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July 6, 2003
Review: The woman’s perspective
KNOWLEDGE is defined as certain sets of explicit observations perceived to be true, supported by implicit assumptions and worldviews held by the observer. To locate knowledge in its proper context, it becomes imperative to define the ‘observer’, question the assumptions and the worldviews held and the position occupied — and deconstruct the tools (symbols and language) and the paradigms used — by the ‘observer’.
The body of knowledge and the intellectual tradition of ‘humankind’ evolved in the form of various disciplines (social and physical sciences), is the knowledge produced by men. The concepts evolved and categories created to understand human nature, society and universe, theories and postulates developed to analyze economic, social and historical processes are all based on observations, perceived to be true by men, resting on assumptions held by men. Women’s observations, ideas and understanding of the world, of events, of human beings have been omitted from the body of knowledge and intellectual heritage of ‘humankind’.
Women’s Studies as an academic discipline evolved out of a deeply felt need to identify gaps found in the fields of knowledge as well as to formulate new methodologies to incorporate a holistic perspective into the future knowledge systems. What distinguishes Women’s Studies from other academic discipline is that it has sprung forth from the women’s movement against gender-biased, inequitable social order, thus fusing social activism with academia. The significance and the growth of Women’s Studies, however, vary from country to country.
In the eastern hemisphere, India is the country where Women’s Studies has developed in to a robust discipline. Due to its strong linkages with grassroots women’s struggles, its acceptance by India’s apex educational body — the University Grants Commission — and its capacity to impact policy formulation, legislation and planning at the national level, Women’s Studies has gained legitimacy in India. Its production of a significant body of research and its creation of academic discourse and theoretical formulations vis-a-vis women of the subcontinent, have played, as well, a crucial role in broadening the horizon of Women’s Studies at the global level.
A project of the University Grants Commission, Narratives from the Women’s Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge, documents the history of Women’s Studies in India as an academic discipline, examining its evolution and its ramifications at the academia, the mainstream intellectual discourse and the established knowledge systems. What makes it unique is that it is a collection of essays — written in first person — by the pioneers of Women’s Studies and founder-directors of representative Women’s Studies centres. Narratives, thus, blends personal with political, and is infused with personal insights, reflecting the spirit and the triumphs and tribulations of individual struggles of those committed to a collective cause — the feminist cause.
Edited skillfully by India’s well-known feminist-academicians, Devaki Jain and Pam Rajput — who contribute as well an essay each in the collection — Narratives contains an excellent introduction written by the editors, articulating the ‘unity in diversity’ of the essays. An in-depth opening essay, by Neera Desai, Vina Mazumdar and Kamalini Bhansali, tracing the arduous journey of women’s access to education in the Indian subcontinent — linking it with the acceptance of Women’s Studies as an agency of transformation — sets the pace for the individual case studies that follow.
India has a vibrant and multi-faceted history of Women’s Studies. What makes it enviable — when viewed from a Pakistan perspective — is the fusion, and the forging of the government and the citizen sector initiatives. Women’s education was put on the national agenda from the outset soon after independence. The University Education Commission in its 1949 report, though, gave primacy to woman’ traditional role, advocated education at all levels for both men and women ‘for varied callings’. The First Five-Year Plan pointed out the significance of women’s education and the need to adopt special measures. The progress of women’s education was periodically reviewed and various commissions instituted to rectify the situation.
The real impetus to the emergence of Women’s Studies as a discipline was provided by the 1971 Report of the Commission on the Status of Women in India, prepared by a team of academics, social activists, NGO representatives and members of Parliament. The report significantly affected government policies as well as the academia that took to researching critical and core issues of women’s subjugation. Soon after the publication of the report, the publications division of the Government of India entrusted a task to Devaki Jain, who taught Economics at Delhi University, to compile and edit a volume, titled Indian Women. Devaki, founder-director of the first Women’s Studies centre, the Institute of Social Studies Trust, recalls in her narrative “Building a service station brick by brick” that “the invitation to compile this book had its genesis in a ‘feminist take-off’”. That ‘take-off’ was an article Devaki had written for a special issue of Seminar devoted to the theme of Indian woman.
Throughout the Narratives we find instances of mutual influence, support, linkages, and reaching out to each other by the citizen sector and the state, strengthening the discipline of Women’s Studies right from its initial phase to the present flourishing status. Though indeed, pioneer of Women’s Studies have been mainly women in the private/citizen sector, but the state apparatus keenly sought their expertise, inducted them into its fold and gained from their wisdom and experiences. This is not to say that this forging was smooth or without any tribulations, but what is remarkable is that it worked and produced results.
The first Women’s Studies centres that sprang up in the late 1970s were the citizen sector initiatives. The state responded to the burgeoning feminist consciousness through the National Policy for Education in 1986 when it declared that ‘the National Education System will play a positive interventionist role in the empowerment of women’. The University Grants Commission issued guidelines to universities to ‘promote Women’s Studies as part of various courses’ and initially established Women’s Studies centres at seven universities to ‘act as catalysts for promoting and strengthening Women’s Studies’. Today, there are 32 Women’s Studies centres, including both government-initiated and privately-owned centres.
The book, divided into three sections, presents ten narratives of government-run Women’s Studies centres (at the universities/institutes in Bombay, Chandigarh, Delhi, Benaras, Jadavpur, Calcutta, Mysore, Baroda, Karaikudi). Three case studies represent autonomous Women’s Studies centres. The last section is devoted to the narratives of three individual scholars-activists associated with feminist research. What makes this anthology of essays readable is the fact that despite the unity of theme each essay brings out a different aspect, a new angle, a unique story. A must read for educationists, academicians and those interested in feminist issues.
Narratives from the Women’s Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge
Edited by Devaki Jain & Pam Rajput
Sage Publications, B-42, Panchsheel Enclave, Post Box 4109, New Delhi-110017, India
Tel: 91-11-2649 1290-7
Email: marketing@indiasage.com Website:
www.indiasage.com
ISBN 0-7619-9787-3
388pp. Indian Rs350
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