Urvashi Butalia

{{Infobox person

| name = Urvashi Butalia

| image = UrvashiButalia.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Urvashi Butalia in 2011

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1952}}

| birth_place = Ambala, Haryana, India

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality =

| other_names =

| alma_mater = {{ubl|University of Delhi|University of London}}

| occupation = {{Nowrap|Publisher and historian
Co-founder of Kali for Women (1984)
Founder of Zubaan Books (2003)}}

| known_for =

| relatives = Pankaj Butalia

| website = {{URL|zubaanbooks.com}}

}}

Urvashi Butalia (born 1952) is an Indian feminist writer, publisher and activist. She is known for her work in the women's movement of India, as well as for authoring books such as The Other Side of Silence: Voices from and the Partition of India and Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir.

Along with Ritu Menon, she co-founded Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house, in 1984. In 2003, she founded Zubaan Books, an imprint of Kali for Women.{{cite news|last=Daftuar|first=Swati|title=Identity matters|url=http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/article853524.ece|access-date=26 April 2013|newspaper=The Hindu|date=28 October 2010}}

In 2011, Butalia and Menon were jointly awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, for their work in Literature and Education.{{cite web|url=http://www.pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=69364|title=Press Information Bureau|website=www.pib.nic.in|access-date=2019-03-07}}

Early life and education

Butalia was born in Ambala, Punjab, into a progressive and atheist family of Punjabi heritage. She is the third of four children of Subhadra and Joginder Singh Butalia. Her mother ran a counselling centre for women. Butalia has one [older] sister, Bela, and two brothers, Pankaj and Rahul. Pankaj Butalia is a left-wing documentary filmmaker best known for a documentary on the miserable conditions of widows living in Vrindavan.

Butalia earned a BA in literature from Miranda House, Delhi University, in 1971, a Master's degree in literature from Delhi University in 1973, and a Master's in South Asian Studies from the University of London in 1977.{{cite web|title=Bio – Butalia|url=http://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/jury06/bio_butalia.html|publisher=Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage|access-date=26 April 2013}} She speaks Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali, along with English, Italian and French.{{cite web|url=https://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/jury06/bio_butalia.html|title=Lettre Ulysses Award {{!}} Urvashi Butalia, India|website=www.lettre-ulysses-award.org|access-date=2019-03-07}}

Career

File:Urvabu.jpg

Butalia started her career working with Oxford University Press in Delhi. She worked for a year at their Oxford headquarters, before moving briefly to London-based Zed Books as an editor in 1982. She then returned to India and, along with Ritu Menon, set up a feminist publishing house, Kali for Women, in 1984.{{cite web|url=http://www.livemint.com/Companies/595QfElEltDLfuvgNqTiOI/Urvashi-Butalia--I-want-to-prove-that-feminist-publishing-c.html|title=Urvashi Butalia: I want to prove that feminist publishing can survive commercially|last=Ghoshal|first=Somak|date=14 June 2013|publisher=Livemint|access-date=16 August 2013}}

Butalia engages herself in teaching at the Young India Fellowship at Ashoka University through her course on women, society and changing India.

Butalia's main areas of interest are the Partition and oral histories from a feminist and left-wing perspective.{{cite web|url=https://feminisminindia.com/2018/11/08/urvashi-butalia-historian-partition/|title=Urvashi Butalia: The Historian Who Revived The Forgotten Voices of Partition|first=Areeba|last=Sundus|website=Feminism In India (FII)|date=8 November 2018|access-date=28 April 2021}} She has written on gender, communalism, fundamentalism and media. Her writings have appeared in several newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, the New Internationalist, The Statesman, The Times of India, Outlook and India Today. She has been a regular columnist for the left-wing Tehelka and for Indian Printer and Publisher, a business-to-business (B2B) publication dealing with the print and publishing industry.

Butalia is a consultant for Oxfam India and holds the position of Reader at the College of Vocational Studies at the University of Delhi.

=Kali for Women =

Kali for Women, India's first exclusively feminist publishing house, which Butalia co-founded with Ritu Menon, was set up in 1984 as a trust to increase the body of knowledge on women in the Third World, to give voice to such knowledge as already exists, and provide a forum for women writers, creative and academics.Puri, Jyoti, Woman, Body, Desire in Postcolonial India: Narratives of Gender and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1999).

