In India, nationalist identity was derived from
a Sanskritized upper caste version of Hinduism,
excluding other communities, tribals, and dalits
(untouchables) at the same time as it incorporated
a particular notion of gender relations and woman-
hood. Indian nationalism contained in itself the
seeds of divisions that proliferated in the post-inde-
pendence period. The continued existence of sepa-
rate religion-based laws (called personal laws) to
regulate marriage, inheritance, divorce, and adop-
tion constructed a sharp disjunction between the
professed secularism of the Indian state and the
legal structure that governed the private domain.
In the post-independence period the controversies
over personal law led to a questioning of the state
ideology of secularism itself. Social citizenship
remains based on membership of a community and
in all personal laws women are denied equal rights
in varying degrees. These laws and the appropria-
tion by Hindutva forces of the feminist demand for
a uniform civil code have become a battleground
for the defense of “authentic” minority Muslim
and majority Hindu community identities. This
defense is ironic since the process of codification of
these laws for Hindus, Muslims, and Christians
incorporated colonial Victorian assumptions and
selective interpretation of texts by priests and mul-
lahs, thereby constructing “imaginary” boundaries
of each community and the family. Given the
minority status of Muslims in India a progressive-
regressive movement has determined the construc-
tion of Muslim identity and equal citizenship rights
for Muslim women have been subordinated to the
defense of the community. The upsurge in majori-
tarian Hindu fundamentalism, the destruction of
the Babri Masjid in 1992, and the pogrom against
Muslims in Gujarat in 2003 have once again led to
a defensive reassertion of personal law as a symbol
of Muslim identity.
Pakistan resolved the dilemma posed at its birth
of whether it was a country “of Muslims” or “for
Muslims” by constructing a national identity
through a twin process of homogenizing Islam and
enhancing the differences between men and women
and Muslim and others. This was constructed
through gender segregation, dress codes (shalwar
kameez versus sari and chador and chardiwari)
and legislating secondary status to women, minori-
ties, and all Muslim sects other than Sunnì. From
1977 onwards issues of sexual, geographical, cul-
tural, and moral boundary protection became cen-
tral in public discourse and the private realm of the
family came under increasing state supervision and
control. The Hudood Ordinances, which combined
misogynist views with public morality to control
south asia 287women’s sexuality, were accompanied by an in-
crease in public violence against women – those
who transgressed social norms as well as those who
were victims (for instance, rape was redefined as
adultery in the Zina Ordinance).
The creation of Bangladesh on the basis of eth-
nic/linguistic/cultural nationalism (which required
the dismantling of a Muslim identity uniting both
wings of Pakistan) also contained contradictions.
Contestations over secularism were subsequently
framed within religious discourse as later military
regimes moved away from the nationalist/socialist
project of the Mujib period and slowly incorporated
Islam as a state religion in the constitution and built
alliances with fundamentalist groups. The govern-
ment hence failed to prevent or control the increased
issuance of fatwas by rural religious leaders backed
by village elites ordering the burning or stoning to
death of women, the harassment of intellectuals,
the banning of the work of “blasphemous” writers,
and attacks on non-governmental organizations
Global alliances have also played a significant
role in bolstering fundamentalisms in the region –
Saudi oil connections and patronage in Bangladesh,
United States support to Pakistan as a frontline
state against the Soviet supported Afghanistan,
which fostered the Taliban, and the financial sup-
port from the Hindu diaspora for Hindutva in
India. Integration into a global economy, capitalist
markets, urban consumerism and political alliances
have led to the emergence of particular constituen-
cies – primarily middle-class – who support the
political agenda of Islamization in Pakistan and
Bangladesh and Hindutva in India.
In all three countries the state is neither mono-
lithic nor are its policies uniform. Concurrent with
the carving of national/communal identities with
specific gender constructs, modernization policies
have drawn women into the labor force, granted
degrees of political representation at the national
and local level, and provided for education.
Similarly regime types do not necessarily indicate
internal processes. In Pakistan the Family Laws
Ordinance 1961, which gave women some rights in
relation to marriage, divorce, and child custody
was passed by a military government; while the
Hudood Ordinances were not repealed by the dem-
ocratic government, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a funda-
mentalist group, expanded under a democratic
government in Bangladesh; and the worst forms of
violence have been unleashed against Muslims and
Christians in democratic secular India.
Central to the projects of religio-political groups
is the control over women’s bodies, mobility, sexu-
ality, and reproductive capacity, and a reinscription