Tracing two generations in twentieth century Indian women's education through analysis of literary sources: selected writings by Padmini Sengupta

Abstract

This article uses literary sources written by Padmini Sengupta, 1906–1988 (daughter of Kamala Satthinadhan, 1880–1950, educator, writer, and editor of the Indian Ladies’ Magazine) to map two generations of women in India from reformist backgrounds and their education and writing. Padmini's biography of her mother, The Portrait of an Indian Woman, 1956, is analyzed at length. Here, Sengupta offers at once a memoir of her own growing years and a biographical portrait of her mother Kamala Satthianadhan. Supplementing this analysis is an examination of how women's education is represented in Sengupta's novel Red Hibiscus, 1962. Padmini wrote many works of a non-fictional and biographical nature. In analyzing her writing, we also understand better how Indian women writers representing their own educational trajectories in the print and public sphere shortly after Indian independence lay the groundwork for the later development of women's history and Women's Studies in India.