Women in Modern India

With increased urbanisation and the growth of new professions associated with colonial domination, work was increasingly separated from home. Women also experienced increased opportunities for the expression of their individuality. Although women in earlier times were certainly not an undifferentiated group, we do not have sufficient records to go beyond generalisations about their lives. Formal education and particularly the development of publications intended for and written by women gave women a voice. The’agenda of modernisation’, to which both colonialist and nationalist discourse laid claim, did not, indeed could not, include the wider transformation of Indian society. Nevertheless, the steps taken by the respectable and well-educated Indian men linked improving women’s status with the modernisation agenda. Their campaign set in motion further attempts to establish institutions that would be supportive of a new generation of women leaders