Motherhood in India: Glorification without Empowerment? 9780415544566

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Motherhood in India

ii G Motherhood in India

Motherhood in India Glorification without Empowerment?

Editor Maithreyi Krishnaraj

LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI

First published 2010 by Routledge 912–915 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001

Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2010 Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-415-54456-6

Contents Preface by veena poonacha Acknowledgements

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

vii xii

Introduction maithreyi krishnaraj

1

Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering: A Multi-dimensional Perspective maithreyi krishnaraj

9

Motherhood in Ancient India sukumari bhattacharji

44

In Search of the Great Indian Goddess: Motherhood Unbound kamala ganesh

73

In the Idiom of Loss: Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials — Mahabharata and Ramayana prabha krishnan

106

Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal jasodhara bagchi

158

Mother, Mother-Community and Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu c.s. lakshmi

186

8.

9.

10.

11.

The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai shanta gokhale

228

Rites de Passage of Matrescence and Social Construction of Motherhood among the Coorgs in South India veena poonacha

257

Motherhood: Different Voices divya pandey

292

Images of Motherhood: The Hindu Code Bill Discourse in India chitra sinha

321

Note on the Editor Notes on Contributors Index

347 348 351

vi G Contents

Preface Emerging out of a residential workshop organised by Maithreyi Krishnaraj when she was Director, Research Centre for Women’s Studies (RCWS), SNDT Women’s University, this volume is a contribution to feminist scholarship.Located within feminist theorising, the idea was to bring together senior academics from different disciplines to critically examine the ideology of motherhood against the backdrop of women’s mothering experiences. Apart from shedding light on the encoded politics in the ideological construction of motherhood, the significance of this volume lies in the delineation of the disjuncture between ideology and reality of women’s lives. Krishnaraj points out in her Introduction to this volume that despite the idealisation of motherhood in poetry and stone, women’s ability to bring forth new life is appropriated in patriarchal societies. Given these contradictions between ideology and reality in the one defining aspect of women’s lives — motherhood — it is hoped that the volume will contribute significantly to the various theoretical debates on the prevailing sex–gender systems. Women’s reproductive biology — their capacity to bear and nourish children — has not only defined their status in the household/kin group, but is also subject to state policies/controls. The mother–child relationship is seen as the most sacrosanct of all relationships. Its mysteries have been extolled in religion, poetry and literature; the images of the Madonna with her child or that of Yashoda with Krishna are seen as sublime love. This celebration of motherhood at the ideological level is perhaps because, to quote Adrienne Rich from Of Woman Born (1976), ‘the one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that months-long period we spent unfolding inside a woman’s body.’ Further, as Krishnaraj writes in her article, reproductive capacity is central to the organisation of institutions — marriage, kinship and socio-political. Yet women’s experiences of

motherhood are profoundly alienating within patriarchal societies. This idealisation of women’s child-bearing capacity (so vital for the survival of the human race) has not translated itself into rights and entitlements for women as mothers in patriarchal societies. The idealisation of motherhood in the Indian context is also apparent in the continued significance of goddess worship. Interestingly, as Kamala Ganesh’s article indicates, the mother goddess worshipped in India is not necessarily a biological mother. The iconography of the little traditions of India is that of a free, unfettered feminine creative principle; this is in marked contrast to the western iconography of the Madonna and child. Yet paradoxically, this worship of the mother goddess in her many forms in India — some fearful and violent and others benign and loving — does not mean a social recognition of a woman’s autonomy and freedom; nor does it generate entitlements for women in their everyday lives. In other words, the normative glorification of motherhood in Indian religious traditions, poetry and prose rarely translates itself into reality in the lives of mothers. Yet seduced by ideology, many women accept motherhood as an essential part of their fulfilment in life. The reality may not be precisely what was hoped. The privileges of motherhood are determined by the conditions under which women give birth (whether it is within sanctioned marriage), the social location of the mother in the family, and the desired sex of the child. The centrality of motherhood in defining women’s identities and their social roles does not imply that all women want to be mothers. Yet undeniably, the valuation placed on a woman’s capacity to bring forth life defines her position in society. This centrality of motherhood to social formation means that a woman who cannot bear children is excluded from certain rights and privileges. In the Indian context, she is stigmatised as ‘barren’ or ‘childless’ and excluded from participating in certain family rituals and ceremonies; it could also threaten her social existence as her husband may feel justified in ‘taking’ another wife. Men who cannot father children are never stigmatised the way women are; nor do they pay a price for being unable to father children. The ideals of motherhood have also required that women negate themselves and find fulfilment in the service of their progeny. She is, as portrayed in Shanta Gokhale’s article, the embodiment of sacrifice and nobility. A mother’s selfless service to the family viii G Preface

is expected to shape and guide her children throughout their lives. The realities of women’s lives however are different: throughout history, their motherhood is used as justification for their exclusion from all avenues of power, position and creativity in the public domain. No doubt only a few women, because of their socioeconomic power and political connections or through sheer grit, have been able to overcome the barriers of motherhood imposed by society. Thereby, overcoming the limitations of their allotted roles, duties, responsibilities and circumstances of their lives, these women have been able to make a mark in the annals of history. But such options were not necessarily available to the majority of women whose lives were circumscribed by their reproductive biology. Consequently, women’s work throughout history and their creative energies have been confined to the private domain of the home and channeled towards child-rearing, as either the primary care-givers of their own children or in the service of other families. As pointed by Leela Dube (1986), women are seen as passive receptacles to incubate the male generative power. This point is poignantly brought to the fore in Sukumari Bhattacharji’s article. It is apparent that women’s reproductive labour does not accord them any control over their children since the children belong to the fathers — a point that continues to inform the Indian legal system. The self-abnegation that women internalise is evident from the fact that the young mother does not ask why there are no prayers for her own health or survival during the ordeal of childbirth. All the rituals performed focus on the health and long life of her children and husband. Unable to exercise any real control over their reproductive power or sexuality, women experience alienation — a point made explicit by Divya Pandey and Sangeeta Dutta in their respective articles. My own article explores the cultural metaphors of motherhood in a small-scale society. Describing the ‘mothering’ of the mother as vital for the survival of the mother and child, the study goes on to explain the changes in the societal valuation of motherhood that occur because of the macro changes affecting the community. What becomes apparent through the many thought-provoking articles, including those of C.S. Lakshmi’s and Jasodhara Bagchi’s, is the politics of motherhood. Women’s lived experiences do not necessarily correspond to the ideology of veena poonacha F ix

motherhood. Nonetheless, it has the potential to evoke male valour and sacrifice for the nation, community and group through the depiction of the nation and the given culture as a mother. Prabha Krishnan indicates how the metaphors of motherhood found in the Indian epics are recast through the television serials to suit the contemporary sexual politics. Collectively, these articles indicate that the control exercised over women’s reproductive capacities might vary in different patriarchal societies. But these controls determine the conditions under which women bear children. The desired sex of the child and her marital status determine a woman’s experiences of childbirth and motherhood. Women’s class and social–political locations also determine their experiences of mothering. Even a simple decision like when to have a child, or the period of lactation are socially determined by group norms and are political. The ideology also creates needless suffering for the mother. Bearing daughters is rarely idealised; consequently, mothers who give birth to only daughters cannot find fulfilment in their role as mothers. There is no glory attached to it. In pre-industrial societies or in societies where child survival cannot be assured, the emphasis would be on numbers. In advanced capitalist societies, where women have control over their reproductive power, fewer children may be desired, but this does not mitigate women’s reproductive labour as it takes the form of child-rearing required by a complex social order. The primacy of marriage and motherhood for women was disrupted with the sexual revolution of the 1960s. With the invention of improved birthcontrol methods, there has been a disassociation between women’s sexuality and reproduction — an option seized by many women in their quest for personal growth and self-realisation. It is precisely because of the conditions under which women are forced to experience motherhood that feminist writers like de Beauvoir (1953) and Firestone (1970) saw biological reproduction as oppressive to women. Seeking to liberate women from the oppression of their reproductive biology, Firestone saw reproductive technology as the solution. This position however was not acceptable to the radical–cultural feminists of the 1980s who saw women’s historical experiences of child-rearing and nurturing as an alternative to the prevailing masculine values of domination and control. x G Preface

The credit of envisaging the lacunae in feminist thought within the Indian context goes to Krishnaraj. The range and scope of her scholarship is truly phenomenal and her contribution to feminist theorising extends from conceptualising women’s work, state policies, agricultural and developmental concerns to social history and methodological concerns. Having worked at the RCWS since its beginning, her lifetime’s work has been dedicated to the development of the institution. It is because of the firm foundation that she gave to the Centre, along with Neera Desai, the founder Director, that it continues to remain a pre-eminent institution of feminist scholarship within the Indian university system. Since this project was conceptualised, much has changed in the lives of the authors — whether as biological mothers or otherwise, we have faced the joys and exquisite pangs of creativity and nurturing. Loss runs through this volume as a common thread; for some of us the poignancy and urgency have been tragic. Krishnaraj has lived through the painful experience of losing her son Padmanabhan. This book, while it celebrates motherhood, remains a poignant reminder of the loss faced by mothers. It is dedicated to the memory of Padmanabhan, scientist and humanist, to his wife Tamara, and his little daughter Veena who must grow up without ever knowing her father. Mumbai July 2009

veena poonacha Research Centre for Women’s Studies SNDT Women’s University

References de Beauvoir, Simone. 1953. The Second Sex. New York: Knopf. Dube, Leela. 1986. Visibility and Power: Essays on Women in Society and Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Firestone, Shulamith. 1970. The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Morrow. Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. London: W. W. Norton.

veena poonacha F xi

Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, for all the help during the preparation of this book, especially Milind Prabhulkar and Sapana Sohani for bibliographical assistance; to Usha Lalwani for processing the manuscript; to Veena Poonacha for her relentless support, and most of all to the authors who have been very patient and tolerant. Needless to say, without the encouragement of Omita Goyal at Routledge, New Delhi, this almost buried text would not have surfaced. I would also like to thank Chandan Bose, whose meticulous copy-editing was enlightening in terms of much needed clarifications missing in the text. Mumbai July 2009

maithreyi krishnaraj

chapter 1

Introduction maithreyi krishnaraj A mother in essence transcends the binaries of gender as every child, boy or girl, is born of a woman. Since a major aspect of the female role is considered to be reproduction, mothering has continued to be basic to women’s lives as well as the organisation of the family, and is fundamental to the genesis of the ideology about women. Symbolised in mythology, legends and popular culture, she stands as an eternal icon to represent the generative, nurturing power of life, itself celebrated in temples and sculptures, poetry and literature. Newspapers bring out special Mother’s Day editions. I see my city’s taxis and auto-rickshaws carrying the inscription ‘Ma’s Gift’ or ‘Ma’s blessing’. In Indian cinema, the mother is the central figure. Sons in the stories especially swear by their mothers; will undertake hazardous adventures and avenge insults perpetuated by her enemies. She is an all suffering being dedicated to the welfare of her sons. Hindi cinema used to show the toiling mother sweating away at her sewing machine to educate her son/s. In many Hindi films, the mother is given a prominent place, and acts as the guiding spirit in every day life for her sons. In the aphorisms found in the Indian language, while teaching children about ethics, the first line would be ‘respect your mother’, like in the Tamil verses of the woman poet Avvai. The bhakti poet Tyagaraja, for example, appeals to Sita, as his mother, who will induce Rama to bestow his compassion and grace on him.

In my day to day life, I encounter men saying ‘She keeps the baby for nine months in her womb, nurtures it with her blood and flesh. How can we not respect her?’ Whatever may be the reality of actual protection and support, the ideology of a mother’s pre-eminence is very strong. She is valiantly fighting for her country like Rani Jhansi who, in a popular poem, is a mardani — a masculinised woman. A mother can repudiate her son for his misdeeds to her mother country, as in the famous hindi film Mother India, or despite her love and affection can chastise her son in order to teach him proper behaviour, as in the story of Shyamchi Ayi included in this book. I once had a strange personal experience. I was pregnant and was returning from work; it had rained heavily. The street on my house was flooded and I had no umbrella. A fruit vendor selling fruits ran across the street to offer me his umbrella saying ‘Ma, you should not get wet in this condition’. An elderly woman is usually addressed as mataji. The point of this narration was to highlight the pervasive respect that motherhood has in Indian culture as opposed to a woman as an individual. The centrality of the mother in popular speech and practice reverberates throughout this country. A mother feels fulfilled nurturing her child. Feminists would consider this approach as essentialising the woman as a mother. This denies her the potential as a human being with multiple abilities, and her need to be a citizen as much as anyone else. Women give birth to children and the care of new born babies requires breast feeding by the mother (or a substitute for the mother). This responsibility puts onus on women as care-takers of the family. The responsibilities and rewards that men and women have within the family and household are thereby determined by this role of women which is perceived as ‘the’ fundamental and primary identity. Women may not live in the father-mother-child nuclear family. Our notion of the family disregards variations in family composition — many family members, including men, may care for children. A woman, because of her physiological equipment, is capable of bearing children. Through the act of carrying a child in her womb and giving birth, a woman attains ‘motherhood’. Pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and nurturing an infant are the concomitant acts that go with being a ‘mother’. All these actions involve considerable expenditure of energy, time and resources, during 2 G maithreyi krishnaraj

