Toward Empowerment: Women And Movement Politics In India

Religious and social moves have long relegated women in India to low status, and only recently has public pressure grown strong enough to challenge their unequal treatment. This volume analyzes the emergence and growing popularity of Indian women's groups as well as the reasons behind their formation and evolution. Although non-party political, the significance of the movement for Indian politics is examined, together with the wider implications of global movement politics. Analyzing women's groups as only one sector of a vast complex of new grass-roots, non-party political movements, Dr Calman suggests answers to the questions of why and how a women's movement evolved in India when it did. She weighs the significance of the women's movement and of the other non-party, grass-roots groups for Indian politics, as well as for current discussions about the nature of movement politics in general, and concludes with an assessment of future prospects.