Muslim women would play an active role by inau-
gurating the Anjuman-i-Khawatin-i-Islam (All-India
Muslim Ladies Conference) in 1914 and the All-
India Ladies Association in 1918. Furthermore, she
and other Muslim women participated in the three
main women’s organizations at the national level,
namely, the Women’s Indian Association (WIA,
founded 1917), the National Council of Women in
India (NCWI, founded 1925) and the All India
Women’s Conference (AIWC, founded 1927).
Their involvement in these bodies represented a
willingness to establish an alliance with women of
other communities over the issues of female educa-
tion, social uplift, and legislative reform.
Despite these activities, Muslim women failed to
become involved in the Indian women’s movement
in large numbers. What proved to be more influen-
tial in stimulating their involvement in mass move-
ments in the colonial period were causes related to
their Muslim identity. The first evidence of this may
be seen in connection with political activities in
India following the Balkan wars when women-only
meetings were held by the Anjuman-i-Khuddam-i-
Ka±aba (founded 1913) to raise funds for the
defense of the khalìfaand the holy places of Islam.
During the Khilafat movement in the early 1920s,
Indian Muslim women were mobilized in even
greater numbers to attend mass rallies with speeches
by women leaders, such as Abadi Banu Begam
(known as Bi Amman, 1852–1924). In particular,
they were called upon to build on their traditional
roles as defenders of their family’s faith by donat-
ing gold ornaments, wearing only handspun
(swadeshi) cloth, and taking up the nationalist rit-
ual of spinning. The depiction of women’s political
activities as an extension of their domestic role
enabled them to gain social acceptance for an
expanded role in society in a way that would not
have been possible otherwise.
This statement gains even greater credence when
applied to Muslim women’s activities in the 1930s
and 1940s. As part of the resuscitation of the All-
India Muslim League under the leadership of
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a separate Women’s Cen-
tral Sub-Committee was established in 1938. It
stimulated unprecedented numbers of women to
attend the league’s meetings, including the annual
session in Lahore in 1940 at which the demand for
Pakistan was articulated. From this point, street
politics became an accepted pastime for veiled
Muslim women, who organized mass processions,
public meetings, and fundraising campaigns across
India in support of the Muslim League. Indeed, the
decisive victory of this party in the elections of
east asia, southeast asia, australia and oceania 611946 may be attributed in large part to the cam-
paigning efforts of female activists who convinced
burqa≠-clad women in urban constituencies to
come to the polling stations to vote. Yet women’s
involvement in the Pakistan movement was too
brief to bring any qualitative change to their social
status in the long term. Rather, the intertwining of
religion with politics has meant that Muslim
women’s relationship with the state has been
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