GANDHI’S CONTRIBUTION TO

WOMEN’S EQUALITY

RESEARCH PAPER IN

HISTORY II

SUBMITTED BY: Sregurupriya Ayappan

I.D.NO.: 2262
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 11th April 2017
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................................................4
1: GANDHI’S CONCEPTION OF WOMEN AND EQUALITY.........................................................6
2: NATIONAL MOVEMENT AND THE ‘NEW WOMAN’...........................................................................11
3: IMPACT ON THE ROLE AND POSITION OF WOMEN.............................................................15
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................................................... 18
BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................................19

2
 INTRODUCTION

M.K. Gandhi, also called the Mahatma, is an important historical figure whose legacy is
involved in a constant tussle for appropriation by political and social groups alike. In current
times where this fight for ownership over the past is culminating in distortions,
misrepresentation and rewriting of histories, it is important to understand the contribution of
such people.

Gandhi is given the credit for mobilising large masses of people, building momentum and
patriotic fervour and redefining the method of struggle and protest and, ultimately winning
independence for our nation. He lived his life largely under public scrutiny and managed to
bring women within the fold of the nationalist movement without any forthcoming opposition
from men. There are several works on Gandhi, either hagiographic accounts or vitriolic
critiques. There have been a few works within feminist studies too, but it is primarily about
the perceived relationship between his ideology and the subsequent participation of women in
the national movement, and not to critically evaluate his ideas and actions by ‘asking the
woman question’.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to bridge the gap in existing literature by using
feminist methods, concepts and understanding of gender and equality. The researcher seeks to
examine Gandhi’s ideas of women, female agency and his take on patriarchy against the
tenets of the radical school of feminist thought. It also seeks to situate Gandhi and
contextualise his contribution to women’s equality by keeping in mind the parameters within
which the national movement offered potential for women’s power and feminist social
reconstruction. The methodology used is deconstruction and interpretation of the ideological
framework within which Gandhi functioned.
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The researcher seeks to analyse M.K. Gandhi’s ideas about women’s nature and their role in
the public and private sphere and, his actions towards their ‘upliftment’ or ‘emancipation’
through the lens of the radical school of feminism.

The objective of this paper is to understand if Gandhi’s reconstruction of women redefined

their position within the patriarchal framework and whether this reconstitution of female
subjectivity is in the interests of a feminist praxis.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The scope of this paper extends to an analysis of Gandhi’s ideas about equality, female
agency and women’s position both within and without the nationalist movement as well the
impact it had on women’s emancipation and their role post-independence.

Because of the spatial constraints of the paper, the use of illustrative passages and incidents is
limited. Despite potential for extensive use of discourse analysis, the focus is on interpreting
and deconstructing the ideology behind Gandhi’s contribution. Due to the abundant literature
on this topic, inability to access some of it and time constraints, it has not been possible to
map and appreciate all available sources.

SOURCES

The researcher has relied on primary sources, that is, writings and speeches of M.K. Gandhi
himself, and secondary sources, that is, the works of various historians and biographers on
the Gandhi.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What does women’s equality mean according to various schools of feminism?

2. What is Gandhi’s idea of women’s equality? Does it correspond to feminist
conceptions of equality?
 3. What actions, if any, did Gandhi take to further his idea of women’s equality?
4. What were the implications or effects of these actions in redefining the role and
position of women?

STYLE OF WRITING

The researcher has used, both, a descriptive style, to explain the ideas, actions of Gandhi and socio-
political backdrop of that time, and, an analytical style, to examine whether these actions were truly in
the interest of women.

METHODOLOGY

The researcher has used a combination of feminist methods including feminist practical
reasoning, use of positionality to criticise essentialism of women as a general category,
discourse analysis. Primarily, deconstruction and interpretation of ideology are the methods
employed as it looks into the context in which the ideas arose and actions were taken to
evaluate the agenda as well as contribution it made to women’s equality.

CHAPTERISATION

Chapter 1 deals with Gandhi’s conception of women and equality. Chapter 2 seeks to study
the role of Gandhi’s actions and ideas in redefining women and their involvement within the
national movement. It also examines Gandhi’s private life and his views on women’s issues
like sati, child marriage and the like. Chapter 3 deals with the impact of Gandhism on the
position and status of women.

