Women movement

Introduction

• The women’s movement in India began as 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 the earlier 19th century social reform movements, which provoked a new thinking about various social institutions, practices and social reform legislations.

Background

• 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.
• 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.
• These resulted in women movements, which produced tangible results in the subsequent periods.

Women Movement in Colonial Period

• The women’s movements in the colonial period are mainly of two different concerns:
  1. Social reform movements
  2. Nationalist movements

1. Social Reform Movement

• 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.
• 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.
• Also, 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.

• 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.

2. Nationalist Movement

• 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
• 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.

• Thus, 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