Engendering the Nation: Women, Islam, and Poetry in Pakistan

In this essay I offer some examples of reading feminist agency in Pakistan through an analysis of the poems of two of Pakistan’s preeminent feminist poets, Fahmida Riaz (b.1946) and Kishwar Naheed (b.1940). Rather than gesture to their poetry in a strategy of recuperation I contend that their powerful narratives compel us to reevaluate the parameters of contemporary feminist historiography and discourses of nationalism in South Asia. The poems of Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed are informed by a different set of paradigms about self and community (Islam) and at the same time reflect an archive (poetry) as crucial to feminist critiques of nationalism. They have thus been able to reach a large audience of women and articulate an explicitly feminist politics in Pakistan. Their poems necessarily take center-stage in this essay. However, a detailed analysis of the larger context and space their work occupies sheds light on how they, as feminists, have used poetry to revise subtly the complex relationships between women and men, and gender and nationalism in Pakistan

„…zwischen zwei Welten schwebend…“ : zu Goethes Fremdheitsexperiment im West-östlichen Divan

Das Interessante [...] ist, dass der lyrische Teil des Divans einen kulturhistorisch die Zeit transzendierenden utopischen Schwebezustand zwischen Ost und West inszeniert, welcher in kognitiver Spannung zum Ertrag des im Rahmen des Kolonialismus angehäuften Wissens über den Orient steht. Aus dieser Spannung entsteht die charakteristische Ambivalenz des deutschen Sonderwegs im Zusammenhang mit dem Orientalismus. Damit wird die ambivalente Stellung des deutschen Orientalismus auch am Divan deutlich. Die Spannung im Divan bedeutet, dass das Werk als Modell für Dialog und Verständnis zwischen Orient und Okzident gelesen werden kann, und es kann auch als utopischer Entwurf für den grenzüberwindenden Umgang mit fremden kulturellen Möglichkeiten gedeutet werden. Im Folgenden werden einige Aspekte davon behandelt

Orientalist themes and English verse in nineteenth-century India

This thesis demonstrates how a specific tradition of English poetry written by Indians in the nineteenth-century borrowed its subject matter from Orientalist research into Indian antiquity, and its style and forms from the English poetic tradition. After an examination of the political, historical and social motivations that resulted in the birth of colonial poetry in India, the poets dealt with comprise Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-31), the first Indian poet writing in English ; Kasiprasad Ghosh (1809-73), the first Bengali Hindu to write English verse; and Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73), who converted to Christianity in the hope of reaching England and becoming a great 'English' poet. A subsequent chapter examines the Dutt Family Album (London, 1870) in the changing political context of the latter half of the century. In the Conclusion it is shown how the advent of Modernism in England, and the birth of an active nationalism in India, finally brought about the end of all aspects of what is here called 'Orientalist' verse.This area has not been dealt with comprehensively by critics; only one book, Lotika Basu's Indian Writers of English Verse (1933), exists on this subject to date. This thesis, besides filling the gaps that exist in the knowledge available in this area, also brings an additional insight to bear on the current debate on colonialism and literature. After Said's Orientalism (1978), a spate of theoretical work has been published on literary studies and colonial power in British India. Without restricting the argument to the constraints of the Saidian model, this study addresses the issues raised by these works, showing that a subtler reading is possible, through the medium of this poetry, of the interaction that took place in India between the production of literature and colonialism. In particular, this thesis demonstrates that although Orientalist poetry was in many ways derivative, it also evinces an active and developing response to the imposition of British culture upon India

A history of the education of the Shudra untouchables before and under the British rule in India, circ. 2000 BC to 1947.

A History of the education of the Shudra Untouchables before and under the British Rule in India. (Circ; 2000 B.C. to 1947 A. D.) The Shudra Untouchables are descendents of the Aboriginal Dasyu, natives of India who inhabited and ruled over the country before the Aryan invasion about 2000 B.C. The Aryans, ancestors of the Hindus, defeated them and made them dasas (slaves). Under the Hindu caste system, the Aboriginal Dasa natives were given the name of Shudras. The Aryan Hindus excluded the Dasa Shudras from all social and educational privileges of their society. The Aryan Hindu priests laid down severe laws in their religious books for the social and educational segregation of the Shudras in all ages to come. Such penal laws were filling the ears and cutting the tongue of a Shudra if he tried to overhear or utter a syllable from their scriptures. These sanctions have been followed by the Hindus till the present day. (Section I - Ch.I). The rise of Budhism promised social and educational equality to the Shudras who therefore joined the new cult in millions for its benefits. (Ch.II)The Educational System in the post Budhist period - a period of the revival of Hinduism, was again unfavourable to the social and educational advance of the Shudras. (Ch.III).Under the Mohammedans and later under the British, the priestly Hindus won the favour of the rulers and kept their social order, which was antagonistic to the Shudras, intact. Whatever money was allotted by the British for educational purposes, was all diverted to Hindu learning and culture. (Chs.III & IV).The Hindu Congress, founded in 1885, followed a political programme rather than the social programme which would have been useful for the Untouchables. Its programme suggests the Hindu-ising of the Untouchables rather than their education. (Ch.VI) The Hindu public, following Congress, have also opposed the education of the Untouchables. (Ch.VII). Some of the causes of the denial of education advanced from generation to generation, have been that the Untouchables were racially inferior; and had no tradition or aptitude for learning; and (today) that they lack intelligence and are unclean etc. These allegations are without logical justification. (Ch.VIII).During the Mohammedan rule, the Muslim kings, on the whole, recognised the equality of the Shudras. Hence the Shudras embraced Islam through the agency of mosque schools. (Section II -Ch.I).The greatest service during this period for the elevation of the Shudras was through Sufi saints. (Ch.II).During the British period the Christian missions intensified their efforts for the uplift of the Untouchables. The missionaries are the real pioneers of the education of the Depressed Classes in India. Their service is unique in the history of mankind. (Section III - Chs.I and II). But if they had limited their work to the Untouchables, there would now be no Untouchables in India. (Ch.III). The work of the British Government in opening its schools to the Shudra Untouchables is also unparalleled. Their period will remain memorable among civilized nations for this work. (Section IV - Ch.I).But Britain could do still more if it chose to do so. (Ch.II).In an independent India, the advance of the education of the Shudra Untouchables can be achieved (a) by the Untouchables remaining an independent block (b) by the adoption of a universal system of education by the Government in power. (Section V)

Social Sciences and Cultural Studies

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social) and the Humanities and the private and the public sectors of society. The chapters speak across socio-cultural concerns, education, welfare and artistic sectors under the common desire for direct responses in more effective ways by means of interaction across societal structures

The epic in Hindi literature.

Abstract Not Provided