ARTICLES

Womens Studies: An Institutional Experience

REKHA PANDE*
The Background
The history of womens studies in India has had an
indigenous growth. It has emerged more as an offshoot
of the concern of the society towards womens position
and problems. Its birth can be traced to the recognition
of a failure on the part of social scientists to enquire
into womens issues, their lack of questioning of the
assumptions, theories and tools of analysis borrowed
from the west and to bridge the glaring gaps in data
that might help orient policy changes. This was
because many of the social scientists and educational
planners had not found it necessary to re-examine the
concepts and methodological approaches in terms of
the social reality obtained in India. Womens studies
thus started as part of a larger social movement and
the growing social concern among few academicians
with the widening issues of poverty, unemployment,
inequality and underdevelopment. It gradually evolved
the aim of bringing about greater knowledge on the
social basis of womens inequality, their marginalization
in development and their exclusions from power
structures.
The introduction of womens studies into the University
system has been a path breaking event for social
scientists and other scholars who wanted to see a
comprehensive and balanced presentation of our social
reality. It is viewed as an instrument for social and
academic development that will help the University
community and the society at large towards a better
understanding of the multi-dimensional roles played by
women and would look into the causes for gender
disparity. For the past few decades, the world
community is focusing on the issues concerning gender
disparity leading to serious social imbalances. The
education system all over has responded by
establishing Womens Studies to develop new
scholarship and a body of Womens Studies from the
perspective of women. The present paper is a case
study of the University of Hyderabad and analyzes the

experiences in establishing a Centre for womens

studies.
All over the world today womens studies has continued
to critically engage with the notion of power and to
radically transform the intellectual landscape. There has
been recognition that knowledge is also a form of
capital, to which some individuals and groups have
better access than others. This then becomes a source
of power for exerting control. As a result, social
structural inequalities of race, nation, class, caste or
gender correlate with asymmetries in the production,
reproduction and deployment of social scientific
knowledge (Uberoi, 1993, p.244). Fundamental to
feminism is the premise that women have been left out
of the codified knowledge, where men have formulated
explanations in relation to themselves and have
generally rendered women invisible or classified them
as deviant. The description and analysis of women as
autonomous human being has been one of the most
significant contribution made by feminism (Cheris
Kramarae and Spender, 1993). The emphasis on
feminist perspective meant a realization of power
relations inherent in current knowledge frameworks and
practice in terms of who has access to that knowledge,
how it was distilled and eventually how meaning was
encoded (Spender, 1981). Though feminism has made
critical use of past male theories despite their gender
blindness, it was recognized that it was necessary to
develop feminist theories and concepts which saw
women as primary to theorizing. But, it meant not being
content with this but opening a new world.
The First National Conference of Womens Studies
The first National Conference on Womens Studies held
in SNDT University in 1981 aptly defined Womens
Studies for the Indian context. It stated, By womens
studies we do not mean merely focusing on womens
experiences, problems, needs, perceptions etc. in the
context of development and social change with a view
to integrating this neglected area within the scope of

* Head, Centre for Womens Studies and Professor, Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of
Hyderabad, Hyderabad- 500 046, Andhra Pradesh, India

