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About this book
En-Gendering India offers an innovative interpretation of the role that gender played in defining the Indian state during both the colonial and postcolonial eras. Focusing on both British and Indian literary textsāprimarily novelsāproduced between 1857 and 1947, Sangeeta Ray examines representations of "native" Indian women and shows how these representations were deployed to advance notions of Indian self-rule as well as to defend British imperialism.
Through her readings of works by writers including Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Harriet Martineau, Flora Annie Steel, Anita Desai, and Bapsi Sidhaa, Ray demonstrates that Indian women were presented as upper class and Hindu, an idealization that paradoxically served the needs of both colonial and nationalist discourses. The Indian nation's goal of self-rule was expected to enable women's full participation in private and public life. On the other hand, British colonial officials rendered themselves the protectors of passive Indian women against their "savage" male countrymen. Ray shows how the native woman thus became a symbol for both an incipient Indian nation and a fading British Empire. In addition, she reveals how the figure of the upper-class Hindu woman created divisions with the nationalist movement itself by underscoring caste, communal, and religious differences within the newly emerging state. As such, Ray's study has important implications for discussions about nationalism, particularly those that address the concepts of identity and nationalism.
Building on recent scholarship in feminism and postcolonial studies, En-Gendering India will be of interest to scholars in those fields as well as to specialists in nationalism and nation-building and in Victorian, colonial, and postcolonial literature and culture.
Through her readings of works by writers including Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Harriet Martineau, Flora Annie Steel, Anita Desai, and Bapsi Sidhaa, Ray demonstrates that Indian women were presented as upper class and Hindu, an idealization that paradoxically served the needs of both colonial and nationalist discourses. The Indian nation's goal of self-rule was expected to enable women's full participation in private and public life. On the other hand, British colonial officials rendered themselves the protectors of passive Indian women against their "savage" male countrymen. Ray shows how the native woman thus became a symbol for both an incipient Indian nation and a fading British Empire. In addition, she reveals how the figure of the upper-class Hindu woman created divisions with the nationalist movement itself by underscoring caste, communal, and religious differences within the newly emerging state. As such, Ray's study has important implications for discussions about nationalism, particularly those that address the concepts of identity and nationalism.
Building on recent scholarship in feminism and postcolonial studies, En-Gendering India will be of interest to scholars in those fields as well as to specialists in nationalism and nation-building and in Victorian, colonial, and postcolonial literature and culture.
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Yes, you can access En-Gendering India by Sangeeta Ray in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Indian & South Asian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Publisher
Duke University Press BooksYear
2000Print ISBN
9780822324904, 9780822324539eBook ISBN
9780822382805Table of contents
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- CHAPTER ONE Gender and Nation: Woman Warriors in Chatterjeeās Devi Chaudhurani and Anandamath
- CHAPTER TWO Woman as āSutteeā: The Construction of India in Three Victorian Narratives
- CHAPTER THREE Woman as Nation and a Nation of Women: Tagoreās The Home and the World and Hossainās Sultanaās Dream
- CHAPTER FOUR New Women, New Nations: Writing the Partition in Desaiās Clear Light of Day and Sidhwaās Cracking India
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index