Indian Journal of Gender Studies

The concept of ‘identity’ often becomes convoluted within the tradition of bhakti (devotion of god). This article engages in a comparative study of two of Lord Krishna’s devotees, each from a different gender group, in order to determine if gender divisions remain constant or change with the emerging emotions of bhakti. The article claims that the works of the early bhakti poets evince several instances of queer identity that history and modern Indian homophobia seek to erase. To understand such complexities, the article uses the queer theory, whose main project is to explore the contested categorisation of gender and sexuality. According to the queer theory, identities are not fixed, categorised or labelled, but composed instead of a variety of constituents which often cannot be characterised systematically. The objective of the article is to reveal both Mirabai and Surdas as sexual subjects who are culturally dependent and historically specific.

West Bengal (WB) ranks high among the 15 major states of India, where there is still a disturbing persistence of underage marriage among girls, leading to early motherhood as a consequence. The article explores the reasons for this in the context of social and economic conditions in the state. The article argues that more than poverty and illiteracy, the unavailability of new employment opportunities for women and girls in the rural and urban areas of the state explains why parents do not have the incentive to invest in more schooling or the higher education of their daughters. The article is mainly based on secondary data with occasional references to some primary evidence from a recent survey done by the author.

The beginning of Women’s Studies has a special history in India. It owes its origin not only to some stalwarts but also to the historical times in which its birth took place. Its location in the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai was at the initiative of Dr Neera Desai, a Professor of Sociology at that university. Her own work on women’s issues in her Master’s thesis and her involvement in the women’s movement gave her the background for envisaging that a women’s university should engage with analysis of women’s condition and not just teach women other academic disciplines. It was with this motive, that the Research Centre for Women’s Studies was set up in 1974, a year before the publication of the report Towards Equality of the Government of India. The university - originally begun at the initiative of the educationist Shri Dhondo Kheshav Karve received a handsome grant from the industrialist Shri Damodar Thackersey and got named after his mother Shrimathi Nathibai Damodar Thackersey hereafter SNDT Women’s University. The Centre with the involvement of able and farsighted administrators at this university spearheaded the development of this Centre, which became the torch bearer for raising women’s issues.

This article attempts a re-reading of Neera Desai’s Woman in Modern India, to trace the evolution of her thoughts on women’s condition in India and the emerging women’s movement. It engages with the pioneering scholar’s efforts to identify the ‘oppressive institutional and ideological legacy’, which held back women’s rights and the achievement of the goals that the freedom struggle had upheld. Desai took note of material conditions and diverse regional and historical contexts as well as the efforts by women’s organisations to contend with the social reality. The linkages with social reform and political movements for change were central to Desai’s understanding of efforts to address their concerns, even as these were located within international efforts to advance women’s rights. Desai’s quest lead her to explore a Feminism going beyond ‘puff, powder and Poshak Parishads …’ as a step towards a direct confrontation with the forces opposing women’s rights. This in turn posited her in opposition to stalwarts from the women’s movement, who demarcated their activism from identification with a ‘feminist’ label. Is that a settled debate today or is there need for a continued engagement with ideological issues within the women’s movement? This key question emerges as a bigger challenge in contemporary India as the women’s movement is sought to be subsumed within the limited framework of the politics of feminism sidetracking, if not altogether erasing, mass based perspectives of mobilizing for change.

Dr Neera Desai personified combination of both theory and praxis in women’s studies that sees itself as an academic discipline to improve women’s status through knowledge construction, teaching and training, documentation, research, and action. She founded Centre for Rural Development (CRD) in SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai to take the learning of women’s studies to transform women’s reality through feminist activism. CRD began its work among rural women in Udwada village of Paradi Taluka in Valsad District of Gujarat by baseline survey to identify the needs of the community. Economic programmes were initiated along with consciousness raising on reasons of subordinate status of women. Involvement of women’s rights activists and women’s studies scholars ensured dialogues on vision, mission, goals, objectives methods of mobilisation and issues to be taken up by the CRD. The interface between macroeconomic changes in the post reform period after 1991. The new industrial belt established in South Gujarat took away young women as industrial workers. In 2013, the SNDTWU authorities decided to give away the CRD to a corporate house to administer as a Corporate Social Responsibility. Nevertheless, women workers and office bearers of the CRD, mentored by Neeraben continue to be active in the development sector as trainers, CBOs, consultants, researchers, writers, elected women representatives in local self-government bodies, social workers in CSR activities and continue to uphold the ethos of CRD. Now they talk in terms of gender sensitisation, practical and strategic gender needs, gender planning and gender budgeting.

Neera Desai’s pioneering effort to introduce women’s studies into the university system was born out of her commitment to women’s equality. She visualized women’s studies as a movement within the academia to challenge the theoretical rationale for oppressive socio-economic and political institutions and structures. Seeking to excavate the intellectual and ideological moorings of this remarkable woman, this paper reviews her last major work, titled, Feminism as Experience: Thoughts and Narratives (2006). The exploration reveals not only her academic interest in the study of movements, but also her intimate connect with the groundswells of feminist politics in India for over six decades. Against this rich and varied history of twentieth century Indian women’s movement in Western India, Neera Desai, presents the oral histories of women, who were in the forefront of the struggle. This paper, then examines her earlier work, entitled The Social Construction of Feminist Consciousness: A Study of Ideology and Self Awareness among Women Leader (1992) to uncover the changing frames of her research.

Adichie, C.N., Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. London: Fourth Estate, 2017. 80 pages, ₹250. ISBN: 9780008241032.

Jyoti Atwal, Real and Imagined Widows: Gender Relations in Colonial North India. Delhi: Primus Books, 2016, 282 pages, ₹1495. ISBN: 9789384082987.