Plotting the Contours of the Modern Nation

Abstract

This article draws on a feminist study of school textbooks in four states (West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat) as well as books produced at the national level. Despite the volume of work produced by feminists over the last two decades in different disciplinary domains, the content of school textbooks, especially in the context of India, does not reflect shifts in understanding of various issues. Using this as a premise, and drawing on the work of scholar-activists of the women’s movement and feminist geographers in the area of development, poverty, women’s work and gender and space, this article analyses the ways in which geography textbooks, in particular, plot the contours of the modern nation. The discourse of development, for instance, emerges as a safe realm in which the nation confronts numerous issues and/or groups of concern in the contemporary context—women, tribals, population control, big dams, etc.—while leaving the idea of the nation secure and unchallenged.