What's In A Name?

In the wake of the textbook controversy that is still roiling academic circles countrywide, comes anothersignificant intervention into national academia by the Union minister for Human Resource Development, Mr.Murli Manohar Joshi. Recently Mr. Joshi renamed the Women’s Studies Center at the University of Pune as the"Women’s and Family Studies Center." The renaming of the Pune center, according to the UGC, which comesunder Mr. Joshi’s sphere of influence, will be followed by the same move for the twenty or so centers acrossthe country.

This latest move by one of more visible faces of the BJP leadership has evoked strong protests fromfeminist academics all over the country. Petitions have been sent to the University Grants Commission urgingfor a reversal of the decision and feminist scholars have been extremely vocal in expressing consternationabout the said proposal. Yet, in a country torn apart by bomb blasts, natural disasters and terrorist threats,such disquiet over the mere renaming of a handful of women’s studies units may well seem to the ordinarycitizen as an exercise in academic vanity.

Before we write off the significance of this seemingly inconsequential gesture by the state, let us take amoment’s pause and ask ourselves a few questions. Why, for instance, was it important for the government tointroduce the words ‘family studies’ into the nomenclature of the women’s studies units? Assuming thatno such decision is made without the back up of a professional thinking machinery, we may well wonder as towho/what will henceforth be excluded from the arena of scholarship when the site where this scholarship isconducted has been renamed through a rather restrictive qualifier. And finally what are the implications ofsuch exclusion(s)?

At the risk of being accused of idealistic mind reading or, worse still, of being a paranoid conspiracytheorist who smells disaster at small gestures made by the government, let me say that my fear about actionssuch as Mr. Joshi’s are confirmed as I look back into the present government’s records on gender issues.It is crucial that we contextualize the renaming of the women’s studies units countrywide. For only thenwill the regressive implications of Joshi’s maneuver become clear and it will be apparent that what at theoutset seemed insignificant is actually a deed with boundless ideological potential. But, first a backgroundon what constitutes women’s studies and a brief history of this kind of institution building in India.

Women's Studies

The 1960s were a tumultuous decade in the history of human rights that globally inspired a series of socialmovements. From this period onward, social scientists and humanists became interested in the role played bysocially marginalized groups in the histories of nation building and sought to incorporate peoples that hadhitherto been excluded from the realm of social science research into the ambit of their studies. The legacyof these movements and the awareness they generated may be found in the "histories from below" written byhistorians like E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm who turned the focus of historical research on industrialworkers, urban laborers, and peasants.

In a similar move there were efforts made in the United States to understand the historical causes behindthe inferior social position accorded to African Americans in social and political life. And it was as part ofthis general awareness and questioning about human rights that feminists all over the world became vocal inwhat came to be known as "second wave" feminism. They queried the reasons behind women’s absence frommost histories written about the formation of nation-states and their subjugation to men in both the privateand public spheres.

In a report published by the Government of India in 1975 entitled Towards Equality, feminist socialscientists laid down the results of their investigation on the position of women in Indiansociety. The report prepared by a committee chaired by Phulrenu Guha was part of a project undertakenby the ministry of education and social welfare. It documented in detail the slights and humiliation that arepart and parcel of a woman’s everyday existence in this country.

Between the 1970s - 90s a number of research units were established all over India, which devoted theirenergies into studying the condition of Indian women, inquiring into the historical roots of their subservientposition in society and devising programs for improving the status and condition of women. Collectively, oneof the most significant outcomes of research by women’s studies units has been to demonstrate that not onlywere women significant actors in national history, but their roles spanned as widely as men’s.

Even recognizing these facts entailed throwing a certain challenge to male power. Power became an extremelyimportant category in understanding and eventually ameliorating women’sconditions in various arenas of social life. Since the 1970s, there have been innumerable studies on thecondition of women workers in the jute and cotton textile industries from the colonial period onward, into therole played by female labor in the unorganized agricultural sector, in politics, medicine, the performingarts, the birth control movement, and sports.

Clearly then, the scope of women’s studies spilled over from the domain of the family into the world atlarge.

The Family

The family no doubt remained, and still remains, an important unit of study. Comprehending the dynamic ofthe family is essential to any project that seeks to understand not only women but men too. To imagineotherwise would be both naïve and ahistorical. This awareness has led to scholarly inquiries into the studyand constitution of "masculinity" and "childhood." Feminist historians, sociologists andanthropologists have written and debated extensively on why certain familial norms in this country haveendured/ changed and what implications these have had for the social position of men and women.

The joint family system, polygamy, female feticide, sati, widow remarriage, child marriage, dowry have beenthe subject of numerous historical monographs all of which have focused on the comparative position of bothsexes within the family. But to say that these studies have been concerned with the family and family alone isridiculous. In fact the point behind most of these studies have been to demonstrate the ways in which largersocial forces alter or are themselves shaped by the family and to point in directions of progressive socialchange.

So Why This Move?

Against this background it remains puzzling as to why a man of Mr. Joshi’s perspicacity would resort torenaming "Women’s Studies" centers as "Women’s and Family Studies". Especially whenfeminists themselves are now questioning the categorizing of their discipline as "women’s" studies andare increasingly resorting to terms such as "gender" or "queer" studies to designate theirdisciplinary affiliation.

Their reason for doing so was adumbrated above - for how can women be studied in isolation from men? Manyhave questioned the efficacy of the label woman arguing that womanhood itself is a variegated entity wheresexual preference, social factors and finally biology play a part.

Given the complexity of the subject matter of what constitutes the field of "women’s studies" whatthen are the ramifications of Mr. Joshi’s pronouncement? As the feminist historian Tanika Sarkar succinctlyput it, "it re-embeds women within the family," ignoring their role in vast web of complex socialrelations.

Eunuchs and Sex-Workers

Let us close this discussion by considering the impact of such renaming upon studies that are conducted ontwo important social groups in India - eunuchs and sex-workers. In what University department do we now shiftongoing research on eunuchs in India? Surely there is no doubt that socially and politically they constitutean important section of the country’s population. And I am sure it would be irresponsible and unethical tosubsume this important social group under the category "women" for that would be simplifying thecomplexities of the gender experiences of this varied social group.

Second, what do we do with women whose professional identity as sex workers is at odds with the norm of afamily? It is unclear what vision of family was envisaged in the renaming decision. Unless we seek toradically redefine the scope of what we mean by family, such renaming, as the above examples demonstrate, runsthe risk of becoming an exclusionary move.

To take a few examples, we have to acknowledge single mothers/fathers bringing up children as family, ournotion of family cannot remain heteronormative, nor can marriage be the sole basis of a familial unit. Whilesuch redefining can be undertaken under the aegis of the numerous women’s studies units countrywide, it willrequire a degree of autonomy.

One of the preconditions of good research is an atmosphere of openness and debate. Will the decision torename be accompanied or followed by a solid guarantee of such autonomy? Can the renaming be debated? Willwomen’s studies centers have the right to reject the new name?

Rochona Majumdar is Collegiate Assistant Professor and Harper Fellow, University of Chicago.