On Violence: Voices and Visions from Hindu Goddess Traditions

Dear Colleagues,

During the first decade of the 21^st century, the many-year efforts of Manushi to promote justice and rights of street vendors included the establishment of a new deity, Swaccha Narayani in her abode in the Sewa Nagar street market:

On 12 March, 2005, a new broom wielding deity, MANUSHI Swachha Narayani, Goddess of Good Governance and Citizenship Rights, chose Sewa Nagar street hawker market as her abode. At the time, Sewa Nagar was being developed by MANUSHI as a model market for street vendors. The Goddess took her avatar in form to lend strength to MANUSHI's long battle to protect street hawkers from routine human rights abuses, assaults on their livelihood and huge extortion rackets legitimized by archaic laws which treat their legitimate occupation as an "illegal activity" despite the fact that the city cannot function without street vendors. (Kishwar, Madhu Purnima, Part I: The Making and Unmaking of a Model Market for Street Vendors, Manushi: Forum for Women’s Rights and Democratic Reforms, posted Feb. 29, 2012 http://manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1586&ptype=campaigns#.W04KUthKgk4 accessed July 17, 2018.)

In two Manushi articles (see also manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1587#.W04OithKgk4), Madhu Kishwar documents the successes of the Sewa Nagar civic project as well as the challenges and even violence faced by herself and her fellow activists and how the movement created and developed its own local Goddess.

In 2006, the “Save our Sisters” campaign against domestic violence released ads depicting Hindu Goddesses, their faces bruised and cut.  The ads won awards and sparked controversy in various quarters including among Indian feminists. (See Karnika Kohli, “Brusied, battered Goddesses feature in campaign against domestic violence,” Times of India, updated Sept 10, 2013 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bruised-battered-goddesses-feature-in-campaign-against-domestic-violence/articleshow/22461046.cms, accessed July 17 2018; and Suddha Tilak, “’Bruised goddesses’ hurt Indian feminists,” Al Jazeera, Oct. 10, 2013 https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/goddesses-hurt-indian-feminists-2013105104822923415.html accessed July 17, 2018.)

Like the “Save our Sisters” campaign, the creation of Priya’s Shakti was sparked by the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012 and features the superhero Priya, who mobilizes her Shakti to secure justice for herself as a survivor of rape and to assist other women who have been targets of abuse and violence (see www.priyashakti.com).

Submissions are sought for a Special Issue to explore a broad range of responses to violence in or through Hindu Goddess traditions.  Primary data can be modern or pre-modern; it can be text, visual media and/or performance.  Usage or presentational context of the data might be religious or secular.  Historical, social, and/or cultural contexts, however, should be well-focused, that is, there is a preference here for the specific over the sweeping.  Critical scholarly analysis must engage with emic interpretations of the data and must avoid imposition of essentialist gender stereotypes, as well as orientalist assumptions.

Violence here is broadly understood to include physical harm or destruction but also non-physical forms of harm such as emotional abuse, systemic social violence, racism, xenophobia, environmental violence, and/or violence against non-human animals. Traditions is understood to include any manner of established phenomena and is not meant to evoke only formal institutions. It is also acknowledged that what is Hindu is not always clearly marked or differentiated from what is non-Hindu.

Prof. Patricia Dold
Guest Editor

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• Hindu goddesses
• justice
• violence
• Śakti
• Śākta(s)
• Śāktism
• Devīs