Chapter IX
THE FAMINE OF iSgy, AND THE RESCUE OF STARVING
WIDOWS.
" By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us, O
Lord of our salvation." Psalm Ixv. 5. RAMABAFS doubts as to whether any widows
of the kind suitable for her school (i. e., high-
caste widows) could be obtained in the famine
districts, were soon set at rest when she reached the
spot. She was accompanied by a sensible, motherly,
Indian Christian Bible-woman; and as Ramabai went
from place to place, gathering up the girls, she sent
them in parties of from ten to twenty at a time by this
Bible-woman to Poona.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the work was the
reception and feeding of these poor creatures after their
arrival. It was heroically faced by Ramabai's helpers
in Poona, led by Soonderbai Powar, and ably seconded
by the Christian girls of the Sharada Sadan, who de-
voted themselves to the cleansing and civilizing of these
poor victims of starvation. All were miserably dirty; many diseased—most were suffering from sore heads,
THE FAMINE OF 1897 loi
sore mouths, and other complaints caused by starvation
many were mere skeletons, and all clamouring for food,
which to have given them in sufficient quantity to ap-
pease their hunger would have caused their death. ^ The
older women and girls were the most trying, and a few
ran away. Added to this, two or three rebellious spirits
among the former pupils became troublesome, and
seyeral attempts were made to burn down the premises,
without any clue being found to the perpetrators of the
mischief ; thus the position of affairs may be better im-
agined than described. Satan found an opportunity
for harassing ; but the Lord, who is over all, over-ruled
wonderfully, and preserved from the threatened danger.
Among those suspected of incendiarism was a Raj-
put woman, who had been acting as servant to Rama-
bai. From this woman Ramabai had discovered, to her
horror, that the practice of infanticide was still prevalent
in Rajputana to an alarming extent. She recounted to
Ramabai as many as eight or ten cases in her own
family, in which girl-children had been exposed or
strangled to their death to avoid the expense of their
maintenance and marriage. A few weeks before start-
ing for the famine field Ramabai had mentioned this to
the Convention of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union, gathered at Poona, and had spoken of the ter-
rible hardness of heart the cruel custom of infanticide
engendered in those who practised it. She was in des-
I02 PANDITA RAMABAI
pair, she said, of influencing this Rajput woman, noth-
ing good seemed to touch her. It was natural, there-
fore, that she should be suspected of these attempts to
burn the home that had sheltered her. There was, how-
ever, no proof ; but after she and one or two others had
been removed the trouble ceased.
Aftfer some sixty girls and women had been gathered,
Ramabai returned to Poona for a few days. While
there she wrote a rapid sketch of the way she had been
led to enter this work of saving widows, prefacing it
with the story of her own early experiences of starva-
tion in 1877 (as related in Chapter I.). She sent the
story to the Bombay Guardian, a Christian weekly
newspaper published in Bombay, then under the editor-
ial care of my husband and myself. In this narrative,
Ramabai told expressly of the fearful moral danger to
which young girls were exposed in relief camps and
poor-houses, and of the agents of evil who were abroad
seeking to lure them to destruction.
It was a pathetic story, but would make my pages too
long to quote it in full. The concluding portion, how-
ever, will help to elucidate this part of my narrative, and
must be given here. Ramabai said : " My sympathies
are excited by the needs of young girl-widows especially
at this time. To let them go to the relief camps and
poor-houses, or allow them to wander in the streets and
on the highways means their eternal destruction.
THE FAMINE OF 1897 103
" Ever since I have seen these girls in the famine districts—some fallen into the hands of wicked people; some ruined for life and turned out by their cruel mas-
ters owing to bad diseases, to die a miserable death in
a hopeless, helpless manner; some being treated in the
hospitals, only to be taken back into the pits of sin, there
to await a cruel death ; some bearing the burdens of sin,
utterly lost to the sense of shame and humanity—hell
has become a horrible reality to me, and my heart is
bleeding for those daughters of fond parents who have
died leaving them orphans. Who with a mother's heart
and a sister's love can rest without doing everything in
her power to save at least a few of the girls who can
yet be saved from the hands of the evil ones ?
" The Father, who is a very present help in trouble,
has enabled me to get sixty widows, forty-seven of whom will go to school to study, and others will work. To go to work to get these widows, to fetch them here
from Central India, and to feed and to clothe them, is
an expensive business. Harder still is the work of
civilizing them and teaching them the habits of cleanli-
ness. Some are little better than brute beasts. The
filthy habits they have acquired during this period of
famine have become second nature with them. It will
take a long time to civilize and teach them. We can
do all things in the power of the Lord. The Lord has
put it into my mind to save three hundred girls out of
104 PANDITA RAMABAI
the famine districts, and I shall go to work in His name. The funds sent to me by my friends in America are
barely enough to feed and educate fifty girls ; and sev-
eral people are asking me how I am going to support
all these girls, who may come from Central India.
