Revised version of papers presented at the two-day Workshop on Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia, held a Dhaka in December 2002

The military rule of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan, had significant political repercussions for the country. Islamization policies were far more pronounced and control over women became the key marker of the state's adherence to religious norms. Women's rights activists mobilized as a result, campaigning to reverse oppressive policies and redefine the relationship between state, society and Islam. Their calls for a liberal democracy led them to be targeted and suppressed. This book is a history of the modern women's movement in Pakistan. The research is based on documents from the Women's Action Forum archives, court judgments on relevant cases, as well as interviews with activists, lawyers and judges and analysis of newspapers and magazines. Ayesha Khan argues that the demand for a secular state and resistance to Islamization should not be misunderstood as Pakistani women sympathizing with a western agenda. Rather, their work is a crucial contribution to the evolution of the Pakistani state. The book outlines the discriminatory laws and policies that triggered domestic and international outcry, landmark cases of sexual violence that rallied women activists together and the important breakthroughs that enhanced women's rights. At a time when the women's movement in Pakistan is in danger of shrinking, this book highlights its historic significance and its continued relevance today.

This book locates spatial dimensions possible for a global identity, while incorporating the presence of collaborative and contentious religious, psycho-social and physical borders. It highlights the significance of space in the construction of racial, gender, religious, cultural idiosyncrasies where private and public space projects the power mechanisms which allocate borders. The literary narratives discussed in this collection project a trajectory of voices of the East and West, male and female, crossing boundaries between identity, race, gender and class. The book proffers that spatial borders are social constructs to propagate the power mechanisms of hierarchical structures, defying imbrications, explored here, which may be used to reflect diversity as a model for global space. These explorations are journeys back and forth in time and space towards hierarchies formed through the imposition of borders defining race, gender and power which may be considered ‘post’ in the postmodern, postcolonial, post 9/11, post-secular and postfeminist senses.

The Nordic countries have long been seen as pioneers in promoting gender equality. This book brings together scholars from the global South and post-socialist economies to explore, from a comparative perspective, the vision, values, policies, mechanisms and political processes that help to explain Nordic achievements on gender equality.

Are secular aims, politics, and sensibilities impossible, undesirable and impracticable for Muslims and Islamic states? Should Muslim women be exempted from feminist attempts at liberation from patriarchy and its various expressions under Islamic laws and customs? Considerable literature on the entanglements of Islam and secularism has been produced in the post-9/11 decade and a large proportion of it deals with the Woman Question. Many commentators critique the secular and Western feminism, and the racialising backlash that accompanied the occupation of Muslim countries during the War on Terror military campaign launched by the U.S. government after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Implicit in many of these critical works is the suggestion that it is Western secular feminism that is the motivating driver and permanent collaborator -- along with other feminists, secularists and human rights activists in Muslim countries -- that sustains the Wests actual and metaphorical war on Islam and Muslims. The book addresses this post-9/11 critical trope and its implications for womens movements in Muslim contexts. The relevance of secular feminist activism is illustrated with reference to some of the nation-wide, working-class womens movements that have surged throughout Pakistan under religious militancy: polio vaccinators, health workers, politicians, peasants and artists have been directly targeted, even assassinated, for their service and commitment to liberal ideals. Afiya Zia contends that Muslim womens piety is no threat against the dominant political patriarchy, but their secular autonomy promises transformative changes for the population at large, and thereby effectively challenges Muslim male dominance. This book is essential reading for those interested in understanding the limits of Muslim womens piety and the potential in their pursuit for secular autonomy and liberal freedoms.

Shedding new light on an important part of India's history, Lambert-Hurley skillfully examines the emergence of a Muslim women's movement in India.