The Scandal of the State: Women, Law, and Citizenship in Postcolonial India

Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies

by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

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-à-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.

Genres: Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Alok Mishra · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of a kind - a book which enriches the list of 'almost forgotten books'.
A must read by Rajeswari; if you want to enlighten yourself about the situation of women in India after the independence, you must give some time and browse the pages. She has put the facts and also accompanied those with the references to add further strength to her arguments. I liked her narrative and was surely benefitted by the book.

[Vaibhav Kathuria]

feeling well and want to read this book