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Module Detail and its Structure

Subject Name Sociology

Paper Name Social Movement

Module Name/Title Women! s Movement in India

Module Id SM 30

Pre-requisites Some knowledge of feminism and political history of India.

Objectives To introduce the learners to the three major phases of women! s movement in
India. This would include an introduction to: a) the basic issues raised, and b)
the key organisations involved in the three phases.

Keywords movement, equal rights, feminism, nationalism, violence against women,

globalization

Development Team

Role in Content Development Name Affiliation

National Coordinator
Subject Coordinator

Paper Coordinator Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Professor, Department of Sociology, The

University of Burdwan, Burdwan 713104
Email: [email protected]
Ph. M +91 9002769014
Content Writer Dr. Ritu Sen Chaudhuri Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology,
West Bengal State University, Barasat
Email: [email protected]
Ph. M +91 9433830809

Content Reviewer (CR) & Prof. Biswajit Ghosh Professor, Department of Sociology, The
Language Editor (LE) University of Burdwan, Burdwan.

Contents

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1. Objective .................................................................................................................................... 3

2. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3

3. The First Phase ........................................................................................................................ 6-7

3.1 The Early Years ....................................................................................................................... 3-4

3.2 The Inter-War Years ................................................................................................................... 4

3.3 The Call for Swaraj................................................................................................................... 4-5

3.4 Post Independence ................................................................................................................... 5-6

Self Check Exercise 1 ............................................................................................................... 6-7

4. The Second Phase ................................................................................................................... 7-11
4.1 The Affiliated Organizations ...................................................................................................... 8-9

4.2 The Autonomous Women! s Movement ........................................................................................ 9

4.3 1980s: The Pro-Woman Enactments ........................................................................................ 9-10

4.4. The Rise of the Women! s Studies as an Academic Discipline ................................................ 10-11
Self Check Exercise 2 ................................................................................................................. 11
5. The Third Phase ..................................................................................................................... 11-14

5. 1. The Continued Legal Battle ....................................................................................................... 12

5.2. The Dalit Feminist Movement ............................................................................................... 12-13

5.3. The Rightist Women! s Organization .......................................................................................... 13

5.4. Protesting Globalization ............................................................................................................. 13

5.5. The LGBT Movement ............................................................................................................ 13-14

Self Check Exercise 3 ............................................................................................................ 14-15

6. Summary .................................................................................................................................... 15

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1. Objective

In this module you will learn how women! s movement in India poses challenge to the dominant
social, cultural and political trends of the country. This module remains animated with almost a 150
year journey of the women " their collective goals and disparate experiences, inspirations and
impasses, protests and compromises, achievements and failures " living in a cartographic space called
India.

2. Introduction
This module has conceived the multifaceted history of the women! s movement in India through three
conceptual phases: the first, the second and the third and an in-between stage connecting the first and
the second. The classification of phases, serving analytical purposes, remains grounded on certain
contextual-chronological and thematic principles. The classification of phases, one must remember,
do not necessarily invoke a unilinear evolutionary trail, based on the logic of a gradual proliferation of
feminist consciousness (where each phase is always an # improvement! over the previous one). The
feat of a specific phase, in India, cannot be gauged in reference to a generic index of # feminist
movement! across the world. The questions raised in the course of the movement can neither be
pigeonholed into the dominant/Western mode of categorizing women! s movement into liberal, radical
or socialist categories nor be seen to follow the same developmental paths. Movement remains
marked by the specific political and discursive contexts traversed by the multiple performative
possibilities of individual/group of women.

3. The First Phase

i) The Early Years

The broader nationalist programme of nation-building largely informed the early phase of women! s
movement in India. The nationalists seemed to think that a colony, which # required! the # civilizing
mission! of the colonizer to # emancipate! the native women (subjugated and oppressed, uneducated
and ignorant) from the barbaric tradition, could not build a sovereign nation without addressing the
question of the # woman! . The point was to incorporate women within the men! s discourse of nation
building which involved self-determination, statehood, democracy, progress and modernity.

In the first wave of the feminist movement, Sen writes, $ % women! s organizations were able to draw
both on the benefits of modernity (from colonial rulers and male Indian reformers) and from the idiom
of $ Indianness& constructed in the nationalist discourse& (Sen 2000: 57). Both the colonial rulers and
nationalist reformers were enthused by the # ideals! of modernity " to uproot the social evil of sati,
sanction widow remarriage, prohibit child marriage, diminish illiteracy, standardize the age of consent
to marriage and guarantee property rights through legal interventions. The involvement of women in
the reform movements demanding their civil and political rights, largely under the leadership of the
nationalists, produced a # unique blend of feminism and nationalism! (Forbes 1998 and 2005, Sen
2000, Chaudhuri 2010). Throughout the country, a few women associations were also established.
Under the leadership of Keshab Chandra Sen (Brahmo Samaj) in Kolkata, Narayan Ganesh
Chandavarkar, Madhav Govind Ranade and R.G. Bhandarkar in Pune and Mahipatram Rupram
Nilkanth and his associates in Ahmedabad organizations were formed to demand prohibition of child
marriage, widow remarriage and women! s education (Sen 2000, Kumar 1993, Mazumdar 2001). By
the end of the nineteenth century a group of women, from the reformed elite families, come to
establish a number of women! s organizations.

