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Cornelia Sorabji (1866-1954) was the first woman lawyer of India whose formative years coincided with the high noon of the British Empire. She occupies a significant place in Indian history, as she played a pioneering role in trying to open up the legal profession to women much before they were formally allowed to plead before the courts of law. This detailed biography uses rich and hitherto unused data to illustrate a remarkable individual, who has remained neglected in the historiography of modern India. Sorabji’s opposition to Indian nationalism in the Gandhian era led to a disapproval of her role and personality. Yet this Parsee and the daughter of a convert to Christianity was the first woman to study law at Oxford, the first Indian woman to be allowed to practise in the Calcutta High Court, became the first woman to be appointed to a senior bureaucratic office under the colonial government, and the first person to champion the cause of Indian women in purdah who owned property. Sorabji’s life is has been shown as reflecting the dilemmas of a colonial subject who, in trying to negotiate her dual subjectivity to colonialism and patriarchy, was left with very little neutral space to operate upon. This book relates Sorabji’s life to the complexities of gender issues in colonial India, and will be of equal interest to general and specialist readers.
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