Submitted To: Professor V.

Linesh
Submitted By: Manya Deshpande
Submitted On: 22 June 2021
Subject: General Elective (Political Science)
Roll Number: 20BA206
Section D

THE WEST IN INDIAN FEMINIST

DIALOGUE AND EXERCISE

Manya Deshpande

ABSTRACT

While Western feminists and feminist theoretical models have done an admirable job of
deconstructing several age-old traditions that have characterised dominant philosophical and
political mindsets on gender, what is remarkable is the continued existence, if not the dichotomy,
of the West and ‘the Rest' in their discourse. This paper examines the established ways in which
feminism's western-ness has been linked to India. Because of colonial history and women's
connection with national culture, feminism has been associated with westernisation only
selectively. The paper goes on to discuss some of the differences in the legacies of western and
Indian feminism, and the problems of using arguments from western contexts in India.
 BACKGROUND: A TALE OF IMPERIALISM AND THE
EMERGENCE OF INDIAN FEMINISM

Nineteenth century saw the coming of British power in India and the increasing Western
exposure which brought far-reaching consequences for the Indian social structure. Women were
seen as of no consequence at this point in time. Hence, their detailed studies do not exist.

It's a sad fact that even the existence of Indian women as self-sufficient individuals was always
denied on the basis of culture, religion and traditions. But, this changed. It was towards the
colonial period that women’s questions began to receive the attention they deserved. It was truly
felt that time has come for women to get together and strive towards a set goal of men and
women enjoying equal status. Indian feminism has started reacting against the suppressing forces
and protesting against unjust patriarchal practices (Tandon 2008).

The overwhelming focus with women's issues dates back to the nineteenth-century social reform
movement, influenced anti-colonial nationalism, and continues to be a part of dominant political,
cultural, and social discourses. Feminism, like modernity and capitalism, came to India via
colonialism. As a result of its engagement with colonial rule, India came into contact with the
concept of liberalism (based on the rights to life, liberty, and property), which later became part
of nationalist discourse.

Radha Kumar refers to the nineteenth century as the "era of women," a time when women's
issues were hotly debated around the world (Kumar 1993). In the nineteenth century, social
reformers in India, primarily in Bengal and Maharashtra, began to decry women's injustices. The
notions of equality and liberty were foreign to the Indian context. It entered Indian culture as a
result of colonial contact, when western-educated Indians were exposed to European liberalism.
With the introduction of new administrative and economic institutions into Indian society as a
result of colonial control, a new middle class emerged in the Indian scenario, exposed to the
colonists' liberal mindset. This contact and exposure prompted them to evaluate and analyse their
own society's flaws, as well as reflect on their own value system (Chitnis 2004).
 A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE : IMPERIAL FEMINISM AND ITS
INFLUENCE ON INDIAN WOMEN

In Great Britain, organised feminism arose in the setting of Victorian imperialism. Arguments
for British women's emancipation were developed, made public, and debated during a period
when Britain was filled with both confidence and anxiety as a result of perceived geopolitical
superiority and stability. In terms of the beginnings of "international sisterhood," Western
feminism's historically imperial location has not been the subject of substantial historical
investigation. Despite the fact that leading British feminists used leading discussions, the world-
civilizing significance they attached to their role in national politics and culture, and the frequent
mentions of non-Western, particularly Indian women, as subjects in need of salvation by their
British feminist "sisters,"

Imperialism and feminism may appear to be an unusual historical pairing at first glance.
However, the phrase "women and India" was also used to refer to lady missionaries or colonial
"memsahibs." Such resemblance reflects both gender stereotyping in imperial historical
narratives and a lack of focus on imperialism's domestic culture, where nineteenth-century
middle-class British feminism flourished. Victorian social reform and philanthropy at home had
a lexicon rich in racial analogies and civilising tropes. All of this took place in the backdrop of
an expanding empire and a belief in Britain's cultural supremacy.