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Swarnakumari Devi, the daughter of Devendranath Tagore, institutes the Ladies Society (1882
Kolkata) for empowering the deprived women. Ramabai Saraswati establishes the Arya Mahila Samaj
(also in 1882) in Pune and Sharda Sadan in Bombay. Sarala Debi Chaudhurani (daughter of
Swarnakumari Devi), the archetype of the first phase of women! s movement in India (Sen Chaudhuri
2014) " being critical of the women! s meetings held in conjunction with the National Social
Conference " calls attention to the necessity of a distinct association for the women. In 1910 she
establishes Bharat Stree Mahamandal and developed its branches in Lahore, Karachi, Allahabad,
Delhi, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Bankura, Hazaribagh, Midnapur and Calcutta to unify women
from all race, creed, class and party on the grounds of moral and material progress (Bagal 1964, Sen
2000, Ray 2002).

ii) The Inter-War Years

The first phase of women! s movement in India, during the inter-war years of 1917 and 1945,
successfully addresses two significant issues: i) voting rights (1917-1926), and ii) reform of personal
law (1927-29). Edwin Montague, the Secretary of State for India, proclaims (in 1917) the British
government! s intention to include more Indians in the governing process. Sarojini Naidu (with an all-
India delegation of women) and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani (with the representatives of Bharat Stree
Mahamandal) meet Montague and Chelmsford and appeal for women! s suffrage. They also secure the
support of Congress for women! s franchise (Forbes 1998). Alongside, Annie Besant, Margaret
Cousins and Dorothy Jinarajadasa (Irish Theosophists) jointly establish the Women! s Indian
Association (1917): the first all India women! s association for obtaining voting rights. A delegation
sent to England pursues the Joint Parliamentary Committee to finally remove the sex disqualification.
Travancore-Cochin, a princely state, is the first to offer voting rights to women in 1920, followed by
Madras and Bombay in 1921. In 1926, propertied women in Bengal get the right to vote.

The All India Women! s Conference was set up in 1927 at the initiative of Margaret Cousins to attend
the issue of women! s education (Basu and Ray 2003). It was soon comprehended that the issue of
education remains tagged to the general social problems including purdah, child marriage, and other
social customs. AIWC thus conducted a campaign to rise the age of marriage. This resulted in the
passing of the Sarda Act in 1929. AIWC also began to campaign for the reformation of the personal
law. Facing resistance to a common civil law, it called for the reform of Hindu laws forbidding
polygamy, offering women the right to divorce and to inherit property. An unrelenting campaign for
these reforms eventually saw the passing of the Hindu Code Bills in the 1950s (several laws passed to
reform Hindu Personal Law). Samita Sen (2000) has identified this phase of the movement, tagged to
the wider nationalist movement, represented by the upper caste/class women as # social feminism! .
The nationalist discourse authorized the Hindu elite women to speak on behalf of # Indian women!
from a common stand.

iii) The Call for Swaraj

The $ petition politics& of the 1920s had outlived its efficacy by the 1930s. The intensity of the
movement petered out by the 1940s when the weight of the nationalist struggle trampled feminist
issues, and their diverse range of activities broke the purported unity of $ Indian women& . There was a
visible departure from the radical probes of an earlier period to a time when the Hindu Code Bill was
being opposed not just by conservatives but by many within the Indian National Congress (Sen 2010).
During this decade, the fight against colonial rule gained height and women! s participation in
nationalist movement assumed a new shape. Women had joined Congress sessions, took part in the
Swadeshi (1905-11) and the Home Rule Movement earlier. Yet their mass participation never

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happened before the Gandhian call for the non-co-operation movement, rural satyagrahas, salt
satyagraha, civil disobedience movement, and quit India movement. Women organized meetings,
rallies, picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops, and were jailed in numbers (Kumar 1993). During the
whole period, the rapidly growing women! s organisations such as Desh Sevika Sangh, Nari
Satyagraha Samiti, Mahila Rashtriya Sangh, Ladies Picketing Board, Stri Swarajya Sangh and
Swayam Sevika Sangh organised the mass boycott of foreign cloth and liquor (Kumar 1993). Now
non-violence became a dominant mode of protest. While thousands of women joined the freedom
movement in response to Gandhi! s call, there were others who could not accept his creed of non-
violence and joined revolutionary or terrorist groups. Subhash Chandra Bose also claimed for the
participation of women in the women! s regiment of the Azad Hind Fauj.

Now a large section of women came out of their home to join the mass movements. This exposed the
nationalists to a host of perturbing questions about the contradictory role of women in the
# contradictory! realms of the public and the private. The nationalists had to review the question of
woman! s participation, now directly in the realm of public, in terms of the sustenance of the age-old
feminine virtues based on sexual purity (that could only be retained by remaining at home). The
political practices of both Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose, though oppositional in
nature, tried to retain the iconic role of the # Indian woman! based on # sexual purity! . Gandhi resorted
to a clear cut distinction between two sets of woman; one is the married woman who is both a mother
and wife involved in the nationalist activities from within the home, while the other is the sexually
inactive unmarried woman or widow who has sacrificed her familial ties in the name of the nation
(Patel 1985). Bose, who particularly supported female activism, adhered to the Gandhian stance of
classifying women on the ground of sexuality. Emphasizing the active participation of mother
rendering support and sister rendering direct assistance, he did not accommodate the sexually active
$ wives& in his scheme (Forbes 1984).

