Description
This is a comprehensive book on the wide ranging concerns of the women’s movements in India from a left perspective. The author’s active involvement in the women’s struggles adds to the strength of her narrative. It weaves together experiences and critical observations to create a work of great theoretical and practical import. It should be of great value to those interested in women’s studies and the general studies on South Asia. It contains a wealth of information on women’s lives and their multiple struggles.
EXCERPT FROM THE FOREWORD BY AIJAZ AHMAD
It is that rare book, wise and modest, which informs, instructs, inspires – but with the lightest of touch. Realistic enough to know that for the vast majority of women in India the struggle is for sheer survival against all odds; visionary enough to know that the battle for survival itself shall not be won without winning the battle for emancipation from all kinds of oppression and exploitation. At the heart of that battle for emancipation in our country are the women of our villages and our working classes. This book is written from their standpoint.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Aijaz Ahmad
Preface
I Multiple Struggles
- The Multiple Struggles of Women
- Globalising Resistance Against Globalisation
- Socialism and Women’s Emancipation
II Globalisation and Survival Issues
- Neo-Liberal Agendas and Rural Women’s Concerns
- Globalisation and Women’s Work in Non-Agricultural Sector
- Fighting for a Basic Human Right
- For an Alternative Food Policy
- The Feminisation of Poverty in Bihar
- Budgeting Women Out in the Year of Empowerment
- Gender Budgeting
- No Jobs Ahead
III On Political Participation
- Some Issues Concerning Women’s Reservation Bill
- Reservation Rites – Women as Political Extras
- OBCs, Minorities and the Women’s Bill
- Biology, Ideology and Women in Politics
- Vote for Policies, Not Gender
- Women Chief Ministers
- National Commission, or the National Omission of Women?
IV Communalism and Women
- On the Uniform Civil Code
- The Hedgewar Rekha for Women
- Democracy on Trial – Gujarat Sends Alarm Bells Ringing
- Dangerous Experiments
- Apologise or Go
- Investigation as Collusion
- Kanpur – BJP Government to Blame
V Violence Against Women
- Liberalisation, Communalism and Struggle Against Violence
- On Women’s Unity and Citizenship Rights
- Against the Politics of Terror
- Remembering the Melavalavu Six
- Delivering Anything but Justice
- Some Issues in the Struggles Against Witch Hunting
- Price of Honour
- Dowry Related Violence
- Domesticating Women the Saffron Way
- Coercive Family Planning
- Planning vs. Population Control
- RU-486
VI A Personal Remembering
- A Personal Remembering – MH, 1963-662
Cover image commemorates the martyrdom of Ram Pari, a dalit agricultural worker of village Runni Saidpur in Sitamarhi District, Bihar. A member of AIDWA, she was killed in police firing on 11 August 1998 during an agitation for flood relief. The image was drawn by the village people and presented to the author who was present at Ram Pari’s funeral.
Brinda Karat
Brinda Karat belongs to the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), the largest women’s organisation in India, with 8 million members. She was its General Secretary from 1993 to 2004 and its most well-known spokesperson. Brinda Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
She has also served a term as Rajya Sabha member as representative of her Party, during the course of which she was member of some important parliamentary committees.
In addition to campaigns on women’s issues she has been very involved with matters of food security, public distribution system (PDS), and various bills introduced in the Indian Parliament on public welfare. Some of her recent writings on these have been brought together in a book Food Matters.
