NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE Article Thinking about Politics and State Power with Vina Mazumdar Mary E. John 1 If there is one question that bedevils the women’s movement and women’s studies in India today, it is that of state power and our political understanding and engagements with such power. We are living in a time of unprecedented abuses by the state, the militarisation of increasing parts of our country, abdication in the realm of welfare and deepening processes of neo-liberalisation, all of which are feeding into growing despair and cynicism over what feminist intervention in the realm of government policy could yield. At the same time, there exist counter- vailing positions and influences. To take a few prominent examples— several women’s organisations have supported the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promulgated by the United Nations to its member nations; the demand for the greater representation of women in legislative bodies and Parliament was raised in 1996 and is periodically revived; advocacy for state accountability and monitoring through gender mainstreaming has found its adherents. All of these seek greater involvement with various aspects of the state apparatus in order to advance the cause of women and their rights. Taken together, this makes for remarkably divergent political orientations among feminists in India today. It is precisely such a situation, characterised by conflicting if not contradictory relationships to the state and to state power, that would benefit from an engagement with the legacy of Vina Mazumdar. Indian Journal of Gender Studies 24(1) 111–125 © 2017 CWDS SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0971521516678541 http://ijg.sagepub.com 1 Professor, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi, India. Corresponding author: Mary E. John, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, 25 Bhai Vir Singh Marg, New Delhi 110001, India. E-mail: maryejohn1@gmail.com.