interconnectedness of issues within the different rubrics to build a holistic view of the time

period and region under study.

Assessment Methods:

Students will be regularly assessed for their grasp on debates and discussions covered in class.
Two written assignments will be used for final grading of the students. As this is a discipline-
specific elective paper actively chosen by the student, his/her engagement with the paper shall
be assessed, preferably, through at least one project as a written submission. Overall, students
will be assessed on their ability to engage with a sizeable corpus of readings assigned to the
theme for written submissions, and to draw concrete connections between issues/events/debates
discussed in this paper and the corresponding issues/events/debates discussed in their Core
history papers.
Internal Assessment: 25 Marks
Written Exam: 75 Marks
Total: 100 Marks

Keywords:

Gold, Slavery, Europe and Sub Saharan Africa, Atlantic Slave Trade, European Capitalism,
Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa, Nationalist Movements, Decolonization, Apartheid,
Algeria

DSE-IV
Gender in Indian History up to 1500 CE

Course Objectives:

The course teaches how ‘Gender’ is not an innocent term denoting biological differences but a
social and culturally constructed unequal relationship that needs careful historical analysis in
the context of Indian history. The focus is not merely on studying ‘women’s history’ but to go
beyond and explore aspects of masculinities as well as alternative sexualities, spanning
temporal frames from prehistory to 1500 CE. There is an added emphasis on learning inter-
disciplinary analytical tools and frames of analysis concerning familiar topics such as class,
caste, and environment that enriches an understanding of historical processes.

Learning Outcomes:
On completion of this course students shall be able to
 Explain critical concepts such as gender and patriarchy and demonstrate their use as
tools for historical analysis
 Examine the role and functioning of power equations within social contexts in Indian
history during the ancient period, in the construction of gender identities
 Critically examine representations of gender in literature, focusing on ideas of love,
manliness and religiosity
 Examine the role of social and political patronage of art and literature in perpetuating
gendered inequalities

Course Content:
Unit I: Theories and concepts
[a] Gender: a tool of historical analysis
[b] Understanding Origins and Structures of patriarchy

Unit II: Aspects of Gender: Politics, Power and Household

[a] Economic and Social Roles: household, patronage and Property
[b] Women and Power: Raẓiyya and Rudramadevi
[c] Questions of Sexualities

Unit III: Gender, Representation and Literature

[a] Religious Literature in the early period: Vedic, Buddhist and Puranic
[b] Love and Manliness in Hindawi Romances; case studies of Padmavat, Purushpariksha and
histories of Mira
[c] Representations of the Divine Feminine: Virasaivism, Warkari Panths, Korravai-Durga in
Tamil Traditions

ESSENTIAL READINGS AND UNIT WISE TEACHING OUTCOMES:

Unit -1. The unit should familiarise students with theoretical frames of gender and patriarchy
and how these concepts provide tools for historical analysis.(Teaching time: 3 weeks
Approx.)

 Geetha, V. (2002). Gender. Calcutta: Stree.

 Kent, Susan Kingley. (2012).Gender and History. New York: Palgrave McMillan.
pp. 49-75.
 Scott, J. W. (1986). “Gender a useful Category of Historical Analysis”.The
American Historical Review vol.91/9, pp.1056-1075.
  Lerner, G. (1979). The Majority Finds its Past: Placing Women in History. New
York: Oxford University Press.
 Walby, S.(1990).Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. pp.1-24, 109-127.

Unit -2. This section should apprise students to locate fluctuating gender relations within
households, court and also explore linkages between gender, power and politics. Additionally
discussion on the question of sexualities would open up vistas for a nuanced historical learning
of normative and alternative sexualities as well as issues of masculinities. (Teaching time: 6
weeks Approx.)

