Understanding Womens Land Rights Gender Discrimination In Ownership

In India, inheritance laws and social practices systematically deny women ownership of productive resources.

In this collection of essays, well-known social scientists critically evaluate existing state laws regarding land ownership. The varied forms of gender discrimination that exist between and within regions, communities, and caste groups are studied. Few women own land, and even fewer effectively control it. The book recommends ways to counter this inequality by challenging laws and sociocultural values that allow discrimination to persist.

Understanding Women’s Land Rights is the XIII volume in the series ‘Land Reforms in India’, initiated by the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. The XI and XIII volumes study gender-unequal land rights in 14 Indian states.

Prem Chowdhry, an eminent Social Scientist, is a former Professorial Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti, New Delhi, and also a former Senior Fellow of the Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Currently an independent researcher, she is the author of Political Economy of Production and Reproduction: Caste, Custom, and Community in North India, 2011; Contentious Marriages, Eloping Couples: Gender Caste and Patriarchy in Northern India, 2007; Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema: Image, Ideology and Identity, 2000 (Indian edition by SAGE, 2001); The Veiled Women: Shifting Gender Equations in Rural Haryana, 1880–1990, 1994; and Punjab Politics: The Role of Sir Chhotu Ram, 1984. She has also edited Understanding Politics and Society, 1910–97, 2010 and Gender Discrimination in Land Ownership, SAGE, Delhi, 2009. Other publications include research articles on politics, society, land and inheritance, popular culture and cultural practices, and gender both in colonial and contemporary India, in edited works and reputed national and international journals. She is currently engaged in exploring different aspects of masculinities both in its historical and present-day manifestations in northern India. Prem Chowdhry is also a well-known, nationally recognized artist who has exhibited her paintings in India and abroad.