Love, Desire, and Feminist Genealogies in the Indian Subcontinent
by Kaushiki Ishwar
Kaushiki Ishwar is an early-career scholar who pursued history, philosophy, and sociology at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She is a Young India Fellow (Batch of 2026) at Ashoka University. She was nominated by the Legislative Assembly to represent India as the 12th Commonwealth Youth Parliament in New Zealand Parliament, where she discussed climate resettlement and the role of educational intersectionality under the mentorship of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. She has worked as a Training and Tournament Lead at the Indian Debating League, the biggest debating organization in Asia, where she has mentored over 3500 students. She has her own publishing house Critikal & Theorie which aims to publish in philosophy for and by marginalized communities. Her areas of research are medical anthropology, ethics, Postmodern and Poststructuralist Critical Theory.
Feminist scholarship in South Asia has historically focused on kinship structures and on locating women within institutions such as marriage, family, and community for decades. These frameworks have been crucial in demonstrating how patriarchal discourse is enacted on women’s bodies and social roles., 1 2 However, this focus has often limited analytical attention to another important dimension of women’s experience: the historical articulation of desire and erotic agency. Feminist desire in the South Asian context cannot be reduced simply to individual sexuality because women have historically been constrained in expressing romantic and sexual aspirations openly. Instead, feminist desire encompasses broader struggles for autonomy, agency, and the assertion of selfhood by women and marginalized genders within patriarchal and intersectional oppressive contexts.
Desire in this sense extends beyond personal fulfillment or narrowing the definition to be just lust. It is deeply embedded in the sociopolitical and cultural landscapes of the region and reflects a yearning for equality, freedom from restrictive norms, and the ability to envision life outside hegemonic expectations for queer and feminist movement. Feminist desire therefore becomes both a personal and collective phenomenon. It represents emotional longing as well as political expression, challenging social systems that regulate women’s bodies, sexuality, and autonomy. 3
Exploring feminist desire through a historiographical lens however is crucial for uncovering narratives that have been suppressed, distorted, or erased through colonial and patriarchal structures. Historiography allows scholars to challenge dominant interpretations of sexuality by critically reexamining literary, and cultural records of desire. Through this process, it becomes possible to identify voices and traditions that conventional historical narratives have marginalized or excluded. The history of erotic expression in the Indian subcontinent reveals how power relations involving caste, class, religion, and imperialism have shaped both the expression and repression of women’s desire across historical periods. 4
This essay examines feminist desire through the historical evolution of erotic literature and cultural traditions in the Indian subcontinent. While the essay engages with South Asian historiography more broadly, majority of the examples examined here are drawn from traditions associated with the historical and contemporary Indian nation-state. The essay traces expressions of desire from ancient literary traditions such as the Kamasutra, Tamil Sangam poetry, Bhakti and Sufi devotional traditions, and temple art such as the Khajuraho sculptures. It then examines the transformations that occurred during the colonial period, when Victorian moral frameworks reshaped the interpretation of sexuality and erotic expression. Finally, the essay considers modern literary and cultural representations of feminist desire, including contemporary feminist writing and emerging forms of digital feminist activism.
By tracing these historical shifts, the essay argues that feminist desire in the Indian subcontinent has rarely been expressed directly. Instead, it has often been articulated through layered cultural idioms including devotional longing, poetic metaphor, aesthetic theory, and literary experimentation. Recovering these historical expressions complicates contemporary feminist and queer theorization by demonstrating that desire has long been embedded within culturally specific forms of expression rather than emerging solely within modern political frameworks.
Conceptualizing Feminist Desire
Desire in the context of feminist historiography extends beyond emotional longing or romantic attraction. It represents a complex intersection of personal experience and political agency. To understand the emergence of feminist desire in the South Asian context, it is helpful to distinguish between three related but distinct concepts: love, desire, and the erotic.
Love is often socially sanctioned and framed as a moral or spiritual emotion rooted in attachment and care. Desire, by contrast, involves longing, attraction, and the assertion of personal yearning. Historically, women’s capacity to express such longing has frequently been restricted by patriarchal norms that regulate female sexuality. In many South Asian literary traditions, desire therefore appears indirectly through the language of love. Poets and writers often used romantic devotion as a culturally acceptable framework through which erotic longing could be expressed without provoking social condemnation. The concept of the erotic introduces a further dimension to this discussion. Feminist theorist Audre Lorde defines the erotic as a source of power that emerges from deeply felt emotional and sensual experience. For Lorde, “the erotic is not reducible to pornography or explicit sexuality; rather, it represents a profound resource for creativity, knowledge, and resistance.” 5 When Lorde’s formulation is read alongside South Asian literary traditions, an interesting tension emerges. Classical aesthetic traditions often romanticized desire through poetic conventions, whereas feminist theory conceptualizes the erotic as a political force capable of disrupting systems of domination.
