The book under review actually has two titles, both of which are equally apt and arresting. Titled Feminisms in Development: Contradictions, Contestations & Challenges it has its origins in a workshop ‘Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: Repositioning Gender in Development Policy and Practice’ organized by the Institute of Development Studies and the University of Sussex at Brighton in July 2003.
Female migration is still largely due to marriage migration, though other forms of migration are gaining importance in recent times. Though marriage migration appears as a simple, linear phenomenon, of late the complexities of such movement have been a subject of concern in the discourses on migration.
Sabiha Hussain’s attempt to critically and empirically examine myths associated with Islam and demographic questions relating to fertility and increasing size of Muslim population is not only timely but a welcome addition to knowledge on a subject.
Using historical sources, including official and nonofficial, published and unpublished in combination with oral tradition and other sources, Kamlesh Mohan attempts an exploration of the varied formulations of culture and their interplay with economic forces from the colonial period to contemporary India.
This useful volume brings together a number of important essays on the history of social reform in different parts of India. The two volumes promise to offer more comprehensive coverage with essays from the southern and north-eastern parts of the country.
The work under review is the third of a series of works focusing on religious reform in South Asia. The two preceding volumes in the same series, both edited by Antony Copley, were titled Gurus and Their Followers and Hinduism in Public and Private and brought out in the years 2000 and 2003 respectively.