Against the Madness of Manu: B.R Ambedkar's Writings on Brahmanical Patriarchy
Sharmila Rege
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A feminist reading of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's writings, by Sharmila Rege.
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49 booksIndia ×
Sharmila Rege
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A feminist reading of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's writings, by Sharmila Rege.
A proposal to make India safe for women, through a gender equal and just society by 2047.
A Dalit Christian woman's autobiography of caste, faith and the church, widely read as a founding text of Dalit women's writing.
Dalit writingMemoirIndiaTamil126 pages
From ₹350 (sample price)
Arundhati Roy
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An accessible tour of feminist thinking through Indian debates on the family, the body, sexuality, desire and the law.
Tarabai Shinde, ed. and trans. Rosalind O'Hanlon
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Tarabai Shinde's fierce 1882 Marathi attack on men's double standards, with Rosalind O'Hanlon's study of its world.
A landmark study arguing that women's own rights to land are central to their well-being and equality across South Asia.
ed. Sharmila Rege
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Ambedkar's writings on caste and women, introduced by Rege as the work of a feminist thinker.
Andal, trans. Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Ravi Shankar
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The complete poems of Andal, the eighth-century Tamil poet and saint, in new English translations by Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Ravi Shankar. Written before she was twenty, her verses to her chosen god speak of desire, longing and a young woman's refusal of any other life. Winner of the Muse India Translation Prize. Our October giveaway prize, with Zubaan Books.
Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin
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Uses women's testimonies and government records to trace the abduction, 'recovery' and resettlement of women after 1947, and how the state decided where they belonged.
Three stories about women's bodies, labour and state violence.
Short storiesFictionIndiaBengali160 pages
From ₹375 (sample price)
Prem Chowdhry
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How caste councils and families police marriage choices in Haryana, and the violence against couples who defy them.
Shows how colonial officials and Indian reformers argued over sati while the women burned were left out of the debate.
Key essays that set out Dalit feminist theory and its challenge to both mainstream feminism and caste politics.
An argument for women's freedom to take risks and make choices, against protection that becomes control.
A reader on the history and debates of Indian feminism, from colonial reform to contemporary politics.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
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Collects Mohanty's essays, including 'Under Western Eyes', on decolonising feminism and building solidarity across borders.
A primer on the idea of gender and how it is produced in the family, at work and in culture. Part of the Theorizing Feminism series.
Essays on how caste and gender shape each other in modern India.
Caste and genderAnthologyIndiaEnglish390 pages
From ₹425 (sample price)
Shows how caste is kept in place by controlling women's sexuality, marriage and labour, and why caste and gender have to be studied together.
Tanika Sarkar
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Essays on how nineteenth-century Bengali nationalism, religion and print culture built the ideal of the Hindu wife.
Flavia Agnes
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A history of the personal laws of India's communities and how they shape women's rights in marriage, divorce and property.
An anthropology of how women lived with the violence of Partition and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in everyday life.
A frank 1976 memoir of marriage, desire and writing.
From ₹320 (sample price)
A clear introduction to how patriarchy works, drawing on Indian and global examples. Part of the Theorizing Feminism series.
An ethnography of rape trials showing how courts, police and medical examinations turn survivors' testimony into doubt.
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
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Essays on how women are represented in Indian culture and politics, from sati to television and rape.
ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid
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Influential essays on how colonial rule and social reform reshaped patriarchy, caste and class in India.
Questions feminism's reliance on law and rights through debates on abortion, sexual violence and the Uniform Civil Code.
Srila Roy
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Women's memories of the Naxalbari movement in Bengal, and the gendered violence within radical politics.
A biography of the nineteenth-century reformer Pandita Ramabai and her challenge to Brahmanical patriarchy.
ed. Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai
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Two thousand years of writing on love between women and between men, from Indian literature and history.
A 1905 feminist utopia in which women run society and men are secluded.
Utopian fictionFictionIndiaEnglish24 pages
From ₹199 (sample price)
An illustrated history of movements for women's rights and feminism in India from 1800 to 1990.
Urvashi Butalia
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Oral histories of Partition from women, children and Dalits, recovering the abductions, killings and silences missing from official accounts.
A Mahar woman's account of community life, caste oppression and the change brought by Ambedkar's movement. Translated by Maya Pandit.
Stories on women's desire and domestic life. The title story, Lihaaf, was tried for obscenity.
Short storiesFictionQueer readingIndiaUrdu225 pages
From ₹260 (sample price)
Looks at how the Indian state, law and citizenship shape women's lives.
Law and genderIndiaEnglish313 pages
From ₹650 (sample price)
A hijra woman's account of family violence, community and activism in South India. Translated by V. Geetha.
ed. Kalpana Kannabiran
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Essays on everyday violence against women in India, from the home to the workplace and the state.
A memoir of growing up Dalit in the Konkan, of education, writing and activism. Translated by Maya Pandit.
A short introduction to the difference between sex and gender and why it matters.
Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon
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Recovers the part Dalit women played in Ambedkar's movement through interviews and archives. Translated by Wandana Sonalkar.
Reporting from women's struggles in 1970s Maharashtra, among farm labourers, workers and activists.
A short, plain-spoken introduction to patriarchy, written for workshops and first-time readers.
Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade
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Argues that women's right to loiter in the city, without purpose or excuse, is the real test of their access to public space.
A two-volume anthology of women's writing in India across languages and centuries.
AnthologyWomen's literatureIndiaEnglish576 pages
From ₹899 (sample price)
A wide-ranging reader of key writing from Indian women's studies and the women's movement.
Sharmila Rege
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Translations of Dalit women's life narratives from Marathi, with Rege's argument for a Dalit feminist standpoint.
