INDIAN WOMEN OF TO-DAY

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1931, Page 10

INDIAN WOMEN OF TO-DAY

MODERNISATION PROCESS. Calcutta, Jan. 21. The Indian purdah, which has held Indian women in bondage from time immemorial, is gradually disappearing, and the women are gradually becoming modernised. The Dowager Maharani of Mayurbhanj, presiding at the annual meeting of Bengal’s chief Indian social welfare society, said the most significant feature of their activities was the national and democratic character achieved by the movement, and the spontaneous ardour with which men and women of all classes, irrespective of caste, religion, or political creed, have identified themselves with the work of social uplift. As a result of their efforts, the purdah has been totally eliminated from many villages, and the life of women in those villages made happier, more hopeful and more useful. In another corner of India the AllAsian Women’s Conference is being held. Though Mrs. Sarojini Naidu is in gaol she has been unanimously elected president. In her absence, women from Ceylon, Bui-ma, Japan, Afghanistan and Persia will take the chair in turn. Sarala Vevi Chaudhurani. was unable to attent owing to illness, but sent a message hoping the conference! would help revive the cultural life of the dififerent Eastern nations and avert the danger of its being swept away by the onrushing current of competing modernism. , ,