History
Abstract
The topic of the essay is Feminism and Nationalism in India and China. The main idea is that people all over the world are to be treated equally regardless of sex, place of birth, religion or color of the face. The problems that were reflected in the paper are:
The difference and similarities between nationalism and feminism;
Prerequisites of the appearance of nationalism and feminism movement in China;
Prerequisites of the appearance of nationalism and feminism movement in India;
The contemporary situation in both countries.
In this paper, some examples of cruel attitudes toward women were given with the author’s explanations.
This essay consists of eight double-spaced pages printed with Times Roman format 12 prnt. The essay has a title page, an abstract, a main body and footnotes. In addition, there are pages numbers at the top of the pages. In the paper, there are three citations from three different sources: one book and two articles in magazines. All of these sources are reliable and worth trusting.
Essay
In this essay, I would like to speak about not only the history and facts, but also about the human face of the events, which happened in India and China during the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, in my essay I will compare and contrast the relationship between nationalism and feminism in India and China.
Have you ever imagined how it is to be one in a million person? And you are one in a million of other persons, who every day works like you do, believes or does not believe in God. One-day news came to your village and people started speaking about the successful October Revolution in Russia. Just imagine that you are a young woman, living far away in India and your relatives provide you a husband who is 20 years elder than you. He is rich and perspective, but he has hard job and poor health. In this case, he hardly lives long life. Thanks to Sati ritual, a wife is to kill herself when her husband dies.You know that the Sati ritual will not let you live if your husband will suddenly die.
Rituals and traditions led people to the situation they no longer wanted to live in. Globalization has opened peoples’ eyes and the news now is spreading faster and faster. The freedom of word brought the freedom for people living in fear. When people have nothing to lose and have a good example of the successful changes in other countries they start to create their own future.
Before we start to find out the difference and the similarities in the relationship between nationalism and feminism in India and China, we should first formulate what exactly these two political movements mean. As I have understood, Feminism is a political movement, which prohibits and lobbies the women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. When nationalism is also some kind of political movement, which unites people of one group, who share group feeling with a regard to geographic or even sometimes demographic region. Nationalists usually seek independence for its culture and/or ethnicity that holds that group together. Both political movements struggle for their supporters who are in need to protect their rights. The difference is that feminism protects the right to be women, to make decisions and to live a full life. At the same time, nationalism protects the life style with the cultural traditions and the way and place of living.
China and India are two countries with multimillion populations. These countries do not actually value humans’ life as European countries do. These countries simply do not have resources for that today, and in the first half of the twenties century, obviously, they did have even less resources. “Keep in mind that the May Fourth Movement occurred at the end of World War I when new cultures and new ideas, plus the knowledge of the successful October Revolution in Russia, made a deep impression on every youth in China” 1- says Deng Yingchao. In addition, he proofs that the ideas were strong and they united people to work for the best world.
As I have found out from the book of Deng Yingchao, China had some sort of two steps movement. First, it was nationalization. Students were making their speeches and walking on the streets for the nationalistic slogans and for the best future. At that time, women found out that even though they were moving to a brighter future, they did not have enough freedom. “At the beginning we, as female students, did not enjoy the same freedom of movement as our male counterparts, insofar as our speaking tours were concerned. According to the feudal custom of China, women were not supposed to make speeches in the street; we, therefore, had to do our work indoors. We gave speeches in such places as libraries and participated in scheduled debates, all inside a hall or a room” 2 (Deng Yingchao).
As men traditionally had more influence and rights in the country, the political movement for the national issues did not change this balance at first. Women were not supposed to give speeches on public but they tried to give them in libraries and even go from house to house. On and on the influence was growing and finally the nationalism in China got some kind of a democratic extension. This extension was feminism. Women started working on their rights and their main issues were, according to Deng Yingchao: the “sexual equality, abolition of arranged marriage, social activities open to women, freedom of romantic love and marriage, universities open to women students, and employment of women in government institutions”3.
They wanted to study together and to get equal opportunities in the education and their place in the community. Their requirements were simple and West oriented people helped women to find the support of their ideas and get where they are today. They even had the male and female chairpersons on each and every their department, which was a success.
“Nations ruled by communist parties, such as China, officially pronounced the emancipation of women as workers, but their state sanctioned women organizations rejected the feminist label and their suppression of oppositional political discourse precluded feminist politics”4 says on the other side Aparna Basu.
This means, that the long road to the equality of men and women had only started in the first half of the twenties century. Chinese men began to respect western values, but still they were grown in Chinese traditions and in Chinese families. This fact brings us to the situation, where people do understand what is right and even try to think that it is right, but still live in the past, because they do not feel that what they are doing is right. Not only men have such issues. Women, who grew in the traditional Chinese families, usually had the impression, that the only right way to live was the way your parents and grandparents had lived. The awareness, that something is wrong, came to the women’s mind only after they had seen the possible life of other women, where relationships were equal and decisions were made by man and woman both.
On the Figure 1, there can be seen Chinese women’s priorities at the beginning of the twentieth century. This figure reflects what the Chinese feminism was struggled for.
Figure 1 – Women’s priorities (Zarrow, 1988).
Chinese nationalism and feminism struggle at that time got name Fourth May Movement “from the massive popular protest that took place in China in May 1919, following the announcement of the terms of the Versailles Treaty that concluded WWI”5.
This movement had two aspects: Chinese youth tried to make their culture more western oriented and not so orthodox; from the other side this movement consisted of attempts to emancipate the Chinese woman.
