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Colonial Politics and Women's Rights: Woman Suffrage Campaigns in Bengal, British India in the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Barbara Southard
Barbara Southard
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico
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The historian Geraldine Forbes, writing on the origins of the woman suffrage movement in India, stated: ‘the firm insistence of organized women—that they be treated as equals of men on the franchise issue—emerged not from the perceptions of the needs of the women in India, but as the result of the influence of certain British women, in the case of the first demand for the franchise, 1917, and as a response to the nationalist movement, in the case of the second demand for franchise, 1927–33.’

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1993 , pp. 397 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

References

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Smithsonian Institution which provided a grant to cover travel, living, and incidental expenses for research in India, and the Institutional Fund to Promote Research of the University of Puerto Rico.

1 Forbes, Geraldine, ‘Votes for Women: The Demand for Women's Franchise, 1917–1937’ in Majumdar, Vine (ed.), Symbols of Power: Studies in the Political Status of Women in India (Bombay: Allied Publishers, Private, Ltd, 1979), p. 4.Google Scholar

2 For example, see: Forbes, Geraldine H., ‘From Purdah to Politics: The Social Feminism of the All-India Women's Organization’ in Papanek, Hanna and Minault, Gail (eds), Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi: Chanakya Publications), p. 219Google Scholar, and Jayawardena, Kumari, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Books, Ltd, 1987), p. 99.Google Scholar

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4 Ibid., pp. 57–64.

5 Borthwick, Meredith, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 26–59.

7 Ibid., pp. 49–52.

8 Ibid., p. 59.

9 Ibid., pp. 48–9.

10 Kopf, David, The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 57, 126–7.Google Scholar

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13 Southard, Barbara, ‘Bengal Women's Education League: Pressure Group and Professional Association’, Modern Asian Studies 18, 1 (1984), pp. 55–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor statistics see also Mitra, Education of Women in India, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar

14 Southard, , ‘Bengal Women's Education League’, pp. 57–8, 63–5.Google ScholarStatistics taken from three sources: Mitra, Education of Women in India, pp. 59–67;Google ScholarNurallah, S. and Naik, J. P., History of Education in India during the British Period (Bombay: MacMillan and Co., Ltd., 1943), p. 28;Google ScholarFornberg, Mary, ‘The Education of Women in India in the Ninteenth Century’ (unpublished paper, University of Pennsylvaina, 1975), pp. 7–17.Google Scholar

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17 The same tendency for women to become activists in this perioid prevailed in other parts of India as well. See Forbes, ‘From Purdah to Politics’, p. 222.Google Scholar

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22 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

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30 Indian Messenger, 20 March 1927.Google Scholar

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41 See discussion of the social feminism of the All-India women's movement in Forbes, ‘From Purdah to Politics’, pp. 238–9.Google Scholar For a recent definition of social feminism see Black, Naomi, Social Feminism (Ithaca; Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

42 Bengalee, 2 Sept. 1921.Google Scholar

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52 Ibid., pp. 99–112, 139–41, 165–8.

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62 BLCP, vol. IV (1 Sept. 1921), p. 324.Google Scholar

63 BLCP, vol. IV (2 Sept. 1921), p. 371.Google Scholar

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74 For one exception see Ibid., pp. 305–6.

75 Ibid., pp. 304–5.

76 Ibid., p. 293.

77 Ibid., pp. 297–8, 302.

78 BLCP, vol. IV (2 Sept. 1921), pp. 378–80 and (5 Sept. 1921), p. 466.Google Scholar

79 BLCP, vol. IV (1 Sept. 1921), p. 343.Google Scholar

80 BLCP, vol. IV (2 Sept. 1921), p. 374.Google Scholar

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85 Statesman, 11 Sept. 1921.Google Scholar

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87 Statesman, 9 Sept. 1921.Google Scholar

88 Broomfield, , Elite Conflict, p. 110.Google Scholar

89 Ibid., pp. 244–59.

90 Ibid., pp. 244–7. Gordon, , Bengal, pp. 207–11.Google Scholar