Gender And Caste Hierarchy In Colonial Bengal

Author : Deboshruti Roychowdhury Roychowdhury
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9789381345054
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal written by Deboshruti Roychowdhury Roychowdhury and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book breaks new ground in perceiving the interrelations among class, caste, religious and gender identities to grasp the complex notion of ideal womanhood in the nineteenth century. It argues that this was not restricted to the upper caste bhadramahila but was accepted by more marginalised so-called lower castes like the subarnabaniks (gold merchants), gandhabaniks (spice merchants), mahishyas (prosperous farmers) sadgopes (prosperous peasantry), among others, to move up the caste hierarchy. If women were seen to be educated, running their homes as 'aware' housewives, becoming companions to their husbands, and always constant in their chastity, their caste gained in status. British rule had introduced significant socio-political and economic changes, creating a fertile environment for upward mobility. In her careful discussion on caste and gender, the author reveals the strategically veiled relationships between caste and women, 'within which women of all strata were arguably locked'. Questioning the pre-modern and 'traditional' perceptions of Indian societies in which the members of society are generally characterised as unreasoning followers of ideologies, this book analyses the different historical forces that have shaped the notion of ideal womanhood and gendered social relations in a constantly shifting caste-based social order.

Author : Swapna M. Banerjee
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Men, Women, and Domestics written by Swapna M. Banerjee and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "By reclaiming the historical relationship between domesticity, housework, and domestic service in colonial Bengal, Men, Women, and Domestics contributes to a comprehensive understanding of domestic politics in the construction of national identity. Swapna M. Banerjee provides new insights into the Bengali middle-class perception of domestic workers, a subject that has not received much scholarly attention in social history writing in India." "Focusing upon stories of employers and servants, she demonstrates how caste-class formation among the predominantly Hindu Bengali middle class depended much upon its relationships with the subordinate social groups, of which domestic workers formed an integral part. Examining a wide variety of literary and official sources, the book establishes that the articulation of the Bengali middle-class self-identity was predicated on the definition of its women, who in turn, were carefully distinguished from members of lower socio-economic groups." "This book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asia history, gender studies, culture, and social anthropology, as well as the growing readership of cross-cultural and comparative studies on the institutions of family, domesticity, domestic labour, and related forms of servitude."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
Publisher : SAGE
ISBN 13 : 9780761998495
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Caste, Culture and Hegemony written by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2004-08-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely believed that, because of its exceptional social development, the caste system in colonial Bengal differed considerably from the rest of India. Through a study of the complex interplay between caste, culture and power, this book convincingly demonstrates that Bengali Hindu society preserved the essentials of caste discrimination in colonial times, even while giving the outward appearance of having changed. Using empirical data combined with an impressive array of secondary sources, Dr Bandyopadhyay delineates the manner in which Hindu caste society maintained its cultural hegemony and structural cohesion. This was primarily achieved by frustrating reformist endeavours, by co-opting the challenges of the dalit, and by marginalising dissidence. It was through such a process of constant negotiation in the realm of popular culture, argues the author, that this oppressive social structure and its hierarchical ideology and values have survived. Starting with an examination of the relationship between caste and power, the book examines early cultural encounters between `high' Brahmanical tradition and the more egalitarian `popular' religious cults of the lower castes. It moves on to take a close look at the relationship between caste and gender showing the reasons why the reform movement for widow remarriage failed. It ends with an examination of the Hindu `partition' campaign, which appropriated dalit autonomous politics and made Hinduism the foundation of an emergent Indian national identity. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay breaks with many of the assumptions of two important schools of thought - the Dumontian and the subaltern - and takes instead a more nuanced approach to show how high caste hegemony has been able to perpetuate itself. He thus takes up issues which go to the heart of contemporary problems in India's social and political fabric. This important and original contribution will be widely welcomed by historians, sociologists and political scientists.

Author : Śekhara Bandyopādhyāẏa
Publisher : Sage Publications Limited
ISBN 13 : 9780761932345
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Caste, Culture, and Hegemony written by Śekhara Bandyopādhyāẏa and published by Sage Publications Limited. This book was released on 2004 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely believed that, because of its exceptional social development, the caste system in colonial Bengal differed considerably from the rest of India. Through a study of the complex interplay between caste, culture and power, this book convincingly demonstrates that Bengali Hindu society preserved the essentials of caste discrimination in colonial times, even while giving the outward appearance of having changed. Using empirical data combined with an impressive array of secondary sources, Dr Bandyopadhyay delineates the manner in which Hindu caste society maintained its cultural hegemony and structural cohesion. Starting with an examination of the relationship between caste and power, the book examines early cultural encounters between `high` Brahmanical tradition and the more egalitarian `popular` religious cults of the lower castes. It moves on to take a close look at the relationship between caste and gender showing the reasons why the reform movement for widow remarriage failed. It ends with an examination of the Hindu `partition` campaign, which appropriated dalit autonomous politics and made Hinduism the foundation of an emergent Indian national identity. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay breaks with many of the assumptions of two important schools of thought--the Dumontian and the subaltern--and takes instead a more nuanced approach to show how high caste hegemony has been able to perpetuate itself. He thus takes up issues which go to the heart of contemporary problems in India`s social and political fabric.

