Gender in Indian History, c. 1500-1950

Paper Code:

24DHIS 611(A)

Credits:

Contact Hours:

90.00

Max. Marks:

100.00

Objective:

Course Objectives: The module will delineate gendered constructs in Mughal and Modern India. It contextualizes the participation and contribution of women in imperial spaces, political and legal processes, which had male predominance. While examining questions and debates on social reforms, caste, religious identities, popular culture and partition, it questions patriarchy and the nuances of historical gender dynamics. The course tries to historicize and analyse institutions of harem, household and norms of masculinity, through cultural expressions in music, literature and paintings. The course also tries to give students a critical overview of the tangled historiographical paradigm that labels women as ‘victims and agents’ and ‘objects and subjects’.

Course Outcomes:

Course Outcomes

Course

Learning outcomes (at course level)

Learning and teaching strategies

Assessment Strategies

Course Code

Course Title

24DHIS 611(A)

Gender in Indian History, c. 1500-1950

CO85- Examine the concepts of gender and demonstrate its use as a tool for historical analysis, through a historiographical engagement

CO86- Critically assess the position of women in Mughal India

CO87- Evaluate the role of women in Mughal India in Education, literature and Culure.

CO88- Analyse the social reforms around the ‘women’s question’ in the modern period of Indian history.

CO89- Make an estimate on the issues of gender in the context of partition and the post-partition period of the construction of the independent state.

CO90-Contribute effectively in course-specific interaction

Approach in teaching:

Interactive Lectures, Discussion, Tutorials, Reading assignments, Power Point Presentation

Learning activities for the students:

Self-learning assignments, Effective questions, Seminar presentation, Giving tasks.

Class test, Semester end examinations, Quiz, Solving problems in tutorials, Assignments, Presentation, Individual and group projects

18.00

Unit I:

Gender and Historiography

[a] Modern Historiography

[b] Feminist Historiography

18.00

Unit II:

Women in Mughal India: 1500 to 1750s

[a] Political processes, law and gender

[b] Harem, household and family

18.00

Unit III:

Women in Mughal India: 1500 to 1750s

[a] Masculinities and sexualities

[b] Education, literature and culture: biographies, music

18.00

Unit IV:

Women in colonial India: 1750s to 1940s

[a] The Women’s Question, social reforms and law

[b] Emotional histories: household, family, marriage and love; sexualities and masculinites

[c] Literature, popular culture, and gender

18.00

Unit V:

Women in colonial India 1940s Onwards

[a] Women and Partition : Family, Community and State

[b] Women’s movements

Essential Readings:

ESSENTIAL READINGS

Forbes, Geraldine. Women in Modern India.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996.
Bokhari, Afshan. ‘Between Patron and Piety: Jahān Ārā Begam’s Sufi Affiliations and Articulations in Seventeenth-Century Mughal India’. In Arrangements of the Mystical inthe Muslim World, 1200–1800.Taylor and Francis, 2011.
Gupta, Charu. ‘Introduction’. In Charu Gupta, ed. Gendering Colonial India: Reforms,Print, Caste and Communalism. Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012.
Habib, Irfan.Exploring Medieval Gender History.Symposia Papers, Indian History Congress, 2000
Hasan, Farhat. 2State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western India, c.1572-1730. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, 2005 [Chapter V: ‘Women, Kin and Shari'a’ in State and Locality’].69
Kumar, Radha. The History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s Rights and Feminism in India, 1800-1990. Delhi: Zubaan, 1997 [Also available in Hindi].
O'Hanlon, Rosalind. ‘Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India’.Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 42, No. 1 (1999), pp. 47-93.
Lal, Ruby. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid, eds. Recasting Women: Essay in Colonial History. Delhi: Kali for Women, Reprint, 2006.
Sarkar, Sumit and Tanika Sarkar, eds. Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader. 2 Vols. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007.

References:

SUGGESTED READINGS

Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham:Duke University Press, 2000.
Balabanlilar, Lisa. ‘The Begums of the Mystic Feast: Turco-Mongol Tradition in the Mughal Harem’.The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 69, No. 1, February 2010, pp. 123–147.
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993 [Chapters on Women].
Gupta, Charu. Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims and the Hindu Public in Colonial India. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001.
Malhotra, Anshu.Gender, Caste and Religious Identities: Restructuring Class in Colonial Punjab. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Nair, Janaki.Women and Law in Colonial India: A Social History. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1996.
Minault, Gail. Secluded Scholars: Women's Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Ramaswamy, Vijaya, and Yogesh Sharma, eds. Biography as History: Indian Perspectives. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2009.
Rao, Anupama, ed. Gender and Caste. Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2005.
Trivedi, Madhu. The Emergence of the Hindustani Tradition: Music, Dance and Drama in North India, 13th to 19th Centuries. Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2012.