ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explore some of the questions concerning religious, ethnic and community identities, nationalism and nationalities, the nature of representative democracy, and the state through analysing two campaigns: around the Muslim Women's Bill, and against sati-daha. The issue of Muslim women's rights to maintenance on divorce became especially controversial for feminists in 1985, with what is referred to as "the Shah Bano case. For the feminists, the realization of how the polarization between tradition and modernity successfully sidelined all questions of compassion or affection for women was a bitter one. Though they had long known, and said, that communalism, and the associated problems of fundamentalism and upper caste identity politics, center on women as both their victims and their constituency, the strength and speed with which this has been manifested at different times has left feminists relatively defenceless.
