History, Gender and the Literary Narrative:

A Re-reading of Dasigal Mosavalai by Muvalur Ramamirthammal

Prof. G. Chandhrika, Department of History,

Pondicherry University,Puducherry.

In response to the UN mandate on member countries to produce a report on the

status of women in their respective societies, the Government of India, then headed by Mrs Indira

Gandhi, set up a commission to study the status of women in India. Published in 1975, Towards

Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India had a great impact on the

contemporary women’s movement in India. A school of feminist historiography emerged in the 1980s

in conjunction with the broader women’s movement. Since then a new approach to the study of the

role and agency of women in the historical process gained a measure of validity and legitimacy within

the academy. Women’s history began to use feminist theories and perspectives to shed light on many

aspects of the history of India. The present talk demonstrates how a literary narrative, located at a

particular historical juncture, viewed through the lens of feminist critical theory, gives rise to an

alternative approach to the study of women in modern India. In the twentieth century, women's history

has moved to charting female agency and identifying women's strategies, accommodations and

negotiations within a male dominated world. Recognising that femininity and masculinity are to some

extent social constructs, it investigates how institutions are gendered and how institutions gender

individuals. The use of “gender” in historical analysis has led to a paradigm shift in traditional

scholarship to uncover the nature of men and women’s lives, and also to question and reconstruct

conceptual categories of history.

In 1881, the Session’s Court in Surat passed a sentence of death on Vijayalakshmi, a

Brahmin widow from the nearby village of Olpad. The charge was one of murdering her newborn

infant in order to avoid the shame arising from illegitimate motherhood. Amidst sensational publicity,

the Court of Appeal in Bombay reduced the sentence to one of transportation. The incident made an

impact on a young Marathi woman by name Tarabai Shinde, who wrote and published in Marathi a

small booklet entitled, Stripurusha Tulana in the year 1882. This pioneering piece of women writing in

India, translated into English by Rosalind O’Hanlon (1994), provides a critique of gendered moral

codes in late nineteenth century India. Introducing her work, Tarabai Shinde observed:

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I’m just a poor woman without any real intelligence, who’s been kept locked up and confined

in the proper old Maratha manner. This is my very first effort, so the book has passages that

are disconnected and fragmentary . . . . But every day now we have to look at some new and

more horrible example of men who are really wicked and their shameless lying tricks. And not

a single person says anything about it. Instead people go about pinning the blame on women

all the time, as if everything bad was their fault. When I saw this, my whole mind just began

churning and shaking out of feeling for the honour of womankind. So I lost all my fear, I just

couldn’t stop myself from writing about it in this very biting language.1

Two years after Tarabai Shinde made a biting criticism of the different standards of moral

beahaviour for women and men, Western India witnessed another incidence of gendered injustice the

like of which neither Victorian England nor Colonial India had seen before. This was the case of

twenty-five year old Hindu woman by the name of Rukhmabai who valiantly fought a legal crusade (in

a series of court cases from 1884 to 1888) for freedom against the conjugal claims of a husband she

had been married to at the age of eleven and whom she disliked. Dadaji Bhikaji, the husband sued for

the restitution of conjugal rights. Rukhmabai won but Dadaji appealed and the court ordered her to

live with her husband or face imprisonment. Rukhmabai appealed to the Privy Council in London and

went to London to muster support for her case. Finally the two parties reached a compromise outside

the court in 1888. The case brought to light the inherent contradictions in the project of modernization

in Indian society. While some hailed her as an icon of the new womanhood, the rest viewed her battle

as an attempt at subverting traditional family and social order. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, known for his

extreme anti British political views welcomed the court decision against Rukhmabai as the upholding

of the dharmashastras.2 The case of Rukhmabai is illustrative of moral policing by family, society as

well as the colonial state. When the American journalist, Katherine Mayo, published Mother India,

exposing the evils of child marriage, the whole of India including Mahatma Gandhi decried the book

as an exaggeration and falsification.3

Yet another historical instance of public debate on gendered morality was the movement for

abolition of the Devadasi system in colonial South India. The movement for the abolition of the

devadasi system was led by Muthulakshmi Reddy (1886-1968), a medical doctor, legislator and a

member of the women’s India Association. In November 1927, she put before the Madras Legislature

a bill for the abolition of the custom of devadasis serving the temples. This bill was passed as the

