The Women's Movements and Colonial Politics in Bengal

The emergence of an active women's movement in contemporary India has created new interest in discovering the historical roots of feminist thought and women's organizations in the colonial period. Professor Southard analyzes the growth of the women's movement in the crucial period between the two World Wars, when the Indian nationalist movement gained momentum and women's associations first sought to address women's issues through political action. This regional study focuses on the attempts to gain a hearing for women's issues from the provincial legislature in Bengal whose powers were enhanced by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms.

The author examines three women's campaigns for political rights, education and social reform legislation: the Bangiya Nari Samaj's quest for woman suffrage, the Bengal Women's Education League's efforts on behalf of extending universal education schemes to girls, and the All-Bengal Women's Union's campaign for protection of women and young girls from the prostitution trade. Autobiographies and biographies, records and reports of women's associations, newspapers and journals, and government documents, such as the Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings, have been used to reconstruct the social origins, goals, political strategies, and historical significance of these women's movements.

What emerges is an appreciation of the complexities inherent in alliances between nationalist and feminist movements, and the constraints that limited the effectiveness of social reform movements under colonial conditions. Widespread poverty and illiteracy were obstacles that prevented the mobilization of a broad spectrum of the Bengali female population. Overshadowed by the dominant nationalist discourse, it was difficult for women to develop an independent feminist perspective on the problems of Indian society. Activist women who looked to male nationalist leaders for support for their programmes, often found that their allies had other priorities in this period of deepening political divisions and increasing violence. Nevertheless, the women's movement made important contributions in articulating the nature and extent of gender discrimination in their society, formulating a feminist philosophy that was compatible with nationalist thought, and arousing public support for social change.