What is the main theme, idea, and argument of the reading? What does it say about gender relations in South Asia? Why is it relevant to understanding gender identities and women’s lives in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh?- Why is national identity important? ( The idea that one must belong to a nation, a country, and not just a smaller community, or a family; after all a community or a family may be a microcosm of the nation)What ideas do we get about masculinity and femininity at the time? How gender constitutes a site of contestant involving women, the state, political parties, and organizations that employ religious appeals. How our understandings of community and religious identities change when viewed from the vantage point of the everyday and the local. How we come to understand the implications and dis junctions of women’s agency, emancipation and empowerment. How women themselves construct, question, and grapple with their identities in South Asian socio-political contexts, especially the questions – “who is a woman is South Asia?” and “what is her identity?’
