Mutinies for Equality
Contemporary Developments in Law and Gender in India

Studies transformations in law and gender in modern India, proposing drivers of change are emerging from beyond traditional institutions.

Tanja Herklotz (Edited by), Siddharth Peter de Souza (Edited by)

9781108834063, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2021

302 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.52 kg

Mutinies for Equality studies recent transformations in the area of law and gender in modern India. It tackles legal and social developments with regard to family life, sexuality, motherhood, surrogacy, erotic labour, sexual harassment in the workplace and violence against women, among others. It analyses reform efforts towards women's rights and LGBTIQ rights and attempts to situate where a reform has taken place, by whom it was brought about, and what impact it has had on society. It engages with protagonists who shape the debate around law and gender and locates their efforts into a socio-political context, thereby showing that the discourses around law and gender are closely connected to broader debates around legal pluralism, secularism and religion, identity, culture, nationalism, and family. The book offers compelling evidence that the drivers of change are emerging from beyond the traditional institutions of courts and parliament, and that to understand the everyday implications of legal reforms, it is important to look beyond these institutional sources.

Acknowledgements
Introduction Tanja Herklotz and Siddharth Peter de Souza
Part I. Systems of Inequality: 1. Family matters, gender matters: courts on the rule against restraints on alienation Krithika Ashok
2. Missing women in the Indian judiciary: the inadequacies of the judicial appointment process Siddharth Peter de Souza and Medha Srivastava-Kehrer
3. Is the Supreme Court cherry-picking its gender battles? Jayna Kothari
4. Juxtaposing equality?: Muslim women's rights in the normative realm of secularism and personal law in India Katharina Wommelsdorff
5. Is sexuality anti-Indian?: Reflections on obscenity in contemporary Indian popular discourse Fritzi-Marie Titzmann
Part II. Battles for Equality: 6. Armed with the Constitution: feminist litigation on Indian family law Tanja Herklotz
7. Nikah Halala: The petition, the promise and the politics of personal law Saumya Saxena
8. The politics of erotic labour: a case study of Mumbai bar dancers Sameena Dalwai
9. Reactionary executive versus deliberative legislature: the case of how the legislature championed compensation for reproductive labour while regulating surrogacy Mandira Kala
10. Interrogating the freedoms of queer liberation in India Jason Keith Fernandes
Part III. Realising Equality: 11. The politics of regulating adult sexuality through the institution of marriage: reflections on queer experiences from India Sourav Mandal
12. Conditions of possibility: law, patriarchy and single motherhood in India Saptarshi Mandal
13. Turning to the state: between processing disputes and protecting autonomy Kalindi Kokal
14. Towards an egalitarian workplace: developments in anti-sexual harassment law Poornima Hatti and Aparna Ravi
About the contributors
Index.

Subject Areas: Gender & the law [LAQG], Law & society [LAQ], Law [L], Society & social sciences [J]