Learning Indian History
Savitri, Razia, Ahilya, Anandi and the other Trailblazers of pre-independence India — Part 1
A list of India’s great women — warriors, rulers, educators, reformers and other pioneers most of us don’t know about
Why I made this list
It all started when I saw a social media post celebrating Rani Laxmi Bai. It just so happened that I had been reading about Razia Sultan and Rani Ahilya Bai Holkar in the same week and they were both fresh on my mind. ( Please don’t ask me why. I do random researches like this all the time. I am researching the history of gun powder these days).
So I wondered why I had never seen any posts about them. I work in jewellery and hence I follow a lot of jewellery and lifestyle brands. Having read about them recently, I knew that their achievements were actually more impressive than Laxmi Bai ( with all due respect to her. Read about the former two. You will know why ).
So it had to be ignorance. I did a few surveys about famous Indian women and I quickly realised that this was true. When asked about the most inspiring women upto the 19th century, almost everyone said Rani Laxmi Bai. Our history textbooks have completely ignored these women. Rani Laxmi Bai’s fame and recall owes is helped by movies and stories about the 1857 mutiny and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s famous poem.
So I decided to do some basic research and make a list. This is that list. Of Great Indian Women upto the 19th century. I have tiny summaries about them. I suggest you research and read more about them. It’s a list of warriors, queens and trail blazers.
I have done the list in 2 parts as it was getting really long. This is part 1. It’s in random order. There is no ranking.
Anandi Gopal Joshi: India’s First Female Doctor (1865–1887)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anandi_Gopal_Joshi
First female doctor in India and the first Indian woman to obtain a medical degree in the United States. Married at 9, she gave birth at the age of 14. But the child died after ten days due to lack of medical care. This proved to be a turning point in Anandi’s life and inspired her to become a physician.
Anandibai’s plans to pursue higher education in the West were strongly criticised by the highly orthodox society of her time. But thanks to the unflinching support of her husband and several other supporters, she succeeded in her mission and opened the gates for many young Indian women who wanted to do more than devote their life to household chores.
Unfortunately, Anandi died at the tender age of just 21. But she had already made her mark. On 31 March 2018, Google honored her with a Google Doodle to mark her 153rd birth anniversary
Razia Sultan: Queen of Delhi Sultanate (1205–1240)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razia_Sultana
She is notable for being the first female Muslim ruler of the Indian Subcontinent and its only female ruler. She did this as a muslim women in the 13th century.Razia didn’t get the throne by chance. Her father, Sultan Iltutmish left her in charge of Delhi for a year, while he was on campaign. Impressed by her excellent administration of the capital, he chose her to succeed him over his other sons.( This is debated by many historians though)
Anyways. Iltutmish was succeeded by his son Raknuddin whose tyrannical ways turned many of the nobles against him. Razia ascended the throne with the help of these rebels and the support of the public. The nobles expected her to be a puppet ruler but she had a mind of her own. She made her own appointments in key positions and started appearing in public dressed in traditional male attire instead of a purdah. She went on war campaigns, rode on elephants through the streets of Delhi like a Sultan and fell in love with an Abyssinian slave.
All of this was too much for the Turkic nobles and governors who rebelled against her. Razia was eventually killed by them ending her rule of 3 and a half years.
Savitribai Phule: Women’s Rights Activist (1831–1897)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitribai_Phule
Savitribai Phule is regarded as the mother of Indian feminism. She was married at the tender age of 9 and was inspired to action by the plight of young girls of her age. She was a social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra and is considered to be the first female teacher of India. She and her husband, Jyotirao Phule, played an important role in opposing Sati and improving women’s rights in India.
Savitribai was also an anti-infanticide activist. She opened a women’s shelter called the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha, where Brahmin widows could safely deliver their children and leave them there to be adopted if they so desired. She also campaigned against child marriage and was a advocate of widow remarriage.
Savitribai and her adopted son, Yashwant, opened a clinic to treat those affected by the worldwide pandemic of the Bubonic Plague and died a heroic death trying to save a patient.
Ahilyabai Holkar: Queen of Indore (1725–1795)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahilyabai_Holkar
Ahilyabai Holkar was supposed to die as a sati on her young husband’s pyre. Instead she became one of the best rulers of India, ruling the Maratha kingdom of Indore for over thirty years.
Her father in law, Malhar Rao prevent her from committing sati and trained her to be a ruler. She became the queen 13 years later, after the death of Malhar Rao and his successor, her son Khanderao.
