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| BIRTH OF THE MAITREYA [Bani Basu] In writing about the times of the Buddha, Bani Basu composes a new Jataka, the traditional format in which the tales of the different births of the Buddha were written down. In this Jataka-as-a-novel, she grapples with history and the revolutionary ideas of the Buddha, who suggested new ways of living, new political formations, of a major change in belief, indeed, in thinking about God or the absence of one. Delving into history and biography, Sanskrit and Pali, her novel is intriguingly contemporary, though set in the sixth century BC { 501pp, 155x230mm, February 2004; PB, £10.00, 8185604614:9788185604619 , Stree } |
| BUFFALO NATIONALISM : A Critique of Spirital Fascism [Kancha Ilaiah] Writing with passion and wit on contemporary India, this selection from the author's columns in the Hindu, the Deccan Chronicle and the Hindustan Times bring to light his vision of a more just society. { 206pp, 140x215mm, March 2004; PB, £9.99, 818560469X:9788185604695 , Stree } |
| CAST ME OUT IF YOU WILL : Stories & Memoir [Lalithambika Antherjanam] Offering a rich account of women's lives in twentieth-century Kerala, these stories and the accompanying autobiographical fragments give invaluable insights. Lalithambika Antherjanam's stories throb with the tormented reality of Namboodiri illam (Brahmin households): unbearable social restriction, rigid sexual mores, lives ruled by the maintenance of ritual purity, the extreme oppression of widows. The selections include the disturbing early story 'The Admission of Guilt' ('Kuttassammatham') where the accused woman gives an account of her trial and ostracism on charges of sexual misdemeanour, the classic 'The Goddess of Revenge' (Praticaradevata), and the passionately felt accounts of the trauma of Partition in Bengal and Punjab. The introduction places Lalithambika Antherjanam in the cultural history of modern Kerala. { 188pp, 140x215mm, April 2001; PB, £10.00, 8185604118:9788185604114 , Stree } |
| CONDITIONS OF VISIBILITY : Writings on Photography in Contemporary India [R Srivatsan] Elaborating new theoretical perspectives on visual cultures, the book addresses the political processes of the photographic image. Srivatsan uses gender, caste and class to serve as frames of reference for this original and stimulating analysis. He takes into consideration a range of visual material: hand-painted cinema hoardings, the modernism of Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographs in police records and the visual politics of advertising and news photography. { 174pp, 140x220mm, February 2000; HB, £30.00, 8185604282:9788185604282 , Stree } |
| CULTURE, POWER & AGENCY : Gender in Indian Ethnography [Lina Fruzzetti & Sirpa Tenhunen (eds)] Bridging theoretical discussions with fieldwork, these contributions consider social change in various gendered sites: orphan girls, middle class and working class housewives, Dalit Vankars, control of fertility, divorce and domestic violence. Offering ethnographic description and analysis, these articles suggest new ways in which women challenge predominant ideologies. Tellingly, the case studies suggest there is no sharp demarcation between culture as the weapon of domination and as the weapon of the weak. { 231pp, 140x220mm, February 2006; HB, £28.00, 8185604819:9788185604817 , Stree } |
| DARK SUN & WOMAN WHO WORE A HAT [Kamal Desai] This translation provides access to the major works of a leading Marathi writer. Kamal Desai's fiction is focused on the micro levels of inner life where experience is held together by the compelling and never predictable struggle for selfhood. Nearly always, subtle and ongoing antagonisms structure and threaten Kamal Desai's imagined communities. Before she can tear down the walls of the temple of the Dark Sun (Kala Surya) the protagonist must extricate herself from its tenacious and pervasive hold on her inner life. In the much acclaimed 'Woman Wearing a Hat' (Hat Ghalnari Bai), a woman asserts her right to a Promethean venture in the face of crippling opposition. { 167pp, 140x210mm, February 1999; PB, £8.00, 818560407X:9788185604077 , Stree } |
| DE-EROTICIZING ASSAULT : Essays on Modesty, Honour & Power [Kalpana Kannabiran & Vasanth Kannabiran] Focusing on the many hegemonies that confront women and men today, the authors present fresh insights on the linkages among gender, culture and politics. Their 'concerns in politics have centred on questions of culture and representation, on power and hegemonies that find legitimacy, in globalisation, and the imperatives of anti-communal struggles'. They analyse the coalition between globalisation and fundamentalism and consider the disturbing portents for women, children, minorities and dalits. While reflecting on the increase in state repression, they also critique the way the Left revolutionary parties too restrict women's engagement. { 267pp, 140x220mm, February 2002; HB, £35.00, 8185604525:9788185604527 , Stree } |
| FIVE LORDS, YET NONE A PROTECTOR & WORDS SWEET & TIMELESS : Two Plays [Saoli Mitra] Both are based on the Mahabharata. The first one narrates the story of Draupadi. She was married to the five royal Pandava brothers and her humiliation at the hands of the Kauravas, the cousins of her husbands and rivals for the throne, is depicted. The second play reveals the tragedy of the royal women, Satyavati, the three abducted princesses, Amba, Ambika and Ambalika, the queens Kunti and Gandhari, and the daughters-in-law, Draupadi, Subhadra and Uttara. Both the plays are one-woman performances in the tradition of kathakatha, dramatised storytelling that uses live music. By subverting traditional theatre and the gendering of the stories, Mitra's plays challenge the audience's views of 'decorum'. { 224pp, 140x220mm, April 2006; HB, £12.00, 8185604495:9788185604497 , Stree } |
