About the Book: New Lamps for Old? : Gender paradoxes of political
decentralisation in Kerala
Based on large number of interviews with women politicians of many generations
and women who have entered the three-tier Panchyati Raj institutions since the
mid-1990s in Kerala, this book tries to initiate fresh debate on the impact of
the large-scale induction of women into the institutions of local
self-government in India.
The state of Kerala has been hailed as a success story in accommodating gender
concerns in local level planning and political decentralization; this conclusion
has been based on relatively simple evaluative exercises that ask whether women
of diverse backgrounds have gained entry