Understanding this distinction is important for analyzing the historical articulation of desire in South Asia. Scholars such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak have argued that marginalized voices often appear indirectly within historical archives because structures of power shape what can be recorded and preserved. Spivak’s concept of the “subaltern” highlights the difficulty of recovering voices that exist outside dominant historical narratives. 6 In the context of feminist historiography, this insight suggests that women’s expressions of desire may survive in historical texts not as explicit declarations but through metaphor, symbolism, and narrative convention.
Similarly, Nivedita Menon argues that feminist politics fundamentally involves questioning the norms that regulate sexuality and gendered behavior. Feminist desire therefore becomes a form of resistance that challenges the ideological frameworks governing women’s bodies and choices. 7 Desire, in this sense, becomes a radical assertion of autonomy. As philosopher Martha Nussbaum suggests, autonomy involves the capacity to act according to one’s values and aspirations without coercion or constraint. 8 When women assert their desires in contexts that attempt to suppress them, desire itself becomes a political act of self-determination.
Feminist Desire in Ancient South Asian Traditions
The early literary traditions of the Indian subcontinent demonstrate a complex engagement with erotic expression. Texts composed between approximately 200 BCE and 600 CE reveal the emergence of sophisticated literary traditions that celebrated love, desire, and sensual experience. Scholars have noted that early Sanskrit, Tamil, and Prakrit literary cultures engaged extensively with erotic themes and aesthetic theory. 9
One important concept within classical Indian aesthetic thought is shringara rasa, often translated as the “erotic mood.” In classical Sanskrit poetics, rasa refers to the emotional experience evoked through artistic expression. Shringara rasa celebrates romantic and erotic emotions as essential aspects of human experience. Rather than treating sexuality as morally suspect, these literary traditions frequently represented desire as natural and meaningful.
The Kamasutra, attributed to Vatsyayana and written around the third century CE, remains one of the most famous examples of this intellectual engagement with sexuality. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Kamasutra is not merely a manual of sexual positions but a philosophical treatise that examines relationships, pleasure, and social life. Within classical Indian philosophy, kama, meaning desire or pleasure, is recognized as one of the four purusharthas, or goals of life, alongside dharma (duty), artha (wealth), and moksha (liberation). 10 This framework suggests that sensual experience was historically understood as a legitimate dimension of human life.
Tamil Sangam literature similarly reflects sophisticated representations of romantic and erotic relationships. Poems from collections such as the Kuruntokai and Akananuru explore themes of love, longing, and separation within structured poetic landscapes. 11 In many of these poems, female voices articulate emotional and erotic experiences with remarkable nuance, suggesting that women’s desire was recognized within literary discourse even if social realities had imposed constraints.
Artistic traditions also engaged with erotic themes. Temple complexes such as Khajuraho and Konark contain intricate carvings depicting erotic intimacy. Scholars have interpreted these sculptures not merely as representations of sexuality but as symbolic expressions of fertility, cosmic balance, and the union of complementary forces. 12 Tantric traditions similarly explored the relationship between sensuality and spiritual transcendence, viewing erotic union as a metaphor for cosmic harmony thus rendering snippets to bring about alternative forms of knowledge production for queer and feminist reinterpretation.
Devotional Traditions and the Expression of Desire
Despite the richness of earlier erotic traditions, later historical periods witnessed increasing constraints on explicit representations of sexuality. Social and religious transformations contributed to the emergence of more conservative attitudes toward erotic expression, particularly for women.
