Cornelia Sorabji

 

Cornelia Sorabji (1866 – 1954) was an Indian lawyer, social reformer and writer. She was the first female graduate from Bombay University, the first woman to study law at Oxford University, and the first female legal advocate in India.

Cornelia, named after her adopted grandmother, was born as one of nine children of a Parsi family in Devlali in 1866. Her father, the Reverend Sorabji Karsedji, was a Christian missionary. Her mother, Francina Ford, had been adopted aged 12 by a British couple, and helped to establish several girls' schools in Poona. Due in part to her influential social position, Ford was often consulted by local women on inheritance and property rights. Cornelia's later career was heavily influenced by her mother.

Cornelia had five surviving sisters including educator and missionary Susie Sorabji and medical doctor Alice Pennell. She spent her childhood initially in Belgaum and later in Pune. She was educated both at home and at mission schools. She enrolled in Deccan College, and claimed to have topped the Presidency in her final degree examination, which would have entitled her to a government scholarship to study further in England. According to Sorabji, she was denied the scholarship, and instead took up a temporary position as a professor of English at a men's college in Gujarat. 

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After becoming the first female graduate of Bombay University, Sorabji wrote in 1888 to the National Indian Association for assistance in completing her education. In a delightful display of women supporting women, her petition was championed by Mary Hobhouse and Adelaide Manning, who contributed funds, as did Florence Nightingale.

Sorabji arrived in England in 1889 and stayed with Manning and Hobhouse. In 1892, she was given special permission by Congregational Decree, due in large part to the petitions of her English friends, to take the post-graduate Bachelor of Civil Law exam at Somerville College, Oxford, becoming the first woman to ever do so.

Sorabji was the first woman to be admitted as a reader to the Codrington Library of All Souls College, Oxford, at Sir William Anson's invitation in 1890.

She was thus the first Indian national to study at any British University. At Oxford, she was drawn close to great Indologists and Sanskrit scholars like Max Muller and Monier Williams. She also had an enduring friendship with Florence Nightingale. 

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Upon returning to India in 1894, Sorabji got involved in social and advisory work on behalf of the purdahnashins, women who were forbidden to communicate with the outside male world. In many cases, these women owned considerable property, yet had no access to the necessary legal expertise to defend it. Sorabji was given special permission to enter pleas on their behalf before British agents of Kathiawar and Indore principalities, but as a woman she was unable to defend them in court. Consequently, Sorabji presented herself for the LLB examination of Bombay University in 1897 and the pleader's examination of Allahabad High Court in 1899. Despite her successes, Sorabji would not be recognised as a barrister until the law which barred women from practising was lifted in 1923.

As early as 1902, Sorabji began petitioning the India Office to provide for a female legal advisor to represent women and minors in provincial courts. In 1904, she was appointed Lady Assistant to the Court of Wards of Bengal and by 1907, due to the need for such representation, Sorabji was working in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam. In the next 20 years of service, it is estimated that Sorabji helped over 600 women and orphans fight legal battles, sometimes for free where her clients couldn ot afford the charge. In 1924, the legal profession was opened to women in India, and Sorabji began practising in Kolkata. However, due to male bias and discrimination, she was confined to preparing opinions on cases, rather than pleading them before the court.

At the turn of the century, Sorabji was involved in social reforms. She was associated with the Bengal branch of the National Council for Women in India, the Federation of University Women, and the Bengal League of Social Service for Women. In 1909 she was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal for her service to women’s rights. 

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Although an Anglophile, Sorabji had no desire to see "the wholesale imposition of a British legal system on Indian society any more than she sought the transplantation of other Western values." Early in her career, Sorabji had supported the campaign for Indian Independence, relating women's rights to the capacity for self-government. Although she supported traditional Indian life and culture, Sorabji supported reform of Hindu laws regarding child marriage and widow burning. She often worked alongside fellow reformer and friend Pandita Ramabai. Nevertheless, she believed that the true impetus behind social change was education and that until the majority of illiterate women had access to it, the suffrage movement could not helpfully improve the lives of women.

By the late 1920s, however, Sorabji had adopted a staunch anti-nationalist attitude, believing that the British needed to be in India in order to counter Hindu dominance. By 1927, she was actively involved in promoting support for the Empire and preserving the rule of the British Raj. She favourably viewed the polemical attack on Indian self-rule in Katherine Mayo's book Mother India (1927), and condemned Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience. She toured India and the United States to propagate her political views. Her outspoken support of the British ended up losing vital support from those in power, and this negatively affected her ability to push through her later reforms.  

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In addition to her work as a social reformer and legal activist, Sorabji wrote a number of books, short stories and articles between 1901 and 1943. She would later write about many of these cases in her work Between the Twilights and her two autobiographies.  Both her factual and fiction works largely dealt with the lived realities of Indian women. She also wrote two autobiographical works entitled India Calling: The Memories of Cornelia Sorabji (1934) and India Recalled (1936). It is acknowledged that she contributed to Queen Mary's Book for India (1943), which had contributions from such authors as T. S. Eliot and Dorothy L. Sayers. She contributed to a number of periodicals, including The Asiatic Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Atlantic Monthly, Calcutta Review, The Englishman, Macmillan's Magazine, The Statesman and The Times.

Sorabji retired from the high court in 1929, and settled in London, visiting India during the winters. She died at her home, Northumberland House on Green Lanes in Manor House, London, on 6 July 1954, aged 87.

In 2012, a bronze bust of hers was unveiled at Lincoln’s Inn, the High Court Complex in London by the prominent lawyers of the United Kingdom as a mark of respect to the first ever lady to don the lawyer’s gown in their country. A Google Doodle celebrated her 151 birthday on November 15, 2017.