Contemporary Indian Feminism

Contemporary Indian Feminism
Author(s): Radha Kumar

Source: Feminist Review, No. 33 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 20-29
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395212 .
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CONTEMPORARY INDIAN FEMINISM
Radha Kumar
The Women's Liberation movement in India
today
is so diverse that it
cannot be
properly
described in a brief
article,
so the focus here shall be
on its main currents and the course
they
have taken over the last ten
years,
with occasional
digressions
into their
history.
In
many ways
the
development
of feminism in India is similar to
that in Western
Europe
or the United States: like
them,
India too saw a
feminist movement in the
early
twentieth
century;
like
them, again,
the
movement
gradually
died
away
after the
winning
of certain
demands,
until, recently,
a new feminist movement
developed
out of contem-
porary
radical movements.
The sixties and
early
seventies saw the
development
of a whole
spate
of radical movements in
India,
from student
uprisings,
workers'
agitations
and
peasant insurgencies
to
tribal,
anticaste and consumer
action movements. These
spanned
a
political spectrum
from Gandhian-
socialist
(that
is,
nonviolent
protest,
based on
explicitly
moral
values,
over
specific working
or
living
conditions)
to the far
left,
in
particular,
the Maoists. The Gandhian-socialists initiated several of the first
women's movements in
post-Independence
India
(e.g.
an antialcohol
agitation
in north
India,
a consumer action and
anticorruption agitation
in western
India,
and a women's trade
union,
also in western
India).
Interestingly, however,
neither
they,
nor
others,
looked
upon
these
movements as
feminist,
nor did
they
advance
any
theories of women's
oppression.
These were advanced first
by
two women's
groups
which
were formed in
1975,
both of which
grew
out of the Maoist far left. The
Progressive Organization
of Women in
Hyderabad
offered an
Engelian
analysis
of women's
subordination,
and the
League
of Women Soldiers
for
Equality,
in
Aurangabad
linked feminism and
anticasteism, saying
that
religious
texts were used to subordinate both women and the lower
castes.
Although
the
imposition
of a State of
Emergency
on India in 1975
led to a break in most
agitational activities,
there
was,
in
many ways,
an
intensification of theoretical discussion. In
1977,
when the
Emergency
Feminist Review No
33,
Autumn 1989
Feminism in India 21
was
lifted,
several women's
groups
had
developed
out of these
discussions which were able to come
'overground',
and several new
groups
were also formed. Most of these
groups
were based in the
major
cities,
such as
Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Pune,
Patna and Ahmedabad.
Though
there was no
particular uniformity
between
them,
their
members were
largely
drawn from the urban educated middle
class,
and
this was an
important
reason for their
feeling
that their own needs were
minor,
and different from the needs of the
large,
and
poor, majority
of
Indian women.
These women's
groups comprised
women from different sections of
the far
left,
and there
was,
at this
time,
considerable debate on the class
basis of women's
oppression,
the road to women's
liberation,
and the role
that
they
themselves could
play
in this.
Historically,
the
experience
of
the Maoist
insurgency
of the late sixties and its
repression
and
disintegration
in the
early seventies,
had led
many
to believe that a
revolutionary
transformation of
society
could
only
come into
being
if
different
oppressed groups,
such as
tribals,
subordinate castes and
women,
first
organized
and
represented themselves,
and then coalesced
to
fight
their common enemies. The
question facing
the women's
groups,
therefore,
was of how women could
organize
and
represent
themselves.
The
general feeling
was that the
primary
role of middle-class
groups
such as their own was to
generate
a consciousness of women's
oppression
not
only among
women but
among workers,
tribals and
others.
Broadly speaking,
two different views were
expressed right
from
the
beginning
and continue to be
representative
even now:
one,
that
socialist feminists should
join
trade unions and
revolutionary
mass
organizations,
while
continuing
to be members of autonomous women's
groups.
The former were seen as activist forums and the latter as forums
for the
development
of socialist-feminist
theory.
The second view was a
sort of
spontanist argument, namely
that once a feminist movement
began,
it would
naturally spread
and
grow
in
multiple ways.
