Negotiating Gender, Class and Nation: The Indian Ladies Magazine and the discourse of women’s emancipation in Colonial India

The Indian Ladies Magazinea was one of the most important women’s magazine in colonial India. Its stated purpose was to create a discursive platform for the discussion of women’s issues in India and abroad. It counted among its contributors authors of eminence like Sarojini Naidu and Rokheya Shakhawat Hussain. However, it was also a magazine whose access was limited to highly educated men and women. The magazine also tried to create a dialogue between British women and the “natives” and create a discussion on common womanhood. It was a magazine edited by a Christian woman and hence it had a perspective of its own. In this paper, I would try to explore the questions of how the discourse of women’s emancipation was based on sometimes subtle and otherwise overt patriarchal conceptualizations. I would also try to explore the questions of race and class and how it was limiting on the discussion of emancipation of women. By a comparative perspective using examples of other magazines (mainly Stree Darpan), I would try to show how the question of nation though visibly absent but yet it lurked in the background. It was not a magazine like the plethora of women’s magazines that emerged as a part of national regeneration. There was a clear and visible tension in negotiating class and race while discussing the issues of women. The magazine also dealt in an interesting way questions of caste and other social categories. Finally, it would be equally worthwhile to dwell on the kind of politics the magazine indulged in, consciously or unconsciously.