Zubaan – förlag

From an early focus on rape, dowry, and sati - self-immolation - feminist struggles against violence to women in India have now moved to a wider terrain that includes issues rarely considered in the early days of the Indian feminist movement in the 1980s. In "Nine Degrees of Justice", second- and third-generation feminists shed light on these contemporary concerns, sharing their perspectives on violence against women through a series of thought-provoking essays. The contributors to "Nine Degrees of Justice" look specifically at whether the legal system has led to justice for women who have been the victims of violence. What does "justice" mean for an individual survivor? Among the topics discussed are issues of violence in public spaces and cyberspace, women in armed conflict, lesbian suicides, a woman's right to choose, and prostitution. Together, these essays make the case that justice for Indian women still has a long way to go.

This superb collection of essays illuminates the film portrayal of violence, masculinity, and power in a postcolonial context, showing how the cinema challenges, normalizes, or contests these major issues. Taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, drawing from literature, sociology, and media studies, the essays shed light on films about societal violence in postcolonial cultures, whether it be terrorism, suicide bombings, the underworld, organized crime, or mob violence. The contributors to "Spectacles of Blood" look at the dynamics of the representation of these issues as cinematic plots and techniques, drawing attention to the affective value of the films in generating and foregrounding the feelings evoked by the onscreen violence, and the impact of these emotions on the formation of national and cosmopolitan identity. International in scope, covering films from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, these essays enrich both literary studies and social studies with a nuanced borrowing and intermixing of their primary texts and modes of interpretation.

Throughout South Asia, young men and women are pursuing new educational opportunities and getting married later. These changes, Nicoletta Del Franco contends, have cleared new paths toward adulthood - ways of passage whose complex implications have not been fully explored. In Negotiating Adolescence in Rural Bangladesh, she fills this gap, documenting the realities of daily existence for young people as they navigate their lives amid the profound socioeconomic tumult of southwestern Bangladesh. Del Franco focuses on three main areas of these adolescents' lives: college and student existence, same-sex and opposite-sex friendships and relationships, and the issues surrounding marriage and the choice of a husband or wife. In the process, she sheds new light on issues that affect adolescents not only in Bangladesh but also across South Asia. One of the first books to address what it means to be young in today's Bangladesh, this volume will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, gender studies, and sociology.

Combining myth, legend, geography, history, and politics, The Saga of Satisar is the panoramic history of the Kashmiri Pandits. In it, award-winning Hindi writer Chandrakanta unspools a novel that spans two centuries, illustrating how Kashmiri lives have been transformed and the multicultural tradition disappeared in the face of military oppression. Finding as its culprits militancy, state mismanagement, and the dirty play of politics, The Saga of Satisar is a passionate and heartfelt cry for a treasured land and way of life that is quickly disappearing. Chandrakanta writes beautifully of her beloved Kashmir, remarking that even as the colorful memories of her youth mingle with the fragrance of the cool breezes, these realities are fading, leaving her only a world of memories to dwell in.

Published in 1899, Muhammad Hadi Ruswa's famous novel "Umrao Jaan Ada" created a sensation when it came out, with its candid fictionalized account of the life of Umrao Jaan, based on a renowned Lucknow courtesan and poetess of the same name. Considered by many to be the first Urdu novel, it remains highly popular today and has been the basis of three films and a Pakistani television serial. But despite Ruswa's notoriety, few know that a month after he wrote "Umrao Jaan Ada", he penned a sly novella entitled "Junun-e-Intezar", in which "Umrao" avenges herself on her creator, Ruswa, by narrating the story of his life. Blurring the lines between truth and fiction, narrator and character, this clever narrative strategy gives the courtesan a voice. While "Umrao Jaan Ada" is still celebrated, "Junun-e-Intezar" has been completely forgotten - until now. The "Madness of Waiting" redresses this imbalance, featuring both the Urdu original and a superb English translation. The book also includes a critical introduction that rethinks "Umrao Jaan Ada" and the Urdu literary milieu of the late-nineteenth-century Lucknow courtesan.

