Feminizing Political Discourse: Women & Novel in India 1857-1905

"Feminizing Political Discourse: Women and the Novel in India 1857-1905 views literature as a cultural construct which reflects the socio-political concerns of the age. It questions the assumption that the novel is of western origin, and that its development in India is more a matter of imitation than of evolution. The work focuses on the centrality of the women characters and connects it with the imperial-colonial encounter which placed Indian culture within effeminate constructs. The Indian novel falling back upon the indigenous traditions of romance and storytelling projected women who moved out of sterotypical role-models, displayed ingenuity and resourcefulness and defined a anew femininity which enabled a new masculinity to come into existence. The historical novel was more than a narrative device, it was an introspective interrogation of the political reality. Moving across the different languages and religions of India, the work goes on to examine the manner in which these multiple forces existed side by side, and constructed a multifaceted nation–the Hindu nationalism, the decadent Moghul empire, the emerging Sikh code, and the Hindu-Christian interface. All these aspects are reflected in the work of this period even as they influenced the shaping of the novelistic form."