The two
positions
were neither as abstract nor as crude as
they
sound.
By
and
large,
those
holding
the first had
been,
or
were,
active in radical and far
left, organizations. They
felt that these
organizations
contained
space
for the
raising
of feminist demands. The others had not
been,
or were not
then,
involved in such
organizations. They
felt that
negotiating
within
them would
yield
small
gains compared
to those won
by
an
independent
women's movement
which,
through
its
very existence,
would force
political organizations
to take note of it.
In the
event,
most of the women's
groups
were
sufficiently open
to
allow both views to coexist within them.
They developed
links with far
left, working-class,
tribal and anticaste
organizations, campaigned
around
specific issues,
and debated and disseminated theories of
women's
oppression.
In the
early years, however, campaigns
were
relatively sporadic,
and minor
compared
to the
pace
of theoretical
activity.
Most of the
groups
remained
fairly
loose until the
beginning
of
the
eighties
- so few even named themselves that at the first
22 Feminist Review
socialist-feminist conference in
Bombay
in
1978,
their main identifica-
tion was
regional
- as the
'Bombay group',
the 'Delhi
group',
and so on.
By 1979-80,
women's
groups
and
campaigns
had started all over
India,
and
ranged
from
protesting dowry
murders and
police rape
to
unionizing
women
workers,
domestics and slum-dwellers. The cam-
paigns against dowry
murders and
police rape
were in fact what
'launched' the women's
movement,
for it was these that
caught
the
attention of the
press
and became
public
issues. The
campaign against
dowry
murders started in Delhi in
1979,
and was the first time that
dowry deaths,
hitherto
regarded
as
suicide,
were called murders.
(Dowry
deaths refer to the deaths of
young
brides who were
being
harassed
by
their in-laws for more
dowry, perhaps
better known as
'bride-burning'.)
It was also the first time that the
private sphere
of the
family
was
invaded,
and held to be a
major
site for the
oppression
of
women.
The
public/private dichotomy
was broken
by groups
of women
demonstrating
outside the houses and offices of those who were
responsible
for
dowry
deaths within their
families,
and
demanding
the
intervention of both state and civil
society. Interestingly,
feminists were
joined by
local residents from their first
demonstration,
and within
some months of the
campaign groups
of residents and
professionals
also
began, independently,
to make similar
protests. Though
this
tempo-
rarily
boosted the morale of the
spontanists,
visions of a
snowballing
movement were first disturbed
by
the
discovery
that
many
of these other
groups
came from the
right-wing
Hindu chauvinist stream of the social
reform
movement,
(who
opposed dowry
murder but not
necessarily
the
institution of
dowry itself,
and none of whom
opposed arranged
marriages
or advocated divorce for the
unhappily married,
or economic
independence
for
women);
and then shattered
by
the near
impossibility
of
ensuring
that
dowry
murders were
punished. Attempts
at
boycotting
or
ostracising culprits
never became
powerful enough
to affect them in
any significant way; attempts
to secure convictions
largely
failed. Police
inefficiency
combined with a certain
degree
of
corruption,
the
difficulty
of
procuring evidence, pressure
on the courts which made
proceedings
very slow,
all
conspired
to this end.
They
continue to do so in most
campaigns
to
improve
the administration of the law in India.
In 1980 an
open
letter
by
four senior
lawyers against ajudgement
in
a case of
rape by
the
police
(who
constitute a
large proportion
of
rapists
in
India), sparked
off a
campaign by
feminist
groups,
which
initially
centred on this
particular incident,
but in its course took
up other,
similar incidents. In
fact,
most feminist
campaigns
have tended to
develop
this
way,
around a series of individual
people,
or events. Brief
though
the
campaign was, lasting only
the course of
1980,
it marked
new
developments
in the women's
movement,
which would affect it
fundamentally.
First of
all,
it raised the
question
of
representation
in a
different
-
and,
for
many,
more
painful way:
who were we to
protest
against
this incident until we had met the woman who was
raped
and
found out whether she wanted a
protest
or not?
Supposing
the
protest
brought upon her, again,
the
stigma
of
being
a 'dishonoured' woman?
