Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the role Hindi magazines played in giving women a voice in early 20th century India, focusing on the narratives by anonymous women in the readers’ columns.

Paper long abstract:

From around the 1910s to the 1930s, many women wrote letters or small notes to the editors of a variety of magazines, requesting that their names or addresses not be specified. In these writings, they expressed private things about themselves, especially their miserable home and marital situations. This paper will focus on these narratives as they were published in several Hindi magazines. For most women, the reader's columns in women's journals like Griha Lakshmi and Chand, were the first and only place where they could express their feelings freely, and by doing so, gain some sympathy and support from the editor and readers.

What these narratives show is that even though the strict social backdrop in those times called for absolute obedience and virtue, there were in fact voices that challenged the system at that time. Such narratives told by faceless and nameless women illustrated another dimension of women's lives in the modern period which has much value to contribute to the cultural history of India.