Women in Indian Society and Women's Organisations

Prerequisites: Role of Women — overview · Salient Features of Indian Society

The Hook: A Quota Written Now, Delivered Later

The Core Concept

The role of women in Indian society is best analysed in three layers: status (what the indicators show), agency (how women have organised) and institutions (what the State has done).

1. Status: what the indicators show

Reading the data. Gains in literacy, financial inclusion and labour force participation coexist with persistent son preference (sex ratio at birth below the natural level), high anaemia and domestic violence. Much of the rise in female labour force participation is in rural self-employment, including unpaid help in household enterprises — so quality of work matters as much as quantity.

2. Agency: the women’s movement in three phases

graph LR
    A[Phase 1: Social reform
19th century] --> B[Phase 2: Nationalist era
1900s to 1947]
    B --> C[Phase 3: Autonomous movement
1970s onwards]
    A --> A1[Sati abolition 1829
Widow Remarriage Act 1856]
    B --> B1[WIA 1917, AIWC 1927
mass participation in Gandhian movements]
    C --> C1[Towards Equality 1974
anti-dowry and anti-rape campaigns]

Phase 1 — Social reform (19th century). Male reformers led: Raja Rammohun Roy against sati (abolished 1829), Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for widow remarriage (Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act, 1856), Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule for girls’ schooling. Women such as Pandita Ramabai and Tarabai Shinde wrote and organised in their own right.

Phase 2 — Nationalist era. Women’s organisations formed and linked women’s rights to self-rule:

Women participated in large numbers in the Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience and Quit India movements.

Phase 3 — The autonomous women’s movement (1970s onwards).

• Towards Equality (1974) — the report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India showed that women’s position had declined on several indicators since Independence. It is the starting point of the modern movement.
• SEWA (1972) — the Self-Employed Women’s Association, founded by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad, organised informal women workers as a trade union.
• Chipko (1973 onwards) — women of the Garhwal hills, notably at Reni village, protected forests.
• Campaigns against dowry deaths and custodial rape — the Mathura case (Supreme Court, 1979) led to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1983.
• Self-help groups — Kerala’s Kudumbashree (1998) and the national DAY-NRLM turned SHGs into a mass platform for credit and livelihoods.
• Anti-arrack movement in Andhra Pradesh (early 1990s) — rural women campaigned against liquor sales.

3. Institutions: the legal and constitutional framework

Key laws

Landmark judgments

Major schemes

Memory Anchors

Three layers: “Status, Agency, Institutions” → “SAI” — use it as the skeleton of any Mains answer on women.

Organisations in order: “Big Women Never Apologise, Strong Sisters” → Bharat Stree Mahamandal (1910) · WIA (1917) · NCWI (1925) · AIWC (1927) · SEWA (1972) · SHGs (Kudumbashree 1998, NRLM 2011)

Two DPSP twins: 39(a) livelihood, 39(d) equal pay — “a for adequate, d for dues”.

One-line Mains hook: The Towards Equality report (1974) showed that formal equality in the Constitution had not reached most women — the gap between de jure and de facto equality is still the core of the issue.

For Prelims

For Mains

• Dimensions: social (son preference, dowry, violence), economic (low and informal work participation, unpaid care work, feminisation of agriculture), political (representation, “proxy” representation in panchayats), health (anaemia, maternal health), legal-institutional (laws and enforcement gaps).
• Keywords: gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting, unpaid care work, feminisation of poverty, glass ceiling, intersectionality, agency, women-led development.
• Value-addition: NFHS-5 and PLFS figures; Towards Equality (1974); SEWA and Kudumbashree as models; the 106th Amendment; Vishaka and Vineeta Sharma.
• Way forward: time-bound implementation of women’s reservation, safe public transport and workplaces, creche and care infrastructure, land and asset ownership in women’s names, skilling linked to formal jobs, gender-disaggregated data.

Common Traps

In the News

• September 2023 — Parliament passed the 106th Constitutional Amendment (women’s reservation in legislatures).
• July 2024 — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 came into force, grouping offences against women and children in a separate chapter.
• For monthly updates see Current Affairs.

Practice

Prelims

Mains

Quick Revision

Key Takeaways

Related Topics

• Role of Women — quick revision
• Role of Women — practice questions
• Population and Associated Issues
• Social Empowerment
• Social Justice and Welfare Schemes
• Local Government