Rina Verma Williams
University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH 45220-2872)
FT-265166-19
Summer Stipends
Research Programs
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[Grant products]
Totals:
$6,000 (approved)
$6,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2019 – 7/31/2019
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Marginalized, Mobilized, Incorporated: Women and Religious Nationalism in India, 1915-2015
Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the history of women's participation in Hindu nationalist movements in India.
What is the role of women in religious nationalism and other conservative populist movements? I place this urgent contemporary question into historical perspective by examining Hindu nationalism in India. Most studies ask why women participate in such movements; I suggest we must first understand how they participate and how their participation has changed historically. My project compares the role of women in Hindu nationalism in three time periods. In the early 1900s, when the movement was founded, women were marginalized despite the attempts of some to participate; in the 1980s–90s some women mobilized into the streets in support of the movement; and today, women have become routinely incorporated into it. But traditional gender ideologies that confine the role of women to private spheres of home and family remain fundamentally unaltered in the movement. Ultimately, I argue, Hindu nationalism has benefited from women’s participation more than women have benefited from participating.
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