Gandhi Jayanti 2024: How did the great leader envision women empowerment

The recent debates around the issue of gender equality amid incidents of violence against women call for re-engaging with Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of women’s rights issues. On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanit, which is celebrated every year on October 2 to commemorate the birth of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, let’s revisit Gandhi’s vision for women empowerment. 

Rise of nationalist movements and women’s cause

The rise of the nationalist movement in India was closely tied to challenging existing power structures within indigenous traditions, including gender norms in Indian society. The ban on sati in 1829, the promotion of women’s education, the practice of purdah, women’s political participation became some of the prominent issues, signifying the growing concern for the status of Indian women.

Social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, D.K. Karve, Vishnu Shastri Pandit, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar called for a re-evaluation of traditional practices to help Indian women find their place in the modern world. Such efforts contributed to the emerging discourse on women’s rights.

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most important national leaders in the twentieth century, brought a change in the prevailing discourses. He rejected the wholesale adoption of Western civilisation, parliamentary democracy, and the English education system, and rather emphasised the significance of Indian traditions, spirituality, and moral values. 

Hence, Gandhi’s vision for the upliftment of women was a curious mix of promoting women’s political mobilisation, self-reliance, and economic independence, while focussing on traditional feminine virtues such as purity, sacrifice, and service. He often addressed these issues in his several writings, particularly in his weekly newspaper Navjivan.

Swadeshi Movement and women 

Before the twentieth century, women’s involvement in national politics was minimal. However, during the movement against the partition of Bengal in 1905, women were called upon to participate in the Swadeshi Movement (a campaign to resist British colonial rule through the promotion of indigenous goods and self-reliance). 

Ramendra Sundar Tribedi called for the observance of “Arandhan Day” on October 16, 1905, when women were to protest by not cooking in their homes and holding women-only protests. It was observed across the region. Women also attended mobilisation sessions and the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta where figures like Kadambini Ganguly, one of India’s first female graduates, and Swarnakumari Devi, one of India’s first female novelists and the sister of Rabindranath Tagore, were present.

Organisations like Bharat Stree Mahamandal (founded by Sarla Devi Chaudhrani in 1910) and Abanindranath Tagore’s iconic painting of Bharat Mata (a woman in saffron robes, with a serene face and halo around her head, beads and scriptures in her hands) registered the presence of women in the movement, but they were far from being revolutionary in their impact.

Feminine virtues and Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha

One of Gandhi’s greatest contributions concerning women was encouraging their large-scale participation in the national movement. The first instance of Gandhi coming to terms with the power of women in politics can be seen in South Africa. The Black Act of 1913 in South Africa required the registration of non-white marriages, which led to the labelling of unregistered marriages as “illegitimate”. Women were at the forefront of opposing this Act and Gandhi used the issue to further their cause. For the first time, Indian women went to jail as part of the agitation.

Gandhi regarded feminine virtues such as tolerance, nonviolence, morality, and sacrifice as foundational to his philosophy of Satyagraha or nonviolent resistance. 

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For Gandhi, the ideal women characters to be emulated were the likes of Sita, Draupadi and Damyanti. Sita represented ‘chastity’ and unyielding support to Ram, who stopped Ravana’s advances on her. Draupadi, in spite of all odds, was a multitasker and resolute companion to the Pandavas. Damayanti exemplified loyalty and remained faithful to her husband, King Nala, even after he abandoned her.

But Gandhi also exhorted women to rise above the role of ‘wifehood’ and become ‘sisters’. For him, women were supposed to be moving away from being a source of ‘lust’ to ‘chastity’, from bondage to freedom and from ignorance to education.

Notion of ‘virtuous’ womanhood

Although Gandhi encouraged women to come out of their domestic roles, his insistence on ‘pure’ and ‘virtuous’ womanhood also restricted their opportunities for action. Distinctions were also made on the basis of respectability, resulting in the marginalisation of those who did not adhere to conventional moral standards. For instance, Gandhi excluded sex workers from Congress campaigns, creating a divide between ‘women on the street’ and ‘women of the street’.  

Right from setting up Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi recruited women with examples and idealisation in mind. Madeleine Slade or Mira Behn, one of Gandhi’s British residents at the Ashram writes in her book ‘The Spirit’s Pilgrimage’ that Gandhi made it mandatory for women in the Ashram to donate their gold jewellery for the cause of Swaraj. 

