ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Indian Women’s movement sought to effect change in the position of women through legislation. The movement’s conduct of two major campaigns for legislation, addressing Women’s political and social rights respectively, is discussed. Of these two campaigns, however, that for Women’s social rights, culminating in the controversy surrounding the Hindu Code Bill, is demonstrated to have given rise to greater religious debate. For this reason, arguments rehearsed by opponents and proponents of reform of Hindu personal law are treated in depth, concentrating on those arguments which centred on contrasting interpretations of the Hindu tradition. Such arguments are shown to convey very different impressions of the character of the tradition and its significance for women.