Besides their food and clothing, new dormitories and
dining rooms must be built. Our present school-house
is not large enough to hold more than one hundred girls
at the most. And how are these emergencies to be met ?
" I do not know ; but the Lord knows what I need. I
can say with the psalmist * I am poor and needy, yet
the Lord thinketh upon me ' ; and He has promised that
' Ye shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously
with you ; and My people shall never be ashamed.' My
girls and I are quite ready to forego all our comforts,
give up luxuries, and live as plainly as we can. We
shall be quite contented to have only one meal of common coarse food daily, if necessary; and so long as we
have a little room or a seed of grain left in this house, we shall try and help our sisters who are starving. It
seems a sin to live in this good house, and eat plenty
of good food, and be warmly clothed, while thousands
of our fellow-creatures are dying of hunger, and are
without shelter. If all of us do our part faithfully, God is faithful to fulfil His promises, and will send us
the help we need at this time."
THE FAMINE OF 1897 105
This narrative touched many hearts. It was reprint-
ed from the Bombay Guardian, and edition after edition
disposed of. Missionaries and others bought it in
quantities to send home to their friends in England and
America. They declared it to be the most keen de-
scription of famine suffering which had yet been depic-
ted, and it proved to be no small factor in rousing sym-
pathy for India's sufferings in the hearts of Western
Christians.
After Ramabai had launched the story and had at-
tended to necessary business in Poona, she started again
to the Central Provinces for more girls, determined not
to rest till her three hundred were saved. Within a
fortnight, however, she was called back to Poona by
telegraph. Fresh trouble had arisen. The bubonic
plague, which had been raging in Bombay for several
months, had spread to Poona. The authorities, at their
wits' end to cope with it, were introducing stringent
measures here and there. A strict system of inspection of
dwellings was instituted. The magistrate sent eight-
een of the famine victims who were suffering from
some ailment or other to the hospital for observation,
and ordered that the number of the permanent inmates
of the Sharada Sadan should not be increased. This
caused the stoppage of the buildings which had been
commenced on the Sharada Sadan compound with a
view to housing the fresh pupils.
io6 PANDITA RAMABAI
Here was a dilemma! But Ramabai found a way
out. She hired a dozen tents, and sent the whole estab-
lishment out into the open country twenty miles away.
Soonderbai went in charge of the girls, and Ramabai
remained herself in Poona for awhile. This could only
be a temporary arrangement. What was to follow?
In this difficulty Ramabai's thoughts reverted to her
farm at Khedgaon and the piece of rocky waste land
there. She cabled to America for permission to utilize
this as a temporary home for the famine-stricken—-for
the farm lands had been duly placed in trust under the
same board of trustees which held the Sharada Sadan
property. Permission was received in three days, and
the famine girls were transferred from the tents to grass
huts erected on this waste land at the farm. A large
barn was speedily in course of erection, with a view to
forming some sort of shelter in the coming rainy
season.
When the rains began in June, all the intelligent girls
of school age who had sufficiently recovered from
the effects of starvation were transferred to a house at
Poona, near enough to the Sadan for school purposes,
and their education commenced. The remainder, in-
cluding older women up to forty years of age, were con-
tinued at Khedgaon under the best shelter possible.
A few very small children, some almost babies, had
come in from the famine districts with the older girls
THE FAMINE OF 1897 107
and women. Ramabai appealed to the Sharada Sadan
pupils for volunteer mothers. The appeal was eagerly responded to, and very tenderly these poor little starved waifs were cared for by those to whom the responsibility was entrusted. One very bright Christian girl of fourteen picked out the most forlorn-looking baby of all. When
rallied by her companions for choosing such a monkeyfaced child, Subhodra replied, " Not to take a pretty and
attractive child, but to take a wretched and unattractive one is love." This dear girl, it was truly remarked
at the time, had learnt well one of the divinest of les-
sons.
Subhodra herself, when a baby, had been thrown out
into the road to perish by a heartless Hindu father. She was taken in and cared for by a neighbour, and at
his death came with his young widow to the Sharada Sadan. She was then a bright little girl of seven or
eight, brimming over with fun and mischief. She proved a clever child, made good progress with her
studies, and, best of all, became a true Christian. Her
relatives, however, kept track of her, and began to agi-
tate for her to be returned to them, in order that they might get her married. One of her brothers actually came to Poona to fetch her; but time had flown faster than he had reckoned on, and when he saw his sister he found she had passed the age prior to which the Brahmins of his caste consider it a duty to give their girls
io8 PANDITA RAMABAI
in marriage. To Ramabai's great joy he was there-
fore obliged to return without the fulfilment of his
object, and Subhodra is still an affectionate and useful
little daughter to Ramabai.
The work of rescue went on all through those months
of 1897 till the autumn harvest ended the famine.
