Gandhi’s Reconstruction of the Feminine: Toward an Indigenous Hermeneutics

Abstract

One of the most controversial issues surrounding Gandhi is his construction of the feminine as he attempts to integrate traditional Hindu conceptions of women with his own progressive vision of women’s roles in the modern world. Many scholars have acknowledged Gandhi’s commitment to challenging oppressive patriarchal customs, including child-marriage and dowry, as well as his attentiveness to bringing women into the public sphere. Gandhi acknowledged and lamented the existence of women’s oppression in India, stating, “Woman has been suppressed under custom and law for which man was responsible and in the shaping of which she had no hand… [Men] have considered themselves to be lords and masters of women instead of considering them as their friends and co-workers” (qtd in Joshi, 1988: 323). Gandhi considered the participation of women in his nonviolent movement to be an essential ingredient for its success. He wrote, for example, “Women’s marvelous power is lying dormant … My experiment in non-violence would be instantly successful if I could secure women’s help” (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi [hereafter CWMG] 96: 77). But Gandhi also valued traditional Hindu conceptions of womanhood, rendering his thinking about women highly complex as well as controversial.

The ancient laws were made by seers who were men. The women’s experience, therefore, is not represented in them.

—CWMG 37: 470

I believe that it is our duty to augment the legacy of our ancestors and to change it into current coin and make it acceptable to the present age.

—CWMG 57:241