WOMENS LINK, VOL. 19, NO. 2

higher education but viewing it as a critical instrument

to improve our knowledge about society which at
present remains partial, biased, projecting only a view
of social reality derived from a male perspective
(SNDT, 1981).
Womens studies in the Indian context is a study of
women. Does this mean that women have not existed
or were not studied before? The thing, which is different
here, is that it is demarcated as a scientific enquiry
and this enquiry has an approach that has been much
different from all preceding ones because its purpose
is different. This purpose has emerged from a particular
conjunction of events that pushed womens concerns
into public attention. (Maithreyi Krishnaraj, 1988).
Womens Studies grow out of a concrete historical fact
of the oppression and explorations of women and their
struggle for liberation. Womens Studies is more than
one reference to a powerful woman, more than one
course in a department about women, more than a
womans division in association, more than one panel
at a conference, more than one article in a scholarly
journal. It entails the full inclusion of Womens Studies
material in all research, scholarship and teaching (
Simpson, 1986, p. 51). Womens Studies thus in the
Indian context becomes a critical instrument to study
reality from the standpoint of women. Such questions
can only be posed in spaces like university classrooms
and research centers where there are still some spaces
that have not been encroached upon. This treats
women as a category in a multidisciplinary approach
in order to incorporate womens experiences and
understandings. It begins with explicit concerns for the
removal of gender subordination and discrimination.
Linkages between Womens Movements and
Womens Studies
It was the womens movement of the 1960s and
1970s in the western world, which had a major impact
on the establishment of womens studies courses in
adult and higher education. The feminist emphasise on
the importance of sisterhood, the personal being the
political, the false separation of the public and private
spheres, a recognition of the common oppression of
women and their diversity in terms of race, ethnicity,
sexuality, class, age and levels of disability and the
idea of development as a feminist consciousness were
central concepts to the womens movement and began
to inform the development of womens studies in the
establishment (Robinson 1993, p. 3). It was the

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womens movements that pushed womens concerns

into public attention. As one facet of the educational
wing of the womens movement, womens studies had
two particular and interrelated aims. The first was to
provide information and analysis about the lives of
women, with a view to bring about social changes which
would end gender inequalities and womens
subordination. The second was to develop a critique
of existing knowledge forms which would demonstrate
how and why, womens lives, views and perspectives
remained largely hidden in the existing academic
disciplines. It was suggested that academic scholarship
had either ignored women, assumed their experiences
were same as men( thereby overlooking the
importance of gender as a dimension of analysis) or
treated them as deviant( Maynard, 1998). The U.N
declared a Decade for women. Many funding agencies
promoted integration of women in development. The
national liberation movements in many parts of the
world brought out women from the domestic confines
to a more public and active participation. At the same
time, the movements also brought about a new
patriarchy and led to division in the ranks of the
revolutionaries and this is where womens studies took
off when the revolution rested. Womens role in
population policies and family planning and their
reproductive roles and its connections to social action
areas was discovered. Many of the feminist now started
asking questions on why women were unequal,
subordinate and oppressed in spite of the revolutions.
Womens studies encompass the undermining of
traditional disciplines in terms of their subject matter
and their structure. Teaching, learning and research are
all transformed by a questioning of conventional
knowledge claims to objectivity and truth and the
separation of experience from theory. Womens studies
have attempted to produce theories and concepts that
reflect feminist principles. By and large, scholars have
advocated crossing of theoretical boundaries,
multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary
to allow an issue or area to be examined from a variety
of intellectual standpoints as being most appropriate
to womens studies. Sandra Coyner poses an important
question, Are we sociologists, historians and artists
who happen to be interested in women- or womens
studies people who happened to be particularly
interested in social roles, history and art( Coyner in
Bowles, 1983, p.59). As womens studies person we
must accept womens studies as a framework for

organizing knowledge, a framework with its own internal

structure and approaches.
Womens Movement in India
As in the west, in India also womens studies owe its
origins to the womens movement. The womens
movement in India had developed along the freedom
struggle. The status of women became a matter of great
concern during the 19 th century social reform
movement. In this period, the social reformers many
of whom were also political leaders were deeply
concerned with changing the nature and orientation of
some of the social institutions. The colonial intervention
in the 19th century was no longer confined only to the
market or polity but was intruding into the areas of our
culture and society and this could affect transformation
in the social fabric of Indian society. This potential
threat was sensed by the Indian intellectual reformers,
who were exposed to western ideas and values. At this
juncture, the Indian intellectual reformers who are
sensitive to the power of colonial domination and
responding to western ideas of rationalism, liberalism
and civilized society on one hand also sought ways
and means of resisting this colonial hegemony by
restoring to cultural defense (Panikkar, 1975).
This cultural defense resulted in a paradoxical situation.
Spurred by new European ideas of rationalism and
progress, the reformers tried to create a new society,
modern yet rooted in Indian tradition. They began a
critical appraisal of Indian society in an attempt to
create a new ethos devoid of all overt social aberrations
like polytheism, polygamy, casteism, sati, child
marriage, illiteracy all of which they believed were
impediments to the progress of women. All the social
reformers shared a belief common to many parts of the
world in the 19th century that no society could progress
if its women were backward. Raja Ram Mohan Roy
identified the gross social evil that thwarted womens
freedom and made a strong plea for legal reforms. In
the stress on education the emphasis was on narrowing
the mental gap between husband and wife and it was
argued that education would improve the efficiency of
wives and mothers and strengthen the hold of
traditional values in society (Desai in Dube, 1986, p.
290). The social reform movement did not radically
challenge the existing patriarchal structure of society
or question gender relations. The renaissance reformers
were highly selective in their acceptance of liberal ideas
from Europe. (Pande, 2009, 27). Fundamental elements

