Hindu wife, Hindu nation : community, religion, and cultural nationalism

What are the major Hindu ideas and traditions of India that have shaped dominant conceptions of womanhood, domesticity, wifeliness, and mothering, and of India as a ""Hindu"" nation? Tanika Sarkar analyzes literary and social traditions, the elite voices and popular culture that helped create the lived reality of north India today. She explores the proto-nationalist novels of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya as well as scandal literature, rumors, women's memoirs, and the popular press of colonial times for the ""subaltern"" ideas that have shaped contemporary India. Sarkar also examines the way earlier Indian religious traditions of saintliness, sacrifice, heroism, and warfare are being subverted or transformed by militant and fundamentalist forms of Hinduism. Frontmatter Introduction (page 1) 1 Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (page 23) 2 Talking About Scandals: Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth-Century Bengal (page 53) 3 A Book of Her Own, A Life of Her Own: The Autobiography of a Nineteenth-Century Woman (page 95) 4 Bankimchandra and the Impossibility of a Political Agenda (page 135) 5 Imagining Hindu Rashtra: The Hindu and the Muslim in Bankimchandra's Writings (page 163) 6 Conjugality and Hindu Nationalism: Resisting Colonial Reason and the Death of a Child-Wife (page 191) 7 A Pre-History of Rights? The Age of Consent Debates in Colonial Bengal (page 226) 8 Nationalist Iconography: The Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengali Literature (page 250) 9 Aspects of Contemporary Hindutva Theology: The Voice of Sadhvi Rithambhara (page 268) "[The essays] combine first-rate and pathbreaking historical research and interpretations with a vigorous critique of the theoretical turns that South Asian Studies have recently taken under the influence of Subaltern Studies and postcolonial criticism. This is no dry-as-dust history. . . . The essays are all informed by a lively sense of a passionate commitment to gender justice and progressive social change." —Dipesh Chakrabarty

Author Biography: Tanika Sarkar is Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her earlier books include Bengal 1928-1934: The Politics of Popular Protest, Words to Win: 'Amar Jiban' - A Modern Autobiography, and

Women and Right-Wing Movements (co-edited with Urvashi Butalia).

Machine generated contents note: 1 Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal 2 Talking About Scandals Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth-Century Bengal 3 A Book of Her Own, A Life of Her Own The Autobiography of a Nineteenth-Century Woman 4 Bankimchandra and the Impossibility of a Political Agenda 5 Imagining Hindu Rashtra The Hindu and the Muslim in Bankimchandra's Writings 6 Conjugality and Hindu Nationalism Resisting Colonial Reason and the Death of a Child-Wife 7 A Pre-History of Rights? The Age of Consent Debates in Colonial Bengal 8 Nationalist Iconography The Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengali Literature 9 Aspects of Contemporary Hindutva Theology The Voice of Sadhvi Rithambhara.