Through A Nuanced Prism

The book makes some landmark probings that is relevant not only from the perspective of women studies, gender and identity discourses but also understanding measures of Muslim women’s assertions, accommodation and adjustments in an imperial and indigenous patriarchal set up. The author takes up the issue of patriarchy, customs and culture within the broader framework of a colonial regime with interplay of these factors influencing the status of Muslim women’s life in the United Provinces. No timeframe is mentioned in the title. However, as one starts delving in the book, one comes to know that the 1857 mutiny is the vantage point, both for reasons for assertion against victimhood and struggle for emancipation. The author oscillates back and forth in her arguments from this watershed of history. In determining the social set up, Muslim women contributed no less as is evident from their active participation in the 1857 uprising which has to be viewed beyond the perspective of serving parochial interests as in contemporary historical jargon it is accepted as the first war of Independence.