 Bhattacharya, N.N. (1999). “Proprietary Rights of Women in Ancient India”,

Kumkum, Roy (Ed.). Women in Early Indian Societies. Delhi: Manohar, pp.113-
122.
 Chakravarti, U. (2006). Everyday Lives Every Day Histories: Beyond the Kings
and Brahmans of ‘Ancient’ India. Tulika Books: New Delhi.138-155.
 Jaiswal, Suvira. (2008). “Caste, Gender and Ideology in the making of India”.
Social Scientist vol. 36, no. 1/2. pp. 3-39.
 Shah, S.(2012). The Making of Womanhood; Gender Relations in the
Mahabharata. Revised Edition, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 32-83.
 Singh, Snigdha.(2018). ‘‘Exploring the Question of Gender at an Early Stupa:
Inscriptions and Images”’, Snigdha, Singh et. al. (Ed.). Beyond the Woman
Question: Reconstructing Gendered Identities in Early India. Delhi: Primus
Books, pp. 21-62.
 Tyagi, J. (2004). “Hierarchical Projections of Women in Household:
Brahmanical Perceptions Recorded in the Early Grhyasutras c.800-500BC”.
Social Scientist vol. 32, no.5-6, pp.3-20.
 Gabbay, Alyssa. (2011). “In Reality a Man: Sultan Iltutmish, His Daughter,
Raẓiyya, and Gender Ambiguity in Thirteenth Century Northern India”. Journal
of Persianate Studies, vol. 4, 45-63.
 Roy, K. (2010). “Construction of Gender Relations in the Rajatarangini of
Kalhana”; “Gender Relations during the First Millenium: An Overview”, in
Kumkum Roy, The Power of Gender and the Gender of Power, Explorations in
Early Indian History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.142-164 and
pp.195-222.
 Talbot, Cynthia. (1995). “Rudrama Devi The Female King: Gender and Political
authority in medieval India”. David Shulman(Ed.), Syllables of the Sky: Studies
in South Indian Civilisation. OUP: New Delhi, pp.391-428.
 Sahgal, Smita. (2009-10). “Masculinity in Early India: Constructing an
Embryonic Frame”. Proceedings of Indian History Congressvol.70, pp. 151-
163.
  Zwilling, L and M. Sweet. (1996). “Like a City Ablaze’: The Third Sex and the
Creation of Sexuality in Jain Religious Literature.” Journal of History of
Sexuality. vol.6/3, pp. 359-384.

Unit -3. The focus is on studying gender representation in literature that highlights the idea of
love as well as manliness on the one hand and religiosity across temporal and regional spread
on the other.(Teaching time: 5 weeks Approx.)

 Blackstone, R. K. (1998).Women in the Footsteps of Buddha: Struggle for

Liberation in the Therigathas. Britain: Curzon Press.
 Chitgopekar, N. (2002). ‘Indian Goddess: Persevering and Antinomian Presences’;
and Kumkum, Roy. “Goddess in the Rgveda-An Investigation” Nilima Chitgopekar
(Ed.), Invoking Goddess, Gender Politics in Indian Religion. Delhi: Shakti Books,
pp.11-61.
 Chakrabarti, Kunal. (2001). “Introduction”. The Religious Process: The Puranic
and the Making of a Religious Tradition. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.1-43.
 Jha, Pankaj. (2019). ‘Political Ethics and the Art of Being a Man’. Pankaj Jha, A
political History of Literature: Vidyapati and the Fifteenth Century. Delhi: Oxford
University Press, pp.133-183.
 Sreenivasan, Ramya.(2003). “Padmini, The Ideal Queen: Sufi and Rajput Codes in
Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat”. Vijaya Ramaswamy, (Ed.), Re-searching
Indian Women. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 97-118.
 Sangari, Kumkum. (1990) “Mirabai and the Spiritual Economy of Bhakti”.
Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 25/ 27. July 7, pp. 1461-1475.
 Mahalaksmi, R. (2011). “Inscribing the Goddess: Female Deities in Early Medieval
Inscriptions from Tamil Region”, R., Mahalakshmi. The Making of the Goddess:
Korravai-Durga in Tamil Traditions. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, pp. 156-98.
 Ramaswamy, V. (1997). “Rebels- House wives”; and “Women in and Out: Women
within the Warkari Panths”. Vijaya, Ramaswamy, Walking Naked: Women and
Spirituality in South India. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, pp.145-194;
pp.195-230.

SUGGESTED READINGS:

 Ali, A. (2013). “Women in Delhi Sultanate”. The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Islam

