Recognition or Reconfiguration

Emancipatory discourse and election campaigns targeting women have become a consistent strategy in the arsenal of most political parties in India today. But the rhetoric employed often sounds similar to a savior narrative excavating a previously dormant identity from the depths of political obscurity, rather than an engaged reflection on the role and agency of women in building the Indian nation today. The last 10 years have also seen a rise in the popularity of Hindu nationalism and the widespread use of Hindutva rhetoric in common parlance. The collusion of identity politics and neoliberal welfare politics and the rhetoric of Hindutva constructs a certain idea of womanhood in the subcontinent today. This chapter seeks to understand this emerging image by using Nancy Fraser's framework of recognition and redistribution and contrasting it to women's movements in prior years to see what, if much, has materially changed over the years.