‘No Women, No History -Women in Indian Movements’ marks a landmark documentation of the historic role played by women in Movements in India and the cutting Edge of Maoism
‘No Women No History-Women in Indian Movements’ by V.Gargi, published by Virasam Books, encapsulates and chronicles the participation of women in movements in India , dissecting the 19th and 20th Centuries, in addition to the contemporary movements. The book adopts a broad based and non -sectarian outlook and approach, which is praiseworthy. In it’s own right a landmark work exploring and diagnosing role of women in shaping struggles to transform society in India.
Such movements can be characterized as distinguishing from the many regressive, religious and chauvinistic movements. which propelled the society to advance forward. and dismantle many feudal chains mercilessly binding Indian women for centuries. They personify the democratic awakening of the people of India and serve as a testament that direct action is the principal catalyst in liberating women and only the praxis of class struggle can transform the oppressive relations prevalent in the society., which no amount of preaching can achieve.
The book has fused together general movements with women’s struggles to explore the role of women in transforming the society and it’s conditions. This ignites the identity of women and links the factor of woman’s oppression not only with what they face as women, but as peasants, workers, artisans and citizens. They remind us of struggles waged on women’s issues as part of general movements and epitomize that for establishing women’s liberation it is imperative to wage resistance against every form of exploitation.
Features of Book
The book explores how power is a vital tool for women’s emancipation and how for brief periods the communist led peasant movements empowered the masses and the women. It also diagnosed the additional steps to be taken to ignite women’s agenda in the movement to orchestrate their liberation.
The chapters also make a statement that women can be very capable leaders, and at times better than men. They symbolize how centuries of oppression of women hindered the number of women leading movements and how changes in women’s lives will be radical or permanent only when they are allotted the task of leading movements. They highlight factor of extent to which women control proceedings and not merely their token participation.
The book diagnoses the necessity of women battling patriarchy in the revolutionary movement to establish their rightful place in history and that the anti-patriarchal struggle is inseparable from the movement for emancipation as a whole.
The study penetratively examines the theoretical and practical problems faced by women, and in formulating appropriate tactics for the women’s movement.
The chapters encompass and dissect the mass rebellions waged against British rule, and it’s socio-economic impact by the Adivasis for evicting them from their homeland, Social Reforms movement, the role played by dalit women to engineer anti-caste movements highly placed minority women from Christian and Muslim communities. Women in national revolutionary movement, Dalit, peasant, minority and tribal women in Communist led armed struggles, Autonomous women’s movement, ecological movements, North East Movements, Contemporary Women’s movements etc.
Most notable aspects are of how women engineered a rupture from past conventions alienating them from revolutionary struggles and made a transition into securing leadership in historic uprisings lie Telangana and Naxalbari.
Women Role in Peasant Uprisings
Extensive coverage is given encapsulating the heroic actions of women to ignite the Telangana Struggle of 1946-51 in their villages and homes, playing stellar roles as couriers, even donning male attire. With high craft women engineered selling clothes and spreading words of courage among general public after arrest of leaders, going to the extent of even sewing messages on children’s undergarments. Women undertook mission sof transporting weapons, letters, travelling alone at night, with the revolt having a liberating effect on them.
It narrated how during Naxalbari peasant uprising women stood at the forefront, with seven women falling martyrs like Dhaneshwari Singh, Sanamati Singh, Pulmati Singh and Surabala Barman. Later recounted the pivotal part played by women in Srikakulam armed struggle like Panchadi Nirmala, who with death defying courage, successfully combated the police attacks and arrests, particularly in Gumma and Pedakaraja.Women played a supportive role in keeping the hunted guerilla squads afloat. supplying men with food and water, facing the harshest perils.It also recollected how in the formative stages in 1967, women beat up goondas after being molested in a conference at Levidi village.
A compelling narrative is written on the resistance waged by the Peoples Organization Women and Viplava Mahila Sangham in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. and the Nari Mukti Sangh in Bihar and Jharkhand. Instances are reported heroic integration of women in carrying food and water to armed squads in Akbarpur in 1987, protecting peasant cadres at Arwal in 1986 during the police firing, successfully thwarting sabotage bid of landlords to break their strike at Karpa carrying only sickles and scythes. snatching rifles at Palamau when police tried to block their picking of Mahua flowers, a massive raid on the house of landlord Ramanand Yadav, retrieving of a dead body from the police at Jehanabad after a protest, and launching an attack on a police van with rocks to free cadres. Participation in several protest rallies, mass actions through crop seizures, land occupations, struggles for better wages and in staging resistance in securing equal pay for equal work, right to land ownership, proper construction of village wells etc.