which she needs support. It is believed that the sexual division of labour came into existence because women found it difficult to be mobile during child-bearing periods (Leibowitz 1986). Women were therefore assigned domestic tasks while men went hunting. Women rather hunted small animals closer to home and foraged for food. Anthropologists like Briffault (1927) and Bachofen (1967), on the basis of their study of different cultures and their symbolic systems, claimed that the original human society was matriarchal because the maternal instinct is stronger than the mating instinct. The abundance of mother goddesses in the Indian subcontinent, in the great as well as the little traditions, speaks of the worship of the mother principally as a procreative power and nurturer. The mother goddess is not a mother with child, like the Madonna, but an independent entity standing by herself. She has both benign as well as fearsome aspects. From the exalted Durga to the ubiquitous gram devata, she is present to this day all over the country. She is a matrika. Kamala Ganesh, in her article, traces the tradition of the mother goddess to the Indus Valley civilisation. These predate the ‘spousified’ goddesses of later ages. According to her, in prepatriarchy, gender relations followed ‘linking’ rather than ‘ranking’. She leaves us with the question as to whether contemporary sensibilities like autonomy, power, and equality can be projected on to a different time–scale? However, it seems to me that whatever meaning earlier periods might have had, when we re-surrect the past, its significance rests in the present. In literature and in mythology, the mother is deified. There is sentimental devotion and mythification of her power to protect. Feminist reappraisal of the matriarchate is a political strategy to reclaim female power. Can one recreate the matriclan that provides power and support? With emergence of the nuclear family and the availability of easy divorce in the west, women now struggle as single mothers. Indian epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata expound, in a multifaceted way, the significance and experience of motherhood within patriarchy. Marriage for women is primarily to bear a male child. A woman was not even the owner of her womb. The woman’s body was seen as merely the soil, and it was the man who provides the seed. The earlier mystery of birth, which had sustained a veneration of women, gave way to the father–right. The television serials which Prabha Krishnan has monitored indicate Introduction F 3

how at the heart of the epics lie problems of identity, hierarchy and patriliny. Both the epics portray a woman’s honour as located in her sexuality. The epics also denigrate non-patriarchal communities which practice mother–right. Motherhood is seen as an emotion-based state. How Yashodha — the foster-mother of Krishna, the cowherd god — is rapturously absorbed in her child, is told and retold through dance, songs and stories. This is the idealised mother–child relationship. There are some women mentioned in the epics who did resist motherhood. There were others like Madhavi who was lent by Galav to beget sons for kings in order to get Ashwameda horses for his guru Vishwamitra. Once his mission was accomplished, she was discarded without being allowed any claim over her children. Indian mothers are revered only as mothers of sons. Through her reading of the many texts, Sukumari Bhattacharji points out that in ancient India, the main concern of women was to avoid the slur of ‘sonlessness’. The many rituals during pregnancy among hindus are for the health of the husband and child; nowhere is there any concern expressed for the health of the mother. By contrast, Poonacha’s narration of practices in Coorg during maternity has a more positive note. The care of the mother is the responsibility of the clan — a social commitment. Women in the rest of our country live under the thumb of their husbands, in-laws and other elderly relations, and even their sons during their old age. Jasodhara Bagchi, in her discussion on Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s portrayal of the nation as mother, argues that he was building on the existing mother cult in Bengal. The natural bounty of the soil is an affectionate mother. Thus, the mother image that was projected by the anti-colonialist was a combination of the affective warmth of a quintessential Bengali mother and the mother goddess as Shakti — the divine female power. Bagchi says, ‘Apart from a nationalist euphoria, the colonial experience was also refracted in Bengal, at the turn of the century, as the concern a male child has for his neglected mother.’ C.S. Lakshmi describes the metaphor of the mother for the community and language in Tamil Nadu. ‘In the elaboration of Tamil culture, the Tamil mother became the central element as guarantor of purity of progeny and authentication of historical continuity. Hence, the Tamil man’s manliness rested on him providing protection to the Tamil mother’ (Lakshmi 1990). The sentimental devotion to the mother is further exemplified by 4 G maithreyi krishnaraj

Shanta Gokhale’s discussion of author Sane Guruji’s work called Shyamchi Ayi. The mother in the story is the embodiment of kindness as well as probity, and her every gesture is nourishment to the soul of the child. This extreme idealisation appears to be the desire of the son to give the mother all that she needs but did not get from the father, and yet at the same time the son wanted to remain as an infant, loved and looked after by her. The mother’s fixation for sons appears to affirm Freud’s thesis of the psychological problem that sons face during separation from their mothers. Coming to contemporary times, in Indian English literature, mothers are not the self-sacrificing angels but are made of flesh and blood; beings who face contradictory pulls. Caught between rejecting the life-giving power that motherhood gives her, and seeking an identity beyond the halo of motherhood, the modern woman finds no viable alternative. Feminists tend to see the reproductive burden as limiting women’s ability to participate in wider society and pursuing their own self-actualisation. Their basic approach is that motherhood should be by choice. Today among urban westernised couples intent on pursuing their chosen careers, many are indeed opting out of motherhood. Socialist feminists argued that mothering is not solely the woman’s responsibility; when women bear children, they create new citizens and new workers, and hence this is a ‘social’ action and not an individual one. Nancy Folbre (2004) demonstrated the enormous cost women saved the economy by providing free labour. To her goes the credit of introducing ‘care economy’ as an essential aspect which must be recognised while estimating national income. For socialists, social reproduction had three aspects: (i) bringing forth new human beings, (ii) nurturing them to adulthood, and (iii) reproducing the social formation through rearing practices. Community support should be provided through day care. With more and more mothers employed outside the home, the demand for day care in non-socialist countries is being supplied commercially. The problem of commercially offered child care suffers from the hazard that it may not be real ‘care’. Nannies who serve as fostermothers do get attached to the babies but do not enjoy rights over them. This situation implies that the whole society should be permeated with the mothering quality. It needs reform of the Introduction F 5

workplace that permits mothers the necessary leave to care for young children; it also needs change in the rigid sexual division of labour whereby fathers also learn to take care of their children. Some societies have successfully experimented with paternity leave where both parents are held responsible and can take turns. In the majority of cases, especially in poor countries, working-class women do not have the luxury of full-time motherhood, driven by the necessity to earn their living. In many parts of the world, with men migrating or deserting their wives, the onus of family maintenance falls heavily on women. Reading through various views on motherhood, one is driven to the conclusion that motherhood invites glorification but no empowerment. The real life conditions of mothering in terms of pre-natal and post-natal care, give the lie to the exalted position a mother is supposed to have. Still reeling under high maternal mortality, we are far from nurturing the nurturer. Chitra Sinha studies the Hindu Code Bill to confirm that mythification of motherhood is unaccompanied by a willingness to giving a mother her actual rights. It was after contentious battles in the Constituent Assembly that the hindu woman won her right to her father’s property, as a daughter. The father however continues to be the legal guardian of the children. Women’s groups’ demand for equal guardianship has not yet been accepted. Motherhood and mothering raise many questions: (i) Do we see this function as an onerous duty done at the bidding of others, or as a freely chosen avenue of fulfilment? (ii) Are there rewards for motherhood? (iii) Do women feel incomplete without bearing a child? (iv) Can women reclaim the power of mother–right? While motherhood has often been invested with status and prestige, feminism objects to the reduction of a woman’s identity exclusively to this role — women are mothers and also women. Given the availability of contraception, the number of births can now be limited as compared to earlier times. While the possibility is there, women may not really be the decision makers in settings where the family and society put pressure on them to bear children for the continuation of the lineage as their duty. A recent field study in Bangladesh and India found that newly married girls have little freedom in avoiding births during the first year of their marriage (Sethuraman and Duvurry 2007). In more recent times, 6 G maithreyi krishnaraj

population policies in countries with high population growth like India enforce, covertly or overtly, contraceptive regimes on women without regard to attendant health risks. As I have pointed out in my opening article, ‘It is not the fact of mothering that makes women vulnerable, but their social construction, the implications for women flowing from the meaning attached to the idea of motherhood, and the terms and conditions under which it is allowed to express itself. Becoming the mother is an emotionally fulfiling experience. However in reality, it becomes a burden to be borne by women because they do not get adequate support from society. A baby demands so much attention. It is tiring to breast feed every two or three hours. Mothers are unable to seek work or life outside. Many unwed mothers have to surrender their babies because of stigma as well as lack of support to raise the baby. Divya Pandey, while reporting the interviews she conducted in a maternity home in urban Mumbai, concludes, ‘The subjective experiences of motherhood and mothering is one where not only the social relations between the sexes dominate, but also the family as an institution constantly intrudes, manipulates, reorganises and redirects the experience to suit the specific purposes of a given family.’ The set of articles brought together explore different facets of motherhood and the ideological underpinnings that go with it. Feminism has an ambivalent attitude towards this issue. What could be an ennobling experience is also riddled with an awareness of the personal cost one must bear while investing so much in it. The self-sacrifice inherent in the aspiration to be a good mother is also binding on the child, as it encourages dependence. Women are women and also mothers.

References Bachofen J.J.1967. Myth, Religion and Mother Right, trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Briffault, R. 1927. The Mothers. Vols I–III, New York: Macmillan Co. Folbre, Nancy. 2004. Family Time: The Social Organisation of Care. New York: Routledge. Krishnaraj, Maithreyi. 1995. ‘Motherhood: Power and Powerlessness’, in Jasodhara Bagchi (ed.), Indian Women: Myth and Reality. Hyderabad: Sangam Books. Introduction F 7

Lakshmi, C.S. 1990. ‘Mother, Mother Community and Mother Politics in Tamil Nadu’, Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (42&43), October 20–27. Leibowitz, Lila. 1986. ‘In the Beginning... The Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour and the Development of the First Human Societies’, in Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson (eds), Women’s Work, Men’s Property. London: Verso. Sethuraman, Kavita and Nata Duvurry. 2007. ‘The Nexus of Gender Discrimination with Malnutrition’, Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (44), November 3–10.

8 G maithreyi krishnaraj

chapter 2

Motherhood,

Mothers, Mothering: A Multi-Dimensional Perspective

maithreyi krishnaraj 1 We perceive motherhood as a central fact of female existence because it is mostly connected to biology, differentiating a female from a male. A woman’s role in reproduction far outweighs that of a man. It is invariably a woman who ‘mothers’. Motherhood and mothering are usually perceived as naturally related. Paradoxically, this bringing forth of new life and its sustenance, so essential to human survival, has become an instrument of subordination. Maternal responsibility is used as an alibi to exclude a woman from power, authority, decisions, and from a participatory role in public life. Further, motherhood and mothering are not entirely controlled by women. Support and esteem for mothers and mothering vary across societies, cultures and over history. A woman shares her procreative capacity with all mammals, yet it is only within human society that this contradiction exists. Nature provides a variety of conditions for mothering, the precise patterns depending on environmental conditions. There are birds that are monogamous for the season and jointly look after the young. The hornbill mother lies in the nest incubating the egg while the father hornbill fetches food for both.

There is the male midwife toad that carries eggs on his back till maturity. The stickle back female fish (whose ideal mate may be envious to many harassed mothers) lays eggs and disappears to live her own life in solitary splendour, while the male mate incubates the eggs and nourishes the young to maturity. Among apes, there are again varieties. According to biological research, the basic human body plan is female and all embryos are female regardless of male or female chromosomes, and become male only once androgen has been secreted after six weeks (Oakley 1972). New research also indicates the Y–chromosome as ‘deviant’. Often the males look after the young — the grandfathers sit cuddling their grand children. Among baboons, females form a clan, while a solitary male wistfully hangs around. This is a scene which the fantasising male socio-biologists depicted as the male baboon’s harem, until feminist biologists disabused them of the theory by demonstrating that the male was there on sufferance. Even among the big cats, the female is totally independent and has sole responsibility for the young without interference from the male and often has to protect her young from predatory males. The most exemplary mother–community we have is the elephant herd where the troop is entirely female and where mothering is a joint responsibility of the whole troop. There are endless stories of animal life. Let me get down to human practices.

