Feminism in India
Encyclopedia
Feminism in India is a set of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for Indian women. It is the pursuit of women's rights
within the society of India
. Like their feminist counterparts all over the world, feminists in India seek gender equality: the right to work for equal wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights. Indian feminists also have fought against culture-specific issues within India's patriarchal
society, such as inheritance laws
and the practice of widow immolation known as Sati
.
As in the West, there has been some criticism of feminist movements in India. They have especially been criticized for focusing too much on women already privileged, and neglecting the needs and representation of poorer or lower caste
women. This has led to the creation of caste-specific feminist organizations and movements.
.
Historical circumstances and values in India have caused feminists to develop a feminism
that differs from Western feminism. For example, the idea of women as "powerful" is accommodated into patriarchal culture through religion, which has retained visibility in all sections of society. This has provided women with traditional "cultural spaces." Furthermore, in the West the notion of "self" rests in competitive individualism
where people are described as "born free yet everywhere in chains." In India the individual is usually considered to be just one part of the larger social collective
. Survival of the individual is dependent upon cooperation
, and self-denial
for the greater good is valued.
Indian women negotiate survival through an array of oppressive patriarchal family structures: age, ordinal status, relationship to men through family of origin, marriage and procreation as well as patriarchal attributes. Examples of patriarchal attributes include: dowry
, siring sons etc., kinship
, caste
, community, village, market and the state. It should however be noted that several communities in India, such as the Nair
s of Kerala, Shetty
s of Mangalore, certain Maratha
clans, and Bengali
families exhibit matriarchal tendencies. In these communities, the head of the family is the oldest woman rather than the oldest man. Sikh
culture is also regarded as relatively gender-neutral
.
The heterogeneity of the Indian experience reveals that there are multiple patriarchies, contributing to the existence of multiple feminisms. Hence, feminism in India is not a singular theoretical orientation; it has changed over time in relation to historical and cultural realities, levels of consciousness, perceptions and actions of individual women, and women as a group. The widely used definition is "An awareness of women’s oppression and exploitation in society, at work and within the family, and conscious action by women and men to change this situation." Acknowledging sexism
in daily life and attempting to challenge and eliminate it through deconstructing
mutually exclusive notions of femininity
and masculinity
as biologically determined
categories opens the way towards an equitable society for both men and women.
The male and female dichotomy of polar opposites with the former oppressing the latter at all times is refuted in the Indian context because it was men who initiated social reform movements
against various social evils. Patriarchy is just one of the hierarchies. Relational hierarchies between women within the same family are more adverse. Here women are pitted against one another. Not all women are powerless at all times. Caste-community identities intensify all other hierarchies. The polytheistic
Hindu
pantheon
provides revered images of women as unique and yet complementary to those of male deities
.
There have been intense debates within the Indian women's movements about the relationship between Western and Indian feminisms. Many Indian feminists simultaneously claim a specific “Indian” sensitivity as well as an international feminist solidarity with groups and individuals worldwide. The rise of liberal feminism in the West in the 1970s focused deeply on demands for equal opportunities in education and employment, as well as ending violence against women. To a large extent, the emerging feminist movement in India was influenced by Western ideals. These called for education and equal rights, but also adapted their appeals to local issues and concerns, such as dowry-related violence against women, Sati
, sex selective abortion and custodial rape. Some Indian feminists have suggested that these issues are not specifically “Indian” in nature but rather a reflection of a wider trend of patriarchal oppression of women.
The efforts of these men included abolishing sati, which was a widow's death by burning on her husband's funeral pyre, the custom of child marriage, abolishing the disfiguring of widows, banning the marriage of upper caste Hindu
widows, promoting women’s education, obtaining legal rights for women to own property, and requiring the law to acknowledge women’s status by granting them basic rights in matters such as adoption.
The 19th century was the period that saw a majority of women's issues come under the spotlight and reforms began to be made. Much of the early reforms for Indian women were conducted by men. However, by the late 19th century they were joined in their efforts by their wives, sisters, daughters, protegees and other individuals directly affected by campaigns such as those carried out for women's education. By the late 20th century, women gained greater autonomy through the formation of independent women's own organizations. By the late thirties and forties a new narrative began to be constructed regarding "women's activism". This was newly researched and expanded with the vision to create 'logical' and organic links between feminism and Marxism, as well as with anti-communalism and anti-casteism, etc. The Constitution of India did guarantee 'equality between the sexes,' which created a relative lull in women's movements until the 1970s.
During the formative years of women's rights movements, the difference between the sexes was more or less taken for granted in that their roles, functions, aims and desires were different. As a result, they were not only to be reared differently but treated differently also. Over the course of time, this difference itself became a major reason for initiating women's movements. Early 19th century reformers argued that the difference between men and women was no reason for the subjection of women in society. However, later reformers were of the opinion that indeed it was this particular difference that subjugated women to their roles in society, for example, as mothers. Therefore, there was a need for the proper care of women's rights. With the formation of women's organizations and their own participation in campaigns, their roles as mothers was again stressed but in a different light: this time the argument was for women's rights to speech, education and emancipation. However, the image of women with the mother as a symbol underwent changes over time - from an emphasis on family to the creation of an archetypal mother figure, evoking deep, often atavistic images.
