Women in India and Pakistan

by Visram, Rozina

• ISBN13: 9780521386432
• ISBN10: 0521386438
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-07-01
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The history of India’s struggle for independence has often focused on nationalist leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. Women have appeared merely as wives, sisters or daughters. Yet women were present at all levels of the struggle: as followers of Gandhi’s great campaigns of civil Disobedience in the 1920s and 1930s; and as vigorous and outspoken campaigners for self-rule. Rozina Visram looks at the role of women in the struggle for independence from the British, as well as in their fight for equal rights and the vote. Largely through the eyes of Indian women, she examines their traditional role; their social and political awakening; and their active part in the political life of India and Pakistan before and since 1947. A chapter on rebel women also uncovers the terrorist activities of the determinated minority of women advocating revolution.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 6
India under British rule	p. 7
Women in Indian colonial society	p. 10
Beyond the stereotype	p. 11
Campaigning to improve the legal status of women	p. 12
Economic life	p. 13
Social and economic change	p. 14
Indian nationalism and the awakening of women	p. 16
Women's social awakening	p. 16
The growth of women's organisations	p. 16
Women's political awakening	p. 17
Boycott: 1905	p. 19
The imprisonment of Annie Besant	p. 20
The First World War and its aftermath	p. 21
The Amritsar massacre: 1919	p. 21
Nationalism gathers speed	p. 21
Women and the campaign of Civil Disobedience	p. 22
The influence of Gandhi	p. 22
Gandhi and the role of women	p. 23
Non-cooperation	p. 24
Swadeshi and spinning	p. 24
The boycott of cloth and liquor	p. 25
The salt campaign	p. 26
Reaction to the women's participation	p. 29
Votes for women	p. 31
Why women wanted the vote	p. 31
The battle for the vote 1917-28	p. 31
The Deputation	p. 32
The Southborough Committee	p. 32
The Government of India Act: 1919	p. 34
The vote and the 1926 elections	p. 34
The fight for equal rights 1928-37	p. 34
Equal rights or special privileges?	p. 35
What kind of franchise?	p. 37
The Government of India Act: 1935	p. 38
Rebel women	p. 40
Why women revolutionaries?	p. 40
Revolutionaries in action	p. 41
The attack on the Chittagong armoury: 1930	p. 41
Revolutionaries outlawed	p. 43
Quit India Movement: 1942	p. 43
Working Underground	p. 44
The Rani of Jhansi Regiment	p. 46
Rebel women and police repression	p. 47
India and Pakistan: towards equality?	p. 49
Partition: 1947	p. 49
Independent India	p. 50
Independent Pakistan	p. 52
Women in politics today	p. 53
Playing the kinship card?	p. 54
Women leaders in South Asia	p. 55
Case studies	p. 56
Sarojini Naidu: Indian National Congress	p. 56
Margaret Cousins: suffrage campaigner	p. 58
Jahanara Shah Nawaz: Muslim League	p. 59
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: Indian National Congress	p. 61
Timeline of main events	p. 63
Glossary	p. 64
Further Reading	p. 64
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