Daughters of Mother India in Search of a Nation: Women's Narratives about the Nation

Author(s): Jasbir Jain

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 17 (Apr. 29 - May 5, 2006), pp. 1654-
1660
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 Daughters of Mother India
in Search of a Nation
Women's Narratives about the Nation
The image of "Mother India " has often been used to represent the nation, but within this
image the relationship of women to the nation does not find a place. The question of where
a woman belongs is one that has many answers but these are hardly ever related to
nationhood. This article looks at how nation and nationhood have been defined in women's
writings in India. It attempts to explore this through two main themes: first, narratives of
partition, specifically those written by women across the border and second, the dominant
perceptions reflected in women's writings. At the same time, it questions the received
wisdom as to whether women's writing constitutes a separate category and if women do
indeed experience, perceive and relate differently than men to the world they live in.

JASBIR JAIN

had been in the making for three years. When released, it ran for
50 weeks in Mumbai, breaking all box-office records.4 Mrinalini
ne could perhaps go further back than Bankim Chandra
Sinha views the film as an implicit response to Katherine Mayo's
Chattopadhyaya's song 'Vande Mataram' for tracing the Mother India [see Roy 1998]. The three - Vande Mataram, Mayo
lineage of Bharat Mata and the veneration of the home- and Mehboob's film - in different ways intermingled religion,
land as mother goddess. But Vande Mataram is an adequate take-gender and nation construction to re-examine the underlying
off point as it falls right in the midst of a growing nationalism.
connections between masculinity, nation and religious identities.
Written in the early 1870s, it went on to be included in the novel
The opening scene of Mother India, even as the titles are being
Anand Math (1881), where the hymn is used as a war cry.displayed,It is the community's pressure on an aged woman to
was sung in the 1896 session of the Congress. Used as a slogan inaugurate the newly constructed dam. Tractors and other indi-
in the Swadeshi movement of 1905 [Bhattacharya 2003: 21], the cations of development are in the backdrop and form a contrast
song has been a continuous source of controversy and conflict to the more dominant image of the woman plouging the fields,
over the years. Translated and truncated, it has survived the many
an image placed at the centre of the film. This woman is Radha
onslaughts on it.but has all along run a parallel course both as
(Nargis), who had come to this village as a young bride and now
a divisive force (on grounds of the iconic image of the mother-lives in a state of near widowhood as her husband, after having
land), as well as a unifying force for militant groups.1 Vande lost an arm, has disappeared. Her two surviving sons Ramu and
Mataram and the image of India as the mother goddess has often Birju are contrasts in character with the elder mild and obedient
been projected through school enactments, printed maps and and cut-the younger fiery and rebellious. Birju is the one who, unable
out figures and has penetrated the subconscious of the nation. to tolerate the lecherous advances of the moneylender, kills him
It has also shaped the image of womanhood, an image basedand onis in turn killed by his own mother. This narrative of human
purity and fidelity, on a morality highly regulated by patriarchal
struggle is placed against the background of the changing eco-
power. Its impact on popular imagination was further enhanced nomic scenario and Nehruvian development. This nationalist
when in 1952, the novel was turned into a film.2 allegory makes woman's body, her sexuality vs asexuality and
Another history that needs to be taken into account is motherhood
the a central issue. Men are either attackers or failed
publication of Katherine Mayo's book, Mother India (1927), a
protectors, and when they succeed, the condition of their survival
work which opens with a description of the Kali temple andisthe
that they continue to adhere to the moral code for their women.
sacrifices performed there, before going on to focus on zenana
Struggle, sacrifice and self-denial are seen as a necessary part
hospitals, child marriages and child mothers and examining of
thewomanhood. Mother India works with multiple subtexts with
conditions of hygiene and health. This book was also contro-
the religious and moralistic films of the previous decades con-
versial for altogether different reasons but the two together
stituting a long line of inheritance.5
indicated opposite positions and Mayo's work led to a whole The living presence of the Sita myth is evident not only in
series of rebuttals, collection of evidence and defence statements.
the framing of woman as an ideal, virtuous 'pativrata', an image
Dhan Gopal Mukherjee also wrote a reply to it, A Son of Mother acknowledged by men and women alike even during the pre-
India Answers, referring mainly to the period 1927-1928.3partition period6 but also in the persisting image of 'agnipriksha'
in our own times. In 1976, the film Bhumika based on the life
Barely five years had passed after the filming of Anand Math
that Indian cinema threw up another epic saga Mother India (1957).
story ofHansa Wadekar, used posters of films such as Agnipriksha
A remake of Mehboob's earlier film Aurat (1940), Mother India as a backdrop. And in a commercial film of the late 1990s; Lajja,

