This book should dispel the apprehension—which is there in the minds of many in the country—that the message of the International Women’s Year and the revival of the movement for development of women, might disrupt our way of life. It reveals the basic fact that even English educated upper middle class urban women who speak and write for women and their independence, would like us to recognize the virtues in our system and ‘not throw them overboard for what seems advantageous in another…A husband and wife, to be modern, can do anything they want, but not at the cost of their children or the family itself. Motherhood must remain honoured and cherished.’ So there you have it in a nutshell—the Indian women’s view. They may speak of genetic technology and test tube babies, as Tara Ali Baig in fact does, but that is only to show the elitist Indian reader and the westerner that they are up-to-date with what goes on in the West. So is the compulsion to refer to karma and dharma without which no Indian book is complete.
July 1976, volume 1, No 3