Abstract
Feminist activism in South Asia has contributed both to raising people’s awareness of gender injustices and to directly combating them. In part, politicized religion may be a response to the challenges posed by feminist activism and by secular changes in the wider economy (Chhachhi, 1991). More certainly politicized religion has often been implicated in developments that are potentially deeply inimical to women’s interests—and yet many women’s energies have been successfully engaged in their support. Feminists can surely derive little satisfaction, for instance, from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ability to mobilize women in defense of Rām’s birthplace, often in far greater numbers than feminist organizations have managed to mobilize women to protest dowry murder.
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Jeffery, P. (2001). Agency, Activism, and Agendas. In: Castelli, E.A. (eds) Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-04830-1_24
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