NOTES
Whatever Happened
to Women’s Studies
M S Sreerekha
More and more women’s studies
centres and courses in gender
studies are being introduced in
India but the academic relevance,
recognition and role for women’s/
gender issues within the broader
space for social sciences are
still very marginalised. One
major challenge is posed by the
dominant patriarchal thinking
within academic institutions
and their administrative wings,
which interfere or control the
functioning of these centres
while being mostly unaware of
the thoughts and developments
within the discipline.
M S Sreerekha (sree.sathi@gmail.com) is at the
Sarojini Naidu Centre for Women’s Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
64
T
he historical journey of women’s
literacy and women’s education
in India has gone through many
phases—from the danger of the possibi-
lity of “good girls from good families”
writing love letters, of making women
literate or educating them “just enough”
to be “good wives or mothers,” to the
journey to streams like home science or
the never-ending promotion of voca-
tional trainings for women. All these
phases were steps which women and
feminists in India have climbed in order
to reach where we are today with
women’s/gender studies.
However, “what do you do/teach
there?” is not just a common question
asked by the ignorant, but even by many
who are members of academic institu-
tions. One is not or should not be sur-
prised with the question at all, though
sometimes the question comes not just
from mere ignorance but more from a
politically motivated intentional igno-
rance. This is not just the case of women’s
studies centres but of other relatively
new disciplines like Dalit studies (which
is a part of the programme for the study
of social exclusion and inclusive policies)
too—though many in this case are clearer
about what is being taught. As an integral
part of society, what happens in society
and its power structures will certainly
reflect in academic institutions too.
Interestingly, just as a reflection of this,
disciplines like women’s studies/gender
studies/sexuality studies or Dalit studies
in most of the academic institutions
are also marginalised in a similar way
within its internal structures. This is
reflected in the resources provided to
them or the positions or power shared
by them within academic institutions
which are comparable.
Whether women’s or gender studies,
the very introduction of the subject still
APRIL 9, 2016
brings in discomfort in the spaces of
many academic institutions. It is not
merely the academic and political
debates raised by scholars in women’s
studies that bring in this discomfort. The
presence of the discipline is further
linked to the epistemological question of
who can speak for whom; as in, women
should speak/think/study only about
women (one can replace women with
Dalits or any other marginalised sec-
tions). This is more relevant especially in
a context when conventional disciplines
still try to maintain their academic bound-
aries within their specific epistemologi-
cal paradigms. Thus, these marginalised
disciplines in the academia have to
struggle to prove their credibility to
speak or listen to beyond the conven-
tional disciplinary boundaries. It is also
certain that as an academic discipline,
women’s/gender studies would chal-
lenge the epistemological base of many
disciplines and it will further challenge
other disciplines on their capability to
break the barriers, to question the exist-
ing social hierarchies and marginalisa-
tion, and contribute to bring in social
change. Furthermore, women’s/gender
studies scholars are entitled to speak
from a location of advantage, gendering
each discipline while raising many fun-
damental epistemological challenges to
conventional social science disciplines,
even more than Dalit studies.
Women’s studies in India as an aca-
demic discipline has a history of more
than four decades. Other than the wom-
en’s studies centres, we also have vari-
ous non-academic forums for addressing
women’s rights/issues in academic insti-
tutions, and there has been a gradual
process and change among these for-
ums—from ladies’ forums or women’s
cells to gender studies forums—address-
ing non-academic, academic or political
issues related to women’s/gender/sexu-
ality issues. There are women’s studies
centres initiated and funded by state
governments, independent, autonomous
academic institutions and government
institutions under the guidance of the
University Grants Commission (UGC).
There are around 160 women’s studies
vol lI no 15 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

centres in the country today under the
UGC, divided into different phases
(phases I, II, III and advanced studies
centres) running different academic
programmes in women’s/gender studies.
The discipline is in an important phase
in its history where it is shaping itself
while facing many challenges internally
and externally, and these are epistemo-
logical, methodological and institutional.
