Navigating India

Women’s citizenship in India is a deeply contested subject. Even in the decades preceding independence, a generation of women leaders in India was closely engaging with the Indian state and society, negotiating ideas of citizenship and gender justice across various public spheres. These women leaders did not all share the same views. They were often in deep contention with one another over issues like women’s health, reservation, the rescue and repatriation of abducted women, social service and family planning. South African Historian Annie Devenish closely examines these complex debates by studying the ideas and activism of leading figures within the All India Women’s Conference and the National Federation of Indian Women, and in India’s Constituent Assembly. Dive into this conversation to know more.References: Debating Women’s Citizenship in India, 1930–1960 by Annie DevenishA Passage to India by E.M. ForsterThe Raj Quartet (four-volume novel sequence) by Paul Scott: The Jewel in the Crown, The Day of the Scorpion, The Towers of Silence, A Division of the SpoilsThe God of Small Things by Arundhati RoySEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) and Ela BhattSarojini Varadappan, Sarla Sharma, Vidya MunshiFounding Mothers of the Indian Republic: Gender Politics of the Framing of the Constitution by Achyut ChetanThe Women’s Library at London School of Economics and Political ScienceHilda Seligman, Lady Dhanvanthi Rama Rau, Mridula Sarabhai, Muthulakshmi ReddiKerala Story by Sudipto Sen

Fifty years on, the story of the Emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi (1975–77) has been told and retold, in popular histories, academic studies, memoirs. But one story has remained almost entirely untold: the resistance mounted from abroad by a small, largely unknown group of Indian diaspora who had no political affiliation or ties to any ideological formation. Organizing themselves as ‘Indians for Democracy’, individuals like Anand Kumar, Ravi Chopra, S.R. Hiremath, Shrikumar Poddar, along with Americans like Mavis Sigwalt, Paula Bronstein, Horace Alexander, and George Willoughby, worked to build international pressure against the Emergency from outside India. In this episode, we are joined by Sugata Srinivasaraju, author of ‘The Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship’, who brings this forgotten chapter of history to light, the story of fascinating individuals who fought for Indian democracy from thousands of miles away.References: Sugata Srinivasaraju: Blogspot, X, InstagramThe Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship by Sugata SrinivasarajuOther works by Sugata Srinivasaraju: Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of H.D. Deve Gowda, Strange Burdens: The Politics and Predicaments of Rahul Gandhi, Pickles from Home: The Worlds of a Bilingual, Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The Anxieties of a Local Culture, Phoenix and Four Other Mime PlaysPenguin Book of Socialist Verse by Alan Bold (Editor) Ki. Ram. Nagaraj, Chandrashekhar Patil, G. S. Shivarudrappa, PrasannaThe Life and Times of George Fernandes by Rahul Ramagundam (Episode 5)Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka by Srikar Raghavan (Episode 10)India after Gandhi by Ramachandra GuhaSamuel Beckett and Marcel MarceauSmall Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered by E F SchumacherJayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Narendra Deva, George Fernandes, Prakash Karat, Ramnath Goenka, Triloki Nath Kaul, Fazlur Rahman Khan, Ram Jethmalani, Subramanian Swamy, YB Chavan, Khushwant SinghLuce-Celler Act, signed by President Harry S. Truman in July 1946Ashis Nandy, Indian political psychologistMary McGrory, Homer Jack, Bayard Rustin, Horace Alexander

Daisy Rockwell is an author, translator, and painter based in the United States, who translates from Hindi and Urdu into English, and has brought some of the most significant voices of South Asian literature to readers across the world. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022, the first Hindi-language novel to receive that distinction.In this episode, I am in conversation with Daisy to talk about her journey into Hindi and Urdu, the craft of literary translation, her first encounter with India, what artificial intelligence means for the future of the craft of translation, and much more. Dive into the episode to find out.References: Daisy Rockwell: Website, InstagramAlice Sees Ghosts: A Novel by Daisy Rockwell Works translated by Daisy Rockwell: Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, Falling Walls by Upendranath Ashk, The Women’s Courtyard by Mastur Khadija, Tamas by Bhisham SahniYashpal: This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach, Dada ComradeSpeaking of Siva by A.K. RamanujanLessons learned: Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, in memoriam

In the long history of post-Independence India, the woman voter was invisible, rarely spoken about, and almost never listened to. But today, something has changed. Women are voting in greater numbers than ever before, making independent choices and holding politicians accountable. Journalist Ruhi Tewari draws on two decades of travelling across various states in India, covering elections, to trace the emergence of this 'Mahila voter'. She explores how women vote, and why. Tune in to the episode to find out more.References: Ruhi Tewari: Instagram, X, LinkedInBook: What Women Want: Understanding The Female Voter in Modern India by Ruhi Tewari

What does it mean to recover the life of a woman who called herself a ‘humble housewife tied to mundane work’? In this episode, I am in conversation with Kalpana Karunakaran to discuss her book, ‘A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras’, a remarkable excavation of the life of Pankajam, a woman who defies easy categorisation.Pankajam was a voracious reader who sought freedom from a fractured relationship with her husband. Her memories are vivid and layered, marked by a deep love for children, a spirit of travel, friendships forged across distances, and an attentiveness to nature, birds, and animals. Through it all, she reinvented motherhood entirely on her own terms. We explore why it matters to study a woman like Pankajam, someone who does not fit neatly into the conventional subject of feminist discourse and what her life reveals about resistance, memory, and selfhood. We also talk with Kalpana about her own mother, Mythily Sivaraman, a well-known Indian women’s rights activist. References: Kalpana Karunakaran: Profile, InstagramBook: A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras by Kalpana KarunakaranTamil Nadu Science Forum Mythily Sivaraman, Fragments of a Life: A Family Archive by Mythily Sivaraman (Life story of Subbalakshmi) Indian Association of Women’s Studies, Vina Mazumdar Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Katha Prize StoriesWomen’s India Association, All India Women’s ConferenceSarda Act: Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929Katherine Mayo and her book, Mother India (1927)Mary Rajamani, Valentina Tereshkova