Table of Contents

1. Abducted Women, the State and Questions of Honour: Three Perspectives on the Recovery Operation in Post-Partition India - Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin
2. Rape and the Construction of Communal Identity - Kalpana Kannabiran
3. Discursive Strategies and Exclusivities: Gender, Nationalism(s) and Cultural Identity - Shahnaz Rouse
4. Inside the Andar Mahal: Muslim Women in the Private Sphere in Colonial Bengal - Sonia Nishat Amin
5. Sexuality in the Field of Vision: The Discursive Clothing of the Sigiriya Frescoes - Malathi de Alwis
6. Ethnicity and the Empowerment of Women: The Colonial Legacy - Jasodhara Bagchi
7. Hindu Nationalist Women as Ideologues: The 'Sangh' the 'Samiti' and their Differential Concept of the Hindu Nation - Paola Bacchetta
8. Static Signifiers? Metaphors of Woman in Contemporary Sri Lankan War Poetry - Neloufer de Mel
9. The Myth of 'Patriots' and 'Traitors': Pandita Ramabai, Brahmanical Patriarchy, and Militant Hindu Nationalism - Uma Chakravarti
10. Institutions, Beliefs, Ideologies: Widow-Immolation in Contemporary Rajasthan - Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid

About the Author

Kumari Jayawardena is a leading feminist figure and academic in Sri Lanka. Her other books include Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (Zed Books, 1986).

Malathi (Mala) de Alwis is a feminist scholar and activist at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her other books include Feminists Under Fire (2003).