She also records how Kasturba Gandhi frowned at the thought of living with fellow lower-caste women in the Ashram. In order to shun such apprehensions, Gandhi even adopted a young girl “lakshmi” – daughter of Dudabhai and Daniben who were the first Dalit family to join the ashram in 1915 – recounts Mahadev Desai, personal secretary of Gandhi, in his diary. 

Women leaders drive Civil Disobedience Movement

Moreover, in his letters to various Congress leaders, Gandhi observed that the initiatives for picketing liquor shops and advocating for total prohibition were unsuccessful in the early days of the Non-Cooperation Movement. He attributed this failure to the half-hearted attempts of male volunteers of the party. Gandhi rightly recognised the potential impact of women’s involvement in enforcing the social agenda of prohibition.

With the onset of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930, Khadi, the Charkha, and the push for Prohibition were totally under the women’s wing of the Congress Party. Leaders like Sarojini Naidu, Hansa Mehta, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay organised well-coordinated groups of thousands of volunteers clad in orange sarees. Historian Sumit Sarkar notes that these women enforced Prohibition with much heart and soul on the streets of Bombay and Calcutta.

In addition, Sarojini Naidu’s involvement in the Dharasana Salt March and her leadership of the Kanpur Congress in 1925 showed that women were accorded eminence beyond Charkha and Picketing. During the 1931 Karachi Session under Sardar Patel, women’s issues gained prominence and made headlines. A Charter of Rights was demanded, emphasising on women’s right to vote and participate to council elections.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay became the first woman in India to stand for legislative council election due to the efforts of Mrs. Margaret Cousins, the founder of the All India Women’s Council.

Cousins later noted in her writings that women’s courting of arrest in the jails of Bombay during the Civil Disobedience movement was unprecedented. 

It created a middle ground where women of all walks – lower and upper society, educated and uneducated, propertied and pauper – came together in solidarity. Notable among all was Rani Gaidinliu of Nagaland who started a tirade against missionaries in her teens. She was imprisoned in 1931 for leading the Civil Disobedience in Nagaland, and was released only after India gained independence in 1947.

With all these winds gathering under the wings of the women leaders of the Congress, new organisations started emerging in India exclusively affiliated to the women’s cause. In 1925 the National Council for Women in India was established by Meherbai Tata, Cornelia Sohrabji and Maharani Sucharu Devi. In 1927, Mrs. Margaret Cousins established the All-India Women’s Conference. It registered its significant influence when the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act was passed in 1937.

Some critiques

Self-reliance was a key principle of Gandhian philosophy. The Swadeshi campaign advocated for the complete abandonment of foreign clothing, which was to be replaced by handwoven and hand-spun clothes. Charkha and Khadi were introduced for self-reliance and economic independence, especially amongst widowed women.

However, Gandhi placed the entire responsibility of household and religious duties on women, framing them as the solution to societal ills. While advocating for women’s education, he made a distinction between the education of men and women based on what he perceived as their natural differences. Child rearing was primarily seen as women’s work which was integral to the character-building of the nation. Although Gandhi condemned the domestic enslavement of women as barbaric and believed in the metaphysical equality of the sexes, his vision still confined women to traditional roles.

Also, Gandhi’s ideas of returning to village life and living morally without lust did not appeal to modern Indian women. His expectation that women follow the ideals of figures like Sita, Draupadi, Meera, and Damyanti demanded significant sacrifice from women, without any reciprocal moral expectations from men. At the same time, the idea of self-sustainability through the Charkha and self-help groups brought little benefit to women. 

Hazara Begum from Rampur took pains to explain how she was not attracted to the Gandhian strategy for women’s participation in the labour force, noting that it neither made women conscious of their rights nor encouraged them to fight for their political rights.

Gandhi supported the idea of property rights for women but never actively campaigned for their legal recognition. Rather than advocating for material rights for women, he encouraged selfless service and moral virtues. Raja Rao’s 1938 classic Kanthapura deals exactly with the same question as to why some groups of society, such as women and Dalits, could not achieve significant emancipation despite being a part of Gandhian movements.

Post Read Questions

Mahatma Gandhi played a pivotal role in encouraging women to step out of their traditional domestic roles and participate in national struggles. Comment. 

How did the involvement of women leaders like Sarojini Naidu, Hansa Mehta, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in the Civil Disobedience Movement influence the enforcement of Prohibition in India?

Gandhi described ‘women as the embodiment of sacrifice and ahimsa’. Comment.

(Aakanksha Jha teaches at the Delhi University.)

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