Jnanadanandini Devi Tagore

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Jnanadanandini Tagore was a social reformer who pioneered various cultural innovations and influenced the earliest phase of women’s empowerment in 19th century Bengal. She was married to Satyendranath Tagore, a scion of the Jorasanko Tagore Family, and the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore.

Jnanadanandini was born to parents Abhaycharan Mukhopadhyay and Nistarini Devi of Narendrapur village in Jessore, Bengal Presidency in 1850. Abhaycharan, a Kulin Brahmin, had become an out-caste by marrying into a Pirali family and was disinherited by his father. In accordance to the prevalent custom, Jnanadanandini was married at the young age of seven or eight to Debendranath Tagore’s second son, Satyendranath in 1857. In contrast to her idyllic life in Jessore, she found herself confined behind the strict purdah of the Tagore household at Jorasanko. At the time of her marriage, Jnanadanandini was illiterate and too young to understand the significance of marriage; on the contrary, her husband believed in romance and personal choice. After marriage, he, therefore, started to educate and westernise his child-wife. In 1862, while pursuing his probationary training for the Indian Civil Service (ICS), when Satyendranath went to England to compete for ICS, he even asked his father, Devendranath Tagore, to send her to London so that he could educate and modernise her suitably and turn her into his able companion. He also wrote that until she was educated and old enough to take him as her husband, he would not enter into a husband-wife relationship with her. His father considered his request to be grotesque and did not naturally send his daughter-in-law to England. Around this time, Jnanadanandini’s brother-in-law Hemendranath Tagore took charge of her education. She was also tutored briefly by the famous Brahmo educationist Ayodhyanath Pakrashi. However, when Satyendranath returned to Kolkata as an ICS in 1864 as the first Indian member of the Civil Service, he took her to the place of his work in Ahmedabad in western India, and thus violated the social norm of keeping one’s wife at the parental home. On her way to Ahmedabad, they stayed as houseguests at a Parsi house in Bombay for three months.

While in Bombay, Jnanadanandini socialized in the European circles and partly adapted to English customs. It was in Bombay that she saw Parsi women in the house wearing saris along with bodices, petticoats, blouses and shoes. But, the shift in social role required her to dress appropriately, for which the traditional Bengali style of wearing the sari became too unwieldy. During a tour of Gujarat with her husband, Jnanadanandini improvised upon the sari worn by Parsi women. She created her own style of draping the aanchal/pallu over the left shoulder – as opposed to the Parsi style – so that the right hand remained free for courtesies. In order to make this style popular, she later wrote an article in the women’s monthly, Bamabodhini Patrika and advertised that she would give a set of this dress free to anyone who would like to have it. She thus offered Bengali women a dress which was both polite and fashionable. One of her first pupils in Calcutta was Mrs. Soudamini Gupta, the wife of Behari Lal Gupta, ICS. The style soon became popular among the Brahmo women of Calcutta developing the eponym Brahmika Sari. 

She also became the first lady to wear an Oriental dress — a Mughal style kurta and voluminous pants — when she was out with her husband. The dress was said to be devised by none other than Satyendranath himself for her who had it made by a French tailor in Kolkata. While in Calcutta, Jnanadanandini, breaking the customs of the upper-caste household, accompanied her husband to a Christmas party thrown by the Viceroy, Lord Lawrence in 1866. Prasanna Coomar Tagore of Pathuriaghata, who was also among the invitees was deeply outraged by Jnanadanandini’s boldness and left the viceregal palace in shock. Her father-in-law, Debendranath Tagore, did not take kindly to her independent spirit either. It is speculated that this caused much discord in the Tagore household.

Jnanadanandini played a key role in the opening of the “zenana” (an area where women were kept in seclusion) in the elite households of the 19th century in Bengal? The woman was touted to be much ahead of her times, and also introduced the concept of “nuclear family” within the walls of Jorasanko, Tagore’s ancestral house. She left Jorasanko in 1868 to live by herself in a mansion on Park Street, adjacent to Debendranath’s residence. In spite of this proximity, the two of them never interacted. However, around this time she developed a fondness for her younger brother-in-law, Rabindranath Tagore, who became a frequent visitor in her Park Street house. Jnanadanandini returned to Bombay with her husband in 1869. The same year she lost her first child within a few days of birth. Her son, Surendranath was born in 1872 while the couple was living in Poona and the following year, her daughter Indira Devi was born in Bijapur. In yet another undaunted act of courage, Jnanadanandini appointed a Muslim woman as wet nurse for her children. Leaving newborns to the care of a wet nurse or a governess — always belonging to some Hindu castes — was common practice in affluent Indian families of the day. However, Jnanadanandini resented leaving her children in the custody of servants — often against the wishes of her own husband — making evident the emotional contours of a nuclear family that were already beginning to evolve in her mind. Her third son Kabindranath was born in 1876 during the family’s brief sojourn in Hyderabad, Sindh.

