Playing the field

Today is an ideal day to announce the first is a series of four books from Stree as the UGC Standing Committee on Women’s Studies meets in Hyderabad for a two day conclave.

Mapping the Field: Gender Relations in Contemporary India has been edited by  Nirmala Banerjee, Samita Sen and Nandita Dhawan. This is the first of four readers for students of women’s studies, particularly for Masters’ level courses in women’s studies, and more generally across undergraduate and certificate courses as the concept of ‘gender’ has been introduced at all levels of curricula. The reader reflects many of the concerns that have come up in women’s studies across two decades. This first volume focuses on some of the major economic and social debates in women’s studies; the second volume traces the trajectory of more recent theoretical shifts in the field. 

Contributors include the editors Nirmala Banerjee (retired Professor of Economics, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta),  Samita Sen (School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University), and Nandita Dhawan (School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University), as well as Aruna Kanchi,  Manabi Majumdar, Krishna Sobhan and Jeemol Unni,  and Kusum Datta. 

With a Folonesque cover, in paperback, 306 pages, Rs 400.  ISBN: 9788190676069. In our Womens Studies and Gender Studies sections.

Before Ambedkar

Bhashya Prakashan, a small publishing house based in Mumbai, have brought out Gail Omvedt's recent book, Building The Ambedkar Revolution: Sambhaji Tukaram Gaikwad And The Kokan Dalits.

Ambedkar had his predecessors. The "great" among them he recognized and named as his "teacher": Buddha, Kabir and Phule. The lesser known he also honoured, attending their programmes. Among these lesser known, uneducated but wise in the needs of his people, was a man who he named as "Dadasaheb," was to be known as his older compatriot, the "elderly" (vayovruddh) Sambhaji Tukaram Gaidwad. Sambhaji was one of the main organizers of what what Ambedkar himself was to describe and try to memorialize as the "liberation movement" of the Dalits, the Mahad satyagraha of of 1927. For those who were later to call themselves Dalits and Buddhists, the event was a landmark in their struggle, December 25, the burning of the Manusmriti, is today celebrated in Maharashtra as "Indian Women's Liberation Day" and has become, for many throughout India, "Manavmukti Din."

Omvedt is an unusual Indian. Born in Minneapolis in the US, she came to India and stayed on, taking citizenship in 1983. She has worked actively with social movements in India, including the Dalit, anti-caste, environment and farmer's movements, especially among the rural women. She has been active in the Stri Mukti Sangrash Chalval, which works on issues of abandoned women in Sangli and Satara districts of southern Maharashtra, and the Shetkari Mahila Aghadi which works on issues of women's land and political rights. Among her numerous books focusing on social and economic issues are Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anti-Caste Intellectuals (2009); Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India (2005): We Shall Smash this Prison: Indian Women in Struggle (1980); and The cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahmin Movement in Maharashtra (1996) and some of them are available on the Scholars site. 

This new title is in our Dalit Studies section, in hardcover, 156 pages, Rs 300. ISBN: 9788192110707

Krishna Consciousness

Vakils, Feffer & Simons, the publishing house based in Mumbai is well known for their sumptuous titles. A new book that is out- and which was reviewed in the Times today, is Krishna: A Joyous Celebration of the Divine.

Chandrika, the author, is a traveller on the spiritual path. She has variously been a teacher, an educator and an editor.   She has recently translated Atma Siddhi,  Adi Sankara's Bhaja Govindam,  and  Krishna, a Joyous Celebration of the Divine, is her third book. 

Krishna is the Blue God, infinite as space, deep as the oceans. Criptures call him the Poorna Avatara, the complete manifestation of Godhead. But he is also the adorable imp of Vrindavan, the playmate of the gopas (cowherds), Radha's beloved, Draupadi's sakha (friend), the saviour of the Pandavas, the protector of righteousness. He is God. He is man. He is Krishna. The book weaves and melds stories and myths, legends and folklore, with devotion and passion, from sources like the Bhagavata Purana, the Harivamsa and the Mahabharata to piece together, in one whole, the awe-inspiring picture of Vishnu's avatara (manifestation) as the alluring One, Krishna.