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madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act V in 1929. Even as the bill was being debated, she realized

that it liberated only the inam-holding devadasis from the stipulation of temple service whereas it did

not cover those who no longer served temples but were practicing prostitution. Therefore she

introduced another bill, popularly known as the Devadasi Abolition Bill which sought to abolish the

pottukattu which lured girls to prostitution. 4 The Bill to Prevent the Dedication of Women to Hindu

Temples in the Presidency of Madras was opposed by the orthodox Brahmins and conservative

congressmen like S. Satyamurthy. It received the lukewarm support of the Justicites and the active

support of Periyar and the Self Respectors. The Self Respectors viewed the devadasi system as an

institution of the upper caste Brahminical patriarchal order of society and a form of sexual slavery in

which non Brahmin women were condemned to prostitution. 5

Muvalur Ramamirthammal

Muvalur Ramamirthammal (1883-1962), a Self Respect activist, located within the devadasi

community fictionalized the lost world of the devadasis and their degeneration into sexual slavery in

her novel, Dasigal Mosavalai Alladu Mathi Petra Mainar (1936).6 Ramamirthammal was born in1883

in the village of Muvalur in Tanjore district in the isai vellala caste, associated with the devadasi

system. About herself she writes:

I was born in a traditional non-devadasi family … My uncle and aunt persuaded my father to

force me into prostitution through the devadasi custom. They also advised him not to marry

me away, since I would fetch a handsome income through the profession—given my talents

in music and dance … So my parents forced me into this custom. It was during this time that I

contemplated deeply about this custom as evil and read those religious texts which advocated

it. I felt that men have forced some women into this degrading profession in order to pursue

their indiscreet pleasures and for selfish causes… I have been struggling for the past seven

or eight years to abolish this custom. I have also organized a conference to reform our

women and break the devadasi system. I barged uninvited into houses where marriages were

held to advocate simple weddings and to expose the evils of the devadasi system. I have

compelled women to keep their promise of discouraging fellow women from becoming

devadasis. 7

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She was instrumental in the formation of local associations of devadasis and came to be known for

her abolitionist stand supporting Muthulakshmi Reddy with whom she was in correspondence. She

campaigned among the devadasis not only for the abolition of the system but also motivated them

to break the vicious custom and settle for a household life through marriage with someone of their

choice. She organized abolition associations, conducted inter-caste marriages and preached

devadasi abolition in different districts.8 Her reform activities irked some men who threatened to

smash her skull if she continued to preach against the devadasi system. It is reported that while she

was addressing a public gathering, the custodians of orthodoxy climbed up the stage, pulled her

hair and cut it off violently to the utter shock and surprise of everyone present.9 Ramamirthammal

continued her discourse undeterred by this violent act of humiliation and degradation. After this

incident she never grew her hair long but kept it very short. Perhaps it is her absolute involvement in

the cause of devadasi abolition that made her quit the Congress to join Periyar’s Self Respect

movement. Her analysis of the devadasi system and its root cause was located within Periyar’s

critique of Braminical Hindu culture, thus striking a different note from Muthulakshmi Reddy whose

proposed legislative measure was a moral intervention in the restoration of the dasi to the virtuous

Hindu womanhood.

Dasigal Mosavalai

Ramamirthammal’s novel, Dasigal Mosavalai is primarily a piece of Self Respect literature

articulating the ideology of the Self Respect movement. It voices the travails of the devadasis as a

community in the context of the dwindling aristocratic patronage and the changed social mores of the

modernized elite. Instead of stereotyping the devadasi as a degraded prostitute Ramamirthammal

makes space for a multiplicity of devadasi voices: the old and the young, the traditional and the

reformed, the superficial and the sincere, the superstitious and the wise, the wicked and the good.

She follows the conventions of fiction with a strong narrative element, a complex plot thick with

intrigue and unexpected twists and a number of characters, women and men who argue for and

against reform. As the story unravels itself, the zamindari and its central position in the debate on

devadasi reform as well as the complicity of the Braminical cultural ethos are brought out clearly by

the author whose political convictions are expressed in unambiguous terms in lengthy Self Respect

discourses. A mixture of autobiography and propaganda, the novel portrays the lived lives of the

devadasis and voices their ultimate realization that the system was exploiting them.