Shamingly,
this
question
was asked
only
after the
campaign
had
begun,
though fortunately,
it was found that no
damage
had been done.
Secondly,
feminists had
by
this time
gained
considerable confidence
and in the
campaign against rape they attempted,
for the first
time,
to
co-ordinate activities and demands across the left and between several
cities. First in
Bombay,
and then
elsewhere, they
formed issue-based
joint
action
committees,
which were coalitions of leftist women's and
student
groups.
In most
places
however these
represented
a formal and
limited kind of
joint action,
which was
rarely
maintained
throughout
a
campaign.
Within a
couple
of months of the
campaign
the issue of
police rape
was taken
up by
the
major
national
parties,
in an
attempt
to cash in on
what was
becoming
a
very
visible
movement,
and
simultaneously
to
outdo one another.
Working
with the entrenched and hierarchical
organizations
of the orthodox
left,
and
finding
their own voices
increasingly
drowned
by
the
cacophony
of
competing
centre and
right
parties,
Indian feminists discovered the ironic
process whereby
an
agitation gained
numerical
strength by being joined by political blocs,
but at the same time found itself
constrained, intellectually, morally
and
strategically, by
them.
By
the
early eighties, therefore,
the women's movement had
grown
in such a
way
that autonomous feminist
groups
were
only
one of its
several currents.
Though
the centre and
right parties
soon
dropped off,
the socialist and communist
parties
were
becoming increasingly active,
as were the
older,
hitherto
quiescent,
women's
organizations.
At the
same time an interest in women
began
to be shown
by
diverse radical
movements.
The socialists had
actually
formed a women's
organization
in
1977,
which was affiliated to the
newly
formed and elected Janata
Party,
but
between 1978 and 1980 their activities were
fairly low-key
and
they
were for that
period marginalized by
the feminists. The Communist
Party
of India had had a women's front from the late
fifties,
which had
dwindled into
inactivity.
It was
galvanized only
in
1980-81,
when the
Party
saw that women could
again
become an
important constituency.
The Communist
Party
of India-Marxist also noted the
potential
of the
women's movement at this
juncture,
and formed two women's
organiz-
ations in
1981,
one of which was affiliated to their trade union. Some of
their rank-and-file
members, however,
had been active in a women's
anti-price-rise agitation
in
Bombay
in the mid seventies.
The first
attempt
to
organize
women's trade unions had been made
in
1972,
when the
Self-Employed
Women's
Association,
a kind of
Gandhian socialist union of women
vendors,
was formed in Ahmedabad.
By
the late seventies SEWA had
expanded,
and to the union were added
several craft
co-operatives
in and around Ahmedabad. In the
eighties
they
had branches all over the
country. Partly
because the feminist
movement was dominated
by
the far
left,
which characterized SEWA as
reformist,
and
partly
because SEWA itself had reservations about the
24 Feminist Review
feminists,
it was not a
part
of the feminist movement of the late
seventies or
early eighties.
Working-class
women's
organizations
which were set
up
in the late
seventies or
early eighties
tended to be different from SEWA.
They
were
not formed of women
engaged
in
any
one
particular
kind of
work,
and
grew
out of
campaigns
for an
improvement
in the conditions of
living,
whereas SEWA started with a
campaign
for an
improvement
in
working
conditions. Yet
they, too,
maintained a distance from the
feminists,
partly
because
they
felt class issues were not
adequately
addressed
by
the
latter,
and
partly
because most of their leaders were members of one
or another communist current.
They
did not wish to
expose
their
constituencies to the
struggle
for
power
which was
being waged
in the
feminist movement.
Perhaps
it was for these reasons that the efforts to reach out made
by
feminist
groups
in the
eighties
took the form of
neighbourhood
rather
than
workplace politics,
with
groups
of women
working
in urban slum
areas and
mobilizing
women in
campaigns
for better water
facilities,
drainage,
and so on.
Interest in feminist ideas was meanwhile
growing
in the radical
socialist student
movement,
which had
spearheaded
a consumer cum
antistate
agitation
in
Gujarat
in the mid
seventies,
and had
waged
a
campaign
for land redistribution in one district of Bihar in the late
seventies.
