Category: History

Excerpts from research writing, including my own, about the first-generation feminists and in general, the whole question of gender in the unfolding domains of Malayali modernity.

19th Century Malayali Dalit Women, Missionaries and the Quest for Faith in Christianity: Vinil Paul

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Translated by J Devika

The entry of Kerala’s dalit people into Christianity was made possible by the three missionary organizations that arrived in the 19th century: the London Mission Society (LMS) (arrival: 1806), the Church Missionary Society (CMS) (1816), and the Basel Mission (BM), which reached Malabar in 1836. The missionary archives reveals that the individuals who joined the centres set up by missionaries were mostly dalit women. Continue reading “19th Century Malayali Dalit Women, Missionaries and the Quest for Faith in Christianity: Vinil Paul” →

Miss Kumari’s Stardom : Malayalam’s First Studio Actress — Darshana S Mini.

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 The decade of 1950s witnessed the efflorescence of film studios based in Kerala along with a burgeoning pool of local talent in Malayalam cinema. Among the locally discovered actresses was Thresiamma, who in a short time stole the limelight under the screen name “Miss Kumari” and became one of the most visible faces of the Malayalam studio films. Continue reading “Miss Kumari’s Stardom : Malayalam’s First Studio Actress — Darshana S Mini.” →

 The Many Incarnations of Kuriyedathu Thatri

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[These are excerpts from my introduction written for the translation of Madampu Kunhikkuttan’s acclaimed novel, Bhrasht — Outcaste (trans. Vasanthy Sankaranarayanan, OUP, New Delhi, 2019) ]

More than a century after the sensational excommunication of Kuriyedathu Thatri and a very large of men who she allegedly reported to be her paramours shook the aristocracy of the Hindu kingdom of Kochi, the story continues to haunt the imagination of Malayalis. Continue reading ” The Many Incarnations of Kuriyedathu Thatri” →

The First-Generation Feminists on Sex, Contraception, and Self-building

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[This is an excerpt from my article titled ‘The Malayalee sexual revolution: Sex, ‘liberation’ and family planning in Keralam’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 39,3 , 2005.]

….  From the late 19th century, disapproval of artificial contraception was often linked to anxieties in Malayalee society about realising the ideal modern Self against older socio-economic and cultural orders.  In turn, the project of modern Self-building was seen to be dependent on attaining a high degree of self-discipline, expressed, in particular, in sexual self-restraint (Devika 1999). The idea that vigorous sexual desire was pathological, the conviction that sexual self-control was central to Self-building, and the fear that artificial contraception would open up a Pandora’s Box of sexual chaos, were notions that were frequently voiced in the Malayalee public sphere from the 1930s onwards when artificial contraception began to be discussed. Continue reading “The First-Generation Feminists on Sex, Contraception, and Self-building” →

Lust for Life: Desire in Lalitambika Antarjanam’s Writings

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[This is an excerpt from my essay in Sexualities published by Women Unlimited, New Delhi and edited by Nivedita Menon]

‘Ormayude Appurattu’29 (On the Far Side of Memory) belongs to the above-mentioned group of Antarjanam’s texts that re-visions the Masculine and the Feminine and their commingling. A mere biological event — the union of the sperm and the egg in human procreation — is transformed into nothing less than what appears to be the eternal drama of the union of Feminine and Masculine. The breathless, rapturous narration captures the agony and the ecstasy of the sperm on its journey towards the womb. The sperm, springing to life, moves, propelled by desire-as-trshna. Continue reading “Lust for Life: Desire in Lalitambika Antarjanam’s Writings” →

In Defiance of Living Death: The Life and Struggles of K Saraswathi Amma – 2

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Finally, the common rejection/corralling of her work and life as ‘exceptional’ and ‘isolated’, and therefore statistically insignificant, is now disproved by feminist historical research about early twentieth century Malayali society. This research reveals that this impression may well have been a product of our collective amnesia about Kerala’s first-generation feminists, many of who lived life as defiantly and independently as Saraswathi Amma, only to be derided or forgotten – for example, Kochattil Kalyanikkutty Amma (who won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi’s award for best autobiography at the age of 91 in 1993) and Vengalil Chinnammalu Amma . Continue reading “In Defiance of Living Death: The Life and Struggles of K Saraswathi Amma – 2” →

In Defiance of Living Death: The Life and Struggles of K Saraswathi Amma — 1

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[This is a slightly altered version of the introduction to the volume of translations of Saraswathi Amma’s stories. It draws significantly on my earlier work : Womanwriting =Manreading? Masculinist Literary Criticism and Women Writing in Twentieth Century Kerala,  Zubaan- Penguin India, New Delhi, 2013, and ‘’Beyond Kulina and Kulata: The Critique of Gender Difference in the Writings of K. Saraswati Amma’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies 10 (2), 2003, 201-228.] Continue reading “In Defiance of Living Death: The Life and Struggles of K Saraswathi Amma — 1” →

‘The Obduracy of Women’: Why Saraswathi Amma Remains Relevant

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Whenever I think of K Saraswathi Amma whose work I have been translating most recently, I remember a word: “streevashi”.

Ever since I encountered the term streevashi in the recorded speech of a 19th century missionary of the London Missionary Society in my research on the history of gender in early modern Malayali society, the notion has stayed with me. The missionary had uttered it in a moment of exasperation – he was worried about the vicious terror unleashed on the lower-caste Shannars of south Kerala (Travancore then), especially the women who had accepted Christianity, by upper-caste Nairs offended by their defiance of caste restrictions on clothing.

Read the rest here

 

The New Savarna Woman and Aachaaram: Re-thinking the Feminist Legacy

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[This is an excerpt from a forthcoming paper which I wrote in the wake of the sudra disturbances in Kerala in reaction to the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgement on the entry of women of menstruating ages into the forest-shrine of Sabarimala. I argue that we need to seriously critique the legacy of first-generation feminism specifically by examining carefully their internal differences] Continue reading “The New Savarna Woman and Aachaaram: Re-thinking the Feminist Legacy” →