Many of the goals of British women's organisations were realised as Greater Britain became a
formal empire, including women's university education, marriage-law reform, and the repeal of
the Contagious Diseases Act. The "race" for India and Africa, as well as the continuous fight for
women's rights, all happened at the same period. Significantly, British feminists took note of the
synchronicity and used it to advance their cause for what many saw to be the most fundamental
of all rights: women's suffrage. This was partly in response to famous imperial statesmen's
denunciations of women's suffrage directed at women activists, albeit it was not a simple reflex
action. Feminists and particularly suffrage advocates had their own traditions of imperial rhetoric
before the formation of the Anti-Suffrage League in 1908- traditions that they routinely invoked
to ally women’s political empanticipation with the health and well-being of the British Empire.

Arguments made by imperial, British feminists for recognition as imperial citizens were based on
the imagery of Indian women, whom British feminist writers depicted as helpless victims
awaiting the representation of their plight and redress of their condition at the hands of their
sisters in the metropole. British official concern about the practice of ‘Sati’ had been part of
colonial discourse practically since the Battle of Plassey in 1757; rhetoric about women’s
conditions, which was equated with helplessness and backwardness, was no less crucial to
notions of British cultural superiority and to rationales for the British imperial presence in India
than the alleged effeminacy of the “Oriental Male”. In order to justify their own participation in
the imperial nation-state, late-Victorian feminists drew on some of the same arguments about
Indian family life and domestic practices that had been deployed by British men in the 1830s and
1840s to legitimate control over Indian men. “Our heathen sisters in India”, “The benighted
women of our Queen’s vast empire”- this was also the standard stuff of contemporary discourse,
utilized equally by male and female missionaries as evidence of the need for salvation and
reformist intervention. “The Indian Woman” was thus represented as a degraded victim of
religious customs and uncivilized cultural practices, signifying a burden for whose sake many
white women left Britain and devoted their lives in the empire.

On the other hand, contemporary Indian women were far from passive creatures and were active
in social and political reform in both India and the British Isles. Personalities such as Pandita
Ramabai, Cornelia Sorabji and Rukhmabai traveled to Britain in order to further their education
and humanitarian support. Some like Mrs. P. L. Roy was a part of a more permanent Indian
community in Britain concerned with reform and charity work.

If Indian women as imagined by British feminists were used as an argument for white woman’s
social-imperial usefulness they were believed to constitute additionally a special political burden
for British women and more particularly, for British feminist women.

A NOTE ON POSTCOLONIAL FEMINISM IN INDIA

After gaining independence from the British, India built itself from the ashes of its former self.
On paper, it was ideally the perfect democracy where men and women were regarded as equals.
But of course, the deep-rooted patriarchal institutions and mindsets did not change overnight
regardless of the change introduced previously. Post the colonial era, there were a few trends that
prevailed mainly in third world countries, influenced by the West. During this period, the ideas
of imperialist or ‘white feminism’ were still inherent in the Indian feminist discourse and
practice.

As discussed in the earlier parts, the feminists from developed nations or the ‘Global North’
would have little understanding of the conditions of women in the ‘Global South’. It is simplistic
to believe that Western feminists can represent and justify the stand of women living in once-
colonized countries. Since lives, experiences and circumstances of postcolonial women differ
utterly from that of Western women, feminists of postcolonial origin should come forward and
make differences visible and acceptable across cultures; otherwise get ready to take on colonized
garbs of identity.

If lives, experiences, and circumstances of women of postcolonial settings are divergent, they
should be judged, evaluated, and treated as such hence ‘postcolonial feminism’ consolidated.
Postcolonial feminist brought the view of universal sisterhood under threat. Rajeswari Sunder
Rajan and You-me Park “Postcolonial feminism cannot be regarded simply as a subset of
postcolonial studies, or, alternatively, as another variety of feminism. Rather it is an intervention
that is changing the configurations of both postcolonial and feminist studies.

Postcolonial feminism is a critique of the homogenising tendencies of Western feminism.

