Behramji Malabari
Encyclopedia
Behramji Merwanji Malabari (1853–1912) was an India
n poet, publicist, author, and social reformer best known for his ardent advocacy for the protection of the rights of women.
, Gujarat) the son of a poor Parsi
employed by the British colonial government
. His father of whom nothing more is known than "than that he was a mild, peace-loving man, with a
somewhat feeble constitution and not overmuch force of character" died when the boy was six or seven. His mother then took him to Surat
(on the coast, 140 km from Baroda), where Behramji was then educated in an Irish Presbyterian mission school. He was subsequently adopted by the childless owner of a drugstore who traded in sandalwood and spices from the Malabar Coast
hence the name 'Malabari'.
, followed in 1877 by The Indian Muse in English Garb, which attracted attention in England
, notably from Alfred Tennyson
, Max Müller
, and Florence Nightingale
. Müller and Nightingale would also play a role in his campaign for social reform, and the latter would also write the preface to an 1888/1892 biography of Malabari. At some point, Malabari relocated to the city of Bombay (now Mumbai
), then center of commerce and administration of the British possessions in Western India. In 1882 he published his Gujarat and the Gujaratis: pictures of men and manners taken from life (London: W.H. Allen, 1882, OCLC 27113274), a book "of a somewhat satirical nature," that went through five editions.
Malabari's life work began in 1880 when he acquired the Indian Spectator, an English language daily, which he edited for twenty years until it was merged into the Voice of India, which Malabari had already been editing together with Dadabhai Naoroji
and William Wedderburn
since 1883. In 1901 he became editor of the monthly East and West, a position he would hold until shortly before his death on July 12, 1912.
Malabari's account of his three visits to England, entitled The Indian Eye on English, or, Rambles of a Pilgrim Reformer (Westminster: A. Constance, 1893, OCLC 11695251), went through four editions.
women,'" that is, his ardent advocacy for social reform with regards to child marriage
and the remarriage of widows. In August 1884, Malabari published a set of Notes on Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood, that he sent to 4,000 leading Englishmen and Hindus. In it, Malabari deplored the "social evil" of "baby marriage" and demanded legislature to prevent it. Similarly on the issue of remarriage for widows, Malabari criticized the Hindu practice of prohibiting it, and he placed the blame squarely with that religion's "priestly class" and the "social monopolists" (i.e. the Brahmin
caste) for their "vulgar prejudices." Although acknowledging that many educated Hindus deplored the practice, he repeatedly argued that it was due to inaccurate interpretation of scripture by "the greedy priests" and base Hindu "superstition" that caused "a girl after ten [to be treated as] a serpent in the parents' house." His "notes" were the prelude to an emotionally-charged discussion that occupied the press for over seven years and made Malabari "one of, if not the most influential" Indian social reformer of his time.
In 1885, a girl named Rukhmabai was ordered by a Judge Pinhey to return to her husband or be jailed. Malabari's editorials of the Rukhmabai case gave the issue a popular focus, and it "was largely by his efforts" and the agitation of William Thomas Stead
in the Pall Mall Gazette
that brought about the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, and the Age of Consent Act
(which regulated the age of consent for females in Britain and India) in 1891. In this, Malabari "was instrumental not just in refining the gendered dimensions of contests for cultural legitimacy and power in the western presidency
, but in refiguring such contests for consumption by the British reform public at home as well." His agitation for reform in India "through the agitation of the British public at home was virtually unprecedented."
In his conviction that the Hindu priesthood were misinterpreting the Vedas
and Upanishad
, Malabari was also instrumental in the translation of Max Müller
's Hibbert Lectures into Indian languages. On the insistence of Müller and assisted by one N. M. Mobedjina, Malabari himself undertook the translation into Gujarati. Malabari then attempted to have the lectures translated into other languages (including Marathi
, Bengali
, Hindi
and Tamil
), and to do so traveled extensively to find translators and the funding for them.
Although Malabari stayed away from the Indian National Congress
as an organization, Malabari attended the Indian National Congress in Bombay in 1885, and "he was a nationalist" and he had a close relationship with Dadabahi Naoroji," one of the founders and leaders of the Congress. It was however to his advantage to not allow his name to be brought in connection with any specific political party or movement, and would have precluded support from British politicians in his campaign for social reform as well as from the Indian princes of Patiala, Gwalior and Bikaner upon whose financial generosity he depended.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n poet, publicist, author, and social reformer best known for his ardent advocacy for the protection of the rights of women.
Early life
Behramji Merwanji Malabari was born in 1853 at Baroda (present-day VadodaraVadodara
Vadodara formerly known as Baroda is the third most populated city in the Indian State of Gujarat . It is one of the four cities with the population of over 1 million...
, Gujarat) the son of a poor Parsi
Parsi
Parsi or Parsee refers to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities in South Asia, the other being the Irani community....
employed by the British colonial government
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. His father of whom nothing more is known than "than that he was a mild, peace-loving man, with a
somewhat feeble constitution and not overmuch force of character" died when the boy was six or seven. His mother then took him to Surat
Surat
Surat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...
(on the coast, 140 km from Baroda), where Behramji was then educated in an Irish Presbyterian mission school. He was subsequently adopted by the childless owner of a drugstore who traded in sandalwood and spices from the Malabar Coast
Malabar Coast
The Malabar Coast is a long and narrow coastline on the south-western shore line of the mainland Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing mountain...
hence the name 'Malabari'.