"Taking care of our women and children builds not just a generation but the nation itself," writes the Indian film star Shabana Azmi in her introduction to this unique volume. "We neglect mothers at our own peril, at the peril of society. If we are to lead as a nation, we must put our women and children first." Of Mothers and Others takes a step toward the fulfillment of this goal. A thought-provoking collection of stories, essays, and poems by a wide range of Indian writers, it challenges cozy assumptions about motherhood to reveal messy but affirming truths about this vital role and the way we experience it. These works portray motherhood from a variety of perspectives, illuminating its difficult, funny, and tender moments while addressing such topics as single motherhood, adopted children, surrogacy, bereavement, special needs children, grandmothers, and reluctant mothers. Motherhood emerges as far more than a state of being: it has profound implications, the contributors show, for personal identity, one's place in society, and the very nature of the self.Contributors to this book include Urvashi Butalia, Tishani Doshi, Shashi Deshpande, Namita Gokhale, Manju Kapur, and Bulbul Sharma.

An innovative collection of essays on the turmoil spreading across South Asia, Contesting Nation sheds light on how violence—in wars of direct and indirect conquest—marks the present. Featuring contributions by distinguished South Asian women scholars, the book offers inspired, gendered, and contested histories of the present, exploring nation-making and its intersections with projects of militarization and cultural assertion, modernization, and globalization.The contributors to this volume consider such turbulent events as the Gujarat carnage of 2002, post-9/11 mobilizations, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, shedding light on the force with which brutal events encompass lives and disfigure communities. This powerful book examines the very borders such brutality maintains and its intimate and lasting effects on bodies and memories.

The first full-length autobiography in Bengali, Amar Jiban (My Life) was written in the early nineteenth century by an upper-caste rural housewife named Rashundari Debi. Published in 1868 when she was eighty-eight years old, the book is a fascinating snapshot of life for women in the nineteenth century. Debi, who gave birth to eleven children - her first was born when she was eighteen years old, the last when she was forty-one - ruminates on her very individual understanding of bhakti beliefs as well as the new times that were unfolding around her. Offering a translation of major sections of this remarkable autobiography, Words to Win is a portrait of a woman who wants to compose a life of her own, wishes to present it in the public sphere, and eventually accomplishes just that. The words, in the end, win out. First published in 1999, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in nineteenth-century Indian history. The classic text is reissued here in a new paperback format.

A pathbreaking study of Dalit women's writings and lives, Writing Caste/Writing Gender offers a powerful counternarrative to mainstream assumptions about the development of feminism in India in the twentieth century. Featuring extensive extracts from eight Dalit women's life narratives - or testimonios - on issues such as food, hunger, community, caste, labor, education, violence, resistance, and collective struggle, the book brings to life voices that unequivocally show that Dalit feminism, far from being silent as so often presumed, is rich, powerful, and layered - as well as highly articulate. Writing Caste/Writing Gender contributes significantly to the field of biography and will be welcomed by scholars of caste, gender, and politics in India.

Pandita Ramabai was one of India's earliest feminists. Honored with the title of Saraswati in Calcutta in 1879, she soon alienated the men who had initially supported her. A high-caste Hindu widow, Ramabai converted to Christianity, an act that was seen not only as a betrayal of her religion but of her very nation. A classic study, Rewriting History does more than introduce one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India; it rescues Ramabai from the marginalization of her contemporaries. Arguing that this controversial figure has been actively suppressed in the writing of India's pre-independence history, Uma Chakravarti liberates Ramabai with an acute and nuanced critique of the power relations and hierarchies within a colonized society. Thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed, Rewriting History is essential reading for those interested in gender, class, and caste in nineteenth-century India.

Northeast India, connected to the rest of the country by only a narrow strip of land, has long been a site of tension between people native to the region - many of whom have long demanded more political independence - and representatives of the mainland and the Indian state. In 2004, one of the region's notorious paramilitary groups famously arrested and killed a young woman named Thangjam Manorama. This collection takes its inspiration from the mass demonstrations that arose after her death and the unprecedented protests against the violence that has wracked the area. In a diverse series of reflections on the state of the Northeast in the wake of these events, the contributors address such topics as nationhood, identity, and the complex factors that alienate the region from the rest of India. Their intensely personal responses and informed political assessments illuminate the changes, asymmetries, and fault lines that continue to cause potentially violent rifts. Some of these writers, academics, and activists grew up in the Northeast, while others are outsiders - but all share a passion for the area and an intense desire for peace.