There are ongoing deliberations around
its practice of multidisciplinarity, its
choices from being a discipline to being
a perspective, its relationship with the
women’s movement, its curriculum devel-
opment and its institutional structures;
and as far as the discipline is concerned,
each of these are extremely relevant
issues of debate.
Though there are more and more
women’s studies centres, and courses in
women’s/gender studies are being intro-
duced in the country, the academic
relevance, recognition and the role for
women’s/gender issues within the
broader space for social sciences are still
very marginalised. One major challenge is
certainly the dominant patriarchal think-
ing rampant within the academic insti-
tutions, including within their adminis-
trative set-up. In some ways, the admini-
strative set-up in many academic institu-
tions interfere or control the functioning
of these centres while being mostly
unaware of the thoughts and develop-
ments within the discipline. Further, the
history and growth of the discipline in
India also brings in some other relevant
issues which, as far as the discipline is
concerned, is more self-infused or self-
reflective in nature. A critical rethinking of
whatever happened to “women’s studies,”
especially with regard to its relationship
with the women’s movement, is signifi-
cant in this context.
Extension and Action
Much has been written by Indian scholars
on the history of women’s studies, on
the challenges it faced and the contri-
butions it has made. From its pioneer
Vina Mazumdar to Sharmila Rege, many
have contributed to the debates around
the discipline (Mazumdar and Sharma
1979; Ganesh 1985; Krishnaraj 1988a,
1988b, 2005; Balasubrahmanyan 1993;
Economic & Political Weekly EPW APRIL 9, 2016
Desai et al 1984; Khullar 2000; Poonacha
2003; Anandhi and Swaminathan 2006;
John 2008; Patel 2010; Rege 2011, among
others). In a conference paper, “Whose
Past, Whose History and Whose Tradi-
tion? Indigenizing Women’s Studies in
India,” Vina Mazumdar (2000) presented
a biographical note on her life and her re-
lationship with the women’s movement
and women’s studies in India, her jour-
ney with the Committee on the Status of
Women in India (CSWI 1974) and the
challenges she faced in working for the
discipline in the 1970s. Here, Mazumdar
rejected the notion of a value-neutral so-
cial science, and argued for an activist,
interventionist role as a social responsi-
bility. For her, scholars within institu-
tions had to be involved in understand-
ing and eliminating the obstacles, inher-
ited from the past and flowing from
the present. The need of the time was to
focus on issues like producing data on
women or to generally bring women’s
issues into the centre of social sciences.
Discussing the role of Centre for Women’s
Development Studies (CWDS) and the
twin movements of women and women’s
studies in India, Mazumdar explained
how the CWDS, CSWI and the Indian Coun-
cil for Social Science Research (ICSSR)
worked together towards organising the
Asian Workshop on Women’s Studies
in 1982.
The struggle for a space of its own for
women’s studies in the academia and in
social science in India goes back to those
years; in her words, “We drew our expe-
riences and pleaded for an acceptance of
women’s studies as a method to indi-
genise social sciences in Asian countries
with a major focus on exploring and
grappling with the realities in the
lives of the majority of our women.” For
Mazumdar, the relationship between
women’s movement and women’s studies
will be an ongoing and complex process,
reflected in the turbulence and creativity
displayed by the women’s studies move-
ment. While challenging the role of value-
neutral social science was extremely
relevant for a feminist standpoint in
women’s studies, the argument towards
an activist and interventionist role gave
a different direction to the discipline,
which I feel has had an impact on the
vol lI no 15
NOTES
dilemmas and challenges it faces today.
As shown by many scholars, women’s
studies in India is certainly an outcome
and contribution of the women’s move-
ment in India; however, it is important
to note that both women’s studies and
the women’s movement in India have
gone through major changes in the past
three decades. The change in the termi-
nology from the monolithic “women’s
movement” to “women’s movements,” the
emergence of Dalit women’s movements
and the other, not-so-visible, real chal-
lenges posed by Adivasi women, Muslim
women, transgender women and women
from other marginalised sections are
extremely important in this context.