| FLUID BONDS : Views on Gender & Water [Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (ed)] Gender intersects with other factors such as race, ethnicity, economic, social and political aspects and geographical locations. Divided into four parts this book considers global discourses on water; water culture and the economy; water, time and place; and water, women and agency. It highlights the achievements and failures, in both developed countries and developing countries, and urges the mainstreaming of gender in the water sector, particularly in decision making in both North and South. The book will be of immediate interest to academics, development planners, administrators, educators, activists and water scientists. { 464pp, 140x220mm, February 2006; HB, £40.00, 8185604703:9788185604701 , Stree } |
| GENDER [V Geetha] Geetha points out that 'gender is everywhere', and when we allocate to the male and female sexes, specific and distinctive attributes and roles, we are 'doing' gender. She suggests insightfully that gender 'is both part of the world we live in, as well as a way of understanding the world'. Provocative and jargon-free, the book shows how gender identities mesh with those constituted by caste, class, religion and sexual preferences, forming a set of arrangements that have evolved through history. It enables the reader to undertake a fresh and critical analysis of what we consider to be normal and given, to ask questions, to take stock of the self and the world. { 150pp, 140x210mm, March 2002; PB, £10.00, 8185604452:9788185604459 , Stree } |
| GENDER, FOOD SECURITY & RURAL LIVELIHOODS [Maithreyi Krishnaraj (ed)] Food security remains a major concern in India as agriculture is in crisis. Food security depends not only on production and the market but also on the social and political structures which include gender within which markets are situated. Women have always been engaged in agriculture. And today the figure is close to 80 percent. Left with the responsibility of running farms because of male migration, women find work burdens have increased without growth in productivity. They lack rights to land. Technological change means that women lose their jobs like threshing rice or making rice products at home. They may get jobs in rice mills, but at low wages. They end up having less to eat when they never got enough anyway. So though agriculture has more women working, they are earning less, and there is less food security for them and their families. Malnutrition is common because when there is less food going around, women earn less so that men and children get more. In this changing context, the contributors explore women's roles in agriculture and the household, both areas where their contributions are unwaged, and discuss the interrelated concepts of gender, livelihood and food security. { 380pp, 140x220mm, October 2007; HB, £28.00, 8185604894:9788185604893 , Stree } |
| GENDERING CASTE : Through a Feminist Lens [Uma Chakravarti] Examining the crucial linkages between caste and gender, undertaken, perhaps, for the first time, Uma Chakravarti unmasks the mystique of consensus in the workings of the caste system to reveal the underlying violence and coercion that perpetuate a severely hierarchical and unequal society. The subordination of women and the control of female sexuality are crucial to the maintenance of the caste system, creating what feminist scholars have termed brahmanical patriarchy. She discusses the range of patriarchal practices within the larger framework of sexuality, labour and access to material resources, and also focuses on the centrality of endogamous marriages that maintain the system. Erudite yet accessible, this book enables the reader to understand the interface of gender and caste and to participate in its critical analysis. { 202pp, December 2003; PB, £12.99, 8185604541:9788185604541 , Stree } |
| HARVEST SONG [Sabitri Roy] This epic panorama of rural Bengal, is set in the time of the Tebhaga movement of the 1940s, the peasants' uprising against unjust 'taxes' by landlords that was led by the Communist Party. Spanning generations, this story relates how the struggle changed rural Bengal. Roy depicts a range of women, educated and the less educated, who join the struggle and find some freedom in their lives. With a rare sensitivity and a tremendous sweep of vision, she narrates the triumph, the idealism and the stories of those who fought for or resisted change. { 350pp, 140x220mm, October 2005; HB, £12.00, 8185604509:9788185604503 , Stree } |
| GOD AS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER : Buddha's Challenge to Brahminism [Kancha Ilaiah] Ilaiah demystifies Buddha whom he sees as a man and not a god and as India's first social revolutionary. Critical of the caste system, Buddha inducted low caste members into the sangha and made them his trusted advisers. Dissent was given a constructive place. In contrast with contemporary Hindu society, Buddha gave women an honoured place in the sangha. Pre-dating Socrates and Plato by years, Buddha also foreshadowed key elements of their philosophy and propounded theories of the state, the individual, and the role of society with the signal difference that he also put his ideas into practice. But European scholarship sought to deny his relevance as a thinker, while nationalistic Hindu historiography sought to subsume his achievements into a monolithic Hindu past. { 244pp, 145x215mm, April 2001; HB, £36.00, 8185604444:9788185604442 , Stree } |