Nevertheless, the reform ideals and nationalist commitments had brought a number of women out of
their domestic confinements. There is no account of the magnitude and severity of oppositions these
women had to endure in the society in general and their families in particular (Gandhi and Shah
1992). Many scholars have rightly pointed at the subservient nature of the first phase. $ [T]he
independence of the country and of women had become so intertwined& , observes Vina Mazumdar,
$ as to be identical& (2001: 135). Yet, the first phase of feminist movement in India cannot fully be
circumscribed within the scope of nationalism. The history of the Indian national movement and the
women! s movement have overlapped at many points yet opposed in many others. One can ponder on
the feminist possibilities of the first wave keeping in mind the overall context of colonization and
discourses of nation-building (Sen Chaudhuri 2010).

iv) Post Independence (linking the first and the second phase)

The # cause! of women remained a national concern in the post independent India. The principle of
gender equality adopted in the Fundamental Rights Resolution of 1931, was later secured as a
constitutional measure guaranteeing $ Equality between the sexes& (Articles 14 and 16). Various
administrative bodies were also set up for the creation of opportunities for women. The question
remains: who were these women the government of India were aiming at? Now, there had been a
subtle shift of attention of the nationalist elites: from the upper and middle class women in the early
19th century " to the women at large in the Gandhian politics " culminating in marking the poor
woman as the icon of independent India. Women! s Role in a Planned Economy (WRPE) happened to
be the first Plan on women, by the National Planning Committee (NPC) 1938. Though it drew
attention to the poor women (urban and rural workers), oriented in a # developmental model! it
remained incapable to identify their problems. Similarly the issue of women in the Ford Foundation

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community development programmes 1950s and 60s was a welfare mission rather an effort to
empower them (John 1996). When the aspiration for the new governmental policies gradually
dissipated, by 1960s, India witnessed a chain of revolt and unrest (peasant movements, anti-price-rise
agitation in Kolkata, Bombay and Gujarat). During this time, the Nehru government had also to
negotiate with the Tebhaga and Telengana Peasant Movement and a war against China (1962). Post-
independence, 1950s and 60s, observed a relative lull in the course of women! s movement (Lateef
1977, Mazumdar 1985). The feminists were now more splintered than ever before. No longer was
there a common enemy to fight against. Discrimination of gender was still not an independent issue
clearly distinguishable from other socio-political problems. While many women still sought the
membership of the congress government, there were various other groups increasingly seeking their
autonomy.

All the way through women! movement continued in fragments till the culmination of the new
women! s liberation movement in the late seventies. This has its roots in the late sixties radicalization
of the student, farmer, trade union and dalit politics (Patel 2002). Since the early seventies, quite a few
movements on the radical left (Naxalbari movement in West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar
and Punjab) and the socialist fronts had interesting implications for women! s movement including the
growth of the various women! s organizations (Kumar 1993). Shramik Sangathana (followed by the
Shahada agitation 1970s), The Self-Employed Women! s Association (SEWA by Ela Bhatt followed
by trade union movement in 1972, Ahmedabad) and many other organizations were formed. The anti
price-rise movement, organized by the students in Gujarat, was joined by thousands of middle class
women taking the shape of the Nav Nirman movement of 1974 (Kumar 1993). This was stimulated in
Bihar, in the name of Sampoorna Kranti Movement, under the leadership of the Gandhian leader, Jay
Prakash Narayan. In Delhi, a significant group of women leadership evolved in the radical students!
movement and the democratic rights movement. Women in different political parties, all over India,
were gradually questioning the patriarchal predispositions of their organisations. In 1973 Mrinal Gore
from the Socialist Party along with other women from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) came
to form the United Women! s Anti-Price Rise Front (which turned into a women! s mass movement
seeking consumer protection). In 1973-74 the Maoist women established the Progressive Organisation
of Women, instigating a feminist critique of the radical leftist politics (Kumar 1995, Sen 2000). On
the other corner of the country, the Chipko movement, initiated in 1973 and joined by women in
1974, laid a milestone for the women! s movement in India. The Chipko (embrace the tree) movement,
a non-violent environmental protest against commercial logging in the Himalayas, holds a deeper
meaning for the eco-feminists (Shiva 1986, Mellor 2008, Kumar 1995). It is considered as the first
political-environmental movement led by the women representing their # deep connection! with nature
(shaped by their gendered role of nurturing).

Series of such responses, covertly or overtly anti-patriarchal, gradually paved the way for the
autonomous women! s movement surfacing by the late seventies. These independent women! s groups
could come out only after the emergency rule got over by 1977 (Patel 2002). Yet neither the gravity of
these movements nor the plight of women throughout the country could formally be conceded before
the publication of the Towards Equality Report (1974): a signpost for the women! s movement in
India.

