Woman Of Substance

It was entirely due to CORNELIA SORABJI’s efforts that the legal

profession was opened to

women in India in 1924

Cornelia Sorabji occupies pride

of place as India’s first woman

lawyer, the first woman to

practice law in India and

Britain, Bombay University’s

first female graduate to be admitted to the

Allahabad High Court, the first woman

to study law at Oxford University, and

the first Indian to study at any British

University.

Born in 1866, Cornelia was among

nine children born to Reverend Sorabji

Karsedji, a Parsi, and his wife, Francina

Ford, a Parsi, adopted and raised by

a British couple. While Cornelia was

homeschooled by her father at several

of the couple’s mission schools, she was

initially refused admission to Bombay

University on grounds that no woman

had ever been to the University. She

was admitted only later and went on to

matriculate at the age of 16. Cornelia

proved all the naysayers wrong when,

in six years’ time, she topped her

college in English Literature. Once again

though, gender came in the way of her

getting a scholarship to an English

University. Help arrived in the form of

Mary Hobhouse, Adelaide Manning,

Sir William Wedderburn, and Florence

Nightingale, who spent from their own

pockets to fund Cornelia’s scholarship. At

first, she was barred from studying law;

however, thanks to academic-philosopher

Benjamin Jowett, Cornelia became the

first woman to take the Bachelor of Civil

Laws exam at Somerville College, Oxford,

in 1892. What was expected to be learned

in five years, Cornelia set out to achieve

in just two. But the examiner initially

refused to examine her and later gave her

a third-class in the post-graduate exam.

Despite passing the exam, Cornelia could

not collect her degree for another 30

years as was the norm in those days. She

worked for a year at Lee & Pemberton,

a solicitors’ firm in London, where

the husband of one of the women who

had funded her scholarship helped her

get permission to read at the Lincoln’s

Inn library. The same year, Cornelia

completed her Bachelors of Law and

decided to return to India with a view to

empowering the women there.

To her disappointment, however, the

then Chief Justice of Bombay passed

an order disallowing legal practitioners

from employing women. Cornelia

then undertook an undergraduate degree

in law from Bombay University hoping

that this would ease her problems but

failed in the program. Surprisingly, it

was not the British Raj but the Maharajas

who offered Cornelia an opportunity to

practice law in the Bombay presidency,

only to restrict her to trivial cases. Not

the one to give up, Cornelia continued to

fight for recognition as a barrister and

finally decided to become a legal advisor

to the British Raj on the state of

purdah nasheens aka secluded women

in the country. At the time, these

women wore purdah and lived a dreary

existence where their education was

stopped the moment they got married

and they were forbidden from any

form of communication with the

outside world. Worst of all, in cases

of dispute over property, which these

women owned considerably, they

could not get legal help as all lawyers

out there were men. In 1904, the

then Secretary of State for India, Lord

Broderick, granted Cornelia special

permission to enter appeals on behalf

of these purdah nasheens before

British agents of the principalities

of Indore and Kathiawar. For two

decades thereafter, Cornelia worked as

a practicing lawyer, helping more than

600 women (purdah nasheens, child

brides, and widows) and orphans fight

their legal battles, sometimes free of

cost. Cornelia not only protected her

female clients against fraud and murder

but also helped them gain independence

and forge their own identity. It is

entirely due to Cornelia’s efforts that the

legal profession was opened to women

in India in 1924. Cornelia set up practice

in Calcutta only to retire in 1929. She

moved to England and continued to live

there, visiting India every now and then

until her death in 1954. The women of

India, especially all women lawyers, will

forever remain indebted to this great

lady.

Disclaimer – Statements and opinions expressed in this article are those from the editorial and are well researched from various sources. The content in the article is purely informative in nature.