Widows of Vidarbha

Making of Shadows

Kota Neelima (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

288 Seiten

2018
Oxford University Press (Verlag)
978-0-19-948467-6 (ISBN)

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Farmer suicides are the most brutal and unforgiving indictment of the neglect of agriculture by the state and the politics, obsessed with power and the market. The continuing farm crisis represents not only failure of economic and development models but also collapse of the democratic system. To divert the blame, the statistics have been fudged and the farmers accused of being too ambitious, reckless, even unstable, especially in places of high suicide incidence like Vidarbha.

But the story of the distress of the farmers has an immortality that does not end with the farmer's death. It lives on in the experience of the farm widow, who struggles in the shadows outside the boundaries of the limelight. Widows of Vidarbha is the story of 18 such widows of Vidarbha who have been invisible to the state, the community, and even their families. Tracked over two years of research from 2014 to 2016, the widows spoke about their lost dreams of education and identity, their diminished view of the world, and their helpless surrender to conveniences of patriarchy.

The book reveals the process through which the invisibility is imposed on the woman from the time she was a child, forced to relegate her rights to the male. The daughters, the wives, and the widows are the survivors of the farm crisis in India. Yet, there voices are hardly ever taken into account when the crisis is discussed. The subjugation of their voices will only delay the solution. For the first time, the narratives of the widows of Vidarbha bring to light the dark and desperate corners of their invisible world, which represent the state of the farm widows across the country.

Kota Neelima is a political author and a journalist for over 20 years based in New Delhi. She holds a Master's Degree in International Relations from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and is Senior Research Fellow, South Asia Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. She is a former Political Editor for The Sunday Guardian and continues to writes on politics, farmer suicides, democratic reforms, and issues concerning the rural poor in India.

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Preface

Introduction

Section I
Making of Shadows: Yavatmal

Chapter 1: Hope and Other Temporary Things
Chapter 2: The Absence of Everything
Chapter 3: The Happy Ever After
Chapter 4: Death Amid Doubt and Denial
Chapter 5: How to Count the Dead
Chapter 6: Life and Death of a Sentiment
Chapter 7: The Harvest of Time
Chapter 8: A Home of Death and Memories
Chapter 9: A Museum of the Possible

Section II
Making of Shadows: Amravati

Chapter 10: Once Upon a Time a Farmer
Chapter 11: Those that Money Cannot Buy
Chapter 12: Death at the Wishing Well
Chapter 13: The Immortality of Memory
Chapter 14: A Farmer Standing Still
Chapter 15: The Rules of Dreaming
Chapter 16: Of Death and Second Chances
Chapter 17: The Dependent World of a Widow
Chapter 18: Her Place Under the Sun

Conclusion

Appendices
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Erscheinungsdatum	10.08.2018
Zusatzinfo	42
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	147 x 224 mm
Gewicht	448 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management
	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Land- / Forstwirtschaft / Fischerei
ISBN-10	0-19-948467-8 / 0199484678
ISBN-13	978-0-19-948467-6 / 9780199484676
Zustand	Neuware