Was Indian feminism a colonial gift — or a civilizational inheritance? IAS officer and author Mukul Kumar challenges the dominant narrative, tracing women’s autonomy back to the Rig Veda in this revealing conversation about his book Women in the Womb of Time.
Drawing on a sweeping study of ancient texts — from the Upanishads and Dharmashastra to Arthashastra and Kamasutra — Kumar argues that Indian feminism long predates the 19th-century British reform era. He exposes the colonial motives behind William Jones’s selective translation of Manusmriti, while demonstrating how the Arthashastra prescribed death for sexual assault, criminalised domestic violence, and protected women’s economic rights (Stridhana) centuries before modern law. The Kamasutra, he reveals, contains remarkable dialogues in which women debate intellectual independence and desire — evidence of a sophisticated feminist consciousness that has been largely hidden.
Kumar also examines heterodox traditions — Buddhism and Jainism — finding both liberation and lingering inequality within their treatment of women. His closing message is unambiguous: the solution to patriarchy is not matriarchy, but the ancient Indian ideal of complementarity — equal dignity for both sexes, rooted in civilizational wisdom rather than imported ideology.

About The Speaker:
Mukul Kumar is a civil servant from the 1997 batch of the Indian Railway Traffic Service and is currently posted in the Railway Board, Ministry of Railways. He is an acclaimed novelist and poet. For his contributions to literature and public service, he has received several honours, including the National Award for Outstanding Service to Indian Railways, the Srijan Shikhar Puraskar, and the Bharat Nirman Award, among others.

Debasis Sarkar is an Anchor at Sangam Talks. He is an independent researcher in Indology and a seeker in related fields of knowledge.