Women In India | UPSC Important Notes & Study Material

The three units in this section on Women in India and Some Insights focus on
three major issues, the women’s movement, empowerment, emancipation and
policies in India and finally on women’s health, policies and programmes. These
three lessons contain real examples, stories in the areas of movements, policies
and health concerns, and are to be read and understood in an exemplary and
empirical manner.
In the pre-independence era, the women’s movement began as a social reform
movement in the 19th century. At this time, the western idea of liberty, equality
and fraternity was being imbibed by our educated elite through the study of
English and the contact with west. This western liberalism was extended to the
women’s question and was translated into a social reform movement. The reform
movements were not homogeneous and varied a lot in terms of the ideas and
changes that was to be fostered. They did however share a common concern for
rooting out the social evils, partly in response to charges of barbarity from the
colonial rulers. These reformers took up the issue of women’s education, widow
remarriage, age of marriage for girls and property rights for women. The social
reform movement did not radically challenge the existing patriarchal structure
of society or question gender relation. They picked up for reform only those
issues which the Britishers were pointing out as evidence of degeneration in the
Indian society. Even the women’s institutions and organisations that sprang up
during this period did not have an independent ideology but only took off from
what the men stated. This is understandable because it was primarily the wives
and sisters of the reformers who had initiated the establishment of these
organisations. The direction and content of reform as laid down by the reformers
was accepted by the women’s organisations without any question. Yet, In spite
of its limitations, it cannot be denied that the social reform movement did help
in removing prejudices against women’s education and provided a secular space
for women in the public realm. In the national movement for the first time limited
number of women belonging to the elite section of Indian society started taking
part in the political activities. Till 1919, the national movement was limited to
the urban middle class and it was only later with Gandhi’s entrance into the
national movement participation of the masses began to take place. The post
Independence period, saw the introduction of constitutional and legal provisions
and protecting the society and the women from the discrimination and to provide
equality to all the citizens irrespective of caste, creed, race, religion and sex.
This period saw some prominent movements such as, Telangana Movement, a
protest of the people who wanted both food and freedom from the oppressive
regime of the Nizam, the Patils and the Jagirdars in Hyderabad State, the Chipko,
Movement, i.e., peoples’ ecological movement for the protection of the natural
environment and the Anti Arrack Movement, not just for the elimination of liquor
but for the protection and survival of their own culture. From 1975-1985
(International women’s decade) saw the emergence of autonomous women’s
movement in which autonomous women’s groups and organisations started
fighting for liberation.
All these efforts resulted in a development approach shift in focus from Women
in Development (WID) and Women and Development (WAD) paradigms to the
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Women in India and Some Insights
more recent Gender and Development (GAD) paradigm. It was in the time of
WID and WAD that a new generation of women emerged in India who questioned
the supplementary role allotted to women in development programmes, most of
which involved training women in the skills of ‘family management’ and ‘home
economics’. In India, their critique was bolstered by the publication of a report
titled Towards Equality in 1974. Documenting the widening of gender inequalities
in employment, health, education and political participation since Independence,
the report was intended for the United Nations International Women’s Year World
Conference to be held in 1975. Yet it is ironic, despite India progressing towards
better growth and development, the health of women is deteriorating. The maternal
mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rates (IMR) are very high in India.
The perspectives to understand health and illness have evolved from ‘cultural’
to ‘ecological’ to ‘critical medical anthropology’ in the discipline of anthropology.
5
Women’s Movements in UNIT 1 WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN INDIA India
Contents
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Position of Women in India
1.2.1 Position of Women in the Vedic Period
1.2.2 Position of Women in the Medieval Period
1.2.3 Position of Women in the British Period
1.3 Women’s Movements in the Colonial Period
1.3.1 Social Reform Movements
1.3.2 Nationalist Movements
1.4 Women’s Movements in the Post Colonial Period
1.4.1 Telangana Movement
1.4.2 Chipko Movement
1.4.3 Anti Arrack Movement
1.5 Women’s Movements in India since the 1970s
1.6 Summary
References
Suggested Reading
Sample Questions
Learning Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
Ø be aware about the position Indian women as mentioned in the scriptures;
and
Ø learn about the position of women in the colonial and post colonial periods
through movements.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The beginning of women’s movements can be observed first from a social reform
movement in the 19th century. During the colonial period women’s movements
in India were born out of the same historical circumstances and social milieu as
earlier 19th century social reform movements, which provoked a new thinking
about various social institutions, practices and social reform legislations. The
women’s movements ideological and social content changed from time to time
and continued into our times. The movement in its entirety can be divided into
three distinct phases.
Phase I Social reform movement, national movement and social reform legislation
in the colonial period.
Phase II Women’s movements in the post colonial period.
Phase III Women’s movements in India since the 1970s.
&
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Women in India and Some
Insights
Patriarchy, caste system and several other social and religious ideas and practices
which have originated in the ancient Indian social milieu continue to dominate
our anthropological thinking about the social status and position of Indian women
and are still relevant issues and therefore when one discusses them a historical
overview is a necessity.

1.2 POSITION OF WOMEN IN INDIA

Society has been patriarchal for most part of recorded history. It is difficult to
talk about the position and status of women, with all women being categorised
as uniform. There has been infinite variation on the status of women depending
on the culture, class, caste, family structure and property rights. Even while women
have right to kinship systems, the entire mechanisms of marriage, descent,
residence and inheritance are rarely organised in such a way as to guarantee
women access to resources or to allow them to secure access for other women.
In fact under patriarchal order kinship, conjugal and familial systems tend to
construct women in such a way that they hardly live as independent beings and
they are seen only in relation to men, thus depriving women of their selfhood
and agency (Pande, 2010, 131). Hence for a proper understanding of the social
reform movements for the development of women in India it is necessary to
examine the historical background that necessitated and brought about social
reforms. In Indian history, we see major shifts in the position of women in different
periods and some of these changes are reflected in the texts that prescribe codes
of behaviour and therefore capture the dominant worldview of the period.
1.2.1 Position of Women in the Vedic Period.

The role and status of women throughout ancient and medieval period has been
far from static ranging from one of authority to freedom to one of subservience.
Most of the historical sources by and large refer to the elite sections of society
concentrating on the court and the aristocracy and hence when they talk of women
they generally refer to women of this class because women from other classes
and tribal backgrounds had different norms. Tribal women and women from the
labouring castes and classes are rarely visible as they represent those groups
which did not have a literary culture and therefore did not leave behind much
evidence. However, there are references to them in literature and historians also
use archaeological evidence to try and reconstruct the lives of the pre-literate
societies.

It is generally accepted that one of the basis of the stratification in society is the
economic surplus that is appropriated by a ruling class and in the context of the
hunter gatherers we see that such a surplus is not there and there the question of
private property does not assume much significance as these societies were
relatively egalitarian. It is with the rise of sedentary settlements that we see the
emergence of stratification as the existence of a class of non-food producers
who lived on the labour of others is seen. In the Indian context a large number of
Neolithic settlements are noticed. In the north-western parts of India, the rise of
the Indus Valley Civilisation based on urban settlements and long distance trade
was excavated a century ago. However, in the absence of any written record and
the un-deciphered nature of the Indus seals we are unable to proceed any further
and therefore unable to reconstruct the position of women.
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Women’s Movements in India.

Though it has often been stated that the position of women was much better in
the Vedic period and things started deteriorating with the coming of Muslims,
and the often quoted examples are given of Gargi and Maitrey who participated
in the Sabha and Samitis it cannot be denied that ancient societies were patriarchal
on the simple count that the predominant structure and values of society were
oriented to giving men a superordinate status, a fact that was reinforced by sacred
literature. In fact one can see continuity in modern times which is one of the
reasons that the social reformers and freedom fighters took up the agenda of
women’s movement in the post Independent period as one of the unfinished
businesses of Indian social reform.

Many accounts were written about women in the 19th century by the European
travelers. The Orientalists reconstructed the glory of Indian civilisation in the
past. The past was presented as a homogeneous whole without any aberrations.
The effort was to make the natives understand their laws and appreciate the
efforts made by their rulers. The colonial restructuring of gender and the circular
institutionalisation of literature both worked to undermine the authority of Indian
literature and the societies that gave rise to them. Though they retrieved and put
into circulation many Sanskrit and Persian texts, it was a highly restructured
version of the past that emerged in the Orientalist framework (Tharu et al (ed),
1991). All these texts showed that women had a very high status in the Vedic
period which was a golden age and then the status of the women declined with
the coming of Muslim rule and now it was for the British to improve the status
of women. One also sees a change in ancient India during the transition from the
early to the later Vedic period when the pastoral and semi-nomadic society of the
early Vedic period with its relative equality gets settled during the later Vedic
period and the territorial units are established during this period. Another
perceptible change is seen during the Upanishidic period and later during the 6th
century B.C with a proliferation of urban settlements. The emergence of the
grhya and the srauta sutras offers us a glimpse of the position of the women
during this period. Agriculture was established along with craft specialisation in
the urban centers and the ‘grahapati’ or the householder seen as the ideal. He
was the one who exercised control over the household. We get a clear indication
of the growing control of the householder over the women of the household and
their dependence on the men.

Many of these scholars depended for their sources on textual materials which
are Brahmanical in origin. These texts are heavily preoccupied with religious
and legal questions. Women are viewed mainly in the context of the family, the
relationship between husband and wife being the main backdrop. The first
millennium BC, can be called the era of the founding of Brahmanic patriarchy,
and the 19th century colonial period saw the reconstruction of Brahmanic
patriarchy, as part of a larger scale ‘construction of Hinduism’ (Chakravarty,
1998).

Buddhist texts are at a considerable distance from this ideal along with the Jaina
and other heterodox religious traditions. Though the Buddha and Mahavira spoke
for equality of women, we also notice some resistance from members of the
Sangha.

As has been pointed out, most of the historical sources of the earlier period
generally refer to elite groups, the king, the court and the rich merchants. We
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Women in India and Some Insights
have to infer about other sections of society from indirect references. The women
of aristocracy were regarded as gentle creatures, the mothers of future rulers.
Marriage was frequently a disguise for a political alliance and for those of lesser
standing a means of mobility for the family. The aristocratic woman led a well
protected and isolated life. Reference to women from respectable homes moving
about veiled goes back to early centuries A.D. and the purdah of Islam intensified
the seclusion of women (Thapar, 1975, 8). The women of the artisan families
and those of the peasants had a less relaxed life. Here the pressure was not so
much from social mores as from the needs of economic survival, where leisure
was limited and women participated in the professional works of men. Perhaps
the most independent among the peasant women were those who had distinct
economic roles, where they had individual access to local markets. There are
ample references to such women in the Smriti literature like the Manusmriti, the
Smritis of Apastamba and Gautama. In addition, the Jataka stories also offer us
many glimpses from the lives of these women drawn from royalty, aristocracy,
trading, artisanal, hunting, fisher folk and labourers. What clearly emerges from
reading these sources and the Sanskrit literature and dramas and inscriptions is a
distinction between different classes of women, where royal women needed
protection and the subaltern women were more unfettered. This distinction can
be seen in the realm of religion also, with Lakshmi and Parvathy being demure
while Kali and Durga being ferocious.

According to ancient and later Brahmanical law books, for a woman her dharma
was stridharma, and her notion of dharma was not a self definition but a world
view thrust on her with predominantly male interests. Due to their supposedly
fickle nature and the inherent pollution in the female body women were seen as
being subordinate to the voice of authority in the family and had to engage in
frequent acts of ritual purifications. They had to visit temples with great regularity,
perform sacred rites with higher faith and submit to religious fasts.
At the same time, we have examples of women who composed many hymns of
the Rigveda. Apala, Lopamudra, Gargi, Maitreyi, Ghosha were few of the women
philosophers. There were groups of women who studied throughout their lives
and were known as Brahmavadinis. Women also attended political assemblies
and offered sacrifices along with their husbands.

1.2.2 Position of Women in the Medieval Period
Most of the source material that is available for the reconstruction of Medieval
India is written within the Indo-Persian tradition and was composed in a court
setting. We do not get much information about the women and their activities.
The few women who find mention in the records are women like Razia, Nurjehan,
Rudramma Devi, who were exceptions and hence cannot be generalised. We
have no information on the domestic life of ordinary women of medieval times.
India witnessed significant socio-economic changes during the medieval period
giving rise to new social groups which could not fit into traditional hierarchy.
We have a large number of inscriptions of the newly emergent groups who prosper
because of the changes in the economy, particularly agrarian expansion and crop
diversification. The polities that appear throughout the subcontinent during the
Middle Ages were not the dispersed fragments of a previous central government,
but new formations arising out of the extension of agrarian settlement and the
resulting growth of population.
9 Women’s Movements in India.

During the medieval period these newly emerging social groups, attempted to
redefine their position and status within the given traditional hierarchy and
spearheaded a movement articulating their demands for restructuring the existing
order. By declaring that God dwells in each individual and one could attain God
through faith these saints brought religion to the downtrodden and henceforth
marginalised sections of society. This movement is referred to as the Bhakti
movement. What is important is that women could also now practice bhakti and
they were regarded as an equal in the eyes of God. In the 12th century, the Lingayat
Movement began by Basavanna rejected many of the Hindu beliefs and customs
such as Sati, female infanticide etc. which according to its founder brought disaster
to Hinduism (Mukherjee 1974). He upheld the individuality of women, their
right to choose their husbands, remarriage of widows and right to divorce under
certain circumstances.

The advent of lslam did not make conditions better for women in general and a
large number of biases and prejudices continued. The invasions of the Arabs and
later the Turks and the subsequent setting up of Mughal rule helped to harden
the rules and oppressive practices against women. Any woman found without
Purdah was considered as shameless. The practice of polygamy and easy divorce
by men and the law of inheritance went against them. Education was denied to
them. Restrictions on their rights and freedom got aggravated.
During the Mughal period, household was an institution in which gender relations
were structured, enforced, and, possibly, contested. During this period the harem
metamorphosed into a bounded space which could be understood as a family.
The record of routine events (like the king’s visits to the royal women, preparation
of marriages, and distribution of gifts) were a repertoire of the processes involved
in the making of ‘hierarchical relationships, building alliances and reinforcing
kinship solidarities’ (Lal, 2004).

The Mughal rulers attempted to put down Sati. Humayun introduced a system of
licensing to bring it under some control. Akbar actively pursued the opposition.
Jehangir abolished it by law and Aurangazeb pursued the implementation of this
law (Baig 1976). But none of them could pursue their reforms vigorously.
1.2.3 Position of Women in the British Period
The advent of the Europeans into India did not change the situation of women.
Like other Western powers, the primary objective of the British in the earlier
days was trade. Later when they were faced with the administration of newly
conquered areas, they thought it safe not only to keep the existing social structure
intact but also to induct its religious pundits (Brahmins) to interpret its rules
when necessary.

The introduction of English education first started to train Indians for jobs under
British administration. This created upper class elites who began to doubt the
rationale of many of the existing practices in their society. The establishment
and expansion of the British rule also encouraged British missionaries to enter
their colonies and start schools, orphanages and destitute homes especially for
widows. They stood against sati, child marriage, purdah and polygamy. The
new Indian elite exposed to European liberalism of the 18rh century through
Western education, felt the urgency for reform of their own society. This produced
tangible results in the subsequent periods.
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Women in India and Some Insights

1.3 WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD
The women’s movements in the colonial period are mainly of two different
concerns: (1) social reform movements and (2) nationalist movements.
1.3.1 Social Reform Movements.

