International Perspectives on Gender
Week 11: Gender and Nationalism in India
Introduction
Over 3 million square km.
Population of 1.15 billion (15% of world). Will overtake China by 2030.
Former British colony: became independent in 1947: Partition saw division into India and
Pakistan (East Pakistan and West Pakistan – in 1971 East Pakistan became Bangladesh)
Multi-faith society: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism
Caste system: a form of social stratification in which castes are hierarchically organized and
separated from each other by rules of ritual purity. ‘Untouchables’ at the bottom, Brahmins at
the top.
Key questions
1. How did gender figure in the Indian nationalist movement?
2. What were the relative involvements of women and men in this movement?
3. How was the idea of gender eqality, or inequality, put to work as a symbol of the struggle on
both sides?
4. Was gender equality realized after independence?
A) Annotated History of India
1600 Elizabeth 1 granted Charter to East India Company
1700s East India Company bribing Indian princes to secure its trading interests, granting
them pensions and military aid, then power to levy taxes.
Mid 1700s Militarization began
Late 1700s Call came to transform influence into territory, using Muslim nawabs and Hindu
kings as Company allies. Cross-cultural mixing common.
1773 First Governor-General of India appointed by Britain.
1813 Duty of 78% imposed on Indian muslins imported into England.
1829 Abolition of sati (immolation of Hindu widows on husband’s cremation pyre)
Abolition campaign led by Mr Ram Mohan Roy - debate excluded women’s voices
1800s More territory fell to the East India Company, but Indian resistance also grew.
1856 Act permitting Hindu widows to remarry
1857 Anglo-Indian War
Inter-cultural mixing, waning with the rise of Victorian ideals of ‘British purity’, came to an end.
1858 East India Company disssolved, India becoming a British Crown Colony under the
control of Parliament. Indian nationalist movement gets underway, led by a Europeanized elite.
India was being de-industrialized.
Dependence on agriculture increased (from 55% of the population in 1850 to 73% in 1921)
1861 Indian Councils Act gives Indians local electoral participation
1877 Queen Victoria named herself Empress of India.
1885 First meeting of Indian National Congress (INC)
1887 National Social Conference set up, to fight, inter alia, for women’s emancipation
1891 Age of Consent bill – raised legal age of wife for consummation of marriage from 10 to 12
years
1892 Indian Councils Act increased Indian participation in local government
1904 First (annual) Indian Women’s Conference, as section of National Social Conference
1906 Muslim League founded
1907 Rise of ‘extremist’ nationalism
1909 Morley-Minto reforms slightly increased the representation of Indians in legislatures
1914-1918 First World War – Britain declared India to be at war with Germany.
Nearly 1.5 million Indian fought, 47,000 killed, 65,000 wounded
1915 Mahatma Ghandi returns to India from South Africa and enters politics
1916 First women’s University established
1917 Women’s Indian Association founded, linked to British movement for women’s suffrage.
1918 Montagu-Chelmsford report promised devolution of some state powers to the provinces.
1919 Government of India Act. Gave 3% of Indian adults voting rights for the Provincial
Assembly, and 0.06% for the Central Assembly. Declared wholly inadequate by Congress.
1919 Amritsar Massacre
1920-1922 1st satyagraha (non-violent) campaign led by Ghandi. Peaceful demonstrations,
occasional pickets and strikes, courting arrest for violation of specific unjust laws.
1925 National Council of Women in India founded
1927 All India Women’s Conference founded (incorporated Women’s Indian Association in
1930s)
1927 Appointment of Simon Commission to investigate 1919 consitution with a view to reform.
1928 INC publishes its report on self-government for India, advocating universal adult
franchise and sexual equality.
1930-35 2nd non-violence campaign. Ghandi marched to Dandi to protest at the salt tax.
1930-31 Round Table Conference offered by newly elected Labour government in Britain
offered to discuss dominion status. Congress boycotted first round.
1931 Delhi pact between Ghandi and British Viceroy – Gandhi suspended non-violence
campaign for freedom of political prisoners and attended Round Table Conference.
1932 Civil disobedience resumed in response to popular pressure from below
1934 All India Women’s Conference demanded Hindu Code reforming personal law.
1935 Government of India Act increased franchise to 10% of men and 0.06% of women.
Condemned by Congress and women’s organisations.
1939-1945 2nd WW
2.5 million Indians fought, 24,000 killed, 12,000 missing in action, 64,000 wounded, 80,000
PoWs.
