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Women, Equality and the Republic: Landmarks in the Indian Story is a series dedicated to tracing the history of the women’s movement in India vis-à-vis Indian democracy and the building of a modern nation. This series recognizes the need to archive women’s voices, roles and contributions in a largely male dominated national history. The volumes in the series not only document but also analyse the evolution of ideas and strategies and the concrete measures that were taken to shape policies and programmes for women in India.

Scholars of gender studies have always struggled with the politics of language and memory that control the very construct of gender in social terms. In the absence of a feminine voice and vocabulary to counter this, large sectors of women’s social experience have been left unrecorded and, hence, invisible.

Education, Equality and Development: Persistent Paradoxes in India Women’s History  goes beyond the confines of quantitative data collection to gather these unrecorded voices. Bringing perspectives from several developing countries, the volume discusses the continued gender inequality despite improvements on issues of child marriage, female mortality, literacy and labour force participation.

The complex relationship between education, women’s equality and their participation in development – national, regional and global – is articulated with great clarity in this volume. The debates focus on the issues of women’s access to different levels of education, the content  of such education, and its medium, purpose or value. The volume also critically examines the dynamics of historical, socio-cultural, linguistic, caste, class and regional variations that have governed the shaping of policies for women’s development.

The result is an analysis that recognizes the paradoxes within the movements for women’s development, and presents a more holistic and valuable guide to policymakers. The fascinating discussions with women from diverse sections on Indian society will also provde a detailed, qualitative appraisal of the ground realities in India for students and scholars of sociology and cultural studies.

Women, Equality and the Republic: Landmarks in the Indian Story is a series dedicated to tracing the history of the women’s movement in India vis-à-vis Indian democracy and the building of a modern nation. This series recognizes the need to archive women’s voices, roles and contributions in a largely male-dominated national history. The volumes in the series not only document but also analyse the evolution of ideas and strategies and the concrete measures that were taken to shape policies and programmes for women in India.

The ‘Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India’ was described as a ‘historic benchmark’ when it was first published in 1974. It forced a reconceptualization of the prevalent discourse on issues of gender and economic well-being, political participation, law, health and family welfare. Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India presents this report and examines its impact on the nation-building process of post-colonial India. It explores the dynamics and values of inherited social institutions like family and marriage within a diverse, plural and hierarchical society. The result is a comprehensive and holistic examination of all questions relating to the rights and status of women in India, providing useful guidelines for the formulation of social policies. The book discusses socio-cultural settings governed by religious traditions, descent systems, family organizations and marriage-related practices, which will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. Scholars are also introduced to original research engaging with issues like prostitution, conditions of female prisoners and suicides by women, bringing to the fore erstwhile marginalized factors in gender studies.

Analysing the impact of law as an instrument of social change, the discussions on marriage, divorce, adoption and guardianship, maintenance, inheritance, matrimonial property and family courts in the volume will give students and practitioners of law valuable perspectives on the uniform civil code and reforms in criminal law.

FROM OPPRESSION TO ASSERTION: WOMEN AND PANCHAYATS IN INDIA by Nirmala Buch
[available with Routledge, 2010]


The book examines the experiences, impact and responses of rural women who entered the panchayats in India after the Constitutional Amendment in 1992 which introduced reservation of one-third seats for them.

Based on interviews of 1,200 panchayat representatives and community members in nine districts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, this book explores two dimensions of this reservation: its effectiveness in bringing women into the public sphere and their participation, and its empowering impact on them. It interrogates the myths of rural women's disinterest in politics, of the reservation benefitting only affluent women and relatives of politicians, and the widespread belief that women are proxies for their menfolk in panchayats. The book argues against patriarchal and unfair nature of these myths vis-a-vis women entrants who have shown leadership skills, increased participation level and changes in attitudes and social practices. The recent debate on reserving one-third seats for women in the Parliament and the policy announcement increasing reservations for women in panchayats to one-half makes this book topical and relevant.

