice (Ed.) (2005). The Satthianadhan family album: Miscellaneous writings of the members of the Satthianadhan family. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
8.
de SouzaEunice (2006). Recovering a tradition: Forgotten women’s voices. Economic & Political Weekly, 41(17), 1642–1645.
9.
DiverMaud (1909). The Englishwoman in India. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons.
10.
ForbesGeraldine H. (1986). In search of the ‘pure heathen’: Missionary women in nineteenth century India. Economic & Political Weekly, 21(17), WS-2–WS-8.
11.
ForbesGeraldine H. (2000). Women in modern India: The new Cambridge history of India, vol. 4.2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.
FullerMrs Marcus (1900). The wrongs of Indian womanhood. Edinburgh and London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier.
13.
HaggisJane (1998). White women and colonialism: Towards a non-recuperative history. In MidgleyClare (Ed.), Gender and imperialism, (pp. 45–78). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
14.
KentEliza F. (2004). Converting women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in colonial south India. New York: Oxford University Press.
15.
KosambiMeera (2000). Life after widowhood: Two radical reformist options in Maharashtra. In KosambiMeera (Ed.), Intersections: Socio-cultural trends in Maharashtra (pp. 92–119). New Delhi: Orient Longman.
16.
LokugeChandani (Ed.) (1998). Krupabai Satthianadhan, Saguna: The first autobiographical novel in English. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
17.
LokugeChandani (Ed.) (2004). Ratanbai: A high-caste child-wife. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
18.
MukherjeeMeenakshi (2010 [1985]). Realism and reality: The novel and society in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
19.
NikambeShevantibai (1895). Ratanbai: A sketch of a Bombay high caste Hindu young wife. London: Marshall Brothers.
20.
NikambeShevantibai (2004). Ratanbai: A sketch of a Bombay high caste Hindu young wife. In LokugeChandani (Ed.) Ratanbai: A high-caste child-wife (pp. 1–59). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
21.
O’HanlonRosalind (1991). Issues of widowhood: Gender and resistance in colonial western India. In HaynesDouglasPrakashGyan (Eds), Contesting power: Resistance and everyday social relations in south Asia (pp. 62–108). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
22.
O’HanlonRosalind (Ed.) (1994). A comparison between women and men: Tarabai Shinde and the critique of gender relations in colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
23.
O’HanlonRosalind (2002 [1985]). Caste, conflict and ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and low caste protest in nineteenth-century western India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
24.
RanadeRamabai (1963 [1910]). Amchya ayushatil kahi athavani [Ranade: His wife’s reminiscences]. DeshpandeKusumavati (Trans.). New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
25.
RaoParimala V. (2010). Foundations of Tilak’s nationalism: Discrimination, education and Hindutva. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
26.
SarasvatiPundita Ramabai (1888). The high-caste Hindu woman. Philadelphia: n.p.
27.
SatthianadhanKrupabai (1895). Saguna: A story of native Christian life. Madras: Srinivasa Varadachari & Co.
SatthianadhanKrupabai (1998). Saguna: A story of native Christian life. In LokugeChandani (Ed.), Krupabai Satthianadhan, Saguna: The first autobiographical novel in English (pp. 19–164). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
30.
SenIndrani (2002). Woman and empire: Representations in the writings of British India (1858–1900). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
31.
SenIndrani (Ed.) (2008). Memsahibs’ writings: Colonial narratives on Indian women. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
32.
SewellElizabeth (1979). Principles of education. In Patricia Hollis (Ed.), Women in public, 1850–1900: Documents of the Victorian women’s movement (p. 143). London: George Allen & Unwin.
33.
TrevelyanG.O. (1864). The competition wallah. London: Macmillan & Co.
34.
The Friend of India and the Statesman (1883). 21July.