and Women, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.197-200.
 Altekar, A. S. (1956) The Position of Women in Hindu Society. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidas.
 Behl, Aditya. (2003). “The Magic Doe, Desire and Narrative in a Hindavi Sufi
Romance, circa 1503”, Richard M. Eaton (Ed.),India’s Islamic Traditions 711-1750.
New Delhi, OUP, pp.180-208. (Also available in Hindi, in Meenakshi Khanna (Ed.),
(2007).ममममममममममममममममममममममममममममममम, New Delhi:
Social Science Press. pp. 173-202)
 Bhattacharya, S. (2014). “Issues of Power and Identity: Probing the absence of
Maharani-A survey of the Vakataka inscription”. Indian Historical Reviewvol.41/1,
pp. 19-34.
 Bhattacharya, Shatarupa. (2018). “Gender, Dana and Epigraphs: Access to
Resources in Early Medieval Central India”. Singh, Snigdha et al (Ed.), Beyond
Woman Question: Reconstructing Gendered Identities in Early India. Delhi:
Primus, pp.63-100.
 Ernst, Carl W. and Bruce B. Lawrence. (2002). Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti
Order in South Asia and Beyond. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Miller, B.S. (Ed.) (1992), The Powers of Art and Patronage in Indian Culture,
Delhi: Oxford University Press. pp.1-16.
 Orr, Leslie, (2000). “Women’s Wealth and Worship: Female Patronage of
Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism in Medieval Tamil Nadu”. Mandaktranta Bose
(Ed.).Faces of the Feminine in Ancient Medieval and Modern India. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, pp. 124-146.
 Rangachari, Devika. (2013). Exploring Spaces for Women in Early Medieval
Kashmir, NMML Occasional Papers.
 Roy, Kumkum. (2010). Power of Gender and the Gender of Power, Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2010, pp 195-219.
 Roy, Kumkum.(1994). Emergence of Monarchy in North India, Eighth-Fourth
Centuries BC: As Reflected in the Brahmanical Tradition. Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
 Sahgal, Smita. (2017). “Defining Sexuality and Locating it in Logic in Early India
Text: Advocacy of the practice of Niyoga in Early Sanskrit and non-Sanskrit Texts”.
Niyoga: Alternative Mechanism to Lineage Perpetuation in Early India; A Socio-
Historical Enquiry, Delhi: ICHR and Primus Books, 2017, pp.1-7 and pp.21-81.
 Sahgal, Smita.(2019). “Goddess Worship and Mutating Gender Relations within
Hindu Pantheon: From Vedic to Puranic”. Veenus Jain and Puspraj Singh (Ed.),
Women: A Journey Through Ages, New Delhi: New Delhi Publishers, pp.23-32.
 Scott, J. W. (1998). Gender and the Politics of History. New York: Columbia
University Press.
 Sharma, Sunil, (2005). “Amir Khusraw, “Poetics of the Sacred and Profane
Ghazal”, The Poet of Sultans and Sufis, Oxford: Oneworld, 2005, pp. 40-51.
  Sreenivasan, Ramya. (2002) “Alauddin Khalji Remembered: Conquest, Gender and
Community in Medieval Rajput Narratives”. Studies in History vol. 18/2, pp. 275-
294.
 Tyagi, J. (2008). Engendering the Early Households, Brahmanical Precepts in early
Grhyasutras, middle of the First millennium BCE, Delhi: Orient Longman.
 Wright, R. P. (1991). “Women’s Labour and Pottery Production in Prehistory”
Margret Conkey and Joan Gero (Ed.), Engendering Archaeology, USA: Basil
Blackwell.
 Zwilling, L. (1992). “Homosexuality as Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts” . J. I.
Cabezon (Ed.), Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications,
pp. 203-214.
 ममम,मममममम. (2016). मममममममममममम: ममममममम ममम मममममम
मममममम ममममममम, Delhi: Granthshilpi.

Teaching Learning Process:

Students who opt for this course have already touched upon some fundamental concepts in their
study of Indian history papers. So the classroom teaching can start with an element of recall
that would help them to build on the course further. Tutorial classes can assist in both clarifying
doubts as well as sharing knowledge and experience. Students can be encouraged not only to do
meticulous readings but to make presentations, get feedback, and evolve their arguments.
Audio-visual aids such as screening of films followed by discussions can add value to
classroom interactions. The thrust should be on conducting micro studies and then connect it
with macro historical processes analysed from the perceptive of gender.

Assessment Methods:

Students will be regularly assessed for their grasp on debates and discussions covered in class.
Two written assignments will be used for final grading of the students. As this is a discipline-
specific elective paper actively chosen by the student, his/her engagement with the paper shall
be assessed, preferably, through at least one project as a written submission. Overall, students
will be assessed on their ability to engage with a sizeable corpus of readings assigned to the
theme for written submissions, and to draw concrete connections between issues/events/debates
discussed in this paper and the corresponding issues/events/debates discussed in their Core
history papers.
Internal Assessment: 25 Marks
Written Exam: 75 Marks
Total: 100 Marks

Keywords: