Jane Eyre and Women in India & in the Civilisation of Islam

 

तुम्ही Jane Eyre, १८४७ वाचले किंवा पहिले असेल तर ह्या पोस्ट ची जास्त मजा येणार आहे...

 

त्या पुस्तकाचा आधार Christopher de Bellaigue यांनी त्यांच्या 'The Islamic Enlightenment - The Struggle Between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times', २०१७ सालच्या पुस्तकासाठी घेतला आहे. 

 

त्यांच्या introduction ह्या प्रकरणात ते सुरवातीस लिहतात: 

 

"... And yet, for Jane to see her scheme to its conclusion, she needs the help of certain features of modern England. Without the provincial newspaper, the post office and finally, when it comes to making the journey to Thornfield Hall, a wheeled conveyance trundling along one of the turnpike roads, safe enough for a woman to take on her own, she will be able to do nothing.

Perhaps more important than any of these things, Jane will need society to agree that she is sovereign over her own destiny – an unmarried woman free to climb aboard a post-chaise and go wherever she pleases, at no risk to her reputation.

 

Now I want to take up this picture of Georgian England and put it into a quite different setting. Imagine that the Jane Eyre of Charlotte Brontë’s novel has been transposed to a non-European situation. By the standards of nineteenth-century globalisation this new environment is not very distant – to get there merely involves crossing the Mediterranean. There one meets the close sibling of the Judaeo-Christian world inhabited by Jane, a civilisation built on the third and most recent of the Hebraic monotheisms and influenced by Greek patterns of thought.

 

This is the civilisation of Islam. How would this civilisation have dealt with Jane Eyre and the vistas of personal fulfilment preventing her from closing her eyes at night? Would it approve or wrinkle its nose? Would Islam ‘get’ Jane Eyre?..."

 

ह्या छोटाश्या अवतरणात अनेक गोष्टी आपल्या आहेत पण सर्वात महत्वाचे म्हणजे स्त्रियांची परिस्थिती. 

 

ह्याच गोष्टी १९व्या शतकातील भारताबद्दल सुद्धा तुलनात्मक रित्या लिहता येतील. पण इथे खोलवर जाणवते ज्या स्त्री आणि पुरुष समाजसुधारकांनी ह्या बाबत कार्य केले त्यांचे महत्व. 

 

१८व्या- १९व्या शतकातील कोणत्या जातीतील स्त्रिया हे सुद्धा मला कमी महत्वाचे वाटते*....स्त्री शिकली (अनके स्त्रिया शिकल्या), घराबाहेर पडली, गाव सोडून नोकरी पकडली, चारित्र्याला डाग न लागता प्रेम केले ... ह्या सगळ्या गोष्टी मला अतिशय महत्वाच्या वाटतात... 

 

एक खाजगी गोष्ट नमूद करतो- २३ वर्षांची माझी आई, STC -CPED पुण्यात शिकलेली, लग्न आणि एक नुकतेच मूल झालेली, बस मध्ये बसून, मुलाबरोबर एकटी, मिरजेला, १९६०च्या सुमारास, कन्याशाळेत नोकरीला गेली होती.. तिला मिरजेचा अनुभव (नोकरीतला चांगला होता) इतका सुखकारक नव्हता, पण तरी हे जगातील बहुतेक देशांपेक्षा चांगले होते हे कबुल केलेच पाहिजे

 

* Keshav Meshram केशव मेश्राम, a prominent Dalit and ex-president Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, has written about qualities of Shripad Krishna Kolhatkar’s literary work as well as his vision. Meshram quotes what Kolhatkar said after reading H N Apte ह ना आपटे’s “Pan Lakshat Kon Gheto पण लक्षात कोण घेतो”: ”If Mr. Apte could tell the story of misery of backward caste people (Dalits) the way he has told of (Brahmin) women, such a novel would be second in revolutionary qualities only to ’Uncle Tom’s Cabin’”. (“Shabdavrat" शब्दव्रत, by Keshav Meshram).