ABSTRACT
Protests by Bombay's mill workers had been escalating. Between October 1928 and April 1929 there were more than 70 strikes, and these actions gave birth to trade unions and labour organizations in Girangaon. The 1928 strike was the first action in which Communist Party cadres, led by the charismatictrade union leader S. A. Dange, emerged as undisputed leaders of the mill workers. The two women knew each other – Parvatibai felt enabled by watching Ushabai in action. Ushabai felt that her domesticity was fraught because it was too enmeshed with the Communist Party, while Parvatibai's was fractious because it was too far removed from the political world to which she belonged. While several accounts of the women's movement in India refer to this book in order to extoll Ushabai's remarkable political work, they are silent about its frank and extended discussion of the personal costs to her life, and the difficulties and despair it often entailed.
