Organisations are accepted as an instrument to provide collective strength, or greater bargaining power, or to articulate the voice of an interest group. They may also be recognised as a constituency, to ensure representative of that section in local, national or inter-national deliberative bodies.

The women’s question, like the untouchability question or the communal question, emerged during the national movement as a political question that had to be solved to give shape to the vision of a free Indian nation. It is my contention that this political aspect of women’s...