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Deconstructing The Hailing Of “Mother India”, Nandini Gupta

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper focuses on the gendered discourse of nationalism by studying the iconography of “Mother India”. It will also examine the ways through which the representation of motherhood as national allegory creates a gendered meaning of nationalism. By tracing the historiography of “Mother India”, it will also highlight how men during the Indian nationalist period took the center stage as protectors while women were left behind as m(others) of a vulnerable nation that needs to be protected.