SPPU

GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT COURSE

2022

Name: Sharvari Sunil Dhanke

PRN Number: 21425010
 Whatever Happened to the
Dreams of Modernity?
SUMMARY

The National Planning Committee formed by Bose

and Nehru in 1939 had a sub-committee that
released the Women’s Role in Planned Economy
Report, chaired by Laxmibai Rajawade and the
member secretary was Mridula Sarabhai. The
report was submitted in 1940. But it was later
republished after Independence under the
editorship of Prof. K T Shah

The article written by Nirmala Banerjee is a

scrutinization of the same report called the
Women’s Role in Planned Economy report
 The article brings to light the fact that most
policy reforms focus not on establishing a
parity between men and women but on
reacknowledging the limited sphere of
women’s responsibilities which start and end
in the household.

 The radical reforms which were suggested in

this report released in 1930s by the Congress
party were discarded during its plenary
meeting. The unproblematic tradition of
making women targets of household and
motherhood related welfare policies were
instead given preference.
 The first four five-year plans spearheaded by
Nehru were ambitious to rid off the rigid
traditions of patriarchy but had little to no
plans to change the actual framework to
make it happen. As a result, women’s
economic rights were side-lined in those plans
and they never benefitted.
The distance between Nehru’s dream of modern
India and the dismal condition of women can be
excused saying they lacked primary data to realise
their hardships faced by Indian women but Nehru
can’t be exonerated as he himself had looked over
a committee that concerned women’s rights in
the decade before independence.

 The article argues that challenging the

patriarchal ethos of the society has never
been the goal of the Indian state.

 The report was quite naïve and did not

consider the deep entrenched roots in
traditions of marriage and household
responsibilities of the Indian Society.

 Still, it did recognise the economic rights of

women. It was influenced by the
recommendations of the International Labour
Organisation and the Russian experiments for
this move
 The recommendations of the WRPE report
are as follows:

 Full control over one’s earnings

Not throwing out women out of their jobs
after marriage
The jobs which are deemed to be unfit for
women to be reorganised to help them work-
but these changes should not act as detriment
on her job capacity
 Family should not an economic unit because
that lowers the status of women and justifies
their lower pays.
Individual should be the economic unit. Then
the wages will not be influenced by marital
status and gender
Men should learn household chores
Acknowledging women’s unpaid labour and
contributions in economic activities and
household work.
a)For contributing to economic activities
women should be provided with all rights as
an earning man.
b) For contributing to household chores
women should get
1. Part in husbands’ income
2. Part in family property
3. Husband paying all the workers related
schemes of the government

 But in the Plenary session they buried these

recommendations and focused on those of
ILO when it came to maternity leaves,
creches, nursery centres.
 The radical reforms were side-lined and
resolutions were passed on issues of
patriarchal interests like monogamy and
uniform civil code.
 Renumeration and recognition of unpaid
houshold labour not considered
  The report was quite radical for its time but
people were reluctant as
a)The country was newly independent and
wanted to hold on to its traditions
b) Never before was such radical attempt made

 A third of women the report told, were part of

the labour force and faced discrimination
 The report for the first time shifted focus on
poor women from the middle class ones

THE FIVE-YEAR PLANS

 The First Five year plan reinforced women
into their traditional chores and provided no
recognition and reliefs to them as workers

 Second plan did recognise women but

mentioned them only when it came to
protection in jobs for which they are
physically unfit and no mention was of unpaid
household labour.
 Third plan reached heights of gender
blindness when no mention of women
workers in the chapters of labour policy and
agriculture was made. Only mention was
about providing training for fam planning and
mid wifery
 Committee on the Status of Women in India
does mention that the third pan focused on
girls education but failed to recognise the
state’s role in diluting the causes that lead to
less girls enrolling in schools.
 The five-year plans focused on increasing
national income without focusing how to
increase employment
 The unorganised sector was neglected. It was
decided to create about 80- million jobs. But
only about 30-4 million came from organised
sector as the rest were estimated from the
unorganised. Government made no effort to
look after the welfare of the people involved
in it.
IMPACT OF THE FIVE YEAR PLANS:

