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This essay examines how two Marxist anti-colonial intellectuals from Portuguese India and French India – Aquino de Bragança and V Subbiah – differentially theorized movements for independence from colonial rule. Through the analysis of primary source documents in French, Portuguese, Italian and English, I compare V Subbiah's Dalit, anti-fascist anti-colonial Marxism to Aquino de Bragança's internationalist anti-colonial Marxism. Both theorists' approaches have similarities in (1) theorizing the relationship between fascism and colonialism given that the Portuguese Empire was administered by Salazar's Estado Novo and the French Empire was under Vichy rule, (2) rethinking Marxism to better fit the Global South context and (3) intellectual and political connections to Algeria were critically important for theory and praxis. Despite the distinct geographic and social spaces in which they lived and worked, both produced remarkably similar theories of anti-imperialism.

Resistances of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) to the construction of gendered religious nationalism are addressed. The implications of such resistances and redefinitions of gendered religious nationalism for the women’s movement in India and transnationally are also assessed.

Semi-structured interviews with leaders and/or key informants of purposively selected organizations in the state of Gujarat serve as the primary data for the chapter. Using a grounded theory approach, the study is a qualitative analysis of the interviews and a reading of major published documents, unpublished reports, and internal reports of the NGOs that were made available.

The analysis discerns three main frames deployed by NGOs in resisting attempts by the state to construct nationalism: Communal Harmony (Not Communal Violence), “Endangered” Woman and Gender Mainstreaming. The “communal harmony, not communal violence” frame views women as an ungendered part of their communities. Although women are made central to the religious violence and struggle, they are viewed as passive persons without rights. This passive frame is the “endangered woman” frame. But women’s groups and NGOs addressing the violence have actively sought to emphasize the gender aspect of all formal and informal political activities. This is the “gender mainstreaming” frame. However, the mere visibility of women in political discourse should not be confused with the feminist framing of women’s rights or mainstreaming women’s issues.

The analysis brings an organizational agency perspective to consider resistance to the gendered basis of the violence perpetrated and embedded in nationalism.

Examining paths into and out of sex work followed by three women in Bangalore, India, this essay argues that the struggles of sex workers to secure a livelihood highlight the interlocking relationships of caste, class, and gender, as well as forms of autonomy and agency within these systems. Interview narratives reveal how gendered marginalization leads to precarious work; and precarious work leads to sexual stigma. They show how intersectionality theory can be placed in conversation with Marxist feminisms and Indian feminist scholarship on caste, class, and gender to illuminate patterns of gendered economic marginalization in urban India. Such an analysis offers a way to articulate the relationships of caste, class, and gender in the lives of sex workers and to illustrate how intersectionality theory can be extended when engaged transnationally.

This chapter deals with the concept of intersectionality with particular reference to the interconnectedness of gender, class and caste discrimination in India. Even though much of the work on intersectionality has been carried out by scholars from the United States with specific emphasis on gender and race, this framework can be applied universally to understand the multiple axes of power within a society that results in further marginalisation of certain groups of women. The 16th December 2012 Nirbhaya rape case forms the core of this chapter as it resulted in one of the biggest gender movements in India.

In order to develop a critical analysis a case study approach was adopted and data collected by analysing online news reports, videos, articles on blogs and posts on social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.

The findings of the research showed interesting intersections of gender and class with relation to this case, which has not been deeply analysed in order to understand the reasons behind the public uprising which resulted in the government action.

It is important to look at gender violence in India through the lens of intersectionality since often it is the result of multiple levels of discrimination on the basis of class, caste, religion and geography. This is important to recognise in order to ensure that activism, education and changes in policy help to resolve problems related to extreme oppression and violence against women across the country.

The popular uprising, the Aragalaya, was a response to a debt crisis as well as a catharsis of accumulated public discontent, which overlapped with the pandemic. A key lesson from the pandemic was the need to strengthen state social provisioning capacities to protect the health status of citizens. In addition, enhancing local economies and sustainable livelihoods is central to avoiding the vulnerabilities of international migrant labour and tourism. The limitations of representative politics highlight the need to strengthen democratic social movement politics. Along with cross cultural alliances, building multi-class alliances is central for strengthening politics of redistribution. In a context of integration of party politics with criminal networks, demilitarisation as well as the abolition of prisons is indispensable for democratisation. In a global scale, democratising financial markets and platform economies suggests regulation and regional experiments not simply by the state but also multiple publics. In demanding participation in representative institutions, the Aragalaya combined a protest movement with a sense of commons. In turn, it pointed towards the possibilities of a public-driven economy based on the democratisation of the state as well as markets. In framing this movement as a ‘struggle of love’, it revitalised the realm of life politics and alternative pleasures of life.

Using the case of women home-based workers in India and the aspirations they have for their children, this chapter argues that aspirations across generations can reveal constraints and conflicts of current social positions. As workers in the informal economy, women’s work experiences are shaped by a matrix of oppression shaped by gender, class, caste, and religion. Yet, resistance to this work only became apparent when discussing hopes for their children’s future. It was in these articulations of aspirations that women stressed the exploitative characteristics of their work and their wish for their children to avoid these same experiences.

This chapter explores the writings of Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alavi, especially on the post-colonial state, ethnicity, peasantry and kinship relations. In contradistinction to most (partial) uptakes of Alavi, I evaluate his work as a whole in order to shed light on its continuities and discontinuities. I demonstrate both the strengths and pitfalls of Alavi's theorisation of the post-colonial state, mode of production and ethnicity by placing him in context of wider Marxist debates at the time. I then suggest that Alavi's other work (e.g. on the peasantry and kinship relations) may serve to complement the weaknesses of the former. Thus, by reading Alavi contra Alavi, I advocate for an ‘integral’ perspective on the relations between civil and political society, arguing for a conjunctural awareness of mediations between the same, and their imbrications with differentiated relations of class, ethnicity and kinship.

This chapter lays out the conceptual foundations for this book. Grounded in the tradition of disability studies, the authors describe their orientation to ‘inclusion’ and the entangled institutions of general and special education. They explain their attachment to the many ‘articulations’ of inclusive practices rather than engage in discourses of ‘implementation’ which inadvertently divide world regions. In doing so, they briefly trace the evolution of inclusion as a global concept and its relation to conditions in different parts of the world. They subsequently offer an introduction to the different chapters in the book.