Eldrid Mageli - Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups

Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...42

ORGANISING WOMENS PROTEST

NORDIC INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES

Recent Monographs

63. SURVIVAL AND PROFIT IN RURAL JAVA

Sven Cederroth

64. THE STATE AND ITS ENEMIES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Alexander Wanek

65. MISSION AND TAMIL SOCIETY

Henriette Bugge

66. FOLK TALES FROM KAMMU (VOLUME 5)

Kristina Lindell. Jan-jvind Swahn and Damrong Tayanin

67. ISLAM AND POLITICS IN AFGHANISTAN

Asta Olesen

68. EXEMPLARY CENTRE, ADMINISTRATIVE PERIPHERY

Hans Antlv

69. FISHING VILLAGES IN TOKUGAWA JAPAN

Arne Kalland

70. THE HONG MERCHANTS OF CANTON

Weng Eang Cheong

71. ASIAN ENTREPRENEURIAL MINORITIES

Christine Dobbin

72. ORGANISING WOMENS PROTEST

Eldrid Mageli

73. THE ORAL TRADITION OF YANGZHOU STORYTELLING

Vibeke Brdahl

74. ACCEPTING POPULATION CONTROL

Cecilia Nathansen Milwertz

75. MANAGING MARITAL DISPUTES IN MALAYSIA

Sharifah Zaleha Syed Hassan and Sven Cederroth

ORGANISING WOMENS PROTEST

A Study in Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups

Eldrid Mageli

Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

Monograph Series, No. 72

First published in 1997

by Curzon Press

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Typesetting by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

Eldrid Mageli 1997

British Library Catalogue in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

Library of Congress in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 13: 978-0-700-70431-6 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-700-70440-8 (pbk)

Contents

This study was originally written as a thesis for a masters degree in history at the University of Oslo in 1993. The thesis was based in part on six months fieldwork in Madras, Tamil Nadu, in 1991/92. The present work is supplemented by findings from a two-week visit to Madras in December 1994. The study explores the establishment of two womens organisations and some of their activities. The organisations were called the Pennurimai Iyakkam (Womens Rights Movement, hereafter the PI) and the Joint Action Council for Women (hereafter the JACW). The PI and the JACW came into being in 1979 and 1982 respectively and at the time of fieldwork were still active.

This is a study of leadership. I initially approached this study due to a curiosity about the existence of an Indian womens movement as such. Culturally and materially, there appeared to be a wide gap between the sophisticated and well-educated women activists and the mass of ordinary women in Madras. I wanted to investigate how the activists managed to pursue their organising efforts in a culture which, in the eyes of Westerners, tended to restrict womens freedom severely. How did the activists relate to their targets, their less fortunate sisters whose situation they sought to improve? In other words, how did the leaders of the PI and the JACW perceive their roles as spokeswomen for gender equality? In the course of this study, then, my intention is to indicate how some Indian women activists in one of Indias largest cities have attempted to effect social changes in a situation where large numbers of women suffer from poverty and marked dependency on males.

The present work would not have been possible without the assistance and extensive co-operation from several individuals and institutions. I want to thank the Norwegian Research Council (NFR) for generous grants during two and a half years, which allowed me to spend half a year in Madras as well as to prepare fieldwork in Norway and to do the subsequent writing-up. I also want to thank the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund for a grant which gave me the opportunity to revise the thesis for publication, and which enabled me to make an extra trip to Madras in 1994.

I am extremely grateful to all informants and friends in Madras, in both the PI and the JACW as well as others, who received me so well and generously gave me their time. They patiently answered all my questions, some of which must have sounded strange and irrelevant to them. I cannot name everyone I am indebted to, but I want to thank Ms Nel Renooy, Dr Padmini Swaminathan, Ms V. Geetha, Dr P. Jagadeesan, Dr Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan, Ms Kalavathi (Karl), Dr Shankuntala Balaraman and Dr V. Padma (Mangai) in particular, for showing so much interest in this work and kindly assisting me in practical and scientific matters. Padmini Swaminathan andV. Geethas help in the initial period in Madras proved crucial for my quickly becoming familiar with the womens public sphere in the city. Mangai did a solid job in supervising the translation of the PIs publications. Nel Renooy taught me much about setting up a household the Indian way. Thanks go also to Gita and Helmut Wolf for their kind hospitality.

My supervisor Dr Pamela G. Price at the University of Oslo deserves special thanks. Pamela has throughout this period constantly given me her encouragement and support. She has patiently read through all my drafts of various quality, and always been willing to share with me her knowledge of Indian culture. I feel privileged indeed to have benefited from her kind assistance.

Finally, I must thank my family for their support. I am grateful to Audun for his never-ceasing optimistic attitude to my work, even at times when I myself did not believe I would ever pull through. It was a great inspiration to have him and our daughter Ingvild one year old at the time around in India, and of course an experience for all three of us to live in Madras.

Eldrid Mageli

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ADMK	The Annadurai DMK, political party formed by MGR in 1972. Its full name is AIADMK (All-India Anna DMK), but ADMK is generally used.
BAI	Builders Association of India
CCRD	Centre for Counselling, Research and Development, initiated by the JACW
CHAD	Community, Health and Development
CODIAC	Community Development and Action Service
DMK	The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Tamil cultural nationalist party, which captured state power in Tamil Nadu in 1967
DWA	The Democratic Womens Association, affiliated to the Communist Party of India
JACW	The Joint Action Council for Women
MATCH	Canadian funding agency
MGR	M.G. Ramachandran, Tamil Nadus chief minister from 1977 to 1987
MIDS	Madras Institute of Development Studies
NORAD	Norwegian Agency for Aid and Development
NTR	N. T. Rama Rao, chief minister in Andhra Pradesh from 1983 to 1989 and again from 1994 to his death in 1996

Next page

1234567...42

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups»

Look at similar books to Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Mary Spongberg

Writing Womens History Since the Renaissance

Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt

Political Ideas of Enlightenment Women: Virtue and Citizenship

Jennifer Redmond

Irish Women in the First World War Era: Irish Womens Lives, 1914-18

Bonnie J. Morris

Womens History For Beginners

Ellen Warne

Agitate, Educate, Organise, Legislate: Protestant Womens Social Action in Post-Suffrage Australia

Ömer Çaha

Women and Civil Society in Turkey: Womens Movements in a Muslim Society

Sandra Reineke

Beauvoir and Her Sisters: The Politics of Womens Bodies in France

Carole Ammann

Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea: Silent Politics

Sarah Childs

New Labours Women MPs: Women Representing Women

Alexis Leanna Henshaw

Why Women Rebel: Understanding Womens Participation in Armed Rebel Groups

Pamela M. Paxton

Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective

Isabelle Baudino

The Invisible Woman: Aspects of Womens Work in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Discussion, reviews of the book Organising Womens Protest: A Study of Political Styles in Two South Indian Activist Groups and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.