Gandhi and women’s nonviolence If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman. Young India, 10 April By Laura M. A. Maino

The women of India should have as much share in winning Swaraj as men. Probably in this peaceful women can outdistance man by many a mile. We know that she is any day superior to man in her religious devotion. Silent and dignified suffering in the badge of sex. And now that the government have dragged the woman into the line of fire, I hope that the women all over India will take up the challenge and organize themselves. Young India, 15 December 1921.

I began work among women when I was not even thirty years old. There is not a woman in South Africa who does not know me. But my work was among the poorest. The intellectual I could not draw... You can’t blame me for not having organized the intellectuals among women. I have not the gift...but just as I never fear coldness on the part of the poor when I approach them, I never fear it when I approach poor women. There is an invisible bon d between them and me. 8 July 1938 Women and Satyagraha

The case of Orissa women

1920s: Non-Cooperation movement Hand-spinning and boycotting foreign products. Simplicity is dharma, women should regard themselves adorned through it, regard as sacred whatever quality of cloth is produced from yarn spun by girls and wear such cloth for the purpose of covering their bodies. Nabajiban, 6 October Picketing of liquor shops.

1930s: Civil Disobedience movement Boycott propaganda. Drink and drugs sap the moral well-being of those who are given to the habit. Foreign cloth undermines the economic foundations of the nation and throws millions out of employment. The distress in each case is felt in the home and therefore by women. Young India, 10 April Early morning processions (prabhat pheris). Processions, meetings and demonstrations and organizing strikes. 1940s: Individual civil disobedience movement

Participation of Oriya women Early morning processions and public demonstrations. Training women for freedom struggle. Through literature: ex. Kuntala Kumari Sabat Sixteen crores of women will marry rise To the spirit and rhythm Of Bande Mataram! They will swear to save the country O, brothers and sisters. (Sphulinga)

Women’s participation in the national movement was a central moment for the emancipation of women in India. Gandhi’s role in drawing women into the political arena. According to Sucheta Kripalani, Gandhi’s personality inspired confidence not only in women, but in their guardians- husbands, fathers, brothers who did not object to their womenfolk coming out of their sheltered homes to march in the streets. He recognized them a dignity and gave them specific tasks: his strategy proved successful for political mobilisation. However, women often acted for their initiative, organizing themselves into groups and willing to join processions, facing police firing and going to prison.

Gandhi and women’s empowerment Women who joined these struggles faced intensely personal decisions: they were torn in two directions – one towards their duty toward the nation and one towards the family. The enormous burden of domestic and field work, the restrictions on their mobility: women were prevented from acquiring leadership roles. The dependency on men. Women’s participation was limited, and confined to a small number of urban, middle class women. Limitation of Gandhi’s thinking: oppression as an abstract moral condition, not a social and historical experience related to production relations.

Are women inherently non-violent? G ANDHI ’ S BELIEF To call a woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength, then indeed is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then women is immeasurably man’s superior. Has she not greater intuition, is not more self- sacrificing, has she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage? Young India, 10 April W OMEN ’ S SIDE Some women helped the sympathised revolutionary leaders Especially young college girls joined secret revolutionary organizations Many received training and recruiting ground to become future revolutionaries.

Bibliography Basu, Aparna, ‘The role of women in the Indian struggle for freedom’, in B. R. Nanda, Indian women. From purdah to modernity, (London, 1990), pp Chaudhuri, Maitrayee, Indian women’s movement, (London, 1993). Hardiman, David, Gandhi in his time and ours. The global legacy of his ideas, (London, 2003), chap. 5. Jaitley, Jaya, ‘Gandhi and women’s empowerment’, McAllister, Pam, ‘You can’s kill the spirit: women and nonviolent action’, in Stephen Zunes, Lester R. Kurtz, Sarah Beth Asher, Nonviolent social movements: a geographical perspective, (Oxford, 1999), pp Rajendra Raju, V., Role women in India’s freedom struggle, (New Delhi, 1994).