Ideas from the CBC: 19th-Century Feminist Scholar Pandita Ramabai

Pandita Ramabai travelled from India to England with her young daughter in tow to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. The year was 1883, and she was just 25. Her dream never materialized, but she crafted a new life for herself as a feminist public intellectual, delivering lectures across America about how the caste system and patriarchy shaped the trajectory of women's lives in India. When she returned to India, she embarked on another project of cultural translation, explaining American customs, gender and race relations, and their experiment with democracy to an Indian audience.