brought concepts of democracy
, equality
and individual rights
. The rise of the concept of nationalism
and introspection of discriminatory practices brought about social reform movements related to caste and gender relations. This first phase of feminism in India was initiated by men to uproot the social evils of sati
(widow immolation), to allow widow remarriage, to forbid child marriage, and to reduce illiteracy, as well as to regulate the age of consent and to ensure property rights through legal intervention. The 'women question' was first mainly raised by upper caste Hindu men in the early part of the nineteenth century. This move addressed issues such as the education of women, remarriage of widows and even included campaigns against the Hindu practice of Sati, or burning of Hindu women at their husbands’ funeral pyres. In addition to this, some upper caste Hindu women rejected constraints they faced under Brahminical traditions. However, efforts for improving the status of women in Indian society were somewhat thwarted by the late nineteenth century, as nationalist movements emerged in India. These movements resisted ‘colonial interventions in gender relations’ particularly in the areas of family relations. In the mid to late nineteenth century, there was a national form of resistance to any colonial efforts made to ‘modernize’ the Hindu family. This included the Age of Consent controversy that erupted after the government tried to raise the age of marriage for women.
womanhood: special yet separated from public space. Gandhi legitimized and expanded Indian women’s public activities by initiating them into the non-violent civil disobedience
movement against the British Raj
. He exalted their feminine roles of caring, self-abnegation, sacrifice and tolerance; and carved a niche for those in the public arena. Women-only organizations like All India Women's Conference (AIWC) and the National Federation of Indian Women
(NFIW) emerged. Women were grappling with issues relating to the scope of women’s political participation, women’s franchise, communal awards, and leadership roles in political parties
.
The 1920s was a new era for Indian women and is defined as ‘feminism’ that was responsible for the creation of localized women’s associations. These associations emphasized women’s education issues, developed livelihood strategies for working class women, and also organized national level women’s associations such as the All India Women’s Conference. AIWC was closely affiliated with the Indian National Congress. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi
, it worked within the nationalist and anti-colonialist freedom movements. This made the mass mobilization of women an integral part of Indian nationalism. Women therefore were a very important part of various nationalist and anti-colonial efforts, including the civil disobedience movements in the 1970s.
After independence, the All India Women’s Conference continued to operate and in 1954 the Indian Communist Party formed its own women’s wing known as the National Federation of Indian Women. However, feminist agendas and movements became less active right after India’s 1947 independence, as the nationalist agendas on nation building took precedence over feminist issues.
Women’s participation in the struggle for freedom developed their critical consciousness about their role and rights in independent India. This resulted in the introduction of the franchise and civic rights of women in the Indian constitution. There was provision for women’s upliftment through affirmative action
, maternal health and child care provision (crèche
s), equal pay for equal work etc. The state adopted a patronizing role towards women. Women in India did not have to struggle for basic rights as did women in the West. The utopia ended soon when the social and cultural ideologies and structures failed to honor the newly acquired concepts of fundamental rights and democracy.
There are many traditions and customs that have been an important part of Indian culture for hundreds of years. Religious laws and expectations, or “personal laws” enumerated by each specific religion, often conflict with the Indian Constitution, eliminating rights and powers women should legally have. Despite these crossovers in legality, the Indian government does not interfere with religion and the personal laws they hold. Religions, like Hinduism, call for women to be faithful servants to God and their husbands. They have a term called pativrata that describes a wife who has accepted service and devotion to her husband and her family as her ultimate religion and duty. Indian society is highly composed of hierarchical systems within families and communities. These hierarchies
can be broken down into age, sex, ordinal position, kinship relationships (within families), and caste, lineage, wealth, occupations, and relationship to ruling power (within the community). When hierarchies emerge within the family based on social convention and economic need, girls in poorer families suffer twice the impact of vulnerability and stability. From birth, girls are automatically entitled to less; from playtime, to food, to education, girls can expect to always be entitled to less than their brothers. Girls also have less access to their family’s income and assets, which is exacerbated among poor, rural Indian families. From the start, it is understood that females will be burdened with strenuous work and exhausting responsibilities for the rest of their lives, always with little to no compensation or recognition.
India is also a patriarchal
society, which, by definition, describes cultures in which males as fathers or husbands are assumed to be in charge and the official heads of households. A patrilineal
system governs the society, where descent and inheritance are traced through the male line and men are generally in control of the distribution of family resources.
These traditions and ways of Indian life have been in effect for so long that this type of lifestyle is what women have become accustomed to and expect. Indian women often do not take full advantage of their constitutional rights because they are not properly aware or informed of them. Women also tend to have poor utilization of voting rights because they possess low levels of political awareness and sense of political efficacy. Women are not often encouraged to become informed about issues. Due to this, political parties do not invest much time in female candidates because there is a perception that they are a "wasted investment."
The female-to-male ratio in India is 933 to 1000, showing that there are numerically fewer women in the country than men. This is due to several factors, including infanticide
s, most commonly among female infants, and the poor care of female infants and childbearing women. Although outlawed, infanticides are still highly popular in rural India, and are continuing to become even more prominent. This is due to the fact, most especially in rural areas, that families cannot afford female children because of the dowry
they must pay when their daughter gets married. Like infanticide, the payment of dowry is also illegal
, but is still a frequent and prevalent occurrence in rural India. Women are considered to be “worthless” by their husbands if they are not “able” to produce a male child, and can often face much abuse if this is the case.
, did not experience such a decline, but in the richer Indian states of Punjab, Haryana
, Gujarat, and Maharashtra
, the female-male ratio fell very sharply (the female-male ratios in these states were between 79.3 and 87.8). This is evidence of natality inequality, and an indication that sex-selective abortion
has become more pervasive. The Indian parliament has banned the use of sex determination techniques for fetuses due to this, but enforcement of this law has been largely ignored.
