Gender Studies
2023
Nandi and Saria speak of contexts of proximity and blurring between Hindus and Muslims in the Hijra universe that are similar and yet clearly distinct. In Odisha for instance, Saria observes that ‘their beliefs and practices would often adhere to one while being claimed as characteristic of the other’, necessitating the ethnographer’s ‘fidelity to the way the crossovers between Hindu and Muslim theologies were lived—that is, both as an instantiation and a limit of the notion of religious syncretism’ (Saria, p. 14). Nandi suggests that the kinship hijras in her study in Bengal feel with Muslims is based on the Islamic practice of circumcision—with several hijras converting to Islam after their ritual initiation and constructing the hijra identity within a spiritual framework marked by celibacy and asceticism.
Each chapter posits a clue in the form of a tag line to the name. A short introduction to the individual is followed by the reason for choosing her story. The rest of the chapter is divided into sections that mark the twists and turns of that journey. The stories end by focusing on one dominant norm/stereotype of that life and the ‘hacks’ that the individual exercised to overcome or storm that norm.
This richly researched and evocatively articulated narrative, however, might leave a historian hankering for more in terms of a radical re-engagement with some of the existing frameworks. While the author begins with critiquing existing historiography on reducing the life of the Widow Reform Movement to its architect, Vidyasagar, the choice of opening the book with a chapter dedicated to the man does make the reader question the extent to which the book falls into the same trap.
It is here, in the kotha, that Rekha Devi begins to piece together the shreds of her life and secure it from one day to the next, discovering herself in the process—learning music although she ‘sang like Neelkamal’, her goat, and wondered how she could ever sing, when she hardly ever spoke (p. 20). Her body, however, responded instantly to music (p. 22). She wished the ustad who tried to teach her music would use a spittoon and ‘not open his fountain mouth which sprinkled red spittle all over
The nine-chaptered book by Joanna Bourke was first published in Britain in 2022. The South Asia edition has a dedicated preface for the Indian Edition. Joanna Bourke considers the year 2022 a pivotal year in the context of sexual violence in India as it marks the release of eleven prisoners convicted for life for the rape of Bilkis Bano. ‘In the 75th year of India’s Independence,
2022
Intimate City by Manjima Bhattacharjya is a fascinating exploration of the new and discreet forms of sexual labour in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The book traces the changing ‘sex work geographies’ in the metropolis by exploring the intersection of gender, sexuality, space, and the internet (p. 4).