Though
their
mentor,
Jai Prakash
Marayan,
had discussed
the need to
change gender-relations
in the mid
seventies,
it was
only
several
years
later that this
question began
to be raised within the
movement,
and that too
largely
in Bihar. From
1979-80, they began
to
organize
women's shibirs
(camps)
in
Bodhgaya district,
a method of
consciousness-raising
which had earlier been used
by
the
Maoists,
and
which
grew
in the
eighties
to be
widely
used
by
various rural women's
organizations.
At around the same time as feminist issues and
campaigns began
to
be more
widely
taken
up
in these
ways,
the feminists
began
to move
away
from their earlier methods of
agitation,
such as
demonstrations,
public campaigns,
street
theatre,
etc. These had limited
meaning
unless
they
were
accompanied by attempts
to
develop
their own structures to
aid and
support
individual women. Women's centres were formed in
several
cities,
which
provided
a mixture of
legal aid,
health care and
counselling.
One or two of them also tried to
provide employment but,
lacking
sufficient
resources,
these foundered. The
attempts
to set
up
new structures of
support eventually degenerated
into 'case-work'
-
due
to the enormous
problems
women face in this
country.
These centres
initially represented
an effort to
put
feminist
concepts
of sisterhood into
practice,
as well as to redefine these
concepts through basing
them on
traditionally accepted
structures of
friendship
between women. Of the
first three women's centres to be set
up,
for
example,
two used the Hindi
terms for
'girlfriend'
or
'playmate':
Salehi and Saheli. Thus a whole new
set of
personal relationships developed
in the feminist
movement,
of
friendships
which cut across class and cultural barriers. To some
extent,
these
friendships
remained
unequal,
for the middle-class women were
more
dutiful,
and the
poor
women more
grateful.
Even
so,
this
signified
the
growth
of a new sense of
individuality
within the
movement,
qualifying stereotypes
of the battered
wife,
the
rape
or
dowry victim,
the
woman
worker,
the
student,
housewife or
professional
woman.
The
attempt
to
reappropriate traditionally accepted
and restricted
women's
spaces grew
in the
eighties, through attempts
to
reinterpret
myths, epics
and
folktales;
to
critique
mainstream
religious
and
cultural texts or
practices
and search for alternative texts or
practices;
and to discover historical or
particular
methods of women's resistance in
India. At its
inception
the feminist movement had detailed the tradi-
tional forms of women's subordination in
India,
from birth to
puberty,
marriage, maternity
and
work,
and had searched for traditional
comments on women's
suffering, placing
these in an orthodox socialist-
feminist framework.
Now, however,
the
emphasis changed
to tradi-
tional sources of women's
strength
rather than their
suffering.
For some
this consisted of
identifying images
of women
warriors,
to be used as a
battle
cry
for
latter-day women;
for
others,
of
defining
the
ways
in which
ordinary,
or
unexceptional,
women used the
spaces
that were tradi-
tionally
accorded them to
negotiate
with their
husbands, families,
communities,
and so on. Within this a third
tendency developed,
of
celebrating courage, gaeity,
inventiveness or
strength
in Indian women.
The shibir or
camp was,
in certain
areas,
transformed in to the mela or
festival and to discussions of
rape, wife-beating
or
unequal wages
were
added sessions of
singing, dancing
and
making merry.
The search for historical
examples
of women's resistance led
feminists to scrutinize the distant and immediate
past,
to look at the
role women
played
in
general
movements for social
transformation,
and
to reclaim some of the women's movements which
predated
the
contemporary
feminist one. Two movements were of
especial impor-
tance in this context: the landless labourers' movement in
Telengana
(in
Andhra
Pradesh),
which had
undergone
several
phases
from the late
forties
on;
and the forest
protection
movement of the
seventies,
in the
north-Indian hill areas of
Garhwal, popularly
known as the
Chipko
movement. The
Telengana
movement had been unusual in its time for
the attention it
paid
to such 'women's
problems'
as
wife-beating.
