Thinking about Gender in Pre-Colonial States: Women and Gender Norms in Eighteenth Century Western India

Professor Polly O'Hanlon

In this seminar Professor O'Hanlon will explore the development of new gender norms for Brahman communities in the eighteenth century Maratha state, and their imposition by the government of the Maratha peshwas on Maharashtra's Brahman communities. This is set against a seventeenth century background in which relations between Maharashtra's different Brahman communities were extremely fluid and competitive, and models for appropriate Brahman religious practice not firmly established. Novel gender norms were thus an important accompaniment to the emergence of Maratha Brahmans as a service elite in pre-colonial India. This talk will also explore the implications of such examples for our larger conceptualisation of the significance of gender in early modern Indian states, contrasted to our understanding of its significance in the colonial period'.

Bio

Polly O'Hanlon is Professor of Indian History and Culture Oriental Institute at Oxford. She has worked on low caste protest movements in Maharashtra, gender in colonial Maharashtra.  She then shifted focus to early modern North India - to examine culture, body and gender in 17th century North India.  At present, she is working on 17th century Maharashtra.

Contact email: N.S.Al-Ali@soas.ac.uk