Author : Charu Gupta
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295806567
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Gender of Caste written by Charu Gupta and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Caste and gender are complex markers of difference that have traditionally been addressed in isolation from each other, with a presumptive maleness present in most studies of Dalits (“untouchables”) and a presumptive upper-casteness in many feminist studies. In this study of the representations of Dalits in the print culture of colonial north India, Charu Gupta enters new territory by looking at images of Dalit women as both victims and vamps, the construction of Dalit masculinities, religious conversion as an alternative to entrapment in the Hindu caste system, and the plight of indentured labor. The Gender of Caste uses print as a critical tool to examine the depictions of Dalits by colonizers, nationalists, reformers, and Dalits themselves and shows how differentials of gender were critical in structuring patterns of domination and subordination.

Author : Bharati Ray
Publisher : SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 684 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Women of India written by Bharati Ray and published by SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited. This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volumes of the Project on the History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization aim at discovering the main aspects of India`s heritage and present them in an interrelated way./-//-/ This volume offers insights into women’s lives in colonial and post-colonial India, fully cognizant of the complex interlinking of class, caste, ethnicity, religion, nation, state policy and gender./-//-/The essays in this volume explore the operation of power and the resistance to it, the space that was denied to the disadvantaged gender—women—and the space they created for themselves, and the history of the mutual roles of women and men in colonial and post-colonial India. Eminent scholars on women’s studies and reputed scientists, drawn from diverse disciplines and located in different parts of India, present themes that are crucial to the understanding and experience of gender in India.

Author : Joanna Liddle
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780813514369
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Daughters of Independence written by Joanna Liddle and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi explore the connection in India between gender and caste, and gender and class. They ask whether the subordination of women has diminished as India moves from a caste to a class structure, and what effect colonization had on the status of women in India. Focusing on educated, professional women, the authors look at the particular experiences of 120 women they interviewed, and also interpret the larger patterns of social relations that emerge from the interviews. These sensitive stories are told with an eloquence that is often moving and inspiring. For thousands of years Indian women have had a cultural tradition of resisting male domination. At the same time, the control of female sexuality has always been central to social hierarchies in India. Women are constrained in both class and caste hierarchies, to help distinguish the men at the top of the hierarchy from men at the bottom, where women are less constrained. In class society the seclusion of women allowed men to have sexual control over women and to retain the property that was transferred in marriage. In contemporary India, professional women have had success entering the professions as the social groups to which they belong move increasingly to class rather than caste structures. But men continue to control the type of education they receive and the type of employment open to them, and to participate in the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The concept that women are inferior to men--a concept that is not part of the Indian cultural heritage--is growing. In a sense, working professional women strengthen male control. The class structure is no more egalitarian than the caste structure, as oppression simply takes other forms.

Author : Samita Sen
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521453631
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Women and Labour in Late Colonial India written by Samita Sen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-05-06 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Samita Sen's history of labouring women in Calcutta in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considers how social constructions of gender shaped their lives. Dr Sen demonstrates how - in contrast to the experience of their male counterparts - the long-term trends in the Indian economy devalued women's labour, establishing patterns of urban migration and changing gender equations within the family. She relates these trends to the spread of dowry, enforced widowhood and child marriage. The book provides insight into the lives of poor urban women who were often perceived as prostitutes or social pariahs. Even trade unions refused to address their problems and they remained on the margins of organized political protest. The study will make a signficant contribution to the understanding of the social and economic history of colonial India and to notions of gender construction.

Author : Subhadra Channa
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107043611
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gender in South Asia written by Subhadra Channa and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book theorizes gender in terms of models generalizing upon historical sources and lived realities.

Author : Neelima Yadav
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gender, Caste and Class in India written by Neelima Yadav and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of the status of women depends on an understanding of gender relations in a specific context. Examining gender relations as power relations makes clear that these are sustained by the institutions within which gender relations occur. For women, absence of power results in the lack of access to and control over resources, a coercive gender division of labour, devaluation of their work, and a lack of control over their own labour, mobility as well as sexuality and fertility. Gender equality thus demands substantive transformation, a set of policies and conditions created by the state that facilitate the reallocation of resources, thereby increasing women s control over resources that confer power at individual, household, and societal levels.