A Decolonial Intersectional Approach to Abortion Narratives in Indian Anglophone Fiction

Event details

The focus on the intersectional categories of ‘caste’ and ‘class’ while approaching abortion narratives in India, with an emphasis on the hypothesis that ‘abortion is essentially an upper caste (or class) phenomenon’, will be expanded into the intersectional evaluation of the 3C (Choice, Coercion and Compulsion) model of abortion in Indian Anglophone literary texts. The model was conceived to accommodate the politics behind the abortion decisions of women in India. The complexity is implicit as the issues around abortion do not follow a linear pattern in India as abortion moves beyond the monolithic narratives of emancipation. The government could not help by introducing the PCPNDT (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques) Act in 1994, as the legalisation of abortion for married women in 1971 MTP (Medical Termination of Pregnancy) Act caused a severe drop in the sex ratio of the nation over two decades. The looming spectre of sex-selective abortion added a convoluting dimension to the abortion question in the country. Besides, following a well-grounded history of celebrated motherhood and bodily purity, abortion stigma invokes strength. Following the non-Western epistemological model of Uma Narayan, this presentation questions the positivist dimension (from the West) of abortion through the lens of inter-, intra- and anti-categorical complexity of intersection (as proposed by Leslie McCall) and introduces a decolonial turn.