There is a poor representation of women in the Indian workforce. Females have a ten percent higher drop-out rate than males from middle and primary schools, as well as lower levels of literacy than men. Since unemployment is also high in India, it is easy for employers to manipulate the law, especially when it comes to women, because it is part of Indian culture for women not to argue with men. Additionally, labor unions are insensitive to women’s needs. Women also have to settle for jobs that comply with their obligations as wives, mothers, and homemakers.
religion, there has been partial success in terms of gender equality reform laws and family law. While this is a major advancement relative to other religions in India, it is still not a complete triumph in terms of feminism and relieving oppression. Gandhi came up with the term stree shakti for the concept of womanhood. In the Hindu religion, Gods are not exclusively male. Hinduism sheds a positive light on femininity; females are considered to compliment and complete their male counterparts. It is important to note that the deities of both knowledge and wealth are female.
There has been some criticism from Dalit
groups that Indian feminism tends to represent “upper caste” and upper class Hindu women, while ignoring and marginalizing the interests of Dalit women. Debates on caste and gender oppression have been furthered by Other Backward Class
(OBC) members of different political parties, arguing in state assemblies that “lower caste” women's interests are best represented by women from these castes. Working towards this end, women within Dalit castes have formed organizations such as the All India Dalit Women's Forum and the National Federation of Dalit Women and Dalit Solidarity, which focus on the gendered implications of caste based violence and oppression, such as the ways in which Dalit women suffer from urban poverty and displacement.
attempting to make "concessions" for the Muslim community to in turn secure support for the Congress. Shah Bano, a 73-year-old Muslim woman, was divorced by her husband after forty-three years of marriage. According to the Sharia or Muslim Law, her husband was not required to pay her alimony. Shah Bano challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in her favor and ordered her husband to pay her a monthly maintenance allowance. This caused chaos amongst the Muslim clerics who denounced the judgement and suggested that their religion, Islam was under attack in the country. In a fear of losing overall Muslim support, Rajiv succumbed to the pressures of the Muslim community and his own party and backed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill that overruled the Supreme Court's decision. This caused an outcry from Hindu nationalists who found the appeasement of minorities by the Congress for political purposes wrong and opportunistic.
Feminism was challenged by various minority groups for not entirely addressing the needs of minority populations. It was suggested that 'mainstream' feminism was upper caste and Hindu in its orientation and did not address the concerns of minority women. This led to the formation of the Awaaz-e-Niswaan (The Voice of Women) in 1987 in Mumbai in largely Muslim part of the city. The Muslim community itself is a marginalized section of Indian society and has experienced immense structural socio-economic discrimination, and communal violence. The community has also been subjected to personal laws that often were considered harmful to the rights of Muslim women.
in the early nineteenth century. However, the term did not gain meaning or become an operational principle in Indian life until the country gained independence in 1947 and adopted a democratic government. The Indian Constitution
then granted equality, freedom from discrimination based on gender or religion, and guaranteed religious freedoms. Also, seven five-year plans
were developed to provide health, education, employment, and welfare to women. The sixth five-year plan even declared women “partners in development."
However in the urban section of Indian society, women are empowered with laws such as IPC 498a which are heavily biased against the men in the society. Educated women are sometimes accused of using such laws to unleash legal terrorism on husbands by disgruntled wives.
In addition to this, these multinationals are seen to advertise a homogenized universal image of the ideal women across the country that has led to an increase in the commodification of women’s bodies. This is also manifested in the form of nationalist pride exhibited through Indian women winning international beauty pageants. According to some feminists, such developments have offered women greater sexual autonomy and more control over their bodies. However, many other feminists feel that such commodification of female bodies has only served the purpose of feeding to male fantasies.
In 1986, the National Policy on Education
(NPE) was created in India, and the government launched the program called Mahila Samakhya
, whose focus was on the empowerment of women. The program’s goal is to create a learning environment for women to realize their potential, learn to demand information and find the knowledge to take charge of their own lives. In certain areas of India, progress is being made and an increase in the enrollment of girls in schools and as teachers has begun to increase. Efforts are still being made to improve the level of education that females receive to match that of male students.
Something important to note is that educated women are becoming associated with lower fertility rates in India, and efforts are being made to spread the use of contraception
to uneducated Indian women.
billboards and advertisements. However, this is not the norm throughout the country; such modernizations and the women behind them face serious resistance from anti-liberalists. The country is still severely male-dominant and unwelcoming to such movements that go against sex and gender traditions in India.
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
within the society of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Like their feminist counterparts all over the world, feminists in India seek gender equality: the right to work for equal wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights. Indian feminists also have fought against culture-specific issues within India's patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
society, such as inheritance laws
Dowry law in India
Payment of a dowry, gift—often financial, has a long history in many parts of the world. In India, the payment of a dowry was prohibited in 1961 under Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code were enacted to make it easier for the wife to seek...
and the practice of widow immolation known as Sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
.
As in the West, there has been some criticism of feminist movements in India. They have especially been criticized for focusing too much on women already privileged, and neglecting the needs and representation of poorer or lower caste
Caste system in India
The Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis....
women. This has led to the creation of caste-specific feminist organizations and movements.
Defining feminism in the Indian context
Women's role in Pre-colonial social structures reveals that feminism was theorized differently in India than in the West. In India, women’s issues first began to be addressed when the state commissioned a report on the status of women to a group of feminist researchers and activists. The report recognized the fact that in India, women were oppressed under a system of structural hierarchies and injustices. During this period, Indian feminists were influenced by the Western debates being conducted about violence against women. However, due to the difference in the historical and social culture of India, the debate in favor of Indian women had to be conducted creatively and certain Western ideas had to be rejected. Women’s issues began to gain an international prominence when the decade of 1975-1985 was declared the United Nations Decade for WomenInternational Women's Year
International Women's Year was the name given to 1975 by the United Nations. Since that year March 8 has been celebrated as International Women's Day, and the United Nations Decade for Women, from 1976–1985, was also established.-International:...
.
