Motherhood in the East–West Encounter: Pandita Ramabai's Negotiation of ‘Daughterhood’ and Motherhood

The female East–West encounter often pivoted upon the motherhood role played by the representatives of the empire. This article aims to explore the complexities of the construction and enactment of this role. The analysis focuses on a cameo of triangular interpersonal relationships formed by Pandita Ramabai, an Indian Brahmin scholar who converted to Christianity in 1883 during her stay in England for higher studies, her little daughter Manorama who was baptized at the same time and Ramabai's spiritual mother, the Anglican Sister Geraldine who was deeply and possessively attached to Manorama. After situating motherhood in its international discursive context, the article examines the two tension-filled sets of motherhood and daughterhood inherent in this triad, with the help of Ramabai's published letters and correspondence which were compiled and edited by Geraldine (who made Ramabai's maternal inadequacies her dominant subtext) and of Manorama's unpublished letters to Geraldine, her ‘grandmother’. The article argues that a British missionary nun's successful exercise of the motherhood role which she spon taneously assumed towards an Indian convert was contingent upon the convert's adherence to the racially and culturally inferior stereotype and unquestioning submission to the new faith as well as to colonial authority. Such conformity and acceptance alone allowed deep ‘maternal’ bonding (overlooking racial differences) which was too fragile to withstand any contestation or exercise of agency by the convert. The overarching patriarchal ethos of the Church, internalized by the missionary nun, was also a significant determinant of her treatment of the women converts in various ways.     

Bacterial Cross‐contamination Potential Associated with Contaminated Currency

Previous studies have shown a significant amount of contaminants on paper currencies. It is important to study the transfer of microorganisms between paper currencies to determine whether it meets the level of a human health threat. This cross‐contamination potential was analyzed by seeding new US 1‐dollar bills with Bacillus thuringiensis, and pressing or rubbing them against clean currency to determine the amount of bacteria transfer to the unseeded currency. The transferred amount of bacteria was recovered, plated, incubated, and the colony‐forming units were quantified. Among the recovery methods tested, the most efficient method, vortexing for 10 min with a recovery efficiency of 40 ± 8.1%, was used in this analysis. The resulting transfer rates were 4.8%, 8.6%, and 14.3% when pressed for 24 h, 72 h, and rubbed together, respectively. These transferred amounts of bacteria are significant and have the potential to spread infectious diseases.     

Issues in population pressure,land resettlement,and development: The case of Nepal

This analysis considers the question of whether resettlement schemes really relieve population pressure or help achieve a better regional balance between population and resource distribution in a manner consistent with Nepal's national objective of agricultural growth with social justice. The 1st part of the analysis discusses population pressure, followed by the conceptualization of ecodemographic relations and sociodemographic relations. The 2nd part of the analysis considers Nepal's agrarian economy along with a case-study examination of its contemporary resettlement project in Chitwan district. Finally, information is presented from a field survey conducted in Chitwan in 1979, which support the assertions that: the sociodemographic relations -- not population pressure as such -- are the primary roots of agrarian development problems in a country like Nepal; and resettlement schemes, when implemented without due consideration of the pervasive sociodemographic relations, are a deficient technical fix to imbalances in ecodemographic relations. Nepal provides a typical example of ecodemographic imbalances in the regional distribution of population and resources. Although the Hill and Mountain regions make up almost 60% of Nepal's total population, they share less than 30% of the total land under cultivation. The Tarai region, which is the northern extension of the Gangetic Plain in India, occupies over 70% of the cultivated land and supports only slightly over 40% of the population. As the case study illustrates, development strategies such as land resettlement are invariably formulated and implemented as a technical solution within the framework of ecodemographic relations. Little attention is directed to addressing the social dimension of these programs, i.e., the structual problems directly associated with the existing sociodemographic relations. Development, or land resettlement in the present case, is not simply a technical issue concerned with land reclamation and its management. It is also a social issue, because the sociodemographic relations determine significantly the direction (or directions) that resettlement programs take. When development policies make little effort to tackle the underlying forces of these relations, resettlement schemes result in the reconstitution of class divisions and disparity in the ownership of resources in newly resettled areas.     

We are all hybrids now: The dangerous epistemology of post‐colonial populism

This review article considers the political effects of the construction by postcolonial/postmodern theory of an emancipatory project embodying an alternative modernity. It is argued that, in the case of the north Indian peasantry, what is perceived as a subaltern hybridity entails a paradoxical combination: namely, science‐driven technology with an irrational, pre‐scientific worldview. The latter elements, according to postcolonial theory, correspond not just to an authentically indigenous knowledge emanating from an undifferentiated ‘people’ but also to the way in which in non‐Western societies resist the continuing dominance exercised by erstwhile colonial masters through a system of Enlightenment/Western values. Epistemologically, however, such a backwards‐looking critique of science, technology and development has much in common with the discourse of the political right.

Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India, by Akhil Gupta. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Pp.xv + 407. £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8223 2243 7

Rivalry and Brotherhood: Politics in the Life of Farmers in Northern India, by Dipankar Gupta. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.230. £12.99 (hardback). ISBN 019564 1019

Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the Agrarian Myth, by Tom Brass. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. Pp.xii + 380. £18.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 71468000 1     

‘Misery is My Company Now’: Nepal's Peasantry in the Face of Failed Development

Peasants are more than objects of theoretical analysis and intellectual exercise, distanced from the day-to-day life that they live. This study portrays how peasants' lives have changed as a result of failed development and what the future may hold for the Nepali peasantry. It is an unfolding story of growing vulnerability gripping peasant livelihood, a story based on direct observations and discussions with numerous peasants during several field studies, as well as personal experience and background.     

Childhood sexual abuse and multiple dimensions of self-concept

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between child sexual abuse (CSA) and self-concept in a nonclinical sample of female college students. Participants with a history of CSA had lower scores than participants without a history of CSA on four domains of self-concept: familial, affect, competence, and physical. History of CSA was not associated with lower self-concept in the social and academic domains. The primary conclusions to be drawn from this study are that CSA may be differentially associated with various domains of self-concept, and thus multidimensional assessment of self-concept can yield useful information that cannot be gathered from global measures which yield a single composite score.