A commentary on the birth of the Indian feminist movement: review of the novel Pankaja by activist Vasanth Kannabiran
2 years, 1 month ago

A commentary on the birth of the Indian feminist movement: review of the novel Pankaja by activist Vasanth Kannabiran

The Hindu  

French feminist Simone de Beauvoir said, “All oppression creates a state of war.” Nowhere is this truer than in the case of gender, caste, and violence as we see in the novel Pankaja by activist and writer Vasanth Kannabiran. The novel is named after Panjaka, from whose life we learn of her mother, sister and relatives — a cohort of women whose days are defined by survival and tenacity amidst personal tragedies. The novel can be read as a commentary on the birth of the Indian feminist movement with its small beginnings inside the four walls of the house during the early decades of the 20th century. Pankaja Vasanth Kannabiran Speaking Tiger ₹350 The Gurgaon-based journalist is the author of ‘Temple Tales’ and translator of ‘Hungry Humans’.

Novel Rights Movement Vasanth Pankaja Vasanth Kannabiran  status  vasanth  social  women  feminist  kannabiran  rights  movement  personal  indian  birth  novel  commentary  quiet  pankaja  relatives  review

History of this topic

New books on the shelves
3 months, 1 week ago

New books on the shelves

The Hindu  

Published : Dec 11, 2024 12:00 IST - 2 MINS READ Malayali Memorial and Other Stories Unni R, translated by J. Devika Vintage Books Rs.599 Unni R’s world consists of the rural and peri-urban areas of Kottayam, with their humans, birds, beasts, spirits, Jesus, Satan, and inanimate objects. ___ Hindi Hindu Histories: Caste, Ayurveda, Travel, and Communism in Early Twentieth …

Review of Tanika Sarkar’s Religion & Women in India: Gender regimes
3 months, 3 weeks ago

Review of Tanika Sarkar’s Religion & Women in India: Gender regimes

The Hindu  

Tanika Sarkar’s latest publication is an ambitious book, Religion & Women in India: Gender, Faith, and Politics 1780s-1980s, spanning two centuries, a sweeping survey of the intersections of gender, religion and politics in India between the 1780s to 1980s. The horizons of its ambition are further expanded by the inevitable opening up of the categories of “religion” and “faith”, which …

Review: Making the ‘Woman’ by Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon
7 months, 3 weeks ago

Review: Making the ‘Woman’ by Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon

Hindustan Times  

Discussions on gender often trigger an intense debate about whether it is tied to biology or is a social construct. {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} 240pp, ₹1295; Routledge It assumes even greater importance as gender has been central to India’s experience of alien rule and cultural subjugation. {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^usCountry}} {{/usCountry}} All this is skillfully articulated in Making the …

Review: Making the ‘Woman’ by Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon
7 months, 3 weeks ago

Review: Making the ‘Woman’ by Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon

Hindustan Times  

Discussions on gender often trigger an intense debate about whether it is tied to biology or is a social construct. At the outset, the editors state: “This collection critically examines and questions the notions and formations of women and gender binaries which have been historically shaped by multiple and competing actors, practices, institutions and discourses in 18th and 19th century …

Book Review: ‘Kalindi (Brahmankanya) A Novel’ by Shridhar V. Ketkar translated by Shanta Gokhale
1 year, 11 months ago

Book Review: ‘Kalindi (Brahmankanya) A Novel’ by Shridhar V. Ketkar translated by Shanta Gokhale

The Hindu  

This translation from the Marathi original is about a woman’s struggle to live on her own terms a century ago. Kalindi, Shanta Gokhale’s brilliant translation of Shridhar V. Ketkar’s original Brahmankanya, with its thought-provoking content and racy style takes one’s breath away. Kalindi A Novel By Shridhar V. Ketkar; Translated from Marathi by Shanta Gokhale Speaking Tiger Books LLP 240 …

A celebration of women writers from the Indian subcontinent
2 years ago

A celebration of women writers from the Indian subcontinent

The Hindu  

Several women authors of the Indian subcontinent have made a mark with their bold and incisive writing. From the legendary Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, the first woman Muslim writer from colonial Bengal, who wrote about the oppression of women and their liberation at a time when it was unthinkable to the crusader-writer Mahasweta Devi, inspired by the ordinary Adivasi, Dalit …

Book Review | How humanity redeems the individual
3 years ago

Book Review | How humanity redeems the individual

Deccan Chronicle  

The collection of fifteen short stories is set in various locales — different states of India and abroad — and encompasses the rural-urban, literate-illiterate map of humanity in its sweep of universal emotions. The stories effectively bridge these gaps and binaries as they evoke human — and humaneness in the situations they depict and the ways in which the protagonists …

It’s all about women
5 years, 2 months ago

It’s all about women

Deccan Chronicle  

Did you know about Asima Chatterjee from Calcutta, who discovered plants in the 1930s that are still used in medicines to cure diseases like malaria and epilepsy, without any microscope or scientific instrument? “One day, she came to me and asked, ‘does India only have two rebel women?’ I just wanted to tell her about all the phenomenal women that …

How Rani of Jhansi escaped the Nehruvian hammer of oblivion
6 years, 1 month ago

How Rani of Jhansi escaped the Nehruvian hammer of oblivion

Op India  

I happened to watch “Manikarnika—The Queen of Jhansi” in the theatre the other day. People of my generation surely remember the immortal poem of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan : “Bundele Harbolon Ke Moonh Humnein Suni Kahani Thi; Khoob Ladi Mardani Woh to Jhansi Waali Rani Thi.”. The other issue which interests me is how Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi escaped the censorious …

Turning the page for feminism
9 years, 5 months ago

Turning the page for feminism

Al Jazeera  

Indian publisher Urvashi Butalia has given women and marginalised voices a platform for over three decades. “We’re putting together an archive of the interviews we’ve recorded with authors, organisers, women on the front lines,” Urvashi says. ‘I’ll do it myself’ “But it was also the fact that they never considered women worth publishing that made me more determined to start …

Portraits of women
13 years, 11 months ago

Portraits of women

The Hindu  

Showcasing the strengths and limits of a narrowly conceived project of feminist history writing. The interest that the women's movement aroused has generated research on a range of subjects, and there is ample source material available to undertake complex social analysis from a historical perspective. That perhaps explains the drive to cover themes as vast and diverse as region, environment, …

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