Role of women in South Asian Literature:

Beyond Barriers

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

Be fearless
Never worry.
As long as you don’t
lift up your heads
men will surround you, guard you
as if they were your eyes.

“Advice to Gentlewomen” by Vijaya Dabbe (Poetess from Kannada)

In his novel, Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie begins Saleem’s story from as way back as 1915. This was the year Saleem’s grandfather, a doctor named Aadam Aziz, meets his future wife, Naseem. During the first three years Aadam Aziz treats his patient, she is always covered by a sheet with a small hole in it. ‘You will kindly specify which portion of my daughter it is necessary to inspect,” says her father Ghani. “I will then issue her with my instructions to place the required segment against that hole which you see there. And so, in this fashion the thing may be achieved.”

As the years pass, Dr. Aziz finds it difficult to stop thinking of Naseem. “Waking and sleeping, he could feel in his fingertips the softness of her ticklish skin or the perfect tiny wrists or the beauty of the ankles; he could smell her scent of lavender and chameli; he could hear her voice and her helpless laughter of a little girl; but she was headless, because he had never seen her face.”

In contrast, Rabindranath Targore begins “Gora” with a description of how Binoybhushan, a highly educated Bengali young man meets Sucharita, seeing her face quite clearly, in an encounter that changes his whole world from then on. Unlike Aziz who never gets a chance to see Naseem’s face throughout the three years he treats her, Binoy has no restrictions in looking at Sucharita. Yet, he does not directly do so. Instead, he watches her reflection in the mirror, and sees a face that, “lowered in loving anxiety glowed with a tenderness” which to Binoy was a “newly manifested wonder of nature.”

Scene from Deepa Mehta’s movie: “Midnight’s Children”

Unlike Rushdie’s Naseem who is trapped in a male chauvinist society (though with powers of her own when it comes to commanding her family), Targore’s Sucharita, is a symbol of nature, and as the novel progresses, slowly but imperceptibly, he transforms this symbol into a form and a figure, and provides her with a very independent and individual mind.

As Mary Mathew explains in her essay “Rabindranath Targore, Feminism and Cross Cultural (Re)visions,” using female protagonists in all but one of his nine novels, Targore describes the heroines’ double consciousness which results from allegiance to dual forces from the past and the present. “Their roots on the one hand, are planted in the predominantly agricultural semi-feudal past, with its rigidly defined notions of communal ties, famine, chastity, ritual purity and caste structure” writes Mathew. “While on the other hand, colonial rhetoric has introduced these compelling rival narratives of female formations which guarantee greater freedom and collective advantage undercutting allegiance to any single authoritative model from the past. Caught in the horns of these two explicit ideologies, Targore’s women reject regimentation by either and instead opt for a discriminating system between the best of their heritage and the best of the challenging new.”

Whereas Targore’s protagonists like Binodhini even as they embrace the new world, are yet celebrations of the historic concepts of womanhood rooted in the Hindu imagination – they are women who come through as a race of pristine beings – the opposite is true of the women in Arundathi Roy’s “The God of Small Things.” In her novel, Roy, though she herself is a woman, is highly critical of some of the women in the story. The most evil figure in The “God of Small Things” is an older woman, the spinster aunt – Baby Kochchamma. She is absolutely malevolent, almost monstrous in her malevolence, and it is she who triggers most of the disasters that occur in the novel. Critics have pointed out that in doing so Roy is showing the ways in which women of all classes and all generations are positioned by socio-cultural systems. For Kochchamma too is a victim of this system – her bitterness stems from certain events in her past.

According to Manmohan Bhatnagar in “Feminist English Literature” Roy explores the double standards of morality in society regarding men and woman, and the passive docile role of the wife in a man-woman relationship i.e Papachchi’s outbursts of violence on Mamachchi from time to time. At first Ammu feels her only escape from patriarchal tyranny is through marriage. Yet, when she too becomes a victim of her husband’s blind rages she returns home and is seen by society as a “wretched, man-less woman”. Thus Kochchamma describes Ammu as someone who has “no position at all” in the world.

Undoubtedly From Targore’s Sucharita to Roy’s Ammu to the women in Kamala Markandaya’s “Nectar in a Sieve” and Meera Mahadevan’s “Shulamith” who suffer like Ammu, to female characters in the 1980s who assert themselves and defy marriage and family strictures as seen in Chitra Fernando’s Three women and Anita Desai’s “In Custody”, the feminine characters in the South Asian novel have come through three stages : Tradition, transition and modernity.

Scene from Kalidasa’s Shakuntala painted by Hari Lal Medh

According to Shoshana M. Landow, “Changing Images of Women in South Asian Fiction” Chitra Fernando in her collection of short stories portray women who want their individual worth realized and attempt to break through the suffering that traditional society offers them whereas the more recent books, explore an educated woman’s search for identity and meaning -- in autobiographical form, as in Kamala Das’ “My Story” or in Sara Suleri’s “Meatless Days.”

As in other facets of modern life, in South Asian literature too the image of the traditional woman, the Sita- Savitri type, who was expected mainly to live for others than for herself because “others” controlled and moulded the social structure, has been thrown off to reveal a woman on her way to independence and liberation.

