Daughters of Mother India in Search of a Nation: Women's Narratives about the Nation Author(s): Jasbir Jain Source: Economicand Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 17 (Apr. 29 - May 5, 2006), pp. 1654-1660 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418143 . Accessed: 11/04/2013 04:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 115.111.184.44 on Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the framing of woman as an ideal. is the community's pressure on an aged woman to was sung in the 1896 session of the Congress.3 partitionperiod6but also in the persisting image of 'agnipriksha' Barely five years had passed after the filming of Anand Math in our own times. it ran for 50 weeks in Mumbai.collection of evidence and defence statements.used posters of films such as Agnipriksha A remake of Mehboob's earlier film Aurat (1940). unable out figures and has penetrated the subconscious of the nation. on a morality highly regulated by patriarchal struggle is placed against the background of the changing ecopower. an image Dhan Gopal Mukherjee also wrote a reply to it. 2006 This content downloaded from 115. story ofHansa Wadekar. the condition of their survival work which opens with a description of the Kali temple and the is that they continue to adhere to the moral code for their women. Birju is the one who. This woman is Radha onslaughts on it. printedmaps and cut. it went on to be included in the novel The opening scene of Mother India. the dominant perceptions reflected in women's writings. kills him It has also shaped the image of womanhood. Lajja. narratives of partition. but within this image the relationship of women to the nation does not find a place.it has survived the many an image placed at the centre of the film. It attempts to explore this through two main themes:first. This book was also contro. sacrifices performed there.but has all along run a parallel course both as (Nargis).111. JASBIR JAIN had been in the making for three years.Mayo lineage of Bharat Mata and the veneration of the home.1 Vande lost an arm. Her two surviving sons Ramu and Mataramand 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.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.gender and nation construction to re-examine the underlying off point as it falls right in the midst of a growing nationalism. her sexuality vs asexuality and Another history that needs to be taken into account is the motherhood a central issue. 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. before going on to focus on zenana Struggle. sacrifice and self-denial are seen as a necessary part hospitals. When released.lives in a state of near widowhood as her husband. And in a commercial film of the late 1990s. Tractors and other indiin the Swadeshi movement of 1905 [Bhattacharya2003: 21]. the novel was turned into a film. over the years. where the hymn is used as a war cry. who had come to this village as a young bride and now a divisive force (on grounds of the iconic image of the mother.Daughters of Mother India in Search of a Nation Women's Narratives about the Nation The image of "MotherIndia" has often been used to represent the nation. This narrativeof human purity and fidelity. This nationalist when in 1952. It displayed. A Son of Mother acknowledged by men and women alike even during the preIndia Answers.and Mehboob's film . In 1976.4Mrinalini ne could perhaps go further back than Bankim Chandra Sinha views the film as an implicit response to KatherineMayo's Chattopadhyaya's song 'Vande Mataram' for tracing the Mother India [see Roy 1998]. a protectors.and the younger fiery and rebellious. The question of where a woman belongs is one that has many answers but these are hardly ever related to nationhood. Mother India (1927). child marriages and child mothers and examining the of womanhood. Mother India as a backdrop.the religious and moralistic films of the previous decades conversial for altogether different reasons but the two together stituting a long line of inheritance. Mother India works with multiple subtexts with conditions of hygiene and health. it questions the received wisdom as to whether women's writing constitutes a separate category and if women do indeed experience. perceive and relate differentlythan men to the world they live in. 1654 Economic and Political Weekly April 29.184. the film Bhumika based on the life thatIndiancinema threwup anotherepic saga MotherIndia (1957). Used as a slogan inaugurate the newly constructed dam. breaking all box-office records. nation and religious identities. virtuous 'pativrata'. as well as a unifying force for militant groups. even as the titles are being Anand Math (1881). But Vande Mataramis an adequate take. connections between masculinity. referring mainly to the period 1927-1928.in different ways intermingled religion. Men are either attackers or failed publication of Katherine Mayo's book. This article looks at how nation and nationhood have been defined in women's writings in India. land as mother goddess. an image based on and is in turn killed by his own mother.2 allegory makes woman's body. At the same time. after having land). 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions .44 on Thu.Vande Mataram. Written in the early 1870s. specifically those written by women across the border and second.and when they succeed. to tolerate the lecherous advances of the moneylender. has disappeared. Translatedand truncated. The three. Its impact on popular imagination was furtherenhanced nomic scenario and Nehruvian development. 10Categorisation nature of forced exile. the question arises . except this time it is the male who is asked to offer proof. Lajja. 2006 1655 This content downloaded from 115. 63.Janaki. Sunderlal finds parallels between Sita's abduction and the abduction of women during Partition. The erasure is also because she guage".44 on Thu. her. Henceforth she is a 'devi' to be treatedwith care and tenderness. related to sexuality. Women nationality are governed by her owners. The rift between his conscious mind and the unconscious one is unbridgeable. the burning Chugtai (Chauth Ka Jaura) and of Mridula Garg (Chittacobra) of the effigies. a Muslim girl abducted during stereotypes and leads male readers to adopt dismissive attitudes the Partition riots.and owns have had to leave Lahore. All communities come would add that difference is not opposition but one rooted in the to hear me" (p 103).Shashi Deshpandeinsists and what have they gained. beaten.