Third non-violence campaign, led by Ghandi and supported by Nehru
1940 Presentation of final report to National Planning Committee on role of women in
National Planning, chaired by Nehru.
Muslim League under Jinnah calls for a separate Muslim state made up of majority Muslim
Provinces.
P = Punjab A = Afghania K = Kashmir S = Sind TAN = Baluchistan (together with Bengal and
Assam)
1942 Amidst pressure from US, China and some British politicians, India is offered dominion
status after war. Gandhi’s response: the ‘Quit India’ movement
1946 Labour government in UK begins preparing India for independence
1946-1947 Increasing violence between Muslims and Sikhs/Hindus
June 1947 Mountbatten appointed as Viceroy to oversee independence in June 1948. Brought
forward amidst violence and slaughter to August 1947.
July 1947 Indian Independence Act rushed through Westminister in 8 days.
14-15 August 1947 Partition: a predominantly Hindu India and a predominantly Muslim
Pakistan.
7.5 million Muslims moved from India to Pakistan, 5.5 million Hindus from Pakistan to India.
B) Colonialism, Nationalism and the ‘Woman Question’
British Rule and Gender Equality
Both British colonizers and Indian nationalists used gender as a rallying cry and rationale.
Status of women in India used as symbol of need for India to be ruled by Britain.
Between 1772 and 1947 British introduced 9 major laws liberalising women’s legal position.
But didn’t further full gender equality: undermined the matrilineal family; imposed moral
constraints on all Indian women.
Indian Nationalism and Gender Equality
Indian nationalists argued that only when India governed itself could the position of Indian
women be improved.
Indian women’s movement made itself more palatable by stressing links with nationalism.
Supporting women’s suffrage was a way the male Indian elite could position themselves as more
forward-thinking than the British.
Controversies over reform of personal law showed that many nationalist men opposed women’s
equality in marriage and the family.
Male nationalists claimed that Indian women opposed family law reforms; that they were
western and imperialist; that they threatened Hindu beliefs; that they’d damage the family.
The alliance between the nationalist movement and the women’s movement had its limits.
C) Women’s Participation in Indian Nationalism
Thapar advocates expanding our understanding of the political arena to include the domestic
space.
She argues Indian women played an essential role in the nationalist movement, in both the
domestic and public spheres.
First representations of women as ‘nurturers of the nation’ gave middle class women access to
the public sphere, but also validated their role as reproducers in the nation’s children of the
values of freedom and nationalism.
Later representations of Indian women in the nationalist movement as ‘saviours of the nation’
enabled middle class women to take on leadership roles.
D)
Key Contemporary Gender Inequality Indicators
Only about half the % of women aged 25+ have completed secondary education compared with
the men aged 25+, and women’s labour force participation rate is less than half that of men’s.
Giving birth is risky with a maternal mortality ratio of 410 deaths per 100,000 live births and
only just over 50% of married women of reproductive age use contraception. Women hold
fewer than 10% of seats in Parliament.
Sex Ratios: Population has 32 million more males than females. Sex ratios have declined as
follows:
Year
Females per 1000 males
1901
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
2009
972
946
941
930
934
927
933
932
(ie some improvement)
(fell back again)
(some improvement)
(slight decline)
Key Gender Inequality Indicators
Gender
Inequality
Index
Ranking
2010
Population with at
least secondary
education (%
aged 25+) 2010
Female Male
Labour force
participation rate
(%) 2008
Female seats
in Parliament
(%) 2008
Contraceptive
prevalence rate,
any method (%
of married women
aged 15-49)
1990-2008
Maternal deaths
per 100,000 live
births
2003-2008
Female
Male
UK
26/169
68.8%
67.8%
69.2%
82.2%
19.6%
82%
8
Russian
Federation
65/169
90.6%
71.3%
68.7%
76.3%
11.5%
n/a
28
China
89/169
54.8%
70.4%
74.5%
84.8%
21.3%
86.9%
45
South Africa 110/169
66.3%
68%
51%
67%
33.9%
60.3%
400
India
119/169
26.6%
50.4%
35.7%
84.5%
9.2%
56.3%
450
Iran
70/169
39%
57.2%
32.5%
73.1%
2.8%
73.3%
140
Ireland
5/169
82.3%
81.5%
62.8%
80.7%
15.5%
89%
1
Source:
UNDP (2010) Human Development Report, Available online: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/
Statistics taken from Gender Inequality Index: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2010_EN_Table4_reprint.pdf