Hi
This is Raksha Bharadia.
Have been reading your blog.
Interested in writing for Chicken soup for the Indian Romantic soul? It is under the same Jack Canfield Mark Victor banner. If yes, pls email me on rakshabharadia@gmail.com and i will forward the brief to you.
p.s U can Google my name

‘I am troubled by the foregrounding of the idea of the ‘Nation’ as the benchmark for understanding ‘belonging’, especially for those who have been excluded through nationalism’s dominant narrative – that is both compulsorily heteronormative and patriarchal, and virulently communal.’

one description of independent india that i agree with is that it is a ‘state-nation’. a state mandated with the job of carving a nation out of a geography, among other things.

every indian starts out with citizenship, regardless of what his idea of india is.if india is still a nation putting itself together,still forming, there is a presumption running through your post which places india as a fully made nation. and the nationalisms you touch upon represent different essentially hindu visions. some mild, some ‘virulent’, but all hindu, or ‘dominantly’ hindu.

‘If some believe that feminism is a western idea that contaminates women in India and make them man-haters and family-breakers – how should a woman evince her feminist belief by not disrupting her ‘Indian-ness’?’

i think the challenge an indian woman who wishes to evince her feminist belief faces is that her actions or beliefs could disrupt her ‘hindu-ness’ or muslim-ness’ or’dalit-ness’ etc, (and not her ‘indian-ness’).

i might disagree with some of the views expressed in this post, but i thank you for making me think.