Dorothy Jinarajadasa

Dorothy Jinarajadasa (born Dorothy May Graham; 19 March 1881 - 13 January 1963) was an English feminist, suffragette, and writer based in India. Along with Margaret Cousins and Annie Besant, she established the Women's Indian Association in 1917, and was active in efforts to end child marriage and female illiteracy in India. She was a justice of the peace for Madras, and an active Theosophist. She is one of the earliest members of the suffragist movement in India, and is known for her efforts to build transnational networks between suffrage movements.

Biography She was born as Dorothy May Graham in the United Kingdom, and married Sri Lankan Theosophist, Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa on 11 November 1916. They had met in Adyar, in meetings of the Theosophical Society, and had traveled back to London to be married.

Career Jinarajadasa was active in efforts to establish suffrage for women in the United Kingdom as well as in India, and was arrested (but not charged) for her participation in protests for the British suffrage movement.

In 1917, she established the Women's Indian Association (WIA) along with Margaret Cousins and Annie Besant. Jinarajadasa served as the first secretary of the organization. The WIA was very politically active, advocating against child marriage, engaging in philanthropy, and supporting suffragist efforts. Jinarajadasa had previously established a smaller women's organisation in Madanapalle.

In 1917, Jinarajadasa was part of a delegation of women, including Cousins, Sarojini Naidu, Annie Besant, Herabai Tata and others, to address Sir Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, on a proposal to extend the vote for women. Writing in Sri Dharma, she contrasted the Indian experience of suffrage to her experiences in Britain, where the suffrage movement had been received with violence and arrests. While traveling with her husband between Vienna and Madras, she visited a number of such organizations along the way, and particularly, addressed meetings for women in Basrah, Iraq. In the 1920s, she also toured Australia, interacting with Australian suffragists, and addressing a number of public gatherings, including the National Council of Women in Brisbane in September 1919; the National Council of Women in Australia in Melbourne in October 1919; and the Australian Women's National League in October 1919. In 1921, Jinarajadasa published a pamphlet with the Women's Indian Association titled Why Women Want the Vote, in which she advocated for the building of networks between suffrage movements in the Commonwealth. In 1923, she was a delegate for India at the conference of the International Alliance for Women, and addressed the conference on the issue of Indian suffrage in widely reported speech.

In 1934, Jinarajadasa led early efforts to raise the age of marriage and consent for women to 16, in the Madras Presidency. She prepared a letter in support of a bill to raise the age, and circulated it across political leaders in India, drawing letters of support, including one notably from Mahatma Gandhi.

Along with her husband, Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa, she was an active Theosophist. She died in London, aged 81, in 1963.

Publications Dorothy Jinarajadasa, Why Women Want the Vote (Adyar: Women's Indian Association, 1921) Dorothy Jinarajadasa, 'The Women's Suffrage Resolution', Stri Dharma (October 1918): 53 Dorothy Jinarajadasa, 'The Emancipation of Indian Women', Transactions of the Eighth Congress of the Federation of European National Societies of the Theosophical Society held in Vienna July 2 to 26 1923, ed. C. W. Dijkgraaf (Amsterdam: Council of the Federations, 1923), 82–8