Author and editor
As early as 1875 Malabari published a volume of poems in GujaratiGujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
, followed in 1877 by The Indian Muse in English Garb, which attracted attention in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, notably from Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
, Max Müller
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller , more regularly known as Max Müller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion...
, and Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
. Müller and Nightingale would also play a role in his campaign for social reform, and the latter would also write the preface to an 1888/1892 biography of Malabari. At some point, Malabari relocated to the city of Bombay (now Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
), then center of commerce and administration of the British possessions in Western India. In 1882 he published his Gujarat and the Gujaratis: pictures of men and manners taken from life (London: W.H. Allen, 1882, OCLC 27113274), a book "of a somewhat satirical nature," that went through five editions.
Malabari's life work began in 1880 when he acquired the Indian Spectator, an English language daily, which he edited for twenty years until it was merged into the Voice of India, which Malabari had already been editing together with Dadabhai Naoroji
Dadabhai Naoroji
Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain...
and William Wedderburn
William Wedderburn
Sir William Wedderburn, 4th Baronet, JP DL was a Scottish civil servant and politician.Born in Edinburgh, the fourth son of Sir John Wedderburn, 2nd Baronet, he was educated at Hofwyl Workshop, then Loretto School and finally at Edinburgh University.He entered the Indian Civil Service in Bombay in...
since 1883. In 1901 he became editor of the monthly East and West, a position he would hold until shortly before his death on July 12, 1912.
Malabari's account of his three visits to England, entitled The Indian Eye on English, or, Rambles of a Pilgrim Reformer (Westminster: A. Constance, 1893, OCLC 11695251), went through four editions.
Social reformer
"What propelled Malabari to prominence across India and prompted his [first] visit to Britain in 1890 was what reformers in Victorian England and India called 'the problem of HinduHindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
women,'" that is, his ardent advocacy for social reform with regards to child marriage
Child marriage
Child marriage and child betrothal customs occur in various times and places, whereby children are given in matrimony - before marriageable age as defined by the commentator and often before puberty. Today such customs are fairly widespread in parts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America: in...
and the remarriage of widows. In August 1884, Malabari published a set of Notes on Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood, that he sent to 4,000 leading Englishmen and Hindus. In it, Malabari deplored the "social evil" of "baby marriage" and demanded legislature to prevent it. Similarly on the issue of remarriage for widows, Malabari criticized the Hindu practice of prohibiting it, and he placed the blame squarely with that religion's "priestly class" and the "social monopolists" (i.e. the Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
caste) for their "vulgar prejudices." Although acknowledging that many educated Hindus deplored the practice, he repeatedly argued that it was due to inaccurate interpretation of scripture by "the greedy priests" and base Hindu "superstition" that caused "a girl after ten [to be treated as] a serpent in the parents' house." His "notes" were the prelude to an emotionally-charged discussion that occupied the press for over seven years and made Malabari "one of, if not the most influential" Indian social reformer of his time.
In 1885, a girl named Rukhmabai was ordered by a Judge Pinhey to return to her husband or be jailed. Malabari's editorials of the Rukhmabai case gave the issue a popular focus, and it "was largely by his efforts" and the agitation of William Thomas Stead
William Thomas Stead
William Thomas Stead was an English journalist and editor who, as one of the early pioneers of investigative journalism, became one of the most controversial figures of the Victorian era. His 'New Journalism' paved the way for today's tabloid press...
in the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
that brought about the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, and the Age of Consent Act
1891 Age of Consent Act
The Age of Consent Act, 1891, also Act X of 1891, was a legislation enacted in British India on 19 March 1891 which raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse for all girls, married or unmarried, from ten to twelve years in all jurisdictions, its violation subject to criminal prosecution as...
(which regulated the age of consent for females in Britain and India) in 1891. In this, Malabari "was instrumental not just in refining the gendered dimensions of contests for cultural legitimacy and power in the western presidency
Bombay Presidency
The Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
, but in refiguring such contests for consumption by the British reform public at home as well." His agitation for reform in India "through the agitation of the British public at home was virtually unprecedented."
In his conviction that the Hindu priesthood were misinterpreting the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
and Upanishad
Upanishad
The Upanishads are philosophical texts considered to be an early source of Hindu religion. More than 200 are known, of which the first dozen or so, the oldest and most important, are variously referred to as the principal, main or old Upanishads...
, Malabari was also instrumental in the translation of Max Müller
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller , more regularly known as Max Müller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion...
's Hibbert Lectures into Indian languages. On the insistence of Müller and assisted by one N. M. Mobedjina, Malabari himself undertook the translation into Gujarati. Malabari then attempted to have the lectures translated into other languages (including Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
, Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
), and to do so traveled extensively to find translators and the funding for them.
Although Malabari stayed away from the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
as an organization, Malabari attended the Indian National Congress in Bombay in 1885, and "he was a nationalist" and he had a close relationship with Dadabahi Naoroji," one of the founders and leaders of the Congress. It was however to his advantage to not allow his name to be brought in connection with any specific political party or movement, and would have precluded support from British politicians in his campaign for social reform as well as from the Indian princes of Patiala, Gwalior and Bikaner upon whose financial generosity he depended.