Setu 🌉 सेतु: Saloni Walia

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Finding the ‘Female Utopia’ in the short story “Sultana’s Dream”

- Saloni Walia

Abstract

The above quote expresses the thoughts of Bengali poet cum critic Mohitlal Majumdar on reading Begum Rokeya Sahkawat’s biography. She belonged to the aristocratic “zamindar” family of pre-partition Bengal (present day Bangladesh). She was one of the earliest social reformers and educationists of late 19th and early 20^th centuries. She was home-schooled and continued to enrich herself post her marriage too. This essay explores the fantasy world in her short story “Sultana’s Dream” (1905).

Research Paper

It is curious that the racial pride (that makes the Bengali race see themselves as a unified whole) should be embodied in a woman- that the spirit, conscience and intelligence of Bengali Muslim society should have expressed themselves in a female icon…

Since upper strata of the society restricts more control over their women, it would not be wrong to infer that Begum Rokeya had a comparatively liberal upbringing as she had access to education, a rare exposure those days. This resonated in the Hindu society as well. The Sanskrit scholar and activist Pandita Ramabai in her work The High-Caste Hindu Woman (1887) discusses how difficult was the life of the upper caste woman in Hindu households as she bears the brunt of Brahminical patriarchy. However, for the Muslim women in general, the placement of nationalist discourse has been problematical. This has been extensively argued by Uma Chaudhari in her essay ‘Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History’ (1989). Muslim woman was viewed as the emblem of backwardness of the community as a whole as Purdah, Burqa, distance from vernacular and secular education hampered her growth. Furthermore, Purdah also added to her mystery as it veiled her potent sexuality. Uma Chaudhari discusses how Muslim women were kept out of this discourse. For that matter, the Dalit Hindu women also faced similar disadvantages as their Muslim sisters. Thus, if the Dalit Hindu woman was doubly oppressed because of her caste and gender, the ordinary Muslim woman was triply oppressed as the third dimension of religion also complicated her condition. However, Begum Rokeya did not suffer as much as her Muslim counterparts because she belonged to the gentry, not denying that she must have had her fair sharer of struggles. Thus, her elite social status not only gave her an opportunity for higher learning but also a voice which could speak out for the women of her community. Chandra Mohanty in her essay ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’ also argues that homogenizing women under a single category is not justified as issues like caste, class and community make women different from each other.

In this respect, Sahkawat’s efforts have always been to create a national identity for Bengali Muslim women. She even writes:

Civilization creates greater need for privacy. For instance, now the letters are put in envelopes and tables are covered with tablecloths. Earlier Britons painted their bodies but now wear clothes. But Purdah system has become a bit severe in our country. Young unmarried girls nine years of age observe full Purdah even in front of elderly women which hinders their education and is also unhealthy.

She also raised her concern over the Purdahnashin women, “Is it possible to set up a separate university for us women with women examiners?” Moreover, the resentment Sakhawat bore towards society who shackled women was brought out in several of her essays in the English periodical Motichur where she “showed how remorseless she could be in exposing women’s oppression and the mechanizations of a patriarchal society that indoctrinated them into defending and justifying their own subjugation.” (“Sultana’s Dream and Padmarag: The two feminist Utopias”, pp. x). She even where she chastised women who chose to be powerless in her essay ‘The Degradation of Women’ (1904) published in another periodical Nabanoor. In a way, she is advocating what theorist Michel Foucault stated about power operating in binaries:

Just as sunlight cannot enter the bedrooms, the light of knowledge, too, cannot enter the chambers of our minds, since there are almost no schools or colleges good enough for us. (Women in Concert: An anthology of Bengali Muslim Women’s Writing 1904-1938, pp. 12)

Sakhawat wanted to point towards the mental enslavement of women as the patriarchal system was deeply internalized. Sakhawat further writes:

People feel education completely unnecessary for women as it’s impossible for them to take up jobs. (pp. 13)

As aforementioned, her concerns blended with her wish fulfillment is taken up in the utopian world of her short story where the gender roles are reversed to create Purdah system for men called Mardana. She also emphasizes over the importance of women’s literacy by imparting knowledge on subjects like Mathematics and Science. Begum Rokeah defines education in her essay ‘The Degradation of Women’:

Education does not signify the blind imitation of any race or nation. Education is about developing the God- given knowledge or faculties through practice… where the uneducated sees only dust and mud, the scientist’s informed eye can see many pleasing and wonderful things. For instance, sand yields opal, mud yields china clay or sapphire, coal produces diamond while water solidifies into ice.

This is what the universities in the story do. They hone the intellectual skills of women and thereby increase their work efficiency. For instance, Ladyland develops water balloons which act like reservoir and the invention of solar heaters which are used as nuclear weapons in fighting the war declared by the neighboring country. Other technological advancements include “air conveyance” and tilling of land by electricity.

Talking about the role of educators, Sister Sara and the Queen in the story are like

Sakhawat’s ‘genies’ who fulfill her desire in the story. They carry out several reforms like opening of schools and colleges for girls, stopping child marriages, abolish the Purdah system for women and encourage trading business initiated by women.

Critic Abul Hussain found the story sharing similarities with the Book III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan) of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). According to him, extreme measure of secluding men in Ladyland was a “reaction to the prevailing oppression and vulnerability of our women… perhaps Mrs Pokeah Hussain Sakhawat wrote this to create a sense of self confidence among the very vulnerable Bengali women… that women may possess faculties and talents equivalent to or greater than men- that they are capable of developing themselves to a stage where they may attain complete mastery over nature without any help from men and create a new world of perfect beauty, great wealth and goodness… I hope the male readers would try to motivate the women of their families toward self-realization…” (Sultana’s Dream and Padmarag:The two Feminist Utopias).

