Athena Swan 2025 Lecture
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work

Full title: Legitimising Othering, Reproducing Privilege? A Self-Reflexive Account of a ‘New Indian (Hindu)’ Feminist with Dr Nandita Banerjee Dhawan

In this public talk, I critically examine the strategic calculations and political constructions of ‘belonging’ and ‘othering’ as integral to majoritarian privilege in contemporary India. Focusing on gender as the terrain where religious-cultural and national-political tensions unfold, I argue that Hindu(tva) rhetoric was mainstreamed well before 2014, challenging assumptions that fundamentalism and religious-cultural exclusion are exclusive to a particular political ideology.

I explore how patriarchal institutions - family, religion, and academia - historically (re)produce gendered norms. These institutions use ‘legitimacy’ tropes, blending economic liberalism with cultural illiberalism to uphold the hegemony of the ‘New Indian (Hindu) Middle Class.’ As a ‘New Indian (Hindu) woman,’ I employ feminist tools of self-reflexivity to interrogate the liberal and secular façade of this discourse, of which I am also a part. This critical engagement allows me to assess the (im)possibilities of disrupting the hegemonic social order to achieve gender and intersectional justice.

Speaker bio:
Dr Nandita Banerjee Dhawan is an Associate Professor at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. She is dedicated to advancing the School’s mission of teaching, research, and community engagement by fostering and disseminating knowledge in Women’s Studies. A key aspect of her research critically examines majoritarian privilege within the hegemonic Hindu(tva) social order through the lens of gender and intersectionality.

Dr Dhawan has contributed extensively to scholarship through co-edited volumes and publications on gender, marriage, and violence (Dhawan & Bhasin, 2024; Dhawan, 2010); gender and politics (Dhawan & Kolodezh, 2024; Dhawan, 2018; Dhawan, 2017); gender and religious plurality (Dhawan, 2020); and gender and academia (Dhawan, Belluigi & Idahosa, 2023; Dhawan & Belluigi, 2024).

Her recent studies on gender and urban (re)structuring explore the everyday experiences of marginalized communities within 21st-century urban planning, particularly in relation to policies such as Smart Cities in India (Dhawan & Donner, forthcoming). Additionally, she is engaged in archiving the life histories of gender-marginal academics in Indian higher education (2023-5). It is in relation to the latter that she is currently a Visiting Scholar (2024-6) at The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and is an AHSS Global Fellow at the Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, collaborating with School of SSESW colleagues Prof Dina Belluigi and Dr Ulrike Vieten.