to represent him. Marital harmony, it seems, has been restored.

This story contains within it many achievements of the women’s movement in India. That Vijayalakshmi could register her complaint at the police station despite Darshan’s celebrity status. That the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed in 2005. That public outrage lifted the embargo against Thukral. That Darshan was not granted bail for a month. Every one of these is due to the contemporary women’s movement.

But the way in which Darshan emerged from custody, seemingly more popular, also symbolises the strength of the patriarchy. In 1971, when female literacy in India was less than 22%, a Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI) was set up to study the position of Indian women. Its report“Towards Equality” (1974) showed the way for a new consciousness of and struggle for women’s rights.

Four decades later, Our Pictures, Our Words, (whose title harks back to the 1971 feminist classic Our Bodies, Ourselves), presents a visual archive of this struggle, arranged around the themes of body politics, community politics, societal politics, and politics of access. Insightful commentary is provided by veteran activists Laxmi Murthy and Rajashri Dasgupta.

Four things strike me about the book. First, how much ground has been covered ever since the great project of the contemporary women’s movement in India began in the early 1970s. Individual judgements fought for and obtained, laws amended, new legislation introduced, policy formulated – and the everyday lives of women changed in real, substantial ways.

Almost at the same time, the