Historical circumstances and values in India have caused feminists to develop a feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
that differs from Western feminism. For example, the idea of women as "powerful" is accommodated into patriarchal culture through religion, which has retained visibility in all sections of society. This has provided women with traditional "cultural spaces." Furthermore, in the West the notion of "self" rests in competitive individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
where people are described as "born free yet everywhere in chains." In India the individual is usually considered to be just one part of the larger social collective
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
. Survival of the individual is dependent upon cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...
, and self-denial
Self-denial
Self-denial is altruistic abstinence - the willingness to forego personal pleasures or undergo personal trials in the pursuit of the increased good of another. Various religions and cultures take differing views of self-denial, some considering it a positive trait and others considering it a...
for the greater good is valued.
Indian women negotiate survival through an array of oppressive patriarchal family structures: age, ordinal status, relationship to men through family of origin, marriage and procreation as well as patriarchal attributes. Examples of patriarchal attributes include: dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
, siring sons etc., kinship
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
, caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, community, village, market and the state. It should however be noted that several communities in India, such as the Nair
Nair
Nair , also known as Nayar , refers to "not a unitary group but a named category of castes", which historically embody several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom bore the Nair title. These people historically live in the present-day Indian state of Kerala...
s of Kerala, Shetty
Shetty
This is an article about a Bunt surname and should not be confused with similar sounding surnames like sethi, shetti, setty etc used by other Indian castes and alternatively spelled the same way...
s of Mangalore, certain Maratha
Maratha
The Maratha are an Indian caste, predominantly in the state of Maharashtra. The term Marāthā has three related usages: within the Marathi speaking region it describes the dominant Maratha caste; outside Maharashtra it can refer to the entire regional population of Marathi-speaking people;...
clans, and Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
families exhibit matriarchal tendencies. In these communities, the head of the family is the oldest woman rather than the oldest man. Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
culture is also regarded as relatively gender-neutral
Gender-neutral
Gender neutrality describes the idea that language and other social institutions should avoid distinguishing people by their gender, in order to avoid discrimination arising from the impression that there are social roles for which one gender is more suited than the other...
.
The heterogeneity of the Indian experience reveals that there are multiple patriarchies, contributing to the existence of multiple feminisms. Hence, feminism in India is not a singular theoretical orientation; it has changed over time in relation to historical and cultural realities, levels of consciousness, perceptions and actions of individual women, and women as a group. The widely used definition is "An awareness of women’s oppression and exploitation in society, at work and within the family, and conscious action by women and men to change this situation." Acknowledging sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
in daily life and attempting to challenge and eliminate it through deconstructing
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
mutually exclusive notions of femininity
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
and masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
as biologically determined
Biological determinism
Biological determination is the interpretation of humans and human life from a strictly biological point of view, and it is closely related to genetic determinism...
categories opens the way towards an equitable society for both men and women.
The male and female dichotomy of polar opposites with the former oppressing the latter at all times is refuted in the Indian context because it was men who initiated social reform movements
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
against various social evils. Patriarchy is just one of the hierarchies. Relational hierarchies between women within the same family are more adverse. Here women are pitted against one another. Not all women are powerless at all times. Caste-community identities intensify all other hierarchies. The polytheistic
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...
provides revered images of women as unique and yet complementary to those of male deities
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
.
There have been intense debates within the Indian women's movements about the relationship between Western and Indian feminisms. Many Indian feminists simultaneously claim a specific “Indian” sensitivity as well as an international feminist solidarity with groups and individuals worldwide. The rise of liberal feminism in the West in the 1970s focused deeply on demands for equal opportunities in education and employment, as well as ending violence against women. To a large extent, the emerging feminist movement in India was influenced by Western ideals. These called for education and equal rights, but also adapted their appeals to local issues and concerns, such as dowry-related violence against women, Sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
, sex selective abortion and custodial rape. Some Indian feminists have suggested that these issues are not specifically “Indian” in nature but rather a reflection of a wider trend of patriarchal oppression of women.
History
Unlike the Western feminist movement, India’s movement was initiated by men, and later joined by women.The efforts of these men included abolishing sati, which was a widow's death by burning on her husband's funeral pyre, the custom of child marriage, abolishing the disfiguring of widows, banning the marriage of upper caste Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
widows, promoting women’s education, obtaining legal rights for women to own property, and requiring the law to acknowledge women’s status by granting them basic rights in matters such as adoption.
The 19th century was the period that saw a majority of women's issues come under the spotlight and reforms began to be made. Much of the early reforms for Indian women were conducted by men. However, by the late 19th century they were joined in their efforts by their wives, sisters, daughters, protegees and other individuals directly affected by campaigns such as those carried out for women's education. By the late 20th century, women gained greater autonomy through the formation of independent women's own organizations. By the late thirties and forties a new narrative began to be constructed regarding "women's activism". This was newly researched and expanded with the vision to create 'logical' and organic links between feminism and Marxism, as well as with anti-communalism and anti-casteism, etc. The Constitution of India did guarantee 'equality between the sexes,' which created a relative lull in women's movements until the 1970s.
During the formative years of women's rights movements, the difference between the sexes was more or less taken for granted in that their roles, functions, aims and desires were different. As a result, they were not only to be reared differently but treated differently also. Over the course of time, this difference itself became a major reason for initiating women's movements. Early 19th century reformers argued that the difference between men and women was no reason for the subjection of women in society. However, later reformers were of the opinion that indeed it was this particular difference that subjugated women to their roles in society, for example, as mothers. Therefore, there was a need for the proper care of women's rights. With the formation of women's organizations and their own participation in campaigns, their roles as mothers was again stressed but in a different light: this time the argument was for women's rights to speech, education and emancipation. However, the image of women with the mother as a symbol underwent changes over time - from an emphasis on family to the creation of an archetypal mother figure, evoking deep, often atavistic images.
