Epistemic violence, women, and Hindi public sphere: An exploratory survey of editorial practices in Hindi literary periodical Ālocnā

Abstract

The paper is a part of a study of narratives on violence against women (VAW) in vernacular literatures and offers an exploratory survey of editorial practices in a Delhi-based Hindi literary periodical Ālocnā. The reviewed corpus comprises 75 issues, from April/June 2000 (No. 1) to October/December 2023 (No. 75, published in November 2024). The over two decades long timeframe allows one to trace trajectory of women’s presence in the journal, be it as contributors of content (articles, reviews), subjects of discourse (women’s writing, literary representation of women and women related issues) or authors of reviewed books. Even a cursory scrutiny reveals dominant presence of men as writers of content and discussants, including on topics related to women (e.g., a women-centered No. 33, April/June 2009). None of the 75 issues have been dedicated to a woman writer or to writing by women though there are special issues on male writers (e.g., Bhishm Sahni, No. 17-18; Agyey, No. 41). Keeping in mind the notion of ‘epistemic violence’ (Spivak 1988), the present survey attempts to analyse VAW as actualised in the editorials, book reviews (presence/absence of women authored books), articles on women’s writings, etc., in order to understand possible reasons (institutional/patriarchal habits?) behind the underrepresentation of women as content writers or contributors to literary criticism embodied in Ālocnā.