AIWC and WIA: Crusade Against the Violation of Women Rights in Colonial Tamilnadu, 1927-1947

Abstract

The struggle for women’s rights proved to be an extensive and exhausting process, but the social reformers in Madras Presidency proved to serve an optimistic role in this course of action. The fight was especially hard because those orthodox socio-religious traditions were very adamant in their beliefs on the part of women in so called Indian Society, but the nationalist national thinkers and social reformers seemed to be determined to turn India into what they deemed as a civilized nation. They were held responsible for starting women’s right movements in Madras Presidency in general and Tamilnadu in particular. Child Marriage, Widow Remarriage, Devadasi System, dowry system in the recent centuries gradually began to decline, because of the Indian press and social reforms opposed the marriage institutions, which were eating into the very rituals of the nation and sapping the vigor of both its manhood and womanhood. The Women Indian Association (1917) and the All India Women Conference (1927), the two women oriented service organizations were founded for the purpose of ventilating the spirit of women rights among the women folk of Madras Presidency. Dr. Annie Besant and Margaret Cousins were the pioneers of women rights movement in this presidency and founders of these two organizations in Madras Presidency.