Gender Justice and Women’s Courts in Rural South India

This book explores gender justice, power relations, and social transformation in India by providing an ethnographic, socio-legal view of Nari Adalats (women’s courts) and the family disputes that take place before them, in rural northern Karnataka, South India.

The book offers an ethnography of the everyday workings of Nari Adalats based on qualitative interviews, document analysis, and participant observation in a variety of settings where family law and gender justice are negotiated. The book argues that it is essential to examine societal legal forums and the social dynamics within the family (and its social environment) to better understand how changes in gender and power relations can occur. Chapters analyse five cases of Hindu, Muslim and tribal women pursuing claims, and seven further cases of lower caste Hindu women who became judges of the Nari Adalat (one of them a jury member); taken together, they provide rich insights into how successful legal outcomes are achieved, and the structural conditions inherent in the space. Ultimately, the book highlights how Nari Adalats are fundamentally women-centred spaces that challenge gender hierarchies, feminize the public sphere, and reconceptualise gender and ethnic relations in rural India.

Providing an exploration of caste, class, and religion in the wider context of gender justice, the volume will appeal to scholars and postgraduates in the fields of socio-legal studies, in particular gender and justice issues, gender studies, South Asian studies, and legal anthropology.