Urvashi Butalia’s introduction to feminism came during her early childhood years, and from her mother, who taught her daughters how to circumvent the patriarchal and formidable Punjabi grandmother, the undisputed ruler of the household.

The 72-year-old feminist, publisher and author recalls those days of fighting the good fight with little tricks taught by her mother.

Urvashi Butalia. Image credit: Payasam (Mukul Dube), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

“My grandmother was a traditional Punjabi woman who always put her son first, then my two brothers, my sister and I and my mother last. My mother who was a teacher, instead of openly opposing my grandmother taught little tricks to win the battles that played out in the household,” she recollects.

Her grandmother would feed the men more and like most Punjabi women, she would have lots of food tucked away somewhere. The sweetmeats and savouries were stored in a trunk, with its key tied to the drawstrings of her salwar.

“My mother taught us to get hold of the key in the afternoons when my grandmother was sleeping and pick up whatever we wanted to eat,” Butalia says, with a chuckle.

For the young girl, it was also an early foray into feminism, which was honed in a conscious political way while she was at Delhi University in the late 1960s.

Speaking to HerStory on the sidelines of the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode last week, Butalia says the end of the 1960s saw universities as hotbeds of discussions beginning with hostile conditions in hostels, transport for women and so on. This translated into fighting for........

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