Was the female Utopia of ‘Ladyland’ a perfect answer to the bitter reality of the patriarchal world?

To begin with, the text severely attacks men as the first reference to them is as “men servants” (pp. 2). Even Sara tells Sultana, “The women say you look very mannish”, thus hinting towards the qualities of shyness and timidity are attributed to men. Furthermore, the men observe the Purdah system of Mardana to protect their ‘virtue’ and ‘honour’. However, women acknowledge their physical weakness, “We shut the men indoors… It is not safe for us to come out of the zenana as we are naturally weak.” This shows that the inferiority of men is not in terms of their physical strength but refers to their low intellect, “Men are overpowered by brains”.

Moreover, Sister Sara equates women to lions, “A lion is stronger than man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. Men have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests”. It alludes to women being used for mental slavery. Further, male militarism is also condemned by Sahkawat suggesting that physical power is not required to govern a nation.

Sahkawat takes up the question of gender identity in the society through the dialogues of Sultana and Sister Sara. The traditional roles of “masculinity” and “femininity” are played with.

Through Sultana, the writer ridicules Indian customs. Women in Ladyland are powerful but to exercise their power, Sahkawat does not find it necessary to eliminate men or to propose anything drastic like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland (1915) in which ‘parthenogenesis’ (human conception without fertilization by a man) was the means for continuing a unisex society. In ‘Ladyland’, men are part of the society but divested of any power. They live in seclusion and look after the house and children. Women do not find men fit for any

skilled work. Here, it is important to raise a pertinent question- since when did doing domestic chores, child bearing and nurturing become an inferior activity?

Also, how is the Matriarchy as practiced in the story an alternative to Patriarchy? According to Althusser’s essay ‘The Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes towards an Investigation’ (1970), the dominant class in any society exercises its hegemony over the weaker class. If Sahkawat herself promoted gender equality, then this idea of matriarchy is contradicting her purpose because matriarchy does not seek equality as feminism. It wants female domination over the men. Therefore, this text can not be called a feminist text. A utopian society would be an equal society. ‘Female Utopia’ is a paradoxical phrase over here. Role reversal would not alone solve the problem. The issues will remain the same as now the men would be subjugated. This is what Chandra Mohanty also argues in her essay ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’ (1988). She believes that if powerless women are given power, “…then the new society would be structurally identical to the existing organization of power relations constituting itself of the simple inversion of what exists.”

Thus, the use of the term ‘Female Utopia’ itself is found to be problematic even before referring to the story. Utopia should be a genderless idea which promotes equality in all spheres.

Works Cited

Akhtar, Shaheen and Bhowmik, Maushami. Women in Concert: An anthology of Bengali Muslim Women’s Writings 1904-1938. Stree, Kolkata, 1998, pp. 12-13

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes towards an Investigation” (1970).

Beauvoir, de Simone. The Second Sex (1949). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012

Gilman, Perkins Charlotte. Herland (1915), Tutis Digital Publishing Pvt. Limited, 2008

Sahkawat, Hussain Rokeya. Sultana’s Dream and Padmarag: The two Femisnist Utopias. Penguin Group, New Delhi, 2005, pp vii-xiii

_________________________ “The Degradation of Women” (1905). Women in Concert: An Anthology of Bengali Muslim Women’s Writings1904-1938. Stree, Kolkata, 1998

________________________ “Burqa” (1904)). Women in Concert: An Anthology of Bengali Muslim Women’s Writings 1904-1938. Stree, Kolkata, 1998

***

Bio Note: My name is Saloni Walia. I am a 2^nd year Ph.D. Scholar (Literature) at the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu. My research interests are varied which include Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Literatures of Africa, Post-Colonial Literature to name a few. I am working on Queer Studies for my Doctoral Thesis. I wish to join the world of academia as an Educator after completing my Ph.D.

Setu, November 2021

Comprehending Textual Difficulties in J.M Coetzee’s novel Disgrace

Saloni Walia

M.Phil Research Scholar, Delhi University

Abstract

What is a Text? Scholars, linguists and critics in academia time and again have formulated various theories and methodologies to unravel a text. There are several challenges that one overcomes to completely interpret a text. But is that all? Is comprehending a text a finite process with a starting and finishing line? Or is it an unending futile exercise one undertakes? What happens when the authorial intentions meet the readers’ perceptions? The paper tries to explore this theme of understanding a text through J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace (1999).

Research Paper

Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999) is a text of aporia which is full of internal contradictions. It deprives the audience of any clarity usually visible at the culmination of the novel. But since this does not happen, it is unsettling for them. The novel is open ended leaving the readers with numerous possibilities that could take up any direction. It indeed is a difficult text to comprehend because it stays away from categorizing the characters into any binaries. Since intersectionality is an important aspect of our identity, therefore, it is difficult to pigeonhole humans into particular personality types. We all are full of flaws. We all are good, bad, even worse to people depending upon which part of our personality we show and to whom. To begin with, the character of David Lurie is an epitome of irony and paradoxes. The first two lines of the novel precisely describe his problem and actually the entire novel,

For a man of his Age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well (pp.1).

Sex is a problem for him which he keeps on encountering and finding resolution to in his own ways. We get a glimpse of his stubbornness in not defending himself or apologizing to his student Melanie for his misconduct. David simply is not a man in control whose ageing precipitates an identity crisis. He does not see rape as violation of the woman’s body. For him, it an expression of the woman’s aversion of him. When his daughter Lucy meets the same fate, he just cannot relate to the crime, something he also perpetrated on another woman. He does not seek redemption till the end. He also falls victim to the attack at Lucy’s farm, but Coetzee does not let us sympathize with him. The predator is humanized but David clearly is no role model. Likewise, Coetzee is also critical of the blacks who abuse Lucy and does not paint them as innocent natives. Rape can never be a tool to avenge the horrors of colonialism. Skin color is not a character certificate in the narrative. The oppressor and the oppressed can swap their positions as per the circumstances. There is a blurred distinction between the ‘Self’ and the “other’.

