The Ideological Progression of the Women's Question in Colonial India, 1820-1947

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Manoj Panjani did his MPhill and PhD in History from Delhi University. The subject of his research was Women's Participation in the Nationalist Movement Completed a project on Gandhi's Perception of the role of Women in the Social, Political and Economic Transformation of Society. Co. Authored a book with BK Joshi on Historical Background of the Non Profit Sector in India. Co Authored with Jeetendra Bhatnagar, A Beacon of Light Mahadevi Bhatnagar and Her legeacy the Mahadevi Kanya Pathshala Edited a book in Hindi. Allahabad Coffee House, Chand Yaadein. Currently works at the Doon Library and Research Centre, Dehradun.

have great pleasure in commending this book, the andanical Progression of the Woel have gren in Colonial India: 1820-1947 by Dhistorical and analytical ace at the Don Women's Questarch Centre. The book provides quality during the course account of the Libragence of the quest for women's rights and equality during the course of a century the emerge spanning Much of the nineteenth and first half of the weestationentury. This periodis quarter spannisiderable intellectual and ideological turmed by strong paternaliseress on the issue of Women's struggle for equality in a society marked by structures and acceptance of a subordinate position of women as naturally ordained. Subjection of women to the authority of men, both within the home and in the outside world was considered a pen of this Natural order. In fact women's agency was almost totally absent outside the home. The subordinate role of women was upheld ideologically by the dominant ideas that drew their Inspiration from a particular interpretation of the so-called religiously sanctioned Dharmasastra Texts especially Manusmriti, in the case of the Hindus and the Sharia in the case of the Muslims. "Dharmasastra" it has been said, "became influential in modern colonial India history, when they were formulated by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for all non-Muslims (Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs) in India, after Sharia was already accepted as the law For Muslims in colonial India"(Wikipedia).

It goes to the credit of many enlightened men and women who challenged the subordinate status assigned to women in India society and waged a relentless struggle for abolition of reprehensible practices like Sati, child marriage, poor treatment of widows and worked towards emancipation of women through education. They put their weight behind the revolutionary (at that time) idea of equality for women. Many distinguished nineteenth century reformers, both women and men, played an important role in this respect. Some prominent names that come to mind include Begum Rokeya Hussain, Tarabai Shinde, Rassundari Devi, Pandita Ramabai Saraswati, and Savitribai Phule among women and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Akshay Kumar Dutta, Jotiba Phule, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Swami Vivekanand, K.T. Telang and Swami Dayanand Saraswati among men. Under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi women also took active part in the freedom movement.

In 1983, when I started research on women's participation in the nationalist movement it was agreed that despite concepts like history from below and subaltern studies, women were by and large ignored or were hidden from history. Women Studies as a separate discipline was just being recognized. My M Phil dissertation was a plain and simple documentation of the participation of women in the Non-Cooperation and Civil-Disobedience movements.

At that time we were convinced that there was no women's movement in Colonial India. Women participating in the nationalist movement were not participating in a feminist movement. Infact Usha Mehta, one of the activists during the Quit India movement went on record to say that," we were participating in a nationalist and not a feminist movement."

The 19th century social reform movement saw women primarily as an ignored section of society, who were looked down upon and were giving a bad name to the Indian society. Therefore they this section required upliftment.

Mahatma Gandhi took the lead by envisaging a role for women in the freedom struggle. The struggle launched by him was based on mass mobilization. Women could not be ignored as they constituted one-half of the populace. Stupendous efforts were made by him to mobilize them. Large scale women's participation in the Civil-Disobedience movement in 1930 was the result of this effort.

More than any other factor it was this participation which was a precursor for giving rights to women as citizens of India by the Constitution and various provisions of the Hindu Code Bill.

That was the conclusion drawn in my M Phil dissertation. My Ph D thesis was on the same subject. But this time, I decided to include studies of a few districts of U P and Gujarat covering the period from 1930 to 1942.