2 Mothers and Motherhood in History: Sacralisation Several anthropologists have upheld the thesis that human social organisation was originally a matriarchy — a biological group, economically self-contained, formed by the mother and her offspring. J.J. Bachofen’s work, Myth, Religion and Mother Right (1861), was among the first to appear as a study on the evolution of social development. Human social organization was a matriarchal clan emanating from the obvious reproductive role of the female. Mother–right embodied the notion of rule by mothers, a period during which women were powerful and influential, and descent 10 G maithreyi krishnaraj

was reckoned through them. An extreme form of female dominance was ‘amazonism’. His argument was based on the then prevailing understanding that paternity is uncertain but motherhood can be directly observed.1 Drawing his evidence primarily from legends, symbols and religious beliefs, he found women’s pre-eminence in food provision. Ancient myths linked the moon and its cycles to human life which led to the worship of lunar deities who protect and express fertility. Bachofen recognised an implicit moral and psychological import in mythology. The age of mother–right predated Greek and Roman patriarchal systems. He postulated two distinct periods — the first being the absolute primitive–nomadic hunting and foraging stages of human existence, and a later one of settled agriculture. The analogy of begetting and birth to the sowing and harvesting of tilled fields gave rise to the great agricultural Earth Goddess or Earth Mother. The mystery of female power to generate life was immanent in every wife and mother. Blood kinship of the matrilineal family was the fundamental structuring principle of social order. Bachofen saw in the Greek myth of Psyche a combination of supreme motherhood and virginity. According to him, mother–right marked a cultural stage of human evolution, not confined to any particular society. He gives instances from several countries and regions including India. Women, singly or in groups, alone or in collaboration with men, mete out justice, participate in assemblies and arbitrate peace treaties. The prestige of womanhood, the emphasis on maternal kinship and maternal property gave rise to the term ‘mother country’. Warfare removed men for long periods, which made women’s authority a necessity. The mother cared for children, tilled the field, ruled over home and servants, and when necessary took up arms. Child-bearing and motherhood are bound with the Earth that bears all things. ‘That which is begotten belongs to the maternal matter which has enclosed it, borne it to light and which now nurtures it’ (Bachofen 1961: 128). For the feminist, Bachofen’s work encouraged exploration of myths that gave prominence to female principle or reflected conflict between the female and male principle. L.H. Morgan (1877) classifies stages of social evolution as passing through savagery, barbarism and civilisation. Before organisation of society, the oldest stage was ‘hordes’ that lived in promiscuity. Descent from the female line was archaic that Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 11

never disappeared until much later. Reckoning descent from the female line, according to him, corresponded with sedentary life, cultivation of plants and domestication of animals. With accumulation of property in individual hands, descent by female line was overthrown. Tylon (1881) held similar views about the impact of private property on gender relations. Briffault combines myths and ethnography to establish that the early development of human society and its fundamental institutions and traditions arose within a matriarchy. The social characters of the human mind traceable to instincts related to female functions and the animal family out of which the human social group has arisen, is matriarchal. He referred to the work of Morgan and Tylon: ‘The maternal instinct is then much more primitive, fundamental and stronger than the mating instinct’. It is in the maternal, not the sexual association that the growth of the so called ‘social instinct’ takes place (Briffault 1927: 131). The sense of ownership and jealous care on the part of the mother often lasts beyond infancy; she tends to establish her claims, authority and guardianship over her offspring. Briffault gives lengthy accounts of matrifocal families from several parts of the world — India, China, Japan, Arabia, Egypt. Briffault refers to a period when there were group mothers. The term ‘mother’ is applied equally to all women of the same generation, and sons and daughters of the same generation of mothers belong to all mothers. There is thus co-operation among the mothers.2 Women’s ownership of property as well as economic contribution empowered them. Briffault claims that women were not oppressed in matters of marriage and sex. Whether products of a permanent marriage or casual relations, the children were part of the mother’s family.3 In matriarchal organizations, women, as a general rule, took the initiative in contracting sexual associations. The woman who contracted a sexual partner did not leave her group, and hence the group did not lose her contribution to its survival. With the countless taboos on women during menstruation and pregnancy, childbirth may be seen as an expression of reverence or horror. For the primitive man, religion was not philosophical, but associated with daily needs, and it was the woman who was engaged in all those activities which ministered to the daily needs. 12 G maithreyi krishnaraj

Magical power was originally associated with women. They were also associated with harvest rites and fertility rites. The one and the same deity is the sender of disease4 as well as fertility-inducing ‘mother’ who held the power of life and death. The supremacy and importance of the deity as the primitive cosmic power, and the first object of nature worship, is the counterpart of the magical faculties and functions of the primitive woman (Briffault 1927: 640). Briffault illustrates how women’s fertility was likened to that of the Earth. The primitive goddess is the prime ancestress. In India, local deities, native cults and gram devatas are all female. Ganesh (1990), tracing the iconography in India from the Indus Valley to the present day, talks of ‘Mother who is not Mother’. The mother goddess is an independent goddess with no child, like the Madonna. The goddess depicts the female principle. Briffault expressed the fear that human society will crumble into individual units because the sentimental bonds that held society together through the social instincts of the primitive maternal group have grown feeble. Clarissa Bader (1987) says, ‘The country of India, so fertile and varied, so charming in its repose, so terrible in its storms, filled the settlers with awe. They adored nature, not in its perishable form but in those immortal principles which vivify and sustain her. Nature was represented by Aditi, the common mother of gods. She was also identified with Earth, our nurse, our support in life as well as our last home.’ The feminist reappraisal of the matriarchate is inspired by an entirely political necessity to provide an adequate theoretical explanation of what Engels (1972) called the ‘world historical defeat of the female sex’. Engels, in his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, accepted Morgan’s stages of history — a transition from savagery to barbarism to civilisation. He accepted the existence of mother–right in earlier times, but rejecting the mythical explanation, connected it to economic systems which created social organisation of relations of production. The displacement of mother–right by father–right accompanied the emergence of class society and private wealth (Morgan 1877). According to Claude Meillassoux (1984), the great historical endeavour of man has been to subdue women’s reproductive function to his will and fight off the incipient power derived from the latter’s procreative capacities. Women’s submission was essential to make her surrender her rights over her progeny. Since women Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 13

are the sole agents of reproduction,5 wherever the fruits of reproduction, namely children, are directly coveted as labour women are brought into submission.6 Eleanor Leacock (1981), however, argues that the anthropologists cited above got carried away mistakenly equating matriliny with matriarchy. Matriliny implied descent through women while matriarchy implies female dominance as analogous to patriarchy, which is male dominance. She contends that such an analogy is false. In pre-class societies, descent through women did confer more status to women; they were not exploited or oppressed but this did not imply female dominance. The subordination of women rests, for Leacock, on the fact that socially necessary labour became private service, and hence led to separation from the clan where a mother had earlier some authority. Kathleen Gough (1971) likewise dismisses the theory of an earlier matriarchy as sheer fantasy. Matrilineal descent had always existed and still does in several parts of the world. This phenomenon, according to her, was a specific response in horticultural societies where the work of women was a key to survival. The child-bearing role and the cultural elaboration of differences in strength between men and women might have led to the subordination of women. Fleur (1979) does a Marxist reappraisal and contends that Marxism does not attend to relations of reproduction wherein lies the basis of female subordination. Evelyn Reed (1975), restating with approval the thesis of an earlier ‘matriarchy by the founding fathers of anthropology’ nevertheless prefers the term ‘fratriarchy’ to depict a mother-based egalitarian commune in which neither sexual nor social inequalities between genders existed. Fratriarchy existed when women did not depend on men and there was collective property. The law of exogamy and endogamy came in when hostile groups had to be brought into a fraternal alliance. Mothers and their brothers formed the fratriarchy. Under these conditions society was still matriclan, matrivillage and matrifamily. Though the matriarchal debate revolves around the past, its real value lies in the future — not as a model for future society with guaranteed female dominance based on motherhood, but as a mythic evocation of lost female power. It persuades women to imagine a society in which women might have power over their lives. They can acknowledge the vision of matriarchy, 14 G maithreyi krishnaraj

if not its empirical basis. Most of the current revival of discussion on recent feminist literature on the matriarchate draws on the philosophical idealism of Bachofen, as an agenda for fighting against the powerlessness of mothers in contemporary society, and as a political necessity to reclaim lost ground. ‘Myths are measures by which a society expresses its underlying ideologies and indoctrinates members into its moral universe. In addition myths allow the expression of fears and anxieties generated by religious and social constraints’ (Sutherland 1991: 24). Ideology controls reality with the idea that the ideal is more real than reality (Griffin 1982). The matriarchy debate had mixed results among feminists in the west, who shift between several views. Some want a separate sphere with full rights for mothers; others emphasise maternalism as a spiritual state that can infuse society with its nurturing qualities. Yet others wish to discard an exclusive identity such as ‘mother’ and demand a wider role in society. As an offshoot of the last choice, ‘mothering’, for women, became an impediment for full citizenship and full self-actualisation. As we are in the realm of history and antiquity, a brief foray into Indian mythology, legend and epics would connect the above world history to our own past. There is abundant literature on the Indian version of Shakti. Manoshi Mitra (2005) gives a comprehensive catalogue of the many names and forms in which Shakti is worshipped even today. All of them combine aspects of fertility and nurturance with that of a dynamic virgin warrior. Each mother goddess has her own weapon and mount — she is the protector who vanquishes evil. In cultures throughout the world, the image of the mother has appeared as a central theme in art, myths and dramatic performance (Preston 1982). Contemporary psycho-analysts relate worship of the female deity to man’s infantile desire to be reunited with his mother. India is the only country in the world today where the goddess is worshipped as the great mother in a tradition that dates back to the Bronze age. Dressed and re-dressed, clothed in space, skulls or sari, the great mother lives in both the Great and Little traditions. Vedic Aryans, it is believed, are responsible for the subduing of this worship. The Indus Valley civilisation (estimated to be from 3000 BC to 1500 BC), at two of its largest centres — Mohenjodaro Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 15

and Harappa — contained huge granaries. No granary in the preclassical world was comparable in the specialisation of design and monumental dignity of the artifacts found here. (Oppenheimer 2003). The majority of statues are of mother goddesses.7 Today in India, as it was 5000 years ago, agriculture predominates and every village has Sapta Matrikas and the majority of gram devatas are female. If woman and goddess were associated with fertility of the Earth and its seasons of cyclical growth, then the first rites would have sprung up around physiological cycles of women. The word ‘ritu’ connotes both cyclical time as well as women’s menstrual cycle. Rituals that celebrate the onset of menarche as a joyous occasion are prevalent among tribals who are indigenous people outside the caste system as well as among several lower castes. Even high-caste Brahmins in south India adhered to this custom.8 Fertility dances are held during the festival holi in north India. Birth was in older times entirely the province of women. In tantric worship, the mother goddess is venerated through her earthly double. The seclusion during menses and childbirth, reflecting a negative association, could be a later development. Dudley (1978) feels that the monthly occurrence of menstruation, should once again retrieve the positive association it had with lunar rhythms, as purification and cosmic attunement than as a curse. ‘If women’s physiological functions were once the very models through which the goddess was venerated, how do we explain the fact that both were divested so thoroughly of their power and influence?’ Dudley’s romanticism resonates through her conclusion: ‘The sacred rites of the Goddess are the sacred rites of women everywhere. With reclamation of this ancient spirituality, women will sense the latent power of their full potential, deriving from both the goddess without and the goddess within’ (ibid.: 1978).9 Agrawala (1984) reiterates what others have said before. Among all religious beliefs, the first notion to appear was presumably the myth of motherhood. The primitive man instinctively came to perceive in motherhood a power to be venerated and feared in its own right. Around the concept of motherhood, a wider symbology of sex and fertility evolved and was personalised into mother. The diverse nature of a mother’s behaviour was further analysed

16 G maithreyi krishnaraj

into mother–types through a psychological evolution — the producing mother, the nourishing mother, the benovolent mother or the punishing, terrible, killing mother. Scholars have been fascinated by the persistence of strong mother–right elements in India to a degree and extent more than in any other part of the world (Ehrenfels 1941).10 If this is so, the puzzle is that how did mother–power get weakened? Kosambi (1962) argues that in the food gathering stage, the mother goddess was prominent, but a change in the economy induced corresponding changes in caste and cult. Sometimes a fusion of cults took place. Mother goddesses became consorts to male Gods. The feature of group-mothering gets translated in legends as several mothers having a child in common. There is thus total denial of the mother goddess in later birth legends. Despite these trends, the mother goddess did not vanish entirely from this subcontinent. There is reason to believe that tension between official religion and the living syncretic goddess was always present. The parallel folk culture of the mother goddess as gram devatas can be seen as a subversive phenomenon. Kali for instance is firmly rooted in the un-spousified and intact expression of the female principle. The nurturing qualities of female deities is emphasised even where the goddess in question is not directly associated with motherhood. Giti Thadani, well versed in many languages including Sanskrit and Hindi, extensively travelled the country searching for old temples in India, especially in Madhya Pradesh and Kanyakumari. With rare skill, she combines archaeology, architecture and iconography to intrepret old temples along with culture and mythologies that surround them. A majority of these rare sculptures and temples were in disarray, unprotected or built over to suit current ideas. She shows how women are made repositories of tradition but do not have access to their own tradition. She found abundant evidence of an earlier celebration of the feminine principle — the prominence in sculptural detail of the generative power of the mother by vivid, explicit depiction of the yoni,11 considered the source of energy. Patriarchal overthrow of this primacy to female generative power is evident through the insertion of the phallus in the yoni icon. There still exist ‘yogini’

Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 17

temples in Orissa. Many temples became masculinised, with the independent female goddesses converted into consorts of male gods.12 Many old temples do not have a dome or closed space (a sanctum sanctorum) but have pillars supporting an amphitheatre which is open on all sides. In other words, energy is decentralised (Thadani 2003). She argues that these ancient iconographs depicted poly-cosmology. Monotheism with a male god in ‘heaven’ was propagated by semitic religions like Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Poly cosmology of the earlier tradition agrees with the modern astronomy of many universes. It is interesting how social myths of women as goddesses get translated even into technological other–worlds like in the famous TV series ‘Star Trek’ where there is evolution of the cyborg — a fusion of mechanical and human bodies (Balinisteau 2007). The translation of nature through culture insures humanity’s progress towards more evolved forms of social organisation. Mythic gods and goddesses are expressions of the nature–culture relationship. Culture is the realm where nature is reasoned out. In Western civilisation, with the advent of Enlightenment and the march of science, technology was posed as containing nature, i.e., nature as outside human consciousness. This, in the west, led to the dichotomy of the feminine as ‘nature’ (hence unbridled) and man as ‘culture’ (hence subject to reason). In non-western societies, on the other hand, the concept of nature is not so starkly oppositional and is seen more as an immanent force. There are some who do not agree with the view that religious symbolism is an epiphenomenon, a mere projection of psychological or social realities. ‘There is no logical equivalence in any society between exalted female objects of worship and a high position of women’ (Warner 1976). Preston (1982) also says that although ideology is informed by social and psychological factors, it has an independent, self-perpetuating mode that resists reductionist interpretations. In an agricultural setting, a large family is useful, especially when infant mortality is also high. High fertility gains significance in such a context and the woman, as the one responsible for fertility, receives veneration. Psychoanalysts like Chodorow (1978) argue that the exclusive responsibility for infant and child care is the main instrument for creating gender differences. 18 G maithreyi krishnaraj