1654 Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006

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the four women characters are all named after Sita - Janaki,
Maithali, Vaidehi and Ram Dulari - and the episode of agnipriksha
is enacted as an embedded play where the righteousness of this
purity test is contested by Janaki. In fact the whole film is a
critique of the Ramayana. The agnipriksha also constitutes a
powerful image in the earlier film, Mother India. Lajja, following
this tradition projects the arguments against this tradition in the
very same terms as used by the advocates of tradition, except
this time it is the male who is asked to offer proof.
The image of "Mother India" is used to represent the nation,
but within this image the relationship of women to the nation
does not find a place. Where a woman belongs is a question that
can have many answers, but hardly do we relate it to nationhood.
I would like to focus on this in the context of women's writing
in India. There is no way one can generalise about it, not because
they are all individuals, but also because languages carry their
own cultural environs with them. Therefore my exploration seeks
to address two main issues: the partition narratives more spe-
cifically those written by women across the border and the
dominant perception of women's writing.
II
The moment one perceives women's writing as a separate cat-
egory, the question arises - do women experience, perceive and
relate differently than men to the world they live in? Jaya Mitra
in 'The Other Voice: Women's Writing in India', asserts that
women's writing is "a departure from mainstream literary lan-
guage", the different range of experiences they go through
necessitate a different mode of expression (2005:186-87). There
is additionally the matter of positioning where one is located. I
would add that difference is not opposition but one rooted in the
individual being and underlies identity. As such individual women
are also different from each other and this difference rejects
essentialism and breaks away from an archetypal model. Women
writers themselves have been known to resent categorisations.
Mahasweta Devi has no apparent interest in feminism,7 having
submerged the identity in the larger category "human", and owns
to just being a writer, not a woman writer. Shashi Deshpande insists
that she is "a writer who happens" to be a woman,8 and not the
other way around. But with reference to her writing, she admits
it is feminist. Sahgal's larger concerns are with power relations.9
One could go on listing the different perspectives, but the need
is to admit the erasure implied in categorisation.10 Categorisation
also limits the reading frames readers may use or researchers work
through. The undue emphasis on gender difference creates fresh
stereotypes and leads male readers to adopt dismissive attitudes
at times. No longer is it the class or the culture of the reader that
is important but the gender perspective.1l The cases of Ismat
Chugtai (Chauth Ka Jaura) and of Mridula Garg (Chittacobra)
are reminders that censure and censorship in the case of women
writers are more often than not, related to sexuality. They have
to combat the initial marginalisation by male critics. By focusing
simultaneously on the "difference" and the relationship to the
"nation" the intention is to break through stereotyped reading.
Ill
In a total of about 63 stories in Stories About the Partition
between the past and present. Short, clipped sentences punctuate
[Bhalla 1999], only nine are by women authors. And out of the the narrative: "Exile is terrible" (p 51) "Keep walking. Always"
10 stories in Debjani Sengupta's collection Mapmaking, only two(p 54) "Life is difficult" (p 57). "I am Terrified" (p 62) "Seasons
Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006 1655
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are by women. Very likely women may not have written in such
abundance or their treatment of the partition may have been too
personal. Though a large number of stories in Stories About the
Partition are about women and children, about rape and abduction
and unwanted children, they do not represent the woman's
perspective. Manto's 'Open It' is not as much about the multiple
rape12 and abuse of the girl's body but the father's awareness
of her as his daughter, a living person and the celebration of the
fact that she is alive. Rajinder Singh Bedi's Lajwanti dwells
directly on the rehabilitation problem of abducted women, but
even as it critiques the moral framework of the puranas and the
shastras, it provides a psycho-study of the nature of masculinity.
Sunderlal finds parallels between Sita's abduction and the ab-
duction of women during Partition. In his mind the Sita of the
Ramayana and his wife Lajwanti coalesce into one identity. When
Lajwanti is brought back to India, he accepts her but the rela-
tionship is no longer the same. Henceforth she is a 'devi' to be
treated with care and tenderness, not a woman to be loved, beaten,
or treated normally. The rift between his conscious mind and
the unconscious one is unbridgeable. Is his acceptance a rejection
of the wife in her? Is it his guilt as a failed protector or the
awareness of his own inadequacy that has affected his behaviour?
The question as to where does a woman belong is not addressed
head on. The story 'Where Does She Belong?' is by a woman
writer and ironically enough, the list of contents in the one-
volume edition has inadvertently dropped the title of the story,
indirectly answering the question. She obviously does not belong
anywhere. Hence the erasure. The erasure is also because she
is a public woman. And as Haseena in Khushwant Singh's Train
to Paktstan had told Hukum Chand, the magistrate, "Singers are
neither Hindu nor Muslim in that way. All communities come
to hear me" (p 103), Munni Bai in Suraiya Qasim's story, is
Muslim for her Muslim lover and Hindu for the Hindu. Of
unknown parentage and uncertain lineage, her religion and
nationality are governed by her owners. When her lovers fail
her, it is the brothel keeper's known Hindu origin that brings
them to Delhi as refugees. Munni Bai's questions as to why they
have had to leave Lahore, what do they have to do with politics
and what have they gained, all remain unanswered.
Women's stories move away from power politics. They explore
the nature of belonging: how does one belong? Jameela Hashmi's
short story 'Exile' works with multiple discourses and several
refrains. The dominant frame is the abduction of Sita and the
nature of forced exile. The story opens with the beginning of
the Dussera festivities and works through the consciousness of
the nameless woman protagonist, a Muslim girl abducted during
the Partition riots. Memories of her arrival in the village, of
Gurpal's offering her as a handmaid to his grandmother, inter-
mingle with the continuity Qf the Dussera festivities, the burning
of the effigies, the glow ot fire, the swings in the fair, the setting
sun and the noise of the crowd. She recalls how she had been
brought to Sangraon amidst screams and lamenting, the reversal
of all kinds of marriage rites and silence instead of celebration
awaiting her. Further back are memories of her own childhood,
