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Lady Missionary in the Memsahib's Depiction

2011; Routledge; Volume: 92; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0013838x.2010.537049

1744-4217

Susmita Roye,

African cultural and philosophical studies

Abstract The “Lady Missionary” is quite a favourite topic for exploring both the theological concern of “Women's work for Religious Cause” as well as the more feminist approach of “Women's work for Women's Cause”. And yet, there is not much work done when it comes to the literary representation of this enterprising woman of the colonial era despite the fact that she is not absent in literature. Missionary women play central or less significant side-roles in many works of colonial literature; Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil, Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown, Rumer Godden's Black Narcissus are only a few famous examples to cite at random. Research on how the contemporaneous secular white ladies see and show these religious (often dubbed “dogmatic”) “mish” women is even sparser. Taking this stance lays bare not only the complex heterogeneity of white females out in the colonies and of the “white woman's burden”, but also the intra-racial tensions that are otherwise usually overlooked or deliberately hooded over. So, to focus on this yet unexplored arena, this paper delves into Anglo-Indian literature to find out how the Memsahib chooses to depict the Lady Missionary in her fiction. Notes 1Christianity reached India long before the British formally settled there. Saint Thomas is said to have introduced Christianity in India as early as 52 AD. However, it is the age of British imperialism in India that witnessed the advent of organized Christian missions. Exploring the link between the “Empire of Christ” and the “Empire of Britain” (and focusing particularly on the missionaries' “taking possession” of Punjab in the name of Christ), Jeffrey Cox forcefully reiterates “the relationship between the Bible and the flag, carried side by side in a march of triumphant imperial progress” (23). 2Campbell. 3Clare Midgley, of course, shows that by 1847, the year when Jane Eyre was published, as many as fifty women have already gone out alone as agents of their Mission Cause. She asserts that, in making St John so adamant in demanding the wedding before they go out to India, Brontë does not mean to say that opportunities for single Lady Missionaries did not exist at all but wanted to underscore that “soul-making” in English domestic bliss was equally important. Moreover, it also perhaps brings to light what she calls the “militant” patriarchal views of missionaries like St John. Jane Haggis too announces that the Society for the Propagation of Female Education in the East (SPFEE) had sent out fifty women to various parts of the world to promote native female education (54). 4Chawla Singh, 79. 5Hall and Rose, eds., 147. 6Lord Ellenborough, a former Governor-General of India under the East India Company rule, among others, “blamed the rebellion [of 1857] on missions” (Cox, 31). 7MacMillan, 210. 8See Forbes. Although Geraldine Forbes highlights in her essay that single missionary women started coming out to India in a large number in the 1860s, it must be mentioned at the same time that single women came even in the first half of the nineteenth century. Aparna Basu says that Mary Ann Cooke, who came to India in 1821, can be regarded as “the first missionary woman to have come out to India especially to promote women's education” (185). Midgley calls Cooke “the first single woman Christian educator in India” (117). 9Johnston, 70. 10Raza, 136–7. 11Haggis says, “by 1899 it was estimated that women missionaries outnumbered men in the ‘foreign field’ by over a thousand” (51). Anna Johnston too mentions a “significant shift in the gender of missionary personnel” because “the predominance of female missionaries by the end of the nineteenth century was particularly obvious in India” (71). Margaret MacMillan, on the other hand, gives a different count when she notes, “in 1911, for example, the census counted 1,236 European women in religious work throughout the country, as compared to 1,943 men” (209). Whether or not female missionaries outnumbered their male counterparts, the fact that their number increased dramatically from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards is established. 12Forbes, 70. 