The birth of the discipline of Women’s Studies is an outcome of efforts by women and men who not only worked as social activists and reformers but also tried to change the mindsets of people by educating them. In India, the credit for establishing Women’s Studies as an independent discipline in Indian Universities, Colleges and Institutions goes to many special and dedicated people.
The present module is on one such extraordinary person, Vina Majumdar. Popularly known as “Vinadi”, she was also known by various other titles such as ‘a woman activist’, ‘a feminist’, ‘a trouble maker’, and a ‘gender specialist’, but the title she liked most was ‘recorder and chronicler of the Indian women’s Movement’ and the ‘grandmother of Women’s Studies in South Asia’. About her, Prof Vibhuti Patel of the SNDT University of Mumbai wrote, “She could galvanize students, teachers, researchers, women’s organizations, trade unionists, bureaucrats, politicians and law makers into action as she was one of the best ‘argumentative Indians’ produced by ‘women’s studies movement’. She was very good at coining catchy terms such as ‘women’s studies movement’” The passion, integrity and commitment with which she worked on the establishment of Women’s Studies as a subject is both exemplary and inspiring.
The present text is a brief account of her life and achievements.
· A brief biographical sketch.
· Post Independence account of women’s status in India.
· Development of Towards equality Report, 1974.
· Institutional Contributions- IAWS and CWDS, Delhi.
· Major contributions in Academics.
A Biographical Sketch
Born in the year 1927 in a middle-class family of Bengal, Vina Majumdar was
the youngest of five children in her family. She had three elder brothers and
one elder sister. Fondly called Khuku at home, the youngest child in the
family, she inherited her love for books from her mother. Her father Prakash
Majumdar was an engineer. Nagen, the family driver was her early tutor
and used to teach her letters and numbers. Married at the age of 11 years, her
mother, though a gentle person, firmly opposed those who tried to push back the
girls in the family within the four walls of the house and was a strong
motivational force for her daughters to pursue their studies. Vinaji entered
school in 1935 at the age of 8 years. She did her schooling
from St. John's Diocesan Girls' Higher Secondary School, Kolkata, then studied
at Women's College, Banaras Hindu University, and subsequently at Asutosh
College, the University of Calcutta, where she became the secretary of the
Ashutosh College Girls Students Union. While at college, she organized a
meeting in support of the Rama Rao Committee which recommended expansion of the
inheritance rights for daughters through the crucial Hindu Law Reform. In 1947,
just after Independence, she went to St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she
completed her graduation in 1951. She returned to Oxford University in 1960 and
received her D.Phil. there in 1962.
In 1952, Vinaji married Shankar Mazumdar whom she met in Patna through her
newly developed interest in classical music. Shankar was rebellious by nature
and did not bother about social norms. Although earlier their marriage was
perceived as an ‘unequal
marriage’, but later all family members
were convinced with the decision of Vinaji.
She began her academic career as a lecturer of Political Science in Patna
University in 1951, soon becoming the first Secretary of the Patna University
Teachers' Association. Later, she taught at Berhampur University. Subsequently,
she joined the University Grants Commission Secretariat, New Delhi as an
Education Officer and became a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced
Studies, Shimla, for the research project, 'University Education and Social
Change in India' (April 1970 – Dec.
1970).
She was Member Secretary for the Committee on the Status of Women in India
(1971–74). The Committee, appointed by
the Government of India in 1971, was reconstituted in 1973 with her, a late
entrant, as Member Secretary. The report of the Committee, Towards Equality,
highlighted the rise in poverty amongst women in the transition from agrarian
to industrial society, their deteriorating condition in the country as also the
decline of the sex ratio in India. Eventually, the report became a turning
point both for Women's Studies and the women's movement in India.
Later she became Director, Programme of Women's Studies, Indian Council of
Social Science Research from 1975 to 807. She helped organize a meeting to
support the recommendations of the Rama Rao Committee on Hindu Law Reform (to
expand the inheritance rights of daughters).
In 1980, she co-founded the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS), New
Delhi and remained its founder-Director from 1980 till her retirement in 1991.
