By Farrah Ahmed

Looking at the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of India, between November 1948 and January 1949, one is compelled to note the immense amount of criticism that the draft constitution evoked. One of the draft articles that came up for discussion was the then Article 35 which stated that the state should endeavour to establish a Uniform Civil Code in India. In response, one member complained that the draft constitution lacked any ‘provisions which safeguard the personal law of the people’ (Nov. 8, 1948). Another member insisted that ‘The right of a group or a community of people to follow and adhere to its own personal law is among the fundamental rights and this provision should really be amongst the statutory justiciable fundamental rights’ (November 23, 1948).


Reviewed by: Shefali Jha
Rishi Singh

There is growing concern among a section of scholars that the ebbing away of the spirit of Punjabiyat results in erosion of interest in Punjab Studies. They strive to identify some of those over-arching Punjabi ties that communicate the message of Punjabiyat stretched across the five doabs and facilitate forging ties across the religious boundaries. These scholarly initiatives struggle to outline Punjab’s cultural diversity and portray experiences of plurality that flow along the Radcliffe boundary of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and keep its residents aware of how Punjabiyat is still breathing in the lives of millions of Punjabis.


Reviewed by: Himadri Sekher Banerji
By Srimati Basu

The book begins with an evocative gaze that lingers over the writing on the walls of family courts in Kolkata. The writing on the walls of the courts invites attention to what Srimati Basu characterizes as the disciplinary governmentality of courts; seductive calls for alternative dispute resolution; normative pictures of family and marriage and finally, a ‘noble’ feminism according women honour and protection within matrimony. The pedagogical function of the walls frames the discourses that a litigant engages with in the court or in a counsellor’s office. This ethnographic account leads us to the multiple places where law sits and rises to adjudicate, mediate and constitute everyday troubles of matrimonial life.


Reviewed by: Pratiksha Baxi
Deba Prosad Chowdhury

Deba Prosad Chowdhury’s The Idea of History in a Changing World disaggregates the different historical moments that produced the conceptual frame of modern scientific history. Tracing its philosophical foundations in Herodotus and Thucydides, Chowdhury locates its founding concepts in post-enlightenment philosophical discourses of humanism, rationalism, progress, objectivity and scientific thought.


Reviewed by: Akash Bhattacharya
By Aparna Jain

I f you look at the number of books that are publishing the narratives of women, that’s a story in itself. Suddenly, the voiceless gender is speaking out—boldly, aggressively, honestly. What’s more, the second sex is getting heard—if the plethora of women centric books hitting the stores is any yardstick.Aparna Jain’s Own It tells the stories of women at the workplace and the persisting glass ceiling, while Walking Towards Ourselves is a collection of intensely personal accounts of women who have constantly faced challenges on account of their gender, colour or community. One is a business book, focusing on the issues confronting career women in organizations, while the other has a more sweeping canvas capturing a rich tapestry of real life experiences of women living in India.


Reviewed by: Chitra Narayanan
By Sarojini N. and Vrinda Marwah

This edited volume by N. Sarojini and Vrinda Marwah brings out a comprehensive understanding of the political economy of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The debate on ART shows a very complex picture; on the one side, marketed as pro-women technology— often projecting it as helping women to fulfill their desire to be mothers—it also invokes questions of violence and control on women’s bodies, on the other. Any discussions on ART would navigate through this complex and paradoxical set of realities where women’s bodies are the sites for various negotiations with market, medical technologies, and ideologies.


Reviewed by: P. Bindhulakshmi