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Women and Reforms

The status of women has remained low since observed in women’s lives and injustice done to
time immemorial. There is no record in history to them within the patriarchal society continued
explain the answer to how and why women got even during the British reign. The women’s
to receive secondary position in the society. movement in India is a rich and vibrant move-
Indian women are inheritors of a very complex ment which has taken different forms in the
pattern of social models and cultural ideals. different parts of the country. It is important to
Some of the most acrimonious and emotionally well recognise the fact that for a country like
charged debates of the nineteenth century round India, change in male-female relations and the
precisely those issues which signified women’s kinds of issues the women’s movement is focus-
oppression and their poor position. Inevitably, ing on, will not come easy. For every step the
the perceived indicators of women’s low status movement takes forward, there will be a possible
like purdah, sati, female infanticide, child mar- backlash, a possible regression. And, it is this
riage and enforced widowhood formed essential regression that makes space for the exception to
items in the agenda of attack of almost all the occur, this factor that makes women who can
major reformers of the ninetieth century in India, aspire to and attain the highest political office in
whether they belong to the Brahmo Samaj of the country, and for women to continue to have
Bengal and eastern India indifferent to the fact to confront patriarchy within the home, in the
that, the Arya Samaj of north India or the workplace, throughout their lives.
Prathana Samaj of Maharashtra and western THE NECESSITY OF WOMEN’S REFORM
India. The problem of women received the MOVEMENTS
attention of social reformers right from the
Indian society of the 19th century was indeed a
beginning of the nineteenth century. In the
divided one. On the one hand, we had educated
modern times, some individuals, organised
middle-class elite, who thought of bringing
associations and journals and significantly played radical changes into this dark age, on the other
remarkable role in bestirring the Indian society to were orthodox purists who staunchly believed in
focus its attention on this problem and make age-old traditions with all its superstitions, idola-
efforts in the direction of the general emancipa- try and tyrannical practices. The elite, along with
tion of Indian women. The aim of this chapter is
the British like Lord William
to examine the status of women in society prior
Bentinck brought about
to the beginning of the women’s movement in
revolutionary changes in
India and chronicle briefly their participation and
the social life of India.
role during women’s movement from 1880 to
Practices of female infanti-
2000. It also focuses on revealing the status of
cide, sati, child marriage
women in pre-colonial Indian society and pin were taken up and debated
points the fact that there was no change upon by learned Indians. Lord William Bentinck

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