Using old photographs, old and new documents, excerpts from letters, books and informal writings, the author documents the growing involvement of women and the formation of the early Indian women's organizations; she examines the foregrounding of the 'women's issue' during the reform and nationalist movements and its subsequent disappearance from the agenda of public debate until the post independence period of the Sixties and Seventies when it surfaces again. Key questions are raised regarding the nature of the contemporary movement, the kinds of issues it has taken up, its directions and perspectives, its differences from western movements, the role of autonomous women's organizations and their relationship with political parties, especially those of the left.