Space and Culture, India (Jun 2015)
Politics of Locating Muslim Women in Islamic Discursive Tradition in India
Abstract
In postcolonial India, narratives about Muslim women have revolved around tropes, such as tin talaq (divorce), purdah (veil), polygamy and Islam. These have always played a significant role to shape their homogenised identity: an existence of oppression and subordination. However, the paper will try to argue that the marginalisation of Muslim women is not only structural but also discursive (popular as well as religious), which produce them as ‘victims’ and ‘voiceless others’. The paper will also try to argue that Muslim women have already been discursively produced as incapable of progressive thinking, and waging struggle against their subordination. Therefore, the paper shall make an attempt to examine the impact of popular as well as Islamic discourses in shaping the identity of Muslim women in India, and locate those alternative spaces, where Muslim women can challenge their homogenised existence as a category as well as dominant discourses on their victimhood.