The women’s movements began as a social reform movement in the 19th century.
The British conquest and its rule over India brought about transformation in
Indian economy as well as in society. The new land revenue settlements,
commercial agriculture and infrastructural facilities like roads, railways, postal
and telegraph services etc. ushered in by the British led to a significant change in
the Indian village economy. The new economic system and administrative
machinery required a new type of educated personal which resulted in the
establishment of Western educational institutions imparting modern education.

The Indians who were the beneficiaries of the new economic system were attracted
towards this and as a result a new class of intelligentsia evolved in the Indian
society. The articulate intelligentsia became the pioneers of all progressive
democratic movements: social, political, economic and cultural. The reform
movements were not homogeneous and varied a lot in terms of the ideas and
changes that was to be fostered. They did however share a common concern for
rooting out the social evils, partly in response to charges of barbarity from the
colonial rulers. This was a period of the hegemonic control and influence of
colonial ideology. This was a time of transition, one of the emerging bourgeois
society and values of new modes of thought.

The colonial intervention in the 19th century intruded into the areas of our culture
and society and this affected transformation in our social fabric. This potential
threat was sensed by the Indian intellectual reformers, exposed to western ideas
and values. At this juncture, the Indian intellectual reformer sensitive to the power
of colonial domination and responding to Western ideas of rationalism and
liberalism sought ways and means of resisting this colonial hegemony by resorting
to what K. N. Panniker (Presidential address, Indian History Congress, 1975)
refers to as cultural defense.

This cultural defense resulted in a paradoxical situation. Spurred by new European
ideas of rationalism and progress, the reformers tried to create a new society,
modern yet rooted in Indian tradition. They began a critical appraisal of Indian
society in an attempt to create a new ethos devoid of all overt social aberrations
like polytheism, polygamy, casteism, sati, child marriage, illiteracy etc. all of
which they believed were impediments to progress of women. All the social
reformers shared a belief common to many parts of the world in the 19th century
that no society could progress if its women were backward. To the reformers, the
position of Indian women, as it was in the 19th century was abysmally low and
hence their efforts were directed at an overall improvement in the status of women
through legislation, political action and propagation, of education. This was
mainly spurred by the first wave feminism of the west and concentrated on basic
rights for women.

The social reform movement did not radically challenge the existing patriarchal
structure of society or question gender relation. They picked up for reform only
11
Women’s Movements in India
those issues which the British were pointing out as evidence of degeneration in
the Indian society. Even the women’s institutions and organisations that sprang
up during this period do not reveal the development of an independent view. As
a result even when women were speaking for themselves they were speaking
only the language of the men, defined by male parameters.

Women were seen as passive recipients of a more humanitarian treatment to be
given by Western educated elite men. There was thus an attempt to reform women
rather than reform the social conditions which opposed them. There were no
attempts to alter the power structure and the men-women relation in the society.
This was but natural since the change in the status of women was being sought
only within questioning patriarchy itself. The attempt was to create a new Indian
woman, truly Indian and yet sufficiently educated and tutored in the 19th century
values to suit the new emerging society. Thus education for girls was not meant
to equip them to be self-sufficient, independent and emancipated and train them
to follow some profession but to be good housewives (Pande and Kameshwari,
1987).

Women also joined in the struggle against colonialism, but while they were
encouraged to participate by leaders like Gandhi, their work in the struggles was
just an extension of their domestic work. Very few women were allowed to join
the front ranks with men, and the ones that did, spoke of the isolation they felt at
times (Kumar, 1993). As a form of backlash to these new ideas that colonialism
brought to India, women’s roles were being pushed to a more traditional way of
life.

In spite of its limitations, it cannot be denied that the social reform movement
did help in removing prejudices against women’s education and provided a space
for women in the public realm. The reformers took up issues, such as, sati, female
infanticide, polygamy, child marriage, purdah, absence of education among
women etc. There were two groups of social reformers, 1) Liberal Reformers
and 2) The Revivalists. Both the groups undoubtedly recognised the oppressive
social institutions’ customs of India. But the former group on the basis of liberal
philosophy put forth their work for the cause of women whereas the latter group’s
work was based on a programme of the revival at the Vedic society in modern
India. While arguing in favour of equal rights for women appealed to logic,

reason, history, the principal of individual freedom and the requirements of social
programme, social reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshab Chandra
Sen, Iswarachandra Vidya Sagar, Kandukuri Veeresalingam Panthulu, M. G.
Ranade, Karve, Swami Vivekanantia, Swami Dayanand Saraswathi and others
provided leadership to the women’s movement by frankly acknowledging the
degraded position of Indian women. The social reformers concentrated their
attention on important aspects of women like sati, age of marriage the sad plight
of widows and their right to remarry. The social reformers established a number
of societies like Bramho Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and others for the cause
of Indian women. The best exponent of liberalism was Raja Ram Mohan Roy
who was the first Indian to initiate a social reform movement and campaign for
the cause of women. He advocated equality between the two sexes and declared
that women were not inferior to men morally and intellectually.

Roy’s attention was drawn towards the inhuman practice of sati, after female
infanticide. From 1818 onwards he began his active propaganda through speeches
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Women in India and Some
Insights
and writings against sati. Largely because of his effort and persuasion, the East
India Company declared the sati practice illegal and a punishable offence in
1829.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy also opposed other evils like early marriage, polygamy
etc. He supported female education and widow and inter-caste marriage. He
wanted that women should have the right of inheritance and property. Roy’s
Brahmo Samaj played a significant role in the reform activities concerning
women.

The Brahmo Samaj, soon after its inception became a vigorous social reform
movement first in Bengal which then quickly spread to other parts of the country
and added to the volume and strength of similarly aimed local reformist
movements. The members of the Brahmo Samaj opposed the caste system and
they concentrated greatly on improving the low conditions of women and played
a very important role in the introduction of several beneficial measures.
Like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwara Chandra Vidya Sagar also helped women.
He did so by propagating widow remarriage. The child marriage evil resulted in
large numbers of young girls ending up as widows whose lives were miserable
due to the severe restrictions imposed on them. He argued in favour of widow
remarriage and published his work on “Widow Remarriage” in 1853.

Arya Samaj was established by Dayanand Saraswathi in 1875. Dayanand
Saraswathi emphasised compulsory education of both boys and girls. A series of
schools for women- Arya Kanya Patasalas – were the first concerted effort of the
Samaj to promote women’s education in a systematic way. Prarthana Samaj
founded by some Maharashtra Brahmins in 1867 had leaders like M. G. Ranade,
N. G. Chandrasarkar and R. G. Bhandarkar. It concentrated more on sponsoring
education for women. Both Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj made forceful
efforts to prove that Hindu religious tradition were not the source of legitimacy
for the sorrowful condition of women in society. Under the influence of the
liberal thought of the west the two Samajes strove to restore to women their
dignified status.

The efforts of Vidya Sagar, Keshub Chandra Sen and D. K. Karve resulted in the
enactment of widow remarriage act of 1856. In the South Kandukuri
Veeresalingam led the widow remarriage movement. In 1874 he performed 63
widow remarriages throughout the Madras presidency and financially supported
men who married widows by providing them houses and other benefits.
Another aspect that the reformers worked on was the age of girls at marriage. In
the 19th century the average age of marriage for girls was 8 or 9. The extensive
propaganda by Vidya Sagar and other reformers in this regard led the British
government to legislate in order to improve the condition of minor girls and the
age of consent bill was passed in 1860 which made sexual intercourse with a girl
of less than 10 years of age as rape. Further social reformers like Mahadev Govind
Ranade, Behramji Malabari and Tej Bahadur Sapru in their attempts to raise the
age of marriage cited several cases of consummation at the age of 10 or 11 which
led to serious physical and psychological disturbances. Behramji, a Parsi journalist
published his notes on infant marriage and enforced widowhood in 1884
suggesting certain reforms to be adopted in the educational institutions to
13
Women’s Movements in India.

discourage child marriage and also suggested some corrective measures to the
Government. It was between 1884 and 1889 that enormous pressure was brought
to bear on the government to enact law to further raise the age at marriage of the
girl. At last due to the collective efforts of the reformers in 1891, the Bill known
as the Age of Consent was passed, which rose the marriageable age for girls to
12 years.
The social reformers felt that through female education the social evils that were
linked to the issue of preserving and strengthening basic family structure could
be eliminated and good wives and mothers could emerge from the same. Starting
from Raja Ram Mohan Roy including the liberal as well as orthodox reformers
supported female education. This resulted in the establishment of schools for
girls and homes for widows. Between 1855 and 1858 while he was inspector of
schools, Vidya Sagar established 48 girls’ schools. M. G. Ranado along with his
wife propagated female education and started a girls’ high school in 1884. The
limited enforcement and practicability of legislations like widow remarriage act
of 1856 and others in a tradition bound society was recognised by D. K. Karve,
who, therefore, concentrated his efforts on promoting education among widows.
In 1896 Karve along with 15 of his colleagues founded the Ananth Balikashram
for the education of widows, where the courses were drawn up with an idea to
make the widows self reliant. He also started Mahila Vidyalaya in 1907 and S.
N. D. T. Women’s University in 1916 a separate educational institution for women
so as to lessen the resistance of orthodox section with regard to women’s
education. The social reform movement in its later phases resulted in producing
women social reformers who worked for their own cause. Pandita Ramabai started
Sharda Sadan in Bombay in 1889 to provide an ashram to destitute high caste
widows. In 1912-1913 a widow’s home was established by sister Subbulakshmi,
another widow in Madras.

Another important aspect of the social reform movement phase of women in
India was that of property rights for Hindu women (Mukharjee 1975a). The
existing practice was particularly harsh on the Hindu widow who had no claim
on her husband’s property except the right at maintenance as a result of which
she was at the mercy of her husbands relatives. Raja Ram Mohan Roy suggested
that the government should enact and enforce laws to remove these disabilities
and bring economic freedom and self reliance. As a result of such efforts, special
marriage act of 1872 with its provision for divorce and succession to property to
women was passed. The married women’s property act of 1874 widened the
scope of stridhan (women’s property) and expanded the right to own and acquire
property by women. It also gave a widow a life interest in her husband’s share of
the property and a share equal to that of a son.

Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Annie Besant were the
prominent reformers of the revivalist group who also worked for the cause of
Indian women. This group believed in the revival of the Vedic society in modern
India. Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj was against child marriage.
He encouraged widow remarriages and also set up several rescue homes and
orphanages. Annie Besant leader of the theosophical movement was also against
child marriage and supported remarriage of child widows. She laid emphasis on
the importance of female education, thus adding strength to the social reform
movement.

 

14 Women in India and Some Insights
Muslim women in India made little progress in their position both in the preBritish
period or later British period. Western education, the major vehicle of
progress during the British period did not reach them, partly because of the
existence of Purdah and seclusion of women from external environment and
partly, because education was considered inessential for them. Educated Muslims
formed only a small segment of the population in the 19th century and were
confined to urban areas in the country. Consequently, efforts in education and
association formation among Muslim women did not begin until the 20th century,
one notable exception being the Tyabji family of Bombay. Badruddin Tyabji
who graduated from Elphinstone College founded a Muslim self-help association
in 1876. His female relatives were later active in starting a Muslim girls school
(Amina Binte Badruddin Tyabji) and running a girls’ orphanage (Begum Nawale
Misra) and starting nursing centres (Shareefa Hamid Ali).

Thus the social reformers laid the foundation of the women’s movement in India.
Social reform movement was the first attempt to remove the obstacles in the life
of women. It created awareness among the people that women must be liberated
and be made equal of men.

1.3.2 Nationalist Movements
As a result of the social reform movement of the 19th century, the social evils
were eliminated and opportunities were provided to women for their education.
The expansion of women’s education and their admission to educational
institutions had produced a sizable number of English educated middle class
women by the late 19th century- and they made their presence felt in political
activities. The characteristics of the second phase of women’s movement i.e. the
national movement are: for the first time many women belonging to the middle
class, started taking part in the political activities. Till 1919, the national movement
was limited to the urban upper class and it was later with Gandhi’s entrance into
the national movement, participation of the masses began to take place. In this
phase, political developments and women’s participation in the National
movement went hand in hand.

The partition of Bengal in 1905 resulted in the launching of Swadeshi movement
by the nationalists. Though there was the absence of mass awakening amongst
the women, but meetings were arranged and khadi spinnings were taken up by
women. Women contributed their bangles, nose rings and bracelets to the national
fund. In villages, women started putting away a handful of grain daily for such
purpose. The women of Bengal and Punjab took active part in the Swadeshi
movement. The women workers of the Arya Samaj were also responsible for
arousing national spirit among the people. Swarna Kumari, sister of Rabindranath
Tagore and her daughter Sarala Devi were strong supporters of the Swadeshi
movement. Important women who participated in the revolutionary activities
were Mrs. Shyamji Krishna Varma, Ms. P. Nauroji, Ms. M. Chettopadhya, and
Madam Bhikaji Rustum, K. R. Kame, a regular among the Indian revolutionaries
based in Europe, coordinated to the activities of the revolutionaries. She also
raised issues of women’s equality at international socialist circles reflecting the
Indian reality.

This Swadeshi period marked the formation of several women’s organisations.
Sarala Devi took steps to organise the women’s movement and its nucleus in the
15
Women’s Movements in India.

form of Bharat Stri Maha Mandal in Lahore in 1910. Branches of this organisation
were established at Allahabad and Calcutta. The objective of this society was to
bring together women of all castes and creed on the basis of their economic
interest for the moral and material progress of Indian women. Parvati Devi, the
headmistress of a Hindu girls’ school at Kanchi a small town in the Madras
presidency started Kanchi Mahila Parishad to equip women of Kanchi with
knowledge to create public opinion over burning issues of the nation.

The period from 1911-18 is of great significance in the history of Indian national
movement because for the first time a woman Annie Besant led the national
movement as president of Indian National Congress. The setting up of Home
Rule League and organisation of the Home Rule agitation raised the tempo of
the movement. It was due to women like Annie Besant that organised movement
for the emancipation of women took place and the demand for political rights
for women came to be firmly established on the political agenda. The important
achievement of the women’s movement in India during the second phase was
the founding of Women’s Indian Association (WIA).

Pandita Rama Bai’s Sharda Sadan (1892) in Poona, Shri Mahipatram Rupram
Anathashram in Ahmedabad (1892), Shri Zorastrian Mandal in Bombay (1903),
Maternity and Child Welfare League in Baroda (1914) , Bhagini Samaj in Poona
(1916) all were established and worked with the particular objective of improving
women’s lives. These regional organisations were followed by national
organisations like Women’s Indian Association (1917) and The National Council
of Women in India (1920). All India Women’s Conference (1926) went on to
organise 12 women’s conferences till 1937 and Federation of University Women
in India (1920) stimulated the interests of women in civic and public life and
concentrated on the removal of disabilities of women and promoted social, civil,
moral and educational welfare of women and children.

The Women’s Indian Association was mainly concerned with influencing the
government policy on women’s suffrage, educational and social reform issues.
Its main objectives were spread of women’s education, elimination of child
marriage and other social evils, franchise for women and establishment of equality
of rights between men and women. This association played an important role in
articulating the women’s movement till its merger with the All India Women’s
conference.

From the beginning, the Indian women’s movement approached the suffrage
campaign as a measure to achieve social reform. The leaders believed that
enfranchisement of women would mean additional support for reform legislation.
The entry of Mahatma Gandhi with his experience altered the national politics
dramatically. He realised the importance of mass base to Indian nationalism, and
subsequently an ideology which suited the same was introduced. Gandhian style
of mass mobilisation had implications for the Indian women’s movement in as
much as increasing number of women were sought to be mobilised for
participation in the independent movement. Even though Gandhi recognised the
existence of a set of problems unique to women, he saw no conflict between a
women’s movement and a national movement. During the Gandhian era of
national movement, women continued their movement for political rights and
social reform activities by forming organisations.
16
Women in India and Some Insights

Gandhi launched an all India Satyagraha in 1919 against the provocative
enactment of the Rowlat Act. Women took out processions, propagated the use
of Khadi and even courted jail. Though a few number of women were arrested,
yet a beginning was made. Though the non-cooperation movement ended in
failure, it awakened the women of all sections and imparted first lessons in
Satyagraha.

