Shantabai Neelagara’s “Sadguni Krishnabai” – Part 2: Women & social change issues

The story as outlined may create an impression that Krishnabai is just another heroine who blindly accepts traditional beliefs and acts accordingly.  But it must be remembered that Neelagara is operating within the constraints of a patriarchal society and she also had to write within the confines of the traditional theme of the ‘sloka‘.  Vijaya Dabbe (1996), in a perceptive introduction, says that Krishnabai is not a submissive, dumb heroine; instead she is a person with an immense will and desire, capable of changing the lives of people around her.  Neelagara is alert to the developments inspired by a modern sensibility.  Though, externally, the novel seems to propagate the view that women exist for the happiness of men, what it actually says is different.  Neelagara cleverly uses the ploy of carefully presenting her own opinions in other‘s tongues and uses scriptural evidence so that her arguments cannot be disputed.  Using this, she is able to present a most perceptive and an almost radical observation at that time: 

Like men, women too are human beings. They too have intelligence and the ability to learn. They also have the enthusiasm to reap the benefits and happiness that come out of education. It is not beneficial for anyone to keep fifty percent of our population who are women in intellectual darkness. By educating women, they will be able to learn what they desire and teach their children many useful things at home itself. (Neelagara [1908]; 1996: 10) (my translation)

Though there is no vehement oppositional force in the novel, Krishnabai had to contend with her orthodox and skeptical mother-in-law.  Neelagara succeeds in her task by making Krishnabai‘s husband, Madhavarao, talk about and defend women‘s education to his mother.  It is clear that Neelagara operates within the confines of the reform agendas of that time, when the common fear, even among the reformers, was that educated women neglected their household duties, and that their respect towards elders and traditions decreased with increasing knowledge.  Neelagara has to prove that this fear is illogical; she shows how Krishnabai is not just another educated woman conducting household duties after marriage, that she was responsible for the education of her sister‘s children.  She tells her sister‘s eldest daughter, Kashi, that there is no point in acquiring some ‘general knowledge‘ by remembering names and reciting dates and years of historical events and stresses the need for a deeper understanding of our country‘s history, what our country lacks and what type of education is required for our people.