MODE OF CITATION

A uniform mode of citation, as provided in the ‘NLS Guide to Uniform Citation’, has been
used throughout this paper.
 1: GANDHI’S CONCEPTION OF WOMEN AND EQUALITY
This chapter begins with a brief overview of various feminist conceptions of equality and
female agency. This provides the framework within which the researcher seeks to delineate
and critically analyse Gandhi’s conception of the same. A constructionist view of culture has
been adopted throughout this paper to reveal features that most traditional methods suppress
or overlook.

FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES OF EQUALITY

The boundaries between schools of feminism are largely artificial and serve to locate oneself
on the spectrum of feminist thought.1 The basic tenet, common to all schools, is that
inequality between men and women takes different forms and within each community,
nationality and class, the burden of hardship falls disproportionately on women. 2 Classical
liberalism believes in formal equality where the ideal state protects civil liberties and
provides individuals with an equal opportunity to determine their accumulation within the
free market.3 Contemporary liberal feminists argue that sexual equality is necessary since
patriarchal society thinks women are ideally suited only for particular occupations and this
gender stereotyping is unequal as it denies opportunities to women. 4 Marxist feminists, on the
other hand, believe that women’s oppression is a product of the social, political and economic
structures within capitalism and seek economic independence and entry into public industry
to achieve equality for both, women’s experience as workers and their position within the
family.5 Radical feminists, more than any other school of thought, focus on the need to
reconceptualise female sexuality that does not serve men’s needs, wants and interests.
Women’s oppression is the hardest to eradicate due to sexist prejudices of both, the victims
and the oppressors and equality can be attained only by ending men’s attempts to control
women’s bodies.6

Hence, ‘femaleness’ is constructed and the terms of its construction are embedded in the
dominant modes of ideology. It is against this backdrop that the researcher aims to analyse
the investments of control and the political process which motivated Gandhi to redefine
women

1
Rosemarie Tong, FEMINIST THOUGHT: A COMPREHENSIVE INTRODUCTION, 7-8 (1st edn, 2006).
2
Devaki Jain, Women’s Participation in the History of Ideas and Reconstructing of Knowledge, Working Paper
No. 4, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore.
3
Tong, Supra note 1, at 12.
4
Tong, Supra note 1, at 28-30.
5
Tong, Supra note 1, at 39, 61.
6
Tong, Supra note 1, at 71.
which became naturalised and coercive in structuring women’s idea of self-representation.
The researcher has sought to use radical feminism to analyse the same because, as is
discussed in the next few sections, it is Gandhi’s ideas of sexuality and his essentialist
understanding of it that gave rise to his overall ideology and actions. Other schools of
feminism, especially liberal and Marxist, focus more on the ways in which existing structures
can be modified to attain equality. Radical feminism, on the other hand, realises that ‘every
aspect of reality is gendered’7 and that an understanding of sexuality is the first step to truly
perceive the extent to which patriarchy is entrenched. Without this, any efforts to overhaul
the system will only result in new patriarchal dynamics. In fact, as is explored later, Gandhi’s
pursuit of formal equality, which is similar to classical liberal feminism8, results in this. His
supposedly ‘affirmative essentialism’9 tweaked the original gender stereotypes to impose a
new subordination on women.

GANDHI’S IDEAS ON WOMEN, EQUALITY AND SEXUALITY

Gandhi believed that men and women possess distinct qualities because they are biologically
different. These make them suitable for separate spheres in societies and they should adopt
specific roles in the national movement. He acknowledged that women are not ‘playthings’
but are creative individuals. However, he designated the arena of the household as the space
for the construction of this creativity. He considered women to be the embodiment of
feminine qualities like patience, courage, purity and the capacity to undergo suffering. 10 He
seemingly placed women on a pedestal as ‘sisters of mercy’ and ‘mothers of humanity,’
while blaming them for luring men into immorality. This was despite his perception of
women being naturally abstemious unlike men who could master their sexuality only by hard
discipline.11 This inherently contradictory quality of these representations of female sexuality
was a part of the cultural subconscious of the majority. 12 He made women bear the burden of
honour and, in an

