Theorising Necromale Through Killable Female: A Study of Murder 2 and Article 15

Abstract

This essay studies the construction of killable female bodies via two Hindi films: Murder 2 (2011) and Article 15 (2019) and theorises a necromale—male murdering agent following a violent sovereign ethos, which, in turn, illuminates sovereign Indian masculinity in crisis. One of the many romances of the idea of sovereignty and ideals of self-rule is the construction of imaginary adversaries whose violent execution serves the sovereign purpose. This essay extends the rhetoric of sovereignty to include male violence in the study of alleged enemies—dead girls. If sovereignty means power to kill or let live, then in what ways does that definition play out in these films through gender violence? The essay expands on the exclusionary principles of killability—secrecy around murder investigations, hasty cremation/burial, and patriarchal and casteist public discourses that serve exclusively to make the male Indian sovereign violence against the victims doubtable. The killable females became the potent ground where caste, patriarchal, and national ideologies combine, enabling the Indian male sovereignty to deploy its power to kill. However, this sovereign/casteist murderous male, whom the essay establishes as a necromale, is killable in return. The male power to kill emerges as a suicidal martyrdom because the state’s right to kill ultimately reserves the monopoly on violence.