Abstract
The postcolonial Indian state has since its inception used sexual
violence to keep resurgent rebellions in check within its formal
territory, and has for long provided the means of the production of
sexual violence to dominant sections of society. In this essay I suggest
that with the rise of the Hindu right to political power at key levels
of states and the centre over the last three decades, a new social and
political dynamic has been unleashed. Sexual violence has come to
constitute public and private lives in unprecedented ways that include a
radical realignment of public and private spheres as well as the
production of a rejuvenated masculinist state and society seeking to
resignify tradition and modernity within the framework of Hindutva or
Hindu supremacy. While this force signals a political defeat for
liberal and secular feminism at some level, it also opens up new
opportunities to reimagine the vocabularies of freedom and rights
against the new political order.
