Contents 6
Acknowledgments 8
Note on Transliteration 14
Prologue 16
Structure of the Book 23
Introduction: Dashing, Daring, and the Seduction of Political Persona 28
Shiv Sena and “Right-Wing” Politics 31
Shiv Sena Women, Hindu Nationalist Politics, and the Politics of Brokerage 39
Political Parties, Political Leaders, and Women’s Electoral Reservations: A Brief Introduction 48
Methods, Spaces, Places 50
Shiv Sena Women’s Wing (Mahila Aghadi) in Mumbai, Pune, Nashik 55
Chapter 1 “Just Doing Dashing” in Uncertain Places 62
“Just Doing Dashing”: The Collective Politics of Action 62
Speaking Political Persona in Being 65
Dashing as Performance and as Narrative 67
Urban Uncertainty and the Politics of Urban Brokerage 69
Politics, Political Mobilization, and Materiality in Unstable Places 73
Chapter 2 Performance, Dashing, Image 76
Visiting, Visibility, and Political Darshan 76
Image 81
November 17, 2012: “The Tiger is Silent” 84
Chapter 3 The Poetics and Politics of the Dashing Ladies 88
Persona and Personality 88
Performance and Credibility on the “Street” 90
Mundane Performances of the Elected Officer 95
From Shyness to Dashing: Public Sites of Subjective Transformation 96
Ethnohistorical Imaginaries of Dashing 102
Conclusions: Dashing, Political Authority, and Spatial Transgression 105
Chapter 4 Political Machinations, Electoral Campaigns, and the Texture of Politics 108
Women and Leadership of Shiv Sena’s Women’s Wing/Mahila Aghadi 109
Party Structures: Men and Women in Shiv Sena 114
Shiv Sena Women and “Social Work”: Boundaries and Power in the Neighborhood 119
Political Machinations: Political Alliances 122
Political Machinations: Political Campaigns 126
Chapter 5 The Public Event 134
The Party Program1 135
Engendering a Public Presence: The “Visual” and the “Visible” 139
The Politics of Visibility: Public Spaces and Gendered Public Personas 140
Morchas, Andolans, and Criminality 159
Conclusions: Politics of Visibility 161
Chapter 6 Intimate Politics and Alliance-Building 164
Spaces of Gendered Performance: The Haldi-kumkum 165
Domestic Rituals in Public 168
“Invisible” Spaces and the Production of Female Political Community: Shiv Sena Women on Picnics 171
Sites of Invisibility 174
Chapter 7 Women, Urban Wisdom, and the Illicit Politics of Housing in Mumbai1 176
Contentious Visions of Globalizing Urban Space and Gendered Forms of Informal Power 178
The Emergence of Local Personalities 182
“Filmcity: Where We Shape Your Dreams”6 184
Shiv Sena and Local Power Brokers around Mumbai’s Filmcity 190
Local Patrons: Seeta and Geeta 192
Conclusions: Presence and “Fixing” 201
Chapter 8 Politics and the Relations of Domesticity 202
Adjustment as Situated Political Discourse 205
Shiv Sena Women and Adjustment 207
Shiv Sena and Fictive Kinship Networks: Structures and Processes of Power in the Party and Family 212
Domesticity, Motherhood, and Adjustment 214
Shiv Sena Women, Intimate Politics, and Home 217
House, Home, Family, and Domesticity: Historicizing Contemporary Dynamics of Adjustment 220
Adjustment: Its Manifestations and Its Limits 226
The Interaction between Gender, Public Politics, and Age 228
Adjustment, Ummar (Age), and Governance: The Situated History of Kalpana Sate 232
Conclusions: Domesticity and Political Participation 239
Chapter 9 The Gendered Politics of the Malkin in Pune City 242
Durvatai the Malkin in Budhvar Peth, Pune 242
Caretaking, in a Snap: “Jhat se” 254
“Network not Paperwork” 256
Conclusions 258
Conclusion: (Re)-theorizing Political Brokerage: Political Matronage? 260
Patrons, Brokers, and Big Men: Where Does Matronage Fit In? 263
Notes 276
Bibliography 288
Index 308

Tarini Bedi

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2025-10-27