CWDS initiated the concept of "action-research" as it organized
landless peasant women in Bankura district of West Bengal. It soon became an
influential institution which impacted the course of Women's Studies in India. Throughout
her career, she created a confluence of scholarship and activism in Women's
Studies, which she referred to as the "Women's Studies Movement". She
was also a founding-member of the Indian Association of Women's Studies (IAWS,
founded 1982).
Thereafter she was Senior Fellow at CWDS and JP Naik National Fellow, ICSSR for
two years. From 1996 to 2005 she was the Chairperson, Centre for Women's
Development Studies, New Delhi. Vinaji’s elder
sister Vani, named her ‘a rolling
stone’ because she changed seven jobs in
14 years !
Post-Independence Account of Women’s Status in India
A major contribution of Vina
Majumdar was through some of her pioneer academic writings, through which she
brought to the forefront, for the first time, the analysis and evaluation of women’s participation in the
Nationalist Movement. One such excellent work was done by Vinaji along with
Leela Kasturi in her paper Women and Indian Nationalism10. Emphasizing
the political role of women both the authors pointed out that the major works
on the nationalist movement fail to examine the significance or contribution of
women’s participation in the struggles.
This aspect has since then received some attention in the histories of India
both before and after 1975 when the need to study women’s role in history began to be
acknowledged worldwide. An in-depth analysis of women’s
participation in the movement was taken up in this article which raised issues
like-
· Whether women’s
participation was fairly acknowledged in historical artifacts?
· Whether women’s
movement from the domestic to public sphere was noticed by their male
counterparts and was any ‘relief’ given to them in their
traditional household roles?
· Why were the contributions of males overemphasized and those of women and
children underemphasized?
· Did women’s
participation facilitate women’s
movement?
In her paper An Unfulfilled or a Blurred Vision? Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian
Women published in 1998, she critiqued the intentions of Nehru in dealing
with the women’s
question in India. She wrote, “It is the
contention of this paper that these qualities of Jawaharlal Nehru’s mind were never extended to
understand the complexities of the women’s
question, even though he was fully aware of the barriers to building a
democratic and egalitarian society on the foundations that he had inherited. He
perceived these as
(a) the ‘Daedalian social and cultural structure’ with divisive religious,
linguistic, regional, caste and tribal allegiances;
(b) the hierarchy of Indian
society, which posed an even greater barrier to national cohesiveness, driving him
to exclaim: “We have
no sense of equality”, and
(c) the need to assure Muslims of
their full rights in secular India.
It is amazing that he did not associate
the issues of women’s status
with any of these problems. Similarly, many scholars of that period had
established the fact that the women’s
question was either removed, or pushed under the carpet during and just after
the nationalist movement.
Towards Equality- Status of Women Report – Another major contribution was
through the role she played in the publication of the trailblazing Towards
Equality Report in 1974. The Ministry of Education and Social Welfare,
Government of India had to present a report on the status of women in the
country at the UN Women’s
Conference in Mexico in 1975. No such national report was available. In order
to make the presentation , the Government set up a committee to conduct surveys
and produce a report for the UN meet. Vinaji had returned to the UGC in May
1972. Confusion had been prevailing in the Ministry for the last two years in relation
to the work that had to be done for the report. Pressure was also mounting
since time was limited. After a week of her arrival, her mentor and friend J. P
Naik came to her and
introduced her to Dr. Phulrenu Guha who was the Chairperson of the Committee
constituted by the Government for writing the report which was called “Towards Equality : Status of
Women in India” (CSWI).
Vinaji was made the member Secretary of the Committee. The other renowned
people working with her were Dr. Phulrenu Guha, Maniben Kara, Savitri Shyam, Neera
Dogra, Vikram Mahajan, Leela Dube, Sakina A. Hasa, Urmila Haksar, and Lotika
Sarkar.
Research for CSWI- Conducting research for the Towards Equality Report
was a big challenge. Vinaji tried to make a list of people who were also her
good friends and would help her in the time of crisis for the researches to be
conducted for the sub-goals. Some of the prominent people in the list were Shiv
Kumar Mitra, then Additional Director in NCERT. The major task given to him was
to see the influence of Coeducation or Single Sex institutions on the
performance levels of students. This study was collaborated with the efforts of
Prof. Durganand Sinha also an exPatna colleague of Vinaji, then at Allahabad
University. Some other names were Ashish Bose, a Statistician, Prof. VM
Siriskar, Professor of Political Science in Pune University, Lalit Sen, (in the
National Institute of Community Development, Hyderabad) and Professor Iqbal
Narayan (Political Scientist in Rajasthan University). The members interacted
and interviewed people from all walks and sections of society to gather data
for the compiling of the report.
