Madhu Purnima Kishwar

Madhu Purnima Kishwar is an Indian academic and Hindutva commentator. She is currently employed as a chair Professor in the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Kishwar along with fellow-academic Ruth Vanita co-founded the journal Manushi.

Whilst her earlier work were favorably received by the academia and fellow activists, her counterparts disassociated from her post the '90s, once she embraced the ideology of Hindutva. |name=|group=

She has been awarded the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediaperson in 1985.

Early life and education Kishwar was born in 1951 in Delhi, into a family of partition refugees from present-day Pakistan. Her father's family came from Lahore, while her mother's came from Peshawar. (Kishwar states that her mother's family lived in the Peshawar and Rawalpindi districts, and that during the 1947 tribal invasion of Kashmir her mother was airlifted from Srinagar, where part of her family lived, to a refugee camp in Delhi.) where she was the President of the Student's Union. She received her postgraduate degree in history from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. until retiring in 2016. The institute rejected the allegations. Kishwar rejected the charges, describing them as whining of the leftist intellectuals, who were losing their clout. [Questionable Sources]

Manushi and feminism Kishwar, along with Ruth Vanita, were the founding-editors of Manushi, Established to bridge the gap between academic discourse and popular activism by raising awareness of gender inequalities through activism on the ground, it has been one of the longest-running and most-influential women's periodicals in South Asia to the extent of being heavily instrumental in setting the agenda for women-right-movements. Manushi has been described by Amartya Sen as "a pioneering feminist journal". Her books and miscellaneous writings in the topic area have been also quite favorably received.

Notably, Kishwar does not self-identify as a feminist. Kishwar's (self-proclaimed) reasons behind the disapproval of feminism aligns with that of the postcolonial feminist theory - perceiving liberal feminism as a monolithic western entity which discounts indigenous ways of life and actively incorporates a western framework. This led to the introduction of religious and communal discourses into a hitherto secular and non-polarized space which vocally urged for a return to a golden atavistic past and amplified the "hierarchies of "East" versus "West", Indian womanhood versus western feminism, and Hindu versus Muslim identity" from the lenses of religion and ethno-nationalism. Deeming that film as the ramblings of a self-hating-Indian that was meant to stereotype and vilify Hindus, she mocked the queer rights movements as a Western import that leaned contrary to the ethos of Hindu public life and middle class values. Gradually, in the process, she joined a newly evolving group of Hindutva scholars in asserting biases in the western and Marxists scholarship of Indic religions. Manushi served as a reference during the California textbook controversy over Hindu history et al.—Anantharam notes a heavy intermingling of Hindutva and her works by the middle 2000s. She has lodged legal petitions arguing for dilution of anti-rape laws to mitigate bias against males and has been also highly skeptical of the motivations of foreign-funded NGOs working for the causes of women.

Controversies

Kishwar had previously been noted for her adulation of Narendra Modi, to the extent of comparing him with Mahatma Gandhi. She had also written a book that absolved him, a then prime-ministerial candidate of any involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots and praised him as a non-communal politician. Incidentally she used to be a vocal critic of Modi.

Kishwar has been accused by left-leaning media outlets of aiding in the propagation of allegedly communal material and to have propagated fake news over numerous occasions, via her Twitter handle.

In July 2022, she was booked by Uttar Pradesh Police for spreading misinformation on social media using old video of a road incident from 2017.

Allegations against Narendra Modi

In March 2026, Kishwar wrote a post on social media X about Modi, which became instantly viral and was subject of much debate and controversy on social media and around. Since then, she has been making repeated allegations related to sexual misconduct against Modi, generating much political heat.

Certain FIRs and criminal cases have been registered against Kishwar after her allegations against Modi. On 20 April 2026, an FIR was registered against Kishwar by Chandigarh Police over alleged circulation of misleading content online.

Similarly, a BJP member has filed a complaint case in Varanasi Court against such allegations.

Works In Search of Answers: Indian Women's Voices (with Ruth Vanita, Zed Books, 1984). . Gandhi and Women (Manushi Prakashan, 1986). . Women Bhakta Poets: Manushi (Manushi Publications, 1989). . The Dilemma And Other Stories (with Ruth Vanitha, Manushi Prakashan, 1997). . Religion at the service of nationalism and other essays (Oxford University Press, 1998). . Off the Beaten Track: Rethinking Gender Justice for Indian Women (Oxford University Press, 2002). . Deepening Democracy: Challenges of Governance and Globalization in India (Oxford University Press, 2006). . Zealous Reformers, Deadly Laws: Battling Stereotypes (SAGE, 2008). . Modi, Muslims and Media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat (Manushi Publications, 2014). . The Girl from Kathua: A Sacrificial Victim of Ghazwa-e-Hind (Garuda Prakashan, 2023). .