| HER STORY, OUR STORY & ON THE SWING : Short Stories & a Novella [Vibhavari Shirurkar; Translated by Yashodhara Maitra] Written in the 1930s, the stories and novella take a remorselessly radical stance against society's hypocritical mores, with women across classes fighting to live as they choose. Her frank social critique incited violent reactions in an intensely conservative society that burnt effigies of the author. { 130pp, 140x225mm, November 2007; PB, £12.00, 8185604940:9788185604947 , Stree } |
| HER-SELF : Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee Women, 1898-1938 [J Devika (ed) & Translator] This collection reveals the vigorous debate over modern gender relations that was taking place in this period. The authors hailed mostly from those groups which had obtained access to modern education and ways of life like the Nairs, Syrian Christians and Ezhavas. There are other voices too, a few women from the Nambutiri Brahmin caste and two Muslim women. Women reflected on what was ‘Womanly’ on education, duties, vocation and civil roles, first influenced by reformism and later by nationalist and communist ideas. The Editor also points to the need to define what is non-Womanly. { 181pp, 155x230mm, January 2005; HB, £30.00, 8185604746:9788185604749 , Stree } |
| HINDU [Sharankumar Limbale] Reflecting contemporary conflicts in India, this novel, translated from the Marathi, set in a village in western India, reveals the end of compromise based on fear, which once controlled the untouchables, who go all out to avenge the murder of a dalit activist by upper castes. It also talks of the changing face of gender oppression within all castes. { 150pp, 145x225mm, January 2009; PB, £10.00, 8185604959:9788185604954 , Stree } |
| HINDUTVA & DALITS : Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis [Anand Teltumbde (ed)] Why did Dalits join forces with the Hindu Rights that unleashed the terrible riots in Gujarat against the Muslims in 2002? Why are Dalits, the primary targets of the Hindu caste system, prepared to accept Hindutva or the political philosophy of upper caste Hindu' supremacy? In this path-breaking collection, the contributors, all eminent in their fields, consider the many issues raised by the Hindutva overture towards Dalits. The question of Dalit women vis-à-vis Dalit men and others is also discussed. Divided into two parts, the first discusses the theoretical perspective while the second considers Hindutva in operation. The views presented do not offer a consensus simply because none exists. This book makes an invaluable contribution to the current debate. { 312pp, 145x220mm, April 2005; HB, £30.00, 8185604754:9788185604756 , Stree } |
| IN SEARCH OF FREEDOM : An Unfinished Journey [Manikuntala Sen] Translated for the first time into English, these memoirs talks of how a middle class woman joined the communist movement in the 1930s when ‘the dream of socialism was in the air and the young shared it'. She travelled extensively, mobilizing women in towns and villages, helping to shape the women's movement of her times. She rose to become the deputy leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Manikuntala recounts a story of fervour and sacrifice, of bitter feuds and ultimate self-imposed exile when the Communist Party split and she could not accept either faction. { 310pp, 140x220mm, April 2001; HB, £32.00, 8185604266:9788185604268 , Stree } |
| IN SICKNESS & IN HEALTH : The Family Experience of HIV/AIDS in India [Premilla D'Cruz] While there have been many studies on HIV-positive people, this pioneering book studies the impact on affected families, highlighting changing family dynamics, once the diagnosis is known. It also makes recommendations to alleviate the situation, without ever losing sight of the human dimensions. { 112pp, 140x215mm, February 2003; PB, £9.00, 8185604592:9788185604596 , Stree } |
| IN THE PATH OF SERVICE : Memories of a Changing Century [Ashoka Gupta] A committed activist who has watched, participated in and analysed the momentous changes that have affected the lives of countless women, Ashoka Gupta, then ninety-two, wrote her memoirs. She talks of her childhood, her marriage to a progressive civil servant, and from the 1930s, her deep involvement with women's issues. She writes of her fight against communalism, of her days in Noakhali with Gandhi, and her experiences post-independence. Forthright and uncompromising, she brings her life and times alive to the reader. { 250pp, February 2005; PB, £27.00, 8185604568:9788185604565 , Stree } |
| INDELIBLE IMPRINTS : Daughters Write on Fathers [Priti T Desai, Neela D'Souza & Sonal Shukla (eds)] Many women have found the relationship with their fathers to be the key one in helping them to step outside tradition, which often remained identified with their mothers. In this book, twelve women, all middle class, ranging from middle to old age, talk about what their fathers meant to them. Some have famous fathers: K K Hebbar, the artist, Shuksampatrai Bhandari, the pioneer who compiled to first modern Hindi dictionary, a composer of music for the Gujarati stage and cinema, Bimal Roy, an early art filmmaker. Some have fathers who were successful in their careers, others who were not particularly so. Written with perception, detachment, appreciation, and also searing bitterness, this book reveals many surprising aspects of this crucial relationship and about the women themselves. { 137pp, 140x215mm, April 2001; PB, £9.00, 8185604258:9788185604251 , Stree } |
