Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai

Pandita Ramabai was one of India’s earliest feminists. Honored with the title of Saraswati in Calcutta in 1879, she soon alienated the men who had initially supported her. A high-caste Hindu widow, Ramabai converted to Christianity, an act that was seen as not only a betrayal of her religion but of her very nation.

A classic study, Rewriting History does more than introduce one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India; it rescues Ramabai from the marginalization of her contempor...