First phase: 1850–1915
The colonial venture into modernityModernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
brought concepts of democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, equality
Equality before the law
Equality before the law or equality under the law or legal egalitarianism is the principle under which each individual is subject to the same laws....
and individual rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
. The rise of the concept of nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and introspection of discriminatory practices brought about social reform movements related to caste and gender relations. This first phase of feminism in India was initiated by men to uproot the social evils of sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
(widow immolation), to allow widow remarriage, to forbid child marriage, and to reduce illiteracy, as well as to regulate the age of consent and to ensure property rights through legal intervention. The 'women question' was first mainly raised by upper caste Hindu men in the early part of the nineteenth century. This move addressed issues such as the education of women, remarriage of widows and even included campaigns against the Hindu practice of Sati, or burning of Hindu women at their husbands’ funeral pyres. In addition to this, some upper caste Hindu women rejected constraints they faced under Brahminical traditions. However, efforts for improving the status of women in Indian society were somewhat thwarted by the late nineteenth century, as nationalist movements emerged in India. These movements resisted ‘colonial interventions in gender relations’ particularly in the areas of family relations. In the mid to late nineteenth century, there was a national form of resistance to any colonial efforts made to ‘modernize’ the Hindu family. This included the Age of Consent controversy that erupted after the government tried to raise the age of marriage for women.
Second Phase: 1915–1947
During this period the struggle against colonial rule intensified. Nationalism became the pre-eminent cause. Claiming Indian superiority became the tool of cultural revivalism resulting in an essentializing model of Indian womanhood similar to that of VictorianVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
womanhood: special yet separated from public space. Gandhi legitimized and expanded Indian women’s public activities by initiating them into the non-violent civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
movement against the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. He exalted their feminine roles of caring, self-abnegation, sacrifice and tolerance; and carved a niche for those in the public arena. Women-only organizations like All India Women's Conference (AIWC) and the National Federation of Indian Women
National Federation of Indian Women
National Federation of Indian Women is the women's wing of Communist Party of India. It was established in 1954 by several leaders including Aruna Asaf Ali....
(NFIW) emerged. Women were grappling with issues relating to the scope of women’s political participation, women’s franchise, communal awards, and leadership roles in political parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
.
The 1920s was a new era for Indian women and is defined as ‘feminism’ that was responsible for the creation of localized women’s associations. These associations emphasized women’s education issues, developed livelihood strategies for working class women, and also organized national level women’s associations such as the All India Women’s Conference. AIWC was closely affiliated with the Indian National Congress. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, it worked within the nationalist and anti-colonialist freedom movements. This made the mass mobilization of women an integral part of Indian nationalism. Women therefore were a very important part of various nationalist and anti-colonial efforts, including the civil disobedience movements in the 1970s.
After independence, the All India Women’s Conference continued to operate and in 1954 the Indian Communist Party formed its own women’s wing known as the National Federation of Indian Women. However, feminist agendas and movements became less active right after India’s 1947 independence, as the nationalist agendas on nation building took precedence over feminist issues.
Women’s participation in the struggle for freedom developed their critical consciousness about their role and rights in independent India. This resulted in the introduction of the franchise and civic rights of women in the Indian constitution. There was provision for women’s upliftment through affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
, maternal health and child care provision (crèche
Day care
Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family...
s), equal pay for equal work etc. The state adopted a patronizing role towards women. Women in India did not have to struggle for basic rights as did women in the West. The utopia ended soon when the social and cultural ideologies and structures failed to honor the newly acquired concepts of fundamental rights and democracy.
Feminism: Post-1947
Post independence feminists began to redefine the extent to which women were allowed to engage in the workforce. Prior to independence, most feminists accepted the sexual divide within the labor force. However, feminists in the 1970s challenged the inequalities that had been established and fought to reverse them. These inequalities included unequal wages for women, relegation of women to 'unskilled' spheres of work, and restricting women as a reserve army for labor. In other words, the feminists' aim was to abolish the free service of women who were essentially being used as cheap capital. Feminist class-consciousness also came into focus in the 1970s, with feminists recognizing the inequalities not just between men and women but also within power structures such as caste, tribe, language, religion, region, class etc. This also posed as a challenge for feminists while shaping their overreaching campaigns as there had to be a focus within efforts to ensure that fulfilling the demands of one group would not create further inequalities for another. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the focus of the Indian feminist movement has gone beyond treating women as useful members of society and a right to parity, but also having the power to decide the course of their personal lives and the right of self-determination.Issues
Despite “on-paper” advancements, many problems still remain which inhibit women from fully taking advantage of new rights and opportunities in India. For example, India’s constitution states that women are a “weaker section” of the population, and therefore need assistance to function as said equals.There are many traditions and customs that have been an important part of Indian culture for hundreds of years. Religious laws and expectations, or “personal laws” enumerated by each specific religion, often conflict with the Indian Constitution, eliminating rights and powers women should legally have. Despite these crossovers in legality, the Indian government does not interfere with religion and the personal laws they hold. Religions, like Hinduism, call for women to be faithful servants to God and their husbands. They have a term called pativrata that describes a wife who has accepted service and devotion to her husband and her family as her ultimate religion and duty. Indian society is highly composed of hierarchical systems within families and communities. These hierarchies
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
can be broken down into age, sex, ordinal position, kinship relationships (within families), and caste, lineage, wealth, occupations, and relationship to ruling power (within the community). When hierarchies emerge within the family based on social convention and economic need, girls in poorer families suffer twice the impact of vulnerability and stability. From birth, girls are automatically entitled to less; from playtime, to food, to education, girls can expect to always be entitled to less than their brothers. Girls also have less access to their family’s income and assets, which is exacerbated among poor, rural Indian families. From the start, it is understood that females will be burdened with strenuous work and exhausting responsibilities for the rest of their lives, always with little to no compensation or recognition.