It
remained
paternalist
in its refusal to allow
any
but the most
exceptional
women to
join
in the
underground guerrilla
movement led
by
commu-
nists in the late forties and
early fifties,
and
by
Maoists in the late sixties
and
early
seventies. It was the Maoist women
who,
in the late
seventies,
began
to
study
the
part played by
women in the
Telengana
movement.
The
relationships
which
developed through
their
forays
into the oral
history
of the movement
eventually
led to the creation of
organizations
of women landless labourers all over
Telengana.
As
they
have
developed
these
organizations, they
have fused far-left and reformist views.
They
participate
in
struggles against
landlords and the
state,
but
they
also
form
co-operative
societies
through
which
they get
certain benefits from
the state.
26 Feminist Review
The
Chipko
movement was initiated
by
a
couple
of Gandhian
men,
but it was carried forward
largely by women,
whose economic roles were
very important
in North Indian hill areas.
Large
numbers of men had
migrated
to the
plains
in search of
wage-work,
and women's household
work was more
dependent
on the forest as a resource for domestic
fuel,
gathering food,
etc.
Despite this,
there was no discussion at the time of
Chipko
as a women's movement. It was
only
in the
eighties that,
through
the
feminists,
it
began
to be celebrated as a mass women's
movement,
and theories of women's
special
relation to their environ-
ment were advanced. With the introduction of feminist ideas into the
Chipko movement,
an antialcohol
agitation began.
This followed the
pattern
of the Shahada movement in Western India
during
the
early
1970s.
(The
Shahada movement was a tribal landless labourers'
movement
against
the
outrageous practices
of local
landlords,
most of
whom were non-tribal and treated the tribals as subhuman. Here
too,
the
development
of a 'women's consciousness' had led to an antialcohol
agitation.)
By
this
stage then,
the Indian feminist movement was a
multiplicity
of
organizations
and activities. In
spreading
it had
undergone
a
process
of
fragmentation
which is common
enough
to all
movements but which affected the feminists in a
particular way.
As a
credo,
most of us believed that feminism was based on the need for
personal solidarity.
Its
fragmentation
as a movement thus
symbolized
to
many
the breakdown of sisterhood. This led
many
feminists to
question
the
very
basis of feminism. Whereas earlier a certain
commonality
of women's
experience
was
stressed,
as a
point
at which
political
differences could be
transcended,
it was now felt that
differences could not be subsumed in this
way,
and that the
quest
for
unity
was not
only
futile but also
counterproductive,
for it allowed all
sorts of evils to be
glossed
over.
This affected the movement in various
ways.
It
paved
the
way
for an
open display
of
sectarianship,
which was initiated
largely by
the
party-political
women's
organizations,
who took to
print
in order to
express
their differences from each other. While the left concentrated on
attacking
autonomous feminist
groups through
their
papers, pamphlets
and other
publications,
the socialists concentrated on
battling
the left
for
representation
as the 'leaders' of the women's
movement, through
leaflets, press conferences,
and the like. More subtle and more
scrupulous
than
them,
autonomous feminist
groups
did not attack other
women's
organizations
in
public,
but most of them
began
to devote
considerable
energy
to
establishing separate
identities from each other.
Specific organizations
were now held to
represent
different strands of
feminism.
Unfortunately,
the outcome of this
development
was such
that
organizational
needs
began
to be
privileged
over the needs of the
movement,
and the
identity
of an
organization
was
judged
as much in
terms of its clout as its ideas. Both
cynicism
and bureaucratism entered
the movement. It
began
to be assumed that self-interest was the order of
the
day,
and the
only
difference was between those who
operated
on
individual self-interest and those who were concerned with
organiz-
ational self-interest. An
ugly
divide now
developed
within the feminist
movement,
with one side
feeling
that the
emphasis
on
organizational
identity
reflected a
growth
of Stalinism
posing
as
collectivity,
and the
other side
feeling
that individualism was
merely
a mask for
egotism.
This was further
compounded by
a
problem
which is common to
many
developing countries,
of aid for
'developmental
activities'
being poured
into social
movements, creating competition,
schisms and bitterness.
