Girlhood in postcolonial India: redefining identities and contexts

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Within India, boyhood proliferates narratives of childhood and girls are relegated to marginal,unobtrusive roles. Until recently, girlhood has been defined negatively, possessing frivolousconnotations, against womanhood, and the Hindu Brahmin urban cis-male experience ofchildhood is extrapolated as being the universal yardstick. It is this critical neglect that I wish toaddress in my doctoral work.My thesis will offer a nuanced portrayal of how Indian conceptualisations of identities ofgirlhood were infused with contemporary, historically contingent notions of sexuality, religion,caste and class. Shifting focus from Ashwini Tambe's legal study Defining Girlhood in India: ATransnational History of Sexual Maturity Laws (2019) and physical issues surrounding thedemarcation from childhood to adulthood, but not omitting them, I would explore concepts offeminist historiography and its engagement with empathy, intersubjectivity, cultural memory,solidarity, and bodily memory (Hirsh and Smith, 2002) within the context of girlhood studies.However, being aware of the limitations of extending "women's issues" onto the lives of girls(Mitchell, 2006), I will cater to the nuanced demands of girlhood. Resisting literary-historicalnarratives that reduce the girl-child in the psycho-social memory as 'an idiom of loss' (Krishnan,2010) as she is meant to 'belong' to her marital home adhering to the patrilineal, patrilocalfamily structure of India, I will focus on the newfound agency of the girl-child in lieu ofeducational reforms, technological advancements, public engagements, and the development ofan affective community in online spaces. Although much has been said about the powerdynamics between the child reader and the author, and the text as a contentious site ofmeaning-making by Jacqueline Rose, Jack Zipes and Peter Hunt among others, I believe it wouldbe worthwhile to reevaluate these theories within the locus of South Asian perspectives.