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Sita's Daughters vividly recounts the dramatic changes in role and status experienced by Rajput caste women in the Indian village Khalapur between 1955 and 1975. In the 20 years between her now-classic original field study and her follow-up with the same families, Leigh Minturn witnessed a significant decline in the women's observance of a complex system of customs collectively called purdah, which includes the wearing of veils, silence in the presence of senior men and women, the adoption of subservient postures when speaking to men, and the separation of husbands and wives. Her interviews with mothers- and daughters-in-law reveal how changes in purdah customs and religious traditions have allowed them increased access to education and health facilities, control of finances, and autonomy inside and mobility outside of their husbands' households. This work is unprecedented in its depth, scope, and exposition of the intimate details of the lives of Indian women. Minturn's return to her original subjects allowed her to observe firsthand the changes that had transpired during the interim, resulting in the only Indian village field study to span two generations. Having won the trust and confidence of her subjects, the author poignantly conveys their individuality, along with their stories of heroism, loyalty, infidelity, rape, incest, theft, and even murder. With even-handedness and detailed scholarship, Minturn makes use of methods such as systematic sampling and structured interviewing that are effective in capturing the richness of Indian village life, though they are uncommon in anthropological studies. The wide range of issues addressed here will be of interest to students and researchers in women's studies, South Asian studies, anthropology, and cross-cultural psychology, as well as to interested laypersons.
Differences are gorgeously illustrated in a heartwarming picture book about a colorless peacock who learns to love himself in a jungle full of color. Mo has always felt a little different. While all the other peacocks grew bright, bold, beautiful feathers in rich greens and vibrant blues, Mo's feathers grew in a snowy white. And even though Mo's friends try to include him in their playtime, Mo doesn't like to be reminded that he's different from his friends. But when a storm threatens to ruin the group's annual celebration, Mo must learn to stand tall, strut his stuff, and shake his brilliantly glowing tail feathers--in a way only he can--to help his friends and set things right. From debut author Sita Singh, and brought to life by Stephanie Fizer Coleman, comes a story about finding strength in the things that make us different, and beauty in all its forms.
In this book, Tracy Pintchman has assembled ten leading scholars of Hinduism to explore the complex relationship between Hindu women's rituals and their lives beyond ritual. The book focuses particularly on the relationship of women's ritual practices to domesticity, exposing and exploring the nuances, complexities, and limits of this relationship. In many cultural and historical contexts, including contemporary India, women's everyday lives tend to revolve heavily around domestic and interpersonal concerns, especially care for children, the home, husbands, and other relatives. Hence, women's religiosity also tends to emphasize the domestic realm and the relationships most central to women. But women's religious concerns certainly extend beyond domesticity. Furthermore, even the domestic religious activities that Hindu women perform may not merely replicate or affirm traditionally formulated domestic ideals but may function strategically to reconfigure, reinterpret, criticize, or even reject such ideals. This volume takes a fresh look at issues of the relationship between Hindu women's ritual practices and normative domesticity. In so doing, it emphasizes female innovation and agency in constituting and transforming both ritual and the domestic realm and calls attention to the limitations of normative domesticity as a category relevant to many forms of Hindu women's religious practice.
 Sita’s journey, from the lavish kingdom of Ayodhya to the forests of Chitrakoot, continues to be a source of inspiration even today. Revisit her story from the eyes of Maharani Sunity Devi who herself, was an educationist and women rights activist and explore its contemporary significance.
As a sixteenth century Himalayan mountain girl, Tara knew a husband would be chosen for her. One day, Mughals riding sleek Arabian horses arrived seeking a woman prophesized to be one of the sultan's wives. Fear and excitement mingle in Tara's heart as she realizes she is the chosen one. Tara is taken to live in sultan Ibrahim's desert fortress. Since assuming power at eighteen, Ibrahim had established a vast empire where the arts flourished and religious tolerance meant peace. There, Tara joins Ibrahim's wives, each representing a region and religion, and quickly grows to love the exotic people and their rituals. Ibrahim is consumed by Tara's beauty and passion, and she quickly becomes his exclusive nightly companion. Tara's intelligence bonds her to Ibrahim's very first wife, Kiren. Together, Tara and Kiren serve Ibrahim, Tara as his lover and Kiren as his political advisor. As jealousy simmers among Ibrahim's wives, a southern governor, Bhaji, builds power by encouraging Hindu nationalism against Ibrahim's empire. Working against both time and karma, Tara, Kiren, and Ibrahim must devise a strategy to confront the tide of unrest. The task seems insurmountable as culture, religion, and ethnic politics collide in this riveting story of love, faith, and karmic tragedy.