The story of Goddess Savitri who is upheld as a prime example of the lengths to which a wife should go in aiding her husband: following him anywhere, proving her virtue and remaining under his control, has now changed and turned into the story of a new, empowering individual journey of the modern Asian woman.

Thus Janaki Murthy writing under the pseudonym of Vaidehi, returns to Kalidasa’s fifth century classic, Shakuntala, and retells it, from Shakuntala’s point of view. In “An Afternoon with Shakuntala” Vaidehi makes Shakuntala explain her feelings when she first sees Dushyanta: “I needed him. Why? Not for his genius, not because he is the brightest jewel of Puru’s dynasty, nor for himself. No, it was for myself that I wanted him, for my own sake.”

South Asian women, at least in literature, have transcended societal barriers to reach liberation. In other words, “the white filmy substance resembling the inner part of the green hood which shelters the grain of unripe Indian corn” (to quote Mary Shelley) has now ripened.

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S.H.O.W. You Care Campaign :

Voice against harassment of women in public spaces

Harassment of women in public spaces has become a major issue in Sri Lanka. As serious as it is, this issue is being overlooked and is not given the attention it deserves. How many of us have seen a woman being uncomfortable and helpless under the harassment of some twisted-minded person and have looked the other way? How many of us have experienced it for ourselves -that utter disgusting behavior- and through our own helplessness have succumbed to that discomfort and allow ourselves to be harassed without speaking out?

The image of a harasser might strike one’s mind as a seemingly disturbed, hulking man who visibly can’t sit still with anticipation of his crime. But no, not always. The calm, very decent looking, apparently well-educated gentleman sitting next to you might end up trying to lean into you, to show you his favorite video, or mutter R-rated comments about you -you know how it is. It could be worse. Why not speak up? Why not take action to put an end to this growing menace?

Sri Lanka Unites (SLU) decided to change this, by rallying together a group of young volunteers and school boys to stand up against this issue. As a result of this determination, the S.H.O.W You Care (Stop Harassment Of Women in public spaces) campaign was launched recently at the Viharamahadevi Open Air Theatre, with an audience of volunteers and students from leading boys’ schools in Colombo.

A group of about 200 students and young volunteers, proudly wearing their S.H.O.W. You Care t-shirts, boarded buses in Colombo apologizing for being silent about the issue, making a statement against the harassment of women and the responsibility of men to stand against such harassment, creating awareness about the law (Sri Lanka Penal Code, section 345) which punishes harassment of women with a 5 year imprisonment, and finally pasting stickers and distributing awareness cards which gave details of how to respond in cases of harassment and where to lodge a complaint about it.

More than thousand buses were covered during the course of the 5 days, which resulted in the message being received by more than 30,000 commuters. According to Chrisjit Xavier, youth activist -Sri Lanka Unites, “One of the reasons that we SHOWED we care because this issue has become normalized due to lack of civil action.”

“Our powers are limited to the very same powers that an average person has. But through a combined effort, through combined civil action, we believe we can make a change,” says Xavier further.

The campaign intends to create awareness about the issue, about the law and about the possible course of action. It also intends to set an example of men standing up against harassment of women. “The majority of the students who participated in the campaign were young boys. We wanted to set an example through this that men should stand up for the rights of their counterpart,” states Xavier. Not all men are sexual offenders. It is a minority of men that carry out these activities. But it’s the silence of the majority that results these actions to go unpunished. Through the campaign, they attempt to show the authorities that civil society is concerned about this issue.

At the end of the campaign, a few recommendations to the policy makers were brought forward.

* Have a few awareness buses with large branding on them -highlighting Sri Lanka Penal Code, section 345.

* Every bus should have a sticker highlighting a course of action to be taken when an issue takes place.

* Drivers and conductors should be trained on how to handle a complaint.

* Incorporate what harassment is into the National education curriculum, as part of the sexual health component.

* Implement codes of conduct for public transport/public spaces to minimize the possibility of harassment.

The next step in the S.H.O.W. You Care campaign, the “SHOWDOWN” will be held on October 20, 2012 at Viharamahadevi Park from 5.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m.

“At the SHOWDOWN we hope to accomplish 3 things,” says Xavier. “Firstly, create more awareness about the issue of Harassment in Public spaces. Secondly, release a policy document with suggestions as to how we can further combat this issue. This policy would also contain a pledge by everyone to make Colombo and Sri Lanka as a whole, a much safer place for women to live in.

We’re hoping to hand over copies of this policy document to policy makers and concerned authorities for their consideration, so that they would know that the public wants to put an end to this menace. Thirdly, we will be symbolically passing the baton to Kandy, where the next S.H.O.W. You Care campaign will be carried out. We hope for this to grow into an island wide initiative.”

A woman should have the freedom to live her day to day life independently. She has the right to be safe, to be protected. The ones with twisted, disturbing intentions, who try to take her safety, her dignity away deserves to be brought forward with their intentional crimes.

Those who deserve to be punished should be punished. We all have a responsibility to speak out and stand up against harassment of women. Our voices have power. It’s time we used it.