The Left and women’s movements

 The women’s movement in India has a long and rich history in which millions of ordinary women live, work, and struggle to survive in order to remake their family, home, and social lives. Whether fighting for safe contraception, literacy, water, and electricity or resisting sexual harassment, a vibrant and active women’s movement is thriving in many parts of India today.  The communist parties, since 1950s, not only provided women leadership but also kept the women’s question in the centre of political discussion.

However, with the split in the communist movements in 1964 and emergence of many new voices within the left movement which questioned old assumptions of the Marxist parties, new ideas and organisational principles to articulate demands of communities and groups began to emerge. The Shahada movement, in Dhulia district of Maharastra was one such movement. The exploitation of the local Bhil tribal landless labourers by the non–tribal local landowners was the key issue in this.

To add to the woes of the tribals came the successive drought and famine in Maharastra. Different exploitative practices of the landowners and the moneylenders pushed the tribals to take extreme steps of protest.

Though the movement had its origin in the late sixties through the traditional folk ways, singing bhajans etc., the seventies saw a complete metamorphosis when the newly inspired left leadership joined the movement and Bhil women were mobilised gradually and in large number.  However, in the course of the movement it was realised that the issues that were central to women in this area was not exactly what the organisation had initially thought out as such.

For example, after the agitation began in Shahada movement it was realised that most of the women were landless wage earners and the demand for higher wages would address the women’s issue more directly. The movement gradually shifted to cover issues such as higher wages and antialcoholism because it was found that the husband’s habit of having liquor eats into the domestic economy and women had to struggle more to keep the household going. Alcoholism also led to regular wife beating. Issues such as these which earlier were not part of the concerns of the movement came to be realised as intimate reality of the women’s life and were taken up.

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