Contrary to Western feminism, ‘postcolonial feminism’ as a new feather wishes to bring into
light the typicality of problems of women of the Third world nations (here, India). This is mainly
the initiative of those activists, and academics who belong partially or fully to once colonized
countries. They are working for the all-round amelioration in the lives of women of post-
colonial origin.
Colonized countries have been deeply affected by the racist nature of colonialism. Postcolonial
feminists argue that colonial oppression, particularly racial, class, and ethnic has in large part
overlooked women in postcolonial societies. Postcolonial feminists are critical of Western forms
of feminism, especially radical (in the sense it seeks to make differences visible in non-
oppressive ways) and liberal forms (for, they have no sense of differences) of feminism and their
habit to homogenize and universalize women experiences of the whole world. Primly,
postcolonial feminism explores in different contexts, women’s lives, work, identity, sexuality,
and rights in the light of colonialism and neocolonialism with gender, nation, class, race, and
sexualities.Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and You-me Park identify two key issues for ‘postcolonial
feminism’- representation, and the questions of setting or locale.

In short, ‘postcolonial feminism’ provides corrective measures to mainstream ‘feminism’.

SECOND WAVE OF FEMINISM AND HOW IT AFFECTED THE

INDIAN SCENARIO

In the 1960s and 1970s, the second wave feminism movement concentrated on concerns of
equality and discrimination. The feminist liberation movement began with American women in
the United States and quickly extended to other Western countries, as well as developing
countries. Gale's Women's Studies Archive provides scholars with rare primary sources and
papers to investigate this era of feminism and see how it links with other liberation movements,
from suffrage to modern feminism.

Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, which questioned the postwar belief that a
woman's job was to marry and bear children, was the trigger for second wave feminism, which
unfolded in the background of the anti-war and civil rights movements. Though Friedan's
feminist thinking wasn't revolutionary—many other feminist thinkers, like Simone de Beauvoir,
had done so before her—The Feminine Mystique had a much wider reach, bringing feminism to
the attention of average women, mothers, and housewives. The feminist movement exploded,
focusing on issues such as rape, reproductive rights, domestic abuse, and workplace harassment.

Second wave feminists realized that women’s cultural and political inequalities were inextricably
linked. They worked under a unifying goal of social equality, with sexuality and reproductive
rights being central concerns to the liberation movement, and with much of the movement’s
energy being focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment.

Although the Equal Rights Amendment still hasn’t been ratified, second wave feminism had
many successes. The approval of the contraceptive pill by the Food and Drug Administration in
1960 gave women more control over their reproductive rights—within five years, around 6
million women were using it. Feminists also worked and gained women the right to hold credit
cards and apply for mortgages in their own name and outlawed marital rape. Awareness around
domestic violence was raised, and gender and women’s studies departments were founded at
universities and colleges. The passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, Title IX in 1972, and Roe v.
Wade in 1973 were legislative victories for feminists.

In short, second-wave feminism saw cultural and political inequalities as inextricably linked. The
movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply
politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power. If first-wave feminism focused upon
absolute rights such as suffrage, second-wave feminism was largely concerned with other issues
of equality, such as the end to discrimination (PHILLIPS, 2004).

Clearly, the second wave was quite influential worldwide, even in developing countries such as
India. It prompted women everywhere to introspect and fight for their rights and bring down
patriarchy. The only concern herein lies that the sort of resistance prompted by women in
Western nations seemed inadequate for the women living in third-world countries given the large
and significant differences.

As for the situation in India, the widespread resistance by workers, peasants and middle-class
employees in the Indian state took place in the 1970s due to the failure of the government to
satisfy the basic needs of the people. As a result, Emergency was declared in 1975 that directly
attacked the political and civil rights of the citizens. Simultaneously, the women’s movement
also emerged along with other democratic and left forces. It noticeably coincided with the second
wave of the Western women’s movements which did influence the Indian movement.

The interaction between Indian Feminism and the state was significant and contradictory in this
case. From the mid-1970s forward, the women's issue became a focal point of public debate.
While women, particularly impoverished women, were subjected to the state's brutal edge, it was
the state that the women's movement aimed to ameliorate. This particular women's movement
questioned current rape and dowry laws. Many of the most significant accomplishments have
been in the area of legal reform. The Indian women’s movement and Indian feminist writings
made their presence felt globally- a development not entirely unconnected to the institutional
logic of the UN Declared International Year and Decade, the beginnings of institutionalised
women’s studies in academia.

