Asian Suffragettes

One can be forgiven for thinking that all the women in the Suffragette movement were white British. Any mentions of women of colour are few and far between, with the most well-known activists being Emiline Pankhurst and Emily Davidson. Whilst their contribution to the movement cannot be over-stated, Asian women also played a key role, with little being told about their involvement.

According to Shahida Rahman, many Indian women were brought over to Britain as nannies, and after their contract ended, were left to fend for themselves and find passage back to India. Many British people looked upon these women as helpless and oppressed, however as more and more Asian women became outspoken about various political campaigns they were soon regarded with respect.

One of the most prominent women in the whole Suffragette campaign was Sophia Duleep Singh, an Indian Princess and daughter of a wealthy man; Maharaja Duleep Singh. In March 1909 Sophia join the Women’s Social and Political Union, and pledged a considerably large amount of money to the cause. However, from this time onwards, it was not just her money which Sophia donated as she became a devoted and well-known member of the movement.  She also joined the Women’s Tax Resistance League, who withheld their taxes in protest at their lack of political representation. When brought to court over her refusal to pay tax, Sophia made a rousing speech declaring that:

“I am unable conscientiously to pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control over its expenditure; neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of Members of Parliament, whose salaries I have to help to pay. This is very unjust. When the women of England are enfranchised and the state acknowledges me as a citizen I shall, of course, pay my share willingly towards its upkeep. If I am not a fit person for the purpose of representation, why should I be a fit person for taxation?”

So well-known was Sophia, that a letter was written to Lord Crewe in April 1913, asking if “anything could be done to stop her”, and contemplating her eviction from her lodgings in Hampton Court.

Sophia Duleep Singh was by no means the only Asian woman who played her part in the campaign to gain women the vote, with links being established between the women’s movement in India and at home. The delegation of Indian women in the Suffragette procession in June 1911, although small, made such an impression on a Governor on an Indian province that he considered it to be the ‘most significant feature’ of the whole procession, as it highlighted the fact that the “Woman’s Question” was without “race, creed, or boundary”.

For today’s society the participation of Indian women in the Suffragette movement is highly significant. With the abundance of anti-immigrant rhetoric being bound across the media, it is important to highlight the vital role that immigrants have played in the shaping of this country for the better.

Links and further reading

Shahida Rahman, “Asian Suffragettes – Women who made a difference”,  Feminist and Women’s Association blog, http://fwsablog.org.uk/2014/01/09/asian-suffragettes-women-who-made-a-difference/

Rozina Visram, Asians in Britain: 400 years of history, Pluto Press, 2002

Anita Anand, Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015

British Library Learning – Asians in Britain, http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/asians/activismpolitics/activismandpolitics.html

Aphra Benn, Sir Patient Fancy, 1678

Sir Patient Fancy – Aphra Benn, 1678

Epilogue

With her damn’d Stuff, will never cease to teeze us.

What has poor Woman done, that she must be

Debar’d from Sense, and sacred Poetry?

Why in this Age has Heaven allow’d you more,

And Women less of Wit than heretofore?

We once were fam’d in story, and could write

Equal to Men; cou’d govern, nay, cou’d fight.

We still have passive Valour, and can show,

Wou’d Custom give us leave, the active too,

Since we no Provocations want from you.

For who but we cou’d your dull Fopperies bear,

Your saucy Love, and your brisk Nonsense hear;

Indure your worse than womanish Affectation,

Which renders you the Nusance of the Nation;

Scorn’d even by all the Misses of the Town,

A Jest to Vizard Mask, the Pit-Buffoon;

A Glass by which the admiring Country Fool

May learn to dress himself en Ridicule:

Both striving who shall most ingenious grow

In Leudness, Foppery, Nonsense, Noise and Show.

And yet to these fine things we must submit

Our Reason, Arms, our Laurels, and our Wit.

Because we do not laugh at you, when leud,

And scorn and cudgel ye when you are rude.

That we have nobler Souls than you, we prove,

By how much more we’re sensible of Love;

Quickest in finding all the subtlest ways

To make your Joys, why not to make you Plays?

We best can find your Foibles, know our own

And jilts and cuckolds now best please the town;

Your way of writing’s out of fashion gown,

Method, and Rule—you only understand;

Pursue that way of Fooling, and be damn’d.

Your learned Cant of Action, Time and Place,

Must all give way to the unlabour’d Farce.

To all the Men of Wit we will subscribe:

But for your half Wits, you unthinking Tribe,

We’ll let you see, whate’er besides we do,

How artfully we copy some of you:

And if you’re drawn to th’ Life, pray tell me then,

Why Women should not write as well as Men.

Aphra Behn was one of the first British women to make her living out of writing, and as you can see, embraced the opportunity to make her feelings on the status of women known. She has been remembered by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own as the woman who earned other women the right to speak their minds, and many of her works focused on race, slavery, sexual desire, and gender, all of which were highly controversial topics.

In this Epilogue from Sir Patient Fancy, Behn is mocking some male behaviour and challenging the notion that women were seen as intellectually inferior to men. For me, the key lines are:

Quickest in finding all the subtlest ways

To make your joys, why not make your plays?

It is these lines which I feel speak most about the status of women, both in Aphra Behn’s time, and our own. It speaks to the frustration in the view that women are often viewed as the object of entertainment for men – to please and to entertain, but not to challenge their intellectual standing. For me, this resonates with the No More Page Three campaign, as it too asserts that women offer more to society than titilising entertainment and pleasure, and their representation otherwise is damaging. Aphra Behn challenged this notion through her actions as well as her words, and should be remembered as one of the first people to publicly assert that men and women were intellectual equals.