Chhaya Datar (also Chāyā Dātāra born 1944) is an Indian activist, writer and feminist. Datar writes in Marathi and English.

Chhaya Datar
Born1944
India
OccupationActivist, writer and feminist
NationalityIndian

Career

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Datar began writing and becoming politically active out of frustration as living as a housewife.[1] She wrote her first collection of short stories in Marathi, Goshta Sādhī Saral Sopī in 1972 and her second, Vartulacha Ant in 1977.[1] She is also one of the founders of a publishing group based in Bombay, called Stri Uvach (A Woman Said).[1] After her short stories, she went on to work on studying women's issues.[1] Earning a scholarship to study in the Netherlands, she completed a master's degree at the International Institute of Social Studies of Rotterdam in 1981. She returned to India and was one of the founders of an anti-violence group called the Forum Against Rape. In 1988, she became a women's studies lecturer at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Later she earned a PhD from the SNDT Women's University,[2] and became head of the women's studies department at the Tata Institute.[3]

In Waging Change: Women Tobacco Workers in Nipani Organize (1989), Datar examines women's struggles for both political and economic justice in Nipani through the context of cigarette workers.[4] In Signs, reviewer Chandra Talpade Mohanty, writes that Datar's Waging Change is an "elegantly crafted, detailed analysis of the organizational history of women bidi (hand-rolled cigarette) workers."[4] In her autobiographical story, In Search of Myself, she examines her own experiences and describes how communing with one's own tribal space allows women to have a sense of freedom.[5] She also describes in this story how tribal women find themselves by sharing their own experiences.[5] Datar also discusses Dalit feminism in her works.[6]

Datar has been published in Contemporary Sociology,[7] Indian Journal of Gender Studies,[8] Economic and Political Weekly,[9][10] and has contributed to the journal published by Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), Purush Spandana.[11] She released Tarihi Shesh on International Women's Day 2017.[12]

Selected bibliography

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  • Goshṭa sādhī, saraḷa, sopī (in Marathi). Pune: Menakā Prakāśana. 1973. OCLC 31095346.
  • Mītaruṇī (in Marathi). Mumbai: Abhinava Prakāśana. 1979. OCLC 499533971.
  • Waging Change: Women Tobacco Workers in Nipani Organize. New Delhi: Kali for Women. 1989. ISBN 978-8185107110.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Tharu, Susie J.; Lalita, Ke (1993). Women Writing in India: The twentieth century. New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. p. 495. ISBN 978-1558610293.
  2. ^ "Power of a Woman Personified". dnaindia.com. Mumbai, India: Zee Media Corporation. 19 November 2013. Archived from the original on 19 May 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  3. ^ Mascarenhas, Anuradha (17 May 2023). "Pune Recalls Association with Maria Mies, German Sociologist and Ecofeminist Who Died at 92". The Indian Express. Mumbai, India. Archived from the original on 18 May 2023. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  4. ^ a b Mohanty, Chandra Talpade (Summer 1995). "Book Reviews". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 20 (4): 1058–1061. doi:10.1086/495039.
  5. ^ a b Ghosh, Anita (2004). "Woman on Top: A Study of Feministic Consciousness of Modern Indian Women Novelists". In Prasad, Amar Nath (ed.). New Lights on Indian Women Novelists in English. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. pp. 260–261. ISBN 978-8176254779.
  6. ^ Chigateri, Shraddha (January 2007). "Articulations of Injustice and the Recognition-Redistribution Debate: Locating Caste, Class and Gender in Paid Domestic Work in India". Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal. Retrieved November 4, 2023.
  7. ^ Datar, Chhaya (1988). "Early FlushA Decade of Women's Movement in India: Collection of Papers Presented at a Seminar Organized by Research Centre for Women's Studies, S.N.D.T. University, Bombay, coordinated by DesaiNeera. Bombay: Himalaya Publishing House". Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews. 33 (6): 642–645. doi:10.1177/009430610403300605. ISSN 0094-3061. S2CID 152255639.
  8. ^ Datar, Chhaya; Prakash, Aseem (September 2001). "Engendering Community Rights: A Case for Women's Access to Water and Wasteland". Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 8 (2): 223–246. doi:10.1177/097152150100800205. S2CID 144799984.
  9. ^ Datar, Chhaya (2007). "Failure of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Maharashtra". Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (34): 3454–3457. JSTOR 4419939.
  10. ^ Datar, Chhaya (1999). "Non-Brahmin Renderings of Feminism in Maharashtra: Is It a More Emancipatory Force?". Economic and Political Weekly. 34 (41): 2964–2968. JSTOR 4408509.
  11. ^ "Diwali men's magazine invites contributions from women". Hindustan Times. 20 October 2011. Archived from the original on 11 August 2018. Retrieved 10 August 2018 – via HighBeam Research.
  12. ^ "Chhaya Datar unveils her new book". Mumbai Live. 2017. Retrieved 2018-08-09.