Indira Bai: The Triumph of Truth and Virtue

By: Gulvadi Venkata Rao

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Synopsis: Indira Bai, born in an orthodox Saraswat Brahmin family in the small town of Kamalapura, is married and widowed as a child. The bright, curious girl resists forces of social conservatism—the mindless chores and cruel rituals of widowhood. To reform her, the head of the religious mutt is brought in. When he tries to seduce her, a distraught Indira runs away to eminent lawyer Amrita Raya’s house. Encouraged in her pursuit of knowledge and freedom, Indira acquires a matriculation degree and later chooses to marry Assistant Collector Bhaskara Rao. This novel, laced with feminist intent, traces Indira’s self-fashioning into a modern, educated, and assertive woman. Published in 1899, Indira Bai documents the transformation of the Saraswat Brahmin community based in the erstwhile South Canara region of Karnataka due to the encounter between the Kannada social world and colonial modernity. Simultaneously, this text of social history represents the pan-Indian churning provoked by the reform movement in the nineteenth century, with its central focus on the condition of women.