"The Scandal of the State" is a revealing study of the relationship
between the postcolonial, democratic Indian nation-state and Indian
women's actual needs and lives. Well-known for her work combining
feminist theory and postcolonial studies, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
shows how the state is central to understanding women's identities
and how, reciprocally, women and "women's issues" affect the
state's role and function. She argues that in India law and
citizenship define for women not only the scope of political rights
but also cultural identity and everyday life. Sunder Rajan
delineates the postcolonial state in implicit contrast with the
"enlightened," postfeminist neoliberal state in the West. Her
analysis wrestles with complex social realities, taking into
account the influence of age, ethnicity, religion, and class on
individual and group identities as well as the shifting,
heterogeneous nature of the state itself.
"The Scandal of the State "develops through a series of
compelling case studies, each of which centers around an incident
exposing the contradictory position of the Indian state vis-a-vis
its female citizens and, ultimately, the inadequacy of its
commitment to women's rights. Sunder Rajan focuses on the custody
battle over a Muslim child bride, the compulsory sterilization of
mentally retarded women in state institutional care, female
infanticide in Tamilnadu, prostitution as labor rather than crime,
and the surrender of the female outlaw Phoolan Devi. She also looks
at the ways the Uniform Civil Code presented many women with a
stark choice between allegiance to their religion and community or
the secular assertion of individual rights. Rich with theoretical
acumen and activist passion, "The Scandal of the State" is a
powerful critique of the mutual dependence of women and the state
on one another in the specific context of a postcolonial
modernity.
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