Changing Terms of Political Discourse: Women's Movement in India, 1970s-1990s Author(s): Indu Agnihotri and Vina Mazumdar Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 29 (Jul. 22, 1995), pp. 1869-1878 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4403023 Accessed: 24-03-2020 07:17 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly This content downloaded from 202.41.10.30 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 07:17:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Changing Terms of Political Discourse Women's Movement in India, 1970s-1990s Indu Agnihotri Vina Mazumdar The revolutionary changes which followed the two world wars createdfora and structures that promoted debates on wonmen's rights. By the beginning of the 1990s however, the international context in which the struggle for the advance of women's rights was being waged had been transformed. Debates being actively promoted today twist the very premises and values on which the movement had been based. It is against the background of these developments which have influenced the women 's movement in India that one must evaluate the goals and directions of the movement and locate its strengths and weaknesses. I which the movement developed in recent question faded from the public arena Introduction years, these would be (a) the decadal thrtist [GOT 1974; Mazumdar 1978]. provided by the preparations for the UN This is not to imply that no struggles THE 20th centurv promoted the cause of Conference in Mexico, and the initiatives were waged during this period. But, with gender justice by internationalising coming fortfi from the Non-Aligned the exception of the tempo built up before struggles for equality by women and other Movement in this context; (b) the history the passage of the Hindu Code Bill, 1956, oppressed people. Women's struggles of and relationship between earlier these could not form the basis of spurring against their subordination were intertwined movements for freedom, equality and agitations which could catch the public in varying degrees with ideologies and democracy, values which were subsequently imagination, cutting sectional demands and movements based on the values of freedom, enshrined as basic political tenets in the organisations. self-determination, equality, democracy Constitution of India, and the constraints In contemporary India the resurgence of and justice. Confined earlier by locale or felt towards achievement of these in the women's movement and its contours limited foci, these now found expression independent India, and (c) the influence of have to be seen in the light of: (I) The crisis through movements against imperialism, ideas coming across through the various of state and government in the 70s going for national liberation and social streams of the women's liberation into the emergency; (2) the post-emergency transformation. The defeat of fascism and movements of the west. Thus equality, uipsurge in favour of civil rights; (3) the the forced retreat of imperialism around democracy anid freedom were at the same mushrooming of women's organisations in the mid-century paved the way for social time, actual, notional and ideological goals the early 1980s and the arrival of women's advance of which gender relations were a which the women's movement addressed issue on the agenda; (4) the mid-1980s, key componenlt along with the other broad in all their connotations including specific marked by a fundamentalist advance; and objectives of human rights and the end of gender perspective and components. the 1 990s, when the crisis has deepened with iniquitous social orders. The revolutionary regard to state, government and society. changes which followed the two world II The women's movement in India is one wars also created fora and structures that The Indian Movement of the many burgeoning efforts at reassertion promoted debates on women's rights. The of citizen's claims to participate as equals International Women's Decade was Although in India colonial rule and the in the political and development process. initiated during this period of hope which freedom struggle marked the beginning of This places it in a situation of direct also posited a new International Economic an awakening among women, differing confrontation with the forces of conservatism Order. By the end of the decade, however, streams within the anti-imperialist anti- and reaction. The fundamentalist onslaught this hope was already shaky [Mair 1985]. feudal struggle posited different, even in one country after another have exposed In the mid- 1990s, the context in which the contentious images of identities for women the vulnerability of women's advance in international struggle for advance of [Sangali and Vaid 1989]. But the nationalist most places. In the third world as well as women's rights is being waged has been consensus symbolised in the Fundamental erstwhile socialist states, however, the transformed. Debates being actively Rights Resolution of the Indian National combination of these with the onset/ promoted today twist the very premises and Congress, 1931, postulated freedom, acceleration of free market capitalism has values on which the movement had been justice, dignity and equality for women as both strengthened the powers of the based. Terms like empowerment, choice, essential for nation-building. The oppressors, as well as created new reproductive freedom, spiritual autonomy, Constitution assured these rights. In the instruments for hegemony, by weakening etc, are being appropriated by forces inimical post-independence period, however, the balancing mechanismns and ideologies to the goals of the women's movement. Can women exploring avenues for socio- that sought to place limits on their rapacity. the movement ensure the continued economic and political mobility came up In India the mid-1980s have seen an existence of fora to mount pressure for against the limitations of a third world ex- onslaught on even existing rights of women intervention in favour of more equitable colonial state. This posed conflicts between through a harking back to 'tradition' and gender relations - both. at the level of their new rights and the values carefully 'culture' and the positing of images which international realpolitik. as well as at ground promoted by a longstanding patriarchal social emphasise women's reproductive role as level processes'? hierarchy. Social disabilities and gradual the only natural, historical one. The It is important to note these international isolation from the politico-ideological fundamentalist/revivalist face of many developments since they have influenced struggles that were shaping the nation- social movements today is directly opposed the movement in India from the start. If building process led to the fragmentation of to the radical demands and upsurges coming we were to spell out the parameters within the women's movement and the women's from below. Economiic and Political Weekly July 22, 1995 1869 This content downloaded from 202.41.10.30 on Tue, 24 Mar 2020 07:17:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms These decades in India have marked the the sex-ratio, increasing gender gaps in complexity of India's social and political end of the age of complacency, apathy and life-expectancy, mortality and economic entity of a democracy-in-making, as well as acceptance of the existing social order. participation, or the rising migration rate a democracy endangered. Undoubtedly. these stem from both were disturbing enough. Combined with problems of transition as well as the this was the utter failure of state policy to III outcome of the world's largest experiment live up to its constitutional mandates in Violence: Case of Expanding Arenas in democracy. Shifts in foci and awareness any field of national development. The of problems that impinged on women's CSWI noted clear linkages between From its earliest phase in the late 1970s, lives, the social construction of gender existing and growing social and economic the contemporary women's movement relations and the identity of women from disparities and women's status in perceived growing violence as a major dif'ferent classes in their attempts to resolve education, the economy, society and the issue, bringing 'visibility' to the movement the problems of the national economy and polity [GOI 1974:234], putting the demand itself. This identification violence has also polity occurred during a period of for equality on an akctual historical terrain. been interpreted in many ways, by analysts dissolving certainties that characterised It also formed a starting point for women's of the movement. Primarily of course, it local, national or global systems. studies. ' has been seen as a 'rallying cry' or a 'rallying This changing character and the In this paper we have confined ourselves point'. contradictions are reflected within the to the movement's responses to violence, Violence, however, is perpetrated through governmental structures and in a shifting fundamentalism and the debate on the given institutions of the state, community, attitude towards the women's movement. A economic role and processes. We have the family and society at large. It draws major question facing all governments in focused on these not only because of sustenance from prevailing ideologies which office has been how to respond to the limitations of space, but because we see seek to propagate status quoism through movement and its demand to place the a close link between the marginalisation advocacy of 'falling-in-line', be it in response women's question on the political agenda.