Women in the Indian National Movement ― Unseen Faces And Unheard Voices, 1930-42

Most studies of the role of women in the Indian national movement have concentrated on the contribution made by only a handful of prominent women leaders such as Sarojini Naidu, Vijaylakshmi Pandit, Sucheta Kripalani and Aruna Asaf Ali. Less acknowledged but equally forceful was the participation of hundreds of women at the local level - out in the streets as well as inside their homes. This book, significantly, focuses on the nationalist participation of ordinary middle-class women in India's freedom movement, especially in the United Provinces (modern Uttar Pradesh).
To construct the nationalist narrative of unheard voices, the author goes beyond conventional sources of history such as official and archival records. Instead, she employs a diverse range of materials - including oral narratives, poetry, cartoons, vernacular magazines and private correspondence - in order to let these women speak for themselves.
Drawing upon field studies in northern India's Hindi-speaking heartland, the author also sheds light on the domestic lives of middle-class women caught in the swirling vortex of political emotions. She discusses issues of contestation and subordination within patriarchal structures, and the contexts within which women's political consciousness are shaped. The book will be of interest to scholars of history, anthropology, women's studies and politics both for its contents and for the methodology it employs.

Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK.