Mothering India addresses this lack and concentrates on early Indian
women's fiction written between 1890 and 1947. It not only evaluates
the influence of women authors on the rise of IWE, but also explores
how they reassessed and challenged stereotypes about womanhood
in India, adding their voice to the larger debate about social reform
legislations on women's rights. Moreover, in choosing to write in
the colonizer's language, they seized the attention of a much wider
international readership. In wielding their pens, these trendsetting
women stepped into the literary landscape as 'speaking subjects',
refusing the passivity of being 'spoken-of objects', and thereby
'mothering' India by redefining her image.