It is a
story of a life of cliff-hangers. She
never knew whether it was going to be triumph or failure next, and indeed, this
continued for the whole of her life.
This story of cliff-hangers is set against the background of huge
movements which were going on in India.
I am not pretending to be a historian who can explain what was going on
in India, but I have to be conscious of the background all the time. ~ excerpts from a lecture delivered at
Gresham in 2012.
Gresham College is
an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in
central London, England. Founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham,
and it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year. Sir Thomas Gresham,
founder of the Royal Exchange, left his estate jointly to the City of London
Corporation and to the Mercers' Company, which today support the college through
the Joint Grand Gresham Committee under the presidency of the Lord Mayor of
London. The early success of the College
led to the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1663, which pursued its
activities at the College in Bishopsgate before moving to its own premises in
Crane Court in 1710.
Getting back to the
subject matter of that lecture Richard Sorabji threw new light on the life of
the extraordinary woman who was his aunt as well as India's first woman
lawyer. With the special insight and
knowledge he possesses as Cornelia's nephew, and through scrupulous research in
her unpublished papers, he tried explaining involvement with Katherine Mayo, her
disagreements with Gandhi, her disappointments in her career and other crucial
aspects of her life.
Today Google has
honoured her with a doodle in what would be her 151st birthday ! –
some interesting news collated from various sites posted here. Google's doodle depicts
Ms Sorabji in front of the high court to which she was eventually admitted.
Cornelia Sorabji seen
as India’s first female barrister, was never technically called to the English
Bar. She studied for a law degree at Somerville College, Oxford, (1889-93), the
first woman to sit the law exams in the country. Despite standing first in
university examinations at the Deccan College, Sorabji had difficulty in
becoming eligible. When Sorabji first
arrived in England she stayed with Elizabeth Adelaide Manning, Secretary of the
National Indian Association. At Oxford, Sorabji developed an enduring
friendship with the Master of Baliol College, Benjamin Jowett. This granted her
access to members of the upper-classes of British society, and consequently she
remained loyal to the British through her career. Sorabji's memoir, India
Calling, recalls the number of prominent establishment figures Sorabji met
during her time in Britain. Sorabji became a member of Lincoln’s Inn in 1922,
having been barred as a woman when a student. She lived and died in England !
In 1892 she was given permission to take Oxford's
law exams; yet was not awarded a degree simply because she was a woman - a
tradition that did not change until decades later. She went back to India in 1894, landed a job as a legal adviser for the Indian
government, but she was not admitted to the Allahabad high court until 1923,
when the ban on female lawyers was lifted. During her career she represented
hundreds of purdahnashins - women who are forbidden by custom from talking to
men outside their family.
Wikipedia reports
that she was also involved in social reforms, was 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. Although an Anglophile, Sorabji
had no desire to see "the wholesale imposition of a British legal system
on Indian society any more than she sought the transplantation of other Western
values." Though she supported the Indian
Independence early in her career, Sorabji later adopted a staunch anti-nationalist attitude
relating women's rights to the capacity for self-government. She was
actively involved in promoting support for the Empire and preserving the rights
of the Hindu Orthodox. She favourably viewed the polemical attack on Indian
self-rule in Katherine Mayo's book Mother India (1927), and condemned Mahatma
Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
15th Nov
2017
Photo and news from
: www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects
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