Ipshita Nath: Memsahibs were mostly just women trying to thrive in a man’s world

In 2012, Ipshita Nath picked up Veronica Bamfield’s memoirs, On the Strength in a quaint bookstore near the University of Chicago. Little would she know that the book would trigger a decade long journey, resulting in her writing, Memsahibs: British Women in Colonial India. “The book stood out to me simply for containing the voice of an army wife who had known India and was not afraid of voicing strong opinions on the British rule in India, or of the poor condition of military wives and women who were cast to the peripheries of the Empire-building process.” she recalls. Memsahibs is a term loosely used to describe British women in India, a pigeonholed term for everything from young debutantes to doughty dowagers. Used humorously and at times, even uncharitably, even 75 years after Independence, it is a term which immediately conjures images of Colonial India and women from Britain. Over the next few years, she read more writings of these remarkable women of the Raj who had not only traveled to India at a time when it was unconventional for them to, but also wrote their memoirs and travelogs. Eventually, when it was time for her to consider a PhD topic – she gravitated to memsahibs, although at the time, she worked on the literary representations of memsahibs in postcolonial Indian literature. It was her friend and agent, Kanishka Gupta, who suggested Nath write the book after seeing a brief article she wrote about memsahibs. The length and breadth of the research undertaken in writing the book is astounding. Starting from the 19th century to the Indian Independence, the book charters the stories of these women: the good, bad and amusing, they encountered in India. These women traveled in dense forests, lived in dak bungalows, organized picnics, went to Shimla for summers, arranged their husband’s and kid’s lives yet remained thoroughly in the background. Nath’s sources were a range of writings by memsahibs themselves, written between 1800 to the mid nineteenth century. “These were their original voices, mostly undiluted by the interjections of editors.” Nath states and adds, “The research process first involved reading all their writings so as to understand their tone and tenor, their preoccupations, and activities while they were in India. Once I began writing, I re-read a range of critical studies on the British Raj, Empire studies, and feminist historiography, to help develop my critical tools for writing on Memsahibs’ first-hand accounts of India.” It was then that she began the writing process. Women with agency Through her book, Nath shares the stories of many women who traveled to India in the eighteen and nineteenth century to either marry or join their husbands. From Eliza Fay, who made an exceedingly perilous journey in the eighteenth century because the Suez Canal had not been opened yet and travelers had to make a desert journey between Cairo and Suez during transit as they changed their vessels to Harriet Tytler, an India-born writer, artist, and photographer, who wrote a particularly haunting autobiographical account of her life, An Englishwoman in India, 1828-1858 (1864), the book charters the lives, loves and losses of many a memsahib in India. The most striking thing about Memsahibs was that all the women, whose works Nath read, displayed tremendous courage and perseverance. “Whether it was regarding their domestic and marital lives, their public engagements, their travel activities, or even politics, all of them had a unique history which was essential to understanding the experiences of women in the Raj.” she notes. The British Raj is known for its men, their shikars and their exploits but the personal histories of their women were marginalized in official narratives of the Raj. This allowed for various stereotypes to emerge as their roles were perceived more through the voices of others rather than their own, despite the presence of a number of personal accounts that they produced. Yet, even though they did not directly participate in the empire building project, they did aid their husbands in a number of ways. Nath adds, “In actuality, Memsahibs’ part in the colonial process was not as direct agents of the Crown, as they were co-opted into it mainly through the institution of marriage, rendering them as ‘trailing spouses’.” Nonetheless, as many of their writings reveal, the typical notion of trailing wives does not apply to them as they carried out a varied pattern of endeavors in India. Their writings, most importantly, allow us to gain an alternative perspective to mainstream colonial discourses with regard to British India. Nath suggests the term ‘epistolary chronicling’ for their pursuits in archiving different aspects of their lives in the Raj. An anthology of stories The book covers a range of subjects specific to the women’s experiences in India, such as travels, adventure sports, domestic issues, society life, politics, society, love and marriage, motherhood, health and diseases. The narrative style is easy and engaging allowing the personality of the women to shine through effortlessly. The tone of the book is neutral: neither does it paint these women with sympathy nor does it show them in the light of colonialism, as occupiers ruling a country. The empire was an extremely masculine space, where each activity was gendered. This meant that women had specifically delineated roles and were expected to fulfill them as part of their role in the empire building process. Nath says that Memsahibs were mostly just women trying to thrive in a man’s world. “Examining their writings for their politics as part of the colonizing race was both rewarding and disappointing therefore. There were women whose works demonstrated their strength of character, their indomitable spirit of adventure, and sheer force of anti-imperialist opinions. And yet, there were women who were racially arrogant and pro-imperial. Therefore, it did become challenging keeping a neutral tone.” she says. Some stories however remained with Nath. She specifically points out the ‘Naga Queen’ – Ursula Violet Graham Bower – whose life’s experiences she found exhilarating. Bower came to India in 1937, initially to tour the north-eastern regions, but her anthropological bent of mind that led her to the hills and the ethnic cultures of the land, specifically, the tribal community of the Nagas, compelled her to stay on for several years. Despite political turbulence in the 1940s as Japanese invasion seemed imminent, Ursula continued her research in the Naga villages and joined the guerilla warfare against the Japanese to defend the borders. She mobilized locals and had her own force of 150 Indian scouts, one service rifle, one single barrel shotgun, and 70 muzzle loaders. She was hailed as the ‘Naga Queen’ for her efforts by the locals. In the end, she even managed to find love, as a certain Colonel Betts who had heard of a lady guerilla, finally found her in Shillong, and very quickly, they married in India. Relevance today The stories of Memsahibs are relevant today for being the detailed and often intimate portrayal of lives of British women in India, for which there are limited sources in official histories of the Empire. “Many of the writings I examined cover multiple subjects, and reveal the varied lives of memsahibs in India, which are necessary to learn to appreciate the gendered histories of the Empire.” Nath says. From the point of studying women’s personal histories, these stories are highly instrumental for the insights they provide into the lived realities of life in the Raj, which are undeniably far removed from the often romanticized and dramatized depictions of lives of memsahibs. Traveling with these women through the course of this book transported Nath to the decade and century they lived in. “What I learnt from them is particularly hard to summarize, because there were so many awe-inspiring tales and valuable lessons from their endeavors and achievements.” she shares. Nath was also impressed by their determination to gain new experiences while they were in India, making them entirely unlike Kipling’s fictional memsahibs. They had a certain zest for life, a great spirit of adventure, and sheer grit and courage. “As a writer myself, I particularly admire their zeal for recording their experiences in detail and publishing them for a wide audience. They were not hesitant in voicing radical opinions, and utterly unapologetic in breaking rules and conventions of the society they lived in. To me, these were valuable lessons, and certainly a way in which I could relate with them as a woman.” Nath signs off. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .