[BITList] Fwd: Empire citizen - Oxford DNB Life of the Day

[John Feltham]

G'day folks,

This "Life of the day" is similar to the daily "Word of the day" that I have been receiving for many many years now.

You to can subscribe to this List and receive your "Person of the day" - todays person is interesting to us who have connections to India.




Begin forwarded message:

From: oxforddnb-lotd at oup.com
Date: 15 November 2009 5:00:00 PM AEST
To: ODNBLIFEOFTHEDAY-L at WEBBER.UK.HUB.OUP.COM
Subject: Empire citizen - Oxford DNB Life of the Day
Reply-To: epm-oxforddnb at OUP.COM

November marks the 30th anniversary of Anthony Blunt's exposure as a Soviet spy.

You can listen to Blunt's life in our latest podcast episode: http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/pod/

Or read about him, and other spies here: http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/shelves/spies/



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To read this Life of the Day complete with a picture of the subject,
visit http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/lotw/2009-11-15



Sorabji, Cornelia  (1866-1954), barrister and social reformer, was born at Nasik in the Bombay Presidency, India, on 15 November 1866, the fifth daughter of the Revd Sorabji Karsedji, a Parsi Christian convert, and his wife, Franscina Ford, who had been brought up by an English couple. The Sorabji children were taught to respect all that was best in Indian and British cultural tradition. They also imbibed from their mother a spirit of social service. Early in childhood Cornelia Sorabji became acquainted with the injustice and servitude experienced by Indian women, especially the purdahnashins who led a secluded life behind the veil. Most of these women in purdah owned considerable property, but were unable to protect it since they were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world and were denied the necessary legal expertise and knowledge. Sorabji's concern for such women largely determined the course of her career: she resolved to fight the legal battles of wives, widows, and orphans, who were unable to do so in their customary seclusion.

The first woman student of Deccan College, Poona, Sorabji became the first female graduate in western India. She received a first-class degree in literature in 1888 from Bombay University which, but for her sex, would have entitled her to a scholarship to study at a British university. Instead, she had to content herself with a teaching job in Gujarat College, Ahmadabad. However, determined not to be bound by discrimination, Sorabji joined Somerville College, Oxford, in 1889 with the help of English friends. She was given special permission to sit for the examination in bachelor of civil law in 1892, the first woman ever to do so, and was placed in the third class. But Sorabji was not admitted to the degree because women in Oxford gained this right only in 1919. It was not until 1922 that she was able to return to Oxford and receive her law degree. She was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn the following year.

Cornelia Sorabji's student days in Oxford moulded her views on politics, social issues, and Indo-British relations. At Oxford she enjoyed the friendship of Benjamin Jowett, through whom she was introduced to leading contemporary figures in politics, law, social service, and literature. Sorabji met the aged Florence Kent and was presented at court. She acquired a deep appreciation for British civilization and culture, and believed in Britain's civilizing role in India. Exposure to late nineteenth-century Conservative philosophy also made her detest democracy and popular politics.

On her return to India in 1894 Sorabji was initially involved with educational work in the principality of Baroda since her gender denied her the right to plead before the Indian courts of law. She could appear only with special permission in cases concerning proprietary rights of Hindu women before the British agents of Kathiawar and Indore principalities. But determined to secure professional standing in the Indian legal world, Sorabji presented herself for the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and pleader's examination of Allahabad high court in 1899. Despite her success she was denied registration as a practising lawyer.

In these circumstances Sorabji turned to the colonial bureaucracy in order to put her legal knowledge to practical use. With great difficulty she persuaded the India Office to appoint her in 1904 lady legal adviser to the court of wards in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam, as a kind of liaison officer between women in purdah and the outside world to deal with the problems connected with women and minors whose estates were being administered by the courts. Sorabji was nevertheless herself much influenced by the customs and rituals of the upper-caste Hindu women with whom she dealt, and she subsequently involved herself with women's organizational and social service work. She contributed to infant welfare and district nursing programmes and became associated with the Bengal branch of the National Council for Women in India, the Federation of University Women, and the Bengal League of Social Service for Women. She was awarded the kaisar-i-Hind gold medal in 1909. However, while carrying out this work Sorabji continued to face discrimination against her as a woman and an Indian-at which she protested.

In 1924 the legal profession was opened to women in India and Sorabji began practising in the Calcutta high court. Unfortunately, constant battling against male bias and stereotypes made it an uphill struggle. Faced with such obstacles Sorabji had no option but to confine herself to preparing opinions on cases, rather than pleading before the courts of law.

Sorabji's allegiance to late nineteenth-century imperial culture made her disapprove both of post-1905 Indian nationalism and of Mahatma Gandhi's strategy of mass mobilization against the British raj. She opposed the nationalist demand for self-rule, believing that it should only follow a period of training in democracy and citizenship. Sorabji dubbed the twentieth-century nationalists 'progressives' and accused them of violating the beliefs, customs, and tradition of the country's Hindu 'orthodox'. She feared a clash between these two groups of Indians and urged the British to provide constitutional safeguards for the Hindu orthodox. Sorabji condemned, too, those Indian women who joined the nationalist struggle as subordinate partners of Indian men and disregarded the difficulties of the 'orthodox Indian women'. From 1927 Sorabji was engaged in propaganda work for the empire and the Hindu orthodox. She further made herself appear a 'natural imperialist' in nationalist eyes when she favourably reviewed Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927), a controversial book on India's social and political life. Proclaiming herself as an 'Empire Citizen', Sorabji toured India extensively and visited the USA in 1929 to propagate her political ideas. While she was in the United States, her eyesight began seriously to fail. She was awarded the Coronation Medal and a certificate in 1937 by the king-emperor.

From the mid-1930s Sorabji spent most of her time in London, which she loved, going to India only in the winters. She concentrated on writing, and produced many vivid, moving sketches. Her works included a biography of her parents, Therefore (1924), as well as the story of her educationist sister, Susie Sorabji (1932), and two autobiographical works, India Calling: the Memories of Cornelia Sorabji (1934) and India Recalled (1936). Her last literary project was to edit Queen Mary's Book for India (1943), a small anthology of articles connected with India and published in support of the Indian Comforts Fund. In addition, she maintained regular correspondence with her parents, with Lady Elena Richmond, and also with the Allahabad high court judge Harrison Falkner Blair. These letters vividly capture Sorabji's dilemmas, frustration, and aspirations.

At the end of her life Sorabji suffered from acute rheumatism and was almost blind. She died at her London home, Northumberland House, Green Lanes, Finsbury Park, on 6 July 1954. Despite her relatively marginal impact as a female lawyer in India, she became a well-known figure in Britain. An obituary in the Manchester Guardian described her as:

an arresting figure with a superb profile, always perfectly dressed in the richly coloured silk sari to which the modern Parsee woman has remained faithful. Her English speech was distinguished. She talked and spoke in public with equal brilliance, and her gifts of phrase remained with her to the end. (9 July 1954)

Suparna Gooptu 

Sources  S. Gooptu, 'Cornelia Sorabji, 1866-1954: a woman's biography', DPhil diss., U. Oxf., 1997 + C. Sorabji, Therefore: an impression of Sorabji Kharsedji Langrana and his wife (1924) + C. Sorabji, India calling: the memories of Cornelia Sorabji (1934) + C. Sorabji, India recalled (1936) + A. Burton, Burdens of history: British feminists, Indian women, and imperial culture, 1865-1915 (1994) + A. Burton, At the heart of the empire: Indians and the colonial encounter in late Victorian Britain (1998) + N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel, Western women and imperialism: complicity and resistance (1992) + J. H. Mair, Behind the curtain: India's first woman lawyer (1961) + R. Symonds, Oxford and empire: the last lost cause? (1986) + S. Tharu and K. Lalita, eds., Women writing in India: 600 B.C. to the present century, 1 (1991) + The Times (8 July 1954) + Manchester Guardian (13 April 1903) + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1954) + Manchester Guardian (9 July 1954) + BL OIOC, Sorabji MSS
Archives BL OIOC, corresp., diaries, and papers, MS Eur. F 165/1-235 + priv. coll. FILM BBC WAC, television programme, July 1966 + BFI NFTVA
Likenesses  Lafayette, photograph, 1930, NPG [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £3163 4s. 7d.: probate, 7 Oct 1954, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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