India’s struggle for freedom is one such instance in history where women had stepped out of their regular roles as home-makers, mothers and wives to shoulder the responsibility of sculpting the concept of a new nation amidst the conflict between the people and the colonial state.
While they were at it, they had stood shoulder to shoulder with their men-folk to rally the masses to the cause, face bullets, picket shops, and participate in propaganda making. They embodied self-sufficiency as gandhi had first visualized through the skill of spinning using a “charkha” (spinning machine for household spinning of cloth).
Ideally taken to be a womanly occupation practiced at home, the spinning of cloth with a charkha became the guideline for understanding the resilience of the spirit.
