Abstract
My paper aims to negotiate the political illustration of the pure Hindu woman as propagated during the India-Pakistan Partition of 1947. The split of British India was followed by communal violence and the mass abduction of women from both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border. Amid the wave of sectarian belligerence, the abducted Hindu woman was popularly classified as Sita from the Rāmāyaṇa, who was held captive by the diabolical enemy or ‘Muslim Ravana.’ I examine how religious narratives during the Partition era endorsed a reductionist dichotomy of India-Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim, and the juxtaposed iconographies of the Hindu Sita and the Muslim Ravana. In tracing the dialogue on Hinduism, gender, and the nation in the 2003 Period Drama film Pinjar, I offer insights into ways in which the film contests religious/religio-national gendered subjects by portraying hybrid spaces, liminal identities, and psychically fluid boundaries.
Recommended Citation
Shabnam, Shamika
(2018)
"Gender, Religion and Partition: The Shifting Sītā in Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's Pinjar,"
Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 22:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol22/iss2/4