of social conservatism such as the maintenance of

caste distinctions and patriarchal forms of authority in
the family, acceptance of the sanctity of the sastras (
ancient scriptures), preference for symbolic rather than
substantive change in social practices-all of them were
conspicuous in the reform movements of early and mid
19th century (Sarkar in Sangari and Vaid, 1985, p167)
They picked up for reforms only those issues, which
the Britishers were pointing out as evidence of
degeneration in Indian society. Even the womens
institutions and organizations that sprang up during this
period do not reveal the development of an independent
view. The women, accepted the direction and content
of reform organizations, as laid down by the reformers
without any question. As a result even when women
were speaking for themselves they were speaking only
the language of the men defined by male parameters.
The attempt was to create a new Indian woman, truly
Indian and yet sufficiently educated and tutored in the
19th century values to suit the new emerging society.
Thus education for girls was not meant to equip them
to be self-sufficient, independent and emancipated and
train them to follow some profession but to be good
housewives, the mistress of the home and the hearth
(Pande and Kameshwari, 1987, PIHC). The historical
context was long gone but the images have still
persisted and the essaying of the stereotypes remains
hard to dismantle.
The overall attempt was to reform the women rather
than the social conditions, which opposed them. There
was no attempt to alter the power structure and the man
woman relations in society. This was but natural since
the change in the status of woman was being sought
only within the patriarchal structure without questioning
patriarchy itself. Another factor, which contributed to
the spontaneous and massive participation of women
in the struggle for national freedom, was the efforts of
Mahatma Gandhi. Many of the participants of the
freedom struggle became the founders of the emerging
womens organization. The growth in the studies on
nationalism has prompted us to take a relook at the
role of women.
The Dawn of Independence and the Status of
Womens Committee Report
Most of the womens issues during the preindependence period were subsumed with in the larger
issue of the freedom of the country and there was a
utopian dream that once we were free all the other

WOMENS LINK, VOL. 19, NO. 2

issues could be sorted out later. Immediately after

independence, India had to deal with a variety of
problems. The joy of Independence was tempered by
the trauma of partition and the migration of a large
majority of people and the break up of communal
violence in Punjab and Bengal. This was followed by
war in Kashmir, the danger of territorial fragmentation,
the dispersion of power among 600 princely states and
last but not the least, economic dislocation which was
to affect women the most. Years of colonial domination
had destroyed our indigenous crafts and depleted our
natural resources. Industrialization, changing
technologies illiteracy, lack of mobility all resulted in
the inability of women to cope with the new order. Once
their labour was regarded as unimportant in the
productive market, their role in the family also became
marginal giving them a raw status, which became
abysmal with the passage of time. In many of this
earth shaking events the primary contradictions were
the first to be explored and the later contradictions were
untouched, e.g., womens question.
The dawn of independence in 1947 generated a great
deal of hope and optimism among the people for we
were now the masters of our destiny and there was a
vision of justice and prosperity for all. Our constitution
enshrined the principle of equality of the sexes. The
right to vote for which our counterparts in the western
world had to struggle was available to us without any
questions. Various laws were also enacted to safeguard
many rights of women. Many women gained from this
and we had women accepting important public offices
and entering into careers as academicians,
administrators, scientists etc. Yet in spite of this the
fact remains that there is a wide gap between womens
situation and development trends, between theory and
social reality. There was a need to fit in this gap and
it was felt that women studies could carry out this
monumental task.
The U.N. Declaration of the World Conference of
International Womens year at Mexico in 1975 brought
a fillip of activities and womens activities and
concerns; their familial positions and their disabilities
in the enjoyment of rights were once again highlighted.
The publication of the Status of Womens Committee
Report in 1975 on the eve of the International Womens
Year brought out some alarming facts with regards to
employment, political participation and health status of
Indian women. It pointed out that the deep foundation
of inequality of the sexes is built in the minds of men

