Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

Women's Strength in the National Movement

Women's fight for Franchise : Annie Besant with some other delegates to the 1926-27 session of the Women's Indian Association, Madras.

Kadambini Ganguly, first woman delegate to the Congress (1889). She was also one of the first women to graduate in medical sc iences.

Leaders during the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movement - Bi Amma (Mother of AH brothers), Basanti Devi, Padmasini Ammal.

Shakuntala Devi of Gonda arrested during the Individual Satyagraha movement.

Women leaders of the Left movement - Kamala Devi Chattopadyaya, Bharati Ranga, Suhasini Jambekar.

Legislators : Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, Radhabai Subbaroyan, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Hansa Mehta, Rukmani Lakshmipathi. Ammu Swaminathan.

Women have always been the repositories of Indian culture and they kept it alive in song, dance and story through more than 200 years of British rule. Many associations were formed to promote and care for women's education. Outstanding women like Ramabai Ranade, Pandita Ramabai, Smt. P.K. Ray, Lady Bose, Bhikhaji Cama and Shirin Cursetji dedicated themselves to opening new op- portunities and careers for women. The first modem organization of women was started in 1917 by the great pioneering woman, Mrs. Margaret Cousins, in Madras under the inspiration and leadership of that magnetic personality, Mrs. Annie Besant, and her Home Rule Movement, which was then a dynamic stream giving expression to the people's restless urge for freedom. Mrs. Besant was interned by the British Indian Govern- ment as a result of this agitation, and that gave added inspiration to women. The Women's Indian Association, though functioning mainly in the South, be- came from its very inception a rallying point for women for action on an all-India plane. When Sarojini Naidu was made the Congress President in 1925, she described it as a 1 generous tribute to Indian womanhood and as a token of... loyal recognition of its legitimate place in the secular spiritual counsels of the nation’. Indian women earned the recognition by their earnest and active participation in the Indian freedom movement in all its phases, almost from the beginning. As early as 1889, a woman delegate, Kadambini Ganguly, took part in the proceedings of the Congress. In the beginning of this century, another woman, Madame Cama, spoke for the dumb millions of Hindustan' at the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart in 1907.

Swarna Kumari Devi

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya

Congress recorded its “admiration for the womenhood of India, who, in the hour of peril for the motherland ... stood shoulder to shoulder with their menfolk in the frontline of India's National Army to share with them the sacrifices and triumphs of the struggle 26th Jan, 1931. Resolution of Remembrance

foreign goods, Basant Devi, wife of Chittaranjan Das, and other women courted imprisonment. When Mahatma Gandhi set out on his Salt March on March 12,1930 with 75 chosen comrades he decreed that no women were to join him. But when he reached Dandi on April 5th he was met by Sarojini Naidu and thou- sands of women who brought vessels with them to carry home sea water. Mahatma Gandhi greatly admired the courage of these women who had never before left home and said their part would be written in ‘letters of gold.’ Women were by now fully included in his movement. Sarojini Naidu was arrested while leading a non-violent demonstration against the salt pans near Dharsna. In August 1942 when mass arrests were made all over India, she was jailed with Gandhi and many others in the Agha Khan Palace.

who worked for the liberation of women and the lower castes were Lokahitavadi Gopal Hari Deshmukh and Jotiba Phule. Pandita Ramabhai and Behramiji Malabari started a campaign for women's uplift. In Madras the Theosophical Society under Annie Besant fostered patriotic pride. All these contributed to the growth of a national outlook. Most of the social reformers became active in the emerging all-India political movement. Women took an active part not only in political agitations but also in the revolutionary movement in the country. In Bengal in the Provincial Conference of 1906 Sarojini Bose took the oath that she would not wear a gold bangle so long as the Government did not withdraw the ban on singing the song ‘Bande Mataram ’ and on shouting the words. During the Swadeshi movement and the boycott of

When Sarojini Naidu was made the Congress President in 1925 she described it as a ‘ generous tribute to Indian womanhood and as a token of.... loyal recognition of its legiti- mate place in the secular spiritual counsels of the nation The contribution of women to the freedom movement began with the heroic Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi who died fighting against the British in the revolt of 1857. Sir Hugh Rose, Commander of the British Army against whom she fought, paid her a well- deserved tribute when he referred to her as the ‘best and bravest military leader of the reb- els.’’ Movements for women's emancipation and social reform which began to take root in the middle of the 19th century in western and southern India ultimately merged with the struggle for freedom. Two great champions