This path-breaking study of womens experiences of litigation under personal laws (those that cover marriage and inheritance) raises vital questions of identity and citizenship in Indian democracy and throws new lights on the uniform civil code debate. Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay asks why is it so difficult to disentangle woman as subject/citizen imbued with rights from that of being daughter, sister, wife, widow and the symbol of a community? Why is it that both Hindu and Muslim women are usually unsuccessful in their claims for property despite appealing to different personal laws? Mukhopadhyay looks at the hidden structurings of the neutral citizen-subject, the process of norming, the resulting exclusions, which serve to secure asymmetrical power. Investigating the laws stated neutrality in relation to gender, caste and community, she focuses on womens litigation over maintenance and property claims. She finds out how the private domain of the state, which social relations are normed and invisibilized through this connection and how patriarchy is created through the use of adjudication.Of particular interest are the thirty case studies of seventeen Hindu women and thirteen Muslim women. Mukhopadhyay has also compiled four life histories. She writes with insight of how Hindu women are ambiguous heirs who have to establish their right to property first before they can fight to claim it, whereas Muslim women become rightful heirs at birth but have to fight for control. The author writes perceptively on the relationship of other women to the state. She explores the womanstate relationship through the experiences of the womens movement in the seventies and the eighties and by looking at the reasons given by respondents on why they have appealed to the state. She concludes with a discussion of the highly charged uniform civil code debate, where feminists have found themselves sharing a platform with the Hindu Right, analyzing what the implications for gender equality are.About the AuthorMaitrayee Mukhopadhyay received her Ph.D in Social Anthropology from the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex. She has worked on rural and urban development projects in Indai for nearly fifteen years and has researched and written on development issues, particularly in the field of gender and development, providing technical advice to development agencies and undertaking research. A distinguished feminist scholar and founder member of Anveshi Research Centre for Womens Studies, Hyderabad, Susie Tharu is professor, Department of Literature, Central Institute of English and Foreign languages (CIEFL), Hyderabad. She is one of the two editors of Women Writing in India. Her current research is in the area of literary history/cultural theory.