Indian State and the Womens Problematic : Running With the Hare and Hunting With the Hounds

Contents Preface. 1. The Indian State and the women's problematic running with the hare and hunting with the hounds/R.B.S. Verma H.S. Verma and Nadeem Hasnain. I. Women's problematic and conduct of the state 2. Gender in the making of the Indian Nation State/Maitrayee Chaudhuri. 3. The spinning wheel (Charkha) as a Dear Forgotten friend of widow reading the erasures of a symbol/Sadan Jha. 4. Lakshmi and the scientific housewife a transnational account of Indian women's development and the production of an Indian modernity/Kim Berry. 5. Reservation for women in union and state legislatures a perspective/Snehlata Panda. II. Examining diagnosis commitment and nature of its actualization 6. Towards equality an overview of a milestone report in retrospect/H.S. Verma. 7. Commitments and their operationalisation assessing policy formulation programme and organization design of women empowerment in India/H.S. Verma. 8. Women and development in India 1970s 1990s/Sadhna Arya. 9. India's country reports on CEDAW separating facts from fiction in the History of women's empowerment written by the Indian politico administrative class/H.S. Verma. 10. Integration of rural women with agriculture and rural development/S.P. Jain. III. Assessing the impact of initiatives undertaken by the state in different sectors 11. Women's empowerment in India and its states evidence from the NFHS/Sunita Kishor and Kamla Gupta. 12. Women's Self Help Groups poverty alleviation and empowerment/S. Galab and N. Chandrasekhara Rao. 13. Laws against domestic violence underused or abused/Madhu Kishwar. 14. Political empowerment of the women case of Orissa PRIs/Snehalata Panda. IV. Efforts initiated by communities and autonomous organizations 15. Women and empowerment Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad/Malathi Ramanathan. 16. The SEWA organisational model a contemporary appraisal/H.S. Verma. 17. Grassroots developments in the empowerment of women in India a case study of agency and control/Malathi Ramanathan. 18. The empowerment of women grassroots women's networks and the state/Sangeetha Purushothaman. 19. Private concerns in public discourse women initiated community responses to domestic violence/Nandita Bhatla and Anuradha Rajan. V. Women's empowerment where do we go from here 20. Challenges before women's movement in a changing context/Maithreyi Krishnaraj. 21. Action for change/Neera Desai and Usha Thakkar. Index. This collection of essays grew out of dissatisfaction with the tone and tenor of public discourse on the women's problematic in India in particular by the feminists leading the women's movement. While this long drawn out debate has been critical of society and the state in general and entrenched culture of patriarchy in particular it has not directly addressed the basic question how have some sections of the women's movement itself collaborated with the state apparatus and has been responsible for introducing welfare development empowerment and participation programmes for the Indian women that have instead of genuinely promoting gender balancing tended to reinforce patriarchy and reproduce the unequal gender and class relations. It consists of a total of 21 very carefully selected papers. It is organized into five parts. Part one examines the relationship between the women's problematic and the Indian State. The second part deals with the diagnoses of the women's problematic and nature of commitment made by the Indian State and its translation into reality in terms of formulation of policies and programmes designing of structures and processes indicating the presence or absence of a good fit between intentions and their actualization by the Indian ruling class. Part three analyses the impact of initiatives undertaken by the government in different sectors. Part four focuses on the impact of efforts of the autonomous organizations and communities. Given the mixed performance of both the state and women initiated initiatives part five addresses the fu.