Shame and Safety Pins: Dress Controversy and ‘Moral Technologies’ in 1900s Urdu Magazines for Women
Résumé
This article interrogates changing bodily practices of shame (sharm) in colonial India at a time when a Muslim national identity was being shaped and gender expectations were questioned with the growing presence of women in the public sphere. Focusing on a controversy on Muslim dress reform in two Urdu periodicals for women, Tahżīb un-Niswān ("Ladies' Culture", a weekly from Lahore) and Ḵẖātūn ("Madam", a monthly from Aligarh) in 1905-1907, I examine the way upper-and middle-class women navigated Islamic prescriptions and Western ideas of 'progress' while debating the contours of community identities. In the quest to safeguard their modesty, the new technology of the safety pin offered a creative solution. This article argues that it played an active role in allowing for new practices of female modesty and in creating tensions around group (qaum) formation in British India.
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