her brother's affection, her mother's love, her father's protection.
Then there are other separations like her brother's trip abroad.
Dreams, both conscious and unconscious, form a refrain in the
story (pp 51, 60, 63, 64, 66). There is a constant movement
change" (65). And then there is the world of birds and trees, of Sen. Also known as Master-da. We worship our motherland in
the bond between the tree and the earth, the roots that burrow the form of Maha Kali. Swords in a hundred hands. The blood
deep in the ground (p 51), of her own identification with a tree smeared head of the enemy! Intestines for garlands" (p 514). At
and of her home with a wilderness (p 54). The women singing this point Shanti Muzumdar is transformed into another woman
under the neem tree (p 65), and the constant references to the called 'Banglamata'. Her son calls her a goddess and tells her
change of seasons, all emphasise the persistence of roots. She to smile at his death and sing Vande Mataram. The region and
cannot go back even when the authorities come tracing her, for the language acquire greater importance than religion. But
suddenly she realises that besides everything else, she is also a Partition takes place: the country is divided and she is brought
mother and that too of a daughter (p 64). Her self-alienation is to India - a refugee: "If you tell me that this is not my country.
now complete: the body has been violated, dreams turned into I won't let myself die on this soil" (p 519). The question of
disillusionment and kinships snapped. A complete transformation nationhood remains unanswered: where does one belong and how
takes place, "My heart has become empty. I have become Lakshmi" does one belong? There is no direct route available to a woman.
(p 57). Trapped in the goddess image. It is ironical that the helplessness and rootlessness of women is
Lalithambika Antarjanam's two stories (in the same volume), ruled over by the image of a goddess.
work through metaphors of birth and motherhood. 'A Leaf in Jasodhara Bagchi, in a very perceptive article on Partition,
the Storm' is located in Punjab while 'Mother of Dhirendru 'Freedom in an Idiom of Loss', quotes from Tagore's poem and
Mujumdar' in Bengal. Jyoti, the protagonist of "A Leaf', is one refers to the vision of the goddess:
of the 50 women recovered from western Punjab. She is furious
with herself and the world at large, rejects food as she would A scimitar shines in your hand
And your left hand quells our fears
rather choose death than life. Pregnant with the unwanted child
Your eyes are tender and smiling
of rape, her anger has turned inwards. The doctor coaxes her
But your third eye scorches and sears
to eat, stressing the value of life and the human ability to endure.
0 mother, we cannot turn our eyes from you...
Accounts of her earlier self-assertion contrast sadly with her (translated by Chandreyee Niyogi)
present state as she withdraws into her sullen world. Babies are
born and babies also die or are killed. Guilt, crime, law - all Bagchi goes on to observe, "This extreme Hinduised form of
have been totally erased from their lives. And then a distinguishedthe three-eyed mother goddess made cultural nationalism a strong
visitor arrives, talks to them about the need for thtir social divisive force..." Further, the identification of chastity with honour
acceptance and advises them to think of their unborn children went on to make women 'potential victims' of communal con-
as the first citizens of a free India. And Jyoti thinks: "How ironicalflicts,13 defining nationhood through wifehood and motherhood.
...Are they citizens of Indian alone? That is, of India as we In Hyder' s story 'When the Prisoners Were Released, the Times
conceive of her today?" (p 167). Memories of the past crowd Had Changed', expansion rather than division is centre stage in
her mind, memories of her home, her childhood full of freedom, terms of both time and space. History is recounted from the pre-
the flight, the capture and the rape and they all come to rest now Partition days through the childhood of the narrator and Andamans
in the refugee camp where she is the prisoner of her body and are taken into its fold. The struggles and sacrifices of the freedom
of the unborn child. When the child is born, she abandons it,fighters are recalled. Andamans have now become a home for
only to come back and hold the baby to her breast. The childrefugees, a new home where they are trying to come terms with
is truly the citizen of free India, her own claim to the nationtheir dislocation. The narrative moves from the memory of the
legitimised through the child. childhood at Andamans, accounts of the island's history, its
There is a reference to an old woman in the story, mother ofBurma connections and its political prisoners to a visit to Dehradun,
nine and grandmother of 50. The authorial comment is, "She hasrecollections of Nehru, to the World Agricultural Fair in Delhi
indeed been.a mother to the whole village, to both Hindus andand back to Calcutta and the Lalit Kala Akademi. A mix of
Muslims" (p 162). This woman appears in a different context generations of rehabilitated refugees allows the narrative to
in Lalithambika Antarjanam's other story, 'The Mother of embrace the whole of India. She wants to tell the freedom fighter
Dhirendru Mujumdar'. She also has a parallel existence in Ismatshe meets at the exhibition of her longing to write the histor
Chugtai's 'Roots' with the difference that the refugee womanof India. In this story, there is a move from personal consciousne
(in 'A Leaf in the Storm'), has lost all her family while in 'Roots'to a national one.
the fleeing family is brought back. 'The Mother of Dhirendu
Mujumdar' is a first person narration in the voice of Shanti IV
Muzumdar, mother of nine children, of whom five were sacrificed
for India, four for Pakistan. In this manner she belongs to both Debjani Sengupta in 'An Afterword' to Mapmaking: Partition
the nations. Unwilling to leave, she has forcibly been broughtStories From the 2 Bengals,14 comments upon the difference in
to.India - as a refugee, as an outsider. Once again words fromthe situations of Bengal and Punjab. In Punjab there was a mass
Vande Mataram surface in the story, "The divine mother as exodus while in Bengal there was a steady trickling in of refugees.
Suphala, Sujala, Sansyashyamala - we brought up our childrenDifferences are reflected not only in the nature of the experience,
as we meditated on the thousands of dazzling swords that adornbut also in the response to it. Shared territories, shared languages
her many hands. We sacrificed them for her liberation.... Areand culture had formed a parallel on both the borders, yet there
they a part of your history?" (p 512). were differences. Perhaps these differences were there because
* Dhiren is a revolutionary and once he provides cover to theof the disparity in economic resources in Punjab and the different
leader of a terrorist organisation in his own home, disguised asconstruction of masculinity, or the different histories of dislo-
a sanyasin. Shanti Muzumdar finds out the truth only when the cations on the two borders. Sengupta observes that narratives
sanyasin is taking leave of them: "Forgive me mother, I am Suryaand films from Bengal focus more on the refugee consciousness15

