NOTES TO PAGES 439–42ford University Press, 2005), 93–112. Gauri Viswanathan argues that the convert was subjected to
social death and thus denied all earlier forms of sociality. I see this to be a more complicated
question. The notion of fatherhood was at the center of theological and political debates in eigh-
teenth-century Europe. The core of the disagreement was on the kind of ‘‘natural’’ rights that the
father had over the son. Thus, even with conversion the rights of the father did not automatically
disappear, since conversion affected thesocialposition of the convert but not necessarily the rela-
tions that were seen to derive from nature.
- See Paola Bachetta,La Construction des identite ́s dans les discours nationalists hiundous
(1939–1992): Le Rahstriya swayamsevak Sangh et la Rashtriya Sevika Sasaiti(Lille: ANRT, Universite ́
de Lille III, 1996), and Charu Gupta,Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the
Hindu Public in Colonial India(New York, Palgrave, 2002; rpt. of Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001).
Page references are to the Palgrave edition. - Gupta,Sexuality, Obscenity, Community, 248.
- Ibid., 267.
- Claude Le ́vi-Strauss,The Elementary Structures of Kinship, rev. ed., trans. J. H. Bill and
J. R. von Sturmore, ed. Rodney Needham (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969). - Mary Laura Severance, ‘‘Sex and the Social Contract,’’ELH67, no. 2 (2000): 453–513. In
Filmer’s theory, fatherly power is the basis for kingly power—hence, the father had the right to kill
the son without incurring any legal penalty. See Sir Robert Filmer,Patriarcha and Other Writings
(1680; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). I discuss this in some detail in my ‘‘Pater-
nity, Sovereignty and the Argument from Nature.’’ - Severance, ‘‘Sex and the Social Contract,’’ 456.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau,Emile(New York: Everyman’s Library, 1974).
- See Veena Das, ‘‘Secularism and the Argument from Nature,’’ inPowers of the Secular
Modern, ed. Scott and Hirschkind. - Rosseau,Emile, 448; my emphasis.
- Ibid., 325.
- Mario Feit has examined the implications of Rousseau’s theory of the relation between
sexuality and mortality for same-sex marriage in an innovative and interesting way. While I see that
there are important implications of Rousseau’s thesis of citizenship for non-normative forms of
sexuality, I am much more interested here in the way in which the figure of the Father places
Rousseau in the debate on fatherhood in Filmer, Hobbes, and Locke. I have learned much from
Mario Feit’s discussion concerning population. Mario Feit, ‘‘Mortality, Sexuality, and Citizenship:
Reading Rousseau, Arendt, and Nietzsche,’’ Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 2003. - The termpativratarefers to a woman who shows single-minded devotion to her husband.
It has strong religious connotations in Hinduism. - This quote is from a Hindi vernacular tract of 1927, cited in Gupta,Sexuality, Obscenity,
Community, 292. Gupta does not explore the similar Urdu-language popular culture, but it would
have been very interesting to see what tropes were used to delegitimize popular practices of women
in the attempt to purify the Muslim community of Hindu influence.
Markha G. Valenta, How to Recognize a Muslim When You See One: Western
Secularism and the Politics of Conversion
note: For their careful readings and critical comments, I would like especially to thank Law-
rence Sullivan, Talal Asad, Peter van der Veer, and Peter van Rooden. Each in his own way played
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