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? II The question as to where does a woman belong is not addressed The moment one perceives women's writing as a separatecat. The story 'Where Does She Belong?' is by a woman egory.7 having them to Delhi as refugees. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . her brother's affection. what do they have to do with politics to just being a writer. but even as it critiques the moral framework of the puranas and the shastras. the different range of experiences they go through is a public woman. or treated normally. I would like to focus on this in the context of women's writing in India. the magistrate. Mother India. all remain unanswered. Therefore my exploration seeks to address two main issues: the partition narratives more specifically those written by women across the border and the dominant perception of women's writing. a living person and the celebration of the fact that she is alive. but the need refrains. I neither Hindu nor Muslim in that way. "Singers are is additionally the matter of positioning where one is located. of at times. She obviously does not belong women's writing is "a departurefrom mainstream literary lan. her father's protection. As such individual women Muslim for her Muslim lover and Hindu for the Hindu. in 'The Other Voice: Women's Writing in India'.are by women. By focusing of all kinds of marriage rites and silence instead of celebration simultaneously on the "difference" and the relationship to the awaiting her. but also because languages carry their own culturalenvirons with them. Furtherback are memories of her own childhood. "nation"the intention is to break through stereotyped reading. he accepts her but the relationship is no longer the same.1l The cases of Ismat mingle with the continuity Qfthe Dussera festivities. Maithali. that she is "a writer who happens" to be a woman. And as Haseena in Khushwant Singh's Train necessitate a different mode of expression (2005:186-87). she admits the natureof belonging: how does one belong? Jameela Hashmi's it is feminist. And out of the the narrative:"Exile is terrible"(p 51) "Keep walking. Vaidehi and RamDulari.do women experience. Munni Bai in Suraiya Qasim's story.only two (p 54) "Life is difficult" (p 57). about rapeand abduction and unwanted children. The story opens with the beginning of also limits the readingframes readersmay use or researcherswork the Dussera festivities and works through the consciousness of through. both conscious and unconscious. Where a woman belongs is a question that can have many answers. the swings in the fair. The agnipriksha also constitutes a powerful image in the earlierfilm. her mother's love. There is no way one can generalise about it. perceive and writer and ironically enough. 64. Though a large number of stories in Stories About the Partition are aboutwomen andchildren.not a woman writer. Sahgal's larger concerns are with power relations. following this tradition projects the arguments against this tradition in the very same terms as used by the advocates of tradition. they do not represent the woman's perspective. But with reference to her writing.head on. 66). She recalls how she had been writers are more often than not. the glow ot fire. Always" 10 stories in Debjani Sengupta's collection Mapmaking. They have brought to Sangraon amidst screams and lamenting. the setting are remindersthat censure and censorship in the case of women sun and the noise of the crowd.111. it provides a psycho-study of the natureof masculinity. They explore other way around. but hardly do we relate it to nationhood. There to Paktstan had told Hukum Chand. interis important but the gender perspective. Manto's 'Open It' is not as much about the multiple rape12and abuse of the girl's body but the father's awareness of her as his daughter. Rajinder Singh Bedi's Lajwanti dwells directly on the rehabilitation problem of abducted women. Ill Dreams. is individualbeing and underliesidentity. not because they are all individuals. the list of contents in the onerelate differently than men to the world they live in? Jaya Mitra volume edition has inadvertently dropped the title of the story. form a refrain in the story (pp 51. not a woman to be loved. When her lovers fail writers themselves have been known to resent categorisations. her religion and essentialism and breaks away from an archetypalmodel. The undue emphasis on gender difference creates fresh the nameless woman protagonist. Short. When Lajwanti is brought back to India. the reversal to combat the initial marginalisationby male critics. There is a constant movement In a total of about 63 stories in Stories About the Partition between the past and present. Memories of her arrival in the village. In his mind the Sita of the Ramayana and his wife Lajwanticoalesce into one identity. No longer is it the class or the culture of the readerthat Gurpal's offering her as a handmaid to his grandmother.andthe episode of agnipriksha is enacted as an embedded play where the righteousness of this purity test is contested by Janaki. only nine are by women authors. Economic and Political Weekly April 29.184. Hence the erasure.8 and not the Women's stories move away from power politics.anywhere. 60. asserts that indirectly answering the question. 