The Idea of the Indian Muslim Woman: Identity and Agency vis-à-vis the Indian State (original) (raw)
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Politics of Locating Muslim Women in Islamic Discursive Tradition in India by Esita Sur
In postcolonial India, narratives about Muslim women have revolved around tropes, such as tin talaq (divorce), purdah (veil), polygamy and Islam. These have always played a significant role to shape their homogenised identity: an existence of oppression and subordination. However, the paper will try to argue that the marginalisation of Muslim women is not only structural but also discursive (popular as well as religious), which produce them as ‘victims’ and ‘voiceless others’. The paper will also try to argue that Muslim women have already been discursively produced as incapable of progressive thinking, and waging struggle against their subordination. Therefore, the paper shall make an attempt to examine the impact of popular as well as Islamic discourses in shaping the identity of Muslim women in India, and locate those alternative spaces, where Muslim women can challenge their homogenised existence as a category as well as dominant discourses on their victimhood.
Politics of Locating Muslim Women in Islamic Discursive Tradition in India
Space and Culture, India, 2015
In postcolonial India, narratives about Muslim women have revolved around tropes, such as tin talaq (divorce), purdah (veil), polygamy and Islam. These have always played a significant role to shape their homogenised identity: an existence of oppression and subordination. However, the paper will try to argue that the marginalisation of Muslim women is not only structural but also discursive (popular as well as religious), which produce them as ‘victims’ and ‘voiceless others’. The paper will also try to argue that Muslim women have already been discursively produced as incapable of progressive thinking, and waging struggle against their subordination. Therefore, the paper shall make an attempt to examine the impact of popular as well as Islamic discourses in shaping the identity of Muslim women in India, and locate those alternative spaces, where Muslim women can challenge their homogenised existence as a category as well as dominant discourses on their victimhood.
2004
India gained Independence fifty-seven years ago and established itself as a secular and democratic nation. Democracy endows people with the basic ideals of equality, justice, dignity and the right to information. A democratic government has been described as one "of the people, for the people and by the people". Hence, it represents the people of the society who form the State. The State then represents the collective power of its people. This representation is manifested in its various institutions such as the judiciary, the legislature, etc and also the various facets of this society such as caste, gender relations, etc. The Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections have been conducted recently, and now, a relatively more secular and democratic political party has taken over the reigns of these institutions and our society. Nevertheless, equality and freedom as a base for democracy is still in a threatened position.
Muslim Women in Indian Society: A Critical Analysis
MUKT SHABD JOURNAL, 2020
Muslims occupy an important position in Indian society. They are the principal minority of this country. According to 2011 census, Muslims constituted 14.23% of India's total population with majority. Women empowerment is a contemporary issue for developing countries like India. It is assumed that the development of Muslim society has sustained a setback due to various factors of which the 'Invisible' role and 'Marginal' social position of women in dynamics of Muslim society is very important. The rates of women empowerment are in a vulnerable condition within the largest Muslim minority. Lack of social opportunities for Muslim women is a crucial issue needing urgent Action. This paper attempts to present a critical analysis of the socioeconomic status of Muslim women in India. It concludes that minorities in the minority i.e. Muslim women are still forced to live a secluded and submissive life. According to the Sachar Committee report Muslim women are among the poorest, educationally disenfranchised, economically vulnerable, politically marginalized group in the country. However, the Supreme Court of India has declared the applicability of secular law over Muslims in Shah Bano's case but still personal law is continuing itself violating constitutional injunctions of equality and freedom from discrimination. Fundamentalists of Islam are needed to wake up and put robust efforts to bring Muslim women in mainstream by implementing the various laws and schemes framed for them in a (Verma saumya,2019) proper way.
REVIEW OPEN ACCESS Politics of Locating Muslim Women in Islamic Discursive Tradition in India
In postcolonial India, narratives about Muslim women have revolved around tropes, such as tin talaq (divorce), purdah (veil), polygamy and Islam. These have always played a significant role to shape their homogenised identity: an existence of oppression and subordination. However, the paper will try to argue that the marginalisation of Muslim women is not only structural but also discursive (popular as well as religious), which produce them as 'victims' and 'voiceless others'. The paper will also try to argue that Muslim women have already been discursively produced as incapable of progressive thinking, and waging struggle against their subordination. Therefore, the paper shall make an attempt to examine the impact of popular as well as Islamic discourses in shaping the identity of Muslim women in India, and locate those alternative spaces, where Muslim women can challenge their homogenised existence as a category as well as dominant discourses on their victimhood.