Gungabai, Ramabai's faithful Bible-woman, visited
poor-houses, relief camps, and mission stations, in the
affected districts, and altogether gathered from five to
six hundred starving women and children. After all
the girls and women really suitable for the Sharada
Sadan had been selected, Ramabai passed on the re-
mainder to various mission orphanages. She found
herself with just the three hundred God had told her to
take.
Ramabai greatly rejoiced in all these as her own God-
given children, whom, free from the interference of
bigoted parents or guardians, she could instruct in the
way of life. All the available spiritual help she could
obtain was pressed into the service of teaching the Word of God to these as they returned to health and
strength. Ramabai believed that God was going to
answer her prayer and give her that measure of spirit-
ual blessing, which she had, as it were, seen in vision,
at the Lanouli camp-meeting. The Spirit of God
worked with the means used. Ten months after she
started out in faith to the famine districts she was able
THE FAMINE OF 1897 109
to report that ninety of these girls had given their hearts
to God, and were showing signs of a real change of
heart by serving and helping other girls, by their self-
forgetfulness and love one toward another. As these
girls professed salvation, they were taken to the river
by Ramabai, and baptized by a missionary in the name
of the Triune God.
Miss Parsons, of the Poona and India Village Mis-
sion, who spent a month the same autumn with Rama-
bai, helping to care for and instruct these rescued fam-
ine victims, thus records her experiences among them:
" The stories connected with some of these dear women and children are sad in the extreme. A young
Brahmin woman about eighteen years of age has found
a home here with her little boy ten months old. I asked
her why she came. * Oh,* said she, * I got up one
morning and found my husband had deserted me. I
saw nothing more of him after that.* Praise the Lord
since she has come she has accepted Christ. Another knew very little of what love or home-life meant. Mar-
ried young, and not being strong, she suffered a great
deal. One day her husband said, ' I've had enough of
this ; you're never able to cook my rice. You can go.' The poor girl was too ill to move, however ; so he moved —deserted her, and has been unheard of since. After
some weeks she was able to walk a little, so went to her
mother's home ; but was there told that they had noth-
no PANDITA RAMABAI
ing for her to eat, and so she must go ; and while wan-
dering about seeking food was picked up by Ramabai.
Another was one of two wives ; and being the younger
of the two, she fared badly. The husband used to get
the other wife to beat her; so much so, that she ran
away and was eventually brought here, where she is
very happy and contented, and will, when won for
Christ, be a very useful woman. She is very quick,
bright, and capable; and it is a great pleasure to have
anything to do with her.
" Another is a little widow about nine or ten years of
age. Her husband died when she was five, and she
has had anything but a happy life since. Indeed, such
a thing as love or happiness is not in the province of a
great many of these dear little people; and one just
longs to be a comfort and joy to them. This little
widow is very quick—learns the hymns very quickly;
remembers the Bible stories wonderfully; and best of
all, has accepted Christ as her Saviour. It is very
touching to hear this dear child pray. She rises early,
and she always prays aloud: you can hear her pouring
out her little heart to the Lord, and thanking Him for
giving her such friends as the Christians. One day,
after I had been praying with some of the sick girls, a
voice from near-by was heard—*0 bai (sister), do
come and pray for me. Last night my hand was so
bad I could get no sleep. I sat up, and three times
THE FAMINE OF 1897 III
asked Jesus to give me sleep ; but I can't understand it
a bit. He didn't let me sleep at all. Do ask Him to
give me sleep to-night; I am so tired.' I prayed for
sleep for her, and next morning her beaming face told
the tale. * Well, Anandi
' said I, * did Jesus hear
prayer last night ? ' ' Yes
' she said, ' and I slept all
night.'
" I think the most beautiful work of grace I have
ever seen in any child's heart was the following. One
evening we were late in going to have prayers with the
girls. When we got to the door, we found dear little
Anandi had gathered all the women and children to-
gether, and was praying aloud with them, and they
repeating the prayer after her. How the heart of our
Father God must have rejoiced as He heard such re-
quests and thanksgiving as ascended from that room!
* Our kind heavenly Father, we do thank You for
bringing us here, giving us such dear friends—and es-
pecially for Ramabai. Oh, our kind Father, those of
us who love You, we want You to keep our hearts very
clean ; and those who don't love You, quickly clean their
hearts, and keep them clean by Your Holy Spirit dwell-
ing in them. Oh, our kind Father, take care of all of
us in this Home and the Poona Home to-night; bless
all who look after us, and abundantly bless Ramabai
and Soonderbai, who take such care of us. Now
Father, we thank You for Jesus, and for what Jesus
112 PANDITA RAMABAI
promises to do for us. Take care of us to-night, and
forgive us wherein we have given You pain to-day, for
Jesus' sake. Amen.'
" I praise the Lord for the privilege of hearing such
a real, simple prayer; and I am sure our home people
will join me in offering a big praise note for * what God
hath wrought ' in less than a year in some hearts out
here.
" Truly He is ' able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we ask or think. '^ To Him be the glory."
^ £ph. iii. 20.