After the struggle for franchise, for the first time, Indian women exercised their
vote in the elections of 1926. The franchise granted to women was very restricted.
The first woman to stand for election was Kamala Devi Chattopadhaya. Madras
was the first state which nominated a woman member, Dr. Muttu Lakshmi Reddy
to the legislative Council. She saw to the enactment of the abolition of Devadasi
system and laws to close brothels and protect the minor girls. She brought
amendments to the children’s act and worked for the creation of health schools.
A large number of women including Sarojini Naidu, actively took part in the
Dandi March. Women participated by breaking salt laws, forest laws taking out
processions, picketing schools, colleges, legislative councils and clubs. In 1931
Sarojini Naidu attended the Second Round Table Conference as an official
representative of the women of India.

During the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930, Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya
addressed meetings and picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. She was incharge
of the women’s wing of the Hindustan Seva Dal. The inauguration of
provincial autonomy under the India Act of 1935 gave women an opportunity to
be elected to the state legislatures and also become administrators. In the elections
of 1937, 8 women were elected from the general constituencies, 42 from the
reserved constituencies and 5 were nominated to the Upper House when the
ministries were formed, 10 women took office one as minister and others as
deputy speakers and parliamentary secretaries.

The Quit India Movement which was the last in the series of the nationalist
agitation was launched by Gandhi in 1942 with a significant slogan “Do or Die”.
Men leaders were arrested in the first round up and in their absence women
carried on the movement and bore the burnt of the British wrath, The women not
only led processions and held demonstrations but also organised camps in which
they were given training in civil duties and first aid and were educated on
democracy. Women organised political prisoners’ relief fund while some women
went underground and directed the movement secretly. In the Indian National
Army of Subhash Chandra Bose, Rani Jhansi Regiment was created for women.
Women were trained in nursing, social service and to use weapons. Thus women
took part in various activities of the national movement. The specific feature of
this phase of women’s movement is the establishment of several women’s
organisations led by women themselves on an all India basis to enhance their
social, economic, cultural and political scene.

The male leadership during the freedom struggle did not encourage a second
line of leadership and women could assume leadership only when the men were
in prison. However, in such times, there was an upsurge of women, which took
not only the British government but their own men folk by surprise. Here were
these women, of the upper or middle class leading sheltered lives in their homes,
peasant women, working women pouring out in tens and thousands in defiance
17
Women’s Movements in India
of government order and police atrocities. It was not only their display of courage
and daring but what was even more surprising was the organisational power,
they showed.

It was primarily due to the efforts of women and their role in the freedom struggle
that women got the right to vote and complete equality in the constitution of
India. However a great gap arose between the theoretical status of women and
their rights and what existed in reality.

1.4 WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN THE POST COLONIAL PERIOD
The period after India’s independence is called post-colonial period. Immediately
after independence, India had to deal with a variety of problems. Years of colonial
domination had destroyed our indigenous crafts and depleted our natural
resources. Industrialisation, changing technologies illiteracy, lack of mobility all
resulted in the inability of women to cope with the new order.
During this period the social reformists tried to channelise the Indian society by
introducing constitutional and legal provisions and protecting the society and
the women from discrimination and by providing equality to all the citizens
irrespective of caste, creed, race, religion and sex. A few of the prominent
movements are:
Telangana Movement;
Chipko Movement;
Anti Arrack Movement.

1.4.1 Telangana Movement
The Telangana Movement began in 1946 and continued till 1951. It is one of the
two major post-war insurrectionary peasant struggles in India. The Telangana
Movement (1946-51) was a protest of the people who wanted both food and
freedom from the oppressive regime of the Nizam, the Patils and the Jagirdars in
Hyderabad State. The peasants on the Nizam’s personal estate were bonded to
the ruler. Under Jagirdari system various illegal taxes and forced labour were
extracted from peasants by the landlords. Apart from this there were the Deshmukhs
and Despandes (principal revenue officers of a district who became land owners
overtime) or tax collectors of the Nizam who grabbed thousands of acres of land
and made it their own property. Peasants thus became tenants at will.

One common social phenomenon was the Vetti system of forced labour and
exactions imposed on all peasant sections in varying degrees. Each family had to
send someone to collect wood for fuel, carry post to other villages, carry supplies
etc. Foot wear, agricultural implements, pots or cloth had to be supplied free to
landlords. Another system that prevailed was keeping of peasant girls as slaves
in the landlord’s house. When landlord’s daughters were married these with were
often sent with them to serve as concubines.

When the exactions of the landlords reached the point of evicting peasants from
their land, the peasants began to resist. Sporadic struggles were launched in 1946
against the Deshmukhs of Visunur, Suryapet, Babasahebpet and Kalluru.
18
Women in India and Some Insights
Large number of women who were desperate because of extreme poverty, slavery
and sexual exploitation by the feudal lords fought courageously in this movement.
In order to mobilise and develop political acumen among women, the communist
party formed a women’s organisation which published a woman’s Journal Andhra
Vanitha. Through this they campaigned against child marriage, widow remarriage,
increased wages etc.

Crucially affected by the oppression of landlords and money lenders, women
who were a large section of the agricultural labour and tobacco leaf pickers became
militant in the struggle for land, better wages, fair, rent, reasonable interest on
cash and grain loans.
Among the bonded class, rape, becoming concubines to landlords’ married
daughters etc. were prevalent. The oppression of the upper class women was
kept under wraps as the violence they faced was not visible and structural purdah
was strictly observed both by high caste Hindu and Muslim women. Child
marriage and early widowhood were common. Education for women was unheard
of. In Telangana the cultural dominance of Muslim feudal rule kept women out
of the mainstream for long. Andhra Maha Sabha, which sprung up to assert the
cultural identity of the people, added women’s education to their agenda of
constitutional reform and civil liberties. Thus many women, who were drawn
into the cultural movements, drew closer to the communist party which was
working through the Andhra Maha Sabha. When the Andhra Maha Sabha added
basic agrarian reforms to its programme of action these women also plunged
into the struggle.

Women from all classes participated in the movement with energy and
commitment where both the urban middle class as well as the peasant sections
of the population, drew their support slowly but surely into the movement. The
communist party which seriously took up issues of social reforms for women
like widow remarriage, prohibition of child marriage, education for women and
opportunities, also began to identify women of ability to make the movement
stronger. Some of the women who took active part in the movement were Dubala
Salamma, Ch. Kamalamma, Regulla Achamma, Chityala Ailamma, Pesaru
Satbamma, Malla Swarajyam, Dayani Kausalya, Pramila Tail, Chakilam
Lalithamma, Bullemma, Narasamma, Vajramma, Saidamma, Suganamma, etc.

The Communist party in Andhra served as a rear base for the Telangana struggle,
arranging for relief and supplies. The entry of the Indian Army into Hyderabad
in September 1948 brought about the surrender of the Nizam and the disbanding
of the Razakars. The force of the Army was then turned on the peasants, the
communist party was banned and repression increased. The rich peasantry
withdrew its support once the Nizam was gone and the squads had to move into
the forests. Finally the struggle was withdrawn in 1951.

Some changes took place after the withdrawal. Forced labour was abolished,
village became active and people resisted the return of the old Jagirdari system.
The demand for division along linguistic zones to facilitate all round political,
social and cultural development of the people was also subsequently pushed
forward. More important was the fact that it had set a revolutionary tradition
among Telugu people.

1.4.2 Chipko Movement
Chipko Movement was born in a small hilly village, Advani in Tehri Garhwal
district of Utter Pradesh. The illiterate adivasi women led this movement in
December 1972. It challenged the old belief that forests mean only timber and
emphasised their roles in making soil, water and pure air as the basis of human
life. This philosophy popularised the movement in many countries. The women
symbolically tied sacred threads around the trees, faced police firing in February
1978 and later courted arrest. This movement continued under the leadership of
Sri Sunderlal Bahuguna in various villages. The movement’s plan is a slogan to
plant five F’s- food, fodder, fuel, fiber and fertiliser to make communities self
sufficient in all their basic needs.

The Chipko movement is inimical to gender in its theoretical underpinnings as
well as the political and economic ones. Women and children gather firewood
for domestic consumption. They rely on the forestry for combustible crop residues
such as rice straw. This, however, is considered inferior to fuel-wood. Therefore,
forestry activities that increase the availability of fuel-wood and development
projects that promote improved stoves both release women’s labour from fuel
collection and permit its use in other productive activities, and improve the
agricultural environment by permitting crop residues to be better used for
enriching depleted soil. The movement points out the link between women’s
burden as food providers and gatherers and their militancy in protecting natural
resources from violent devastation.

The Chipko women believed that the trees were alive and could breathe like
them. Thus trees should be respected. Besides supporting agriculture and animal
husbandary, the forests grew medicinal herbs used for healing powers. The hill
women used fruit, vegetables or roots from it in times of scarcity. This dependency
on forest resources was institutionalised through some social and cultural
mechanisms, like religion, folklore and oral tradition. Many wooded areas bore
marks of the hill folk’s instinct for the plantation and preservation of the forest.

The Chipko movement against tree felling is a phenomenon no less. On April
1974, these women whose annual per capita income was Rs.129 rose against
tree -felling. It is nationally and internationally discussed as the peoples’ ecological
movement for the protection of the natural environment. Men migrated to the
plains and women were left to cope with an impoverished existence and to provide
for the old and the children. Women repeatedly challenged administrators and
politicians stating, planning without fodder, fuel and water is one eyed planning.

In the course of this movement, Garhwal women successfully undertook
leadership roles and questioned the right of the men to decide the fate of the
forests or to enter into contracts without consulting them, who were the worst
affected. The forests were these women’s home, and hence they would not let it
be cut down. The police force used all repressive and terrorising methods to
retreat the non-violent strength of the women.

One of the women, Gaura Devi led 27 village women to prevent the contractors
and forest department personnel, about 60 men in all, from entering the Reni
forest to cut 2,415 trees. While the women blocked the narrow passage leading
to the forest, the men used all sorts of threats and also misbehaved with the
women. But the women bravely refused to budge. In the course of this movement,
20
Women in India and Some Insights
Garhwal women successfully understood leadership roles and questioned the
right of the men to decide the fate of the forests or to enter into the contracts
without consulting them.

1.4.3 Anti Arrack Movement
The anti-arrack movement of women in Andhra Pradesh was one of most historic
and significant movements of the 1990s. The historic bangle waged by the women
of Andhra Pradesh against the social evil of alcohol drinking is a magnum war in
Indian social history. Women have played a historic role in bringing about a ban
on consumption and sale of distilled liquor in Andhra Pradesh. The movement
indeed was not just for elimination of liquor but for the protection and survival
of their lives and culture. The rural women in the villages raised their voices
against the degeneration of the progress of their families through the damage
caused by their men to their children and themselves.

The movement was started in a small village, Dubagunta, in Nellore district of
Andhra Pradesh. The main reason for the movement was said to be the successful
literacy mission that has been going in Nellore district. The National literacy
Mission (NLM) was officially launched in Nellore District from 2nd January 1990
and was implemented from January 1991. This program was implemented in a
very innovative way with recognition of development as an instrument of change
and empowerment of women. Hence a campaign approach was adopted to spread
the message of literacy. Primers were written, popular performances used and a
center for people’s awareness created. Besides this, cultural committees were
organised to convey the meaning and need for literacy in the forms of songs,
dance-dramas and street plays.

(Pande, 2002)
Sharing of problems through such mediums helped women to create a close
bonding. They decided to fight the vice of drinking. The women reasoned that if
the arrack shops were closed the men would not get liquor and hence would not
drink. These women then marched together the next day and were able to get the
arrack shop closed in their village.

The Dubagunta episode was soon quoted in another literacy primer, under the
title, Adavallu Ekamaithe, (If Women Unite). The lesson had an electrifying
impact on women in other villages who felt that they could do the same. In many
villages women’s committees were formed. Their fight turned into a larger issue
involving contractors, the excise department and the state itself. The women
wanted to know why their village did not have drinking water, schools for children
or proper wages but plenty of arrack shops (ibid).

Anti-arrack movement though started as a spontaneous outburst of lower class
and lower caste women it soon became a rage through classes and castes against
local arrack shops, excise officials, liquor contractors and all the machineries of
state involved in the trade.

Apart from these, the women resisted pressure tactics and attacks from those
whom they were fighting. The inspirational guidance extended by the veteran
freedom fighter Mr. Vavilala Gopala Krishnaiah, added momentum to the
movement organised and spread to all villages in the district. Soon all the arrack
supply sources were blocked. There were spontaneous and simultaneous
demonstrations in all the areas against the evils of arrack consumption.
21
Women’s Movements in India.

The women’s struggle against the sale of arrack in Andhra Pradesh had 20 nonpolitical
organisations that fought for the scraping of auctions and bring about a
complete ban on its manufacture. Through this movement, women have definitely
emerged out winners because they are well aware of their strengths and ability to
bring about change in society. Most importantly, the anti arrack agitation is a
very good example of the articulation of a family violence in public. It showed a
feminist way of looking at issues, especially a private issue like family violence
and aligning it to a larger issue of state and society. It questioned the notion
about domestic violence being private and women not being able to do anything
about it.

This movement gave tremendous self-confidence and sense of power to women,
who realised their strength and used it to their benefit. Women emerged out
winners because they are well aware of their strengths and ability to bring about
change in society.

1.5 WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS IN INDIA SINCE THE 1970s
In the post Independence period during the first few decades, the major concern
was for overall economic growth. This was immediately followed by another
decade, which witnessed an increased concern for equity and poverty alleviation.
Gender issues were subsumed in poverty related concerns and there were no
specific programs which aimed at women. Women during this period were
involved in such movements like the law and famine relief movement but did
not start to pick up issues involving their oppression until the 1970s. NGOs and
other such organisations from the 70s started emphasising on women’s
development and provided women avenues of collectively voicing their concerns.
These grass root organisations have questioned the welfare approach to women
and incorporated an empowerment participatory approach. While questions about
the success of these organisations are often raised, it is often seen that women
exposed to some amount of mobilisation show great potentialities, receptiveness
and defining capacities (Banerjee, 1992).

The myth of equality for women was shattered by the path breaking, Towards
Equality Report of 1974. It focused attention on the fact that despite many
progressive social legislations and constitutional guarantees, women’s status had
indeed not improved much. Women continued to have an inferior status in many
areas like political, economic and social. The report pointed out to a sad fact that
society had not yet succeeded in framing the required norms and institutions to
enable women to fulfill their multiple roles. The increasing incidence of practice
like dowry indicated a further lowering of the status of women. The report also
pointed out that the concern for women and their problems which received an
impetus during the freedom movement had suffered a decline in the last two
decades.

In the post independence period, the women’s movement has concerned itself
with a large number of issues such as dowry, women’s work, price rise, land
rights, political participation of women, Dalit marginalised women’s right,
growing fundamentalism, women’s representation in the media etc. It has also
been able to draw a large number of women around three major issues: girl
child, gender violence and globalisation.
22
Women in India and Some Insights

The important characteristics of the 3rd phase of women’s movement i.e. from
post independence era to 1985 are as follows: till the 1970s a kind of passivity or
accommodation due to the socio-economic circumstances of free India influenced
the women’s movement. The economic crisis of 1960s created an atmosphere in
which issues concerning women are more and in which women started taking
place (1975-1985- International Women’s Decade) saw the emergence of
autonomous women’s movement in which autonomous women’s groups and
organisations started fighting for liberation.

