THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN MUMBAI, INDIA: HOW WOMEN IN INDIA
ORGANIZE AGAINST GENDER VIOLENCE
By
Dorothy J. Brown
B.A., The University of Calgary, 1995

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
m

GENDER STUDIES

©Dorothy J. Brown, 1998
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA

JUNE 1998

All rights reserved. This work may not be
reproduced in whole or in part,
otocopy of other means, without the permission of the author.

ABSTRACT

The nature and forms ofviolence against women arise from patriarchy- broadly defined
as a system of male dominance, legitimated within the family and society through superior rights,
privileges, authority and power. The degree to which this happens and the forms in which such
power is exercised vary between cultures and societies. The process of subordination is generally
achieved by devaluing women's contribution, while at the same time extracting significant
contribution from them. The accounts of violence against women in the following thesis
illustrate poignantly the conjunction of these processes. They also bring out the cultural
specificity of some types of violence. Some avenues available to the victims of violence are
through the courts of justice which are not immune to the prejudices of the social order and
reflect the male bias of the system.
A qualitative research design was used and data collected by doing a feminist ethnography
which included interviews, participant observation and content analysis in Mumbai, India.
What emerged from the data analysis was that in order to have an understanding of
feminism as a validation of women's diverse realities, we must have an understanding of
empowerment and how it can enhance our ability to control our own lives. Empowerment is a
political activity that can range from individual acts of political resistance to mass political
mobilization and is aimed at changing the nature and distribution of power in a society.

11

CONTENTS

Page
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
PROLOGUE:

A Story Within a Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Word About Gatekeepers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Role of the Research Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

CHAPTER 1:

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Thesis Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Searching for a Method: Finding Some Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Methods That Complement Each Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

CHAPTER II:

An Historical Background: Feminism and Nationalism in India . .. ........... . 26
Indian Women and the Freedom Movement: Choice or Subordination? . ........ 26
The Politics of Respectability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

CHAPTER ill: When Violence Becomes Political . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Understanding Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
From the Fringes to the Centre: Beginnings of a Movement ... .. ........ ... . 52
Rape Becomes an Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
The Anti-Dowry Murder Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Female Infanticide ..... ............... ..... ..... ....... ..... .. ... .. 68

Ill

CHAPTER IV: Challenging Issues of Feminism, Religion, Tradition and Gender:
Questions of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Can Feminism Tolerate Religion: Rita Tells Her Story ... ........ ... ....... 84
Communalism: Seeking an Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Legal Reform and Muslim Women .... ... ... . .... .. ...... .. .. ... ..... . 95

Sati: A Thoroughly "Modem" Tradition ..... .. ... ... ... .... . . .... .... . 100
Law, Gender and Patriarchy ... .. ............... . .. ..... ...... .... .. 104
CHAPTER V: Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
BffiLIOGRAPHY .... .· . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
APPENDIX
A Description of the Women's Organizations Interviewed .. .. ...... . ................... 124

IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would first like to thank the women in India who very generously took time out of their
busy schedules to share their lives and experiences with me. I would especially like to thank Dr.
Nita Ramaiya, Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies, Shreemati Nathibai Damodar
Thackersey Women's, who so graciously provided support and encouragement to me during my
field study in India.
It gives me great pleasure to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Marika Gosztonyi Ainley, for her never-ending support and encouragement during my entire
degree process. Dr. Ainley's expertise, intellectual support, and excellent editing skills has
contributed a great deal to the production of this thesis. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to
work with Dr. Ainley and I will take what I have learned from her into my future endeavours.
Thank you, Marika!
The support and guidance of my committee members, Dr. Fiona MacPhail and Dr. Larry
Woods, was invaluable in providing me with insightful and expert advice keeping me centered,
on track, and committed. I would also like to thank Dr. Colleen Haney for agreeing to be my
external examiner and thank you to Dr. Martha MacLeod for her professional and excellent job
in chairing the defense.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for always being there and believing in me. I
would especially like to thank my life partner, Brian for his love, support and trust. That kind
of support from family members enables me to nurture a three-fold process which includes
honouring the mind, body and spirit.

v

PROLOGUE
A Story within a Thesis
The table of contents ofthis thesis will give the reader an idea of what to expect in it; the
introduction outlines my objectives and methodology, the chapters that follow deal with specific
subjects, and the last one is a conclusion. However, in the last few years (I began this research
in 1993 ), I have lived and worked not only according to what you read in the "table of contents."
There are stories, experiences, areas of thought, changes and transitions which do not seem to
find a place anywhere within the confines of 100 pages. Therefore, the entire process of research
has, like a new pair of glasses, altered my vision, made me question some of my assumptions,
and modified my method.
In the past, research was required to be "precise," based on concrete data; objective and
neutral in approach and style, all of which made up "the scientific method". While male-stream
research has justified the use of this method, my experience, like those of most qualitative
researchers, has proven that its deliberate banishment of subjectivity reduces the process of
research to mere formal communication of facts. Such research often loses many insights and
sensitivities during the research process.

It is my belief, along with most other feminist

researchers, 1 that the role of subjectivity has to be reconsidered in social science research

Donna Haraway, "Gender for a Marxist Dictionary," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women:
The Reinvention ofNature (New York: Routledge, 1991 ), 14 7; Mary Margaret Fonow
and Judith A. Cook, eds. , Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship As Lived Research
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991 ), as well as other well
known feminist researchers such as Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock and Sandra Harding.

1

1

methodology so that we, as academic researchers, are able to weave our experiences and
emotions into our interactions with other people. As Joan Acker, Kate Barry and Johanna
Esseveld write:
The research process becomes a dialogue between the researcher and the
researched, an effort to explore and clarify the topic under discussion, to clarify and
expand understanding; both are assumed to be individuals who reflect upon their
experience and who can communicate those reflections. This is inherent in the situation;
neither the subjectivity of the researcher nor the subjectivity of the researched can be
eliminated in the process. 2
Awareness of subjectivity and context must be part of 'doing research' 3 because they
cannot be eliminated. We come to the people we study with our particular personal and social
backgrounds and with our inevitable interests. If we acknowledge them, we can try to understand
the world, so to speak, from the inside instead of pretending to be objective outsiders looking in.
Who I am and why I happen to be writing about feminists in India is very much a part of the
research process. 4

2

Joan Acker, Kate Barry, and Johanna Esseveld, "Objectivity and Truth: Problems in
Doing Feminist Research," in Mary Margaret Fonow and Judith A. Cook, Beyond
Methodology, 140.
3

When we speak of"doing research," we make it obvious that these are human activities
which involve intentional activity as described by Roxanna Ng, in "Sex, Ethnicity or Class:
Some Methodological Considerations," Studies in Sexual Politics 1, 184. Speaking in this
way allows us to emphasize that doing research is an activity which takes place "in a
specific time and place and is engaged in by a specifically located individual, with a
specific background, in a specific situation, for a particular series of ends. Edward Said,
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the
World (New York: Pantheon Books,1981), 156.

4

Reflexivity (awareness of what one is doing and why) has more recently been discussed
and theorized as the practice of positioning, which is not that different from the politics of
location that gives shape to reflexivity in ethnography. George Marcus, in his paper,
"What Comes (Just) After 'Post'? The Case of Ethnography," in Norman Denzin and
2

I am a white, middle-class, able-bodied, university-educated feminist. As a white woman
in India, I was privileged by my skin colour. As a middle-class woman, I was privileged by having
access to resources. As able-bodied, I was privileged by my ability to travel freely without many
restraints. Finally, as university-educated, I was privileged by having access to an academic
power base which gave me credibility. As a feminist, I was privileged by the historical dominance
of First World feminist theories and perspectives.
Given the above information, how do I, as a First World feminist, situate myself in order
to present and discuss my research derived from the interviews I conducted in India? Charlotte
Bunch once said, "[W]e are those biological, social, political, and economic givens that determine
the objective conditions of our lives; we are the various individual traits and skills that make us
distinct; we are what we do with and think about our givens and traits." 5 As she suggests, our
skin colour, our class level, education and theory base have intricately shaped our identities. My

Yvonne Lincoln's Handbook of Qualitative Research (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Publications, 1994) says that, "positioning (of standpoint epistemologies) as a practice in
feminism is most committed to the situatedness and partiality of all claims to knowledge,
and hence contests the sort of essentialist notions focused on questions of gender or
'otherness' ." The ethic and practice of positioning have some negative critiques. One is
that, it is often focussed as a deeply reflexive cogitation upon a relationship that produces
ethnography. See Judith Stacey's "Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?" in Shema
Gluck and Daphne Patai, eds., Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History
(New York: Routledge 1991). More particularly, a critique of the practice of positioning
oneself in the text comes from Donna Haraway, who says that, "while potentially a
practice of key importance, all too often it becomes a gesture that is enforced by
politically correct convention." See Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledges: The Science
Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and
Women: The Reinvention ofNature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 183-201.
5

Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1987), 83.

3

identity, based on these factors clearly provided me with a privileged status, and created a
particular dynamic, that manifested itself in my relations with women in India.
Many problems occurred during the course of my field work and some of them caused
my research to be delayed by one month. My accommodations at Shreemati Nathibai Damodar
Thackersey Women's University in Bombay were changed from a private room with a bath to
a dormitory style room, sharing a bathroom with 60 other students. 6 This meant that I had
limited access to water and some days there was no water at all! Electricity failure is a common
problem in India and, as I found out, it comes at the most inopportune times. Having
experienced electricity problems while studying at the University ofPune in 1993, I brought with
me, for this field study, the biggest candle I could find.7 It was about twelve inches tall and four
inches in diameter and every time I lit it, it drew a large crowd of curious "hostelites"8 who had
never seen such an extravagant use of a provision. Because ofthis, I gave up using the candle
and when the power went out, joined the rest of the hostelites in their favourite "power-failure"
pastime of singing together in a group. Travel was another problem as buses and trains were
very crowded and sometimes it took several unanticipated hours to reach my destination, arriving
past the time I had scheduled for the interview. Personal health was, however, my main problem
because it seemed that no matter how careful I was with my hygiene, I got ill at least once a
month.

6

Hereafter called S.N.D.T. Women's University.

7

The old western concept that "bigger" is "better!"
The women staying at S.N.D.T. Women's hostel refer to themselves as "hostelites."

8

4

A WORD ABOUT GATEKEEPERS9
The problem of obtaining access to the data I needed in order to conduct my field study
was solved by acquiring a gatekeeper. Knowing who had the power to open up or block access,
or who consider themselves and are considered by others to have the authority to grant or refuse
access is important. Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson say that:
[s]eeking the permission of gatekeepers or the support of sponsors is often an
unavoidable first step in gaining access to the data. And the relationship established with
such people can have important consequences for the subsequent course of the research
... even the most friendly and co-operative of gatekeepers or sponsors will shape the
conduct and development of the research. 10
In my case, I knew something about the environment as I had done a preliminary study
in 1995. It was then that I had met Dr. Nita Ramaiya, Director of the Canadian Studies
Programme at S.N.D. T. Women's University at Churchgate Campus. Dr. Ramaiya provided me
with valuable access to people and institutions. She constructed me as "one of her PhD students"
and also as a "bona fide" academic. She elevated my credentials as necessary to allow me to get
my data, bending rules where she could and making allowances where necessary. This enabled
me to live at the Women's Hostel at the Churchgate Campus, to access the university libraries at
both campuses, use their data bases and to affiliate with other universities as needed. She also
used her influence to encourage other academics to make time for me and to invite me along to
their various seminars and conferences. As Martyn Hammersley again explains, "gatekeepers,

9

By gatekeepers I mean actors with control over key sources and avenues of opportunity.
Such gatekeepers exercise control at and during key phases of the research process.
Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice (London
and New York: Routledge, 1995), 34.

10

Ibid., 75.
5

sponsors and the like (indeed, most of the people who act as hosts to the research) will operate
in terms of expectations about the ethnographer' s identity and intentions."''
Mrs. Mungal, the Women' s Hostel Superintendent, was also a valuable gatekeeper. She
provided enormous assistance relative to my accommodations. While she initially advised that
I would be required to adhere to the hostel curfew of 8:00p.m., she saw to it that on occasion
these rules were overlooked in a way that was not offensive to the other "inmates."

12

Given that

many ofmy interviews, meetings, and dinners with activists were held in the evening, and the fact
that travel could take more than an hour each way, adhering to the curfew sometimes was
impossible. Mrs. Mungal allowed me to cook simple meals in my room, which was strictly
forbidden to the other hostelites, as she understood my need for safe, simple food, especially
when I was not feeling well. She explained to the other students my absence at the evening meal
was due to the fact that "foreigner's stomachs were fragile and delicate, leaving them susceptible
to illness." I, in turn, did not make a big production out of this and surreptitiously shared my
coffee, instant noodles and porridge with my fellow "hostelites."
Maria Mies suggests that "separation from praxis is one ofthe most important structural
prerequisites of the academic paradigm," 13 Within academia, there are also those who act as
unofficial gatekeepers; "who these people are in terms oftheir sex, but also their academic politics

"Ibid., 77.
12

Hostelites are also n;ferred to as " inmates."

13

Maria Mies," Towards a Methodology for Feminist Research," in G. Bowles and Renate
Duelli Klein, eds., Theories of Women's Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1983),124.
6

and ideologies to which they subscribe, is consequential for feminists, indeed for women in
general." 14
My main reason to conduct a feminist ethnography in Mumbai, India, was based on

power. As an undergraduate, I realized that my professors had the power to determine which
texts would be used in my courses. My undergraduate degree was in Development Studies, my
courses contained almost no feminist theory and, indeed "Women in Development" was an add
on. Moreover, those in positions of power decided what journals and books were fit for our
libraries and what countries would be represented in those writings and who got to write for
whom. I also found out that the same "powers that be" decided who received funding for what
kind of research and what knowledge was worth legitimatizing. Information about people who
live on the margins is limited and often distorted by this kind of control.
In my experience as a Development Studies undergraduate there was hardly any discussion
of responsibility to act on what is known. We were trained as spectators and library researchers,
to 'soak up' experience, not act on it. This disdain for practical experience created a need within
me to do field work in the form of a feminist ethnography, with or without any kind of funding.
ROLE OF THE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
I arrived in Mumbai, India, 8 September, 1997 and left, 20 October, 1997. I was able to
conduct the research for this thesis in such a short period of time because I had done a
preliminary study in 1995 using the same set of methods and feminist organizations. It was now
just a matter of calling these organizations to arrange for a final interview, do some updating in

14

Liz Stanley, "Editorial Introduction," in Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and
Epistemology in Feminist Sociology (New York and London: Routledge, 1991), 5.

7

the library and documentation centres and re-establish rapport with my interviewees. I had
planned at least one month more for my research, given my previous experiences in India.
However, having employed a research assistant, my work was made easier.
I had not originally planned to hire a research assistant. However, after getting lost for an
entire day and missing an interview, I decided that I should seek assistance.

I put an

advertisement on my door in the hostel ofS.N.D.T. Women's University asking for a research
assistant, no previous experience needed, just knowledge ofHindi and the ability to move about
freely within the city with confidence and ease. After several days, Marietta Rodrigues, an MA
candidate in the Psychology programme came to my door and said she wanted the job. She
indicated that she wished to learn the technique ofinterviewing as she would be using that method
herself and wanted to gain experience. I hired her immediately as I was anxious to get on with my
work. Marietta was invaluable to me; not that she kept us from getting lost (that is usual in
Mumbai), but that she could ask for directions in several different languages. Marietta was helpful
in securing the interview with Dr. Neera Desai as I had interviewed her in 199 5 and she could not
see why I wanted to interview her again. I mentioned to her that I had a young student with me
who wanted to learn different research techniques and Dr. Desai became immediately responsive
as she was a retired professor and relished the idea of having a young, eager student to talk to.
During some interviews, Marietta asked questions that pertained to her psychology
background that were quite relevant to my research; questions that I most certainly would have
missed. She had an interesting, eager and pleasant persona that enabled the interviewee to feel
at ease in the context of having to be interviewed by a "foreigner."

8

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this thesis is to determine how women in India organize against gender
violence and to document how women's oppression 13 is explained and analysed by women
who work closely with issues of oppression and who are committed to some kind of political,
social and economic change. Part of my strategy in conducting this research is to address a
particular problem, concern, or situation; thus the research is action-oriented and political in
nature and intent in such a way that it will encourage women to tell their own stories and thus
give voice to their realities as a way of beginning to change the oppressive and constraining
conditions that still exist in the women' s movement today.
In this thesis, I also look at ways Indian women analyse existing social and feminist
theories, thus challenging essentialist notions ofThird World women' s struggles, by suggesting
a political rather than biological or cultural basis for assumptions made by men and women who
are functioning within a world-wide patriarchal system concerning women's oppression.
It is my expectation that the outcome of this thesis will produce a recognition that

feminism must be flexible, inclusive, and capable of incorporating respect for

13

This thesis will not elaborate on the various epistemological positions in feminist theory.
One of my own epistemological positions, however, recognizes that, although the
statement "all women are oppressed" is true at one level, it masks differences between
women and the ways in which differently located women can gain and exercise both
power and authority, including in relation to men.
9

difference in theory and in practice. An understanding of feminism as a validation of women's
diverse realities, experiences, knowledge, and histories, could lead us to the notion that all
women have the potential to align themselves with and participate in the resistance against gender
oppressiOn.
THESIS ORGANIZATION
Chapter One will discuss closely related topics that involve a particular set of methods,
how and why these methods were used, and what makes them particularly feminist. Chapter
Two will explore the gender dynamics ofthe political movements from which the current Indian
women's movement emerged, from both a theoretical and political angle, to demonstrate that
nationalism and feminism are gendered processes. Chapter Three will provide an overview of
the campaigns against violence that can be traced to the post-Emergency period (1977) when
civil liberties groups, progressive organizations and political parties brought to light the numerous
instances of violence against women in India. Chapter Four will discuss questions of identity
which will lead to some answers as to why violence against women has not been eradicated, but
has increased in India, as elsewhere, even after the implementation oflegal provisions. Chapter
Five is not a conclusion in the sense that the struggle against violence is a never-ending process.
However, the task for the academic researcher, studying women's movements, is to develop
different approaches, perspectives and methods which will bring out patriarchal relations
underlying violence against women.

10

SEARCHING FOR A METHOD: Finding Some Definitions
What is feminist research and what makes my research feminist and different from other
research? To find some answers, I sought out the feminists who were writing about feminist
research, to see ifl could find a definition that would fit my research project which involved
travelling to India to conduct a field study on the feminist movement in Mumbai, India.
Shulamit Reinharz has identified feminist research as follows: it may be transdisciplinary,
aims to create social change, strives to represent human diversity, and includes the researcher
as a person. In addition, she states that "feminist research frequently attempts to develop special
relations with the people studied (in interactive research) and frequently defines a special relation
with the reader." 14
Liz Stanley, and Sue Wise writes that first, "feminist research was defined as a focus on
women, in research carried out by women who were feminist, for other women." 15 They
subsequently changed their minds regarding the notion of research on women as a separate
group:
If'sexism' is the name of the problem addressed by feminism then men are importantly
involved, to say the least, in its practice. And so we argue that, essential though research
specifically on women is, feminist research must not become confined to this. Feminist
research must be concerned with all aspects of social reality and all participants in it. It

Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 240.

14

15

Liz Stanley and Sue Wise, "Method, Methodology and Epistemology in Feminist
Research Processes," in Liz Stanley, ed. Feminist Praxis: Research, Theory and
Epistemology in Feminist Sociology (London: Routledge, 1990), 21.

11

seems obvious to us that any analysis of women's oppression must involve research on
the part played by men in this. 16
Maria Mies goes even further when she states that "research, which so far has been
largely the instrument of dominance and legitimation of power elites, must be brought to serve
the interests of dominated, exploited and oppressed groups." 17
I was even more influenced by the writings of two Canadian scholars, Sandra Kirby and
Kate McKenna, because they describe their methods as being based on" the belief that we must
include our own experience and understanding as part of doing research." Sandra Kirby and
Kate McKenna ask us to be an "active seeker of information," and to "invest part of ourselves
in the process of creating that information." They discuss research from the margins and say
that, "when we talk about doing research from the margins we are talking about being on the
margins ofthe production ofknowledge. In researching from the margins we ate concerned with
how research skills can enable people to create knowledge that will describe,
explain and help change the world in which we live." 18
Sandra Kirby and Kate McKenna describe the process of research from the margins
which involves two interrelated processes; it requires an "authentic dialogue between all
participants in the research process in which all are respected as equally knowing subjects," and

Liz Stanley and Sue Wise, Breaking Out Again: Feminist Ontology and Epistemology
(London and New York: Routeledge, 1983), 31.

16

17

Maria Mies, "Towards a methodology for feminist research." In G. Bowles and R. Duelli
Klein, eds., Theories of Women's Studies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983),
123.

18

Sandra Kirby and Kate McKenna, Experience, Research, Social Change: Methods from
the Margins (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1989), 17.
12

it requires an "analysis of the social context which involves an examination ofthe social reality
in which people exist." 19
Feminist qualitative research assumes the inter-subjectivity between the researcher and
participant and, therefore, the mutual production of data. Virginia Olesen explains that in a
certain sense: "participants are always 'doing' research, for they, along with the researchers,
constructthe meanings that become 'data' for later interpretation by the researcher. 20 Liz Stanley
maintains that there is a key problem within social science as to how to understand intersubjectivity. As she explains, "the fact that in spite of our ontological distinctness none the less
we assume we can, and indeed we do, 'share experiences' such that we recognise ourselves in
others and they in us and can speak of 'common experiences' ... because inter-subjectivity is
possible, we all produce theoretical descriptions of the social world which can be tested out
against it."21

The most important piece of information I gathered while looking for a way to

do feminist research, is that feminist researchers deal with dilemmas that have no absolute
solutions. 22 My research will not promise to solve individual women's problems in India, nor
will it provide a formula for dealing with women's problems in general. Instead, my intention

19

Ibid., 34.

