Comprehending the Pracharika: A Study of the Social Subjectivities of the Women of the Rashtrasevika Samiti

The recent decades have witnessed a heightened academic engagement with the role of women in social movements. This comes in the wake of a substantial surge in the participation of women in trade unions, human rights struggles, militant movements, and citizen-activism. The active participation of women in militant insurgencies has challenged the dominant understanding women as being pacifist. Such escalation in women’s involvement in acts of political violence has often sought rationalisation in the light of traditional tropes of womanhood; the image of the female warrior in particular. This has been manifested more in the militant cultural nationalisms and right-wing movements which have experienced a surge in the recent decades across spatial boundaries. In the present context of the re-assertion of majoritarian ethnic nationalism in India, a critical engagement with the Hindu Right – the gendered nature of its political discourse and organisational structure- seems to merit considerable significance. This appears especially pertinent when one notes an escalating appeal of the Hindu right-wing ideology among certain sections of women. This article attempts to comprehend the social subjectivities of the women participants of the Hindu Right wing association- Rashtrasevika Samiti (Samiti henceforth).