Vernacular Sexology from the Margins: A Woman and a Shudra

Abstract

This article centres on the Hindi sexology writings of a woman, Yashoda Devi, and a Shudra, Santram B.A. In the context of an efflorescence of vernacular sexology literature in early twentieth-century North India, it explicates how their writings moved along different registers, whereby they envisaged a heterosexual ethics that relied on utopian and dystopian descriptions of modernity. Sexology in Hindi, particularly when construed from the margins, reified, constructed, destabilised and questioned sexual norms. The article argues that while largely operating within reformist sexology frames, their writings at times punctured dominant upper-caste, male-centric authority and created frictions in normative equations. Together, their writings contribute significantly to creating a vernacular archive of sexual sciences in India.