| JOURNEYS TO FREEDOM : Dalit Narratives [Fernando Franco, Jyotsna Macwan & Suguna Ramanathan] Offering 56 interviews with dalits of Gujarat from a variety of geographical areas, of varying backgrounds, education, gender and identity, this is a path-breaking book that presents voices from below. Dalits in Gujarat face a society that has not experienced any social movements that challenged its traditional social arrangements in comparison with other states in India. Adding further stress are globalisation and the growing strength of Hindutva -- right wing Hindu politics. Even so these interviews reveal that dalits have undertaken journeys to self-respect. The subaltern has indeed spoken freely here. { 400pp, 155x230mm, March 2004; HB, £32.00, 8185604657:9788185604657 , Stree } |
| KHAREMASTER [Vibhavari Shirurkar] An extraordinary story of Anant Khare who appeared to be an ordinary drawing teacher, living and working near Pune at the turn of the century. He decided that his contribution to the nationalist movement would be to educate his daughters to the highest level. By the 1920s, his daughters were independent, single career women at a time when their peers had been married off at the age of ten. His wife too was running a flourishing dairy. Yet Kharemaster felt inadequate beside his educated daughters and sons, all adept in a world seemingly out of his reach. Writing about her father at the age of 88, his daughter Balutai, using her penname 'Vibhavari Shirurkar', is as unflinchingly honest about herself as she is about her father. { 134pp, 140x220mm, February 1998; PB, £8.00, 8185604274:9788185604275 , Stree } |
| LEGALLY DISPOSSESSED : Gender, Identity & the Process of Law [Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay] This path-breaking study of women's experience of litigation under personal laws (those that cover marriage and inheritance) raises vital questions of identity and citizenship. Why is it so difficult to disentangle woman 'as subject/citizen imbued with rights from that of being daughter, sister, wife, widow and the symbol of a community'? Why is it that both Hindu and Muslim women are unsuccessful in their claims for property despite appealing to different personal laws? By shifting the focus from the text of the law to an ethnography of litigation -- the nature of disputes, the attitudes of lawyers, the experiences in court, the logic of judgements, and so on -- the analysis highlights the crucial factors that are obscured in abstract discussions of 'rights'. { 246pp, 140x225mm, February 1998; HB, £30.00, 8185604398:9788185604398 , Stree } |
| MY LIFE AS A PSYCHIATRIST : Memoirs & Essays [Ajita Chakraborty] At the age of 12 or 13, Ajita Chakraborty read Moner Khela [The games the mind plays] by Bijoylal Chattopadhyay, who interpreted the characters of many fictional characters through psychoanalysis, resulting in a lifelong fascination and commitment to psychiatry. As the first woman psychiatrist in India, aged 82, Chakraborty looks back at her life and a work, talking frankly about herself, her unconventional family and broken home, the 'confusions' of her childhood that propelled her to becoming a psychiatrist. Qualified as a doctor, she sailed to England in 1952, to further her medical education, training as a psychiatrist at the well-known Maudsley Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry in London, working in British mental hospitals for almost ten years, and also obtaining qualifications such as DPM and MRCP. She returned to India in 1960, where modern psychiatry was still a fledgling, considered as subordinate to 'neurology'. As the first woman in the field she faced considerable hostility and opposition, and saw her dreams of setting up an advanced department of psychiatry and elevating its then lowly status fail. Indeed the book throws considerable light on the sociology on medicine and discusses why Chakraborty and her friends who had returned with medical qualifications gained abroad were thwarted in their attempts to set up a modern public health system (which exists in a haphazard way today]. Of considerable interest is Chakraborty's discussion on why psychiatry taught in the West cannot be applied directly in another culture, emphasising the need and significance of transcultural psychology in a very complex society like India. The second part of the book offers a selection from her essays, published in various distinguished journals, which are indeed an essential part of the memoir as they illustrate in 'theoretical and concrete terms what is dealt with anecdotally and personally in the memoir'. { 250pp, 145x225mm, January 2009; HB, £32.00, 8185604924:9788185604923 , Stree } |
| MY REMINISCENCES : Social Development During the Gandhian Era & After [Renuka Ray] In writing about her life and work, Ray provides an insider's view of the momentous history of India, encompassing the growth and consolidation of the nationalist movement, to partition and independence, and the equally compelling post-independence period. An early graduate of the LSE and a lifelong Gandhian, Ray, born to great privilege, brings a perspective that reflects both formative experiences. A member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Indian Constitution and later a minister in the West Bengal government for Rehabilitation and Relief (1953-57), Ray saw the workings of a fledgling democracy, the rise of party machines and corruption and later gave up politics for social activism. { 271pp, 155x230mm, January 2005; HB, £30.00, 8185604789:9788185604787 , Stree } |
