The First Women’s Studies Research Centre: A History of Women’s Studies and Its Progenitors

Abstract

The beginning of Women’s Studies has a special history in India. It owes its origin not only to some stalwarts but also to the historical times in which its birth took place. Its location in the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai was at the initiative of Dr Neera Desai, a Professor of Sociology at that university. Her own work on women’s issues in her Master’s thesis and her involvement in the women’s movement gave her the background for envisaging that a women’s university should engage with analysis of women’s condition and not just teach women other academic disciplines. It was with this motive, that the Research Centre for Women’s Studies was set up in 1974, a year before the publication of the report Towards Equality of the Government of India. The university - originally begun at the initiative of the educationist Shri Dhondo Kheshav Karve received a handsome grant from the industrialist Shri Damodar Thackersey and got named after his mother Shrimathi Nathibai Damodar Thackersey hereafter SNDT Women’s University. The Centre with the involvement of able and farsighted administrators at this university spearheaded the development of this Centre, which became the torch bearer for raising women’s issues.