If in China the main event, which started the two movements, was the 4th of may event, India has other history. At the beginning on the twenties century India was under the British control. Its position was so weak that the hunger and other problems were spreading all over the country and caused more and more problems every day. The fact that landlords, who were mostly British, made Indians to grow indigo and other cash crops instead of the food crops which were necessary for their survival. More than that, these landlords gave miserly compensation to the working people and left them in extreme poverty. No food, no money, no health and ability to work led to the disaster. At this time, Gandhi proposed Satyagraha - non-violence, mass civil disobedience. This was not a war or revolution in its classical understanding, but this was a form of forcing the respective authorities to take measures and to make changes.
On the one side, there was this awful situation with food and right of the Indian people. On the other side, there still were cruel traditions in the culture, which led to the death of sometimes young and healthy women. The Sati tradition is one of the cruelest traditions that I have ever heard. It is even hard to imagine that a woman has to kill herself if her husband dies. The war against these evils of Sati was actually the beginning of the feminism in India. After that at the beginning of the Twenties century, Gandhi incorporated women's movements into the Quit India movement and independent women's organisations began to emerge. This sounds good, but in reality, the British government was more than ready for the disorders in India. In addition, in hours after Quit India movement many people were imprisoned. This stopped speeded down the movement and was a serious crash to the political parties who supported Gandhi.
In India, nationalism also became the first step to the feminism movement beginning. The development of the nationalism was in some way of a sign to the feminism. After the time of Sati evils and the British terror, women started to think more about their rights and got more information about the current situation in the world. Movements all around the world were some kind of a motivation and a hope that the situation may change. People usually tend to believe, that if some changes happen in the different parts of the world, than these changes might be right and actually work. It is as if two or more people get the same idea at a time. Then this idea most probably will be good one. Therefore, when Gandhi people brought the idea of women and men equity to everybody, it was very hard to understand this idea. “Gandhi argued strongly against men treating women as sexual objects, and against child marriage and the mistreatment of widows; he also promoted the cause of women’s education”6 (Basu, 1917-1947).
Although Gandhi’s political opinion had hard times during the Second World War II, he actually archived some of the equality steps in the 1947 as the “women were granted equal voting rights with men, and discrimination on the basis of sex were declared illegal”7 (Jones, 1996).
There was another person in Indian history who played a huge role in the nationalism and feminism movement in India. This person is Subhas Chandra Bose. He was an Indian nationalist who aimed to rid India of British rule with the help of German Nazism. Unfortunately, or likely, his attempts did not succeed. Nevertheless, his ideas about national moral and women’s role in society found an echo in many Indian hearts. He believed that protection of women’s civil rights together with their equal treatment with men are prerequisite for Indian independence. Bose said: “In the society where women are not respected, all efforts came to naught.”8
Bose’s view of women independence was different from those of Gandhi. Mainly, because their ways of getting Indian independence were opposite. While Gandhi was the first to suggest peaceful settlement of problems, Bose used for his struggle more traditional ways. According to Bose’s philosophy, the only way for India to get independence was to initiate an armed conflict. Moreover, women’s role in this conflict did not limit roles if nurses and men’s support and inspiration. Bose agitated young girls and women to leave their homes, take weapons and protect their country equally with men. His thoughts were revolution for those times especially if take into consideration Indians culture and traditions. Mainly because of that, many girls were inspired by his words and felt their power and ability to bring something good not only for their families but also for the whole nation.
This was a huge step forward and the granted freedoms promised future changes that were not even partly real before. In support of these words, let us remember Indira Gandhi who was the first female prime minister in India. This example shows that the Indian society have accepted ideas of feminism at the highest level. It was another precedent of female highest power in the country. From 2007 until 2012, the president of India was Pratibha Patil – the first woman at that post. China, unfortunately, does not have examples of female highest power in the country.
Among all the differences in lives of people in China and India, there is one big similarity, which is about the people and their fillings. The facts and personalities usually stay in history, but people and their feelings not. I would rather say that these two political movements in China and Indian were peoples’ sorrow about their lives. Because there is always a manor a woman who leads the changes and there is always a destiny behind the scene.
Citations:
1” Deng Yingchao, “The Spirit of the May 4th Movement”
2” Deng Yingchao, “The Spirit of the May 4th Movement”
3” Deng Yingchao, “The Spirit of the May 4th Movement”
4” Aparna Basu, “Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947,” Journal of Women’s History, 7, no. 4 (Winter): 95-107
5” Asia for educators, “Before and After the May Fourth Movement,” Colombia University.
6” Aparna Basu, “Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947,” Journal of Women’s History, 7, no. 4 (Winter): 95-107
7” Diane M. Jones, “Nationalism and Women’s Liberation: the Cases of India and China,” The History Teacher, 29, no. 2, (February, 1996): 145-154
8” Hills, C., Silverman, D, “Nationalism and Feminism in Late Colonial India: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 193-1945,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4. (Oct., 1993), pp. 741-760.
Bibliography
Deng Yingchao, “The Spirit of the May 4th Movement”
Diane M. Jones, “Nationalism and Women’s Liberation: the Cases of India and China,” The History Teacher, 29, no. 2, (February, 1996): 145-154
Aparna Basu, “Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947,” Journal of Women’s History, 7, no. 4 (Winter): 95-107.
Zarrow, P, “He Zhen and Anarho-feminism in China,” The Journal of Asian studies 47, no 4 (November 1988): 796-813.
Asia for educators, “Before and After the May Fourth Movement,” Colombia University.
Hills, C., Silverman, D, “Nationalism and Feminism in Late Colonial India: The Rani of Jhansi Regiment, 193-1945,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4. (Oct., 1993), pp. 741-760.