The bureaucratism which
generally complements
the
development
of
organizational
identities was seen at its worst in
joint-action
forums.
Struggles
over
analyses,
demands and
strategies
were
relinquished
on
the
assumption
that the 'others' were closed to all
argument,
so that
attempting any
would be a waste of time. Yet there were redoubled
struggles
over the division of
spoils,
such as
alloting
areas of cam-
paigning,
time and
space
for
speeches,
over which banners were to be
carried,
and in what order
organizations
would march. Even
worse,
a
kind of division of labour now
developed
in these
forums,
in which areas
of interest were distributed between
organizations
without
any attempt
to
achieve,
or even
discuss, commonality
of interests.
As a result of
this,
autonomous feminist
groups
lost much of the
space
which
they
had
previously occupied
on the
premise
that
they
were
different from
party-political
women's
organizations. Moreover,
their
shift
away
from
agitational
activities in the
early eighties
not
only
left
an
empty space
for
party-political
women's
organizations
to move
into,
but also led to a
significant
loss of
presence through
the media.
At the same
time,
the kind of individual
support
work that women's
centres did involved them with
people's
lives in a
way
that was more
intimate,
and therefore more
threatening
than their earlier
agitations.
Unsurprisingly,
this
provoked
a considerable
degree
of both
public
and
private hostility,
and feminists
began
to face attacks from irate
families,
in
person
and
through
the
police
and the courts. Instead of
leading
to a
wave of
sympathy
for the
feminists,
these attacks were
accompanied by
a
public,
and
increasingly sophisticated, critique
of feminism. These
arguments against
feminism were
remarkably
similar to those
advanced
against
social reformers in the nineteenth
century:
that
they
were
westernized, upper
class and
urbanized,
and therefore
ignorant of,
and
unsympathetic to,
traditional 'Indian'
society.
A small
fringe
took
this
argument further, saying
that the crass 'modern' views of the
feminists were drawn from
capitalist society
and were thus
incapable
of
appreciating
the
nobility
of traditional
philosophies, especially
Hindu.
Ironically,
these views were
expressed
at the same time as feminists
were
exploring
traditional contexts in search of an 'Indian'
feminism;
and at the same time as
episodes
of child
sacrifice, witch-hunting
and
forcible widow immolation were
being brought
to
public
view.
Meanwhile,
women's issues had become so
widely recognized
that
the centre and
right parties
also formed women's
fronts,
and
special
attention
began
to be
paid
to women in most
general
movements of the
eighties, though
this was more noticeable in
peasant
movements than in
28 Feminist Review
workers' ones.
Perhaps
in reaction to
this,
counter movements
against
feminist or women's
rights
ideas
began
to be initiated
by
sections of
traditionalist
society,
and after the mid
eighties
feminists have faced
defeats such as
they
had not
previously
encountered.
Among
the most formidable
onslaughts
on feminism has been that
launched
by
Indian communalists. Communalism
(that
is,
tension and
violence between communities based on
religion)
has
long
existed in
India,
but most observers believe that it has
considerably
increased
since the 1960s. In the
worsening
communal situation of the
1980s,
women's
rights
have
begun
to be
placed
in the context of communal
identity,
as
they
were under British
rule,
and
attempts
to better the
conditions of
any
one
community
are
being
treated as
attempts
to
impose
alien norms and interfere with communal
autonomy.
From the
days
of the British secularism was
interpreted
in India as the state's
recognition
and codification of different
religion-based personal laws,
but these had
not, by
and
large,
been used to take
away rights
conferred
under other laws.
This, however,
did
happen
in the mid
eighties, when,
under
pressure
from Muslim
religious leaders,
the
government passed
a
law which
deprived
divorced
-
and destitute
-
Muslim women of the
right
to maintenance
by
their husbands. The
campaign against
this Bill
showed how much the women's movement had internalized
prevalent
notions of
secularism,
as well as how much the feminist movement has
been
marginalized by party-political
women's
organizations.