This focus on women in the rural economy and in the informal sector brought forth new
conceptualisation of ‘work’ and of the public and private domain. The focus on peasant women
and rural society, the language in which the issues are raised is different from the second phase
of women’s movements in the West. Such an articulation draws strongly from an understanding
that ‘freedom’ of women was linked to broader freedoms for all sections of the people in a
society where many were poor and dispossessed. This is a vision of India that had strong roots
within the nationalist imagery, drawing inspiration from disparate ideological sources such as
Marx and Gandhi. The second phase of Western feminism led to theorising on capitalism,
patriarchy and heterosexuality. The account on the centrality of the conflict between gender and
community rights below seeks to show this intersection.

Then, in the late 1980s, history took a strange turn as religious fanaticism grew stronger. The
state enacted the Muslim Women's Bill, which Hindu communal parties interpreted as the state
appeasing minorities. Nobody seemed to notice that it was Muslim women who were on the
losing end. The question was raised as to who the Bill was intended to protect: community
leaders, divorced husbands, or women. (Rajan, Pathak, 1989) Roop Kanwar, an eighteen-year-
old Hindu widow, was burned alive on her husband's pyre in front of 3000 onlookers on
September 4, 1987, shortly after the Indian state enacted the regressive Muslim Women's Bill.
These years saw the birth of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a right-wing Hindu nationalist party
(BJP). It took a long time and a strong effort on the part of the women's movement to get the
state to respond to the crime. India was on the verge of a new era in history, with major
economic reforms aimed at integrating the country into the global economy and the late-
capitalist world, which resulted in a significant shift in feminist discourse.

CONTEMPORARY STANDING OF INDIAN FEMINISM IN

RELATIONS TO THE WEST

Even while Western concepts can be racist and ethnocentric, they did start the debate about
women in India, though it is true that Indians merged women's issues with nationalist women to
demonstrate the country's "progressive" nature. In independent India, women were promised
equal rights by the constitution. However, some Indians believe that feminism is a western
philosophy associated with imperialism and "white" feminism. As a result, the Indian women's
movement seeks to distinguish itself from analogous movements in Western countries.

Because of its association with Western ideology and connotations, there is a heated dispute
among Indian women about whether they should call themselves feminists. In her article "Why I
do not call myself a feminist," Madhu Kishwar, publisher of "Manushi: A journal about women
and society," rejected the word since it is associated with colonial oppressors in the media and
political rhetoric. The journal's major purpose was to "create a forum where readers actively
participate in the consideration of fundamental questions that arise in the struggle for women's
survival and basic human rights, as well as for a more just society for everyone" (Manushi 63-64,
p. 39).

The Western feminist movement seems to have gone through an evolution where feminists have
started self-interrogation over the exercise of privilege based on race, class and country of origin.
International conferences (e.g, Mexico City 1975, Wellesley 1976, and Copenhagen 1980) have
tried to include the experiences of women in both developed and developing countries. Still,
Third World feminists have critiqued feminists from developed countries on various occasions
for their inclination to only focus on gender oppression (Agnew, 1996).

It is difficult and some might even argue futile to make feminism (at least the western
connotation of it) more inclusive. An outstanding fact remains that global capitalism exploits the
labour of Third World women, and that the benefits of the exploitation indirectly help women in
Western countries creating additional disparities between women and their specific oppressions
(Mies, 1986).

As previously stated, Western feminist analyses of Third World women are inextricably linked to
‘white feminism's imperialist practises. Third-world women are seen as "victims" of the feudal
order, religion, male aggression, familial institutions, and development processes in this type of
feminism. This implies a contrast between Western and Third World women, allowing Western
feminists to portray themselves as "educated, contemporary, in charge of their bodies and
sexualities, and free to make their own judgments." On the other hand, the Third World woman
is represented as living “an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender and her being
ignorant, poor, uneducated and tradition-bound” (Mohanty, 1991, p. 56). Such criticisms of
white feminists have created awareness among them of their unconscious exercise of privilege.
Now, they often begin discussions of Third World women with acknowledgment of their status
as Western feminists.

