Abstract
This article examines the voluntary work of Indian women in the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial As-
sociation (SNDMA), who organised and implemented rural development programmes for their
subaltern female contemporaries. It focuses on the underlying motivations and the social and
political circumstances that informed the work of the Bengal-based SNDMA from the 1920s to
the 1970s. The article discusses the importance of voluntary work in developing expertise and
establishing sustained careers in social work. It also examines the extent to which the volun-
teer organisation’s work led to paid employment for women. The article demonstrates how the
SNDMA’s work transformed rural areas into vital sites for gender-specific development, and how
Indian women established social services that had not previously existed, bridging the period
before and after 1947.