The women's movement and women's organisations

The first principle

A movement speaks for the women who build and lead it, so its agenda reflects their lives. India's women's movement began with upper caste reformers and urban, educated women, and it took up issues that hurt women of all groups, such as rape law, dowry and political rights, but it was slower to address what poor, Dalit, tribal and minority women face because of caste, class and community. That is why its history is one of widening: from reform for women, to struggle by women, to many movements of different women.

The core

Phases of the movement

• Social reform, nineteenth century. Men reformers led the first phase: Raja Ram Mohan Roy against sati (abolished 1829), Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for widow remarriage (Act of 1856), and campaigns for girls' schools and a higher age of consent. Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule opened a school for girls in Pune in 1848, and Pandita Ramabai and Tarabai Shinde, in Stri Purush Tulana (1882), wrote about patriarchy in women's own voice.
• Nationalist phase, 1900 to 1947. Women's organisations such as the Women's Indian Association (1917) and the All India Women's Conference (AIWC, 1927) demanded education, the vote, an end to child marriage (the Sarda Act, 1929) and reform of personal law. Gandhi's mass movements brought thousands of women into picketing and the Salt March, and the Karachi Congress resolution (1931) promised equality before the law.
• The lull and the wake up call, 1947 to 1974. With equal rights in the Constitution and the Hindu Code Bills (1955 to 1956), many believed the work was done. The Committee on the Status of Women in India, in its report Towards Equality (1974), shattered this belief by showing a declining sex ratio, falling work participation and high maternal mortality.
• Autonomous movement, 1970s and 1980s. New groups outside party control, such as the Progressive Organisation of Women in Hyderabad (1974) and Saheli in Delhi (1981), raised violence against women. In the Mathura case, Tukaram v State of Maharashtra (1979), the Supreme Court acquitted policemen accused of raping a young tribal girl, and an open letter by four law teachers in 1979 sparked a national campaign that produced the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1983. Campaigns against dowry deaths led to the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Acts of 1984 and 1986 and Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (1983), now carried into the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
• Rural and ecological struggles. In Chipko (1973), women of Uttarakhand such as Gaura Devi hugged trees to save forests, and the Shahada movement (1972) of Bhil tribals in Maharashtra fought landlords and wife beating. The anti arrack movement in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh (1992), led by rural Dalit and poor women, forced a ban on cheap liquor that fuelled domestic violence.
• 1990s onwards. Liberalisation and funding brought non governmental organisations (NGOs), self help groups (SHGs) and a focus on projects, sometimes called NGOisation. Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997), arising from the gang rape of a saathin, Bhanwari Devi, produced guidelines against workplace harassment, and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 followed sustained campaigning.
• After Nirbhaya. The December 2012 gang rape in Delhi brought young people onto the streets; the Justice J S Verma Committee (January 2013) received about 80,000 suggestions and led to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, which widened the definition of rape and added stalking and voyeurism. Online campaigns such as #MeToo (2018) followed.

Dimensions

Has the movement neglected women of lower social strata?

• The critique. Gopal Guru, in Dalit Women Talk Differently (1995), argued that Dalit women face patriarchy within their own caste and caste domination from upper caste men and women, so a movement led by upper caste women could not speak for them. Sharmila Rege called for a "Dalit feminist standpoint", and the idea of intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), explains why caste, class, religion and gender together create a distinct oppression.
• Evidence for the critique. The mainstream agenda centred on dowry, rape in custody and personal law, issues framed by middle class urban experience, while caste atrocities, manual scavenging, landlessness, devadasi dedication, witch hunting of tribal women and the rights of domestic and agricultural workers got less attention. Leadership and editorial voice stayed largely upper caste, and debates on the women's reservation bill showed it, when backward class and Dalit leaders demanded a quota within the quota.
• The other side. The movement did include poor women in many struggles: Mathura was a tribal girl, Bhanwari Devi a backward caste saathin, the anti arrack movement was led by rural Dalit women, and Chipko and Shahada were struggles of hill and tribal women. Laws it won, such as on domestic violence and workplace harassment, protect all women, and organisations such as SEWA have worked mainly with informal women workers.
• Women of lower strata organise themselves. The National Federation of Dalit Women (NFDW, 1995), led by Ruth Manorama, and the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (2006) raised caste violence. Tribal women in Jharkhand and Odisha joined forest rights and anti displacement movements, Muslim women's groups such as the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA, 2007) campaigned against instant triple talaq, which the Supreme Court set aside in Shayara Bano v Union of India (2017), and the Gulabi Gang of Bundelkhand (2006) confronted violence and corruption.
• A balanced view. The criticism is largely valid for leadership and agenda before the 1990s, but the movement has since become plural, and the voices of Dalit, tribal and Muslim women now shape it.

In practice

State bodies and institutions

• The National Commission for Women (NCW), set up in January 1992 under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, reviews laws, hears complaints and advises the government, and states have their own commissions. Critics note that it has no binding powers and that its members are political appointees.
• The Ministry of Women and Child Development became a separate ministry in 2006, and the National Policy for the Empowerment of Women came in 2001.

Self help groups and SEWA

• The Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), founded by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad in 1972, is a trade union of informal women workers with its own cooperative bank, and it has over 25 lakh members across states.
• Under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY NRLM, Ministry of Rural Development, 2011), about 10 crore women are organised in about 90 lakh self help groups, and the Lakhpati Didi target (2023) aims at three crore women earning at least ₹1 lakh a year.

Achievements

• Laws on dowry, rape, domestic violence, workplace harassment and maternity benefit; one third of panchayat seats through the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) and now in legislatures through the 106th Amendment (2023); and a public language of women's rights that reaches villages.

Issues and way forward

• Fragmentation. Divisions of caste, class and religion weaken joint campaigns; coalitions on shared issues, such as the campaign that shaped the 2013 criminal law changes, show the way.
• NGOisation and depoliticisation. Project funding shifts energy from protest to service delivery, and recent curbs under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act affect many groups.
• Neglect of intersection. The Justice Verma Committee itself urged attention to Dalit, tribal and conflict area women, including review of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act; a quota for SC and ST women within the reservation exists, but the demand for a quota for Other Backward Class women remains.
• Implementation gap. Laws exist, but enforcement is weak, so the movement's task has shifted from winning laws to monitoring them.
• Population and empowerment. The link between women's education, choice and fertility is treated in the note on population.

Common confusions

• Social reform movement and women's movement. The first was largely led by men for women; the second is led by women themselves.
• Feminism and the women's movement. Feminism is a body of ideas; the movement is collective action, which may or may not adopt feminist ideas.
• NCW and women's organisations. The NCW is a statutory body of the state; women's organisations are voluntary bodies of civil society.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: social reform, AIWC, Towards Equality, autonomous movement, Mathura case, custodial rape, anti dowry campaign, Chipko, anti arrack, NGOisation, Justice Verma Committee, intersectionality, Dalit feminist standpoint, SEWA, self help groups.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction (data): The report Towards Equality (1974) showed that a quarter century after independence the sex ratio and women's work participation had both declined, which revived the women's movement.
  • Introduction (judgement, quote or report): Gopal Guru argued that Dalit women "talk differently", because they face both caste and patriarchy, a critique that reshaped the women's movement.
  • Conclusion: The women's movement has widened from reform for women to many movements of women, and its strength now lies in joining the voices of every social stratum.
  • Conclusion: Laws won by the movement will matter only when Dalit, tribal, Muslim and working women can use them, so the next phase must be about access and enforcement.