Both the Right and the Left utilise the claim that Indian women's feminist philosophy is derived
from Western women's movements to undermine feminists' legitimacy in India (Jayawardena
1990, p. 92; Patel 1986, p. 42; Krishnaraj 1990, p. 1). Right-wingers oppose women's liberty and
despise patriarchal critique. The Left is split on whether it is desirable for women to form
autonomous organisations to fight patriarchy and capitalism. Some on the Left feel that the
exploited should band together in a struggle to overthrow class dominance, but that putting a
focus on gender hinders class solidarity.
But, Amrita Basu, Professor of Political Science and Women and Gender Studies at Amherst
College, who has researched women's activism in Bengal and Maharashtra, argues that the
Shramik Sangathanaa, grass-roots organization in Maharashtra,emerged as a critique of the "old
left" and successfully mobilized large number of women and gave priority to gender and class
inequality (Basu, 1993). Thus, the Right and some segments of the Left may cast doubts on the
significance of feminism for India.

Indian women bring to feminist theoretical debate insights derived from their own experiences,
but there are many similarities between the themes of the women’s movement in India and
feminism in the West. Yet the history of the women's movement in India shows patterns of
oppression and struggle that are uniquely Indian.

Many educated women have banded together in groups to recognise their own power and
potential, lobbying and protesting against the blatant forms of prejudice they experience in our
society. Invasive reproductive and family planning technology, anti-women legal systems, and
sex discrimination in the workplace are among the topics they have accepted. Such groups are
structurally similar to Western feminist groups, which has allowed their absorption into
international feminist circuits. Even when they have made explicit efforts to describe the
experiences of poor women, such groups have often remained circumstantially remote from their
actual lives.

CONCLUSION

During the colonial period, the West collided with Indian social structures and conventions on
numerous occasions, and the resulting collision moulded what is now uniquely Indian. In the
modern day, there are many parallels established between feminist behaviours in the West and
those in India.
When theories like Marxism are employed to explain women's situations in the West and India,
they raise comparable kinds of issues, and insights developed from arguments over them produce
some similarities in the methods women organise and the concerns they address. Despite the fact
that their work and philosophy are mediated by Indian culture, which lends Indian feminism its
own specific flavour, they are informed in a number of ways by the West.

A review of feminist activities in India reveals that separating what is Indian from what is
Western in them is difficult. However, Indian women are wary of any real or perceived ties to
the West, and they wish to define their feminism in ways that set it apart from its Western
counterparts. India's reliance on Western donor organisations causes some dependency, and their
identification with the West makes them easy targets for both conservatives and Marxists who
perceive them as pro-capitalist.

In many poor countries, such as India, resistance and fight against the dominance of Western
imperialist states and their hegemonic ideology has become a distinguishing feature of the
women's movement. However, discourses from Western countries, both mainstream feminists
and mainstream critics, have influenced this approach. As a result, separating what is Indian
from what is Western in the thought and practise of Indian women's organisations is challenging.

REFERENCES AND CITATIONS

1. Anantharam, Anita. (2009). East/West Encounters: Indian identity and transnational

feminism in Manushi
2. Ghosal, S. (2005). Major trends of Feminism in India: The Indian Journal of Political
Science
3. John, M. E. (1998). Feminism in India and the West: Recasting a Relationship
4. Pande, Rekha. (2018). The History of Feminism and Doing Gender in India
5. Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. (2005). Feminism In India
6. Mishra, Raj Kumar. (2013). Postcolonial feminism: Looking into within-beyond-to
difference
7. Misra, Kalpana. (1997). Indian Feminism and the Post-Colonial State: Women & Politics
8. Chaudhuri, M. (2012). Feminism in India: The Tale and its Telling.
9. Burton, Antoinette M. (1994). Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women and
Imperial Culture
10. Agnew, V. (1997). The West in Indian feminist discourse and practice: Women’s Studies
International Forum