3 Indian Epics The status of mothers in the Indian epics — the Mahabharata and the Ramayana — is interesting. Did they have autonomy regarding by whom to beget a child? Could they own the child? As mothers, what kind of power did they have? Keeping these questions in mind the focus of this study is actually more about problems in the present, using history as a backdrop. From arguments put forward by Bhattacharya (2005), which had a different purpose than mine, I make bold to infer the degree of autonomy or lack of it for mothers in the epic. One of the characters, Mamata, resisted sage Brihaspati’s desire for sons even though she allowed him to have relations with her because she was pregnant with his elder brother’s child. It was customary then for brothers to share a wife and for Brahmins to have relations with Kshatriya women. Dirghatama and Drithrashtra were sons born in the wombs of women who did not desire them. As the only sign of protest, Dirghatama’s wife would refuse to take sage Vyasa to Kshatriya women when he wanted to use his progenitive power for payment. She also refused to look after Vyasa. Amba and Ambalika were forced by Satyavati to accept Vyasa. Pandu persuaded Kunti to have sons by Gods chosen by him. The first son, Karna, was born when she was unmarried whom she acknowledged only in the end to save the Pandavas. The epic says both Satyavati and Kunti could regain virginity after child birth. There is the unforgettable tale of Madhavi whom Bhisham Sahni has immortalised in his play Madhavi (2002). The play concentrates on Madhavi’s function to fulfil the grand design of Viswamitra, Yayati and Galav. Galav wanted to pay his guru, Viswamitra, guru dakshina (payment to the teacher). Viswamitra demanded 800 white Ashwamedha horses.13 Only 600 horses, owned by three kings, could be found in the whole of Aryavarta. Yayati gifts his daughter to Galav, who loans her out to the three kings so that she could produce a son for each in return for the horses. The balance of 200 horses is offset by loaning her to Viswamitra himself. Under no circumstance could Madhavi keep her child. At the end of it all Galav rejects her, and Madhavi, exploited by all the men only as a Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 19

reproductive womb, goes away into the forest. This story depicts the denial of maternal instinct to a mother, and deprivation of any inner space to her, of any desire or selfhood. This episode has been a favourite among feminist performing artists to highlight the stark insensitivity of patriarchy to women’s feelings. Many such examples show that women had little power over their reproductive capacity. Devaki had to surrender all her children including Krishna.14 Interestingly, while Devaki is forgotten, Yashodhara won fame as Krishna’s foster-mother. However in some cases, while the women of royal families did not have choice over whom to beget a son by, they appear to wield their influence through sons. Shakuntala makes Dushyanta swear that her son would inherit the throne. Kausalya and Kaikeyi are other examples. Initially Kaikeyi wanted Rama to be the heir to the throne, later she demanded her son’s right. The Valmiki version attributes this volte-face to the evil advice of Mantara (Sutherland 1991). There is the well-known story of Dhruv and the two queens, Suniti and Suruchi. The kings in these episodes are enamoured of either the younger wife or of one favourite among them, and the elder queens are not interested in winning their husband’s affection but assert their rights as mothers and claim their sons’ inheritance rights.

4 Feminist Theories Since a major aspect of the female role is reproduction, women’s mothering has continued to be basic to women’s lives as well as the organisation of the family. This is fundamental to the genesis of the ideology about women. Women’s mothering is taken for granted because of the unique human need for extended care and nursing of infants. The profound importance of women’s mothering for family structure, for relations between the sexes, for ideology about women, and for the sexual division of labour and sexual inequality within the family and outside, has been rarely analysed. In India, there is more literature in the various regional languages that deal with various relationships within the family — of mothers and sons, of mothers 20 G maithreyi krishnaraj

and daughters, and of mothers within the age hierarchy, but no systematic analysis exists of what motherhood really means. A political space was created for reconsidering the ideology of motherhood with the women’s liberation movement in the West and elsewhere, challenging the view of motherhood as an inevitable destiny for a woman and that happiness and fulfilment can come only through it. The dissatisfaction that white American middle-class mothers experienced in their confinement to the domestic sphere of a capitalist society resulted in a feminist debates from the 1960s which continue to resonate in the literature even today.15 Feminist literature mainly from North America deals with various aspects: the psychological effects, the physical strain, the pressures to live up to an ideal and the absence of supportive measures. Radical feminists like Kate Millet (1977) argued that if male dominance is linked to sexual mode of reproduction, the solution was to reject heterosexual unions. In Simone De Beauvoir’s (1952) classic, The Second Sex, the solution offered was equally radical — rejection of motherhood to gain freedom from being the ‘other’. Rich (1977) further elaborated the dilemma of mothering in a patriarchal set up. She dwelt on the potential relationship of a woman to her power of reproduction and the reality of the institution of motherhood under patriarchy. She asks that we transform women’s eroticism and consciousness through a fresh understanding of women’s bodies. There is a reproductive consciousness according to some. ‘The process of reproduction is simply not the route from ovulation to birth, but the sociobiological process from copulation to birth, nutrition and care of children. It involves body and mind. Reproductive consciousness is differentiated by gender and it is not just an atomized individual objective consciousness.’ (Miles and Finn 1989).16 There were other theorists who held the economic system as primarily responsible for mothers’ powerlessness. In a capitalistic society, four basic social structures combine to subordinate women — production, reproduction, sexuality and socialisation of children. Motherhood was originally set up in the family as a historical necessity, but later excluded women’s world from production and public life (Eisenstein 1977). This is not strictly true for lower-class women who participate both in production and reproduction and it is increasingly no longer true even for Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 21

women from other classes who now work outside the home. However, exclusion from public power and discrimination in the labour force persist as women’s work outside the home is regarded as only supplementary to their primary responsibility. In many liberal feminist theories, the working class is excluded from analysis. What remains true is that regardless of whether or not women work outside the home, mothering as unpaid labour is under-valued all over the world. Motherhood should be understood as a more complex reality than domestic labour within capitalism because it is a patriarchal institution not reducible to class analysis. Patriarchy co-exists along with different forms of production. Women’s sole responsibility for child care is what leads to the structural differentiation between a domestic and a public sphere (Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974). Some early feminist theories proposed a psycho-analytical explanation that it is women’s mothering, on behalf of ‘father–right’, that creates problems (Mitchell 1975). It is obvious that these explanations were more relevant to advanced capitalistic societies, for anthropological studies of other societies disputed such sharp dichotomies in pre-industrial societies or even in those societies in transition. Caste and/or community groups function as an interface between the domestic and the outside. Women’s work tends to be of a subsistence nature that provides basic necessities to the household and production is jointly done in family farms or household industry, albeit without equal sharing of responsibility or rewards. The problems for these societies in transition are that the application of money–value to only what is exchanged, and not what is consumed within the household, has created a sphere of invisible production not acknowledged in national data.17 Caste and community often extend oppressive conservative injunctions. It is not the mere fact of motherhood and/or mothering that makes women vulnerable, but their social construction, the implications for women flowing from the meaning attached to the idea of motherhood, and the terms and conditions under which it is allowed to express itself.18 Whether women gain or lose in relation to their mothering depends on wider social practices in which they are embedded like class, race and ethnicity. Parenting and sexuality are social products that operate by some general principles of reproduction in different social formations (Ferguson 1989). 22 G maithreyi krishnaraj

Recent literature from North America talks about how there is excessive pressure from the church and from society to be ideal mothers — self-sacrificing and devoting time and energy to make children a perfectly packaged product suitable for a competitive society. They talk of the isolation and the lack of support in terms of day care which is otherwise found in extended families or as in Black families. The Church’s definition of a good Christian is one who is a good mother. Some talk of mother–blame for whatever happens within the family. For instance, in cases of incest where the father sexually abuses a daughter, the mother is either accused of collusion, or seen as a dependent victim herself (Jacobs 1990). Women are blamed for infertility too (Sandelowski 1990). Counterposed to a largely negative image of mothers and mothering in such depictions, there are also attempts at creating more positive images. Mothers are a source of bonding between women; mothers are role models for daughters, they are also a source of support — emotionally and otherwise to daughters.19 (Saiders 1979). In South Asia, there are different patterns of how childbirth is managed. In north India, the first childbirth is in the in-laws’ family where the daughter-in-law is subject to the surveillance and codes of the marital family (Jeffery and Jeffery 1984). In south and western India, on the other hand, all childbirths take place in the mother’s home. Extended family support is available in most parts of India during women’s pregnancy, childbirth and infant care. Human beings make a conscious effort to bring feelings in line with what is deemed appropriate in a given situation. This private act of emotional management is transmitted in different situations of emotional labour. Airhostesses and receptionists have to smile constantly to show hospitality. However, when a woman cares for others’ children, her emotional labour is different, for the quality of mothering is not equivalent to that of the airhostess — it cannot be simulated as in the latter case. A mother cannot genuinely ‘mother’ unless she treats the child as if the child were her own. When care-givers do mothering, the care-taker gets emotionally attached to the child. Yet, she is not entitled to full ownership because there is a money transaction involved and the biological mother, while expecting her to mother, does not give her the status (Nelson 1990). There are limits placed on her authority over the child. Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 23

5 Instrumental use of Motherhood as Mothering Quality The mother as ‘nation’ is common all over the world. In India, Gandhi exhorted women to bring their self-sacrificing qualities, as mothers, for the national movement. In Israel, the legal discourse constructed women not as citizens, but as daughters of Israel who had to fulfill their duty as Hebrew mothers (Berkovitch 1997). During the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the Inkatha Women’s Brigade appealed to women to save the traditional Zulu family with the father as the head and women as subordinate helpers (Hassim 1997). The author argues that this was understandable under apartheid conditions where black families were uprooted, fragmented and displaced. In 1987 the Mothers’ Manifesto of Green Women in Germany demanded an ‘autonomous feminine sphere’ for mothers (Haug 1988). Motherhood has often been used as a space for protest. In Sri Lanka, when the State unleashed terror as reprisal in a civil war situation, hundreds of young persons of the nationalist youth organization disappeared or were killed. This was instrumental in the formation of the Mothers’ Front, a grassroots organisation with over 25,000 women members. They gave an ultimatum to the government saying ‘We want a climate where we can raise our sons to manhood, have our husbands with us and lead normal lives’. This emotive vocabulary of motherhood was more successful than citizens’ appeals. A similar tactic was used in Peru by the Mothers’ Front to appeal against the terror unleashed by the Shiny Path organization. More recently in Nagaland, in the north-east of India, Naga mothers held a collective protest against violence in their territory. Likewise in Manipur (also in the north-east), women held a demonstration by marching nude as a protest against the actions of the Indian army which was suppressing insurgency in the area. In some discussions on motherhood in other countries, especially Africa, a more positive image emerges — motherhood as empowering (Jeannes and Shefer 2004). In Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Jamaica, prior to globalisation and colonial influences, the social 24 G maithreyi krishnaraj

organisation and economic system gave importance to mothers as providers (many women had independent land which they cultivated in addition to working on men’s lands). Among the Igobos, people were the society’s most valuable resource, the prime duty of women was equated to wealth creation — words like azukego meant siblings are wealth; maduka meant people bring greatness. In some African languages, there was no word for wife or husband — men were referred to as ‘strangers married into the matrilineal clan’. Women acquired social status when they became mothers. Wifehood may have led to motherhood but this was not equated with ‘being a wife’. In some South African settlements, mothers took responsibility to build community leadership for political involvement. On the other hand, in countries with a deeply embedded Confucian tradition, patriarchy was strong. During the Yin dynasty in South Korea, women, as upholders of the family, were given ‘status’ and had ‘power’, but only while conforming to Confucian traditional authority (Cho 1996).

6 The Case of Matriliny While matriarchy, as dominance of mother or mother–right, is not present in the original sense of a matriarchate which anthropologists like Briffault have discussed, there continues to exist matrilineal communities in several parts of the world including in present day India. Kathleen Gough (1971) and David Schneider (1961) examine nine matrilineal kinship systems prevalent in various parts of the world such as Plateau Tonga, Navaho, Truk, Trobiand, Ashanti, and Kerala. Apart from Kerala, there are matrilineal communities in the north-east, like the Khasis (Nongbri 1993) and Gharos (Raman unpublished). Saradamoni (1999) not only uses textual sources, but also oral histories of women in the Travancore region of Kerala to give us the essential features of such a society and the changes that have happened to debilitate the original structure. Why are we interested in ‘matriliny’ and how does it benefit women as mothers? What is its significance for women’s autonomy Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 25

and authority? To answer this question a brief explanation of what matriliny is in order. David Schneider (1961) gives a succint definition of matriliny. A descent group is a decision making unit. In order to make decisions and carry them out effectively, the group must have the power to mobilise its resources and capacities This can be done by structuring authority so that decisions can be reached and enforced, and sanctions can be applied in case of failure to conform. The minimal condition is that authority be differentially distributed among members of the group. Kinship is a way of defining a number of statuses and their inter-relationships according to rules and principles that distinguish kin and non-kin. Matrilineal descent groups have three main characteristics: • a woman is responsible for the care of every child; • adult men have authority over women and children; and • descent group exogamy is required (Exogamy is marrying outside the clan; endogamy is marrying within the clan, like caste in India.) The woman who has the primary responsibility for the initial care of the infant is its mother. She may have help but the responsibility is hers. The father of the child is the person married to the child’s mother at that time of the child’s early life when the child is formally affiliated according to some descent group principle. The role of the mother has three distinct elements (Schneider 1961): • responsibility for initial care; • the actual care itself; and • social placement or affiliation. In matriliny, membership is obtained through the mother, while in patriliny, membership is through the father. In patriliny, the line of authority and line of descent coincide. In matriliny, although the line of authority runs through men, group placement is through the line of women. Matrilineal descent groups do not require the status of ‘father as husband’. An important feature of matriliny is that control exercised over women, by women, to ensure that children achieve primary loyalty to the mother’s line. The father 26 G maithreyi krishnaraj