It was
spearheaded by
the CPI-M who
organized
a'left and democratic' Muslim
opposition
to the
Bill,
instead of
allying
with the
feminists,
who tried
rather
weakly
to raise the demand for a uniform civil code. The
feminists themselves were uncertain of how to
proceed,
for the occasion
was used
by
Hindu communalists to attack the Muslims for
being
backward and
barbaric,
and
they
were afraid that on the one hand
they
would be seen as
playing
the communalist
game,
and on the
other,
for
the
majority
of them were Hindu
by birth,
that their few Muslim
members would be
singled
out for recrimination. The socialist women
were
utterly
confounded
by
the fact that one of the main
organizers
of
support
for the Bill was a member of their
party,
whom
they
could not
muffle,
let alone
get expelled.
This was to
happen again,
in the
campaign
against
widow immolation.
A few
years later,
the conflict between communalism and feminism
has
again cropped up,
but this time as a
problem
of the
majority
rather
than
minority community. Though
incidents of widow immolation
popularly
known as
sati,
have occurred
periodically
since
Indepen-
dence,
the death of a
young
woman in
Rajasthan
in 1987
sparked
off a
furore across the
country,
with
raging arguments
over whether sati was
suicide or
murder,
whether it should be
punished
and if so who should be
punished,
whether it was a 'Hindu'
practice
and if so was it intrinsic or
extrinsic,
ad
infinitum.
That the
problem
was one of the
majority
community's
had an
important
influence on the
campaign,
for feminists
did not hold back for fear of
being
used
by
communalists.
In the
event,
feminists were successful in
getting
a Bill
passed
against sati,
but ineffectual in
getting
all their
suggestions incorporated
into the
Bill,
so that the first
person punished
under it was the woman
victim,
for she was held to be
attempting
suicide.
The
campaign
reflected in
myriad ways
the malaise which had
crept
over the feminist
movement,
for
again
there was a limited and formal
kind of
discussion,
with little or no discussion of the issues
involved,
and
thus the
campaign
itself had
practically
no
effect,
and the
organizers
of
the incident were
unpunished.
This was
strange,
for there were in fact
arguments being
offered
by
women who had studied
sati,
and who were
connected to the feminist movement. Yet their
knowledge
seemed at a
remove from the
activists,
and there is in fact
now, paradoxically,
a
situation in which there has been an enormous increase in women's
studies in
India,
much of which is conducted
by feminists,
but which
seems less and less to inform feminist
practice.
Given the kind of
opposition
that is now
mounting against feminism,
this situation
urgently
needs
changing
and one can
only hope
that
change
is
coming,
as
it often
does,
in
puzzling
and indirect
ways.
Given the kind of
opposition
which is now
mounting against
feminism,
this situation seems
incredibly depressing,
but it
may
be that
we are now in a moment of
transition,
when
disintegration appears
more
evident than new
developments.
Some kind of 'women's consciousness'
has
clearly spread enormously
over the last ten
years
in
India, especially
in rural areas. The women's liberation conference in Patna in
early
1988
was attended
by
over a thousand
women,
and several thousand women
from
surrounding villages
were at the
rally
which closed the conference.
The attendance of these women reflected the
growing strength
of the
Indian
People's
Front and the Chhatra Yuva
Sangharsh
Vahini in
Eastern India. The former is a
relatively
new
organization,
a kind of
coalition of different Maoist tendencies which have come
together
on a
broad and democratic
platform,
and who have shown considerable
interest in women. The latter has been described above.
Moreover,
the links between feminism and
environmental, ecologi-
cal, health,
radical
science,
anticommunal and anticaste movements
appear
to be
multiplying
and
strengthening
all over the
country,
and
perhaps
in the next few
years
we will see new theoretical
developments
within the
movement,
as well as new forms of action.
Notes
Radha Kumar lives in New
Delhi,
India. This article is an extract from a book she
is
writing
about the
history
of movements for women's
rights
and feminism in
India from the
early
nineteenth
century
until
today.
It will be
published by
Kali.
A shorter version of this article has also been
published
in
Seminar,
March 1989.

Contemporary Indian Feminism

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Contemporary Indian Feminism

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Contemporary Indian Feminism

Author(s): Radha Kumar

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