Gender in Modern India: History, Culture, Marginality

by Lata Singh (Editor), Shashank Shekhar Sinha (Editor)

Overview

Gender in Modern India brings together pioneering research on a range of themes including social reforms, caste, and contestations; Adivasis, patriarchy, and colonialism; capitalism, political economy, and labour; masculinity and sexuality; health, medical care, and institution building; culture and identity; and migration and its new dynamics. Commissioned in remembrance of the prolific social historian Biswamoy Pati, this volume examines the gender question through a multilayered and multi-dimensional frame in which interdisciplinarity and intersectionality play an important role. Using case studies on gender from diverse geographies—east, west, north, south, and northeast; community locations—Hindu, Muslim, and Christian; and marginalized socio-economic or ethnic habitations such as those of Dalits and Adivasis, the contributors highlight the complexities and diversities of women's negotiations of patriarchies in varied social, ethnic, and community contexts. Collectively, the chapters in this volume focus on three related and overlapping settings—colonial, colonial and postcolonial continuum, and postcolonial. They delineate the multiple lives of gender by focusing on its intersections with other markers of difference including race, class, caste, sexuality, culture, ethnicity, region, and occupation, thereby questioning stereotypes, challenging dated notions and interpretations of gender, and demonstrating the ubiquity of patriarchy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198900801
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	05/23/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lata Singh is Associate Professor, Centre for Women's Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has been a British Academy Visiting Fellow, Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and University Grants Commission Research Awardee. An editorial board member of the Dutch Journal of Feminist Studies, her books and edited collections include Raising the Curtain: Recasting Women Performers in India (Orient BlackSwan, 2017); Theatre in Colonial India: Play-House of Power (OUP, 2009); Popular Translations of Nationalism: Bihar, 1920-22 (Primus Books, 2012); Colonial and Contemporary Bihar and Jharkhand (Primus Books, 2014); and Violence and Performing Arts (IIAS Shimla, 2016). She was the Guest Editor of a special issue of the Indian Historical Review on 'Issues of Gender: Colonial and Post-Colonial India' (2008). Shashank Shekhar Sinha is an independent researcher and the author of Restless Mothers and Turbulent Daughters: Situating Tribes in Gender Studies (Stree, 2005) and Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri: Monuments, Cities and Connected Histories (Pan Macmillan, 2021). He has published extensively on Adivasis, gender, and witch hunting. Sinha taught undergraduate courses in history at the University of Delhi for almost a decade (1994-2004). He worked with Oxford University Press (2004-2012) before moving on to join Routledge, Taylor&Francis Group, as Publishing Director (South Asia) in 2012.

Table of Contents

Preface and AcknowledgementsNotes on ContributorsIntroductionSection I: Reforms, Castes, and Contestations1. Locating Consent: The Social and Historical Contexts of 'Choice' in Marriage, Uma Chakravarti2. Gender, Caste, and Patriarchy: Anti-Caste Movements in Colonial Maharashtra, Smita M PatilSection II: Tribes, Patriarchy, and Colonialism3. Reversing of Gender: Anti-Colonial Resistance by Women Warriors in Northeast India, Sajal Nag and R Lalsangpuii4. Adivasis, Gender, and Witch hunting in Early Colonial Chotanagpur and Santhal Parganas, Shashank Shekhar SinhaSection III: Political Economy and Labour5. Women, Union, and the Strike Against Sexual Harassment in Colonial Madura, 1920, M V Shobhana Warrier6. Negotiating Crisis: The Great Depression and Women's Lives in Colonial Punjab, Indu AgnihotriSection IV: Masculinity and Sexuality7. Fragmentary Histories, Subaltern Sexualities, and Vernacular Archives, Charu Gupta8. White Femininity-Black Masculinity: Imperialism, Racism, and Gender Relations in an Empire Film (The Rains Came), Prem ChowdhrySection V: Health, Medical Care, and Institution Building9. Midwifery, Childbirth, and Breastfeeding Advice in Colonial Bengal, Ranjana Saha10. Women Missionaries in Medical Care and Institution Building in India, Rama V BaruSection VI: Culture and Identity11. The Muslim Courtesans in Colonial India, Lata Singh12. Margin(al) Maithili: Cultural Politics of Engendered Folk in Mithila, Dev Nath PathakSection VII: Migrations and Their Emerging Dynamics13. Doing Care, Making Socialities on the Move: Gendering Internal Migration in India, Rajni Palriwala14. Mapping Marginal Terrains: Corridors of Women's Labour Migration from Odisha, Indrani MazumdarIndex

