preface
As for the background of the employment of women workers in the late colonial period, scholars have mostly focused on the role of cultural factors on women. It is true that cultural factors are crucial to the impact of women's employment and lives.
As a country with a long history, since the Aryan invasion, India has continued cultural traditions such as the caste system, and the inequality between men and women under the patriarchal system has been completely preserved, and women, as subordinates of men, have been discriminated against and restricted in family life, economic life and social life.
It should be said that whether economically or politically, in the late colonial period, the competition and game between colonialism and nationalism, between British colonialists and local Indian capitalists, and between British rulers and national liberation forces was the main string. In this context, any concern and reform of women is marked by the struggle of both sides.
As parties, women workers become pawns in the struggle and compromise between the two sides. Although women have many demands on practical issues, they do not receive corresponding responses and have no right to speak. So, in the seemingly prosperous but turbulent colonial period, the work of women workers was precarious, and women workers followed the flow like duckweed.
Economic background
During the period of Indian colonial rule, economic development was roughly divided into three phases: 1757 to 1813 was the first phase. This period was the period of the East India Company's administrative rule over India, and its economic exploitation of India was through commercial capital, that is, violent plunder and monopoly trade against India.
The second phase, from 1813 to the end of the 19th century, was mainly the mode of exploitation of British industrial capital, with the content of dumping goods. From the end of the 19th century to the independence of India in 1947, the third stage was the era of British exploitation of India with financial capital, that is, it began to turn to capital export, building factories and banks in India.
When the Crimean War broke out in 1853, the supply of jute from Russia was interrupted, and Britain began to import jute in large quantities from India. Later, with the establishment of the first jute factory in Calcutta in 1855, the British began to invest in India, so the British changed their strategy and set up factories directly in Bengal and other origins.
"By 1879 there were 20 jute factories (mainly British) employing more than 20,000 workers." With the development of international trade, Indian jute products began to be sold to the world market, and sacks, ropes, gun clothing, etc. were very popular in the Americas, Europe and Oceania. By the early 20th century, it had become the world's largest producer of jute, and by the eve of World War I, the jute industry had become India's second largest industrial sector after cotton textiles.
During the two world wars, with the increase of military orders, the jute industry developed rapidly, and the capitalists who obtained huge profits expanded factories and invested in machinery and equipment, so that the jute industry continued to develop. In 1922, "jute exports were valued at Rs 400 million, reaching Rs. 600 million in 1925".
The advantages of Indian industry are abundant raw materials, cheap labor, low taxes and imperfections of corresponding laws such as labor laws, of which abundant and cheap labor is the most important factor in the Indian jute industry, and jute women workers are an important part of it.
Some scholars believe that "after the passage of the Factory Law, the growth of female workers did not stop, but between 1911 and 1926 there was a steady increase in cotton textile employment," and "this was the result of layoffs by factory owners in the recession and a rationalization movement with mechanization of production as an important content."
The seemingly "well-intentioned" approach of the British is merely an increase in the bargaining chip to compete with the Indian national capitalist enterprises, because they have advanced technology and abundant capital, which cannot be achieved by national capitalism that can only rely on increasing working hours and squeezing labor. And it is certain that the proposals of many advanced reformers were pushed by the British rulers, and the women workers were always the innocent objects of involvement in the contest between the British capitalists and the local bourgeoisie.
Political background
Beginning in the late 18th century, British colonists embarked on a series of social reforms in India: "From 1812 to 1817, the government prohibited forced Sati; In 1856, the Hindu Widows Remarriage Act was passed, giving widows the right to remarry: in 1891, the second Marriage Age Act was enacted, raising the age of consummation to 12 for married girls and 14 for unmarried girls.
"The Dowry Act and the Child Marriage Prohibition Act were passed in 1929, the Inheritance Act in 1935 and the Hindu Women's Property Act in 1937". Through a series of reforms, the British colonists objectively solved many problems that plagued Indian women, such as the Sati system, the child marriage system, the widow's remarriage system, and property inheritance.
But in the process of reform, there was a compromise between British colonists and local powers. In order to maintain its long-term rule, it must cooperate with princely states or local powers, and even draw on their opinions when making laws.
Therefore, the British colonists promised that the laws they made would still be the laws of their respective religious communities, and that in the case of Hindus, each religion could make laws based on the scriptures. So, in general, the laws enacted by the British ostensibly reflected the will of the orthodox upper class of India, and also indirectly transmitted orthodox Hindu culture and values, and the colonial authorities also tried to avoid the caste problem and handed it over to the panchayat."
Taking a neutral stance on issues involving the Indian hierarchy, such as the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856, which was enacted, Indian masters of erudite were invited to interpret Indian customary law and draw on the Vedas and related codes~. In the process of abolishing the Sati system, the British colonists, constrained by the strength of the old princes, believed that openly agitating for the abolition of Sati would lead to rebellion, so they advocated gradual progress.
Of course, colonizers had both cooperation and conflict with homegrown reformers and local powers. The reformer Ram Mohan Roy and the radical leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak shared a consensus that reform of Hindu society was the responsibility of Hindus, not non-Hindus.
For Indian reformers and politicians, India's social customs, although there are many shortcomings, must be solved by the Indians themselves, without outsider intervention, let alone colonial rulers to dictate and play on the problem.
For example, the child marriage system is explicitly prohibited by both sides, the British reason is that it is in compliance with humanitarianism, and the reason in India is that the fear that women's physical damage will affect the next generation, which is considered to be a harm to the national organism, which rises to the height of patriotism. So although the requirements are the same, the starting point is not the same.
In many cases, the reforms of the British colonialists ignored the interests of the Hindu higher castes and chose or reformed traditional Indian social customs purely from the concepts of humanism and freedom, equality, and fraternity. However, due to the identity of the colonizer, the reform of India cannot be complete and unreserved, and the selfish intentions of the colonizer are mixed with it, so the reform of the colonial ruler is extremely contradictory and complex.
Thus, the reform legislation of colonial India was the result of mutual intrigue between the British colonial government and nationalists. Although many reforms had been made to women's issues, women themselves had no say in the content and process of legislation, and their fate depended on the outcome of the struggle and compromise between the two sides.
For their own interests, the two sides compete on many fronts, and women are often just pawns at the mercy of others and victims of political struggles. For the colonizers, criticism of the inferiority of Indian women was a weapon for the British authorities to promote the rationalization of their political rule and cultural superiority, and many Christians attacked Hinduism to persuade women to convert.
For India, the idea is to combine "modern Western" and "Eastern culture" to create the ideal woman: a woman who can read the local language and master family skills to become a good wife and mother. From this point of view, social reforms for women were the product of colonialism against indigenous ideologies.
The social reforms of the 19th century produced a group of educated freelancers. Despite their education, they were trapped within the framework of patriarchal patriarchy.
The reason why many families let their children receive education is "the parents' investment in their daughter's future marriage, it is a bargaining chip to ensure that women get a good price in the marriage market" "During the British colonial period, progressives who advocated women's education were not to make women get degrees, but to shape good mothers and wives."
Therefore, society hopes to improve its situation to a certain extent, so that it will become the wife and mother that society expects to have better abilities and qualities - able to equip themselves, support the social elite, and better nurture the next generation.
Even women are allowed to educate in order to adapt them to keep pace with the times, to be able to cope with the changed social order, and finally to transform the old family into the modern family in order to construct a new type of partnership marriage. Therefore, reform is only a new requirement for women in the context of the new era, and in the face of the changed era, women have to move forward step by step. In the face of the torrent of the times, arm yourself, cope with challenges, and finally realize yourself.