Table Of ContentIndian Women
Myth and Reality
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I n d i a n W o m e n
Myth and Reality
Edited by
J
asodhara Bag chi
Santam
looks
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•
Picture Credits
Victoria & Albert Museum, London : Plate 1, 5, 6 ; Victoria Memorial, Calcutta :
Plate 4; Indian Museum, Calcutta: Plate 8,9 ; Sri Chitra Art Gallery, Trivandrum
: Plate 7 ; ~bindra Bharati Society, Calcutta : Plate 10; National Film Archive of
India : Plate 11, 12. Plate 2 & 3 are reproduced from Indian llnd British Portrllilure
by M. Archer and Plate 13 is the reproduction from Ritwik Ghlllllk : A Ret11n1 to
the Epic by Ashish Rajadhyaksha.
ALD
HQ..
1742-
·1533
© Sangam Books (India) Limited 1995
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First published 1995
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Contents
Foreword VII
Acknowledgements IX
Contributors XI
Introduction 1
The Private and the Public 17
1. Indian Women: Myth and Reality 19
Ashapurna Devi
2. Laws on Women: Judaism, 24
Christianity and Hinduism
Sukumari Bhattacharji
3. Motherhood : Power and 34
Powerlessness
Maithreyi Krishnaraj
4. Slow Pan Left : Feminism and the 44
Problematic of Rights
Susie Tharu
5. Women of the Killing Belt of Bihar 58
Manimala
Workplace and Domesticity 71
6. Sexual Division of Labour : Myths and 73
Reality in the Indian context
Nirmala Banerjee
7. Myth and Reality : In the context of Poor 82
Working Women in Kerala
Leela Gulati
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Contents VI
8. Bengali Middle Class Women: Distance 91
Between Myth and Reality
ManikaNag
9. Hindu Conjugality and Nationalism: in 98
Late Nineteenth Century Bengal
Tanika Sarkar
Textu.al Strategies 117
10. 'My Husband, Good or Bad': Closures in 119
Bankimchandra's Novels
Manabendra Bandyopadhyay
11. The Contemporary Popular Bengali Fiction : 133
Textual Strategies
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
Ways of Seeing 145
12. The Woman Perceived : The Changing 147
Visual Iconography of the Colonial and
Nationalist Period in Bengal
Ratnabali Chattopadhyay and
Tapati Guha Thakurta
13. Looking at Women : Sequences 168
Moinak Biswas
Making Women Visible 177
14. Searching Research Materials on Women's 179
Studies
Kalpana Das Gupta
Index 187
Plates .193
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Foreword
1:ndian Women : Myth and Reality was the theme of a National
seminar organized by us on 9, 10 and 11 March 1989. Queries
from different parts of India prompted us to put together the
contributions that make up this volume. This is an incomplete
volume, in the sense that a few articles that were either
presented or scheduled to be presented in the seminar have not
been included. We hope to bring out a companion volume when
they are made available to us.
We owe special thanks to Chandreyee Niyogi for her careful
translation of the inaugural address given by Ashapurna Devi
and Shailaja Kejriwal and Arun Patnaik for translating and
transcribing Manimala's tal~. In preparing the volume we had
valuable assistance from Sarbani .Goswami, Madhuchchanda
Karlekar, Ashok Mukherji, Samir Roy, Subha Das Gupta, Sutapa
Niyogi, Subiinal Bhattacharya, Robin Mukherji, Srikant Jana
and Aniruddha Bagchi. Despite our best efforts flaws always
have remained.
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Acknowledgements
The publication of this book brings to fruition one of the most
significant of our original collective efforts to launch the inter
disciplinary School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University
in 1989. The book commemorates the co-operation we received
from feminist scholars, activists and creative writers in the
country and in our own city.
Our thanks are due to Chandreyee Niyogi who translated
Ashapurna Devi's inaugural addres.5, Shailaja Kejriwal and Arun
Patnaik who transcribed and translated Manimala's talk from
Hindi into English, Dibakar Karmakar for typing the editorial
paraphernalia and Abhijit Sen for helping with the index and the
proofs. The book, like everything else with which the School of
Women's Studies had begun, bears the imprint of the indefatigable
'gang of four'-Sai:bani Goswami, Shivani Banerjee-Chak
ravorty, Abhijit Sen and Karuna Chakraborty.
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