20

Virginia Olesen, "Feminisms and Methods of Qualitative Research," Handbook of
Qualitative Research, 166.

21

Liz Stanley and Sue Wise, Feminist Praxis, 23.

22

Sue Wilkinson, "Sighting Possibilities: Diversity and Commonality in Feminist Research,"
in Sue Wilkinson, ed., Feminist Social Psychology: Developing Theory and Practice
(Philadelphia, PA: Open University,l986), 7-24; Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah,
The Issues at Stake: theory and practise in the contemporary women's movement in
India (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1992), 322-325.
13

is to provide a detailed coverage and analysis of the women's movement in Mumbai, so as to
present a discussion of ideas and the complex relationships among them. The implications ofthis
research, I hope, will generate further discussions on the nature and fonns of violence against
women which stem from patriarchy - broadly defined as a system of male dominance,
legitimated within the family and society through superior rights, privileges, authority, and power.
The degree to which this happens and the fonns in which such power is exercised vary between
cultures and societies. Therefore, my research is embedded in this particular context and is set
forth in tenns of specific social constructions that involve my interactions with other people.
In developing my research approach, I wanted to base it on the experiences I had in
studying Indian women's efforts to end violence against women and to create democratic and
action-oriented, feminist organizations. Being involved in this type of research has allowed me
to focus my attention on empowennent as a strategy for contributing to social action, and study
a group of women who are engaged in 'doing' participatory action research. 23 Patti Lather
writes, "I use empowennent to mean analysing ideas about the causes of powerlessness,
recognizing systemic oppressive forces, and acting both individually and collectively to change
the conditions of our lives. Empowennent is a process one undertakes for oneself; it is not
something done 'to' or 'for' someone."24

23

Participatory action research seeks to create usable knowledge by involving the
researched as researchers in social analysis and action. The Society for Participatory
Research in Asia, states, "Participatory Research implies an effort on the part of the
people to understand the role of knowledge as a significant instrument of power and
control." Peter Reason, "Three Approaches to Participative Inquiry," in Handbook of
Qualitative Research, 328.

24

Patti Lather, Getting Smart: Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern.
(New York: Routledge, 1991), 4.
14

The above description of research as empowerment will go through a process of
redefinition in this thesis until it is again reworked in the conclusion.
METHODSTHATCONWLEMENTEACHOTHER
For the purpose of clarification and to settle some divergent views on the existence and
acceptability of"feminist methodology," I provide some helpful interpretations in this chapter.
Sandra Harding suggests that we see "method" as a technique or specific set of research
practices, such as interviews, ethnography, participant observation, and content analysis. 25
Shulamit Reinharz indicates that ethnography is multi-method research. It usually relies
substantially on participant observation, and also uses techniques such as interviews and content
analysis. 26 Although Sandra Harding and Shulamit Reinharz disagree somewhat in their
definition of ethnography, I have used both, along with Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson,
in order to produce a more meaningful explanation as to what ethnography really suggests. I am
using the term ethnography to indicate a research tool to collect data, as well as an approach to
a research study.
An ethnography uses a particular set of methods that permits the researcher to

participate, overtly or covertly, in people's lives for a period of time, "watching what happens,
listening to what is said, asking questions and collecting whatever data is available to shed light

25

Sandra Harding, "Introduction: Is There a Feminist Methodology?" in Feminism and
Methodology (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1987), 1-14.

26

Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research, 46.
15

on the issues that are the focus of the research. " 27 Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson say
that ethnography has a "strong emphasis on exploring the nature of particular social phenomena,
rather than setting out to test hypothesis about them . . . a tendency to work with primarily
'unstructured' data ... investigates a small number of cases, maybe just one," and the analysis
ofthe data involves "explicit interpretation of the meanings and functions ofhuman actions, the
product of which mainly takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations, with
quantification and statistical analysis playing a subordinate role. " 28
The interpretation of participant observation is less controversial than ethnography;
however, its "meaning is no less easier to pin down." Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson
argue that all social research is a form of participant observation, "because we cannot study the
social world without being a part of it ... and from this point of view participant observation is
not a particular research technique but a mode of being-in-the-world characteristic of
researchers. " 29 The epistemology of participant observation rests on the principle of interaction
and the "reciprocity of perspectives" between social actors. The rhetoric is thus egalitarian,
"observer and observed as inhabitants of a shared social and cultural field, their respective
cultures different but equal, and capable ofmutual recognition by virtue of a shared humanity. " 30
The ethnographic method appealed to me because I wanted to do a participant27

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice (London:
Routledge, 1995), 1.

28

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, "Ethnography and Participant Observation,"
Handbook of Qualitative Research, 248.

2

'i_Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography, 1-2.

30

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Handbook of Qualitative Research, 256.
16

observation study that would bring forth women's voices and interpret their lives in their own
words. Judith Stacey explains further the positive effects of ethnography:
Like a good deal of feminism, ethnography emphasised the experiential. Its approach to
knowledge was contextual and interpersonal-- therefore attentive, like most women, to
the concrete realm of everyday reality and human agency. Moreover, because in
ethnographic studies the researcher herself was the primary medium, the "instrument"
of research, this method drew on those resources of empathy, connection, and concern
that many feminists considered to be women's special strengths and that, they argued,
should be germinal in feminist research. Ethnographic method also appeared to provide
much greater respect for and power to one's research "subjects" who, some feminist
proposed, could and should become full collaborators in feminist research. 31
An ethnographic study seemed to me to deal with the problem that Ann Oakley has

identified in her article, "Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms." Oakley rejects the
hierarchical, objectifying, and falsely "objective" stance ofthe neutral, impersonal interviewer
as neither "possible nor desirable," arguing that meaningful feminist research depends instead on
"empathy and commonality."32 Shulamit Reinharz argues that the problems of experiential
fieldwork "seem minor in comparison with the quality of relations that I develop with people
involved in the study and the quality of the understanding that emerges from those relations. " 33
Judith Stacey writes that she asked her question, "Can there be a feminist ethnography?,"
as a response to Ann Oakley's paper, "Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms." Stacey

says that she perceives the dual contradiction between feminist ethics and methods to be true:

31

Judith Stacey, "Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?" in Shema Gluck's and Daphne
Patai, eds., Women's Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History (New York and
London: Routledge 1991), 112.

32

Anne Oakley, "Interviewing women: a contradiction in terms," in Helen Roberts, ed.,
Doing Feminist Research (New York: Routledge, 1992), 30-61.

33

Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research, 74.

17

"I find myself wondering whether the appearance of greater respect for and equality with
research subjects in the ethnographic approach masks a deeper, more dangerous form of
exploitation." Her major concern with ethnography is that, "no matter how welcome, even
enjoyable, the field-worker's presence may appear, fieldwork represents an intrusion and
intervention into a system ofrelationships, a system of relationships that the researcher is far freer
than the researched to leave. The inequality and potential treacherousness of this relationship
is inescapable." 34
My own experience, grappling with the problem of intrusion, occurred in 1993 when I
began a preliminary field study for the purpose of gaining a rapport with my interviewees. At
the time, I was attending one of the weekly meetings of The Forum Against the Oppression of

Women in Mumbai, India. My intention was to attend enough regular meetings in order to gain
some knowledge as to what issues Mumbai feminists were working on and how they were
strategizing against these issues. During these meetings, I was welcomed cordially and asked not
to take any notes,j ust listen. I complied and settled down politely to observe what was going on
but I noticed a shift in the conversation and felt some general discomfort among the members.
Finally one member asked to stop the meeting to have a group consensus to discuss the shift in
dynamics. It became clear that some members were annoyed with my presence because it meant
that they had to switch to English to accommodate me, and they were not comfortable with
sharing their feelings in English. Another member came forward to say that -she felt uneasy
because they had spent several weeks trying to encourage an indigenous woman who only spoke
Marathi to attend their meetings and when she finally agreed, they were conducting the meeting

34

Judith Stacey, Women's Words, 113.

18

m English because they had a visitor from Canada. In the end, they returned to speaking
Marathi and asked me to "take my leave."
From that day on, I made a conscious decision that my graduate ethnographic field study
would be conducted in such a way that would minimize the exploitation of the subaltern (a
person without power and therefore without voice). 35 After returning to Canada and agonizing
over what methods would be useful in order to achieve this commitment, I decided to study

feminists who were forming organizations and conducting participatory action research with
marginalized groups and not to interview the women who are forced to live standards that are
not made for them.36
Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson point out some flaws with traditional
ethnographic research because it embodies a hierarchical relationship between researcher and
researched. It is the researcher who makes the decisions as to what to study and how to study
it, and whose voice is represented in the written ethnography. They say thatthere has been a call
for more "collaborative research," and they can see a need for research to "contribute to the

35

I have borrowed the term subaltern from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and use it in this
instance to iJlustrate my power, as a white, academic woman from the First World in
silencing the voice of (in this case) an indigenous woman, thereby rendering her input
into a group meeting inconsequential. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern
Speak?" in Gary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation
ofCulture, (Urbana and Chicago: University oflllinois Press, 1988), 271-313.

36

What constitutes and validates knowledge and what the relationship is or should be
between, who can be the knower and what can be known, is an epistemological concern
that I have addressed here, using feminist standpoint epistemology. I try to theorize~ to
think through in a cognitive way what the world looks like from the point of view of the
women who don't fit in it. My decision to use feminist standpoint theory is an effort to
come to terms with the world in a kind of conspicuous way where I start my analytical
work, but I might not finish it there, from a point of view of some who are forced to live
standards that are not made for them.
19

political struggles of oppressed groups, not merely the working class, but also women, ethnic
minorities, the disabled, and so on." 37
The differences between participant observation and interviewing are not as great as one
might think. In both cases we must take account of context and ofthe effects of the researcher.
There are other parallels as well. Thus, both the participant observer and the interviewer need
to build a rapport. In my case, as I had already established a relationship with my interviewees
and with the help of my gatekeeper, Dr. Nita Ramaiya, little further work was necessary.
During my 1997 field work, I interviewed members of three feminist organizations, (for
more details see Appendix A). I also conducted five interviews with women who did not want
to be identified with any particular organization. I selected all of them on the grounds of their
basic goal of promoting change in society, the issues they have taken up, their geographical
location, as well as the type of work they were involved in. Before the actual interviews, I
described to the women the various methods used to collect my data, situated myself within the
context, explained that I agonized over which methods to use and if they were "feminist," and
provided them with some definitions.
The interview process was more beneficial to me than I had anticipated, unfolding a
process that was both sequential and inherent. I used semi-structured interviews, a research
approach whereby I asked questions about a given topic but allowed the conversation itself to
determine how the information (or data gathering process) was obtained. 38

This type of

interviewing permitted me to explore women's views ofreality revealing their own significant

37

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Handbook of Qualitative Research, 253-254.

38

Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods In Social Research, note 2, 280-281.
20

issues and concerns regarding the feminist movement in Mumbai. Ann Oakley said that,
"feminist-based interviewing requires openness, emotional engagement, and the development of
a potentially long term, trusting relationship between the interviewer and the subject. " 39 I found
that by developing a rapport with my interviewees, that dates back to 1993 when I first met some
of them, helped me considerably in the fall of 1997 when I returned to do the field study for this
thesis.40
Each interview led me to further investigation. For instance, Laxmi Menon from Akshara:

A Women's Resource Centre, suggested that I interview her sister, JayaMenon, a feminist lawyer
who was working on women' s issues commissioned by the Peace and Justice Commission. My
host, Dr. NitaRamaiya, at S.N.D.T. Women ' s University, sent me to interview Dr. NeeraDesai,
a retired professor from the Sociology Department and who was part of the freedom movement
during the 1930s and 1940s in India. Talking to her helped me to understand the historical
background of the women' s movement in Mumbai. Dr. Neera Desai, in turn urged me to visit
Dr. Vibhuti Patel (also a retired professor from S.N .D. T. Women's University), whom I had met
previously, (in 1993 and 199 5), and who had written several articles on "women and violence."
During the course ofthe interviews I found that I was gaining valuable information from
mostly middle-class women. These were the women who, at the time, were participating in
action-oriented research. Through them I gained my perspective on women's issues in India and

39

Ann Oakley, Doing Feminist Research, 30-61.

40

By rapport, I mean the acceptance by the interviewee of the interviewer's research goals
and the interviewee's active search to help the interviewer in providing the relevant
information. Ann Oakley, Doing Feminist Research, 45.

21

learned how women struggle to work around, in, and through the sensitive issue of gender
violence.
The possibilities of the interview are realized through a shift in methodology from
information gathering, where the focus is on asking the 'right' questions, to interaction, where
the focus is on process, on the dynamic unfolding of the subject's viewpoint. 41 The interactive
nature of the interview allowed me to ask for an explanation of a certain item or a definition of
a word. The shift of focus from data gathering to interactive processes allowed me to let the
interviewee decide what is valuable information. I then extracted the information from my
transcribed tapes and used it to identify the major issues for women who actively struggle
against gender violence in India as well as their strategies towards some form of 'change' or
transformation of society.
Interviewing women in India provided me with an invaluable means of generating new
insights about women' s knowledge and experience of themselves in their own culture. The
spontaneous exchange within an interview offered me the flexibility and freedom to develop my
research data and then follow through to the next level.

This process allowed me to

systematically collect and analyse the data pertaining to whatever particular phenomenon was
present in the interview.
After the interviews were completed, I used a cross-sectional technique in the indexing of
the data and a non-cross-sectional approach in the organization ofthe data. In the cross-sectional
technique, I identified issues of violence against women that occurred in all the data, such as

41

Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack, "Learning to Listen: Interview Techniques and
Analyses," in Shema Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai, eds., Women's Words: The
Feminist Practice of Oral History (New York and London: Routledge, 1991),23.
22

rape, dowry murder and sati. These categories, then became headings and sub-headings in the
thesis text. In the non-cross-sectional approach, I was looking for more particular, rather than
common themes. For example the interview with Dr. Neera Desai became a narrative ofher life
story and from that interview, I constructed an historical background for the thesis. 42
Another part of the process in collecting data was to study a set of objects or events
systematically and interpret the themes contained in them. Shulamit Reinharz defines this type
of method as Feminist Content Analysis. 43 In my research, these products came from many
aspects ofhuman life including libraries and research centres, magazines, newspapers, fiction and
non fiction, films, and even billboards. In doing a feminist content analysis, I studied underlying
themes and stereotypes and addressed questions of theory, such as identifying the processes
through which gender is socially constructed. By studying cultural documents, I could distinguish
social norms without using interactive methods that may have affected the norms I was trying to
investigate. This technique allowed me to read about what Indian women were writing and what
they saw as pertinent in their own lives.

In addition to the above, while in India, I undertook an in-depth study of books and
articles written in English by Indian women. Some books traced the development ofthe feminist
movement and discussed the issues around which women have organized, including violence,
the right to health, strategies for legal campaigns, and labour issues. Other books told women's
life-stories, in their own words, describing their struggles and their victories.

For a more detailed explanation of sorting, organizing and indexing data, see Jennifer
Mason's Qualitative Researching (London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage
Publications, 1997).

42

43

Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods In Social Research,146.

23

J oumal articles provided me with the academic theoretical background in order to better
understand, in a general way, some of the issues currently being addressed by the women' s
movement in India. Some issues highlighted in the journals were on health, law, access to land,
and other productive resources, environmental degradation, media, rape, violence, dowry, sati,
wife battering and alcoholism.44
Articles and commentaries in popular magazines, such as Femina, Savvy, and Bombay

Dost provided me with a better understanding of issues being struggled with by middle-class
women. These included identity roles that place women as mothers, wives and daughters in
Indian society, as well as the changing dynamics of these roles.
While in India, I also read several English newspapers every day, such as The Times of

India, Indian Express, and Mid-Day News, The Hindu(Madras), and The Statesman (Delhi).
This enabled me to construct a media file on issues as they unfolded. One recurrent theme in
the newspapers, since 1993, was that relating to Section 498A ofthe Indian Penal Code, a . piece
of legislation enacted to protect women escaping from abusive households. This legislation
allowed a woman, in fear for her life, to seek police assistance. Once her complaint was
registered, the woman' s in-laws and her husband could be jailed, immediately, without bond. A
local judge in Bombay, in 1993, suggested that women were abusing this legislation and using
it as a legal loophole. This created a barrage of articles both supporting and opposing the judge' s
comments. Other important issues in the newspaper were on child labour laws, a uniform civil
code, liquor prohibition, and the ineptitude and corruption of the police.

As listed in an index of an Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Vol. XXXI, Nos. 16
and 17, April20-27, 1997.

44

24

Another important step in the research process is to go back into the past to locate the
present. Women historians have begun to explore the role of gender in the establishment and
structure of the women's movement as well as women's historical participation in protests,
demonstrations, social reform and revolutionary activity. 45 The contemporary women's
movement makes clear that gender inequality plays a major part in structuring the nature and
style of women's participation in social movements.
Chapter ll will explore gender inequality by providing an historicaVcultural background
from which the Indian Women's Movement emerged. It will show how the past has continued
relevance for the present feminist movement. My objective in Chapter ll will be to utilize
women's own accounts so I am focusing on an interview I did with Dr. Neera Desai, freedom
fighter, socialist and feminist activist. This interview was important because Dr. Desai, like
myself, feels that there is a need to focus on women's lives in order to make a contribution to
existing theories and ultimately the development of more non-sexist theories of social
movements.

45

Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India, 4.
25

CHAPTER II
AN HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: Feminism and Nationalism in India

INDIAN WOMEN AND THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT: Choice or Subordination?
... and so today I think that if we want to understand those years we have to understand
the state policy and the state policy no doubt was very progressive in terms of economic
development but in terms of philosophy, the philosophy behind Nehru's policy was
always that it is achievement for everybody just as today we want to submerge women's
issues as human issues so in a way it is progressive because then you get into a wider
circuit but there is always a danger ofbeing marginalized. So what came out ofthe earlier
years was that women's issues were not considered important or significant because it
was said that they were taken care of sooner or later. 1
The writing of women' s history in India has been vastly complicated by the legacy of
colonialism. Colonial histories have stressed the civilizing mission of the British as rescuing
Indian women from their own culture and society. These accounts tell of an ancient period when
women were held in high esteem followed by a long period when their status declined.
Historians were essentialist in their portrayal of Indian women as being devoted and selfsacrificing, yet occasionally rebellious and dangerous. This inspired the writing ofbiographies
oflndian women who were successful, educated, socially active, and concerned with freedom.
At a time when Western historians omitted the lives ofwomen from their books, Indian historians
incorporated the achievements of some innovative women. Studies of the freedom movement
generally included a chronology of women' s contribution to the struggle.2
Some of the earliest historical accounts, like the one written by M.M. Kaur, The Role

1

Neera Desai, interview by author, tape recording, Mumbai, India, 29 September 1997.

Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 1.

2

26

ofWomen in the Freedom Movement, 3 traced women' s nationalist activity from the time of the
Rani of Jhansi. 4 Kaur portrayed Indian women in the 1920s and 1930s as followers of the
Rani's legacy. Kaur, however, paid little attention to the class, caste, religious and regional
differences among the women featured or to the tensions that existed between men and women
engaged in the struggle, while Vijay Agnew focused on elite women in the nationalist
movement. 5 Other writers have questioned whether or not women gained social and civil rights
as a reward for their participation. Radha Krishna Sharma, in Nationalism, Social Reform and
Indian Women, in contrast, firmly believe that the nationalist movement brought positive
changes in the position ofwomen.6 Kumari Jayawardena disagrees. In a chapter on India in
Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, she argues that though women were heroic, they
neither rebelled against traditional roles nor protested the authority of male leaders. 7 Maria Mies
agrees with Kumari Jayawardena and depicts Indian women as willingly accepting their
subordinate role in the struggle for independence.8
Most of the books mentioned above were written in the 1970s and 1980s when serious

3

M.M.Kaur, The Role of Women in the Freedom Movement (1857-I947) , (New Delhi:
Sterling, 1968), 228-229.

4

The Rani of Jhansi was a warrior queen who fought the British in 1857.

5

Vijay Agnew, Elite Women in Indian Politics (New Delhi: Vikas 1979).

Radha Krishna Sharma, Nationalism, Social Reform and Indian Women (New Delhi:
Jahaki Prakashan,1981).

6

7

Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (New Delhi:
Kali forWomen,1986).
Maria Mies, Indian Women and Patriarchy, (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980).

8

27

work on the history of women in India was just beginning. Both European-inspired histories and
the Indian texts they cited shared a belief in a unique female ' nature.' Indian texts essentialized
women as devoted and self-sacrificing, yet occasionally rebellious and dangerous. Periodically,
Indian texts and historical narratives singled out one woman for special attention, usually because
her accomplishments were significant by male standards. Geraldine Forbes, an historian involved
in reclaiming the fading memories of women pioneers of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, claimed that, "topics that were intimately interwoven with women' s lives such as the
household, religious rituals, fertility and family size, inheritance and property rights and marriage
and divorce were largely overlooked." 9 According to Geraldine Forbes, those who wish to write
women' s history first must escape the confines of conventional history, which has denied women
had achievements worth noting:
Initially, the history written about American and European women was
compensatory, that is, it focussed on adding the stories of women to the stories of men.
But before long historians were drawing on a feminist perspective to rethink
historiography and make gender difference key to the analysis of social relations. This
often led to seeking women as victims and that spurred a third approach, contributory
history. Contributory history privileges female agency while recognizing how patriarchy
impedes women' s actions.10
Recent work has focused on making gender one of the key tools in the analysis of
colonial relationships. Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, edited by Kumkum
Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, is a series of essays that develop notions around the "historical

Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India, I .

9

10

Ibid. , 2.

