Memsahibs’ Writings: Colonial Narratives on Indian Women

The white women of colonial India wrote extensively. During their years of residence in this country, these women were prolific; they maintained journals and diaries, wrote letters home, authored novels and penned their memoirs. This anthology brings together a fascinating collection of such European women’s narratives written over 1820s-1920s. The writers came from all walks of life: ‘memsahibs’ of colonial administrators’ wives, journalists, evangelists, philanthropists, medical missionaries, physicians, metropolitan visitors, as well as ‘Indianised’ women involved in Indian nationalist politics. The focus is essentially on their relations with Indian women, and their perceptions of, and their interactions with, ‘native’ women, as revealed in their writings. Mapped along the historical shifts that took place over the hundred-year period, the book captures facets and nuances of gender relations across the race divide. The book draws on a wide range of published works: women’s journals, diaries, letters, memoirs, travel-narratives, missionary tracts, medical writings and sociological studies. Interestingly, it also includes excerpts from novels and short stories written by the memsahibs.  Imaginatively organised around key sites of contact, the narratives are arranged in fourteen thematic clusters. A comprehensive and incisive introduction by the author puts these women and their colonial writings in historical perspective. Each chapter also has an illuminating introductory note.  This fascinating book will appeal to readers interested in gender and colonialism, literary and cultural studies, colonial history and the writings of the British Raj.