Ideals of equal status and important provisions for the welfare of women were
incorporated into the Indian constitution, while the pre-independent legislative
acts continued to be in force. The constitution guaranteed equal rights to both
the sexes. Article 15 and Article 16 (2) of the constitution forbids discrimination
and accepts all as equal in the eyes of the law (Article 14). In the early 1950s a
series of legislations such as the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act,
Dowry Prohibition Act and Equal Remuneration Act were passed.

The emergence of independent India as a welfare state also affected the contours
of Indian women’s movement. The government Central Social Welfare Board
(CSWB) promotes welfare and development services for women, children and
under privileged sections of the society. It has a nation wide programme for
grants-in-aid for welfare activities with a special emphasis on women’s welfare.
The period from the late 1960s has been marked by an economic crisis and
stagnation, rising prices, increasing landlessness and generalised discontent both
in the rural and urban areas. The left parties took interest in the economic crisis
and started organising movements. Through women’s issues were not taken up,
women were mobilised in large number and they participated in the general
struggle of the rural poor, tribals and industrial working class. Women’s
organisations such as Shramik Mahila Sangathana (the working women’s

organisation) took up the issue of rising prices of essential goods, adulteration
etc. This saw its culmination in the anti price movement of 1973 as a united
front organisation of women belonging to political parties such as CPI (M),
Socialist Party, Congress and even non-political women. The political parties
mobilised women to achieve their own political gains. This resulted in the
establishment of National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) by the Communist
Party of India. The economic hardships of the rural masses also drew the attention
of some political parties. While pressing for better working conditions for peasant
women, issues like wife beating, alcoholism, dowry and sexual harassment from
the upper castes were also given attention. Thus in the early 1970s while elite
women’s organisations were conducting cultural activities and beauty shows,
the poor women were getting entrenched into serious movements.

The decade from 1975 to 1985 saw the emergence of autonomous women’s
movement. The year 1975 was declared as the International Women’s Year (IWY)
which was later extended to a decade. The government appointed the Committee
on the Status of Indian Women (CSIW) in 1971 to examine the rights and status
of Indian women and to suggest certain measures to enable women to play their
proper role in the building up of the nation.
Paying unequal wages to women for equal work is a part of the general
discrimination against women in the work place especially in the agriculture,
23
Women’s Movements in India

plantations, mines and other unorganised industries. Working women’s hostels,
legal facilities and trade union rights are not available to women. Mortality rate
among women is higher than that of men due to malnutrition. Violence against
women appears in the form of dowry deaths, wife battering, mass rape during
caste and communal riots, gang rape, sexual harassment of women and stereotyped
representation of women in media. Along with these, poverty and deprivation
affect the conditions of dalit and tribal women, many of whom are forced to
prostitution.

Autonomous women’s movements emerged during the international women’s
decade which provided an opportunity towards attention on women’s issues. In
1975, March 8th was celebrated as international women’s day for the first time.
Important features of the women’s autonomous movement are that women
organised themselves and led the movements and fought against oppression,
exploitation, injustice and discrimination.
The women’s organisations that emerged during the autonomous movement
period could be divided into six categories:

i) Autonomous groups whose main propaganda is agitation and to raise
consciousness.
ii) Grass root or mass based organisations like trade unions, agricultural
labourers’ organisations, democratic groups, tribal organisations etc. in which
women’s issues like wife beating, sexual harassment by the landlords,
alcoholism of men have been taken up.
iii) Groups that concentrate on providing services, shelter homes etc. to needy
women.
iv) Professional women’s organisations such as doctors, lawyers etc. that seek
to agitate against discrimination and more often create alternate channels
for professional activity.
v) Women’s wings or fronts of the political parties.
vi) Groups involved in research and documentation on women’s issues.

 

The above mentioned groups and organisations take up women’s problems and
its members are mostly women and they are run by women. Saheli, Manushi,
Stri Shakti, Stri Mukti Sangathana, Pennurimai Iyyakam etc. are some known
women’s organisations. All these groups have taken up various issues like
atrocities against women. They issue pamphlets, collect signatures to support
demands, organise protest rallies, make demonstrations to mobilise public opinion
etc. They also organise street corner meetings, street plays, skits and songs and
poster exhibitions. They also bring out feminist magazines to raise awareness
among women.

The autonomous movements besides creating general consciousness among
women, exposed the conversation of the judiciary as in the Mathura Rape case,
by removing the bill boards and stopping shows where women have been shown
or used as sex symbols. These autonomous movements have also given rise to
special interest groups involved in the anti-dowry and anti-rape campaigns. More
research is being carried out on subjects related to women. In the academic field,
women’s studies became an upcoming field to be taken more seriously during
24
Women in India and Some
Insights
the 1970s (Patel 1975). As a result of the pressure created by the women’s
movements, amendments in the laws regarding rape, dowry, marriage etc. were
made.

1.6 SUMMARY
Unlike the women’s movements in America and Britain, in India, the concern
for women’s freedom was first espoused by enlightened males during the Bristish
era who had imbibed liberal ideas. Upto the 1920s the struggle was carried on by
men. It was only after Mahatma Gandhi’s entry into politics, that the nationalist
movement under his leadership was transformed from a middle class movement
into a mass movement where women for the first time raised their voices against
the disabilities that they suffered. It is the women’s movement in India that has
been the force behind the long struggle of women’s advancement from
subordination to gender equality and finally to women’s empowerment. Though
a lot needs to be achieved and there are various impediments in making this
reality available to a large section of women, the women’s movement has brought
women’s issues centre stage and made them more visible.

References

Baig, Tara Ali. 1976. Women Power of India. New Delhi: Sultan Chand and
Sons.
Banerjee, Narayan. 1992. Grassroots Empowerment Mimeograph. New Delhi:
Center for Women’s Development Studies.
Kumar, Radha. 1993. History of Doing. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Lal, Ruby. 2004. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Mukharjee, B.N. 1975. “Awareness of Legal Rights Among Married Women
And their Status”. Indian Anthropologist, 5 (2) 30-58.
Pande, Rekha. 2010. Divine Sounds from the Heart, Singing Unfettered in their
Own Voices- The Bhakti Movement and its Women Saints (12th to 17th century).
U.K: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Pande, Rekha. 2002. “The Public Face of a Private Domestic Violence”.
International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol. 4, No. 3, pp.342-367.
Pande, Rekha & Kamweshwari J. 1987, “Women’s Discourse on Education (A
Preliminary Reading of the Speeches Delivered at the Annual Conferences of
the Andhra Mahila Sabha, 1913 & 1914)”. Proceedings of Indian History
Congress, pp. 390 -396.

Panniker, K.N. 1975. “Presidential Address”. Proceedings of Indian History
Congress.
Patel, K.A. 1975. “International Women’s Year : Half of Humanity and New
International Order.” Mainstream, 13 (49).
Thapar, Romila. 1975. “Looking Back in History”. Devaki Jain (ed.) Indian
Women. New Delhi: Publication Division, Government of India.
25
Women’s Movements in
India
Tharu, Susie and K. Lalit (eds). 1991. Women Writing in India, Vol. 11. NewDelhi:
Oxford University Press.
Chakravarty, Uma. 1998. Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita
Ramabai. New Delhi: Kali for Women Press.
Suggested Reading
Altekar, A.S. 1962. The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization. New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidas.
Subbamma, Malladi. 1994. Women’s Movements and Associations. Hyderabad:
Mahilabhyudaya Samastha.
Thomas R. 1964. Indian Women through the Ages, Bombay: Asia Publishing
House.

Sample Questions
1) Discuss the position of women in Vedic society?
2) How did the status of women start declining during the Medieval period?
3) Critically analyse the women’s movement in post independent era.
4) “Social reform movements’ contribution towards the emancipation of
women” Discuss.
26

Women in India and Some
Insights UNIT 2 EMPOWERMENT, EMANCIPATION
AND POLICIES IN INDIA
Contents
2.1 Introduction
2.2 What is the Meaning of the Term ‘Emancipation’? Understanding its
Meaning and Relevance in the History of Women’s Struggles in India
2.3 What is ‘Empowerment’? Examining the Concept and its Origins
2.4 Tracing the Trajectory of ‘Empowerment’! Engaging with Women, Public
Policy and Development in the Context of the State-women’s Movement
Relationship, and Five Year Plans in India
2.5 Is Public Policy Sufficiently Engendered? Case Study of Towards Equality
(1974) and Mahila Samakhya
2.6 Unraveling the Politics of Women’s Empowerment
2.7 Summary

References
Suggested Reading
Sample Questions
Learning Objectives
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
Ø explain the meanings of the terms ‘empowerment’ and ‘emancipation’;
Ø trace the struggles for emancipation and empowerment, especially in the
context of the state and women’s movement in India;
Ø assess whether and how public policies have contributed to women’s
empowerment;
Ø unpack the politics and discourses of women’s empowerment and
Ø understand feminist approaches to gender and development.

2.1 INTRODUCTION
The terms ‘emancipation’ and ‘empowerment’ are both used when referring to
women’s movements, gender and development. However, these terms have
different meanings and are associated with specific periods in the women’s
movement and approaches to gender and development. We shall first take a look
at the term ‘emancipation’, and engage with its meaning and relevance in the
history of social reform movements and nationalist struggle for freedom from
colonial rule in India. We shall then turn our attention to the concept of
‘empowerment’, examine its linkages with power, and theoretically locate its
origins. Further, we shall attempt to trace the trajectory of the concept in India,
with particular attention to the state-women’s movement relationship and the
Five Year Plans. With the aim of delving deeper into whether and how public
policy is sufficiently engendered, we shall take a closer look at the making of
&
27

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India
Towards Equality (1974) and the country-wide state-sponsored women’s
education and empowerment programme, Mahila Samakhya. Last but not least,
we shall unravel different facets of women’s empowerment in conjunction with
the politics of NGO expansion, projects and funding in the context of postliberalisation
India.

2.2 WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE TERM
‘EMANCIPATION’? UNDERSTANDING ITS
MEANINGAND RELEVANCE IN THE
HISTORY OF WOMEN’S STRUGGLES IN
INDIA

‘Emancipation’ refers to liberation from oppression or bondage of any kind.
When used in conjunction with women, it can also be taken to mean escape
from narrow gender roles into which women get typecast and which perpetuate
gender-based inequalities. The period of 19th and 20th centuries is often referred
to as one of social, sexual, economic, political and legal emancipation of women
in not only India but also the West. Below are a few instances of key actors who
made efforts towards women’s emancipation in pre-independent India:
Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as the ‘maker of modern India’. He
founded one of the first socio-religious reform movements in India, namely,
the Brahmo Samaj. He campaigned for the rights of women, in particular,
for women’s rights to property and education, and against polygamy and
sati. His efforts are said to have borne fruit when in 1929, sati was legally
abolished (Sarkar and Sarkar 2008).

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar championed the cause of women within
mainstream Hindu society. He opened a number of schools for girls’
education in Bengal. His writings and activities are said to have helped
create public opinion in favour of legalising widow remarriage and abolishing
polygamy, which in turn led to the passage of the Hindu Widows Remarriage
Act of 1856 and the Civil Marriage Act of 1872 (Basu n.d.).
Pandita Ramabai was amongst the few female leaders of the movement for
women’s emancipation. She advocated for women’s education and shed
light on the plight of child brides and child widows. She founded Arya
Mahila Sabha, which is known as the first feminist organisation in India.
She set up Mukti Mission for young widows, and Krupa Sadan and Sharda
Sadan for destitute women (Kosambi 1988).

Sarala Devi Chaudhurani formed Bharat Stree Mandal (The Great Circle of
India Women) with the aim of bringing together women of all castes and
classes to promote women’s education. She is remembered for her speeches
at the Indian National Congress meetings in favour of women’s right to
vote. She was involved in not only petitioning the government to give women
the right to vote but also in bringing about changes in laws pertaining to
marriage, divorce and property rights (Basu n.d.).
28
Women in India and Some Insights
These and other such actors were primarily concerned with issues such as purdah,
sati, education, age of marriage, polygamy and widow remarriage, which affected
Hindu upper caste, middle class, urban women. While they encouraged women
to come out of their homes and work for the nation, there was no questioning of
traditional gender roles of mother and wife that women were expected to conform
to. They contended that women’s uplift was crucial as women were the mothers
of future generations. The state was expected to play a paternalistic role by
‘protecting’ women and women’s interests.

In comparison to the 19th century social reform movement, the 20th century
nationalist movement somewhat widened its ambit; the latter brought into its
fold poor, illiterate, rural and urban women too, not only engaging in social and
legal reform but also campaigning for women’s political and economic rights
and encouraging participation in the struggle for freedom from colonial
domination. While the social reform movement had been predominantly led by
male leaders, women leaders and women’s organisations began to emerge later
on (Basu n.d.; Sarkar and Sarkar 2008). Several women’s movement scholars
regard the period of emancipation of women as the beginnings of the women’s
movement in India (Kumar 1993; Sen 2002). We shall delve into important aspects
of the contemporary women’s movement in section 2.4 of this unit.
2.3 WHAT IS ‘EMPOWERMENT’? EXAMINING

THE CONCEPT AND ITS ORIGINS

What is central to the idea of empowerment is ‘power’. Power operates at various
levels such as the family, the household and other social structures. Power operates
in the following different ways as:
– power over: This power involves an either/or relationship of domination/
subordination. Ultimately, it is based on socially sanctioned threats of
violence and intimidation, it requires constant vigilance to maintain, and it
invites active and passive resistance;

– power to: This power relates to having decision-making authority, power to
solve problems and can be creative and enabling;
– power with: This power involves people organising with a common purpose
or common understanding to achieve collective goals;
– power within: This power refers to self confidence, self awareness and
assertiveness. It relates to how individuals can recognise through analysing
their experience how power operates in their lives, and gain the confidence
to act to influence and change this (Williams et al. 1994 as cited in Oxaal
and Baden 1997).

Apart from ‘power’, the notion of empowerment is constructed around a cluster
of other recurring concepts: choice, agency, achievements, women’s interests,
gender, participation, and rights-based approaches.1 The term ‘empowerment’
has been used by various actors across the ideological spectrum, including
individuals, international development institutions, state actors and policy-makers,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and women’s movements. Below are
a few instances of how different actors interpret ‘empowerment’ differently (Oxaal
and Baden 1997)

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India

Empowerment is about participation. Development must be by people, not
only for them. People must participate fully in the decisions and processes
that shape their lives… Investing in women’s capabilities and empowering
them to exercise their choices is not only valuable in itself but is also the
surest way to contribute to economic growth and overall development (UN
Human Development Report, 1995).

Empowerment is about challenging oppression and inequality.
Empowerment involves challenging the forms of oppression which compel
millions of people to play a part in their society on terms which are
inequitable, or in ways which deny their human rights (Oxfam, 1995).
Empowerment is a transformative process that challenges not only patriarchy
but also the structures of class, race, religion and ethnicity, which determine
the condition of women and men in society (Batliwala 1994; Kabeer 1994).
Empowerment has its origins in Socialist feminist discourse and Third World
organisations like Development Alternatives for Women in a New Era (DAWN).
DAWN is a network of Southern activists, researchers and policymakers
(e.g. by Moser, 1989), founded in the mid-1980s. The empowerment of
poor and marginalised women is central to DAWN’s vision of development.
It envisages empowerment as being a collective rather than individual
process. It has sought to link micro-level activities, i.e. grassroots and
community level initiatives to a macro-level perspective.