Self-Check Exercise -1
Q 1. Do you think that the nationalist agenda of nation-building fundamentally shaped the early phase
of women! s movement in India?
The nationalist programme of nation-building largely shaped the early phase of the women! s
movement in India. The nationalists conceded that to build up a sovereign nation, the women and

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the traditions (concerning the women) of the colony need to be reformed (prohibition of child
marriage, increase literacy, standardize the age of consent to marriage guarantee property rights
and so on). Gradually the women mostly from the upper-middle class Hindu families, under the
leadership of the nationalists, got involved in the reform movements. This laid the foundations of
the early phase of women! s movement in India. The pre-independence women! s movement, -
influenced considerably by the anti-imperialist ideology of the freedom movement on the one hand
and liberal or socialist ideologies of some sections of the women! s movement in the West - had
emphasised the principle of gender equality in social, economic and political rights.

Q 2. What are the two basic issues taken up by the women during the inter-war years of 1917 and 45?
During the first phase of women! s movement in India, during the inter-war years of 1917 and
1945, two significant issues were taken up: i) voting rights (1917-1926), and ii) reform of personal
law (1927-29).
Q 3. What do you know about Chipko (embrace the tree) movement?
The Chipko (literally $ hugging& in Hindi) environmental conservation movement in India in 1973-
74 witnessed a group of women in the Mandal village, located in the Himalayan region of
Uttarkhand, $ hugging& trees in order to prevent them from being felled. In the coming years
several non-violent protests of the women against the commercial logging permanently marked the
term $ tree hugger& in the # conservation parlance! . The Chipko movement, underscoring the
relationship between the woman and the nature, carries a deeper meaning for the eco-feminists.
Vandana Shiva (1988) critiques the modern science and technology as a western, patriarchal and
colonial project which is inherently violent and perpetuates this violence against women and
nature.

4. The Second Phase

i) The Towards Equality Report

The United Nations organised the World Conference on Women in Mexico (1975) and acknowledged
1975" 1985 as the International Decade of the Woman. As a part of the # World Plan of Action! the
National Committee on the Status of Women was set up in India to look at the # status of women! in
the country. The Committee published and presented the Towards Equality Report (1974) in the
parliament. The report, prepared by the scholars with an interdisciplinary outlook, exposed the
abysmal state of women in contemporary India manifested in: the declining sex ratio, the increasing
rate of female mortality and morbidity, economic marginalisation of women and the evils of
discriminatory personal laws. It made several recommendations vindicating the role of the
government in achieving # gender equality! in the demographic legal, economic, educational, political,
and media spheres (through the: eradication of dowry, polygamy, bigamy, child marriage - provisions
for crches, better working conditions, equal pay for equal work - legal reforms on divorce,
maintenance, inheritance, adoption, guardianship, maternity benefits - establishment of the Uniform
Civil Code - universalization of education and so on). But the report did not comment on violence
against women in the civil society and by the custodians of law and order (Patel 1985). However it got
a remarkable response from the state and media. Research bodies like the Indian Council of Social
Science Research (ICSSR) came up with financial support for women related research. Yet even after
a quarter century, as per the report of the National Commission for Women entitled Towards
Equality: The Unfinished Agenda, the Status of Women in India 2001, much of these
recommendations remain unfulfilled. The publication of the Towards Equality Report (1974) and The
Convention on the Abolition of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979 CEDAW) offered
the moral and rational basis of a new wave of autonomous women! s movement manifested both in the

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activist and the academic spheres. This almost overlapped with the declaration of the # emergency
rule! , (1975-77) by the then prime minister Ms. Indira Gandhi, suspending the civil liberties of the
citizens. By the time the # emergency! was withdrawn in 1977, a number of women! s groups grew up
" paving the way for the autonomous women! s movement. Breaking the forced inaction, of the
emergency years, Indian media now came to report the violence committed against women during all
this time (Patel 1985).

The whole process was taken to its heights when the feminists all over the country, belonging
primarily to the upper/middle caste/class, could carry the cause of the women across the streets-
railway stations-universities-parliament achieving a platform-identity-language they never had before.
The autonomous women! s movement emphasizes " in contrast to the women! s organizations
affiliated to the political parties, government or NGOs " the # women! s only! issues. The affiliated
organizations render women! s issues subservient to the wider programmes of the parental body.
Though the leaders of autonomous women! s movements did not forget the multiple axes of
discriminations (class, caste, race) affecting women, by no means did they conceptually subordinate
women! s concerns to other causes. The autonomous women! s movements, largely spearheaded by the
educated middle class, took up several women! s issues committed to the cause of # shared sisterhood! :
# facilitating! the # other! woman and often speaking on their behalf. This has far reaching
consequences for the course of feminist politics in India. The hegemonic impulses of the # Indian!
feminism both in the first and the second phase, as rightly been marked out in the dalit feminist
movements of the 1990s, to represent the # Indian! women have made it parochial. Gail Omvedt
(1980), while talking about the role of middle-class feminist organisations, observed that though they
were not grass root mass organisations, they had a momentous role to play.

