The Issues at Stake: An Overview of Gender Concerns in Post-Independence India

This paper covers several key issues relating to women and gender in post-1947 India. A detailed discussion on the construction of ‘women’ by colonial and anticolonial forces prior to Independence helps place the post-Independence period in context. Because the issues are complex and intertwined, it is argued that in the Indian context the definition of conventional feminism needs to be substantially enlarged to incorporate the vast canvass covered and the role played by women in realising the aspirations of the common people including women. Thus, the author provides some representative case-study materials on Indian women in struggle (Shahada, anti-arrack, and Chipko, etc) while taking care to point out the too common assumption that these, particularly the last one, are or were women's movements. This is followed by an account of how women have been defined as a problem by various Indian plans and how women's issues are so often written around (or under) the state's desire to control female bodies in the name of national population planning. The discussion here maintains a critical edge in bringing together a narrative of Indian planning around ‘women’ with several remarks on (and drawn from) Western and non-Western feminisms.