Gandhi on women

Abstract

This article reviews and analyses the role of Gandhi in drawing a large number of women into the mainstream of the freedom movement. Gandhi's ideas about women and their role in public life was a departure from those of the 19th century reformers. He saw women as a potential force in the struggle to build a new social order. He consciously attempted to articulate the connections between private and public life in order to bring women into the struggle. However, he failed to come to terms with the fact that oppression is not a m-oral condition but a social and historical experience relating to production relations. On the other hand even while insisting that a woman's real sphere of activity was the home, he was instrumental in creating conditions which could help women break the shackles of domesticity. [The first two parts of the article which deal with Gandhi's views on the nature of women's oppression and the influence his ideas had in drawing women into the freedom movement were published last week. The third part, which reviews his personal relationships with women, appears below.]