i) Affiliated Womens Organizations

While some women! s movements in India have purposively refrained from allying with political
parties, others have worked closely with them. Some have feared that a close relationship with
political parties might lead to their cooptation and de-radicalization, while others have seen parties as
vital for advancing women! s political interests. Earlier on the All-India Women! s Conference, in a
$ harmonious alliance& with the male National Congress leadership, approved the independent Indian
state as an ally (Sen 2000). Later, the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW 1954) affiliated to
the CPI (after the split), came to play a significant role. It was as late in 1981 that the CPI (M) formed
the All India Democratic Women! s Association (AIDWA). Throughout the 1970s, the CPI (M) did
not have an organized women! s wing. Although officially formed in 1981, AIDWA considers its
existence from the formation of the Mahila Atmaraksha Samity (MARS) in 1943 (dominated by
women from the still underground Communist Party) and celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1993.
Unlike its predecessors, AIDWA accepted members who were not affiliated to the CPI (M). Initiated
with the slogan of $ Equality, Democracy, and Women! s Liberation& , it collaborated actively with the
autonomous women! s groups and took up the question of violence against women. The Regional
affiliates of All India Democratic Women! s Association include Paschimbangla Ganatantrik Mahila
Samiti (PBGMS West Bengal), Ganatantrik Nari Samiti (Tripura), Janwadi Mahila Sanghatan
(Maharashtra), etc. However these organizational movements did not coalesce into any significant
mass mobilization of women on gender issues. Agitation over women! s issues remained limited to the
urban elite women, while poor women were mobilized for class or nationalist causes. The questioning
(though within limits) of gender roles that persisted in early communist groups later dissipated. In its

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$ mass face& , the Communist Party thus began to be questioned on account of its $ patriarchal
leanings& (Sen 2000). # Feminism! often remained a controversial word in the women! s movement in
India, as well as in the party allied organizations. Avowedly, AIDWA was not a feminist organisation
though an instrument forged to struggle for the emancipation of women. The question remains how
successful have women! s movements been in strengthening the parties! commitments to gender
equality when they have tried to do so? The biggest obstacle that confronts any serious attempt to
challenge gender inequality through the party system is that parties draw on women! s participation as
individuals, not as members of a group that has suffered discrimination. If women! s participation in
party based politics undermines women! s sense of collective identity (Basu 2005), how would the
autonomous organizations strive against this trend (Sen Chaudhuri 2007)?

ii) The Autonomous Womens Movement

Contrary to the formal structural mandate of the affiliated organizations " the autonomous groups,
representing women across classes-castes-communities, were coupled together through # informal
networking! and a rising # feminist press! . Their mode of communication and commitment had a leftist
charge. Oriented towards pan-Indian protests, throughout the 1970-80s, the autonomous groups
primarily addressed: violence against women (Sen 2000) and the overtly patriarchal nature of the
society. They addressed the questions of sexual oppression and violence against women in the form of
dowry killings/deaths, bride burning, rape, sati, honour killing and so on. It is interesting to note that,
in the 1980s, almost all campaigns against violence on women resulted in pro-women legislations
(Agnes 1992). The second phase of women! s movement is significant for its # real! achievements both
in the form of consciousness raising and legal enactments. In the next section, we would discuss about
some of the protest movements resulting in the major legal enactments of the 1980s (following Agnes
1992, Desai and Patel 1985, Patel 1985, 2002, Sharma 1989, Lerner 1981, Forbes 1998).

iii) 1980s: the Decade of Pro-Woman Enactments

The country wide anti-rape movement was inflicted by the Supreme Court judgment acquitting two
policemen accused of raping a minor tribal girl, Mathura, despite the fact that the High Court had
indicted them. Four eminent lawyers addressed an open letter to the Chief Justice of India protesting
the unjust decision. This flared-up a series of country-wide demonstrations by the autonomous
women! s organisations like Nari Niryatana Pratirodh Mancha (Kolkata), Progressive Organization of
Women (Hyderabad), Forum Against Oppression of Women (Mumbai), Stree Sangharsh, Samata and
Saheli (Delhi), Stree Shakti Sangathana (Hyderabad), Vimochana (Banglore). Several other rape cases
became parts of this campaign where redefining # consent! in a rape trial was one of the key issues.
After long discussions with women! s groups, the rape law was amended in 1983 by the government of
India. The late 1970s saw the growth of a movement against dowry and the violence against women
in the marital home. POW, Stree Sangharsh, Mahila Dakshita Samiti, Dahej Virodhi Chetna Mandal
organized public protests against dowry deaths which received wide media coverage. In the Dowry
Prohibition Act of 1961, the definition of # dowry! was too narrow and vague. Continued movement of
the women! s organizations succeeded in getting the dowry law amended in 1984 and then again in
1986. Madhushree Dutta, a women! s movement activist was assaulted by few men, late in the night,
in a railway station. Without supporting her, the police labelled her as a # prostitute! soliciting in a
public place. This was followed by a series of demonstrations against the Suppression of Immoral
Traffic in Women and Girls (SIT) Act, 1956 which penalises the victim on the grounds of her
immoral nature. Eventually the act was amended and given a new name: The Immoral Traffic
(Prevention) Act, 1988.

