BACKLIST
1 title
BACKLIST
1 title
 Legally
Dispossessed |
 Legally
Dispossessed
gender, identity and the process of law Title
index
This path-breaking study of women's experience of litigation under personal laws (those that cover marriage and inheritance) raises vital questions of identity and citizenship in Indian democracy and throws new light on the uniform civil code debate. The author asks why is it so difficult to disentangle woman 'as subject/citizen imbued with rights from that of being daughter, sister, wife, widow and the symbol of a community'? Why is it that both Hindu and Muslim women are usually unsuccessful in their claims for property despite appealing to different personal laws? By shifting the focus from the text of the law to an ethnography of litigation---the nature of disputes, the attitudes of lawyers, the experiences in court, the logic of judgements, and so on---the analysis brings into play the crucial factors that are obscured in abstract discussions of 'rights'. Attention to what might be described as the culture of adjudication enables a more complex analysis of what is at stake in feminist and other struggles around law and citizenship today. demy octavo hardbound 258pp Feb 1998 Cover design: Sharbani Das Gupta ISBN 81-85604-39-8 Rs 180 All rights available |
'The author's analysis of the case is revealing
of social reality. She has traced the history of each case . . . has seen
those cases from the participant-observer's eyes . . . . Their stories
reveal the indifference of lawyers, hypertechnical and gender-biased attitude
of the judges, social bias of the police and exploitation by the relatives.'
~~~ Economic and Political Weekly
'The author tellingly brings out the complexity of terms such as democracy and secularism, whcih can no longer be regarded as universalisms that are enjoyed equally by all.' ~~~ The Book Review
By Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay
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