ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the alternative approaches adopted in order to justify ‘equal rights’. It is demonstrated that this ideology was initially accorded a traditional rationale by reference to the example of India’s past. It is also shown that this strategy was later largely superseded by appeal to the liberal beliefs and values associated with the modern West. Such change is studied through a survey of selected speeches and writings by leading members of the most powerful and influential of the women’s organisations, the All India Women’s Conference, during a period running from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. Moreover, the reasons for this change are considered as well as an analysis offered of the conditions under which activists continued to offer a traditional justification of ‘equal rights’, in addition to or in place of the explicit espousal of liberal norms.
