The pioneering women who pushed for gender equality shortly after India's independence

Summary

The National Planning Committee took early steps to examine how women could play a stronger role in the planned economy, an excerpt from an upcoming book explains

Visvesvaraya was impressed with how women in the Soviet Union, Japan and many European countries worked alongside men in factories. He boldly called for the entry of more women in the formal labour force in India, so that "the capacity of the nation to build up prosperity will advance at a bound". K.T. Shah would also write that women were numerically the biggest minority in the country, but were neglected because they were unlike social and religious minorities that "cry aloud to the high heavens about their rights or grievances". Indian women did not use their collective voice to campaign for more rights.

The National Planning Committee was aware of these challenges. It set up a group to examine how Indian women could have a stronger role in the planned economy of the future. The group was chaired by Lakshmibai Rajwade, one of the earliest women doctors in the country, a campaigner for gender rights and an advocate of family planning. The others who worked with her constituted a stellar cast of women. They included Hansa Mehta, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Sarojini Naidu, Mridula Sarabhai, Purvis Dubhash, Aruna Asif Ali, Lilavati Roy, Muthulakshmi Reddy and Shareefa Hamid Ali.

Most of them were pioneering feminists who had pushed back against the social norms of the times. Some such as Rajwade, Mehta and Ali would later contribute to the declarations of the United Nations in its early years. Mehta, Naidu, Pandit and Roy were among the fifteen women in the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Indian constitution. Many of the members were active in the All India Women's Conference that had held its first meeting in 1927 in Pune, with Maharani Chimnabai II, the reformist queen of Baroda state, in the chair.

The women in the committee sent out a clarion call for gender equality in India. Their report to the National Planning Committee examined ways to expand the political, social and economic rights of Indian women, and thus come closer to the goal of gender equality embedded in the resolution on fundamental rights passed by the Congress in its 1931 session at Karachi. "We would like to displace the picture so deeply impressed upon the racial imagination of man striding forward to conquer new worlds, woman following wearily behind with a baby in her arms. The picture that we now envisage is that of man and woman, comrades of the road, going forward together, the child joyously shared by both. Such a reality we feel cannot but raise the manhood and womanhood of any nation."

The practical task ahead was to chart out paths that would reduce the constraints on Indian women in the workplace, at home and in society at large. For example, women found it more difficult to find work in factories or offices, alternatives to working at home or in traditional occupations such as farming. The report to the National Planning Committee listed out some of these obstacles.

Women workers were often sacked from their jobs under the guise of workforce rationalisation by companies, sometimes with the support of trade unions that were more interested in protecting the jobs of their male members, a case where class trumped gender. Certain occupations were closed off to women for reasons of health. Facilities such as creches that were to be provided by employers at their own cost led to lower female employment as firms tried to avoid additional costs. Women workers were harassed by male jobbers as well as senior officers. Women were prevented from working in night shifts which led employers to hire more men even for day shifts.

Fair recognition

The sub-committee on the role of women in a planned economy called for the removal of such impediments to greater participation of women in the labour force. Wage disparities also cast a long shadow on the economic lives of working women. They were paid less than men for the same tasks. Employers assumed what women took home as wages was the second income of the family, a mere supplement, and hence less important to the household budget.

The group called for equal pay for equal work. The situation was trickier in the case of women who worked alongside men in family farms, where the profits after the harvest went to the family as a whole. Rajwade and her colleagues said that women should have a fair share of the family income from farming.

There was also the question of housework. Then, as now, women toiled in their homes with little recognition of their contribution. "We realise that the woman's work in the home cannot be translated into rupees, annas or pies in the same way that the work of those engaged in other kinds of labour is, but there are other ways of recognising it," wrote the committee in its report. Their suggestions included the radical idea that women should have "absolute control" over some part of family income, they should have a share of the property owned by their husbands that cannot be willed away, and the husband should give his wife a share of any payment he got from the government through social insurance.

Women working at home also deserved a break from ceaseless toil through the day. The availability of modern devices at home as well as a network of creches, restaurants and laundries under cooperative ownership would give Indian women some relief from household tasks. One of the more radical suggestions was that "there should be a cessation of all work during the day at a fixed hour so that the midday meal can be conveniently taken and the housewife released from the duties of the kitchen". A more regular schedule at home would give women time for the rest or leisure that they needed.

Much of the report on the role of women was with a view to make them independent economic units, with either outside employment or a fair share of the family income for those working at home. The flip side of this was that women would be seen as citizens who independently pay income tax to the government. However, the sub-committee also realised that gender equality would be on flimsy ground unless women had the same rights as men to own, buy, inherit or sell property. Abortion was sought to be legalised in situations when the health of the mother was at stake or the pregnancy was the result of rape.

All these demands depended on legal reform. The group led by Rajwade demanded a uniform civil code to replace the myriad civil code for various religious groups in India. Such a common civil code should give daughters equal rights to inherit property, women (and men) to be sole owners of the property they owned before marriage, and joint ownership of property acquired after marriage. Laws on divorce needed to be changed. So also on marriage: "Marriage from a rational point of view can no longer be a divine dispensation but a voluntary association of two individuals with rights and obligations attached to it," the report said.

The underlying message in the report submitted to the National Planning Committee was that independent India would have to provide women with the choice to live their lives as they see best for themselves -- in the economic, social and political spheres. This would include everything from equal pay for equal work to relief from the burden of excess housework to property rights to social equality under a common civil code.

Excerpted with permission from The Ideas That Shaped Modern India and Its Economy: 1870-2017, published by Penguin Random House India. The book will be out on 18 October and is available for pre-order.