Images of Concealment

Pandita Ramabai and the Mukti Mission

Abstract

Pandita Ramabai Dongre (1858-1922) is well-known as an Indian Christian missionary and an early feminist leader, who established an independent mission—the Mukti Mission for destitute women in 1898 in Kedgaon (Maharashtra). Ramabai was also the first Indian leader to use photography as an advocacy and marketing tool, a technology that had recently become popular in India in the mid-19th century, to document Mukti and portray the lives of its residents. To facilitate deeper understanding of how Ramabai contributed to the late-colonial and missionary establishment of 20th century India, this article analyses some Mukti photographs that were published by Ramabai’s friend and missionary Helen Dyer (1900 and 1924). Treating photographs as a primary source for missionary history is an important method for understanding how Mukti presented itself and Pandita Ramabai to multiple audiences at home and abroad: an indigenous proto-Pentecostal mission run by a woman leader; an anticolonial patriotic enterprise that resisted denominational control, but elicited funds from donours abroad; and an early feminist enterprise that saved and rehabilitated women.