Woman And Indian Modernity

Drawing from the large body of criticism on non-European modernities in recent years, this study targets what seems to be a discernable ambivalence in these studies. The author seeks to investigate Twentieth-Century India?s complex negotiations with modernity, with its usefulness as well as its threat, at one of the most vulnerable points of definition, the position of women. Focusing on the disciplines or genres within which modernity is introduced, the study uses the modern literary genre, as well as intellectual disciplines. Using these two domains of study, an interdisciplinary framework is developed by looking at how narratives may be read in the light of other disciplines constructing the modern subject-ideologies of manners and ?refinement?, prohibition, ethnography, ethnopsychology, film, property law and urban history.The book argues that the possibilities in modernity are subject to a constant negotiation and become domesticated through the century, especially in the area of gendering. Gendering is revealed as a historically contingent process operating differently at different historical moments. The analysis enables us to see the ideological gender constructions and contradictions behind modern versions of caste, modern daughterhood, modern citizenhood, and modern proprietorship.

This book analyses the role of women in the films of one of the leading filmmakers of the ‘Third World’ in the 1950s, Satyajit Ray, a national icon in filmmaking in India. The book explores the portrayal of women in the context of the creation of national culture after India became independent. Gender issues were very important to India under Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s – with the enactment of inheritance and divorce laws. Ray’s portrayal of women and his films anticipate much of the theorizing of later-day feminism. This book analyses cinematic texts with special reference to the women characters using feminist film theory and representation along with a study of the socio-political and economic conditions pertinent to the times – both relevant to the film’s making and its setting. The primary texts studied are films spanning over four decades from Pather Panchali (1955) to his last trilogy and are based on a categorization of the broad feminine ‘types’ represented in the films – based on the socio-political situations in which they are placed – and their relationships with the other characters present. Ray’s portrayal of women has an enormous bearing on our understanding of how modern India evolved in the Nehru era and after, and this book explore just that: the place of the woman as it is and should be in a young nation encumbered by patriarchy. Gendered Modernity and Indian Cinema will be of interest to academics in the field of World cinema, Indian and Bengali cinema, Film Studies as well as Gender Studies and South Asian culture and society.

Using in-depth interviews, this book explores women employed in the Indian IT industry and highlights the gender specific and culturally specific consequences of reflexive modernity in neo-liberal India.

Women In Ancient India Played A Dynamic Role In Hindu Society. During The Muslim Period, Indian Woman Had To Adapt Her Role According To Changing Circumstances And Social Evils Like Child Marriage And Purdah System Came Into Vogue And Women s Status Under Went Subservient. Indian Women Have Responded To Modern Conditions In A Very Progressive Way. Indian Woman Have Made Its Mark In The Field Of Politics, Education And Professions. Inspite Of High Illiteracy Rate Among Indian Women, India Has Produced Eminent Indian Women In The Post Independence Period. This Book Examines The Role Of Indian Women In A Historical And Comparative Perspectives. The Book It Is Hoped Will Be Found Useful By Social Scientists, Policy Planners And National Leaders.

Unlike the West, India presents a fascinating example of a society where the pre-modern continues to co-exist with the modern. Modernity in Indian Social Theory explores the social variance between India and the West to show how it impacted their respective trajectories of modernity. A. Raghuramaraju argues that modernity in the West involved disinheriting the pre-modern, and temporal ordering of the traditional and modern. It was ruthlessly implemented through programmes of industrialization, nationalism, and secularism. This book underscores that India did not merely the Western model of modernity or experience a temporal ordering of society. It situates this sociological complexity in the context of the debates on social theory. The author critically examines various discourses on modernity in India, including Partha Chatterjee’s account of Indian nationalism; Javeed Alam’s reading of Indian secularism; the use of the term pluralism by some Indian social scientists; and Gopal Guru’s emphasis on the lived Dalit experience. He also engages with the readings on key thinkers including Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and Ambedkar.