Would it be correct to label Toru Dutt as the earliest Indian English Woman Writer? Comment

He (Mr. Bose) wanted me to visit his school for adult girls. The girls are not generally of arthodox Hindu parents, but rather of Brahmos or followers of Keshab Chunder Sen ‘ religion. He was sony to-hear that probably we should be going to Europe, for he thought I would be of great help and use in the education bf my country women.

Toru Dutt herself was protected from the orthodox world’s rules in the freedom that her community enjoyed, and it is possible she gave little thought to the problems which beset women, except to complain that in Europe she could be much freer. She could not mix much with Bengali society because the existing Subhas were only for men, and women in general were kept in the seclusion of their homes. However Malashri Lal has advanced another perspective proffering an alternative Toru Dutt in her book, “The Law of the Threshold – Women Writers in Indian English Focusing exclusively upon the fragmentary fiction, Bianca or the Young Spanish Maiden “. Lal argues that this novel was perhaps wilfully ‘suppressed’ by the otherwise enlightened father of Toru because he “probably detected an uncomfortable parallel between the story of Bianca, and the real woman-writer, his daughter”. Lal’s argument hinges upon a split that she perceived between the feminine subjectivity of Bianca, the young Spanish protagonist of Toru Dutt’s novel and the patriarchal constraints imposed upon her by her father, Alonzo Garcia.

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