Gendered Nationalism, the Colonial Narrative, and the Rhetorical Significance of the Mother India Controversy

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The controversies surrounding Katherine Mayo's (1927) Mother India provides an exploration into the rhetorical dynamics of figurations that helped maintain imperial aspirations. This analysis suggests that many of the American, British, and Indian commentators who wrote about the impact of Mother India were not just making observations about the accuracy of Mayo's personal observations or the fairness of her religious characterizations; rather, these observers were often participants in much larger discursive debates about what might be called gendered nationalism—the use of paternalistic figurations that suture together particular familiar images with political critiques of oppositional movements.