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. Of are also different from each other and this difference rejects unknown parentage and uncertain lineage. In fact the whole film is a critique of the Ramayana. "I am Terrified" (p 62) "Seasons the four women characters are all named after Sita .9 short story 'Exile' works with multiple discourses and several One could go on listing the different perspectives. The dominant frame is the abduction of Sita and the is to admit the erasureimplied in categorisation. it is the brothel keeper's known Hindu origin that brings Mahasweta Devi has no apparent interest in feminism. Munni Bai's questions as to why they submerged the identity in the largercategory "human". Very likely women may not have written in such abundance or their treatment of the partition may have been too personal. clipped sentences punctuate [Bhalla 1999]. Then there are other separations like her brother's trip abroad. there is a move from personal consciousness to a national one.a mother to the whole village. LalithambikaAntarjanam's two stories (in the same volume).. Pregnant with the unwanted child of rape. A complete transformation takesplace. But Partition takes place: the country is divided and she is brought to India .184.13 defining nationhood through wifehood and motherhood. she is also a mother and that too of a daughter (p 64). her anger has turned inwards. "This extreme Hinduised form of the three-eyed mothergoddess made culturalnationalism a strong divisive force. When the child is born.shared languages and culture had formed a parallel on both the borders. stressing the value of life and the human ability to endure. Memories of the past crowd her mind. of the bond between the tree and the earth. It is ironical that the helplessness and rootlessness of women is ruled over by the image of a goddess. she has forcibly been brought to. Sujala. Sansyashyamala . There is a reference to an old woman in the story. of India as we conceive of her today?" (p 167). She also has a parallel existence in Ismat Chugtai's 'Roots' with the difference that the refugee woman (in 'A Leaf in the Storm'). Babies are born and babies also die or are killed. a new home where they are trying to come terms with their dislocation.. Sengupta observes that narratives and films from Bengal focus more on the refugee consciousness15 1656 Economic and Political Weekly April 29. 'Freedom in an Idiom of Loss'. to both Hindus and Muslims" (p 162). Shanti Muzumdar finds out the truth only when the sanyasin is taking leave of them: "Forgive me mother. crime. all emphasise the persistence of roots. 'The Mother of Dhirendu Mujumdar' is a first person narration in the voice of Shanti Muzumdar. The authorial comment is.44 on Thu. for suddenly she realises that besides everything else. of her own identification with a tree and of her home with a wilderness (p 54).motherof nine children. She is furious with herself and the world at large. has lost all her family while in 'Roots' the fleeing family is brought back. Differences are reflected not only in the natureof the experience. And then a distinguished visitor arrives. The women singing under the neem tree (p 65). 2006 This content downloaded from 115.the identificationof chastity with honour went on to make women 'potential victims' of communal conflicts. the flight.Are they citizens of Indian alone? That is. and the constant references to the change of seasons. The struggles and sacrifices of the freedom fighters are recalled. Unwilling to leave. 'The Mother of DhirendruMujumdar'. Swords in a hundred hands.14 comments upon the difference in the situations of Bengal and Punjab. the Times Had Changed'. The child is truly the citizen of free India. rejects food as she would ratherchoose death than life. "Myhearthas become empty. We sacrificed them for her liberation. as an outsider. The question of nationhood remains unanswered:where does one belong and how does one belong? There is no direct route available to a woman. talks to them about the need for thtir social acceptance and advises them to think of their unborn children as the first citizens of a free India. She wants to tell the freedom fighter she meets at the exhibition of her longing to write the history of India. only to come back and hold the baby to her breast. The blood smeared head of the enemy! Intestines for garlands" (p 514). work through metaphors of birth and motherhood. the protagonist of "A Leaf'.all have been totally erased from their lives.. "The divine mother as Suphala...change" (65). The narrative moves from the memory of the childhood at Andamans. four for Pakistan. In this manner she belongs to both the nations.as a refugee. we cannot turn our eyes from you. or the different histories of dislocations on the two borders. The doctor coaxes her to eat. History is recounted from the prePartitiondays throughthe childhood of the narrator andAndamans are taken into its fold. Jyoti. Accounts of her earlier self-assertion contrast sadly with her present state as she withdraws into her sullen world. its Burmaconnections andits political prisonersto a visit to Dehradun.a refugee: "If you tell me that this is not my country. law . her childhood full of freedom. In this story. the roots that burrow deep in the ground (p 51). mother of nine and grandmotherof 50.. At this point Shanti Muzumdar is transformed into another woman called 'Banglamata'. In Hyder's story 'When the PrisonersWere Released. In Punjab there was a mass exodus while in Bengal there was a steady trickling in of refugees. she abandons it. accounts of the island's history. her own claim to the nation legitimised through the child. The region and the language acquire greater importance than religion. dreams turned into disillusionment andkinships snapped. yet there were differences.111. to the World Agricultural Fair in Delhi and back to Calcutta and the Lalit Kala Akademi. (translatedby ChandreyeeNiyogi) Bagchi goes on to observe. IV Debjani Sengupta in 'An Afterword' to Mapmaking: Partition Stories From the 2 Bengals. in a very perceptive article on Partition. Trapped in the goddess image. 'A Leaf in the Storm' is located in Punjab while 'Mother of Dhirendru Mujumdar' in Bengal. quotes from Tagore's poem and refers to the vision of the goddess: A scimitar shines in your hand And your left hand quells our fears Your eyes are tender and smiling But your third eye scorches and sears 0 mother. I have become Lakshmi" (p 57). A mix of generations of rehabilitated refugees allows the narrative to embrace the whole of India.. expansion ratherthan division is centre stage in terms of both time and space. Once again words from Vande Mataram surface in the story. memories of her home. the capture and the rape and they all come to rest now in the refugee camp where she is the prisoner of her body and of the unborn child. Her son calls her a goddess and tells her to smile at his death and sing Vande Mataram. Guilt. This woman appears in a different context in Lalithambika Antarjanam's other story.we brought up our children as we meditated on the thousands of dazzling swords that adorn her many hands. And Jyoti thinks: "How ironical . I am Surya Sen. Shared territories. Andamans have now become a home for refugees. "She has indeed been. And then there is the world of birds and trees. Are they a part of your history?" (p 512). Her self-alienation is now complete: the body has been violated. She cannot go back even when the authorities come tracing her. disguised as a sanyasin. Perhaps these differences were there because of the disparity in economic resources in Punjaband the different construction of masculinity. I won't let myself die on this soil" (p 519). recollections of Nehru. Jasodhara Bagchi." Further. is one of the 50 women recovered from western Punjab.. but also in the response to it. Also known as Master-da. