Indian Feminists and Orientalist Fantasies: Seeta Parmanand's Reimagining of Hindu Law.

Can emancipation be found in reading the canon? I trace this question through Sanskritist and legislator Seeta Parmanand (1901-79). In 1920s Oxford, Parmanand reinterpreted epic poetry to argue that the status of women in ancient India underwent a contingent decline; in 1950s Hindu Code debates, she used this scholarship to advocate sweeping reforms to family law. Restoring Parmanand to the worlds of Orientalism, nationalism, and feminist activism, I argue that this seemingly exceptional figure was symptomatic of broader transformations: over who represented a community, with what texts, through which interpretations, and over who counts as representative within history-writing itself.