Pain of Privacy

If the rite of widow-immolation fired Western imagination at the turn of the nineteenth century, then purdah (life in seclusion) held captive the West’s attention at the turn of the twentieth. Purdah took on a special connotation especially during the British Raj. With the gradual rise of the novel ideas of nationhood across religions, languages or cultures of the subcontinent, purdah became more than the sceptre of male prescriptive authority for upholding religious/cultural precepts of a community. It became further charged as the confrontational ground of conflicting authority—for one race to rule and for the other to forge its identity as a self-ruling nation. Not only is women’s representation of purdah in their writings considered more authentic but they also often challenge the stereotyping of a purdahnashin and reject the broad-brushed, mono-toned portrayal of their existence. Although Hindus too practised purdah of a sort, this chapter focuses on two Muslim women writers (Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Iqbalunnissa Hussain).

Introduction

Indian Writing in English (IWE) today boasts of internationally renowned writers, both male and female. In comparison to the vast amount of critical work on contemporary women writers, the roots of Indian women’s fiction in English are still gravely understudied. The aim of this book is partly to fight that amnesia and draw some of the early works by women out from their long, undeserved eclipse.

Burning Matters

Sati in British India came to simultaneously refer to the widow-burning rite as well as to the self-immolating widow. With growing imperialist interests in the Empire in India, the British administration detected in the sati issue a powerful opportunity to promote the image of a progressive, reform-minded, benevolent Raj. An endeavour to know how Indian women themselves portray sati in their writings is of unfailing interest. Caught between the loud crossfire of the two warring camps of pro- and anti-Sati campaigns, the Indian woman—both the subject and the object of the entire sati discourse—hardly gets a chance to claim for herself the attention of a perceptive audience. The silence of the sati victim is, of course, nearly insurmountable and only a voice, seeped through another agency, reaches us. This chapter concentrates on three such mediated voices (Cornelia Sorabji, Snehalata Sen, and Sita Devi) as presented in their fiction.

New Ideal Womanhood

In discussing the divine figure of Bharatmata (Mother India), it is impossible to overlook her human prototype, Bharatiya Nari—the ‘new’ Indian woman. This latter figure did not come into existence overnight. Instead, its emergence by the end of the nineteenth century was the culmination of innumerable social reform debates, discussions, and legislations on women’s issues like sati, widow rehabilitation, child marriage, and female education over the past few decades. Women writers often used their fiction to draw attention to the diverse problems that their fellow women faced, and in doing so, these authors consciously participated in the ongoing social discussion that moulded the ‘new’ woman ideal. Consequently, it is often in their writings that the evolution and sculpting of the Bharatiya Nari are best documented. This chapter discusses works by Ramabai Trikannad, Nalini Turkhud, and K.S. (full name unknown).

Afterword

In India, as elsewhere, reforms related to women’s conditions were initiated by men. During the second half of the nineteenth century, a few extraordinary Indian women, realizing the limitations of reforms for women when these are envisioned by men alone, undertook the responsibility of fighting for the rights of their own sex. Women refused to permit men, British or Indian, to entirely monopolize the process of casting women’s image and outlining their identity. This determination to react and respond was whetted by the partial empowerment that was stimulated by the growing influence of the neo-deity ‘Mother India’ and a consequent aura of nationalism. Additionally, the controversy stirred by Catherine Mayo’s notorious book was further a defining moment in eliciting enormous responses from Indian women. In this age of globalism when Indian women’s growing influence is re-defining Indianness and Indian femininity, it is important now to go back to study their ground-breaking efforts.

Young Shoulders, Mighty Responsibilities

By the final decades of the nineteenth century, the child-wife had come under the purview of reformist legislation in British India. Infant marriage was widely prevalent in most parts of the subcontinent and in imitation of the high dogmatic standards set by brahmanical castes, other lower castes and classes too adopted early marriage. Besides religious directives, believers in child marriage put forth many other ‘practical’ reasons for the continuance of this practice. They argued that such indissoluble marriage that practically lasted from birth to death signified a higher form of love and bonding that surpassed mere physical desires. Magniloquence about infant marriage, however, hid from immediate view its evil effects. More pernicious and direct effects of infant marriage were sexual abuse of child-wives, their premature motherhood, and widespread widowhood. Though largely overlooked, women writers did use their pens to raise awareness on this issue. This chapter concentrates on short stories by Cornelia Sorabji and M.P. Seelavathi Amma.

Sin of Survival

The abolition and criminalization of the sati rite brought into light by the mid-nineteenth century a different kind of politics: that of stereotyping the (high-caste Hindu) widow. Widowhood was considered the biggest curse showered on a woman to chastise her for crimes and sins perpetrated in her earlier births. It was also deemed the widow’s fault that she survived her husband. Accordingly, the orthodox society treated her with utmost severity, punishing her for her sins. In a scenario where women’s issues were debated and weighed without women’s outlook or participation, contemporaneous women writers focused on the issue of widowhood. Resentment, entreaty, dismay, dignified silence, self-respect—a plethora of emotions is at display in women’s writings touching upon one of the most difficult and ubiquitous aspect of their lives. This chapter focuses on Shevantibai Nikambe’s and Krupabai Satthianadhan’s literary portrayal of widows.