28

processes which reconstitute patriarchy in colonial India. " 11 Sangari and Vaid demonstrate the
intimate connection between ideologies which sustained colonial dominance and those which
sustained gender hierarchies.
Dr. Neera Desai has made a great impact on Indian history as she wrote the first social
history of Indian women with women as its subject. Her book, Women in Modern India,
informs us about the strength and power of women in traditional settings. 12 Dr. Desai
challenged conventional notions, which imparted a simple contrast between the traditional
woman as backward and oppressed and the modem woman as enlightened and emancipated. 13
During our interview she emphasized that "new approaches, combined with the wealth of data
being recovered from new scrutiny of old sources and discovery of new documents, make it
necessary to refme our questions. Our objective, now, is to make the history of women as
complex and multi-faceted as is the history ofmen." 14
Some of the newer challenges to writing women's history come from the subaltern
school, and from historians interested in resistance in everyday life. The first volume of

11

Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, eds. in Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial
History (New Delhi: Kali for Women 1989), 1.

12

Neera Desai, Women in Modern India (Bombay: Vora and Company, 1957).

13

1t is interesting to note that women belonging to an organization called Vacha (see
appendix) produced a video for the purposes of documenting and studying women's
participation in the nationalist movement. The project arose out of their disappointment
and concern at the absence of any historical notice of 'ordinary' women's role in the
freedom movement and their declining political participation after Independence
(interview by author 20 September 1997).

14

Neera Desai, interview by author, 29 September 1997.
29

Subaltern Studies appeared in 1982, initiating a new school of history focusing on all non-elite
colonial subjects. Borrowing the term "subaltern" from Antonio Gramsci, these historians have
illustrated the influences of coercion and consent during two hundred years ofBritish rule. In
their attempt to explain hegemonic processes, subaltern historians have uncovered and articulated
the stories of suppressed peoples. Although they have paid some attention to women, the
uncovering of women' s subalternity has not been their priority. 15
It was the subaltern project that led Gayatri Spivak to write her controversial article, "Can

the Subaltern Speak?"16 In this article she states the problem of writing the history of colonial
women is that, "as object of colonial historiography and as subject of insurgency, the ideological
construction of gender keeps the male dominant. If, in the context of colonial production, the
subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in
shadow." 17
Gayatri Spivak warns the uncritical historian to beware of pitfalls of valorizing "the
concrete experience of the oppressed," 18 and goes on to say that, "this way of writing history

15

Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India, 3.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak recognizes that this article was problematic and has since
revised the first publication of 1988 to make her arguments more clear, however not
changing her position in answering, "No!" to her question. Donna Landry and Gerald
MacLean, "Subaltern Talk," in The Spivak Reader (New York and London: Routledge,
1996), 287-308.

16

17

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Gary Nelson and Lawrence
Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, (Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press 1988), 287.

18

Ibid., 275.
30

often constitutes an autonomous subject without due recognition of the dual oppression of
colonialism and patriarchy, and the further oppression of Western scholarship." 19
Concern with history writing as knowledge production, as production of knowledge in
which the historian is always interested, leads the researcher to a disciplinary self-reflection on
the politics ofthe historical enterprise itself, including the question of whose agency and interest
are being represented. Spivak, commenting on the work of the Subaltern Studies group based
in Calcutta, which is rewriting the history of colonial India from the perspective of peasant
society, concludes as follows:
When historiography is self-consciously "non-theoretical," it sees its task, with respect
to rival historical accounts ofthe same period, as bringing forth "what really happened"
in a value-neutral prose. Since the incursion of"theory" into the discipline of history,
and the uncomfortable advent ofMichael Foucault, it is no longer too avant-garde to
suspect or admit that "events" are never not discursively constituted and that the language
of historiography is always also language. 20
What might this self-reflexive disciplinary attention to language mean for theorizing
historical agency? If events themselves are never not discursively constituted, it follows that
history, as the accounts of social movements and political struggles of the past and present, is
constantly being rewritten. Historians continually disagree about the meaning of any historical
event. To argue from any position entails a theory of historical process and a method of
historical inquiry, a politics deeply embedded in the historian's approach to the empirical records
ofthe period, its many documents and archives, including previous historical accounts. It is not
merely the determining of the proper or most adequate understanding of past events alone that

19

Ibid., 295.

20

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Words: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York
and London: Methuen, 1987), 241-242.
31

is at issue in such debates; which ever way we view the past affects our sense of the political
possibilities of the present. The impact of feminism on the historiography of nineteenth and
twentieth century India, for instance, has begun to change the interpretation ofhistorical evidence
in significant ways. 21
Recent scholarship on women, (whether it be women's history or a new questioning of
the documents of history) is fueled by the work of archivists and historians locating and saving
women's writings and material objects. During the 1970s, there was a great deal of difficulty in
finding any sources in women's history. Now, nearly thirty years later, we are able to see both
how far women have come and how much there is left to do. In the early 1970s women's
records were not in libraries or archives but in the homes and memories ofindividuals. 22 Women
like Sonal Shukla and Susie Tharu,23 who are engaged in research on women's lives, uncovered
records, documents, journals, magazines, literature, memoirs, letters, photographs, pamphlets,
all authored by women. Both Sonal Shukla and Susie Tharu met women who were willing to
record their oral histories. They collected songs, folk tales, and artistic works, and reread
phallocentric24 documents with a new sensitivity to gender. Research centres like Akshara25
Taken from field notes of oral history workshop I attended held on 12 October 1997.
The workshop was sponsored by SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research
on Women) founded in Bombay by C.S.Lakshmi, Neera Desai and Maitreyi Krishnaraj.

21

As with Sonal Shukla, founder of Vacha in 1987, a Women's Library and a Community
Resource Centre which was housed in part of her home in Mumbai (see appendix).

22

Susie Tharu, ed. , Women Writing In India, Volume II: the 20'h Century (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1995).

23

24

Phallocentrism is a belief in the superiority of the male sex.

Akshara is a Women's Resource Centre and Library started in the early 1980's by Laxsmi
Menon, Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah in Mumbai.

25

32

undertook the task of preserving papers and books that might otherwise have disappeared. The
Nehru Memorial Library devoted its attention to acquiring the personal papers of women who
had previously been overlooked by libraries and worked to enlarge its significant collection of
oral histories. Unfortunately some of the smaller libraries and provincial archives have not
preserved valuable collections of women' s records and some important private collections have
disappeared.26 SPARROW in Mumbai is a recent attempt to preserve women' s documents,
especially photographs, films, and recordings. As yet, there is no museum in India devoted to
preserving items of women's material culture.
Since my research began in 1993 for this project, I have used a wide range of material
produced by Indian feminist scholars, as well as my own field notes and interviews to produce
this chapter. I have been an active participant in that I have transcribed pages oftaped interviews
for Sonal Shukla's project in recovering ' ordinary' women' s lives in the Indian freedom
movement. What I think is unique about my account of"an historical background' is that it is
not based on secondary research but it reflects the voice of Dr. Neera Desai, who was an active
and important part of the Indian Women's Freedom Movement.
In order to look at Indian women in nineteenth-century India, we must proceed in a way
that looks towards men, because patriarchal systems offer women few opportunities until men
decide it is time for change. The British, with a push from certain fundamentalists eager to
transform India, introduced many reforms that had little to do with the deepest needs of the
society. Education, however, was one of the items on the reform agenda that contributed to the

Susie Tharu, Women Writing In India: Volume II: The 2rY" Century (Oxford University
Press, New Delhi, 1995), preface.

26

33

emancipation of women. Geraldine Forbes writes that, "it was not an unmixed blessing since
some educational schemes were designed to socialize women to be even more dependent and
obedient than previously. Moreover, education often isolated women from their traditional allies
within the household. But there is an element of serendipity in education. " 27
Some Indian reformers responded to the British invasion by interrogating their own
history and investigating the source of the foreigner's strength. As Geraldine Forbes notes:
[t]hey concluded that Indians had departed from the values of a 'golden age' and were
observing spurious social customs. They saw western strength as a consequence of
science and technology and of institutions and values quite different from those found
in India. Some men concluded that they should change their entire way oflife including
the household and the women in it. 28
The reformers focused their attention on 'social evils' that affected women. Theirs was
a society that prohibited female education, practicedsati, polygamy, and purdah, and enforced
child marriage and widowhood The reformers defined these customs as degrading to women
and sought remedies in legislation and education. Some men practised the new ideology on their
younger sisters, wives, mothers and daughter-in-laws, in their homes. They arranged for tutors,
supported female schools, and sponsored pro-reform legislation. With this encouragement, it did
not take long for a group of female reformers to appear. Predictably, they were the wives and
daughters of the male reformers.29
In the last two decades ofthe nineteenth century, Indian leaders increasingly turned their

27

Forbes, Women in Modern India, 6-7.

Forbes, Indian Women and the Freedom Movement: A Historian's Perspective
(Research Centre For Women's Studies, S.N.D.T. Women's University, 1997), 4.

28

34

attention to the political arena. At the time men were deserting social reform for political issues,
their wives and daughters were forming associations of their own. The earliest women' s
organizations began as meetings attached to men's social reform associations. Gradually, the
women decided to form organizations for women only. Their agendas, although similar to those
of men' s organizations, attacked issues differently. Women were more concerned with female
education and less preoccupied with legislation. They sought ways to work around social
customs- accepting child marriage while trying to provide education for married girls, accepting
society's disdain for widow remarriage while preparing widows to earn a living, accepting female
seclusion while making provisions for education, travel, recreation and medical attention for
women who observed purdah. 30
This was the world into which Neera Desai was born. In the 1930s, her father was a
Liberal and a Congressite and supporter of the movement. Her mother was also part of the
movement:
They only purchased Khaddar [Indian made cloth] and refused to wear foreign clothes
... so in all these activities, she participated and she was also a part of community
building ... during that time I came in contact with the socialist party, the congress
socialist party and the students union also was a part of the social party, so I was never
a Congressite from the beginning though I participated in the nationalist struggle, my
leanings were towards the left from the beginning.3 1
Others were joining the movement for different reasons. C. R. Das, a Congress leader,
decided that he would recruit volunteers to sell khaddar on the streets to test the government's
ban on political demonstrations. Women like Neera Desai's mother was among those who sold

30

Ibid., 5.

31

Neera Desai, interview by author, 30 September 1997.

35

khaddar in the streets as requested by Mr. Das: "For this she and her sisters were arrested and
taken into custody."32 This was a defining moment for men who looked on helplessly as they
watched women being empowered by leaving the safety of their homes to join the agitation.
They thought that British rule was so horrible that even sheltered middle-class women would
take to the streets. This was a challenge to their masculinity and they joined the movement by
the thousands.33
The majority ofwomen who joined the revolutionary group were students; rarely was this
their first political experience. Like Dr. NeeraDesai, most of them had worked with women's
organizations, the Congress Party, or student organizations. Dr. Desai explains the circumstances
that led up to her involvement in the freedom movement:
I had just passed my matriculation examination and I had already joined the college. In
India' s educational system, college re-opens by the end ofJune and the movement started
in August 71h or gth, the resolution was passed on 9th and all the leaders were arrested and
that was how, along with many of my college friends, I got into the movement. Initially
we were participating in various activities like preparing posters and demonstrations and
at one point, in 1948, there was a big meeting at Chowpaddy [beach] where I was
arrested along with a group of women and then I was in jail for a week. My jail
experience was very brief but it was a moving experience and by that time actually, my
political consciousness had risen, sitting in jail for one week! ... not merely because of
[the] movement but because I was participating in students movement and was with a
welfare organization and so that kind of concern was there and that's how I got involved
in it. 34
In my interview with her, Dr. Desai revealed that her reason for talking to me and my
research assistant was to reflect back on the question, "What was more important to women at

32

Ibid.

33

Forbes, Indian Women and the Freedom Movement, 6.

34

Neera Desai, interview by author, 30 September 1997.

36

this time - feminism or nationalism?" She agreed with me that this was an important topic to
write about and explained that when looking at the feminism/nationalism question we have to
recognize how closely socialist feminism was intertwined with nationalism in India. Under
Mohandas Gandhi ' s leadership women were accepted into the freedom movement and given a
very special role. Social feminists found this role compatible with their ideology of political
action. However, neither Gandhi nor the men around him had ever accepted the basic tenets of
socialist feminism. They saw women as essential to social and political life and talked about
raising their status but did not reach the stage of defining women's oppression as a consequence
of patriarchy. When some women moved from social feminism to radical feminism, they
rejected the notion that women will settle for the individual solution, otherwise, known as "a
piece of the pie." That they found a home in the Communist and Socialist parties did not give
them cause for celebration, as their situation was not very comfortable in these organizations, due
to their patriarchal attitudes? 5
Without a warm reception from the political parties, Indian women with feminist ideals
worked with women' s organizations. But these organizations remained marginal to the political
process and in many cases dependent on the parties for their operating expenses. Feminism
persisted but its interests were compromised. During the freedom struggle, feminist goals were
put on the back burner while the more immediate goals of political freedom claimed women' s
attention. Since Independence, there have been many national and international events that have
had the same effect. Nationalism and patriotism are more persistent ideologies than feminism

35

lbid. My thanks to the history students at the women's hostel at S.N.D.T. Women's
University for their interpretation and thoughts on this analysis.
37

and they can more easily energize women for limited attainable goals. "Given these persistent
ideologies, perhaps it is obvious that we should focus on how feminism was sustained and
extended during the periods of intense nationalistic and patriotic fervour," comments Dr. Neera
Desai.36 She added that, "the way in which consciousness and ideology developed for many
women was that political activity spurred their feminism, while commitment to improving the
status of women encouraged their involvement in the freedom struggle." 37
Dr. Neera Desai also discussed the long term effects resulting in women' s participation
in the freedom movement:
This leads me to the question about long term affects . . . Indian women won legal and
constitutional equality and the right to vote. That they are far from legal and political
equality today does not mean the blame lies with their role in the freedom struggle.
However, many ofthe women who participated are themselves disappointed .. . they had
hoped, perhaps too optimistically for more." 38
Many of the problems facing Indian women today derive from decisions made since
194 7; decisions that reflect a lack of commitment to fundamental, social, and economic change.
Women's differences were overshadowed by their biological characteristics and the subordinate
role they were destined to play. Geraldine Forbes remarks, "the legacy of women' s role in the
struggle for independence is in a history which still glorifies their roles, a constitution which
recognizes male/female equality, and a number of strong women who cannot forget their heroic
foremothers." 39

39

Forbes, Indian Women and the Freedom Movement, 27.

38

THE POLITICS OF RESPECTABILITY: Indian Women and the Indian National Congress
Dr. Sonal Shukla of Vacha: A Women's Group, whose work focuses on gender in
twentieth-century India, is often asked why women, who are frequently praised for their
participation in the movement for independence, are not more visible in politics today and have
not been able to significantly improve their socio-economic position in general. These questions
assume that involvement in the freedom movement leads to a natural progression of continued
political participation for women. Dr. Shukla' s response is in her video production of Bheetar

Bahe Mukti Dhara - The Stream Within. She interviewed women who were active in politics
in Western India, focusing on their entry into nationalist politics from 1928 to 1942. These
women rose from cadres to commanders and local leaders within the party hierarchy. But in
1942 in some cases, and definitely by 1952, all of them had withdrawn from active participation.
The film deals with the process oftheir withdrawal and ends with glimpses into their present day
lives. In conducting my group interview with some members of Vacha, we discussed the film
extensively. One member of the group made the following observation:
One ofthe ways of answering these questions is to examine the interaction between those
women who participated in the independence struggle and the Indian National Congress.
Specifically, you have to consider the role of women in the early Congress, Gandhi' s
programme and his role in mobilizing women, and institutions developed to bring women
of the cities oflndia into the agitational politics of 1920-22 and 1930-32. My purpose
[in doing the film] is to establish a clearer understanding ofthe complex interrelationship
that developed between the Indian National Congress, Gandhi and women. The central
argument [ofthe film] is that the structure developed to mobilize women for the protest
movement proved inadequate to the tasks of politicizing women, ensuring continued
participation, or acting as channels for the expression of their interests. That these
institutions developed as they did, with all their limitations, can best be understood as a
function ofthe limited autonomy allowed women in by patriarchal society which values
modesty and practises sex segregation. 40

40

Vijendra, Group interview by author, 7 October 1997.
39

The early Indian National Congress, because it claimed to speak for all groups and all
classes in India, decided to avoid issues that would foster antagonism. This meant that topics
associated with women's status such as sati, education, polygamy,purdah and widowhood, were
delegated to the National Social Conference.41
When Mohandas Gandhi ( 1869-1948) came to prominence in the Congress, social issues
were made an integral part of the party's platform. Although it was not until the twentieth
century that Congress eagerly sought the help of women in carrying out its programmes, Indian
women played an integral part in the meetings from the beginning. Attitudes towards social
reform, the development of educational institutions for women, women's journalism, and clubs
for women had all contributed to the development of a new group of women in India. Although
this was a small group of women who had benefited from early educational opportunities, "they
were justified in terms ofproviding an environment in which women raised in a sex-segregated
society could act with a degree of autonomy. " 42 These early members might not have been
representative oflndian women as a whole; however, their numbers were growing, as was their
interest in women's issues and in political and social change. Dr. N eera Desai, explains that the
earliest women's organizations all had some connection to Congress, either through their
members or their parent organizations. They all shared a belief, "that the women's movement

41

Gordon Johnson, Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian
National Congress, 1880-1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973 ).

42

Judith Anne Whitehead, "Conjugality and Nationhood: The Scientific Mother of the
Indian Nationalist Movement,1920-1930," in Simone De Beauvoir Institute Bulletin,
Vol. 16, (1996), 103-125.
40

could indeed be distinct from the Indian National Congress." 43
Unfortunately, many who have written about this period in India' s history have chosen
a conflicting view as to the relationship between Congress and women. Their comments are
either complimentary by asserting that Congress and particularly Gandhi had transformed
women;44 or they condemned Congress and Gandhi for manipulating women for their own
political aspirations. 45 According to Dr. Neera Desai:
The reality ofthe interaction was extremely complicated; the most active women worked
with the support of husbands and families and frequently the women in the women's
movement were also involved with politics. To see them as puppets [led out of purdah
into political agitation] , or dupes [tricked or coerced into abandoning feminism for
nationalism] ignores the legacy ofthe nineteenth century and denies both the intelligence
of these women as well as the complexity of their relationship with Congress. 46
Since women' s organizations and networks were already in existence prior to Gandhi' s
request to participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement, women were ready and willing.47
43

Neera Desai, interview by author 29 September 1997.

See Radha Krishna Sharma, Nationalism, Social Reform and Indian Women (New
Delhi: J anaki Prakashan, 19 81 ), 27.

44

45

See Vijay Agnew, Elite Women in Indian Politics (New Delhi: Vikas,1979), 43 .

46

Neera Desai, interview by author, 29 September 1997. My thanks to Marietta Rodrigues
and the students from the History Department at S.N.D.T. Women' s University for their
thoughts and interpretation.

47

Gandhi opened the Civil Disobedience Campaign in March of 1930 with his famous 240
mile march Ahmedabad to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British monopoly and
tax on salt. Women asked to be included in this march but Gandhi refused on the
grounds that the British would call Indians [men] cowards for hiding behind women.
Women joined the march at every stop along the way and gathered in large numbers to
hear him speak. Hespoke to them about their duties which included picketing liquor
shops, boycotting taxed salt, and spinning and wearing only Indian made garments.
Following the march, women were fully incorporated into the movement and the
ban on women' s participation was lifted. Vijay Agnew, Elite Women in Indian Politics,
39.
41

The response by Bombay women received the most attention from the press, since their
demonstrations were the largest and their picketing the best organized. This was because ofthe
cosmopolitan nature of the city ofBombay; its transportation system enabled women to travel
easily, and the presence of a diverse population such as Parsis and Christians had accustomed
people to the public movement of re ~ t

e women. '"'

8

Gandhi had very specific instructions for women who were eager to become involved in
picketing. He published a pamphlet entitled, "How to do the Picketing," and in it he stressed that
women should present themselves as "respectable women,"dress conservatively and carry
banners. He prohibited the obstruction of customers and the use of abusive language. Men were
to be absent, thereby reducing the potential for violence. Women who were unable to picket
could form a network by encouraging other women to spin and wear khaddar and distribute
leaflets. Gandhi emphasised in his pamphlet, "the whole scheme presupposes on the part of men
a genuine respect for women and sincere desire of their rise." Through his speeches and
publications, Gandhi indicated a clear and specific programme of action for women, and they
responded with enthusiasm.49
Saraladevi Chaudhurani was an active feminist leader during the 1930s and was known
as the grandmother of politics and feminism. 50 She was the daughter of a well-known Bengali
48

Neera Desai, interview by author, 29 September 1997.

49

Desai interview; Gandhi, "How to do the Picketing," Young India, 24 April, 1930, pg.
144. Dr. Desai had this pamphlet among her papers at her home in Mumbai.

50

I have used the term feminist throughout this thesis knowing that some of the women I
I am writing about do not declare themselves " feminist" or in the case of Saraladevi
Chaudhurani did not think of themselves as "feminist." Each of us defines feminist in our
own way and I prefer to see women like Saraladevi Chaudhurani as feminist because they
allow me to see feminism as it manifests itself in their speeches and writings. Feminism
42

novelist, Swamakumari Devi ( 1898-1932) and was one ofthe first women to attend the sessions
ofthe Indian National Congress.51 Saraladevi explained to a delegation of Congress women who
gathered for a meeting in Calcutta that some of the district conferences had seemed "full of
platitudes" about Indian womanhood and their great awakening during the Civil Disobedience
Movement. She made it clear that a separate Congress for women was necessary because
women, from their earliest childhood had been treated as separate and inferior. Saraladevi
remarked that, "men had exploited women far more for their own purposes than helped them in
realizing their needs. The woman's feeling has never been the man's, neither the women's point
of view his. In giving expression to this deep seated conviction at last and asserting themselves,
the women of Bengal have come on a line with the women of other countries . . .. " 52
supports equal rights for women and sees patriarchal society as responsible for their
oppression. I would like to quote Veena Oldenburg's comment on her decision to use
the word feminist:
Feminism has a long history and is no longer monolithic; multiple
feminisms abound, and "feminism" is capable of the same kinds of distinctions
one would expect in any analysis of the word "patriarchy." I define the word
"feminist" in its simplest political sense, as a person (and not necessarily a
woman) whose analytical perspective is informed by an understanding of the
relationship between power and gender in any historical, social, or cultural
context. To me, the argument against using the word "feminist" is weakened by
the fact that terms and theorists of equally Western provenance- Marxist,
socialist, Freudian, or post-structuralist-- do not arouse similar indignation and
are in fact (over)used as standard frameworks for analyses of Indian society by
Indian scholars. Veena Talwar Oldenburg, "The Roop Kanwar Case: Feminist
Responses," Sati the Blessing and the Curse, JohnS. Hawley, ed. (New York
and London: Oxford University Press 1994), 102-103.
51

Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London and New
Jersey: Zed Books Limited, 1994), 51.

