The contemporary women’s history that is less known

I happened to attend an International conference in Feb 2015 at SNDT women’s university, Mumbai, organised by the Research Centre for Women’s Studies. The main theme of the conference was: Shifting Contours, Widening Concerns: Women’s History, Historiography and Politics of Historical Representation.

In the conference some of the papers were excellent.  To name a few:  

1.     Presentation by Dr. Shalini Shah titled ‘Historical Sources and the Masculine Politics of Representation in Sanskrit Texts.’

2.     Presentation by Prof. Kanchana Mahadevan, titled ‘Feminist Histories and Critical Interpretation.’

3.      Presentation by Prof. Uma Chakravarty, titled, ‘Conjugality and its Discontents: A Story Told Through Photographs.’

4.      Presentation by writer and activist Ms. Urmila Pawar, titled, ‘We also made History.’

However many of the presentations in the plenary session took up far more time than what was allocated to the presenters leaving less than the allotted time for the technical sessions. I was also told by some young researchers that this is often the case in such conferences where the technical sessions are left with less time. However in spite of the limited time, many interesting papers were presented in the technical sessions and to name a few:

1.     Presentation by Ms. Varsha Shenoy titled, ‘Location/Re-location of women in the private/public spheres in the context of the Swadeshi movement.’

2.       Presentation by Ms. Swagata Basu titled, ‘Mapping the Un-represented Self: A Feminist Geographical Exposition of Politics of Naming Places in Colonial and Post Colonial India.’

3.     Presentation by Ms Shazia Salam titled, ‘History,    Fiction and Representation: Muslim Women and Partition of India.’

One another important thing I noticed was that many of the presentations were based either on secondary sources and data or interpretation of writings/research already done in the past. Concern was also raised at the conference by many of the participants regarding the squeeze in resources for the subject of History in general.

I also wish to elaborate a little more on one particular presentation in the plenary session. In the paper titled “Reading Histories of Contemporary Women’s Movement: Diverse Contexts Questions and Narratives”, the presenter, Prof. Indu Agnihotri, Director, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi, mentioned some of the events that have become important for the women’s movement in the country.  Among these, she mentioned events right from “1984 riots” to the recent Nirbhaya rape case. While the presentation was interesting, the several peoples movements and struggles’ in our country around the issue of life, livelihood, environment, against “developmental” projects requiring large scale acquisition of lands and therefore leading to large scale displacement,  were absent from the narrative.

I was surprised at this omission because in these struggles large number of women – adivasi, peasant, dalit, landless, women from the  middle class, etc. have played exemplary roles, often cutting the caste, class, religious divide in a significant way. Moreover many of these women, while fighting to save their homes, lands, water, forests, and livelihoods have faced brutal repression, at the hands of both, the vested interests and the State. It is important to note here that women have played important roles in these struggles right from the time of the Mulshi Satyagraha in the early 1920s to the more recent Chipko Movement, the Baliapal Movement, the struggles in the Narmada valley, fish workers struggles, the struggle in Nandigram, Singur, the Kalinganagar struggle to name just a few.

A program of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) in the late eighties against the Sardar Sarovar Project. Photo By Shripad Dharmadhikary.   

Women opposing as part of NBA the Maheshwar dam on the river Narmada, one of the first privatized  projects in the country. Photo Source: Not Known.

I also wish to say here that these people’s movements have contributed significantly to the development-environment-human rights debate in the country. Moreover many of the important ideas that are a part of the discussion today, like right to information, consent and participation of affected people, environmental flows, environment impact assessment, etc. find their roots in the early days of these struggles. Furthermore these non-violent struggles across the country have used several innovative strategies that have demonstrated how mass movements of the marginalized can translate into a powerful force against established and dominant interests.

As an activist and a writer, I would be happy to see the many people’s movements against the so called development projects/model, find a place of significance in the contemporary history of India. I would also be happy to see that the contemporary women's history also recognizes in a significant way the assertive and powerful role women have played in shaping the policies of our country.