The narrative also breaks the myth of the supremacy of the white intellectual. As a scholar, he should be guiding students in building their careers. Instead, he is sexually manipulating them to satiate his lust. It is a critique of academia and that people in higher rungs of the social ladder may not always be the right idols to follow. His persona defined by objectivity, self-irony, self-deprecation, and intellectual poise completely collapses at the end. In this way, Disgrace is a Bildungsroman in reverse.

At a socio-political level too, the readers face the challenge to interpret the novel. Where will the white man find himself in the midst of transition of power from a colonial regime to a post-Apartheid South Africa? David’s confusion can also be read in the terms of his helplessness to grapple with this newfound situation. Melanie’s encounter with David also shows that South African unity is faraway dream. Co-mingling between the races should lead to fostering unity and not sow the seeds of distrust between people. It is a reminder that Independence would not suddenly make all the problems vanish. The social fabric of South Africa has many holes through which reality gapes at us. There is a need of a fresh negotiation of the relationship between the whites and the blacks. Disgrace thus, is also a novel of the interregnum, running parallel to the history of South Africa.

Furthermore, the text becomes important from a linguistic perspective. The writer presents a foggy narrative and lucid language throughout the text. It is quite absurd to see a professor of communication faltering with words to express himself. Is it done deliberately by Coetzee? Or does it point towards the fact that the colonizer’s language is inadequate to tell the story of South Africa? Is English a viable language anymore? It also addresses the crisis of humanities worldwide that academia keeps debating with. Also, rampant intertextuality hinders in understanding of the text. Reiterating what is aforesaid, that language is not transparent as there is no closure to the readers nor to the characters in the novel. Coetzee tells us that language fails us many times. This novel is also about communicating what is unsaid in Kafka’s terms. David’s silent communication with the dying dog or the fictional character of Teresa in Byron’s work are good examples to support the argument. Even in the court, he says bare minimum to defend himself. Attridge views it as emergence of a new South Africa which is an Americanized version with respect to globalization. Everything is quantifiable. Since when did language become inefficient in having a global outlook?

Silence is also a device that is used by Coetzee. Interpreting of this silence is a difficult task for its readers. Is it a substitute for language or is it a solution to the limitations of language? One also wonders why Lucy does not complain to the authorities about the unfortunate incident. She chooses to remain silent. Is it her strength or weakness? This shows there is meaningless in conventional linguistic rituals. Is Lucy’s silence representative of her subalternity? Since she is a lesbian, she is at the fringes of the heteronormative society. Was the event a warning to the homosexuals to leave their ‘wayward’ life? It appears that she decides to transition from a lesbian orientation to domestication in order to raise the conceived child. Can the South African childhood bloom only in a conventional heterosexual set up? The readers are left to speculate. Is it her way of redemption? But redemption from what? Her homosexuality or the white man’s burden? There are no straight answers to her situation. It can also be a way of dealing with her trauma.

Thus, it is through the various narrative techniques and the methods of characterization that Coetzee complicates our comprehension of this text. He urges us to face our discomfort as we try to leave our conventional ways of reading a novel.

Works Cited

Attridge, Derek. “Age of Bronze, State of Grace: Music and Dogs in Coetzee’s “Disgrace””. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Autumn 2000), pp. 98-201, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1346141. JSTOR. Accessed 29 September 2020.

Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace. London. Penguin Books, 1999

Setu, April 2021

Transgressing The Body: Analyzing the Women in Mamoni Rasisom Goswami’s Short Story “The Offspring”

Saloni Walia

M.Phil Research Scholar, Delhi University criticallyliterate@gmail.com

Keywords

women, patriarchal, body, casteism, voice, silence

Absract

Originally titled as ’Xanskar’, ‘The Offspring’ is a landmark short story in Assamese Literature. It is authored by Assamese scholar and writer Indira Goswami. She used the pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami. Her works always created a social alarm crying for attention. Likewise, this particular short story highlights various issues; however, it would be scrutinized from a feminist lens.

There are two principal women characters in the narratives, Damayanti and the other is the wife of the male protagonist Pitambar Mahajan. For the sake of convenience, one would call her simply as the Wife.

To begin with, the Wife is suffering from Rheumatism and has not borne any child to her husband. Mahajan has abandoned her after realizing that she is incurable thereby quashing all his hopes of fatherhood. Thus, in the very beginning of the tale, Goswami sets the society in a patriarchal establishment where fertility is the instrument used to judge a woman. Barren women are seen as inauspicious in many cultures. Throughout the entire story, she does not utter any dialogues. Her presence is a dumb existence where she imbibes what she sees.

On the contrary is her counterpart Damayanti, who is a Jajamani Brahmin widow forced to practice prostitution out of sheer helplessness. Being the bread winner of her family comprising of two daughters, whoring is the only alternative left for her.

The description given to Damayanti is the evidence of a kind of voyeurism in the text. Mahajan and the priest Krishnakanta gaping at her shows how Goswami is offering a critique of the society which cannot but consider women as erotic subjects. The author employs the technique of Male Gaze explained by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema".

The paper thus intends to read Goswami’s short story with a feminist perspective and see how they occupy the peripherals of the society. Does she offer a counter narrative? These questions will be taken up further.