The Ramayana is an epic poem by the Hindu sage Valmiki, written in ancient Sanskrit sometime after 300 BC. It is an allegorical story that contains important Hindu teachings, and it has had great influence on Indian life and culture over the centuries. Children are often encouraged to emulate the virtues of the two main characters -- Rama and Sita. The Ramayana is frequently performed as theater or dance, and two Indian festivals -- Dussehra and Divali -- celebrate events in the story. This version of The Ramayana is told from the perspective of Sita, the queen. After she, her husband Rama and his brother are exiled from their kingdom, Sita is captured by the proud and arrogant king Ravana and imprisoned in a garden across the ocean. Ravana never stops trying to convince Sita to be his wife, but she steadfastly refuses his advances. Eventually Rama comes to her rescue with the help of the monkey Hanuman and his army. But Rama feels he can't trust Sita again. He forces Sita to undergo an ordeal by fire to prove herself to be true and pure. She is shocked and in grief and anger does so. She emerges unscathed and they return home to their kingdom as king and queen. However, suspicion haunts their relationship, and Sita once more finds herself in the forest, but this time she is pregnant. She has twins and continues to live in the forest with them. The story is exciting and dramatic, with many turns of plot. Magic animals, snakes, divine gods, demons, sorcerers and a vast cast of characters all play a part in the fierce battles fought to win Sita back. And in the process the story explores ideas of right vs. wrong, compassion, loyalty, trust, honor and the terrible price of war.
Mira Levenson is bursting with excitement as she flies to India to stay with her aunt and cousin for the first time. As soon as she lands, Mira is hurled into the sweltering heat and a place full of new sights, sounds, and deeply buried family secrets. From the moment Mira meets Janu she feels an instant connection. He becomes her guide, showing her both the beauty and the chaos of Kolkata. Nothing is as she imagined it--and suddenly home feels a long way away. Before Mira leaves India she is determined to uncover the truth about her family, whatever it takes, and she must also make a decision that will break someone's heart.
According to Susan Deller Ross, many human rights advocates still do not see women's rights as human rights. Yet women in many countries suffer from laws, practices, customs, and cultural and religious norms that consign them to a deeply inferior status. Advocates might conceive of human rights as involving torture, extrajudicial killings, or cruel and degrading treatment—all clearly in violation of international human rights—and think those issues irrelevant to women. Yet is female genital mutilation, practiced on millions of young girls and even infants, not a gross violation of human rights? When a family decides to murder a daughter in the name of "honor," is that not an extrajudicial killing? When a husband rapes or savagely beats his wife, knowing the legal authorities will take no action on her behalf, is that not cruel and degrading treatment? Women's Human Rights is the first human rights casebook to focus specifically on women's human rights. Rich with interdisciplinary material, the book advances the study of the deprivation and violence women suffer due to discriminatory laws, religions, and customs that deny them their most fundamental freedoms. It also provides present and future lawyers the legal tools for change, demonstrating how human rights treaties can be used to obtain new laws and court decisions that protect women against discrimination with respect to employment, land ownership, inheritance, subordination in marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, polygamy, child marriage, and the denial of reproductive rights. Ross examines international and regional human rights treaties in depth, including treaty language and the jurisprudence and general interpretive guidelines developed by human rights bodies. By studying how international human rights law has been and can be implemented at the domestic level through local courts and legislatures, readers will understand how to call upon these newly articulated human rights to help bring about legislation, court decisions, and executive action that protect women from human rights violations.
In 35 chapters by leading scholars in language policy and planning (LPP), this Handbook critically examines current theoretical and methodological transformations taking place in LPP. Sections on LPP theory, nation-states and communities, and late modernity, plus an integrative summary, offer a state-of-the-art profile of LPP and directions for future research.