1656 Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006

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and debate the notions of legitimacy and citizenship, the meaning
of identity and belonging. 16 There is a great deal that is submerged
in memories or even in memories pushed aside, deliberately
avoiding a direct confrontation with the nature of violence.
Ashis Nandy looks for an answer to the avoidance of writing
about the Partition violence by some of our leading intellectuals
and asks the question why this silence? Was it a deliberate effort
to start life anew and "contain bitterness, a way of repairing
community life, interpersonal trust and known moral world?"17
Guilt is another area of exploration in several Partition narratives.
While the women in their bewilderment ask how are they to be
blamed, the men reflect on their own role in it. Intizar Hussain's
'The City of Sorrow'18 is about this guilt, recognised through
the 'other'. Mukul Kesavan's novel Looking Through Glass19
looks at the question of guilt with reference to the national psyche
as does Nayantara Sahgal with reference to Indian positions
throughout the freedom struggle in Rich Like Us (1985) and
Lesser Breeds (2003). The compromises made by many of us
resulted in a half-hearted resistance, and in the supersession of
national concerns in favour of personal gain.20 Nandy's per-
ception that "memories of the Partition do not genuinely fit our
acquired concepts of nationalism, progress and the state", opens
out the space for reformations of the idea of the nation as well
as for introspection and reflections on actual experiences.
The journey from an exploration of violence to guilt has been
a long one, but there is need to imagine the nation outside the
limits of patriarchal control or the notion of a universal concept
applicable to all. The iconic figure of the mother goddess looms
so large, as to render the woman herself invisible or reduce her
to a sacrificial object. The refugee syndrome imprisons women
more than the men. In Ritvik Ghatak's film Megha Dhaka Tara,
the eldest daughter, the breadearner has to give up her plans to
marry and later, affected by tuberculosis, is abandoned to death.
Similarly, both Manik Bandhopadhaya in 'The Final Solution'
and Pratibha Basu in 'Flotsam and Jetsam' centralise prostitution
of the body as a possible way of surviving. Bandhopadhaya uses
the woman's agency to assassinate the exploiter (who is in
political terms an Indian and a Hindu), while Pratibha Basu
juxtaposes the gentleness of the Muslim neighbour with the
hypocrisy of the Hindu "saviour". The old woman is pushed to
her death from a driving vehicle. The first, a male writer's
perception, uses the Kali image, while the second projects a
woman duped into the final sacrifice.
The cross-border relationship is handled differently in Dibyendu
Patil's short story 'Alam's Own House'. Alam's journey to
Kolkata from across the border is full of uncertain expectations
and memories. For sometime Raka, the woman he loves, daughter
of a former family friend, has learnt to hide behind words. His
letters go unanswered and in her last letter she had written, "Like
everything else, there comes a moment of return. When that
moment slips away, it's impossible to ever be back" (59). Perhaps
Alam has missed that moment, perhaps there is no going back
to the past now that borders had separated them, now that it is
"us" and "them". The country of birth, motherland and nation
may not coincide. Alam is unable to come to terms with his
conflicting moods of celebration and uncertainty, his feeling of
homecoming and of rootlessness. The migration had been literally
forced on his father, as even the patients had begun to choose
their doctors on religious lines. No longer was a man member
of a community, or recognised for his own worth but branded
by the religious identity. Alam notices that his mother's favourite
Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006 1657
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tree is no longer outside the entrance of his former house and
the portrait of his great grandfather has been removed from its
place of importance. And as he is to find out a little later, there
is no room for him in Raka's life. She has opted out of the
relationship accusing him of wanting to uproot her. The wall
has dispossessed them. Uprooted once by this shift to Kolkata
from Dhaka, she is not ready for another dislocation. Even after
10 years, the family lives with the "refugeeness" of their past
(pp 84-86).
V
Male narratives locate events at the centre of the story -
incidents such as rape, escape, massacre - and when they move
to personal consciousness it is the loss of lineage, of land, of
power and of identity as in Intizar Husain' s "A Letter from India",
or a self as in 'The City of Sorrow' (Stories About the Partition).
There are also larger issues of human values. Women are either
absent or objectified as victims. Narratives by women writers
do carve a subjecthood through memory, perception, recall and
dream structures. They also constitute it through the body and
the act of giving birth. But more than this the narratives emphasise
the flow of life by comparisons with the world of nature. The
young adolescent girl in Attia Hosain's story, 'After the Storm',
recalls only the journey of escape from the camp and the journey
to the home of adoption. For the rest she is engaged in collecting
flowers and stringing them together. The desire to revive life is
apparent beyond the trauma and the amnesia. The Hindus protect
the mother goddess, the Muslims the ancestral graves, but women,
falling outside both these categories, begin to examine their own
rootedness. This process is strongly visible in Jameela Hashmi's
'Exile' and Lalithambika Antarjaman's 'The Mother of Dhirendu
Mujumdar'. And the consciousness of Raka, so sensitively explored
through Alam's own consciousness in 'Alam's Own House',
written by a man, is another narrative of rootedness. It is not
only men who are hurt, but women too feel the pain (p 85).
The meaning of Partition narratives emerges not merely from
their themes or the subject-object relationships, but from their
aesthetics, which move beyond 'realism' and realistic descrip-
tion. They reveal psyches and subconscious selves through
hallucinations, surrealism, images and aesthetics of space. They
unfold their meaning through the simultaneities they create with
memory recall, flow of history and individual response.
VI
Why is it that when theorisation of concepts takes place, gender
concerns are confined to feminist theory? In most other dis-
courses, theories are built on the writing of men or on the work
of political thinkers - Gandhi, Aurobindo and Vivekananda, or
nation construction on the basis of male discourse and narratives,
such as Midnight's Children, The Great Indian Novel or The
Shadow Lines. Sudhir Kakar in two of his basic texts, The Inner
World and Intimate Relations has very few references to the
writings or perspectives of women. And when present, they are
in secondary positions. The indices of the two books support my
statement. The Inner World uses western thinkers, bhakti poets,
myths and novelists. But contemporary writings by women are
absent. Bhuvaneshwari Devi appears as mother, Sister Nivedita
as Vivekananda's western disciple. Meera, the bhakti poet, is
absent. Rajinder Singh Bedi's Ek Chadar Maili Si is taken up
