The Conflict between Gender, Sexuality and Patriarchal Ideals emerging from Colonial India

A Retrospective on Nirad C Chaudhuri’s Literary Works and Essays

Abstract

Nirad C Chaudhuri, a prominent Indian scholar, whose upbringing was mostly based on the nineteenth century English values, had addressed many injustices done towards women in India in his youth. However, this paper will explore, studying primarily The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Bengalee jibone Romonee (Women in Bengali life) and some other of his articles on women, his cultural context to comprehend his aversion towards the poststructural conceptualization of sex, gender and sexuality despite being a well-known Anglophile in his lifetime. To analyze this issue, this paper will use Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s (1955- ) postcolonial feminist perspective which emphasizes the applying of distinct methodologies to unravel intersectional exploitation of women within a particular country instead of the White feminists’ approach of homogenizing or creating an unequal binary of Western/Eastern women, and Judith Butler’s (1956-) poststructural feminist theory of gender performativity that refers to the stylized repetitive social performances which essentialize gender and assert definite gender roles to confirm a static heterosexual society. Finally, this paper will posit that the patriarchal culture that was embedded through Victorian England’s rules and regulations in colonial India was the catalyst for his disinclination to engage in this new wave of feminism emerging in the Western world