Between 1955 and 1956 the Government of India passed four Hindu Law Acts to reform and codify Hindu family law. Scholars have understood these acts as a response to growing concern about women's rights but, in a powerful re-reading of their history, this book traces the origins of the Hindu law reform project to changes in the political-economy of late colonial rule. The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India considers how questions regarding family structure, property rights and gender relations contributed to the development of representative politics, and how, in solving these questions, India's secular and state power structures were consequently drawn into a complex and unique relationship with Hindu law. In this comprehensive and illuminating resource for scholars and students, Newbigin demonstrates the significance of gender and economy to the history of twentieth-century democratic government, as it emerged in India and beyond.
- Proposes a new view of gender in late-colonial India and explains its significance to the more 'mainstream' fields of economic and political history
- Utilises original archival research to explore theoretical approaches, appealing to a broad range of scholars in the social sciences
- Proposes a new understanding of early twentieth-century Indian history by establishing firm political and economic connections between the late-colonial and post-colonial Indian states
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Product details
- Date Published: September 2013
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781107037830
- length: 277 pages
- dimensions: 235 x 156 x 20 mm
- weight: 0.53kg
- contains: 2 maps 7 tables
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Making the modern Indian family: property rights and the individual in colonial law
2. Financing a new citizenship: the Hindu family, income tax and political representation in late-colonial India
3. Wives and property or wives as property? The Hindu family and women's property rights
4. The Hindu Code Bill: creating the modern, Hindu legal subject
5. B. R. Ambedkar's Code Bill: caste, marriage and post-colonial Indian citizenship
6. Family, nation and economy: establishing a post-colonial patriarchy.
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Author
Eleanor Newbigin, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Eleanor Newbigin is Lecturer in Modern South Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London where she teaches courses on colonial and postcolonial South Asian history to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Prior to this, between 2007 and 2010, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. She has published articles in Modern Asian Studies and the Indian Economic and Social History Review.