As the work of the CSWI progressed, conditions at Vinaji’s House became quite stressful.
Her husband wanted her to look after their daughters and discourage the eldest
one, Indrani, to enter politics. Serious differences of opinions made the two separates
although they parted peacefully.
The eldest daughter, Shashwati, took the responsibility of looking after her
father and the remaining three, Indrani, Ranjani and Surajit stayed with the
mother.
All this happened when Vinaji was totally involved with her professional commitments
and with her the work for the CSWI report. This became her foremost priority.
The chapters on Law, Education, Political Participation etc. were smoothly
done, but there was great difficulty faced by the CSWI team in drafting the
chapter on Economic Status. The chapter was framed and reframed a number of
times with the combined efforts of Lotika Sarkar, Kumud Sharma, a senior researcher
and Vinaji. When the chapter on Women and Economy was in progress, Vinaji’s realized that the work was at a
point when her full attention was required. Despite their protests, she decided
to send Indrani to a hostel and the younger two children to her sister’s house while she herself moved
into Phulrenudi’s room in
the office where she had been camping since the drafting had been going on.
The committee’s work
was over by 31st of December, 1974. Phulrenudi had kept the
Committee in session continuously from 15th December. No one in the committee was
allowed to leave Delhi, because there was a meeting every day. They met the
deadline to finish the CSWI report by working round the clock for the last six
months, and, as time would tell, the report created a national and
international stir and vindicated all their efforts.
Institutional Contributions- IAWS and CWDS, Delhi
Dr. Vina Mazumdaar played a stellar role in the establishment of the two premiers
institutions/organizations of the country –
the
Centre for Women and Development Studies and the Indian association of Women’s Studies. The findings from the
CSWI report served as a catalyst for many organizations and individuals to work
for the cause of women in the country.
There was a determination to change the social current prevailing against them.
After working with the UGC, ICSSR and CWDS, Vinaji reported that one of the
causes of the success in bringing about changes in laws and developmental
policies was the successful alliance between women in academia and their
counterparts at the higher levels of bureaucracy.
The Centre for Women’s Development Studies(CWDS) :was established on the
19th of April 1980, in the middle of the International Women’s Decade, by a group of men and
women, who were involved in the preparation of the first ever comprehensive
government report on the ‘Status of
Women in India’ entitled ‘Towards
Equality’ (Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, (CSWI),
Government of India) and who were later associated with the Women’s Studies Programme of the Indian
Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). The Advisory Committee of Women's Studies of the ICSSR recommended the need for an autonomous institute to build on the knowledge already generated, but with a
wider mandate and resources to expand its activities in research and action16.
The recommendation was accepted by the ICSSR, and communicated to the Women’s Bureau of the Ministry of
Social Welfare, Government of India.
A few months later, under the leadership of the late Prof. J.P. Naik, the CWDS
was registered under the Societies’
Registration
Act, 1860 in New Delhi and started functioning from May 1980, with a small
financial grant from the Vikram Sarabhai Foundation, under the Chairpersonship
of Dr. Phulrenu Guha and Dr. Vina Mazumdar as the Director.
In 1984-85, on the recommendation of a visiting committee appointed by the
Indian Council of Social Science Research, CWDS began to receive an annual
maintenance grant from the ICSSR and became recognized as one of the Research
Institutes supported by ICSSR.
Indian
Association of Women’s Studies (IAWS) : Another landmark contribution of
Vinaji was the significant role she played in the establishment of the Indian
Association of Women’s Studies.
Following the mandate of the 1981 National Conference on Women’s Studies, those who were in the
forefront of that conference met in 1982 and established the Indian association
of Women’s Studies. Some of these scholars
were Neera Desai, Vina Mazumdar, Maithereyi Krishnaraj, Madhuri Shah, Kumud
Sharma, Hemlata Swarup, and Asok Mitra. J.P. Naik had not lived to see the
fruition of an idea first articulated by him (Mazumdar, 2001b). Since its inception
however, IAWS played a very active role in propagating the cause of WS in
various ways and gradually it was accepted as a partner by the UGC in
implementing the WS programme. The IAWS played a crucial role in the
establishment of Women’s Studies
as an academic discipline in Indian Universities and colleges.
