Gender, Law and Social Transformation in India

This book provides deep insights into the wide-ranging issues linked to gender, law, and social transformation in India.  It focuses on women-centered laws as well as the violence of unequal and discriminatory social order. It emphasizes violence and the neutrality of laws that sustain the status quo and perpetuate the stereotypical notions related to women’s condition. Based on the first-hand experience of laws and their nuanced understanding, the essays highlight the rules associated with the private and the public domains. The chapters in the volume analyze various statutes and their enactment related to domestic violence, dowry crimes, sexual abuse at home as well as sexual harassment at the workplace, child marriages, education, property rights, trafficking, prostitution, ‘honor’ killings, and armed conflict.  The book is essential to the academics and researchers in the disciplines of social sciences, gender studies, law, and the government and policy-makers for making meaningful interventions.

Ajailiu Niumai is Professor of Sociology and Head, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion & Inclusive Policy, University of Hyderabad (UoH), Hyderabad, Telangana, India. She is also the Senior Research Associate, Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg, South Africa (2022-2025). She is Member, Board of Governors, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru (2022-2025). She is an Advisory Committee Member, Executive Council Member and Board of Studies Member in several Universities. She is Member, Managing Committee of the Indian Sociological Society. She has been the Convenor of RC-04 Migration and Diaspora Studies, ISS and she is an active Member of the International Sociological Association. Previously, she has served as Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, UoH. She holds a Ph.D from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include Gender Studies, Indian Diaspora, North East India Studies, NGOs and Development. The Collaborative Arts and Research Translation for Humane Advancement, USA, awarded her ‘First Fellow’ grant in 2006 and UGC awarded her the Raman Postdoctoral Fellowship in USA (2013-14). She has published several articles and chapters in edited books, reputed journals such as Economic & Political Weekly, Indian Journal of Gender Studies (Sage), Sociological Bulletin (Sage), The Eastern Anthropologist and the like. She is the Editorial Board Member of several prestigious journals. She is a Life Member of the Indian Sociological Society and the Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS). 

Abha Chauhan is Professor, Department of Sociology at the University of Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir (India). She is also the President of the Indian Sociological Society. She holds a Ph.D. from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests include gender, community, kinship, marriage, culture, conflict, and borderland studies. She has published/edited books and articles in reputed journals, and attended several national and international conferences, presented papers, chaired and organized sessions. She received awards under Indo-Dutch Program on Alternative Development 2005 (ICSSR–WOTRO), Indo-French Social Scientist Exchange Program 2007 (UGC), and ESRC-ICSSR India-UK Scholar Exchange 2009. She is a Life Member of the Indian Sociological Society (ISS), the Indian Association for Women's Studies (IAWS), and the Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society. She is an active member of the International Sociological Association (ISA) and has been the South Asia Representative, RC 32 ‘Women in Society’ of the ISA (2006-2010). She was the Director, Dr. Ambedkar Studies Centre, and Editor of the Jammu University Journal (2010-2013). She has been a Member of the Editorial Board of Sociological Bulletin, the Journal of the ISS (2016–2017), Managing Committee Member (2002-2007), Convenor of RC 10 ‘Gender Studies’ (2011-2014), and Secretary (2016-2017) of the Indian Sociological Society.