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The novel captures the life of the devadasi in its moment of transition from one historical time

to another. Kantha and Ganavathy, two devadsis from Kamalapuram, under the influence of their

mother, Boga Chintamani, an old guard, endeavour to lure wealthy zamindars in to their web of

deceit. Somasekaran, heir to Dharmapuri Zamin falls under their spell and leaves his wife on the very

day of their marriage to live with the dasis. Gnanasundari, the daughter of the zamindar of Sornapuri

and the wife of Somasekaran realizes that unless the social evil of the devadasi system is abolished

many a family would be ruined. An educated and intelligent lady, she sees herself in the enlightened

role of a reformer who must not only make the errant husband wise but also bring about a change in

the attitudes of the orthodox elders of the Dharmapuri Zamin. In her effort she is supported by

Gunabushni, a reformed dasi who marries a person of her choice and leads a decent family life.

Gnanasundari is also helped by Natarajan alias Tiruchi Mainar, who was once a playboy but was

saved from falling into the snare set up by Ganavathy and Kantha due to the intervention of

Gunabushani. He goes to Kamalapuram in the guise of Mama, an appellation for the male who works

as the agent of the dasi. With his help finally Gnanasundari succeeds in making Somasekaran see

reason. Gnanasundari’s plan is unraveled and the dasis’ web of deceit is exposed as all the important

characters in the novel meet in Tiruchi the city chosen for a Social Reform Conference.

Womanhood Pressed into the Rescue of Manhood

Gnanasundari, the protagonist of Ramamirthammal’s Dasigalin Mosavalai, is portrayed as an

example of the new enlightened woman. An upper caste non Brahmin girl, well read in English and

Tamil (not Sanskrit which was upheld by nationalists and Brahmins) Ganasundari is endowed with a

rationalism and social consciousness typical of a Self Respecter. She believes that “ideas grasped by

women come into practice very soon” and accepts the offer of marriage to Somasekaran because his

mother makes an appeal to her that her consent is essential for the progress of the Dharmapuri

zamin.10 On the day of the marriage she is happy at the thought of the marriage as “an opportunity to

good work.” Here is the new womanhood which prioritizes social reform to personal happiness. Even

as Somasekaran lives with the dasis in their residence in Kamalapuram Gnanasundari neither blames

the husband nor despairs but makes her father-in-law realize the futility of the Brahminical

dharmashastras and the need for rationalistic reforms to free people from blind customs.11 Instead of

wallowing in self pity and blindly accepting the status of a discarded wife as her fate, she makes up

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her mind to solve the problem by using her reason. First she stops Somasekaran’s access to money

and wealth through a notification in the newspapers that the Dharmapuri zamin will not be responsible

for the credits extended to him. Then she herself sets out in the guise of a rich man and approaches

Kantha and Ganavathy who throw away Somasekaran in favour of greener pastures. Her exploits in

other guises continue till the end of the novel. But in Gnanasundari one can find the ideal womanhood

delinked from domesticity but fighting a heroic battle to preserve the domestic space not necessarily

for its own preservation but primarily as the valid space for rescuing manhood and society in

extension from moral retrogression.

The entire debate on Devadasi reform took place in the public sphere over its moral

implications for the society. Notions of purity, chastity and sublime sexuality and ideals of

monogamous marriage, loyalty in conjugal relationships and social respectability which informed the

debate are reflected in the novel along with Periyar’s ideas of an egalitarian society. The novel

ends with the description of the Social Reform Conference being held in Tiruchi. In the conference

Gunabusani, the reformed dasi, addresses the dasi women thus:

Do you want fame or shame now? If you want fame then get rid of prostitution today. If you

want shame, then go and build huts for a day in every town. What do you seek through this

shameful profession? What else have you achieved but disease and suffering? … Aren’t

other women living happily with a single man? … You can lead a secure life and earn fame if

you give up your greed and wicked thoughts and choose one man. The world is changing

rapidly. Your trickery will not bring results anymore. Do not be deceived. Join the future world

today.12

Ramamirthammal, while allowing the many voices of dasis to be heard through the novel,

views the whole system with disfavour as it makes them mercenary, avaricious and immoral. They

seduce rich but vulnerable young men and exploit them. By reducing the dasis from artistic

performers to professional prostitutes who trade in sex, the author makes a moral judgment on them.

