Africa in the Indian Imagination

Review Essay: Disentangling Feminisms from the Cold War

“…Sing and Naidoo were both South African-born women of Indian descent, while Moraes and Sen were Indian men writing from 'the heart of the [Indian] subcontinent itself'. 12 A central metaphor of Burton's book is what she calls the 'jagged hyphen' found between Afro-Asian. 13 She highlights the fractures, resentments, angers and fears of black Africans that appeared in Indians' Cold War writings.…”

“…12 A central metaphor of Burton's book is what she calls the 'jagged hyphen' found between Afro-Asian. 13 She highlights the fractures, resentments, angers and fears of black Africans that appeared in Indians' Cold War writings. Intimacies receive particularly close attention in the monograph, one example of which we can see in Burton's analysis of Chanakya Sen's The Morning After (originally published in Bengali in 1960 and revised and translated into English in 1973).…”

“…Meanwhile, Sheila's attraction to Solomon is rooted in her desire to 'rebel against her parents' bourgeois respectability' and her 'mother's provincialism' in particular. 14 By analysing the fraught sexual taboos, fears and fantasies that structure the relationships among Solomon, Sheila and Sheila's parents, Burton reveals how iterations of racism, caste, class and sexuality converged to threaten the morally upright, Indian nuclear family and its relationship to the developing Indian Cold War state.…”

“…In the novel, this patriarchy took place 'over the body of [a formerly imprisoned] Indian woman', part of what leads Burton to conclude, 'when it does happen, Afro-Asian solidarity is a homosocial experience at the expense of a brown woman -all in the name of the transfer of postcolonial knowledge in a developmentalist register'. 15 We see other forms of fraught alliances and, as Burton uses Lisa Lowe's work to articulate, 'new narratives of affirmation and presence' in the monograph, notably in Burton's section on the writings of Phyllis Naidoo, an Indian-South African antiapartheid activist and attorney. 16 Burton discusses the archives Naidoo has created when writing first-person histories of anti-apartheid struggle in the early 2000s.…”

“…15 We see other forms of fraught alliances and, as Burton uses Lisa Lowe's work to articulate, 'new narratives of affirmation and presence' in the monograph, notably in Burton's section on the writings of Phyllis Naidoo, an Indian-South African antiapartheid activist and attorney. 16 Burton discusses the archives Naidoo has created when writing first-person histories of anti-apartheid struggle in the early 2000s. She foregrounds Naidoo's discussion of Poomoney 'Poo' Moodley, a young, black, South African woman who was a trade unionist, health care worker and, like Naidoo, a member of the armed branch of the African National Congress.…”