Suffragism and internationalism: The enfranchisement of British and Indian women under an imperial state

Indian Economic and Social History Review

Volumn 36, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 461-483

  Sinha, Mrinalini ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 22844455623     PISSN: 00194646     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/001946469903600403     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. Margaret Cousins, What Women Have Gained By the Reforms?, Madras, 1927, p. 3.
2. Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915. Chapel Hill, NC, 1994.
3. See also Inderpal Grewal, 'Empire and the Movement for Women's Suffrage in Britain', in idem, Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel. Durham, NC, 1996.
4. See Nira Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, London, 1997, p. 12.
5. For a history of British women's suffragism, see Jill Liddington and Jill Morris, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement, London, 1978;
6. Sandra Holton, Feminism and Democracy: Women's Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918, Cambridge, 1986;
7. and Lisa Tickner, The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign, 1907-1914, Chicago, 1988.
8. For an overview of Indian women's suffragism, see Geraldine Forbes, 'Voles for Women: The Demand for Women's Franchise in India, 1917-1937', in Vina Mazumdar, ed., Symbols of Power: Studies on the Political Status of Women in India, Bombay, 1979, pp. 3-23;
9. Geraldine Forbes, The New Cambridge History of India: Women in Modern India, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 92-120;
10. and Jana Matson Everett, Women and Social Change in India, New York, 1979, pp. 101-40.
11. For local studies of the Indian suffrage struggle, see, Gail Pearson, 'Reserved Seats: Women and the Vote in Bombay', The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 20(1), 1983, pp. 47-65;
12. and Barbara Southard, 'Colonial Politics and Women's Rights: Woman Suffrage Campaigns in Bengal, British India in the 1920s', Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27(2), 1993, pp. 397-439;
13. and Barbara Southard, idem, The Women's Movement and Colonial Politics in Bengal. 1921-1936, New Delhi, 1995, pp. 70-147. I have relied on the above accounts for the narrative of Indian women's enfranchisement.
14. See Antoinette Burton, 'The Feminist Quest for Identity: British Imperial Suffragism and "Global Sisterhood", 1900-1915', Journal of Women's History, Vol. 3, 1991, pp. 46-81;
15. and Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement, Princeton, 1977.
16. See also Richard Evans, The Feminists: Women's Emancipation Movements in Europe, America and Australasia 1840-1920, London, 1977;
17. Edith B. Hurwitz, 'The International Sisterhood', in Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, ed., Becoming Visible, Boston, 1977, pp. 325-45;
18. and Ellen Carol DuBois, 'Women Suffrage and the Left: An International Socialist-Feminist Perspective', New Left Review, Vol. 186, March/April 1991, pp. 20-45.
19. For elaborations of this model see Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century, Manchester, 1995;
20. and Mrinalini Sinha, idem, 'Teaching Imperialism as a Social Formation', Radical History Review, Vol. 67, Winter 1997, pp. 175-86.
21. See Antoinette Burton, 'The White Woman's Burden: British Feminists and "The Indian Woman", 1865-1915', in Margaret Strobel and Nupur Chaudhury, eds., Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, Bloomington, 1992, pp. 137-58;
22. and Antoinette Burton, idem, Burdens of History.
23. Also see Vron Ware, Beyond the Pale: White Women. Racism, and History, London, 1992.
24. Barbara N. Ramusack, 'Cultural Missionaries, Maternal Imperialists, Feminist Allies: British Women Activists in India, 1865-1945', in Strobel and Chaudhury, Western Women and Imperialism, pp. 119-36.
25. Also see Kumari Jayawardena, The White Woman's Other Burden: Western Women and South Asia During British Colonial Rule, New York, 1995;
26. and Florence Hamilton, 'Some of Us are Imperialists, Some of Us are Not', in Joan Grant, ed., Women, Migration, Empire, London, 1996, pp. 103-21.
27. See Mary D. Stocks, Eleanor Rathbone, A Biography, London, 1949.
28. Also see E.F.R. (Eleanor F. Rathbone), 'Mother India: Its Claims on the Women's Movement', Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XIX(29), 26 August 1927, pp. 231-32.
29. Annual Report of the Conference of the British Commonwealth League, June 1926, Fawcett Library (hereafter FL), London.