Research Paper

Originally titled as ’Xanskar’, ‘The Offspring’ is a landmark short story in Assamese Literature. It is authored by Assamese scholar and writer Indira Goswami. She used the pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami. Her works always created a social alarm crying for attention. Likewise, this particular short story highlights various issues; however, it would be scrutinized from a feminist lens.

What can I do? I had to live. They even stopped orders for sacred threads and puffed rice. They considered me impure, contaminated! And those tenants! They have turned thieves and don’t give me my share of paddy. They take advantage of my helplessness. In these circumstances, where should I have gone with my two tiny daughters? I have not paid the land revenue. The land, too will be auctioned off! What can I do? (5)

As a reader, one finds these two women come across as foils of each other. They are entangled in a complicated set up. Since Damayanti is a Brahmin woman, therefore she is superior to the Wife in the social hierarchy. By this logic, Damayanti should have been leading a privileged life.

Adverse to this is her dark reality. She is branded as a fallen woman while the Wife is the angel of her house. There are undercurrents of casteism in the whole story, then why does it not affect these two women? This is due to the gender politics at play. The Wife has a living husband (even though he has deserted her) while Damayanti is a widow. This difference between the two is the reason behind their dissimilar fates. The Wife suffers inside the home but her position is socially accepted by the outer world. Nonetheless, Damayanti is ridiculed by all the sections of the society. Thus, it again foregrounds how the Man is made the center of the woman’s universe and how his absence means crumbling of that universe. This shows woman remains vulnerable regardless of the caste she belongs to. They both are co sufferers at the hands of patriarchy. Gender here supersedes caste.

Furthermore, as the narrative progresses, kinships emerge between the two aforesaid women. Damayanti represents the body as illustrated below:

Her rain drenched clothes clung to her body. The color of her skin was like the dazzling foam of boiling sugarcane juice. Though her figure was rather simple, she was immensely attractive. (2)

Countering the imagery of the body is the Wife who symbolizes the mind. She keeps on absorbing what she sees around herself but does not mouth any utterances as mentioned above. She is an invalid and therefore in stark contrast to Damayanti. But her mind is active and one wonders how she feels at the betrayal of her husband. What goes on in her mind remains undisclosed. Thus, Damayanti and the Wife are perceived as two sides of the same coin. One symbolizing the mind where as the other stands for the body. The union of body and mind is the essence of human existence. Together they are part of a united whole.

More connections are forged as the story advances further. Acting as foils to each other, they became victims of dehumanization. It is exemplified from the following quote:

Her (Damayanti) blouse had stretched tight and was pulled up, revealing the white flesh which, to the two men, looked as tempting as the meat dressed and hung up on iron hooks in a butcher’s shop! (2).

Even his Wife is described as a “bundle of bones” (2). Another quote on the Wife is as follows:

He could even see her eyes, burning like those of an animal in a dark jungle, as if she were straining with all her might to catch what he was saying to her husband.

(3)

Thus, the women are stripped of any humanity as they are trivialized with such descriptions.

Goswami debunks the attitude of suck a society towards the women folk.

Furthermore, Silence has been used as a crucial technique in the execution of the story.

The citation above is a good example. Other instances are demonstrated below:

Damayanti looked back, her eyes opening wide with astonishment. But she did not reply….His wife’s eyes had followed him, expecting her medicine, but now she closed them wearily again. The fire in her eyes was extinguished, only the ashes remained. (4)

Are these silences deliberate? Or is one over thinking? Do they mean anything? As a reader, I found it to be symbolic of womanhood. Women have been long denied voice. History has been unfair to them. For many decades history was what men created or endured, but woman was nowhere to be found. The silence means their perspective remains in darkness and it is high time that it comes under spotlight. Also, this silence can be construed as their tacit resignation to fate, one as a reluctant whore while the other as a neglected disabled woman.

Nonetheless, these silences have also been used to censure the caste system. Damayanti immediately bathes herself after getting intimate with Mahajan. On being questioned by the priest, she remains still:

‘You never used to take a bath after sleeping with the Brahmin boy. What has happened now?’ Damayanti did not reply. ‘Eh! He is from the lower caste, is that it…?’ Damayanti still remained silent. ‘Ah! This is good news indeed! That man was yearning for a child.’ Damayanti still does not say a word. (6)

Thus, Goswami does not let the women go scot-free either. Damayanti is subjugated as she is a woman. But the author does not let the readers sympathize with her. Damayanti exercises very little power and uses it to her own convenience. Once taking money from Mahajan, she is the least bothered for his child in her womb or the Mahajan himself. She heartlessly goes and buries the unborn child behind her hutment. The episode of the fox digging out the limbs of the foetus points towards the utter inhumanity pervading the narrative and infecting the society as a whole. Everybody is exploiting each other for his own sake. People are busy gnawing at each other’s existence rupturing a hole in the societal fabric.

As the story approaches its culmination, one observes various inversions. Earlier, the story had voyeuristic shades through the male gaze. The men delightfully stared at the other sex. But gradually, the women embrace this role though it is devoid of any sexual innuendo:

His wife was staring at him. He stood still. The wide open eyes were like shining snakes in the dark (7).

The use of eyes evokes a very powerful imagery as it slowly takes over the narrative. Her eyes speak a thousand words as they prick at Mahajan’s existence. The Wife dies after the abovementioned account. Nevertheless, the transition to a female gaze is carried out by Damayanti. They observe the spectacle as mere onlookers:

They opened the window cautiously and looked out. They saw a man digging in the dim light of a lantern hung from a bamboo tree nearby (8).

