| Chapter : | Editor’s Introduction |
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individuality. In her words, “Everyone has the need for the development of an unfettered individuality, because without it, man would not be able to express his will power and intention, nor would he be able to weigh his duty on the scales of justice and injustice”.56 She goes on to argue that women cannot express their desires and exercise their will because their personalities are not self-defined and are but the mere shadows of their men.57 The solution, according to Mahadevi, is not to be a mere reflection (pratibimb) of the original (bimb) but to develop a strong sense of self and individuality. She writes:
She goes on to say that because women’s individual selfhoods and personalities have been thwarted in the self-interest of men, society as a whole has developed under the “artificial cover of tradition”.59 The psychological effects of such oppression, according to her, are detrimental to women, as they do not help women grow and develop as individuals in their own right; moreover, they cannot become free citizens of a nation. While this last idea is echoed by Gandhi as well, Mahadevi’s intervention has been informed by her commitment to gender equality. Her subjectivity as a woman enabled the type of thorough social critique that Gandhi did not subscribe to, not because he was a man, but because his commitments to subjective independence and national freedom were fundamentally informed by a more traditional reading of gender, rather than a gendered reading of religion and tradition. In other words, Gandhi’s view of gender was based on perceived biological differences between men and women and he recognized that these roles—defined as they were by biology—were integral to socioreligious life in India.