Nirmala Buch is Chairperson, Mahila Chetna Manch, Bhopal; Centre for Woemn's Development Studies, New Delhi; and Child Rights Observatory, Bhopal.
 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGIONAL CONSULTATIONS ON THE STATUS OF THE YOUNG CHILD: FORCES - A PRIMER ON ECCD

This booklet is developed with an objective to create   awareness on the issues affecting the young child. It also gives information on the positive and promising practices that promote ECCD and holistic development. An attempt has been made to develop an understanding of ECCD as a concept

This book attempts to understand communalism and communal violence from the viewpoint of the victims themselves in the context of the city of Banaras, best known for its sari industry, but also characterised as a 'Hindu city' prone to Hindu-Muslim violence. Through the metaphor of tana-bana, or the warp and the weft of the Banarsi sari, the author looks at the impact of violence on the lives of Banaras Muslims and the growing concern with identity and the 'othering' of an entire community.

Located at the confluence of three processes - the impact of communal violence accompanied by an insidious communalisation, growing concerns with indentity and the gender dimensions of the processes - this book is a fascinating investigation into the phenomenon of communalism, particularly since the 1990s when the question of Hindu-Muslim relations resurfaced in the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The actors are the Muslim weavers of Banaras and the site is the Banarasi sari industry.

The ethnography is located in the city of Banaras in Uttar Pradesh, best known for its sari industry. Two contradictory aspects of Hindu-Muslim relations are significant in this city. On the one hand Banaras has the reputation of being riot-prone, exacerbating tensions between the two communities, while on the other there is a mutual dependence on each other; on the one hand it has been characterised as a Hindu city, while, on the other, it has seen the evolution of a cosmopolitan urban culture in an essentially artisanal and pre-industrial milieu with its characteristic fluidity and communication across social boundaries. Appropriately, the dominant metaphor used by the author is tana-bana-the warp and the weft of the Banarasi sari as reproduced in the interweaving between the two communities.

The author documents how Banaras has been imaged and represented over the past two centuries and more; demonstrates the disjunction between a sacred city of Hindus and its essentially plural character; examines in depth the lives of Banaras Muslims in the social and economic matrix of the sari industry; highlights how women negotiate between home and family and their place in the artisanal industry; and most importantly, shows the fast-changing world of the weavers in the context of the crisis in the sari industry and their responses to it. Finally, the richness of the ethnography is complete with the oral narratives of two remarkable women of Banaras.

This endearing, witty, self-deprecating memoir documents the life of one of the leading feminists of the contemporary Indian women's movement. Vina Mazumdar, one of the key researchers and writers of the landmark report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Towards Equality, here documents her early life, her gradual politicization in a household of liberal, educated Bengalis, and her involvement in women's issues and the women's movement.

Brought up to be outspoken and frank, Vinadi, as she is affectionately known, began by becoming involved in university-level politics in Bihar. Marriage and a young family did not prevent her from pursuing her studies and her career, in the teeth of considerable opposition from relatives but with constant support from her mother. On her return to India, Vinadi first moved into the field of education, and then with her involvement in the research and writing of Towards Equality, was catapulted into the women's movement.

An activist and institution builder, Viandi set up the Centre for Women's Development Studies in Delhi, one of the leading research and outreach institutions for women in the country. In this rare memoir, Vinadi provides a rich history of the contemporary women's movement in India.

Vina Mazumdar is an activist, institution builder, and academic. She is a founder of the Centre for Women's Development Studies, Delhi and of the Indian Association of Women's Studies. She serves as Member Secretary of the Standing Committee on Women's Studies of the Government of India.  Since 2006 she has been  a National Research Professor of Social Sciences, Government of India.

 

Vina Mazumdar revisits the questions crucial to understanding the intellectual history of colonial India.;  She analyses the many dimensions of colonial policy, the intentions and motivations of the men on the ground and in charge, the debates around policy making, the significance of the options involved and choices made, the context of colonialism and anti-colonialism as it impinged on policy making and its reception by different sections of Indians, and the social and political implications of specific imperial policy.

In the process she explores the efforts of Indians to evolve and create ideas and institutions geared to Indian needs and aspirations, providing meticulous documentation of conflict and assertion in the areas of education, gender, culture and political claims.

