Capable Women, Incapable States Negotiating Violence and Rights in India

In recent decades, the issue of gender-based violence has become heavily politicized in India. Yet, Indian law enforcement personnel continue to be biased against women and overburdened. In Capable Women, Incapable States, Poulami Roychowdhury asks how women claim rights within these conditions. Through long term ethnography, she provides an in-depth lens on rights negotiations in the world's largest democracy, detailing their social and political effects. Roychowdhury finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules, but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. And they behave this way because law enforcement personnel do not protect women from harm but do allow women to take the law into their own hands.These negotiations do not enhance legal enforcement. Instead, they create a space where capable women can extract concessions outside the law, all while shouldering a new burden of labor and risk. A unique theory of gender inequality and governance, Capable Women, Incapable States forces us to rethink the effects of rights activism across large parts of the world where political mobilization confronts negligent criminal justice systems.

Poulami Roychowdhury is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University. Her research examines the relationship between politics, law, and social inequality, with a focus on the global south. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the American Institute for Indian Studies, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds de Recherche du Qu?bec.

List of Terms
Acknowledgments

Section I Opening
Chapter I Introduction
Chapter II Stalled

Sections II Negotiations
Chapter III Running a Family
Chapter IV The Business of Mediation
Chapter V Incentivizing the Law
Chapter VI States of Disempowerment
Chapter VII Incorporating Women

Section III Citizens
Chapter VIII Running a Case
Chapter IX Aspirational-Strategic Subjects
Chapter X Illicit Justice
Chapter XI The Allure and Costs of Capability
Chapter XII Conclusion

Section IV Appendices
Appendix A Methodological Discussion
Appendix B Key Legal Reforms
Appendix C First Information Report
Appendix D Domestic Incident Report

Bibliography
Notes
Index