National Policy on Education (NPE).
The government circulated document, Challenge of Education: A Policy
perspective had started a nationwide debate on the National Policy on
Education (NPE). This debate identified the basic issues that the NPE had to
resolve to prepare the new generation for the twenty-first century. In November
1985, a National Seminar on Education for Women’s
Equality, convened by the government, openly proclaimed that the most
significant unfinished goals were those related to the achievement of women’s equality, their access to
justice and dignity and the freedom of choice for which education was
recognized as an essential vehicle. In order to complete this task, ‘education, from now on, must
address the structures and attitudes that have prevented women’s equality till now, and have
perpetuated and strengthened patriarchal values and institutions that subordinate
women’ (Mazumdar and Pandey, 1988).
The parliamentary mandate to use Women’s Studies
as an “instrument for social engineering” through the National Policy on
Education 1986 marked a culmination of the efforts initiated a decade back’ commented Vina Mazumdar (1988).
But she warned the national workshop on Women’s Studies
jointly organized by the ICSSR and SNDT Women’s
University in January 1988, that the implementation of this mandate will not
depend on the Government, ‘but on
the wider, active and effective participation by persons and institutions
within the educational system’ (1988).
Academic Endeavours- Vinaji was a successful academician, a hardworking
scholar and a staunch believer in the fact that education can be and has to be
used as an agent of basic change in the status of women. She was also aware of
the shortcomings of our education system and felt that the academic community
must be held collectively responsible for the failure of the system in the
country. She said, “As an
academic and educational planner, I too had contributed to this ‘intellectual purdah that excluded
the majority of Indian women’s lives,
labour, dignity and dreams from any public attention. The educational process-
my great love and priority- had acquired an inimical demonic face, and our
idealized democratic state- in which I had taken such pride- had at best to be
held guilty of criminal negligence and at worst of oppression and exploitation
of that vast majority”.
Some of her major academic contributions are mentioned below-
· Education & social change: three studies on nineteenth century India.
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1972.
· Role of rural women in development. University of Sussex. Institute of
Development Studies. Allied Publishers, 1978.
· Symbols of power: studies on the political status of women in India.
Allied, 1979.
· Women and rural transformation: two studies with Rekha Mehra,
Kunjulekshmi Saradamoni. ICSSR. Centre for Women's Development Studies. Pub.
Concept, 1983.
· Emergence of the Women's Question in India and the Role of Women's Studies.
Centre for Women's Development Studies, 1985.
· Khadi and Village Industries Commission. Centre for Women's
Development Studies 1988.
· Peasant Women Organise for Empowerment: The Bankura Experiment. Centre
for Women's Development Studies. 1989.
· Women workers in India: studies in employment and status, with Leela
Kasturi, Sulabha Brahme, Renana Jhabvala. ICSSR. Chanakya Publications, 1990.
ISBN 978-81-70010-73-9.
· Legislative Measures and Policy Directions for Improving the Lot of Farm
Women, with Kumud Sarma, Lotika Sarkar. Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
· Women and Indian nationalism, with Leela Kasturi. Vikas Pub. House,
1994. ISBN 978-81-70010-73-9.
· Changing Terms of Political Discourse: Women's Movement in India,
1970s–1990s, with Indu Agnihotri. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXX
No. 29, 4 March 1995
· Political Ideology of the Women's Movement's Engagement with Law.
Centre for Women's Development Studies, 2000.
· Face to face with rural women: CWDS' search for new knowledge and an
interventionist role. Centre for Women's Development Studies, 2002.
· The Mind and the Medium. Explorations in the Evolution of British Imperial
Policy in India. Three Essays Collective. 2010. ISBN 978-81-88789-64-1
· Memories of a Rolling Stone. Zubaan Books. 2010. ISBN
978-81-89884-52-9
Suggested
Readings-
·
Education & social change: three studies on nineteenth century India.
Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1972.
· Role of rural women in development. University of Sussex. Institute of
Development Studies. Allied Publishers, 1978.
· Symbols of power: studies on the political status of women in India.