The book is a celebration of Krishna, in many ways. It pays tribute to the long, varied and unbroken tradition of Krishna paintings, from the exquisite miniatures of north India to the extravagant Tanjore paintings of the south, enlivening each page with their spiritual euphoria. The book does more. It brings a selection from the rich cornucopia of bhakti (devotional) poetry - verses of singers and saints, poets and philosophers, who have called out, in love and longing, to the incomparable Blue God. Together they make Krishna, a complete sensuous experience.

Written in lucid and lyrical language, one idea emerges through the book with clarity - Krishna is relevant, more relevant today, than even when he first walked the earth as man.

In our Religion and Culture sections, in hardcover, 388 pages, Rs 1500. ISBN:  9788184620382

From afar, from within

Himani Bannerji teaches sociology at York University in Canada. A recipient of the Rabindra Memorial Prize, she is a frequent visitor to India (particularly during the cold Canadian winters!). She works in the areas of Marxist, feminist and anti-racist theory and is especially focused on reading colonial discourse through Karl Marx's concept of ideology, and putting together a reflexive analysis of gender, race and class. [Wikipedia]

Her new book  Demography and Democracy: Essays on Nationalism, Gender and Ideology is brought to South Asia by Orient Blackswan.

Demography and Democracy deals with different aspects of hegemony, nationalism, criteria for citizenship and democracy. In the process this book examines complexities of civil society involving culture, class, politics and the relations between civil society and the state. Nationalism in plural terms, decolonisation, as well as analysis of ideology, including contemporary political ideologies, are the overarching themes of this book. The author explores the complexities of modern-day nationalisms from the perspective of marxist anti-colonial feminism. Focusing on ethnic nationalism and the racialised nature of imperialism of our time, the volume draws on examples from India, Israel, United States and its allies. Cultural political identities of the Hindu right, Zionism and other religious fundamentalisms are discussed in detail.

The author explores the connections between ideology and politics across regional national spaces. She shows the overlapping features between Hindutva in India and Zionism in Israel. This involves an examination of the constitution of cultural/ethnic identities in terms of the construction of the self and ‘the other’. The essays also carry on a sustained analysis of how patriarchy provides a taken-for-granted mediation through which the self and ‘other’ relationships are constituted.

The volume will be useful to students and scholars of sociology, political science, women’s studies and history, as well as those interested in contemporary South Asia.

In our Gender Studies, Politics sections, in hardcover, 284 pages, Rs 595. ISBN: 9788125042921

Vive la

The feminist press Kali for Women, started by Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia in the 1980's was a landmark in Indian publishing. Over the years KfW has morphed into the new publishing houses, Women Unlimited and Zubaan. 

The history of the women's movement in India is now documented through a set of biographies and essays by the protagonists in a new book edited by Menon, Making a Difference: Memoirs from the Women's movement in India.

The autonomous women’s movement in India is remarkable for its energy and staying power, and for the impact it has had on progressive social change in the country.

What constitutes a feminist memoir? What makes it different from any other memorable recounting? Twenty women who have made a critical contribution to the women’s, and women’s studies, movements recall the last quarter century of activism, taking as its starting point the impossibility of separating the personal from the political, or the private from the public. Each memoir vividly covers the most momentous and memorable developments and campaigns of this period, recounting its triumphs and disappointments, speaking about alliances forged, reflecting on relationships lost -- and found.

Memoirists include: Indira Jaising •Vandana Shiva •Kamla Bhasin •Bina Agarwal •Uma Chakravarti •Vasanth Kannabiran •Gabriele Dietrich •Pamela Philipose •Sheba Chhachhi •Saheli •Norma Alvares •Ruth Vanita •Devaki Jain •Nalini Nayak•Meera Velayudhan •Roshmi Goswami •Nirmala Banerjee •Vibhuti Patel •Ilina Sen •Ritu Menon. Their inspiring, poignant, humorous and always politically engaged memoirs are not just personal stories, they are a quintessentially feminist recall of a movement they helped to shape.

