Role of Women in Nation Development (Book of Conference Proceedings of NIT Jamshedpur 2020) ISBN- 978-81-948050-4-5

Authors: Arjab Roy

Abstract: The paper historically engages with the Feminist critiques of Left Radicalism in India – its theory-strategies-praxis as interpreted during the 1970s. It reads into two essays, “Choltey Choltey†(Trans. In the Course of the Journey) (1994) and “Naxalbari Politics: A Feminist Narrative†(2008), written by erstwhile Left Radical activists, Joya Mitra and Krishna Bandyopadhyay, respectively. Two strands of criticism from the texts are identified – social and political. The social critique illuminates the paradoxical results of the interface between emergent socially progressive rhetoric of Left Radicals on one hand and predominant patriarchal modes of life on the other. The political critique engages with the fundamental theoretical-strategic blunder of Left Radical leadership in their political understanding. It led to widespread violence, inter-party killings and counter-state repression during the seventies, thereby historically signifying the decade as a decade of disorder and mayhem instead of the original idea of marking it to be a decade of liberation. This paper argues that both these critiques discursively serve to contribute to the body of feminist scholarship existing on wide-ranging issues in India and also assert the urgency of deeper democratization of Indian socio-political formations.

Keywords: Feminism, Gender, Patriarchy, Left-Radicalism, Naxalite, India