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ARCHIVING THE ABSENCE: FEMALE INFANTICIDE IN
NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH INDIA
by
Pashmina Murthy
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPARATIVE LITERATURE) August 2007
Copyright 2007 Pashmina Murthy
Object Description
| Title | Archiving the absence: female infanticide in nineteenth-century British India |
| Author | Murthy, Pashmina |
| Author email | pashmina.murthy@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Comparative Literature |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2007-06-21 |
| Date submitted | 2007 |
| Restricted until | Restricted until 25 July 2009. |
| Date published | 2009-07-25 |
| Advisor (committee chair) |
Norindr, Panivong Kincaid, James R. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Pinkus, Karen Modleski, Tania |
| Abstract | The systemic murder of female infants, while formerly a feature of many different cultures, is at the present moment a problem peculiar to India. Studies on the practice of female infanticide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries point to the barbarity of the Indians, especially of the martial group of Rajputs, as the main cause and proof of the practice. Current socio-political discourse centres on the cultural devaluation of women as the reason for the continued prevalence of the crime. My work situates both these speculations in the historical and material reality of the nineteenth century. Using archival texts, mainly legislative and judicial documents from the British Raj, as well as a study of travel memoirs, films, and news articles from the late eighteenth century to the present day, I explore the practice of female infanticide by engaging with the question of "absence."; The title, "Archiving the Absence" refers to the absence of the female infant in the first ring of analysis. But, apart from alluding to the intangibility of the female infant, it also refers to her absence in native discourse, where it is never her but her "nothingness" that is evoked. Finally, the "absence" also points to the perceived absence of affect towards the female infant, the absence of mourning following her death, and the absence of sacredness of (female) life. My examination of particular records from the archives thus engages with the way that British investment in suppressing female infanticide sought to negate these different kinds of absences and make them manifest or present. As a result, the investigation of female infanticide in nineteenth-century British India, aimed at filling these absences, emphasized discovery (of the female infant's body and, hence, of the crime), iterative discourses that drew the infant back from the silences into which she was confined, and suitable forms of punishment. All three modes, if successful, would hopefully create an emotional bond between the parents and their infant daughter, thereby abolishing female infanticide as a practice. At the same time, the authorization of this kind of power and demand for transparency from the colonized also marked a site of tension and negotiation between the consolidation of British power in India and the threat to that power. The absence of the female infant at the centre of all discursive space mimicked and revealed a larger decentralization of power in the macrostructure of colonial rule. Through this work and using the specific trope of the crime of female infanticide, I hope to contribute to and complicate our understanding of colonial and postcolonial power dynamics. |
| Keyword | comparative literature |
| Geographic subject (country) | India |
| Coverage date | 1800/1899 |
| Coverage era | 19th century |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m672 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Murthy, Pashmina |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Murthy-20070725 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume26/etd-Murthy-20070725.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | ARCHIVING THE ABSENCE: FEMALE INFANTICIDE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH INDIA by Pashmina Murthy A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMPARATIVE LITERATURE) August 2007 Copyright 2007 Pashmina Murthy |
