WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MATERNITY BENEFIT - STATE, CAPITAL OR HUSBAND - BOMBAY ASSEMBLY DEBATES ON MATERNITY BENEFIT BILL, 1929

The discussions on the Bombay Maternity Benefit Bill, 1929, have focus ed so far on the needs of capital, and left unexplored the role and ne eds of the colonial state as well as the reconstitution of patriarchy within the working class family and the sphere of wage-work. This pape r, by focusing on Bombay legislative assembly debates over the materni ty benefit bill in 1929, seeks to highlight these other untouched disc ourses, such as on nationalism, on ideology of protection entailed in the legal rights for women workers, on construction of working class b y upper and middle class perception, and on the disciplinary aspects o f legal regulation. The paper also aims to being back into contemporar y discussions the central issues about who should bear the cost of rep roduction - the state, capital or husband?