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . We worship our motherland in the form of Maha Kali..India . * Dhiren is a revolutionary and once he provides cover to the leader of a terrorist organisation in his own home. of whom five were sacrificed for India. This process is strongly visible in Jameela Hashmi's 'Exile' and LalithambikaAntarjaman's 'The Mother of Dhirendu Mujumdar'. The Hindus protect the mothergoddess. escape. it's impossible to ever be back" (59). there is no room for him in Raka's life. The meaning of Partition narrativesemerges not merely from their themes or the subject-object relationships. The desire to revive life is apparentbeyond the traumaand the amnesia. They reveal psyches and subconscious selves through hallucinations. The Inner World and Intimate Relations has very few references to the writings or perspectives of women. the bhakti poet. The refugee syndrome imprisons women more than the men. Intizar Hussain's 'The City of Sorrow'18 is about this guilt. of power and of identity as in IntizarHusain' s "A Letterfrom India". "Like everything else.But more thanthis the narrativesemphasise the flow of life by comparisons with the world of nature. When that moment slips away. 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. the eldest daughter. the woman he loves. The journey from an exploration of violence to guilt has been a long one. Meera. recall and dream structures. the men reflect on their own role in it. There are also larger issues of human values. Bandhopadhaya uses the woman's agency to assassinate the exploiter (who is in political terms an Indian and a Hindu). For the rest she is engaged in collecting flowers and stringing them together. deliberately avoiding a direct confrontation with the nature of violence. The cross-borderrelationshipis handleddifferently in Dibyendu Patil's short story 'Alam's Own House'. The compromises made by many of us resulted in a half-hearted resistance. now that it is "us" and "them". 16There is a great deal thatis submerged in memories or even in memories pushed aside. has learnt to hide behind words. The indices of the two books support my statement. Similarly. the breadearnerhas to give up her plans to marry and later. recognised through the 'other'. the Muslims the ancestralgraves. Women are either absent or objectified as victims.so sensitively explored through Alam's own consciousness in 'Alam's Own House'. there comes a moment of return. For sometime Raka. as even the patients had begun to choose their doctors on religious lines. they are in secondary positions. as to render the woman herself invisible or reduce her to a sacrificial object. but women too feel the pain (p 85). daughter of a former family friend. And when present.111. The iconic figure of the mother goddess looms so large. The first. No longer was a man member of a community. or a self as in 'The City of Sorrow' (Stories About the Partition). Alam's journey to Kolkata from across the border is full of uncertain expectations and memories. 2006 1657 This content downloaded from 115. While the women in their bewilderment ask how are they to be blamed. 'After the Storm'.44 on Thu.and when they move to personal consciousness it is the loss of lineage. myths and novelists. motherland and nation may not coincide. but there is need to imagine the nation outside the limits of patriarchalcontrol or the notion of a universal concept applicable to all. Narratives by women writers do carve a subjecthood through memory. but women. theories are built on the writing of men or on the work of political thinkers . which move beyond 'realism' and realistic description. They also constitute it through the body and the act of giving birth.Gandhi. In Ritvik Ghatak's film Megha Dhaka Tara. massacre . the meaning of identity and belonging. V Male narratives locate events at the centre of the story incidents such as rape. The Inner World uses western thinkers. Even after 10 years. begin to examine their own rootedness. both Manik Bandhopadhaya in 'The Final Solution' and PratibhaBasu in 'Flotsam and Jetsam' centralise prostitution of the body as a possible way of surviving. The migration hadbeen literally forced on his father. perhaps there is no going back to the past now that borders had separated them. The old woman is pushed to her death from a driving vehicle. And as he is to find out a little later. while Pratibha Basu juxtaposes the gentleness of the Muslim neighbour with the hypocrisy of the Hindu "saviour". a way of repairing community life. but from their aesthetics. Bhuvaneshwari Devi appears as mother. His letters go unanswered and in her last letter she had written. 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). surrealism. VI Why is it that when theorisation of concepts takes place. or recognised for his own worth but branded 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. Sister Nivedita as Vivekananda's western disciple. Sudhir Kakar in two of his basic texts. Aurobindo and Vivekananda. such as Midnight's Children. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . she is not ready for another dislocation.20 Nandy's perception that "memories of the Partition do not genuinely fit our acquired concepts of nationalism. flow of history and individual response. The wall has dispossessed them. is abandoned to death. the family lives with the "refugeeness" of their past (pp 84-86).and debate the notions of legitimacy and citizenship. progress and the state". written by a man.Rajinder Singh Bedi's Ek ChadarMaili Si is takenup by thereligiousidentity. gender concerns are confined to feminist theory? In most other discourses. Alam is unable to come to terms with his conflicting moods of celebration and uncertainty. bhakti poets. falling outside both these categories. recalls only the journey of escape from the camp and the journey to the home of adoption. Perhaps Alam has missed that moment. of land. The Great Indian Novel or The Shadow Lines. It is not only men who are hurt. perception.And the consciousness of Raka. affected by tuberculosis. Uprooted once by this shift to Kolkata from Dhaka. interpersonal trust and known moral world?"17 Guilt is anotherarea of exploration in several Partitionnarratives. opens out the space for reformations of the idea of the nation as well as for introspection and reflections on actual experiences. But contemporary writings by women are absent. is Alamnoticesthathis mother's favourite absent. and in the supersession of national concerns in favour of personal gain. or nation construction on the basis of male discourse and narratives. Economic and Political Weekly April 29. his feeling of homecoming andof rootlessness. She has opted out of the relationship accusing him of wanting to uproot her. They unfold their meaning through the simultaneities they create with memory recall.184. The young adolescent girl in Attia Hosain's story. uses the Kali image. a male writer's perception. is another narrative of rootedness. images and aesthetics of space. The country of birth. while the second projects a woman duped into the final sacrifice. creativity and privacy and the conflict that ensues is a powerful socio-psychological study. Mrinalini Sinha in her essay 'Reading Mother India: Empire.24 VII Reading beyond stereotypes does not involve any falsification of reality or gender neutrality. takes up a woman's life in the larger social context of'child marriage. Women's writing is not necessarily about female consciousness and body. space. which govern political. In contrast Ashapurna Devi's Suvarnlata. MahaswetaDevi's 'Draupadi' uses a myth in a different context. hence the need to read women's writing beyond stereotypes. which is all pervasive in a woman's socio-moral environment and is deeply embedded in socialisation processes as well as in the notion of acceptability and approval. Madeline In IntimateRelations. to prevent a complete submergence in the ideal. Clear Light of Day is one of the first to depict a crossing over. one could say it is the submergence of these issues in body-society relationships: the centre staging of sex and sexuality as an area of primacy. Desai. The practice of sati surfaces in its most heinous form in the politically motivated murder of Rose in Rich Like Us. very different from thatof an oppressed figure or of a distant asexual goddess. shifts her subjectivity to consider Partition and cross-religious relationship. The disassociation seeks to locate their writing in the open where their work is subjected to a more holistic analysis. Tentatively. grandmotherold. her growing up. there is need to examine the causes and the consequences of this separation. trade policies and fairy tales. episodic framework and overloads it with victim role models. assertion and reciprocity.25 In Custody goes on to explore the loss of a language and the passing away of traditions of art. and also the way women's writing is "read" and "framed". Anita Desai's heroines also live in a motherless world or have hostile. relationships. has observed how women themselves participatedin the 1658 Economicand PoliticalWeekly April 29.23 the most powerful volume of her trilogy.44 on Thu. In Lesser Breeds.21 Again Alka Saroagi's Shesh Kadambari22 fails to live up to its title and the promise contained within it of narrativeexperimentation. Alternativeepistemologies areanessential route to self-discovery. a novel of the time during emergency. a Muslim orphan. strong selfsufficient mother. joint family. indifferent and ailing mothers. The last takes into account the implied separationwhen some writersdisassociate themselves from feminism. In simple words it implies reading with an open mind and a dismantling of binary oppositions. and the young prince's spell in the jail cell as a suspected revolutionary brings the whole of India into the narrative. the first two have some justification in linear time scales. featuresas Gandhi'swife. In brief. the novel turns the seven steps round the fire. freedom struggle. As such the mind and intellectual ideas as they arise from feminist experiencesalso get their place. Sahgal works throughdifferentideologies. cartographies. goddess-like. no comparative narrativeby a woman is juxtaposed. Examples of the limits of monolithic discourse and of the expansive range of feminist positions within feminism that can liberate the protagonist from the victim syndrome or an observer/ participant status without stepping into gender neutral territory can be multiplied. 2006 This content downloaded from 115. The mould of the mother awaits a young girl in her adulthood.Sonali. in Sahgal's Rich Like Us is closer to her father than her mother. it contains creative imagination by a realistic. whereas.184. and turnsthem into seven steps towards freedom. and of producing an alternate system of education. Shan's family is a truncated family . education. One could expand on this from other writings but the indication is obvious . It is through the interaction between the two that alternatives are discovered. It is her education. a feeling which subtracts from the aesthetic enjoyment submerging all other discourses.Nurullah the tutor. reverses it and raises it to archetypal heights to render it a critique of all power structures. is not necessarily close to the woman protagonist. is both a limitation and an exclusion for creativity as well as for theory. Why does this happen? Are we in a position to construct and accept discourses based on singlegender perspectives? If not.for analysis. expands the novel's scope beyond Rani's imagination. as she moves from her early novels to Clear Light of Day and In Custody. or an avenging Kali.111. an overcrowding takes place and the reader is left with a sense of repetitive bombarding. entry into political life and death