Thursday, September 17, 2009
Women's Education
Reading Umrao Jan I began to wonder how the book may or may not have imposed negative feelings towards the push for educating women. In Heavenly Ornaments Thanawi advocated very adamantly for the education of woman, but also for keeping them in the house. I wonder if he would cite Umrao as an example of the precise reason educated woman should be kept in the house. I also wonder if Umrao's character, being as scandalous as she was, negatively affected the want to even educate woman at all. Just a thought.
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An excellent resource to consider:
ReplyDeleteGail Minault, Secluded Scholars: Women's Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (Oxford, 1999)
I feel like scandalous as she was, Ruswa was trying, in Umrao Jan to bring to life a remnant of high Mughal culture rather than a prostitute in the way that we usually think of it. For me, it's helpful to remember that Umrao was essentially a victim of fate and of society. At and after the point of her kidnapping, she didn't really have a choice but to go into her profession. I don't think that Ruswa is villifying her choices in life.
ReplyDeleteBut although she is kidnapped and forced to become a courtesan at first, she has numerous opportunities to leave the profession when she gets older. And I was surprised it took her as long as it did to leave with that guy she fell in love with. And even though she technically left her place of dwelling, she never left the profession until her spiritual awakening at the end of the book. At this point in her life, I didn't feel sorry for her any more because she could have redeemed herself by leaving the profession and living a more virtuous life.
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