Women in the Service of Hindutva - Gender, Hindutva and Seva

The Economic and Political Weekly
VOL 44 No. 17 April 25 - May 01, 2009

Exploring Gender, Hindutva and Seva

by Swati Dyahadroy

This article shows how the women’s wing of the Dnyana Prabodhini, which began as an educational initiative in Pune in the 1960s, uses the concept of seva (service) to provide space for women to engage critically with socially relevant issues and consolidate their identity, as distinct from both the new “consumer” woman or the housewife and the ”modern” woman. The ideal woman it envisages is seva-oriented, and differs from the feminists who extol individualism. Her modernity lies in her physical discipline, mental training, her awareness of social issues, her rootedness in family without getting trapped by the purely domestic for collective cultural regeneration of the Hindu Rashtra. Globalisation is not condemned but seen as an opportunity to achieve this ideal.

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