In the light of the oncoming WSF event, with its heavy NGO presence, there will be a renewed thrust of bourgeois feminism pushed into the progressive sections within the country. In the light of this, New Vistas is coming forward with three new booklets on the Women’s Question in India that will put forward the socialist perspective on the issue. These are mostly based on articles taken from the magazine People’s March.
The first booklet gives a revolutionary perspective to the women’s question in India and includes an example of a revolutionary women’s organisation, seen in the backward areas of Bihar and Jarkhand.

The second booklet deals with the question of prostitution and the attempts of the NGOs to legitimise it, to serve the needs of globalisation and the vast tourist industry, by adopting the term sex-workers.

The third booklet gives a living example of the liberation of women through a revolution and socialist construction in once revolutionary China. China was an acutely feudal and patriarchal society, and yet through the communist movement and the later period of socialist construction we find gigantic changes in the role of women and their emancipation. Of course once capitalism was restored after the death of Mao, one of the first spheres to get affected was in the role of women.

We do hope these booklets will be useful in strengthening the women’s movement in the country and building it along correct lines, away from the bourgeois feminist approach of the foreign-funded NGOs. Please do send us your suggestions after reading them.

January 1, 2004
New Vistas Publications