30. Quoted in Siri Dharma, Vol. 10(8), June 1927, p. 113;
31. also see Notice for the BCL conference on 'Women of the Coloured Races', Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. xxii(24), 18 July 1930, p. 181.
32. For the role of the BCL, and the internationalism of Australian women more generally, see Angela Woollacott, 'Inventing Commonwealth and Pan-Pacific Feminisms: Australian Women's International Activism in the 1920s and 30s', Gender and History, Vol. 10(3), November 1998, pp. 425-45.
33. For the suffrage activities of the Tatas in England in the period 1919-20, see Miscellaneous Collections 612, 1919-20, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hereafter NMML), New Delhi.
34. Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XXI(28), 16 August 1929, p. 219.
35. Rathbone to Hamid Ali and Amrit Kaur, 19 February 1934, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93, FL.
36. Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XXII(20), 20 June 1930, p. 151.
37. See British Committee for Indian Women's Franchise, Minutes and Papers, May 1933-June 1933, in Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 11, Box 93.
38. See letter on 'Women and Indian Inquiry', The Times, 12 December 1927, p. 12.
39. There was a rumour that at least one Indian woman had been recommended by Sir Michael Sadler for the role of 'technical advisor' to the Commission. The staunch pro-imperialist Indian Cornelia Sorabji, who was a barrister and long-time legal counsel for orthodox Hindu and Muslim women to the Court of Wards in Bengal, was apparently the woman recommended by Sadler for the Commission; see Cornelia Sorabji to Alice Bruce Richmond (Rathbone's niece), 23 October 1929, Cornelia Sorabji Papers: Correspondence and Private Papers, Folder 45, 1930, India Office Library and Records (hereafter IOLR), London.
40. The Times, 13 December 1927, p. 14.
41. The letter was reprinted in the Indian Statesman, 14 December 1927, p. 12.
42. Ameer Ali's letter provoked its own response by an orthodox 'purdanashin' who asserted that the educated women in India had little knowledge of the condition of the majority of their orthodox sisters, reprinted in Statesman, 30 March 1928, p. 8.
43. Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XIX(46), 27 December 1927, p. 371.
44. Women's Leader and Common Cause, Ibid., Vol. XX(21), 29 June 1928, p. 171.
45. See the text of the 'Women's Protest Against the Statutory Commission' in Stri Dharma, Vol. 11(2), December 1927, p. 19;
46. also Reddi's speech on the boycott of the Commission, 'Why do I side with the boycott?', Muthulakshmi Reddi Papers: Speeches and Writings, Vol. II, part 2, NMML.
47. Reddi, however, was more ambivalent about the boycott as was evident from her cooperation with the Hartog Committee that was attached to the Commission. See Muthulakshmi Reddi Papers: Correspondence with Malali Patwardhan and Anna Thomas.
48. See also S.R. Bakshi, Simon Commission and Indian Nationalism, Delhi, 1977, p. 44.
49. Statesman, 13 December 1927, p. 7.
50. Rathbone to Subbarayon, 8 January 1932, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 5, Box 93.
51. For Rathbone's comment on 'tame women', see Shareefah Hamid Ali to Rathbone, 9 October 1932, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 92.
52. Rathbone to Reddi, 8 March 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 1, Box 92.
53. See Sir John Simon Papers, Correspondence 2, IOLR;
54. and Duchess of Atholl Papers, File 1, IOLR.
55. Rathbone to Wedgewood Benn, 16 April, 1931, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 2, Box 92.
56. Cornelia Sorabji to Alice Bruce Richmond, 11 September 1930, Cornelia Sorabji Papers: Correspondence and Private Papers, Folder 45, 1930.
57. Radhabai Subbarayon and Jahanara Shahnawaz, 'Memorandum of the Political Status of Women Under a New Constitution', Proceeding of the Sub-Committees, Part II, First Round Table Conference, 12 November 1930-19 January 1931, (cmd. 3772);
58. and the 'Memorandum on Certain Questions Affecting the Status and Welfare of Indian Women in the Future Constitution of India (December 1930)', in Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XXII(47), 26 December 1930, p. 352. The signatories to Rathbone's memorandum included Dorothy Jinarajadasa, the founder of the WIA. I owe this point to Pearson, 'Reserved Seats', pp. 53-54.