In our  Essays and Nonfiction and Womens Studies sections, Rs 350 in paperback, 412 pages.  ISBN: 9788188965670

Indian English

GJV Prasad teaches in the Centre for English Studies at JNU. A prominent, noted and prolific critic, Prof. Prasad specializes in translation studies, post-colonial literature, contemporary theatre, Indian literatures and last but not least, Indian writing in English. And if thats not enough, he also edits the journal JSL.  Writing India, Writing English: Literature, Language, Location is his new book from Routledge, India. 

English is a language of many identities in this country. For some it is still the colonial language and its speakers the hung-over populace of a colonial rule. For others, it is a language that has seen great change and literatures across the world. There are yet others who have moulded and managed the meaning and identity of English according to their own.

This volume explores the complex interaction between English and other Indian languages in the Indian literary oeuvre. The essays in this book examine how the nation is negotiated and constructed in English (and English translation), a language that calls for constant transformation even as it transforms Indian realities. It looks closely at how translation plays a major role in the making of an alternate nation, especially discussing the various developments in Tamil to give a counter-perspective. The different essays raise a variety of questions and embody the tense power dynamics that mark this relationship.

The book is divided into two sections and the essays each section emphasise the different ways in which English is used as a mode of literary expression in India.  The first section discusses the decisive influence of English in India and the ideas of connectedness as a nation. Starting with an assessment of Macaulay and his famous Minutes, it includes essays on translating from Tamil and on the mixed language that is evolving in the Tamil cultural world because of the presence of English (and Hindi); the politics of anthologisation; and how Karnad’s Tughlaq deals with the idea of the nation, looking at its historical location. The second part delves into how Indian English literature grapples with the representation of the Indian nation, sometimes obsessively, evinced both in poetry and in novels. The ultimate focus is on the struggle between the dominant regional language of a place and English, along with the author’s location at this interface part of the creative tension that gives energy and uniqueness to Indian English writing.

In our Literary Criticism section, in hardcover, 196 pages, Rs 545. ISBN: 9780415693790 

Criminal Victims

The earth-eating Muggi, groomed by her brother-in-law, cons fourteen men into marrying her and runs off with their money, but falls in love with the fifteenth and eagerly awaits the day she will be released from prison so that she can return to him. The intimidating Vaishnavi pushes a buffalo, her cruel mother-in-law and husband over the edge of a ravine and spends the rest of her life punishing herself, wandering from place to place, homeless and penniless. These and other remarkable stories form this collection of sketches of ordinary women with extraordinary pasts. Compassionate without ever straying into sentimentality, Aparadhini:Women without men, Shivani's histories of the formidable women whose lives she chronicled strikes a chord in our hearts even today, forty years after they were first written. A few of her short stories, inspired by these women, also form part of this brilliant translation from the Hindi by her daughter Ira Pande.

These are tales often  read in newaspapers,  heard of or seen on the big or small screen,  stories of women, downtrodden and ill treated by life, society and almost everyone around while she remains a mute spectator of her own fate. What makes Aparadhini so different is that these are tales of  courage and determination.  Aparadhini is  a collection of short stories about women who dared, dared to take their fate into their hands, beat the living hell out of it and toss it in the corner of their bedrooms, left to ponder upon its mistakes and thereby change itself. Each story is about a woman who was not satisfied with the way the world saw not just her, but her entire kind. What makes them all the more special is that these women do not realise that by their actions, they make  a huge difference to the gaze that womankind is subjected to! The fact that these women break all boundaries of ‘womanhood’ associated with them by the society and do it effortlessly is an act of subversion. The woman who marries men at will and lives the life of a vagabond (reminding the reader of the first radical woman in literature, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath), the woman who pushes her cruel mother in law and spineless husband down a ravine to live the life that she wanted.... It is hard to believe that such a book was written more than four decades ago. Shivani’s tales of these exceptionally strong ordinary women is a book that will speak to contemporary  readers in this translation by her daughter Ira Pande.

In our ILT and Womens Studies sections, in hardcover, 224 pages, Rs 250, ISBN 9789350290378