India: Past, Present, and Future

Activism and Women’s Rights in India

By Vera Heuer

P
eople around the world watched as thousands took to the
streets in New Delhi in December 2012 following the gang
rape of twenty-three-year-old physiotherapy student Jyoti
Pandey. While similar protests were held in other metropolitan cities
across the country, the protests in Delhi became so intense that the
government imposed a curfew and sanctioned the use of force by its
riot police. Domestic as well as international media coverage of these
events helped fuel public outrage. The protesters made varied and
lengthy demands for improving public safety for women, including
calls to make public transportation safe; to encourage the police to
be more responsive; to reform the judicial process, including reform
to the Indian Evidence Act, the Penal Code, and the sentencing stan-
dards; and to generally provide for greater dignity, autonomy, and
rights for women. As a result of the public outcry, a three-member
committee chaired by legal expert Chief Justice J. S. Verma was con-
Protest against the Delhi gang rape. Source: Indiatoday.in website at http://tinyurl.com/b92ws5c, January 1, 2013.
vened to recommend changes to the criminal law on sexual violence.
Based on the committee’s recommendations, the government passed
the Criminal Law Amendment Act (2013), which addresses a se-
ries of concerns expressed by various women’s groups, but omits the
criminalization of assault perpetrated by spouses or the armed forces.
The intense media coverage of the 2012 protests did raise inter-
national awareness of the significant safety concerns of many Indian
women. However, this coverage largely treated these protests as an ex-
ceptional event, thereby neglecting India’s history of using mass mo-
bilization as a means for raising issues of sexual violence and women’s
rights in general. Perhaps most notably the 1972 Mathura rape case, a
watershed moment in raising the issue of violence against women in
general, and custodial sexual assault specifically, was rarely mentioned
in most international coverage of the 2012 events. Mathura was a teen-
age girl from an adivasi (tribal) community who was brought to a local
police station for questioning related to a family dispute concerning
her relationship with a teenage boy and their plans to elope. While in
Screen capture from a short NDTV news video covering the events of the Delhi gang rape. custody, Mathura was raped by the two police officers in charge of the
Source: YouTube at http://tinyurl.com/okyq3fw. investigation. Though the officers were tried in the judicial system in
1978, the Supreme Court acquitted them on the grounds that Mathura
had a boyfriend and was “habituated to sexual intercourse,” and thus
possessed “loose moral character.” This provoked a 1980 feminist-led
national anti-rape campaign that made use of organized demonstra-
tions, public meetings, poster campaigns, skits and street theater,
public interest litigation, and petitions to Members of the Legislative
Assembly (MLAs) and the Prime Minister.
Initiated by urban middle-class women, the movement grew in
size and still marks the largest wave of Indian women’s activism. After
several years of campaigning, the protests achieved some results when
the Indian Parliament passed the 1983 Criminal Law Amendment
Act, which prohibited the public release of any assault victim’s identity,
penalized sexual offenses by custodial personnel (i.e., police officers,
doctors, superintendents, caregivers of hospices and juvenile deten-
tion home employees), and put the burden of proof on the perpetrator.
Having exhausted the legislative arena for the second half of the 1980s,
the women’s movement focused more on creating a prowoman social
environment and changing people’s attitudes toward women’s auton-
Mathura Rape Case protest. Source: Feminism in India.com website at http://tinyurl.com/puuuftq. omy and rights. Perhaps the biggest and most lasting impact of the
Mathura rape case was its role in spurring on the women’s movement.

24 Education About ASIA Volume 20, Number 3 Winter 2015

 India: Past, Present, and Future

The mobilization of poor

women and those from
marginalized communities
was initially intended to
address the economic
consequences of failed
state-led development
schemes rather than
directly dealing with
gender injustices.
Chandi Prasad Bhatt, 1978. Photo by Mark Shepard. Gaura Devi, 1978. Photo by Anupam Mishra.
Source: markshep.com at http://tinyurl.com/puv2gd4. Source: markshep.com at http://tinyurl.com/puv2gd4.

