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Book review: Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Refashioning

India: Gender, Media, and a Transformed Public
Discourse
Article in Indian Journal of Gender Studies · February 2021

DOI: 10.1177/0971521520980857
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Pranta Pratik Patnaik

Central University of Rajasthan
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Book Reviews 141
While largely agreeing with her, it may be worth noting that such
research lays the basis for a more informed debate on critical questions,
such as: Was there scope for other, non-middle class perspectives on
women to emerge within the broader frame of the national movement
which provides the context for the study? What was the nature of the
interactions between the Hindi public sphere and publishing in the
vernacular and the project of pushing Hindu culture as the constitutive
frame for this and other language-based enterprises? Also, what scope
was there to frame questions, including of roles and conduct in pluralist
frames from diverse locations?
Indu Agnihotri
Independent Researcher, Delhi
[email protected]
Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Refashioning India: Gender, Media, and a Transformed

Public Discourse. Hyderabad, India: Orient BlackSwan, 2017, 325 pages
(hardcover). ISBN: 978-93-86689-00-9.
DOI: 10.1177/0971521520980857
Refashioning India is an aptly captivating title for the book under

review that revolves around changing images and the recasting and
representation of India through public discourse where the state, market
and media play a crucial role. Gender becomes a common trope by which
such discourses are created, managed and disseminated. One recurring
theme that runs through this work is the rhetoric of creating a gender-
equal/gender-just society and the sustenance of patriarchy through the
politics of capitalism and neo-liberalism. The compilation of 11 essays
in the book is an outcome of the author’s continuous engagement,
close and meticulous observation of the Indian political economy and
expansion of media.
The book can be read into two inter-connected parts—gender dis-
courses in the pre-liberalization and post-liberalization eras. The first two
essays complement each other in a sense that one deals with the textual
analysis of gender equality in government documents and the second
essay looks at the status of women during the early years of Indian nation-
alism. Tracing the origin of state engagement with the question of gender,
the first essay ‘Citizens, Workers, Emblems of Culture: An Analysis
142 Book Reviews
of the First Plan Document on Women’ critically analyses the first plan
document on Indian women prepared by the sub-committee on Women’s
Role in Planned Economy. This document recognized the entry of women
into production as a means to end the inequality meted out to them.
However, female participation in the workforce did not ensure their free-
dom from household chores, thereby reinforcing the public/private
dichotomy. Women who worked out of their homes were viewed as
potentially disruptive of the domestic as well as the ‘social’ order. This
reflected a half-hearted effort by the makers of the document towards a
discourse of gender equality without questioning the patriarchal norms
related to family and marriage that confine women to the domestic sphere.
The second essay ‘Gender in the Making of the Indian Nation-State’ high-
lights the dilemmas of Indian women at crossroads: Chaudhuri cites the
example of several government schemes—community development,
rural development, applied nutrition programme, home science extension
programme—that enthusiastically celebrated the tokenism of women’s
empowerment and gender equality. Their failure lay in attempts to incor-
porate women as agents of development, reiterating the conventional
role of women as dutiful wives and mothers. The author argues that
women as a collective rather than an individual unit became the project of
the apparently ‘neutral’ liberal state discourse.
The next three essays (Chapters 4–6) capture the ‘shift’ in public
discourse regarding gender in a mediated post-liberalization era. There is
more emphasis on terms like ‘freedom’ and ‘choice’ in the language of
advertisements, both print and visual, where the Indian woman became
an integral part of the consumption process. She is no longer the one who
only sacrifices but rather indulges in conspicuous consumption to fulfil
her needs and wants. The new image is that of a ‘modern’ woman who is
a part of a global process yet one who retains a few cultural traditions.
The author argues that in such (mis)representation of women, the media
images displace a large section of the population that could not be a part
of this consumption process.
The key argument in these essays is how certain terms like freedom
and choice are lifted from the women’s movement and appropriated in a
different context to express the emergence of a liberalized ‘self’ that suits
the project of a ‘market-friendly feminism’ (p. 118). It also needs to be
stressed that the rise of Hindu right-wing politics during this period
ensured a bifurcation between traditional and western feminism—the
former associated with the social reform movement and the latter to the
individual agency of women in matters of consumption.
Book Reviews 143
The major argument in the early essays of the second part of the book
is to understand the socio-economic changes that have impinged on the
media, ideas of nationalism and feminism, and most importantly a
‘transformed’ public. The predominance of media and market and their
gradual seeping into the public consciousness, the author argues, is
facilitated by market research that draws heavily from textual knowledge.
She cites the example of how images of women in the Indian family
emphasizes their role in the Hindu joint family despite several changes
that have taken place in family structure. The rise of subaltern politics,
particularly Dalit assertions, questions the legitimacy of the nation-state.
On the other hand, the rise of corporate globalization has given rise to
‘corporate feminism’ (p. 185) where feminism is no longer a collective
effort for emancipation rather is implied through individualized lifestyle
choices. The ‘hypervisibility’ of women in media as ‘free’ and ‘liberated’
became the hallmark to justify India’s economic reform, neo-liberal
patriarchal values immersed in the discourses of consumption.
There was also a shift in the category of ‘public’ where non-resident
Indians (NRIs) have become the part of an extended public sphere. The
growth of media as a legitimate agent of the public, the author adds,
in the second last chapter, ‘National and Global Media Discourse
after “Nirbhaya”: Instant Access and Unequal Knowledge’ was evident
during the reportage of the ‘Nirbhaya’ rape case in December 2012.
Media channelized the public outrage to question the government. There
were multiple sites where discourses on gender violence and women’s
safety were discussed—even to the extent of rape being considered
to be ‘a product of westernisation’ (p. 245). The global discourse, on
the other hand, guided by international human and gender rights
organizations considered the vulnerability of women in India as one
of the drawbacks in the brand image of global India. The concluding
chapter ‘The 2014 General Elections and Afterwards: A Churning Public
Discourse and the New Hegemony’ shows how this case was pivotal
in preparing the ground for the 2014 general elections in India
where gender issues were in focus during election campaigns. There is a
return to the previous situation where the idea of ‘gender equality’ is
much talked about than acted upon to achieve it. It, therefore, becomes
problematic and demands scrutiny as it does not necessarily add up to a
greater gender-just society. Refashioning India: Gender, Media, and a
Transformed Public Discourse provides a nuanced understanding of the
politics involved in the hyper visibility of gender discourses. Chaudhuri’s
144 Book Reviews
discussions and analyses are extremely valuable in an environment