First published in 1966 by award-winning Marathi writer Anuradha Vaidya, A Ragdoll for My Heart is a unique free verse novella now making its English debut [?]. The lyrical work, translated by Shruti Nargundkar, tells an age-old story: that of a woman's longing for a daughter and the relationship they subsequently come to share. The story traces a mother-daughter relationship that begins first with unquestioning love and over time transforms into one of distance and tension. Setting out life as a game with predetermined moves and rules that are meant to be twisted or negotiated, Vaidya deftly engages readers in a playful connecting of the dots, drawing us deeper and deeper into the lives of the characters. She employs beautiful allegorical imagery on each page of the poetic narrative and makes many allusions to life as a game played on the board of the globe-complete with her characters who act as pawns in the sprawling world of the narrative.

InSuki,Suniti Namjoshi weaves a witty and delightful tapestry from threads of longing, loss, memory, metaphor, and contemplation. Taken as a whole, the picture she draws is a stunning evocation of the love and friendship shared between herself and her super cat, Suki, a lilac Burmese. Suki suggests that she could be a goddess, and Namjoshi her high priestess. Namjoshi declines, but as they discuss the merits of vegetarianism, the meaning of happiness, war, morality, or just daily life, it becomes clear that the bond between them is a deep and complex one. Namjoshi figures the days of Suki's life as leaves, which fall vividly but irrevocably into time's stream and are recollected with a wild tenderness by a grieving Namjoshi, who learns through the discipline of meditation how to lose what is most loved. One of the most distinctive lesbian-feminist voices of the late twentieth century, Suniti Namjoshi, best known for her many poems and fables, is highly respected as one of the pioneers of women's writing in India. This beautiful narrative, both memoir and elegy, offers solace and celebration to everyone who has felt the trust that passes between a person and a beloved creature.

Whether it is in-vitro fertilization, sperm injection, surrogacy, cryopreservation, or intrauterine insemination, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has revolutionized our understanding of pregnancy, birth, infertility, and women's bodies. Viewed by some as a technological quick-fix for infertility, ARTs create both challenges and opportunities, and responses to them have sought to balance questions of ethics, rights, and politics. With essays by eminent academics and activists, Reconfiguring Reproduction examines the ART industry by bringing a feminist health lens to bear on the experiences of women in countries such as Korea, Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, India, and others. In essays focused on the expansion of the industry, the gendered nature of the burden and treatment of infertility, the destabilization of the family as we know it, and feminist debates around surrogacy that reassess ideas of agency and commodification, Reconfiguring Reproduction charts a fast-changing and highly politically charged area, where commerce, medical technology, ethics, and ideology intersect.

What are the underlying causes and consequences of gender-based violence in public spaces? Who defines what comprises the "public space" - and why are those spaces so often barred not only to women, but also the poor, transgender people, and others outside the narrow definition of "normal"? The Fear That Stalks brings together scholars from a range of disciplines and activists from the women's movement to explore the causes, nature, and consequences of gender-based violence. These powerful and articulate essays draw connections between diverse forms of violence, such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, honor killing, tonsuring, rape, and homicide. The book also offers suggestions for policy changes that can help address the pervasive problem of gender-based violence, and make our societies safe for men and women alike.

Even in a realm that would seem to be as far removed from issues of gender as natural resource management, gender bias is pernicious and persistent, especially in India. Genderscapes looks at the reasons for this bias from a number of angles, including the socialization of attitudes, the shaping of community ideologies, and the construction of disciplines and research methodologies. Sumi Krishna puts forward the novel concept of "genderscapes" to reflect the totality of women's life worlds, and she builds her use of the concept on a group of rich case studies, including the caring practices of forest-dwellers, women's knowledge of biodiversity, and their widespread responsibility for farming and food production. Women's economic needs cannot be separated from their sociopolitical interests, Krishna shows-and only by looking at them as a whole can we solve the problem of discrimination.