Despite the importance of the sexual violence issue, women’s activism in India
has not exclusively focused on this concern. To move beyond the headlines and gain
a fuller understanding of the breadth of activism within the contemporary women’s
movement, it is necessary to discuss other issues and forms of women’s civic partic-
ipation. Not all issues that initially spur women’s activism are motivated by gender
discrimination, nor do they ignite the same responses across all women’s groups and
movements. Ideology, class, caste, and religious differences cause women’s groups to
focus upon different problems. What follows are descriptions of some of the many
ways women in India have gained political clout as active participants in social move-
ments and civil society in the postindependence era that have indirectly and directly
advanced women’s rights.
Mobilization that Indirectly
Advanced Women’s Rights
One of the first collective attempts by Indian women to assert political autonomy
occurred because of failed economic development policies. In the 1960s and 1970s,
state-led infrastructure programs intended to both achieve economic growth and
simultaneously prevent increases in income disparities through the provision of edu-
cation, health, and public utility services had begun to fail. During the same period,
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s attempt at personal and top-down leadership led to
a decline in political support for the ruling Congress Party. These events sparked
the growth of numerous politically motivated civil society organizations and move-
ments in which men and women participated. An important objective of the new
political groups was the organization and mobilization of previously “unorganizable”
poor and marginalized Indians in order to amplify the growing
dissatisfaction with the economic and political status quo. The
mobilization of poor women and those from marginalized com-
munities was initially intended to address the economic con-
sequences of failed state-led development schemes rather than
directly dealing with gender injustices. However, an unintended
consequence of larger numbers of women becoming politically
active for the first time was a growing awareness of gender in-
justice.
One of the earliest attempts to organize marginalized com- Chipko Movement, village women wrap themselves around a
munities came in response to state-led development schemes in tree to protect it from loggers.
Source: kyla’s ecofeminism blog at http://tinyurl.com/pe6ycdz.
the hill regions of Uttarakhand, where deforestation disrupted
local village economic life. The year 1964 saw the establishment
of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh (DGSS, later DGSM) (Das-
holi Society for Village Self-Rule), set up by Chandi Prasad
Bhatt in Gopeshwar (Uttarakhand) with the aim of reclaim- Chipko Movement, women and children hugging a tree.
ing forest rights, specifically the use of its resources which had Source: rightlivelihood.com at http://tinyurl.com/oy3tt9q.

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 India: Past, Present, and Future

The Gulabi (Pink) Gang Protest. If this were a color photo, you would see that the gang members are all dressed in shades of bright pink. Photo by Torstein Grude, Piraya Film.
Source: Kudos Family Distribution website at http://tinyurl.com/on2swjp.

previously been restricted through the Indian Forest Act (1927) in order to benefit corporate
exploitation of the forest. In these regions, settled agriculture is coupled with the dependence
on foraging of forest produce; hence, the massive cutting of trees threatened the survival of var-
ious hill communities. When the economic situation became especially dire in the early 1970s,
DGSM workers and villagers decided to prevent any further felling of trees. However, most of
the time it was women and children who physically saved the trees by clinging to them (literally
“tree-hugging”) and preventing logging. This became known as the Chipko Movement, named
after the Hindu term for hugging.
Women initially supported the DGSM out of their concern for the potential loss of their
economic livelihood. As they were exclusively in control of the production and distribution of
resources provided by the forest, women had a high stake in preventing further deforestation.
Yet these organizing experiences made many women increasingly aware of their limited role in
shaping their communities’ fate, as well as the fact that men tended to advance different inter-
ests than those held by women. For example, men were willing to permit logging in exchange
for employment opportunities and infrastructural investment, whereas women preferred con-
servationist strategies to improve local living conditions. As a consequence, Chipko women
demanded increased involvement in the local decision-making process and larger numbers of
women became interested in getting involved in local politics. Efforts such as those of women
in the Chipko Movement stimulated Indian government attempts to reform institutions to im-
prove women’s opportunities for local-level political participation.1
Among the most notable of these institutional reforms aimed at increasing women’s polit-
ical participation is the Seventy-Third Amendment Act to the Indian Constitution, passed by
Parliament in 1992. The act requires at least one-third of all seats within local governments be
reserved for women. This mandate, however, has its shortcomings, as it does not necessarily
result in effective participation of women in the political process. Women tend to have lower
literacy rates than men and are less well-trained prior to taking public office positions. Those
Gulabi Gang founder and leader Sampat Pal. Photo by Torstein
who are elected rarely expand women’s rights due to a lack of knowledge of important issues such
Grude, Piraya Film.
Source: Kudos Family Distribution website at http://tinyurl.com/on2swjp. as domestic violence, education, and sexual harassment. Even for those who would like to induce
change, much-needed resources such as access to party networks are lacking.
Since opportunities in government for exercising influence are limited for women, especially
those from rural areas, organized revolts and protests became a way to attempt change regarding
women’s issues. Rural women revolted in response to severe droughts and famines in western India
in the early 1970s. Shortages of food and subsequent food adulteration and hoarding by the landown-
ing elites in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra led to severe poverty and a decline in women’s liv-
ing conditions and social status. Women actively participated in the labor movement against corrupt

