Differentiation in India Women between British Colonial Period and Now

Significant Differentiation in India Women between the British Colonial Period and Now
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Significant Differentiation in India Women between the British Colonial Period and Now
Indian women have been victims of their own culture for a long time. This explains the rigorous reforms directed towards improving the status of the Indian woman since the colonial period to the modern era. Different aspects of women's concerns like sexual rights, marriage, property ownership, retrogressive cultural practices, leadership & nationalism, and education have been some of the major aspects characterizing gender differentiation in Indian society. The colonial period greatly influenced the status of women in India both negatively and positively. The colonial era was one divided along gender and status lines where the social status of women was dependent on men who were hastened by religious tradition and customs. Several reforms have been enacted in India since the colonial period by Indian women and the influence of English feminists and policies. Culture has been, for the most part, the most utilized tool for women victimization and social injustices towards them. The status of women has been continually improving as more reforms take root to fight for women in the Indian community through the implementation of bills like the Sati Abolition Act, Hindu Code Bill and Age of Consent Bill among others. The 20th century has foreseen significant alienation of the derogatory practices against women in Indian society and the great mobilization of women's rights since the colonial period. This paper analyzes the different changes of Indian women since the colonial period to date and different aspects of change.[Samuel Stanley and Santosh Kumari. Position of Women in Colonial Era, International Journal of Educational and Technology 1(2) (2010).]
Major reforms for Indian women during the post-colonial period
The colonial period marked a turning point of women subjection with major reforms taking place during and post colonialism. Ghosh (2006) captured the colonial era situation of women well through the assertion that the indigenous women were often without names and were assumed to be voiceless and were denied rights or exercising any agency. Stanley and Kumari (2010) described the colonial-era Indian women as victims of inequality and social injustice who were denied the opportunity of attaining education.[Durba Ghosh., Sex and the Family in Colonial India; The Making of Empire. Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society (2006).]
The pluralistic culture characterized by different religions (Muslim, Hindu) that had customary law, varied from tribes and castes, making reforms in India more complex than in other British colonies; an aspect that worsened the situation for women in India as they became the main focus of foreign rule exertion. Tarabai Shinde exposed the real situation of Indian women in the nineteenth century concerning patriarchy and harmful customs like Sati and Savitri and represented some of the earliest reforms against the Indian culture. These customs were some of the traits of the Indian culture that were oppressive to women, but their reformation was halted and slowed by the conservativeness of the Indian people, especially men because of its patriarchal nature.[Varsha Chitnis and Danaya Wright. The Legacy of Colonialism: Law and Women’s Rights in India, (2007) 64 Wash & Lee L. Rev.] [Reeta Kumari A Case Study of Tarabai Shinde in Maharashtra: A Research Hypothesis.Journal of Socialomics (2017) Doi: 10.4172/2167-0358.1000200.]
1 The Sati Custom
The institution of marriage was very constituted and embedded within the Indian culture during the colonial period with the culture affecting various aspects like age, choice, and widowhood; all of which had severe implications for women. The customs that touched on marriage and sexual relations took a long time to suppress due to the complex structure of the Indian society with the East India Company, the British rule and other institutions like the Mughal empire all coveting for the power to dictate the parameters of the family. The ties to religion, which was an important aspect of the Indian culture, made the process tedious to achieve any significant results. One of the most debated customary practices on widowhood was the sati custom. The custom constituted burning alive the widow on the same pyre as her dead husband; a custom the colonialists were reluctant to scrap off due to fear of hostility from the conservative natives who were protective of their culture. The banning of the sati was a combined effort of the colonial generals and some national elite who were against the practice and it was not until the end of the year 1820 did the colonial government illegalize the sati custom. Existing leadership led by the East India Company used customary and religious identification as a reason to resist the colonial imperialism which led to the continued struggle in abolishing the practice; the belief behind was that the widow would lead an ascetic life where she would worship the memory of her dead husband.[Ghosh, 2006] [Stanley and Kumari, 2010.] [Chitnis and Wright, 2007]
2 Age of consent and child marriage
Child marriage was also another custom endorsed by the Indian culture that was common during the colonial period. Incidences of child marriage in India are still prevalent mainly due to the cultural attributions surrounding the marriage institution. According to Heuer (2015), 47.4% of girls get married before their eighteenth birthday. The Age of Consent Bill was one of the biggest reforms of the 19th century in India that affected women although, like the sati experienced significant resistance for locals who felt that the colonizers were interfering with their cultural identity. The reforms towards the age of consent were affected by the marriage law as changing the age of consent without changing the age of marriage would result to marital rape and its implementations were greatly influenced by European feminists as it affected them in the context of prostitution. Although the motivation for reforms was different for all the enactors, colonialists and native elites, most of them were pushed by the desire to improve the derogative image other than concern for women although they formed the basis for later reforms.[Vera Heuer. India: Past Present and Future; Activism and Women Rights in India, Education About Asia (20)3, (2015)] [Maitrayee Chaudhuri. Feminism in India: The Tale and it's Telling, (2012) Retrieved from ] [Chitnis and Wright, 2007] [Mahua Sarkar. “The emergence of feminism among Indian Muslim Women, 1920-1947, journal of colonialism and colonial history 2, no 3(2001)]
Prostitution, according to Hyam (1990) was very common during the colonial period to serve the military population and included the use of girls as young as 12 years. The Indian culture allowed the consummation of marriage for under-age girls the installation of the Native Marriage Act by the colonial government in 1872 fixed the marriage age to be 14 and 18 years for girls and boys respectively. Although it improved the status of the age,14, is still young to get married or engage in prostitution and the age differentiation between the genders also shows the level of discrimination. The colonialists condoned the discriminative ideologies to maintain control over the Indians through preserving their culture as interfering with the Indian family and marriage would elicit fierce retaliation from the conservative elites.[Ronald Hyam (1990). Empire and Sexuality: The Sexual Life of the Raj] [Stanley and Kumari, 2010]
3 Property ownership and inheritance
* Married women act
Property ownership in colonial period Indian culture had patriarchal domination that did not grand the women the right to ownership of ‘inherited property’ whether marital or paternal. Indian marriages involved the paying of marritagium (bride price) by the bride’s family to her husband’s family a transaction that did not benefit the woman as she had no control over the property. The married women act was the first initiative that saw the property rights of women greatly improve and work towards safeguarding the interests and rights of women. The colonial law regarding property ownership was based on women's inequality and the custom of the men lineage managing property was plotted against giving equal rights to women. Stanley and Kumari (2007) noted that the Married women property act as a revolutionary milestone in women's acquiring and managing the property as well as that of their children since it was the first act that gave women the right to own their wages and earnings. Despite the importance of the bill, it still experienced ineffective coverage due to the heavy religious fragmentation in the Indian society.[Chitnis and Wright, 2007] [Mytheli Sreenivas, Conjugality, and Capital: Gender, families, and property under colonial law in India. The Journal of Asian Studies 63(4) (2004)]
* The Hindu Code Bill
The Hindu Code Bill was the marking of a very progressive time concerning property ownership as it expanded its jurisdiction to cover what the Married Women Act did not accomplish especially in matters that related to religion. According to Banningan, (1952) The Hindu Code was mainly directed towards the unification and modernization of marriage, divorce, inheritance and property rights. The long battle for the passing of the bill was based on the Indians' perception of the notion of duty and personal rights which, in most cases, overlaps with most matters that affected women. The code sought to alienate laws from the dominant Hindu patriarchal philosophy condoning women’s property rights, monogamy and divorce as pushed forward by the then (1947) law minister DR. Ambedkar. This was an important point for women and the right to property as it built up...