Badass Begums, the debut book of Anoushka Jain, was born out of a conversation at a heritage walk that she conducts in Delhi. A heritage connoisseur and an expert walk-leader, Jain writes lucidly in a conversational style to reach her target audience: the heritage buffs. The book would be a remarkable tool-book for those walkers or others (whether in Delhi or distant from it) keen on knowing Delhi, especially the monuments in Old Delhi, and the general ambience around them—street food, transport facilities, the people. A valuable aspect of the book is that it ‘creates a roadmap for a feminist lens of reading the city’, and focuses on ten powerful, influential women of the historical past, particularly the Mughal past, who contributed to the cityscape and architecture of Delhi. These women, erased from the patriarchy-driven contemporary popular accounts, perhaps because of their non-conformism and daring emboldened spirit, are retrieved by Jain from behind the purdah, the walled harem. The book is a representation that while these women formed a significant part of the imperial household and fulfilled familial and kinship obligations, they did not do just that: they were badass, as Jain calls them.
Meena Bhargava, former Associate Professor, Department of History, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, Delhi, is a historian of medieval and early modern South Asia.