Geeta Janardan Sane (1907–1991) was a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

writer from Maharashtra, India.

Early life

Sane was born in

Amravati Amravati (/Marathi phonology, əmᵊɾɑʋᵊt̪iː/) is a city in Maharashtra located in the Vidarbha region. It is the ninth largest city in Maharashtra, India & second largest city in the Vidarbha region in terms of population. It is the ...

. Her father was a teacher who later trained to be a lawyer. Both parents of Sane were progressive in their thinking. They conducted their daughters' weddings without any religious rituals. The weddings "must have cost a rupee and a half, each," Sane once said. Among students studying at

Nagpur University Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), formerly Nagpur University, is a public state university located in Nagpur, Maharashtra. It is one of India's oldest universities, as well as the second-oldest in Maharashtra. It is named ...

in her days, Sane was the first female to receive a bachelor's degree in the faculty of Science. Before her, females at that university, just like at most other universities in India in those times, studied liberal arts. After graduation, she taught mathematics.

Progressive ideas

In her college days, Sane was influenced by Marxism. In 1927, while she was in college, a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

male student with the last name Khan and a

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

female student with the last name Panandikar got married, and there was a furor, expressed by conservatives especially in the then-influential

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

daily ''Pune Waibhawa'' (पुणें वैभव), about the interfaith marriage. Sane wrote her angry progressive response to the conservative furor. As a feminist, she advocated a matriarchial system. She retained her last name Sane after marrying at age 26 a lawyer named Narasimha Dhagamwar, and advanced the same name retention idea for other women. She advocated that married women in Maharashtra do away with the strong social custom of their placing on their foreheads a ''kuṅkūṃ'' dot and wearing a ''mangalsootra'' as symbols of their holy matrimonial state.

Husband and daughter

In the late 1920s, Sane's future husband Dhagamwar had been an active participant in the

Indian freedom movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic movement to ...

, and the then British government ruling over India had charged him with participation in the 1929 ''Meerat conspiracy''. Sane's daughter Vasudha Dhagamwar has a law degree, and is a journalist and a civil liberties activist.

Authorship

''Bharatiya Stree Jeewan'' (भारतीय स्त्रीजीवन) (1985) is a nonfictional work by Sane. The following are some of her novels, most of which develop feminist themes. * ''Nikhalati Hirakani'' (निखळती हिरकणी) (1935) * ''Wathalela Wruksha'' (वठलेला वृक्ष) (1936) * ''Hirawalikhali'' (हिरवळीखाली) (1936) * ''Avishkar'' (आविष्कार) (1939) * ''Pheriwala'' (फेरीवाला) (1939) * ''Dhuke Ani Dahi.nwar'' (धुके आणि दहिंवर) (1942) * ''Deepastambha'' (दीपस्तम्भ) (1950)

References

Sources

* https://books.google.com/books?id=u297RJP9gvwC&pg=PA446 * https://books.google.com/books?id=sqBjpV9OzcsC&pg=PA347 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sane, Geeta 1991 deaths 1907 births Indian feminist writers Women writers from Maharashtra Marathi-language writers 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian writers People from Amravati district