Muscular Nationalism: Gender, Violence, and Empire in India and Ireland, 1914-2004

Introduction: Politicized Femininity and Muscular Nationalism

• 1 Introduction Politicized Femininity and Muscular Nationalism . . . Now you lie limp, Face down, Dumped in a ditch . . . O poor adventuress— In the name of virtue They cut off your flaxen hair, Defiled your lovely breasts, Before degutting you. . . .1 Gang Bang, Ulster Style, by Linda Anderson The Bengali alas! is always pathetic, Eats, dresses, slumbers, and guards his domestic, Should you give him a meal—no matter trash or treat, That instant he’s your slave and falls at your feet! So why does he worship those red feet with flowers? Abandon your lion-riding, in these parts O Mother, Should such a breed worship you, who will then be porters? Who will be the pen-pushers? And toil in hordes? For Mother you can never make them unlearn ever: Bengalis have been slaves—forever and forever.2 A Poem for Vijaya Dashami (anonymous) Although these poems are divided by a time span of almost a hundred years and a geographical distance of several thousand miles, the poetic lament they expressed illustrates the complexity and the historical scope of narratives of gendered nationalisms. The broken body of a Northern Irish woman found during the “troubles” that began in 1969 and a groveling nineteenth-century 2 • Introduction Bengali man representing collective colonized impotence reveal the location of images of manliness and womanliness within multiple intersections of empire, nation, and race. The opening lines of the Anderson poem identify the adventuress as a Belfast wife, who, worn down by visits to the famous Long Kesh jail, where her husband, a warrior for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was imprisoned , possibly found some comfort in the arms of a British soldier or Protestant man. But her act of human emotion was seen as national betrayal, and she was punished by the moral guardians of Irish republicanism. The Bengali man also betrayed his nation, represented in the poem by the “lion-riding” warrior mother. However, this act was expressed not through improper sexuality but rather through physical and moral cowardice. Motherhood, the virtuous wife, and the cowardly man are all entangled in a particular story of gender and nation—muscular nationalism—the genealogy of which is presented in this book. Briefly put, muscular nationalism is the intersection of a specific vision of masculinity with the political doctrine of nationalism. Examples of muscular nationalism center an adult male body poised to sacrifice and kill for the nation. Usually, this view of masculinity is juxtaposed with a chaste female body that both symbolizes national honor and provides a moral code for the lives of women in the nation. This gendered binary remains stable as long as women do not act to challenge the expectations of chastity. These expectations are seemingly fragile, as political behavior ranging from picking up arms to marching alongside men in protest seems to disrupt this binary and, in doing so, engenders societal suspicion of politicized femininity. Put another way, muscular nationalism generally centers a gendered binary—martial man versus chaste woman—and several forms of female activism, especially those associated with facilitating political violence , challenge this cultural dualism to create social dis-ease. Using this social anxiety as a point of departure, this book interrogates the complex ways in which the stories of women and womanhood unfold in the context of muscular nationalism. Specifically, it analyzes ways in which women’s bodies intersect this political landscape by focusing on particular examples of muscular nationalism in India and Ireland.3 The bulk of the analysis focuses on how women political actors negotiate ideals of chaste femininity within this view of nation; this negotiation is further contexualized within a discussion of the social processes that construct women’s bodies as the canvas on which muscular nationalism stakes its claim. Introduction • 3 In an article written in 2004, the scholar Gillian Youngs offers an extensive and pertinent exegesis of the relationship among gender, feminist research, and the broad field of international relations.4 An important focus of this text is the ontological work required to meaningfully incorporate feminist and gendered analysis into mainstream international relations. Theoretically, this book begins by building on two observations outlined by Youngs. First, she acknowledges the pioneering work done by Cynthia Enloe on issues of war, militarism, and security, which consistently highlight “the dependence of these concepts on gender structures—e.g. dominant forms of the masculine (warrior) subject as protector/conqueror/exploiter of the feminine/feminized object...