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Responding to the protests of the women! s movement against deprecating portrayal of women in the
media, the Act against Indecent Representation of Women came into effect in 1987. An extensive
protest against the public murder of Roop Kanwar, an 18-year old Rajasthani girl, was followed by
the1988 Sati (Prevention) Act. The 1971 Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act provided
women the right to safe, scientific and legal abortions. However, this right got associated to female
foeticide. Campaigns against this resulted in a central legislation banning pre-natal sex selection
techniques facilitating female foeticide. While addressing the problems pertaining to marriage,
divorce, maintenance, alimony, property rights, custody and guardianship rights, the misogynist
nature of the existing personal and customary laws came into open. All personal laws help persisting
patriarchy, patriliny and patrilocality. This culminated to a nation-wide, still on-going, debate on the
Uniform Civil Code. For years together the women! s organizations fought to see the Muslim Women
(Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act getting passed in 1986 overriding the Supreme Court decision
in the Shah Bano case. Flavia Agnes (1992: WS 19)) has rightly observed: $ [i]f oppression could be
tackled by passing laws, then this decade would be adjudged a golden period for Indian women, when
protective laws were offered on a platter& . The enactment or amendments of laws, always retaining
the basic patriarchal structure, fail to address the problems of the women. The onus of this failure rests
largely on the flawed laws: emerging as a # token! rather as a # true! concern for women. The activists,
often without considering the causes and consequences of these enactments, had to accept them as a
way in to # empowerment! (Agnes 1992).

iv) The rise of Womens Studies as an Academic Discipline

Over the years, it gradually came to be realised that mere enactments of laws, without proper
consciousness and education among women, does not make much sense. On the one hand, this
showed women! s movement the way to take up a more resolute stance towards legal literacy and
education, gender sensitization of textbooks and media. While on the other, perhaps the significance
of academic interventions was also felt. This along with the governmental support for women related
research paved the way for the discipline of women! s studies to flourish. Following the # Towards
Equality! report, several micro-studies were carried out all over the country which led to the growth of
this new area of study. The United Nation Mid Decade Conference in Copenhagen in 1980 also
vindicated the need for the discipline of women! s studies. The first National Conference of the
Association of Women! s Studies, an institution of women academics and activists involved in
research and teaching, was held in 1981 underscoring the necessity of offering of Women! s Studies
courses at the universities. At that time, there were only a few Women! s Studies centres at universities
like the Research Centre for Women! s Studies at the SNDT Women! s University, Mumbai and the
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, also in Mumbai. Gradually quite a few universities and colleges
opened up women! s study centres. During the last four decades a substantive number of women
related research projects, conferences, seminars were organized and books, journals, teaching
materials were published. Unlike other social sciences women! s studies is an avowedly value loaded
discipline committed to the cause of women (Sharma 1989, Basu 2003). Vina Mazumdar considered
women! s studies, the academic arms of the women! s movement, as a tool to transform the women! s
perceptions about themselves and people! s perception about women (1985).

By the end of 1980s there has been a wider recognition of the issue of women! s rights and equality
among genders. The women! s movements comprising of autonomous women! s organisations,
affiliated women! s groups and women! s studies centres have played no small role in bringing about
this change. The second phase, marked by the autonomous women! s movement, primarily had an
urban middle/ upper class/caste leadership- appeal. Yet, it had invoked a strong sense of # shared
sisterhood! (although burdened with its own problems). Conceivably this underlying concord, among

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disparate groups, emanated from the issue of # violence against women! : an experience shared by the
women across stratifications. Post 1990s " in the face of the dalit feminist and LGBT movements, rise
of the right wing women! s associations and NGOs, and continued debates around Uniform Civil Code
and Reservations " witnessed a collapse of this # unity! . Yet women! s movement continued "
addressing wide ranging issues and representing disparate groups " it marked out a new phase.

Self-Check Exercise 2

Q 1. What is the significance of the Towards Equality Report in the women! s movement in India?
The publication of Towards Equality: the Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in 1974
generated a new interest in and debate on women! s issues. The data collected by the Report, after a
comprehensive countrywide investigation, exposed that the de jure equality granted by the Indian
Constitution had not been transformed into reality and large masses of women had remained
untouched by the rights provided to them more than 25 years earlier. This offered the rationale for
a new phase of women! s movement articulated both in activism and the academia.

Q 2. What do you know about the decade of pro-woman enactments?

The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the growth of numerous women! s groups that took up issues such
as dowry deaths, bride burning, rape, sati and focused on violence against women. There were
several campaigns in the eighties relating to women! s rights. Almost all campaigns against
violence on women resulted in pro-women legislations including: the amendment of the rape law
in 1983, the amendment of the dowry law in 1984, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1988, the
Sati (Prevention) Act 1988 and a host of others. Over the years it became clear that mere change of
laws does not make much sense unless there is a will to implement them. Education and
consciousness could help women exercise their rights effectively.

Q 3. What do you know about the growth of Women! s Studies as an academic discipline in India?

Following the UN Mid Decade Conference in Copenhagen in 1980, the discipline of Women! s
studies expanded rapidly In India. The Indian Association of Women! s Studies was established in
1981 as an institution of academics and activists involved in research and teaching of women
related issues. Efforts are being made to prepare reading and teaching material with a feminist
perspective. A number of universities and colleges have women! s study centres. Women! s studies,
the academic wing of the women! s movement, tend to alter the women! s view about themselves
and people! s view about women.

5. The Third Phase

The 1990s happen to be a breaking point in the politico-economy of India: the decade of economic
liberalisation, the anti-Mandal agitation, the rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party, emergence of
the caste based parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, demolition of the Babri
Masjid and communal riots. Mary John (2000: 3829) observes that $ [t]he growing economic and
social disparities that are a hallmark of liberalisation& points at $ ... the reality that patriarchy in
contemporary society is neither a single monolith nor a set of discrete unconnected enclaves, but
rather, a complex articulation of unequal patriarchies& . Amidst this, the women in India, although no
longer tied together by a purported unity, have made persistent protests against specific issues
affecting their lives.

