Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation: an Introduction

ABSTRACT

The introduction to the special issue ‘Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation’ traces how feminist scholarship has worked on mainstreaming the category ‘gender’ as central to any discussion on both nations and nationalisms. It examines how the imaginary of the body-politic is almost always masculine, where only men can be citizens, and women are confined to their biological roles. It further seizes the contemporary moment as a historical juncture, which is witness to a heightened contradiction. On the one hand, there has been a resurgence of nationalism with the coming of a Right-wing government in 2014 that deploy images of women as nation-mother (Bharat Mata) to legitimize violence. On the other hand, we are increasingly seeing an assertion of rights, legal reforms, as well as an expanding presence of young women in movements that demand changes in both cultural and political spheres. Thus, this introduction asks questions on the nature of the gap between the democratic modern state’s commitment to gender equality, and in contradiction , the mediation of this relation by the family, community, and the market.

KEYWORDS:

• Nation
• gender
• ideology
• representations
• women’s movements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. McClintock, “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family.” 61 -80; Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation; Ramaswamy, “Maps and Mother Goddesses in Modern India.” 97 -114.

2. For a detailed discussion, see Das, “Communities as Political Actors.” 441-471.

3. Yuval-Davis and Anthias, Woman-Nation-State; Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation and Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation.

4. Kandiyoti, Women, Islam and the State and Chatterjee, Nation and Its Fragments.

5. Mostov, “‘Our Womens’/‘Their Womens’ Symbolic Boundaries, Territorial Markers, and Violence in the Balkans.” 515 -529; Sinha “Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late Colonial India.” 623-644; Ramaswamy, “Maps and Mother Goddesses in Modern India.” 97–114.

6. Pateman, The Sexual Contract; Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases; Connell, “The State, Gender and Sexual Politics: Theory and Appraisal.” 507–544.

7. Yuval-Davis, “Belonging and the Politics of Belonging.” 197–214.

8. Crowley, “The Politics of Belonging: Some Theoretical Considerations” cited in Ibid.

9. https://scroll.in/article/681590/%5BVideo%5D-Cops-look-on-as-mob-attacks-black-men-in-Delhi-metro-station Accessed on 29 September 2018.

10. Personal interview with Natash Rather and Ifrah Butt, 2016.

11. The Wire, 2016. Accessed at https://thewire.in/communalism/dadri-lynching-bisada-ravin-sisodia on 24 April 2018.

12. Iyer, The Quint, 2018. Accessed at https://www.thequint.com/news/india/who-is-hindu-ekta-manch-kathua-rape-case on 24 April 2018.

13. Debord, The Society of the Spectacle.

14. Butler, Who Sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging, 4–5.

15. Ramaswamy, “Maps and Mother Goddesses in Modern India.” 97–114.

16. Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World; Butalia, The Other Side of Silence ; Sinha “Refashioning Mother India: Feminism and Nationalism in Late Colonial India.” 623–644.; Mohsin, “Gendered Nation, Gendered Peace” 43–64.

17. Spivak, Nationalism and the Imagination, 13.

18. Oza, The Making of Neoliberal India.

19. John and Nair, A Question of Silence.

20. Rajan, Real and Imagined Women.

21. Tharu and Niranjana, “Problems for a Contemporary Theory of Gender.” 93–117.

22. ibid.

23. John, April 2016, ‘Feminism, Freedom and Bharat Mata’.

24. Ibid.