The history of India's struggle for independence has often focused on nationalist leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. Women have appeared merely as wives, sisters or daughters. Yet women were present at all levels of the struggle: as followers of Gandhi's great campaigns of civil Disobedience in the 1920s and 1930s; and as vigorous and outspoken campaigners for self-rule. Rozina Visram looks at the role of women in the struggle for independence from the British, as well as in their fight for equal rights and the vote. Largely through the eyes of Indian women, she examines their traditional role; their social and political awakening; and their active part in the political life of India and Pakistan before and since 1947. A chapter on rebel women also uncovers the terrorist activities of the determinated minority of women advocating revolution.