26 Education About ASIA Volume 20, Number 3 Winter 2015

 India: Past, Present, and Future

landlords and land alienation by mobilizing mass protests. As women

became more involved in activism, so did awareness of their oppression SEWA’s main goals are to organize
in society. Women began to engage on a regular basis in protests against
alcohol abuse and wife beating. The Gulabi Gang, a lower-caste wom-
informal-sector women workers
en’s organization founded by Sampat Pal Devi in 2007 in Bundelkhand
(UP) gained international media attention for their provocative and
for full employment and self-reliance
public attacks on abusive men.
The impact of the famines of the 1970s on Indian women was also
in order to lift them out of poverty.
felt in the urban areas in Maharashtra. The United Women’s Anti-Price
Rise Front attracted thousands of women in Bombay (now Mumbai)
to join the campaign against rising food prices, economic exploitation,
and violence against women. Approximately 20,000 women from all
walks of life jointly expressed their solidarity by beating metal plates
with rolling pins. These demonstrations against the food crisis were ac-
companied by smaller group activism focusing on leading businessmen
and corrupt state ministers who failed to prevent the crisis from devel-
oping. This sustained pressure by women, while not always resulting in
relief efforts, did prompt the government to reassess labor conditions
and the need for equal pay. Of course, despite the mass mobilization of
women, the anti-food price rise protests did not fully address their sub-
ordinate position in Indian society. Nevertheless, the success of uniting
women across classes and castes to protest the economic deprivation of
and violence against women is often viewed as a precursor to the great-
er women’s rights movement of the early 1980s.2
So-called self-help organizations, such as the Self-Employed Wom-
en’s Association (SEWA), emerged as a less confrontational form of
The Founder of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association),
activism among lower-class women in response to economic-driven social hardships. SEWA was
Ela Bhatt, talks on the rise of women, yet worries about their
founded in 1971 as a trade union for poor women working in the informal sector, which consists “economic decline.”
of any unregulated employees who are compensated in cash, such as home-based seamstresses or Source: Screen capture from the video Breakfast with UNICEF (India Series):
street vendors. While SEWA’s main office is located in Ahmedabat in the state of Gujarat, it currently Ela Bhatt at http://tinyurl.com/pvz24ct.

operates out of several states. SEWA, whose members face uncertain income and a lack of welfare,
provides benefits such as low-interest loans, legal services, health and child care, and participatory
and leadership opportunities. SEWA’s main goals are to organize informal-sector women workers
for full employment and self-reliance in order to lift them out of poverty. Critics of SEWA, however,
point to the limits of achieving self-sufficiency through material welfare and argue that working for
subsistence, despite SEWA’s support, prevents women from acquiring literacy and pursuing further
educational opportunities.3 According to a recent United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report,
from 2008 to 2012, females’ rate of school attendance in comparison with males still shows gaps

