Antardrishti

  Abstract : Dalit women in India have had a long history of suppression and of leading lives of routine indignity and humiliation. The ‘Breast Tax’ (Mulakkaram or mula-karam in Malayalam), imposed on the lower caste, Dalit women by the Kingdom of Travancore (in present-day Kerala) if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, was one of the many ways of oppressing them. This indignity on the part of the dominant castes inculcated into one of the most significant Dalit as well as female revolts in history – The Channar Lahala or the Channar revolt (also called the Maru Marakkal Samaram) -   a relentless struggle of the Nadar climber women of Travancore for their right to wear upper-body garments. This historic revolt, made news a few years ago, in the CBSE’s infamous decision (2016) to remove the section titled ‘Caste, Conflict and Dress Change’ from its social science curriculum, by labeling it as “objectionable content”. This amounted to an attempt to erase the history ...

Joseph S. Alter, visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburg, examines in his work Celibacy, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Gender into Nationalism in North India - the use of Hindu concept of Brahmacharya (celibacy) in contemporary India. He relates the concept of Brahmacharya with gender and nationalism in North India. Celibacy can best be practiced as a form of political action targeting against the post-colonial idea of “freedom”, i.e. Westernization. The article focuses on biological as well as spiritual nature of semen and how semen is innately male which makes the concept of celibacy and nationalism a gendered phenomenon. The very first part of the article is- Celibacy, Semen, and the Science of Sex. In a nutshell, this section talks about how semen conservation is essential and provides with various works of people who believe in spillage of semen as a sin.      Because the youth of today are destroying their semen they ...

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