Allied, 1979.
· Women and rural transformation: two studies with Rekha Mehra,
Kunjulekshmi Saradamoni. ICSSR. Centre for Women's Development Studies. Pub. Concept, 1983.
· Emergence of the Women's Question in India and the Role of Women's Studies.
Centre for Women's Development Studies, 1985.
· Khadi and Village Industries Commission. Centre for Women's Development
Studies 1988.
· Peasant Women Organise for Empowerment: The Bankura Experiment. Centre
for
Women's Development Studies. 1989.
· Women workers in India: studies in employment and status, with Leela
Kasturi, Sulabha Brahme, Renana Jhabvala. ICSSR. Chanakya Publications, 1990.
ISBN 978-81-70010-73-9.
· Legislative Measures and Policy Directions for Improving the Lot of Farm
Women,
with Kumud Sarma, Lotika Sarkar. Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
· Women and Indian nationalism, with Leela Kasturi. Vikas Pub. House,
1994. ISBN 978-81-70010-73-9.
· Changing Terms of Political Discourse: Women's Movement in India,
1970s–1990s, with Indu Agnihotri. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXX
No. 29, 4 March 1995
· Political Ideology of the Women's Movement's Engagement with Law.
Centre for Women's Development Studies, 2000.
· Face to face with rural women: CWDS' search for new knowledge and an interventionist
role. Centre for Women's Development Studies, 2002.
· The Mind and the Medium. Explorations in the Evolution of British Imperial
Policy in India. Three Essays Collective. 2010. ISBN 978-81-88789-64-1
· Memories of a Rolling Stone. Zubaan Books. 2010. ISBN
978-81-89884-52-9.
Some Interesting Facts about Veena Mazumdar
· She never went to a kindergarten school
·
She used to study the basic alphabets from her
driver.
·
She was a great lover for books.
·
She was most rebellious among all the siblings
·
She never allowed anybody to touch her feet.
·
She was a true researcher and scholar.
·
She sacrificed the comforts of the family life
for the women’s movement in India.
·
She was the founder director of Centre for
Women’s Development Studies and left her secure Government job for that
purpose.
GLOSSARY
ACTIVIST-An activist
is a person who campaigns for some kind of social change. When you
participate in a march protesting the closing of a neighborhood library, you're
an activist. Someone who's actively involved in a protest or a political
or social cause can be called an activist.
Integrity-the quality of being honest and having strong moral
principles.
Exemplary-serving as a desirable model; very good.
IAWS- The evolution of the Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS) can be traced to the
emergence of the women’s
movement in India in the mid-1970s and the publication of Towards Equality in
1975, the path-breaking report of the government’s
national Committee on the Status of Women in India.
○○ रासायनिक सूत्र ○○
○ साधारण नमक➖NaCl
○ बकिंग सोडा➖NaHC O₃
○ धोवन सोडा➖Na₂CO₃·10H₂O
○ कास्टिक सोडा➖NaOH
○ फिटकरी➖K₂SO₄·Al₂(SO₄)₃·24H₂O
○ लाल दवा➖KMnO₄
○ कास्टिक पोटाश➖KOH
○ चने का पानी➖Ca(OH)₂
○ जिप्सम➖CaSO₄·2H₂O
○ पलास्टर ऑफ पेरिस➖CaSO₄·½H₂O
○ चॉक➖CaCO₃
○ चना-पत्थर➖CaCO₃
○ सगमरमर➖CaCO₃
○ नौसादर➖NH₄Cl
○ लाफिंग गैस➖N₂O
○ लिथार्ज➖PbO
○ गलेना➖PbS
○ सफेद लेड➖2PbCO₃·Pb(OH)₂
○ नमक का अम्ल➖HCl
○ अम्लराज➖HNO₃ + HCl (1 : 3)
○ शष्क बर्फ➖CO₂
○ हॉर्न सिल्वर➖AgCl
○ भारी जल➖D₂O
○ परोड्यूशर गैस➖CO + N₂
○ मार्श गैस➖CH₄
○ सिरका➖CH₃COOH
○ ऐल्कोहॉल➖C₂H₅OH
○ चीनी➖C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁
○ यरिया➖NH₂CONH₂
○ बजीन➖C₆H₆
