ABSTRACT
On India's Independence in 1947, universal adult franchise was pronounced as a foundation stone of the new Indian nation. All Indian women were recognised within the newly independent nation as equal citizens with men in the eyes of the law. However, the winning of women's suffrage in India was not simply a product of nationalist independence struggles. Indian women's franchise emerged from a complex matrix of governance narratives operating in India from the late nineteenth century through to the mid twentieth century. These included: modernist aspirations current among a select group of Indian women; internationalist perspectives on the women's suffrage struggle circulating among British women living within the colonial regime governing India; and the prioritisation of the rightfulness of Law prominent within many debates conducted between elite Indian men and the British imperialists. Indian nationalism, British paternalism, suffragist internationalism combined with tensions generated from India's class, caste and religious diversity to establish a uniquely Indian history of women's suffrage.
