Nikkei Asia Prizes 2003

Author/activist pushes women's issues

KURAICHI YOSHINO
staff writer

NEW DELHI - During an interview at her office in a New Delhi residential district, Urvashi Butalia, winner of the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture, said that as a young girl she had no interest in politics, let alone feminism. The acclaimed author is also a cofounder of Kali for Women, the first Indian publishing house to specialize in feminist publications.

Butalia's transformation into an activist occurred after she was elected president of the student body at the University of Delhi in the early 1970s. She ran for the position only because friends encouraged her to, but found her social conscience stirred after helping female students deal with sexual assault, discrimination and other problems.

While at university, Butalia founded an organization called Samta, which means "equality" in Hindi, and began working for feminist causes. As time went on she became strongly convinced that the feminist movement needed a publisher to produce booklets and promote women's issues. After working at Oxford University Press in Delhi, Butalia came to the conclusion that the only way to realize this goal was to set up her own publishing company.

A major turning point in Butalia's life came in 1982. That year, an old school friend in London asked why she was not working toward her dream. Plans to study for a doctorate in Hawaii were soon dropped and Butalia ended up spending another two years in London. Butalia finally returned to India and established Kali for Women.

The next turning point was the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. Because the assassins were Sikh guards, Sikhs found themselves under pressure throughout the country after the incident.

Hearing how worried people were that there could be a repeat of the chaos that followed the partitioning of India in 1947, Butalia began to wonder about the three months of violence that had occurred after the official decision to divide the country was made public.

Determined to find answers from the viewpoint of ordinary women, she started collecting material for a book. "The Other Side of Silence" was published in 1998, more than 10 years after the project first began. A best seller in India, this important work has also been released in the U.S., Europe, China and Japan.

Literary fans will be pleased to learn that a follow-up to "The Other Side of Silence" is in the pipeline, as Butalia is currently studying the Jammu-Kashmir situation with an eye to writing another book.