Indian Women, Religion and Politics in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Abstract

This analysis of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children focuses on the construction of womanhood in postcolonial India, with reference to women’s role in two significant domains, politics and religion, as female characters are assigned the part of either homo politicus or homo religiosus. Within the sphere of politics, women are indissolubly connected to the concept of nation, and Rushdie intertwines personal history with that of the country, using birth metaphors for both children and country. The second domain under scrutiny is set in antithesis with the former, since all women belonging to this class are fundamentally against any political statement, be it Gandhian, peaceful, or otherwise, as their main objective is to follow Islamic laws. Such a complex transfer from one field and type of female character to an opposite one constitutes itself into the challenge of offering a possible interpretation of the novel
Midnight’s Children.