She advises them to give up their promiscuous way of life and settle in monogamous relationships.

Privileging marriage and wifehood over dasihood she disapproves of love and sexual desire outside

the patriarchal norms. While Periyar viewed devadasi system as an anachronism sustained by

Brahminical hegemony, and the devadasi as a perpetrator of “structured debauchery”, he valorized

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neither marriage nor motherhood as ideals for women.13 To quote his words (J)ust as how

Brahminism condemns a very large portion of the working population to shudrahood so it had

condemned women to the servitude of marriage … To the extent that a woman lives up to the norms

of a chaste and ideal wife to that extent she accepts and revels in her slavery.14 Throughout the novel

Ramamirthammal’s dream of an egalitarian society and the contradictory, lived realities of gender run

parallel to each other.

In 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister, and B. R. Ambedkar, the law minister, of the

interim government put before the Constituent Assembly of India the Hindu code Bill which envisaged

reform of Hindu personal laws, making monogamy as the norms for both men and women, and

providing equal rights of divorce, guardianship and succession to property to men and women. The

draft that Ambedkar submitted to the Constituent Assembly was immediately opposed by many

conservative Hindus. When the bill was defeated in the Assembly, Ambedkar resigned from the

ministry over this issue. The Hindu majority in the constituent assembly was conservative and its

power of moral policing was so strong that it stood in the way of women’s moral and legal freedom

and empowerment. Jawaharlal Nehru, as the first prime minister of independent India, separated the

Code Bill into four separate bills, including the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, the

Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. These were

met with significantly less opposition, and between the years of 1952 and 1956 each was effectively

introduced in and passed by Parliament.15 The historical instances of gendered codes of moral

behavior and women’s struggle for equality and empowerment in the face of such oppression clearly

point out to the positive march of Indian womanhood from independence towards freedom.

Notes and References

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1 Rosalind O’Hanlon. A Comparison between Women and Men. Delhi: OUP, 1994, p.77.

2 See Sudhir Chandra. Enslaved daughters: Colonialism, Law and Women’s Rights. Delhi: OUP, 1998, for

details regarding the legal battle and its ramifications

3 See Mrinalini Sinha. Mother India: Selections from the Controversial 1927 Text by Katherine Mayo. Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

4 Muthulakshmi Reddy Papers, Subject File No. 11 in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

5 V. Geetha and S. V. Rajadurai, Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium: From Iyothee Thass to Periyar,

Calcutta: Samya, 1998, p. 376.

6 M. Ramamirthammal, Dasigal Mosavalai Alladu Mathi Petra Mainar, Madras: Pearl Press, 1936. (translated

by Kalpana Kannabiran and Vasanth Kannabiran as the Web of Deceit: devadasi Reform in Colonial India,

New Delhi: Kali for Women, 2003).

7 Kudi Arasu, 13 December, 1925

8 Thiru. Vi. Ka. Vazhkkai Kurippukal, Part 2. Chennai: Vasantha Pathipakam, 2006, pp. 232-235.

9 B. Jeevasundari, Muvalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar, Chennai: Maatru, 2007 p.45.

10 Dasigal Mosavalai, pp. 102-103.

11 Dasigal Mosavalai, pp. 142-143.

12 Dasigal Mosavalai, p. 282.

13 Periyar's views on marriage, motherhood and prostitution are stated in his book, Penn Yen Adimaiyanal?

(Why Woman got enslaved), Madras: Self Respect Propaganda Institution, 1978

pp. 1–78.

14 Viduthalai, 28. 6. 1973 cf. Anaimuthu V., comp., Periyar E.Ve.Ra. Sinthanaikal, (Thoughts of E.V.R

Periyar.), Tiruchirapalli: Thinkers Forum, 1974, p. 178.

15 Rina Williams. Postcolonial Politics and Personal Laws. New Delhi: OUP, 2006, pp.104-106.