Empowerment is essentially a bottom-up process rather than something that can
be formulated as a top-down strategy. This means women must empower
themselves; empowerment is not something that can be done to or for women.
The feminist slogan “the personal is the political” roots the process of
empowerment in an expansion of women’s consciousness. When women
recognise their ‘power within’ and act together with other women to exercise
‘power with’, they gain ‘power to’ act as agents (Cornwall 2007).

Over the years, the term empowerment has risen in popularity. The reasons for
this are the changing role of the state and planning; and donor governments,
multilateral funding agencies and international development institutions
embracing NGOs as partners in development. UN conferences too have
successively advocated women’s empowerment as being central to the project
of development. Significant in this regard was the UN World Conference on
Women held in Beijing in 1995. The Conference Report called its Platform for
Action ‘an agenda for women’s empowerment’ (UN 1995). The World Bank,
the UK Department for International Development (DFID), USAID, Oxfam,

and other bilateral and private donors have all embraced the concept. It is argued
that northern development institutions and aid agencies find the concept of
empowerment appealing. After all, the concept originated in the South, and
espousal of the concept would ensure that they are not accused of cultural
imperialism.
30
Women in India and Some
Insights

2.4 TRACING THE TRAJECTORY OF
‘EMPOWERMENT’! ENGAGING WITH
WOMEN, PUBLIC POLICYAND
DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
STATE-WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
RELATIONSHIP, AND FIVE YEAR PLANS IN
INDIA
‘From at least the 19th century, the role of the state in defining and influencing
the status of women has informed the many struggles for women’s equality.
The state, its policies and programmes continue to be the focus of much of
the energies of the women’s movement in post-independent India as well…
The relationship with the state has been fraught with conflicting emotions –
fears of co-option, subversion of the feminist agenda, of becoming reformist
rather than enabling radical social change. The dilemmas of this interaction
have not, however, prevented an interaction with the state. What has varied
is the nature of issues and the degree of involvement… This engagement
involved lobbying, pressurising and highlighting women’s issues/
contributions to inform policy formulation… and challenge state policy. There
were [also some] examples of a direct involvement with the government
and its development programmes… Despite fear of co-option by the state, a
few women both as individuals and in groups decided to participate in
government-sponsored programmes as a means to mainstream the gender
question. … The Women’s Development Programme (WDP) in Rajasthan
launched in the early 1980s and the subsequent Mahila Samakhya programme
launched towards the end of the 7th Plan period [in the late 1980s]
demonstrated that spaces were available even within the formal state
structures to try and bring about change from within…’ (Jandhyala 2001).

The first two decades after Independence were a period when the women’s
movement considered the state its ally. The postcolonial Indian state defined
itself as the primary vehicle for social transformation. It was, in fact, strikingly
innovative in creating institutions to guarantee development for all (Frankel 1978;
Kohli 1990; Kothari 1970). With respect to women’s development, in particular,
the Central Social Welfare Board was set up at the national level in 1953. Similar
Boards were set up at the level of the states too whose responsibilities included
provision of counselling, legal services and short-stay shelter homes for women
(Gopalan 2002). The boards and the constitutional guarantee of women’s rights
satisfied many women who had participated in the social reform and nationalist
movements in pre-Independence India. Regarding the state as a key instrument,
they laid emphasis on seeking solutions from the state through the passage of
‘progressive’ legislations (Sen 2002; Jandhyala 2001) and not surprisingly shared
a welfarist approach with the government.

By the 1970s emerged a generation of women who criticised the approach to
women’s development and to the place accorded to women in state-led
development processes (Desai and Krishnaraj 1987). These were mostly educated,
urban, middle class women, strongly influenced by either the Left or by Gandhian
31
Emplowerment.

Emancipation and Policies
in India
movements. They questioned the supplementary place allotted to women in the
Community Development Programmes of the 1950s and ’60s, ‘which involved
training women in the skills of “family management” and “home economics”’
(John 2001: 109). According to them, such programmes failed to challenge
traditional gender roles. Their critique was bolstered by the publication of the
Towards Equality Report in 1974 that discussed the condition and status of women
in India. Commissioned by the Indian government, the report was intended for
the 1975 United Nations International Women’s Year World Conference. It
documented the widening of gender inequalities in employment, health, education
and political participation since Independence.

Such critique formed part of a general dissatisfaction with the developmental
state. It was felt that the state had failed to deliver the promise it had made about
social transformation and elimination of poverty. Accounts of these years have
rightly seen them as a period of crisis for the Indian state, the clearest indication
of which was perhaps the rise of a range of social movements. Rural and urban
women, especially from the poorer sections of the society, got organised in
affiliation with or as part of social movements of peasants, workers, and tribals
(Desai 2002; Sen 1990). In 1975, the Congress government declared a state of
emergency. Consequently, from 1975 to 1977, women’s organisations, along
with other political organisations, were driven underground. The suspension of
fundamental freedoms and the lack of governmental transparency during this
period led to a deep suspicion of the state among women’s activists. Scholars
(Gandhi and Shah 1991; John 1996; Menon 1999) identify the declaration of
Emergency as marking the end of an era in women’s and social movements’
activism.

Post-Emergency, there was a realisation that the women’s movement’s explicit
commitment to gender issues had taken a backseat to class issues in not only
state policy but also in the social movements and party organisations that they
had been a part of. As a result, autonomous women’s groups, sans party affiliations
and hierarchical organisational structures, were formed in towns and cities. During
the late 1970s and early 1980s, these groups organised and led public
consciousness-raising campaigns around issues of violence against women (Desai
2002; Kumar 1993). These campaigns specifically addressed the issues of dowry
and (custodial) rape. Within months, the Union government passed new laws on
dowry, rape and domestic violence; introduced new policy measures, including
the creation of national and state-level programmes and resources for addressing
violence, a ministry of women and child welfare, and support groups within the
criminal justice system to help abused women (Jandhyala 2001). The government
hoped that these laws and policy measures would go some way towards satisfying
the movement’s expectations that it knew it was increasingly unable to meet.

Women’s movement activists had a mixed response to the steps taken by the
government. Some activists felt these steps reflected the success of agitations in
getting the state to take cognisance of the movement’s demands; they were now
prepared to work with state structures to influence policy and legislation. Others
considered the laws to be dubiously progressive. There were also those who felt
that the new laws and policy measures would only contribute to increase in state
control to the detriment of the people’s freedoms (Menon 2004).

An increase in emphasis on ‘gender’ in the international development agenda
too affected the state-movement relationship. Proponents of the Gender and
32
Women in India and Some
Insights
Development framework, led by Third World women’s groups, campaigned to
make grassroots ‘empowerment’ the favoured strategy for undoing social
inequalities and for enabling development globally (Kabeer 1994). Autonomous
women’s groups turned NGOs were the chosen vehicles for implementing the
strategy in Third World countries (Chaudhuri 2004). India was no exception to
this trend. The international focus on women’s and gender issues, indeed, played
an important role in the Indian state taking up these issues through policy and
legislative measures. The United Nations’ declaration of 1975-1985 as the
International Women’s decade was significant in this regard. ‘As a member
country, India was required to report its efforts in working towards women’s
equality and [in creating] what the UN called “national policy machinery for the
advancement of women”’ (Desai 2002: 74).

The basic assumption that development processes impact men and women in
the same way had begun to be questioned. There was a gradual recognition that
the overall goal of development of a country cannot be achieved unless women’s
status and condition, and women’s involvement in development processes are
not taken into account. In the Sixth Five Year Plan (1975-80), a whole chapter
was devoted to women and to resources to be allocated for women’s issues. The
Plan recognised women’s role in national development as partners/contributors
rather than recipients/beneficiaries (Lingam 2002). Post-Emergency, the Janata
party government promoted rural-based NGO efforts by setting up semigovernmental
bodies such as the Council for the Advancement of People’s Action,

and Rural Technology (CAPART). By the mid-1980s, the Congress government
had begun to make funding available to NGOs. In 1985, the government set up
an exclusive Department of Women and Child Development under the Ministry
of Human Resource and Development. In 1986, the National Policy on Education
directed that education be used as ‘an agent of basic change in the status of
women’ (GOI 1992). In 1989, the Development for Women and Children in
Rural Areas (DWCRA), a pilot project was extended across the country.
In fact, women’s NGOs had expanded dramatically in the Indian subcontinent
after the 1975 declaration of the United Nations’ International Decade for Women.
By the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90), the government had (at least on paper)
embraced the idea of NGOs as the ‘third sector’, complementing government
agencies and private businesses (Purushothaman 1998). The 1995 UN World
Conference on Women in Beijing gave a further fillip to this strategy, which was
subsequently picked up by women’s movement organisations. Some developed
partnerships with the state to expand their outreach. Others started accepting
direct and indirect funding from bilateral donors, international NGOs and
development institutions. Several women’s movement activists and organisations
felt that attempts to ‘engender’ the state needed to go beyond simply advocating
for policy change to opening up spaces for women themselves to actively engage
with officials of different state agencies and branches in restructuring state
policies, programmes and practices. The collaboration with the state was seen as
a means to expand reach to marginalised women on a scale that women’s groups
by themselves could never achieve (Jandhyala 2001). The Women’s Development
Programme of Rajasthan (WDP) and Mahila Samakhya (MS) are examples of
joint initiatives of the women’s movement and the state.

 

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India
WDP, set up in 1984, was a result of collaboration between state and central
governments, local voluntary organisations, and the women’s studies wing of
the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. It functioned with considerable
autonomy in the initial years. It mobilised rural women to perform leadership
roles in the community, especially as volunteer sathins (helpers) in
development projects. It refused state-defined priorities like family planning
and engaged instead in various consciousness-raising activities around
employment and wages, political participation, challenge of child marriage
customs, and promotion of education (Sunder Rajan 2003; Jandhyala 2001).
In the following section, we delve deeper into the making of Towards Equality
(1974) and the aforementioned joint initiatives, especially Mahila Samakhya, to
closely examine whether and how attempts have been made to sufficiently
engender public policy in India. But before we so, below is a snapshot view of
the shifts in perception regarding the attention paid to women and gender-related
concerns in India’s Five Year Plans (Patel 2004):

Plan
First Plan
(1951-56)
Second Plan
(1956-61)
Third, Fourth
and Interim
Plans
(1961-74)
Fifth Plan
(1974-78)
Sixth Plan
(1980-85)
Seventh Plan
(1985-90)
Eighth Plan
(1992-97)
Ninth Plan
(1997-2002)
Tenth Plan
(2002-2007)
Activity
Set up the Central Social Welfare Board Supported the development of Mahila Mandals at the grassroots
Provisions for women’s education, pre-natal and child health services, supplementary feeding for children,
nursing and expectant mothers Programmes and schemes for women in development Separate chapter for women in the
Plan Working group for employment of
women; statistics on women: quota
for women in development
schemes
The core sectors of education,
health and employment outlay for
women rose from Rs. 4 crores in
the first plan to Rs. 2,000 crores in
the eighth
Concept of a women’s component
plan to assure that at least 30% of
fund benefits from all sectors flow
to women
Self-help groups
Approach
Welfare work through voluntary
organizations and charitable
trusts
Rural development
Women as “targets” of family
planning and social sector
“beneficiaries”
Shift in the approach from
welfare to development
Accepted women’s development
as a separate agenda; took
a multidisciplinary approach
with a three-pronged thrust on
health, education and employment
Bringing women into the
mainstream of national
development
Paradigm shift from
development to empowerment
and benefits to women
Empowerment of women as its
strategic objective
Suggests specific strategies,
policies and programmes for the
empowerment of women
34
Women in India and Some
Insights

2.5 IS PUBLIC POLICY SUFFICIENTLY
ENGENDERED? CASE STUDY OF TOWARDS
EQUALITY (1974) AND MAHILA SAMAKHYA
The Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI) was constituted by a
resolution of the ministry of education and social welfare, Government of India
on 22 September 1971 with Phulrenu Guha, then Union Minister of Social Welfare
as chairperson. The Committee was set up to review the changes in Indian
women’s status that were expected to result from constitutional equality,
government policies and social reform since Independence. Vina Mazumdar
critically reflects on the review exercise. She observes that the entire emphasis
was on social status, education and employment, to the exclusion of the political;
the focus was on rural areas rather than urban; the Committee was only asked to
find out the reasons for the slow progress of women’s education but it also looked
into the content and method of education; while the terms of reference asked
that the implications of discrimination in employment and remuneration, and
population and family planning programmes on women’s status be studied, it
omitted health.To quote Mazumdar, ‘How are we going to define status? Status
means different things in different contexts… [The] drafting committee was to
draw up and put before us an approach. The committee imposed a self-denying
ordinance on itself: not to be influenced by any other country reports or any
feminist literature and philosophy… We also refused to reopen the equality debate,
despite Naik sahib’s suggestion that we look into questions such as: Does equality
mean identity or similarity? Does it mean that women do all the things that men
do? After all, men cannot do all the things that women do. We refused to reopen
this debate because we adopted a very firm position on the Constitution… as a
deliberate departure from the inherited social, economic and political systems…
How did we interpret inequality? We related it first to the variety of social,
economic and cultural inequalities inherent in our traditional social structure,
making specific references to caste, class and community. Second, we related it
to the increasing forces of disparity through structural changes in the economy…
We referred to the urban, middle class bias of planners and social scientists and
identified the state, intelligentsia, in general, and the educators in particular, for
their blindness and indifference to the declining conditions of the majority of
women… But we failed to see that our rejection of the modernization process as
an unmixed blessing was also a critique of the dominant development paradigm’
(2008: 30-31).

We now turn to the Mahila Samakhya programme, whose guiding philosophy
carries the imprint of the CSWI report. Mahila Samakhya was inspired by the
vision and methods of WDP, and was the first state-sponsored, national-level
programme for rural women’s empowerment. It was initiated in 1989 by the
Department of Education, Government of India with joint funding from the Dutch
government under the banner of ‘Education for Women’s Equality’. It aimed at
actualising the 1986 National Policy on Education (NPE) through the Programme
of Action. Below are relevant excerpts from the same:
35
Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India.

EDUCATION FOR WOMEN’S EQUALITY

4.2 Education will be used as an agent of basic change in the status of
woman. In order to neutralise the accumulated distortions of the past, there
will be a well-conceived edge in favour of women. The National Education
System will play a positive, interventionist role in the empowerment of
women. It will foster the development of new values through redesigned
curricula, textbooks, the training and orientation of teachers, decision-makers
and administrators, and the active involvement of educational institutions.
This will be an act of faith and social engineering. Women’s studies will be
promoted as a part of various courses and educational institutions encouraged
to take up active programmes to further women’s development.

4.3 The removal of women’s illiteracy and obstacles inhibiting their access
to, and retention in, elementary education will receive overriding priority,
through provision of special support services, setting of time targets, and
effective monitoring. Major emphasis will be laid on women’s participation
in vocational, technical and professional education at different levels. The
policy of non-discrimination will be pursued vigorously to eliminate sex
stereo-typing in vocational and professional courses and to promote women’s
participation in non-traditional occupations, as well as in existing and
emergent technologies (NPE 1986).

1.1.1 Education for Women’s Equality is a vital component of the overall
strategy of securing equity and social justice in education. Paras 4.2 and 4.3
of the National Policy on Education (NPE), 1986 are very strong and
forthright statements on the intervening and empowering role of education.
Inter alia, they emphasize the provision of special support services and
removal of factors which result in discrimination against women at all levels
of education. The POA clearly spells out the actions which need to be taken
to promote education for women’s equality; it can hardly be improved upon.
What is sought to be done is to modify the contents of the POA wherever
appropriate. What comes out clearly is the need for will to implement and
institutional mechanisms to ensure that gender sensitivity is reflected in the
implementation of educational programmes across the board. Education
for Women’s Equality is too important to be left to the individual
commitments or proclivities of persons in charge of implementing
programmes. It should be incumbent on all actors, agencies and institutions
in the field of education at all levels to be gender sensitive and ensure that
women have their rightful share in all educational programmes and activities
(Programme of Action 1992).