India is also a patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
society, which, by definition, describes cultures in which males as fathers or husbands are assumed to be in charge and the official heads of households. A patrilineal
Patrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
system governs the society, where descent and inheritance are traced through the male line and men are generally in control of the distribution of family resources.
These traditions and ways of Indian life have been in effect for so long that this type of lifestyle is what women have become accustomed to and expect. Indian women often do not take full advantage of their constitutional rights because they are not properly aware or informed of them. Women also tend to have poor utilization of voting rights because they possess low levels of political awareness and sense of political efficacy. Women are not often encouraged to become informed about issues. Due to this, political parties do not invest much time in female candidates because there is a perception that they are a "wasted investment."
The female-to-male ratio in India is 933 to 1000, showing that there are numerically fewer women in the country than men. This is due to several factors, including infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
s, most commonly among female infants, and the poor care of female infants and childbearing women. Although outlawed, infanticides are still highly popular in rural India, and are continuing to become even more prominent. This is due to the fact, most especially in rural areas, that families cannot afford female children because of the dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
they must pay when their daughter gets married. Like infanticide, the payment of dowry is also illegal
Dowry law in India
Payment of a dowry, gift—often financial, has a long history in many parts of the world. In India, the payment of a dowry was prohibited in 1961 under Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code were enacted to make it easier for the wife to seek...
, but is still a frequent and prevalent occurrence in rural India. Women are considered to be “worthless” by their husbands if they are not “able” to produce a male child, and can often face much abuse if this is the case.
Birth Ratio
Between the years of 1991 to 2001, the female-male ratio of the population of India fell from 94.5 girls per 100 boys to 92.7 girls per 100 boys. Some parts of the country, such as KeralaKerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, did not experience such a decline, but in the richer Indian states of Punjab, Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
, Gujarat, and Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, the female-male ratio fell very sharply (the female-male ratios in these states were between 79.3 and 87.8). This is evidence of natality inequality, and an indication that sex-selective abortion
Sex-selective abortion
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the baby. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children, especially in parts of People's Republic of China, India,...
has become more pervasive. The Indian parliament has banned the use of sex determination techniques for fetuses due to this, but enforcement of this law has been largely ignored.
Marriage
Most of the average Indian woman's life is spent in marriage; many women are still married before the legal age of 18, and the incidence of non-marriage is low in India. Childbearing and raising children are the priorities of early adulthood for Indian women. Thus, if they enter the workforce at all, it is far later than Indian men. Urban Indian men reach the peak of their labor force participation between the ages of 25 and 29, while urban Indian women do so between the ages of 40 and 44. Because of this, women have less time for the acquisition of skills and fewer opportunities for job improvements.There is a poor representation of women in the Indian workforce. Females have a ten percent higher drop-out rate than males from middle and primary schools, as well as lower levels of literacy than men. Since unemployment is also high in India, it is easy for employers to manipulate the law, especially when it comes to women, because it is part of Indian culture for women not to argue with men. Additionally, labor unions are insensitive to women’s needs. Women also have to settle for jobs that comply with their obligations as wives, mothers, and homemakers.
Hindu feminism
In the HinduHindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
religion, there has been partial success in terms of gender equality reform laws and family law. While this is a major advancement relative to other religions in India, it is still not a complete triumph in terms of feminism and relieving oppression. Gandhi came up with the term stree shakti for the concept of womanhood. In the Hindu religion, Gods are not exclusively male. Hinduism sheds a positive light on femininity; females are considered to compliment and complete their male counterparts. It is important to note that the deities of both knowledge and wealth are female.
There has been some criticism from Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
groups that Indian feminism tends to represent “upper caste” and upper class Hindu women, while ignoring and marginalizing the interests of Dalit women. Debates on caste and gender oppression have been furthered by Other Backward Class
Other Backward Class
The Central Government of India classifies some of its citizens based on their social and economic condition as Scheduled Caste , Scheduled Tribe , and Other Backward Class . The OBC list presented by the commission is dynamic and will change from time to time depending on social, educational and...
(OBC) members of different political parties, arguing in state assemblies that “lower caste” women's interests are best represented by women from these castes. Working towards this end, women within Dalit castes have formed organizations such as the All India Dalit Women's Forum and the National Federation of Dalit Women and Dalit Solidarity, which focus on the gendered implications of caste based violence and oppression, such as the ways in which Dalit women suffer from urban poverty and displacement.
Muslim feminism
The Hindu and Muslim communities in India were treated differently by the government in that separate types of concessions were made for each community in order to accommodate their separate religious laws and regulations. The case of Shah Bano begun in 1985 was one such example of Rajiv GandhiRajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...
attempting to make "concessions" for the Muslim community to in turn secure support for the Congress. Shah Bano, a 73-year-old Muslim woman, was divorced by her husband after forty-three years of marriage. According to the Sharia or Muslim Law, her husband was not required to pay her alimony. Shah Bano challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled in her favor and ordered her husband to pay her a monthly maintenance allowance. This caused chaos amongst the Muslim clerics who denounced the judgement and suggested that their religion, Islam was under attack in the country. In a fear of losing overall Muslim support, Rajiv succumbed to the pressures of the Muslim community and his own party and backed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill that overruled the Supreme Court's decision. This caused an outcry from Hindu nationalists who found the appeasement of minorities by the Congress for political purposes wrong and opportunistic.
Feminism was challenged by various minority groups for not entirely addressing the needs of minority populations. It was suggested that 'mainstream' feminism was upper caste and Hindu in its orientation and did not address the concerns of minority women. This led to the formation of the Awaaz-e-Niswaan (The Voice of Women) in 1987 in Mumbai in largely Muslim part of the city. The Muslim community itself is a marginalized section of Indian society and has experienced immense structural socio-economic discrimination, and communal violence. The community has also been subjected to personal laws that often were considered harmful to the rights of Muslim women.