7
Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, Recasting Women: An Introduction, RECASTING WOMEN: ESSAYS IN
COLONIAL HISTORY, 1 (Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid ed., 1st edn., 1997).
8
John Stuart Mill, THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN (1st edn., 1860). He too propagated the doctrine of “separate
spheres”.
9
Richard G Fox, Gandhi and Feminized nationalism in India, WOMEN OUT OF PLACE: THE GENDER OF
AGENCY AND THE RACE OF NATIONALITY, 151 (ed. Brackette Williams, 2013).
10
Sujata Patel, Construction and Reconstruction of Woman in Gandhi, 23(8) ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL
WEEKLY, 377 (1988).
11
David Hardiman, GANDHI: IN HIS TIME AND OURS, 103 (1st edn., 2003).
12
Ketu Katrak, Indian Nationalism, Gandhian “Satyagraha,” and Representations of Female Sexuality,
NATIONALISMS AND SEXUALITIES, 395 (ed. Andrew Parker et al, 1st edn., 1992).
extremely patriarchal and sexist rendition, argues that honour killing is the purest form of
ahimsa.13

He repeatedly invoked Sita, Draupadi and Damyanti, instead of a situationally relevant Rani
of Jhansi, as ideals of Indian womanhood to inspire women to participate in the national
movement.14 These symbols were ‘strategically gendered and deliberately dehistoricized’ 15
which enabled him to endow them with qualities he deemed fit – he sought to cultivate
individual strength but within the boundaries of spiritual and moral courage as he defined it. 16
He valorised ‘purity’ and ‘chastity’ of women and urged them to give up their life rather than
their ‘virtue’. In order to preserve this purity, he proscribed entry into the public sphere unless
as a last resort, although he changed his opinion when the Civil Disobedience movement
began, and dissuaded them from doing economic work.17

While acknowledging that women’s subordination was more than a matter of psychological
fear, helplessness or physical weakness and that it was culturally imposed, he emphasised that
they were arbiters of their own destiny and needed to take the task of their upliftment into
their own hands. His understanding of women’s oppression as an abstract moral concept
prevented him from viewing it as a social and historical process related to production and
reproduction.18 He wanted women to be able to be a well-informed companion and a model
wife, a good mother and teacher, and an exemplary manager of the household. The
patriarchal moorings of his dealings with the woman question is clear when he discusses the
need for education for women
– an education with a difference which would mould women to take their place as a worthy
yet subordinate citizen.19

His idea of equality does not fit into any feminist conceptions of the same and only results in
a combination of indigenous patriarchy with forms of patriarchy brought in by the colonial
state which opened up apparent spaces which are simultaneously restricted. 20 He says men
and women are “equals in life, but their functions differ. It is woman's right to rule the home.
Man is master outside it. Man is the earner, woman saves and spends…If this is the scheme
of

13
M.K. Gandhi, Tercheck, YOUNG INDIA (4 October 1928) as cited in Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 106-109.
14
Madhu Kishwar, Gandhi on Women (Part 1), 20(40) ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY, 1691 (1985).
15
Katrak, Supra note 12.
16
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
17
Patel, Supra note 10.
18
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
19
Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 105-109.
20
Uma Chakravarty, Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai, KALI FOR WOMEN, 174 (Uma
Chakravarty ed., 1st edn., 1998).
Nature, and it is just as it should be, woman should not have to earn her living.”21 Equality,
according to him, does not mean that women get what men get but rather that they get what
they ‘need’. It is a ‘relationship of mutuality and fellowship’ and not a ‘mechanical concept’
or ‘synonym for uniformity’22 which is a mere reformulation of gendered assumptions.

