Description

Sometime in the 1830s, Peero, a Muslim courtesan, left the life she knew and joined the religious establishment of a maverick guru, Gulab Das. This action of hers created a furore, and her clan members tried to persuade her to return to her former life and religion. When she refused, they abducted her. Peero wrote about this incident in her Ik Sau Sath Kafian or 160 Kafis, in the process commenting sharply on religious identities and religious conflict in her time. Yet there is also a place for an alternative religiosity in her writing, a world of common cultural inheritance, uplifting spirituality, and syncretistic practices.

Anshu Malhotra is a Reader (Associate Professor) in the Department of History, Faculty of Social Science, University of Delhi. Her current research interests focus on the history of gender and religious sensibilities in early to mid nineteenth century Punjab. Dr. Malhotra is the author of Gender, Caste, and Religious Identities: Restructuring Class in Colonial Punjab, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2002. (Paperback 2004). Recent publications include: ‘The Body as a Metaphor for the Nation: The Satyarth Prakash of Swami Dayanand Saraswati’ in Avril Powell & Siobhan Lambert Hurley (eds), Rhetoric and Reality: Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2006; ‘Of Dais and Midwives – Middle Class Interventions in the Management of Women’s Reproductive Health: A Study from Colonial Punjab’, in Sarah Hodges (ed.), Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2006; ‘The Quack of Patran and Other Stories,’ Seminar, No.569, 2006, and ‘Shameful Continuities: The Practice of Female Infanticide in Colonial Punjab’ in Doris Jakobsh (ed), Sikhism and Women, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2008 (forthcoming).