Social reforms aimed at changing the social, political, or economic status of women in India were important both to British colonial rule and to nascent nationalist movements. Debates over practices such as widow immolation, widow remarriage, and child marriage, as well as those governing marriage and property within different religious communities, continued to exert profound influence on Indian society and politics throughout the 20th century. In this collection, eminent historians Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar bring together some of the most important scholarly articles and primary source documents from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

How reforms affecting women shaped Indian history

About the Author

Sumit Sarkar is Retired Professor of History at the University of Delhi. His books include Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History (IUP, 2002) and Writing Social History.

Tanika Sarkar is Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is author of Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and Cultural Nationalism (IUP, 2001) and co-editor of Women and Right-Wing Movements.

Reviews

Written in easily accessible language . . . [this book is an] invaluable research and teaching [text] that can be put to very good effect.

* Feminist Formations *

Essays by Lata Mani, Sumit Sarkar, Madhu Kishwar, Tanika Sarkar, and others, along with the original writings of Ram Mohan Roy, Tarabai Shinde, and others make this volume a rich one that students of cultural studies, women's studies, and history should possess.July, 2010

* H-Asia, H-Net Reviews *

[A]n outstanding volume of first-rate scholarship on women and social reform in colonial India.

* Journal of Contemporary Asia *

[This book] brings together a very fine selection of scholarship on an important topic. . . . many of the essays collected in this volume continue to have an immense impact on our understanding of gender, and the changes wrought in gender relations by both the state and indigenous actors and organizations, in colonial India.Vol. 10.2 Fall 2009

-- Farina Mir * Journal of Col. & Colonial History e-jrnl *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253220493
Author Sumit Sarkar
Format Paperback
Page Count 560
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 962g