52

Srimati Saraladevi Chaudhurani's Speech at the Bengal Women's Congress", Stridharma, vol. 14, August 1931,508-10 as quoted in Forbes, Indian Women and the
Freedom Movement, 77.
43

Discussing the entry of women into politics, Saraladevi acknowledged that it was the
men who had encouraged them to join. There were, however, very few men who actually cared
about improving the lives of women. Women who participated in the movement could expect
"flowery speeches but not appointment to subcommittees and councils." Summing up women's
experiences with politics she said Congress had "assigned to women the position oflaw-breakers
only and not law-makers." To change the situation women needed to demand equal treatment
and equal rights. In what was the most feminist speech of the 1930's, Saraladevi presented a list
ofwomen's demands. She called them "Women's Ten Fundamental Rights": equal inheritance,
equal right to guardianship, an end to sex discrimination, fair wages for women, punishment for
sex-related crimes, closing brothels, compulsory primary education, adult education, female
teachers in co-educational institutions and the right to vote.53
Neither Saraladevi' s feminism nor her suggestions as to the best plan for action were
shared by all present at the conference in Calcutta. Resolutions were made such as allowing
inter-caste and inter-racial marriages, women's access to safe contraceptives, and equal
treatment ofwomen in insurance plans. They did not, however, get sufficient support to pass the
resolutions. Plans to form a Women's Congress also fell through. 54 In a highly charged political
climate, women's issues were swept aside and women gained neither voice in the existing
political institutions nor a political organization of their own. This was the climate for the years
to come. 55

53

lbid.

54

The Hindu (Madras), 3 May 1931, n.p.

55

Forbes, Indian Women and the Freedom Movement, 79.

44

It is my conclusion, drawn both from my interview with Dr. Neera Desai and from the
study ofthe relevant literature, that the participation of women in the political struggle and their
rallying to improve the status of women in the period up to Independence ( 1947) has revealed
an aspect of essential conservatism towards what on the surface seems like radical change. It is
true that sati was made illegal, female education was emphasized and women were mobilized to
participate in Satyagraha (the policy of passive resistence); however, the movement gave the
illusion ofchange while women were being kept, by the patriarchal structure, within the confines
of family and society. Radical social change that would have positively affected women's lives
did not become an essential part of the nationalist movement during the struggle for
independence. Although Dr. Neera Desai proclaims to have developed a radical feminist
consciousness during that time, it did not arise within the movement itself, and "women's roles
within the family as wives, daughters and mothers were re-emphasized or extended to be in line
with the requirements of the family in a changing society."56
While Indian women participated to their fullest extent in the movement for national
independence, they did so in a way that was "respectable" and "acceptable" to their male
counterparts which conformed to the prevalent ideology on the position of women. As Marie
Mies states, "women were drawn into the struggle as a political manoeuver and their involvement
was necessary to any colonial or national liberation conflict." She points out that:
[i]t depends on the strategic goals of such a movement whether the patriarchal family is
protected as the basic social unit or not. The fact that the women themselves accepted
their limited tactical function within the independence movement made them excellent
instruments in the struggle. But they did not work out a strategy for their own liberation
struggle for their own interests. By subordinating these goals to the national cause, they

56

Neera Desai, interview by author, 29 September 1997.
45

conformed to the traditional pativrata or sati ideal of the self-sacrificing woman. 57
According to Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, middle-class interest in the
emancipation of women and social reform in general evidently declined from the late nineteenth
century with the rise of nationalism. First-generation reformers would h ~ been married off in
their teens and reform activities often led to social ostracism and isolation from the community.
However, with the rise of nationalism, patriotism at times promoted social conservatism, while
partaking in nationalist activity implied a certain social prestige rather than social ostracism,
reducing the need for any conscious efforts at changing the family structure. Efforts at education
and limited and controlled emancipation ofwomen, thus became a personal necessity for survival
in a hostile social world. Nationalism was increasingly translated into the language of religion
and Gandhi reinforced that ideology by calling women to be self-sacrificing and by promoting
periodic fasts. 58 Gandhi's teachings did not seek to modify the social structure; instead they
strengthened caste hierarchy and patriarchy. This enabled women from extremely conservative
families to fully participate in the political movement and even go to jail, without fundamentally
changing family relationships or their consciousness as women. 59 Attitudes towards the
advancement ofwomen have, unfortunately changed very little since post-independence in India.
As Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid observe, "The experience not only oflndia, but even of
countries which have undergone far more radical transformation surely emphasizes that genuine

57

Marie Mies, Indian Women and Patriarchy, 121.

58

Sangari and Vaid, Women and Culture, 106.
1bid.,107; Forbes, Indian Women and the Freedom Movement, 83.

59

46

women' s liberation cannot come as an automatic fall·out from other types of change, but
requires sustained, self·conscious, and independent struggle. "60
When I asked her, "Where do we go from here?," Dr. Neera Desai replied that the
women' s movement does not so much talk about gender inequality as it does gender
discrimination and gender injustice:
Gender injustice is manifested in dowry and female infanticide and the whole
amniocentesis case . . . and in rape . .. and so these are the issues that are bothering the
women' s movement today and these are the problems connected with the patriarchal
section of society and secondly, they are also the problems which continually emphasize
the low status of women despite the fact that they are employed. This is something that
is very baffling to me - education has not made its impact, even if women are employed,
it has not generated that kind of consciousness or that kind of empowerment which
would make them [women] oppose dowry. Even if the affluent classes are accepting
dowry, why are they [women] being burned, why are they suffering because they are not
able to pay high dowry? So these are the problems that are important for the women' s
movement today and I think they have much to do with the cultural ethos of the country
and society.6 1
In the above quote, Dr. Neera Desai has identified several forms of violence against
women such as dowry, female infanticide, amniocentesis and rape as being part of a patriarchal
structure; a structure which perpetuates the low status of women regardless of the amount of
education they receive.
Chapter ill will deal with these issues and argue that the reason women are still

accepting dowry and are still being burned is that the gender injustice, Dr. Neera Desai speaks
of, is indeed, also political. The chapter will also describe the Indian Women' s Movement as a
collective, emotional and active response against gender violence as a patriarchal and political
structure. The central focus of the chapter will be the documentation of important campaigns
60

Sangari and Vaid, Women and Culture, 109.

61

Neera Desai, interview by author, 29 September 1997.

47

,------------ -

started by the Indian Women' s Movement. I will also discuss the various methods of action and
theoretical explanations used by different groups and in my own analysis.

48

CHAPTER Ill
WHEN VIOLENCE BECOMES POLITICAL
UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE
Can you imagine a time when women have not tolerated or suffered some
sort of violence on them? If you have not felt that fast moving hand whipping
across at you, or a body crashing down on yours, or blood thickening on the
skin, then you must surely have lived it numerous times in your mind. Sometimes
even a look from a man, or an accidental touch makes me suspicious. How can one
not be angry?
It simply is not right.
Anonymous Construction Worker.

In this chapter, I will highlight the ways in which women' s subordination in India has
been legitimized at an ideological and sociopolitical level through the effective use of violence
as a political weapon. The question of violence is a complex one. It cannot be restricted to
physical assault and injury. It must include the various subtle acts of discipline and persuasion
by which the individual or group is made compliant. This said, the scope of debate here focuses
on overt forms of physical and mental abuse by which women are traumatized. I begin with a
brief overview of violence and then proceed to specific acts of violence such as rape, dowry
deaths, sati, and female infanticide. I will show how women have organized against these forms
of violence by ways of political campaigns. I have restricted this chapter to these particular
forms of violence because they are the ones closely related to the growth of the women' s
movement in India and have been central to feminist issues discussed by the women I
interviewed.
A narrow concept of violence may suggest an illegal criminal use of force, but violence
is defined in this thesis as the brutalization of an individual or group through physical injury,
49

threats of coercion and/or subtle acts of disciplining aimed at forcing the individual or group to
act in a manner conducive to the wishes of the dominant group. It also broadly includes
exploitation, discrimination, maintaining an unequal economic and social structure, and creating
an atmosphere of terror based on threats and reprisals. 1
In order to understand the nature and forms of violence against women which continues
to rise in India,2 it is important to understand how violence functions as a way of maintaining the
patriarchal values of the society it represents. In the Indian context, the term patriarchy is seen
as the "male potency principle" which in its extreme form legitimizes male domination in the
family. Power and authority are attached to the male through various legal rights and cultural
norms. These include their total claim to property and the assets within the family as well as
control over decision making processes involving family matters. At a societal level, this form
ofmale domination has enabled men to obtain and keep for themselves all aspects of power and
authority, including access to economic resources and the power and prestige which are attached

Patriarchy does not operate urn-dimensionally but manifests itselfdifferently in various
socio-cultural groups. The common denominator of all forms of patriarchy, however, is that the
avenues of power are in the hands of men, and are perpetuated through the sexual division of

Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1970), 46-56.

1

Veena Poonacha, Understanding Violence (Bombay: Research Centre for Women's
Studies, S.N.D.T. Women's University, 1990), 1; Maria Mies, Patriarchy And
Accumulation (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1994), 157.

2

3

1t is interesting to note, for example, that the right to the matrimonial home which is
ensured by a marriage contract is terminated as soon as a woman is divorced and she loses
all rights to inherit her husband's property.
50

labour and the process of socialization. 4
The subordination of women exists within all patriarchal societies. This means that the
roles played by women in society are generally devalued and they are allocated a low status.
Consequently, the principles of societal organization allow for violence against women and this
is always rationalized. Widespread and increasing violence against women is not only an
indicator and a means of perpetuating the low status of o e ~ it also manifests itself through
various, not easily recognised, forms of structural violence such as low health status and a lack
of access to education, employment or health care facilities. 5
This somewhat dismal characterization of women's low status illustrates the lack of
power women have in general and enables the reader to see clearly that violence against women
appears to have the dual function of controlling women and perpetuating their subordinate
status.
Fear of violence often discourages a weaker group from acting in a manner that is
contrary to the wishes of the dominant group. In most societies, the threat of sexual violence is
aimed at restricting women's physical mobility and punishing those who defy social norms. Rape
is a form of sexual violence that often has social sanction, and even when it does not, the victim
can be blamed for the incident.
Rape helps to demonstrate the power of the dominant group and reinforces the norm of
subordination. Thus, it is a means of intimidation for all women. Rape can be used as a political

Neera Desai and Maitreyi Krishnaraj, Women and Society (New Delhi: Ajanta
Publications, 1987), 16.

4

Veena Poonacha, Understanding Violence, 1.

5

51

weapon to terrorize women into submission, and as a result, in most societies, public spheres are
dominated by men. When women resist this norm, it operates against them. It affects all women,
cutting across class barriers though not always in the same way. This kind of power over women
adds one more barrier to their ability to perform waged labour, produce for the market value
system or obtain necessary social or medical services. 6
FROM THE FRINGES TO THE CENTRE: Beginnings of a Movement
After India's independence in 1947, there was a development of women's organizations
that was approved and supported by the Indian government. These organizations were largely
concerned with the subordination of women as reflected in the structure of the women's
movement which consists of a diverse collection of autonomous groups tackling the varied
problems of women. The essence of their differences in ideology and agenda for action stems
from their theoretical foundations based on what each of them perceives is the primary cause of
women's oppression, how they perceive human identity and their relationship with society and
the state. 7
Leadership in the women's movement has remained largely middle class. Generally
speaking, the Indian Women's Movement has sought selfdetermination, active participation, and
societal recognition by struggling within and outside the State framework. 8 Presently, given the

Caren Grown and Geeta Sen, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
(DAWN) Development Crises and Alternative Vision (New Delhi: Third World Women's
Perspectives, DAWN Secretariat Institute of Social Sciences Trust, 1985), 33 .

6

Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah, The Issues at Stake: Theory and Practice in the
Contemporary Women's Movement in India (Kali for Women, New Delhi, India,1993),
16.

7

8

Ibid., 21 .

52

strength, resources and obstacles it has to face, as well as the personal and public nature of its
issues, the Indian Women' s Movement has chosen to influence and pressure the State and its
agencies rather than oppose, fight and seize State power like an opposition party. Nandita
Gandhi and Nandita Shah explain further:
It is no mean achievement to struggle against and convince the State to create a
department for women' s affairs, change the national census criteria for inclusion of
different aspects of women' s work, in:fl uence development policies and Five Year Plans,
amend legislation, and have special departments within the police station for distressed
women. The movement also acknowledges the political co-option by the State and the
need to build coalitions with other movements without inundating or prioritizing women's
issues in favour of general ones.9

RAPE BECOMES AN ISSUE
Of all the issues taken up by the Indian Women's Movement in the last ten years, rape
has provoked the most anger and frustration. It has also provided an equal amount of despair
and disillusionment. The number and silence of victims, an unsure strategy of action, common
myths and a theoretical neglect of the issue of rape has demanded a re-thinking of conventional
definitions, beliefs and analysis.
For a long time, rape had been seen as a common occurrence practised among the feudal
societies in rural India. After a number of incidents which took place in the big cities in the
1970's, it became clear that rape was also prevalent among the educated middle class. What
actua11y horrified and angered a number of feminist groups was that, in addition to rape by all
kinds of men, it was also increasingly done by the police, the supposed custodians oflaw and
order. Most ofthese rapes took place in police stations and the victims were mostly gang-raped.10

9

Ibid. , 23.
Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, 153.

10

53

Chhaya Datar, Chair of the Women's Studies Department at the world renowned Tata
Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay, says that rape became an important issue for the newly
evolving women's movement during the early eighties and that a decade long campaign began
with an anti-rape struggle that started to question male violence. During these initial years the
campaign had various facets and received wide media coverage. Apart from the traditional
methods of raising public consciousness through leaflets, posters, demonstrations, and public
meetings, the campaign also reclaimed unconventional forms like songs, skits and street plays. 11
The case which sparked off the nationwide campaign against rape was that ofMathura.
Everyone I interviewed who talked about violence mentioned "The Mathura Rape Case" as being
paramount to one of the most rigorous campaigns the Indian Women's Movement has ever
known as it touched a deep inner core of fear within each woman.
In 1972, Mathura, a fourteen- year- old orphaned tribal girl from Maharashtra who was
working as a maidservant was brutally raped in a police station where she had been taken by
her relatives on a complaint that she had eloped with her lover. While her relatives waited
outside the police station, Mathura was raped by one policeman as another watched. 12
Meanwhile, her relatives became suspicious as it was getting late and the lights were
turned off, and Mathura was not to be seen. They went to the back of the station and called out
to her; the commotion attracted a crowd of villagers. Presently, Mathura emerged and informed
her relatives that a policeman had raped her. She was taken to a doctor who did not examine her

Chhaya Datar, Interview by author, 1 October 1997.

11

Flavia Agnes, "The Anti-Rape Campaign: The Struggle and the Setback," in The
Struggle Against Violence. Chhaya Data, ed. (Calcutta: Mandira Sen for Stree,

12

1993),104.

54

but advised the family to file a complaint. The chief of police was summoned (the crowd had
grown angry and threatened to burn down the police station) and managed to calm things down
by promising to register Mathura' s complaint the next morning. 13
Twenty hours after the rape, Matbura was medically examined and the report revealed
that "there were no marks of injury on her and no trace of semen in her vagina." The court
concluded that Mathura was lying and that she bad sexual intercourse of her own free will. The
judge' s statement was that "if a young girl is ' habituated' to sexual intercourse she would
willingly sleep with any stranger. " 14
After reviewing the case, the Bombay High Court reversed the order and convicted the
two policemen. That order was appealed and the Supreme Court acquitted the two policemen
because the Supreme Court rejected the idea that Mathura could be so powerless as to make no
attempt to resist. 15
The rape of young girls in police stations all over India is as common today as it was
twenty years ago when Mathura suffered her ordeal. These cases are seldom reported as the
young women involved are looked upon as "criminals" and "whores," in a society that needs to
keep women subdued and subjugated. In Mathura's case, it was said that there were reasons
to doubt her "character" as she had not been a virgin and she had a boyfriend to whom her
family objected.
The campaign against rape started with four highly respected legal experts from the

13

Ibid., 99.

14

Ibid., 105.

15

Ibid. , 106.
55

academic world who drafted a letter to the Chief Justice of India demanding that the Mathura
case be re-opened. The letter might have ended up in the trash bin had it not stated that copies
were being sent to several civil liberties groups and women's organizations. 16
In response, women' s groups from all over India organized and held meetings and rallies
to protest at a local level. A nationwide campaign followed and protests were held on 8 March
1980, International Women' s Day. The Forum Against Rape (now known as The Forum

Against the Oppression ofWomen) was formed in Bombay later that month as a direct response
to the letter received by the Chief Justice of India. The campaign included groups and
organizations from all over India and raised a wide range of issues concerning rape. A previous
subject oftaboo was now openly discussed in local tea-rooms and restaurants. Several women's
groups voiced a need to have a national conference in order to form a common perspective on
the topic. The conference was held in Bombay in November 1980, and was attended by
approximately two hundred women. Since the Mathura Rape Case was never re-opened, the
conference focused more on reform to the rape laws. 17
Following the conference, women's groups worked at many different levels. Through
sustained grass-roots work, the groups followed up rape cases locally, organized protests, and
tried to provide support to the victims. With the help of statistical data, in-depth case studies, and

Professor Upendra Baxi of Delhi University Law School noticed this case in a law journal
and together with three colleagues, Raghunath Kelkar and Lotikar Sarkar of Delhi
University and Vasudha Dhagamwar ofPune University, wrote an open letter to the
Chief Justice urging him to review the case (Subhadra Butalia, "The Rape ofMathura,"
Eve 's Weekly (March 8-14, 1980), 10-13.

16

Flavia Agnes, The Struggle Against Violence, 113.

17

56

theoretical debates, women' s groups both tried to break existing myths about rape in society and
change social attitudes. The campaign also highlighted sexual atrocities by the police and the
army and built public and political pressure against them. However, the most significant and
perhaps the most successful facet of the campaign was its move towards legislative reforms of
the antiquated rape-laws to render justice to rape victims. The campaign maintained momentum
because of the sympathetic and supportive role played by the media, civil liberties groups,
political parties, and progressive legal forums. In Parliament, this issue of shared concern
transcended their political affiliations. 18
According to Flavia Agnes, however, the campaign against rape was not as successful as
the feminist activists had hoped. In the 1990s, judgements against rape cases are still well within
the parameters of the patriarchal value system:
Any attempt to revive the campaign has to evolve ways of supporting individual victims
and creating a climate where there is less social stigma, and rape is viewed as a criminal
offence rather than an offence against female chastity and morality ... the same old
value laden notions of chastity, virginity, premium on marriage and fear of female
sexuality are reflected in the rape cases currently being heard. Penis penetration
continues to be the governing ingredient ofthe offence of rape. The concept of ' penis
penetration' is based on the control men exercise over their [her emphasis] women.
Rape violates the male's property rights and may lead to pregnancies by other men and
threaten the patriarchal power structure. We have not gone beyond this definition. 19
Other women I interviewed, such as Vijashree Iyengar and Vibhuti Patel, say that the
campaign against rape has been unsuccessful for several reasons. First, there has been a lack of
sustained support to individual victims. There is not a single rape crisis centre in the whole
country, even after a decade long campaign!

Second, there is no new structure for seeking

Flavia Agnes, The Struggle Against Violence, 100.

18

57

solutions which would take rape out ofthe patriarchal framework. Third, it has become the norm
for the victim, the family and community to look towards women's organizations for a blueprint
to 'magically' solve all the problems arising from each case. As there are no 'magical' solutions
to follow and no clear-cut guidelines, there is no satisfactory solution in most cases.
THE ANTI-DOWRY MURDER CAMPAIGN
Rape was one of several issues that inspired the Indian Women's Movement. Another
one was dowry murders. Dowry, or the exchange of wealth at the time ofmarriage is an age-old
custom which was popular among the upper-caste Hindu society. Over the years it has spread
to most castes and religious communities and has been considerably reconstructed. In some areas
of India, dowry was looked down upon as greed, but now it has become a status symbol. 20
Communities which had previously practised bride-price21 are now fully participating in the
dowry system. 22
Dowry was first conceived to be ' women's property'-- to be transferred to people ofher
choice. It was a form of inheritance for women in a culture where men owned the property.
The modernization process in rural India has contributed to the class conflict between rich and
poor and since the end of the 1960s a shift in the concept of dowry has occurred. Today dowry
has taken the shape ofluxury items such as gold jewellery, motorcycles and scooters, household

~
21

it Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 52.

Money or goods given to the family of the bride by the groom or his family.

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform (Bombay: Research
Centre for Women's Studies, S.N.D.T. Women's University, 1995), 87.

22

58

appliances as well as cash for the groom's business ventures_23
A marriage depends on the "dowry deal" negotiated between the couple's families,
sometimes using a go-between. However, the negotiation and transaction do not end with
marriage, they follow the woman all her life, with the birth of a child, through festivals, visits or
whenever the in-laws need money for something. 24
"Dowry deaths,"25 a term used to refer to the murder by burning ofyoung married women
by their in-laws, emerged as a new phenomenon in the late 1970s. One of the first protests
against these incidents occurred in July of 1979 when an angry crowd shouted slogans in front
of a house in an up-scale New Delhi suburb. A twenty-four year old wife had burned to death
in her father-in-law's home and the demonstrators demanded a police investigation ofthe alleged
accident. Prior to the tragedy, the young woman had gone to her parents home and told her
father that her husband wanted a scooter. She also admitted that her in-laws were abusing her.
Later that evening, her husband came to take her home but she refused to go with him and he hit
her in front of her family. Although her brother called the police, the family was reluctant to

Maria Mies, Patriarchy And Accumulation On A World Scale, 147; Flavia Agnes, State,
Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform; Madhu Kishwar, Manus hi 31:14-20.

