Gender in Modern India

Lata Singh is Associate Professor, Centre for Women's Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has been a British Academy Visiting Fellow, Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and University Grants Commission Research Awardee. An editorial board member of the Dutch Journal of Feminist Studies, her books and edited collections include Raising the Curtain: Recasting Women Performers in India (Orient BlackSwan, 2017); Theatre in Colonial India: Play-House of Power (OUP, 2009); Popular Translations of Nationalism: Bihar, 1920-22 (Primus Books, 2012); Colonial and Contemporary Bihar and Jharkhand (Primus Books, 2014); and Violence and Performing Arts (IIAS Shimla, 2016). She was the Guest Editor of a special issue of the Indian Historical Review on 'Issues of Gender: Colonial and Post-Colonial India' (2008).Shashank Shekhar Sinha is an independent researcher and the author of Restless Mothers and Turbulent Daughters: Situating Tribes in Gender Studies (Stree, 2005) and Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri: Monuments, Cities and Connected Histories (Pan Macmillan, 2021). He has published extensively on Adivasis, gender, and witch hunting. Sinha taught undergraduate courses in history at the University of Delhi for almost a decade (1994-2004). He worked with Oxford University Press (2004-2012) before moving on to join Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, as Publishing Director (South Asia) in 2012.

• Preface and AcknowledgementsNotes on ContributorsIntroductionSection I: Reforms, Castes, and Contestations1: Uma Chakravarti: Locating Consent: The Social and Historical Contexts of 'Choice' in Marriage2: Smita M Patil: Gender, Caste, and Patriarchy: Anti-Caste Movements in Colonial MaharashtraSection II: Tribes, Patriarchy, and Colonialism3: Sajal Nag and R Lalsangpuii: Reversing of Gender: Anti-Colonial Resistance by Women Warriors in Northeast India4: Shashank Shekhar Sinha: Adivasis, Gender, and Witch hunting in Early Colonial Chotanagpur and Santhal ParganasSection III: Political Economy and Labour5: M V Shobhana Warrier: Women, Union, and the Strike Against Sexual Harassment in Colonial Madura, 19206: Indu Agnihotri: Negotiating Crisis: The Great Depression and Women's Lives in Colonial PunjabSection IV: Masculinity and Sexuality7: Charu Gupta: Fragmentary Histories, Subaltern Sexualities, and Vernacular Archives8: Prem Chowdhry: White Femininity-Black Masculinity: Imperialism, Racism, and Gender Relations in an Empire Film (The Rains Came)Section V: Health, Medical Care, and Institution Building9: Ranjana Saha: Midwifery, Childbirth, and Breastfeeding Advice in Colonial Bengal10: Rama V Baru: Women Missionaries in Medical Care and Institution Building in IndiaSection VI: Culture and Identity11: Lata Singh: The Muslim Courtesans in Colonial India12: Dev Nath Pathak: Margin(al) Maithili: Cultural Politics of Engendered Folk in MithilaSection VII: Migrations and Their Emerging Dynamics13: Rajni Palriwala: Doing Care, Making Socialities on the Move: Gendering Internal Migration in India14: Indrani Mazumdar: Mapping Marginal Terrains: Corridors of Women's Labour Migration from OdishaIndex

This book maps the ways gender studies emerged, grew, and expanded in India since the 1970s. It pays careful attention to contexts even as it proffers a rich sense of the new analytical directions that have been taken in gender studies in modern India, engaging with its distinct trajectory and engagement with intersectional analysis.