13Jayawardena, 25. Kumari Jayawardena's claim appears contestable at first sight. However, missionaries' experiences in the distinctive socio-cultural framework of India were vastly different from what they encountered in Africa, China and the Far East. Given the race, class, caste and religious prejudices in India, educating people from higher (hence influential) castes became extremely difficult, and as Midgley shows, by 1846 the Calcutta branch of the Scottish Ladies' Association for the Advancement of Female Education in India emphasized its goal of female education more than its evangelism (112). MacMillan too notes, “Faced with the reality of India, many of the missionaries settled for far less than winning the whole battle. They continued to preach [without large scale conversions] but they also ran schools for Indian girls, they did medical work, and they looked after orphans” (211). Thus, indeed helping and educating native women often became the priority in the female missionary's agenda in India. 14Kamala and Krupabai Satthianadhan's writings often speak of the hypocrisy and unworthiness of illiterate native convert women who are ungrateful to missionary ladies for all the efforts they put in to improve their lives. For Kamala Satthianadhan's writings, see The Satthianadhan Family Album. 15Pandita Ramabai is perhaps the most celebrated Brahmin woman convert to Christianity. Her dispute with the authoritarian Sister Geraldine is well known. Krupabai Sathhianadhan's autobiographical novel Saguna reveals the friction in her relationship with many missionary women. 16“Fishing Fleet” was the derogatory label attached to young women coming out to the colonies in search of husbands. 17Ramusack, 119. 18Of course, memsahibs in the highest position like Lady Dufferin (1843–1936) had extraordinary powers as the wife of the Viceroy, and she made good use of them by setting up the National Association for Supplying Medical Aid to the Women of India (more popularly known as the Lady Dufferin Fund) in 1885 for training nurses and lady doctors for the treatment of ailing Indian women. Flora Annie Steel (1847–1929) did not belong to such an exalted rank but even as the wife of a member of the Indian Civil Service, she remained active during her twenty-two years' stay in India in interacting with natives, learning their languages, educating local girls and inspecting schools. Fanny Parks (1794–1875) used her position as a memsahib to travel across the country and gain access into Indian zenanas for a greater intimacy with and understanding of native women. Anne Wylie (n.d.) was one of the rare memsahibs who sympathized with the missionary efforts and wrote the first complete account of missionary work in Burma. Thus, in general, wives of officials in India, especially the burra memsahibs (i.e. wives of the higher ranking officials) could easily contribute to social welfare and reform if they chose to exert themselves in that direction, and Lady Dufferin and Steel remain exceptional memsahibs for having done so. 19Suleri, 75. 20Grace Yolande features in several of Maud Diver's novels: Ships of Youth: A Study of Marriage in Modern India (1931), The Singer Passes: An Indian Tapestry (1934) and The Dream Prevails: A Story of India (1938). 21Diver, The Dream Prevails, 12. 22Strobel, 7. 23Steel raised an outcry against a concealed degree-selling corruption going on in the Punjab University, much to the embarrassment of the administrative body there. Despite opposition to her bold efforts, she finally succeeded in not only exposing but also in seeding out this corruption. See Steel, The Garden of Fidelity. 24Parry, 103. 25Sharpe, 93. 26Jayawardena, 21. 27MacMillan, 211. 28Steel, On the Face; Steel, Voices, 3. 29Steel, “Kirpo,” 276. 30Ibid. 31Parry, 105. 32The use of the word “furtive” might seem problematic for, after all, missionary aims of acquiring converts are well known. However, as already hinted at in note 13, many historians and writers including Midgley, Jayawardena and MacMillan point out that missionaries had to be wary in their dealings with (higher caste) women in India and, therefore, Lady Missionaries, more often than not, highlighted promoting female education and improving women's lives as their expressed goals, only secretly hoping for conversions if and when possible. 33Steel, “Kirpo,” 279. 34Steel, “Feroza,” 176. 35Steel, “Kirpo,” 280. 36Steel, “Feroza,” 164. 37Ibid., 186. 38Steel, “Kirpo,” 279. 39Ibid., 280. 40Perrin, 197. 41Ibid. 42Ibid. 43Ibid., 197–8. 44Renford, 168. 45Haggis, 48. 46In Midgley, 121. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSusmita Roye Susmita Roye is a doctoral researcher in the Department of English, University of Bristol, UK.