Programme
Susanne Kranz
Graduate Student
Department of History
University of Leeds
E/ hisskr@leeds.ac.uk
The Tamil identity in the Marxist and feminist approaches of the Tamil Nadu Democratic Women's Association
This paper focuses on the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) in Tamil Nadu and its relation to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M). I have conducted research on AIDWA and the CPI (M) in form of a comparative study of AIDWA in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and New Delhi and found that the Tamil Nadu unit of AIDWA, called the Tamil Nadu Democratic Women’s Association (TNDWA) occupies a distinct position among AIDWA units in India. The Tamil organization represents the third largest membership base of the All India movement in the country, just as the CPI (M) in Tamil Nadu is the third largest state for the party. TNDWA activists have a clearer approach to their leftist orientation than other AIDWA women throughout India and a very distinct grass root level approach to women’s rights and women’s activism. They are much more action oriented than other rather rhetoric oriented AIDWA units. Being Tamil in terms of women's organizational approaches represents clear approaches on female identity in terms of regional origin such as Tamil specific issues and being Indian. This research is centered on interviews with Tamil women and investigation of the TNDWA unit in Chennai. The questions arising from the research are whether their activism is grounded in the regional identity which appears distinct among activist women or in their identity as Indian women based in similar ideas of women in other regions towards the terminology of Marxism and feminism keeping in mind the distinctive approaches to activism.
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The focus of Ms. Kranz's doctoral studies is on the conflicts of Marxism and
feminism within the Communist women’s movement in contemporary India with a
growing interest in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu. She has done extensive
research for her masters in History on the subject of Marxism, feminism and
state’s women’s policies in the German Democratic Republic from Southeast
Missouri State University. Her publications include: “Women’s Role in the German
Democratic Republic and the State’s Policy Toward Women” in Journal of
International Women’s Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2005), “German Women’s
Movements in the Nineteenth Century” in Helix. A Journal for
Interdisciplinary Research, Vol. 3 (2003); and “Women for Peace – East
German Women during the Cold War and within the Context of East German
Communism,” European Journal of Women’s Studies (under consideration).