| NABANJUR : The Seedling's Tale [Sulekha Sanyal] Translated for the first time from the Bengali, this astonishingly radical novel is about Chhobi, a gusty, misfit girl from a rural land-owning family, who questions injustice, fights to share the privileges offered to her brother and male cousins, and refuses to see her future as another submissive household drudge. 'Nabankur' means a new seedling, personified by Chhobi, who is growing up in the 1930s and early 1940s in Bengal where anti-colonial struggles against British rule are in full swing. Side by side her political awakening gives rise to thoughts of personal freedom. Moving from the darkness of the interior to light is a recurrent theme in the novel, and Chhobi awakens her selfhood, just as a seedling strains towards the sun. { 246pp, 155x230mm, December 2001; PB, £10.00, 8185604304:9788185604305 , Stree } |
| NEGOTIATING INTIMACIES : Sexualities, Birth Control & Poor Households [Arna Seal] For far too long the 'population problem' in India has been seen from the point of view of the policy and statistics of population growth, focusing on the control of fertility without reference to poor women and their needs. In this book, a hundred women from Calcutta's slums talk directly about their sexual and birth control experiences. As the stories accumulate, we get a picture of these women's lives that are frighteningly bare of choice. The book asks how women's income-earning capacities as well as those of their men, and their status in their families affect their social and sexual autonomy. How does religion influence their birth control choices? Has the women's movement been able to address the concerns of poor illiterate or semi-illiterate women? { 126pp, 140x220mm, January 2000; HB, £22.00, 8185604290:9788185604299 , Stree } |
| PACKAGING FREEDOM : Feminism & Popular Culture [Isphita Chanda] Ipshita Chanda suggests provocatively that it is popular culture that the discourses of modernity, feminism and progress, all articulated by the women's movement, become lived realities. Looking at popular women's journals like Sananda, Femina, Cosmopolitan and Meri Saheli, among others, advertisements that depict 'modernity', TV serials where women are not always meekly subservient, media icons and books by women authors, she wonders whether popular culture could be used to disseminate the goals of feminism. Or is it a case of new accommodations being formed in the name of women's liberation? What are the implications for feminism? { 195pp, 140x215mm, January 2003; HB, £32.00, 818560455X:9788185604558 , Stree } |
| PATRIARCHY [Gail Omvedt & V Geetha] Deals with the nature, origin and sociology of patriarchy. Reviewing the sources available, it discusses the historical contexts which have nurtured patriarchal societies. Finally it applies these ideas to Indian history and sociology and examines how caste has interacted synergistically with patriarchy in India. A useful text for students as well as for the general reader. { 212pp, 140x215mm, February 2007; PB, £12.99, 8185604460:9788185604466 , Stree } |
| PRATTLER’S TALE : Bengal, Marxism, Governance [Ashok Mitra] Offering a thought-provoking, incisive analysis of Bengal and India, these memoirs, translated for the first time into English, spanning the 1930s to today, bring contemporary India alive. Mitra mercilessly dissects the middle class, the 'bhadralok', of which he is a member. He analyses the fledgling democracy of India, taking us through the heady days of state planning on the Soviet model, criticising the worldwide mantra of globalisation and liberalisation which he believes aggravates poverty. He held considerable positions of power within the establishment, including the office of economic adviser to prime minister Indira Gandhi. He provides much insider information on the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. Most intriguing are his thoughts of being a Marxist in a poor country and his discussion of his stint as minister for nine years. { 473pp, 155x230mm, February 2007; HB, £40.00, 8185604800:9788185604800 , Stree } |
| PUTTING WOMEN FIRST : Women & Health in a Rural Community [Dr Rani Bang, Sunanda Khogade & Rupa Chinai] Trained in India and at Johns Hopkins University where she and her husband, Dr Ajay Bang, learnt public health and research methodologies, the couple returned to India to set up a health clinic in Maharashtra’s neglected Gadchiroli district, about 170 km from Nagpur, where the Gonds are the dominant tribal group. As co-author Rupa Chinai points out, this is a very old centre of settlement of about 3000 years, ‘from here stretches eastwards the tribal crescent that arcs across Central India and encompasses the ancient Dandakaranya forest. Dr Rani Bang’s research found that 92 percent of women in this region had no access to treatment for gynaecological disorders in the absence of women doctors. Such neglect is accompanied by globalisation and liberalisation which adds further stresses: rural families are unprepared for the rapid changes wrought in the spheres of education, information, material enhancement and changes in lifestyle. All of this has an impact on human relationships and health. In his foreword, Rahul Goswami points out that the book plays many roles. It is a commentary on the chronic myopia of a planning process that refuses to see millions of Indians and the ways in which their lives can be bettered. It reveals the way ‘tribal society is being buffeted by the modern and whose traditional kinship and ecological systems are being sorely stressed’. It is also a logbook of case medicine. Quite different from the revolutionary activity of the Far Left, the Bangs have set in motion a type of revolution that equips women and men, communities and administrators with the tools to ‘build an indigenous expression of development, one in which the fundamentals of healthcare, interdependence and sustainable economics are paramount’. { 300pp, 145x225mm, December 2008; HB, £35.00, 8185604967:9788185604961 , Stree } |