59. Rathbone to Subbarayon, 19 April 1933; also Subbarayon to Rathbone, 16 May 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 5, Box 93.
60. Rathbone to Lady Macpherson, 5 May 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 13, Box 93.
61. Rathbone herself denied that British women's organisations had received a better hearing than Indian women's organisations from the government: see Rathbone to Amrit Kaur, 9 January 1935, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
62. Sushama Sen to Rathbone, 23 May 1935, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 16, Box 93
63. . Also see Sushama Sen, Memoirs of an Octogenarian, Simla, 1971, pp. 358-63.
64. Amrit Kaur to Rathbone, 3 September 1934, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
65. Also see Amrit Kaur, 'Women Under the New Constitution', in Shyam Kumari Nehru, ed., Our Cause: A Symposium by Indian Women, Allahabad, 1938;
66. and Amrit Kaur, Challenge to Women, Allahabad, 1946.
67. However, as many of the same women recognised, it was also due to Rathbone's efforts that the final franchise proposals were not as bad as those proposed by the government, see Hamid Ali to Rathbone, 1 February 1935, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 93.
68. Sec comments, presumably written by Rathbone, on Begum Shahnawaz's memorandum at the Second Round Table Conference in the Duchess of Atholl Papers, File 1.
69. Rathbone to Shahnawaz, 14 October 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 93;
70. also Rathbone to Amrit Kaur and Hamid Ali, 14 October 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
71. Forbes, 'Votes for Women';
72. also Forbes, idem, The New Cambridge History of India, pp. 92-112.
73. DuBois, 'Women's Suffrage and the Left', pp. 36-37.
74. See also James D. Hunt, 'Suffragettes and Satyagraha', The Indo-British Review, Vol. IX(1), 1981, pp. 65-77.
75. Ida B Harper, ed., History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 6, New York, 1922, p. 753,
76. quoted in DuBois, 'Women's Suffrage and the Left', p. 36, fn. 47.
77. The official position of the three most important all-India women's organisations on the franchise issue was presented in two joint memorandums in 1931 and 1933; see WIA Report, 1931-32, p. 24;
78. WIA Report, ibid., 1934-36, p. 9,
79. Theosophical Society Library and Research Centre, Chennai; for Memorandum I, see AIWC Papers, File 12, Series 1, NMML;
80. and 'Memorandum Representing the View of a Number of Indian Women's Organizations Presented By Sarojini Naidu and Begum Shah Nawaz', Indian Round Table Conference Second Session. 7th September-1 December 1931, (cmd. 3997). Appendix IV, p. 100;
81. for Memorandum II, see, 'Statement of the Elected Representatives of the AIWC, WIA and NCWI to the Joint Select Committee', AIWC Papers, File 38, Series 1.
82. See Stri Dharma, Vol. 18(10 & 11), August/September 1935, pp. 370-72.
83. Even the staunch adversaries of Rathbone's position, like Amrit Kaur, were gracious enough to thank Rathbone for her efforts to improve the franchise proposals for Indian women. See Amrit Kaur to Rathbone, 23 May 1935, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
84. Stri Dharma, Vol. 13(4), February 1930, pp. 136-39.
85. See Mala Mathrani, 'Nationalism or Internationalism? All-India Women's Conference, 1927-1947', (Paper Presented at the Annual American Historical Association Meeting, January 1996).
86. For Naidu's repudiation of the label 'feminism' in an interview in London in 1928, and again in her 1930 presidential address to the AIWC, see Indian Social Reformer, 20 October 1928, p. 7;
87. and Stri Dharma, Vol. 13(4), February 1930, pp. 136-39.
88. For a critique of Naidu's rejection of feminism by British feminists, sec A.R. Caton, Women's Leader and Common Cause, Vol. XXII(4), 28 February 1930, p. 29.
89. Although some individual women activists in India often disassociated themselves from the label 'feminist', others, and, in particular, the WIA, did not always react negatively to the label; see Stri Dharma, Vol. 16(4), February 1933, pp. 177-80;
90. and Amrit Kaur, Challenge to Women, p. 3.
91. Muthulakshmi Reddi, (compiler), Mrs Margaret Cousins and her Work in India, Compiled By One Who Knows, Madras, 1956, p. 60.