The challenges from postmodern
debates towards the very existence of the
subject and the category of woman and on
the construction of the woman/gender/
sex and sexuality also brought forth more
epistemological and methodological ques-
tions to address. Along with the mono-
lithic subject “woman,” the earlier focus
on the working class woman also had to be
problematised, and here the postmodern
debates and the plurality of the patriar-
chies it brought in were a real challenge.
An important task in the contemporary
times thus remains the ability to under-
stand the extent of its failure in recog-
nising, addressing or constructively re-
flecting upon the challenges raised by
these Other women’s movements.
In the present context, the thrust on the
history of the relationship of the women’s
movement with women’s studies should
be seen more as a reflection of the politi-
cal commitment of those who nurtured
the discipline earlier. The changes in the
women’s movement through NGOisation
or the engagement of women’s studies
centres with non-governmental organi-
sations (NGOs) through many “extension”
activities are relevant today for a critical
analysis and a rethinking towards the
trends in the discipline. The impact of
NGOisation on movements, especially the
women’s movement, has been studied in
depth by scholars in the field (Biswas
2006). The later developments in women’s
studies centres in many cases show a
direct nexus with funded NGOs. However,
while the women’s studies centres got
themselves to working with NGOs through
65
NOTES
activities of empowering women in the
field, this did not necessarily mean a link
with the important debates raised by the
women’s movement in the past. There
continued to be invisibility and discon-
nect between many important debates
in the history of autonomous women’s
movements/groups and the discipline.
The NGOisation of the discipline took
place more clearly in those women’s
studies centres which involved them-
selves only with action-oriented projects
or research (those centres which were/
are in phases I and II as per UGC norms
or have/had no academic programmes).
Further, in this context, many academic
institutions and their administrative set-
up intentionally made it a point that
women’s studies programmes were to
focus only on extension activities, train-
ings, networking, advocacy, capacity build-
ing and community work in partnership
with NGOs, and not to stress on research or
teaching. This was happening even though
they were clearly part of established aca-
demic institutions that were otherwise
into serious academic work in other dis-
ciplines. It is important to notice that
such an environment also brought forth
existential dilemmas to the members of
these centres; as to whether they are
even part of an academic institution or
working in an NGO. The ghettoisation of
women’s studies centres thus happened
this way where centres were dominated
and controlled by the patriarchal elements
in academic institutions, including both
men and women, who used this space to
superficially convince the academic
world of “doing something for women.”
Those who have studied the history of
the discipline must be familiar with words
like “extension” and “action” through
UGC’s earlier documents and reports in
which these activities were given extreme
importance. Though Mazumdar’s position
on the activist and interventionist role of
the discipline was relevant, this is then
later interpreted as if the main responsi-
bility of the discipline was only to act and
intervene which led or actually misled
the discipline from its earlier times. Per-
haps, the intention behind the extension
activities was to keep reminding one of
the history and politics of the discipline;
to make sure that the discipline remains
66
connected directly with the movement.
However, many women’s studies centres
continued or still continue to function
only within this “extension activity”
framework (considering the fact that
there are less than 20 centres which are
in Phase III or advanced stage today in a
total of around 160), though this phase
of a limited focus on academic activities
has come under severe criticism, more so
in contemporary times. In the process of
their extension activities and NGOisation,
these centres left out any clear agenda
either in academics or in activism. The
very word extension itself is problematic
and apolitical in nature, but “extension
activity” became the only activity for many
centres. This is discussed by Anandhi
and Swaminathan (2006) on the question
of disciplining women’s studies. They
point out how the UGC failed to spell out
the linkages between research, teaching
and extension work, and further how
this diluted the earlier conceptualisation
of women’s studies as a critique of
knowledge production itself. Neverthe-
less, taking a cue from the thrust given
by the UGC to extension activities, many
institutions which were uncomfortable
with the political and academic relevance
of women’s studies used this situation to
further prevent any meaningful academic
intervention by these centres. This became
the de facto rationale for these institu-
tions to sideline women’s studies centres
and keep them in their place.