27
 India: Past, Present, and Future

and decreases from primary to secondary to tertiary education, leaving

males generally better educated and with more employment opportuni-
ties. While the attendance gender gap among girls and boys in primary
school is 3.8 percent, it increases to 9.8 percent at the secondary school
level. As a result, there is a significant difference in youth literacy rates
(ages fifteen to twenty-four) between young women (74.4 percent) and
young men (88.4 percent); and among adult women, only 67.6 percent
are literate.
Forms of Women’s Mobilization that
Directly Advance Women’s Rights
Along with India’s increase in women activism against economic ex-
ploitation and several forms of gender violence in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, the international arena also shifted its focus toward wom-
en’s rights. In 1971, the United Nations mandated that several countries,
including India, critically assess the social conditions of women, which
Screen capture of a boy wearing a “Save the Girl Child” T-shirt
from the CNN documentary, India: The Most Dangerous Country in led to the creation of a Committee for the Status of Women in India (CSWI) in 1974. One year later,
the World to Be a Girl! Source: YouTube at http://tinyurl.com/omasgwl. the committee published the report “Towards Equality,” which detailed the generally disadvantaged
position of women by pointing out the declining sex ratio of women to men, higher female infant
mortality, women’s lower life expectancy, the decline of the female labor force, and higher illiteracy
rates for women.4 The report initially was celebrated as a mandate to address these inequities, but
whatever steps could have been taken to rectify these gender imbalanc-
es, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s 1975–1977 Emergency Rule largely
crushed these efforts. Under emergency rule, the Prime Minister was
granted near dictatorial power, which enabled her to drastically cur-
tail women’s groups’ abilities to engage in organized activism. Through
laws such as the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act of 1976, which
specifies that the government has oversight over foreign donations to
civil society organizations, the state successfully reduced the political
space for women’s groups (and others) to operate.
The excesses of Gandhi’s Emergency Rule undermined citizens’
faith in the positive role of the state and led to a search for alternatives
other than direct government action. Consequently, this political vacu-
um provided fertile ground for the rapid growth of India’s civil society
and nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector following this peri-
od. While some NGOs still predominantly focused on securing liveli-
hood through land claims, health care, and income-generation projects
similar to the 1950s–1960s, other organizations began to emphasize
that attaining political consciousness through education and awareness
“India loses 3 million girls in infanticide,” The Hindu, October building is not an end in itself but a prerequisite for mobilization and making successful claims
9, 2012. During 2001–2011, the share of children to total
population has declined and the decline was sharper for female against the state. Increased NGO activism has in return prompted the Indian government to respond
children. Photo: Akhilesh Kumar. by revamping and strictly enforcing regulatory policies to ensure the political neutrality of India’s
Source: The Hindu website at http://tinyurl.com/k7og6xd. civil society.5 Even though the government discourages and legally limits NGOs’ political activism,
the number of NGOs has rapidly expanded since the 1980s.
With the end of the emergency period, previously existing women’s groups were reactivated, and
a significant number of new groups emerged. Women’s organizations dependent upon outside fund-
ing but with some inclination to achieve sociopolitical change had to imbed activism within a larger
outreach campaign to raise awareness of and achieve emancipation from gender oppression. These
organizations simultaneously tried to influence the government to induce change from within the
system. In contrast, for the more financially autonomous women’s groups such as Saheli in Delhi or
Stree Mukti Sanghatana in Mumbai, activism is reflected in contentious forms of civic participation
such as protests and action campaigns. Regardless of the means, most women’s organizations pursue
gender equality through appealing to a range of constitutionally guaranteed rights such as the right of
equality (Article 14), the prohibition against discrimination (Article 15), and the right to life (Article
21). Campaigns were organized to specifically address the need to advance legal protection against
rape, dowry deaths (bride burning), sati (widow burning), and sexual harassment.6
Despite the widespread solidarity against anti-women violence of earlier years, contemporary
women’s organizations greatly differ with regard to ideology, class, sense of identity, and understand-
ing of the sources of gender inequality. Some have their roots in massive leftist organizations like All
India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) with ties to political parties, while other organi-
zations avoid any affiliation with existing political actors and institutions. So-called autonomous
women’s groups, such as Saheli, emphasize the building of feminist organizational structures and

