From Victimhood to Agency: Gender, Class, and the Politics of Women’s Rights in Gangubai

Abstract

This article examines the politics of gender and class in the film Gangubai Kathiawadi by analyzing the representation of women as marginalized subjects confronting patriarchal power structures and class-based inequality in Indian society. Drawing on feminist theory and class theory, the study explores how power, oppression, and resistance are negotiated within spaces where women are systematically silenced and deprived of dignity.

Employing a qualitative approach, the article combines textual analysis of the film with a review of scholarly literature on feminism, human rights, and class relations. The findings reveal that the film portrays Gangubai’s transformation from a victim of human trafficking and sexual exploitation into a figure of agency and authority who actively claims rights for herself and other women in the same occupation.

The struggle depicted in the film demonstrates that women’s rights activism extends beyond legal or moral discourse and constitutes a political confrontation with intersecting structures of gender, class, and economic power. This article argues that Gangubai Kathiawadi functions as a cultural and political text that exposes structural violence against women while challenging the legitimacy of social orders that systematically marginalize female and subaltern subjects.