Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India
Behl, Natasha. 2019. Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India. New York: Oxford University Press.
It has been shown time and again that even though all citizens may be accorded equal standing in the constitution of a liberal democracy, such a legal provision hardly guarantees state protections against discrimination and political exclusion. More specifically, why do we find pervasive gender-based discrimination, exclusion, and violence in India when the Indian Constitution supports an inclusive democracy committed to gender and caste equality?
In Gendered Citizenship, Natasha Behl offers an examination of Indian citizenship that weaves together an analysis of sexual violence law with an in-depth ethnography of the Sikh community to explore the contradictory nature of Indian democracy--which gravely affects its institutions and puts its citizens at risk. Through a situated analysis of citizenship, Behl upends longstanding academic assumptions about democracy, citizenship, religion, and gender. This analysis reveals that religious spaces and practices can be sites for renegotiating democratic participation, but also uncovers how some women engage in religious community in unexpected ways to link gender equality and religious freedom as shared goals. Gendered Citizenship is a groundbreaking inquiry that explains why the promise of democratic equality remains unrealized, and identifies potential spaces and practices that can create more egalitarian relations.
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Book Award
2021 Lee Ann Fujii Award for Innovation in the Interpretive Study of Political Violence from the American Political Science Association's Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Conference Group
Book Endorsements
“In an argument grounded in the lived experience of Sikh women in India, Natasha Behl revisits the meaning of citizenship, understanding citizenship as contextual. Her contextual approach bridges empirical and normative theory to take on one of the deepest threats to democracy’s paradoxical exclusions, by recognizing the inclusive potential in seemingly undemocratic groups like religious communities. Behl shows that our secular mechanisms for inclusion exclude. The implications of her argument can be far reaching. Is political science ready for political theory to trouble the boundaries and measurement of its most essential concepts? This book raises that important question.”—Brooke Ackerly, author of Just Responsibility: A Human Rights Theory of Global Justice
“In this insightful work, Natasha Behl explores the coexistence of formal equality in India with systemic inequalities grounded in gender, caste, class, and religion. By documenting how physical and sexual violence and sexist norms undermine diverse women’s participation in public life, Gendered Citizenship demonstrates why meaningful democratization requires far more than legal reform, and identifies initiatives that can promote more inclusive and egalitarian modes of public life. Moreover, Behl argues persuasively that political science needs a richer conceptualization of power if it is to acknowledge that all citizens matter.”—Mary Hawkesworth, author of Embodied Power: Demystifying Disembodied Politics
“Building on her empirical work among Sikh women active in religious spaces and engaged in religious practices, Behl has produced a nuanced, thoughtful, and exciting account of gendered and situated citizenship. This book will be of interest to all those interested in the gendered issues of democratic participation and its challenges, especially in the context of everyday violence and social disciplining.”—Shirin Rai, University of Warwick
“In this compelling political ethnography of how Sikh women experience citizenship in India, Behl asks a pressing question relevant to all liberal democracies: why do the punitive effects of gender persist in spite of constitutional guarantees to the contrary? Pushing against the limitations of mainstream research, Behl develops the concept of situated citizenship to unpack how the pervasiveness of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as informal gender norms, gut the promise of political equality for all. Pointing to what she calls ‘exclusionary inclusion,’ or practices that prevent equal citizenship from being realized, Behl’s findings indict the state and formal legal norms. Alternatively, by working from the ground up, Behl uncovers the favorable role a minority religious group can play in facilitating women’s resistance to this form of exclusionary inclusion. Filled with the voices of ordinary Sikh women, Behl’s book challenges conventional assumptions with an analytically rich account of how and why citizenship remains profoundly gendered.”—Denise M. Walsh, University of Virginia
“In this insightful work, Natasha Behl explores the coexistence of formal equality in India with systemic inequalities grounded in gender, caste, class, and religion. By documenting how physical and sexual violence and sexist norms undermine diverse women’s participation in public life, Gendered Citizenship demonstrates why meaningful democratization requires far more than legal reform, and identifies initiatives that can promote more inclusive and egalitarian modes of public life. Moreover, Behl argues persuasively that political science needs a richer conceptualization of power if it is to acknowledge that all citizens matter.”—Mary Hawkesworth, author of Embodied Power: Demystifying Disembodied Politics
“Building on her empirical work among Sikh women active in religious spaces and engaged in religious practices, Behl has produced a nuanced, thoughtful, and exciting account of gendered and situated citizenship. This book will be of interest to all those interested in the gendered issues of democratic participation and its challenges, especially in the context of everyday violence and social disciplining.”—Shirin Rai, University of Warwick
“In this compelling political ethnography of how Sikh women experience citizenship in India, Behl asks a pressing question relevant to all liberal democracies: why do the punitive effects of gender persist in spite of constitutional guarantees to the contrary? Pushing against the limitations of mainstream research, Behl develops the concept of situated citizenship to unpack how the pervasiveness of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as informal gender norms, gut the promise of political equality for all. Pointing to what she calls ‘exclusionary inclusion,’ or practices that prevent equal citizenship from being realized, Behl’s findings indict the state and formal legal norms. Alternatively, by working from the ground up, Behl uncovers the favorable role a minority religious group can play in facilitating women’s resistance to this form of exclusionary inclusion. Filled with the voices of ordinary Sikh women, Behl’s book challenges conventional assumptions with an analytically rich account of how and why citizenship remains profoundly gendered.”—Denise M. Walsh, University of Virginia