Manipur has a rich tradition of folk and oral narratives, as well as written texts dating from as early as in 8th Century AD. It was however only in the second half of the twentieth century that women began writing and publishing their works.  Today, women’s writing forms a vibrant part of Manipuri literature, and their voices are amplified through their coming together as an all-woman literary group. Put together in discussions and workshops by Thingnam Anjulika Samom, Crafting the Word captures a region steeped in conservative patriarchy and at the centre of an armed conflict. It is also a place, however, where women’s activism has been at the forefront of peace-making and where their contributions in informal commerce and trade hold together the economy of daily life.

Contributors: Arambam Ongbi Memchoubi, Aruna Nahakpam, Ayung Tampakleima Raikhan, Bimabati Thiyam Ongbi, Binodini, Chongtham (o) Subadani, Chongtham Jamini Devi, Guru Aribam Ghanapriya Devi, Haobam Satyabati Khundrakpam ongbi, Haobijam Prema Chanu, Koijam Santibala, Kshetrimayum Subadani, Kundo Yumnam, Lairenlakpam Ibemhal, Moirangthem Borkanya, Mufidun Nesha, Natalie Nk, Nee Devi, Nepram Maya Devi, Ningombam Sunita, Ningombam Surma, RK Sanahanbi (Likkhombi) Chanu, Sanatombi Ningombam, Sanjembam Bhanumati Devi, Satyabati Ningombam, Tonjam Sarojini Chanu, Yuimi Vashum

Translators: Akoijam Sunita, Bobo Khuraijam, Kundo Yumnam, L. Somi Roy, Natasha Elangbam, Paonam Thoibi, Sapam Sweetie, Shreema Ningombam, Soibam Haripriya, Sonia Wahengbam, Thingnam Anjulika Samom

THINGNAM ANJULIKA SAMOM is an independent journalist, writer and translator based in Imphal, Manipur. Her journalistic writing focusing on gender, con ict and developmental issues in Manipur has been published in many online and print publications in India as well as outside the country. She is the recipient of the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity 2010–11 (Eastern Region). She also translates literary works from Manipuri to English and was given the Katha Award for Translation in 2004. A few of her poems are part of the anthology Centrepiece (2017) published by Zubaan.

A grandmother’s tattoos, the advent of Christianity, stories woven into fabrics, a tradition of orality, the imposition of a ‘new’ language, a history of war and conflict: all this and much more informs the writers and artists in this book. Filmmaker and writer Anungla Zoe Longkumer brings together here, for the first time, a remarkable set of stories, poems, first-person narratives and visuals that reflect the many facets of women’s writing in Nagaland.

Written in English, a language the Nagas — who had no tradition of written literature — made their own after the Church came to Nagaland, each piece speaks of women’s many journeys to reclaim their pasts and understand their complex present.

Contributors: Abokali Jimomi, Ahikali Swu, Aniho Chishi, Anungla Zoe Longkumer, Avinuo Kire, Beni Sumer Yanthan, Dzuvinguno Dorothy Chasie, Easterine Kire, Em Em El, Emisenla Jamir, Eyingbeni Humtsoe-Nienu, Hekali Zhimomi, Iris Yingzen, Jungmayangla Longkumer, Kutoli N, Licca Kiho, Limatola Longkumer, Manenjungla Aier, Marianne Murry, Moaso Aier, Narola Changkija, Neikehienuo Mepfhüo, Nini Lungalang, Phejin Konyak, rōzumarī saṃsāra, Sirawon Tulisen Khathing, Metongla Aier, Talilula, Temsula Ao, Thejakhrienuo Yhome, Theyie Keditsu, Vishü Rita Krocha.

ANUNGLA ZOE LONGKUMER can best be described as a free individual discovering her way through creative pursuits in music, writing, filmmaking, and folk traditions. Having travelled and lived outside Nagaland during most of her life, she is currently based in Dimapur, Nagaland, where she freelances doing some content editing, music and filmmaking. She is the author of Folklore of Eastern Nagaland (2017), that comprises translations of folktales, folk songs and real-life accounts, collected from the six tribes who inhabit the more remote districts of Eastern Nagaland.

This book examines the structures of governance as they impact women in five conflict zones in South Asia: Swat in Pakistan, the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, the Northern Province in Sri Lanka, and Kashmir and Manipur in India.