In the 1 980s and 1 990s disabled scholars in the West began to develop a radical critique of biomedical conceptions of disability that focused exclusively on the individual body and its limitations. They also exposed the failure of the social sciences to critically address what this medical understanding of disability meant, and what it excluded from consideration. Out of their work emerged what is generally called the 'social model' of disability. Over the past twenty years this perspective has generated a substantial literature, much of it making use of the methods of qualitative social research. Narratives and life histories produced by disabled people themselves have a central place in the Disability Studies literature. This work has major implications for professionals in the rehabilitation field, for the social sciences, and the ultimate goal, for the full integration of disabled people into society. However almost all of it focuses on the traditions, practices and dilemmas of northern countries.

In India, in Thailand and in most of Asia, the field of disability continues to be dominated by the biomedical model. Thus, 'disability' is understood as an incurable chronic illness and, increasingly, an object for medical diagnosis and investigation. Despite many positive developments, little convergence between disability politics and practice on the one hand, and sociology and anthropology on the other has taken place. Surveying the international literature on disability and rehabilitation, it becomes apparent that many studies carried out in Asian countries are designed to measure the extent of (unmet) need or the impact of services or attitudes to disabled people. Virtually no studies make use of the innovative, usually qualitative and often holistic approaches developed in Western countries over the past twenty years.

This book introduces readers in Asian countries to the recent disability literature of the West. The editors hope that it will inspire new thinking among social scientists, rehabilitation professionals and organisations of disabled people themselves that could further the empowerment of people with disabilities.

WOMEN'S STUDIES IN INDIA - A READER. edited by Mary E. John [available with Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2008]

Women's studies first emerged in India during the 1970s as a forceful critique of those processes that had made women invisible after independence - invisible not only to society and the state, but also to higher education and its disciplines. Since that beginning, so much has happened in this already vast field that it would be hard to find a major issue or subject that has not been addressed by scholars and activists.

This comprehensive reader sets out to provide a map of the development of women's studies and the ever expanding terrain that it has been investigating. The introduction explores the growth of the field from the upheavals of the 1970s to the transformed conjunctures of the 1990s. In the process, the often elusive relationships between women's studies, the women's movement, and the structures of higher education are highlighted. Over eighty edited essays have been brought together in this single volume under distinct thematic clusters - from the new beginnings of the 1970s to politics, history, development, violence, the law, education, health, family and household, caste and tribe, religion and communalism, sexualities, and literature and the media. This reader is for both newcomers to women's studies and for those who have long been part of it.

 

DECONSTRUCTING MENTAL ILLNESS: An Ethnography of Psychiatry, Women and the Family, by Renu Addlakha [Zubaan Books, Delhi, 2008]

Drawing from feminist, post modern, cultural and sociological and medical anthropological literature, this work shows the complex inter twining of illness and culture in the context of mental disorder.

The ethnographic context of the study is the interface between mental health professionals, patients and their families in a local psychiatric hospital in New Delhi. The book anchors the discussion around feminist thinking and praxis in the mental health realm, along with the traditions of cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology.

Deconstructing Mental Illness is relevant and contemporary, and makes an important health and women. This important new work extends the frontiers of social science research and offers alternative perspectives on women, health and disability.



 

Exposing the Myths of Muslim Fertility: Gender and Religion in a Resettlement Colony of Delhi (CWDS), by Sabiha Hussain

As a consequence of the politicisatton of religion in India, the study of religious differentials in fertility and family planning is a highly sensitive issue. Not just the popular media but even scholarship has been instrumental in fomenting ideas about the alarming growth of the Muslim population due to Islamic beliefs and practices. Thus, the communalisation of the population debate has made any discussion of the reproductive practices of Muslims both highly contentious and deeply confused.

This comparative study of two religious communities, Hindu and Muslim, in one of Delhi's slums throws considerable light on their reproductive behavior by going beyond commonly held stereotypes. It begins by exploring whether religious differences override the commonalities of gender class and socio-economic status. The exact nature and extent of differences between these two communities is carefully analysed drawing on aspects of women’s health, marriage practices, child mortality, migration, education and work patterns. Existing theories in the vast demographic literature, especially on there relationships between religion and fertility, are also, explored.

In So Many Words: Women's Life Experiences from Western and Eastern India. edited by Aparna Basu and Malavika Karlekar  [ available with Routledge ]

This volume marks a new trend in understanding women's varied experiences of life: individual introductions situate the narrator in a context - and then her voice takes over, with no intervention from the editors. Carefully chosen photographs gleaned from personal collections provide an important visual context to the many worlds that the women inhabited.

