Abstract
Hindu goddesses have been mobilized as powerful symbols by various groups of activists in both visual and verbal campaigns in India. Although these mobilizations have different motivations and goals, they have frequently emphasized the theological association between goddesses and women, connected through their common possession of Shakti (power). These campaigns commonly highlight the idea that both goddesses and Hindu women share in this power in order to inspire women to action in particular ways. While this association has largely been used as a campaign strategy by Hindu right-wing women’s organizations in India, it has also become a strategy employed in particular feminist campaigns as well. This article offers a discourse analysis of two online activist campaigns (Priya's Shakti and Abused Goddesses) which mobilize Hindu goddesses (and their power) in order to raise awareness about gender-based violence in India. I examine whether marginalized identities of women in India, in relation to caste, class and religious identity, are represented in the texts and images. To do so, I analyze how politically-charged, normative imaginings of Indian women are constructed (or maintained). This analysis raises questions about the usefulness of employing Hindu goddesses as feminist symbols, particularly in contemporary Indian society, in which communal and caste-based tensions are elevated.
Highlights
Hindu goddesses have been mobilized as powerful symbols by various groups of activists in both visual and verbal campaigns in India
Abused Goddesses is only published in English, and while Priya’s Shakti is said to be translated into Hindi, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, only the English version is present on the website where the comic book is available for download
It is significant that in contrast to the other images of female divinity presented in the two campaigns, the goddess Kali appears with dark skin, and she is clearly enraged at the male Shiva
Summary
Angered by the responses of authorities to the 2012 gang rape, Priya’s Shakti creator Ram Devineni says he realized that “the problem of gender-based violence in India and around the world was not a legal problem, but a cultural problem.” (Devineni 2015, 9:29). While Abbott’s statement encourages us to consider digital media as another representation of already existing offline social hierarchies, Nakamura and White outline how digital media can serve to perpetuate forms of exclusion even further This analysis of the Abused Goddesses and Priya’s Shakti campaigns is not quantitatively examining the reception or readership of the campaigns, these critical perspectives of digital media are engaged in order to question the accessibility of the two campaigns. Abused Goddesses is only published in English, and while Priya’s Shakti is said to be translated into Hindi, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, only the English version is present on the website where the comic book is available for download While it is unclear from the comic book exactly which types of women the campaign is targeting, in the PR and media interviews with the creator generalized terminology like “violence against women”, “Indian women”, “young girls in India” is often used.. This risks the reinforcement of the middle class’s “claim to represent all other Hindu and Indian culture” (Dold 2019)
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