as early as 400 C.E., women began to participate
as direct actors in the devotional movements and
play important roles there. A good example is
Karaikkal Ammaiyar (400 C.E.), who became the
first of the 63 Shaivite saints.
Movements like these pointed toward spiritual
equality for women and, though the women saints
form the exception to the rule of social constraints
for women, they were prominent and numerous
for many centuries leading up to the modern era.
More than one movement, such as the VIRASHAI-
VA S of Karnataka in the 11th century, called for
spiritual equality for women and equal access to
spiritual leadership. Sikhs, starting in the 15th
century, held similar views, and the saint-poets of
North India directly questioned the notion that
gender should have any role in determining spiri-
tual development or accomplishment.
When modernity comes forward in the 18th
through 20th centuries and radically changes
traditions such as child marriage, dowry, the
ban on widow remarriage, and the custom of the
childless wife’s burning herself on the funeral
pyre of her older husband, it must be understood
that these traditions had not been unchallenged
and contested in different regions and different
movements within Hinduism’s large umbrella. It
is important to emphasize that modern India’s
legal rectification of these negative cultural sanc-
tions upon women was complete, even though
legal actions have not completely solved these
problems. Histories of oppression are not solved
overnight by the passing of just laws, but these
bold legal measures are significant for a young
postcolonial, independent nation.
MODERNIZATION
Modernization is dramatically affecting the social
and religious lives of women in India. Since inde-
pendence, India has sought to throw off the cloak
of traditional prejudices related to caste, race, reli-
gion, and gender. While traditional practices that
contribute to the low status of women in India,
such as child marriage, sati (widow self-immola-
tion), dowry, and female infanticide, are illegal,
these practices continue in some areas and among
groups who have low socioeconomic status.
Traditional Indian cultural practices have usu-
ally been given religious justification, even when
the scriptural bases for such practices were non-
existent, as was often the case with women’s
issues. In the extremely heterogeneous society
that is India today, cultural practices cannot easily
be distinguished from the religiously sanctioned
prescriptions and proscriptions of Hinduism.
Hindu women in India occupy a broad range
of statuses, varying from the most modernized,
educated, and independent to some of the most
traditional, least educated, and subordinate.
Within India today, social class is more important
in determining the status of women than is caste
membership. Educated, urbanized women often
marry outside caste, religion, and nationality. It
is becoming more common for newly married
couples to choose their own place of residence
after marriage, so that they are not within the joint
family system. As a result, many elderly women
and men no longer receive care from younger
generations but are being placed in nursing homes
where neglect can be a problem.FEMINISM
On the whole, Indian women, even proponents
of women’s rights and equality, resist the term
feminist, which is often associated with aggres-
siveness, sexual permissiveness, immodesty, and a
lack of womanly virtues; feminists are assumed to
be against motherhood, family values, and men.
For many the image of feminism is too directly
discordant with the image of the “ideal woman” in
Hindu society as defined in the Brahminic scrip-
tures or puranas. Even filmmakers, writers, and
artists whose work aims to castigate male privilege
and sexist attitudes often reject the label feminist.
Modern reform movements to improve the sta-
tus of women first arose in the 19th century, after
the country had entered the mainstream of world
civilization under British imperial rule. BothK 500 women and Hinduism