A Glittering Arsenal: Bangles, Duty And Transgression In North India

Abstract

This thesis examines the north Indian taunt "churiyaan pahan lo" (you should wear bangles), tracing its usage from Rajput and Sikh tales to its employment by numerous nationalist women‟s groups during Civil Disobedience (1930-31). Overall, I hope to prove that the foisting of bangles upon men-both verbally and physically-is a more complex act than is often assumed in secondary literature. Rather than a simple emblem of femininity used to publicly question the masculine qualities of recipients, bangles are often recognized as representing women‟s traditional marital duties. As such, they can be presented on a man‟s failure to complete his own responsibilities- particularly if these duties are martial in nature-with the taunt‟s central idea being that if the recipient cannot perform his own duties, then he should perhaps perform women‟s domestic duties instead. Underlying the act is the threat of the reversal of gender roles, though this threat is revealed to be primarily rhetorical in the case of Civil Disobedience bangle taunting.