ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the relationship between the state, development policy, and gender equality in India. It asks what development policies in India say, implicitly or explicitly, about gender relations and to what extent state-led development initiatives recognise and seek to address gendered inequalities. Gender mainstreaming, broadly speaking, is the notion that mainstream institutions, such as governments, must transform their own norms, policies, processes, and thinking across the whole policy spectrum to produce more gender-responsive policies in pursuit of gender equality. More than two decades ago, Indian feminist scholars K. Lalitha and Mary John suggested in the post-1991 policy environment, where states have more autonomy in formulating development policy, ‘there may be new opportunities at the [subnational] state level to demand more comprehensive policies on gender and funding commitments for women’.