Ascetics as Activists: Saffron Women of Hindu Nationalism

Ascetics as Activists examines the position of the female ascetics or sadhvis within the right-wing Hindu nationalist discourse in India. This open access book calls attention to the role of religion in gendered identity formation and political activism of the female ascetics in reference to the project of Hindutva in contemporary India. Ignoring disciplinary divisions, this book cuts through history, politics, and gender studies to explore an authentic perspective of asceticism, activism, spirituality, and masculinity as these have been constituted in the representation of female ascetics within the Hindutva movement.

This book is the first attempt to examine the implications of gender activism and political activism of the female ascetics working at the forefront of the Hindu-Right and the ways these ascetics incorporated a range of approaches from radicalism to emancipatory in the configuration of Hindutva in India.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Bloomsbury Open Collections Library Collective.

Koushiki Dasgupta is the Chair Professor of History, Vidyasagar University, India. She is a Fellow Designate at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS), Shimla. She is the author of Sadhus in Indian Politics, (2021), Electoral Politics and Hindu Nationalism in India (2020).