Daughters of Development: The Public-Private Partnership in Visualizing Girls’ Education in Postcolonial India

This article critically analyses the politics and poetics of communicating of girls’ rights in India’s new developmental state, with a focus on public-private partnerships in visualizing girls’ education. It foregrounds significant investments by both the government and corporations in visual campaigns that shape public discourse. The historical context, rooted in colonial India and framed within discourses of colonizers and colonized, portrayed girls as pre-modern victims needing rescue. This narrative continuies to inflect postcolonial governance. In the contemporary context, corporate advertisements of girls’ education reinforce conventional gender roles and emphasizes girls’future economic participation. Developmental projects, conducted under the influence of nationalism, and modernization, frequently render invisible girls from marginalized communities. Here, the Hindutva-Development framework is explored, offering a postcolonial feminist perspective on girls’ development. In conclusion, the article underscores the need for a layered understanding of girls’ rights and additional need to critique new developmental orthodoxies in India.