The Partition of British India into the nations of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the further redrawing of the borders in 1971 to create Bangladesh were major, wrenching events whose effects are still felt today in the everyday lives of people in all three nations in fundamental ways-yet these events have never been explored in all their aspects. This volume gathers essays from scholars in a variety of fields that explore substantial new ground in Partition research, looking into such understudied areas as art, literature, migration, and, crucially, notions of "foreignness" and "belonging," among many others. It will be required reading for any scholars of the recent history, politics, and culture of the subcontinent.

Ila Arab Mehta is an award-winning Gujarati author, perhaps most noted for her explorations of feminist thinking. In this new translation by Rita Kothari of her beautiful and skillfully crafted novel Fence, we meet Fateema Lokhandwala, a young Muslim woman in present-day Gujarat. Fateema lives in a divided world, where religion and class split society. A member of the Muslim minority, she struggles to carve out a place for herself, seeking her true identity, and encountering triumph and tragedy along the way. Fence is a powerful critique of the damage caused by Indian identity politics. It is also a classic coming-of-age story and a lively, yet tender, exploration by Mehta, a Hindu writer, of the dreams and aspirations of her Muslim sisters.

Imelda Connor is a classic Irish lass-a fiery, red-headed beauty, quick to anger, and fiercely protective of her younger siblings. Growing up on a small farm in the rolling hills of County Cork, she thinks she has her life completely mapped out. Here in Ireland she will live an enchanted life with the perfect Irish husband, devoting herself to her family and to her livestock. But Imelda soon finds that life doesn't always go according to plan. Everything is turned upside-down when Imelda moves to England and happens to meet a dashing, rakish Bengali man named Shu Bose. Shu, whose knowledge of Ireland stops at James Joyce and W.B. Yeats, is captivated by Imelda's natural beauty and vivacious charm, and the two quickly embark on a whirlwind romance. At the tender age of eighteen, in the spring of 1932, Imelda boards a ship bound for Calcutta-and a very different life to the one she had always imagined. From Cork to Calcutta by Milty Khanna transports readers back to pre-Independence India, to London between the wars, and to the genteel life of bhadralok Bengali high society.It's the intimate and true story of Khanna's parents and their unconventional love-story that crosses class, nationality, and cultural boundaries.

King Vikram has a devil of a dilemma! In order to gain power and wealth beyond his wildest dreams, he must deliver a corpse to the sorcerer Shaitanish. The only problem with this simple task is that this particular corpse is home to Betal-an impish storyteller of a vampire with tricks up his sleeve. Betal gives the King a series of riddles to solve as he rides along on the King's back. If King Vikram solves the riddle, but forgets to speak his answer aloud, the vampire will continue to haunt him-spoiling his plans for innumerable riches! Nobody is quite as foolish as King Vikram and Betal runs circles around the poor man, quickly turning him into a royal punchline. Stories like this one of Vikram and Betal date back over a thousand years and in Vikram and the Vampire, Natasha Sharma brings the classic story to life in a hilarious and modern retelling. Children from eight to eighty will enjoy the tale of a dimwitted king and the tongue-twisting, punning vampire who is destined to outsmart him.

Acts of sexual violence are often committed with impunity—perpetrators do not consider their actions consequential. Yet throughout history, impunity for sexual violence has been challenged by fearless, just, and compassionate speech—both in courts of justice and outside of them. Those who speak out not only advance a politics of accountability, but also an ethics of recognition, suffering, and hurt.Undoing Impunity explores the contours of the politics and ethics pertaining to sexual violence in contemporary South Asian communities. Using a historical lens, V. Geetha closely examines explicitly feminist responses from the region and, drawing from them, suggests that sexual violence and the impunity it claims for itself are best understood in relation to cultural attitudes towards sexuality. In all, Undoing Impunity is an important and timely look at the social, psychological, and legal conditions that allow perpetrators to act without fear of responsibility or guilt. The book forms part of the Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia series, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Breaching the Citadel, part of the Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia series, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada, puts India in focus, showcasing new and pathbreaking research on sexual violence and impunity. Bringing together both young and established scholars, the book explores medical protocols, the functioning of the law, the psychosocial making of impunity, histories of sexual violence in places like Kashmir, the media, and sectarian violence, among other timely topics.The essays Urvashi Butalia has collected here were developed through comparative research and a series of workshops, so each entry is peer-reviewed and on the cutting edge of the field. Breaching the Citadel breaks new ground as it uncovers and analyzes the link between sexual violence and the structures and institutions that enable perpetrators to act with impunity.

