Na shariram nadhi, my body is mine: The urban women's health movement in India and its negotiation of modernity

This article explores the Indian women's health movement for productive ins ights into current debates on the "travelling" meanings of modernity. Takin g the feminist demand for bodily autonomy as a starting point for the explo ration, the article traces the trajectories described by some of modernity' s central concepts: choice, freedom, autonomy, rights, and [developmental v ersions of] progress. The journeys described here take place not only betwe en the "global" and the "local," but between metropole and colony in the co lonial period, and between the nation-state and the women's movement in the postcolonial period. As the case example of the controversy over amniocent esis (used in India in the identification and abortion of female foetuses) illustrates, terms such as choice and development have become central to co ntestations between the women's movement, the state, and the professional m iddle classes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd.