Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment? [Paperback]

This book presents an overview of the varied experiences and representations of motherhood in India from ancient to modern times. The thrust of the arguments made by the various contributors is that the centrality of motherhood as an ideology in a womans life is manufactured. This is demonstrated by analysing various institutional structures of soPreface by Veena Poonacha Introduction by Maithreyi Krishnaraj 1.Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering: A Multi-Dimensional Perspective by Maithreyi Krishnaraj 2. Motherhood in Ancient India by Sukumari Bhattacharji 3. In Search of the Great Indian Goddess: Motherhood Unbound by Kamala Ganesh 4. In the Idiom of Loss: Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials ? Mahabharata and Ramayana by Prabha Krishnan 5. Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal by Jasodhara Bagchi 6. Mother, Mother-Community and Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu by C.S. Lakshmi 7. The Mother in Sane Guruji?s Shyamchi Ai by Shanta Gokhale 8. Rites de Passage of Matrescence and Social Construction of Motherhood by Veena Poonacha 9. Motherhood: Different Voices by Divya Pandey 10. Images of Motherhood: The Hindu Code Bill Discourse by Chitra Sinha Note on the Editor Notes on Contributors IndexThis book presents an overview of the experiences and representations of motherhood in India from ancient to modern times. The argument is that the centrality of motherhood as an ideology in a woman?s life is manufactured. It analyses different structures of society ? language, religion, law.

Maithreyi Krishnaraj was formerly Director, Research Centre for Women?s Studies, SNDT Women?s University, Mumbai. With her background in three disciplines ? economics, sociology and education ? she did interdisciplinary work in women's studies and is considered a pioneer in developing the subject. She has published widely in national and international journals and taught as Senior PrlB