23

24

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation, 147.

25

Dowry death: Where the death of a woman is caused by any bums or bodily injury or
death: occurs otherwise than under normal circumstances within seven years of the
marriage and if it is shown that soon before her death she was subjected to cruelty or
harassment by her husband or any other relatives of her husband for or in connection
with any demand for dowry, such death shall be called 'dowry death' and such husband
or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death. (Section 304B of the Indian Penal
Code)
59

interfere. Just a few hours later she burned to death in a kitchen fire. Although it was called an
accident, several neighbours blamed the in-laws for committing a "dowry-murder."26
Following this incident, feminists from all over India started paying particular attention
to accidental fires in the kitchen. Investigations into these deaths drew out neighbours who
exposed incidents of young women screaming for help while running through courtyards with
their saris on fire. Families gave testimonials of their daughters being continually harassed for
more dowry. Hasty funerals for these young women covered up the incidents and the police were
rarely involved as the deaths had been regarded as a "suicide" or an "accident". 27
When I interviewed Vijashree Iyengar from Sakhya, 28 whose work is primarily focussed
on dowry deaths, she said, "that anyone in the movement would testify, even as increasing cases
ofharassment and torture are registered with the numerous complaint cells [departments] as well
as legal aid centres that the menace of dowry has increased mainfold." To my question, "Did the
focus shift from fighting dowry to only highlighting dowry deaths . .. why can' t we just end
dowry?," she responded as follows:
There are no simple answers. While analysts have critiqued the movement for an
emphasis on legal remedies, the fact is that the movement addressed itself to much more,
and also achieved more. The question that may be raised is, was it and is it possible to
fight dowry in a social context where both caste and consumerism are penetrating deeper
and deeper? Just look at the matrimonial columns in the paper which proudly classify ads
26

Also see "Life is a living hell for women burn victims," Times ofIndia, 18 July
1996, A51.

27

Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, In Search ofAnswers (London: Zed Books,1984) and
Radha Kumar, The History of Doing (New Delhi: Kali for Women,1992).

Sakhya is a project started in 1987 by the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work,
Mumbai, India in collaboration with the Maharashtra State Government to provide
counselling and legal assistance to dowry victims and their families (Interview by author,
24 September 1997).

28

60

along caste lines .. ... .and consumerism has spread its ugly head far and wide in Indian
society. 29
By the 1980s, most cities in India witnessed public protests against dowry deaths, which
had received wide media coverage. 30 After the anti-dowry murder campaign had started, many
more cases of young brides killed by husbands and relatives appeared in the press. 31 'Atrocities
against Women' were discussed in Parliament on 10 June 1980. There it was revealed by the
Delhi Police Department that in 1979:
[a] total of69 women had died from burns, while by July 1980 there were already 65
women whohadlosttheirlivesdueto burning. During the 1975 International Women's
Year, 350 girls and women were suspected of having been burned because of dowry
demands. According to the Home Minister, 2,670 women died ofburns in India in 1976
and 2,917 in 1977. These were only the cases registered by the police.32
It came to be accepted both nationally and internationally that dowry death or bride

burning as it was termed, was a unique form of violence experienced by Indian women, more
specifically by Hindu women. 33 A logical extension of this argument was that a stricter law
against dowry would effectively curb domestic violence and stop wife murders. 34

29

Vijashree Iyengar, Interview by author, 24 September 1997.

As per my extensive review of newspaper clippings. Indian Express (Bombay), 24 July
1997 proclaimed, "Dowry death at Panvel"; Times ofIndia (Bombay), 24 June 1997,
"Another dowry death," The Hindu (Madras) 1997, "Dowry Deaths."

30

31

The Hindu (Madras) 1997.

32

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation, 150.

33

The Pioneer, 12 March 1997; Times ofIndia, 4 March 1997.

34

ln my interview with Flavia Agnes, she commented that this was an "over-simplified"
analysis of domestic violence. Flavia said that, " it is a far more complex and universal
phenomenon... if violence against women could be eradicated by simply having harsher
laws, then that would been eliminated long ago" (Interview by author, June 1995).
61

The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961 reveals a very narrow definition of dowry as
"property given in consideration of marriage and as a condition of the marriage taking place."
The definition excluded gifts of money,jewellery, clothes and other articles and did not give any
provisions for after marriage.35
In order to rectify some of the more serious problems in the Dowry Prohibition Act, in
June 1980, a private members bill was introduced into Parliament by Pramila Dandavate.36 A
joint committee was formed which made some recommendations. For instance, the committee
found that the definition of 'dowry' was "too narrow and vague and the act was not being
rigorously enforced." The committee also felt that the explanation which excluded "gifts" from
the definition of dowry nullified the objective ofthe act. It recommended thatthe "gifts given to
the bride be listed and registered in her name," then if she dies during the first five years of the
marriage, "the gifts would revert to her parents." The gifts could not be transferred or disposed
of for five years from the start of the marriage and without prior permission of the family court
on an application made by the wife. These provisions were to ensure the brides complete control
over the wedding gifts.37
The Dowry Prohibition Act was amended in 1984 and in 1986.38 The 1986 amendment
made the act more stringent: the fine was increased and dowry was made into a non-bailable

35

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 86.

36

Ibid., 88.

37

Ibid.' 89.

38

Ibid. It is interesting to note here that the rape laws took 100 years to change!

62

offence. If a woman died an unnatural death, her property would pass on to her children, and if
she had no children, then to her parents. The stage was now set to abolish ' dowry deaths. ' 39
Contrary to the belief that ' dowry deaths' would be eradicated, the number of women
killed continued to rise.40 The demands for dowry in the form of gifts to the bride and groom and
continued demands for money remained predictable ways in which young brides would be
humiliated. Parents, some of whom would not spend money on their daughter' s education may
spend large amounts of money on lavish weddings to impress the future in-laws. They would try
to meet the demands for gifts and valuables with the hope that the daughter would never return
to the parental home. Some young women, realizing that they would " stigmatize" their parents
ifthey were to ever return home, committed suicide in a desperate bid to escape humiliation and
violence. Occasionally, a daughter, seeking the help of her parents, was sent back to her in-laws
and was murdered. 4 1
The issue of dowry continued to be a problem, not only at the time of marriage, but after
the bride' s death ifher parents wanted to retrieve her gifts. In some instances, the death of a
daughter did not change her parent's plans to marry off yet another daughter. The gifts retrieved
from the deceased daughter' s home could now be used in another ' dowry exchange.' If a young
girl requested an education, wished to live independently, or marry a boy from another caste,
pressure was put on her to conform to the current value system. The parents would often express

39

Flavia Agnes, "Protecting Women against Violence?: Review of a Decade ofLegislation,
1980-1989 (Economic and Political Weekly, April25, 1992), WS 25.

40
41

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation, 150.

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 91.

63

contempt for the ideology, values, or life-styles of members of women's organizations and this
made feminists re-evaluate their assessment on the dowry issue. 42
Madhu Kishwar, a feminist activist and editor of the feminist journal, Manushi, wrote
several articles on the subject of dowry ,43 which created a lot of controversy, and a public debate
on dowry. Kishwar tried to get women's organizations to question the role of parents in driving
their daughters to death. It became evident that organizing dowry protests simply was not enough
and individuals and groups began to feel that the campaign against dowry was a "misplaced
one.'>44
The campaign against dowry initially tried to link dowry, which is property related, and
death, which is an act of violence. The campaign failed to elevate women's status in her
matrimonial home and the campaign could not have ended domestic violence. Any solution, no
matter how effective, cannot arrest the basic trend ofviolence against women which results from
women's powerlessness in a male dominated society. If violence is a manifestation of a woman's
powerlessness in her husband's home, not receiving any dowry or gifts from her parents would
make her even more vulnerable to violence and humiliation.

As stated earlier in this chapter, in spite ofthe campaign, the dowry system has flourished
and spread through all levels of Indian society. The reasons for giving and taking dowry are not

Kishwar, Mandhu, "Rethinking Dowry Boycott," Manushi, No. 48 (September-October
1988), 38.

42

Madhu Kishwar, "Rethinking Dowry Boycott," Manushi, Vol. 48:17-48; "Dowry to
Ensure Her Happiness or to Disinherit Her?," Manushi, Vol. 31:14-21; "Towards More
Just Norms For Marriage: Continuing the Dowry Debate," Manushi Vol. 58:22-31.

43

44

Madhu Kishwar, Manushi, 48:38.
64

clear and unless we understand how the dowry system works, we cannot proceed to do anything
meaningful about it.
One argument is that the obsessive desire for consumer goods, which is related to the
influence of a western consumerist culture, leads people to want more consumer goods. Madhu
Kishwar dispels this as a myth and explains that in ancient Indian literature Gautam Buddha left
his home in revulsion against the materialist culture it represented: "There is nothing new in
people' s desire for more and more wealth. Nor is the trait specific to any particular culture.
Dowry, however, is specific to certain cultures. ~
When writing on dowry-related events, Indian newspapers have focused on the failure to
meet major demands, such as a scooter or a television set. Madhu Kishwar points out, however,
that the harassment does not stop when the demands are met. Because dowry is related to power
and control over women, "the daily torture and harassment which breaks a woman down is more
often related to constant taunts designed to humiliate her, make her feel a contemptible burden
on the family, put her on the defensive over every conceivable

tter ~

During an interview with Vijashree Iyengar ofSakhya (24 September 1997), I learned of
a case of a young woman who came to her for counselling. She had married a well-off
businessman but he would give her no money. If she had to buy new shoes, she was told to get
the money from her ' wealthy father. ' In another case, a woman came to see her about not being
able to get money to visit her parents who lived ten kilometres away. She was expected to take
a rickshaw and get her parents to pay for the fare; thus each visit became a humiliating event for

45

Madhu Kishwar, Manushi, 48:14

46

Ibid., 15.

65

her. Moreover, each item brought back was throughly examined and denigrated to make her feel
inadequate and ashamed.
Vijashree Iyengar says that
the whole process of humiliation is intended to demoralize a woman so that her feeling
of vulnerability makes her desperately aware of the need to carve a place for herself in
her in-laws' house however degrading that might be. She is compelled to grovel before
her husband and his family to seek a precarious foothold ... the never-ending demands
and taunts make her feel perpetually insecure . . . she never knows which occasion may
be used to demean and threaten her further. 47
The psychological aspects of this type of control is a strategy to get women to accept a
subordinate position within the family and feel grateful for being allowed to survive in the marital
home. The 'training' of the daughter-in-law into total subordination is an essential part of her
transition from the daughter to the wife:
Thus, dowry demands are as little or as much related to greed as rape is to sexual
satisfaction. Both are essentially forms ofviolence whose primary purpose is to degrade
and victimise [sic] a woman so that she retains a desperate fear of disobeying the
powerful. Just as rapists frequently beat, main or kill their victim as a further expression
of their power over her, so also, the taunts and abuses of a daughter-in-law may escalate
into beatings, torture and even murder. 48
Vibhuti Patel, a feminist activist and retired professor ofSociology at S.N.D.T. Women's
University stated the following:
An important part of putting an end to humiliating and oppressive marriages is the
acceptance of an individual's right to remain unmarried. Unless we get over our obsession
with marriage as the most necessary and inevitable defining event in a women's life and
as the only desirable living arrangement for her, we cannot conceive of free and
independent women ... if women do not feel compelled to get married and stay married
at [any] cost, they are more likely to be able to resist [abuse]. Our society has so far had

47

Interview by author, 24 September 1997.

48

Madhu Kishwar, Manushi, 31:16.
66

very little space for self sufficient women whether unmarried, divorced or widowed. We
need to create an atmosphere where women can live with dignity and freedom .49
Although the campaigns against rape and dowry have been effective in getting new
legislation, rape is still on the rise and dowry deaths continue.50 The campaigns were limited in
scope. The issues confronted sought only to "address superficial symptoms" and not the basic
questions ofpower imbalances between men and women, or women' s economic rights within the
fam ily and within society. Flavia Agnes says:
The solutions were sought within the existing patriarchal framework and did not arise out
of a new feminist analysis leading to the empowerment of women. They seldom
questioned the conservative notions of women' s chastity, virginity, servility and the
concept of ' good' and ' bad' women in society. For instance, the rape campaign
subscribed to the traditional notion of rape being the ' ultimate violation' of a woman,
reducing her to a state 'worse than death' . It did not transcend the conservative definition
of forcible penis penetration of the vagina by a man who is not her husband. 5 1
Following public protests in cases of rape and dowry deaths in all major areas of India
during the 1990's, a large number of women shed their traditional docility and began seeking help
to prevent domestic violence. Since the police refused to register their complaints under the
existing provisions of the Indian Penal Code, they demanded a special enactment to deal with
the issue. Many western countries have passed laws against domestic violence in the 1970s.
Unfortunately, in India, the Women's Movement did not raise the demand for a similar law atthe
time. Initially, only dowry-related violence was highlighted by women activists, while violence
against women within their own homes was attributed to dowry by activists as well as by the State.

49

50

lnterview by author, 8 October 1997.

"Rise in Crime Against Women," The Statesman (New Delhi), 11 March 1997, np.

Agnes, Flavia "Protecting Women against Violence?: Review of a Decade of Legislation,
1980-89 (Economic and Political Weekly, April25, 1992), WS19.

51

67

This initial demand for a law to prevent dowry-related violence turned out to be a narrow and
mis-directed programme, because placing dowry violence on a special slate denied recognition
and legitimacy to the need for protection against violence by all women under all circumstances
(my emphasis).52

FEMALE INFANTICIDE
"I did not see the face of my child as I just passed into unconsciousness after the birth.
My neighbours told me she was very beautiful. My mother and the nurse buried her
alive .. .I did not even hear her cry."
"What can I say? My husband told me he will not take me ifl delivered a female child."
"I had to cross the river to reach my husband's house. I was carrying the child on my
shoulder and I lowered her slowly as I was getting into deep waters. By the time I crossed
the river I knew my new born female child was dead ...that is a burden I will carry within
my conscience. But, at least my daughter will not go though what I am going through. "
"I suffered a lot for giving birth to a female child who was the oldest. They expected to
have a male child . . . but the next three were all female children. I had to do away with
them. My fifth child is male. Now I feel I can lift my head and walk in my village. " 53
The above quotes came from village women in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. These
women feel that they have no choice other than to kill their own female children as soon as they
are born: "As human beings wanting to save their daughters from the horrors and torture that

52

Ammu Abraham, Towards Survival and Empowerment. Women' s Centre Report, 19911994.

53

The Asian Women's Human Rights Council together with local women' s groups in Asia
have organised over the years, a series of Public Hearings on Crimes against Women in
the Asia-Pacific region. At the Public Hearings the voices of the victims/survivors and
the voices of resistance are listened to:
. . . it is a sacred space where women can bring their anguish, their anger. It is
spoken in the language of suffering; naming the crimes, seeking redressal, even
reparation. It tells of the forgotten narratives of the times; violent times. It speaks
of a great violence. It comes from an overwhelming silence. It is a silence that
speaks (A WHRC 1995).

68

would befall her, they do not hesitate to kill her as soon as she is born. The mother is pushed to
become a silent killer. " 54
In a society where money has become central to life and the economy, the value of
women and women's work is on the decrease. Instead of contributing to the new cash economy,
women have become a liability. Marriages used to be arranged within the communities, now men
want to marry women whose family can afford to offer more money, jewellery, land and
household items. Demands are made on women to bring more and more money into her
marriage. Now, age-old customs have taken on a new value, the value of money and a woman
without a sufficient dowry has ceased to be of any value:
[F]inally the greatest violence of civilization has been the inauthentic reading ofthe "past"
- modem history for example when tracing the roots of this practise stops at a time when
economic productivity, the vision of the modem industrial age took centre stage. They
therefore locate this violence against women in the fact that they were devalued because
they had no economic role to play within the community. They are totally unable to
comprehend a time when economics did not determine community relationships; they are
incapable ofgrasping a world view in which women are central to subsistence life rhythms
of the community where profits and productivity made little sense. 55
Demographers in India are worried about the shrinking female population, but do not
know how to explain it. 56 The declining sex-ratio in India, the extortion-like demands of dowry,

54

AWHRC, 15.

55

Ibid., 17.

56

ln a newspaper report on the shrinking female population in India since 1950, Indian
demographers admit "that they have no explanation" for this trend. As one of them said:
[I]f that were the only factor, then the improvement in the status of women in
recent years would have led to a corresponding improvement in the woman-man
ratio, but the situation is just the opposite. While the status of women has
improved considerably in recent years, their number has also at the same time
declined. This shows that there is more to the problem than meets the eye. We are
really 'puzzled.' ["Shrinking Population of Women," in The Statesman, 14 August

69

the spread of dowry to communities and sections of the poor which previously practised brideprice are sufficient evidence that women are not wanted in India.57 Maria Mies calls this a new
trend in "neo-patriarchy" and claims that, "these are the possibilities opened up by the new
technology of sex-preselection through amniocentesis and ultra-sound scanning, combined with
population control policies and the strengthening of patriarchal institutions and attitudes of male
dominance." 58

It has become socially accepted in India that the birth of a daughter is a disaster.
Beginning in July of 1982, some doctors have ' cashed in' on this notion and made a business out
of the anti-woman and pro-male bias of patriarchal Indian society. They advertised and sold
amniocentesis as a method of sex-selection, followed by the abortion of female fetuses. As
happened with the anti-dowry and anti-rape campaign, the press began to report on the extent and
the circumstances of female feoticide only after women's groups had started agitating against a
"threatening tenancy towards the extermination of women. " 59
As Vibuti Patel writes:
One estimate that shocked everyone, right from the planners and policy makers to the
academics and activists was that between 1978 and 1983 around 78,000 female fetuses
were aborted after sex determination tests were done. The government and private
practitioners involved in this lucrative trade,justi:tythe sex determination test as a measure
for population control. 60

1980].
57

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation, 150.

58

Ibid. , 151 .

59

Vibuti Patel, Interview by author, 8 October 1997.

60

Vibuti Patel, "Amniocentesis and Female Foeticide: Misuse of Medical Technology,"
Socialist Health Review, Vol. 1, No.2, September 2, 1984, 70.
70

Science and technology have now added a new dimension and a sense oflegitimacy to the
age old practice offemale infanticide. Female babies can now be eliminated before they are born.
Popularly known as "the test", this procedure is carried out by doctors and, once the sex of the
fetus is known, the females are aborted. If a doctor does not perform abortions, he has contacts
where they are performed. "Better Rs 500 [$20] now than Rs 5 lakh [$10,000) later," says an
advertisement for the amniocentesis test. 61
Dowry, rape, and sex-selective abortions are various manifestations of atrocities against
women. They all stem from a system based on inequality, injustice and the oppression of women
and can be eliminated by a fundamental restructuring of society on the foundations of equality,
justice and mutual respect: "For all of us, the struggle against the Sex Determination Test is part
of a wider struggle for equality and women' s liberation. We are thus involved in raising
awareness and changing attitudes and values of people." 62
In 1982, the issue of Sex Determination (SD) Tests captured attention for the first time
in India. It instantly became a media debate and was discussed in the papers for months:
The flashpoint came in the form of an error in the determination of fetal sex carried out
at the New Bhandari Hospital at Amritsar. Such errors are not uncommon. They had
occurred earlier in cases oflesser mortals. This time, however, it was not an ordinary
fetus. A powerful government officer, craving for a son, had asked his wife to undergo
the test. Diagnosis as female was, as usual, followed by abortion ofthe fetus. It was then
discovered that the aborted fetus happened to be male. The embittered father made the
news public in order to discredit the hospital. The rest is now history.63
Gandhi and Shah, Issues at Stake, 128.

61

62

Laxmi Menon (Akshara) Interview by author, 12 September 1997.

63

R. P. Ravindra, "Campaign Against Sex Determination Test: Study of Action,"
(Women's Studies Unit, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, 1992), 61 .

71

The technique of amniocentesis which was used for sex determination in this case was
originally discovered for the detection of genetic abnormalities. It is still used in most parts of
the world for the same purpose. However, in a country like India being female is considered an
"abnormality" or a "crime" and the technique came to be used mainly for seeking "preelimination" of unwanted female children followed by the abortion of the "wrong sex.' >64 The
technique was devised as an ultimate solution to the dowry problem.
In October, 1985 the Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Preselection (FASDSP)
was founded in Bombay. Their agenda included women' s liberation, health and human rights.
Sonal Shukla had decades of experience working on women' s issues; Vibhuti Patel was working
at the Women's Centre at the time; and Chayanika Shah was a researcher in physics and actively
involved in the women' s movement. There were other women and men who were "greenhorn"
activists and had little experience working on broader issues, but they had all come together to
work as equal partners. All had ' social change' on their minds.
Before initiating any action, the members of FASDSP met with scientists, lawyers and
doctors to understand their viewpoints. After much deliberation and many meetings, they decided
to base the campaign on the analysis drawn from their data. Some of the points raised in these
meetings were re-iterated to me by Laxmi Menon of Akshara:
-We should not focus this question only as a women' s issue because in our country, women' s
issues are meant to be discussed and never to be resolved. If we focus only on women, then 52
percent of the population, the men, would be isolated from the campaign. Although "he" is
supposed to include "she", "she" is never considered to include "he" . Men tend to ignore or
ridicule women's issues. So, we decided to raise SD as an issue for men and women. For us the
real issue is not of women, but of the men-women relationship in society.

64

Ibid.' 61 .