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and women through a socialization process, which

continues to be extremely powerful. It pointed out that
if education was to promote equality for women it must
make a deliberate, planned and sustained effort so that
new values of equality can replace the traditional value
system of inequality. The educational system had not
even attempted to undertake this responsibility, it
pointed out, which was a sad indictment and bitter truth
that one had to accept (Towards Equality, 1974).
Establishment of Womens Studies Centers and
Cells
Following the recommendations of the First National
Conference on Womens Studies held in Bombay in
1981 and the UNESCO workshop in 1982, the
Secretary, University Grants Commission had sent a
circular letter to the Vice Chancellors of the various
Universities to suggesting the starting of a program of
Womens studies and incorporating them in the curricula
of Social Sciences for teaching and research. Many
Conferences, workshops and discussion groups took
place to formulate clear guidelines, in order to help
Universities, faculties, colleges and other institutions
of higher learning to start such units as well as
reinvigorate the existing units and centers on Womens
Studies.
The University Grants Commission guidelines for the
development of womens studies in Indian Universities
and Colleges once again defined womens studies as,
a critical instrument for social and academic
development that will help in conscientising both men
and women by helping them to understand, recognize
and acknowledge the multi-dimensional roles played by
women in society. It would lead to a better
understanding of the process of social, technological
and environmental change. It could lead to the pursuit
of human rights and investigate the causes of gender
disparity by analyzing the structural, cultural and
attitudinal factors. Such a study it felt could empower
women in their struggle against inequality and for
effective participation in all areas of society and
development and render the invisible women visible in
particular the women of the underprivileged strata and
help in developing alternative concepts, approaches
and strategies for development. (UGC Guidelines, 1986,
p.2).
This was followed with a large number of workshops,
conferences and seminars to grapple with the issue of
trying to understand what womens studies was all

about and how it could be incorporated into curriculum

development, syllabus revision and research programs.
Many prominent women also promoted womens
studies. Madhuri R. Shah, former Chairperson of UGC
as well as Ms. Phulrenu, former Chairperson of the
Committee on the Status of women in India in separate
notes in January 1985, to the Minister of Education
pointed out the need for including womens studies in
the National policy of Education. This they pointed out
could articulate the governments concern and
commitment to womens equality and to utilize it as
an instrument for womens development. They felt that
such a promotion with in the educational system can
lead to distinct attitudinal and value transformation of
the younger generation (Delhi University Seminar
Report, 1985, appendix, 5, 6, pp53-65).
The University Grants Commission Report, 1997
When the National Policy on Education came out in
1986, it viewed education as a premier instrument for
promoting equality of status and opportunity between
men and women and between groups divided by class,
caste and other forms of historic oppression. It regarded
education as an agent of basic change in the status
of women (National Policy on Education, 1986, p. 6).
It stated that the National Education system would play
a positive, interventionist role in the empowerment of
women. It would foster the development of new values,
through redesigned curricula, text books, the training
and orientation of teachers, decision makers and
administrators and the active involvement of
educational institutions. It stated that this was an act
of faith and social engineering. It also stated that
womens studies would be promoted as a part of the
various courses and educational institutions
encouraged taking up active programs to further
womens development (National Policy on Education,
1996, p. 6). Hence, womens studies in India can be
viewed as an essential method to promote the national
Educational Objectives.
In India, we have not defined Womens Studies
narrowly as Studies about women or information about
women but viewed it as a critical instrument for social
change and development in the context of Asian social
reality. Womens studies would help us in better
understanding of inequality and imbalance in the social
system. Womens Studies should lead to the pursuit
of a more comprehensive, critical and balanced
understanding of social reality which should include