92. See Muthulakshmi Reddi Papers. Speeches and Writings, Vol. 1, part 2.
93. For the full text of this memorandum, see Constitutional Reforms: Address Presented in India to His Excellency the Viceroy the Rt. Honorable the Secretary of State for India. 1918, Vol. XVIII, p. 57.
94. For the deputation, also see Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Indian Women's Battle for Freedom, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 94-100.
95. See Mrinalini Sen, Knocking at the Door: Lectures and Other Writings, Calcutta, 1954, pp. 144-47;
96. see also M. Cousins, Indian Womanhood Today, Allahabad, 1941, p. 32;
97. and Aruna Asaf Ali, 'Women's Suffrage in India', in Nehru, Our Cause, pp. 350-55.
98. Article, Muthulakshmi Reddi Papers. Speeches and Writings, Vol. 1, part 2.
99. Also see A.C. Phadye, 'A Retrospect for 1926', Stri Dharma, Vol. 10(5), March 1927, pp. 69-71.
100. The meeting on 21 October 1921 is cited in Reddi, Mrs Margaret Cousins and her Work in India, pp. 36-38.
101. For the construction of the ancient past as a 'golden age' for women in the discourse of cultural nationalism in India, see Uma Chakravarti, 'Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi? Orientalism, Nationalism and a Script for the Past', in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, eds, Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, New Brunswick, 1990, pp. 27-87.
102. The Times, 28 August 1926, p. 96,
103. India Office Information Department Records, Newspaper Cuttings, IOLR.
104. Rameshwari Nehru, Gandhi is My Star: Speeches and Writings of Smt. Rameshwari Nehru, Professor Somnath Dhar, Collected and ed., Patna, 1950, p. 12. Yet, as various scholars have pointed out, the enfranchisement of Indian women was not as easy as such views might suggest.
105. G.J. Bahadurji, 'Women and Political Struggle', in Nehru, Our Cause, p. 325.
106. Stri Dharma, Vol. 10(3), January 1927, pp. 52-53.
107. See Tata to J. Petit, 4 September 1920, Miscellaneous Collections 612. Catt's plea, dated 10 September 1920, was printed widely in the Indian newspapers;
108. see Stri Dharma, Vol. 3(4) December 1920, pp. 26-27.
109. Letter from H. Tata, 29 June 1920 and 4 September 1920, Miscellaneous Collections 612.
110. For reports on Naidu's speech at the IWSA conference in Geneva, see Stri Dharma, Vol. 3(4), December 1920, pp. 9-12;
111. and Sarojini Naidu to Padmaja Naidu, 16 June 1920, Padmaja Naidu Papers, Correspondence with Sarojini Naidu, NMML.
112. Other Indian suffragists at Geneva included Mrinalini Sen, see her Knocking at the Door, p. 2.
113. See Stri Dharma, Vol. 5(4), April 1921, p. 12.
114. Catt's organisation provided funds to the WIA for five consecutive years, see Cousins, Indian Womanhood Today, p. 143.
115. As the honorary secretary of the WIA, Cousins also wrote to Elizabeth Abbott, the secretary of the British section of the IWSA which was assigned responsibility for India, for financial help for women's suffrage campaigns in India, see Reddi, Mrs Margaret Cousins and her Work in India, p. 29.
116. Stri Dharma, Vol. 8(12), October 1925, p. 181.
117. Stri Dharma, Vol. 13(3), January 1930, pp. 83-85.
118. For a discussion of Indian women's internationalist activities in the inter-war period, see Mrinalini Sinha, 'The Contribution of Indian Women to Interwar Internationalism', (Unpublished Paper).
119. The call for such a conference was first made in the Stri Dharma, Vol. 13(1 & 2), December 1929, pp. 8-9.
120. See also Mala Mathrani, 'Constructing an Asian Identity: Organized Indian Women and the Search for an "Asian" Sisterhood, 1930-1947', Paper Presented at the Annual MAR/Association of Asian Studies Conference, Towson, MD, 1995.
121. The British Liaison Group was formed in 1934 soon after the annual meeting of the AIWC; see AIWC Papers, File 59, Series 1.