28 Education About ASIA Volume 20, Number 3 Winter 2015

 India: Past, Present, and Future

modes of action contrary to conventional, hierarchical, power-based, Although women are increasingly
male-dominated forms of political participation. Another group of or-
ganizations, for example the Centre for Women’s Development Studies penetrating important political
(CWDS), was formed as a direct response to the CSWI report and
concentrates on research and advancing a project-based organization- institutions and challenging existing
al agenda to improve the social status of women.7
At times, these diverse sets of women’s organizations form net- understandings of gender roles,
works and alliances to campaign together on specific issues, such as
“Save the Girl Child.” This campaign began after the 2001 Census Re- the path to gender equality in India
port revealed a highly skewed child sex ratio (zero- to six-year-olds)
that fell from 945 females per 1,000 males in 1991 to an all-time low will be long and arduous.
of 927 in 2001—at that time the lowest sex ratio in the world. This
statistic spurred different civil society organizations, as well as the Indian state, into addressing the
issue on a large scale. The Indian government strengthened the enforcement of existing laws, making
sex-selective abortion illegal, and the NGO sector launched a sustained campaign to create aware-
ness about abortions of female fetuses and other issues of gender discrimination. The diversity of
groups involved contributed to the expansive efforts of the campaign as each group made use of its
specialized orientation. For instance, research-oriented groups, such as the Centre for Research and
Advocacy in Delhi, primarily focus on identifying more accurately the causes and practices of the
mistreatment of girls by writing and distributing reports and policy briefs, which often inform proj-
ect-based initiatives led by NGOs, such as Laadli in Mumbai or Plan and Action India in Delhi. These
organizations reach out to communities in order to educate them and raise awareness of early child-
hood gender discrimination and provide access to health care and education for girls in particular,
and children in general. In contrast, non-project-oriented autonomous women’s groups continuously
take to the streets to induce change through mass demonstrations.
The Future: A Long and Arduous Path NOTES
The convergence between different women’s groups captures the breadth of women’s civic partici- 1. Shobhita Jain, “Women and People’s Ecological Move-
pation in India. As this overview illustrates, women’s groups in India have chosen a variety of dif- ment: A Case Study of Women’s Role in the Chipko
ferent strategies and forms of engagement to address various issues impacting women’s everyday Movement in Uttar Pradesh,” Economic & Political
lives, depending on their own group’s organizational structure, resources, and the experiences of Weekly 19, no. 41 (1984): 1788–1794.
their individual members. Not all issues that initially spur women’s activism are motivated by gen- 2. Radha Kumar, The History of Doing: An Illustrated
der discrimination, as exemplified by the ecological Chipko Movement to rescue the hill forests or Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Femi-
nism in India, 1800–1990 (New Delhi: Zubaan Books,
the labor movements against corrupt landlords and government negligence in preventing famines.
1993).
Yet women’s involvement in both these movements resulted in the increased awareness of gender 3. “About Us,” Self-Employed Women’s Association
injustices and the necessity of female empowerment. Even when a women’s rights issue has been (SEWA), accessed August 25, 2015, http://www.sewa.
identified, women’s groups have demonstrated different strategies of political participation. In the org/About_Us.asp.
case of domestic violence groups like the Gulabi Gang, many resort to militaristic and vigilant forms 4. Ritu Menon, ed., Making a Difference: Memoirs from
of protest, whereas others may engage in project-based outreach and service delivery by providing the Women’s Movement in India (New Delhi: Kali for
shelter and legal counsel to victims of domestic violence. Saheli, on the other hand, which refuses Women, 2011).
5. Siddhartha Sen, “India,” in Defining the Nonprofit Sec-
to rely on financial resources, prefers protest over more institutionalized means to change policies. tor: A Cross-National Analysis, eds. Lester M. Salamon
Although the December 2012 mass demonstrations against the brutal Delhi gang rape pressured and Helmut K. Anheier (New York: Manchester Uni-
the Indian government to actively address issues of sexual violence at the policy level, it is vital to un- versity Press, 1997).
derstand that the new Criminal Law Amendment Act (2013) does not satisfy every women’s groups’ 6. Dowry is any tangible asset (i.e., property, money, jew-
demands. Optimists view the demonstrations which involved thousands of people—women and elry) a bride brings into her marriage. A husband and
men alike—as an indicator of social change. Pessimists, on the other hand, view the failure to crimi- in-laws who find the dowry inadequate often contin-
uously harass a young bride thereby driving her into
nalize marital rape as an indicator of the persistence of traditional, patriarchal values. The institution
suicide. In other cases harassment turns into the use of
of marriage and the idea that men are the primary breadwinners is still much ingrained in Indian so- different forms of physical violence, including murder.
ciety. Slightly over 18 percent of all children are married by the age of fifteen and 47.4 percent by the 7. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, “Organizing Against Vi-
age of eighteen. More indicative of the impact of marital gender discrimination is that 54.4 percent of olence: Strategies of the Indian Women’s Movement,”
women still believe that wife-beating is justified.8 Pacific Affairs 62, no. 1 (1989): 53–71.
Individual women’s perspectives on the nature of gender inequality and discrimination in India 8. Data from UNICEF Annual Reports from 2008–2012.
vary substantially for a variety of reasons, including class, caste, ideology, and religion. The diversity Reports are available at http://www.unicef.org/publi-
cations/.
of perspectives and splintering among women’s groups has made it difficult to create a long-lasting,
concerted effort to induce significant positive change for women. Although women are increasingly
penetrating important political institutions and challenging existing understandings of gender roles,
VERA HEUER is an Assistant Professor in the Department
the path to gender equality in India will be long and arduous. A greater convergence of interests that of International Studies and Political Science at Virginia
could lead to the creation of strong and sustainable alliances among women’s rights groups is likely Military Institute. She has done field and survey research
needed to secure future improvements for women’s rights in India. n on the NGO sector in New Delhi, India. Her research
focuses on the relationship between the Indian state and
the NGO sector, and what influences the nature of NGOs’
activism.

29