72

-We should raise the issue simultaneously at various planes: equality of sexes, of health and of
human rights. We assert that a few scientists should not have the rightto decide on matters which
affect society as a whole. We should try to initiate a process whereby a technology would be
allowed to operate within a society only after ascertaining its benefits and risks to all concerned.
-We should not ask for a blanket ban on prenatal diagnostic techniques which can be misused for
SD. We should ask for banning the misuse and at the same time for regulating the proper use of
these techniques for detection ofgenetic abnormalities. Our demands would be based on the right
of equality enshrined in the Indian constitution and on the social need for regulating the sex ration
balance.65

It was obvious to the FASDSP that the birth of daughters would not automatically raise
their status and yet the solution lies not in "more humane ways of eliminating women," but in
fighting all forms of their exploitation and subjugation.66
In an attempt to find innovative ways to create public opinion, the FASDSP organized
peaceful rallies where prominent women marched with their daughters. They also established
children's day programmes in schools which focussed on the girl child.67 As the campaign gained
momentum the issue received wide media publicity, and support from the general public.
The campaign differs from those mentioned earlier, both for its systematic follow-up of
the issue and for its constant introspection. The issue was not as simple as it initially seemed. In
the first phase, the focus was on the woman' s health while undergoing abortion in the second

65

Laxmi Menon, Interview by author, 17 September 1997.

67

Vacha, a resource centre for women initially began in the home of one of its founders.
Subsequently, it moved into a Municipal School so that they could maintain their most
recent project: The Campaign to Support and Raise the Status of the Girl Child
Through Education. Integrating its women' s library and cultural centre with a resource
centre for children, the group has organized learning programmes in English, a school
subject that children from economically deprived families find particularly difficult to deal
with.

73

trimester of a pregnancy, chances of wrong diagnosis, abortion of male fetuses and unscrupulous
doctors routinely informing the parents that the fetus was a female. 68
Then a problem surfaced around the issue of supporting the 'right to life' ofan individual
fetus. It was suspiciously too close to the 'pro-life' argument used by campaigners from the
Catholic community. If these conflicts continued, it could jeopardize women's right to safe
abortions. 69
It was difficult to establish a clear distinction between sex determination and selective

abortions. At times they were not conducted at the same clinic. Women would go to a private
clinic for "the test" and then approach a government hospital for a free abortion. So the issue had
to be dealt with at the level of the sex determination test and not at the level of constraining a
woman's right to abortion. 70
There was also an in-depth debate regarding the question of a woman's choice. Does she
have the right to limit her number of children? Does she have a right to have a child of a
particular sex? This was the argument by parents for aborting their female children because, in
Indian society, to be a woman is bad enough; to be a mother of girls is even worse: 71
By linking individual right to one's own body, it is stressed that primarily and ultimately
the body is the concern of the individual and not anyone else. If the concept of
reproductive freedom or a choice is based on individual right-that is women should have
the right to decide whether they want children, or the number of children and the nature

68

~

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 176.
it Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 131.

7

°Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 177.

71

Ibid.

74

ofcontraception because they own their bodies-then it becomes difficult to argue against
sex pre-selection tests such as the amniocentesis test. 72
While the FASDSP was trying to change social attitudes through various campaigns, they
demanded a legislation to prevent the medical community from misusing the technology for its
own interests. In 1986, the FASDSP was successful in getting a private member's bill introduced.
A survey of sex determination clinics was commissioned. This helped the activists to support their
contention about the widespread misuse of the tests in the city. In April 1988, a bill was passed.
To the chagrin of the FASDSP, the bill provided for punishment of the woman undergoing the
test. Flavia Agnes explains that, "although the clause said that such a woman would normally be
assumed to be innocent, it provided for punishment if it was proved that she went for the test 'on
her own' . . . under the present social context there was every possibility of the in-laws getting
away scot-free and the woman being punished for undergoing the test."73
The anti-amniocentesis campaign involved scientists, doctors, health activists, and
women's movement activists who debated the issue on the streets, on television and in public
meetings. This dialogue continues today, but the arguments are becoming repetitive. In order to
move from social and ethical arguments, it will be necessary to deepen an understanding ofthe
maintenance of patriarchal control over women's fertility through the use of science and
technology, and to look at how that control operates in other fields such as New Reproductive
Technologies. Finally, there will have to be many more attempts at raising consciousness at the
local level on gender discrimination.

~
73

it Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 137.

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 180.

75

While discussing violence against women in India, it is important to mention briefly certain
developments in other laws concerning women, particularly within marriage, some of which will
be discussed in the next chapter. The Muslim Women (Protection ofRights on Divorce) Act
passed in 1986, denied Muslim women the right to maintenance after divorce. The Christian
women's demand for a reform in their outdated, discriminatory and sexist personal laws was not
conceded. The issue of a secular non-sexist civil code has been consistently evaded in the present
political context. 74
A Bombay High Court held that a woman has no right to enter her matrimonial home after
divorce. No alternatives for women to opt out of marriage in terms of jobs and housing have
evolved. Wherever the economic or political power base would have been upset, the government
has not passed any laws. The laws which have been implemented need serious questioning. As
Flavia Agnes states:
[p]erhaps the movement has been short-sighted in raising such demands in the first place
and is falling right into the manipulative schemes of the government. The women' s
movement is too insignificant at this moment to monitor the implementation ofthese laws
and prevent their misuse. The power acquired by the government in the name of
protecting women becomes all the more frightening in the present political context of
rising communalism and criminalisation (sic) of the political process. 75
In Chapter IV I will continue to examine other forms of violence against women which

perpetuated internalized notions of patriarchal values. I will do this by documenting how Indian
feminist activists have challenged issues of feminism, religion, tradition and gender. Knowing the
tremendous odds women face in their lives, feminist organizations felt that it was imperative for
them to provide moral, emotional and material support to those who want to challenge unequal
74

Flavia Agnes, EPW, WS-33 .

76

and oppressive relations in their lives. Following the campaigns against rape, dowry and
amniocentesis, feminist organizations were faced with women who came to them for help and
support regarding issues of feminism, religion, tradition and gender; the trend in this discourse on
consciousness raising was on evolving strategies.

77

CHAPTER IV
CHALLENGING ISSUES OF FEMINISM, RELIGION, TRADITION AND GENDER:
QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY

[T]he question "Who should speak?" is less crucial than "Who will listen?" . .. the
moment I have to think of the ways in which I will speak as an Indian, or as a feminist,
the ways in which I will speak as a woman, what I am doing is trying to generalize
myself, make myself a representative . .. there are many subject positions which one
must inhabit; one is not just one thing. That is when a political consciousness comes in
... But when the card carrying listeners, the hegemonic people, the dominant people,
talk about listening to someone "speaking as" ... When they want to hear an Indian
speaking as an Indian, a Third World women speaking as a Third World woman, they
cover over the fact of the ignorance that they are allowed to possess.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues.
Parts of Chapter IV were inspired by my attending a lecture series at the Asiatic Society

in Bombay, and one particular presentation entitled, "Indigenous F eminisms." It was a panel
discussion that turned into a heated debate beginning with "what is feminism and who does it
belong to?'' and ending with unresolved questions of identity. Following are some definitions
of feminism made by women in dialogue with each other at the lecture. These definitions are
important to me because during the lecture series, it was alleged that feminism was a Western
notion and, therefore, quite irrelevant in India. This statement was countered by another woman
who stated that, "while the term f eminism may be Western, the concept stands for a
transformation process, a process which started in South Asia in the nineteenth century as an

78

organized and articulated stand against women's subordination." 1 The statements made by
Indian women on defining their own feminism are important to me as a researcher from the
Western world so that I may remain focussed on the various definitions of Indian feminism
defined below and then re-defined later on in this thesis.
FEMINISM IS:
- how women can bond.
- political consciousness and that is why we need Resource Centres, because, with the addition
of information, it brings about consciousness.
- based on the sexual division oflabour.
- women's collective strength, that is feminism, and that was not born in the west.
- diversity and diversity should be a celebration.
- unity and that is how we see change take place and is how we will achieve global feminism.2
Maria Mies writes that the concepts offeminism and feminist have become emotive
words that often evoke hostile reactions. "Feminism is generally thought of as a recent
phenomenon, rooted in Western society." People tend to overlook the fact that these words were
in common usage in Europe and elsewhere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to signify
agitation on issues concerning women's oppression and exploitation within the family, at work,
and in society, and the conscious action by women to change this situation?
Feminism does not derive its theoretical or conceptual base from any single formulation.
There is no specific abstract definition of feminism applicable to all women at all times. The
definition can and does change "because feminism is based on historically and culturally concrete

Taken from my field notes, 1 October 1997. Also see Maria Mies, Patriarchy and
Accumulation (London and New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd., 1994), Chapter 1.
1

2

Taken from my field notes, 1 October 1997.

Maria Mies, Patriarchy And Accumulation, 17.

3

79

realities and levels of consciousness, perceptions and actions. " 4 Feminism can also be articulated
differently in various parts of the world and within a country; can be dependant on class
background, and level of education. Even among similar kinds of women there are different
currents and debates in feminist thinking, particularly with regard to the reasons (i.e. the historical
roots) for patriarchy and male domination, and to the final resolution of women's struggle for
a non-exploitative society free of class, caste, race and gender bias.5
Various workshops and women's conferences have been held in South Asia, from which
came a very broad definition of feminism that is widely accepted by women from Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,"[a]n 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." 6
According to this definition, anyone who recognizes the existence of sexism
(discrimination on the basis of gender), male domination, and patriarchy, and who takes some
action against it, is a feminist. From this definition, and my experience at the Asiatic Society, it
is clear that a mere recognition of the issues of gender relations, in which the subordination of
women is located, is not enough. It has to be accompanied by action, by a challenge to male
domination and this action can take a variety of forms. Kamla Bashin and Nighat Said Khan
explain further what feminism means to some women:

4

Kamla Bhasin and Nighat Said Khan, Some questions on FEMINISM· its relevance in
South Asia, (New Delhi: Kali forWomen,1994), 2.
5

Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale, 17.

6

Kamla Bhasin and Nighat Said Khan, Some Questions on FEMINISM, 2.

80

For instance a woman' s decision not to be humiliated, or to educate herself and pursue
a career, or her refusal to be restricted by purdah [the seclusion of women from the sight
of men], or her decision not to have children are, as feminist actions, as relevant as the
most organized struggles. In other words you don' t have to belong to a group to be a
feminist, although in order to do anything effectively it is much better to be part of one
. . . Feminism is the struggle for the democratic rights of women. It is the right to
education and employment; the right to own property; the right to vote; the right to enter
parliament; the right to birth control; the right to divorce, etc . .. . Feminism is the
struggle against women' s subordination to the male within her home; against their [her]
exploitation by the family; againsttheir [her] continuing low status at work, in society and
in the culture and religion ofthe country; against their [her] double burden in production
and reproduction. In addition, feminism challenges the very notions of femininity and
masculinity as mutually exclusive, biologically determined categories.7
The question of "what is feminism and who does it belong to" is to contextualize its
analysis in the Indian paradigm.8 One woman who spoke at the Asiatic Society said that she
wanted to see "difference" turned into "something else." She added, "If you bring context into
your methodology then you may fire up a revolution! " This is where I began to better understand
that a major concern for Indian feminists is the divisive tendencies of the culture itself, such as
religion, caste, class, and, gender. In search of ways to explore and counter such tendencies

8

Having brought my Western feminist perspective into my research, my eyes were opened
by the following encounter:
After leaving the lecture at the Asiatic Society, I was confronted by a woman who
was not only at the lecture but also attended a workshop with me the previous
Saturday at the YWCA in Mumbai. She identified herself as a "Catholic" feminist
and demanded that I not exclude her group from my thesis, ''just like we are being
excluded from the feminist movement in Bombay," she said. I told her that I
would give it some thought and get in touch with her in a few days. After a very
restless night, I realized that I had not considered that feminism in India was divided
by religion. I was aware of the race, class, gender and caste barriers, but religion
had never entered the picture. How would I include these women into my thesis?
What and who were they and how would they situate themselves? These were all
questions that I had pondered over the course of a sleepless night.

81

within movement politics, the question of difference among women need not become a point of
immobility but a point of solidarity. The argument then becomes two-fold: to argue for the
necessity to recognize differences between women so as to contribute to the ways of overcoming
them; and to contribute to the current debate in India, on the implications of what this
recognition would mean in the area of feminist theory and practice.
If feminist theory and practice rests on the problem of defining 'feminism,' and if that
definition incorporates the concept of ' woman', then we have to ask; "From where does the
concept of' woman' get its meaning? What is it to be distinctively ' woman' ?" In some feminist
discourses, the word ' woman' derives its meaning out of gender difference. Thus the concept
of gender is well imbedded in any feminist project:
I feel like a medium through which many voices are trying to speak. But I don' t want
them to or rather I don' t want anyone to hear. I am afraid that ifl don' t then my feelings
might soon metamorphose and if I do people might misunderstand or misuse them. I
have been a volunteer in a women' s group and the movement for eight years. Volunteer
in the sense that I am not a full-time worker who draws sustenance from doing
movement work. Such a silly term, as if one ceases to be an activist at work or on
Sundays. Sometimes it seems that I teach in my spare time! Perhaps that's the problem.
We are never off the job. But then we never cease being women, do we?9
If we are to problematize the category "woman" as Judith Butler does, then on what
grounds can one use this category without being essentialist or without it having exclusionary
implications? 10 One way is to replace our essentialist notions of woman and a feminine gender

As quoted in Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah' s Issues at Stake: Theory and Practice in
the Contemporary Women's Movement in India (New Delhi: Kali for Women,1993),
318.

9

10

Judith Butler has developed a critique using different versions of gender development,
(Freudian and Lacanian). She argues that. .. "the category ' woman,' the subject of
feminism, is produced and restrained by the very structures of power through which
emancipation is sought" There is also the political problem that feminism encounters in

82

identity with a plural and constructed conception of social identity treating gender as one relevant
strand among others, including religion, class, caste, age and sexual orientation.
ChandraMohanty grants the unified subject an "imaginary" existence and shows us how
we can use the category "woman" in a strategic way without having the political implications of
assuming all women under the same rubric. She writes:
The idea of imagined community is useful because it leads us away from essentialist
notions of third world feminist struggles, suggesting political rather than biological or
cultural bases for alliance. Thus it is not colour or sex which constructs the ground for
these struggles. Rather it is the way we think about race, class, and gender- the political
links we choose to make among and between struggles. Thus, potentially, women of ali
colours (including white women) can align themselves with and participate in these
imagined communities. 11
I use ChandraMohanty' s idea of"imagined community" as a kind of essentialism useful
in incorporating the category woman strategically. This can be manipulated, without having the
political implications mentioned earlier, by not granting myselfexclusive control over its use. An
example would be my entering an uncertain, unstable environment, thereby destabilizing myself
and weakening the impact of any exclusionary implications that may be employed by my own
cultural biases. Chandra Mohanty criticises women in their quest for seeking to uncover the

the assumption that the term women denotes a common identity. "If one [is] a woman,
that is surely not all one is; the term fails to be exhaustive, not because a pregendered
[person] transcends the specific paraphernalia of its gender, but because gender is not
always constituted coherently or consistently in different historical contexts, and because
gender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively
constituted identities. As a result, it becomes impossible to separate out [gender] from the
political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained.
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion ofidentity, (New York
and London: Routledge, 1990), 2.
Chandra Mohanty, Third World Women and The Politics of Feminism, (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991), 4.

11

83

universality of women' s subordinate position in society. She states that "[b]esides being normed
on a white, Western (read progressive/modem)/non-Westem (read backward/traditional)
hierarchy, these analyses freeze third world women in time, space, and history" 12 • Mohanty also
states that "[t]hese arguments are not against generalization as much as they are for careful,
historically specific generalizations responsive to complex realities ... [t]hus, while Indian women
of different religions, castes, and classes might forge a political unity on the basis of organizing
against police brutality toward women, an analysis of police brutality must be contextual. " 13 She
does not negate the possibility of cross-cultural theorizing, but does stress that Third World
women do not constitute any "automatic unitary group" and argues for an imagined community
of Third World oppositional struggles. 14
The following example illustrates how several communities for example, Christian/nonChristian, religious/non-religious/, feminist/non-feminist were purposely manipulated by the
dominant groups (police, doctors, media etc.) and how women in these communities organized
themselves to protest against the violations of basic human rights.
CAN FEMINISM TOLERATE RELIGION: Rita tells her story
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into
The dreary desert sands of dead habit;

12

Ibid., 6.

13

Ibid., 69.

14

Ibid., 7.
84

Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever widening thought and action.
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father,
Let my country awake! Rabindranath Tagore 15
My interview with Rita Monteiro provided me with an example of how women from
several different organizations came together to free themselves and other women, from the
confines of the press, the police, the judiciary system and the coroner's court. Rita was hesitant,
at first, to tell me about this case. She said that she did not want to talk about such a "drastic
thing" but she felt that it was important to include in my thesis as it concerns "human rights and
women's issues." 16
On 12 November 1990 at approximately 10:00 pm, two nuns, Sister Sylvia and Sister
Priya, were found lying dead on the blood-splattered floor of their bedrooms in an orphanage
run by the Holy Family Church in a quiet suburb of Mumbai, India. The residents of the
institution immediately contacted the police. "The inquest revealed no signs of molestation and
also no marks of injury on the private parts ofboth the deceased. " 17 Theft as a motive was ruled
out as the nuns lived a very simple lifestyle and kept no cash in their premises. The police were
baffled as to why no one heard their shouts for help and why the ferocious dogs of the
compound did not bark when the sisters were attacked.

This poem was used as a source of inspiration for the women who were involved in this
difficult case.

15

16

Rita Monteiro, Interview by author 12 September 1997. Rita's hesitation in telling me this
story, was based on her fear of being chastised by the Catholic church and indeed Indian
feminists for sharing such a negative story with a Western researcher.

17

Jndian Express, 20 November 1990.

85

The next day a post-mortem on the bodies of the nuns was conducted. Subsequently,
several newspapers in Bombay published the following report: "Police source confirmed the
findings ofthe post-mortem report which stated that both sisters had regular sexual intercourse."
The report, with the very provocative title of "Sex, Nuns and Venereal Disease," added that one
of the nuns was suspected of having a sexually transmitted disease. 18
As soon as the word "sex" was used, public discussion of the nun's murder became
defensive. On 19 November, it was reported that "a meeting ofvarious women and social action
groups in the city have expressed a strong protest against the publication of the post-mortem
report." 19 Christian groups alleged that the report had been "doctored" to cast suspicion on the
character ofthe deceased nuns and to malign the Christian community. Thus, suddenly the focus
shifted from the criticism of the police (for having failed in apprehending the murders) to the
"virginity" of the deceased nuns! 20
Rita Monteiro explained to me that religion attaches more importance to a woman's
chastity than to her life. "Patriarchal morality with regard to sexuality permeates all religions,
institutions, and Christianity is no exception." Until16 November 1990, Sister Sylvia and Sister
Priya were held in the highest regard because they had renounced all worldly pleasures and
devoted themselves to serving unwanted children. But on 18 November, it was alleged that they
were of"loose moral character," just because the statements in the Press maintained that they had

18

Two newspapers ran this article, The Times of India and The Indian Express, on 18 and
19 November, 1990, respectively.

19

Times ofIndia.

20

Rita Monteiro, Solidarity for Justice (Mumbai: Nirmala Niketan College for Social
Work, 38 New Marine Lines, 1991), 6.
86

violated patriarchal and religious morality. Their violent deaths were projected as less important
because it was said that they were women ofless virtue. 21
Nirmala Nikketan College for Social Work in Bombay took the initiative to constitute a
fact-finding team represented by the Medico Friends Circle, Forum Against Oppression of

Women, SatyashodhalC 2 and two feminist lawyers. From their report, "Will Truth Prevail?," it
is clear that four nuns formed a ring around the dead nun's bodies and prevented male police
officers from touching the bodies for over five hours because neither women constables nor a
woman doctor were present. 23 In the five months following the report, the Catholic women's
community, with the help ofRita's group, Satyashodhak, started meetings to organize against
the police and their inability to take action in the case. They also rallied against the "mis-leading
media coverage and the irresponsible statements made by forensic experts. " 24 In an article
entitled, "Mammoth rally in nuns' case," it was reported that, "they were protesting the inaction
of the police in solving most gender-related crimes, the insensitivity of the press in reporting
these, and the corrupt state apparatus, apathetic judiciary and complacent public which permitted
these to be perpetuated and escalate[d] ." 25
For more than one year, developments concerning the case were reported in great detail
in the newspapers. Except for the initial report about the murder, all others revolved around the
21

Ibid.

22

A Catholic women's group to which Rita Monteiro belonged.

23

Vibuti Patel, "Murder Sidelined by Character Assassination: Jogeshwari Nuns," in
Women's Oppression In the Public Gaze, edited by Meera Kosambi (Bombay: Research
Centre for Women's Studies, S.N.D.T. Women's University 1995), 164.

24

Vibuti Patel, Women's Oppression in the Public Gaze, 159.

25

Times ofIndia, 16 November 1991 .

87

'sexual activities' of the deceased. Letters written to the newspaper and magazine editors
concerned themselves mostly with the sexuality of the nuns. This case made sensational news
not because two women were brutally murdered but because their chastity was publicly
scrutinized. As a result, the crime was de-valued and the 'sexual conduct' of the two women
remained highlighted.
On the first anniversary of the nuns' murder, several Catholic organizations and secular
women's groups decided to organize a solidarity march. A united front named Solidarity for

Justice,

representing approximately thirty community based, religious and women's

organizations, was formed. Two days before the solidarity march, several prominent citizens
issued a press release requesting the Cardinal to stop the march, because they said it was a "veiled
attempt to politicize and communalize the murder ofthe nuns. " 26 In spite of"extremely hostile"
media coverage regarding the solidarity march, thousands ofmen and women, "Catholics as well
as non-Catholics," participated in the march.27
During the same period, several parishes organized community-level meetings and invited
women and other human rights activists to address their parishioners and explain the issues
related to the nuns' murder case. Various congregations and Christian educational institutions
held seminars inviting experts to make presentations. Their intention was to build a campaign
against the state and the media.28 The Research Centre for Women's Studies, S.N.D.T.
26

Times ofIndia, 13 November 1991.

27

Vibuti Patel, "Murder Sidelined by Character Assassination: Jogeshwari Nuns," in
Women's Oppression In the Public Gaze, edited by Meera Kosambi (Bombay: Research
Centre for Women's Studies, S.N.D.T. Women' s University Press 1994), 165.

28

Ibid. Fifty thousand leaflets in English, Marathi, and Hindi were published. They stated
that . . . "We protest against such murders, we protest against sexual molestation, forced
88

Women's University, Bombay, commissioned Rita Monteiro to do content analysis study ofthe
one hundred and twenty issues covered by the local newspapers and prepare a report focusing
on the nuns' murder case. In her study, she compared this case with another one in Gujarat
where two nuns were gang-raped, another was criminally assaulted and nine others were beaten.
"Both incidents had all the ingredients of sensationalism, creating horror, repulsion, and curiosity
- just the sort of news a paper would look for . . . both incidents were perpetrated on women
who were also nuns. This added to their shock value."29
Rita Monteiro, found that in the Gujarat rape case, The Times ofIndia was extremely
sensitive and "objective" in its reporting ofthis heinous crime and showed commendable insight
into the wider implications of such events. It provided an in-depth analysis based on the details
of the case and an open 'Readers Forum' was started for citizens to express their opinions. The
same newspaper adopted a completely different policy in the Bombay murder case as it provided
a one-sided news coverage tarnishing the image ofthe nuns. Rita Monteiro reports in her paper
that:
[t]wo women who had done no harm to anyone and had devoted their lives to
rehabilitating young boys living on the streets and employed in gambling [casinos], drug
running, prostitution and other dubious activities, so that they could become productive
people, had been gruesomely murdered. But the histopathological and chemical analysis
now showed a double murder had taken place. Their good name and reputation were
wrongfully besmirched as these analyses showed no trace of sexually transmitted disease.
Nor could it be medically stated that they were accustomed to sexual intercourse. .. . [i]s
it not unethical to believe privately that what was published was wrong and violative [sic]
ofhuman dignity, yet to persist in maintaining a bold public face of self-righteousness in

marriages of girl-children, the sensationalization [sic] of violence against women by the
media and the utterly dehumanizing, humiliating and degrading practices of the
custodians oflaw and order." (Taken from my field notes 12 October 1997. The leaflet
was produced in November 1991 and was signed by 29 organizations in Mumbai).
29

Rita Monteiro, Women and Violence, 55 .

89

the hope that people would gradually forget about the damage done by their papers? 30
As a result of public pressure (discussions and demonstrations), the State re-examined
ways to be more accountable to the public. It recognized that the police, the coroner's court, the
press, and the judiciary are the "four pillars" of the criminal legal system in India and have
decision-making power in cases ofviolence against women.31 The government ofMaharashtra
appointed a committee "to give guiding instructions for maintaining secrecy during the
investigation of a crime. " 32 It prohibited police officers from remaining present at the time of a
post-mortem. It also instructed the medical officers that as government employees "they are
prohibited from divulging directly or indirectly the information under rule 8 ofthe Maharashtra
Civil Services (Conduct) rules.'m In the training programme on gender issues (now a
compulsory feature in all government departments) instructions are given that sensitive handling
in cases of violence against women be ensured.
Two harmless women dedicated to the cause of rehabilitating street children were
'murdered twice' in the whole process; once in the coroner's court and then by the media.
Sensational media coverage, a controversial post-mortem report and insensitive handling ofthe
issue by the state created a crisis situation. In an environment that is communally charged, the
crime against women became an issue of identity politics.34

30
31

Rita Monteiro as quoted in Vibuti Patel, Women's Oppression in the Public Gaze,168.

Ibid.

32

Government of India, 26 June 1991.

Rita Monterio, Solidarity for Justice; Vibuti Patel, Women's Oppression in the Public
Gaze, 168.

34

90

COMMUNALISM: Seeking an Identity 35
In such peoples lives, nothing gets disturbed, even when violence strikes, when attacks
are launched waving banners ofreligion, caste, language ... [d]eaths, injuries, devastation
become just numbers. Meanwhile, the violence around us keeps growing along with
repeated indifference and more apathy. As the situation becomes worse, there is a kind
of adopting to the worsened state of affairs [sic]. All of us become more thick skinned
and cold blooded. It is probably both the helplessness at not being able to stop this
violence and the everyday character ofthis violence- which has resulted in our building
a shell around us.36
The concept of ' one nation' has been proposed as an answer to the problem of
communal tensions. However, the concept of one nation is dependent on one's or a group' s
world view. There is a slogan in India which proclaims "unity in diversity" and is projected by
the concept of an "Indian nation." 37 There is a common belief among the Hindu right that the
Hindu religion has always been accommodating and has adjusted to the different trends of
thought in the various communities. It states, "Indians are actually a peace loving, spiritually
inclined, non-violent society which has been made violent by foreign invasions." 38

35

Communalism: Strong allegiance to ones' s own ethnic group rather than to society as a
whole (Webster's Dictionary). In the case of India, it refers mostly to Hindus and
Muslims.
Swatija Manorama and Chayanika Shah, Not Just A Matter of Faith: Essays on
Communialism (An Akshara Publication 1992), 1.

36

Riots effected Bombay in 1985 and 1993 over Muslim and Hindu differences. For a
more detailed account of the Bombay riots see Clarence Fernandez and Naresh
Fernandes, "The Winter ofDiscontent" and "A City At War With Itself'in When Bombay
Burned, edited by Dilip Padgoankar (1993 : A Times of India Publication), 12-41 and 42121 respectively.
37

lbid., 2.

38

lbid., 3. Also See Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation, 14.
91

Members of the Indian Women' s Movement began to probe this so-called "religious
tolerance" by certain Hindu fundamentalists. They soon recognized that there are no clear cut
answers to the problem of religious tolerance: "To understand the present we need to neither
glorify nor denigrate our past. We need to gather strength from our plus points and critically
evaluate to arrive at some path for the future." 39
Beginning with the recognition that women not only belong to different classes and
castes but also share common bonds and experiences of oppression, the Women' s Movement
has tried to go beyond women' s biological existence to build a vision and politics for societal
liberation. They believe that because communalism touches all aspects of people' s lives, they
need to urgently look at their politics and strategies: "Every individual feels the need for a sense
of identity and belonging [w ]hich is why it is important to study the question of identity and its
significance for all of us. '>4°
On 28 September 1997, I was invited to attended a workshop on Growing Violence

Against Women which was hosted by a newly formed women' s organization, Network of
Women. It was held at the YWCA in Mumbai.
During my participation in the workshop, I began to understand some of the issues
around communalism. There were approximately sixty women in attendance and we were
divided into groups often. Each group had two leaders (workshop facilitators) who were
involved in community activism. During the workshop, the leaders acted out certain scenes using
short clips of dialogue (between a Muslim and a Hindu), each one with its own significant

39

Ibid., 3.

401bid.
92

meaning. We were then asked to discuss each sequence in a group after the scenes were acted
out. Below is a brief reiteration of the event with the help of my field notes.41
A Member: "Just look at modem literature in India, they are portraying Muslims as foreigners
and oppressive, lecherous tyrants while Hindus are portrayed as heros struggling for positive
values. Many leaders used Hindu symbols, idioms and myths in their political writings. India
was often referred to as the 'Mother Goddess' or compared with Kali and other Hindu
Goddesses."
Group Discussion: People are in search of an identity or several identities-as a religious group,
as a community, as a nation. This has been recognized by those trying to counter communalism
and by those encouraging it. For them, the question in understanding of identity in the context
of communalism is: how do we view and understand identities different from ours, alien to us
but which co-exist with us?
We live in a society based on hierarchy and competition. Our value system is one in
which everything acquires a status only in comparison with something else. The nature of our
economic progress has been such that we have no knowledge ofhandling diversity. More often
than not we are stressing commonalities and negating, suppressing, or denigrating differences.
In such an increasingly competitive world, identities tend to become warped.
A Member: "We have more fasting in our religion - you know ' tapasya' and all that. You
people eat the best of things and say that you are fasting. How can you call that a fast?"
Group Discussion: The issue here is not fasting. We make greater sacrifices and so we are
greater. The fact that these religions are based on totally different philosophies and hence
fasting itself has a different meaning does not figure at all. Each one has his or her own way of
41

Field Notes (29 and 30 September 1997).

93

proving superiority over the other. Thus a kind of competition and comparison extends to every
aspect of one' s life.
A Member: "Our country is the greatest! We have such a great civilization as heritage. We have
such a variety of culture. You are a young nation. You do not have our heritage."
A Member: "Our language is so sweet sounding. It is rich and beautiful. Yours seems
unintelligible and sounds crude."
Group Discussion: Why do we forget that the person opposite us may feel the same way about
my language? Sweetness and softness of a language are, after all, questions of familiarity.
What I learned from this workshop is that it is generally felt that communalism arises
from the issue of identity. On a scholarly level, the psychological aspects of identity have been
studied and analysed, however what has not been probed enough is the sense of identity or lack
of it in each individual as a member of the community.
Another part of the identity problem is the denial of women' s identity. The Indian
Women' s Movement has tried to strengthen women's individual and collective struggles in
various ways like sponsoring workshops and grappling with sensitive issues. Women's struggles
have been supported by groups such as The Network for Women with understanding, coexistence and mutual sharing. These groups recognize the commonality of women's oppression,
the enforced family norms, class, caste, and religious segregation. They have taken up issues
such as rape, dowry murders, and have asked for legal amendments and reforms in the law.
Having completed this workshop in the course of a weekend, I surmised that it is part of the
vision of the Indian Women' s Movement to take cognition ofthe identity politics of individual
women, their need to establish an identity and relate it to general issues.

94

Feminist thought has expanded the notion of politics and thus included the connection
between an individual' s identity and her social context. This has been reflected in the notion that
the " personal is political." I think that this philosophy of allowing every woman to defme her
identity through her personal life, which is rooted in social context, provides hope for a concerted
action against communal violence.
LEGAL REFORM AND MUSLIM WOMEN
The attempt to transform society into a more equitable and just one, through legal
injunctions and reforms has had a long tradition in India. The conflict between that attempt and
religion or custom has also had a long history. The injunctions are made by the State, usually
under pressure from some section of society which is geared towards bringing about social
change:42 "That one ofthe main ways they seek to do this is though legal reform perhaps reflects
the fact that significant sections of the multicultural and multinational society of India are
unwilling to accept that change and nothing short of the threat of sanctions from the state will
make them [people] transform their behaviour.'>43 As Ammu Abraham notes,
Nor has legal reform ever been accepted passively [in India]. Every articulate section of
society adds its might to the debate, the media gleefully amplifies it all and legal reform
hardly ever seems to become actual in its originally proposed form. After being
subjected to the differing philosophies ofdifferent courts and judges, intention and result
might not have much to do with each other when the law is ultimately applied to the
people. Still legal reform has always been an important arena of social reform in India,
rather than a legal recognition of established social development. Not surprisingly, the
new women's groups in the country, in their attempt to transform social values in the

Jaya Menon, Feminist lawyer with the Peace and Justice Commission, Interview 6
October 1997.

42

95

direction of greater justice and equality for women, have made the legal sphere an
important area of their struggle. 44
Feminist lawyer, Flavia Agnes, talks about her experience with several Muslim women' s
groups that led her to the realization that aside from receiving maintenance, "Muslim women are
most likely to face the problems of divorce and the insecurity of triple talaq.'>45
TheDissolutionofMuslimMarriagesAct, 1939 (Act no. 8 of1989) statesthatamarried
woman shall be entitled to obtain a decree for the dissolution ofher marriage on several grounds
to be proven before the judge. However, even if her grounds are based on cruelty, she has to
wait for seven years or more and if her husband has deserted her, she must wait more than four
years.46 As Durrany notes, "Hundreds of married women would like a divorce from their
husbands but they do not divorce them for fear of providing for children. " 47 On the other hand,
divorce for men is much too easy. Verbal triple talaq without witnesses often leaves women
unsure about their marital status. The constant threat of communal tension and riots all over
India, has made the plight ofMuslim women even more difficult. They find it difficult to speak
openly against the oppression within their families fearing that their voices will be used against

Ammu Abraham, The Law and Gender Justice. Subdhadra Patwa, editor, (Bombay:
Research Centre for Women' s Studies, S.N.D .T. Women's University,1992), 1.

44

45

ln a Muslim marriage, the husband has a right to unilateral divorce or talaq without
judicial intervention and registration of the divorce. Talaq, or the triple pronouncement
of "I divorce thee" can be made without providing any reason or attempting reconciliation
(Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 1995), 229.

46

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric and Law Reform , 195.

K. S. Durrany, "Uniform Civil Code: A Never Ending Controversy." Presented at a
meeting organized by the Joint Women's Programme, 8 January 1995.

47

96

their community by anti-Muslim forces or that they may be forced into silence by their own
husbands. In the words of one woman,
I feel so lonely - ifl tell my friends about the pain I suffer due to my husband' s second
marriage and the fear that he might divorce me and throw me on the streets, they give
me a pitying look. I can almost hear what they are thinking - that all Muslim men are
like that. Ifi speak to my aunts or mother, they advise me to keep quiet and suffer. My
male relatives don' t want me to go to a lawyer or to the police or anyone outside the
community. Its like being suffocated. 48
Maj lis, a women' s organization started by Flavia Agnes, found that it could not take any
cases of violence in 1993 against Muslim women to the local police station.49 The police who
were known for their indifference to women' s complaints concerning wife battering, were only
too glad to beat up Muslim men and/or lock them up:
The Shah Bano controversy, the unprecedented communal tension and the passing ofthe
Muslim Women (Protection of Rights within Marriage) Act 1986 has taken Muslim
women several steps backwards. They have been denied the right to maintenance under
Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure code. It is a pathetic sight to watch at family
courts Muslim women accepting a pittance from their erstwhile husbands, a pittance of
what is rightfully due to them and a pittance which is sometimes triumphantly, and
sometimes contemptuously, flung at them by the men, who know too well that the
women have no other legal remedy left to get maintenance.50
Communalism has forced the Muslim community in India to silence its own members
in the name of religious faith and identity. Shah Bano became famous for her fight for a fair and
adequate maintenance payment from her rich husband. The daughter of a police constable, she

48

Name withheld as per her request.

49

Muslims are a marginalized population in the dominant Hindu society in India and
Muslim women are "doubly marginalized" as they face discrimination from their own
men as well as from Hindu society. Most feminist organization' s in India are sensitive
to Muslim women' s issues and some, like Flavia Agnes' s group, Majlis, work very closely
with the Muslim women' s community in order to provide legal services for them.

50

lndian Express, 27 May 1995.
97

was married in 1932, at age sixteen, and had three sons and two daughters. In 1975, after forty
three years of marriage, her husband remarried and drove her out of the house. Shah Bano then
brought a petition for maintenance from her husband under section 125 of the Criminal
Procedure Code.51 According to Muslim personal law, she would only have been entitled to
maintenance for the period of iddat, that is, three months after the divorce. In April1985, the
Supreme Court held that she was entitled to maintenance under section 125. 52 Although this was
not the first time that the court had made such an order, its comments on the Quran provoked
enormous outcry. The court had held that allowing this maintenance would not violate the
Quran. The court, then further called for a Uniform Civil Code. The Muslim community
responded with outrage. It was their view that the Supreme Court had encroached on the
authority of Muslim theologians who alone are permitted to interpret the Quran.53
The Shah Bano case introduced an entirely new element into the debate of Muslim
women' s rights when Hindu communalist groups took to the streets calling for the imposition of
a uniform civil code. The struggle to liberate women from the confines of religious and
traditional patriarchy was, with a little help from the media, transformed into an attack on a

Section 125 ofthe Criminal Procedure Code was enacted by the British in 1898 to
provide relief to abandoned wives to claim maintenance from their husbands. It was reenacted in 1973 to prevent destitution, prostitution and vagrancy. The State assumed that
the desertion of women would lead to their starvation which would lead to various 'social
evils' and it was more their concern towards the prevention of these moral misbehaviours than for the dignity and well-being of women (Flavia Agnes, State, Gender
and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform) , 213 .

51

52

Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 239.

Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman, Subversive Sites: Feminism Engagements with Law
in India (Sage Pulications, New Delhi, India 1996), 63 .

53

98

minority community: "De-linked from the struggle for self-realization by women, the yearning
for uniformity began to appear a mere mask for fascist trends. " 54
Women' s groups responded by reformulating their demand for a uniform civil code as
one for gender equal family laws. Some ofthem decided to accept that religion and community
were crucial factors in today' s India in that it constituted women' s sense of identity and that the
struggle for their rights should begin there. They called for consciousness raising among women
and reform within communities, perhaps finding in the assertion that the cultural pluralism of
India, at present is the only defence against the integration ofthe country on a communal basis.55

The Forum Against the Oppression of Women would like a change in the name from
"uniform civil code" to "non-sexist (or gender equal) secular family law" to differentiate it from
the rightist and communal demand for a Code.56 Other feminist organizations have conflicting
views as to what their strategies should involve regarding a uniform civil code:

The Women's Centre, Bombay and Vimochana, Bangalore have argued for starting a
process of dialogue between men and women within each community and reforms within
their personal laws. At the extreme end is the Nari Mukti Santha in Assam which rejects
the Code because it believes the time is not right to raise this demand" ...the crucial issue
is not whether the Muslim women have a right to maintenance or not but whether the
Muslims have a right to a personal law at all .... The problem of the Muslim community
is indeed terrifying.... The Muslims have been subjected to periodic large scale arson,
loot, murder and rape ... " Therefore, the first change should be the emergence of a
revolutionary leadership which would prepare the Muslin community to join hands with
progressive forces against the State and Hindu communalism. Without denying that
changes within the Muslim community and between men and women are necessary, it
is pointed out that such changes can be effected only as part of"the larger struggle for
54

Ammu Abraham, The Law and Gender Justice, I .

55

This comment is based on my notes taken from the lecture at the Asiatic Society in
Bombay, 1 October 1997 where the women set themselves up in a debate and upon
which this chapter is based.

56

Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 256.
99

survival ofthe community as a whole." The unanswered question is: is there any forum
among those opposed to the Code which gives women and their organizations a voice on
matters which affect them the most? 57

SAT!: A Thoroughly "Modem" Tradition

In September 1987, eighteen year old Roop Kanwar was burnt to death on her husband's
funeral pyre in Deorale village, Rajasthan. Her death gave rise to a campaign against sati58 and
a demand for further legislation against it. 59 The "sati controversy" provides an interesting
contrast to the Shah Bano controversy. In most other wife murder cases, the husband and inlaws of the woman try to malign her after her death, as an unstable woman with suicidal
tendencies and of'bad' character. Roop Kanwar' s past, however, was recreated to mythologize
her as an epitome of all womanly virtues. In a culture where a woman is considered a burden,
easily dispensable and replaceable, it is a rare woman who is honoured in her death. No wonder
so many women are awe inspired by this new "sati cult. ,x;o
57

1bid., 257.

58

Sati is the burning of any widow along with the body of the deceased husband or with
any article, object or thing associated with the husband, irrespective of whether such
burning or burying is voluntary on the part of the widow or otherwise. Flavia Agnes,
State, Gender, and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 15 5. Customarily, "sati'' pronounced a
woman virtuous if she agreed to be burned with her husband's corpse. Geraldine Forbes,
Women in Modern Jndia,ll.

~

h

1987.

Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, "The Burning ofRoop Kanwar," Manushi, No. 43

60

1bid. The Roop Kanwar sati is a thoroughly "modem" phenomenon in its political,
economic and social moorings and has little to do with tradition. See Madhu Kishwar and
Ruth Vandita, "The Burning ofRoop Kanwar," Manushi, No. 43; Kumkum Sangari and
Sudesh Vaid, (Women and Culture, 1994), 166. Kumk:um Sangari and Sudesh Vaid
explain further that the contemporary ideology of sati is persistent in some regions of
India where there is a primary subsistence economy. In these areas there is more of a

100

Roop Kanwar had passed the tenth grade and her husband was a university graduate.
On hearing the news ofthe death of her husband from gastroenteritis, she was very upset. It was
during this time that she began to be coerced by her in-laws to commit sati. A local priest was
also a part of the coercion. Roop had actually hidden in a bam on the day of her husband's
funeral but was dragged out, dressed in bridal clothes, and taken to the pyre. She was closely
guarded and surrounded by dozens of people. Her attempts to escape were stifled by the noise
and excitement of the event. In midst of the confusion, Roop Kanwar was burnt to death on
her husband' s funeral pyre. 6 1
On the thirteenth day of her death, a grand ceremony was organized to glorify the event
and, subsequently, a temple was built at the site. Although originally no one had intervened, a
police complaint was filed against the six men who were alleged to have pushed Roop into the

The issue rapidly became integrally connected to the Rajput community identity, and
many within the Hindu right stepped in to protect Raj put ' tradition.' Sati was defended as a
cultural tradition, sanctioned by religious doctrine. 63

strong religious belief which has sustained the ideology governing sati in the past, though
the emphasis has changed from the obligatory nature of sati to its voluntariness in the
present. This could also account for the notable absence of protest movements against
sati in these regions.
Veena Poonacha, Women's Oppression In the Public Gaze, 89.

61

Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, Manushi, 43.