122. Also see the final number of the Bulletin of the Indian Women's Movement, No. 55, February 1951, FL.
123. Quoted in Annual Report of the Conference of the British Commonwealth League, June 1933, p. 64.
124. The pamphlet of the Women's International League was quoted in the Stri Dharma, Vol. 17(7), May 1934, p. 309.
125. Even Rathbone, an opponent of the position of the organised women's movement in India, agreed that the movement could take justifiable pride for having stayed clear of communal politics; see Rathbone to Mrs Irving, 8 September 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 93.
126. Muthulakshmi Reddi Papers. Bound Volume: Speeches and Writings, Vol. 2, part 2.
127. While the WIA boycotted the Indian Statutory Commission, individual women presented evidence before the commission in favour of reservation of seats for women and additional wifehood and widowhood qualifications; see Miss Maya Das, 'Women's Franchise in India, Statesman, 25 August, 1928, p. 6.
128. The Rani of Mandi and others also made similar proposals for increasing women's franchise in India, 'Petticoat and Politics: Indian Flapper's Vote' in Sir John Simon Papers. Press Clippings, Vol. 6, November-December 1928.
129. Everett characterises the conflicting positions of Indian women on the franchise question as a 'women's uplift' and 'equal rights' positions, see Everett, Women and Social Change in India, pp. 101-40.
130. Even the WIA, at least until the first joint memorandum of the three all-India women's organisations on Indian women's franchise in 1931, had been more open to reservations and other qualifications for the extension of the franchise; see Rathbone to Reddi, 12 March 1931 and 9 April, 1931, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 1, Box 93;
131. and M.E.C. (Margaret Cousins), 'Indian Constitution: Place of Indian Women';
132. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 30 November, 1927, p. 7.
133. The split among Indian women on the question of the reservation of seats for women was later severe enough for the AIWC to attempt to avoid airing the differences openly at its annual meeting; see Reddi to Rani Saheb, 13 August 1931, AIWC Papers, File 11, Series 1.
134. See AIWC Annual Report, 1933, p. 380, AIWC Library, New Delhi.
135. See also Eleanor McDougall to Mrs. Grey (Rathbone's companion on her trip to India in 1931), 26 January 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 93.
136. Hamid Ali to Rathbone, 9 October 1932, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 9, Box 93.
137. For the report of the Lothian Committee, see Indian Franchise Committee, 1931-32, VIII (cmd. 4086), esp. pp. 85-87.
138. Shahnawaz to Rathbone, 27 November 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 10, Box 93.
139. Jahanara Shahnawaz, Father and Daughter: A Political Autobiography, Lahore, 1971, p. 149.
140. Kaur to Rathbone, 3 September 1934, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
141. It was only after independence that universal adult suffrage was introduced and the reservation of seats for women in the legislature was abolished. The entire controversy over the terms of women's franchise and women's representation in the 1930s has obvious resonance with the contemporary debate over, and eventual defeat of, a bill that was introduced to reserve seats for women in the Parliament in India. This bill, introduced in the Parliament in 1996, occasioned a somewhat similar debate on the issue of reservation of seats for women and of communal or separate seats for subordinate caste and Muslim women. Despite some obvious similarities, however, the historical conjuncture of the 1930s and the late 1990s is very different. Thus an engagement with the contemporary moment remains, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this paper. What both controversies do high-light, however, is the historical and ideological construction of 'women' as a political category. For the contemporary controversy, see 'Women in Politics: The Reservation Debate', Special Issue, Manushi, No. 96, September-October 1996.
142. Rathbone to Shahnawaz, 24 January 1933, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 10, Box 93.
143. Rathbone to Mona Hensman, 9 January 1935, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 13, Box 93.
144. Kaur to Rathbone, 3 September 1934, Eleanor Rathbone Papers, Folder 12, Box 93.
145. For the disgust of the majority of organised Indian women at the proposals in the Government of India Act of 1935, see AIWC Annual Report, 1935, pp. 135-37. There was, of course, a faction of the women's movement in India that had always supported the reservation of seats for women and the special qualifications for women's franchise. Yet even the women who testified in favour of these special qualifications before the various committees, with the exception of Shahnawaz, did not support communal electorates;
146. see Everett, Women and Social Change in India, p. 140.
147. Reddi to Rathbone, 29 July 1931 quoted in Pearson, 'Reserved Seats', p. 56.