Description
Book SynopsisAnalyzes the movement for Indian independence, the framing of the Indian Constitution, and contemporary contestations over women's legal and political status as crucial moments of transition in which feminist and other progressive activists in India have challenged racialized and gendered underpinnings of democracy's social contract.
Trade Review“Christine Keating has made me think afresh about not only Locke and Hobbes but even Pateman. This rich exploration of the deals made and resisted as British colonial elites and Indian nationalists and feminists crafted the new Indian state will be valuable for anyone interested in democracy, postcolonial politics, and the gendering of both.”
—Cynthia Enloe,author of Nimo's War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War
“If you think you’ve seen every variation of social contract theory, think again. In this innovative work—which both draws upon and goes beyond Carole Pateman’s ‘sexual contract’ and my ‘racial contract’—Christine Keating shows what illuminating insights can be generated when the classic contract model is critically revised to theorize gender, caste, and religious domination in colonial and postcolonial India. The result is a book that should be of interest not just to comparativists but to all those political theorists seeking to develop a contractarianism more relevant to and useful for the world we actually live in.”
—Charles W. Mills,Northwestern University
“This is a theoretically provocative examination of Indian gender politics.”
—J. G. Everett Choice
“[Decolonizing Democracy] is a rich exploration of British colonial legacies in India. . . . Keating’s call for political action and constitutional reforms [is] certainly progressive and this book can contribute towards the rise of such movements in India. This is a recommendable book for many reasons and students of Indian history and Asian colonialism can find it an interesting piece of historical examination.”
—Vineeth Mathoor Human Rights Review
“This book is a clearly written, thought-provoking inquiry into India’s democracy. . . . Decolonizing Democracy makes one think. It offers a refreshing framework for understanding power, and it raises many questions. For anyone interested in the complex nature of India’s contemporary democracy and its swelling resistance movements, this is an important and fascinating book.”
—Rina Agarwala Comparative Politics
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Decolonizing Democracy
1 Fraternalist and Paternalist Approaches to Colonial Rule
2 Resistant Convergences: Anticolonial Feminist Nationalism
3 Framing the Postcolonial Social Contract
4 Challenging Political Marginalization: The Women’s Reservation Bill
5 Legal Pluralism and Gender Justice
Conclusion: Building a Nondomination Contract
Notes
Bibliography
Index
