Cornelia Sorabji

“ I would commend this thought to the reflection both of those who desire a vote, and of those who think the demand premature.
Here, at any rate, is a trysting place for us both—here, in the service of the needs of women and children.
What are you going to do about it all?
I speak to those who call themselves Patriots. What can be more emphatically the concern of the patriot than a sturdier, happier, less badly-housed population than we see around us! ”

“ The saddest face I have seen in all the world was that of a poor child-wife whose longing for a baby, coupled with her ignorance of how to treat or help herself, and the incompetence of such help as was available, had destroyed her reason. ”

“ On the night of the birth, Shubala's Father-in-law sat outside Shubala's shut door, and read aloud instructions from an ancient vernacular script for the guidance of an old-fashioned Bengali dai; while the school-boy Bridegroom stood by watching the agony. "If he does not see now what women suffer, who will show him?" ”

“ Can thinking persons really believe that it has any chance of success in existing conditions? I refer specially now to our ignorance about the rules of life and health, and of things pertaining to the body, civic and social.
Some Indian women have lately been urging their right to the franchise. We know that in England, in imitation of of which country this desire originated, women were moved to demand a vote because, while working for their kind, they came upon disabilities which they believed the possession of a vote would help them to cure. ”

“ And is it possible to avoid the conclusion that ignorance is regarded as culpable, when those who know are in contact with those who do not know, and when they do nothing definite, determined, and immediate, to remove that ignorance? ”

“ Nurse bustled out to seek my help in protesting. This was the ancient way of dealing with the fear of collapse; and Rani explained that it was part of the ritual attending child-birth—live coals are placed upon the Mother, "and if it is her fate to live, she will live, though there will be a burn: if it is not her fate to live, she will die." ”

“ I speak to you first, because you best can guage the harm which is being done to children and to child-mothers, and because there is in your hearts—whether born of intelligence and civic persuasion, or of religion—the conviction that we are indeed "the keepers" of every other member of the human family. ”

“ The fever-fiend had clutched them so tightly, that the mother and grandmother and great-aunt, who loved them (it is necessary to remember that fact) , had said, "Neglect is the only treatment, the gods are jealous: the demons have come to dwell in them: we must not attend to them, lest we entertain demons, and lest the gods be jealous." ”

“ Lady Chelmsford's League for Maternal and Child Welfare in India has ascertained that "the death rate in India among mothers at the time of child-birth is infinitely greater than that in any European country. ”

“ Often their whole life's happiness depends upon whether the baby will come, upon whether it will be a son, and they do not know that their very fear and anxiety and depression may be spoiling their chances; they are ignorant of the way their thoughts can help their longings, and yet the success with which any suggestion of this kind is met, proves how simple a remedy is lying at their feet for the taking; and makes the neglect of offering that remedy all the greater. ”

“ Teachers of mothercraft, and organizers of health propaganda, are to be found for 150 million Indian women.
Health supervisors will go to the houses which accept their services, and will watch over and care for the women and children, or will work at Health Centres to which women can themselves come before their confinement, or later on, with their babies, for help and advice. Milk will be distributed free of charge to the poor and needy; dais can be supplied with boxes containing what is needed for their work, and for the women in their confinements. ”

“ The idea is to make and endow welfare work for the whole of India. It is a scheme worthy of our new opportunities, and of the patronage of those who are able to give royally, and whose generosity has never failed the real needs of the past. ”

“ Baby followed after Baby also, as the years passed. There are six children now, and Shubala is 18 years old; and her health is absolutely ruined.
This is not an isolated instance of what might happen in India. This is a cared-for illustration of an incident that is repeated in worse circumstances in thousands of Indian homes, not only among the poor and destitute, but among landed proprietors.
And the damage done is to the expectant Mother as well as to the Baby, when it comes.
The women do not know how to treat themselves before their time is upon them. ”

“ For already there is stirring in you the feeling that you are responsible for the health of those who are dependent upon you; and more, that you are responsible for the wider family of race, and of what we hope in time to count an Indian nation. ”

“ But these things were of little avail, when set against the fact that both ignorance and custom had bandaged the eyes, and tied the hands of the women. Even should a Mother feel "I might do so and so," in the houses of the most Orthodox, there would always be some one to say, "You shall not: that is not the custom."
Shubala was absolutely ignorant about what diet was good for her baby as it grew older, or how much milk it should have, or how often. ”

“ It is a scheme, you see, which is in need of funds, and which can be helped by the largest and the smallest contributions in money.
And again, it is a scheme which can be helped by the largest and the smallest contributions of service.
Apart from those who are prepared to be trained for whole-time work in this direction, there is need for helpers in the great propaganda work which must make the opportunity for the trained helper. Women have to be taught about the need for help, and have to be persuaded to desire help. ”

“ There is no programme which gains more votes to the candidate at an English election, than that which contains promises about the welfare and better-housing of the less fortunate. There is no item in any programme, which can be of more intrinsic value. ”

“ If only we can help in time now, this minute, hundreds of thousands of women can be saved from the like. The things they suffer in silence—who shall ever know the sum of these!
But to go back again now to our typical Baby. Opportunities for neglect march side by side with the years. ”

“ And the fly reminds one that of its habits thay have no knowledge, of its deathly propaganda no conception whatever. As little do they know about pure water, or about a clean milk and butter supply, though the cow is sacred and "our mother," in the majority of homes to which I have access.
Or here is another scene, a victim of cholera carried for cure into a temple damp and still under construction, and placed in an angle near the niche which will presently hold the idol. The priest prescribes a diet of green mangoes. Even Faith will not vanquish ignorance, where ignorance is culpable. ”

“ The procession included the usual Orthodox Hindu Bridal throne, carried aloft under a canopy, a two-seater. But it set forth and returned empty, for Shubala's Bridegroom fetched her away in a Rolls-Royce Car decorated with strings of pink roses and yellow marigolds. ”

“ It pays to help this particular need.
And the beautiful thing is that there is a place and there is work for us all—for men and women with influence and long purses; for women with a woman's heart genuinely stirred by the sight of helpable ills ”

“ The mortality among infants is twice as high as in England. Each year India loses two million babies, and many others only survive to grow up weakly and feeble owing to inattention and bad hygienic surroundings during their infant days. ”

“ I am talking of natural every-day events, of helpable, preventable ills in the homes of the strictly Orthodox, and of the illiterate, of those (the majority of Indians) , who do not come in contact in their homes, with the enlightenment and practice and teaching of the West, or of educated Indians, in these matters. ”

“ They have to be persuaded without affront to religious prejudice, without accusation of the past. Pamphlets must be translated into the vernacular, facts must be collected as to unhygienic conditions and dangerous custom, all the country over. ”

“ A little pamphlet entitled "Shubala—A Child Mother" has been written by Miss Cornelia Sorabji with the object of helping the infant welfare work in aid of which the Exhibition at Delhi, opened by Lady Chelmsford on Saturday, has been organised. If anything were needed to arouse the sympathy of the reader for the objects of this exhibition, and of the league which Lady Chelmsford is initiating, it might be found in the poignant pathos of the stories told in this pamphlet—stories evidently founded on fact. The pity of them is enough to cause physical pain. ”