Rich in detail, this book tells the stories of women of Shiv Sena (Shivaji's Army), a militant political party in Western India. It provides insight into the political networks powered by lower-level women politicians in postcolonial, globalizing cities and on their margins. Based on more than ten years of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with the women of Shiv Sena, the work shows how women political activists in urbanizing India conjure political authority through the inventive, dangerous, and transgressive political personas known as "dashing ladies." Tarini Bedi develops a feminist theory of brokerage politics, arguing that political grids where women employ political, symbolic, and material resources through the political system may be seen as channels of what can be termed "political matronage."

This remarkable book, based on Atreyee Sen's immersion into the low-income, working-class slums of Bombay, tells the story of the women and children of the Shiv Sena, one of the most radical and violent of the Hindu nationalist parties that dominated Indian politics throughout the 1990s and into the present. The Sena women's front has been instrumental in creating and sustaining communal violence, directed primarily against their Muslim neighbours. The author presents the Sena women's own rationale for organising themselves along paramilitary lines, as poor women and children have used violence and 'gang-ism' to create a distinctive social identity, networks of material support, and protection from male violence in the explosive environment of the slums.

This collection intervenes in key areas of feminist scholarship and activism in contemporary South Asia, particularly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, while asking how this investigation might enrich feminist theorizing and practice globally.

Dynastic politics, usually presumed to be the antithesis of democracy, is a routine aspect of politics in many modern democracies. This book introduces a new theoretical perspective on dynasticism in democracies, using original data on twenty-first-century Indian parliaments. It argues that the roots of dynastic politics lie at least in part in modern democratic institutions - states and parties - which give political families a leg-up in the electoral process. It also proposes a rethinking of the view that dynastic politics is a violation of democracy, showing that it can also reinforce some aspects of democracy while violating others. Finally, this book suggests that both reinforcement and violation are the products, not of some property intrinsic to political dynasties, but of the institutional environment from which those dynasties emerge.

Looks at the ideals of masculine Hinduism—and the corresponding feminine ideals—that have built the Indian nation, and explores their consequences.

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.

With reference to India; contributed articles.

Such a Long Journey is set in (what was then) Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, and his family. It was the brilliant first novel by one of the most remarkable writers to have emerged from the Indian literary tradition in many years. It was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, and won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Vaibhav Purandare grew up in Mumbai in the 1980s and 90s, the tumultuous decades in which Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena went from being regional political players to champions of a militant Hindutva that carried their rhetoric and rage across India. He began his journalistic career with the political newsmagazine Blitz in 1993, in the early part of which Thackeray and his organisation played a key role in the Mumbai riots, and has since worked with India’s leading newspapers such as The Indian Express, The Asian Age, Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Mid Day and Mumbai Mirror, apart from writing for a host of other publications. His first book, The Sena Story was published in 1999, when he was only 23. His second book, Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography (Roli Books) and is now into its fifth edition. He is currently Senior Associate Editor with the Hindustan Times, Mumbai.

Hindu nationalism has been responsible for acts of extreme violence against religious minorities and is a dominant force on the sociopolitical landscape of contemporary India. How does such a violent and exclusionary movement recruit supporters? How do members navigate the tensions between the normative prescriptions of such movements and competing ideologies? To understand the expansionary power of Hindu nationalism, Kalyani Menon argues, it is critical to examine the everyday constructions of politics and ideology through which activists garner support at the grassroots level. Based on fieldwork with women in several Hindu nationalist organizations, Menon explores how these activists use gendered constructions of religion, history, national insecurity, and social responsibility to recruit individuals from a variety of backgrounds. As Hindu nationalism extends its reach to appeal to increasingly diverse groups, she explains, it is forced to acknowledge a multiplicity of positions within the movement. She argues that Hindu nationalism's willingness to accommodate dissonance is central to understanding the popularity of the movement. Everyday Nationalism contends that the Hindu nationalist movement's power to attract and maintain constituencies with incongruous beliefs and practices is key to its growth. The book reveals that the movement's success is facilitated by its ability to become meaningful in people's daily lives, resonating with their constructions of the past, appealing to their fears in the present, presenting itself as the protector of the country's citizens, and inventing traditions through the use of Hindu texts, symbols, and rituals to unite people in a sense of belonging to a nation.