Madhu Kishwar

Kishwar, along with Ruth Vanita, were the founding-editors of Manushi,[2][11] a highly acclaimed journal in the domain of women's studies in India.[9][17] Established to bridge the gap between academic discourse and popular activism by raising awareness of gender inequalities through ground-activism, it has been one of the longest-running and most-influential women's periodicals in South Asia to the extent of being heavily instrumental in setting the agenda for women-right-movements.[5] Manushi has been described by Amartya Sen as "a pioneering feminist journal".[18] Her books and miscellaneous writings in the topic area have been also quite favorably received.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]

Notably, Kishwar does not self-identify as a feminist.[29][30] Kishwar's (self-proclaimed) reasons behind the disapproval of feminism aligns with that of the postcolonial feminist theory - perceiving liberal feminism as a monolithic western entity which discounts indigenous ways of life and actively incorporates a western framework.[5]

Anita Anantharam, an associate professor of Women's Studies at University of Florida, writing over Feminist Media Studies in 2009, deems Kishwar to subscribe to a brand of aggressively nationalist feminism that takes a highly holistic view of the local society, culture and traditions.[5] She notes that as the editorial board of Manushi thinned out over the years for varied reasons and the journal came under near-absolute stewardship of Kishwar, it chose to embrace the contemporaneous rise of the right-wing-nationalism through the realms of Hindutva.[5][31] This led to the introduction of religious and communal discourses into a hitherto secular and non-polarized space which vocally urged for a return to a golden atavistic past and amplified the "hierarchies of "East" versus "West", Indian womanhood versus western feminism, and Hindu versus Muslim identity" from the lenses of religion and ethno-nationalism.[5][lower-alpha 2]

Kishwar has since criticized her fellow feminists urging for laws to prohibit the Hindu practice of Sati, instead focusing on the potential hampering of freedom to undergo death by a means of their choice and the implications of a secular state trying to regulate religious customs; she had also attacked other avenues of feminist activism from anti-dowry legislation to purported abolition of khaps and introduction of female quota bills, from within the Hindu way of life, arguing for a more nuanced and cultural approach, if at all.[5][33][34][35] Her views have been challenged and rejected by numerous other feminists.[35]

She was also one of the fiercest critics of the highly acclaimed film Fire, which focused a spotlight on the lesbian community in India.[36] Deeming that as ramblings of a self-hating-Indian that was meant to stereotype and vilify Hindus, she mocked the queer rights movements to be a Western import that went contrary to the ethos of Hindu public life and middle class values.[37][38][39][40][lower-alpha 3] Gradually, in the process, she joined a newly evolving group of (self-proclaimed) Hindutva scholars in asserting of biases in the western (and marxist) scholarship of Indic religions and weaponed Manushi as a tool during the California textbook controversy over Hindu history et al.—Anantharam notes a heavy intermingling of Hindutva and her works by the middle 2000s.[5]

Anantharam goes on to note that almost all contemporary feminists have since disowned their roles in the magazine to avoid any association with this hyper-nationalistic cum Hindu fervor.[5]

Of late, she has been an often-vitriolic critic of the newer waves of the (allegedly) western-derived mainstream feminist movements in India; using pejoratives abundantly and portraying them as fascist endeavors reeking of dominating and oppressing the male gender.[5][41][42][25][43] She had lodged legal petitions arguing for dilution of anti-rape laws to mitigate bias against males[44] and has been also highly skeptical of the motivations of foreign-funded NGOs, working for the causes of women.[35] Some scholars have now come to recognize Kishwar as a former feminist who has since turned into an ally of anti-mainstream-feminist causes.[6]

Kishwar has been noted for her adulation of Narendra Modi, to the extent of comparing him with Mahatma Gandhi.[35][45][46][47][48] She had also written a book that absolved him, a then prime-ministerial candidate of any involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots and effusively praised him as a non-communal politician.[35][47][49] Incidentally she used to be a vocal critic of Modi.[47]

Kishwar has been accused of aiding in the propagation of communal material by the leftist media[4][50][51] and to have propagated fake news over numerous occasions, via her Twitter handle.[52]