Archive · 8 Aug 2026
Indian Women Before 1947 Were More Than Wives and Mothers
People are talking about a new movie about India in the year 1947.
The film's director told an actress that long ago, a woman's only jobs were cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her husband and children.
He said that unless a woman was a freedom fighter, that was all she could do.
But one writer says that is not the whole story.
The writer tells us about many women back then who did amazing things.
Some became doctors and scientists.
Some became teachers and opened schools for girls.
A few were even the very first women to graduate from college.
The writer wants everyone to remember that women could be many different things, not just one thing.
So even though many women were homemakers, that does not mean every woman could only be a homemaker.
Rajkumar Santoshi told Preity Zinta that in 1947 a woman's only career, unless she was a freedom fighter, was husband, children and managing the home.
An opinion column rejects this framing, citing Bethune College in Calcutta, founded in 1879 as South Asia's first women's college.
Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu became the first women graduates of the University of Calcutta and of the British Empire in 1883.
The column lists pre-Independence women scientists including EK Janaki Ammal, Kamala Sohonie and Asima Chatterjee.
Preity Zinta said she is grateful that she can work in 2026, marry whom she wants, and have a family while retaining a career.
- Who
- Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi and actress Preity Zinta, in relation to the upcoming film Batwara 1947; the rebuttal comes from an opinion column.
- What
- Santoshi instructed Zinta that women in 1947 had no career other than husband, children and home unless they were freedom fighters; the column counters with pre-Independence women doctors, scientists, academics and reformers.
- When
- A specific date is not given; the exchange occurred while discussing Batwara 1947, ahead of the film's release and Zinta's 2026 career reflections.
- Where
- India, with the historical examples centred on Calcutta, including Bethune College and Calcutta Medical College.
- Why
- Santoshi aimed to guide Zinta's performance set in 1947; the column argues that this framing erases the careers and achievements of Indian women before Independence.
Historical record perspective
Rajkumar Santoshi's framing
Women's roles in 1947 India
Historical record perspective
Women before Independence were not limited to domesticity; doctors, scientists, academics, poets and reformers such as Kadambini Ganguly, Asima Chatterjee and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain prove other paths existed.
Rajkumar Santoshi's framing
Santoshi maintains that at the time, unless a woman was a freedom fighter, her only career was husband, children and managing the home.
Portraying everyday life on screen
Historical record perspective
Directing Zinta to cook, clean and stitch in sequence condenses history into a 'compact kitchen' and ignores women who pushed open institutional doors.
Rajkumar Santoshi's framing
The instructions reflect the view that domestic routines were the dominant reality for the vast number of women in 1947.
Valuing domestic work
Historical record perspective
Cooking, cleaning and motherhood were never beneath women; the tragedy would be imagining those were all a woman could ever have been.
Rajkumar Santoshi's framing
For most women of that era, the home was the principal sphere in which they were expected to exercise their labour and identity.
- Film
- Batwara 1947
- Director
- Rajkumar Santoshi
- Lead actress
- Preity Zinta
- Setting
- Pre-Independence India, 1947
- Bethune College
- South Asia's first women's college, founded 1879 in Calcutta
- First women graduates (1883)
- Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu, University of Calcutta and the British Empire
- First female head of a South Asian undergraduate institution
- Chandramukhi Basu
- Women scientists cited
- EK Janaki Ammal, Kamala Sohonie, Asima Chatterjee
- Santoshi's earlier films
- Damini (1993), Lajja (2001)