for analysis, no comparative narrative by a woman is juxtaposed. 'Draupadi' uses a myth in a different context, reverses it and
In Intimate Relations, Kasturba features as Gandhi's wife, Madeline raises it to archetypal heights to render it a critique of all power
Slade contains the references to Meera and films by male directors structures. Desai, as she moves from her early novels to Clear
are centre stage, whereas, women film directors deal with both Light of Day and In Custody, shifts her subjectivity to consider
childhood and sexuality as well. Why does this happen? Are we Partition and cross-religious relationship. Hindu-Muslim love
in a position to construct and accept discourses based on single- relationships have failed to reach the final stage in several novels.
gender perspectives? If not, there is need to examine the causes Clear Light of Day is one of the first to depict a crossing over.25
and the consequences of this separation. In Custody goes on to explore the loss of a language and the
Tentatively, one could say it is the submergence of these issues passing away of traditions of art. Krishna Sobti's radicalism
in body-society relationships: the centre staging of sex and moves from articulating sexuality in Mitro Marjani to write
sexuality as an area of primacy, and as a site where most con- ethnographic fiction in ZindagiNaima. Nayantara Sahgal 's political
testations take place and taboos are imposed; and also the way fiction is in itself an interpretation of history from a gender
women's writing is "read" and "framed". Of these three over- perspective. The practice of sati surfaces in its most heinous form
lapping causes, the first two have some justification in linear time in the politically motivated murder of Rose in Rich Like Us, a
scales, but the third (how women's writing is read), is both a novel of the time during emergency. Again Rani in Mistaken
limitation and an exclusion for creativity as well as for theory. Identity defies all taboos to imagine a secular nation. The re-
In brief, it contains creative imagination by a realistic, episodic ferences to other revolutions and political struggles taking else-
framework and overloads it with victim role models. Kundanika where in the world, expands the novel's scope beyond Rani's
Kapadia's Seven Steps in the Sky is one such novel.20 Beautifully imagination, and the young prince's spell in the jail cell as a
constructed, the novel turns the seven steps round the fire. suspected an revolutionary brings the whole of India into the na-
essential part of the Hindu marriage ceremony on their head, and rrative. In Lesser Breeds, Sahgal works through different meta-
turns them into seven steps towards freedom; space, relationships, phors - Nurullah the tutor, a Muslim orphan. born of a rape and
economic rights, desire, assertion and reciprocity. But as the Shan the young eight-year daughter of a freedom fighter. Nurullah
multiple subnarratives are enjoined together, an overcrowding is the observer-participant figure; it is Shan who is at the centre
takes place and the reader is left with a sense of repetitive of the novel. It is her education, her growing up, entry into
bombarding, a feeling which subtracts from the aesthetic enjoy- political life and death in an air crash that form the central theme.
ment submerging all other discourses.21 Again Alka Saroagi's It is through the interaction between the two that alternatives are
Shesh Kadambari22 fails to live up to its title and the promise discovered. The grown up man and the young child as they go
contained within it of narrative experimentation. By placing the for their afternoon walks attempt to discover different ways of
older women in a counselling centre and channel ising the nar- knowing, and of producing an alternate system of education, a
rative towards feminine activism, the novel disappoints the readers.
counter perspective to the history lessons that the nuns give her
In contrast Ashapurna Devi's Suvarnlata,23 the most powerful in the missionary school. Alternative epistemologies are an essential
route to self-discovery, recovery of a living tradition and a
volume of her trilogy, takes up a woman's life in the larger social
context of'child marriage, education, parental ties, joint family,
dismantling of the hegemonic constructs, which govern political,
freedom struggle, creativity and privacy and the conflict that social and gender relations. Shan's family is a truncated family
ensues is a powerful socio-psychological study. The novel also - father perpetually in jail, mother dead, grandmother old, a tutor
takes up the construction of masculinity against the same back-who himself is an orphan. Through the life of Shan, Sahgal works
drop and through the very same constructs of marriage, joint through different ideologies, cartographies- maps marking sinister
family, education, freedom struggle and privacy. divisions of human beings into the civilised and monsters and
Examples of the limits of monolithic discourse and of the highlighting mineral resources - international relations, trade
expansive range of feminist positions within feminism that policies
can and fairy tales. Lesser Breeds is the portrayal of a mother
liberate the protagonist from the victim syndrome or an observer/
India, very different from that of an oppressed figure or of a distant
asexual goddess, or an avenging Kali.
participant status without stepping into gender neutral territory
can be multiplied. The last takes into account the implied sepa-The mother figure is not always present and when present, is
ration when some writers disassociate themselves from feminism,
not necessarily close to the woman protagonist. Sonali, in Sahgal's
Rich Like Us is closer to her father than her mother, both
or assert that they are writers who happen to be women. The
ideologically and emotionally. Anita Desai's heroines also live
disassociation seeks to locate their writing in the open where their
in a motherless world or have hostile, indifferent and ailing
work is subjected to a more holistic analysis, where the liberation
mothers.26 Shashi Deshpande has a powerful portrayal of a
from patriarchal structures, interpretations and control do not end
in another captivity, hence the need to read women's writing negative mother-daughter relationship in The Dark Holds No
beyond stereotypes.24 Terrors. One could expand on this from other writings but the
indication is obvious - there is a psychological need to be free
VII of the burden of the all controlling, goddess-like, strong self-
sufficient mother. The mould of the mother awaits a young girl
Reading beyond stereotypes does not involve any falsification in her adulthood. The antagonism or hostility frees her to find
of reality or gender neutrality. In simple words it implies reading her "self', to prevent a complete submergence in the ideal, which
with an open mind and a dismantling of binary oppositions. is all pervasive in a woman's socio-moral environment and is
Women's writing is not necessarily about female consciousness deeply embedded in socialisation processes as well as in the
and body, or about relationships. It also looks at women-in-the- notion of acceptability and approval. Mrinalini Sinha in her essay
world. As such the mind and intellectual ideas as they arise from 'Reading Mother India: Empire, Nation and the Female Voice'
feminist experiences also get their place. Mahasweta Devi's (1994), has observed how women themselves participated in the

