Tanika Sarkar.

Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and Cultural

Reviewed by Michelle Tusan

Published on H-Women (December, 2002)

Gender, Patriarchy, and Colonialism in Nine‐ Sarkar's introduction poses the question that
teenth-Century India informs the rest of the book, "How is it that the
The nine essays included in Tanika Sarkar's Bengali intelligentsia turned away so firmly from
book, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation, contribute to an liberal reformism to Hindu revivalism later in the
important set of scholarly debates over the rela‐ century" (p. 7)? During this period, the Hindu mid‐
tionship between imperialism, patriarchy, and na‐ dle classes moved "quite decisively towards a Hin‐
tionalism in late-nineteenth-century colonial In‐ du indigenism and nationalism, from a more so‐
dia. Drawing on a wide range of popular texts and cially-questioning and self-critical earlier era"
literary sources, Sarkar utilizes both feminist (pp. 1-2). Both material and ideological changes in
methodology and post-colonial theory to place so‐ Indian society influenced this shift. After 1870,
cial and cultural discussions about women's status middle-class landholders found themselves
under the British colonial rule at the center of the squeezed by British colonial policies that limited
story concerning the early movement for Indian their access to markets and reified patriarchal
independence. The book focuses primarily on tenet-landlord relationships. Sarkar understands
Bengal where Sarkar traces the beginnings of the insecure status of the Bengali middle classes
what she calls a "Hindu cultural nationalism" that during this period as playing a crucial role in
starts to replace a liberal reform tradition by the causing "a self-critical and self-changing liberal
late nineteenth century (p. 1). Tracing the ideolog‐ intelligentsia into a closed, status-quoist, chauvin‐
ical origins of this "revivalist-nationalist" tradi‐ istic one" that retreated into an authoritarian Hin‐
tion, she argues, remains crucial to understanding du revivalism (p. 11).
contemporary Indian politics, particularly in re‐ The shift to a revivalist-nationalist tradition
gard to the status of women and the problem of had important implications regarding the status
contemporary Hindu-Muslim violence (p. 191). of women in Indian society. In chapter 2, Sarkar
traces the making of the Bengali public sphere
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and how the idea of the nation becomes embod‐ One of the most important contributions of
ied in a rigid Hindu patriarchy. Later chapters this book is Sarkar's critique of modern Cultural
make it clear that women play an important role Studies. Sarkar's chapter 6, "Conjugality and Hin‐
in this construction of Indian national identity. du Nationalism," and Edward Said's chapter 7,
Sarkar's reading of women's autobiographies "Orientalism," deal with the debates over the age
from this period reveals the effect that Hindu re‐ of consent. The chapters offer an insightful cri‐
vivalism had in enforcing patriarchal relation‐ tique of Subaltern Studies from a feminist per‐
ships. Emasculated by colonialism, Indian men spective. Said's observations, Sarkar argues, elimi‐
could exercise autonomy only within the one nate the possibility of the agency of the subject
place that the colonial apparatus could not touch: since all power derives from a fixed and hege‐
the home. It is in this chapter that Sarkar's strong monic Western power structure: "The assumption
agenda comes through. "A Book of Her Own, A that colonialism had wiped out all past histories
Life of Her Own" uses women's own voices to re‐ of patriarchal domination, replacing them neatly
store women's agency within the context of the and exclusively with Western forms of gender re‐
nationalist struggle. In contrast to writers such as lations, has naturally led to an exclusive identifi‐
Partha Chatterjee, Sarkar asks the reader to view cation of patriarchy in India with the project of
women as actors rather than as mere symbols liberal reform" (p. 193). For Sarkar, this results in
used by nationalists to represent an uncorrupted a dangerous form of indigenism that legitimates
spiritual realm.[1] all forms of power as authentically Indian as long
To understand the intellectual origins and as they are seen to exist in opposition to a fixed
contemporary legacy of the revivalist-nationalist and unchanging British colonial authority.
tradition, Sarkar turns to a discussion of the writ‐ Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation will prove essential
ings of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyaya in chap‐ reading for scholars interested in Subaltern Stud‐
ters 4 and 5. Her positioning of Bankimchandra as ies, South Asian history, and Feminist Studies.
a mediating voice between Hindu revivalists and Sarkar's work also provides an historical lens
Bengali liberal reformers provides the basis for a through which to view contemporary Indian soci‐
critique of how Hindu womanhood comes to rep‐ ety. Her final chapter, "Aspects of Contemporary
resent the "locus of unconquered purity" for na‐ Hindutva Theology," serves as a sort of epilogue
tionalists (p. 143). Sarkar explores the implication and addresses the problem of communalism and
of this new positioning of Hindu womanhood as violence in modern-day India by analyzing its re‐
an authentic representation of Indian freedom in lationship to the revivalist-nationalist tradition.
the following chapters on age-of-consent legisla‐ Although this chapter proves a provocative end‐
tion that attempted to restrict the practice of child ing to the book, it leaves the reader wondering
marriage. Household conjugality, she claims, how the multiple strands of the story of Hindu re‐
comes to represent the "last independent space vivalism that Sarkar traces in the preceding chap‐
left to the colonized Hindu" (p. 198). The impor‐ ters came to dominate Indian politics for over one
tance of women in the nationalist imagination hundred years. The two original essays that ac‐
makes it possible for them to emerge in the chap‐ company the seven previously published articles
ter entitled "Nationalist Iconography" as potent in this volume could have been more closely inte‐
symbols of "the unviolated, chaste, inner space" of grated through stronger transitions and the elimi‐
the nation that needed to be protected by Indian nation of some repetition. A concluding chapter
patriarchy from the corrupting influence of the along with an index and bibliography also would
colonizer (p. 265).

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Citation: Michelle Tusan. Review of Sarkar, Tanika. Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and
Cultural Nationalism. H-Women, H-Net Reviews. December, 2002.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7036

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