Archiving the Nation-State in Feminist Praxis: A South Asian Perspective

This essay mainly examines the relationship between feminism and nationalism as a point from which it looks at South Asian feminist scholarship. The historical circumstances in their respective countries, have forced many South Asian feminists to interrogate their own nation states and the idea of nationalism .The writer looks at the interventions and scholarship in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. She also examines the feminist engagement in terms of political practice with nationalism and the nation-state in India. Indian feminists have been critical of the class character of nationalism in the colonial period and of the post colonial Indian state. Some Indian feminists are responding with anger or anguish at the perceived failure of the women's movement in taking a more forthright position against state repression. This paper examines some issues that mark the relationship of Indian feminism to Indian nationalism in the postcolonial phase and explores the ways in which pioneering work on feminism and nationalism in Asia suggests lines of enquiry that can help us understand not just our own politics of location but the limits nationalism places in mobilising resistance against the repressive practices of nation-states in South Asia.