Moreover, it is now Mahajan who does not speak and acquires newfound muteness as he digs the grave for his unborn child, “Pitambar looked up, but did not reply.” (9). Also, the buried boy child is now dehumanized like the women were before, “But he is just a lump of flesh, blood and mud! Stop it! Stop it!” (9). Thus, all the ideas put forth earlier are reversed. Goswami gives a powerful message through this. Subverting the male by the female is not the answer to the miseries suffered by womankind. Matriarchy will do no good as a substitute to patriarchy. But it is human nature to want power and seek hegemony over the ‘other’. Thus, it is a vicious circle which is difficult to escape. However, Goswami leaves it to the readers to choose.

Moreover, as one looks back, one finds that the writer has provided various breaking points in the storyline. For instance, the description of Damayanti is titillating. At the same time, there is a counter image of the naked bodies of her daughters. Another illustration is when Mahajan ogles at Damayanti and is lost in his fancies when suddenly she speaks, “Have you brought money?”(6). These occurrences show Goswami constantly jolting the reader from his reveries to come back to the reality. The purpose is to urge readers not to get soaked up in the aesthetic pleasure but take action against injustice. Thus, at a broader level, Goswami advocates a social transformation for all.

Bibliography

Goswami, Mamoni Raisom. “The Offspring”, 1999. 1-9. Print

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44. Web. 19 Apr, 2016

http://www.composingdigitalmedia.org/f15_mca/mca_reads/mulvey.pdf

Setu, November 2018

Folks on the Margins: Contextualizing Hira Bansode’s ‘Shabari’

Saloni Walia

M.Phil Research Scholar, Delhi University

Keywords: Dalit, Mahar, caste, gender, marginal, epic

Abstract

Belonging to the Mahar community, Hira Bansode is a name to be reckoned with in Marathi literature. She is considered a resonant voice in Dalit poetry. The selected piece of work is ‘Shabari’ which will be analyzed in the paper.

The myth of Shabari who is a tribal woman, finds little mention in Valmiki’s Ramayana. In lieu of serving her Guru for a lifetime, she is awarded with Rama’s blessing. As a token of reverence, she offers self-tasted berries to Lord Rama who despite being forbidden to eat them; obliges Shabari and shows his gratitude. She represents symbol of selfless devotion in the epic. Bansode questions this stance through her poem. Along with this, she takes up the injustice meted out to Sita for having been abandoned by Lord Rama. By talking about a tribal and Brahmin woman together, Bansode addresses the larger issue of feminism and how women belonging to different stratas of society and enduring different kinds of miseries are bound together with a common thread of ‘suffering’.

Transcending the borders of feminism, Bansode goes one step further when she discusses the predicament of Eklavya, the tribal prince who too was denied the privilege of education by the class conscious Dronacharya in the epic Mahabharata. The paper attempts to analyze these situations from the lens of various contemporary theories at length.

Research Paper

While Shabari was a Girijan (tribal), the poetess is a Harijan[1] (dalit). It seems she has fused these identities and views them as a collected representation of the marginalized section of the society. It is through Shabari that she has expressed her angst. By invoking the mythical Shabari, Bansode raises some very pertinent issues about caste and gender in the Indian context.

Bansode questions Shabari’s blind devotion to Rama through the lines “Was this fulfillment?” urging her to be assertive of her rights. She has a strong objection over her subservience. She hints towards the power dynamics at play propounded by the French philosopher and theorist Michel Foucault[2]. According to him, power works in binaries. The meek surrender of the ‘powerless’ instills power in the other. This is a way of urging the downtrodden to recognize their hidden power. This can be interpreted to be a scathing attack on casteism infecting the Indian society.

Moreover, through her poem, Bansode is also ridiculing religious scriptures who have propagated this difference. This discrimination took firm roots at the time of the compilation of Manu Smriti which infamously introduced the loathsome Varna System. Louis Althusser’s[3] theory of the Ideological State Apparatus also offers a possible explanation. Even though his theories were based on the classism prevalent in European societies, it feels apt to see its implication in a casteist society too. He argues how the dominant class used institutions like religion to exercise their authority over their subjects. She calls for the mind to be decolonized and do away with mental slavery.

Vyasa’s Mahabharata is another scripture which receives her ire. This text as well as Ramayana are the pillars of Hindu beliefs which are critiqued. The myth of Eklavya deserves a little space here. He belonged to the Bhil tribe of Nishadha kingdom and had a dire wish to learn the art of archery from the ace Guru Dronacharya. Since Eklavya was not royalty, he was snubbed and refused to be taken under his mentorship by Dronacharya. Saddedned by the rejection but still resolute to learn the craft, Eklavya makes an idol of his teacher. He takes blessings from this statue and begins his self-learning. When discovered by Drona who wanted to polish Arjuna as the superior most archer, he is dumbfounded at Eklavya’s mastery. In Gurudakshina[4], Drona asks for his thumb which Eklavya happily agrees to.

The poetess has equated Eklavya with Shabari as both belong to the underprivileged lot and were sidelined to the fringes. In addition, the figure of the teacher is also eyed with suspicion. Blind worship of any person is condemned. She goes on to question Ram:

Why didn’t you ask of omniscient Ram,

Who knows the past and the future

About the heart- rending sacrifice of Eklavya’s thumb?

Bansode uses an accusatory tone where she is not even sparing Shabari. If the oppressor is held responsible for committing atrocities, so is the oppressed who is not fighting back. Shabari is being reprimanded by the poetess for merely receiving his blessings. Is justice reserved only for the highly born? What about the common folks? The questions posed here forms the essence of Dalit writing in literature. It is the very backbone of the Dalit movement.

Furthermore, the poem can be put in a postmodern model too as it counter questions the genre of grand narratives. French philosopher and theorist Jean François Lyotard favours the need to step out of the perception set by such texts in his book The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979). The entire universe cannot revolve around the hero and his great journey. It is also about the untold histories that were never recorded or given any heed in the mainstream. She does not stop here:

Why didn’t you ask

About blameless Sita’s exile?

