Performing the Political Self: A study of identity making and self representation in the autobiographies of India's first generation of parliamentary women

Abstract

Although India boasts a number of prominent women politicians, there remains little critical scholarship on the agency and contribution of Indian women in politics post independence. Responding to this gap, this article explores how identity and agency is articulated in the autobiographies of three influential women who were part of India's first generation of women in post independence politics: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (1903-1988), Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900-1990) and Renuka Ray (1904-1997). Using the framework of intersubjectivity-the notion of the construction of the self through a wider network of social relations and identities-this article analyses how these women performed the political self in their autobiographies by positioning their lives within a larger matrilineal lineage in their narratives. Situating themselves as the inheritors of their mothers' and grandmothers' struggle for social reform and education, who in their own lives take this legacy forward by their entry into political activism and statecraft, they emerge as pioneers in their public careers. Through their encouragement and criticism of their daughters' and granddaughters' generation, they both distinguish their specific generational contribution, but also put forward a challenge to this new generation to return to the Gandhian values and developmental strategies that shaped their political world view. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.