Forever Temporary
Other than the imposition of extension
activities, keeping these centres forever
temporary in nature has remained ano-
ther way of ensuring its marginalisation
(unlike other disciplines or centres, UGC-
sponsored centres are renewed on a plan
basis in every five years and the staff then
will remain temporary till the scheme/
plan lasts, and though the UGC guide-
lines clarify that these centres should
gradually be taken over by the institution,
many do not consider this possibility or
delay it endlessly). Not only does the tem-
porariness of the centres have an impact
on running regular academic courses, it
renders the staff of these centres ex-
tremely vulnerable, affecting their intel-
lectual ability and contribution and their
APRIL 9, 2016
access to resources, which is otherwise
available for a permanent faculty.
The ignorance of the authorities or the
administration on “what do you do there”
can thus actually have a direct impact
on the faculty too where the absence of a
permanency to their position will deter
them from taking any strong step to
overcome the obstacles from within.
However, it is always possible to find
space to struggle against such situations;
as an example of such a situation, the
author would like to narrate briefly her
personal experience. Under the tenure of
Najeeb Jung, the previous Vice Chancellor
of Jamia Millia Islamia (the present Lt
Governor of Delhi), the centre for women’s
studies at Jamia Millia Islamia was com-
pletely NGOised. Not only that, it went
through the cutting down of access to
teaching papers for students to less than
half from the earlier days; then, with the
implementation of the sixth central pay
commission, the university decided that
the staff of the women’s studies centre
(who were appointed on grade pay as
per the fifth pay commission) will not be
given the benefits of the pay commission
since their appointments were tempo-
rary in nature. There was no explanation
given on how this could be valid. After a
two-year-long attempt at a dialogue with
the university, this author was orally
told by the then vice chancellor to either
quit or go to court. The non-implementa-
tion of the sixth pay commission in only
one centre was totally illegal and against
the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. The
author had to fight a case in the Delhi
High Court against the university, UGC and
the Ministry of Human Resource Devel-
opment. The high court gave a favourable
judgment to the petitioner though it
took three years, while three contempt
of court strictures were issued against
the main respondent, the university.
It is not easy to fight a court case while
continuing to work at the same institu-
tion; however, it was the struggle for rights
and justice, and many years of activism
in Delhi and the precious support from
friends that helped to battle it out.
However a ray of hope that came in its
wake was the further support from the
UGC towards women’s studies and also
the support from the new administration
vol lI no 15 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

at the university towards new academic
programmes in women’s/gender studies.
While the temporariness of an academic
centre will certainly have an impact on
the development and expansion of the
discipline, it is not just women’s studies,
Dalit studies too is in the same state, both
victims of marginalisation in the aca-
demic set-up for reasons mentioned
above. The sword of temporariness is still
hanging on the heads of these centres in
many academic institutions.
In addition to this, while issues like
sexual harassment continue to be an
important challenge within academic
institutions where they are still struggling
with measures towards curtailing it,
women’s studies centres in many institu-
tions are burdened with this job as
another extension activity, as if the issue
of sexual harassment is just their responsi-
bility, and not of the entire institution.
Further, academicians involved with
the women’s studies centres were/are
expected to be in the field, helping
empower women. Unlike any other social
science discipline, from sociology to
social work or even Dalit studies, women’s
studies centres are expected to prove their
social commitment by directly being in
the field. There has been no debate or
understanding on this—about how or why
these centres, especially in the absence
of academic programmes, should directly
engage with the field without any histori-
cal, conceptual, theoretical or academic
understanding or knowledge of the
struggles and issues. In fact, on many
occasions such engagements have been or
can be more damaging rather than pro-
ductive. There are two relevant issues
here worth mentioning. One is the fact
that in an academic context, the involve-
ment of a student or a staff in fieldwork
or related research activities should be
supported by academic (both epistemo-
logical and methodological) learning, in
the absence of which the very act of such
an engagement is meaningless.
