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2. For a more detailed description of these policies in comparison with other “affirmative action policies”, see Jenkins, Laura D., “Preferential Policies for Disadvantaged Ethnic Groups: Employment and Education”, in Young, Crawford (ed.), Ethnic Diversity and Public Policy: A Comparative Inquiry (London, 1998).Google Scholar

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7. Omvedt, Gail, Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India (Armonk and London, 1993)Google Scholar . See also Escobar, Arturo and Alvarez, Sonia E. (eds), The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy and Democracy (Boulder, CO, 1992)Google Scholar and Stepan, Alfred (ed.), Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York, 1989.)Google Scholar

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20. Ibid., p. 206. On the relationship between the nationalist and women's movements in India, see also Nair, Women and Law in Colonial India, and Partha Chatterjee, “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question” in Sangari, Kumkum and Vaid, Sudesh (eds), Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History (New Brunswick, NJ, 1989), pp. 233–253.Google Scholar

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23. , Pearson, “Reserved Seats — Women and the Vote” p. 210.Google Scholar

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26. Anglo-Indians also got a few nominated seats.

27. The Indian Constitution (1950) granted adult suffrage, so women were included in the electorate. Prior to this, the British Southborough Committee had left the issue of women's suffrage up to the provincial legislatures, after which “each of the Indian provincial legislatures voted to make it possible within a short span of time for women to be represented at par with men” writes Kishwar, Madhu, “Women and Politics: Beyond Quotas” Economic and Political Weekly, 26 (1996), pp. 2867–2874.Google Scholar

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29. Bumiller, Elisabeth, May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India (New York, 1990), p. 126Google Scholar . Another example of the rising UN interest in women's rights during the seventies is the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

30. , Bumiller, May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons, pp. 125–127.Google Scholar

31. Government of India, Towards Equality, p. 301.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., p. 355.

33. Ibid., p. 304. Examples in this report of the arguments for legislative reservations include the need for political empowerment of women to precede socio-economic empowerment in the Indian context, the need to compel political panies to shift strategies in candidate selection, and the value of “a body of spokesmen of the women's cause” in legislatures. See pp. 302-303.

34. Ibid., p. 304.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid., p. 354. This quotation is from Phulrenu Guha's “Political Status: Note of Dissent“.

37. Ibid., p. 357. This quotation is from Lotika Sarkar and Vina Mazumdar's “Political Status: Note of Dissent“.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid., p. 3.

40. , Kumar, “From Chipko to Sati” p. 63.Google Scholar

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42. Author's interview with Margaret Alva, former government minister, 19 December 1996, New Delhi. Alva was appointed to the upper house of Parliament by Indira Gandhi in 1974. She later was appointed by Rajiv Gandhi as head of the women's department within the Ministry of Human Resource Development. She has also served as Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Sports and Women.

43. Author's interview with Margaret Alva, 19 December 1996, New Delhi.

44. Author's interview with Brinda Karat, women's movement leader (AIDWA), CPM (Communist Party-Marxist) political activist, 10 December 1996, New Delhi.

45. The Constitution (Eighty-First Amendment) Bill, 1996. See debates in the Lok Sabha of 13 September 1996, when MP Madhukar Sarpotdar argued as follows: “Would the skies have fallen on the nation if it [the Eighty-First Amendment Bill] had been kept pending or had been referred to a Select or Standing Committee and then, once and for all, a comprehensive Bill in this regard was brought forward? […] It should have been brought after involving every section and after proper deliberations. Today the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes have been involved but what about the people from the Other Backward Classes who have not been included in this bill?“

46. Congress MP and former government minister Margaret Alva, quoted in Nath, Meenakshi, ”Cutting Across Party Lines: Women Members of Parliament Explain Their Stand on Reservation Quotas” Manushi, 96 (1996), p. 11.Google Scholar

47. Author's interview with Brinda Karat, 10 December 1996, New Delhi.

48. Dunn, Dana, “Gender Inequality in Education and Employment in the Scheduled Castes and Tribes of India” Population Research and Policy Review, 12 (1993), pp. 53–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Likewise, in spite of policies aimed at the socioeconomic uplift of the scheduled castes and tribes, the women within these groups remain “doubly disadvantaged“: “The multiplicity of social categories in India often serves to obscure the status of women in the most disadvantaged segments of the population” (p. 66).

49. Author's interview with Vimla Farooqui of the National Forum for Indian Women (NFIW), Delhi, 2 December 1996.

50. Author's interview with Brinda Karat, 10 December 1996, New Delhi.

51. Ibid.

52. Wright, Theodore P., “A New Demand for Muslim Reservations in India” Asian Survey, 37 (1997), pp. 852–858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Author's interview with Jotsna Chatterjee, women's movement leader and YWCA activist, New Delhi, 22 November 1996, New Delhi.

54. Author's interview with Margaret Alva, 19 December 1996, New Delhi.

55. Author's interview with activists, Miss Gangoli of the YWCA in Delhi, 3 December 1996, and Jotsna Chatterjee, 22 November 1996.

56. Gandhi, Maneka, “And the One Who Differs […] Maneka Gandhi on the Women's Reservation Bill” Manushi, 96 (1996), p. 18.Google Scholar

57. BJP MP Uma Bharati, quoted in Nath, Meenakshi, “Cutting Across Party Lines: Women Members of Parliament Explain Their Stand on Reservation Quotas” Manushi, 96 (1996), p. 11.Google Scholar

58. Author's interview with Vimla Farooqui, Delhi, 2 December 1996.

59. Author's interview with former prime minister of India, V.P. Singh, New Delhi, 20 November 1996.

60. Dunn, Dana, “Gender Inequality in Education and Employment of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of India” Population Research and Policy Review, 12 (1993), pp. 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London, 1991).Google Scholar

62. Author's interview with Ram Vilas Paswan, General Secretary of the SC/ST MPs Forum, Minister of Railways, MP from Bihar, Hindu dalit Leader, Delhi, 20 December 1996.

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