PUBLICATIONS
CORRODE: An Artist's Response to Acid Violence in South Asia
By Pallavi Govindnathan
In the 2006 Human Rights Watch World Report for Bangladesh, there were no reports of acid attacks mentioned, though over 200 reported cases of acid attacks took place that year. Acid Violence is a profoundly vicious form of crime since the perpetrator(s) intend to disfigure the victims rather than kill them. Acid which is an easily accessible and cheap weapon is thrown at the victims, disfiguring, blinding, and traumatizing them so severely, it takes years for many fortunate ones to recover, and lifetimes for others who are left to live and die in shame. Disputes emerge over land, inheritance, dowry, and marriage proposals, leading to greed and jealousy, ending in violence. Treatment is oftentimes impossible, as many attacks take place in remote and rural areas with no access to modern hospitals let alone with critical burn units. There are far too many cases of women in Bangladesh, where their lives are destroyed to deter freedom of choice and independence. I have dedicated the past 4 years to revealing their strength, working alongside with women, men and children, interviewing them, collecting case studies and extensive research which has led to multiple series of paintings called The Acerbic Drips and Reconstruction and a book Corrode.
Corrode explains the detailed stories of the young victims, and examines the progression of acid attacks in South Asia and the world. It introduces the impact of religion on women and crimes in societies. My works have focused on these women and the violent crimes that have maimed them. Initially, the paintings consisted of dull flesh colors that produced similar scars to shock and disgust the audience, just as society has rejected acid victims within their communities. The works attempt to find the beauty in the hideous, to look beyond judgment without overlooking the struggle for freedom. As an artist I feel an obligation, especially living in today’s society, to create works within a social and political context. Also, being multi-cultural, and living a nomadic lifestyle, I feel the responsibility of connecting and respecting cultures and traditions while being critical of them. Creating more awareness through cross-cultural artistic interaction best describes the paintings.
Public Culture: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Transnational Cultural Studies
Reconstructing Corrosion: A Conversation with Pallavi Govindnathan
By Poornima Paidipaty
Poornima Paidipaty is a Lecturer in Comparative Political Economy at King’s College in London. Paidipaty holds a BA in Ethics, Politics, and Economics from Yale University, an MA in History from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University. I had the honor of being interviewed by Paidipaty on my artworks on acid violence in Bangladesh and Corrode: An Artist’s Response to Acid Violence in Bangladesh (2010). The interview explores questions on the role and approach of an artist dealing with social justice awareness issues, personal experiences when conducting interviews with acid survivors, collaborations with NGOs, and the ethics of conducting research on trauma and violence.
Public Culture: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Transnational Cultural Studies
Acid Violence Against Women in Bangladesh
By Pallavi Govindnathan
The article is based on a six-year-long study conducted on acid survivors in Bangladesh. It is a first-person narrative detailing the process of meeting and befriending acid attack survivors, gaining their trust during the course of several years, and collecting interviews and data on acid attacks within urban and rural landscapes. The article shares the story of Tahmina Huq who was attacked in March 2000, and is now a prominent activist and educator in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The latter half of the article is focused on the process of creating paintings that narrate the stories of survivors, and the challenges associated with cultivating the interest of gallerists and curators in paintings that depict the horrors and violence of acid attacks.
SOCIAL NORMS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMEN’S ENTITLEMENT TO LAND
By Govind Kelkar and Pallavi Govindnathan
Social norms and attitudes have powerful influences that are reflected in the formal structures of society and in its informal rules related to day-to-day practices. The objective of this study is to understand the process of gender-responsive land reform policies. The questions are: What has drawn attention to the necessity to bring women’s rights to land and productive assets into the policy domain? The related questions are: once the policies are formulated, why is their implementation put aside? Is it for fear of a transformational change in gendered social norms in the political economy of the country? If so, why are they introduced and adopted to begin with? What is the way forward in terms of identifying policy measures to effectively advance women’s right to land and productive assets?
THE CONSTRUCTION OF PATRIARCHAL ATTITUDES THROUGH THE USE OF VIOLENCE: THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY IN ESTABLISHING CONTEMPORARY MESSAGING ON ACID VIOLENCE
By Pallavi Govindnathan
This monograph is a product of a decade-long study that examines mainstream Indian news sources to theorize media representations of acid attacks against women and girls. This research is a focused extension of that. The primary emphasis of this study is on reviewing the lineage of contradictory and inconsistent messaging produced within ancient Hindu scriptures and multiple texts—to decipher how similar methodologies of messaging are recreated in modern-day news media. The goal of this research is to analyze how a cultural lineage of contradictory and inconsistent messaging is influencing modern-day news media, resulting in acid violence coverage that invokes and maintains ancient traditional codes of Hindu Brahmanical masculinity. By analyzing historical literature through a feminist lens that highlights socio-cultural and religiopolitical inconsistencies and contradictions, this study seeks out similar rhetorical tropes used in modern-day news to examine how media conveys Hindu Brahmanical, patriarchal, masculinist messaging. Through conducting close readings of over a hundred news articles on acid attack cases between 2018 and 2022, I examine how the coverage invokes and maintains ancient traditional codes of Hindu Brahmanical masculinity and conceptions of patriarchal honor. Like many other countries, India too maintains a legacy of a cultural past, and this study reflects on the past to make transparent how the toxicity of an enamored cultural past continues to influence and shape modern Indian practices and attitudes.
KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND GENDER INEQUALITY
By Dev Nathan, Govind Kelkar, and Pallavi Govindnathan
The paper analyzes how gender inequality is created in the knowledge economy through forms of exclusion of women from certain areas of knowledge, and the simultaneous higher social valuation of men’s monopolized knowledge as against women’s knowledge in the commons. Gendered knowledge inequality has consequences for other forms of inequality, such as in status, ownership of property, distribution of labor, and even consumption. Besides explicit exclusions, the definition and responsibility of women as bearers and nurturers of children and for domestic care work becomes a severe constraint in their ability to access and use forms of monopolized knowledge.
Ph.D. Dissertation: Battleground of Scars: Representation of Acid Violence Against Women and Girls in Indian News Media
, 2023.
By Pallavi Govindnathan
Pallavi’s dissertation titled A Battleground of Scars: Acid Violence Against Women in Indian News Media examines representations and rhetorical tropes of Hindu/Hindu[tva] masculinities [and femininities] in mainstream Indian news media. The study is a unique approach to analyzing acid violence, as it argues that despite the progressive Gandhian approach to journalism of “service for its people” conveyed by the modern-day news media, the utilization of implicit and explicit tropes of Hindu Brahminical patriarchal attitudes continue to be represented in news media. Hence, for years Pallavi has explored the influence of ancient Hindu scriptures and historical mythologies, tales, and folklore to evaluate the influence of ancient social norms and practices that influence the way news is reported and received in modern-day times. Furthermore, Pallavi argues that these influences play a critical role in not only justifying violence against women but also allowing for the promotion of crimes against women. Pallavi hopes for this study to illuminate the severe flaws that lie within news reports and practices of reporting, and the types of restructuring that are necessary to not only create gender-sensitive reports of cases of violence against women and girls but to ensure survivor safety, and for the practice of reporting survivor narratives in sympathetic tones to become the norm. This study is important because it has the potential for transformation. In a country like India, where news is accessed through multiple formats, 40% of Indians still read the daily newspaper as they perceive newspaper reports to be more credible and trustworthy (Gilbertson and Pandit). Hence, assessing and analyzing how newspapers may be the source of justifying violence has the potential to impact the mental framework of millions of people. An implemented change in news reporting, therefore, has a drastic possibility of reducing gender-based crimes. As seen in Bangladesh, where her prior work was based, she hopes that her engagement and involvement in acid violence in India will contribute towards the reduction of attacks against women and girls.
Social Norms and Attitudes Towards Women’s Entitlement to Land by Govind Kelkar and Pallavi Govindnathan
. Chapter Contribution in India Social Development Report 2023. Edited by Indra Hirway.
This report highlights that gender inequalities and women's subordination in India are caused by two formidable macro-structures: patriarchy and the exclusion of unpaid work from the macro-economy. Both these structures reinforce each other and negatively impact women's empowerment. Patriarchy imposes subordination on women and forces a disproportionately higher share of unpaid domestic services and unpaid care onto them. This is unfair and unjust - a violation of basic human rights. Other structures like race, religion, and caste cut across these main structures. The selected papers in this report show how patriarchy causes gender inequalities in all critical dimensions of women's lives on the one hand, and how unpaid domestic services and unpaid care sustain the macro-economy and its growth on the other. The contributors discuss pathways to integrate unpaid work with the macro-economy such that the strength of patriarchy declines and at the same time gender equality is promoted. To put it differently, unless the structures are addressed by integrating unpaid work, inequalities cannot be addressed effectively. The report emphasizes that this is the only way to move to real macroeconomics. The papers have explored pathways to break these structures gradually to achieve gender equality and empower women. Though the path is challenging, it is feasible to reach the goal of pervasive gender equality.- Indra Hirway
“Naak Katwa Diya: From Suparnaka’s Punishment to Modern-Day Facial Mutilations”
*
By Pallavi Govindnathan
“Naak Katwa Diya” examines the ancient form of punishment of rhinotomy performed in India and much of South Asia largely enforced on women. The main argument of the paper suggests that modern-day metaphoric language; the phrase “naak katwa diya” which in its literal meaning suggests to have one’s nose cut, but used primarily as a metaphorical, figurative phrase to bring dishonor and shame upon an individual or a community, does not only reflect a particular speech but has realistic implications. In other words, the figure of speech “to cut someone’s nose,” though a phrase predominantly used when someone is shamed, the consequence of dishonoring someone often causes an individual or members of the community to literally disfigure the suggested perpetrator who is usually a woman. The paper reviews multiple cases of female survivors in India whose noses and other parts of their bodies are forcefully mutilated for bringing shame to others. The latter half of the paper draws examples from ancient Hindu scriptures, with close attention on the tale of Surpanaka from the Ramayana to illustrate how contemporary metaphoric language (and its inflicted violent practices) is a direct product of legitimized forms of violence practiced within ancient Hinduism. As stated by Mark I. Johnson, et al., “A metaphor is a conceptual tool for categorizing, organizing, thinking about, and ultimately shaping reality” (Johnson, et al. 1).
*Link Access Available 2025.