In 1974, a report titled Towards Equality was published by the Government of India. This report acquired the status of a foundational text for feminist research and practice. It was widely considered to have heralded the Second Wave of the women's movement in India. Prepared by the Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI), comprising 10 women, the report unsettled confidence in the constitutional promises with its revealing findings about ‘the further lowering of the status of women’ and ‘the process of regression developed during the Freedom Movement’:

As evident from its title, at the core of the Committee's ethical and social concerns was the notion of equality, which it recognized as ‘an article of faith in our Constitution’. This equality, the Committee concluded, had not been achieved even after two decades of the promise made in the Preamble. What made this conclusion so extraordinarily impactful and convincing was the way it was arrived at:

Its detailed statistical account of women's status ‘in the total context of a society’, saw women in professional, legal, economic, cultural, and social positions. It identified ‘areas and problems that required careful, scientific, and expert investigations’ and ‘sought the assistance of scholars and experts in different fields’.

Three reasons are commonly cited for the foundational status of Towards Equality. It was the ‘first’ comprehensive and scientific study of women at all levels of national life, and initiated the genre of status reports of women that has become an ‘acknowledged strategy of learning, policy making, political signalling and advocacy on important issues’.