: The Forgotten Women of the Unfinished Revolution – Part II #IndiaNEWSAll #East The Forgotten Women of the Unfinished Revolution – Part I can be read here.   As the Naxalbari uprising in 1967

@IndiaNEWS

Posted in: #IndiaNEWSAll

The Forgotten Women of the Unfinished Revolution – Part II #IndiaNEWSAll #East
The Forgotten Women of the Unfinished Revolution – Part I can be read here.  
As the Naxalbari uprising in 1967 set fire to what had so long been simmering in the hinterlands of Bengal ever since the Tebhaga movement, villages across the North Bengal, Mednipore and Bolpur belts became battlegrounds. With all the public places in and around one’s home becoming arenas where battles of caste, class, gender, and land rights were being fought, it became exceedingly difficult to keep the private and public realms separate and thereby keep oneself insulated from what was happening around oneself. Thus, in order to study the nature of women’s participation in the Naxalbari movement, one needs to understand that for rural women locked in a space where the entire village had transformed into a battleground, participation was not really a matter of choice.
The turbulence of the time, the revolutionary space created by the movement made a dent in the societal fabric too. Through these cracks in social rigidity, women started making way into the movement. For many, these were ‘magical’ and ‘wondrous’ times. Times when many options became viable, the chance to transcend the quotidian existence that social norms have marked for them and live another life. The time had brought with it the possibility to connect oneself with the wider world outside.
Nazalbari Veteran, Shanti MundaPC: thewire. in
Shanti Munda speaks of tales from those times when the situation demanded of the women to take up important roles in the movement. When the men of the village had to go underground, these women kept the network alive. “Many more women like me had joined. Galeshwari, Etowari, Rajkot, Noni, Kishan, Ganga, Hasda- wherever we went we organised people. We used to gherao courts and seize land. I used to teach women how to shoot. If the police came, we would attack them with whatever we had like a knife, machete, ax,e etc. since we did not have guns. We would gherao the police every time they came to arrest someone. ” The women who had been kept away from plowing the field through the imposition of various superstitious beliefs began to take up those works as those rules began to slacken. Suniti spoke about Galoshwari Tharu who plowed the field with her daughter-in-law and other village women.
Also read: Emergence of Brahminical Fascism in West Bengal
Curiously, patriarchal assumptions in the society too opened possibilities for women. Sabitri says how patriarchal ideas and structure have been used tactically, “At that time women were of greater use to the organizational works. Since women were thought to be ‘helpless’, and ‘naïve’, they could reach those places men could not go without attracting much attention.

Intraday stocks under 50 NSE India Twitter of India

Vote Up Vote Down

Login to post a comment!