Further, many a time (this is applica-
ble not only to women’s studies centres)
the subjects of such temporary activist
interventions from academic institutions
have turned hostile against their re-
searchers in the absence of any change
in their real life other than just being
Economic & Political Weekly EPW APRIL 9, 2016
consistent samples of research. Women’s/
gender studies have made major contri-
butions to the methodological debates in
research about the power hierarchies
between the researcher and the re-
searched. However, instead of further
enriching the debates in the existing
feminist research methods, such inter-
ventions run the risk of taking feminist
research praxis two steps back in beco-
ming tokenistic. While the challenge of
NGOisation or a balanced thread between
its activism and research continues, the
discipline is certainly accorded a much
higher status as far as the question of
ethics and responsibility is concerned in
comparison with many other academic
disciplines. It is relevant to see that a
good academic and political under-
standing of an issue is a must before
entering into research in the field.
Enormous Challenges
At present the UGC’s attempt is to make
the women’s studies centres more aca-
demic oriented, to initiate more academic
programmes, along with teaching and
research, and a focus on the development
of a new teaching curriculum (as shown
in the Twelfth Five Year Plan). Towards
this, the UGC in 2009, with the help of its
Standing Committee in Women’s Studies,
initiated a Curriculum Development Com-
mittee at the national level which worked
towards a common model curriculum in
women’s/gender studies for the whole
country. Research in women’s/gender
studies has come a long way from the
1970s to now, debating feminist research
methodologies and its epistemological
standpoints. Both Rege (2011) and Anandhi
and Swaminathan (2006) have analysed
the developments in women’s studies in
depth, contributing to bringing out the
challenges in teaching women’s studies
in India. Rege (2011) discussed in detail the
challenges within its interdisciplinarity,
its intellectual and institutional expansion,
its practices in higher education, its
employability and its pedagogical growth
and practices. Anandhi and Swaminathan
(2006), while addressing the pedagogical
development, also analysed the institu-
tionalisation, its patterns and initiatives in
different contexts. As they reflect upon
how to make women’s studies relevant
vol lI no 15
NOTES
in the academic world, hopefully the dis-
cipline will no more see initiating courses
like computer applications/NGO Manage-
ment and Women. However, strangely, the
UGC in its present guidelines for women’s
studies is still giving priority to capacity
building for women managers, consider-
ing women’s studies centres as the right
place for these. Obviously, the challenges
for the discipline and its practitioners
and believers are enormous.
There has been a thought for some time
now, sometimes bordering on sarcasm,
that anything related to women or gender
is easy to be published or sold. With a
massive increase in the number of publi-
cations, there is also a dilution of the
political agendas of the women’s move-
ment, contributing towards its further
depoliticisation. Incidentally, the com-
mercialisation and corporatisation of
higher education is also happening, along
with the need for women’s studies centres
in this atmosphere to struggle to prove the
employability of the subject. Rege (2011)
has addressed the question of employ-
ability in detail and argued around the
new teaching experiments in women’s
studies with a better and holistic under-
standing of the crisis in practices of
higher education, especially in social
sciences in India. However, in fact, it has
become easier to prove that the discipline
has more market than any other social
science discipline and so the need for
expansion. Few scholars in the discipline
understand the relevance of the relation-
ship between an academic, political and
epistemological feminist discourse and
the history of the relationship between
autonomous women’s movements and
women’s studies in this country. And these
scholars have to struggle now to fight
the NGOisation of the women’s studies
programmes and also to create more space
for the Other(s) movements into women’s
studies academia, without which the dis-
cipline and its relevance is bound to fail.
