by Kalpana Wilson
This contribution was first presented at the 2 December 2022 workshop on Transnational “Anti-Gender” Politics and Resistance, part of the AHRC-LSE project on Transnational ‘Anti-Gender’ Movements and Resistance: Narratives and Interventions.
Listening to Tooba Syed[i] speaking about the struggles in which feminist movements in Pakistan are currently engaged, the resonances with the current situation in India are inescapable. On one level, it is very tempting to describe what is happening on the other side of the violent colonial creation which is the border between India and Pakistan as a mirror image. In fact, doing so has been historically important for the building of intimate solidarities between Pakistani and Indian feminists which might be better called transborder rather than transnational. From Partition itself to the present, there are many such shared experiences, and for many, this mirroring has been particularly striking with the rise of the religious right in the region.