3.2.3 - Gender and sexuality: historical and social context

Context and care

AQA places this topic in Component 2C, Section A: the study of Hinduism. That matters because the lesson is about how Hindu thought and Hindu communities have responded to changing historical and social conditions, not about a generic ethics debate copied from Component 1.

The key phrase is "developments in Hindu thinking". A development is a change, debate, reform, reinterpretation or renewed defence of an existing position. It does not mean that Hinduism moved in one neat line from "traditional" to "modern". Hindu traditions are internally diverse: different regions, castes, classes, sampradayas, reform movements, gurus, family customs and legal contexts can shape what Hindus teach and practise.

For this topic, the safest starting distinction is:

This means you should not write as if there is one official Hindu answer to every gender and sexuality issue. A strong A-level answer can say: Hindu thinking has been shaped by religious sources and practices, but also by empire, modern law, education, rights language and social change.

Colonial Encounter

AQA specifically names the encounter with western values and lifestyles as part of the British Empire. In India, British rule did not only mean political control. It also brought English-language education, missionary criticism of Indian religions, colonial courts, codified law, census categories, print culture and new public debates about social reform.

The phrase western values needs careful handling. It can refer to liberal ideas about rights and individual freedom, but also to Victorian moral norms, Christian missionary assumptions and colonial claims that British rule was "civilising" India. These were not the same thing. Some western influences pushed toward equality and legal reform; others reinforced strict gender roles and sexual respectability.

For Hindu gender and sexuality debates, colonialism mattered in at least three ways.

One sensitive example is colonial criminal law. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was a British-era criminal provision directed at sexual acts described as "against the order of nature". It is used here as a historical example, not a statement of current law. The point for this lesson is not to turn Section 377 into "the Hindu view". It is to see how colonial law introduced moral and legal categories that later shaped Indian debates about sexuality, rights and religious identity.

This creates an AO2 tension. On one hand, the colonial encounter clearly changed the public language in which gender and sexuality were discussed. On the other hand, it would be too simple to say that all conservative Hindu views came from Britain, or that all reform came from the West. Hindu reformers, traditionalists and ordinary communities responded in different ways, often using Hindu sources and Indian social arguments as well as western rights language.

Changing Social Roles

AQA also names "the changing roles of men and women in society outside of religion". This is a crucial phrase. It means students should notice social change in education, employment, politics, public life and family expectations before asking how Hindu thinkers and communities responded to it.

In modern India, women increasingly entered public education, professional work, political activism, law, journalism, reform organisations and urban public life. These changes did not affect all women equally. Class, caste, region, rural or urban setting, language, family wealth and access to education all mattered. A Hindu woman in a metropolitan professional family, a rural agricultural household and a devotional ashram setting might experience "gender roles" very differently.

Social change outside religion can influence religious thinking in several ways:

The phrase outside of religion does not mean "irrelevant to religion". It means the initial change may come from social, economic, legal or political life rather than from a temple, text or guru. Once the change exists, Hindus may interpret it through ideas such as dharma, ashrama, grihastha life, samskara, family duty, seva, Shakti, bhakti or liberation.

There is an important descriptive/evaluative distinction here:

For exam purposes, a strong answer will avoid two weak extremes. Do not say "modern society corrected Hinduism", because that sounds like a crude progress story. Do not say "real Hinduism never changes", because AQA is specifically asking about developments in Hindu thinking.

Secular Rights And Law

AQA's third named factor is "the rights given to women by secular governments". In the Indian context, this points especially to the modern state, constitutional equality and legislation affecting marriage, inheritance, education, work and public life.

India's Constitution provides a secular legal framework in which citizens have rights that do not depend only on religious membership. Articles 14 and 15 establish equality before law and prohibit state discrimination on grounds including sex. Article 15 also permits special provision for women and children. Article 39 directs the state toward equal livelihood and equal pay for men and women. These legal principles do not automatically erase social inequality, but they give citizens and reformers a language of rights.