Cornelia Sorabji (15 November 1866 – 6 July 1954) was an Indian woman who achieved several notable firsts: the first female graduate from Bombay University, the first woman to read law at Oxford University (indeed, the first Indian national to study at any British university, the first female advocate in India, and the first woman to practise law in India and Britain.
In 2012, her glory was unveiled at Lincoln's Inn, London.
Born in Nashik, she was one of nine children of Reverend Sorabji Karsedji, a Parsi, and his wife, Francina Ford, a Parsi who had been adopted and raised by a British couple. Her father was a missionary and Sorabji claims that he was a key figure in convincing Bombay University to admit women to their degree programs. Her mother helped to establish several girls' schools in Poona (now Pune).Due in part to her influential social position, she was often consulted by local women in matters pertaining to inheritance and property rights. Many of Sorabji's later educational and career decisions would be heavily influenced by her mother.
Cornlia Sorabji had five surviving sisters and a brother, and two more brothers that died in infancy. She spent her childhood initially in Belgaum and later in Pune. She received her education both at home and at mission schools.
She enrolled in Deccan College, and claims to have topped the Presidency in her final degree examination, which would have entitled her to a government scholarship to study further in England. According to Sorabji, she was denied the scholarship, and instead took up a temporary position as a professor of English at a men's college in Gujarat.After becoming the first female graduate of Bombay University, Sorabji wrote in 1888 to the National Indian Association for assistance in completing her education. This was championed by Mary Hobhouse (whose husband arthur was a member of the Council of India) and Adelaide Manning, who contributed funds, as did Florence Nightingale, Sir William Wedderburn and others. Sorabji arrived in England in 1889 and stayed with Manning and Hobhouse. In 1892, she was given special permission by Congregational Decree, due in large part to the petitions of her English friends, to take the Bachelor of Civil Laws exam at Somerville College, Oxford, becoming the first woman to ever do so.
Legal career
Sorabji began petitioning the India Office as early as 1902 to provide for a female legal advisor to represent women and minors in provincial courts. In 1904, she was appointed Lady Assistant to the Court of Wards of Bengal and by 1907, due to the need for such representation, Sorabji was working in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam. In the next 20 years of service, it is estimated that Sorabji helped over 600 women and orphans fight legal battles, sometimes at no charge. She would later write about many of these cases in her work Between the Twilights and her two autobiographies. In 1924, the legal profession was opened to women in India, and Sorabji began practising in Kolkata. However, due to male bias and discrimination, she was confined to preparing opinions on cases, rather than pleading them before the court.Upon returning to India in 1894, Sorabji became involved in social and advisory work on behalf of the purdahnashins, women who, according to Hindu law, were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world. In many cases, these women owned considerable property, yet had no access to the necessary legal expertise to defend it. Sorabji was given special permission to enter pleas on the behalf of the purdahnashins before British agents of Kathiawar and Indore principalities, but she was unable to defend them in court since, as a woman, she did not hold professional standing in the Indian legal system. Hoping to remedy this situation, Sorabji presented herself for the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and pleader's examination of Allahabad high court in 1899. Yet, despite her successes, Sorabji would not be recognised as a barrister until the law which barred women from practising was changed in 1923.
Sorabji retired from the high court in 1929, and settled in London, visiting India during the winters. She died at her London home, Northumberland House on Green Lanes in Manor House, London, on 6 July 1954.
Social and reform work
At the turn of the century, Sorabji was also actively involved in social reforms. She was associated with the Bengal branch of the National Council for Women in India, the Federation of University Women, and the Bengal League of Social Service for Women. For her services to the Indian nation, she was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal in 1909. Although an Anglophile, Sorabji had no desire to see "the wholesale imposition of a British legal system on Indian society any more than she sought the transplantation of other Western values." Early in her career, Sorabji had supported the campaign for Indian Independence, relating women's rights to the capacity for self-government. Although she greatly supported traditional Indian life and culture, Sorabji did a great deal to promote the movement to reform Hindu laws regarding child marriage and the position of widows. She often worked alongside fellow reformer and friend Pandita Ramabai. Nevertheless, she believed that the true impetus behind social change was education and that, until the majority of illiterate women had access to it, the suffrage movement would be a failure.
By the late 1920s, however, Sorabji had adopted a staunch anti-nationalist attitude; believing that nationalism violated the beliefs, customs, and traditions of the country's Hindu'orthodox'. By 1927, she was actively involved in promoting support for the Empire and preserving the rights of the Hindu Orthodox. She favourably viewed the polemical attack on Indian self-rule in Katherine Mayo's book Mother India (1927), and condemned Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience. She toured India and the United States to propagate her political views which would end up costing her the support needed to undertake later social reforms. One such failed project was the League for Infant Welfare, Maternity, and District Nursing.
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