The Urgent Need for Queer and Feminist Hindu Theology

Abstract

This paper addresses the topic of feminism as it relates to India and Hindu theology. The connection between specifically Hindu theology and Indian culture is first established. There it can be seen that Indian culture has caused changes in Hinduism, often meant to suit the needs of those who changed it. We hypothesise that there is correlation between a lack of feminist narratives seen in contemporary Hinduism and the intentional shifting in religious practices particularly by British colonialists and Indian nationalists in the 19th century to suit their own needs. This raised the question of if there were more examples of shifting in religious practices toward the Brahmin-, cisgender-, and masculine-dominated form we see today. For this we looked into the iconography of Hinduism and found that paintings in particular showed much more diversity in narrative and sometimes even contradicted narratives found in Hindu texts. We make recommendations for better inclusivity in India today based on these findings.