‘It is as if history and historians for the longest time had forgotten to record experiences of the other genders. Just as the politics of remembering and commemoration is being increasingly analysed, it is equally important to study the politics of forgetting. Navigating through the silences of any period–past or the present can be most revealing for unpacking what is hidden from the everyday discourse, thereby also throwing up significant points of contention.
This module is aimed towards bringing out women’s experience of the freedom struggle, with our primary focus on recording the experiences of the lesser known women and locating them in the larger narrative of that period. Through this, we also wish to bring students to think about some critical issues marking women’s experience across social movements. This includes a more nuanced understanding of gender–moving away from the essentialist undertones and towards reading gender as performative, its intersections with other power structures like that of caste, class, religion, the idea of colonialism beyond its tangible physical manifestations, a critique of the public private dichotomy. Thus, together to bring students to question the normative narratives of the freedom struggle which have usually been presented to them.’
-from the Introduction, The ‘Other’ Revolutionaries: Women’s Role in the Indian Freedom Struggle.
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