Feminist Legal Activism in India

This book examines the work of feminists engaging with legislative lobbying and strategic litigation in their fight for equality and self-determination.

Across the world, feminists engage in legal activism. This book showcases the ways in which feminists in India have been particularly successful in their legal interventions such as legislative lobbying and strategic litigation.

The book looks at eight national campaigns for law reform waged by the protagonists of the Indian women’s movement between the 1970s and today, addressing sexual assault, domestic violence, and family law, among other issues. Using interviews and other primary source materials, it illustrates how women’s rights activists and feminist lawyers think about the law and how they work to make the law more gender-just. The book develops a multi-faceted approach to understanding feminist legal activism and shows how activists’ strategies, constitutional rights, the responsiveness of courts and parliaments, and socio-cultural factors impact the outcome of legal activism.