He considered reproduction to be the only reason for marriage and sex and felt women could
achieve a higher moral role only by rejecting her sexuality and devoting herself to the welfare
of others.23 He was harsher, almost unmerciful, with women who were not ‘pure’ and refused
to sanction the use of contraception. 24 Female sexuality was essentialised through his appeals
to morally superior feminine qualities. He dangerously glorified the nature of female
suffering without realising that socialisation patterns inculcated prepared them for suffering
and the consequences for their ‘disobedience’ did not provide them an alternative. He denies
women their sexuality while positing them as ‘mothers,’ thereby imposing on them a certain
role in the family organisation and society which lies firmly in the domestic sphere.25

Inevitably, Gandhi’s ideas on women and the construction of the ‘new Indian woman’ is
mediated by his class, caste, religion, ideology and personal experiences. His reformulation is
a result of the perception of an urbanised middle-class, upper-caste Hindu male who has been
exposed to Western education. He was incapable of escaping the trappings of his positionality
despite being familiar with rural areas where women were visibly a part of the working class
and there was a sizeable proportion of women workers even in industry. 26 There are points of
agreement between Gandhian and Victorian solutions of the woman question. Both sanctify
the domestic space as something which women need to protect and be protected in.27 He
largely draws his idea of women from his image of his mother as a capable woman who could
play a meaningful role in court circles while her chief interest remained within the home.28
While the exact reasons for his desire to ‘conquer the feeling of sex-passion’ is unclear, it has
been argued that it was a result of his ‘lust’ during the early phase of his marriage which
made him engage in sexual intercourse even at the time of his father’s death. He considered
the death of his first

21
Speech at Second Gujarat Educational Conference, Bharuch, 20 October 1917, CWMG,Vol 16, p. 93 as cited
in Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 106.
22
Bhikhu Parekh, GANDHI, 98 (1st edn., 1997).
23
Patel, Supra note 10.
24
Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 103.
25
Patel, Supra note 10.
26
Patel, Supra note 10.
27
Katrak, Supra note 12.
28
B R Nanda, MAHATMA GANDHI, 16 (1st edn., 1997).
baby within days of birth as ‘divine judgement’ 29 implying his wife and child should be
expected to be punished for his failings.30

Hence, his reconstruction of the new Indian woman serves to reconcile in her subjectivity, the
conflicts between tradition and modernity in Indian society while denying the actual conflict
that women existentially register as an aspect of their lives.

29
M.K. Gandhi, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 11 (1st edn., 1993).
30
Hardiman, Supra note 11.
 2: NATIONAL MOVEMENT AND THE ‘NEW WOMAN’
In this chapter, the researcher seeks to study how Gandhi skilfully crafted essentialist images
of women which created a new bondage for women as it admitted them to the nationalist
project only as affirmation of the continuing power of men over women. It also examines his
actions towards ‘upliftment’ of women outside of the nationalist movement.

NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

It is often argued that the primary contribution of Gandhi to women’s equality was his
essentialist reconstruction of women which threw open the doors of the public sphere to
women as they participated in large numbers in the national movement. The affirmative
essentialism superseded original gender stereotypes and resulted in effective redistribution of
power by producing action and consciousness.31 This may be true in a very limited sense. For
instance, his appeal to women to dedicate their lives for the nation’s cause was a liberating
idea which provided an alternative to marriage and the women who remained unmarried were
able to enjoy an unusual amount of freedom and agency. But the women who exercised these
options were very few.32

‘Satyagraha’ – or truth agitation – was the primary tool of resistance employed by Gandhi
against the British. He projected it as a feminized version which was morally superior to the
masculine aggression. This enabled large numbers of women to participate in the movement,
later even resulted in public involvement. However, it is necessary to problematize the gains
and losses of these strategies. In the 1921 Non-Cooperation movement, Gandhi consciously
linked women’s struggle to the national struggle by devising a programme that would allow
women to contribute from within the four walls of the home. Since the constructionist
programme of the Swadeshi movement hinged on the boycott of British goods and the
production and use of khadi, women were encouraged to take up spinning. He, thus, inverted
the fundamental feminist tenet of ‘personal is political’ by bringing the political struggle to
the personal sphere of women without challenging any traditional thought. He could only
envisage a supportive role for women in the movement. He urged them to combat
communalism by

31
Fox, Supra note 9.
32
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
‘refusing to cook’ for men unless they mend their ways.33 This attempt to extend the power of
women as wives and mothers is glaringly blind to the realities of women’s agency in the
family.

