Purdah is a central feature of the social system of South Asia, and in recent years has been the subject of numerous anthropological and sociological studies that attest to its importance. Such studies, however, when conducted from a religious or gender perspective, tend to impose an a priori limitation on the investigation of the whole question. This paper examines the notion of purdah and female seclusion in postcolonial texts by men and women of different religions, written in or translated into English. In many of them purdah and female seclusion represent a major theme, while in others these are treated only peripherally. Through my study of the dynamism of purdah within the primary texts I argue that as an artifice of the postcolonial text itself it symbolises resistance to change. Purdah thus becomes a way of interrogating the kinds of challenges that frame postcolonial studies today.