| QUESTION OF COMMUNITY : Religious Groups & Colonial Law [Amrita Shodhan] In writing history, the story of those who succeeded is well-known. What happens to the losers? What changes can we expect when we examine the defeat of the Khojas and Pushtimargis who went to court because of internal dissent and found that they lost some of their autonomy as self-functioning polities? Instead of being allowed to give evidence of their current belief and behaviour, as Islamic or Hindu, they were presented with interpretations of a homogenised Islam and a homogenised Hinduism as a standard by which their religiosity was assessed. The law court in the mid-nineteenth century would decide who they were. Could any inferences be drawn on the construction of unitary religious communities of today? { 222pp, 140x220mm, February 2001; HB, £30.00, 8185604436:9788185604435 , Stree } |
| RESTLESS MOTHERS & TURBULENT DAUGHTERS : Situating Tribes in Gender Studies [Shashank S Sinha] How is gender ideology reproduced in tribal society? Can gender constructions be instrumental n perpetuating women's subjugation and exploitation? Using the perspectives and tools of gender studies, the author offers a pioneering study of social change. Sinha investigates tradition to show how these can influence and structure the construction and reproduction of gender identities. He discusses how women were cultivators, vendors and also paid labourers. Later they played a significant role in the tribal uprisings against colonial uprisings. Facing three systems of discrimination: patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, all reinforcing, and on occasions, working in tandem with each other, women negotiated, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly. { 249pp, 140x220mm, September 2005; HB, £28.00, 8185604738:9788185604732 , Stree } |
| VENOMOUS TOUCH : Notes on Caste, Culture & Politics [Ravikumar] These irreverent and provocative essays on caste, culture and political icons offer a new way of understanding modern India and the future. { 250pp, 140x215mm, December 2008; PB, £25.00, 818560486X:9788185604862 , Stree } |
| SOCIAL JUSTICE : An Illustrated Primer on Dalit Politics & Hindutva [Ram Puniyani] Social justice is a resounding cry after sixty years of independence. Dalits form about one-sixth of the population of India and still face severe social, economic and political oppression. The reservation policy on education, job quotas and electoral constituencies have ensured that Dalits would gain and become ‘equal’ to others over time. Today, the augmentation of the quotas in higher education is again a response to the call of increasing social justice. Introducing the reader to issues in current politics simply and succinctly, Puniyani argues that the public rage against the liberation of Dalits hides the discomfort felt at the liberation of women; indeed the real social issues of caste and gender are buried deep and deflected so that the structural hierarchy of caste and gender remains intact. He argues that we need to be involved actively in the goal for greater social justice, that democracy cannot be protected without supporting the common struggles of Dalits, workers, women and Adivasis for economic, social and gender justice. { 250pp, 145x225mm, February 2009; PB, £12.00, 8185604886:9788185604886 , Stree } |
| STREAM WITHIN : Short Stories by Contemporary Bengali Women [Swati Ganguly & Sarmistha Dutta Gupta] Spanning a period of fifty years since India's independence, this thought-provoking selection explores a direct link between women's writing -- from India and some from Bangladesh too -- and the turbulent milieu that inspired them. The stories speak of the tragedy of violent displacement, of Partition, of riots, of wars, of deprivation, of middle class and working class lives, on both sides of the border. They speak of women as agents who reclaim the history of the time as their own. The editors present thirteen writers: Sabitri Roy, Purabi Basu, Jahanara Imam, Mahasweta Devi, Sulekha Sanyal, Bani Basu, Nasreen Jahan, Ashapurna Devi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Anita Agnihotri, Chhabi Basu, Selina Hossein and Rajlakshmi Devi. { 127pp, 140x210mm, February 1999; PB, £8.00, 8185604428:9788185604428 , Stree } |
| TALISMAN : Extreme Emotions of Dalit Liberation [Thirumaavalavan; Translated by Meena Kandasamy] Translated for the first time into English from Tamil, these essays present the characteristically honest and uncompromising views of Thirumaavalavan, the leading Dalit intellectual and elected representative of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal or the Liberation Panthers of Tamil Nadu. He writes on caste atrocities and the upholding of the caste system, political authoritarianism and anti-democratic behaviour of elected governments, on gender issues, globalization, Tamil ethnic issues and Hindutva, always from the point of view of ordinary people. Hard-hitting, courageous, provocative, this collection shows new directions in dalit politics. { 216pp, December 2003; PB, £12.99, 8185604681:9788185604688 , Stree } |
