Endowment of women Christian missionaries in female education: An analysis during colonial Punjab

Abstract

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the missionary first came to Punjab at Ludhiana. Christian missionaries came to Punjab with the aim of evangelisation as well as they were had a strong interest in introducing western education. Male missionaries in Punjab were involved in religious and educational endeavors, but after 1860, female missionaries started working in the field of female education and faced fierce resistance from orthodox and conservative segments of society. The research paper examines the history of numerous Christian missionary societies' educational establishments for women. The paper traces how zenana missionaries used zenana visiting, separate colleges, boarding, and day schools for girls to educate the Punjab’s female population and difficulties that the lady missionaries encountered while spreading their religious ideas. An attempt has been made here to examine the role of women missionaries in the fields of education, their contribution to improve the status of women and whether their efforts helped them to achieve their goal of evangelisation.