62

63

Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman, Subvervise Sites: Feminist Engagements with Law in
India, (New Delhi: 1996), 64.
101

Women' s organizations in Rajasthan started a protest and the State Government which
had become an expert in passing laws on women' s issues responded promptly passing an order
banning the glorification of sati but did not ban the ceremony as such. By now at least, certain
sections within the women' s movement had become wary ofthe Government's eagerness to pass
ineffective laws, and were highly critical of the new legislation.64
An investigative team from Bombay began examining the events. Apparently, Roop
Kanwar had brought 40 ounces of gold, Rs. 30,000 in a bank account, a colour television, a
stove and a refrigerator as dowry. According to custom, a woman without an heir could take
back her dowry. There is reason to suspect that the in-laws wanted to prevent this. 65
In the physical sense, there is not that much difference between sati and the deaths of
thousands of women burnt alive in their own homes (see ' Dowry Murders' in Chapter Ill), all
over India. But Roop Kanwar' s death was significantly different in its social and cultural
resonance. Wife burning, (or dowry murders) like many other acts of violence, occurs with the
tacit consent of society, incurs public disapproval. Therefore it is perpetuated secretly, behind
closed doors. A woman' s husband and in-laws invariably claim that her death was a regrettable
suicide or accident, and that they made every attempt to save her.69
Modem day sati, on the other hand, though rare, is a public spectacle, conducted with
the approval and applause of the local community. It is this aspect that is particularly
alarming. If the wide spread implicit acceptance of wife murder in our society today

64

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform, 151 .

65

Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, Manushi, 43 .

102

expresses the low value set on women's lives, the public burning to death of a woman
is an open endorsement of the devaluation.70
When parents advise their daughters to endure abuse by her husband and in-laws, and
to 'adjust' to marital life, at any cost, they too are endorsing the norm that a women' s life is
worthless except as an object to use and abuse by her husband. "It is in this context that the
reaction ofRoop Kanwar' s family is not surprising," says Madhu Kishwar. 7 1
Madhu Kishwar, the editor of Manushi, a feminist journal in India, went to Jaipur,
Rajasthan in October 1987 to talk to Roop Kanwar' s family in an effort to understand the
context of her death and the circumstances which led up to its glorification. "Although Roop
Kanwar was burnt in the presence ofthousands of people from around Deorala, the family, who
live in Jaipur, a mere two hours drive away, were not informed that she was about to become a
Sati. Yet they condoned her being burnt alive and say she has brought honour to them." 72
Generally speaking, it is possible to view sati within the framework of the institutions,
ideologies, and beliefs that negotiate status for a group. The assertion of the dominant group in
this particular case is that purity within the community/caste requires the control of women's
sexuality through marriage. Widowhood constitutes a threat to such claims because outside the
institution of marriage women' s sexuality cannot be easily controlled. Widow immolation
thereby constitutes a neat political way of doing away with such threats. One could easily agree
with Mandhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, as well as Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid who

Madhu Kishwar is talking about the family' s apparent lack of remorse in dealing with
Roop Kanwar' s death.

71

72

Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, Manushi, 43 :42.
103

view the sati incident as symbolic of women's oppression and within the framework of society
which also justifies and rationalizes rape, dowry-murders and other forms of violence against
women. 73
LAW. GENDER, AND PATRIARCHY
All three cases presented in this chapter have raised debates and challenged issues of
feminism, religion, tradition, and gender. All have encountered severe resistence from traditional
voices within the Muslim, Hindu and Christian communities. Each case sought legal
intervention in the private sphere of the family; a sphere considered by these 'traditional' views
to be governed by the rules of religion and not secular law. In all the cases, the respective
communities cried 'religion in danger.' 74 The women's movement had to (re)negotiate these
intense forms ofresistence in both its campaign against Muslim Women's Act and in favour of
a Uniform Civil Code, as well as its campaign in favour of new legislation prohibiting sati.
From my interview with Flavia Agnes it is clear that feminist activists have turned to the
law to improve the conditions of women's lives but the legal campaigns have met with mixed
results, because "the rape laws were amended, though not as envisioned by the women's
movement. The women's movement lost its campaign for a Uniform Civil Code, but was
successful in its lobbying efforts in relation to sati. " 75

For a more in depth study of sati, refer to Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid in Women
and Culture, (Bombay: Research Centre for Women's Studies, SNDT Women's
University, 1994).

73

74

Balraj Puri, "Muslim Personal Law: Questions of Reform and Uniformity Be DeLinked," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XX, No. 23, 8 June 1985, 987-990.

75

Flavia Agnes, Interview by author, 21 June 1995.
104

The contemporary women's movement's engagement with the law has been, in most
cases, contradictory. On the one hand, feminist activists have successfully campaigned for
reforms to a broad range of criminal and civil law and on the other hand, the legislative
enactments often fell short ofthe demands ofthe movement. 76 While the law reform campaigns
succeeded in raising consciousness on issues ofviolence and discrimination against women, the
legislative enactments seemed unable to live up to the promise of stemming this violence and
discrimination. 77 Although some feminist organizations want to give up on the law altogether,
others approach the dilemma in more aggressive ways by arguing that a political understanding
of law keeps the women's movement informed. Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah, in their
study ofthe legal campaigns ofthe contemporary women's movement, have argued that"[t ]here
are practically no groups which have an undiluted faith in the legal system or which tend to jump
into legal campaigns. Rather, there are some who make more use of the legal system than
others. " 78
Part ofmy field research included interviewing members from various women's groups,
and I found that these organizations demonstrated their diversity by applying different strategies
to legal dilemmas. 79 Some organizations provide women with legal services through legal aid
centres; others resort to law; other groups adopt a 'law as catalyst' approach, in which

76

Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman, Subsersive Sites, 66.

Flavia Agnes, State, Gender and the Rhetoric ofLaw Reform; Nandita Ghandi and
Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake.

77

Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah, Issues at Stake, 270.

78

79

As both Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah belong to the feminist organization, Akshara,
I have engaged in conversations with them. I also acknowledge that they have done
similar studies with women's groups and have come to a similar conclusion.

105

individuals are advised not to go to court but to vigorously campaign for legal reform; and still
others are advised not to go to court but to use a trained mediator who will help them to solve
their conflicts:
[W]e believe that law and protesting for changes in law are still important because one
can justify one's position by it. People tend to believe that if it is a law it must be right,
and if it is broken then there will be punishment. Secondly, it is easier to inform women
of their rights. A husband has no 'right' to beat, a woman has the 'right' to property
therefore she should not forego her share... 80
From my study, it is evident that the women's movement in India has gained considerable
ground in its struggle to define and condemn the reality of violence within women's lives. The
campaigns against rape, dowry, sex selection tests, and sati, have been important in the struggle
over the social and cultural meaning of violence against women. Moreover, these issues of
violence against women have been brought to the forefront where feminists have sought to
redefine their meaning. Legal provisions have been able to eradicate the violence, and feminists
have not been entirely successful in displacing many of the assumptions that inform their legal
definitions. Legal discourse, however, has been central to the very naming of these issues as
social practices which need to be eliminated. 81 As Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vandita observe;
[t]hat a woman could be burnt to death in public is a stark indication of women's
vulnerability in our social system. Roop Kanwar' s death was only one expression ofthe
general devaluation of women's lives. Unless the consensus within our society changes
in favour of a more dignified and self sustaining life for women, any number of
repressive laws are not likely to preserve women's lives. 82
In summary, the middle-class feminist movement in India, and elsewhere must defend
80

Jaya Menon, Interview by author 6 October 1997.

81

Flavia Agnes, EPW, 21-22.

82

Madhu Kishwar and RuthVandita, Manushi 43:42-43.
106

themselves against the growing anti-woman tendencies that are prevalent world-wide. The cynical
fear of women brought about by the patriarchal society is clearly demonstrated in the above
chapter and feminists today can no longer have the illusion that women' s emancipation will be
possible within the context of any patriarchal structure. Feminists, must begin to destroy the
myths, the images, and the social values which makes them a false symbol of progress. If
middle-class women in India begin to question such patriarchal values as virginity, or the ideals
of self-sacrificing womanhood propagated by mythology, then they not only contribute to their
own liberation, but also to the liberation of working-class and peasant women.
Chapter V provides a summary of each chapter as well as a vision of what might be taken
up in a future study. Historically, in India, violence has been discussed mainly in the context of
articulated politics, within an anti-class, anti-State framework. This has provided a strange
paradoxical situation in which the wide political acceptance of an issue has actually restricted its
scope and development. Some ofthe campaigns, like the one against custodial rape, has resulted
in groups claiming the need for "protection of our women," but this kind of organizing does not
help to empower women or to motivate them into self agency. Many groups now are attempting
to step out ofthe familiar political practice and take up more unpopular issues such as sexuality,
sexual harassment, ecofeminism, and pornography.

107

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
In the first chapter, I have worked through the various ways in which the research
techniques and methods were developed for this project, explaining the process of how I came
to a decision about why I chose a particular method or technique. In Chapter II, I have argued
that we must go back into the past to re-locate the present. This is important because there is
now an awareness that it not the destiny or fate of women to be oppressed, illiterate or poor.
Society has played a part in delaying the development of women's potential, and it now has to
re-address these mis-conceptions and treat women as human beings by providing for their
education and progress. The discussion in Chapter III, illustrates the ways in which women in
India organize various campaigns in order to affect some kind of political, social and economic
change. Chapter IV continues with a discussion of other forms of violence against women by
examining the ways in which Indian women analyse existing social and feminist theories, thereby,
challenging essentialist assumptions of Third World women's struggles. In an attempt to move
away from essentialist notions, I have demonstrated by way of a discursive self-representation
an understanding of feminism as a validation of women's diverse realities that could lead us to
the notion that all women have the potential to align themselves with and participate in the
resistance against gender oppression.
Chapter Vis not a conclusion because, in a sense, the Indian Women's Movement is
never complete. Rather, it is like a drama that does not have an end, but simply waits for another
rendering and other performers.

108

In its essence, then, the present-day Indian Women' s Movement, is a struggle for the
achievement of women's equality, dignity, and freedom of choice to control their own lives and
bodies within and outside their homes. Indian feminists say that it is not enough to ask simply
for equality: "it does not get a peasant woman very far if she becomes equal to peasant men who
are themselves brutalized, exploited and oppressed by society. " 1 Indian feminists, therefore, are
not only asking and fighting for the "equality" of women, but for a just and equitable society for women and men.
I have spoken of a movement, while recognizing that some women feel marginalized
from it, in the hopes that, despite decentralization and differences, there can be a unity ofthought
and action which would run through and connect different organizations and individuals within
Indian women' s activism. It is in achieving a commonality that will make it possible to generalize
about what is after all, a rich, complex and diverse movement. Violence against women stands
out as an issue which most groups have consistently taken up and to which they have remained
committed.
There are several issues, dilemmas, insights, actions, and thoughts, that were presented
to me, while doing my field study, which I have left out of this thesis, due to the short time
available for research, the limit on the length of an MA thesis, and my inability to gain access to
a particular group. As part ofthe conclusion I would like to acknowledge a few ofthese crucial
issues that need to be taken up, perhaps by myself in my proposed doctoral research.
In an informal conversation, some members of Vacha, began visualizing my next project.
Sonal Shukla said that:
Vibuti Patel, Interview by author, 8 October 1997.

1

109

every social movement and it' s organizations have their own critique of society. It may
not always be very detailed or complete but if forms the basis for their long term strategy
and projects an ideal of vision of society . .. we know what we are struggling against;
should we not know what we are struggling for; what sort of society does the women' s
movement hope to build?"2

In trying to answer her questions, some members began to debate what issues were
important for them for the future and what I should be studying in my next field project.

In a patriarchal and sex-segregated society like India, there is a certain encouragement and
tolerance offriendships between members ofthe same sex. Groups of women are seen walking
arm-in-arm down the street, there are "ladies only" compartments in the trains, but
homosexuality is looked at as a perversion. I spent some time tracking down a lesbian group
which was just being formed while I was in Mumbai in 1995. I gained access to one of their
meetings (which was more of a social event), but failed to establish a rapport with this group
because I had not identified myself as a lesbian or bi-sexual. In spite ofthis, what little I did learn
from these women was significant for my research. Homosexuality, in a strange way, is also
socially accepted as long as it does not affect existing social relations, marriage practices, etc.
Lesbianism has drawn very little attention to itself. Society has chosen to ignore it, there is no
popular vernacular equivalent for the term lesbianism, nor does it figure in the law.
The women' s movement has treated the issue oflesbianism in more or less the same way.
Aside from the lesbian women' s group in Mumbai, other women' s groups are reluctant to take
on the issues oflesbian women as they would be endangering their own existence and feel that
they are not strong enough to bear the backlash that was bound to come from men, political
groups, and even some women' s groups. This, however, does not mean that lesbian issues are

2

Group discussion at Vacha, 7 October, 1997.
110

not discussed at great length in many women' s groups as these topics have raised a number of
very important questions, especially for women who identify with heterosexuality. If rape and
sexual harassment are ways to control women' s sexuality, is not the practice ofheterosexuality
another? Why is there such pressure on women to marry? Why has religion been made to
sanctify marriage? Who decides what is ' natural' and what is not? The women's movement
has challenged 'natural' male/female roles, the sexual division of labour and myths about
motherhood. Who decides women' s relationships, equally, who prescribes a punishment for
breaking the rules? If patriarchy defines and controls women' s sexuality, then the terrifying
prospect we are left with is that women's roles and position in society are in relation to men.
In understanding how sexuality is structured in society, we need to question the institution of
marriage, especially the unequal relations within it, the double standard of morality in society for
men and for women, women's lack of choice in contraception and reproduction, and the images
of' good' and ' bad' women. Heterosexism3 is a face of patriarchy which suggests to society that
they should be hostile towards lesbians and gays. It seems that society is threatened whenever
women step out of patriarchal institutions and ideology in a bid to be independent ofthem.4
Another issue not taken up in this thesis is ecology. Ecofeminism, as a movement, is
alive and well in India thanks to Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva who have painstakingly shown
that there is a strong patriarchal and colonial character to the technology-based development

3

The prejudiced attitude or discriminatory practices against homosexuals by heterosexuals.

4

Some of the conclusions drawn here are from my field notes taken in June of 1995 after
attending a lesbian women's meeting. The field notes were recorded the following
morning as neither tape-recording nor note-taking was appropriate.
111

process. 5 The latter implies that it is inevitable that women's biology and spirituality will motivate
and draw them into ecological struggles. Many environmentalists speak of women's special
affinity or spiritual unity with nature. In some cultures nature has been called female : women,
because of their reproductive and caring functions are nurturing, gentle and peace loving. Simply
because women are the victims ofthe development process does not mean that they will initiate
ecological protests or become ecology conscious. With the exception ofthe Chipko Movement,6
women are not in decision-making positions in either the Narmada Dam or Sardar Sarovar Dam
project. On the other hand, environmental activists have expected women to join with men
without differentiating between their class and specific gender issues. How will the land lost to
the Sardar Sarovar Dam affect women? There is no automatic shift from practical and class
issues to a politicized anti-patriarchal struggle. The women activists of the ecology movement
will have to act on two fronts, against the destruction of the environment and against male
interests.7
What is the vision for the future from the Women' s Movement in India? In answering
that question, I use the voice of Dr. Neera Desai:
So what happened is that today we are feeling a backlash and the women's movement

5

Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (London and New Jersey: Zed Books,
1993).

6

The Chipko Movement began in 1972-73 when a group of protestors rallied against the
auctioning off of 300 ash trees to a sporting good manufacturer. Following this, a group
of women began to rally within the movement, in opposition to village men, against the
commercial exploitation of the Himalayan forests. Bina Agarwal, Feminist Studies, Vol.
18, No. 1, 1992, 146.

7

Ibid., 119.
112

is not as aggressive as it once was. I think we might have to look into other directions
and where the 'other' women are fighting. The dalit [tribal] women are fighting and
they are being exploited by the landlords. This is the evidence that shows where the
exploitation and oppression of women is going and the backlash is now being fought by
these women and at various levels .. . and that clue is available when we look at the
earlier phase, [of the women' s movement] middle class women were not fighting
backlash because for the middle class the struggle was over in one sense with the
enshrinement of the constitution and opening the doors for education, and so if we feel
that the women' s movement is a middle class movement, then these are the silent years,
but if we feel that, "NO!"; Women's Movement is not only middle class but of all
oppressed women then there is [her emphasis] protest against oppression but in a
different way and that is how I see it. 8
In ending this thesis, I want to emphasize that I have learned from the women who have
shared their lives and work with me that a more collaborative, consultative approach to critical
research is needed. It is important to place research participants at the centre of the process as
a way ofbuilding knowledge and engaging in social action. I can see transformative possibilities
arising both within the consciousness of individuals and within the communities in which they
live. I am committed to continuing this work, to taking my research into many different and
contradictory directions, to revealing the "ins and outs and howtos" of my research practices.
I have resisted establishing any new research ideologies while hoping that I can contribute to
more interesting and useful ways ofknowing. 9 The feminist activists in India have taught me to
be committed to a view of empowerment that stems from agency, not the agency of an essential
inner self waiting to be empowered, but of a self working with others to negotiate the terms of
its own emergence. As Audre Lorde writes, "Our acts against oppression became integral with

Dr. Neera Desai, Interview with author, 30 September, 1997.

8

9

Patti Lather, "Research as Praxis" (Harvard Educational Review, 1986), 56(3):257-277.
113

self, motivated and empowered from within." 10 It is my hope that the reader too will be motivated
to engage in research as an empowering act, as a way of uniting women who are working for
social change, disrupting restrictive ways of thinking, and transforming the social world.

Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom California: Crossing
Press, 1984.

10

114

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APPENDIX
A DESCRIPTION OF THE WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS INTERVIEWED
I would like to thank the following women's organizations for taking time out of their busy
schedules to share their views with me.
1) Akshara: A Women's Resource Centre
501, Neelambari
Road No. 86, Opp. Portuguese Church
Dadar West, Mumbai 400 028
India

Akshara is the result of a spontaneous outburst of women's consciousness starting from the mid
1980's. The founders, Laxmi Menon, Nandita Gandhi and Nandita Shah were involved in
protests around sexual violence, dowry murders and the oppression of women. They
campaigned on the streets, wrote leaflets and articles and dialogued with various other feminist
activists regarding their situation.
As this new phase of the women's movement gained ground, their issues became more public,
mass media attention increased, women' s studies emerged, the government and non-government
organizations became more 'gender sensitized' and a new sort of activism became necessary.
The founders could see that they needed to put forward alternatives, to deal with misconceptions
about feminism and to tie together their theory with praxis.
The three women who began Akshara found that some of the papers, books and reports that
they were collecting were being circulated among friends, journalists and students. Information
and literature on women was not easily available. Women did not have the resources for or the
access to expensive books and periodicals. Existing facilities were few and far between. This
informal activity led them to organize their small collection and in 1987 they designed the
Akshara Classification System.
The Akshara Classification System is an alternative system for storage of information, and
devised with a feminist perspective. They believe that the neglect and suppression of women has
lead to centuries of invisibility of women's lives, work, history and ideas. Their classification
system addresses women's specific problems which main-stream standard classifications fail to
do. It is user-friendly and also has provision for expansion. It can be modified to suit to specific
needs ofdifferent organizations. It was adopted by Isis-WICCE in Geneva, Switzerland in 1990~ by ARROW in Kuala Lumpur,
i ~ and Women's Resource and Research Centre in
Manila, Philippines in 1994. It is also being used by several women's organizations in India and
since its inception. The Akshara Classification System has been revised four times to
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accommodate new perspectives and growing interests.

2) VACHA: A WOMEN'S GROUP
Tank Lane Municipal School,
Off S.V. Road, Behind Akbarally's,
Santacruz (West), Mumbai 400 054
India
AS WE SEE Ol)RSELVES (transcribed from a Group Interview with the author, 7th October
1997.
First there was the space . . . not much . .. only a room and a half. Barely three hundred square
feet of it in all. And this too in a residential apartment. But then space is a rare commodity in
Bombay where you can almost never rent it and where the prices are very high making it
extremely difficult for women's organizations to purchase any. Besides, this is a space with
history. It had always been space for women, right from the beginning of the autonomous
movement in Bombay in the late seventies. Organizations like Feminist Network, Women's
Centre, and Forum Against the Oppression of Women were housed here at sometime or other.
It was free and available and could easily be used for any women-related project.
Then came the books. Some of us had collected a lot of books on women as well as by women.
And there were others wanting to donate or help out in other ways. And so Vacha was launched
as a library and cultural centre. There was also access to cultural resources especially in the form
of supportive musicians and writers, and invaluable help given by individual women who share
their time and resources.
The idea was always there that there should be a place where women can drop in to borrow
books, to discuss them, to listen to music, to view films, to talk about various issues concerning
women, to talk about themselves.

3) SAKHYA: ANTI-DOWRY GUIDANCE CELL
Nirmala Niketan, College of Social Work
38, New Marine Lines
Mumbai 400 020
India
Sakhya was established in 1987 by the College of Social Work, at the request ofthe Maharashtra
State Government. Since its inception, it has been working in collaboration with the State

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Vigilance Committee for the anti-dowry issue and other issues related to women. 1
The Principal of the College of Social Work is the head of all field projects andSakhya is one
such project. Sakhya supervises students of other universities and institutions who join them for
field experience. Students ofthe college are also placed in Sakhya for one academic year to gain
valuable field experience.

Sakhya provides lawyers who offer legal guidance to their clients, free of cost. Sakhya offers
counselling services to clients of maritaVfamily conflicts and to their families. They conduct
awareness programmes in schools, colleges, institutions and slum communities on the issue of
women's status in India, dowry, family life education, as well as information on sexual
transmitted diseases.
From time to time, Sakhya runs a door-to-door campaign. Social workers select a specific
geographical area and distribute leaflets, handouts and discuss women's problems with each
family. They have found that by going to various neighbourhoods, it has enabled women to
approach Sakhya for various types of help.

Sakhya works towards bringing about change in attitudes and behaviour ofdifferent functionaries

like the police, public prosecuters and doctors through various training programmes and
workshops. They have developed a referral network system with various women's organizations
and provide a platform to other like-minded groups as they believe that unity strengthens their
common purpose.

1

At the time of my interview, Vijashree Iyengar informed me that the State Government
has just pulled their funding.
126