| TENSE PAST, TENSE PRESENT : Women Writing in English [Joel Kuortti] Suggesting that women are 'reshaping English' as Rushdie suggests, Kuortti interviews 7 women writers to find out why they write in English, which cannot be neutral. As a colony, the language was inescapably associated with class, race and power; after independence it has grown in power and status, yet the problematic of English as the language of the hegemonic West remains. Even so a new canon of women writing in English is being formed. Interviewing the writers Shashi Deshpande, the late Shama Futehally, Githa Hariharan, Lakshmi Kannan, Sujatha Mathai, Anuradha Marwah-Roy and Mina Singh, Kuortti also presents extracts from their writings. { 243pp, 140x220mm, February 2003; HB, £32.00, 8185604584:9788185604589 , Stree } |
| TOWARDS A NON-BRAHMIN MILLENNIUM : From Iyothee Thass to Periyar [V Geetha & S V Rajadurai] Recapturing the momentous decades when the age old Brahmin hegemony suffered irreparable damage, the authors present a critical analysis of the Non-Brahmin movement from its gestation at the end of the nineteenth century to E V Ramaswamy Periyar's Self-Respect Movement of the late 1920s and 1930s. The authors present forgotten texts and voices: Dalit-Buddhist scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the observations of women participants who debated on a range of issues; denunciations of caste, Brahmin priesthood and the nation by youthful Non-Brahmins. It privileges the dalit contribution to the movement and ends with the anti-Hindi agitation that inaugurated a new era in Tamil politics. { 556pp, 140x220mm, April 2001; HB, £42.00, 8185604371:9788185604374 , Stree } |
| TRAUMA & THE TRIUMPH : Gender & Partition in Eastern India [Jasodhara Bagchi & Subhoranjan Dasgupta] This book discusses explicitly the trauma of the Partition of 1947 in Eastern India in a way that has not happened before. The lack of overt public discourse has meant that people outside Bengal believed that the impact of Partition was limited in the east. Indeed, the sufferings, the loss of life, livelihoods and of shelter were very real but of a different nature from the fast-moving horror of the Punjab. In the east it seemed more like an oozing wound. The editors have drawn upon interviews with women who were uprooted, on diaries, memoirs and creative literature. The book provides an invaluable discussion on displacement, rape, loss, and why women pay the price. { 272pp, 140x220mm, December 2005; PB, £12.00, 8185604649:9788185604640 / HB, £16.99, 8185604606:9788185604602 , Stree } |
| UPROOT HINDUTVA : The Fiery Voice of the Liberation Panthers [Thirumaavalavan] Thirumaavalavan analyses the various roles of Hindutva (ideology of the Hindu right] in sustaining the hegemony of the caste system. He speaks provocatively of the need to counter Hindutva with a Tamil identity that can reach beyond its region to other oppressed peoples. He speaks of Eelam -- the cause of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka -- of the refusal to be Hindu and of the right to conversion, of women's rights, of the heritage of the dalits, of the need to follow the guidelines of the dalit reformer, Dr B R Ambedkar, among other issues. Always unflinchingly honest and hard-hitting, the collection reveals new currents in Dalit politics. { 248pp, 140x215mm, December 2004; PB, £11.99, 8185604797:9788185604794 , Stree } |
| SHIFTING SANDS : Women's Lives & Globalization [Centre for Women's Development Studies (eds)] While gender has become increasingly important in development policies, there is less awareness that policies and the consequences of structural adjustment are never gender-neutral. The myth of neutrality continues while women often suffer de facto exclusion from the development process because of methods of implementation. Globalisation means that resources for the social sector will come out of an ever-shrinking common pool where women will get even less priority. In this meticulous study, the contributors, all well-known scholars -- Joy Deshmukh-Ranadive, K. Seeta Prabhu, Malavika Karlekar, Sumi Krishna, Kumud Sharma, Preet Rustogi, Vasudha Jain and Indrani Mazumdar -- examine what happens once these macro policies affect women at the micro level, especially the poorer women in urban slums and rural villages. { 342pp, 140x220mm, January 2000; HB, £35.00, 8185604401:9788185604404 , Stree } |
| WEAVE OF LIFE : A Dalit Woman's Memoirs [Urmila Pawar. Translated from the Marathi by Maya Pandit] Translated for the first time into English, this writer's autobiographical work, Ayadan [Baskets] made publishing history right from its moment of publication in 2004. Outspoken, confronting the issue of domestic conflicts squarely, she talks of what it is like to be an educated Dalit (untouchable) woman. Pawar engages with issues of identity and selfhood, caste/class consciousness, changing expressions of patriarchy and Dalit women's participation in emancipatory struggles and the dead ends reached in Dalit politics where meaningful liberation is not fought for but the seizure of political power through opportunism ( the Dalit woman politician Mayawati was elected chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, with a population over 130 million with the help of the upper castes). Pawar’s memoirs reveals a complexly constructed divided self as well as the troubled and complex interface between feminist and Dalit movements. As a young girl brought up by her mother, a single parent, her perception of the residual and newly emergent forms of patriarchy, religion, familial relationships, violence and liberation is intense and acute. { 348pp, 145x225mm, September 2008; PB, £15.00, 8185604908:9788185604909 , Stree } |