where it is increasingly necessary to ensure that gender retains its
centrality within public discourse.
Pranta Pratik Patnaik

Department of Culture & Media Studies
Central University of Rajasthan
Bandar Seendri, Rajasthan, India
[email protected]
Manisha Chaudhary, Kasturba Gandhi: A Bio-Fiction. New Delhi, India:

Niyogi Books, 2018. 424 pages, `795.
DOI: 10.1177/0971521520980858
The life and work of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the architect of

India’s Swaraj in the fight against colonialism has been one of the most
prolific subjects of academic discourse. While his political activities
have always been at the centre of scrutiny, yet aspects of his personal life
were largely seen as unimpeachable by both scholars and his critics. The
wealth of published material deals in detail with Gandhi’s philosophy
and activism but the majority of these works do not mention the role of
Kasturba Gandhi in shaping the trajectory of Gandhian politics. At the
age of 13, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was married to Kasturbai
Makhanji in 1883 and they were to live for 62 years as a married couple.
Popularly known as Ba, Kasturba does find mention in Gandhi’s
autobiography My Experiments with Truth wherein Gandhi describes
their relation as marked by love and jealousy. Yet, there is hardly any
literature available for a scholar willing to dig deeper into the life of this
formidable woman who moved with him constantly, invested herself in
the politics of Gandhi, went to jail in South Africa and India and was a
devoted wife and mother in all respects. To be able to carve out an
independent existence amidst the life of Gandhi was an insurmountable
task but this is what Ba managed to attain.
The book by Manisha Chaudhary attempts to give voice and greater
meaning to the life of Ba and does an excellent job of reconstructing her
life as the one who took part in the satyagraha alongside Gandhi and
gave meaning to his ideas. Due to the paucity of material available, the
task of writing a book on Kasturba Gandhi turns out to be a difficult one.
But Chaudhary, by adopting the method of bio-fiction, creates a narrative
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Book review: Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Refashioning

Article in Indian Journal of Gender Studies · February 2021

Pranta Pratik Patnaik

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Maitrayee Chaudhuri, Refashioning India: Gender, Media, and a Transformed

Refashioning India is an aptly captivating title for the book under

discussions and analyses are extremely valuable in an environment

Pranta Pratik Patnaik

Manisha Chaudhary, Kasturba Gandhi: A Bio-Fiction. New Delhi, India:

The life and work of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as the architect of

View publication stats

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