Poster Women is an archive of over 1500 posters from the Indian Women's Movement, collected over an 18 month period from all over India. Put together by Zubaan, this unique archive demonstrates the dynamism, richness and variety of this important movement. Spanning the period from the 70s to the present day, the collection is divided into a number of key campaigns that cover areas such as violence, health, political participation, the environment, religion and communalism, literacy, rights and marginalization. Also included are posters on different themes such as the use of the goddess metaphor, or the marking of particular days that are important to the movement. The collection has been sourced from over 200 groups all over the country. A full digital record of the Poster Women collection is available on CD. In addition, the archive is physically housed at the Sound and Picture Archives for Women (SPARROW) in Mumbai. For further information about this collection, or to purchase any of its accompanying products, please contact Zubaan at either of the addresses below: [email protected]; [email protected]. SPARROW can be contacted at [email protected]

The women's movement in India has a long and rich history in which millions of women live, work, and struggle to survive in order to remake their family, home, and social lives. Using an innovative and comparative perspective, Ray offers a unique look at Indian activist women and adds a new dimension to the study of women's movements on a global level.

This collection is an invaluable overview of the rich history of Indian feminism. It brings together the writing of prominent Indian academics and activists as they debate feminism in the context of Indian culture, society and politics, and explore its theoretical foundations in India. The inevitable association with western feminism, the status of women in colonial and independent India, and the challenges to Indian feminism posed by globalization and the Hindu Right are discussed at length. It deepens our understanding of why, despite the existence of legal and constitutional rights, women are subject to oppressive practices like dowry.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (1903-1988) was a remarkable woman of many passions and gifts. She played an important role in the struggle for Indian independence and was similarly a key figure in the international socialist feminist movement. She was India’s ambassador to Asia and Africa, an articulate and unflinching exponent of the idea of decolonization, and one of the earliest advocates of the idea of the global South. A staunch champion of women’s rights, she held views on women’s equality that continue to resonate in our times. Greatly disheartened by the partition of India in 1947, Kamaladevi became involved in the resettlement of refugees and appeared to withdraw from political life. Indeed, the Kamaladevi that most Indians are familiar with is a figure who, above all, revived Indian handicrafts, became the country’s most well-known expert on carpets, puppets and its thousands of craft traditions, and nurtured the greater majority of the country’s national institutions charged with the promotion of dance, drama, art, theatre, music and puppetry. Throughout her life, however, she upheld with all the intellectual vigour and emotional force at her command the idea of the dignity of every human life. Kamaladevi wrote voluminously and her sojourns took her all over the world. She travelled in China during World War II, lectured in Japan, visited Native American pueblos in New Mexico, and forged links with working women and anti-colonial activists in countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Sadly, most of her writings have long been out of print. The editors of this comprehensive anthology, which is the first serious scholarly attempt to grapple with Kamaladevi’s life and body of work, have sought to represent the wide range of her interests. The extensive selections, comprised largely of journal articles and excerpts from Kamaladevi’s books, are accompanied by a set of original essays by contemporary Indian and American scholars which analyse and contextualize her life and work. This volume should provide the resources for further examination and appreciation of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s unusual gifts and her place in modern Indian and world history. Published by Zubaan.