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Oxford India Fathers In A Motherland Imagining Fatherhood In Colonial India by Swapna M Banerjee
This monograph breaks new ground by weaving stories of fathers and children into the history of gender, family and nation in colonial India. Focusing on the reformist Bengali Hindu and Brahmo communities, the author contends that fatherhood assumed new meaning and significance in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century India. During this time of social and political change, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Utilizing pedagogic literature, articles in scientific journals, autobiographies, correspondence, and published essays, Fathers in a Motherland documents the different ways the authority and power of the father was invoked and constituted both metaphorically and in everyday experiences. Exploring specific moments when educated men--as biological fathers, literary activists, and educators--assumed guardianship and became crucial agents of change, Banerjee interrogates the connections between fatherhood and masculinity. The last chapter of the book moves beyond Bengal and draws on the lives of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to provide a broader salience to its argument. Reclaiming two missing links in Indian history-fathers and children-the book argues that biological and imaginary "fathers" assumed the moral guardianship of an incipient nation and rested their hopes and dreams on the future generation.Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements1. The Familial and the Familiar: In Search of Fathers and Children in Indian History2. "Fathers" at the Crossroads: Literary Activism and Fatherhood in Nineteenth-Century Bengal3. Fathers in a Motherland: Children as Social Imaginaries in the Scientific Literature of Nineteenth-Century Bengal4. Imagining Fatherhood: Representations of Fathers in Autobiographical Literature of Colonial Bengal5. Rabindranath Tagore: The Father and the Educator6. Beyond Bengal-Gandhi and Nehru: Fathers at Home and Fathers of the NationConclusionSelected BibliographyIndexAuthor InformationSwapna M. Banerjee, Professor of History, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New YorkSwapna M. Banerjee is Professor of History, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York