Book on life of Chandraprava Saikiani and Mahila Samitis released in Guwahati

 GUWAHATI: ‘Gendered Publics: Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samitis in Colonial Assam’, a book written by Dr Hemjyoti Medhi, Associate Professor of Tezpur University, was released on Sunday at Cotton Alumni House by the Chief Guest, Professor Amarjyoti Choudhury, former Vice-chancellor, Gauhati University, and Guests of Honour, Dr Moushumi Kandali, writer and art critic, Gita Sarma, President Assam Pradeshik Mahila Samity, and Atanu Saikia, Chandraprava Saikiani’s grandson. This is a book on the life and times of Chandraprava Saikiani and the Mahila Samitis. The book is published by Oxford University Press.

The book explores how women’s movements in the Brahmaputra valley evolved in conversations and contestations with traditional practices such as ‘naam kirtan’ and women’s weaving, as well as contemporary tribal-caste and literary associations and anti-colonial movements. This book uncovers crucial historical moments, such as the controversy when the Assam Mahila Samiti served a legal notice to a groom in 1934 to stop a child marriage or successfully led a ‘sipinibhoral’ campaign to ensure women’s sustenance through weaving.

The book takes an interdisciplinary approach and draws on handwritten minutes of early mahila samiti meetings and women’s memory, which were recorded as part of a project led by Hemjyoti Medhi to create a mahila samiti digital archive funded by the Sephis Programme of the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and supported by Tezpur University. Several scholars, teachers, award-winning writers, intellectuals, artists, professionals, researchers, and students from India and abroad attended the book release. The meeting was anchored by Radali Sharma, a PhD scholar at Tezpur University, stated a press release.

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