Definition
The theme of women’s participation in the Indian nationalist movement, though having been debated extensively over the last few decades, still draws historians’ attention and calls for continuing revision and rethinking. This chapter explores women’s contribution to the Indian nationalist cause.
The themes of nationalist consciousness and the birth of the nation have been major concerns for scholars of Indian history since the end of the British Raj and the attainment of independence by India and Pakistan in 1947. Several historiographical perspectives have investigated these topics over time. The Cambridge school described Indian nationalism as an ideology shaped by elite groups to mobilise the masses around their own narrow needs, which finally bargained successfully with the foreign rulers for power. On the other side, Indian nationalist historians have since the colonial period highlighted the mass, idealistic, and libertarian character of the nationalist movement,...
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Borghi, E. (2020). Women’s Movements, Indian Anti-colonial Struggle. In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91206-6_338-1
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