Geeta Janardan Sane (

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

: गीता जनार्दन साने) (1907–1991) was a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

writer from

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Early life

Sane was born in

Amravati Amravati (pronunciation (help·info)) is the second largest city in the Vidarbha region and ninth largest city in Maharashtra, India. It is administrative headquarters of Amravati district and Amravati division which includes Akola, Buldha ...

. 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 university, public State university (India), state university located in Nagpur, Maharashtra. It is one of India's oldest universities, as well as th ...

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

male student with the last name Khan and a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

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 language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

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 Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property. While those definitions apply in general E ...

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 with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal. ...

, 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