The UGC Standing/Review Committee on Women’s Studies, constituted in 2005 and chaired by Dr.Vina Mazumdar, held consultations on Women’s Studies in five regions. A summary of its recommendations is available in our Newsletter (May 2006). In April 2006, the Committee supported the suggestion of the IAWS President to re-establish the formal linkage between the UGC Standing Committee and IAWS.

• IAWS has actively advocated the establishment of Women’s Studies Centres in universities and was closely involved with the UGC’s efforts in this direction. As Women’s Studies has established itself and grown, it has had to counter ideological opposition at various levels. In 2004 IAWS campaigned successfully against the UGC’s move to rename and reorient the University Centres of Women’s Studies as ‘Women and Family Studies Centres’. Mobilising women’s studies teachers, researchers and activists of the women’s movement, IAWS succeeded in stopping the proposed change.

• The Association has also participated in other campaigns against government policies inimical to women’s interests. Along with several women’s organizations, IAWS signed a Joint Statement in 2000, to protest the National Commission for Women’s publication Rape: A Legal Study. The Prologue contained a historical misrepresentation of women’s position in ancient India, which distorted and introduced a communal propagandist slant that should have had no place in a publication of the Commission. Paragraph 6 of the Prologue stated that Indian women had enjoyed an enviable position in tha family and society prior to foreign invasions of India from the eighth century onwards, and that illiteracy and seclusion inside the house were enforced upon women for their own protection against invading marauders. The Joint Statement pointed out that contemporary research had proved such views to be baseless.

• In 2000, IAWS and other organizations strongly condemned the decision of the Maharashtra State Government to plan and implement a coercive population policy. The policy envisaged various punishments and disincentives for those who did not accept the small family norm and excluded third children and their families from the individual/family-based poverty alleviation schemes and from the medical and education benefits. IAWS and others held that this policy sought to reduce the numbers of poor and marginalized groups, particularly girls and women, who depended on the state for their survival.

• At the Silver Jubilee conference in 2008, a number of campaign-based resolutions were passed at the General Body of the IAWS:

• The IAWS appeals for the release of Binayak Sen who has been held in judicial custody under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, and the Chhattisgarh Vishesh Jan Suraksha Adhiniyam 2005 (Chhattisgarh Public Security Act). The IAWS further demands the repeal of the unconstitutional Chhatisgarh Public Security Act that violates the fundamental rights of Indian citizens. As a follow up, this resolution was sent to civil liberties group in Chattisgarh when they were regularly holding campaigns for the release of Vinayak Sen.
• IAWS strongly condemns the violence, unleashed in Nandigram and Singur by the Government in West Bengal against citizens protesting Special Economic Zones and Corporate Globalisation, as well as the Government’s undemocratic moves to appropriate land for industrial use. We are particularly outraged by the State’s use of sexual violence to intimidate people and suppress protests. As feminists who have a shared political investment in opposing State violence, we wish to reiterate that commitment at this historical juncture.
• IAWS condemns the gruesome murder of dalits, and the sexual assault and murder of dalit women by dominant caste men in Khairalanji in Maharashtra. We especially condemn the use of sexual violence to intimidate and silence dalits, specifically dalit women who stand up for their rights to a life of dignity.
• The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 (AFSPA), despite being an ‘emergency legislation’ that should be subject to review every six months, has been in force in large parts of the North-Eastern States as well as Jammu and Kashmir for decades now. The AFSPA is a draconian law which grants undemocratic powers to the armed forces, resulting in gross human rights violation in all areas of its operation. As members of the Women’s Movement, we stand in solidarity with all democratic struggles against draconian laws like the AFSPA. We speak in one voice with women like Sharmila from Chanu who continues her hunger fast against AFSPA for the 7^th consecutive year. The impunity granted to the armed forces under the AFSPA must end. The victims of militarization in the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir must get justice. The AFSPA must be repealed. This resolution was given to Irom Sharmila’s brother from IAWS in March 2009.
• IAWS general body recognized the courage shown by Bilquis Bano who pursued the charges of rape of a number of women and herself during the Gujarat genocide of 2002. This has resulted in the first historic conviction on rape during a communal conflict. However we note with concern that the judgement has acquitted the policemen and doctors who had sought to erase the material evidence of assault and murder, an aspect of the judgement that Bilquis herself has highlighted, and one that she continues to struggle against. We join Bilquis in this continuing struggle and demand that the relevant authorities appeal against the acquittal of state functionaries who were key accomplices in the systematic obstruction of justice, in which attempt they almost succeeded, but for the persistence of Bilquis Bano.

Since IAWS strategizes on doing workshops and engaging with the local or the wider community on issues affecting women’s everyday lives, the forthcoming regional workshop in October 2009 will be organized in Mangalore as a response and protest to the Mangalore pub incident involving questions of women’s sexuality and morality.