undergoes a tension while expressing his emotional relation to his children, as his children do not belong to him. Second, sisters in matrilineal society perpetuate the descent group but to do so, they have to be impregnated by men outside the descent group. Different patterns of kinship organisation correlate with different degrees of female autonomy. The proxy variables of female autonomy are: mean distance between natal and conjugal homes, freedom of divorce and remarriage, literacy rates, work participation and women’s inheritance. The outstanding examples of matriliny are the Khasis and Garos, Nayars of Kerala and a community in Lakshdweep on the west coast of India. Leela Dube (1991) has studied this community and has noted the changes that have come about. In the matrilineal community of Lakshdweep, a woman was always secure in her mother’s home. She could never be asked to leave even if she did not obey the rules. The onus was on the mother to provide the daughter with another house. Women have inalienable rights to property and remained in their own homes. As a result, they enjoyed security, self-respect and autonomy. The houses of closely related female kin are located close to each other. Matrilineal groups generally held contiguous land. Property existed in the form of coconuts, land for cultivation, houses, housing sites, fishing channels, husk soaking pits and moveable ornaments. There are Muslims on the island, but Islam’s influence is confined to only the observance of religious events. Despite the fact that in Islam there is no notion of collective property, such as the ‘taravad’ (the matrilineal household), the island retained the practice of matriliny. The mother’s brother, who is the ‘karnavan’, is more of a manager than an authority figure. Saradamoni has documented the matrilineal community of erstwhile Travancore (which is now part of the reconstituted state of Kerala). Property, which passed from generation to generation, was the foundation of matriliny which offered some amount of stability and autonomy to a woman’s life. The system prevailed among the upper castes as well as the lower castes. The Nayars of former Malabar (now part of the state of Kerala) were matrilocal and matrilineal. The extended families that lived under one roof was known as the ‘taravad’. Nayar women entered into conjugal relations with men of their own caste or above and between Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 27

families of equal economic status. The children born, however belonged to the taravad. Among the Khasis, devolution of property is in the female line. Sons have no right to it, except in rare cases where there is no female issue. There are rules over the disposition of self-acquired property as well. A woman can give her self-acquired property to her son or daughter. But if she dies intestate, it will go to the youngest daughter (Nongbri 1993). For a man’s self-acquired property, there are rules — he can give it to anyone before he dies, but if he dies without indicating any heir, it will go to the clan of his sister or mother. There is a feeling among the Khasi that rules of kinship and inheritance are biased in favour of women. The Khasis justify their matrilineal descent on the ground that the mother, who nurtures the child during incubation, should have rights over the child. The mother bears the brunt of motherhood, while the father’s role is limited to one coitus. Because Khasi physiology stresses the centrality of woman in reproduction, she is the centre of the family circle, and fully responsible for the care and nurture of her children. Daughters have a special responsibility to be chaste, polite and virtuous because family honour depends on them. The youngest daughter inherits bulk of the property, including the house and looms (in the north-east, every house has a loom which women spin, and weave cloth). She has to look after her aged parents. Family rites have to be organised without fail. There is structural tension between the line of descent and inheritance on the one hand, and the authority and control on the other. The former, which links the mother to the daughter, comes in conflict with the latter which links mother’s brother to sister’s son. Dube argues that the unique South Asian metaphor of reproduction, as the man providing seed and the woman as the field, projects the man as the active principle and the woman as a passive receptacle. The man who owns the seed owns the child. The theory of unequal contribution of the sexes to the process of reproduction provides a rationale for a system in which women stand alienated from productive resources, have no control over their labour power, and are denied the right to their offspring. On the other hand, the ancient system of medicine in India — ‘ayurveda’ — does not convey this inequity, and in fact says that the embryo draws from both parents. However, popular culture

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does not reflect this. Interestingly, the status of the mother is a significant component of the child’s identity since placement in the caste hierarchy is ultimately a function of both parents. The special status of the mother in hindu society is not merely the result of extension of the mother’s role as the father’s wife or an ancestress, but derives from a cultural understanding of the unique natural bond that exists between mother and child as a consequence of the mother’s sacrifice during bearing and nurturing the child (Dube et al. 1986). This recounting of various matrilineal communities has an epilogue which reflects the demise of matriliny or its essential features, so that where it exists, it does in an attenuated form. The major reasons, as pointed out by various authors, is the influence of outside forces — changes in law which terminated collective property, the education of men and their incursion into professions that gave them independent income which they did not wish to share, and a new ideology that saw the system as outmoded and unmodern. Thus, patriliny and patriarchy dented this kinship system that was advantageous to women as mothers and daughters. Patriliny is not the exact opposite of matriliny as Ganesh (1998) points out. It is now well accepted among anthropologists that there is diversity in kinship types and patterns in India. However, even within the same type of kinship existing in a particular society, the outcomes may not be the same. The relationship between caste and kinship works at many levels, making it difficult to demarcate the two into separate units. ‘The mechanisms for the functioning of the principles of hierarchy, separation and interdependence, characterising caste, operate not through individuals but through units based on kinship’ (ibid.: 122). Caste boundaries are maintained by controlling women’s sexuality, by valorising women’s chastity and virginity before marriage, and by restricting their movement. These patterns are not intrinsic to patriliny, but are to caste. Ganesh argues against accepting the textbook model of patriliny where a woman after marriage acquires a new membership. In reality, this happens over a period of time and not necessarily completely. In addition, this pattern is much diluted in the southern part of India.

Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 29

7 Is New Reproductive Technology an Answer to Free Choice? Contraception, which was initially liberatory for women when it was under the control of women, became subject to male hegemony, corporate interests and population control programmes. In the nineteenth century, a working-class woman in London called Vera Drake tried to help women out of unwanted pregnancies through the only primitive technology available then. When one woman died, the family brought a case against her and the court sentenced her to imprisonment for unlawful abortions.20 To this day in so called progressive America, abortion is a serious ‘right to life’ issue where ironically there is no ‘right to life’ argument against unnecessary wars that kill and maim millions of young men, women and children. Nor is there any concern for the child saved from abortion. The hapless mother has to fend for herself. One wonders that if men bore children, then what would be the argument? New reproductive technology could have heralded the freedom of choice that feminists wanted, but sadly within the patriarchal set up, this dream is not fulfilled. Such technology is controlled by establishments which are predominantly driven by values that conflict with women’s interests and reinforce the close tie up of gender identity with motherhood. Additionally, this also generates conflict between women as the woman offering her womb may claim ownership of the child, while the woman offering her egg may claim that the fertilised egg gives her primary status as a mother. Increasing, infertility is driving people in the west to seek artificial recourse to begetting children. Women who have delayed motherhood in the interests of career now are suddenly turning to motherhood. There was the case of a 52-year-old woman who became a mother through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) — her husband’s sperm and the ovum of another woman was implanted in her womb. During 2002–4, there were hundreds of cases of women between the age of 52 and 54 who sought motherhood (Ryan 2005a). There is a new trend among women in North America who are rejecting 30 G maithreyi krishnaraj

adoption, or even if their first child is adopted, they are seeking ‘authentic motherhood’ — they want to experience pregnancy, childbirth, lactation for themselves without IVF. In-vitro fertilisation has brought new complications regarding the definition of parenthood, and particularly that of motherhood. Is the mother the woman who bears the child in her womb, albeit the genetic material is another’s? Or is it the woman who donates her egg? Is the man, who donates only his sperm but does little else to nurture the child, entitled to parenthood? In many cases, the ‘genetic’ father (donor) is given sole rights to the child. A 48-year-old woman gave birth to a boy through in-vitro fertilisation. It was discovered that the donated sperm belonged to a married man. The court gave visiting rights to the biological father (Ryan 2005b). There is the curious case of lesbian couple fighting over a child. Lisa and Janet were lesbian partners. Lisa bore a child through reproductive technology. They were both ‘mothering’ the child. However, they split and the fight for custody of the child between the two women left the courts in a quandary. The Vermont court gave visiting rights to Janet because same–sex marriages are legalised by the State. Virginia, on the other hand, does not recognise marriage between lesbians, so the court gave exclusive rights to Lisa who had settled in Virginia (New York Times September 8 2005). In India, Assisted Reproductive Therapy (ART) has arrived in a big way (Hindu February 5 2006). In Chennai, some 5,224 cases underwent ART, out of which 842 were successful. ‘Healthy children with healthy egg and healthy sperm’, beamed the doctor who conducted the ART. With the arrival of eugenics, how do we interpret kinship, blood lines, family and marriage? Surrogacy too is the order of the day. A 47-year-old mother bore twins for her Non-Resident Indian (NRI) daughter through in vitro (with daughter’s egg and son in law’s sperm) in a fertility clinic in Ahmedabad (Sunday Express Feature October 30 2005). Who, then, is daughter, and who is granddaughter? Apparently, India has over 600 such clinics today. Women charge lakhs of rupees as fees for lending their wombs. Like blood donation and other body organs, there is now a new trade in wombs. There is commodification of children, and separation of motherhood from mothering. In many countries, wet nursing was common — usually it was in cases Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 31

where the mother was dead or ill or unable to breastfeed her child. In Victorian England or in feudal China, upper-class women in fact gave over this function to nannies. Mahasweta Devi’s (1998) story of the ‘breast-giver’ narrates the plight of a woman who underwent many pregnancies in order to lactate and nurse other women’s babies for a pecuniary consideration, and ultimately suffered from sore, painful breasts.

8 Indian Mothers as Mothers of Sons The ideology of motherhood has been pervasive in India. The desire for progeny is a recurrent theme in our history. A woman justifies her existence as a mother and only as mother of sons.21 Female infanticide existed in several parts of the country. Through current medical technology the female embryo is identified and then aborted, despite laws to prohibit such practices. The alarming decline in the number of females to males in the age group 0–6 is evidence for this barbaric practice. Counter-productivity of such a practice is seen in Haryana where the decline in the number of females to males has been so precipitous that men in Haryana have to purchase brides from poor families in far-off states (Chowdhry 2005). A mother’s status is privileged not because she is entitled to any special rights, but because she possesses an attribute without which a woman is ‘useless’. Before bigamy laws, a man could marry again if his wife failed to produce a son. It is often argued that mothers in India have power and autonomy. To the extent that pregnancy, childbirth and mothering are managed by women, one may say there is some autonomy. There are special rituals and rites that accord significance to a pregnant woman. The status is however conditional upon her acceptance of maternity as self-denial. The segregation of sexes does promote more female bonding than in societies where the man–woman couple is important. A mother who attends to her own comfort is seen as ‘selfish’ because it is almost by definition that a mother is expected to always put the interests and demands of the child above her. A similar demand is never put on fathers. They can abandon their

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child but the onus of care rests on the mother, a responsibility which she cannot abdicate without heavy censure. A woman as the mother of sons becomes, in legend and actuality, the wicked mother-in-law when the son is married. According to Sudhir Kakar’s (1980) psycho-analytical study, in a culture that does not give much space to conjugal relations, mothers find their fulfilment in sons, in an obsessive and in a possessive way. The daughter-in-law is seen as a rival competing for the son’s affections.22 In urban India today there is a reversal where educated employed women can dictate their mothers-inlaw who become their children’s day time nanny, a phenomenon reported even in East Asia. How does glorification of motherhood coexist with such oppression? In a patriarchal society such as India, the supremacy of the male is symbolised as being the seed giver, and the woman as the field. The produce belongs to the man who owns the field. This extends a man’s rights over the woman’s productive capacities and labour power, in addition to his control over her sexuality and reproduction. The actual extent and value of a woman’s productive contribution in this scheme is irrelevant. Contrary to ayurveda’s medical tract which recognises a woman’s share in heredity, popular culture propagated that the child carried only the father’s blood, as semen was assumed to be a product of the father’s blood (Dube et al. 1986). Until recently women were blamed if they bore daughters, and even new knowledge regarding X–X and X–Y chromosomes does not alter the penalties for women not bearing sons.

9 Conditions of Mothering in India For many women, the actual conditions of pregnancy and childbirth may be deprivatory. In many places in the last century, land owning upper classes had sexual access to lower-caste women who were not allowed to keep their child.23 The social reform movement of the nineteenth century eliminated the most oppressive practices like child marriage and widow immolation. Though its purpose was to make better wives

Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 33

and good mothers, it did initiate a more active participation of women in public life by improving education among upper-caste women. During the national movement, women from all classes came in large numbers to serve the national cause. Mothers left their children to fill the jails. Such a women’s movement also highlighted the plight of poor women across the country and helped generate a host of grassroots women’s movements raising specific demands. This was most visible in the late 1970s and 1980s. It is true that in many parts of the world, women have entered public life. The picture is thus not as stark as portrayed by western feminist writing portrays. It is a mixed picture depending on which class of women we are talking about. For working-class women, issues of family sustenance and survival propel them to fight in cases of displacement by projects and loss of traditional livelihood. For the western middle-class women, it is more a matter of denial of opportunities for individual emotional and intellectual achievement. Such mass movements in India, involving working-class mothers, seem to have taken a pause during the 1990s and early 2000s. One reason could be the emergence of the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that have proliferated. These work in small numbers on specific niche issues, and act as delivery agents for government programmes. Among the poorer classes, maternal mortality is high given the lack of proper nutrition and access to adequate maternal care.24 The unremitting physical load of rural agricultural work also takes its toll. In urban areas too, working class mothers work for long hours in the unorganised sector, and are thus unable to provide adequate care to their children. To some extent, extended families in rural areas still prevail, and the fact that work tends to be near the homestead means that no ‘institutional day care’ is needed.25 Yet the presence of children does limit the kind of work a mother can do and where she can do it. Absence of day care or well run pre-school means depriving their children of educational progress. Given the declining nature of agriculture, which continues to be the mainstay of the majority even today, men seek non-farm work outside the village or simply abandon their families. This has resulted in, what has come to be termed, the ‘female-headed household’ — one must not understand this 34 G maithreyi krishnaraj

as women enjoying ‘full autonomy’ because most often it means responsibility without support or resources.