The mélange includes memoirs, published articles, 'portraits from memory', a collection of essays, and an oral interview. In all, the Self is the focus. The writings of Sailabala, Li Gotami and Shakuntala go beyond a recounting of their lives and deal with spiritual and travel experiences. Three of the essays are excerpts from published autobiographies - Sarala Devi Chaudhurani's Jeevaner Jharapata (Life's Fallen Leaves), Kalpana Dutt's Reminiscences and Sailabala Das's A Look Before and After. Vidyagauri Neelkanth's writings are essays, with a selection of amazingly candid letters exchanged with her husband. Anasuya Sarabhai's is an interview with niece Gira and Monica's a selection from an unpublished memoir. Li Gotami, whose original name was Rutty Petit, travelled to Manasarovar, and a few of the magazine articles on this amazing journey have been reproduced here.

The personal narrative - be it an autobiography, a letter or a diary - has come to be recognised as an acceptable source of information in history and the social sciences. The readings of personal narratives included here help in painting various images of lives that we can only know at second hand.

Women Workers and Globalization: Emergent Contradictions in India (Stree, Calcutta)
By Indrani Mazumdar

Investigating the impact of globalization on women workers in India, this book demystifies the phenomenon of globalization, offering an overview of its prime drivers, processes and forces. Four sectoral studiesof women workers are provided: two on factory women in garment exports and electronics; the third on homebased workers in a range of manufacturing processes and industries; and the fourth on middle class women working in Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES).

Primary surveys were conducted amongst women workers in 2002-2004, covering Delhi and its satellite townships of Noida and Gurgaon. In addition, by using secondary sources, the study links the experiences of these Delhi-based women workers with their counterparts in the same sectors in other parts of the country for a wider understanding of the impact of globaliszation.

The analysis of garment exports, electronics and IT services, which are clearly linked to global production and service networks, brings out global sectoral trends and their ramifications. The study of home-based workers, on the other hand, has focused more on the policy framework towards this particular section and the changes in perspectives that have accompanied the liberalization process.

Indrani Mazumdar has had a long and continuous association with the women and worker's movements in India. She is senior research associate, Centre for Women's Development Studies, Delhi.

CWDS, New Delhi, 2007.

Visualizing Indian Women, 1875-1947
(edited by Malavika Karlekar) (available from OXFORD)

Photography as a medium has captured the diverse realities of women's lives over the last century and a half, providing a more holistic understanding of what is learned through the written word, memory, and recall. Visualizing Indian Women is a collection of 300 such rare photographs depicting women's lives during the period 1875-1947, gleaned from archives as well as private collections.

With a comprehensive, lucidly written introduction that places the photographs in context, this volume will be of great interest to general readers, students and scholars of gender studies, history, sociology, culture and media studies; photographers, photo-journalists, archivists, and art historians.

Malavika Karlekar is Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, and Curator 'Re-presenting Indian Women: A Visual Documentary, 1875-1947, Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi.

Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006.

Planning Families, Planning Gender
by Mary E. John, Ravinder Kaur, Rajni Palriwala, Saraswati Raju, Alpana Sagar

The Adverse Child Sex Ratio in Selected Districts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab

[ Full Text ]


 

Memory Frames: Oral Narratives
(By Kumud Sharma) [available from CWDS]

'Oral Narratives' of four leading feminists, academics and activists, has coincided with the Silver Jubilee celebrations of the CWDS. The narratives presented in the book are reflections of four first generation women's studies practitioners on perspectives framed by feminist debates in India during the last three decades and the key issues which constitute the debates within women's studies.

Enduring Conundrum: India's Sex Ratio
(Edited by Vina Mazumdar, N.Krishnaji) (Rainbow Publishers)

Fondly remembering him as ‘Census Mitra’, this book pays tribute to the scholarship and extraordinary gender concerns of Asok Mitra, who expertise in the census analysis often went beyond the confines of demography to directly caution the state on the deteriorating decline of the female sex ratio in India.  It traces the events that inspired and guided the social scientists of his time and radically changed the pattern of demographic research to give it a shift from mere data analysis to one of social concern.

