Leela Dube (1923-2012)
A feminist anthropologist who pioneered
studies on matriliny, kinship
Leela Dube, who passed away in New
Delhi on Sunday aged 89, was one of the early pioneers
of feminist scholarship in India
along with Irawati Karve, Vina Majumdar, and Lotika Sarkar. Scan through the
acknowledgements and citations of any sociological or anthropological book on
kinship or gender in India,
from the 1960s till the present, and her name comes up with unfailing
regularity.
In a delightful autobiographical
essay published in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2000 (‘Doing Kinship
and Gender'), Leela Dube nee Ambardekar describes the early influences that
determined her future interests – her middle class Marathi Brahmin upbringing
(her sister, Sumati Mutatkar went on to become a renowned classical vocalist),
her mother's generosity within the family, literature that showed both the
suffering and the strength of women, the everyday gossip around familial
politics and intrigues, and the nationalist movement. Given the inchoate
feminism of the time, she felt she had to marry but if she was to do so, she
wanted a partner who would encourage rather than stultify her intellectually.
While doing an MA in Political Science at Nagpur
University she heard of Shyama
Charan Dube, a reputedly brilliant student, and decided to propose to him. He
later became a well-known anthropologist. Inevitably, Leela Dube had to carve
her career around his, the fate of many women not just of her generation but
also today. However, as with other such inspiring women, she managed to balance
both home and work, and one might even say, surpassed her husband in her
sociological legacy. She taught at Sagar
University from 1960-75, and held
several fellowships at the ICSSR, Teen Murti, the Centre for Women's
Development Studies among others.
Leela Dube's Ph.D. (1953,
Anthropology) was on women in three adivasi groups, comparing their lives to
upper caste women, but she is best known for her work on Muslim matriliny in
Lakshwadeep, Matriliny and Islam: Religion and society in the Laccadives (1969)
and marriage and kinship relations more broadly. Like many women scholars, it
is her own experience which deeply shaped her interests - marriage as she
describes it was a relation of both “gratification” and “agony”. In between,
she also collaborated with S.C. Dube on research among rural communities in
Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. However, it was her work
as a member of the National Committee on the Status of Women between 1971 and
1974 which transformed her into an established and internationally recognised
feminist scholar. She served on several boards, including as chairperson of the
Commission on Women of the International Union of Anthropological and
Ethnological Sciences, from 1976-1993, and as series editor of the women and
household volumes published by Sage.
In 2007, Leela Dube was given the
Lifetime Achievement Award of the Indian Sociological Society, and was awarded
the UGC National Swami Pranavananda Saraswati Award for 2005. She remained
active and engaged with scholarship till almost the very end. Her book,
Anthropological Explorations in Gender: Intersecting fields, was published by
Sage in 2001. Of a generation of multilingual scholars that is now sadly
passing away, her very last publication was the Marathi Manavashastratil
lingbhavachi shodhamohim (2009).
Leela Dube is survived by two
sons.
Source: The Hindu 21 May 2012.
