{"title":"Colonial civilizing mission, Indigenous resistance, and witch-hunting in Anvita Dutt’s Bulbbul (2020)","authors":"Navin Sharma, P. Tripathi","doi":"10.1177/11771801231170270","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Shashank Sinha, in his research on the practice of witch-hunting in the Adivasi (Indigenous or tribal) community of Chhotanagpur, Bengal, India, infers that witch-hunting as a practice was infused with gender and anti-colonial tensions. Relying on his data and findings about the unexpected surge of witch-hunting among the Indigenous people of Chhotanagpur, this research conducts a discourse analysis of the film text of Anvita Dutt’s film Bulbbul (Nightingale) (2020). Bulbbul explores the clash between the conventional gender roles assigned to Indian women and evolving socio-cultural standards around the equality of rights for women in the late 19th century. The film is a feminist stance on the politics of labelling rebellious women as witches and removing them through motivated witch-hunting. Through a close reading of Bulbbul, this article concludes that witch-hunting is a conscious Indigenous resistance and cultural politics in response to colonial civilizing missions in India by the British.","PeriodicalId":45786,"journal":{"name":"Alternative-An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Alternative-An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231170270","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ETHNIC STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Shashank Sinha, in his research on the practice of witch-hunting in the Adivasi (Indigenous or tribal) community of Chhotanagpur, Bengal, India, infers that witch-hunting as a practice was infused with gender and anti-colonial tensions. Relying on his data and findings about the unexpected surge of witch-hunting among the Indigenous people of Chhotanagpur, this research conducts a discourse analysis of the film text of Anvita Dutt’s film Bulbbul (Nightingale) (2020). Bulbbul explores the clash between the conventional gender roles assigned to Indian women and evolving socio-cultural standards around the equality of rights for women in the late 19th century. The film is a feminist stance on the politics of labelling rebellious women as witches and removing them through motivated witch-hunting. Through a close reading of Bulbbul, this article concludes that witch-hunting is a conscious Indigenous resistance and cultural politics in response to colonial civilizing missions in India by the British.