Sexuality, obscenity, community : women, Muslims, and the Hindu public in colonial India / Charu Gupta.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gupta, Charu.

Language:

English

Hindi

Subjects (All):

Hindu women--Sexual behavior.

Hindu women.

Sex--Religious aspects--Hinduism.

Sex.

Women--India--Social life and customs.

Women.

Hinduism and politics--India.

Hinduism and politics.

Muslims.

Manners and customs.

India.

Muslim women--Sexual behavior--India.

Muslim women.

Muslim women--Sexual behavior.

Muslims--India--Social life and customs.

India--Social life and customs.

Physical Description:

xv, 388 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

First Palgrave edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave, 2002.

Summary:

Through analysis of an impressive array of "low" and "high" Hindi literature, particularly pamphlets, tracts, magazines and newspapers, compounded with archival data, Gupta explores the emerging discourse of gender and sexuality, which was essential to the development of notions of Hindu nationalism and community identity in the colonial period. The book offers an exceptionally nuanced account of Hindu gender politics.

Contents:

Women, Caste, Class and Hindu Communalism in UP 13

2 Redefining Obscenity and Aesthetics in Print 30

I. Colonial Perceptions of Obscenity 34

II. 'Obscenities' in Hindi Literature 39

II.1. The Indigenous Elite and Literary Concerns 39

II.2. 'Dirty' Literature: Contesting the Logic of Morality? 49

III. Brahmacharya, Kaliyug and the Advertisement of Aphrodisiacs 66

3 Sanitising Women's Social Spaces 85

I. Controls over Entertainment 85

II. The Dangers of Prostitutes: The Moral and Urban Geographical Frameworks of Hindus 108

4 Mapping the Domestic Domain 123

I. Unstable Sexualities: The Sexual Politics of the Home 124

I.1. Conjugality and Desire: The Power of Difference 125

I.2. Controversies Around Some Legislative Activities on Hindu Marriage 128

I.3. Fashion, Clothes, Jewellery, Purdah 140

I.4. The Devar-Bhabhi Relationship 151

II. Education and the Fear of Reading: Stated Aims, Unintended Consequences 161

III. Gender, Health and Medical Knowledge 176

III.1. From Traditional Dais to Trained Midwives 177

III.2. Child-Care, Women's Health and Indigenous Practices 185

III.3. Plague and Women's Honour 190

5 The Icon of the Mother: Bharat Mata, Matri Bhasha and Gau Mata 196

I. Mapping the Mother/Nation: The Bharat Mata Temple at Banaras 198

II. Language Debates 203

II.1. Hindi as Mother 205

II.2. Lewd or Chaste, Feminine or Masculine? 206

III. The Cow as Mother 213

6 'Us' and 'Them': Anxious Hindu Masculinity and the 'Other' 222

I. From Malabar to Malkanas: The Shuddhi and Sangathan Movements 223

II. Evoking Hindu Male Prowess, Community and Nation 230

III. Hindu Woman as Sister-in-Arms 235

IV. Conceiving the 'Other' 239

IV.1. Approaching the Muslim Woman 239

IV.2. Abduction Campaigns and the Lustful Muslim Male 243

V. Innovative Propaganda Manipulation 259

7 Hindu Women, Muslim Men 277

I. Regulating Women by Fracturing Shared Spaces in Everyday Life 268

I.1. Economic and Social Boycott 273

I.2. Attacking the Cult of Ghazi Mian 281

II. Hindu Wombs, Muslim Progeny: Shifting Debates on Widow Remarriage 298

II.1. The 'Problem' of Widows' Sexuality 302

II.2. The Numbers Game 307

8 Some Conclusions and Beyond 321

Elopements and Conversions: The Recuperative Possibilities of (Im)possible Love? 325

Appendix Brief Background of Some Hindi Writers and Hindu Publicists 330.

Notes:

"First published in India in 2001 by Permanent Black"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [345]-384) and index.

ISBN:

0312295855

OCLC:

50154176