Gender in the History

Gender in the History

Question -  Highlight the troubled relationship between feminism and history in the Indian context?

Feminist historiography makes us methodologically look at new kinds of questions

Janki Nair points out the remark of Andre Beteille about feminism and history, the space within the academic world dominated by the ideas of Marxism that space is now being taken over by feminism i.e what marxism did many decades back now feminism is doing, while it is important to recognize that feminist significantly contributed in the field of history but at the same time we need to look at some other things as well

The relationship between feminism and history in India has been complex, often marked by tension, critique, and transformation. Feminist historiography has challenged dominant historical narratives and introduced new methodologies, sources, and questions, especially regarding the position and agency of women.

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1. Feminism’s Challenge to Traditional Historical Narratives

Feminist historiography emerged as a response to both colonial and nationalist historical writing. As Janki Nair notes, while Marxism once dominated academic history, feminism has increasingly taken that critical space. It has questioned the foundational assumptions of history-writing, including who gets written about and what counts as evidence.

Feminist historians have asked new kinds of questions, shifting the focus from elite political events to gender, subjectivity, everyday life, and emotional and bodily experiences, areas traditionally excluded from mainstream historiography.

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2. Colonial and Nationalist Histories: A Problematic Legacy

Colonial historians, like James Mill, viewed Indian women’s status as degraded, using this to justify the British “civilizing mission”. The nationalist response, however, was equally flawed. It constructed a glorified ancient past as a “golden age” for women and vilified the medieval period as a time of decline due to “foreign” influence (particularly Muslim).

Nationalist and social reformist narratives assumed a linear, evolutionary model of progress for women, highlighting reforms like widow remarriage, female education, or Sati abolition, often overlooking women's own voices, desires, and agency. Feminist scholars critique these narratives for being male-led, upper-caste-centric, and elite-oriented.

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3. Feminist Critique of Reform and Nationalist Movements

Feminist historians argue that reform movements were paternalistic and largely driven by male reformers from elite castes. While these reforms were projected as liberatory, they often restructured patriarchy rather than dismantling it.

For instance:

• Gail Minault emphasizes how the metaphor of the extended family in nationalism reinforced traditional gender roles.

• Uma Chakravarti, in “Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasis?”, questions the myth of an ideal ancient past.

• Ruby Lal breaks the stereotype of the medieval as dark, showing educated and powerful women like Nur Jahan and Gulbadan Begum.

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4. Feminism, Modernity, and Colonial Capitalism

The introduction of capitalist modernity under colonialism led to the creation of a new bourgeois male, who desired a companionate wife—educated but domesticated. In “Recasting Women”, feminist scholars argue that modern reforms often imprisoned women in new patriarchal structures, masking domination as empowerment.

Methreyi Krishnaraj and Geraldine Forbes have explored neglected areas like women's writings, work, and everyday resistance, although their studies mainly focus on north Indian, Hindu, middle-class women.

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5. Gender and Masculinity

Feminist historiography has also begun to explore masculinity:

• Ashis Nandy critiques colonialism’s construction of India as feminine and passive and shows how Gandhi subverted this by valorizing feminine traits like suffering and sacrifice.

• Mrinalini Sinha, in “Colonial Masculinity”, links masculinity with colonial and national power structures.

• Partha Chatterjee’s influential idea of the “home and world” dichotomy has been questioned for its regional limits by scholars like J. Devika (in Kerala) and Anupama Rao, who points out how Dalit and anti-caste movements addressed women’s issues differently.

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6. Subaltern and Feminist Histories

Subaltern historians brought attention to non-elite women, yet the relationship between feminist and subaltern studies has been uneasy. While subaltern studies complicate colonial masculinity and power, feminist historians argue that it often ignored gender as a central analytic category and failed to represent women’s subjective experiences adequately.

As Janki Nair argues, feminist scholarship, despite being empirically rich and representative, hasn’t received the same sustained attention as subaltern studies.

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7. Feminism and Political Events: Partition, Riots, and Religion

Feminist history in India is closely linked to political events:

• Ritu Menon and Urvashi Butalia have shown how the Partition and 1984 anti-Sikh riots profoundly shaped women's experiences of violence, displacement, and trauma.

• Scholars like Tanika Sarkar and Amrita Basu explored how women are used both as symbols and agents in communal discourse, especially in the context of Hindu nationalism and Babri Masjid demolition.

• The Mandal Commission era brought focus to caste and gender, showing the need for an intersectional approach.

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8. Limitations and the Way Forward

Despite its achievements, feminist historiography has limitations:

• A narrow focus on Hindu, north Indian, middle-class women.

• Lack of sufficient attention to Dalit, tribal, Muslim, and regional experiences.

• Sometimes remains disciplinarily isolated, not engaging enough with other fields like political economy, cultural studies, or literary theory.

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Conclusion

The troubled relationship between feminism and history in India arises from feminism’s insistence on rethinking the very foundations of history—its subjects, sources, and methods. While feminism has opened up new spaces within Indian historiography, there remains a need for auto-critique, intersectionality, and greater interdisciplinarity. The goal is not merely to add women into history, but to transform how history itself is written and understood.

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Bibliography 

• Charu Gupta, Gendering Colonial India

• Mrinalini Sinha, Mapping the Imperial Social Formation

• Janki Nair, The Troubled Relationship: Feminism and History

• Dubra Ghose, Gender and Colonialism

• Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India

• Ritu Menon & Urvashi Butalia, Partition and Women

• Uma Chakravarti, Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasis?

• Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World

• Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy

• Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments

• Anupama Rao, The Caste Question