“What else can be done? Shut down the Centre!”: The shifting of transformative responsibility within discourses of Women’s Studies Centres in Indian Universities

The chapter complicates the presumed panacea of ‘areas of study’ as interventions to disrupt social injustice within the university. The contextual backdrop is the institutionalisation, growth and current deterioration of structural support for ‘Women’s Studies’ (WS) in Indian public higher education. Qualitative insider insights reveal the risks and conflicts engendered; the historic conditions for reproduction and transformation; and counternarratives of possibility. The chapter details the frustrations, failures and difficulties of Women’s Studies Centres (WSCs) in present times through a feminist self-critique, pointing out to how a critical revival of WS institutions is heavily dependent on political intervention and will.