When the Amrit Kaur and Shareefah Hamid Ali left London in September 1933, they did not return directly to India. Instead, they travelled to Geneva to initiate a campaign for recognition within the League of Nations system. Their experiences of the constitutional process had confirmed the limits of campaigning for women's advancement within the framework of empire and further justified the pursuit of political independence. Yet, as we saw in Chapter 2, engagement with the franchise campaign had produced sympathetic allies and it was in these newly configured networks that the real value of the London trip lay. Connections forged in the heart of empire would, in time, act as a springboard for the all-India women's movement to decisively transcend the imperial framework and enable the AIWC to establish itself as a global actor. By the time the outbreak of the Second World War brought the institutions of world governance to near-obliteration six years later, the organisation had been officially appointed as a ‘correspondent member’ of the League of Nation's Social Section. Despite the calamitous rupture of the war, this international recognition would prove significant as India emerged as an independent state in the 1940s.

Geneva: the opportunity

The women's visit to Geneva was timed to coincide with the annual meetings of the League of Nations Council and General Assembly. Every September, activity levels in the city became frenetic with the arrival of an international throng of delegates and their support staff, journalists, activists and other camp followers. In addition to the transient population was a more permanently based global civil society. This included League of Nations and International Labour Office (ILO) officials and numerous Geneva-based transnational organisations which lobbied, advised and supported the League, creating a semi-official ‘League around the League’. Although the League of Nations system overwhelmingly reflected the power dynamics of the international status quo – imperialist, white and male – it also offered a space for alternative perspectives and the airing of discontent.