Mother IndiaUniversity of Michigan Press, 2000 - 298 pages Mother India, a polemical attack against Indian self-rule written by U.S. historian Katherine Mayo, was met with a storm of controversy when it was published in 1927. The controversy generated still reverberates and thus is still worth revisiting, some fifty years after Indian independence. In responding to Mayo's argument laid out in Mother India, the leaders of the national movement and the independent women's movement in India laid the foundations of an alliance that gave modern Indian nationalism its distinctive character. Mrinalini's Sinha's edition provides selections of this controversial book and commentary on the Mother India phenomenon. It also reprints a range of responses from Mayo's contemporaries. Sinha's edition works to locate the book and the controversy it incited in the context of U.S. domestic, British Imperial, and Indian nationalist politics. Unlike previous editions, Sinha's examines the history of cultural feminisms and the relations between women's movements in the United States, Britain, and India; the examination of these different movements reveals intriguing insights into the nature of the varied reactions to Mayo's book. The edition includes several formerly obscure contemporary responses to Mother India from representatives of the women's movement and of the anti-caste movement in India. Intended as a tool for students and teachers alike, this book will be an important text in the field of women's studies, cultural studies, political science, history, and religion, among others. Mrinalini Sinha is Associate Professor of History, Southern Illinois University. She is the author of Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Mother India | 63 |
Foreword | 65 |
PART I | 67 |
The bus to Mandalay | 69 |
The Argument | 75 |
Slave Mentality | 81 |
Marbles and Tops | 93 |
Mr Ganhdi | 215 |
The Sin of the Salvation Army | 216 |
The Sacred Cow | 219 |
The Quality of Mercy | 221 |
In the House of Her Friends | 223 |
Home of Stark Want | 224 |
The Reforms | 226 |
The Princes of India | 233 |
Early to Marry and Early to Die | 100 |
Spades are Spades | 107 |
PART II | 117 |
The Grand Trunk Road | 119 |
The Earthly God | 121 |
Wages of Sin | 130 |
Mother India | 137 |
Behind the Veil | 152 |
Woman the Spinster | 161 |
PART III | 175 |
The Brahman | 177 |
Less that Men | 180 |
Behold a Light | 187 |
Give Me Office or Give Me Death | 194 |
We Both Meant Well | 198 |
Why Is Light Denied? | 200 |
A Counsel of Perfection | 207 |
PART IV | 213 |
PART V | 237 |
Into the North | 239 |
Firebrands to Straw | 240 |
Sons of the Prophet | 247 |
The Holy City | 251 |
The WorldMenace | 255 |
Quacks Whom We Know | 259 |
Psychological Glimpses through the Economic Lens | 263 |
Conclusion | 267 |
Medical Evidence | 269 |
Enfranchisement of Women | 271 |
Select Contemporary Responses to Mother India | 275 |
Miss Mayo AnsweredMuthulakshmi Reddi | 276 |
CorrespondenceWomens Indian Association | 287 |
Extracts from MOTHER INDIA KA JAWAB | 290 |
Extracts from MEYO KUTRU MOYYA POYYA | 292 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
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