Daughters of India: Art and Identity

One in every six women in the world lives in India, more than the combined female populations of North America, the European Union and the Middle East.

Yet most people outside India know little about Indian women, who often receive confusing and inaccurate press covering.

Daughters of India: Art and Identity profiles 20 women from diverse communities ranging from the rice paddies of far southern India to the tea plantations of the Himalayas and from the dry western deserts to the verdant east coast.

They represent every woman: the traditional and the contemporary, the repressed and the highly innovative, the outcast and the entrepreneur. In their battles against adversity, their own words express their innate strength.

All these women are connected by a single thread: creative expression. Some view themselves as artists while others would be surprised to be identified in this manner, but each woman creatively embellishes her daily or seasonal life.

Indian women are often completely unconscious of their artistry, and it is only recently that they have drawn any attention.

Daughters of India is about change in the face of almost impossible odds, personal initiative that carves out a new identity, and implacable insistence on the recognition of human rights.

About the Author

Author and photographer Stephen P Huyler has spent three-and-a-half decades documenting Indian art as it relates to ritual and society.

Daughters of India: Art and Identity

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