 80% of women were employed in the

agriculture sector and others in the
unorganised ones in 1950s and 1960s.
 Little attention was paid to unorganised
sector and thus to the conditions of women
employed there as well.
 Few openings in the new industries set up
after the few five year plans were seen. As
trade increased the employment of women
in it, their engagement whereas decreased in
manufacturing sector. Only the traditional
factories which have been traditionally
reserved for women saw an increase in
employment.
 Women’s employment in mica, coal,
manganese mining and in jute and cotton
mills had reduced. Unskilled jobs where they
worked were now rationalised.
 Women formed 40% of the workforce in
plantations but were till paid less wages than
male workers.
  They were being pressured into subservient
creatures and restricted to household
activities even through the policy
interventions

LACKINGS OF THE REPORT

 The secretary of WRPE report committee had

fallen out with Nehru. But that doesn’t
explain the total negation of the ideas which
were summarised in the report as they were
careful observations of the ideas and trends
of that time
 B G Kher plan was formulated to provide
compulsory primary education till next 16
years but from the second plan the govt
started slacking and citing many excuses like
lack of funds and resources which could have
been easily dealt with had the government
been really interested in it. But as investment
in education did not show an immediate
impact on the country’s economic growth the
 enthusiasm was subdued also there are
allegations that the elites were attempting
develop an intelligentsia that was available to
only them and thus were creating an elitist
class.
 Many of the people involved in the making of
WRPE report had dogmatic views about
women’s social status. Nehru himself in an
address stressed on how women responsible
for making their homes clean and aesthetic.

 Even the women involved like Durgabai

Deshmukh viewed women as supplementary
earners and welfare receivers
 The complete neglect of the report comes as
a shock as many of the women involved in its
making later went on to hold power positions
in Independent India and still failed to
mention and make use of it. Whether they
actually became oblivious of its existence or
whether they deliberately did so to not upset
the relatively conservative masses of India to
retain their power positions remains
debatable
 During the 1937 elections the congress party
could not risk losing votes by accepting
demands of women. Nehru patronisingly
rejected the demands of the AIWC to have
women representatives in the Congress
Working Committee and in lieu advised them
to aid men in the freedom struggle. The after
effects of this stance of the party can be seen
in the WRPE report where at the start of such
a radical document it is stated that they do
not demand reservations. Whilst it can be
considered a radical move which showed that
women wanted to be treated in parity of
men, but taking into view the awareness of
the drafters of that report about the dismal
and miserable conditions of women in the
country it is less likely that they detested
reservations as a radical move and not to be
in agreement with the largest political party of
the country
NEGATION OF THE REPORT:

 One of the reasons why the women political

leaders of the 1950s were so unenthusiastic
about radical reforms for women could be the
constant indifference of the party and the
possibility of securing more power and hold
by simply agreeing to every stance of the
party heads.
 The women leaders of 1950s were essentially
urban women from well to do families. They
were at sea from the dilemmas faced by the
average women of India. Also due to their
indulgence in the national struggle they got
little chance to communicate with these poor
women and establish connexions of faith and
sympathy.
 Thus, these women leaders failed to arise a
nationwide women movement which would
have provided them the leverage to bring into
force some radical reforms for women.
  Moreover the euphoria that the urban
educated class of women shared arising from
providence of full citizenship, education,
property rights and increasing liberality in
urban spheres and households could have
been the reason why most of them failed to
observe the paucity of the same very
amenities to the majority of women
population who resided in the rural areas.

So, it can be summarised that the Nehruvian era

was not an era where women were silenced but
an era of their euphoria, but this euphoria was
limited, by social and political means only to the
advantaged, urban, educated women and not to
the poor.