Table Of Contenti
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
GENDER IN SOUTH ASIA
This new edition of the Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia provides a comprehensive
overview of the study of gender in South Asia. The Handbook covers the central contributions
that have defined this area and captures innovative and emerging paradigms that are shaping
the future of the field. It offers a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives
spanning both the humanities and social sciences, focusing on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Sri Lanka. This revised edition has been thoroughly updated and includes new chapters, thus
adding new areas of scholarship. The Handbook is organized thematically into five major parts:
• Historical formations and theoretical framings
• Law, citizenship and the nation
• Representations of culture, place, identity
• Labor and the economy
• Inequality, activism and the state
The Handbook illustrates the ways in which scholarship on gender has contributed to a rethink
of theoretical concepts and empirical understandings of contemporary South Asia. Finally, it
focuses on new areas of inquiry that have been opened up through a focus on gender and the
intersections between gender and categories, such as caste, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion.
This timely study is essential reading for scholars who research and teach on South Asia as well
as for scholars in related interdisciplinary fields that focus on women and gender from compara-
tive and transnational perspectives.
Leela Fernandes is Director and the Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies at the
Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
She is the author of numerous books and essays. Her books on India include India’s New Middle
Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (2006), Producing Workers: The Politics of
Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (1997), and her forthcoming book, Governing
Water in India: Urbanization, Inequality and the Liberalizing State (2022).
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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
GENDER IN SOUTH ASIA
Second Edition
Edited by Leela Fernandes
iv
Second edition published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Leela Fernandes;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Leela Fernandes to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published Routledge 2014
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Fernandes, Leela, editor.
Title: Routledge handbook of gender in South Asia/edited by Leela Fernandes.
Description: 2nd edition. | Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021022778 | ISBN 9780367479657 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781032126517 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003043102 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism–South Asia. |
Women–Government policy–South Asia. |
Women–South Asia–Social conditions. |
Women–South Asia–Economic conditions. |
Women’s rights–South Asia.
Classification: LCC HQ1735.3 .R68 2022 | DDC 305.420954–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022778
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 47965- 7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 12651- 7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 04310- 2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003043102
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
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CONTENTS
List of figures ix
List of contributors x
Preface xv
PART I
Historical formations and theoretical framings 1
1 Gendered nationalism: from women to gender and back again? 3
Mrinalini Sinha
2 Construction of gender in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century in Muslim Bengal: the writings of Nawab Faizunnessa
Chaudhurani and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain 18
Firdous Azim and Perween Hasan
3 Gender, women and partition: literary representations, refugee
women and partition studies 31
Paulomi Chakraborty
4 The contact zones of intersectionality: inequality and feminist
knowledge production on India 44
Leela Fernandes
5 Dalit feminist thought 55
Shailaja Paik
6 Brahmanical ignorance and dominant Indian feminism’s origin stories 70
Dia Da Costa
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Contents
PART II
Law, citizenship and the nation 85
7 Gender and citizenship in India 87
Anupama Roy
8 Gender, activism, and democratic politics in Bangladesh 103
Elora Shehabuddin
9 Law, sex work and activism in India 117
Prabha Kotiswaran
10 The Supreme Court of India and maintenance for Muslim
women: transformatory jurisprudence 131
Vrinda Narain
11 Female militancy: reflections from Sri Lanka 148
Sharika Thiranagama
12 Weaponizing women: Kashmir and the Indian military occupation 162
Ather Zia
PART III
Representations of culture, place, identity 175
13 The political economy of moral regulation in Pakistan: religion, gender
and class in a postcolonial context 177
Saadia Toor
14 Gender, media and popular culture in a global India 191
Maitrayee Chaudhuri
15 Death and friendship: queer archives of the space between 206
Naisargi N. Dave
16 Women’s place- making in Santosh Nagar: gendered constellations 219
Ann Grodzins Gold
17 Vernacular frames, queer encounters 235
Navaneetha Mokkil
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Contents
PART IV
Labor and the economy 247
18 Garments and a global pandemic: revisiting global governance
initiatives and garment sector workers – tracing Sri Lanka’s gender
and development politics during Covid- 19 249
Kanchana N. Ruwanpura
19 An intersection of Marxism and feminism among India’s informal
workers: a second marriage? 263
Rina Agarwala
20 A feminist commodity chain analysis of rural transformation in
contemporary India 276
Priti Ramamurthy
21 NGOs, state and neoliberal development in South Asia: the
paradigmatic case of Bangladesh in a global perspective 289
Lamia Karim
22 Gender and paid domestic work in Sri Lanka 303
Annemari de Silva
PART V
Inequality, activism and the state 317
23 The Aurat March: women’s movements and new feminisms in Pakistan 319
Shama Dossa
24 Feminism, sexual violence, and the times of #MeToo in India 335
Mary E. John
25 Dalit women between social and analytical alterity: rethinking the
‘quintessentially marginal’ 351
Manuela Ciotti
26 Feminism, sexuality and the rhetoric of Westernization in
Pakistan: precarious citizenship 365
Moon Charania
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Contents
27 Mapping women’s activism in India: resistances, reforms
and (re- )creation 380
Rukmini Sen
Glossary 394
Index 397
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FIGURES
16.1 Worship of Basil Mother 223
16.2 Handiwork on display in Lakshmi’s living room 226
16.3 Santosh Nagar women on their way to the neighborhood temple 227
16.4 Interior of Kusum’s living space 231
23.1 Marcher carrying poster at 2018 Aurat March in Karachi 320
23.2 Trans women holding up a poster at the Aurat March 2018
in Karachi 321
23.3 WAF Poster depicting women’s participation in Public Protests in
Pakistan 323
23.4 Meme illustrating satire and opposition to the Aurat March:
“Heat your own food!” 329
23.5 Meme illustrating satire and opposition to the Aurat March:
“My body, my right” 330
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