Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal

Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal
Author: Deboshruti Roychowdhury Roychowdhury
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Caste
ISBN: 9789381345054

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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.

Men, Women, and Domestics

Men, Women, and Domestics
Author: Swapna M. Banerjee
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

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"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.

Caste, Culture and Hegemony

Caste, Culture and Hegemony
Author: Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2004-08-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780761998495

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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.

Caste, Culture, and Hegemony

Caste, Culture, and Hegemony
Author: Śekhara Bandyopādhyāẏa
Publisher: Sage Publications Limited
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2004
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780761932345

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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.

Caste, Class and the Raj

Caste, Class and the Raj
Author: Ranjit Sen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2000
Genre: Bengal (India)
ISBN:

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Mutating Goddesses

Mutating Goddesses
Author: Saswati Sengupta
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2020-11-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190993251

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Mutating Goddesses traces the shifting fortunes of four specific Hindu deities—Manasa, Candi, Sasthi and Laksmi—from the fifteenth century to the present time. It focuses on the goddess-invested tradition of Bengal's Hinduism to argue for a historical evolution/devolution of divinities in tandem with sectarian interests and illumines in the process the knotted correlation of gender, caste and class in the sanctioning of female subjectivities through goddess formation. The critical studies of Hindu goddesses have been dominated by the sastrik perspective deriving from the Sanskrit scriptures authorized by the male Brahman. But there are religious practices and beliefs under the broad rubric of Hinduism that are neither governed by the male Brahman nor articulated in Sanskrit. It is this vibrant laukika archive—considered low from the hegemonic perspective—that Mutating Goddesses explores to realize the politic trafficking between this realm and the sastrik. The book excavates the multiple and layered heritage of the region which includes tribal culture, Buddhism, Tantricism, and so on, as is available in rituals, proverbs, verses, circulating myths, poetic genres and kathas, caste manuals, census records etc to illustrate how tradition is a matter of strategic selection.

Gender in South Asia

Gender in South Asia
Author: Subhadra Channa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1107043611

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The book theorizes gender in terms of models generalizing upon historical sources and lived realities.

Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature

Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature
Author: Rakibul Islam
Publisher: Vernon Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2022-05-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1648894143

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‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ explores the claustrophobic shadow of discrimination hanging over Indian women and lower caste people from ancient times. It examines how different literary figures paint a vivid and descriptive picture of the physical and psychological oppression faced throughout India. The book traces feminist resistance, subaltern resistance, and resistance during the anti-colonial struggle, with the literary outputs discussed working as socio-political activity against dominant ideologies. The volume further talks about the responsibility, not only of those oppressed, but also of us as human beings, to speak out against the violation of human rights and for justice. So, the book focuses on the literary writers who always dream of a better India where all people, regardless of their caste, class and gender, can live and breathe freely. The book is divided into three parts. Part I describes the plight of women, their commodification and the politics around them, and how they fight hard to regain their faded identity. Part II depicts the interesting findings on gender-caste intersections and discrimination. Part III explores the struggle of the low caste, specifically male members of Dalit community, along with their history. It further portrays how orthodoxy in rituals creates the burden of traditional and existential crises. ‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ re-visits Indian literary texts in terms of what they reveal about the resistance registered through the suffering of human beings (women and Dalits) at the hands of fellow human beings, and further links the discussion to our contemporary situation. The book has a unique quality in that it is not only a detailed study of select Indian English texts, but also delves into an in-depth analysis of texts from Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi literature. The work is likely to affect and appeal to students, scholars and academics, and can be adopted for classroom teaching and research purposes as well.

Mind, Body, and Society

Mind, Body, and Society
Author: Rajat Kanta Ray
Publisher:
Total Pages: 508
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN:

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Mind, Body, and Society explores the various levels of mentality in a colonial society, especially with regard to gender, sex, and the young. The experiences of children at school and adolescents in college are addressed, as are the confrontations of Bhadralok, Baul, aand Mullah,and the mutedvoices of women in purdah.