She ruled with the utmost compassion and pride and during her time, the region prospered and scaled many new heights. She is often cited as the “philosopher queen” and an “absolute ideal ruler.” She even personally led armies into battle and protected her kingdom from plundering invaders. A woman of modern times Ahilyabai’s rule is remembered as a golden age in Indore’s history.
Abala Bose: Social Worker (1865–1951)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abala_Bose
Abala Bose was an early feminist, who worked her entire life to provide education to women and for the better treatment of widows in the Indian society. She argued that women also needed an education because their minds were just as important as men’s. Later in her life, she set up the Nari Shiksha Samiti, a nonprofit whose mission was to educate girls and women.
During her lifetime, Bose established some 88 primary schools and 14 adult education centers in different parts of Bengal. Bose was the pioneer thinker for establishing centers like Mahila Shilpa Bhavan in Kolkata and Jhargram, which provided vocational training to distressed women, particularly widows, and secured jobs for them so that they could earn their livelihood.She was the first in India to set up programs of institutional pre-primary and primary teacher’s training.
Abala Bose came from a family of reformers and high achievers. She herself ended up being both.
Laxmibai: Rani of Jhansi (1828–1858)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_of_Jhans
Rani Laxmi Bai was a queen of the Maratha princely state of Jhansi and one of the leading figures of India’s First war of Independence in 1857.
A born rebel, she violated many of the expectations for women in India’s patriarchal society. She could read and write, ride a horse and wield a sword. After her husband, the king of Jhansi died and left no male survivor, the British annexed the state under the “Doctrine of Lapse” policy. Laxmibai refused to let go of Jhansi and rose in revolt. She fought heroically against the British till her very end.
Laxmi Bai was famously immortalised in Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s famous poem — Jhansi Ki Rani
She is the most famous of India’s great women and remains an enduring icon of India’s freedom struggle.
Anasuya Sarabhai: Social Worker and Trade Union Leader (1885–1972)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasuya_Sarabhai
Anasuya Sarabhai was a trailblazer for women’s labour rights in India. She founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (Majoor Mahajan Sangh), India’s oldest union of textile workers, in 1920.
Anasuya Sarabhai studied at the London School of Economics. Instead of settling down to a life of comfort in a foreign country, she chose to make a different in India. Sarabhai returned to India in 1913 and got involved in the labour movement after witnessing exhausted female mill workers returning home after a 36-hour shift. She also started a school. She helped organise various strikes in Ahmedabad to improve the wages and working conditions of the mill workers.
Eventually in 1920, she was instrumental in establishing the conglomerate Textile Labour Association. On her 132nd birthday, Google India celebrated with a doodle remembering her achievements.
Begum Hazrat Mahal: Begum of Awadh (1820–1879)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Hazrat_Mahal
Hazrat Mahal was another brave woman who fought against the British during India’s First War of Independence in 1857. Such bravery in those male-dominated societies was unprecedented. Her story is very similar to Rani Laxmi Bai.
Hazrat Mahal started life as a courtesan but became a begum of the last Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah. After her husband was exiled, she took charge of the state of Awadh and seized control of Lucknow. She organised an army of women and actively took part in the revolt of 1857 against the “Doctrine of Lapse” under which Dalhousie wanted her to surrender Lucknow.
Hazrat Mahal put up a stiff resistance but she was eventually defeated and the British recaptured Lucknow. She scaped to Nepal and died there.
Sarojini Naidu: Freedom Fighter and Poet (1879–1949)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarojini_Naidu
Sarojini Naidu was the second Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and the first one to be appointed the governor of an Indian state.
She founded the Women’s India Association in 1917 and was also one of the few women to take part in the Satyagraha movement. She participated in the Round table conference with Mahatma Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malaviya.
Sarojini Naidu is the other very well known name in this list. She is the most famous woman in the list of freedom fighters who took the non-violence route against the British.
Kittur Chennamma: Queen of Kittur (1778–1829)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kittur_Chennamma
Kittur Chennama was a female warrior and a patriot who led an armed rebellion against the British East India Company in 1824.
When the British started annexing the many princely states of India, she was one of the first people who resisted it. She defended her state for quite some time but, unfortunately, her troops could not sustain the continued assault. Eventually, she was captured and imprisoned until her death.
She was a torch bearer for the likes of Laxmi Bai and Hazrat Mahal — one of the first female freedom fighters to take up an armed struggle against the British.
Part 2 coming tomorrow…
