Academician and activist Dr. Vina Mazumdar was a prominent figure in the Indian women’s movement. An Alumna of Oxford University from where she received her D.Phil, Dr. Mazumdar has been a strong advocate for gender equality, and a pioneer in women’s studies.
Soon after starting her career as lecturer in Political Science, Mazumdar went on to become the first Secretary of the Patna University Teachers’ Association[1]. Later, she joined the University Grants Commission and became a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, for the research project, ‘University Education and Social Change in India’[2].
During her stint as the Member Secretary for the Committee on the Status of Women in India between 1971-74, the Committee released a pioneering report titled ‘Towards Equality’ which highlighted the rise in poverty amongst women during the transition from agrarian to industrial society, and the declining sex ratio. This report was a significant milestone in the progress of the women’s movement in India.
Dr. Mazumdar was also Director, Programme of Women’s Studies, Indian Council of Social Science Research from 1975-80, during which time, she helped organize a meeting to support the recommendations of the Rama Rao Committee on Hindu Law Reform[3].
She co-founded the Centre for Women and Development Studies (CWDS), which introduced the concept of ‘action-research’, and Indian Association of Women’s Studies (IAWS).
Dr. Mazumdar describes herself as a ‘women’s activist’, ‘feminist’, ‘trouble-maker’, ‘recorder and chronicler of the Indian Women’s Movement’, and ‘grandmother of women’s studies in South Asia’.
Major Contributions of Dr. Vina Mazumdar
Dr. Mazumdar’s work has been primarily focused on women and gender studies.
Scholarly Work of Vina Mazumdar
Books
Imperial Policy in India, 1905-1910 (1963)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Imperial_Policy_in_India_1905_1910/2SccIgAACAAJ?hl=en
Education & Social Change Three Studies on Nineteenth Century India (1972)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Education_Social_Change/8WpXAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
Symbols of Power Studies on the Political Status of Women in India (1979)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Symbols_of_Power/0iMpzQEACAAJ?hl=en
Emergence of Women’s Question and Role of Women’s Studies (1985)
Education and Rural Women Towards an Alternative Perspective (1988)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Education_Equality_and_Development/xGaO04IPE_AC?hl=en&gbpv=0
Khadi and Village Industries Commission (1988)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Khadi_and_Village_Industries_Commission/Bz0qAAAAYAAJ?hl=en
Women Workers in India: Studies in Employment and Status (1990)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Women_Workers_in_India/KzDtAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
Women and Indian Nationalism (1994)
Peasant Women Organise for Empowerment: The Bankura Experiment (1998)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Peasant_Women_Organise_for_Empowerment/jO09AAAAMAAJ?hl=en
An Unfulfilled Or a Blurred Vision? Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian Women (1998)
Enduring Conundrum, India’s Sex Ratio: Essays in Honour of Asok Mitra (2001)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Enduring_Conundrum_India_s_Sex_Ratio/B-nrAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
Face to Face with Rural Women CWDS’ Search for New Knowledge and an Interventionist Role (2002)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Face_to_Face_with_Rural_Women/nmDaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en
The Mind and the Medium. Explorations in the Evolution of British Imperial Policy in India. Three Essays Collective (2010)
Education, Equality and Development: Persistent Paradoxes in Indian Women’s History (2011)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Education_Equality_and_Development/xGaO04IPE_AC?hl=en&gbpv=0
Memories of a Rolling Stone (2014)https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Memories_of_a_Rolling_Stone/LtymDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
Articles
Women s Studies New Perceptions and the Challenges (1979)
WOMEN Women’s Studies: Challenge to Educational System (1981)
https://www.epw.in/journal/1981/20/our-correspondent-columns/women.html
Reservations for Women (1989)
https://www.epw.in/journal/1989/50/discussion/reservations-women.html
Panchayati Raj (1994)
https://www.epw.in/journal/1994/44/reviews-uncategorised/panchayati-raj.html
A R Desai A Personal Tribute (1994)
https://www.epw.in/journal/1994/48/commentary/r-desai-personal-tribute.html
Changing Terms of Political Discourse (1995)
https://www.epw.in/journal/1995/29/special-articles/changing-terms-political-discourse.html
Open Letter to Governor of Uttar Pradesh (2007)
https://www.epw.in/journal/2007/08/letters/open-letter-governor-uttar-pradesh.html
Role of rural women in development : Report of an international study seminar held at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Emerging State Feminism in India: A Conversation with Vina Mazumdar, Member Secretary to the First Committee on the Status of Women in India (2007)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616740601066465
Political Ideology of the Women’s Movement’s Engagement with Law (2000)
https://www.cwds.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PoliticalIdeology.pdf
Whose Past, Whose History, Whose Tradition?: Indigenizing Women’s Studies in India (2001)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/12259276.2001.11665901
Note of Dissent by Lotika Sarkar and Vina Mazumdar (1999)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/097152159900600110?journalCode=ijgb
Gender issues and educational development: an overview from Asia (1989)
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/34264/2/GenderIssuesVM.pdf
Amniocentesis and sex selection (1994)
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/34261/2/AmniocentesisVM.pdf
From research to policy: rural women in India (1979)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1966091
Another development with women: a view from Asia (1982)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12279572/
Comment on suttee (1978)
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493606?journalCode=signs
Ethical guidelines for biomedical research on human subjects (2017)
An unfulfilled or a blurred vision?: Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian women (1998)
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/34256/2/UnfulfilledVM.pdf
A heritage of heresy within tradition (1999)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/097152159900600209?journalCode=ijgb
Sexual Division of Labour and the Subordination of Women: A Reappraisal (1990)
Embracing the earth: an agenda for partnership with peasant women (1993)
https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/19951806102
Census of India (1911)
India (Fall/Winter 1994)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40005450
Panchayati Raj and the ‘two-child norm’: Implications and consequences (2017)
The opening plenary session: Feminist Scholarship and Feminist Connections (1982)
[1] INFLIBNET, https://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/epgpdata/uploads/epgp_content/S000456WS/P000865/M019332/ET/1486114219Quadrant-1.pdf (last visited Feb. 23, 2024).
[2] Id.
[3] Supra Note 1.
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