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In this article, I trace appropriations of the Bengali bandit Devi Chaudhurani as she is transfigured within the Indian nationalist novel "Devi Chaudhurani" and the contemporary feminist street play "Meye Dile Sajiye" or "Giving Away the Girl." These representations are characterized by an eclecticism and a hybridity that treat "the bandit" as a hermeneutical resource for rhetorical invention. Each representation draws its force from the tensions and incongruities it strategically manifests, playing with indigenous Indian and colonial notions of criminality in order to advance ideologically complex arguments about the social conditions for women and their roles in colonial and postcolonial society. (Contains 72 notes.)

This article focuses on the performance of an Indian feminist street play that addresses issues of sex-determination testing and sex-selection abortion. In my analysis, I explore the rhetorical competence these activists exhibit as they raise concerns about the ethics of discarding fetuses identified as female and struggle with the constraints of performing the absence of these girl fetuses, given feminist desires to simultaneously maintain the right to abortion and abolish sex-selection abortion. I also focus upon the critical appropriation of traditional women's folk culture to create a compelling feminist performance aesthetic. For activists and audience members, the performance of this counter-narrative holds the potential to open space and time for talk (as well as meaningful silence) that is personal, interpersonal, and significantly political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I trace appropriations of the Bengali bandit Devi Chaudhurani as she is transfigured within the Indian nationalist novel Devi Chaudhurani and the contemporary feminist street play Meye Dile Sajiye or Giving Away the Girl. These representations are characterized by an eclecticism and a hybridity that treat "the bandit" as a hermeneutical resource for rhetorical invention. Each representation draws its force from the tensions and incongruities it strategically manifests, playing with indigenous Indian and colonial notions of criminality in order to advance ideologically complex arguments about the social conditions for women and their roles in colonial and postcolonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]