ABSTRACT
The intervention of feminist activists and scholars in the last three decades has led not only to far greater sensitization of public attitudes concerning gender but also a series of laws and regulations to promote greater gender justice. However, these effects seem to be more prominent at the higher levels of the bureaucracy, judiciary, higher education, and the English-language media than amongst the popularly mobilized opinion in the regions. This essay examines this disparity in terms of a distinction between the history of the Indian nation state and the collective consciousness of the people-nation.