Mahila Samakhya started as a pilot project in 10 districts in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat
and Karnataka. Mahila Samakhya currently operates in over 30,000 villages in 9
Indian states: Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Assam,
Bihar, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand. The programme is considered as an innovative
one not only because of its focus on grassroots women’s ‘empowerment’ but
also because of its hybrid government-organised NGO (GONGO) form. This
form is aimed at merging the benefits of small NGOs with large-scale government
development programmes (Sharma 2006). Women’s movement activists and
organisations and civil servants have played a crucial role in Mahila Samakhya
from the time of its conception.
36

Women in India and Some Insights Activity

Carefully read the text below (Jandhyala n.d.) on the Mahila Samakhya
programme and answer the questions that follow.
The Mahila Samakhya experience over the past twelve years offers a unique
case of trying to explore and understand the issues of women’s education
and empowerment and the inter linkages thereof in different regional and
rural contexts within India. It offers an example of the importance of
empowerment of women as a critical precondition to facilitate greater
inclusion of women and their daughters into education. Further, it provides
an alternative paradigm to women’s mobilisation and empowerment to the
current and dominant focus on economic interventions as the principal
strategy for women’s empowerment. The uniqueness of the MS strategy
was pithily captured in the Programme Appraisal Report of 1989. “There is
no programme comparable to the Education for Women’s Equality

programme in terms of the scale and mix of activities, in terms of
organisational location and form, or in terms of the long term ambition to
grow into a major vehicle for women’s empowerment throughout India.”
Has this euphoric expectation been met? Successive evaluations have
generally concurred with this early expectation with some limitations. The
organisational form and diversity of activities has been an effective vehicle
for women’s empowerment and education in the areas where the programme
is being implemented. However, it has a long way to go to have an impact
across the country.

…Through successive plan periods, MS has not deviated from [its] basic
objectives
that have been articulated in a set of non-negotiables that are to be accepted
by any new state to which the programme is extended. Essentially they state
that the pace of women’s mobilisation shall not be hurried, women’s concerns
and problems as articulated by them will be the starting points for the
programme, and project personnel will play a facilitative than a directive
role. Given the radical nature of the approach, it was clear that such a
programme cannot be implemented through the normal governmental
departments but would require a structure that would allow for women from
outside government to be part of the implementation process. Autonomous
project societies, therefore, have been set up at individual State levels.
Further efforts are made to find women committed to the cause of women’s
empowerment and with experience of having worked with poor women to
steer the programme at different levels. This enabled capturing the “worm’s
eye view and not a bird’s eye view” of situations of poor women. Grassroots
level workers are in almost all cases poor women themselves from within
the communities the programme works in and hence bring a radical edge to
the interventions.

…Dave and Krishnamurthy’s study, Home and the World (2000) that
explores women’s perceptions of empowerment has been one of the few
attempts to examine the changing relations within the household. Change
in relations within the household has often been softly and tentatively

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India.

articulated. The sharing of household work and responsibilities has emerged
out of men acknowledging the right of their women to attend sangha
meetings. Looking after children, milking the cow, cooking are some of the
tasks men have taken over when women are not there.” It is evident that the
changes in the relationship with the husbands are not the direct result of
confrontation… women engage in strategic planning to maintain
relationships. ‘We allow men their illusions.’ This enables them (women) to
negotiate a place for themselves without disturbing the surface of things.”1
Women have reported not only changes in their relationship with husbands
but also in the relationships with mothers-in-law. And how they are able to
assert themselves with respect. For the women the institution of family and
marriage continue to be a defining element as they negotiate and tease out
spaces ad autonomy of existence and action for themselves.

MS consciously took a decision not to exhort sangha women to acquire
literacy skills. Instead waited till the sanghas themselves felt the need to
acquire the basic skills of reading and writing. Over the past few years with
an increasing number of women standing for elections in panchayat
elections, and sanghas also federating at block levels, each sangha
recognises the need for at least some of their members to befully literate.
A song composed by sangha women in Gujarat says, “we thought we were
uneducated but we were only illiterate. Now we know we can learn reading
and writing-we know we are not inferior. We are part of this world!”
• What do you learn about the programme from the text before you?
• What is the programme structure like?
• Whom has the programme sought to mobilise?
• Has the programme brought about a difference in the lives of those it has
mobilised?
• What do we learn about the state-women’s movement relationship from
the text?
• Is education about literacy for Mahila Samakhya programme planners?
• What forms the content of the Mahila Samakhya programme?
• Which are some of the problems in the idea and implementation of the
programme?

2.6 UNRAVELING THE POLITICS OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

It is important to place all of these developments in the larger context of economic
liberalisation. In popular perception, liberalisation of the Indian economy is
associated with the reforms initiated under the leadership of the then Finance
Minister Manmohan Singh, part of the Congress government, in 1991. Generally
speaking, economic liberalisation implies privatisation and withdrawal of the
state from several economic processes. Indian women’s movement scholars and
activists’ discussion on how economic liberalisation has changed the character
38
Women in India and Some Insights
of the movement today invariably tends to be focussed on NGOs or ‘NGOisation’
(Chaudhuri 2004; John 2001; Menon 1999 and 2004; Ray 2000; Subramaniam
2006; Sunder Raj an 2003).

NGOs have been broadly defined as self-governing, private, not-for-profit
organisations that are geared towards improving the quality of life of
disadvantaged people (Vakil 1997). Whereas 12,000 Indian NGOs were
registered with the Home Ministry in 1988 (a subset of the total number of
NGOs), their number is said to have risen to around two million by 2002
(Kamat 2002). These include groups providing social welfare services,
development support organisations, social action groups struggling for social
justice and structural changes, and support groups providing legal, research
or communications support. Some are big in terms of membership and
funding. But many are small and are locally based. A lot of these big and
small NGOs work with women.

Almost every donor operating in South Asia has set aside a significant proportion
of resources for women’s organisations and projects on women. Availability of
donor funding has contributed in no small measure to the expansion of NGOs in
the field of women’s empowerment, with a focus on self-help groups and microcredit
financing.

For most governments, donors and international financial institutions like the
World Bank, sponsoring development, women’s active participation in the market
economy is a vital sign of empowerment. Empowerment is basically interpreted
as economic empowerment or the ability to earn an income. It has come to be
synonymous with projects that give women small loans and enlist them in smallscale
business activities such as producing handicrafts for sale. Credit schemes
have certainly brought millions of women out of their homes and into the public
domain. They are seen as having the potential to link women with the formal
banking sector and thereby integrating women in mainstream development (Von
Bülow et al. 1995).

But critics (Cornwall 2007) of such an approach argue that focus on women’s
economic empowerment conflates power with money, and imbues the acquisition
of money with almost magical powers – as if once women have their own money,
they can wish away overnight social norms, institutions and relationships part of
their lives. Economic empowerment policies may bet on women pouring their
resources into their households, expanding their roles as mothers and wives to
meet their family’s needs.
But much depends on how they
choose to spend such newly-acquired economic
power, and whether, where and how entry into the market offers women sufficient
resources to begin to challenge and transform the persistent institutionalised
inequalities that shore up the established gender order. The empowering effects
of work need to be better understood and contextualised given the enormous
differences between the countries and the women that are the targets for
development’s one-size-fits-all interventions.

Another approach to supporting women’s empowerment is the promotion of
women’s participation in politics. This includes promoting women in government
and national and local party politics as well as supporting women’s involvement
39
Emplowerment,
Emancipation and Policies in India
in NGOs and women’s movements. Increasing the number of women in formal
politics is by itself not enough. Women in politics may be elites, in positions due
to their personal connections with male politicians and be unable or unwilling to
represent women’s gender interests. There are a range of possible mechanisms
to increase women’s participation in and empowerment through political life.
These include: reform of political parties; quotas and other forms of affirmative
action; training to develop women’s skills and gender sensitivity; work with
women’s sections of political parties; and the development of women’s political
organisations. Critics argue that this approach fits well with the broad programmes
of democratisation and good governance, and strengthening of civil society that
the neo-liberal framework seems to promote. They claim that this approach does
little to redress the power issues that lie at the very heart of the matter – such as
in the cultures and conduct of politics itself. Opening up the debate on women’s
political participation means asking new questions about what is needed to
democratise democracy. It calls us to ask whether greater representation of women
within flawed and dysfunctional political orders can really do the trick.

Almost every development NGO, today, claims to be working with the ‘poor
and marginalised’ women. At the international level, development institutions
and aid agencies claim that they are promoting the empowerment of ‘poor and
marginalised’ (Parpart 2004). But who are these poor and marginalised women?
There is a tendency in development discourse to universalise the category of
‘poor and marginalised’. But just as the universalisation of the category ‘women’
and presumption of homogeneity of interests among all women at all times and
in all contexts have led to complications, there are problems with presuming the
homogeneity of ‘poor and marginalised’ women. Poor and marginalised women
could be upper-castes or ex-untouchables, urban or rural, Muslim, Christian or
Jewish, young or old, engaged in paid labour or otherwise.

Women’s movements, in general, and grassroots women’s organisations, in
particular, have a vital role to play in promoting women’s empowerment and
resistance. They build bottom-up pressures on policy makers and governments.
They are much closer to realities on the ground than official agencies of
development, and can avoid the one-size-fits all model of empowerment. The
gains of the empowerment strategy are that with more funding, more committed
women can be full time activists, and can have time for documentation of and
reflection on activism. However, critics claim that this has also resulted in
feminism becoming a 9 to 5 job, with those with hardly any commitment to the
cause of women and gender getting involved because of the salary that a NGO
job can fetch. Critics also lament NGOs’ lack of autonomy from getting and
retaining funding. These developments, they argue, result in the depoliticisation
of women’s activism (Batliwala 2007; Menon 2004).

2.7 SUMMARY
What we shall attempt to do in this section is to employ the conceptual lens of
gender and development approaches to re-present some of the salient points
presented in this unit2
. My reference to gender and development approaches
pertains to the shifts in focus from Women in Development (WID) and Women
and Development (WAD) paradigms to the more recent Gender and Development
(GAD) paradigm. Generally speaking, WID draws on liberal feminist ideas, WAD
40

 

on Marxist feminist ideas, and GAD is said to have emerged as an alternative to
both WID and WAD. The WID and WAD perspectives arose in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. WID proponents articulated the concern that women had been
left out of development, and needed to be ‘factored’ in (Pearson & Jackson,
1998) whereas WAD proponents saw ‘women’ as a class and sought to create
‘women only’ projects (Connelly, Li, MacDonald & Parpart, 2000).

It was in the time of WID and WAD that a new generation of women emerged in
India who questioned the supplementary role allotted to women in development
programmes, most of which involved training women in the skills of ‘family
management’ and ‘home economics’. In India, their critique was bolstered by
the publication of a report titled Towards Equality in 1974. Documenting the
widening of gender inequalities in employment, health, education and political
participation since Independence, the report was intended for the United Nations
International Women’s Year World Conference to be held in 1975.

By the 1980s, GAD had emerged as an alternative to WID and WAD. It drew on
the grassroots organisational experiences and writings of Third World feminists
(Sen and Grown 1988) and on the analysis of Western socialist feminists (Moser
1989). The GAD perspective emphasises the interconnections between gender,
class, religion, race and ethnicity, and the social construction of their defining
characteristics. Its emphasis is much more on the relationships between women
and men rather than on women alone. Proponents of GAD have campaigned to
make ‘empowerment’ the favoured strategy for undoing social inequalities and
for enabling development globally (Kabeer 1994). NGOs have emerged as the
key institutional mechanisms of the GAD approach. They have significantly
grown and diversified in the last two decades. It is important to note that the
availability of donor funding, especially with liberalisation of the Indian economy,
has significantly facilitated the expansion of NGOs (Ray 2000). The 1995 UN
World Conference on Women in Beijing too has been catalytic in this regard. A
number of other factors have also mattered such as the choice of a section of the
women’s movement to collaborate with the state in the Indian context.

 

Notes

1 You may be already familiar with several of these concepts; others shall be
tackled as we move along in the unit.
2 This section draws substantially on Govinda (2012 forthcoming) ‘Mapping
Gender Evaluation in South Asia’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies.
References
Basu, A. (n.d.) “Indian Women’s Movement”,
http://www.du.ac.in/fileadmin/DU/Academics/course_material/hrge_15.pdf (last
accessed 29th November 2011)
Batliwala, S. 2007. “Taking the Power out of Empowerment – An Experiential
Account”, Development in Practice 17 (4-5): 557-65, August
Chaudhuri, M. (ed.). 2004. Feminism in India, New Delhi: Kali for Women &
Women Unlimited

 

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India

Connelly, M. P., Li, T. M., MacDonald, M. & Parpart, J. L. 2000. “Feminism and
Development: Theoretical Perspectives”. J. L. Parpart, M. P. Connelly and V. E.
Barriteau (eds.) Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development, http://
www.idrc.ca/en/ev-9419-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html#begining (last accessed on 11
May 2010)
Cornwall, A. 2007. “Buzzwords and Fuzzwords: Deconstructing Development
Practice”. Development in Practice 17 (4-5): 471-84
Desai, M. 2002. “Multiple Mediations: The State and the Women’s Movements
in India”. D. S. Meyer, B. Robnett and N. Whittier (eds.) Social Movements:
Identity, Culture and the State. Oxford: OUP, pp. 66-84
Desai, N. and M. Krishnaraj. 1987. Women and Society in India. Bombay: Ajanta
Publications
Frankel, F. 1978. India’s Political Economy, 1947-77: The Gradual Revolution.
Princeton: Princeton University Press
Gandhi, N. and N. Shah. 1991. The Issues at Stake: Theory and Practice in the
Contemporary Women’s Movement in India. New Delhi: Kali for Women
Gopalan, S. 2002. Towards Equality – The Unfinished Agenda, Status of Women
in India, 2001. New Delhi: National Commission for Women, Government of
India (GoI)
Government of India. 1992. National Policy on Education 1986 (with
modifications undertaken in 1992). New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD)
Jandhyala, K. 2001. “State Initiatives”. Seminar, 505, http://www.indiaseminar.com/2001/505/505%20kameshwari%20jandhyala.htm
(last accessed on 1 December 2011)

John, M. 1996. Discrepant Dislocations: Feminism, Theory and Post-colonial
Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press
John, M. 2001. “Gender, Development and the Women’s Movement: Problems
for a History of the Present”. R. Sunder Rajan (ed.) Signposts: Gender Issues in
Post-Independence India. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp.
100-124
Kabeer, N. 1994. Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development
Thought. London: Verso
Kamat, S. 2002. Development Hegemony: NGOs and the State in India. New
Delhi: OUP
Kohli, A. 1990. Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of
Governability, Cambridge: CUP
Kothari, R. (ed.). 1970. Caste in Indian Politics. Delhi: Orient Longman
Kumar, R. 1993. A History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for
Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990. New Delhi: Kali for Women
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Lingam, L. 2002. “Women’s Movement and the State”. G. Shah (ed.). Social
Movements and the State. New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 310-34
Mazumdar, V. 2008. “The Making of a Founding Text”. M. John (ed.). Women’s
Studies in India: A Reader. New Delhi: Penguin Books, pp. 27-32
Menon, N. (ed.). 1999. Gender and Politics in India. Delhi: OUP
Menon, N. 2004. Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law.
Delhi: Permanent Black
Moser, C. 1989. “Gender Planning in the Third World: Meeting Practical and
Strategic Gender Needs”. World Development. 17 (11): 1799-1825
Oxaal, Z. and S. Baden. 1997. “Gender and Empowerment: Definitions,
Approaches and Implications for Policy”. IDS Working Paper 40, Brighton: IDS
Parpart, J. 2004. “Lessons from the Field: Rethinking Empowerment, Gender
and Development from a Post-(Post-?) Development Perspective”. K. Saunders
(ed.) Feminist Post-Development Thought: Rethinking Modernity,
Postcolonialism and Representation.

