Subjects
Courtly Indian Women in Late Imperial India
Angma Dey Jhala
The Body, Gender and Culture
978 1 85196 941 8: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 562 5
Jhala examines the political worldview of courtly and royal women in India during the late colonial and post-Independence period. It is a history of the zenana, which served as the ‘women’s courts’ or ‘female quarters of the palace’, where women lived behind pardah (literally translating as the ‘veil’ or ‘curtain’) in seclusion. During the colonial period, zenana women were significant players in matters of state succession, marriage alliance and the question of colonial law versus indigenous practice. In post-independent India, several former zenana women entered electoral politics and occupied local and national seats of influence.
The book crosses the divide between the public world of governance and politics and the private sphere of marriage, sexuality and female domesticity in the courtly household. It is a topic largely unexplored by current scholars of South Asia and gender studies.
Sample pages
Readership
South Asia Studies, Gender Studies, Empire Studies and Post-Colonial Studies
Contents
Introduction
1 Palace Politics: Zenana Life in The Late Colonial Princely State, c.1890–1947
2 Zenana Women and Succession Law: Kenneth Fitze’s 'A Review of Modern Practice in Regard to Successions in Indian States'
3 Royal Women as Regents: The Cases of the Rani of Lathi and the Ranis of Patadi in Peninsular Gujarat
4 A Discourse on Desire: The Politics of Marriage Alliance in the Hindu Zenana, post and pre-1956
5 Two Disputed Marriages of Hindu Rajput Princesses in Kathiawar: Case Studies from the Early Twentieth Century
6 Troubles in Indore, the Maharaja’s Women: Loving Dangerously, c.1926–1940
7 The Education of Zenana Women and Their Role as Educators of Young Princes
8 Inside and Outside the Zenana: Two Royal Women in Late and Post-Colonial India
Conclusion
Reviews
' ... a groundbreaking work of history ... '
– John McLeod, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
'Jhala[‘s] ... work make[s] an unquestionable contribution to what is perhaps the most understudied arena in princely historiography – a gendered analysis that takes into account women’s agency ... '
– Chitralekha Zutshi, The Indian Economic and Social History Review
'Angma Dey Jhala's welcome study aims to complicate perceptions of the princely zenana ... Her study will appeal to those scholars interested not just in women, gender and the princely states, but also race, sexuality and colonial law.'
– Siobahn Lambert-Hurley, Gender, Place and Culture
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