Impact
Western-educated Indians introduced equalityGender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
in the early nineteenth century. However, the term did not gain meaning or become an operational principle in Indian life until the country gained independence in 1947 and adopted a democratic government. The Indian Constitution
Constitution of India
The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India. It lays down the framework defining fundamental political principles, establishes the structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions, and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens...
then granted equality, freedom from discrimination based on gender or religion, and guaranteed religious freedoms. Also, seven five-year plans
Five-Year Plans of India
The economy of India is based in part on planning through its five-year plans, which are developed, executed and monitored by the Planning Commission. The tenth plan completed its term in March 2007 and the eleventh plan is currently underway...
were developed to provide health, education, employment, and welfare to women. The sixth five-year plan even declared women “partners in development."
Employment
In general in the uneducated and rural section of the Indian society, which forms a major percentage of the total population, women are seen as economic burdens. Their contributions to productivity are mostly invisible as their familial and domestic contributions are unfairly overlooked. Indian women were contributing nearly 36 percent of total employment in agriculture and related activities, nearly 19 percent in the service sector, and nearly 12.5 in the industry sector as of the year 2000. The unfortunate reality is that the high illiteracy rate among women confines them to lower paying, unskilled jobs with less job security than men. Even in agricultural jobs where the work of men and women are highly similar, women are still more likely to be paid less for the same amount and type of work as men.However in the urban section of Indian society, women are empowered with laws such as IPC 498a which are heavily biased against the men in the society. Educated women are sometimes accused of using such laws to unleash legal terrorism on husbands by disgruntled wives.
Globalization
Feminists have focused their concerns also on the impact of globalization on women in India. Some feminists argue that globalization has led to economic changes that have raised more social and economical challenges for women, particularly for working class and lower caste women. Multinational companies in India have been seen to exploit the labor of ‘young, underpaid and disadvantaged women’ in free trade zones and sweat shops, and use ‘Young lower middle class, educated women,’ in call centers. These women have few effective labor rights or rights to unified action.In addition to this, these multinationals are seen to advertise a homogenized universal image of the ideal women across the country that has led to an increase in the commodification of women’s bodies. This is also manifested in the form of nationalist pride exhibited through Indian women winning international beauty pageants. According to some feminists, such developments have offered women greater sexual autonomy and more control over their bodies. However, many other feminists feel that such commodification of female bodies has only served the purpose of feeding to male fantasies.
Education
Some of the main reasons that girls are less likely to reach optimal levels of education include the fact that girls are needed to assist their mothers at home, have been raised to believe that a life of domestic work is their destined occupation, have illiterate mothers who cannot educate their children, have an economic dependency on men, and are sometimes subject to child-marriage.In 1986, the National Policy on Education
National Policy on Education
The National Policy on Education is a policy formulated by the Government of India to promote education amongst India's people. The policy covers elementary education to colleges in both rural and urban India...
(NPE) was created in India, and the government launched the program called Mahila Samakhya
Education in India
Education in India is provided by the public sector as well as the private sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Child education is compulsory. The Nalanda University was the oldest university-system of education in the world...
, whose focus was on the empowerment of women. The program’s goal is to create a learning environment for women to realize their potential, learn to demand information and find the knowledge to take charge of their own lives. In certain areas of India, progress is being made and an increase in the enrollment of girls in schools and as teachers has begun to increase. Efforts are still being made to improve the level of education that females receive to match that of male students.
Something important to note is that educated women are becoming associated with lower fertility rates in India, and efforts are being made to spread the use of contraception
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
to uneducated Indian women.
Modernization
Modern influences are affecting the younger generations in parts of India, where girls are beginning to forgo the more traditional ways of Indian life and break gender stereotypes. In more flourishing parts of the country, the idea of “dating,” or more specifically openly dating, has come into play, and the terms “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” are being used. Some women have landed highly respectable careers, and can be seen across BollywoodBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
billboards and advertisements. However, this is not the norm throughout the country; such modernizations and the women behind them face serious resistance from anti-liberalists. The country is still severely male-dominant and unwelcoming to such movements that go against sex and gender traditions in India.
Notable Indian Feminists
- Lalithambika Antharjanam – author and social reformer whose work reflected women's roles in society.
- Barnita BagchiBarnita BagchiBarnita Bagchi is an Indian feminist and academic. She is a faculty member in Literary Studies at Utrecht University, and was previously at the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata . She was educated at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, St...
– scholar and sociologist with a focus on women's education. - Jasodhara BagchiJasodhara Bagchi- Biography :She was born in 1937 and educated at Presidency College, Kolkata, Somerville College, Oxford, and New Hall, Cambridge. The larger part of her working life was spent at Jadavpur University, where she was Professor of English...
– founder of the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur UniversityJadavpur UniversityJadavpur University , is a premier educational and research institution in India.It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake...
. - Sarala Devi ChaudhuraniSarala Devi ChaudhuraniSarala Devi Chaudhurani was the founder of the first women's organisation in India, the Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad in 1910. One of the primary goals of the organisation was to promote female education, which at that time was not well developed...
– early feminist and founder of the Bharat Stree MahamandalBharat Stree MahamandalBharat Stree Mahamandal was the first women's organisation in India founded by Sarala Devi Chaudhurani in Allahabad in 1910. One of the primary goals of the organisation was to promote female education, which at that time was not well developed...