| WHOLE TRUTH & NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH : A Dalit's Life [B Kesharshivam] Translated into English, this autobiography captures the chilling reality of a childhood spent playing with carcasses in a bonemeal factory, snatching coins from corpses in the cremation grounds, of being refused water at the village well and the various stages of a remarkable life. He reveals what modern India is like as it plunges along its path of economic growth. Pages { 307pp, 140x215mm, February 2008; PB, £11.99, 8185604878:9788185604879 , Stree } |
| WHOM CAN I TELL? HOW CAN I EXPLAIN? [Saroj Pathak] These English translations from the Gujarati bring Saroj Pathak's work to a wider audience, giving it the greater attention it deserves. Delving deep into the human mind, the stories depict the pitfalls of communication, the infinite possibilities of misunderstanding, of doubt and despair. At the same time they celebrate the human psyche's ability to bridge these chasms and make connections, of love, understanding, and friendship. Pathak considers the predicaments of both women and men as they grapple with the modernity that has been thrust upon them. Indeed, Pathak's interest in men as well as women characters distinguishes her from many other women novelists. { 108pp, 140x210mm, March 2002; PB, £9.00, 8185604142:9788185604145 , Stree } |
| WHY I AM NOT A HINDU : A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture & Political Economy [Kancha Ilaiah] In this manifesto for the downtrodden, Ilaiah examines the socio-economic and cultural differences between the Dalitbahujans (the majority, the so-called low castes) and other Hindus in the contexts of childhood, family life, market relations, power relations, Gods and Goddesses, death and, not least, Hindutva (ideology of the Hindu Right). Synthesizing many of the ideas of Dalitbahujans, he presents their vision of a more just society. In the new Afterword, he discusses the history of the book, its reviews as well as the abuse received from its detractors. He reminds us of the need for an ongoing dialogue. As he says, he wrote the book for all who have open minds. { 164pp, 140x215mm, September 2005; PB, £9.00, 8185604827:9788185604824 , Stree } |
| WOMEN IN CONCERT : An Anthology of Bengali: Muslim Women's Writings, 1904-1938 [Shaheen Akhtar & Moushumi Bhowmik] Translated from the original anthology in Bengali by Stree. Throwing light on the work and lives of unknown or forgotten Muslim women writers of pre-Independence Bengal, when the state was not yet partitioned between India and East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh), in 1947, this anthology is like a rediscovery of their lives. First published in Bengali as Zenana Mehfil: Bangali Musalman Lekhikader Nirbachita Rachana, 1904-38, it compiles, for the first time, eleven Bengali Muslim women's writings: essays, short stories, poetry, a novel and some correspondence, each introduced and discussed separately. This anthology also gives a glimpse of their lives that were not always confined within the household. The writers include Akhtar Mahal, Sayyada Khatun and M. Fatema Khanum, and other much more familiar names like Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Shamsundar Mahmud. Among the immensely valuable interviews are those of Mohammed Nasiruddin, who devoted his life to the cause of Bengali Muslim women's emancipation, his daughter Nurjehan Begum, the poet Sufia Kamal, the writer Hameeda Khanam and Syed Mustafa Siraj, the celebrated Bengali novelist who witnessed the social changes that were to alter the Bengali Muslim world. { 400pp, 140x215mm, November 2008; HB, £38.00, 8185604576:9788185604572 , Stree } |
| WOMEN WORKERS & GLOBALIZATION : Emergent Contradictions in India [Indrani Mazumdar] Investigating the impact of globalisation on women workers, the author demystifies the phenomenon of globalisation, offering an overview of its prime drivers, processes and forces. Four sectoral studies of women workers are provided: two on factory women in garment exports and electronics; the third on home-based workers in a range of manufacturing processes and industries and the fourth on middle class women working in Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES). Offering an analysis of the effects of the changed policy paradigms on women workers, of global sectoral trends and their ramifications, and cutting through the hype on India's growth statistics, the author makes a valuable contribution to the reality of women's work in conditions of increasing insecurity. { 349pp, 140x220mm, May 2007; HB, £30.00, 8185604843:9788185604848 , Stree } |
| WRITING INDIAN HISTORY : A View From Below [Achuthan M Kandyil] This comprehensive history of India from ancient to modern times, presents an alternative, even iconoclastic, view. The author, proud of his so-called lower caste origins and of not being a professional historian, presents history from the point of view of the outcaste, the dispossessed, the common man and the common woman. Arguing that the history by scholars has been strongly influenced by their concept of Hinduism, caste and its implications, he urges that it is time that the counter views of the lower castes are considered. Achuthan declares straightaway that he has not used primary sources. Underwritten by his passion for social justice, this history articulates the claims of the hitherto silent masses who get written about rather than write for themselves. { 400pp, 145x225mm, December 2008; PB, £38.00, 818560472X:9788185604725 , Stree } |