10 Is Motherhood a Choice? Among the middle class, the knowledge and availability of contraception has altered the cost–benefit calculus of the number of children. The one or two child norm has been well established. Efforts go into preparing children for a ‘good life’. Educated urban women are rejecting motherhood as the single most important option. Many, in fact, have decided not to have children. This phenomenon is the result of the availability of alternative sources of fulfilment along with the ability to be economically independent of men. Women do not want multiple pregnancies. Family planning, far from being liberatory, subjects them to invasive technology which is harmful to their bodies. Methods are not freely chosen, but are singly determined by targets for population control. During the 1970s, sterilisation of women reached such mass proportions that there was a huge hue and cry against this unidimensional targeting of women. Therefore, the availability free and legal abortions had resulted in it becoming the first and last resort to limit family size. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, which makes abortion legal, has ironically led to the feasibility of female foeticide. The two–child norm punishes the woman who has little control over reproductive decisions (Visaria 2006). Feminist writing and activism have agitated against this sort of control by family planning programmes. Nonetheless, the powerful nexus between the family planning programmes, partisan international agencies, and pharmaceutical companies continues to target women’s bodies rather than promote male responsibility in a significant way. Patriarchy’s ugly face is seen most clearly in family planning. Women do need family planning but not at the cost of their health and welfare. Care for women during the post-operative condition is minimal, and given the workload of women, they undergo dire consequences of invasive technologies.26 Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 35

11 Rewards of Motherhood There is no denying that motherhood, given the right facilities, could be a profoundly fulfilling experience for many women. The very effort to enhance the welfare of another being brings in its wake a sense of joy. Without such co-operation, human beings could not have existed. Whether such altruism is an essential and ennobling feature of living beings in general or a mere reflection of ‘selfish genes’, depends on how we look at evolution as a blind force where survival is all that matters. Social and economic changes in our society replicate trends observable in the west. Martha Chen (1998) brings out how in rural India, family support for elderly mothers is breaking down. Old age homes are already emerging in urban India. They are too expensive and out of reach for a large number of people. Among the urban middle class, NRIs who have left their parents and migrated abroad, most often summon them for child care. Many elderly mothers complain that at a time when they need and look forward to some respite, their children demand them to ‘mother’ their grandchildren, a task exhausting for those who are in their late 60s or 70s.

Conclusion The question of matriarchate as female dominance remains unresolved. While liberal feminists dismissed it outright, socialist scholars accepted matriarchy as a stage in social evolution. New anthropological evidence on women signals their contribution in terms of food-gathering, and has altered the sequencing of the stages of the origin of class and state. They draw a distinction between matriliny and matriarchy. Matrilineal descent systems today account for only 15 per cent of the world’s societies. In the Indian context, there are problems of interpretation. How do we explain the survival of mother goddess cults co-existing with female subordination? The mother goddesses exist at two levels — as the village goddess as well as the one in the mainstream — which are more prominent in eastern and southern India. The existence the at village level among lower castes could be due 36 G maithreyi krishnaraj

to their relative cultural autonomy in matters of worship within the caste hierarchy — so long as upper-caste hegemony in economic, political and ritual status is acknowledged. What material outcomes are there for women from such cults is a question that needs answers. How far are these questions relevant to women’s emancipation? They are indeed relevant in identifying the sources of autonomy for women. If matrifocal clans or collective mothering was what provided power and assistance while raising a human infant, can one recreate it? (Bernard 1974). How does one reclaim the awesome power of procreation invested in women? This potential to procreate leads to a temptation to cast woman as ‘nature’ and man as ‘culture’. This results in dismissing all science and technology as androcentric and lacking the maternal instinct, therefore leading to environmental degradation. This view is not only oversimplified, but also essentialises women. If women ruled, would maternal nature pervade society? From our experience of how power operates, this may not have happened. Feminists are divided between two views — one insisting that women have a special nature, and the other that both men and women are the same, and only social conditions create inequality. The trouble is the terms of discourse are still cast within the framework of a gendered society. Women are not only mothers; they are also women. Our task should be to remove the obvious inequalities in education, health, property and control over resources before we can postulate innate differences. We also have to ask whether a socialist society would be possible while retaining the individual family household as the site for reproduction? Shouldn’t mothers have more say in the forms of motherhood and mothering they would want? Institutionalised care is not the answer because impersonal care is alienating. As Cook asks, ‘if we are ready to spend so much in creating day care, why not pay mothers to do the job?’ (Cook 2005). Holland gives recognition to mothers of young children by including their work as work–points in social security. Children need more than food and clothing. They need loving adults. We have to evolve a system that avoids alienating institutional care or the possessive individual family care. The feminist dilemma is how to retrieve motherhood as a source of emancipation, not by eliminating it as an obstacle but by redefining appropriate terms and conditions, and recreating a Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 37

social structure that can make motherhood a conceivably creative experience. This helps merge the boundaries between child and mother, mediating as it can between nature and history, and between the universal and the particular. This is different from the glorification of motherhood that equates it to self-denial. What kind of rights, should women claim as mothers? Would the shared responsibility of parenting, between men and women, do away with subordination? Not really, for the issue is not just about roles. Our answers would depend on our understanding of history as well how imaginative we can be in the future. Mothering as a nurturing quality can be part of every one’s experience. Fatherhood needn’t be merely an economic relationship (property) with a child. In fact, there are many fathers who do mother their children and enjoy the experience of being in intimate contact with a growing child. In doing so, one recovers one’s own mystery and wonder of life.

Notes 1. DNA testing for establishing paternity had not emerged at that time. This new technology has given a new weapon in the hands of patriarchy, where men can establish their biological input and claim custody of the child born out of the union. 2. Many of you will recall that this practice still exists in south India. We grew up with aunts who were addressed as elder mothers and younger mothers, who had authority to look after us, discipline us. Stanley Kutz, who did field studies in south India, says group mothering eliminates the Oedipus complex. 3. Even today, this prevails among the Blacks in the US. Young women have liaisons and their children are accepted by their mothers. 4. We have the smallpox Goddess, Sitala. 5. Even after In-Vitro Fertilisation, women’s wombs are still necessary. 6. The desire for children, especially sons, is also for the lineage as stories from Mahabharata illustrate. There is the heart-rending story by Promedeya Anant Toer of Indonesia, in his epic Quartet ‘The Girl from the Coast’, of his grandmother who was sold to a noble during the Dutch colonialist period. The young woman was thrown out but her child was retained by the master. It was common for nobles in Indonesia to practice concubinage. 7. Kamala Ganesh has described this in her article. 8. With urbanisation and modernisation it is perhaps less and less common. 9. During the second wave of feminism in the 1960s feminists in the west were intrgued by the ‘goddess’ phenomenon in India and several 38 G maithreyi krishnaraj

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

of them tried to explore the tradition as an empowering pathway for liberation. Oppenheimer’s thesis may explain the emergence of the mother goddess and her persistence, in so far as India boasts of an unbroken, continuous civilisation. yoni is not the vagina, but the entire reproductive organ with the vulva. The triangle, as a symbolic representation, is repeated as a motif in temples. Kosambi too talks of this displacement in his Myth and Reality (1962). Horses used for ritual sacrifices were known as aswemedha horses. In the legend relating to Krishna (worshipped in India as an incarnation of Vishnu), King Vasudeva and his wife Devaki were imprisoned by Vasudeva’s nephew, Kamsa, when he heard a prophecy that the child from the womb of Devaki would kill him. Devaki’s seven children born in prison were killed by Kamsa but the eighth child, Krishna, was moved to a cowherd’s family in the dead of night by Vasudeva for whom the prison gates apparently opened miraculously. Krishna was deposited as an infant at Yashoda’s side (the cowherdess) while she was sleeping, and the female child she had borne was taken away instead. Scrutiny of various journals of the late 1980s and 1990s indicate that the problem is addressed with the same intensity. If anything, it seems to have gotten worse these days for some to meet impossible ideals. Carl Jung’s concept of collective unconscious is a link between the individual and humanity as a whole. His archetypes are forms without content, and represent merely the possibility of a certain perception and action. The range of activities in rural India carried out by household members, primarily women, encompass many goods and services which in advanced countries are supplied by wage work. In this context, it is wrong to dub it as ‘care economy’ which suggests a narrower range of activities like care of children and members of family. A linguistic analysis of the English language explores the many meanings that go with this. Saiders 1979. Working-class families rely on mothers for child care, food, help with household matters, advice on illness etc (see ‘Family and Kinship in East London’). I learnt about this through a recent film made on her. In this case, her husband stood by behind her though the son turned against her. The famous Sanskrit blessing, ‘may you be the mother of a hundred sons’. I have heard some extraordinary real life stories of this kind of possessive mother–love. Mothers prevent their sons from sleeping with their wives. A young woman from Mumbai married an NRI, an engineer who lived with his mother in the US. The mother would Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 39

23.

24. 25. 26.

deny the daughter-in-law access to her husband, food, telephone facility, and communication with the outside world by stopping visitors. The girl escaped with the help of some friends. I helped her to get a divorce. Some years ago, a film called ‘Dasi’ depicted this practice in Andhra Pradesh. The wife had to bring a slave woman to serve the household as part of her dowry. The slave woman had to also provide sexual services to the master. When the woman got pregnant, she was forcibly made to abort the child. Maternal mortality data from India: 407 per 100,000 births. In urban areas, we see women hawkers sit with their children in their laps on the roadside. My cousin, who is medical doctor specialising in cancer, works in Himachal Pradesh. Mothers diagnosed with cervical cancer are not relieved for treatment by the men on the plea, ‘Who will cook for us and till the fields?’ What price must a woman pay for maternity?

References Agrawala, P.K. 1984. Goddess in Ancient India. Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Arcana, Judith. 1979. Our Mothers’ Daughters. Berkeley: Shameless Hussy Press. Bachofen, J.J. 1861 rpt 1967. Myth, Religion and Mother Right, trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bader, Clarissa. 1987. Women in Ancient India. Delhi: Anmol Publishers. Balinisteau, Tudor. 2007. ‘The Cyborg Goddess: Social Myths of Women as Goddess of Technologised Otherworlds’, in Feminist Studies, Vol. 33(2). Berkovitch, Nitza. 1997. ‘Motherhood as National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel’, Women Studies International Forum, 20(5&6), September–December, pp. 605–19. Bernard, Jessie. 1974. The Future of Motherhood. New York: Penguin. Bhattacharji, Sukumari. 1990. ‘Motherhood in Ancient India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42&43), October 20–27. Bhattacharya, Pradeep. 2005. ‘Apropos Women in Epics East and West’, South Asia Comment, June 26. Briffault, R. 1927. The Mothers. Vols I–III. New York: Macmillan Co. Chen, Martha Alter. 1998. Widows in India: Social Neglect and Public Action. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Cho, Joang Hao. 1996. ‘Male Dominance and Mother Power: Two Sides of Confucian Patriarchy in South Korea’, in Asian Women, 2, Spring. Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chowdhry, Prem. 2005. ‘Crisis of Masculinity in Haryana’, Economic and Political Weekly, 40(49), December 3–9. 40 G maithreyi krishnaraj

Cook, Peter. 2005. ‘Feminism, Child Care, and Family Mental Health: Have Women Been Misled by Equality Feminism?’, http://www.naturalchild. org/peter_cook/feminism.html (accessed on 11 June 2009). de Beauvoir, Simone. 1952. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred Knopf. de Riencourt, Amaury. 1986. Women and Power in History. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. Devi, Mahasweta, 1998. ‘The Breast-Giver’, in Lakshmi Holmstrom (ed.), The Inner Courtyard: Stories by Indian Women. London: Virago. Dube, Leela. 1991. ‘In the Mother’s Line: Caste and Change in Lakshadweep’, in Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.), Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, pp. 57–95. ———., Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardner (eds.). 1986. Visibility and Power. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dudley, Rosemary J. 1978. ‘She Who Bleeds but Does Not Die: Sacred Rites of Goddesses and Ancient Spirituality’, in Heresies, Vol. 5. Ehrenfels, B.D.R. 1941. Mother Right in India. London: Oxford University Press. Eisenstein, Zillah. 1977. ‘Developing a Theory of Capitalist Patriarchy and Socialist Feminism’, in idem (ed.), Capitalist Patriarchy. New York: Monthly Review Press. Engels, Frederick. 1972. Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. New York: Pathfinder Press. Erich, Neumann. 1955. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ferguson, Ann. 1989. Motherhood, Sexuality and Male Dominance. London: Pandora Press. Fleur, L. Carolyn. 1979. ‘A Marxist Reappraisal of the Matriarchate’, Current Anthropology, 20(2): 341–45. Ganesh, Kamala. 1990. ‘Mother Who is Not a Mother: In Search of the Great Indian Goddess’, Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42&43), October 20–27. ———.1998. ‘Gender and Kinship Studies: Indian Material and Context’, in Carla Risseeuw (ed.), Negotiation and Social Space: A Gendered Analysis of Changing Kin and Security Networks in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Gough, Kathleen. 1971. ‘The Origin of the Family’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 33, November. Griffin, Susan. 1982. ‘The Way of All Ideology’, in Nannerl O. Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Barbara C. Gelpi (eds.), Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology. Sussex: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Hassim, Shireen. 1997. ‘Family, Motherhood, Zulu Nationalism: The Politics Of Inkatha Women’s Brigade’, Feminist Review, 43, Spring. Haug, Friga. 1988. ‘Mothers in Fatherland’, New Left Review, 172, November– December. Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 41