in an air crash that form the central theme. a counter perspective to the history lessons that the nuns give her in themissionaryschool. it is Shan who is at the centre of the novel. Again Rani in Mistaken Identity defies all taboos to imagine a secular nation.20 Beautifully constructed. or about relationships. recovery of a living tradition and a dismantling of the hegemonic constructs. Nation and the Female Voice' (1994). or assert that they are writers who happen to be women. parental ties. freedom struggle and privacy.Through the life of Shan. But as the multiple subnarratives are enjoined together. Kasturba Slade contains the references to Meera and films by male directors are centre stage. The novel also takes up the construction of masculinity against the same backdrop and through the very same constructs of marriage. Of these three overlapping causes. and as a site where most contestations take place and taboos are imposed.26 Shashi Deshpande has a powerful portrayal of a negative mother-daughter relationship in The Dark Holds No Terrors. education. where the liberation from patriarchalstructures. desire.father perpetually in jail. It also looks at women-in-theworld. Kundanika Kapadia's Seven Steps in the Sky is one such novel.NayantaraSahgal's political fiction is in itself an interpretation of history from a gender perspective.mapsmarkingsinister divisions of human beings into the civilised and monsters and highlighting mineral resources . The references to other revolutions and political struggles taking elsewhere in the world. both ideologically and emotionally. an essential part of the Hindu marriage ceremony on their head. Nurullah is the observer-participantfigure. Krishna Sobti's radicalism moves from articulating sexuality in Mitro Marjani to write ethnographicfiction in ZindagiNaima. The antagonism or hostility frees her to find her "self'. economic rights.international relations. joint family. By placing the older women in a counselling centre and channel ising the narrativetowardsfeminine activism. a tutor who himself is an orphan. the novel disappointsthe readers. Hindu-Muslim love relationships have failed to reach the final stage in several novels. The grown up man and the young child as they go for their afternoon walks attempt to discover different ways of knowing. social and gender relations.interpretationsand control do not end in another captivity. born of a rape and Shan the young eight-year daughterof a freedom fighter. women film directors deal with both childhood and sexuality as well. mother dead. The mother figure is not always present and when present.there is a psychological need to be free of the burden of the all controlling. Lesser Breeds is the portrayalof a mother India. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . Sahgal works through different metaphors . but the third (how women's writing is read). 4 See B D Garga 'The Feel of Good Earth'. He overcomes his hatred for the kafir and pleads with the doctors to save her.. Even as he drives throughthis nightmare of violence and bloodshed. As she lay in his arms. Gurpal's character in Jamila Hashmi's 'Exile' is not sufficiently explored. Cinema in Ilndia3. women are expected to hold on to the body. More likely the date could be 1932.This is why. Jaipur. In the novel itself Saroj. Guilt of an altogether different kind is evident in Sunderlal in Bedi's story 'Lajwanti'.Vol XLI p 4. 2005. It is located in a more aggressive stance. most often unconsciously. domestic.J Devika (ed). thinks about the sexual act and the nature of desire and about her own enjoyment of it. in India.(Madras. (AprilJune1989). his restless energy into an immense variety of creationsin literature. while in Bengal the longerperiodof Britishcolonialism has resultedin an almost 'island' cultural situation.indiaseminar/2000. the heroine.. his limited sense of nationhood to experience a human emotion. Partition narratives have explored the guilt arising out of indulgence in brutal violence. 25-27. Lavakusa(1934). as the "militantBengali filmmaker"(p 325). Permanent Delhi. Bhalla has missed the poignancy of the story where the man conquers his self. 2003. which is communally charged. confessional.2003. 5 Draupadi(1931) Savitri(1933). her body torn by rape. in her present state of trauma. Shakuntla(1943) Meera (1945) are only some of the films thatcentralisemyth. 1999). where Madhu's premarital friendship becomes the source of family dissension and drives her son away from an ever squabbling. the eyes not of a murderer. Pratibha Basu and Manik Bandhopadhayaboth present a conflict-laden surrender of the women to prostitution but do not dwell on any introspection on part of the men.27 Krishna Sobti and Ismat Chugtai were amongst the early women writers to explore the nature of desire. Partition narratives of abduction and rape pose an altogether different problem. Counterpositions could be argued. 10 Histories of literature(irrespectiveof the language) often tend to club them together under a section women's writing.all are offshoots of this guilt. 14 Kolkata : Srishti Publishers. is unable to transcend the fear of the religious other. I would read it as a parallel account of male and female relationships to the nation. [B1 Email: jainsjpl@sancharnet. 7 A statementshe has made often enough but my particularreference is to her address to the conference 'Women's Writing at the Turn of the2000.44 on Thu.shaping of gendered subjectivities around the nationalist construct of Indian womanhood (p 34). and TanikaSarkar.Vistaar New Delhi. Heman Gupta. Kolkata: Stree.February 8 Refer Writing from the Margin. 12 Sherry Chand. 2000. a guilt socially thrust on the woman but now resisted and transcended. Also see Tagore's 1922 essay 'WomanandHome' in CreativeUnity. but for the rest.which in this case is also the religious other. chastity and sexual abstinenceand emphasise a strict moral code. Sati Sulochana(1934). 6 ReferSarojini's(probablya pen-nameof Edattata RugminiAmma)essay on "Womanliness"(Her-Self Early Writingson Gender by Malayalee Women. because it denies "the claim to holiness of all religions" [Bhalla 1999: xxvi]. 