Women As Activists; Women as Symbols: A Study of the Indian Nationalist Movement

India's struggle for independence is of tremendous importance in the history of anti-colonial movements. The nationalist movement set the precedent of achieving independence through non-violence and thus a whole new philosophy based on ahimsa ¹ was born. The culmination of the movement in the partition on religious grounds of a country as big and culturally diverse as India was also significant. However, arguably the most important aspect of this movement for Independence from a historical point of view was that it saw mass participation by Indian women, women who had till then been confined to the domestic sphere.