Gender Biases and Discrimination against Women: What do different indicators say? (UNIFEM)

This report addresses different dimensions of women’s equality and empowerment through a set of quantitative indicators. The issue of survival, women’s health, education, work, economic participation and contribution, their presence and participation in private-public decision making, women’s safety and security are among the diverse aspects covered in the report.  The relative performance of the states/union territories of India in different spheres was assessed and analysed for possible explanations. States requiring urgent and immediate attention of policy makers and planners were highlighted in the study based on a simple ranking method.

Space For Power: Women’s Work and Family Strategies in South and South –East Asia
(By Joy Deshmukh-Ranadive ) (Rainbow Publishers)

This monograph develops a multi-disciplinary, analytical framework, which can be used in both, field research and subsequent analysis of data.  The household and family are conceptualized in the context of intra-domestic power dynamics.  The concept of ‘space’ is developed to capture both, power and empowerment.  Parallel categorization of ‘space’ and ‘environment’ in their physical, economic, socio-cultural and political dimensions, link the micro with the macro.  The framework draws upon the project “Women’s Work and Family Strategies in South and South-East Asia” which comprised of inter-regional collaborative studies, conducted by the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi,  India, under the sponsorship of the United Nations University.  These studies had focused on women’s work, migration and education as family strategies used for survival and upward mobility.  The monograph uses the finding of the studies to substantiate the framework, and simultaneously analyses the studies using categories developed in the framework.

Between Tradition, Counter Tradition And Heresy
Contributions in Honour of Vina Mazumdar
(Edited by Lotika Sarkar, Kumud Sharma, Leela Kasturi)
(Rainbow Publishers)

This volume provides perspectives on a range of issues in some key areas that have exercised scholars and activists in women’s studies for more than two decades.  The richly diverse collection brings together contributions by some of the leading scholars in women’s studies who critically reflect on complex questions and challenges facing women’s studies and the women’s movement.  The papers address issues such as legacies and futures of women’s studies, a theory of grassroots feminism, politics and practices within the family, kinship networks, marriage and motherhood and the ideologies that shape women’s worlds.  The papers also discuss the challenges offered by political processes, fundamentalism and cultural constructions hostile to women.  Some contributors have explored the relationship between articulations of the women’s question and the discourses on identity, citizenship and political participation.  A few narratives reveal how the worldviews and perspectives of the authors have changed through research in women’s studies.  Multidisciplinary and insightful, the 22 articles in the volume will be of interest to scholars and activists alike

Daughters of the Earth: Women and Land in Uttar Pradesh
(By Smita Tewari Jassal)

This book problematizes women’s relationship to land from historical, anthropological and socio-legal perspectives, the underlying assumption being that legal title to own land as well as exercise control over it as a productive resource, have hitherto been denied to them.  Hence, the significance of identifying those socio-historical processes which are likely to have resulted in the marginalization of women within the power and resource systems that govern agriculture.

Crimes Against Women: Bondage and Beyond
(Hindi version is also available) (CWDS)

This  campaign document contains an analytical study based on the 1996 National Crimes Record  Bureau (NCRB) district level data.  It maps the high crime reporting districts of India with highlights of states over five years, from 1995 to 1999, recording some milestones of action taken by the Women’s Movement.  It reproduces the 1979 open letter to the Chief Justice of India which helped to speak of widespread protests against the Mathura rape Case – since then acknowledged as heralding the revival of the women’s movement in India after independence and extracts on custodial rape from People’s Union of Democratic Rights  (PUDR).  It also charts the role of the print media in reporting crimes against women.  It provides a detailed state and district level data for five years on different categories of crime with a select bibliography

Shifting Sands: Women’s Lives and Globalization
(Stree, Calcutta)

Eager to be ‘global’, India’s economic policymakers have accepted stabilization and structural adjustment as necessary tools of development.  What does this mean for women?  While gender has become increasingly important in development polices, there is less awareness that policies and structural adjustment are never gender-neutral.  The myth of neutrality continues unchallenged while women often suffer de facto exclusion from the development process because of methods of implementation in the field.  Government aid progammes requiring the consent of ‘father or husband’, Green Revolution facilitators who passed on expertise to men only, panchayat laws seeking to debar women with more than two children from holding office – the instances are legion.