2006 1659 This content downloaded from 115. his upbringing. claims her as his sister but the traumatised girl is unable to transcend that fear of the other (pp 433-39). (p xxxiv).Hindu Wife. New Delhi.111. Javed Akhtar in Talking Films is on record acknowledging the influence of Mother India and Ganga Jamuna on Deewar (37). to StoriesAbout EPW. Also see Alok Bhalla's 'Introduction' the Partition. Penguin. A similar theme is explored by Shashi Deshpande in Small Remedies. 2002) describes its director. By working on a counter narrative dealing with the freedom of sexuality and desire. explores the conflict arising out of a pre-maritallove relationship thatleads the couple to divorce. 13 JasodharaBagchi "Freedom in an Idiom of Loss".young and abandoned. women writers have confronted the notion of guilt and have transcended it. 'Manto's 'Open It': Engendering PartitionNarrative'.full of veneration" as the memory of his little sister Nooran comes to him.woman has been describedas the symbol of Shakti. Bahadur Yunus Khan is fighting for creation of a new country and this demands sacrifice of the self. guiding.184. 11 This has been a long strugglewherecanon formationis concerned. RoyIndianTraffic. "This harping on abducted women as a central core of nation-buildingis a pointer to the nation-communitynexus.the creativepower"(p 157). They simultaneously challenge the traditional notion of a virgin bride and the social unacceptability of a "despoiled" woman. art. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions .Also see Parama Publications. 9 Refer "Interview"with Jasbir Jain in Jasbir Jain's Nayantara Sahgal (Revised Edition.. Storm in Chandigarh (1969). What happens to the sense of guilt when women are raped and are forced into prostitution?28 Who is guilty? Guilt is turned inwards as we find in Lalithambika Antarjanam's 'A Leaf in a Storm'. Tagore links up woman with a cadence of restraint.. Alok Bhalla categorises it as a story. 15 ". ever unhappy home. This counter discourse interrogates the concept of guilt.in Notes 1 See Sabyasaachi Mataram:TheBiographyofa Song Vcande Bhattacharya. organisedby the SahityaAkademi. But the girl. http://www. Nayantara Sahgal in an early novel. a vision rose before his eyes. What does this story tell us in terms of nation and womanhood? What does it say for the relationship between the self and the other? While men sacrifice the self for the nation. primarilybecause in his case. the body as well as the mind. RamRajya(1943). a pseudosocial approval has preceded the act.when they writeabout women's experiences it is dismissed as trivial.Daughters of mother India have yet to work out terms of belonging that encompass the whole self. A loss of a worldrather Economic and Political Weekly April 29. Printwell. romanticor excessively bold. I notice in currentdiscussions on women's rights and citizenship a tendencyto put the communityas a greaterally of women as againstthe nationstale posed as site of harsh surveillance".musicandreligion.But as a territory open to constant invasions.New Delhi.Partitionis often seen in metaphysical terms. In Punjabalso therewas a sharedlanguageand culture. Black. Century'.1988.Macmillan). The self-in-the-world has to outgrow inherited constraints of traditional moulds in order to reinvent itself.necessary for the productionof poetry:"She has been an inspirationto man.When womenwriteaboutsocio-politicalissues they fall intouniversalcategories and hence theirindividualapproachis submerged. the male perpetratorsof crime do not experience guilt or even remorse. it too is a partial recovery of the self. or is directed towards an unborn child. The relationship with the other is also perceived in limited terms of religion and otherness of the gender.but "of a man. Why? Is the national construct of morality a single-sex affair? Krishna Sobti's short story 'Where Is My Mother?' can be interpretedat several levels. the notion of masculinity has shaped itself differently. his heartgoes out in compassion to the little girl lying unconscious on the roadside. Their bodily self contains their whole self. When the abstract nature of desire is concretised through the body. and the centrality of the mother image in Deewar (40).. but have not probed the sense of guilt that may take birth in the rapist. He picks her up in order to save her. insanity and coma .Hitndu Nation. 2 The Encyclopaedia of InldianCinema (Revised ed.1998. From this point of view. 3 The copyright in the Rupa reprintis dated 1922 but apparentlythere is some error here. 1994). Trauma. They need to reinterpretthe body and expand the notion of space to include history and identity. 27 Roots and Shadows (1983). Devi. Delhi. Jaipur. for the mother-in-lawa final acceptance of the bahu as Lakshmi. Gurpalis not to be dismissed merely as an abductor. HindiCilnemn Films: Conversatiolnson Kabir. 'Foreword' to Mapmaking. the exile. Narratives'. Stories about the Partition. Penguin.Partha (1989): 'The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's References 1660 Economic and Political Weekly April 29. Pratibha(2003): 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. KartarSingh Duggal's Mitti MusalmanDi are only some of the novels where love does not result in marriage. Jasbir (1994): Nayantara Sahgal. Cinema in India 3.EPW. Mitra. Maya is motherless. Partitionof India. Books Indian International. AttiaHosain'sSunlighton a BrokenColumn.Dibyendu(2003): 'Alam's OwnHouse'. Kolkata. Thema. points out that the relation between nationandthe novel is moreacutein the case of women's writing(p 185).New Delhi. Relations:Exploring IndianSexuality. .New Delhi. the thirdBakulKathais about Survurnlata's daughter.Jasodhara seminar.Dhan Gopal (1922): A Son of MotherIndiaAnswers. a reflection on his own behaviour. (1999): 'When the PrisonersWere Released. Kali for Women. Times Books International.RajkamalPrakashan.(2003): Lesser Breeds.(1981): The Inner World: A Psychoanalytical Study of Childhood and Society in India.Mapmaking. 17 Nandy. London. 28 In PratibhaBasu and Manik Bandhopadhaya'sstories in Mapmaking. Kesavan. Stories about the Partition. Garga. Chatterjee.Tanika(2000): Hindu Wife.Translatedfrom Bengali to Hindi by HanskumarTiwari.Rupaand Cc. Intizar(1999): 'A Letter From India'. Recasting Women.Orient Paperbacks. Delhi.