Where was his Dharma when he abandoned his wife? Ram’s justice is put under scrutiny. Here the battle of the sexes enters the scene. Patriarchy is severely censured. The construct of masculinity is demolished that demands loyalty from the wife but spares all the men. Why is not the same parameter set for the husband? Why doesn’t he have to give Agnipariksha? These questions are relevant in the contemporary context.

Moreover, it is noteworthy that Sita unlike Shabari was a high caste Hindu woman. She was the daughter of a Brahmin[5] adopted by King Janaka of Videha[6] whom he stumbled upon while ploughing a field. Sanskrit scholar of Marathi roots and a social reformer Pandita Ramabai ridicules the rigidities Manusmriti imposed on the higher caste women in her book The High Caste Hindu Woman (1888). They were kept away from education and those who were educated were mostly self-taught and homeschooled. She even described the life of a single woman, whether widowed or forsaken was an easy target for the society to malign.

Through Shabari and Sita, feminist angles are also explored. Their mention together in one poem calls for a unique sisterhood in resisting suppression. Birth into high caste makes life easy for a woman- this is a fallacy. Sita’s case proves it still does not assure social security. In this sense, all women are alike.

Thus, casteist, sexist and religious politics have been targeted by Hira Bansode in her radical poem ‘Shabari’. Her verses urge for the formation of a new canon which decentralizes Brahmanical focus in epics and makes way for ‘Marginal Narratives’.

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Monthly Review Press. 1971. pp.1-31,

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm, Accessed 3 Oct, 2018.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of a Prison. Penguin. 1976.

--------------------- History of Sexuality: The Will of Knowledge Volume I. Penguin. 1976.

Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press. 1979.

Saraswati, Pandita Ramabai. The High Caste Hindu Woman. Jas b. Rogers Printing Co: Philadelphia. 1888.

Endnotes

These nomenclatures were given by Mahatma Gandhi.
Foucault discusses his idea of power in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1976) and the first volume of History of Sexuality (1976).
French philosopher and theorist. His idea of Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) was discussed in his 1970 essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.
Graduation fee in English. In ancient times, the ‘Guru’ or the teacher was paid in lieu of the services offered by him to his ‘Shishya’ or student. This is for the education and guidance given by him to his disciple. The repayment could be in any form and the student had to oblige. It was a form of reverence towards the teacher.
It is contested. Though various myths are associated with her birth legend.
Ancient Hindu kingdom sprawling geographically from Bihar to Nepal.

Setu, October 2018

Where Do the Whites fit in?: Analyzing Nadine Gordimer’s novella The Late Bourgeois World

Saloni Walia

M.Phil Research Scholar, Delhi University

The ‘Watershed period’ spanning the decade of the 60s was a turbulent time in the politics of South Africa. To begin with, March 21, 1960 witnessed the Sharpeville Massacre killing thousands of black protestors at the hands of police officers. They had gathered to resist the Pass Laws that prohibited the free movement of natives in their land. It was mandatory to carry the pass books lest face imprisonment. When further mass demonstrations continued, the then Prime Minister Henrik Frensch Verwoerd who was also a white declared an emergency on 30^th March. This was followed by Cape Colony becoming a police state as the natives were forced to live in Bantustans (homelands). It functioned as an Ideological State Apparatus as propounded by Althusser in ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation’ used by the dominant white class to hegemonize the indigenous people. Subsequently, after a referendum was passed in October 1961, the country became a republic. Only whites enjoyed the privileges of enfranchisement and they voted for Verwoerd’s National Party that was extremely racist. Furthermore, the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) were banned on April 8, 1960 due to their involvement in anti- Apartheid activities. The South African Congress of Democrats (SACOD) which was a radical white leftist party and an alliance of ANC was also banned in 1962. Then arrived the year 1966 which proved to be a turning point in the South African politics. The country held its general elections where again Verwoerd’s National Party won and formed the government. However, later that year Venwoerd was assassinated. A general atmosphere of distrust lurked in the air. Suspects were imprisoned for extended periods without trials and the government was very severe. It was amidst this political turbulence which had become the everyday life of South Africa that Nobel Prize laureate Nadine Gordimer’s novella The Late Bourgeois World was published. As Gordimer writes:

The problems of my country did not set me writing, on the contrary it was learning to write that sent me falling, falling through the surface of the South African way of life (Tracy Chevalier’s Encyclopedia of the Essay, 351)

Gordimer’s quote is enough to get an idea of how murky the scenario was. Bans, censorship, imprisonments, detentions, assassinations and mass trials had become routine life. Moreover, the latter half of the decade saw the emergence of a ‘Black Consciousness Movement’ set in motion by events like the aforesaid Sharpeville Massacre. This movement helped organize blacks together and take pride in their “blackness” in addition to the fierce opposition to Apartheid. It put an end to the long silence that followed the banning of black political uprisings. As an after effect, white South African writers were also sidelined by blacks. It made Gordimer realize that the white identity was in jeopardy and was at crossroads. The whites born in South Africa now faced an identity crisis. It explains her decision to make Elizabeth (Liz), a white South African liberal as the central character of her novella amid this furore. Contrary to this, the publications that came out usually comprised of black protagonists. What made Gordimer anxious was the role a white person could play in the South African struggle. Being a white, Gordimer experienced this split which was the very part South African white identity- people who had European roots but an African soul. She even voices this schism in her essay ‘Where do Whites fit in?’(1959). She believes that the contribution of the whites, nevertheless of the racist situation cannot be denied. This particular stance of hers has annoyed many non white brethren. She has been censured by white community as well for not clearly siding with them either. While her refusal to adhere to blind orthodoxy of revolution alienated her from the ‘blacks’. This period was certainly a period of transition as the political situation was re-positioning the native ‘Other’ in the center while it was becoming traumatic to the white man. This flux can be juxtaposed in the text through the protagonist Liz who realizes how Luke, a black activist is trying out sexual strategies in the hope of enlisting her aid. Luke realizes that the spirit of ‘black consciousness’ which ousts the role of whites completely is impractical as they are very much integral to this crisis. Truth thus, in South Africa was not plain but a social and political construct. There were many truths co-existing with each other that needed to be acknowledged. It was high time for ‘Africa to come of age’ to blossom fully.

