Book Review: Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS women as Ideologues (original) (raw)

In the Service of Nationalism: Women in the Hindu Nationalist Paradigm

Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2016

The Hindu nationalism with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as its vanguard, in the recent times, has emerged as dominant creed in the contemporary politico-cultural scenario of India. No walk of society, associated polity as well as their fragments has remained untouched with the nationalist mooring of Hindutva philosophy. This all encompassing and homogenizing doctrine besides other aspects of national life has inadvertently embraced and co-opted the Hindu woman in her different avatars. The gender connotation that is usually ascribed to the nation has unerringly given rise to a situation wherein the women have been consciously intertwined with the nationalist discourse. This phenomenon of co-option by the way of women affiliates of the RSS climaxed particularly during the Ramjanmabhoomi movement in the early 1990s besides at different communal conflagrations. Therefore, the honour of the nation (Hindu Nation) and the honour of the Hindu women is closely linked each other in the Hindu nationalists’ worldview. Hence, within the strong patriarchal system that Hindutva seems to espouse, the women represents both as a flag bearer of family honour (and of the nation) as well as matrishakti, i.e. victim and victor at a same time. This construct of women is highly questioned by the feminists who look at the right-wing tendencies as obscurantist, regressive and totally anti-feminist. This paper deals with the dual imagery that woman seemingly appropriate in the Hindu nationalism espoused by the Sangh Parivar as well as the feminists’ perspectives on such appropriation.

Misra 2024 book review arkotong longkumer the greater india experiment hindutva and the northeast

Studies in Indian Politics, 2024

Arkotong Longkumer's ethnography tracks the successful spread of Hindutva's 'arborescent' roots across the contemporary canvas of religious and political life in northeastern India. Working with a rich repository of ethnographic material collected in the course of interviews with activists of the RSS as well as those associated with non-RSS political organizations, Longkumer finds the RSS and its affiliated members deeply embedded in educational institutions, cultural forms, history writing and organizational politics. He identifies the prime cultural sites for Hindutva's operations: the placing of Northeastern India and its indigenous 'tribal' religions within the 'imaginative geography' of Akhand Bharat, Hindutva's interface with Christianity and Rani Gaidinliu. Although fieldwork remains confined primarily to Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland with some brief forays into Guwahati, the effects and implications of the activities of the RSS are drawn out for the whole of northeastern India. In the last chapter, the issue of citizenship in Tripura is used to explore the relationship between Bengali immigration, 'indigeneity' and the recent electoral success of the BJP. Ethnography in the book comes with a caveat: the lens has been reversed, for the conventionally understood majoritarian position (the RSS) is now a 'minority' one, observed by an 'insider' indigenous Ao Naga. This unique position of the author as 'insider' is underscored in the introductory sections to enhance the credibility of the text. However, as the flow of information from private conversations between Sangh activists and Longkumer becomes text, the process of building ethnographic authority reveals ideological inclinations and desires in the book that frequently refuse to be reconciled with its larger claim of objectivity. The book begins with the author's personal experience of meeting a Sangh activist in a café in Guwahati, where the activist receives a hostile reception from local boys. By making the reader privy to his personal experiences, the author underlines the authority and truth of the ethnographic text: Longkumer was there, in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, where his readers were not. In too many significant moments, however, the author abandons interpretation altogether and presents 'mere' experience as absolute truth. In these moments, the authorial voice defers to the voice of the Sangh activists and uses the authority of personal experience to affirm and legitimize the narrative of Hindutva rather than subject it to critical interpretation and analyses. For example, in a chapter titled 'Arboreal Nation' sections repeatedly endorse, without sufficient qualification or contextualization, Sangh's idea of the nation/nationalism and of itself as a 'nation building organization'. Conveying an RSS worker's version of Golwalkar's ideas, Longkumer ventriloquizes:

Giving Services, Finding What? Gender, Politics and Hindu Fundamentalism in India

In the country like India, there has been widely found the ideas and concept of the so called gender difference that had been the key point for the politicians. In order to attarct the womens for their votes, the politicians both men and women bring some promises to make some development for them. But once they come to power, they forget their promises. In this essay, we will try to look on some of the historical trends on the historiography of the gender in India by the feminists and historians, then move on to highlight the role of women in India’s strugle for freedom in 19th and 20th century. The last parts of the essay consists of the notions of Right-wing organizations and their programmes and propogandas to attrack the women to participate in movements both in colonial India and independent India. The main purpose of the essay is to highlight as to how and why the gender is politicized in India, if the women came out to support the movements led by the men, how much benifits the women got, if not much then why.

Resisting the configurations for a Hindu nation

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2020

The protests against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and a nationwide NRC (National Register of Citizens) have emerged as an important challenge against right-wing majoritarianism in India. These protests frame themselves as part of a struggle to save the Indian constitution and its secular character. How can we understand the role of such protests in resisting the right-wing efforts for a Hindu Rashtra, or a Hindu nation where minorities, especially Muslims, will be marked as undesirable Others? The article attempts to answer this question by looking at Hindu Rashtra as a performative project. The manner in which the processes of anti-CAA-NRC protests attempt to challenge the claims of Hindutva narratives are analyzed. The article explores the possibility of undoing the Hindutva ecosystem of hate through cultural and media materials as well as bodies from the sites of protests which assert the constitutionally guaranteed principle of equality

Chapter 3 From the Indian Sub-Continent : Bapsi Sidhwa and Sarojini Sahoo

2016

Feminism in Indian literature is most commonly conceived as a very sensitive concept which is most subtly handled due to opposition in the name of religion and national identity. The traditionalists perceive feminist discourse as alienating women from culture, religion and family responsibilities. The nationalists are of the opinion that feminism has its roots in west and it will only result in eroding the culture and national identity of women. They believe that women are the best custodians of a nationalistic identity. Hence, they have developed an aversion to the western concept of feminism. Feminist ideas have, throughout history, been the subject of attack from most religious and political ideologies. The word feminism has acquired many negative connotations in India. “Feminism is a signifier of something very particular and comes with additional meanings attached, which many seek to avoid. It has acquired connotations of separatism, extremism, men avoiding lesbianism” (Walby 3...