Mridula Sarabhai

This particular act empowers the Indian and Pakistani states to recover and repatriate women separated from their families and living with someone from the other community during the partition, regardless of women's own consent.

And, uh, your book shows how Mridula Sarabhai, who is the chief architect of this act, uh, justifies this, uh, saying that, uh, a woman who refuses such a rescue are not expressing their real choice, but they have a fear complex, a kind of false consciousness aga- against such recovery.

Uh, can you tell me about some of the debates that are surrounding, uh, this whole process of, uh, uh, trying to bring back abducted women, and what does this say about women's agency and, uh, the role of Indian state in women's choices?

Um, I mean, this is an incredibly interesting, um, set of kind of stories and debates, which I think it remains particularly relevant even today.

And, and, and this sense, it became very much, uh, bifurcated along, uh, religious lines.

So, you know, it was about our Hindu girls needing to be returned, and then on the other side, the Pakistan side, our sort of Muslim girls.

And, um, the Indian government launched quite an extensive campaign led by Mridula Sarabhai for, uh, the, uh, rescue and recovery.

But of course, it, um, it, it, it came, the, a, a lot of legal complexities came with this in instances where women didn't want to be rescued and returned.