Despite their different historical and political contexts, the five studies included here throw up some common patterns. War and conflict have weakened and eroded existing formal structures and institutions of governance. New formations, whether made up of militant groups, or more ‘secular’ state institutions like armies, do not see women as rights-bearing actors. Further, the authors argue, the impact of war, conflict, settlerism and militancy can make state structures more distant and sometimes incomprehensible to citizens, leaving women’s specific gender concerns unaddressed.

Taken together, the essays show that women’s relationship with governance institutions is complex, and combines dependence on such institutions with the challenge of dealing with new forms of patriarchy that take root as structures transform and change. The gendering of governance policy and practice therefore, is of crucial importance.

CONTRIBUTORS: Amena Mohsin | Delwar Hossain | Nazish Brohi Saba Gul Khattak | Malathi De Alwis | Udhayani Navaratnam | Nima Lamu Yolmo | Shaheena Parveen | Ayesha Parvez | Seema Kazi

The Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia research project (coordinated by Zubaan and supported by the International Development Research Centre) brings together, for the first time in the region, a vast body of knowledge on this important – yet silenced – subject. Six country volumes (one each on Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and two on India) comprising over fifty research papers and two book-length studies detail the histories of sexual violence and look at the systemic, institutional, societal, individual and community structures that work together to perpetuate impunity for perpetrators.

Disputed Legacies focuses on Pakistan, examining law, pedagogy, medical practice and the situations that arise when ‘secular’ law comes into conflict with traditional practice and belief. The contributors to this volume trace the often-troubled interaction between the state and its women citizens and examine the structures and social systems that enable impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence to gain strength.

CONTRIBUTORS: Sahar Zareen Bandial | Nazish Brohi | Iftikhar Firdous | Huma Qurban Fouladi | Neelam Hussain | Hooria Hayat Khan | Zainab Zeeshan Malik | Noreen Naseer | Zahaid Rehman | Fahmida Riaz | Rubina Saigol | Zahra Shah | Sarah Zaman | Afiya Shehrbano Zia | Maliha Zia

This book brings you a wealth of stories, in words and images, from a part of India known as the Northeast, a term that is widely contested for the ways in which it homogenizes a region of great diversity. It is also a term that has come to be a marker of identity and solidarity by many who are of the region. Here, 21 writers and artists look at the idea of ‘work’ — from street hawking to beer brewing, from mothering to dung collection — and describe their lives or those of others with humour and compassion. Parismita Singh’s wonderful compilation of the works of women asks: what are the different ways of telling a story? What if we were to attempt these tellings through poetry and portraits and essays, older traditions like textile art and applique and new genres like hashtag poetry tapped into a smartphone? Where would it take us, what would the world look like?

Contributors: Zubeni Lotha | Minam Apang | Alyen Leeachum Foning | Aheli Moitra | Soibam Haripriya | Gertrude Lamare | Rini Barman | Nitoo Das | Thingnam Anjulika Samom | Parismita Singh | Dolly Kikon | Ayangbe Mannen | Aungmakhai Chak | Jacqueline Zote | Meena Laishram | Prashansa Gurung | Shreya Debi and Bilseng R Marak | Mona Zote | Nabina Das | Mamang Dai | Sanatombi Ningombam | Kundo Yumnam

In 2008, when the Azad Foundation, an NGO based in Delhi, began training poor women to become drivers of commercial and private vehicles, most people thought they were somewhat out of touch with reality. Poor, illiterate  women, many of them from violent homes, some of them single mothers,  others from families and communities which had never allowed women to  step out of the home – how could these women take the wheel, drive around  in unsafe cities, be confident and competent, earn money? At the time, there  was only one known woman auto driver in Delhi. When Azad turned to radio  cab companies to suggest they take in women drivers, there wasn’t much  interest. Today, more than 300 women drivers have received training from  Azad and are on the roads of several cities. Nine years after radio companies  turned Azad away, special services or women with women drivers are being  introduced within these same companies. In 2015, the Delhi Transport  Corporation got its first woman driver, and in 2016, the Delhi Commission  for Women recruited 25 women drivers to be part of their women’s helpline.  Clearly, things are changing.

Lady Driver maps the journeys of twelve women from poor, marginalized  communities who have transformed their lives by taking up the challenge  of becoming women drivers. Each story is unique; there’s no Cinderella effect  here. Reality does not change overnight. Instead, as the women featured  here painstakingly claim a relationship with the road, it translates into claims  for identity, for dignity, for a livelihood. Their stories are about beginnings, but have no endings – there is still quite a way to drive.

