Mazumdar chaired the Committee on the Status of Women in India, whose 1974 report 'Towards Equality' transformed India's women's movement and policy.
In 1974, Vina Mazumdar served as the principal architect and member-secretary of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI), which produced the seminal report titled Towards Equality. This report was the first comprehensive, government-commissioned examination of the social, economic, political, and legal status of women across independent India.
The findings were revelatory and, at the time, deeply unsettling to prevailing assumptions: the report documented declining sex ratios, worsening employment status for women, and persistent legal and social discrimination, contradicting the belief that women's status had automatically improved since independence in 1947. This evidence-based challenge to complacent narratives is widely credited with catalyzing the modern Indian women's movement of the mid-to-late 1970s.
Towards Equality became a foundational document, cited extensively by scholars, policymakers, and activists, and it directly led to the establishment of women's studies as a serious academic discipline in India. Its influence extended to shaping the Sixth Five-Year Plan's approach to women's development and to United Nations deliberations during International Women's Year (1975).
Mazumdar's leadership on this committee cemented her reputation as a pioneering feminist scholar-activist and directly led to her founding role at the Centre for Women's Development Studies. The exact date of formal submission is recorded as December 1974, marking a sentinel moment in South Asian feminist history.