aspects like womens contributions to the social

process, womens perception of their own lives and the
broader social reality. Women studies here also
focuses on the roots and structures of inequality that
led to marginalization, invisibility and exclusion of
women from major areas within the society and the
country (Pande, 2005, 125).
The University Grants Commission (UGC) is the
agency for the promotion of higher education in India.
As such it has the primary responsibility for developing
and strengthening womens studies in the Universities.
Much of the action has to hence emanate from its
initiative and support by way of policy guidelines,
grants, supportive structures. Between 1983 and 1986,
the UGC initiated a few steps in this direction. Apart
from co-sponsoring various seminars, the UGC
established a standing committee on Womens Studies.
In December, 1985, this standing Committee, specified
specific organizational structures and an action plan to
begin some organized activities for womens studies
in the Universities and Colleges. It identified seven
Universities from various parts of India to play a
leadership role in curriculum, material and human
development and to carry out research (Standing
Committee, UGC, 1985, p.8)
In all the UGC had funded 22 centers and 11 Cells since
1986. Yet in a Report the UGC did recognize that there
is much that still needs to be done (UGC, 1997, p. 4).
It felt that the Centers could play a significant role in
facilitating the national goals of removal of poverty and
discrimination. The current configuration of the centers
is such that there is differences among them in their
age, skills, location within the University in terms of
the Universities own priorities as well as in leadership.
Today these Centers primarily role is Knowledge
assimilation and knowledge transmission through
teaching, research, field action and documentation,
they fulfill several related and complimentary roles for
the academic community as well as for the activists,
policy makers and policy implementers.
During the XIth plan there has been considerable
expansion with many new centres coming up in
Universities and colleges across the country. There
has been a growing feeling that the academic aspects
of the Womens Studies require considerable attention
and support to enhance and ensure academic rigor and
quality of both teaching and research in womens
studies.

WOMENS LINK, VOL. 19, NO. 2

The University located Womens Studies Centers are

expected to provide leadership in intervention in
curriculum development in addition to the provision of
new knowledge. There are three kinds of teaching
programs which are envisaged. This includes a basic
foundation course to incorporate the new gender
perspectives for all faculties and integrating the
changed feminist perspective in all disciplines and
specialized courses at various levels, certificates,
Diploma, Bachelors, Masters, M.Phil, Ph. D. degree and
post-doctoral work which may preferably include a field
component. Teaching brings the student community in
vital contact with the womens issues and their active
participation in this learning process has considerable
impact. This, one hopes will lead to the involvement
of student community especially women in raising
gender consciousness and developing feminist identity.
All these were done keeping the colonial legacy and
the role of the universities in the larger developmental
model as the institutional agents of change.
Womens Studies Cell in the University of
Hyderabad
The year, 1981 also saw a series of discussion in the
University of Hyderabad about womens studies. This
gave an opportunity for a group of scholars from
Humanities and Social Sciences to come together and
form a womens studies cell. By 1984, the cell had
started functioning in a much unstructured manner
keeping the agenda at the forefront. This became a
meeting place for scholars to gather and deliberate on
womens issues. Scholars like Meenakshi Mukerjee,
Shanta Sinha, Aloka Prasher Sen, Mithilesh Pant,
Kameshwari Jindyala, Pradipto Chaudhary, Marathe,
Manikyamba became very actively involved in its
functioning. There were long debates on whether it
should have a separate entity of its own or if it should
be incorporated into the main stream. It was felt by all
that by having a separate entity the cell would be
marginalized and it would serve a better purpose if it
was integrated with the main disciplines as far as
teaching was concerned. It was decided that the cell
would focus only on Projects and seminars related to
womens issues to create awareness. This cell was
alternatively located in the School of Social Sciences
and the School of Humanities. It successfully
organized various seminars and workshops. Some of
these were related to syllabus in womens studies and
curriculum development, womens work in the
unorganised sectors, violence against women and the

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girl child. Many faculties participated in Refresher and