, one of the first women's organizations in India. - Saroj Nalini DuttSaroj Nalini DuttSaroj Nalini Dutt, MBE, was an Indian feminist and social reformer.-Background:Saroj Nalini was born in her father’s country house in Bandel, near Hooghly, in Bengal. Her parents were Brajendranath De, ICS and Nagendra Nandini Dé...
– early social reformer who pioneered the formation of educational Women's Institutes in BengalBengalBengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
. - Mira Datta GuptaMira Datta GuptaMira Dattagupta was a well-known freedom fighter, social worker, educationist, politician and activist on women's issues in Calcutta, India. She was a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Bengal and then West Bengal for twenty years from 1937 to 1957, firstly representing Women's constituency in...
– activist for women's issues and one of the founding members of the All India Women's Conference. - Padma GolePadma GolePadma Gole was a Marathi poetess from Maharashtra, India. She was one of the many women from rich Indian families who were emboldened by the Gandhian movement to become feminist writers. Her poetry was heavily influenced by the writings of Ram Ganesh Gadkari, Tryambak Bapuji Thombre, and Yashwant...
– poet whose writings faithfully depicted the domestic lives of Indian middle-class women. - Devaki JainDevaki JainDevaki Jain is a feminist writer who has worked mainly in the field of feminist economics. In 2006 she was awarded the Padma Bhusan, the third highest civilian award from Government of India for her contribution to social justice and women empowerment. She is the wife of the Gandhian economist...
– founder of the Institute of Social Studies TrustInstitute of Social Studies TrustThe Institute of Social Studies Trust , a non-governmental research organization, is a leading institute involved in pioneering research on gender and development issues in India. ISST is an NGO in consultative status with United Nations Economic and Social Council .-History:ISST was registered as...
and scholar in the field of feminist economicsFeminist economicsFeminist economics broadly refers to a developing branch of economics that applies feminist lenses to economics. Research under this heading is often interdisciplinary or heterodox...
. - Brinda KaratBrinda KaratBrinda Karat is a communist politician from India, elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Communist Party of India CPI member, on 11 April 2005 for West Bengal.In 2005, she became the first woman member of the CPI Politburo...
– first woman member of the CPI(M) Politburo and former Vice President of the All India Democratic Women's AssociationAll India Democratic Women's AssociationThe All India Democratic Women's Association is the women's wing of the Communist Party of India .-History and Scope:...
(AIDWA). - Vina MazumdarVina MazumdarDr. Vina Mazumdar is an Indian academic, feminist, a pioneer in Women studies in India and a leading figure of the women’s movement in post-independence India. She was secretary of the first Committee on Status of Women in India that brought out the first report on condition of women in the...
– secretary of the first Committee on the Status of Women in India and founding Director of Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS). - Amrita PritamAmrita PritamAmrita Pritam was a Punjabi writer and poet, considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist, and the leading 20th-century poet of the Punjabi language, who is equally loved on both the sides of the India-Pakistan border, with a career spanning over six decades, she...
– first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
for literature. - Kamini RoyKamini RoyKamini Roy was a leading Bengali poet, social worker and feminist from India. She was the first woman honours graduate in India.-Early life:...
– poet, suffragette, and first woman honors graduate in India. - Manikuntala SenManikuntala SenManikuntala Sen was one of the first women to be active in the Communist Party of India. She is best known for her Bengali-language memoir Shediner Kotha , in which she describes her experiences as a woman activist during some of the most turbulent times in India's history.-Early life:Manikuntala...
– politician in the Communist Party of IndiaCommunist Party of IndiaThe Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...
whose memoir described her experiences as a woman activist. - Tarabai ShindeTarabai ShindeTarabai Shinde was a feminist activist who protested patriarchy and caste in 19th century India. She is known for her published work, Stri Purush Tulana , originally published in Marathi in 1882. The pamphlet is a critique of upper-caste patriarchy, and is often considered the first modern Indian...
– activist whose work Stri Purush Tulana is considered the first modern Indian feminist text. - Vandana ShivaVandana ShivaVandana Shiva , is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D...
– environmentalist and prominent leader of the Ecofeminist movement.
See also
- Women in IndiaWomen in IndiaThe status of women in India has been subject to many great changes over the past few millennia. From equal status with men in ancient times through the low points of the medieval period, to the promotion of equal rights by many reformers, the history of women in India has been eventful...
- Sexism in IndiaSexism in IndiaSexism in India refers to beliefs or attitudes in India that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. Discrimination and violence against women is prevalent, and sexual harassment at the workplace and lack of education continue to be identified as major...
- Women in HinduismWomen in HinduismThe role of women in Hinduism is often disputed, and positions range from equal status with men to restrictive. Hinduism is based on numerous texts, some of which date back to 2000 BCE or earlier. They are varied in authority, authenticity, content and theme, with the most authoritative being the...
- Women in IslamWomen in IslamThe study of women in Islam investigates the role of women within the religion of Islam. The complex relationship between women and Islam is defined by Islamic texts, the history and culture of the Muslim world...
- Feminist theologyFeminist theologyFeminist theology is a movement found in several religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and New Thought, to reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective...
Further Reading
- Bhasin, Kamala and Khan, Nighat Said. "Some Questions on Feminism and Its Relevance in South Asia", Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1986.
- Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. (ed.). "Feminism in India: Issues in Contemporary Indian Feminism", Kali for Women, New Delhi, 2004.
- Jain, Pratibh and Sharma, Sangeeta (ed.). "Women in Freedom Struggle: Invisible Images" in Women Images, Rawat Publication, Jaipur, 1995.
- Singh, Maina Chawla. "Feminism in India", Asian Journal of Women’s Studies. Seoul, 30 June 2004. Vol. 10, Iss. 2; 48
External links
- "Nothing to Go Back To - The Fate of the Widows of Vrindavan, India" WNN - Women News Network Nov 5, 2007