One would try to look at these ambiguities through the positions of various white characters of the novella. The story begins with the death of the white revolutionary Max Van Den Sandt whose idealism goes awry as he loses control over his personal and political life. According to Dean Scotty Mc Lennan’s essay ‘Finding meaning through Literature: Nadine Gordimer’s The Late Bourgeois World and Beyond’, he “turns witness against some black freedom fighters so he was disgraced in both the eyes of whites and blacks” (4). But being a white was Max correct in treading the revolutionary road? As his ex- wife Liz says:

If he failed, well, that’s better than making no attempt… some men live successfully in the world as it is, but they don’t have the courage even to fail at trying to change it.

Max is imprisoned for five years, beaten, reveals the names of black strugglers and is released from the prison but as a broken man. As Liz utters:

In his attempts to love, he even lost his self-respect in betrayal. He risked everything for them and lost everything. He gave his life in every way there is, and going down to the bed of the sea is the last.

But was it really worth it? Was it really ‘his’ struggle? Even on the personal front, Max proves a failure. He ignores his family for the ‘political good’. He starts having affairs- completely ignoring the focus of his life. He does not wish people to slip into ‘moral sclerosis’, but his own situation is not better. Was he not mad enough to be brave and wise for life? Did he lack the required will to carry out such a task?

This brings one to the title of the novella-‘The Late Bourgeois World’. It is derived from Austrian writer and journalist Ernst Fischer’s book The Necessity of Art (1963) which was “the Marxist critique of the alienated aestheticism that Fischer sees as symptomatic of the decay of community into fragmented individualism” (Postcolonial African Writers: A Bibliographical critical Sourcebook, 1998). This explains Max’s failure in the novella. He became too independent that he got isolated from the larger issue. He pursued the “I” and forgot the “We”. Fischer also argued for the original utility of art for collective transformation. What Max could not achieve, Gordimer passes this task to Liz. Gordimer “aspires to conceive of fitting aesthetic and political forms of responsibility out of the futureless despair of the mid 1960’s”.

The novella’s prominent activist Max belongs to the bourgeoisie but willingly becomes the revolutionary, thus blurring all class distinctions. He revolts the pseudo- political radicalism of his family first, by marrying out of class (as Liz’s father is a small shopkeeper) and then becoming a revolutionary. He starts out well but goes astray. He betrays his comrades to the state and takes his own life. Thus, Gordimer does not try to oppose Max’s revolutionary streak but his timidity and self-absorption leading to flirtations and thereby not achieving his goals has been questioned.

But again one comes back to the question- was Max really the culprit? Is accusing him solely justified? One cannot ignore the fact that being a ‘white’ and a ‘rebel’ together makes him a very rare combination to go against the norm in a white dominated country. As the novella progresses, one realizes that his alienation is not self-inflicted but also a result of his cultural identity. Apart from him and Liz, one does not find any white rebel in the entire story in the story. His racial identity any which way would have sown the seeds of mistrust among his black comrades some day. In addition, his loneliness in the mission also is significant in his downfall. Max’s situation can be compared to Richard’s position in Adichie’s Half of the Yellow Sun (2006) which is also set in the same time period. Richard being a white in Nigeria could not do much to improve the situation. When his loyal servant Ugwu questions him on why he did not complete writing the history of Nigeria; he replies, “It’s not my struggle”. Hence as the narrative wraps up, the readers find Ugwu writing the story of his people and the war as he jots down- “The World was silent when we Died”. Similarly, Max even though he sincerely wanted to bring a change in the racist attitude of the apartheid government could not do much. The reason being- it was not his struggle. Thus showing how the other whites like Max were alienated in the process.

In addition, the title might also be hinting towards the decadent phase of the bourgeois (The ‘Late’ Bourgeois World) suggesting a time period in South Africa spiraling into outdatedness which called for a change.

So what was the solution? As mentioned above, Gordimer tries to burden the incomplete task left by Max on his ex-wife Liz. One sees she also has to deal with her own set of problems. Like Max, she is not an active revolutionary but always played the shadow of her husband. A feminist reading of the novella by Marjorie L. DeVault in her essay ‘The Social Organization of Interpretation’ shows how Gordimer critiques Leftist groups through Liz. A division of labor that assigned leadership roles to males and support work to females emerged during the 1960’s as part of the development of the women’s movement. For instance, during Liz’s marriage, her husband Max was prominent in political circles but acted in erratic and undisciplined ways. Liz held to jobs to support their child and household and worked on ‘backroom stuff’ in their groups. Inspite of his irresponsibility and her real contributions, both thought of his activity as the important political work and of her role as being merely supportive. This highlights Liz’s isolation in the entire scenario- first of being a woman and then a white.

There are possibilities for me, certainly, but under what stones they do lie?

