As usual, Jose Colaco is shifting the debate to some trival point, questioning historical accuracies, and moving away from more substantive issues.
My basic point is that we *patriarchal males* are very eager to discuss the exploitation of women from *other* communities, but not from our own (i.e. Catholic Goan)! Avoiding any flame-baits that could further distract from the substantive issues. JC would see that the sati issue isn't as simplistic as the paediatrician in him seeks to make it out. See the details at the very end of this post. This comes from prominent and well-received feminist historical writing, not from some denialist Indian fundamentalist attempt at re-writing history. There are many contemporary debates over this issue. But let's not lose sight of the main point... Why point to "other" communities, when we are unwilling to discuss the condition of women among our own? I don't think the issue of wearing salwar khameez to school (some schools in Goa that is, a few who opt for them) is or should be such a major concern. On the contrary, we need to hear what women on Goanet see as the bigger issues facing them. These include, probably, (i) alcoholism (ii) outmigration (iii) HIV/AIDS (iv) disinheritance of Catholic women, despite the laws (v) the glass-ceiling in employment (vi) severe patriarchy among the Catholic community -- yes, even Goanet (and most of the other fora) is a good example of this (vii) patriarchy and male-control of religion (look at the gap between the role women play in Catholicism, and the say they have in decision-making) and more... FN On 02/07/06, Jose Colaco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Fred Noronha wrote the following: > > 1: < It's very easy to talk about the perceived ills of The Other, while we > forget the log in our own eye!> .... > ************************************ > jc's input: > re FN 2: I will wait for the "historical research" that Fred Noronha is > talking about. Forget about the Portuguese and the British, and HOW BIG they > may the Sati issue. The question is Does Fred Noronha think that Sati should > NOT have been an Issue? > > Does he think that Sati or Dowry burning should NOT have been banned? And > What are his views about Devadasism? Is it his view that it should continue? > ... > While waiting for Fred Noronha tells us about the "historical research" wrt > Sati > > jc http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8185.html Lata Mani Contentious Traditions The Debate on Sati in Colonial India Buy Paperback $24.95, £15.95 0-520-21407-2 In stock--ships in 2-3 days Categories: History; South Asia; Postcolonial Studies DESCRIPTION (back to top) Contentious Traditions analyzes the debate on sati, or widow burning, in colonial India. Though the prohibition of widow burning in 1829 was heralded as a key step forward for women's emancipation in modern India, Lata Mani argues that the women who were burned were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state. Mani radically revises colonialist as well as nationalist historiography on the social reform of women's status in the colonial period and clarifies the complex and contradictory character of missionary writings on India. The history of widow burning is one of paradox. While the chief players in the debate argued over the religious basis of sati and the fine points of scriptural interpretation, the testimonials of women at the funeral pyres consistently addressed the material hardships and societal expectations attached to widowhood. And although historiography has traditionally emphasized the colonial horror of sati, a fascinated ambivalence toward the practice suffused official discussions. The debate normalized the violence of sati and supported the misconception that it was a voluntary act of wifely devotion. Mani brilliantly illustrates how situated feminism and discourse analysis compel a rewriting of history, thus destabilizing the ways we are accustomed to look at women and men, at "tradition," custom, and modernity. "Examines the documents of the colonial bureaucracy, the writings of the nineteenth-century indigenous male elite, the journals and publications of missionaries, and numerous European eyewitness accounts. She asks why the British first loudly denounced it, then covertly sanctioned it, and then officially banned it. . . . Contentious Traditions shows how divided the colonial bureaucrats were on the political costs of intervening in sati, how the grounds shifted in the arguments that the nineteenth-century Bengali reformer Rammonhun Roy made against sati in response to colonial pronouncements. how the Baptist missionaries took very different stances in addressing British and Indian audiences, and burning ricocheted between horror and fascination. . . . In citing the gruesome evidence that many satis were neither "voluntary" nor painless, and by assuming that the material causes for many satis make them by definition non-religious, Lata Mani discounts the religious ideology that might have motivated either the woman herself or the people forcing her to do it, or both."--Times Literary Supplement "An important and disturbing book. Lata Mani has reopened the archives on widow burning in colonial India. Her meticulous reading of contemporary texts . . . is exemplary for its conceptual sophistication. Unsettling and illuminating, this is feminist scholarship at its best."--Ranajit Guha, founding editor Subaltern Studies "Mani's argument that the terms 'tradition' and 'modernity' are inscribed and reinscribed in the bodies of colonized women has forever changed our understandings of patriarchy, nationalism, and colonialism, and indeed redefined the conditions for 'knowing' with respect to these contexts."--Lisa Lowe, author of Immigration Acts "Lata Mani's brilliant and persuasive analysis of official, native and missionary writings on sati in colonial India makes for a new beginning in contemporary analysis of colonial discourse.This is the book that many have waited for. A landmark publication in several fields at once: modern South Asian history, feminist critiques of colonial discourse, and cultural studies."--Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago http://www.law.emory.edu/IFL/cases/India.htm In early 19th century the colonial government set about documenting 'native' religious practices so as to bring them closer to the Brahmanic textual tradition, since this fitted best the privileged Western model of consistency and uniformity over variations in indigenous interpretations (Kannabiran, 1995, WS-59) Likewise, with codification of other Hindu laws in process, such as the Suttee Regulation Act 1829 and the Widow Re-Marriage Act, 1856, due largely to the efforts of social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy [Rai] and Ishwarachandra Vidyasagara, came into force. But Hindu patriarchy still attempted to legitimate Sati (Suttee), or widow self-sacrifice, under traditional Hindu dharma or religious law since sati was never considered a 'crime' or felony under Hindu customary law; while Muslim men petitioned for recognition of polygamy under Islamic law. The East Indian Company administrators even extended shastric laws laid down by Manu, Yajnavalkya to the Dravidic south as well in the absence of discernible customary law governing any class of people, as though they were all shudras in the eyes of Manu. Devadasis or temple dancing girls were suddenly classified as prostitutes and their adoption as well as rights to succession, inheritance, custodial guardianship, etc., were denied even though traditional Hindu law had recognized these rights. It was the Indian judges and legates who pushed such cases and counter arguments until the British benches would cave in, but not without sovereign censure. After 1868 customs could overwrite the written text of the law if the antiquity of the former was proved. The Privy Council placed shackles toward digging too far back into scriptural sources, as this had proved all along to be an effective strategy for the brahmanical group to legitimate and defend its tight control over the social caste-hierarchy order through an almost ingenious selective literacy process, nonviolently thwarting any tendency towards centralizing statecraft or political hegemony of other competing groups, including warrior-caste kings and their advisors (who comprised mostly ascetics and brahmins anyway). Gradually, the colonial Codes based on "universal principles of the science of legislation" supplanted Hindu law, both textual and customary. So, for example, temple dancing girls "usually orphans" came to be classified as prostitutes, as Hindu law had permitted extended sexuality but this crossed the threshold of colonial tolerance. The IPC here as elsewhere was essentially privileging the Orientalist construction purely from high caste textual sources of the ideal of Hindu womanhood projected, in the Vedic Aryan woman as the embodiment of Hindu culture, and one devoted to monogamous conjugality (Uma Chakravarti, 1990). Again, of course such rulings did not go unchallenged, and the legitimacy of customary law for Hindus was re-invoked by Indian judges. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- 2248 copylefted photos from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