1658 Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006

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shaping of gendered subjectivities around the nationalist con- poignancy of the story where the man conquers his self, his
struct of Indian womanhood (p 34). upbringing, his limited sense of nationhood to experience a
Partition narratives of abduction and rape pose an altogether human emotion. But the girl,young and abandoned, is unable
different problem. They simultaneously challenge the traditional to transcend the fear of the religious other,which in this case is
notion of a virgin bride and the social unacceptability of a also the religious other, in her present state of trauma. Daughters
"despoiled" woman. By working on a counter narrative dealing of mother India have yet to work out terms of belonging that
with the freedom of sexuality and desire, women writers have encompass the whole self, the body as well as the mind. They
confronted the notion of guilt and have transcended it. Nayantara need to reinterpret the body and expand the notion of space to
Sahgal in an early novel, Storm in Chandigarh (1969), explores include history and identity. The self-in-the-world has to
the conflict arising out of a pre-marital love relationship that leads outgrow inherited constraints of traditional moulds in order to
the couple to divorce. In the novel itself Saroj, the heroine, thinks reinvent itself. [B1
about the sexual act and the nature of desire and about her own
Email: jainsjpl@sancharnet.in
enjoyment of it. A similar theme is explored by Shashi Deshpande
in Small Remedies, where Madhu's premarital friendship be-
comes the source of family dissension and drives her son away Notes
from an ever squabbling, ever unhappy home.27 Krishna Sobti
1 See Sabyasaachi Bhattacharya, Vcande Mataram: The Biography ofa Song
and Ismat Chugtai were amongst the early women writers to
25-27, and Tanika Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hitndu Nation, Permanent Black,
explore the nature of desire. When the abstract nature of desire Delhi, 2000.
is concretised through the body; it too is a partial recovery 2ofThe Encyclopaedia of Inldian Cinema (Revised ed, 2002) describes its
the self. This counter discourse interrogates the concept of guilt,director, Heman Gupta, as the "militant Bengali filmmaker" (p 325).
a guilt socially thrust on the woman but now resisted and tran- 3 The copyright in the Rupa reprint is dated 1922 but apparently there is
scended. some error here. More likely the date could be 1932.
4 See B D Garga 'The Feel of Good Earth', Cinema in Ilndia 3, (April-
What happens to the sense of guilt when women are raped and
June 1989). Also see Parama Roy Indian Traffic, 1998, Vistaar Publications,
are forced into prostitution?28 Who is guilty? Guilt is turned New Delhi, 1999).
inwards as we find in Lalithambika Antarjanam's 'A Leaf in a5 Draupadi (1931) Savitri (1933), Sati Sulochana (1934), Lavakusa (1934),
Storm', or is directed towards an unborn child. Trauma, insanity Ram Rajya (1943), Shakuntla (1943) Meera (1945) are only some of the
films that centralise myth, chastity and sexual abstinence and emphasise
and coma - all are offshoots of this guilt. Partition narratives
a strict moral code. Javed Akhtar in Talking Films is on record
have explored the guilt arising out of indulgence in brutal vio-
acknowledging the influence of Mother India and Ganga Jamuna on
lence. but have not probed the sense of guilt that may take birth Deewar (37), and the centrality of the mother image in Deewar (40).
in the rapist. Gurpal's character in Jamila Hashmi's 'Exile' is 6 Refer Sarojini's (probably a pen-name of Edattata Rugmini Amma) essay
not sufficiently explored, primarily because in his case, a pseudo- on "Womanliness" (Her-Self Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee
social approval has preceded the act. Guilt of an altogether Women, J Devika (ed), Kolkata: Stree, 2005. Also see Tagore's 1922
essay 'Woman and Home' in Creative Unity, (Madras, Macmillan), 1988.
different kind is evident in Sunderlal in Bedi's story 'Lajwanti',
Tagore links up woman with a cadence of restraint, necessary for the
but for the rest, the male perpetrators of crime do not experience production of poetry: "She has been an inspiration to man, guiding, most
guilt or even remorse. From this point of view, Pratibha Basu often unconsciously, his restless energy into an immense variety of
and Manik Bandhopadhaya both present a conflict-laden surren- creations in literature, art, music and religion. This is why, in India, woman

