The Sacred and the Sacrilegious: Exploring Women's 'Politics' and 'Agency' in Radical Religious Movements in South Asia

This article argues that women's engagements with any religio-political movement, although often de-legitimised and silenced in hegemonic discourses and usually devoid of any reformist or feminist agenda, paradoxically, not only legitimise the movement and give it a mass base but also provide women with opportunities, 'agency' and access to public spaces. Any discourse that inscribes 'victimhood' on these women and that labels them as mere agents of patriarchy fails to capture the complicated nature of 'agency' and 'empowerment' and the gamut of politics and activism that women engage in, and is at best reductionist. I use examples of women's participation in three specific militant religio-political movements in India and Pakistan to illustrate my arguments. I conclude with a discussion on the importance of pushing the boundaries of feminist research to recognise and further unpack and complicate the ambivalent and often paradoxical nature of 'agency' and 'resistance' demonstrated by women actively participating in, and, enthusiastically reinstating a patriarchal agenda.