Oxford remembers Cornelia Sorabji, first Indian woman student
Rare
details of how Cornelia Sorabji overcame gender bias emerged as leading members
of the University of Oxford and others commemorated the 150th birth anniversary
of India’s first woman lawyer and first Indian woman student in Britain on
Tuesday.
Born
in Nashik, Sorabji (November 15, 1866 – July 6, 1954) became the first Indian
woman student at Oxford when she arrived at Somerville College in the autumn of
1889. She had already broken the glass ceiling by becoming the first woman
matriculate in erstwhile Bombay in 1883.
Somerville
College, which launched a postgraduate scholarship for Indian women in
Sorabji’s memory in September, and the Indian high commission will hold a
special celebration on Thursday to mark the birth anniversary.
Richard
Sorabji, Sorabji’s 82-year-old England-based nephew, told Hindustan Times
that after gaining a first class degree from Bombay University in 1887, she was
denied government scholarship to study in Britain. But some leading women, including
Florence Nightingale, put together a scholarship for her.
There
were more hurdles at Oxford, which for centuries was considered a bastion of
male privilege.
“(On
arriving) at Somerville College in autumn 1889, she was denied permission to
study law, again because she was a woman. But England's leading academic,
Benjamin Jowett, came to see her, and by February 1890, he had got permission
for her to study law,” Richard Sorabji said.
“In
1892, the external examiner from London refused, with a week's notice, to
examine a woman. But Jowett, with a day to spare, had Oxford University's
Council override him, under the motion 'Oxford University shall examine
Cornelia Sorabji'.”
Knighted
in 2014 for his academic study of philosophy, Richard Sorabji said his aunt
would have been “very pleased” to know that law scholarships for Indian women
were now being offered by her college, 129 years after her own struggles.
On
return to India, it took a 10-year campaign from 1894 for Sorabji to persuade
anyone to give her full-time employment in law. In Allahabad in 1899, she was
refused, by one casting vote, a call to the bar, despite passing all the
examinations asked of her.
“So
she invented her own desired job description, and obtained the role she wanted
of adviser to the government of India on women in purdah. These women were
first child brides and then widows, with children of their own, and large
estates, which in widowhood they could not protect, because they could see no
lawyer, since all lawyers were male,” Richard Sorabji said.
“Once
Cornelia started work, she gained the trust of both sides, of the Indian Civil
Service and of the widows, and the love of the widows, since she transformed
not only their legal rights, but their health and the education of their children.”
Sorabji
had up to 600 wards at any time, widows and children, spread over Bengal (West
and East), Orissa, Assam and Bihar. She opened doors for Indian woman, as
English women had opened doors for her to come to Oxford, Richard Sorabji
recalled.
Sorabji
retired from government service in 1922, by when the status of women had
improved in Oxford and England, and she was allowed to collect the degree
passed, but not awarded, 30 years earlier.
She
was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn, London, so that she was able to return
to India as a barrister, defending her women in purdah from 1922 to 1929 and
organising social work by them from 1924 to 1931. She continued reporting on
social conditions in India until 1938.
Throughout
World War 2 from 1939, she lived in Lincoln's Inn, staying there until her
final illness in 1946. She died in London in 1954.
Source | Hindustan Times | 16 November 2016
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
No comments:
Post a Comment