Indian Women Activists and Transnational Feminism over the Twentieth Century

Since 1975, the global feminist community has developed sites for networking clustered around the United Nations' calendar. These meetings and their discourses have had a major impact on women's movements around the world. The Indian women's movement has engaged in transnational dialogue for the past century. This article looks at the history of transnational engagement by Indian feminists and argues that its most recent avatar—in tandem with the UN world conferences on women—has been the least constructive. Early engagement was primarily focused on an exchange of ideas and personnel. The current engagement is shaped by financial dependency which has skewed the priorities of the Indian women's movement. Violence against women was an issue raised in 1993 in Vienna and became the central focus of activism in India despite the desire by many activists to focus on economic policies.