Some women were getting impatient and wanted to play more than an auxiliary role and
wanted to join the Dandi march. Gandhi did not permit this and considered women to be
more suited to picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. Once again, he expresses this in
terms of the suitability of this task due to the ‘inherent’ capacity for non-violence in women.
To a certain extent, the transition from spinning opened up the market to women. Women
from traditional and conservative families had shed their pardahs and were now exposed to
34
public processions and prison lives. This increased participation of women was
accompanied by tokenism and appointment of few women like Sarojini Naidu in positions of
power and leadership within the Congress. It also brought about a commitment to formal
political equality on attainment of independence, that is, the right to vote, right to contest
elections and right to office, at a time when women were not allowed to vote in many
countries.35

The participation of women was confined to a small section of urban middle class women.
Rural women joined protest activities in phases. The dual burden of domestic and political
activity took a toll on most women, especially those in the working class. They were often
victims of domestic violence due to fear that their involvement would lead to a neglect of the
household. Further, their lack of confidence, contacts, experience and exposure made them
dependent on men and prevented them from acquiring leadership roles. Despite women
taking to the streets in the 1930s, Gandhi did not dismantle the assumptions of ‘separate
spheres’ and could reconcile the subordinate, auxiliary position of women with them being
‘free’ and ‘equal’.36

Participation in the struggle for independence cannot be equated with a transformative

politicization which made interventions in the patriarchal order to overcome women’s
subordination. Any traditions or customs challenged were for the sake of the nation and
capable of repeal. Any contradictions in Gandhi’s strategies of consolidating women’s
participation, the points of divergence and convergence between national and sexual
liberation were obscured
33
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
34
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
35
Janaki Nair, WOMEN AND LAW IN COLONIAL INDIA: A SOCIAL HISTORY, 87 (1st edn., 1996).
36
Patel, Supra note 10.
though typically nationalist appeals – women’s issues were deferred in the face of the
common enemy of colonialism.37

PRIVATE LIFE, POSITION ON REFORMIST ISSUES AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE ‘NEW WOMAN’

Gandhi always acted as the benevolent and authoritarian patriarch who exacted obedience
from his family and found it hard to accept when anyone sought to assert their independence.
Application of discourse analysis to his writing and speeches reveals the moralistic tone of an
enlightened patriarch.38 He certainly did not practice equality within the family as he used
sentences like “I took no time in assuming the authority of a husband” or “I wanted to make
my wife an ideal wife (emphasis mine)”.39 He constantly sought to exert dominance over his
wife and, contradictorily, rejected her capability of thought due to lack of education while
extolling her non-violent demonstration of agency when his actions displeased her. 40 Be it in
his decision to remain celibate or his sexual experiments, he never thought of the
psychological impact on, and agency of either his wife or the young girls. He exercised this
authority even outside his home. He narrates an incident where he slapped his stenographer
for smoking a cigarette in his presence and viewed this as an act of love.41

Gandhi condemned existing Hindu social customs like child marriage, sati and dowry
exploitation. He was vitriolic towards prostitutes and even refused to recognise their efforts
towards the freedom struggle since they were ‘impure.’ He even equated illegitimate children
to ‘vermin’42 since they vitiated the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Fuelled by his own
experience, he was extremely critical of child marriage and considered the practice to be
‘barbaric’43 and that it did not allow either parties to achieve their true potential. He
advocated widow remarriage. This was more in the interest of social health in order to
preveFvint women from committing ‘sin’ secretly and he preferred ascetic widowhood to
this. He called for women’s organisations to be set up to end these evil practices44 and
emphasised on the need to purge all religious texts and scriptures biased against rights and
dignity of women if they were

37
Katrak, Supra note 12.
38
Debali Mookerjea-Leonard, To Be Pure or Not To Be: Gandhi, Women, and the Partition of India, 94(1)
FEMINIST REVIEW, 38-54 (2010).
39
Gandhi, Supra note 29, at 9, 10.
40
Gopalkrishna Gandhi ed., GANDHI: ESSENTIAL WRITINGS, 76 (1st edn., 2008).
41
Id, at 94.
42
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
43
Gandhi, Supra note 29, at 14.
44
Patel, Supra note 10.
to get justice. His ignorance about the extent of women’s oppression is revealed by the
reversal of onus by placing it on women as he asks them to produce from amidst them new
Sitas, Draupadis and Damyantis.45 When one interprets the ideology behind these actions, it
comes to light that it was in order to spread awareness and coerce women into the model of
the ‘new woman’. This is even starker when one takes note of the decade long silence on
women’s issues between the Non-Cooperation and the Civil Disobedience movements.

