Nationhood, Women and Religious Politics

Chery MvEwan states "development is about power – its operations, its geographies, its highly uneven distribution and strategies for achieving it." (p.93), in the Indian context, this power manifests in the political battlefield, where the policy making and control of development initiatives is practiced.  The recent Hindutva movement in India, has given space for the women to enter Indian politics. However, their influence is largely shrouded under the image of a "sadhvi" or an ascetic. In the recent years, India has seen a rise of Sadhvi's in the political arena.

The discourse on nationhood and women is an ideal domain to explore the gendered symbolism used by societies to hegemonize women. With shrinking national boundaries, the transnational feminist movement has allowed greater scrutiny of the marginalization of women within the mythical imagined communities, the nation-state. Yuval Davis (1997) writes that "Women often come to symbolize the national collectivity” and the “collective honour” (p.219) of the country. This power play of signification, wherein women become signifiers of collective honour and bearers of national culture, is increasingly problematic for multiple reasons.

The pedestalized approach of the nation towards women legitimizes control in a subtle manner. According to Mee, the representation of women in the postcolonial context "portray women interacting with their natural environment in ways that represent women ‘purely as “women’”, that is, uncomplicated by reference to men, family, relationships or differences." This claim can be understood by the participation of Indian women in nationalist politics, giving them an “illusion of power.” (Basu, p. 232). Hindu Nationalism allowed Indian women to depart from their normative roles assigned in the private domain to achieve greater prominence in the roles as militant leaders insinuating violence through speech. Hindu Nationalist movement chose female ascetics for political positions in order to tap on the notion of women as symbols of “collective honour” (Davis, 1997). By putting these women on a cultural pedestal of purity and sanctity, the Hindu Nationalists protected them from the slander that women often face when they enter political life. Thus, women’s interest is not served by this pseudo symbolic pedestalization, as the deep-rooted misogyny continues to exist in Indian society. 

The Hindu Nationalists have “fostered activist roles for women around the Ram Janambhoomi issue by using the raped Hindu woman as “symbolic of the victimisation of the entire Hindu community" (Basu, 234) at the hands of the Muslim minority. This symbolic view of the Indian women holding the collective honour of the Indian community is extremely problematic as it plays on the idea of fragmentation of the community, dividing it into religious and sectarian bases. It may materially mobilize the militant leaders in a spirit of comradeship, giving them agency and power, but will not cater to the feminist agenda as it renders the minority women voiceless.

Having discussed the ramifications of assigning “national collectivity and honor to women, it is imperative to  discuss the complexity of these implications as seen by Enloe (1990) when she writes that "Women in many communities trying to assert their sense of national identity find that coming into an emergent nationalist movement through the accepted feminine roles of the bearer of the community's memory and children is empowering.” (p.224-225). The homogeneity that exists when women are assigned the role of cultural bearers of the nation-state, constructing identities that do not dissent or depart from the normative cultural values is again a problematic notion. 

Enloe has argues that the symbolic association of a veil to a Muslim woman inevitably makes her "nation's most valuable possession” (p.224) in the hands of the neo-colonial powers. Muslim women find themselves trapped between divergent loyalties towards the national culture and self-emancipation.

According to Enloe, some women might find the veil as "empowering" (p.224), as the very framework in which they function is without choice. The intervention of the United States in Afghanistan can be considered as an example.  While the US legitimized its opposition to Iran’s repressive policies in the name of women empowerment, the same was not seen in its intervention in Afghanistan, where women were adversely affected by the US presence in Afghanistan. Enloe mentions that “women are like birds in a cage” (p.226) during a nationalist movement that is under siege. 

As seen in the example of female ascetics in Indian politics or the veiled Muslim women, the symbolic use of religious garments in a politicized environment must be questioned, while the presence of women in Indian politics can be advertised as the increasing empowerment of Indian women, it does not allows the woman to express herself, as a woman, rather it gives her alternatives to embrace masculine or normative religious traits to be able to lead a highly patriarchal nation.

Grewal, I., Kaplan, C., & Gunew, S. (2002). Women's studies on its own: A next wave reader in institutional change. Duke University Press. (Yuval Davis and Cynthia Enloe's article derived from an anthology)

McEwan, Cheryl. 2001. Postcolonialism, Feminism and Development: Intersections and Dilemmas.” Progress in Development Studies 1:93-111.

Mee, Wendy. 2016. "The Social Lives of Gender and Religion: Implications for Development Policy." Sustainable Development 24:163-171.