A Long History of Mobilization: Understanding Gender-Egalitarian Policy Change in India (Project Brief 9)

India has a long history of mobilization for women’s rights and a very diverse set of women’s movements that, paradoxically, can hamper claims-making processes. This brief outlines the progress, or lack of it, on the issues of violence against women and domestic work, highlighting factors that facilitate policy change, such as consensus across different women’s movements and open policy-making processes, and those that militate against it, like the perception that such claims pose fundamental challenges to state power, and to hegemonic conceptions of community, family and sexuality.

For more information on the project, see Project Brief 5. The Project Brief on the Indonesia case study is also available online.


UNRISD Project Briefs pose questions, flag ideas and contribute knowledge that can improve the quality of development debates, policy and practice. They provide a concise summary of an UNRISD research project, situating it within wider social development debates; outlining its focus, objectives and methodology; and highlighting interim findings.