Life as a feminist

In these consumerist times, when women’s movements in urban India seem to have slowed down, Vina Mazumdar’s account of her life, first, as a student activist in pre-Independence years, then, as a path-breaking academician in post-1947 India, and finally, as a determined voice for women’s rights, acquires special relevance.

Born in 1927, in a middle-class Bengali family, Vina was extremely fortunate in not being bound down by middle-class, conservative values. Her mother, self-taught and an avid reader herself, encouraged Vina to read books even before she entered school. Vina’s pishima, father’s sister, was a rebel of her times, having walked out of a bad marriage when she was all of sixteen. It was she who supported Vina’s mother in all liberal decisions and encouraged the girls in the family to get formally educated. So, at 20, instead of getting married, Vina went to Oxford for higher studies.

On her return to India, in 1950, Vina was surprised that her father did not object to her wanting to join the teaching profession. The new Constitution was against discrimination between genders “and I am a law-abiding man” explained her father. As a lecturer in Political Science in Patna University, Vina introduced many unconventional teaching methods that encouraged students to do research. She was also vociferous against the state government’s bill for Bihar Universities, getting labelled as a ‘trouble-maker’ in the process.

In Patna, Vina met Shankar Mazumdar, a music lover and a non-graduate, whom she married despite social censure. They had three daughters and one son. Balancing her roles as mother, wife and career woman was not easy but Vina succeeded to a remarkable extent, with her children having to adapt to her ‘rolling stone’ lifestyle. Unfortunately, her marriage did not survive.

There were disappointments in her professional life as well when she discovered the intrinsic connection between educational reform and the politics of education. Disillusioned, Vina gave up teaching for a while, to join the University Grants Commission, with the hope of contributing to the development of higher education, nationwide. This opened her eyes further.

Travelling extensively, she saw the appalling conditions of universities in the interiors of Rajasthan and some of the north-eastern states. So she switched tracks once again, to write papers on ‘Education and Social Change’ at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies in Simla.

After that, she returned to her first calling, as Head of the Department of Political Science, at the University of Behrampur in Orissa. True to form, she turned the earlier teaching and examination methods here on their heads, even provoking a strike by a bunch of misled students. But Vina was undeterred and stuck to her guns; and the strike was soon called off.

1975-85 was declared as the International Women’s Decade by the United Nations and Vina was called back to Delhi to help write a paper on ‘The Status of Women in India’  to be presented at the UN Conference in Mexico in1975. Months of sleep-deprived nights and hours of brain-storming with co-writers saw ‘Towards Equality’ take shape. The report created a furore, nationally and globally. Personally, Vina was shattered with the realisation that what she had thought of till now as an idealised democratic state was, in fact, guilty of criminal negligence and oppression of the vast majority of Indian women — the poor working women in rural and urban areas.

Not one for half measures, this realisation made Vina plunge into the women’s movement as well as set up the Centre For Women’s Development Studies. The women’s movement and the women’s studies movement together launched campaigns against pressing issues like dowry, sati, amniocentesis and rape; and fought for education of women, property rights, promotion of rural women’s organisations, etc.

Simultaneously, they tried to bring about Constitutional changes by pressurising Parliamentarians to give due importance to these matters. Needless to say, Vina’s outspoken, uncompromising stance won the women’s movement many a battle.

Memories Of A Rolling Stone is an uplifting story. However, it falters in the sub-editing department. The book is peopled with friends, family, colleagues and a host of others whom Vina interacted with in her eventful life. A glossary of their names as well as of the acronyms of various bodies would definitely have helped the lay reader follow the journey of the rolling stone with greater ease. Though Vina points out, “It was not possible to break my stories …into neat partitions” those at Zubaan could have structured  the chronology of events in a way to facilitate an understanding of their sequence, especially for those unfamiliar with them.

Alpana Chowdhury is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.