Hubbard, Ruth, Mary Sue Hanifin and Barbara Fried. 1979. Women Looking at Biology. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. Jacobs, L. Janet. 1990. ‘Reassessing Mother Blame in Incest’, Signs: A Journal of Culture and Society, 5(3): 500–14. Jeannes, Lisa and Tamara Shefer. 2004. ‘Discourses of Motherhood Among a Group of White South African Mothers’. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies, 3. Jeffery, Roger and Patricia Jeffery. 1984. ‘Childbirth and Collaboration among Women in Bijnor District, UP’, Journal of Social Studies, 25. Jung, Carl Gustav. 1936. ‘The Concept of the Collective Unconscious’, in Herbert Read, Michael Fordham and Adler Gerhard (eds.), Collected Works of Jung. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kakar, Sudhir. 1980. Inner World. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kishwar, Madhu. 1985. ‘Gandhi on Women’, Economic and Political Weekly, 20(4&5), October 5–12. Kosambi, D.D. 1962. Myth and Reality. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Krishnan, Prabha.1990. ‘The Idiom of Loss. The Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials’, Economic and Political Weekly, 35(42&43), October 20–27. Kurtz, Stanley.1992. All the Mothers are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Shaping of Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University Press. Lakshmi, C.S.1990. ‘Mother, Mother Community and Mother Politics in Tamil Nadu’, Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42&43). October 20–27. Leacock, Eleanor.1981. Myths of Male Dominance. New York: Monthly Review Press. Liptak, Adam. 2005. ‘Custody After Civil Union Puts Two Rulings in Conflict’. New York Times, 8 September. Meillassoux, Claude.1984. ‘The Pregnant Male’, in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardner (eds.), Visibility and Power. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Miles, Angela R. and Geraldine Finn. 1989. Feminism: From Pressure to Politics. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Millet, Kate. 1977. Sexual Politics. London: Virago. Mitchell, Juliet. 1975. Psychoanalysis and Feminism. NewYork: Pelican Books. Mitra, Manoshi. 2005. http://www.justor.southasia.com. Morgan, L.H. 1877 rpt 1964. Ancient Society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Nelson, Margaret. 1990. ‘Mothering Others Children’, Signs: A Journal of Culture and Society, 15(3). Nongbri, T. 1993. ‘Gender and the Khasi Family Structure’, in Patricia Uberoi (ed.), Family, Kinship and Marriage in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 176–86. Oakley, Anne. 1972. Sex, Gender and Society. New York: Harper and Row. 42 G maithreyi krishnaraj

Oppenheimer, Stephen. 2003. Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World. London: Constable and Robinson Ltd. Pandey, Divya. 1990. Motherhood: Different Voices. Mumbai: Research Centre for Women’s Studies. SNDT Women’s University. Preston, James. 1982. Mother Worship. Carolina: North Carolina University Press. Reed, Evelyn.1975. Women’s Evolution. New York: Pathfinder Press. Rich, Adrienne. 1977. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience & Institution. London: Virago. Rosaldo, Michelle and Louise Lamphere. 1974. Woman, Culture and Society. California: Stanford University Press. Ryan, Joan. 2005a. ‘52-Year-Old Mom Eager for Second Kid’, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 January. ———. 2005b. ‘Biology and Technology in Conflict’, San Francisco Chronicle, April 14. Sahni, Bhisham. 2002. Madhavi. Trans. from the Hindi by Alok Bhalla. Calcutta: Seagull Publishers. Saiders, Martha. 1979. ‘Mothers are Our Sisters’, Resources for Feminist Research (RFR)/Documentation sur la Recherche Feministe (DRF), 8(3). Sandelowski, Margaret.1990. ‘Failures of Volition: Female Agency and Infertility in Historical Perspective’, Signs: A Journal of Culture and Society, 15(31). Saradamoni, K. 1999. Matriliny Transformed: Family, Law, and Ideology in Twentieth Century Travancore. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Schneider, David M. and Kathleen Gough. 1961. Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sutherland, J.M. Sally. 1991. ‘Senior Wives and Elder Sons’, in idem (ed.), Bridging World’s: Studies on Women in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Swaminathan, Mina. 1993. ‘Breast-feeding and Working Mothers: Laws and Policies on Maternity and Child Care.’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28(18) May 1–8. Talet, Paola. 1987. ‘Improved Reproduction, Maimed Sexuality’, Feminist Issues, 7(2) Fall. Thadani, Giti. 2003. Moebius Trip. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Toer, Promdeya Anant. 2002. The Girl from the East Coast. New York: Hyperion. Tylon Edward, G.B. 1881. ‘The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype’, in idem (ed.), Anthropology. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Visaria, Leela. 2006. ‘Two-Child Norm: Victimising the Vulnerable’, Economic and Political Weekly, 41(1). January 7–13. Warner, M. 1976. Alone of All Her Sex. New York: Alfred Knopf. Williams, Linda S. 1990. ‘Motherhood, Ideology and Power of Technology’, Women Studies International Forum, 13(6). Motherhood, Mothers, Mothering F 43

chapter 3

Motherhood in Ancient India sukumari bhattacharji ‘The apotheosis of motherhood has reached a greater height in India than anywhere else.’1 But this apotheosis may not reflect the actuality of women’s status in society; it may be compensatory, seeking to recompense society’s indifference to the mother. However, motherhood played a very significant part in ancient Indian social life. It was obligatory — a girl was trained to be a good wife and a good mother and was blessed with ‘the good motherhood of “sons”’ (one remembers Act IV of Abhijnanasakuntala where seers’ wives bless the pregnant girl with the rare glory of having a heroic son). Let us have a look at the ritual aspect of conception, gestation, parturition and postparturition stages. Immediately after the wedding ceremony, the newly-wedded couple prayed, i.e., the wife silently joined the husband who said: ‘Come, let us join together that we may generate a male child, a son for the sake of the increase of wealth.’ The bridegroom goes on to pray for ‘children, grandchildren, servants and pupils, garments, blankets, bronze and gold, wives and kings, food, safety.…’2 At the time of the wedding, a prayer was offered on behalf of the bride that ‘she may never have an empty lap’ (asunyopastha). So marriage was primarily for the male child and since there was no guarantee that a single wife would deliver a male child, the bridegroom takes no chances but prays for many wives in presence of the newly-wedded wife. She was socially conditioned to be reconciled to such a prayer because sons were essential for

the continuation of the line, and for the preservation and multiplication of wealth, safety and prosperity. In two ceremonies called garbadhana (impregnation) and Atharvaveda3 the prayer is for a male child. A later Upanishad text lays down the articles of food which the husband must feed the wife for her to conceive different kinds of children — wise male, wise and intelligent female child, etc.4 The prayer begins with, ‘Come let us strive together that a male child may be begotten’. The woman is a totally passive recipient; no words are allotted to her. Then when the wife has conceived, she goes through two rites: pumsavana (for the delivery of a male child) and simantonnayana (the turning of the hair-parting). The pumsavana, as the word signifies, is overtly directed towards the birth of a male child; all the prayers transparently aim at preventing the birth of daughters, so that only a son born.5 The simantonnayana is a more complex rite. Women whose husbands and children are living should play the lute, sing and dance before the enceinte, a mess of cooked rice is offered to her and the husband asks her, ‘what do you see?’ She replies ‘Offspring’ and he then says, ‘Be a mother of valiant sons, the wife of a living husband.’6 In the Bharadvaja Grhyasutra, we read that three dishes of boiled rice are placed before her and she is asked, ‘what do you see?’ she replies, ‘sons and cattle’.7 Another variant in the Jaiminiya Grhyasutra says that a bell-metal vessel was filled with water and a piece of gold was laid in it; the bride was asked, ‘what do you see?’ she said, ‘Children, cattle, good fortune for me and long life for my husband’.8 Nowhere in the scriptures is there a prayer for the long life of the bride or of the prospective mother, and this is at a time when parturition mortality rate was much higher than it is now. We only hear of prayers for the husband’s long life. The explanation may lie in the prayer for ‘wives’ in the plural; if a wife died at childbirth another could be married. The scriptures lay down that after the cremation of the wife, the husband should marry the very next day.9 The Sankhayana Grhyasutra lays down that only married women with children should offer the new bride vegetarian food and wine, and then they will sing ballads, play the lute and dance — all in the expectation of a male child to be born.10 The Rigveda designates conception as ‘the womb becoming raw’.11 In the fourth month of gestation, the husband combs (or turns parts of the hair) the woman’s hair with a porcupine quill — an action symbolising Motherhood in Ancient India F 45

furrowing land — and offers a bunch of an even number of unripe fruits, symbolising the yet underdeveloped foetus. Then there is lute music and dance which, as Asvalayana says, aims at driving out certain female goblins which destroy the foetus. She then is told to look at clarified butter and asked, ‘what do you see?’ ‘Progeny’, she replies.12 The other most important gestation rite is pumsavana, the earliest reference of which is found in the Asvalayana.13 Ritual details appear in later literature where we learn that after the enceinte has fasted for a day, the husband gives her food: rice dishes, two beans and one grain of barley for each handful of curd. He then asks her, ‘What do you drink?’ and she replies pumsavana14 Some time during pregnancy a minor rite called anavalobhana is observed; its aim is to prevent miscarriage. Asvalayana Grhyasutra describes it.15 When the time of delivery draws near, before the actual birth takes place, there is a last rite called Sosyanti-karman. It seems to be a very ancient rite and retains traces of the dramatic tension of the family and the society at the time of new arrival. Immediately before parturition, the husband sprinkles the woman with water and keeps on at it until the after ‘birth is dropped.’16 After the child is born, the chief concern of the family is to keep away evil sprits that could harm or destroy the newborn baby. The Jatakarman ceremony prescribes the offering of mustard seed and rice chaff into the Sutika fire, specifically lit for the birth rite. They must offer these articles eleven times.17 The father does homa, i.e., offers oblations in the sacrificial fire and mutters a secret name of the child which the parents alone know. Then he touches the infant’s mouth with gold and other auspicious articles and feeds him with clarified butter and honey before handing him to the mother. Only then is the baby put to the breast. There is some awareness about the pregnant woman’s need for food. Hence, we hear that ‘The newly-wedded bride, the unmarried daughter, a sick person and a pregnant woman are to be fed even before a guest.’18 A number of minor rites follow between the son’s birth and his initiation into schooling. The first of them is an oblation to Vishnu (Visnubali), the next is a rite which instills intelligence in the infant (medhajanana); and then comes the naming ceremony (namakarana). Next, the father holds the son and brings him out 46 G sukumari bhattacharji

of the house (niskramana); the idea is to put him in touch with the world. Annaprasana is the first rice meal of the infant, while varsavardhana seeks a long life for him. Caula is the first tonsure and at vidyarambha the child begins his schooling. In all these rites, it is the father who conducts the service, while the mother is absolutely in the background; she does not act or speak at any of the rites. What is the mother’s role in bringing up the child? We hear practically nothing, except tangentially that at the varunapraghasa rite,19 the sacrificial priest asks the sacrificer’s wife, ‘with whom have you been adulterous?’ The wife is subject to Varuna’s power (i.e., punishment), and while belonging to one man, has (sexual) relations with another. Lest she participate in the sacrifice with a sharp stake (pricked) in her heart … what she does not confess harms her relations.’20 Thus, a mother confesses her adultery in public so that her husband and children come to no harm. ‘She does not drink wine; this is her vow for the sake of her sons.’21 We are not given any indication that the mother had any part in the upbringing of the child except ritually. The actual instruction, control, supervision and vocational education were entirely the father’s domain. The mother’s only contribution was certain vows and rites which appear in later literature. Vedic texts give us the rites during gestation, parturition and some post-parturition rites — all discharged by the father. Then at the sacred thread ceremony, the boy formally becomes a ward of the father, if the father is a professional teacher, or of the preceptor. Even in the Vedic texts, we have noticed society’s pronounced preference for a male child. ‘A barren woman could be cast away (parivritti or parivrkti) because she was possessed by nirriti22 — a negative concept of a spirit that is exceedingly ugly and wholly evil but whose special function is to destroy everything good.23 While the barren woman could be discarded after ten years, a woman who gives birth to daughters only is discarded after twelve years, while the mother of stillborn children, after fifteen years.24 The husband of a sonless wife should marry again.25 The definition of a good woman is ‘one who pleases her husband, gives birth to male children and never speaks back to her husband.’26 Later, the Dharmasastra and the Puranas lay down numerous vows for women who desired children. By that time a full-fledged goddess — Sasthi27 — had been invented, who granted children Motherhood in Ancient India F 47