Archetypal Motherhood and the National Agenda: The Case of the Indian Muslim Women
Space and Culture, India, 2020
The grand narratives of Mother India posit women's emancipation as the central concern, insisting on her public participation in the educational and economic sectors. The relegation of the archetypal motherhood to the national periphery is strictly rooted in the Hindu traditional culture. The schisms of caste, class, and religion in contemporary society are normalised whilst the gendered undercurrents of domestic violence, chauvinism and religious sensibilities are ignored. Such polished idealisms are, in fact, far from the living reality of most women and girls across all spheres in the country. By reviewing notable texts from past and present, this research problematises the position of Muslim women in India, specifically during the nationalistic discourse and post-independent era. The national freedom struggle movement assured a democratic constitution, which primed Mother India as the figurative Indian woman encrypting ideologies from socio-religious discourses. The grand narratives often become instrumental in politicising the vested interest of the hegemonic class. The struggles of Muslim women were foregrounded not only in the gendered disparity of the religious domain but also in the socio-cultural disparities which excluded them from the domain of Indian womanhood. Mainstream history, literature and even women development organisations deliberately typified Muslim women along with the religious discourse. Briefly, in this paper, we infer that Muslim women were rendered invisible in the limelight of the archetypal Mother India, denying their social, political, cultural and literary participation. They were thus subjected to constitutional othering by the mainstream socio-political entities (who subjected them) at the onset of nationalism, which continues to exist in post-colonial discourses where women are expected to constantly negotiate their religious identity over their national identity.
Representation of Terrorism in Bollywood: the Construction of Muslim Women's Agencies in Kurbaan1
This paper sets out to analyse the Bollywood movie Kurbaan. The analysed movie breaks out from the mainstream Western media and Bollywood movie narratives by giving 'voices' to the Muslim terrorists: it tries to explain and rationalize the motives behind the terrorists' behavior. Yet what makes Kurbaan's narrative even more distinctive, when compared to the conventional cinema, is its efforts to develop the topics related to the Muslim women's agency. This paper aims to analyse Kurbaan namely from the construction of women's agency perspective. Although at first glance it seems that Kurbaan reinforces the image, dominant in the Western media, of oppressed Muslim women and reproduces simplistic binaries between religious and non or less religious women, at the same time, by introducing various Muslim women characters with different levels of agency, the movie reminds the spectator that not all women are passive victims without any agency. Kurbaan develops the ...
The Muslim Problem: A Majoritarian Concern in India
The Muslim Problem: A Majoritarian Concern in India, 2023
Muslim communities in modern Indian society are often seen through the lens of race and politics. The separate mechanisms of faith and secularism, which, as Judith Butler observes, may well be "a fugitive way" for certain kinds of "religion to survive", are meshed together with the politics of representation and counter-representation of Islam and Muslims in the framing of identities. From the Babri masjid demolition to the wake of Ram mandir bhoomi pujan, and the hijab controversy, religion and culture run the risk of being employed in disloyalty, as a threat, in an artistically compromised manner. This article will examine how the tensions between individual subjectivity and a communitarian adherence to culture and faith manifest themselves in the present-day situation in India, as they negotiate between the pull of a liberal individualist lifestyle and that of family and community-between speaking as an "I" and on behalf of a collective.
Journal of law and social studies, 2022
This paper locates the Muslim women's social conditions particularly in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent which largely arose out of two sources; a) evolution of Islam and development of several schools of jurisprudence; b) Muslim's contact with the Indian culture. Over several centuries, more particularly from the early 13 th century onward (by this time, Muslim Turkish rule had been established in India), and the impact of Bhakti movement both on Hindus and Muslims and spread of teachings of Guru Nanak and Bhagat Kabir, Muslims came to adopt many of the Hindu notions and practices. This was in addition to attitudes that came with them by their conversion to Islam. The first part of the paper deals with the effects of Hindu culture regarding status of women on Muslims. The second part of the paper discusses the plight of Muslim women in literature i.e Punjab folk lore of Heer Ranjha. It tries to convey the thoughts on several social customs, particularly emphasizing the various aspects of women's life. The third part provides the ethnographic evidence which confirms that women, particularly in rural areas, have faced low status and problem connected with rapes, marriages, dowry, and divorces, etc. With solidification of customs, discrimination against a female endures through centuries. As a result, Muslim women were become socially backward, economically susceptible, and politically marginalized segment of society.