Patel, V. 2004. “Gender in State and National Policy Documents – A Case Study
of India”. Grassroots Participation in Governance, Reconstructing Governance:
The Other Voice organised by Karnataka Women’s Information and Resource
Centre in partnership with UNDP and Gender Studies Unit, National Institute of
Advanced Studies, Bangalore on February 20-21, 2004
Pearson, R. & Jackson, C. 1998. “Introduction: Interrogating Development:
Feminism, Gender and Policy”. C. Jackson and R. Pearson (eds.) Feminist Visions
of Development: Gender Analysis and Policy. London: Routledge, pp. 1-16
Purushothaman, S. 1998. The Empowerment of Women in India: Grassroots
Women’s Networks and the State. New Delhi: Sage
Ray, R. 2000. Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. New Delhi: Kali
for Women Sarkar, S. and T. Sarkar (ed.). 2008. Women and Social Reform in
India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Sen, I. (ed.). 1990. A Space Within the Struggle: Women’s Participation in People’s
Movements, New Delhi: Kali for Women
Sen, S. 2002. “Towards a Feminist Politics? The Indian Women’s Movement in
Historical Perspective”. K. Kapadia (ed.) The Violence of Development: The
Politics of Identity, Gender and Social Inequalities in India. New Delhi: Kali for
Women, pp. 459-524
Sen, G. & Grown, C. for DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a
New Era). 1988. Development Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World
Women’s Perspectives. London: Earthscan Publications
Sharma, A. 2006. “Cross-breeding Institutions, Breeding Struggle: Women’s
Empowerment, Neoliberal Governmentality and State (Re)formation in India”.
Cultural Anthropology 21 (1):

Emplowerment, Emancipation and Policies in India
Subramaniam, M. 2006. The Power of Women’s Organizing: Gender, Caste, and
Class in India. Oxford: Lexington Books
Sunder Rajan, R. 2003. The Scandal of the State: Women, Law and Citizenship
in Postcolonial India. Durham and London: Duke University Press
Vakil, A. C. 1997. “Confronting the Classification Problem: Towards a Taxonomy
of NGOs”. World Development 25(12): 2057-70
Von Bülow, D., E. Damball and R. Maro. 1995. “Supporting Women Groups in
Tanzania Through Credit: Is This a Strategy for Empowerment”. CDR Working
Papers, Copenhagen: Centre for Development Research Suggested Reading
Batliwala, S. 2007. “Taking the Power out of Empowerment – An Experiential
Account”. Development in Practice 17 (4-5): 557-65, August
John, M. 2001. “Gender, Development and the Women’s Movement: Problems
for a History of the Present”. R. Sunder Rajan (ed.) Signposts: Gender Issues in
Post-Independence India. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp.
100-124
Kumar, R. 1993. A History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for
Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990. New Delhi: Kali for Women
Sample Questions.

1) What does the term ‘women’s emancipation’ mean? Explain with examples
of issues and actors.
2) What is women’s empowerment? Discuss the steps taken by the Indian state
and the women’s movement to actualise the goal of women’s empowerment.
3) Briefly analyse the shifts in perception regarding the attention paid to women
and gender-related concerns in India’s Five Year Plans.
4) List three gains and shortcomings each of the empowerment strategy.
5) Describe the salient features of the different gender and development
paradigms and state which is the one with which ‘empowerment’ is associated.
44
Women in India.

WOMEN AND HEALTH

Contents
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Health Status of Women
3.2.1 Mortality and Morbidity Indicators
3.2.2 Inequities in Health Conditions across State, Caste, Rural-Urban Distribution
3.3 Women and Ill- Health: Understanding the Causal Factors/ Linkages
3.3.1 Patriarchy
3.3.2 Poverty
3.3.3 Gender
3.3.4 A Dozen Messages on Women and Health
3.4 Policies and Programs for Improving Health of Women
3.4.1 Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme
3.4.2 Reproductive and Child Health Program
3.4.3 Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)
3.5 Summary

References
Suggested Reading
Sample Questions
Learning Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to understand:
Ø health status of women- morbidity, mortality across caste, class;
Ø factors/ causation of ill- health among women- patriarchy, gender, poverty,
reproduction, culture; and
Ø policies and programs for improvement of health of women.

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Anthropologists understand and analyse individual behaviours, interactions, social
structures, health and illness in any society within a cultural context. Culture is
an abstraction, blueprint or guide for all sorts of conditions and for social analysis.
There is a link between cultural contexts, healing institutions and human
behaviour related to illness and health seeking. The ways in which we interpret,
perceive health, illnesses, seeking medical care are all influenced by our culture.
Pluralistic society in which multiple cultures exist side by side, the dominant or
core culture is the one whose norms, values, language, structures and institutions
tend to predominate. In health context, bio-medicine is the dominant culture and
all other forms of healing systems are subordinate or ‘alternative’ forms of
healings. Tenets of science and medicine are considered natural or “correct” and
therefore outside of cultural considerations. A medicocentric view focuses on
disease, identified through signs and symptoms, and not on the patients’ perception
of a problem. A medicocentric physician uses a reductionist model. An ‘emic’
&
perspective of a patient may relate his or her own illness perceptions and Women and Health
experiences in myriad ways; such as, inability to carry out daily functions,
symptom recognition, interpretation, misfortune and discomfort.

However, understanding health only from the cultural point of view leads to
cultural determinism. The perspectives to understand health and illness have
evolved from ‘cultural’ to ‘ecological’ to ‘critical medical anthropology’ in the
discipline of anthropology. In anthropological literature, sometimes nature/biology
is pitted against nurture/culture explanation for human conditions. Neither is
true. Both positions are too extreme and too simplistic. Real human thought and
action is the outcome of complex interplay of cultural, biological, social,
psychological, economic and political variables.

Anthropologists have been documenting health concerns of women, listening to
their every day experiences of illness, health, birth, death, pain suffering from
women’s own perspectives and have captured through ethnographic traditions
which is a hall mark of anthropologists. However, 90 percent of what has been
written by anthropologists in the area of women’s health has focused on
reproduction. It is recognised that after decades of scholarly neglect, the last
twenty five years have witnessed a veritable explosion of social science research
on human reproduction (Inhorn 2007, ix).

Anthropologists have contextualised women’s health from their larger socioeconomic,
cultural, and political forces. Using participatory research,
anthropologists have explored women’s health based on their own lived
experiences and determined their own health priorities. However, it is often seen
that the health priorities are set up from top down approach by the states, often
neglecting the local voices and socio-cultural needs. A lot has been written by
anthropologists on ‘Child Birth’, however, very little has been researched on
other aspects of women’s health. There is a dearth of literature and research by
medical anthropologists in the Indian context, on women’s health. Very few studies

which are carried out in India are written by foreign scholars. Thus the gaps in
the anthropological literature pertaining to women’s health in this unit have been
filled from other disciplines. This will give a comprehensive understanding of
women’s health where most of the data on morbidity and mortality is from
demographic literature and contributions by the public health specialists and
feminist researchers.

The first section of this unit will deal with the morbidity and mortality indicators
along with reproductive health of women globally and nationally, recognising
the importance of understanding women’s health issue separately. The second
section will focus on social determinants and linkages to understand poor health
among women in India. Third section will deal with the state programs and
policies related to women’s health and the limitations of such programs from
anthropological and public health perspective.

3.2 HEALTH STATUS OF WOMEN

Even though biologically women are a stronger species in terms of survival at
birth, and also live longer than men, the social practices put the women in the
most disadvantageous position, from womb to tomb and they are discriminated.
Most often they are killed when they are still in the womb (foeticide) or when
46
Women in India and Some
Insights
they are born (infanticide), or they are abandoned, sold or neglected. When they
are growing they are subjected to all sorts of discrimination from food, to
education to heath care. These atrocities are conducted, all due to the preference
of a son.

In the marital home, women continue to live subjugated lives, until she bears
children, more importantly sons. It is only when the sons grow up, she may
exercise some power within the family. Women as care givers in the family often
give priorities to the needs of other family members at the cost of their own
health. They neglect their health till it becomes critical. Old age adds to the woes
of women, especially health care when she is either deserted or live at the mercy
of her children.

3.2.1 Mortality and Morbidity Indicators
It is now a well known fact that the maternal conditions or the reproductive
period (15-44 years) is the leading cause of death and disability among women.
According to a combined report of WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and World Bank
(2007), more than 99 percent of the estimated 536,000 maternal deaths each
year occur in the developing world. Report of ICPD Cairo conference (UN 1995)
states that an early and unwanted childbearing, abortion, HIV and other sexually
transmitted infections and pregnancy related illnesses and deaths account for a
significant proportion of the burden of illness experienced by women, especially
in low-income countries.

It is ironical that for all these diseases, cost-effective interventions exist, still
reproductive health problems account for the majority of the disease burden in
women of this age group (World Bank, 1993).
In India, even though, women have higher life expectancy of 66.1 years, compared
to male members with 63.8 years1
, women lead a highly morbid life due to
various reasons, which will be discussed in the next section. Statistics show
poor health condition of women in India. According to National Family Health
Survey (NFHS) 3, total fertility rate is 2.7 which have come down from 3.4 in
NFHS 1 survey in 1992-93.

It is ironic, despite India progressing towards better growth and development,
the health of women is deteriorating. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) and
infant mortality rates (IMR) are very high in India. The MMR is 212 out of every
100,000 women in 2007-2009 and the IMR is 50 out of every 1,000 infants in
2009, who die during childbirth (Office of Registrar General India, 2011). These
high numbers of maternal and infant deaths are attributed to higher percentages
of ‘home deliveries’, compared to 42 % of delivery by the medical professionals.
Further, the reasons given are inadequate prenatal care, delivery in unsafe
conditions with inadequate facilities, and insufficient postnatal care and severe
anemia. Around 33% of women have below normal body mass index (BMI).
56.2% of pregnant women between the ages of 15 and 49 suffer from any form
of anemia according to NFHS 3, which has increased from 51.8% in NFHS 2.
Severe anemia is responsible for 9.2 percent of maternal deaths in India. There is
a negative correlation with the education, 60% of women who are illiterate are
anemic compared to 44.6% who have completed 12 or more years of education.
1 http://wikigender.org/index.php/Women_in_India:_Statistical_Indicators,_2007#Sex_ratio
47
Similarly looking at wealth index 64.3% anemic women fall under the lowest Women and Health
wealth index, compared to highest wealth index having 46.1% anemic women.
However, the positive aspect is that there is substantial increase in the antenatal
care. Utilisation of antenatal care services for the most recent birth among ever –
married women increased substantially over time, from 66 percent in NFHS-2
to 77 percent in NFHS -3. The rate of increase was higher in rural areas than in
the urban areas. 29.4% of tribal women have no antenatal care (NFHS 3).
The Millennium Development Goal 5 focuses on reducing the maternal mortality
ratio (MMR) by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015 and ensuring universal access
to reproductive health by 2015 (UN 2007). We have approached 2012 and still
far from this goal. These maternal deaths can be preventable, provided timely
pre and post natal care, and skilled birth attendance during delivery and emergency
obstetric care are available. Not just ensuring the medical services, accessible,
available, affordable it is necessary to ensure, good literacy, nutrition and working
opportunities to better their lives.

 

3.2.2 Inequities in Health Conditions across State, Caste, RuralUrban
Distribution
India is the second most populated country in the world. It is also the most stratified
society on the lines of caste, class, religion, ethnicity, region and gender. Health
is also linked to development, so one can see health of women varies across
states, class, and caste groups. The rural and urban divide also influences health
of the women. On one hand the health indicator related to women and children
in Kerala are as good as any other developed countries and on the other hand the
health indicators in some EAG (empowered action group) states like, Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan are worse than Sub-Saharan
African countries. Some of the health indicators among the Scheduled Castes
groups are even worse than the Scheduled Tribes.
At all India level the maternal health indicators gives a very gloomy picture,
only 15% received all recommended types of antenatal care, only 38.7% of births
delivered in health facility, 46.6% deliveries assisted by health personnel and
41.2% deliveries with a postnatal check-up (NFHS survey- 2005-06). Caste /
tribe classification shows that the Scheduled Tribe women has highest levels of
anemia of 68.5%, SC having 58.3%, OBCs with 54.4% and others having 51.3%
(NFHS 3). The place of delivery is an important indicator to understand the
health of women. Between the age group of 20-49 years, 67.5% urban and only
28.9% rural women deliver in a health facility. Among the lowest wealth index,
only 12.7% deliver at the health facility compared to 83.7% highest wealth index.
The lowest 17.7% tribal women deliver at a health facility (NFHS 3). The reasons
for not delivering at health are varied. The most important is that 72.1% rural
and 69.6% urban women feel it is not necessary to deliver in health facility, for
26.9% rural and 21.5 urban it costs too much. For 11.8% rural women it is too
far or no transport. The other reasons being, non-functional, no-trust, no female
provider, husband/family did not allow, not customary. However all these are in
the single digit percent.

The social distance is much more serious and greater compared to geographical
distance. Millions of women in India lack the freedom to go out and seek medical
help. According to the second National Family Health Survey, (IIPS, 1998–1999),
48
Women in India.

only 52 percent of women in India are ever consulted on decisions about their
own health. They resort to medical help only when the ailment is aggravated and
become serious. There is also a culture of silence, when it comes to reproductive
health problems, especially if it is a male doctor. It is more likely in rural context,
where women tries to seek health care and in the absence of female doctors or
functional health services in the reach may resort to local remedies or go untreated
and their by risking their own health.
3.3 WOMEN AND ILL HEALTH:

UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSAL FACTORS/LINKAGES

3.3.1 Patriarchy

Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate
association with their oppressors. ~Evelyn Cunningham
Cunningham’s quote is apt for understanding patriarchy in the real sense. It is
ironical that women are most oppressed by men and they live in intimate
relationship with their oppressor. Health of the women has to be understood
within the concept of patriarchy.

Marcia Inhorn (1996) in her book Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural
Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt offer a general definition of
patriarchy that is multileveled and summarised as relations of relative power
and authority of males over females. These are learned through gender
socialisation within the family, manifested in both inter-and intra gender
interactions within the family and other interpersonal milieus, legitimised
through deeply engrained, pervasive ideologies of inherent male superiority
and heterosexist privilege and institutionalised on many social levels (legal,
political, economic, educational, religious, and so on).

Valentine Moghadam has written that under classic patriarchy, “the senior man
has authority over everyone else in the family, including younger men, and women
are subject to distinct forms of control and subordination” (Moghadam 2004, p.
141). Furthermore, property, residence, and descent all proceed exclusively
through the male line. Today, however, this definition may be considered an
overly simplistic description because the phenomenon has evolved substantially
over time.

As already mentioned, to varying degrees, patriarchy is nearly universally
prevalent. Although, as Gerda Lerner (1986) has noted, anthropologists have
found societies in which sexual differences are not associated with practices of
dominance or subordination, patriarchy does exist in the majority of societies.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1973, 48) too is of the opinion that “All the
claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no
reason to believe that they ever existed……men everywhere have been in charge
of running the show. … men have been the leaders in public affairs and the final
authorities at home.”