The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life

These lines penned by Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky have been used as epigraphs in the novella respectively. Sticking to Gordimer’s developing socialist convictions and with the titular allusion to Fischer, the probationary answer, instead of emerging from the realm of private morality assumes the form of economic redress. A black revolutionary, Luke Fokase implores Liz to find a bank account through which his organization can channel overseas funds undetected. Liz immediately dismisses the request and then is suddenly reminded of the possession she holds over the power of attorney of her senile grandmother. She lives in an institution surviving on the dividends of mining shares passed down through the family. The realization that the Apartheid laws survived on the exploitative economy of mining, Liz decides to use the authority over the account. This can be read as Liz’s effort towards bringing down the colonial empire in Africa. Thus, one sees how Liz’s action highlights the economic underpinnings of politics.

The epigraphs also addressed the role of Max. The reader understands the failure of weak- willed efforts which contributes nothing to the destabilization of apartheid ultimately driving Max to suicide. On the other hand, the epigraphs also point towards Liz as the options she faces can either remain insulated in her whiteness or can support the liberation cause. The reference to ‘liberalism’ brings this term to the spotlight. Liberalism is a political orientation that favours social progress by reform and by changing laws rather than by revolution. It places the ‘individual’ at the center stage. By this definition, Liz’s white advocate lover, Graham deserves mention here who practices restrained liberalism. As compared to Max, Graham stays in the parameters of the white society and works within the system to bring change. But one faces the question- Is Graham’s way worth it? Will it contribute any way to the freedom struggle? Just being a mere sympathizer and helping strugglers within the legal framework sufficient? Even Liz sometimes doubts him, “He lives white, but what’s the point of the gesture of living any other way?” Liz’s doubts are not baseless as liberalism in South African politics was ambiguous and contradictory. Various examples from history can support this argument. Thomas Priggle for instance, was an abolitionist and pioneer of free press identified with the African resistance to colonial subjugation. However, another renowned liberal, William Porter was an imperial political strategist and attorney general of Cape Colony. He was largely responsible for the 1853 Cape Constitution which was deliberately designed to encounter the weight of Africaner vote towards the freedom struggle by encouraging a compact among the propertied classes of all races. Porter and his supporters distrusted the poor Africans and coloreds. Some blacks who were propertied were co-opted by Porter in this strategy. Thus, one can see how liberalism in South Africa was painted by capitalist and political interests even though some were genuine like Priggle. Further, people like Priggle and in the novella Graham had stuck to reformist methods than revolutionary ones, and therefore had locked themselves into white South African politics. Thus, one observes how Liz swung between Max’s revolutionary idealism and Graham’s passive liberalism where both methods proved ineffective. Liz realized there was a gap between theory of reform and putting the same into action. There was a crack between Max’s revolutionary road and Graham’s liberal policy. Was it better to do something ineffectual like Max or do nothing at all? Or had the time come to combine the two? Elizabeth Gerver in her essay ‘Women Revolutionaries in the novels of Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing’ (1978) looks at Liz’s development towards serious revolutionary activity and “integration of public and private life” which can be compared to the character of Aila in Gordimer’s My Son’s Story (1990). Gerver further discusses how Liz’s decision to commit herself acting entirely on her own judgement gives a closing to the novel. Her risk of being discovered gives her an adrenaline rush too. It makes her feel alive along with giving meaning to her dull existence. Liz was like the bridge of transition South African between revolution and liberalism- a new kind of method which would make Africa “come of age”. Kenneth Parker in opines his essay ‘Nadine Gordimer and the Pitfalls of Liberalism’ (1978) Luke is a “representative of the new politics that rejects white involvement except for specific purposes” (as this idea was also mentioned above). Parker finds the end uncertain as Liz faces the dilemma:

I’ve been lying awake a long time now. There is no clock in the room since the red travelling clock that Bobo gave me went out of order, but the slow, even beats of my heart repeat to me, like a clock; afraid, alive, afraid, alive, afraid, alive…

The same lines reflect optimism for Gerver who thinks that Liz is gearing up for action. Thus, Gordimer can be viewed giving a solution to the then current political turmoil in South Africa. It was a time when white survivors found themselves in a vacuum as compared to the privileges enjoyed earlier. This period of changeover had begun where center of gravity of serious resistance to apartheid gradually shifted from a mixed middle class elite (Max) to young blacks of South African urban townships like Luke. Liz’s function was to bridge this gap by active involvement. Gordimer even voices a possible answer in her essay ‘Where do Whites Fit In?’(1959):

If one will always feel white first and African second, it would be better not to stay in Africa.

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. Harper Perennial, 2006

DeVault, L Marjorie. “The Social Organization of Interpretation”, American Journal of Sociology, Volume 95, No.4, 1990, pp. 887-921, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2780645.pdf?refreqid=excelsior %3A2923babc72c09bc5903e2a71adb9c4eb, Accessed 21 Sep, 2018.

Gerver, Elizabeth. “Women Revolutionaries in the novels of Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing”. World Literatures written in English, Vol. 17, Issue 1, 1978, pp. 38-50, https://doi.org/10.1080/17449857808588501, Accessed 21 Sep, 2018

Gordimer, Nadine. My Son’s Story. Penguin Books, 1990

“Where Do the Whites Fit In?”. Encyclopedia of the Essay. Edited by Tracy Chevalier. Taylor and Francis, pp 351, 1997

Lennan, Dean Scotty Mc. “Finding meaning through Literature: Nadine Gordimer’s The Late Bourgeois World and Beyond” http://www.africasacountry.com/thereisnoliberaltraditioninSouthAfrica.com

Nixon, Rob. “Nadine Gordimer.” British Writers Supplement 2, George Stade. New York, 1992

Parekh, Naidu Pushpa. Postcolonial African Writers: A Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press,1998.

Parker, Kenneth. “Nadine Gordimer and the Pitfalls of Liberalism”. The South African Novel in English.1978, pp. 114-21, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03689-9_7, Accessed 21 Sep, 2018.

Setu, September 2018

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