Cutting against the grain: Women in politics, picking up the gauntlet of nationalist struggle from-1857-1947

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject History - Asia, grade: A, Presidency College, Kolkata, course: PG-2, language: English, abstract: The paper operates at the interstices of two main lines of inquiries: How far women were glorified in the context of Indian Nationalism? Why their heroism was blatantly camouflaged by male chauvinism? Multiple shades of heroism, heterogeneity of diverse cultures and religions were encapsulated in the early 20th cent. freedom movement of India. The paper unravels how the super-imposed patriarchy held women's actions at bay; and how in the last, they were drawn into the whirlpool of the movement. Nonetheless, the subtlety of their heroism created a deep mark in the history of Modern India. The paper explores the integration of disparate ideological and political groupings; and an eclectic blend of women's aestheticism and the chivalrous masculinity of men.