In 2003, co-founders Butalia and Menon parted ways. Both went on to set up their own imprints under the banner of Kali for Women, with Menon establishing Women Unlimited{{cite web|url=http://www.womenunlimited.net/authors/authors_ritumenon.htm |title=Ritu Menon|publisher=Women Unlimited|access-date=2019-03-07}} and Butalia founding Zubaan Books.{{cite web|url=http://www.allaboutbookpublishing.com/120/padma-shri-awarded-to-publishing-stalwarts-after-a-decade/|title=Padma Shri Awarded To Publishing Stalwarts After A Decade|website=All About Book Publishing|date=February 2011|access-date=28 April 2021}}

= Zubaan Books =

Originally set up as a non-profit in 2003, Zubaan now operates as the private company, Zubaan Publishers Pvt. Ltd. The independent publishing house publishes fiction and academic books, "on, for, by and about women in South Asia",{{cite web|url=https://zubaanbooks.com/about-zubaan/|title=About {{!}} Zubaan|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-07}} with the list including renowned authors such as Jaishree Misra, Nivedita Menon, Manjula Padmanabhan, Suniti Namjoshi and Annie Zaidi.

=''The Other Side of Silence''=

Apart from several newspaper articles and op-ed pieces dealing with feminist issues, Butalia has authored or co-authored several books. The Other Side of Silence (1998), the product of more than seventy interviews conducted with survivors of the Partition, is being used as an academic text in some Indian universities.

The Goethe Institute has described it as "one of the most influential books in South Asian studies to be published in recent decades... It emphasises the role of violence against women in the collective experience of tragedy."{{cite web|url=https://shop.scroll.in/book/843417/feminist-publisher-urvashi-butalia-wins-the-prestigious-goethe-medal|title=Feminist publisher Urvashi Butalia wins the prestigious Goethe Medal|author=Scroll Staff|website=Scroll.in|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-07}} The Other Side of Silence won the Oral History Book Association Award in 2001 and the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture in 2003.

Activism

Butalia is an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP).{{cite web|url=http://www.wifp.org/who-we-are/associates/|title=Associates {{!}} The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press|website=www.wifp.org|language=en-US|access-date=21 June 2017}}

Awards and recognition

In 2000, Butalia won the Pandora Award from Women in Publishing.{{cite web|url=https://www.boell.de/en/person/urvashi-butalia|title=Urvashi Butalia|website=Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung|language=en|access-date=2019-03-07}}

In 2011, Butalia was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.

In 2017, the Goethe Institute awarded Butalia the Goethe Medal, an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany that "honors individuals who have displayed exceptional competence of the German language as well as in international cultural exchange."{{cite web|url=https://www.goethe.de/resources/files/pdf131/about-urvashi-butalia.pdf|title=Awardee: Urvashi Butalia|publisher=Goethe Institut}}

Works

{{cite book|author1=Urvashi Butalia|author2=Ritu Menon|author3=Kali for Women |title=In Other Words: New Writing by Indian Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cllAAAAMAAJ|year=1992|publisher=Kali for Women|isbn=978-81-85107-48-6}}
{{cite book|author1=Urvashi Butalia|author2=Ritu Menon|title=Making a Difference: Feminist Publishing in the South|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8mU8AQAAIAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Bellagio Publishing Network|isbn=9780964078086 }}
{{cite book|author1=Tanika Sarkar|author2=Urvashi Butalia|title=Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CRIqAAAAYAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Kali For Women|isbn=978-81-85107-66-0}}
{{cite book|author1=Tanika Sarkar|author2=Urvashi Butalia|title=Women and Right Wing Movements: Indian Experiences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RjUqAAAAYAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Zed Books|location= London|isbn=978-1-85649-289-8}}
{{cite book|author=Urvashi Butalia |title=The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JGklJI4eiNIC|year=1998|publisher=Penguin Books India|isbn=978-0-14-027171-3}}
{{cite book|author=Urvashi Butalia|title=Speaking Peace: Women's Voices from Kashmir|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1WvaAAAAMAAJ|year=2002|publisher=Kali for Women|isbn=978-81-86706-43-5}}
{{cite book|editor=Urvashi Butalia |title=Inner Line: The Zubaan Book of Stories by Indian Women|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7nfNcEiSSMEC|year=2006|publisher=Zubaan|isbn=978-81-89013-77-6}}

References

External links

[http://www.zubaanbooks.com/ Zubaan Books website]
[http://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/jury06/bio_butalia.html Biography as a member of the 2006 Lettre Ulysses Award jury]
[https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol6/iss6/6/ Interview] by Anupama Arora and Sandrine Sanos, Journal of Feminist Scholarship 6 (Spring 2014)

Category:1952 births

Category:20th-century Indian businesspeople

Category:20th-century Indian businesswomen

Category:20th-century Indian journalists

Category:20th-century Indian women writers

Category:21st-century Indian businesspeople

Category:21st-century Indian businesswomen

Category:21st-century Indian journalists

Category:21st-century Indian women journalists

Category:Alumni of the University of London

Category:Businesspeople from Haryana

Category:Businesswomen from Haryana