“Welfare of the Woman of the Martial Classes”: First World War, Gender, and Social Provisions in Colonial Punjab

Umaima Miraj, University of Toronto

Until recently, histories of the First World War were largely told as histories of Europe. Yet as an empire, Britain relied on its colonies, particularly India, to wage World War I. In colonial Punjab, recruitment for the British Indian Army hinged on the colonial discourse of the martial masculinity of the Punjabi man in a gendered agrarian economy where the introduction of private property through land revenue had removed women from property ownership and devalued their labor. In this context, this article investigates social provisions set up for the widows and dependents of Indian soldiers during WWI to examine the genesis of welfare for women in Punjab. Drawing on previously uncovered archival documents, it shows that colonial officials repeatedly pointed to the acute distress and destitution of widows and dependents to institute welfare measures to stimulate recruitment and build legitimacy, however, they relied on extended male kin to support for women in lieu of welfare, sanctioned inadequate pensions, and refused land grants to widows for their deceased husband’s military service. My analysis elucidates that welfare schemes were set up not only to stimulate recruitment but they were informed by and accentuated women’s dependency and reinforced a masculine colonial economy. Through this intervention, my article builds on and contributes to the sociology of welfare and empire from a feminist political economy perspective and centers the sexual differentiation of labor and property for a more accurate theory of welfare in colonial India.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 55. Warfare, Welfare States, and State-Corporation Relations