The formulation of the ‘new woman’ had to be redefined to allow for women taking to the
streets. This modified construct incorporated qualities like steadfastness of purpose, strength
of will and courage in the face of adversity. The woman of this construct was expected to
bear stoically long periods of separations from her husband, patiently put up with the mental
and physical trauma of his imprisonment and his ill-treatment at the hands of the police. At
the same time, when the need arose and the nation beckoned, this woman would come out of
the domestic sphere and take up leadership roles in the absence of her husband. 46 Even then,
her role is couched in auxiliary terms and her mobility is restricted in the presence of her
husband.

Hence, it can be seen that the Indian national movement established a new patriarchy which
subsumed women’s emancipation within the larger goal of sovereign nationhood. Any gender
liberation pursued merely reinforced the dichotomy of the feminine and the masculine and
resulted in a nationalist discourse that differed from colonialism while remaining trapped
within gender essentialisms.

45
Kishwar, Supra note 14.
46
Suruchu Thapar, Women as Activists: Women as Symbols: A Study of the Indian National Movement, 44(1)
FEMINIST REVIEW, 81-96 (1993).
 3: IMPACT ON THE ROLE AND POSITION OF WOMEN
In this chapter, the researcher seeks to measure the impact that Gandhi’s ideas and action had
on the reconceptualization of the role and position of women. In order to do this, it is
necessary to assess the construct of women prior to advent of Gandhi on the scene as well as
analyse the changes, if any, post-independence continuing to contemporary times.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, women’s issues became central to the nationalist
discourse and the status of women in Indian society became a political issue. It came to
reflect the underlying tensions between modernity and tradition, native Indians and the
British. Social practices of sati, polygamy, child marriage, pardah and female infanticide
came under British criticism and scrutiny. Although Indian reformers considered Hindu
culture to be superior to Western model, they recognised the need to reinvent Hindu culture
to be more consistent with the Western ideals of liberalism and humanitarianism. Formal
education was regarded as a tool to enhance the social presence of Indian women. It would
also adapt them to a changing external situation and instil greater responsibility towards their
familial duties. Women were now supposed to possess the virtues of discipline, cleanliness,
self-control and companionship in addition to their traditional role in the family. However,
there was no change in the basic social relationship characterized within the patriarchal
framework. As explored in the previous chapter, Gandhi did not bring about a seismic shift to
the prevailing construct of women. In addition to it, he emphasised on the moral and spiritual
greatness of women. He projected the spiritual role of the new woman as a sign of her
freedom. In order to confine this freedom within the parameters set by the nationalist leaders,
it was juxtaposed with that of the ‘common woman’ who was coarse, promiscuous and
vulgar.47

On the contrary, it cannot be said that Gandhi did not have any impact on women. Despite his
essentialist constructions, public involvement of women resulted in the development of a
feminist consciousness. Their entry into the public male sphere ended up undermining the
artificial public-private divide. It made women aware of the existing gender inequalities in
society and generated an urge for feminist social transformation. This can be seen even
during the national movement when women disregarded Gandhi to participate in the salt
satyagraha. While all women were not able to reconstitute new roles for themselves, a
considerable section
47
Id.
of middle-class women strove for equal rights, fought against patriarchy and set up
organisations.48

