Authors: Mildred Priyal Falcao, Sushil Verma
Abstract: Ever since 1947, as India attained independence, the development of women rights has been one of the most important, but disputable areas of national building. The equality, non-discrimination, and social justice, which were presented in the Constitution of India, became the cornerstones of the equality among genders and established a normative structure regarding gender equality. This framework has been implemented over the decades by passing legislative reforms, judicial injections, policies by the government, as well as international commitments. This essay explores the history of women rights in independent India, through tracing its provisions in the constitution, defining constitutional milestones of women rights, fundamental legislations, landmark judicial rulings and policy measures targeted at empowerment of women. Indeed, through a qualitative doctrinal and policy-analysis approach, the research consolidates legal documents, government reports, national poll data, and the academic literature to evaluate the success and the ongoing deficiencies. The results demonstrate that although India has established one of the most elaborate platforms of legal frameworks of women rights amongst the postcolonial nations, structural and unequal application and lack of socio-cultural norms remain as the limiting factor of substantive equality. This paper claims that the history of the development of women rights in India describes gradual transformation of the formal equality into the rights-based and intersectional approach; however, major issues lie in the process of legal rights transformation into actual practices. The article fits the feminist legal studies literature base because of the provision of a structural historical and analytical narrative of womens rights in post-independent India.
