Mainstream Weekly

Review of Chakravartty's Coming Out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2025-09-20T08:50:57Z

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEW[/blanc][/fond noir]
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Coming Out of Partition:
Refugee Women of Bengal
by Gargi Chakravartty
Tulika Books
2025
196 pages
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Review by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
Gargi Chakravartty chronicles the experiences of refugee women in West Bengal, post-Partition, describing travails, but even more the courage and resourcefulness with which they rebuilt lives, homes and identities. This is a significant contribution, not least because refugee women

- 2025

Vimla Bahuguna: A Legacy of Radical Dissent and Tough Action | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2025-02-22T16:11:22Z

Vimla Bahuguna (1932-2025) the educator, environmentalist, activist and leader was an extraordinary phenomenon. Gandhian, feminist and socialist, her approach of caring and non-violence combined with uncompromising opposition to social injustice as well as capitalist development. Thoughtful commitment nourished the life she had chosen. Immersed in constructive work and socio-political activism, her convictions drew her into direct confrontation with state and private agencies. Resisting (…)

- 2025

Savita and Bhim Rao Ambedkar: A Most Unusual Partnership | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2023-05-20T05:22:50Z

BOOK REVIEW:
by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
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Babasaheb: My Life with Dr Ambedkar, by Savita Ambedkar
translated from the Marathi by Nadeem Khan
Vintage, Penguin Random House India 2022, p. 337 HB. Rs 599 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670096695 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670096695
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Accepting and Treasuring One Another
Savita Ambedkar writes, of her relationship with BR Ambedkar, ‘despite our most unusual circumstances, we accepted each other and treasured each other like something precious.' (…)

- 2023 / Book Review

Maruti Suzuki Workers' Struggle: Inside Stories | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2023-04-08T03:48:27Z

BOOK REVIEW
by Deepti Mehrotra __0__
Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of the Maruti Suzuki Workers By Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar
Speaking Tiger, Harper Collins https://speakingtigerbooks.com/ 2023 / 366 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354474446 | ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354474446 __0__
Real Stories: Behind the scenes
Maruti Suzuki workers have been in the public eye, largely due to the death of a manager, on 18 July 2012. Worker-management tension seemed to snowball (…)

- 2023 / Book Review

Review: Bangalore's Street-Based Sex Workers - Experiences of Urban Transition | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2022-11-04T21:13:00Z

BOOK REVIEW
Review by Deepti Priya Mehrotra
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Urban Undesirables: City Transition and Street-Based Sex Work in Bangalore By Neethi P. and Anant Kamath
Cambridge University Press, New Delhi 2022, Pages 211, Hard Bound, Price 895.00 ISBN: 9781009180214 __0__
This book seeks to redraw the map of Bangalore, based on the experiences of street-based sex workers—so that we begin to see the city through their eyes. Their livelihoods rendered increasingly precarious due to neo-liberal (…)

- 2022 / Book Review

Reclaiming a Revolutionary: Sarala Devi Chaudhurani; Interrogating Historiography | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Deepti Priya Mehrotra — 2021-05-21T23:50:57Z

BOOK REVIEW
Geraldine Forbes—Lost Letters and Feminist History—The Political Friendship of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2020.
review by Deepti Mehrotra *
Early in 1920, 47-year-old Sarala Devi Chaudhurani and 50-year-old Mohandas K. Gandhi pledged to write each other at least one letter per day. The intensity of their correspondence, and friendship, lasted barely one year. During this time a few hundred letters passed between them, for (…)

- 2021 / Book Review