The Indian mosaic

Ways of Being Indian: Essays on Religion, Gender and Culture

Editor: Manoj Kumar Jena

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Pages: 320

Price: Rs 499

Edited by Manoj Kumar Jena, Ways of Being Indian is a collection of academic essays conceived in honour of Professor Renuka Singh who retired from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences (CSSS), Jawaharlal Nehru University. Professor Jena as well as the other contributors were her doctoral students at CSSS. Taking on her pioneering work these essays explain “the themes of religion, gender and culture in the contemporary social order… drawing on theory, experiential practice, and research, as well as multidisciplinary approaches.” Through it all, a diverse portrait of India emerges that covers the various complex traditions, habits, and systems of belief that are an integral part of the lived realities of people who happen to share a national identity.

In the essay “Disciplined Body of Widows”, Nilanjana Goswami probes the “processes that, through religious codes of conduct, discipline and transform widows into docile bodies.” Since women are treated as the receptacles of family honour in a patriarchal society divided on gender lines, the death of a husband is seen as a catalyst that “unleashes their sexuality” so they are expected to retreat from public life and adopt a devotional mien. Himashree Sarma’s essay, “Menstruation and Ritual Symbolism”, takes the idea of religion policing women’s lives further, exploring how a perfectly natural biological process attains the baggage of “socio-cultural ideologies of pollution and social stigma”, substantially impacting women’s health.

The former essay is centred on the bhajan ashrams, temples and ghats in West Bengal’s Nabadwip where widows find shelter; the latter focuses on the Kamakhya Temple in Assam. In the essay “Exploring the ‘Other’ in Hindu Mytho-Epic Imagination” Kamalini Mukherjee analyses the epics in India and how overt social and religious ideas are drawn from them as blueprints of ideal conduct in relation to contemporary politics. She writes: “The disconnect between the Hindu mytho-epic imagination of gender and sexuality, and the manifest reality of queer experience in Indian society is great, and indeed fraught.”

Gender is examined in various ways beyond religion in other essays. Anindita Tagore looks at land rights and property ownership in both rural and urban contexts and what are some of the formal and informal barriers in front of women in “Urban Women and Matters of Land”. Ellina Samantroy flags a different aspect in “Women and Violence in the Workplace in India” which calls for greater participation of women in the economy and labour force, especially in the formal sector, and how legislation addressing sexual harassment and abuse needs to be strengthened so that they can remain gainfully employed without being forced to quit due to the inappropriate behaviour of male colleagues. The pandemic also played a role in reducing women’s participation in public life and enabled large-scale disenfranchisement of vulnerable groups. In “Covid-19 and Its Impact on Women”, Elizabeth Imti comments: “policymakers must acknowledge the multifaceted nature of the difficulties women encounter, spanning… gender-based violence andinadequate healthcare to marginalisation in the job market.”

This collection also includes essays that explore specific cultures, their attributes and conventions. Professor Jena’s “Death Rituals Among Odia Hindus” is an ethnographic account about the funerary practices and customs of the titular community. He writes: “It is an expression of collective grief and continuity of a religious tradition… Socio-cultural and religious activities associated with death encompass the family and community as a whole.” In “Marrying Out: Why Khasi Women Marry non-Khasi Men?”, Sarah Jayal Sawkmie states that globalisation and associated changes as well as illegal immigration and job precarity has resulted in increased contact and co-existence between Khasis and non-Khasis. For many, this trend is seen as a threat to their traditional ways of life, especially as exogamous marriages become more common. Ms Sawkmie tries to understand why this is happening and what drives these unions while featuring Khasi voices collected through her research.

Any historical overview of India must also contend with a history of migration, both within and without. Individuals and communities have come to or left the country in search of new opportunities, a safe haven, or a fresh start. Mahalingam M studies the mixed experience of Indian women in colonial and post-colonial Malaysia: “The migration of Indian women to Malaysia has emancipated them from some aspects of repressive Indian social and cultural traditions… [but given the ethnicity-based] socio-economic structures and gender stereotypes [in Malaysia], there has been limited scope for them to use their agency.” Koyal Verma looks at the other side of the coin in “African Diaspora in India” and talks about various migrations of African peoples to India which ultimately led to permanent settlements. She considers the diaspora and their evolving identity as well as connection to Africa.

Identity formation in a society is bound up within existing power relations, hierarchies of privilege and the politics of inclusion and exclusion. There are socio-cultural, economic, and religious forces that also play a prominent part in this process. In a pluralistic society like India, many of the socio-cultural intersections have to be negotiated to determine one’s distance from the centre and the peripheries. The essays in this collection interrogate what it means to be “Indian” and how these identities often involve a level of paradoxical disconnect between formal mandates and actual practices. The contributors uncover the everyday experiences of fellow Indians and show the ways in which we exemplify our truths and the things that need to change so that all inhabitants of the country can lead equitable, thriving lives.

The reviewer is editor-at-large at Asymptote Journal and a books editor at Inklette Magazine