A fellowship, Miranda House and the making of Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem was 22. Having graduated from Smith College, she received a Chester Bowles Asian Fellowship that gave her the chance to spend a year in India. Long after, the journalist, activist and feminist said it was in India that she began to understand feminism without yet knowing the word for it.Steinem, who became one of the most recognisable faces of the American women’s movement for more than five decades, died Wednesday at 92.Steinem lived for about a year in Miranda House hostel in Delhi, according to the college principal. She then travelled to Calcutta, southern India and Bombay, wrote about the country, and learnt grassroots organising from the followers of Mahatma Gandhi.The trip to India, she is said to have recounted later, appealed to her not merely as a chance to step away from the life she knew, but as a way of discovering for herself a country whose history and culture had long interested her. Steinem even featured in sari ads, as a way of supplementing her income in India .In 2014, she told Rajya Sabha TV that she was struck by the role women had played in India’s Independence movement and by women’s struggles against oppressive practices. Women such as Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay showed her a history of female activism she had not enco­untered in United States. “I didn’t know what feminism was,” she said in the interview.Miranda House principal professor Bijayalaxmi Nanda said Steinem visited the college twice and remained closely connected to her memories of the institution. During a visit around 2014 with economist Devaki Jain, Steinem spoke about how her time at Miranda House had helped her forge friendships with women, and influenced her engagement with social justice and equality.“She consistently spoke about women’s rights in the workplace and society, bodily autonomy, and was a strong voice against child trafficking and pornography. When she visited, she spoke about how the college had transformed her life and how she had made many women friends here,” Nanda said.The experience stayed with her. “I was here 18 years ago for almost two years. I came to like India very much and to feel influenced by India very much,” Steinem reportedly told India Today in 1976.In 2011, she told the then Asia Society president, “Going to India helped me enormously because I didn’t learn as much as I should have here. For instance, I didn’t understand Dalit culture. At the time, Dalits were still being referred to as ‘untouchables’. I was deeply affected.”Steinem became a leading figure of second-wave feminism, campaigning for reproductive rights, equal pay, an end to domestic violence and greater political representation. She helped found New York magazine, co-founded Women’s Action Alliance, and helped establish National Women’s Political Caucus. Her most enduring journalistic contribution was Ms. magazine, launched in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine before becoming independent the following year.On Steinem’s 90th birthday two years ago, Miranda House college marked the occasion with women’s rights and anti-trafficking activist Ruchira Gupta and announced a Gloria Steinem Travel Grant for work on gender issues. Though the grant has not yet been used, Nanda said the college may now revive it in Steinem’s memory. “We will also plan a conference or some event so that the present generation knows about her contributions and what she stood for,” she said.You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Delhi | Silver Rate in Delhi | Bank Holidays in Delhi | Public Holidays in Delhi | Delhi AQI | Weather in Delhi | Petrol Price in Delhi | Diesel Price in Delhi | CNG Price in Delhi | LPG Price in DelhiStay updated with the latest Delhi news. Download the TOI App.