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i) The Continued Legal Battle

The issues raised by the women! s movement in the 1970s and 1980s could not still be resolved. They
remain, even confounded by the trends of globalization and communalism, as some of the major
concerns of the 1990s. Pro-woman legislations still remain a major concern for the activists
throughout the country. Since the All India Women! s Conference in 1937, there have been disparate
responses of the women! s movement to the Uniform Civil Code for all religious communities. This
demand is sustained by the women! s movement in the late 1980s until the 1990s when it acquired a
different shape. Conceding the existence of the homosexual couples, the heterosexual couples outside
marriage and multiple other modes of living, the expression # uniform! has been rejected from the
debate in the 1990s. Saheli, People! s Union for Democratic Rights (Delhi), Forum Against
Oppression of Women (Bombay), Working Group on Women! s Rights (Delhi) now demand for a
negotiable/common/gender-just/egalitarian code rather than # uniform! code (Menon 1998). On the
other hand, a long thirty years of movement demanding Protection of Women from Domestic
Violence resulted in an Act in 2005. Continued protests against female foeticide resulted in the Pre
Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Technique Act (2002). The Public Interest Litigations to address
sexual harassment at work place registered by the NGOs resulted to the 1997 Supreme Court
directives for the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace. The Vishakha guideline, as it was
popularly known, later took the shape of a law: The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace
(Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013.

The 73rd and the 74th amendments to the Constitution (assuring local self-governance) provided a 33
per cent reservation of seats for women in the Panchayat and Nagarpalika bodies. Women at the
# grass roots! of the society were provided with the opportunity to be a part of formal decision making
and governance. Yet, Women! s Reservation Bill or the 81st Constitutional Amendment Bill 1996,
seeking to reserve one-third seats for women in Parliament, has been resisted from various sections of
the society. The matter was soon caught up within the caste politics demanding special quotas for the
women of the other backward classes and minorities. Once again, it came into open that the
homogenous category $ Indian women& does not carry any meaning. Different women with
oppositional interests, representing different caste-community-class-religion-party, inhabit the sub-
continent. For the women! s movement, as Mary John observes (2000: 3829) $ [t]his is nothing less
than an opportunity to link " rather than oppose " women! s rights to rights based on caste, class or
minority status in the broader context of a common democratic struggle& .

ii) The Dalit Feminist Movement

This realization could be conceived as a consequence of the rise of the dalit feminists calling attention
to the caste-blind, dominant Hindu predispositions of the women! s movement in India. The agenda of
the women! s movement at the national level has always been framed by the upper-caste, middle/upper
class women! s perspectives effacing the identity of the dalit women and identifying the lower caste as
the # rapacious! male who becomes the legitimate object of feminist rage (Tharu and Niranjana 1996).
The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW), established in 1995, has compelled the activists to
attend to the question of caste. Dalit feminists articulated the three-fold nature oppression of Dalit
women by: 1) upper castes, 2) upper class, and 3) men of their own castes. Dalit Mahila Samiti
(DMS) organizes a movement of the Dalit women of Uttar Pradesh. It is supported by Vanangana, a
feminist NGO that has its roots in the Mahila Samakhya (MS) programme, which was launched by the
Government of India in the late 1980! s to empower women through the popular education
(Chaudhury 2004). Reprimanding the elitist accent of the contemporary feminists! eminent social
scientists like Gopal Guru (1995) and Sharmila Rege (1998) offered significant insights for a dalit

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standpoint approach. Representing the voice of the # differently talking! dalit women, the dalit
standpoint articulates against the hegemonic middle caste-class women and the patriarchal upper-
caste/dalit men.

iii) Rightist Womens Organizations

Since the decade of the 1990s there has been a significant rise of a kind of militant # feminism! steered
by the women! s wings of some Hindu fundamentalist groups (Rashtrasevika Samity of RSS, Durga
Vahini of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Mohila Aghadi of Shiv Sena). Based on the religious
fundamentalist claims, these women! s groups have deeply strained the women! s movement of the
country. They call for an inversion of the time-honoured # self-abnegation! of the upper caste Hindu
women. Assuming a new authority to awaken # Hindutva! and salvage the birth place of Rama, they
step out of their conventional image as the # victimized Hindu woman! (Roy 2001). The acclamation
of the self is grounded on the revival of the Hindu nationalist icon of Bharatmata " the reincarnation
of the devi: (the abode of shakti) strong, courageous, and conscientious. Their assertions, in strange
ways, cart off the prospects of problematizing gender-based inequalities and limit the scope of
women! s movement (Kumar 1994, Setalvad, 1996, Tharu and Niranjana 1996, Ghosal Guha 2005).
According to Tanika Sarkar (2002: 193), the thrust of these rightist women! s organizations $ ... is to
obliterate the notion of selfhood, to erase concern with social and gender justice and to situate the
public, political, extra-domestic identity on authoritarian community commands and a totalitarian
model of individual existence, every particle of which is derived from an all-male organization which
not only teaches her about politics but also about religion, human relationships and child rearing& .

