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struggle. At the All-Indian Ladies Conference in contributed well to the national cause with Sarojini Ahmedabad, 6000 listened to Bi Amman, the Naidu as the President and Goshiben Naoroji mother of Shaukat Ali and Muhammad Ali, leaders Captian and Avantikabai Gokhale as viceof the All-India Khilafat Committee. Bi Amman presidents. By 1930, Desh Sevika Sangh emerged asked women to enlist as Congress volunteers and, with its women members ready for action. if men were arrested, to join the picket lines and In response to Gandhi's call, women in Bombay keep the flag flying.
formed an organisation to plan and direct efforts to Gandhi's Dandi march on March 12, 1930 close shops selling foreign cloth. The sixth of April, opened a new chapter in India's history, but his the anniversary of the Amritsar massacre was decision not to include women in it disappointed chosen for breaking the salt law. Seven persons, women. The Women's Indian Association protested including two women, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya against their exclusion on the ground that in a non- and Avantikabai Gokhale, were the first to go to the violent struggle, any discrimination on the ground beach and boil sea water. Kamaladevi described of sex was unnatural and liable to work against the women's participation in poetic words: "Women awakened consciousness of women. There were turned every house into a sanctuary for the law many individual protests also. Women like breaker. They lent sanctity to their act by their purity Khurshedben, Dadabhai Naoroji's grand daughter of spirit. Even the mightiest military power cannot asked Gandhi the reason for preventing women cope with a struggle that has its being in the sacred from joining him.
precincts of the home." The Bombay Chronicle Ultimately, Gandhi had to permit women to fully reported that thousands of Gujarati women marched participate in the Satyagraha. He named Sarojini at the Chowpatty sea face, collected sea water in Naidu as his second successor after Abbas Tyabji their brass and copper jugs. Women volunteers and she carried out her mission with rare distinction. picketed toddy shops in the heart of the city and On Gandhi's way there were meetings with asked owners to close down and patrons to leave thousands of women in them. At the village Abhrama the premises. Some women sold salt on the streets, on 10th April 1930 in an audience of 5000, no less and some went house to house urging housewives than 2000 were women; at Matwad, on 11th April a to buy only Swadeshi products. This campaign was quarter of the audience was women; at Dandi on directed by Desh Sevika Sangh formed by Hansa 13th April more than 500 women received him. Mehta and others. Goshiben Captain (1884 - 1970), Gandhi talked to women in such meetings about one of the founding members, insisted on their duties to the nation, i.e., picketing liquor and impeccable credentials of the members. toddy shops, boycotting the taxed salt and spinning
Women addressed public meetings, sold Khadi.
proscribed literature, helped organising Vanar and Women's participation in the civil disobedience Manjjar Senas (monkey and cat armies of children) movement was more intense and meaningful than and faced police atrocities. Some of them worked in the early 1920s.
as "dictators" of the war councils. Through the Bombay women's picketing and demon- summer of 1930 “day by day, the streets of Bombay strations during 1930-32 attracted the attention of would be livened in the early morning with the songs the country and press. Rashtriya Stree Sangh of freedom sung by troops of patriots rousing the
ઑક્ટોબર- ૨૦૧૮) પ્રબદ્ધ જીવન : ગાંધી સાર્ધ શતાબ્દી વિશેષાંક
'સત્ય અહિંસા- અપરિગ્રહ) (૧૦૧)
