![]() ![]() Gandhi’s call for non-cooperation gave respectable women the scope to join the freedom movement in large numbers, although the narrow social base of women political activists-elite and upper-caste-has been widely noted. ![]() The bhadramahila began their political journey in the late nineteenth century, their participation ranging from moderate Congress Party activism to militant terrorism. The freedom movement already had a half-century history by the 1920s, when the labour movement began to gather momentum under the leadership of middle-class men, many of whom operated at the margins of mainstream nationalist politics. The core gender narrative of politics in this period has been of middle-class women’s participation in the nationalist movement. Asked in the 1980s about women in the labour movement in India prior to Independence, the octogenarian labour leader, Santoshkumari Devi, said: ‘We could not get men to work in the movement, where would we find women?’ Footnote 1 Santoshkumari was one of a handful of bhadramahila (middle-class Bengali women) who were active in the labour movement from the 1920s to the 1970s. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |