Anxious Sexualities: Masculinity, Nationalism and Violence

Abstract

An ethnographic research among activists subscribing to majoritarian Hindu nationalism in India reveals that anxiety, masculinity and sexuality are crucial ingredients in their identity politics. The inimical figure used to mobilise the Hindu nationalist identity is a stereotyped Muslim masculinity which in turn is imagined as dangerous owing to a mix of negative images of Islam, history, physicality and culture. The specificities of anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, and especially the pervasiveness of sexual violence there, can be understood as an assertion of the new Hindu identity which conflates nationalism with masculinity and violence. And yet it was the complicity of the institutions of the state that accounted for the lethality of violence in Gujarat. The article argues that masculinised nationalism and embedded statehood are crucial features of contemporary (inter) national politics.

Malabar Secrets: South Indian Muslim Men's (Homo)sociality across the Indian Ocean

“…2 Kerala Muslims are also routinely mocked for being circumcised, making them incomplete men (cf. Anand, 2007;Metha, 2006, p. 218). In sum, Hindu rhetoric represents Muslim men as beyond the pale of sexual morality, and politically dangerous to the point of requiring containment, through marginalisation, if not by means of outright violence (Anand, 2007;Ansari, 2005).…”

“…Anand, 2007;Metha, 2006, p. 218). In sum, Hindu rhetoric represents Muslim men as beyond the pale of sexual morality, and politically dangerous to the point of requiring containment, through marginalisation, if not by means of outright violence (Anand, 2007;Ansari, 2005). 3 By locating and discussing same-sex desire within wider practices of male sociality (cf.…”

Violent Societies

“…Feminist international scholars have illustrated the links between violent masculinities, nationalism and war (Anand, 2007;Bracewell, 2000;Enloe, 2000;Parpart and Zalewski, 2008;Zalewski and Parpart, 1998). Whitehead (2002, pp. 14-17) provides a fascinating account of the ways in which notions of masculinity have changed in England over the past 500 years.…”

“Why Can't You Say You Are from Bangladesh?”: Demographic Anxiety and Hindu Nationalist Common Sense in the Aftermath of the 2008 Jaipur Bombings

“…Muslims are also engaged in an effort to enlarge their population and outnumber Hindus, which is an effect of vote bank politics and "appeasement." As many commentators have noted, a widespread belief among Hindutva proponents is that Muslim men channel their natural (i.e., racially derived) virility and aggression into a demographic strategy: produce more children to, eventually, outnumber Hindus (Baber 2004;Anand 2007; see also Bacchetta 1999). Their view, summarized by Dibyesh Anand, is generally that, Islam is backward and regressive in its attitude towards reproduction: the Qu'ran exhorts adherents to produce children; the Prophet set a personal example; there is a prohibition on birth control; and most importantly, it allows/encourages Muslim men to have four wives (2007: 260).…”