Uma Vasudeva (18 June 1931 – 27 March 2019) was an Indian writer and columnist.[1] She was one of the early editors of India Today.[2]
Works
Her book Indira Gandhi: Revolution in Restraint covers Indira Gandhi's life from 1917 to 1971.[3]
Novels
Her novels Song of Anusuya and Shreya of Sonagarh deal with the inner struggles of their woman protagonists.[4] The main characters are portrayed as liberated women with their own surreptitious affairs.[5]Song of Anusuya was noted to "probe deeply" into man–woman relationship.[4] However, it was criticised by India Today as an unsuccessful foray into an alternative literary field by a writer who had presumably lost credibility in political writing following her publication of The Two Faces of Indira Gandhi.[6]Shreya of Sonagarh, being of similar genre, invokes the theme of sex in relation to a woman's relationship with her husband and another lover.[7] It describes the rise to political power of the protagonist, Shreya, a middle-class girl married into a princely family.[8] It also deals with the connection between feudal lords and politics.[9]
Vasudeva's depiction of feminism has been described as being Western-biased, rather than rooted in Indian soil.[10]