Title: The Indian Ladies’ Magazine. From Raj to Swaraj 1901-1938.
Author: Deborah Anna Logan
Year: 2023
Pages: 293
ISBN: 978-8195480678
Price: ₹ 900
Jacket Design: Aratrika Choudhury
This book examines the varied influences and accomplishments of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine, the first Indian magazine established and edited by an Indian woman—Kamala Satthianadhan—in English, written by women, for women. Influences include Victorian, Edwardian, and Modern literature and culture as well as traditional Indian literature and culture during the late colonial, pre-independence period. More than a literary journal, this publication also addressed social reforms, from “ladies’ philanthropy” to “women’s mission to women”; the emergence of Indian “identity politics” in response to the nationalist and independence movements; the Indian Woman Question in the context of female education debates and shifting concepts of “womanliness”; cultural exchanges recorded by Indian travellers to America; and the emergence of Indian nationalism, between the World Wars, leading to independence. This publication recorded and participated in the most pivotal moment in modern Indian history and did so by appealing to both the conservative and progressive socio-political urges marking the era.
