Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T03:35:45.837Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Framing the Postcolonial Sexual Contract: Democracy, Fraternalism, and State Authority in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Christine Keating
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines the reconfiguration of the racial and sexual contracts underpinning democratic theory and practice in the transition to independence in India. Drawing upon the work of Carole Pateman and Charles Mills, Keating argues that the racialized fraternal democratic order that they describe was importantly challenged by nationalist and feminist struggles against colonialism in India, but was reshaped into what she calls a postcolonial sexual contract by the framers of the Indian Constitution.

Type
Feminist Interventions in Democratic Theory
Information
Hypatia , Volume 22 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Democratic Theory , Fall 2007 , pp. 130 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agnes, Flavia. 1999. Law and gender inequality: The politics of women's rights in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Granville. 1966. The Indian Constitution: The cornerstone of a nation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bajpai, Rochana. 2000. Constituent Assembly debates and minority rights. Economic and Political Weekly 25: (21–22).Google Scholar
Bhargava, Rajeev, ed. 1998. Secularism and its critics. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bush, Laura. 2001. Radio address by Mrs. Bush. November 11. Online transcript at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011117.html.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. The nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Constituent Assembly Debates, Vols. 1–12. 1966. Faridabad: Government of India Press.Google Scholar
Constituent Assembly (Legislative) Debates, Vols. 2–3. 1949. New Delhi: Government of India Press.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred R. 1999. Border crossings: Toward a comparative political theory. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 2006. Democratizing democracy: Beyond the liberal democratic canon. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Fleischer, Ari. 2001. White House press briefing. November 27. Online transcript at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=47606.Google Scholar
Gandhi, Mahatma. 1997. Hind Swaraj and other writings, ed. Parel, Anthony J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Government of India. 1974. Towards equality: Report of the committee on the status of women in India. New Delhi: Government of India Ministry of Education and Social Welfare.Google Scholar
Great Britain Franchise Committee. Report of the Indian Franchise Committee. Calcutta: Government of India Central Publication Branch, 1932.Google Scholar
Hastings, Warren. 1985. Plan for the administration of justice, extracted from the Proceedings of the Committee of Circuit, August 15, 1772. In Historical documents of British India: Warren Hastings, Vol. 2., ed. Forrest, G. W. Delhi: Anmol Publications.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. 1651/1996. Leviathan. Ed. Tuck, Richard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Indian National Congress. 1931. Report of the Indian National Congress. In Indian Annual Register 1. Calcutta: Annual Registrar Office.Google Scholar
Jung, Hwa Yol. 2002. Comparative political culture in the age of globalization. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kapur, Ratna, and Cossman, Brenda. 1999. On women, equality, and the constitution: Through the looking glass of feminism. In Gender and politics in India, ed. Menon, Nivedita. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kishwar, Madhu. 1994. Codified Hindu law: Myth and reality. Economic and Political Weekly 29(33): 2145–61.Google Scholar
Kumar, Radha. 1993. A history of doing. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1689/1980. Second treatise of government. Ed. MacPherson, C. B. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Mahan, Rajan. 1999. Women in Indian National Congress. New Delhi: Rawat Publications.Google Scholar
Menon, Nivedita. 2004. Recovering subversion: Feminist politics beyond the law. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Mill, James. The history of India. Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1990.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. 1997. The racial contract. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Misra, Panchanand. 1966. The making of the Indian Republic; Some aspects of India's constitution in the making. Calcutta, Scientific Book Agency.Google Scholar
Parliament of India. 1951. Parliamentary debates: Official report 16(2) (11 October).Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The sexual contract. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. 2003. The scandal of the state: Women, law, and citizenship in postcolonial India. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parel, Anthony. 1992. The comparative study of political philosophy. In Comparative political philosophy: Studies under the Upas tree, eds. Parel, Anthony and Keith, Ronald. New Delhi: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean‐Jacques. 1755/1987. Discourse on the origins of inequality. In The basic political writings, trans. Cress, Donald A. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri C. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Marxism and the interpretation of culture, ed. Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar