This #RepublicDay let us remember our Founding Parents. We still call them founding fathers, the men who built the republic, when very clearly it was not!
A guest thread on the women who shaped the Indian Constitution by @binaryfootprint.
Maybe, just maybe this year can be about
1) Adjusting our vision to see the women
2) Correcting ppl to say founders & founding parents
3) Learning that more than a century ago, there were women & a women’s movement that contributed as much if not more to the Indian Republic
Have you wondered how it would have been if we had 284 women and 15 men writing the constitution of India? (Or at the very least equal number of men and women!)
How different would our republic have been?
Women probably would have had equality in every phase of life!
After all, Hansa Mehta who was part of the constituent assembly also drafted in 1946 the Indian women’s charter of rights and duties that called for full equality for women.
Property rights that gave women equal rights would have definitely been a central part of the constitution, & a lot more expansive and considerate to women.
Purnima Banerji argued for it during the debates, and something Vijaylakshmi Pandit might have been able to talk about.
We might have had a more decentralized system of government with the country going to vote on the constitution even before we became a republic!
Both were points that Dakshayani Velayudhan and Annie Mascarene insisted on in their speeches in front of the Constituent assembly.
Dakshayani Velayudhan and Annie Mascarene were the only Dalit and Christian women members respectively of the Constituent Assembly Debates.
We might have had elections for the upper and lower houses of the parliament in line with what the US has.
Begum Aizaz Rasul was one of the strongest voices in the constituent assembly calling for this.
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Renuka Ray were strongly against the idea of a separate electorate for women. They called the idea of separate electorates “an impediment to our growth and an insult to our very intelligence and capacity”.
A lot of the women were privileged in different ways. But a lot of the women also argued their positions with the idea that the constitution was the culmination of a century old struggle.
The India that they envisioned was one where all were equal and all were free.
Let uspause for a moment to take a deep breath and laugh/cry out loud!
Reading some of the speeches of these 15 women sometimes feels like I am taking a doobie trip!
I want to go wake each one of these women, point, and laugh/cry at how hopeful they were about the future!!
Renuka Ray dismissed the idea that the country would ever be in a situation where men would need to be coaxed to appoint women because of their abilities and nothing else.
And there will be a time when women capable and able as much as any man would be asked to step forward.
A famous song lyric goes
“Women don’t have anything good happen to them without a revolution” and like all good revolutions, India’s non-revolution revolution also had a beginning and a founder.
Sarojini Naidu can be called the first Indian suffragette. Her revolution - along with Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins, Naidu led a delegation calling for the right to vote for Indian women in 1917 when the Montagu commission came to India.
Like they say “All feminists are suffragists, but all suffragists are not feminists"
Indian women by the way got the right to vote in a limited way in 1920. Madras presidency led the way.
Durgabai Deshmukh was one of the most voluble speakers in the assembly. Her speeches ranged from education, language, rights and duties, and federal oversight.
Strangest among her speeches was a call for greater oversight of movies that are not “educational”.
We might have had a less verbose constitution if Ammu Swaminathan had had her say. India was an example for a lot of countries that sought independence at that time.
Can you imagine the larger role India would've played if we had a more diverse set creating the Constitution?
Leela Roy, Malati Choudhury resigned their post in protest and disappointment. Protesting against partition, and disappointment over the lack of originality in the constitution.
Malati Choudhury also was going through what we fancy people call “Imposter Syndrome”.
Maybe they would have stayed if there were more women. There are times when it feels as if they saw the future clearly.
And suffice to say the Bose loyalist Leela Roy and the Marxist Malati Choudhury would have made the constitution that much more interesting and colorful.
The thing is we very rarely get a chance to think of alternate realities when it comes to the big ideas.
And the world that has been built, republics that were created, and Independence stories are written have all been from the point of view of men and by men.
In the end, some things were how they ought to be!
Sucheta Kriplani, founder of India Mahila Congress, sang the first verses of Vande Mataram, Saare Jahaan Se Accha, and Jana Gana Mana just before India’s “tryst with destiny”.
So, the next time someone says "Founding Fathers" do remind them (politely) that it should be Founding Parents!!
Thank you @binaryfootprint for the AMAZING thread!
Check 15fortherepublic.wordpress.com that has more details about Women Architects of the Indian Republic.
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