Indian Feminism

22 Jan. 10
Sister Pushpa Joseph is the professor of biblical studies at the University of Madras serving in their Department of Christian Studies as well as an advocate for and a practical theologian of Indian feminist theology.

In a conversation with Sister Pushpa she explained how Indian feminism is primarily constructed of two considerations: “1. Indian feminism is a bundle of rich paradoxes, and 2. Indian feminism is a story of fragments.”

Of the many elements that make up the varied “bundle of rich paradoxes” is the Indian national paper The Hindu. The Hindu paper offers some of the finest English language writing and analysis in the world; yet, in the same paper there can be found some of the most superstitious symbols of Indian culture and the assigned cultural identity of the Indian woman: matrimonial classified ads and astronomical forecasts. This paradox within The Hindu national paper reveals the evidence behind Sister Pushpa’s statement that “even language is getting globalized.”

Sister Pushpa herself is an interesting paradox of Indian feminism. Sister Pushpa is a Syrian Catholic Franciscan Indian-born feminist nun. Sister Pushpa is working her ministry under the patriarchal system of the Roman Catholic church in India that is simultaneously oppressing the role of women within the Church and yet it is the Church that provides her the status and resources within her own Indian culture and caste system that empowers her and others with her significant engagement within the Indian feminist movement. Sister Pushpa reflects on her paradoxical position within the Church and declares: “Catholic nuns take on the role of the authentic feminine within the Church.”

Understanding the Indian feminist movement as a unified story of fragments requires a reframing of identity and authority for some who may struggle with the complex question of: what gives integrity to the identity and thus the authority of the individual based on their shared experiences? Experiences that gathered as a whole reveal the identity of an entire community of women who must face in their culture of birth a construction that inherently denies their voices and thus their power.

Sister Pushpa says, “individual dialogue is the action by which feminist theology works within religion.” The social constructs that women in India find themselves defined by are issues of gender, class, caste, and the religious patriarchy. Emerging from under these social constructs, Sister Pushpa instructs that it is through the sharing and re-membering of the “flesh and blood realities of our women” that they are able to claim their identities within Indian society and culture with integrity. This individual sharing of personal her stories lays the foundation for the Indian feminist movement to empower “rigorous systematic critical analysis.” In addition this sharing and weaving together of all the various fragmented narratives will “preserve Indian women’s contextual uniqueness.” Quilting together a tapestry of knowing that is a sacred newly emerging consciousness of Indian feminist wisdom that “serves as a celebration of their differences.” A celebration that acknowledges the Crazy Quilt that is the embodiment of 21st century Indian life. A Crazy Quilt that is the pluralistic contingency driven manifestation of the fragments of knowing that united reflect the universal wisdom of the Indian feminist movement.

Sister Pushpa recommends Uma Chakravarthi’s work Recasting Women for a look into the vast world of Indian women and the fragmented narratives that will shed light on their ever evolving identity and the self claimed integrity of being through knowing realized through their respective shared experiences. It is through anthologies of the Indian women’s experience, a consideration the new biblical hermeneutics presented through the lens of an Indian woman in tandem with a hermeneutic of suspicion of the biblical silence in the text in regard to women and the issue of violence against women that leads us to a universal question for all women in all countries; as Sister Pushpa challenges us: “What does the Jesus movement with its application of equal disciples mean in a caste driven society?”

Rob and Renee