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8 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 95 (1976-1977)
Law and the Status of Women in India

handle is hein.journals/colhr8 and id is 99 raw text is: Law and the Status of Women in India By Lotika Sarkar* 1. INTRODUCTION: GENERAL BACKGROUND The Preamble to the Constitution of India' resolves to usher in a soci- ety in which not only democracy but also justice and equality exist for all her citizens. A society which tolerates the exploitation of one group by another, or which permits a group to labor under legal disabilities, cannot, of course, claim to be just and equal for all; consequently, the firm resolve expressed in the Preamble by We, the People of India was necessary because women, prior to India's independence, suffered from a double- edged discrimination-as colonials, they had suffered under the same set of disabilities as men; but in addition, because they were women, they were regarded as having a social status inferior to that of men. A. Historical Background.- The British Period Women in India were not always discriminated against; the inferior status of women in the country's economy came about as a result of indus- trialization which brought a qualitative change in their political status. Prior to the period when India's economy became intertwined with Britain's, ag- riculture and handicrafts had been extremely important, and in these areas women had shared an equal role with men in production as well as in mar- keting. With the decline of handicrafts,2 the pressure on the agricultural sector increased and the result, according to the Royal Commission on Ag- riculture, was that a glut of labor was created in excess of what was re- * Professor of Law, University of Delhi. 1. We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens Justice, Social, Economic and Political. Preamble, the Constitution of India. Hereinafter cited as CONSTITUTION. 2. The decline was due to the British policy of flooding the Indian markets with British manufactured goods. Between 1816 and 1836, for instance, the export of cotton twist from England to India rose 5200 times, resulting in the ruin of Indian weavers and spinners. A similar trend was also discernible with respect to pottery, glass, paper and silk goods. For details, together with figures from the Census Report of 1911, see R. Palme Dutt, India Today at 101.

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