Feminist Subversion and Complicity interrogates a specific form of feminist practice, that which has involved engaging with state and international institutions to insert gender knowledge in their development interventions. Bringing together contributions from eight feminists located in very different kinds of institutions and spaces from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India, this book is the outcome of a deeply reflexive process to produce a critique from within of this present day feminist practice. An array of experiences and encounters are scrutinised from bringing feminist perspectives to governmental projects on education, health, and legal reform to transformations in the discourses and practices of women’s movements and feminisms as they encountered developmentalisms. The writers show that feminist politics is not merely assimilated in governmental projects but that it interrupts these projects even as it is assimilated; a feminist politics in which complicity is often a subversive activity, is destabilizing and contesting of meaning.

The Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia research project (coordinated by Zubaan and supported by the International Development Research Centre) brings together, for the first time in the region, a vast body of knowledge on this important – yet silenced – subject. Six country volumes (one each on Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and two on India) comprising over fifty research papers and two book-length studies detail the histories of sexual violence and look at the systemic, institutional, societal, individual and community structures that work together to perpetuate impunity for perpetrators.

This volume, the second on India, addresses the question of state impunity, suggesting that on the issue of the violation of human and civil rights, and particularly in relation to the question of sexual violence, the state has been an active and collusive partner in creating states of exception, where its own laws can be suspended and the rights of its citizens violated. Drawing on patterns of sexual violence in Kashmir, the Northeast of India, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Rajasthan, the essays together focus on the long histories of militarization and regions of conflict, as well as the ‘normalized’ histories of caste violence which are rendered invisible because it is convenient to pretend they do not exist. Even as the writers note how heavily the odds are stacked against the victims and survivors of sexual violence, they turn their attention to recent histories of popular protest that have enabled speech. They stress that while this is both crucial and important, it is also necessary to note the absence of sufficient attention to the range of locations where sexual violence is endemic and often ignored. Resistance, speech, the breaking of silence, the surfacing of memory: these, as the writers powerfully argue, are the new weapons in the fight to destroy impunity and hold accountable the perpetrators of sexual violence.

Water management is not an engineering matter alone, it involves ecological, socio- political, administrative and legal concerns. Gender is a key factor but has been neglected both conventionally and in recent water reform policies and structures. Yet, a cross-section of South Asian women have challenged socio-cultural norms and crossed personal and professional boundaries to make a profound impact on water and sanitation management. Their inspiring stories have scarcely been documented. This book is the first to profile women from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka ? women at the grassroots or with NGOs, women activists, journalists, administrators, scientists, academics, action-researchers – who have faced challenges related to water with courage and determination. Complementing the 32 women?s voices is data compiled from an analysis of the situation of women water professionals in the region. Written in an engaging manner, this book will be of interest both to the general reader and to academics and practitioners in water management and gender/women’s studies.

This multi-layered and thought-provoking collection offers a new and alternative view to the cosy images of motherhood that we so often assume. Motherhood for the writers in this collection is by no means a simple state but involves searching questions about identity, writing, one’s place in society – the very nature of the self.

Questions of adoption, childlessness, surrogacy, bereavement and abuse figure alongside poems and stories that explore the tender, the funny, the uplifting aspects of this most vital relationship, between children and their mothers at any age. Contributors include: Manju Kapur, Shinie Antony, Jai Arjun Singh, Jahnavi Barua, Meena Alexander, Mridula Koshy, Kishwar Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Bulbul Sharma, Tishani Doshi, Shalini Sinha, Jahnavi Barua, Smriti Lamech, Nisha Susan, Humra Quraishi, Sarojini N., Vrinda Marwah, Sarita Mandanna, Anita Roy, and others. Published in association with Save the Children India

“It’s to novelist Jaishree Misra’s credit that she, as editor of this volume, was able to draw out so many different voices, some highly reputed, on a rarely-explored theme.” –– Smruti Koppikar, Hindustan Times

Lifelines is an enthralling collection of short stories that will take you on some unforgettable journeys —journeys that span continents and decades, transgressing social boundaries and raising ethical dilemmas along the way.

The protagonists of these tales find themselves re-drawing their own destinies as they map their lifelines in unique, often unanticipated ways. The rapidly changing realities of the 21st-century require these individuals to navigate through uncharted waters, in a world increasingly shaped by the forces of globalisation, development and migration. One where the old ways are being challenged as never before, even in the traditionalist heartlands of South Asia.

Lifelines portrays the trials and triumphs of men, women and children who find themselves facing unexpected challenges—and discover that the decisions that they take, for better or worse, have consequences they never envisaged.