In 1877, a heavily pregnant Jnanadanandini Devi set sail for England with her three children, while her husband lived in India. Such a separation was incredible for the contemporary society, but she never yielded to tradition. At a time when an Indian woman crossing the seas was unheard of — let alone without a male companion — her fortitude created a social sensation. She was received in London by her husband’s uncle Gnanendramohan Tagore who, in spite of being the first Asian barrister and a Christian convert, shared in the shock. After briefly residing at Gnanendramohan Tagore’s house in Kensington Gardens, Jnanadanandini moved into a house on Medina Villas in the seaside town of Brighton, Sussex. Satyendranath joined her in England with the onset of his furlough in October 1878, along with his younger brother Rabindranath Tagore. Her initial year in England was marked by grief with the birth of a stillborn child, and the demise of her youngest son Kabindranath. She arranged for Kabindranath to be buried beside Dwarakanath Tagore’s grave at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. However, she and her children soon developed an intimate friendship with Rabindranath. Her daughter Indira would eventually become Rabindranath’s lifelong confidante. Upon the completion of Satyendranath’s furlough, he took up a post in Surat while Jnanadanandini returned to Calcutta with her children.

In Calcutta, Jnanadanandini took up residence in a bungalow on Lower Circular Road. Yet, from the memoirs of her daughter Indira and niece Sarala, we learn that Jnanadanandini never relinquished her attachment with Jorasanko. She took an active role in Rabindranath’s marriage and even mentored the young bride, Mrinalini. With time, her relationship with Rabindranath permeated into the domain of his creativity. Jnanadanandini started assisting him with the performance of his plays, often encouraging other women of the household to participate. Thus came: Valmiki-Pratibha, Kaalmrigaya, Raja O Rani, Mayar Khela and Bisarjan. From Indira Devi’s recollection we also learn that in spite of her high standing, Jnanadanandini did not socialize with the Calcutta glitterati of her time. That Calcutta society was not favourably disposed towards Jnanadanandini either is evident form an article in the October 1889 issue of the popular Bengali journal Bangabasi, which slandered her for acting in the play Raja O Rani. Ironically, the Tagore house at Birjitalao where the performance took place is today occupied by a ritzy gentlemen’s club.

In 1890, Jnanadanandini moved in with Jyotirindranath Tagore who had lost his wife Kadambari Devi in 1884. In 1891, Jnanadanandini Devi introduced her nephew Abanindranath Tagore to E.B. Havell who at the time was the principal of Government College of Art. The collaboration between these two artists would eventually lead to the development of the Bengal School of Art. Jnanadanandini’s position in the Tagore family is difficult to situate. On the one hand, she is among the few women who presided over the Maghotsav celebrations at the Brahmo Samaj, while on the other she is known to have advocated marriage with the non-Brahmin Cooch-Behar royal family which brought her at loggerheads, yet again, with Debendranath Tagore. Ironically, a woman who once went to England just by herself did not allow her son Surendranath to go to England for higher studies. Despite that and her maternal anxieties notwithstanding, she never objected to Surendranath’s many radical misadventures. While she single-handedly nursed Rabindranath’s daughter Meera Devi through her difficult pregnancy in 1911, she also fell out with him over the issue of withdrawing her grandson Subirendranath from Santiniketan ashram in 1921. Yet, her relationship with Rabindranath remained untarnished all her life. In the words of her daughter Indira Devi, “my mother had ... a quality of centrality, that is the power of attracting people around her, owing to her hospitable and hearty nature”.

In 1907, Jnanadanandini and Satyendranath visited Jyotirindranath Tagore in his house at Morabadi Hill in Ranchi and started living there permanently from 1911. She died in 1941.

Among the Tagore family women, after Swarnakumari Devi, Jnanadanandini participated most actively in the rich literary ambiance of the family. Upon her return from England in 1880, Jnanadanandini began writing articles in the Bengali journal Bharati. Her flair was soon noticed by the intelligentsia. In 1881 - four years before the establishment of the Indian National Congress - Jnanadanandini published an article titled Ingrajninda O Deshanurag (Criticism of the British and Patriotism), in which she called for the establishment of a nationwide organization which would have branches in the remote district towns. She argued “every benefit that the British have bestowed upon us is a blow to our mission of national liberation”. In 1885, Jnanadanandini Devi established Balak, the first children’s literary magazine in Bengali. Rabindranath contributed a number of short stories, poems and plays to Balak. She wrote two plays for children - Takdumadum and Saat Bhai Champa - both of which were highly appreciated in the literary circles. In spite of her many literary achievements, Jnanadanandini Devi did not write her autobiography. Only a couple of years before her death, Pulinbihari Sen persuaded her to write a set of memoirs, later published as Smritikatha O Puratani.

Jnanadanandini Devi Tagore was an example of how an illiterate girl could educate herself with the help of her husband and become competent to live in the society as an equal member. In addition to Bangla and English, she learnt French, Gujarati and Marathi; and turned herself into an accomplished woman mastering English manners and etiquette. A time came soon, when other women of the upper class also followed her style.

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.