(1984): In Custody. Mahasweta(1990): 'Draupadi'. Basu. Vistaar Publications. J (ed) (2005): Her-Self: Early Writingson Gender by Malayalee Woman.the woman's and the motherin-law's. Viking/Penguin. of Indian Cinema. Kolkata. the Times Hyder. OUP. Lalithambika (1999): 'A Leaf in the Storm'. who had convertedto Islam. Qurratulain had Changed'. Nayantara(1978): 'Interviewwith JasbirJain' in NayantaraSahgal.44 on Thu. Ravi Dayal Publishers. New Delhi.depicts a woman who leaves herhusbandin protestand turnsan ascetic.Narrating Indian:TheNovel in Searchof a Nation. Mapmnaking Bengals. Saroagi.who remains unmarried. And for the readerit is the metamorphosisof Sita.For thatmatter. Insteadhe wishes to give her a social legitimacy. 23 It is the middle volume of a trilogy. February22-24. New Delhi. a possessiveness abouthis children. Desai.The first. Husain. Srishti Publishers. New Delhi. . Khushwant(1956): Train to Pakistan. New Delhi. Mukul (1995): Looking ThroughGlass.success also does not bring her freedom. 26 In Cry. Hashmi. Printwell. London. . Sengupta. Pratham Prathisruthi. and is caught up in dependency on her brother. fromGujarati (1994): SevenSteps in the Sky. the protagonist. BhartiyaJnanpithPrakashan. . Sarkar. Permanent Black.is adoptedby a Muslim family of a KashmiriHindu.thechildren are a relationshipand his constant harpingon children's getting lost in village fairs is an unconscious fear.KumkumSangariand Sudesh Vaid (eds). by GayatriSpivakin Bashai Tudu. Alka (2001): Shesh Kadambari. the symbol of the family's well-being. Mapmaking. Bhalla. Ashis (2003): 'Foreword'. but the novel read more like a feminist tract.(2000): Small Remedies. Singh. : Partition Storiesfrom 2 Nandy. OUP. Translated by Alok Bhalla in Storiesabout the Partition.Translatedinto English from Hindi by the author. and translators TahiraNaqvi and S Syeda Hamid (eds).a majorundercurrent role. New Delhi. Madras. Sabyasachi(2003): VandeMataram:TheBiographyofa Song. While for the first it is a captivitywithina stony-eyedexistence. Kali for Women. New Delhi.London. Senguptacommentson the growth of a sub-genrecalled "colony fiction". (ed) Debjani .Macmillan. New Delhi. Heinemann.MumtazShahNawaz's (a Pakistani writer) The Heart Divided. Hyderabad. Hosain. Stories about the Partition. New Delhi.thana loss relatedto prestige"(p 189). Vol XLI.SarvarV Sherry(2006): 'Manto's 'Open It': EngenderingPartition Sobti. inJameelaHashmi's "Exile"is Gurpal's 24 Forexample. 22 I turnedto the novel with greatexpectations.(2003): WritingFrom the Marginand OtherEssays. New Delhi. 18 Fora detailedelaboration refermy yet unpublished paper. even if nota religiousone. . Parama(1998): Indian Traffic. Bhattacharya. Sahgal. Heinemann. Sengupta. New Revised Edition. Manik(2003): 'TheFinalSolution'. and asks the question: Were we flawed? How much of the responsibility for being colonised rests with us? 21 Kapadia's novel was serialised in a Gujarati monthly Janmabhoomi Pravasi in 1982. OUP. Stories about the Partition. New Delhi.Mapmaking. . Stories About The Partition. New Delhi. Deshpande. Ismat (1990): "ChauthKa Jaura".(1999): 'The City of Sorrow'. The transformation be placed within a double perspective .Translated Kapadia. Srishti Publishers. Palit. the strongest. Kolkata. Mapmaking. No 4.NasreenMunni(1999): Talking with Javed Akhtar. Tagore. and in terms of feminist issues. . 2006 This content downloaded from 115. Later. New Delhi. HarperCollins.Jaya(2005): 'The OtherVoice: Women's Writingin India'.New Delhi.Yaspal's JhootaSuch.HinduNation.SangamBooks.becomes a successful writer. Bandopadhyay. Navbharat Mumbai. New Delhi. New Delhi.which consists of narratives about 'displacementand dispossession' (p 191).. 19 Kesavan'sunnamedhero falls back into memory. Kakar. . 20 The novel looks within.New Delhi. in WhereShall WeGo ThisSummer? she haseloped and in Clear Light of Day she is bedridden. B D (1989): 'The Feel of Good Earth'. SrishtiPublishers.ThePeacock.(1999): 'Roots'. JonathanCape. Jaipur. Qasim. AprilJune. Garg. Kolkata. Katherine(1927): Mother India. Rajinder Singh (1999): 'Lajwanti'. StoriesaboutthePartition. Stories about the Partition.(1980): The Dark Holds No Terrors.Alok (ed) (1999): Storiesabout the PartitionofIndia. Manto.a silent parallelto Bahu's memories from Sita into Lakshmi is to of her paternalhome. Ashish and Paul Willemen (eds) (1994): The EncyclopaediL Rajadhyaksha. (in one volume).specially as Kali Katha Via By-pass had impressedme. Printwell.in Voices in the Citythe mother is hostile andegoistic. Saadat Hasan (1999): 'Open It'.Kundunika SahityaMandir. Mridula(1979): Chittacobra. . Bagchi. New Delhi. amidst several kinds of protests.in order to identify himself with the family undergoes a circumcision and moves with them to the refugee camp. Mayo. Roy. http://www. 25 These relationshipsfeature in several novels and need to be explored further.He doesn't rape and abandonher.184.(1985): Rich Like Us. Heinemann. Question'. Ganju. 11 Apr 2013 04:43:22 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . Attia (1999): 'After the Storm'. explores a willed relationshipof adultery without any burden of guilt. It moves away from the normal gender equations. Mukerji. . Allied. Jain. London.india. (2002): 'Freedomin an Idiom of Loss'.Stree. Devika.Shashi (1983): Roots and Shadows.ManzoorEhtesham's SookhaBargad. 2006. Krishna(1999): 'Whereis My Mother?'. Stories about the Partition.TheQuiltand OthersStories. Ashapurna(1979): Suvurnlata. Translated Devi.Suraiya(1999): 'WhereDid She Belong?'. Kolkata.Debjani(2003): 'Afterword'.(1988): Mistaken Identity. Stories about the Antarjanam.(1999): 'The Motherof DhirenduMujumdar'. New Delhi. into Lakshmi. originalby Kunjbalaand William Anthony.Marriageand freedomdo not seem to be coming together. January26. The titleof 'Bahu'is anacceptance. Chugtai.Rabindranath (1922): 'WomanandHome' CreativeUnity. Alok Bhalla (ed) (in 3 volumes 1994). Anita (1980): Clear Light of Day. Chand. Stories about the Partition. Shifting Concerns: The Self-in-the-world' presented at a seminar on 'Writing the Self. Penguin. Srishti Publishers. Bedi.Translatedas "The Wedding Shroud".'HiddenDepths.111. (ed) DebjaniSengupta. HarperCollins.Stories about the Partition.Jameela(1999): 'Exile'. 16 Jaya Mitra in 'The Other Voice'. Calcutta. (ed) E V Ramakrishnan. Debjani Sengupta.(1969): Storm in Chandigarh. Sudhir(1989):Intimnate Penguin. Penguin.New Delhi. Sahitya Akademi. Harper Collins.