Person · educator & social reformer · India
Pandita Ramabai
Also known as Pandita Ramabai — Pune / Kedgaon
The 19-century Marathi social reformer Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), the pioneer of women's education and widow welfare in modern India. Ramabai was born to a Chitpavan Brahmin family in Karnataka; her father Anant Shastri Dongre had taught her Sanskrit (then forbidden for women). After losing her parents in the 1877 famine and travelling across India with her brother, she arrived in Calcutta in 1878 where her Sanskrit scholarship earned her the title 'Pandita' and 'Sarasvati' from the Calcutta Sanskrit scholars. She founded the Arya Mahila Samaj (Pune, 1882) for widow welfare, the Sharada Sadan (Bombay, 1889) for Hindu widow education, and the Mukti Mission (Kedgaon, 1898) for destitute women, orphans and famine refugees. Her 1883 conversion to Christianity scandalised Hindu reformers. Her 1887 book 'The High-Caste Hindu Woman' was the first English-language exposé of Hindu caste restrictions on women. The 1989 Indian government stamp.
- Date
- 1880–1922
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Condition
- historical person + living institution
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 18.460, 74.110
About the place
Placed at Kedgaon near Pune, the site of the Mukti Mission she founded for widows and famine orphans, where she also translated the Bible into Marathi from the original languages.
Connections (1)
- CampaignPune/ Poona
Pandita Ramabai founded Sharada Sadan in Bombay and then Mukti at Kedgaon near Pune, taking in child widows, famine orphans and women with nowhere else to go, at a time when remarriage was socially impossible in her own community. She lost most of her Hindu support when she converted, and most of her missionary support when she refused to run the institution on Anglican terms.
On these journeys
Sources
Pandita Ramabai’s writings and Mukti Mission archives; modern gender and reform histories.
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