Review: Making the ‘Woman’ by Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon

Discussions on gender often trigger an intense debate about whether it is tied to biology or is a social construct. At the outset, the editors state: “This collection critically examines and questions the notions and formations of women and gender binaries which have been historically shaped by multiple and competing actors, practices, institutions and discourses in 18th and 19th century India.” The obliteration of women from history is not the result entirely of social practices and prejudices. “Nilanjana Mukherjee astutely locates Kali within nationalist iconography and discusses how the colonial power denigrated the goddess.” The second part of the volume, entitled Questioning the Normative, includes four intriguing readings of subjects that include masculine norms in Mughal society, Dalit counter histories of 1857, gender and tribal identity, and the iconicity in Indian goddesses. Nilanjana Mukherjee astutely locates Kali within nationalist iconography and discusses how the colonial power denigrated the goddess, the most enigmatic and forceful personification of female power in the Shakti tradition. In the third section entitled The Problematic Others, articles by Tanya Burman and Noble Shrivastava turn the reader’s attention to the tawaifs or courtesans of Lucknow and Delhi, and explain how they upended gender norms.