Self-Sacrifice, Suffrage and Socialism: Gandhi and the Mobilisation of Women, 1930–31

The civil disobedience campaign is traditionally viewed as a turning point when women participated in the anti-colonial movement for the first time in large numbers, a phenomenon conventionally attributed to Gandhi’s ‘call to women’. Feminist historiographical accounts have highlighted the limits of Gandhi’s encouragement and emphasised the depth of women’s autonomous agency. This article examines the dynamics of women’s mobilisation. It explores Gandhi’s approach to women’s activism, which was driven by the image of the self-sacrificing female satyagrahi. It then analyses the role played by two prominent women, Sarojini Naidu and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. Referencing the emergence of the women’s movement and the growing socialist movement within nationalism, it argues that Gandhi as a leader was compelled to respond to women’s perspectives as well as shape their political participation. Gandhi’s prescriptions for women, then, were more flexible than they appear and his mobilisation of women was strategic as well as ideological.