Education of Women Championed by Vētanāyakam Pillai (1826–1889)
Sahayaraj Vijayan, S. J.
Māyūram Vētanāyakam Pillai is mostly known as the first Tamil novel writer. He also wrote for the moral improvement of the people of India. In 1859 he published his first book Nītinūl — “The Book of Right Conduct”. This work is a collection of 600 poems divided into 44 chapters on such varied subjects as “Attributes of God and Piety towards Him,” “Character of a False Priest,” “Education of Females,” “Drunkenness,” “On Excess in Sleep,” “Characteristics of Dancing Girls or Public Prostitutes,” and “Against Cruelty to Animals.” Vētanāyakam Pillai’s motives for writing this work is found in his preface written in English:
“The want of an ethical work in Tamil, on the principle of the moral writings of English authors, is felt by all those who are interested in the moral improvement of the Natives of India. With a view to supply this desideratum, the author has undertaken to compose the following Poem consisting of 44 chapters, wherein he has endeavoured to convey accurate ideas of God; as well as of moral good and evil — to point out the wide range of social and moral duties incumbent on mankind.”
What deserves a closer look in terms of innovative contents are those chapters of the Nītinūl which deal with hotly-debated social issues of contemporary South Indian society, particularly those on the “Education of Females” or “Characteristics of Dancing Girls or Public Prostitutes.” Vētanāyakam Pillai can be at times simple and straightforward, appealing to aesthetic sense using of clichéd metaphors, as in the following poem on the “Education of Females”:
“Teaching books on ethics to men, but not to those whose tresses are adorned by soft flowers — this is like decorating one half of the body, but leaving the other half without ornament.” (9.7)
The chapter on women’s education, with its total of thirteen poems, provides an idea that it is good to educate women as well as men, for what brings men onto the right path could not do any harm to women (poem 9.1). Moreover, education is considered an embellishment to women (poem 9.10) and to their husbands (9.13). Such arguments are often clothed in rather obvious similes, such as women being like a lamp that gives light in the dark, but that is hidden in a basket as long as they are not educated (poem 9.6). The
In one poem of this chapter, we also come across a more sarcastic tone: “Those parents who, in fear that she would be spoilt, deny her daughter education — they are like a husband who effortlessly plucks out his wife’s eyes, thinking she might see other men.” (9.2)
Seven years later, in 1869, he made another literary-cum-political move and published two works on the education of women in one volume: the collection of poems Penmati mālai (“The Garland of Female Wisdom”) and the essay Pen kalvi (“Women’s Education”). While he had already included thirteen poems on this topic in his Nītinūl, he now dealt with it in greater detail and thus consciously raised his voice in one of the hottest socio-political debates of nineteenth-century India. He states in his English preface:
“At such a time as this when there is the necessity for educating the fair sex of our land, when the natives of this Presidency have been brought to feel the want of such education, … indeed, no apology is needed to publish a book on the training and education of females.” (Vetanāyakam Pillai 1978: 30)
When he published a second edition a year later, in October 1870, he added a second essay titled Pen mānam (“Women’s Dignity”) “on the Social Status of women, the respect due to them, and the manner in which they should be treated.’ He gave the following reason for doing so: “The fact that Hindu women are treated almost like slaves by the generality of Hindu men and that they are not allowed either freedom of speech or freedom of action, has struck the author as such a great social evil, that he has added a Separate Essay on the subject.”
“In this country, those who have studied foreign languages and do not know their mother tongue (cuyapācai) obtain distinguished positions. We do not say this with envy. As there are many excellent books on various subjects in foreign languages, like English, French, and others, it is our heart-felt desire that these compatriots write prose compositions in the vernaculars (cutēca pācaikalil), so that the precious subjects contained in those books may become profitable to the women and men of this country.” (ibid., 52)
Vētanāyakam Pillai was reiterating his belief in his novelistic writing. In chapter 42 of his first novel Piratāpa Mutaliyār carittiram, he lets his female protagonist declare in the midst of a long speech:
“We have to admit that it is a major want that Tamil does not possess prose compositions (vacanakāviyankal) like English, French and other languages. [. . .] If the European languages had remained without prose compositions, could those countries have attained civilization and high culture? Thus, as long as there are no prose compositions in our own languages, this country will definitely not be properly reformed.” (Vētanāyakam Pillai 1885: 287f.)
In Pen mānam, Vētanāyakam Pillai explains that in countries like Europe women who have lost their husbands are allowed to marry again. In the same essay, he condemns the dowry practices as well as child marriage. More radically than his Nītinūl, these essays show Vetanāyakam Pillai as an ardent social reformer.
Like the Nītinūl, Penmati mālai, Pen kalvi, and Pen mānam were often reprinted after their first publication in one volume in 1870. Due to its content-value, the book was soon prescribed for college and university examinations. It is said that it was read as far away from its original home as England, when it was prescribed for the Senior examination in Tamil at Cambridge University in 1924. (Translation of the original Tamil texts into English quoted above is from an excellent study by Sascha Ebeling, Colonizing the Realm of Words, 2010)
About the Author:
Fr. Sahayaraj Vijayan is a Jesuit belonging to the Chennai Province of the Society of Jesus. He has a theology degree from Centre Sèvres, Facultés jésuites de Paris, France. He also holds a Masters degree in Tamil Literature from St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu, and he cleared the National Eligibility Test in Tamil in 2018. Having developed in himself a desire to draw inspirations from the ethical and spiritual traditions of Tamils, he tries to make a link between the Tamil Bhakti Literature and Jesuit Spirituality. He is currently working as Asst. Professor of Tamil in Loyola College, Chennai.
