Table Of ContentA FRAGMENTED FEMINISM
This book is a search for ‘the real Anandibai Joshee’ – a search in which the readers are invited to participate.
In her short and eventful life, Anandibai Joshee, the first Indian woman to earn a medical
degree, broke many stereotypes. Literate at a time when it was taboo for a girl to attend school or
even ‘pick up a paper’, she was courageous, articulate, and assertive. And ambitious. Fuelled by
a desire to improve the healthcare that was available to Indian women at that time, she travelled
across the seas to the United States to study medicine.
Meera Kosambi’s biography of Anandibai is more than just a retelling of the life of a woman
who was ahead of her time. Drawing on a host of narratives, Kosambi recovers Anandibai’s many
voices, which have been submerged in history – that of a conflicted feminist, a nationalist, and a
reformer, among others – and her engagement with the world at large.
This book is a testament to Meera Kosambi’s commitment to social history. When she
passed away in 2015, she left an incomplete manuscript that has been painstakingly put together
by the editors. Drawing on archival research, including a host of Anandibai’s letters, her poems
in Marathi, newspaper reports, and rare photographs, this book will be of immense interest to
scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, sociology, gender, and South Asian studies.
The late Meera Kosambi was a sociologist who retired as Professor and Director, Research Centre
for Women’s Studies, Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women’s University, Mumbai,
Maharashtra, India. She was trained in India, Sweden, and the United States, and specialized in
urban studies and women’s studies. Her publications include Gender, Culture and Performance:
Marathi Theatre and Cinema before Independence (2015, Routledge); Crossing Thresholds (2007);
Women Writing Gender (2012); and Mahatma Gandhi and Prema Kantak (2013).
Ram Ramaswamy recently retired from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India,
where he had taught in the School of Physical Sciences since 1986. He is presently a visiting
professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi. With a sustained interest in the work
of Meera Kosambi, and her father D. D. Kosambi, he has, in addition to the present work, edited
two collections of D.D. Kosambi’s essays and papers, Adventures into the Unknown: Essays by D. D.
Kosambi (2016) and D. D. Kosambi: Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics (2016).
Madhavi Kolhatkar retired as Professor in Sanskrit Dictionary Project, Deccan College, Pune,
India. She has a PhD in Sanskrit from Pune University and working knowledge of German,
Russian, Tibetan, and Japanese. She has attended seminars and conferences in the United States,
Japan, and Romania; and was invited to Japan for a joint project undertaken by China and Japan.
She has authored nine books and more than one hundred articles in English, Sanskrit, and Marathi.
Aban Mukherji is a freelance writer and translator. She has a master’s degree in History and has
co-translated (with Tulsi Vatsal) Karan Gehlo, the first Gujarati novel published in 1866. She has
contributed articles to various publications.
A FRAGMENTED
FEMINISM
The Life and Letters of Anandibai Joshee
Meera Kosambi
Edited by Ram Ramaswamy,
Madhavi Kolhatkar,
and Aban Mukherji
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi
Kolhatkar, and Aban Mukherji; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi Kolhatkar, and Aban
Mukherji to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and
of the author for her chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-38486-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-26638-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Garamond
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Frontispiece to the 1888 edition of Pandita Ramabai’s The High Caste Hindu Woman
Source: Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of Legacy Center Archives & Special Collections, Drexel
University College of Medicine, Philadelphia. http://drexel.edu/LegacyCenter
CONTENTS
List of figures ix
Foreword xii
Introduction xxiii
ABAN MUKHERJI
Introduction 1
PART I
New horizons 9
1 Early life 11
2 The American connection 29
3 An Indo-American dialogue 46
4 The Bengal interlude: Calcutta 60
5 The Bengal interlude: Serampore 79
6 ‘Why do I go to America?’ 91
PART II
A passage to America 97
7 Crossing the seas 99
8 Cultural encounters 105
9 Entry into medical college 119
vii
CONTENTS
10 Life in Philadelphia, early 1884 138
11 A family reunion 159
12 Completing college 177
13 Graduation and after 190
PART III
The return of the native 209
14 Homeward bound 211
15 The last flicker 218
16 A death mourned and lives resumed 232
References 241
Index 245
viii
FIGURES
I.1 Anandibai’s grave marker (foreground) in the
Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, New York,
winter 1995 2
PI.1 The earliest photo of Anandibai as published
in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, New York,
1883 10
2.1 Mrs Theodocia Carpenter 30
PII.1 Mr and Mrs Carpenter 97
9.1 Anandibai with a Japanese and a Syrian student
of the WMCP 120
13.1 Anandibai with her medical degree 191
PIII.1 Anandibai with her modified dress in the USA 209
16.1 A closer view of Anandibai’s grave-marker,
summer 2004 233
Plates 01 – 07.3 Snippets from Anandibai’s life and letters
ix