Orientation programmes on Gender issues. Various
projects were completed under the aegis of the cell.
Some of these included, Evaluation of crches in the
organised and unorganised sectors in Hyderabad, The
girl child and family in Telengana, Andhra Pradesh,
India, Adoption of Gopanpally village - An action
Project, The decade of the girl child (1990- 2000 A. D.)
Women and violence, Child labor in the beedi industry
in Nizamabad, Andhra Pradesh, The Anti-Arrack
(Liquor) movement in Andhra Pradesh, Child labour in
the old city of Hyderabad, Gender issues in the police,
Socio - economic profile of Nizamabad, Cross Cultural
Study of Women. However one continued to teach
courses in the main stream disciplines and did not
teach any courses independently in womens studies.
There was a lot of debate and it was felt that this Cell
would serve a better purpose if it was integrated within
the University system. The Dean, School of Social
Science and Dean, Humanities would be its Directors
by rotation. There was no funding for this, except a
small grant for a year and therefore by and large the
cell functioned without any funds or funds which were
generated by individual faculty members when they
applied for Project, funds in their individual capacity
from outside sources and funding bodies. The Cell
provided lot of scope to apply for funding for projects
which would normally not fall within the purview of
History.
Womens Studies Today
Today a large number of students, both boys and girls
from different disciplines are working on womens
issues and related topics. The last few years has seen
a growing number of researches based on oral history,
translation of womens writing in the vernacular
languages. There are vigorous debates between
activists of the womens movement and researchers
and teachers in the academy. They all share a common
understanding that exogenous models have a distorted
understanding of Indian womanhood, which should
properly be understood in her own terms, in her own
language, on her own grounds and through her own
categories of understanding (Uberoi, 1993, p252-53).
Womens Studies is inspired by scientific
consciousness that womens oppression and gender
inequality are interlocked in the system of knowledge
and education and it rejects the one sided view of the
main stream discipline. Feminist claim the right to
contribute to knowledge creation often by deposing
7

reigning canons. Contemporary issues of cultural

identity, religious identity, inequality can be understood
if located in the historical frame work of the past. We
would like to start with the assumption that the past
has been the creation of both men and women and
though women may be absent from history (which
focuses on men and their activities) they have also
contributed to it immensely. Women have always been
looked upon and very rarely did women do their own
looking. If one were to write the history of women from
the womens point of view, then one would get a true
picture of her status within a patriarchal society, where
she has to live and work with in many constraints, and
not the glorified accounts of the distant past or the
derogatory images of the medieval times, which in no
way reflect the true status of women, but are
exaggerated accounts with some other motive. The
influence of women as a group in the social economic
changes of a particular period or the changing patterns
of their lives in accordance with the changes in the
polity, society and religion are not sufficiently
examined, and only when this is accomplished that one
will be able to get a total picture, moving away from a
hitherto male and elite perspective that history writing
has been and assess the correct status of women in
the past and have no exaggerated memory of her
status in the past. Instead of creating yet another grand
tradition or cumulative history of emancipation, there
is a need to be attentive on the past entering differently
into the consciousness of other historical periods and
is further subdivided by a host of factors including
gender, caste and class (Sangari, 1989, p.18)
Even in political science there has been an attempt at
incorporating womens dimension in various courses
like political theory, history of political thought,
comparative political systems, international relations
and rights and the relevance of these concepts to
women and their limitations in the context of
subordination of women in the family and the wider
society. In sociology there are various branches and
concepts in which womens issues can be incorporated.
These include social organization, social structure,
status, roles, family, religion, social control and social
change. In economics there have been gender based
evaluation of theories of development,
conceptualization of womens work, gender structures
in developed and underdeveloped economies, womens
participation in work, wage differentials, and labor
legislation for women. In education there have been

attempts to look at development of womens education,

the historical disparity, the cultural, religious and
economic hindrances to womens education, sexist bias
in curriculum development, text books and teaching
methods, health and nutrition education for women, and
leadership and assertive training to improve the self
image of women. In fact we find gender issues
reverberating in departments of sciences, medical
school and health psychology.
Womens Studies can play a crucial role in empowering
women and society at large by redesigning the
curriculum, syllabus restructuring, teachers training,
orientation, orientation of educational administrators
and policy makers.
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