Title: Feminist Legal Activism in India

Abstract: 'Since its emergence in the 1970s, the Indian women's rights movement has very actively used both lobbying for better legislation as well as litigation in its fight for gender equality. While some of the movement's campaigns have been very successful, others have utterly failed. This paper explains why this has been the case. Looking at the Indian women's rights movement through a comparative lens, this paper not only provides a detailed study of the movement's protagonists and its campaigns from the 1970s till today, it also explores how the Indian women's movement resembles and differs from its counterparts in the global North and to what extent the battles fought and the tools used are similar to or different from those of other feminist movements around the world. The study focuses on the movement's activism in two particular areas: 1. marriage and the family (more specifically religion based "personal laws"); and 2. violence against women. It will show that both the Indian parliament and the Indian courts have been much more receptive to the movement's campaigns against violence against women than to the movement's attempt to reform India's family law. The explanation this paper provides for this finding, is a first step towards developing parameters of success in legal mobilisation in India, and the global South more broadly'