Women's Movement in India

The study of social movements is not an area for historians alone. Sociologists studying social structure, processes and change would logically be interested in social movements. It is a process through which a collective attempt is made at mobilisation for change or resistance. However, in the context of change it differs from evolutionary process of social mobility and change in the sense that movements are based on a perception of injustice or oppression of a certain section or sections within the society. Social movements adopt protest, confrontation or conflict as a method to focus attention on different issues and attempt to bring about qualitative changes in the traditional social structures and social relationships, which are unequal and oppressive. The women’s movement is an important variant of social movements. It is an important but neglected aspect of studies on social movements like tribal and ethnic, peasant and workers, backward classes, cultural and religious movements, etc
In Indian society, differences based on caste, class, religious and ethnicity distinguish the life and problems of women in different parts of the country.
An overwhelming majority of 80 percent people in India live in rural areas.
The process of development and change affects various sections of women differently. It is in the context of a culturally diverse and stratified or unequal society that the emergence of women’s movement needs to be understood.
In this unit women’s movement is discussed under four broad headings i)
Reform Movements and Women’s issues, ii) Women’s participation in the freedom movement. iii) Institutional initiatives and women’s issues in the post-
Independence period and iv) Resurgence of women’s movement in the 70s and 80s. Let us begin with the first one.
The position of women in India has varied in different periods and in different classes, religion and ethnic groups. By nineteenth century there were several evil social