Part of a new series titled Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Of the Nation Born takes Bangladesh as its focus, compiling some of the best writing and research to date on sexual violence and impunity. The book brings together both new and established scholars to look at areas as wide-ranging as the law and its histories, nationalism, memory and sexuality, the status of minorities, religion and its directives, universities as sites of gender-contestation, and more.With an introduction by acclaimed scholar Meghna Guhathakurta, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the situation in Bangladesh from the 1971 war for liberation to the present.  Guhathakurta gives readers an excellent entry point for understanding the complex realities of how impunity for the perpetrators of sexual violence has become standard in Bangladesh in particular, and South Asia in general. Of the Nation Born is a valuable cross-disciplinary study and the first of its kind.

It’s midnight and there are fists pounding on the door. Authoritative voices shouting, “We’re coming in! Get on the floor!” A few terrorized minutes later a family member is dragged out by armed men, disappearing into the night. This scenario is the greatest fear of many twentieth-century families—and to the unlucky, it’s a lived reality. For the ethnic Chinese who had been settled in Northern India for many years, 1962 was filled with moments of terror like these.After the Sino-Indian Border War broke out in 1962, on the authorization of Prime Minister Nehru more than two thousand Chinese-Indians were torn from their homes and placed in local jails before being transported more than one thousand miles to the Deoli internment camp in the Rajasthan desert. Born in Calcutta in 1949 and raised in Darjeeling, Yin Marsh was just thirteen years old when first her father was taken and then she, her grandmother, and eight year old brother were forcibly removed from their home and thrown first into Darjeeling Jail. Upon arrival in Deoli, Yin and her family were assigned to the same bungalow where Prime Minister Nehru himself had done time during India’s war for independence.Eventually released, Yin emigrated to America with her mother. She attended college, married, and raised her own family, all without telling the story of her emotional trauma. It wasn’t until her own college-age daughter began to ask questions and when a friend’s wedding would require her to return to her homeland that Yin was finally able to face what had happened to her and her family. In the fascinating memoir Doing Time with Nehru, the little-known history of how the Chinese were treated in post-Independence India is brought to light and through Yin’s story, readers can glimpse the hardship, cruelty, and harsh lessons required for survival.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was a remarkable woman a gifted writer and an activist central to the making of the modern Indian nation. India's representative to the Global South for many years after independence, Kamaladevi figured prominently in discussions of and studies on Indian women and independence. But in more mainstream histories she remains relatively unknown. A Passionate Life brings together for the first time a collection of Kamaladevi's writings on the subjects closest to her heart. These essays include a close look at the lives of tribal peoples in India, the sustaining of handicrafts and handicraft workers, and issues of history. In doing so, the volume questions not only our methods of writing and recovering history which leave out lives as important as hers but also shows how the surfacing of histories like Kamaladevi's can enrich, expand, and add nuance to our understanding of the making of modern India. Crucial new essays and commentary by the editors accompany Kamaladevi's writings.

As both the bedrock of human survival and an unchallenged part of the "normal" female life, motherhood expects and even compels women to be mothers both symbolic and corporeal. Motherhood and non-motherhood is not just physiological. As the pivot to a web of heteronormative institutions like marriage and family, motherhood bears an overwhelming and decisive influence on women's lives. In the face of tradition and sociopolitical discourse and policies, Motherhood and Choice explores how women as embodiments of multiple identities can live stigma-free, authentic lives without having to abandon reproductive self-determination. Amrita Nandy asks the difficult questions here: How can women live fully? If autonomy is a basic human right, why do many women have little or no choice when it comes to motherhood? Do women know they have a choice? Through remarkable research and searing analysis, Nandy brings an important addition to feminist debates on the conflation of woman and mother, political and personal.