However, many scholars today hold that patriarchy is a social construction. Lerner
has written that there are indeed biological differences between men and women,
49
but “the values and implications based on [those differences] are the result of Women and Health
culture” (Lerner 1986, 6).
The existence of patriarchy may be traced back to ancient times. Lerner has
stated that the commodification of women’s sexual and reproductive capacity
emerged at about the same time as the development of private property, thus
setting the stage for patriarchal social structures. The sexual subordination of
women was subsequently written into the earliest system of laws, enforced by
the state, and secured by the cooperation of women through such means as “force,
economic dependency on the male head of the family, class privileges bestowed
upon conforming and dependent women of the upper classes, and the artificially
created division of women into respectable and not-respectable women” (Lerner
1986, 9).

Modern patriarchy is structural, meaning that it underlies the foundations of all
of society’s institutions. In most societies, any accomplishments in the direction
of gender equality must be made within a larger patriarchal structure. This is one
reason why women are at such a constant disadvantage socially, politically, and
economically. In the world today, the vast majority of leaders are men. Moreover,
Laura Bierema has noted that while women make up over half the workforce,
they fall far short of men in terms of pay, promotions, benefits, and other economic
rewards (Bierema 2003, 3).

Often, patriarchy is associated more strongly with nations characterised by
religious fundamentalism. Yet male domination and female subordination are
salient features of social structure in virtually all societies, regardless of the race,
ethnicity, class, or religion of the members. Most patriarchal societies have
adopted characteristics associated with male domination, namely, aggression and
power, as well as the consequences of these characteristics, ill health for women.
Resulting from patriarchy is the control of sexuality of women. Some of the
cultural, religious practices arising out to control and regulate women’s sexuality
are quite harmful for the health of women. In some societies of sub-Saharan
Africa, Arab, Malaysia, Indonesia, 80 millions girls and women living today
have undergone female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation (FGM).
These cultural practices are done on adolescent girls as ‘rites the passage’ and
also in order to control their sexuality which are brutal and painful. In some
states in USA, this practice has been banned and it is a punishable act under the
law. However, in other countries it still persists. There are serious health risks of
FGM, like infections, hemorrhage, damage to adjacent organs, scar tissue
formation, long term difficulties with menstruation, sexual intercourse and child
birth.

3.3.2 Poverty

Women constitute 70% of the world’s poor (UNDP 1995, 4). Under feminisation
of poverty, women are much poorer as compared to men world over. Poverty is
the underlying factor for poor health status for not just women but the whole
Indian population. Women’s low status, poverty and the reproductive risks add
to their morbidity conditions. As mentioned earlier girl child is discriminated
against boys for all the resources. Girls have higher malnutrition levels due to
the disproportionate distribution of food to them as compared to their male
counterpart.

 

A study in the Delhi slums revealed that 40 percent to 50 percent of the female
infants below the age of one year were malnourished. And in female children in
the age group 5–9, the rate of malnutrition increased to 70 percent (Mahbub ul
Haq Development Centre, 2000: 127). Child malnutrition depends not so much
on income or food availability as on the health care available to children and
women. Income poverty explains only about 10 percent of the variation in child
malnutrition (Mahbub ul Haq Development Centre, 2000)

3.3.3 Gender

Under gender dimension it is pertinent to see how men’s and women’s life
circumstances affect their health status. Gender is socially and culturally
constructed and politico- economically situated. It is widely agreed that sexratio
is a powerful indicator of the social health of any society, it conveys a great
deal about the state of gender relations (Patel 2007). Worldwide, there are 43
million more men and boys than women and girls. According to Amartya Sen,
there are 32 million missing females in India. (Menon-Sen and Shiva Kumar,
2001:11). Sometimes it is not so much to do with poverty but gender
discrimination. It is seen that the sex ratio has been declining, especially in more
prosperous states like Punjab and Harayana (George and Dahiya 1998). The sex
selection is much more in better socio-economic background, the plush areas of
South Delhi has adverse child sex ration compared to East and West Delhi. In
rural Punjab, 21 percent of girls in poor families suffer severe malnutrition
compared to 3 percent of boys in the same families. Thus, sometimes poor boys
are better fed than rich girls (UNDP, 1995). It shows that the gender discrimination
is much more significant than poverty. The gender difference in seeking medical
help is quite obvious from the childhood. Medical help will be more likely to be
sought for boys compared to girls. UNDP (1995) reports this difference to be as
great as 10 percent. Other social factors like; early marriages, repeated pregnancies
further disadvantage women and leads to ill health as compared to men.

 

3.3.4 A Dozen Messages on Women’s Health

This subsection is based on the list of 157 ethnographies, where Marcia Inhorn
captured dozen most important thematic messages about the women’s health
(Inhorn 2007, 3). It is important to understand the wide range of spectrum in
which women’s health is captured in anthropological literature. However, the
dozen messages are given briefly and not elaborated.
1) The power to define women’s health: It is ironical that women’s health is
usually defined by others i.e., powerful biomedical and public health
establishments rather than women themselves. Numerous ethnographic
studies from around the globe document the fact that women themselves
rarely define their health problems in the same ways that the biomedical
community defines them (Inhorn 2007, p. 7).

2) The reproductive essentialisation of women’s lives: Women’s lives are still
essentially seen as reproducers. Child bearing and child rearing are seen as
the most important aspects of their lives and tie them to the realm of
reproduction, ignoring the other capabilities of women’s lives like work,
activism, leadership etc. 90% of what anthropologists have written in the
area of women’s health have focused on reproduction.
2
(http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Defining_Agenda_Poverty_Reduction/Vol_1/
chapter_23.pdf)
51
3) The cultural construction of women’s bodies: Lock (1993) provides evidence Women and Health
that the body itself is a cultural construction. Cultures construct the body
images and notions of beauty. Plumpness in one culture may be viewed as
beautiful and desirable and in other cultures it can be seen as obesity and
disliked. Recent anthropological literature has gone beyond reproduction
and there are excellent ethnographies on teenage dieting, breast
augmentation, plastic surgery, living with disability.
4) The increasing medicalisation of women’s lives: The normal stages of
women’s reproductive life cycle from menarche to menopause and most
important child birth have been pathologised. All the important stages of
transition or growing up phase, like menarche, child birth, menopause, aging
has been medicalised.

Medicalisation

Medicalisation is a social process through which a previously normal
human condition (behavioral, physiological or emotional) becomes a
medical problem in need of treatment under the jurisdiction of medical
professionals. The process of medicalisation is based on the biomedical
model of disease, one that sees behaviors, conditions, or illnesses “as a
direct result of malfunctions within the human body” (Beard 2010).
5) The increasing biomedical hegemony over women’s health: Italian social
theorist Antonio Gramsci (quoted in Inhorn 2007, 16) defines hegemony as
domination achieved through consent rather than force. In terms of
biomedical hegemony over women’s health, physicians rarely have forced
women to accept them as their primary medical practitioners, such consent
has come from women who have actively participated in this process of
medicalisation and have often demonstrated their desire for cutting edge
biomedical technologies, especially in western context. However, there is a
resistance and protest against harmful technologies and its impact on
women’s bodies.

6) The production of health by women: Ethnographers who study
ethnomedicines have documented the ways in which women around the
world ‘produce’ health, often through their formal and informal roles of
traditional healers and midwives. In medical anthropology the term
‘household production of health’ has been used to designate the ways in
which women of the household produce healthy families by countering
hegemony of biomedicine wither because they do not trust them or due to
inaccessibility (Inhorn 2007, p. 19). Van Hollen study in Tamilnadu Birth
on the Threshold: Childbirth and modernity in South India’ (2003) documents
the rituals related to pregnancy ‘cimantan’ to fulfill the desires of the pregnant
women and also gives ethnographic accounts of giving birth literally at
threshold.

7) The health demoting effects of patriarchy: Inhorn notes that whether it is
the ‘micropatriarchy’ of authoritarian doctor –patient relationship found in
many bio-medical settings or the ‘macropatriarchy’ of gender oppression
and its ill effects on women’s health, patriarchy has health demoting effects
on women. It can be seen in many ways, ‘missing girls’ undernutrition,
neglect, violence, abuse perpetrated against women. Elisabeth Croll’s (2000)
incisive ethnography Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and
Development in Asia, shows how the perceived benefits of sons and the
perceived disadvantages of daughters have led to cruel ‘culture of gender’
rife with both overt and covert daughter discrimination.

8) The intersectionality of race, class, gender (etc) in women’s health: There is
a need for exploring intersectionality of various forms of oppression in
women’s lives, based on gender, race, class, age, nation, religion, sexual
orientation, disability, or appearance (Schulz and mulling 2006, cited in
Inhorn 2007 p. 22). There are multiple forms of oppression that may intersect
in women’s lives. In Indian scenario, caste/ tribe is another major factor for
ill health among the women, discussed in the previous section.
9) The state intervenes in women’s health: State is the most powerful agents of
surveillance and control over its citizens. Indian state has been controlling
the population by having anti- natal policies, going in for coercive, targeted
family planning program (Rao 2004). This is one such intervention apart
from other interventions, like immunisation etc.

10) The politics of women’s health: Women’s bodies and health becomes the
site for overt and covert, micro and macropolitical struggle. Studies show
how women’s health is politicised and inturn there is health activism and
resistance. In Indian context, there are women’s groups, feminist writers,
public health activists who have been protesting and resisting coercive and
harmful contraceptive technologies.

11) The importance of women’s local moral worlds: Many women’s issues are
not just political but also moral in nature. Arthur Kleinman (1995: 27 cited
in Inhorn 2007: p. 27) highlights the notion of ‘local moral worlds’ shows
the importance of ‘moral accounts….of social participants in a local world
about what is at stake in everyday experience’. For women around the world
the local moralities, often religiously based, have major effects on women’s
health decision making, particularly when the moral stakes are high. Issues
related to abortion, assisted reproduction using third party donations in IVF
– sperms, eggs, embryos, uterus as in the case of surrogacy are prohibited as
per law or if there is a religious ban.

12) The importance of understanding women’s subjectivities: There is need to
understand women’s own subjectivities by listening to the narratives of
women on their subjective experiences of health and illness.

3.4 POLICIES AND PROGRAMS FOR IMPROVING HEALTH OF WOMEN
There are various programs for improving the health of women by the central
government carried out by the state government. Two of them are given below.
3.4.1 Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme
ICDS was launched on 2nd October 1975, today, ICDS Scheme represents one of
the world’s largest and most unique programs for early childhood development.
Though the objectives of ICDS Scheme is to improve the nutritional and health
53
status of children in the age-group 0-6 years, the services are also meant for Women and Health
lactating and pregnant woman. The services comprises of supplementary nutrition,
immunisation, health check-up, referral services, and nutrition & health
education.

. The pregnant and lactating women from the below poverty line
families are given supplementary food, iron and folic supplements and
immunisation at the Anganwadi centers.
3.4.2 Reproductive and Child Health Program
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India identified National
Institute of Health and Family Welfare, as National Nodal Agency for coordinating
the training under RCH 1, in December 1997. The second phase of RCH program
i.e. RCH II commenced from 1st April, 2005 till year 2010. The main objective
of the program was to bring about a change in mainly three critical health
indicators i.e. reducing total fertility rate, infant mortality rate and maternal
mortality rate with a view to realising the outcomes envisioned in the Millennium
Development Goals, the National Population Policy 2000, and the Tenth Plan
Document, the National Health Policy 2002 and Vision 2020 India.4
3.4.3 Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)

The JSY is an Indian government-sponsored conditional cash transfer scheme to
reduce the numbers of maternal and neonatal deaths and increase health facility
deliveries in BPL families. JSY was launched by the Indian government as part
of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005, in an effort to reduce
maternal and newborn deaths by increasing institutional deliveries. The JSY
covers all pregnant women belonging to households below the poverty line, above
19 years of age and up to two live births. The JSY integrates help in the form of
cash with antenatal care during pregnancy period, institutional care during delivery
as well as post-partum. This is provided by field level health workers through a
system of coordinated care and health centers. Benefits for institutional delivery
are more generous in rural areas and in low-performing states, ranging from
Rs.600 to Rs.1,400. A subsidy is also available to private sector providers for
emergency caesareans, on referral. The program also provides a cash incentive
to the health worker who supports the woman throughout her pregnancy and
accompanies her to the facility.

3.5 SUMMARY

Thus it can be summarised that India lags behind in ensuring healthy lives to its
women in spite of sustained economic growth. Secondly anthropologists
especially in India have a greater responsibility to understand women’s health
and possibly carry out applied research which will improve the health of the
women. There is a need to understand the subjective experiences of women’s
health from their own real life experiences. It is important to understand women’s
health with the interface and advancement in science and technology, opening
new avenues for reproductive technologies and the practice of surrogacy in today’s
globalised world. I would like to end this unit with a very meaningful quote by
none other than famous anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man. ~Margaret Mead
3 http://wcd.nic.in/icds.htm accessed on 3 March 2012
4 http://www.mohfw.nic.in/NRHM/RCH/Index.htm
54
Women in India and Some
Insights
References
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Dudgeon, Matthew R. and Marcia C. Inhorn. 2004. “Men’s Influences on
Women’s Reproductive Health: Medical Anthropological Perspectives”. Social
Science and Medicine, Vol. 39, No. 9, pp. 1303-1314
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A. Darity (Ed.). Detroit, MI: Macmillan.
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and Family Life in Egypt. USA: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
Inhorn, Marcia C. 2006. “Defining Women’s Health: A Dozen Messages from
more than 150 Ethnographies” Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Vol. 20.

Inhorn Marcia. 2007. Reproductive Disruptions. New York: Berhahn Books.
Lerner, Gerda. 1986. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Lock Margaret. 1993. Encountering with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in
Japan and North America. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Mead, Margaret. 1973. “Review of Sex and Temperament in Three Privative
Societies”. Redbook: 48.
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Moghadam, Valentine M. 2004. “Patriarchy in Transition: Women and the
Changing Family in the Middle East”. Journal of Comparative Family
Studies. 35: 137–162.

Patel, Tulsi. 2007. Sex–selective Abortion in India: Gender, Society and New
Reproductive Technologies. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
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and Conjugal Right”. British Journal of Political Science. 19: 445–463.
Rao, Mohan. 2004. From Population Control to Reproductive Health: Malthusian
Arithmetic. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Sabu, George and Ranbir S. Dahiya. 1998. “Female Feticide in Rural Haryana”.
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55
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Website Links
Beard, Ren. “Medicalization of Aging.” Encyclopedia of Aging. 2002. http://
www.encyclopedia.com
Office of Registrar General. India. 2011. http://censusindia.gov.in/vital_statistics/
SRS_Bulletins/MMR_release_070711.pdf
United Nations. Millennium Development Goals Report. 2007.
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg2007.pdf
World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank. 2007. Maternal
Mortality in 2005. www.who.int/whosis/mme_2005.pdf 5
World Health Organization. 2002. WHO Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2002
Estimates (Revised).

www.who.int/healthinfo/bodestimates/en/
Suggested Reading
Lingam, Lakshmi (ed). 1998. Understanding Women’s Health Issues: A Reader.
New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Pal, Manoranjan, Bholanath Ghosh and Premananda Bharati. 2009. Gender and
Discrimination: Health, Nutritional Status, and Role of Women in India. USA:
Oxford University Press
Sample Questions
1) Women’s health in India is precarious. Substantiate your answer with the
morbidity and mortality indicators.
2) Patriarchy has demoting health effects. Discuss how it manifests in social
practice of female foeticide and gender discrimination.
3) What the one dozen messages pertaining to women’s health as drawn by
Marcia Inhorn?
4) What are the efforts made by the Indian government to improve the health
conditions of women?

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