This book investigates how women's power and caste cleavages often continue to transcend and crosscut the boundaries of caste/tribe, gender, age, class and religion in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh It examines the gendered divisions of labor in rural communities and how countervailing forces have restricted women's status and roles in South Asia.

Pashington Obeng is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, USA. In 2011-2012 he was Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Professor at Brandeis University and has also taught at Brown and Harvard Universities, USA. He is the author of Shaping Membership, Defining Nation: The Cultural Politics of African Indians in South Asia (2007).

1. Introduction 2. History and Identity 3. Policies and Interventions 4. Governments, NGOs, Sanghas and Entrepreneurs (20+) 5. Senior Women's Shakti (60+) 6. Conclusion