Gandhi established the trend of sponsored patronised participation of urban, middle class
women in political life which continues even today. Since the women’s movement had been
reduced to an appendage of the nationalist movement, political independence, resulted in the
formal promise of gender equality as enshrined in the Constitution. 49 The patriarchal social
system, however, continues to subordinate women, thus, negating this promise. This
discrepancy between progressive laws and assurances of equality inscribed in the
Constitution coexisting with a sociocultural environment that systematically denies women
the same is a central contradiction which cripples women’s movement in India. 50 This
contradiction can be traced to the kind of political initiation women had during the national
movement. Due to the lack of a concerted women’s movement which sought to overhaul and
reconceptualise the understanding of female sexuality, and the diversion of all efforts against
the ‘common enemy’, there was no active efforts to bring about a change in the oppressive
social, material and family conditions of women. Women’s participation was necessarily
subject to male patronage. This led to a lack of real power in the hands of women and even
today, the laws to further ‘women’s interests’ are passed by a male-dominated legislature.
Hence, there is suppression of women’s voices and an even more insidious expression of
women’s interests from the male perspective. Such formal equality perceives women to be
“object of consciousness and not another consciousness”51 and hence, denies them equal
rights and responsibilities in reality.

The positive legacy of non-violent forms of struggle and protest in the forms of passive
resistance, hunger strike, mass demonstration and appeal to the moral aspects of wrong-doers
have been and continue to be used till date. Women too have adopted this. Instances of small
scale but effective use of this would be the tactic of public humiliation when women gherao
the residences of dowry related murderers.52 Women participated in anti-liquor movements of
the 1960s by picketing liquor shops, raided arrack shops and pressurised men to give up
alcohol. Similarly, women’s movement was sought to be subsumed within the fold of the
land

48
Bharati Ray, The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905-1929, FROM THE SEAMS
OF HISTORY: ESSAYS ON INDIAN WOMEN (Bharati Ray ed., 1997).
49
Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman, SUBVERSIVE SITES: FEMINIST ENGAGEMENTS WITH LAW IN INDIA, 43 (1st
edn., 1996).
50
Katrak, Supra note 12.
51
MM Bakhtin, PROBLEMS OF DOSTOEVSKY’S POETICS as cited in Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 95.
52
Hardiman, Supra note 11, at 156.
distribution movement under Jayprakash Narayan. This time, women retained greater agency
and refused to allow redistribution if it was not in their own names.53 The Chipko Andolan
too became a women-centric movement with rural women struggling to protect their trees and
forests.54 Organisations like Self Employed Women’s Association [SEWA] indulge in
Gandhian-style constructive work.55 However, it is debatable whether this can be construed as
Gandhi’s contribution to women’s equality specifically. There is no discernible Gandhian
influence on the third wave of Indian feminism (1970s-80s).56

53
Bipan Chandra et al, INDIA SINCE INDEPENDENCE, 643-649 (1st edn., 2007).
54
Geraldine Forbes, WOMEN IN MODERN INDIA, 224 (1st edn., 1998).
55
Chandra, Supra note 53.
56
Kapur, Supra note 49, at 51.
 CONCLUSION
To conclude, Gandhi was a man of his times. He accepted the prevailing notions of
masculinity and femininity. He could not escape the moorings of his caste, class and
experience in life as a result of which he had a confused and contradictory conception of
female sexuality. He did not recognize, as feminists do today, that unequal sexual relations
within the home are sustained by power relations with the larger patriarchal structure and by
material relations within economic systems. His construction of women was essentialist and
his idea of equality was one of difference and separate spheres. He merely redefined the
nature of subordination of women in a patriarchal structure that was a melee of traditional
and colonial elements.

He was a very smart strategist and his skilful representation of women using traditional
symbols, inversion of the relationship between education and liberation and bringing the
political to the personal sphere enabled him to use women’s bodies and numbers – since they
constituted nearly half of the population – in the national movement without upsetting the
patriarchal balance within the family unit or providing them with concrete power and roles.
His dangerous affirmative essentialism which glorified qualities like suffering was an
effective measure to ensure the continuance of the dominant patriarchal structure. His
reconceptualization of the new woman was also to the political end rather than for purely
reformist reasons.

While Gandhi’s advent on the political scene did not bring about any change in the social
dynamics within the patriarchal framework, the public involvement of a large number of
women did bring about certain feminist gains and losses which must be problematized. It led
to the development of a feminist consciousness, awareness of the gender inequalities and
formation of women’s organisations and movements which led to greater female agency.
Whether this advancement of the urban middle-class woman happened due to Gandhi or
despite him is a matter of perspective.
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