der of the women to prostitution but do not dwell on any intro- has been described as the symbol of Shakti, the creative power" (p 157).
7 A statement she has made often enough but my particular reference is
spection on part of the men. Why? Is the national construct of
to her address to the conference 'Women's Writing at the Turn of the-
morality a single-sex affair? Century', February 2000, organised by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.
Krishna Sobti's short story 'Where Is My Mother?' can be8 Refer Writing from the Margin, Penguin, New Delhi, 2003.
interpreted at several levels. Alok Bhalla categorises it as a story,9 Refer "Interview" with Jasbir Jain in Jasbir Jain's Nayantara Sahgal
which is communally charged, because it denies "the claim to (Revised Edition, Printwell, Jaipur, 1994).
10 Histories of literature (irrespective of the language) often tend to club
holiness of all religions" [Bhalla 1999: xxvi]. I would read it
them together under a section women's writing.
as a parallel account of male and female relationships to the11 This has been a long struggle where canon formation is concerned. When
nation. Bahadur Yunus Khan is fighting for creation of a new women write about socio-political issues they fall into universal categories
country and this demands sacrifice of the self. Even as he drives and hence their individual approach is submerged, when they write about
through this nightmare of violence and bloodshed, his heart goes women's experiences it is dismissed as trivial, domestic. confessional,
romantic or excessively bold.
out in compassion to the little girl lying unconscious on the
12 Sherry Chand, 'Manto's 'Open It': Engendering Partition Narrative',
roadside, her body torn by rape. He picks her up in order to save EPW. Vol XLI p 4. Also see Alok Bhalla' s 'Introduction' to Stories About
her. As she lay in his arms, a vision rose before his eyes, the the Partition. (p xxxiv).
13 Jasodhara Bagchi "Freedom in an Idiom of Loss", http://www.india-
eyes not of a murderer, but "of a man. full of veneration" as the
memory of his little sister Nooran comes to him. He overcomes seminar/2000. "This harping on abducted women as a central core of
nation-building is a pointer to the nation-community nexus. I notice in
his hatred for the kafir and pleads with the doctors to save her,
current discussions on women's rights and citizenship a tendency to put
claims her as his sister but the traumatised girl is unable to the community as a greater ally of women as against the nation stale posed
transcend that fear of the other (pp 433-39). What does this story as site of harsh surveillance".
tell us in terms of nation and womanhood? What does it say for 14 Kolkata : Srishti Publishers, 2003. Counter positions could be argued.
the relationship between the self and the other? While men In Punjab also there was a shared language and culture. But as a territory
open to constant invasions, the notion of masculinity has shaped itself
sacrifice the self for the nation, women are expected to hold on
differently. It is located in a more aggressive stance, while in Bengal
to the body. Their bodily self contains their whole self. The the longer period of British colonialism has resulted in an almost 'island'
relationship with the other is also perceived in limited terms of cultural situation.
religion and otherness of the gender. Bhalla has missed the 15 "...Partition is often seen in metaphysical terms.... A loss of a world rather

Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006 1659

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 than a loss related to prestige" (p 189). Sengupta comments on the growth Question', Recasting Women, Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds),
of a sub-genre called "colony fiction", which consists of narratives about Kali for Women, New Delhi.
'displacement and dispossession' (p 191). Chugtai, Ismat (1990): "Chauth Ka Jaura". Translated as "The Wedding
16 Jaya Mitra in 'The Other Voice', points out that the relation between Shroud". The Quilt and Others Stories, and translators Tahira Naqvi and
nation and the novel is more acute in the case of women's writing (p 185). S Syeda Hamid (eds), Kali for Women, New Delhi.
17 Nandy, 'Foreword' to Mapmaking. - (1999): 'Roots', Stories about the Partition.
18 For a detailed elaboration refer my yet unpublished paper, 'Hidden Depths, Desai, Anita (1980): Clear Light of Day, Allied, New Delhi.
Shifting Concerns: The Self-in-the-world' presented at a seminar on - (1984): In Custody, Heinemann, London.
'Writing the Self. February 22-24, 2006. Deshpande, Shashi (1983): Roots and Shadows, Sangam Books, Hyderabad.
19 Kesavan's unnamed hero falls back into memory, is adopted by a Muslim - (2000): Small Remedies, Viking/Penguin, New Delhi.
family of a Kashmiri Hindu, Ganju, who had converted to Islam. Later, - (1980): The Dark Holds No Terrors, Penguin, New Delhi.
the protagonist, in order to identify himself with the family undergoes - (2003): Writing From the Margin and Other Essays, Penguin, New Delhi.
a circumcision and moves with them to the refugee camp. Devi, Ashapurna (1979): Suvurnlata, Translated from Bengali to Hindi by
20 The novel looks within, and asks the question: Were we flawed? How Hanskumar Tiwari, Bhartiya Jnanpith Prakashan, New Delhi.
much of the responsibility for being colonised rests with us? Devi, Mahasweta (1990): 'Draupadi', Translated by Gayatri Spivak in Bashai
21 Kapadia's novel was serialised in a Gujarati monthly Janmabhoomi Tudu, Thema, Calcutta.
Pravasi in 1982, amidst several kinds of protests. Devika, J (ed) (2005): Her-Self: Early Writings on Gender by Malayalee
22 I turned to the novel with great expectations, specially as Kali Katha Via Woman, Stree, Kolkata.
By-pass had impressed me, but the novel read more like a feminist tract, Garga, B D (1989): 'The Feel of Good Earth'. Cinema in India 3, April-
23 It is the middle volume of a trilogy, and in terms of feminist issues, the June.
strongest. The first, Pratham Prathisruthi, depicts a woman who leaves Garg, Mridula (1979): Chittacobra, Translated into English from Hindi by
her husband in protest and turns an ascetic, the third Bakul Katha is about the author, Books Indian International, New Delhi.
Survurnlata's daughter, who remains unmarried, becomes a successful Hashmi, Jameela (1999): 'Exile', Translated by Alok Bhalla in Stories about
writer, and is caught up in dependency on her brother. Marriage and the Partition.
freedom do not seem to be coming together. For that matter, success also Hosain, Attia (1999): 'After the Storm', Stories about the Partition.
does not bring her freedom. Husain, Intizar (1999): 'A Letter From India', Stories about the Partition.
24 Forexample, a major undercurrent in Jameela Hashmi' s "Exile" is Gurpal's
- (1999): 'The City of Sorrow', Stories about the Partition.
role. Gurpal is not to be dismissed merely as an abductor. He doesn't
Hyder, Qurratulain (1999): 'When the Prisoners Were Released, the Times
rape and abandon her. Instead he wishes to give her a social legitimacy, had Changed', Stories about the Partition.
even if not a religious one. The title of 'Bahu' is an acceptance, the children
Jain, Jasbir (1994): Nayantara Sahgal, Printwell, Jaipur.
are a relationship and his constant harping on children's getting lost in Kabir, Nasreen Munni (1999): Talking Films: Con versatiolnson Hindi Cilnemn
village fairs is an unconscious fear, a reflection on his own behaviour, with Javed Akhtar, OUP, New Delhi.
a possessiveness about his children - a silent parallel to Bahu's memories
Kakar. Sudhir(1989): Intimnate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality, Penguin,
of her paternal home. The transformation from Sita into Lakshmi is to New Delhi.
be placed within a double perspective - the woman's and the mother-
- (1981): The Inner World: A Psychoanalytical Study of Childhood and
in-law's. While for the first it is a captivity within a stony-eyed existence,
Society in India. OUP, New Delhi.
for the mother-in-law a final acceptance of the bahu as Lakshmi. And
Kapadia, Kundunika (1994): Seven Steps in the Sky, Translated from Gujarati
for the reader it is the metamorphosis of Sita, the exile, into Lakshmi,
original by Kunjbala and William Anthony, Navbharat Sahitya Mandir,
the symbol of the family's well-being. Mumbai.
25 These relationships feature in several novels and need to be explored
Kesavan, Mukul (1995): Looking Through Glass, Ravi Dayal Publishers,
further. Attia Hosain's Sunlight on a Broken Column, Manzoor Ehtesham's
Delhi.
Sookha Bargad, Yaspal' s Jhoota Such, Mumtaz Shah Nawaz' s (a Pakistani
Manto, Saadat Hasan (1999): 'Open It', Stories about the Partition.
writer) The Heart Divided, Kartar Singh Duggal's Mitti Musalman Di
Mayo, Katherine (1927): Mother India, Jonathan Cape, London.
are only some of the novels where love does not result in marriage.
Mitra, Jaya (2005): 'The Other Voice: Women's Writing in India', Narrating
26 In Cry, The Peacock, Maya is motherless, in Voices in the City the mother
Indian: The Novel in Search of a Nation, (ed) E V Ramakrishnan, Sahitya
is hostile and egoistic, in Where Shall We Go This Summer? she has eloped
Akademi, New Delhi.
and in Clear Light of Day she is bedridden.
Mukerji, Dhan Gopal (1922): A Son of Mother India Answers. Rupa and Cc,
27 Roots and Shadows (1983), explores a willed relationship of adultery New Delhi.
without any burden of guilt. It moves away from the normal gender
Nandy, Ashis (2003): 'Foreword', Mapmnaking : Partition Stories from 2
equations.
Bengals, Debjani Sengupta, Srishti Publishers, Kolkata.
28 In Pratibha Basu and Manik Bandhopadhaya's stories in Mapmaking.
Palit, Dibyendu (2003): 'Alam's Own House', Mapmaking, Srishti Publishers,
Kolkata.
References Qasim, Suraiya (1999): 'Where Did She Belong?', Stories about the Partition.
Rajadhyaksha, Ashish and Paul Willemen (eds) (1994): The EncyclopaediL
Antarjanam, Lalithambika (1999): 'A Leaf in the Storm', Stories about the of Indian Cinema, New Revised Edition, OUP, New Delhi.
Partition of India, Alok Bhalla (ed) (in 3 volumes 1994), Harper Collins,
Roy, Parama (1998): Indian Traffic, Vistaar Publications, New Delhi.
New Delhi, (in one volume). Sahgal, Nayantara (1978): 'Interview with Jasbir Jain' in Nayantara Sahgal,
- (1999): 'The Mother of Dhirendu Mujumdar', Stories about the Partition. Printwell, Jaipur.
Bagchi, Jasodhara (2002): 'Freedom in an Idiom of Loss', http://www.india-- (2003): Lesser Breeds, Harper Collins, New Delhi.
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Bandopadhyay, Manik (2003): 'The Final Solution', Mapmaking, (ed) Debjani
- (1985): Rich Like Us, Heinemann, London.
Sengupta, Srishti Publishers, Kolkata. - (1969): Storm in Chandigarh, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi.
Basu. Pratibha (2003): 'Flotsam and Jetsam', Mapmaking. Sarkar, Tanika (2000): Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation, Permanent Black, Delhi.
Bedi, Rajinder Singh (1999): 'Lajwanti', Stories About The Partition.
Saroagi, Alka (2001): Shesh Kadambari, Rajkamal Prakashan.
Bhalla, Alok (ed) (1999): Stories about the Partition ofIndia, Harper Collins,
Sengupta, Debjani (2003): 'Afterword', Mapmaking, (ed) Debjani Sengupta,
New Delhi. Srishti Publishers, Kolkata.
Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi (2003): Vande Mataram: The Biography ofa Song, Singh, Khushwant (1956): Train to Pakistan, Times Books International,
Penguin, New Delhi. New Delhi.
Chand, Sarvar V Sherry (2006): 'Manto's 'Open It': Engendering Partition
Sobti, Krishna (1999): 'Where is My Mother?', Stories about the Partition
Narratives', EPW, Vol XLI, No 4, January 26. Tagore, Rabindranath (1922): 'Woman and Home' Creative Unity, Macmillan,
Chatterjee. Partha (1989): 'The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Madras.

1660 Economic and Political Weekly April 29, 2006

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