Swarnakumari Devi

Swarnakumari Devi (1855 or 1856 – 1932), also known as Swarnakumari Tagore, Swarnakumari Ghosal, Svarṇakumārī Debī and Srimati Svarna Kumari Devi, was an Indian Bengali writer, editor, essayist, poet, novelist, playwright, composer, and social worker.
Biography
Swarnakumari was born as the tenth child to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi into the Tagore family of Jorasanko, Kolkata in 1855 or 1856. She was the elder sister of Rabindranath Tagore. Her short story Mutiny describes her experience being born just prior to the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.
Swarnakumari and her sisters did not attend school, but were tutored privately in Sanskrit and English and had the educational benefit of being raised in the Calcutta mansion that was home to the Tagore family. At age 13, she married Janakinath Ghosal, a deputy magistrate. Their children were Hiranmoyee Devi, Sir Jyotsnanath Ghosal and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani.
In 1886, she established the first women's organization in Bengal, Sakhi-Samiti, to help impoverished women. She also founded the Ladies' Theosophical Society in Calcutta.
She participated in sessions of the Indian National Congress in 1889 and 1890. Swarnakumari and Kadambini Ganguly were the first women delegates to the Indian National Congress.
Literary career
Swarnakumari was a writer and editor for the literary monthly Bharati for more than 30 years, after the journal was established by her older brother Dijendranath Tagore in 1877 or 1878. Her work in Bharati is considered to be among her major achievements.
Swarnakumari is the author of 25 books and a wide range of essays. 17 of her 24 essays on science were published in the journal Bharati between 1880 and 1889, and she expanded the Bengali language by creating new scientific terminology, as well as by incorporating terms created by Rajendralal Mitra, Madhusudan Gupta, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Her science essays were written for lay readers, to help facilitate understanding of the concepts and to help promote science education. In 1882, a collection of her science essays, titled Prithivi, was published.
According to Anurupa Devi, "Many women had written poems and stories before her, but these were looked upon patronizingly. She was the first writer to show up the strengths of women's writing and raise women's creations to a position of respect." Swarnakumari achieved contemporary popularity as a novelist, but many of her works have not been reprinted.
Her novel Dipnirban (The Snuffing Out of the Light) was first published anonymously in 1870, but it was eventually understood that the author was a "young Hindu lady", according to a notice in the Hindu Patriot. The Calcutta Review wrote, "We have no hesitation in pronouncing this book to be by far the best that has yet been written by a Bengali lady, and we should no more hesitate to call it one of the ablest in the whole literature of Bengal." In 1879, she published what is believed to be the first Opera written in Bengali, Basanta Utsav (Spring Festival). In her poem Likhitechi (Writing, Day and Night), she expresses frustration at the challenges related to establishing her own career as a writer.
Swarnakumari also wrote more than three hundred songs.
Selected works
Novels
Dipnirban (The Snuffing Out of the Light), 1870
Mibar Raj, 1877
Chinna Mukul (A Picked Flower), 1879
Mālati, 1881
Hughlir Imam Badi 1887
Vidroha (Revolt), 1890
Snehalata ba Palita (tr. as: The Uprooted Vine), (two volumes) 1892 and 1893, Oxford University Press, 2004
Phulermala (tr. as: The fatal Garland), 1894
Kahake (To Whom?; tr. as: The Unfinished Song), 1898, Oxford University Press, 2008
Bichitra, 1920
Swapnabani, 1921
Milanrati, 1925
Phuler Mala
Short stories
Short stories, 1919
Plays
Koney Badal (Evening Dust Clouds / Time for Seeing the Bride), 1906
Pak Chakra (Wheel of Fortune), 1911
Rajkanya
Divyakamal
Honors and awards
She received the Jagattarini gold medal in 1927 from the University of Calcutta and was the first woman to win this award. She was the president of the Vangiya Sahitya Sammelan (Vangiya literary conference) in 1929.
Death and legacy
She died in 1932 in Kolkata. She has been recognized by the Indian History Congress as one of the first women from Bengal to achieve success as a writer and for her efforts to encourage scientific education, including among women.
See also
Tagore family
List of Bengali-language authors (alphabetical)
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Caṭṭopādhyāẏa, Mīnā. Svarṇakumārī Debī, Anubhāba, Kalakātā, 2000.
Majumadāra, Samareśa. Svarṇakumārī Debīra galpa, Ratnabalī: Prāptisthāna, Pustaka Bipaṇi, Kalakātā, 2004.
Ghose, Sudakshina. Swarnakumari Devi. Translated into English by Tapati Chowdhurie, Sahitya Akademi, Kolkata, 2008.
1855 births
1932 deaths
19th-century Bengali poets
20th-century Bengali poets
Poets from British India
Composers from British India
Dramatists and playwrights from British India
Essayists from British India
Novelists from British India
Bengali Hindus
People from the Bengal Presidency
Bengali-language poets
Bengali female poets
Indian Hindus
Indian social reformers
Musicians from Kolkata
Writers from Kolkata
Indian social workers
Indian educators
Educators from British India
20th-century Indian women educators
20th-century Indian women educational theorists
19th-century Indian educational theorists
20th-century Indian educational theorists
Educationists from India
Indian editors
Indian women editors
Indian academics
Indian magazine editors
Indian scholars
Indian women scholars
20th-century Indian scholars
19th-century Indian scholars
Indian women activists
Indian activists