Retracing the History of Women Thinkers in Colonial Bengal: A Critical Study of Bamasundari Devi and Her Works in the Nineteenth Century

What is it about?

This article will revisit the intellectual history of women thinkers in the nineteenth century in colonial Bengal. Social conventions at that time denies women's intellectual capability. But Bengali women resisted this discriminatory social attitude through their life and works. Women’s participation in the print culture remained marginalised in documenting the intellectual history of colonial Bengal. This article will attempt a critical understanding of the life and works of Bamasundari Devi to relocate the historical visibility of women thinkers in the nineteenth century colonial Bengal. For Bamasundari and her contemporary women thinkers, their domestic space became an archival source to create their own histories. Critical study of Bamasundari’s works reveal her political activism in her personal understanding of religion and the assertion of her subjective self. This article also shows how Bamasundari's critical understanding of her social and cultural milieu shaped the intellectual mindscape of the women thinkers in colonial Bengal. Bamasundari presented a critique of Hindu brahminic patriarchy and promoted her belief in Brahmoism. Her essays document her resistance against Kulin polygamy, child-marriage, and torturous rituals of widowhood. Through the dual path of contestation and compliance, she became a pioneering woman thinker of her time.

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