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Indian mothers carry a form of statecraft that academia often dismisses as merely domestic. However, contemporary narratives prove these women are actually political thinkers who quietly challenge traditional ideas. This study moves away from cold, Western clinical views to show that a mother’s story is a legitimate and powerful source of knowledge. Applying Bourdieu’s symbolic power and G.N. Devy’s critique of linguistic marginalisation, and Jane M. Ussher’s material-discursive-intrapsychic framework, the study reveals how mothers navigate linguistic hierarchies, transforming the maternal body into a space of statecraft where “cultural capital” is governed. Women’s life writings reveal these domestic spaces as integrated systems of political reasoning, where justice, identity, and resistance take shape. This study reinterprets linguistic insecurity not merely as an issue of language, but as a deeper break in indigenous governance. Here, the maternal practices step in as an internal diplomat, navigating epistemic hierarchies, shaping the child’s voice, and challenging dominant disciplinary frameworks. In the end, these narratives stand as serious sources of theory in their own right, not just personal stories. Through a comparative sociolinguistic reading of Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jiban and Lisa Ray’s Close to the Bone, the paper demonstrates that maternal responses to somatic and institutional crises serve as context-aware forms of governance, offering a compelling challenge to dominant frameworks in the social sciences.
Mr. Ashraful Haque. “Linguistic Insecurity and the Body: A Sociolinguistic Reading of Maternal Statecraft in Indian Life Writing.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 171-185. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.10.
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