Nari Muti Sangh and Krantikari Mahila Adivasi Sanghatana
A compelling narrative is written on the resistance waged by the Peoples Organization Women and Viplava Mahila Sangham in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. and the Nari Mukti Sangh in Bihar and Jharkhand
It dissected and summarized the character of the movement organized by Nari Mukti Sangh, navigating the ant-feudal struggled, issues taken up like child marriage, dowry, Sexual harassment, anti-liquor struggles, health problems, equal wages for equal work, superstitions and witchcraft, saving forests etc. It praised the death-defying resistance of the NMS in retaliating state repression at its darkest point.
An incisive coverage was given encapsulating the contribution of the Viplava Mahila Sangham in Telangana’s in spheres of wages, anti-arrack struggles, equal wages, etc. Also highlighted the role of Krantikari Mahila Adivasi Sanghatana in engaging women in struggles against oppressive customs like forced marriages to make use of physical force to marry against wishes almost redundant. It navigates the entry of the Peoples War group squads to start work from scratch in Dandakaranya region. It historically traced and navigated the blossoming of the KAMS, making a transition from a bunch of disjointed revolutionary activists into a full-fledged organization.
Cultural Front
A brief summary is given of the pivotal role played by women in shaping cultural movements and organizations recounting history of Jana Natya Mandali,Chetana Natya Manch, Krantikari Sanskritik Sangh, Women’s Struggles in jail.
Trade Union Movement
A praiseworthy assessment is made of the women’s work in shaping the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh in the strike of 1977 and 1981 protest to release Union leaders. There is a descriptive coverage of organization of women workers during British rule, landscaping the 1928 strike of Textile Workers, Calcutta Scavengers Strike, strike of Bengal Jute Mill workers, Bengal pottery workers strike, 1920 Madurai Mill Strike, Tamil Nadu Kerosene workers, South India Railway Workers Strike, Warli Revolt and most important Royal Indian Navy Mutiny in 1946, etc. It mentions role of Ushatai Dange,wife of CPI leader SA.Dange, who organized the 1934 strike and earlier in 1928 organized the encirclement of the mill office by seven hundred women workers. Women leaders also mentioned were Meenakshi Sane of CPI in Sholapur and Shante Balerao of AITUC.
It discussed the revolutionary urban women’s movement led by in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh among the poor working-class women in factories and slums, students, intellectuals, on issues like dowry deaths, sexual harassment, rape, commodification of women’s bodies, Hindu communalism, beauty contests, water scarcity etc. They also launched sustained campaigns against WTO, 1MF and World Bank and at the very root challenge the values orchestrated by the semi-feudal, semi-colonial state, which perpetuated patriarchy.
Nav Nirman and anti-price rise movement
The book covered the impactful anti-price rise movement from 1967 to 1975 and other road-based struggles like Nav Nirman agitation, Struggles in Dhulia region of Maharashtra around land distribution and higher wages etc, and women’s resistance waged against Emergency.
Criticisms and Conclusive analysis.
The conclusion analyses the distinctive aspect of the guidance of Marxist-Leninist Maoist ideology in struggles as well as showcased the distinctive character of struggles led by Maoist revolutionary organizations and gives credibility to path of New Democratic Revolution. The book was critical of the role of the Communist Party of India during the Tebhaga Struggle in 1946, in negating women’s role in revolution, not preparing any separate policy paper or taking any concrete steps to organize them and thus discouraging women from joining the movement. The reasons given were that women were weak, integrating them in movements would ferment social tensions and engineer divorces. ignoring aspects like patriarchy.
A critical evaluation is made of Mahatma Gandhi’s role and views. It diagnosed that Gandhi analyzed oppression of women as an abstract moral phenomenon, failing to understand it’s social and historical relations. It narrated how Gandhi’s innovation of the spinning wheel turned into a weapon for a woman to participate in apolitical movement from home. It analyzed Gandhi’s orientation as upholding an urbanized middle class upper caste Hindu male’s perspective of a woman, not making a rupture from the middle-class reformers of the 19th century. It recognized Swadeshi and spinning wheel as a n instrument to orchestrate involvement of women without switching the terian of the movement. However, this created a new arena of women planted at home, barred from activity outside. Gandhi reconstructed a new model of women based on the Hindu widow who can serve the nation, only if she rejects sex,reproduction and family life. Concluded that Gandhi turned al the energies of women into a purely reformist programme, assigning them role assigned in a traditional Hindu society.
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist
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