Within this context, devotional movements such as Bhakti and Sufi traditions provided alternative cultural frameworks through which expressions of longing could be articulated. Bhakti poetry frequently portrays intense emotional devotion to a divine figure through metaphors associated with romantic love. The relationship between Radha and Krishna, for example, became a powerful symbolic framework for expressing longing, separation, and desire. 13
For women poets such as Mirabai, Lal Ded, and Janabai, devotional poetry offered a means of expressing emotional intensity that could also carry erotic undertones. Through the language of spiritual devotion, these writers articulated forms of longing that might otherwise have been socially unacceptable. In this sense, devotional literature functioned as a cultural medium through which women’s desire could be expressed while remaining within the acceptable boundaries of religious discourse. Similarly, Sufi poetry often described mystical union with the divine through imagery associated with romantic love and longing. These literary strategies demonstrate how desire continued to circulate within cultural discourse even when explicit discussions of sexuality were socially constrained.
Colonial Transformations of Sexuality
The colonial period marked a major transformation in the cultural politics of sexuality in the Indian subcontinent. British colonial rule introduced Victorian moral frameworks that emphasized sexual restraint, domestic respectability, and rigid gender norms. These values were reinforced through legal reforms, educational institutions, and social policies that reinterpreted Indian cultural traditions through a moralizing colonial lens. 14
One consequence of these transformations was the marginalization of cultural institutions historically associated with erotic performance and artistic expression. Courtesan traditions, which had long served as custodians of music, dance, and literary culture, were increasingly stigmatized through colonial legal reforms and social campaigns.15 As a result, many artistic traditions that had engaged openly with erotic themes were either suppressed or reinterpreted within new moral frameworks.
At the same time, colonial modernity also produced new literary and intellectual movements that challenged restrictive attitudes toward sexuality. The expansion of print culture enabled the circulation of new forms of writing that addressed gender and sexuality more directly. Progressive writers began exploring themes of female autonomy and sexual desire in ways that confronted both colonial morality and indigenous patriarchal norms.
Authors such as Ismat Chughtai and Kamala Das played significant roles in articulating female desire within modern literary contexts. Chughtai’s short story Lihaaf famously depicts female same-sex desire and sparked controversy upon its publication. Kamala Das’s poetry and autobiographical writing similarly foregrounded women’s sexuality and emotional life, challenging cultural expectations that demanded silence around female desire. 16
Contemporary Expressions of Feminist Desire
In contemporary South Asian literature and cultural production, feminist and queer writers continue to engage with the histories of erotic expression in the region. Scholars such as Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai have documented historical traditions of same-sex love in India, demonstrating that queer desire has long existed within literary and historical archives. 17
Recent works of fiction and nonfiction also explore the intersections of sexuality, gender, and social inequality. Balli Kaur Jaswal’s novel Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows centers on a group of Sikh widows who begin writing erotic stories as a means of reclaiming suppressed forms of desire. Through storytelling, the women challenge cultural norms that deny them sexual autonomy.
Contemporary journalism and scholarship similarly explore the politics of sexuality in modern India. Writers such as Sonia Faleiro and Amia Srinivasan have examined the intersections of gender, class, and sexual agency in contexts ranging from dance bar cultures to philosophical debates about sexual justice., 18 19 Film and popular culture have also become important spaces for exploring female sexuality, with productions such as Lust Stories presenting narratives that foreground women’s experiences of desire.
Digital Feminist Desire
The emergence of digital media has created new spaces for the articulation of feminist and queer desire in contemporary India. Online platforms enable forms of storytelling and collective expression that challenge longstanding cultural taboos surrounding sexuality.
Digital feminist movements have used social media to create new archives of personal narratives that document experiences of gender inequality, harassment, and sexual agency. Campaigns such as #MeTooIndia transformed individual testimonies into collective political movements that challenged structures of silence surrounding sexual violence and gendered power. 20
These digital spaces function as contemporary extensions of the historiographical project of recovering marginalized voices. While earlier literary traditions often encoded desire within metaphor or devotional language, digital platforms allow women and queer individuals to articulate experiences of sexuality and desire more directly. In this sense, digital media continues the long historical process through which feminist desire finds new forms of expression despite social constraints.
Tracing the history of erotic expression in the Indian subcontinent reveals that feminist desire has always existed within complex cultural frameworks. From classical aesthetic theory and devotional poetry to modern feminist literature and digital activism, expressions of desire have evolved in response to shifting social and political conditions.
A historiographical approach demonstrates that feminist desire is neither purely modern nor solely personal. Instead, it represents a historically evolving form of cultural resistance through which women and marginalized genders negotiate structures of power. By examining how love, desire, and the erotic have been represented across different historical contexts, feminist scholarship can better understand the diverse ways in which sexual agency has been imagined, suppressed, and reclaimed within the Indian subcontinent.
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