Editorial Reviews

"This book maps the ways gender studies emerged, grew, and expanded in India since the 1970s. It pays careful attention to contexts even as it proffers a rich sense of the new analytical directions that have been taken in gender studies in modern India, engaging with its distinct trajectory and engagement with intersectional analysis." — Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Former Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

"While focusing on gender, the essays here investigate the intersections of Adivasi and labouring lives; caste and sexualities; marriage, motherhood, and patriarchies; migration and other manifold marginalities that were of abiding interest to [Biswamoy] Pati. This volume furthers the debates on these questions, unfolding the complex layers of our social imaginaries in a cogent and sophisticated manner. I can hear his sonorous voice guffawing his approval." — Anshu Malhotra, Professor & Kapany Chair for Sikh & Punjab Studies, University of California Santa Barbara

"This tribute to the late Biswamoy Pati, a passionate teacher and a dedicated researcher, acknowledges his commitment to inclusive histories. Focusing on the colonial and post-colonial context, and diverse in terms of its socio-spatial reach, it draws on and carries forward concepts and themes from late 20th century feminist scholarship, bringing together a wide range of contributions on caste, tribes, work, sexuality, medicine, cultural praxis, and migrations that both enrich and challenge earlier understandings." — Kumkum Roy , Former Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

"Gender in Modern India is refreshing on two counts: the wider geography of scholarship to do with gender that it charts and for the range of themes that it explores: labour, sexuality, resistance, caste, indigeneity, social reform, the arts...it is useful and exciting to 'read' together the play of gender in diverse settings-Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, the United Provinces, Maharashtra-in intersection with granular local life and social relationships." — V. Geetha, Independent feminist scholar and author

"In an invaluable addition to the notable works on gender, this anthology brings together some of the most accomplished scholars who have been 'writing' and 'doing' gender. Each contribution is distinctive in its conceptual elaboration of gender and the methodological tools deployed. Cumulatively, they make the volume enticingly multidisciplinary, making gender in modern India intelligible through a polyrhythm of themes. A most sincere offering to the memory of an erudite historian." — Anupama Roy, Professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

"This fabulous collection of essays by eminent feminist scholars speaks to the enduring research passions and contributions of late Prof. Biswamoy Pati, whose scholarship on colonialism, social history of medicine, marginality, and subaltern resistance is timeless and outstanding, and this well-thought-out volume in his honour is, not surprisingly, outstanding in celebrating his scholarship by extending some of his research interests to the field of gender studies. I could vividly picture Biswamoy Pati savouring these original and path-breaking research contributions and so also any reader of colonialism, caste, gender of labour, health, masculinity, migration, sexuality, cultural politics of performance, and so on." — S. Anandhi, Former Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai

"This volume is a fitting tribute to the memory of Biswamoy Pati, a historian who brought enormous energy and passion to his projects...The essays in this volume, configured around constructions and relations of gender in India, cover an enormous range: masculinity and culture; marriage and migration; caste and tribe; health, medicine, and missionaries; labour and politics. This book seeks to build bridges between old research and new, connecting established scholars and early-career researchers. It illuminates the multiple dynamics of gender in intersecting inequalities. This will be invaluable for students of modern and colonial South Asian history at all levels." — Samita Sen, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, Cambridge

From the Publisher