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THE IDEAL OF INDIAN WOMANHOOD
clual, that society is an aggregate of individuals, and should be so organised and administered as to provide each of its members the greatest possible freedom and opportunity for self-development. The rejection of individualism, therefore, implies opposition to political democracy. Those who philosophically and socially reject individualism can. 110: ! hurest alvocaies of democratic freedom. The lefence of the ideal of Indian womanhood Thus logically leads to a very compromising political position. Our striving for political freclom is not consistent with the apology for this fictitious ideal of Indian womanhood.
It is maintained by its protagonists that the mystic ideal of Indian womanhood can be realised only in the iron-frame of patriarchal family. The political administration of a scciety based upon patriarchal family cannot be democratic. It is not possible to remain faithful to any one particular idcal of old tradition. Each form of culture has a whole complex of ideals. Having a common economic background,-a specific form of propertythey are interwoven ideologically. They must stand or fall together. Loyalty to the traditional social idcal would commit us to paternalism in politics. That is manifestly a reactionary ideal.
The economic problems of India-progressive pauperisation of the multitude and mass unemployment-could not be solved under a paternalistic State, even if that was national. Each type of
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