Shalu Nigam

  Motherhood is a powerful virtue. However, in a patriarchal society, it is construed narrowly to uphold the heteronormative family norms which prioritize men over women. This traditional framework overlooks the diverse family forms and alienates female-headed households. Rather, families headed by lone mothers are chastened and labelled as broken, pathological, and degenerative. Despite constitutional guarantees of equality and justice, the state and society alienate them, deny them visibility, and absolve themselves of the responsibilities of protecting their citizenship rights. Nevertheless, for ages, single mothers, despite all hardships, have been defying patriarchal norms and are bringing up their children solely, with little support available from their families, society, or the state. Rather, they are challenging the dominant and hegemonic ` male breadwinner and the provider’  model. This work examines this active and empowered notion of motherhood, or  feminist and emancipator

  Judith Butler (2020) described some lives as `ungrievable’ which cannot be mourned for because they never lived and remained uncounted. Perhaps, women who are dying due to dowry violence in homes are such ungrievable, uncounted lives – the lives that no one wants to protect, no one wants to mourn, and no one wants to remember.   For more see this book https://www.amazon.in/Dowry-Serious-Economic-Violence-Rethinking/dp/B0C5KLDF3P

  The Right to Dissent in the Socio-legal Context: Reimagining Citizenship, Strengthening Democracy ` Let’s agree to disagree’ may sum up the gist of the word `dissent’ in simple terms. Dissent, generally, implies disagreement, criticism, questioning, or protest against the coercive decision or unjust laws and policies imposed by a person/s in authority. Explored in a constructive manner, peaceful and nonviolent dissent may lead to dialogue, open discussions, entrenchment of democratic ideas, undoing injustices, and ending oppression. Collective disobedience often results in a constructive social transformation. However, history depicts that the tyrannical rulers have used tools such as the law and violence to suppress dissent and this repression of diverse voices by the authoritarian states continues during the modern times. Dissent is being construed detrimentally as disobedience and dissenters are perceived as a threat to the law-and-order situation by the authoritarian states. F

  How Malimath Committee Denied Women their Rights? Section 498A IPC is inserted in the Indian Penal Code in 1983 and provides to protect women from cruelty in their matrimonial homes. The Malimath Committee Report (2003), twenty years after the enactment of Section 498A noted, “In less tolerant impulsive woman may lodge an FIR even on a trivial act. The result is that the husband and his family may be immediately arrested and there may be a suspension or loss of job. The offence alleged being non-bailable, innocent persons languish in custody. There may be a claim for maintenance adding fuel to the fire if the husband cannot pay. She may change her mind and get into the mood to forget and forgive. The husband may realize the mistakes committed and come forward to turn a new leaf for a loving and cordial relationship. The woman may like to seek reconciliation. But this may not be possible due to the legal obstacles. Even if she wishes to make amends by withdrawing the complaint, she ca

Yes, I Am a Woman….. By Shalu Nigam 28 July, 2014 Countercurrents.org https://www.countercurrents.org/nigam280714.htm On the occasion of this Independence Day, I continue to fight for my independence as a common woman, as a citizen of this free nation and more importantly as a human being… Yes, I am a woman and I am proud of myself. I am strong and I am growing stronger by each passing moment. I am an independent, fearless, free thinking woman making choices at every step reaffirming my pride, contesting for my dignity and in the process shaping and writing my own destiny…. I am the one with vision you see carrying bricks on construction sites... I am a woman toiling in an agriculture field awaiting for the crop of my imagination to be harvested... I am a worker working in a textile organization weaving my hopes in the garments I knit… I am a student with dreams in my eyes, cycling or running after buses… I am a scientist inventing and imagining, an architect, shaping and cementing the