ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Amrita ChhachhiSubscribe to Amrita Chhachhi

Who Is Responsible for Maternity Benefit State, Capital or Husband-Bombay Assembly Debates on Maternity Benefit Bill, 1929

State, Capital or Husband?
Bombay Assembly Debates on Maternity Benefit Bill, 1929 Amrita Chhachhi The discussions on the Bombay Maternity Benefit Bill, 1929, have focused so far on the needs of capital, and left unexplored the role and needs of the colonial state as well as the reconstitution of patriarchy within the working class family and the sphere of wage-work. This paper, by focusing on Bombay legislative assembly debates over the maternity benefit bill in 1929, seeks to highlight these other untouched discourses, such as on nationalism, on ideology of protection entailed in the legal rights for women workers, on construction of working class by upper and middle class perception, and on the disciplinary aspects of legal regulation. The paper also aims to being back into contemporary discussions the central issues about who should hear the cost of reproduction - the state, capital or husband?

UCC and Women s Movement

Amrita Chhachhi, Farida Khan, Gautam Navlakha, Kumkum Sangari, Neeraj Malik, Ritu Menon, Tanika Sarkar, Uma Chakravarti, Urvashi Butalia, Zoya Hasan THE Anveshi article (Anveshi Law Committee, is Gender Justice Only a Legal Issue? Political Stakes in the UCC Debate', 8, 1997) criticises tendencies within the 'Indian women's movement' that, in its opinion, have focused very narrowly and exclusively upon legal reform. The main thrust of such reforms, moreover, is described as a monolithicising intention that would like to erase all plurality of caste and community, custom and practice in the name of abstract, universal gender justice, thus denying women as well as a range of marginalised communities the right to autonomy. The universalising tendency of this version of gender justice betrays a biological essentialism that fails to take on board other aspects of women's social existence. Such tendencies are most evident among feminists who, according to Anveshi, are termed as 'upper caste, Hindu and urban' in other words, they share some social characteristics of the hindutva politics that they otherwise criticise. However, presumably because of shared social space, they 'unwittingly' lapse into some of the language and agendas of their political adversaries: the demand for a uniform or gender just civil code would be one such instance, the campaign against obscenity would be another. As examples of such immature and politically naive feminist thinking, Anveshi has singled out Forum against Oppression of Women from Bombay and Working Group on Women's Rights from Delhi.

Structural Adjustment, Feminisation of Labour Force and Organisational Strategies

Force and Organisational Strategies Nandita Shah Sujata Gothoskar Nandita Gandhi Amrita Chhachhi The argument that SAP will lead to feminisation of labour and the availability of jobs for women needs to be examined critically in the Indian context Based on a sound grasp of the impact of SAP, organisational strategies which will strengthen women 's resources in confronting the economic pressures need to be evolved.

The State, Religious Fundamentalism and women-Trends in South Asia

The State, Religious Fundamentalism and Women Trends in South Asia Amrita Chhachhi The growth of state-sponsored religious fundamentalism is one of the crucial issues affecting women. Recent years have seen a shift away from even the liberal rhetoric of equal rights for women with the passing of laws withdrawing legal and political rights which women had already won. These trends, however, go along with government policies and programmes to integrate women into development. This apparent contradiction can be seen as two sides of the same imperative to control and direct women's labour, fertility and sexuality to suit both capitalist and patriarchal interests.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

majority of the primary commodities. Thus any built-in tendency of the multi-commodity stockpile to entail persistent transfer of real income from imposing to exporting nations may bring net loss to less developed countries as well. This would resut in the withdrawal of participation even by less developed countries, thus leading to the collapse of the system.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

Solidarity in Poland Amrita Chhachhi Ravi Arvind Palat Paul Kurien THE struggle by the working class in Poland, of which there have been three earlier manifestations (1956, 1970-71 and 1976), is located in problems which originate in the specific form in which production is organised. The control exercised by the bureaucracy over production, distribution and consumption puts fetters on rapid economic progress. It is in the context of the background of the battle at the shopfloor and factory level, between the drive to increase production and the workers' resistance to it, that one can situate the emergence of Solidarity; and the imposition of martial law represents the culmination of the experiences gained currently and over the three earlier cycles of struggle.

Movement towards Workers Democracy-Solidarity in Poland

Solidarity in Poland Amrita Chhachhi Ravi Arvind Palat Paul Kurian The struggle by the working class in Poland, of which there have been three earlier manifesto' tions (1956, 1970-71 and 1976), is located in problems which originate in the specific form in which pro- duction is organised. The control exercised by the bureaucracy over production, distribution and con- sumption puts fetters on rapid economic progress. It is in the context of the background of the battle at the shopfloor and factory level, between the drive to increase production and the workers' resistance to it, that one can situate the emergence of Solidarity;and the imposition of martial law represents the culmination of the experiences gained currently and over the three earlier cycles of struggle.

LABOUR-New Phase in Textile Unionism

Textile unionism has been, like unionism in the railways and coal mines in India, industrial unionism, characterised by long drawn out general strikes. Today, as Bombay textile workers have entered into a seemingly indefinite strike, they do so in the context of fundamental changes which have occurred in the last 20 years in the industry; changes which could transform the nature of textile unionism. From the 1918 general strike, which covered 80 mills and involved one lakh and forty thousand workers, up to the present, Bombay textile workers have launched industrial actions which have drawn together workers from the whole industry. These strikes have thrown up different forms of organisations like the Girni Kamgar Union and the mill committees; which were formed as a result of the general strikes of 1924-25 and the six-month long struggle of 1928. These represented the coalescence of two tendencies

Back to Top