iv) Protesting Globalization

The women! s movement countered the open economic policy 1990s with widespread agitation
focusing largely on the withdrawal of the state from the social sector, erosion of food security and the
adverse effects of globalization and Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) on the women in India. In
March 2000, through the initiatives of the six national level women! s organisations including the
CWDS, some ninety women! s groups and organisations were signatory to a document prepared for
the Global March 2000. Again the 2004 Forum provided a meeting ground for peasant, workers,
women! s, dalit and environmental movements to come together against the $ capitalist led
globalization& . During 1970s and 1980s the women! s movement highlighted the economic
marginalisation of the women. In the 1990, the women! s movement started demanding its legitimate
place within the mainstream with its own agenda of empowerment. Since the 1990s several women! s
organisations in the form of foreign aided Non Government Organizations (NGO) came up. The
funding agencies by and large come to determine their course of actions. The earlier generation of
activists abhor # NGOisation! , largely regulated by the foreign capital, for dissipating the force of
women! s movement (Mehrotra 2002).

v) The LGBT Movement

Increasing AIDS consciousness in the late 1980s necessitates the widening of the discourse on
sexuality beyond violence against women and population control. Internationally funded HIV/AIDS
projects were taken up by many NGOs. In Kolkata, the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee
(DMSC), emanated from a Government of India STD-HIV intervention project, now works as a
women sex workers! union demanding the right to sex work. In the 1990s, the LGBT (Lesbian-gay-
bisexual-transsexual) movement was gradually put in order, providing spaces for the political

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expression of the # non-normative sexualities! : around the rights of same-sex people, the hijras and the
kothis. The movement has induced the $ counter-heteronormative& arguments claiming to revoke the
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalizes homosexual sexual acts (Menon 2009: 98). In
2009, the Delhi High Court had decriminalised homosexuality between two consenting adults in
private. In December 2013, however, setting aside the 2009 judgement, the Supreme Court endorses
the constitutional validity of the penal provision against same-sex practices.

Questioning heteronormativity is now an inalienable part of the agenda of the different strands of
women! s movement in the country. Underlying this broad agreement there are internal strains and
discrepancies. The interfaces of the women! s movement with the struggles of queer and the LGBT are
often fraught with tension. If the issue of sexuality is not denigrated as an # elitist concern! , the
impulse of integrating diverse sexual proclivities and practices tend to efface their specific identities
and politics.

Self-Check Exercise 3
Q 1. Can you think of a characteristic feature of the third phase of women! s movement?
The first phase and to some extent the second phase of women! s movement in India is marked by a
supposed unity grounded on a preconceived notion called # Indian women! . The appellation
# Indian! tends to homogenize women as an a-historical category # uninterrupted! by the
stratificatory processes of class, race, region, ethnicity, religion and caste. The third phase of
women! s movement, in certain senses, problematizes this presumption of # unity! as it comes to
address multiple issues raised by disparate group of women across the country.
Q 2. What do you know about the dalit feminism?
Dalit women have been active throughout history, though often this has not been recorded. They
are actively involved in the anti-caste and anti-untouchability movements in the 1920s. Though
they work as the pillars of the Dalit movements across the country they remain incapable to put an
end to the structural discrimination, exclusion and violence against them. Since the late 1980s,
Dalit women have increasingly realized and articulated the need for a separate platform to address
their problems which are different, both in nature and magnitude, from those faced by the dalit
men and the non-dalit women. The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW 1995) was
launched to fight for their rights and find solutions to their specific problems as Dalits women.
Q 3. Write a critical note on the relationship of the LGBT movement with the main-stream women! s
movement?
The Indian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement is a prism of many
fascinating colours. This movement, uncovering the diversity of genders and sexualities in our
societies, grapples to bring to an end to the discrimination against them. As an organized political
movement the Indian LGBT movement is still quite young, having taken its first few steps in the
early 1990s. However, it did not happen overnight. It has rather been an upshot of some wider
developments, both manifest and latent, across India and the world at large.

Diverse groups of women! s movement in the country have now come to question
heteronormativity. Yet underneath this overall agreement there are differences of opinion and
ideology. The crossing points of the women! s movement and struggles of the LGBT are tension

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laden. Sometimes the issue of sexuality is belittled as an # elitist concern! . Often, the urge of
unifying different sexual orientations and practices obliterate their specific traits.

6. Summary
Parallel to the practices of exclusion and violence against women, India evokes an animated history of
movements and protest. Women! s resistance, assimilating formal and informal mechanisms, acquires
manifold forms: writing, public march, non-cooperation, prolonged political and legal battles, hugging
trees, excessive salting of meals, singing songs of celebration or remembering injustices (Jeffrey &
Basu 1998). They defy the ostensibly resolute structures and norms concerning women! s work,
education, sexuality, family roles, and motherhood. Multiple contexts and issues, across caste-class-
region-language-sexual orientation, have raised multiple and contending voices. The gradual
weakening of the supposed unity, which used to be the hallmark of the first and to some extent the
second phase of women! s movement in India, is not always a matter of apprehension. The fading of
the purported solidarity could be considered as a mark of increasing consciousness at multiple levels.
For a nuanced politics of women! s movement internal differences are often constitutive.

Name of Paper: Social Movement

Sociology
Name of Module: Womens Movement in India