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Not part of the plan? Women, state feminism and Indian socialism in the Nehru years

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  • Sherman, Taylor C.

Abstract

The 1950s are often derided in the scholarship as a period of welfarist policies which reinforced women’s role in the family and entrenched women’s economic dependence. This paper examines the Central Social Welfare Board, and in particular its Welfare Extension Projects, to provide a new characterisation of the approach to women’s issues during the period. It argues that the Central Social Welfare Board, with its unique administrative structure, its preference for voluntary activity, and its adherence to persuasion as a mode of action reflected many of the characteristics of Indian socialism of the time. It also sketches, from this angle, a partial picture of state feminism in India. In the Central Social Welfare Board, state feminism was concerned with the gradual transformation of women and a radical, if short-lived, makeover of the state.

Suggested Citation

  • Sherman, Taylor C., 2021. "Not part of the plan? Women, state feminism and Indian socialism in the Nehru years," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107460, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:107460
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    state feminism; socialism; self-help; welfare-state; everyday state; community development; decentralisation; postcolonial nationalism; Durgabai Deshmukh;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions

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