Giving Away the Girl

Only for sale in India

This volume brings together three street plays from the Indian women’s movement, written in the 1980s and widely performed as part of the vibrant cultural activism of the time. Giving Away the Girl and The Monkey Dance are both anti-dowry plays, while Why All This Bloodshed? was written in the wake of the landmark Shah Bano case in the mid-80s, centring on a Muslim woman’s right to maintenance.

All the plays remain remarkably relevant, opening up key issues of the movement in a complex and nuanced manner, facilitating debate rather than offering simplistic solutions. Brought together for the first time with a preface by the playwright and a note by filmmaker and activist Madhusree Dutt, who directed these plays, the book provides invaluable documentations of a significant period on the history of women’s activism in India.