Personal Law In India Reconciling Diversity With Gender Justice

Author: Tamanna Khosla

Year: 2019

 In 21st century India, feminism is not a nice word. Multiculturalism is politically perfect and loaded with identitarian opportunism. Personal laws of communities like marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and death are controlled by religion. So multi-culture here means multi-religion's laws. Laws in India are a legacy of the colonial era. For the state, these hand-me-down personal laws are tools to grant minorities rights and boast of being a multi-cultural democracy. When minorities gain group rights, women lose out as women occupy a subordinate status in most cultures and granting group right ensures the maintenance of their lower status. Feminist sociologist Tamanna Khosla points out that women are also a 'cultural minority' as their way of life is considered to be a 'minority' way in the public and political space, still male dominated. The book, Personal Laws in India: Reconciling Diversity with Gender Justice, places the personal laws and diverse issues that haunt women and children for the eight religious groupings in India under one umbrella reference. It analyses cultures of different communities and sees how equitable they are to women