A major increase in academic publish-
ing on gender, sexuality, and the grow-
ing scholarship in Dalit women’s studies
as well as in identity struggles and
movements is certainly a silver line to-
wards the growth of the discipline. Thus,
it is not necessary to emphasise that
whatever has happened to the so-called
67
NOTES
upper-caste/upper-class monolithic/singu-
lar women’s movement in the past is det-
rimental to women’s studies. It is also
not necessary then to fear that an end of
extension activities will be detrimental
to the link between the women’s move-
ment and women’s studies. Moreover, it
should not be religiously argued that
teaching in women’s studies in every
way should always have a direct link to
the women’s movement in terms of ac-
tion. Instead, a focus on academics
should be primary for academic institu-
tions. There is a need to recognise and
accept that the danger of NGOisation of
women’s studies is more hazardous than
it becoming more academic or convert-
ing itself into an examination or re-
search subject. Certainly it is a complex
process. Further, it is detrimental for
the discipline to go with those who ar-
gue against academic intervention; that
women’s studies should take place only
in the field and that its agenda is to em-
power women. Especially those who
have been part of the autonomous wom-
en’s movement in India will be more
wary of such terminologies like empow-
erment, knowing its history of appro-
priation in the world of development.
Anything under the Sun
Women’s studies has a long and stable
history and is no more a new discipline.
However, when it comes to addressing
women’s or gender issues many prefer to
stick to their parent discipline with a
gender perspective. To extend this trend
and its contribution, there is even the
argument that some of the most interest-
ing work in women’s studies is being pro-
duced independent of women’s studies
centres (Chakravarti 2003). However,
while this trend can be welcomed, it is
still extremely important to see the
trends within the discipline and its future
directions. Moreover, the challenge of the
impact of a value-neutral social science
and the dominance of conventional dis-
ciplines and its burdening with a tradi-
tion still continue. Further, while many
consider that only issues around/of
women should be taken up by women’s
studies centres, the other extreme is to
expect scholars in women’s or gender
studies to be experts in linking gender
68
or women with anything under the sun.
Though this trend is changing, it is cer-
tainly a challenge to encourage serious
scholarship in the discipline.
The patriarchal masters of conven-
tional disciplines have used this tricky
conundrum many a times—the problem
with you feminists is that you are ques-
tioning without reading the originals!
And feminists worked on these for long,
long enough till they realised that there
is no end to the so-called originals, un-
less and until they themselves start pro-
ducing some. The institutionalisation of
women’s studies also led to questioning
of its members, the women’s studies
scholars, dragging them towards a guilt
trip about making it a profession and
making a living in the name of women.
However, it is necessary to recognise
and assert that the academic work done
in many of the women’s studies centres
are more meaningful than in many oth-
er disciplines. In fact, those who are con-
cerned with whatever is happening in
the sector of higher education in India
today should certainly rethink the rele-
vance of many conventional academic
disciplines in its present structure. It is
also important along with this to ad-
dress the question of marketisation of
higher education to see actually what is
being given back to the society.
It is true that a shift from the term
“women” to “gender” has helped a bit in
the academic space; so far as the doubting
minds are concerned, it now is not merely
talking about women. This shift along with
the missing subject—the woman—the
allegation of depoliticisation of the move-
ment and along with this, new studies on
the plurality of patriarchies, masculinity
studies, etc, all have been relevant issues
of debate. However, I believe it is time to
end the debate of choosing between
women and gender in academics, con-
sidering the increasing relevance of men
and masculinity studies both in a very
academic and political sense. The depo-
liticisation of the subject women through
the introduction of the concept of gender
can be addressed through intentional ini-
tiatives towards a politicisation or re-
politicisation of the vast framework of
gender and sexuality studies. And the
history and politics of feminism can be
APRIL 9, 2016
intellectually engaged with and taught
just the way Marxism, Socialism or any
other ‘isms’ are dealt with as a stream of
political thought. However, an impor-
tant challenge for women’s studies as a
discipline in India is still to survive in
academia without getting NGOised or
otherwise marginalised and thus failed
by the patriarchies within the academia
and its institutions. While the historical
journey is taking it closer to its destina-
tion, it helps (just like in any other disci-
pline) if women’s studies scholars too
are good academicians who can bring in
a balance between activism and acade-
mics which is close to feminist politics.
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