to women. Women’s vows connected with Sasthi are clearly for increasing their fertility because she is the presiding deity of children and is worshipped on the sixth day of the child’s birth in the lying-in chamber; she grants children and protects them.28 Rites are prescribed for placating her for the well-being of small children, for the smaller the child, the more likely it is to be devoured by the innumerable hungry and malevolent sprits who hover in the upper air. The foetus is in the smallest embryonic stage, hence it is the most susceptible to such dangers. The SasthiKalpa in Manava Grhyasutra (III: 13: 6) and the Vinayaka-Kalpa (op cit. II: 14) aim at driving away these evil sprits, and at looking after the infant’s well-being. A number of vows are prescribed for conception, safe delivery of sons, and for their safety and longevity. Thus, there is the Mahasasthi (great Sasthi) vow, a Krsnstami vow for progeny, a Lokesvari/Kotisvari vow for eight sons and a Jivatputrikastami vow for having living sons. There is a Jyestha vow to be observed for twelve years; when the jyestha star rises, the woman stays up the night and worships the image of goddess Jyestha. This is prescribed for a woman whose children are dead or who has only one living son by a poor man.29 Hemadri (the thirteenth century minister and archivist of the yavada kings of Devagiri) lays down rules for having sons. The Varsakriyakaumudi and the Krtyakalpatarn prescribe a durwastami for sons30, while Hemadri has a Nagavrata.31 Other rites include Pitravrata which actually aims at fatherhood (pitrtva) and has sons as the prize for the vow;32 the more obvious ones are the putrakama (desire for sons) vow,33 the putravidhi (which grants sons),34 and the Putraprapti35 and putriya (for sons).36 Besides, there are numerous minor rites like bhaumavrata, marudvrata, mangalagauri, rukminyastami, varahadvadadasi, Visnudevaki, vratarajatriya, sanipradosa, sarsapasapatami, suryanakatsaptami — all with the same objective.37 The matrvrata prescribes the worship of the mother goddesses for a woman who has stillborn children or who has only one child; the sravanakrtya is for a woman whose children die at infancy; and the samghataka vow is to prevent separation from husband and sons. These and a thousand regional variants prove the popularity of the Sasthi cult. The poignant desire for avoiding the slur of ‘sonlessness’ or the stigma of barrenness is a universal phenomenon. All over the world and down the ages, women have craved for sons and have practiced austerities, observed vows, prayed and supplicated for 48 G sukumari bhattacharji

fertility. In India these vows have multiplied with time; the later texts have the more numerous prescriptions for the conception and birth of sons. Like all primitive people, ancient Indians also believed that the world, especially the upper air and the nether worlds were heavily infested with sprits, gnomes goblins and ghosts whose sole function was to harm living beings. But their best targets were the foetus and the newborn infants; many of these spirits devour them and thrive on them. To prevent them from harming the foetus and newborn baby, a thousand different rites were invented: herbs, fruits, roots, minerals and many other potent articles were used in these rites in which arcane spells were chanted by the shamans. But when in spite of all these precautions the mother delivered a stillborn child or failed to conceive, she was blamed as being infertile or too inauspicious to retain her conception. Conceivably, after safe deliveries, these charms and rites themselves gained greater credibility than the mother. However, the mother whose children lived long was revered. Faith in the spirits was not carried to its logical conclusion so as to exonerate the unfortunate barren woman or the one whose children died in infancy. Male infertility was dimly known as the custom of levirate indicates, but no stigma was ever attached to an impotent male. We hear of impotent kings both in Brahmanical and Buddhist literature, but never with any aspersion of inauspiciousness. As an agricultural people ancient Indians knew that a dead seed would not germinate in a fully fertile field, but they observed a sinister silence on this aspect of childlessness. It was always the woman who got blamed for failing to procreate. Of course, part of the blame was mitigated by the invention of evil sprits and goblins, and rituals were prescribed for obviating dangers from them. Although fertility was primarily sought after, it was not enough: sons enjoyed a more exalted position than daughters. At the time of the performance of the Soma sacrifice a particular rite prescribed that some sacrificial utensils should be held up while others were laid down, ‘therefore at birth, sons should be held up high and daughters should be laid on the floor’. Needless to say, this was a reflection in ritual of a social reality. Little wonder then that mothers of only daughters were looked down upon as social inferiors to mothers of sons. Motherhood in Ancient India F 49

But the mother receded to the background immediately after she attained motherhood, at least until the next delivery. She could offer worship, oblations, observe vows for the health, longevity and well-being of her children; she could give up certain delicious articles of food and drink,38 but apart from such negative and apparently passive gestures, her roles as a mother does not draw our attention in the religious texts. Undoubtedly as the lady of the house, she supervised the food and presumably served it to her husband, in-laws and children. Some mothers also cooked for the families and thus were more closely in touch with their childrens’ nourishment. Presumably she was in charge of the children’s clothes, toys, ornaments and other belongings. In sickness she, rather than the father, nursed them and attended to their comfort. But all this is conjectural because the scriptures are silent. Although all the scriptures dwell on the sons alone, obviously the mother looked after her children’s needs without discrimination, but again quite evidently she shared society’s preference for a son. All her social prestige depended on her being the mother of a son or sons. However unlike the father, the mother herself had scant reason to prefer a son to a daughter unless when her response was not personal but social, and therefore conditioned and conventional. The father owned property and needed his own (i.e., begotten) son to leave the property to, and possibly the craft, trade or profession also. The mother did not own property and one likes to guess that her emotional preference was for the daughter whose company she would enjoy only for a short while, until the daughter’s marriage. Besides she could emotionally and imaginatively project herself in the daughter alone. In later literature, we sometimes see the mother pleading to the father for the daughter’s happiness. But basically society looked upon the daughter as a curse: ‘The wife is a friend, an object of misery is the daughter’, or ‘the son is a light in the highest heaven’;39 or ‘the son is the self, the wife a friend, the daughter is but a suffering to men’.40 However, some father did sometimes, ‘crave for’ intelligent and wise daughters. Thus, we read of a ritual, ‘he who desires that his daughter would become wise should cook rice with sesame seeds and they both should eat it.’41 It is interesting to remember that Samkaracarya’s (an Indian philosopher who consolidated the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta) commentary explains the word 50 G sukumari bhattacharji

‘pandita’ as ‘wise in household matters’, thus conforming to the prevalent prejudice that daughters should not be instructed in the sastras. But the explication is tendentious, prejudiced and wrong; the word pandita is not applicable to household work. We are thus left with no account of the mother’s attitude or relation to the son. All the texts, however, are preoccupied with the nomenclature, ‘The son is dearest of the dear.’42 A Buddhist text also says, ‘the son is wealth to men.’43 Texts press upon each other in their praise of the merits of having a son: ‘One wins the worlds with the son, and becomes immortal with a grandson,’44 or ‘as soon as a son is born, the father is released from his debt to his ancestors.’45 What sons meant to the mother is clear when Kunti mourns the absence of her sons, ‘O Madhava, neither widowhood, nor the loss of fortune, nor hostility pains me as does the separation from my sons.’46 Parents love their children but at times of distress, when they fail to procure food for them they are sometimes forced to give them away to others for adoption; the scriptures enjoin that both the parents together or either of them take such a decision.47 Another text says that the father or the mother can adopt a son.48 Thus, while taking very serious decisions regarding the fate of the son, theoretically the mother also had a say. But later literature shows that the father alone took such decisions. The mother was entitled to honour from her sons. ‘The professor is the equivalent of ten teachers, the father is equal to a hundred professors, the mother exceeds a thousand fathers in honour.’49 ‘One conquers this world through respect for the mother, the middle region (the firmament) through respect for the father, and through service to the preceptor one gains the region of Brahma.’50 ‘A son must always serve his mother even if she has been an outcast (for some sin), since for him she undertakes numerous (troublesome) actions.’51 ‘A son should maintain his mother even though she is an outcast (but) without speaking to her.’52 An outcast father may be forsaken, but not the mother, she is never an outcast to the son.’53 Visnu Dharmashastra,54 Sankha and Likhita lay down that a son should take the mother’s side, since she carried, delivered and nourished him. ‘The son is never released from his debt to his mother except through the (elaborate and expensive) Sautramani sacrifice.’ ‘No preceptor is higher than the mother.’55 The Pandavas says, ‘All other sins are expiable but he who is cursed Motherhood in Ancient India F 51

by the mother is never liberated.’56 ‘Only then does one grow old; only then is he in grief; only then does his world become empty when he loses his mother.’57 When Ajatasatru wanted to kill his mother because she had succored her husband in prison against Ajatasatru’s order, his ministers told him, ‘there are record of 18,000 bad kings who were patricides but there is no record of a matricide.’58 Parasurama however killed his mother at his father’s command; although with the first of the boons from his father, he ensured that she lived again. If a mother is guilty of sexual misconduct, the son is enjoined to pray for her at the time of the obsequial (sraddha) ceremony, ‘Wherein my mother has done anything amiss, abandoning her duty (towards her husband), may my father take that sperm as his own’.59 A son was expected to behave in a respectful manner to the mother,60 he should never punish the mother; if he does, he was to get the worst and harshest punishment.61 Sons could be of various categories; of these the mother was directly related to the begotten (aurasa), the premarital conception (kanina), the conception with which she married (sahodha), the daughter’s son whom her father took as his own (putrikaputra), the child secretly borne to a man other than the husband (gudhotpanna), and the child born of levirate marriages (niyoga). Of these, society looked askance at the kanina sahodha and gudhotpanna; the other two were organised openly by society. In cases of adoption of children, theoretically both the parents’ consent was necessary, but one guesses that in a male-dominated society, the wife’s consent was taken for granted. There were distress sales of children during severe famines and other natural calamities; such ‘bought’ sons (krita) belonged to both parents, but the initiative for the sale or purchase was the man’s, as episodes in the epics, Puranas and Buddhist literature, testify. Literature brings out the complexities pertaining to mothers. That all was not smooth sailing according to the tenets of the scriptures, is exposed through many episodes in the epics, Puranas, Buddhist and early medieval literature. Even in Vedic literature, we have incest between father and daughter (namely between Brahma and Vac); Buddhist literature gives us one instance of incest between mother and son. In the Visvantara jataka, the father gives away his son and daughter without the mother’s consent. Although the scriptures 52 G sukumari bhattacharji

lay down that sons should take care of the mother in her old age, Kunti left for the forest, leaving her sons behind. A pregnant woman is a special charge and responsibility of the husband, yet the pregnant Sita was abandoned with impunity. Scriptures tell us frequently, ‘na stri dusyti jarena’62 (the woman is not polluted by her lover), yet Sita was repudiated on a bare suspicion on that count, and Ahalya was cursed into a stone image for that crime. A married woman who commits adultery is to be regarded clean after a month,63 but neither Rama nor Gautama acted on this precept. We have numerous other instances in the epics and also in Puranas where the woman who slipped was condemned to severe punishments, some of which are too horrendous to mention. In any case, the married woman was supposed to conceive from the husband alone and produce an heir to his property. We have curious instances of motherhood or the mother’s attitude towards the son. Ganga abandoned seven of her sons in the water. These were the Vasus (denizens of heaven) cursed to be born on earth, whose only way of minimising the curse was to die immediately so that they could return to heaven without any delay, and Ganga had agreed to do so. But while the father suffered anguish at the instant death of the newborn sons, we hear of no such remorse or wistfulness on part of the mother who gave birth to them and then drowned them. Menaka, the divine nymph also abandoned her newborn baby Shakuntala. She had been commissioned by her husband Indra to distract Visvamitra from his severe penance which threatened Indra’s security. She lived with the sage until a lovely daughter was born, but immediately left for heaven because, her task had been accomplished. In the Harsacharita we hear of Savitri (wife of king Harsha), who after giving birth to Sarasvata, immediately fled to heaven. Even Harsa’s mother Yasovati departed for heaven in fear of impending widowhood despite the pitiful pleadings from her son. Sita too went to her mother, leaving two young sons behind. Madri left her two sons in Kunti’s charge but Kunti too left the boys behind when she sent went to the forest. Urvasi’s sexual love for Pururavas was so consuming and so impatient of any kind of distraction or interruption that she sent a newborn baby to be brought up at a hermitage. As a prototype of the earthly prostitute, Urvasi is naturally representated as being extremely lustful, devoid of any filial affection. Motherhood in Ancient India F 53

Even prostitutes, however, sometimes had children. The boys were called Bandhulas who were trained as musicians and dancers for participation during the stage shows put up by the prostitutes. The girls were taught singing and instrumental music, acting and other finer arts but most of them eventually took up their mothers, profession unless some generous client undertook to ransom them; then these men could either ‘keep’ them or marry them. In any case, these children were brought up in their mother’s company and it stands to reason that they could be emotionally close to their mothers. Motherhood is too often imposed on unwilling women. In the Mahabharata, both Ambika and Ambalika (sister princesses from whom start the lines of Kurus and Pandavas) shuddered at the sight of the sage Vyasa, yet were obliged to submit to him and bear his children. In some sacrifices, the fees included maidens, childless wives and women with children; all three categories bore children to the recipient of these sacrificial gifts. In the Kusa Jataka the 500 queens of the impotent Iksvaku king were subjected for three nights every month for anyone to come and claim them; the king ordered the palace portals to be open on these nights. Evidently conception was imposed on many unwilling women who, the story goes to narrate, wept, resisted and then succumbed helplessly. The epics and the Puranas are full of tales in which motherhood was thrust upon many unwilling women. Guests were entertained by the lady of the house, sometimes by maiden princesses, and it stands to reason that not all of them were eager for partners; some episodes tell us that many women loathed them but yet had to submit. The simple craving for motherhood is brought out in the tale of the unmarried Kunti toying with her newfound boon; she could summon any god. Surya came and gave her a son. But later after her marriage, it was her impotent husband who prompted her to use the boon and conceive from three partners. Madri too was instigated and learnt the spell from Kunti; she delivered two sons in the same way. Society placed such a premium on sons that they had to be procured anyway. Not only were such sons legitimate but they had no stigma, and they enjoyed the same privileges as sons begotten by the husband. Levirate was quite common; the craving for a male heir to inherit the property of a dead man was the operative concern behind the custom. 54 G sukumari bhattacharji

Jaratkaru the sage was told by his ancestors that he could not go to heaven until he begot a son. This he did, but prior to union with his wife, he made a contract that he would leave the son and the mother on the most insignificant excuse. So the son became the mother’s sole charge; the father did not even provide for the son’s maintenance. Under similar circumstances, Sakuntala took her son to Dusyanta’s court and charged the king with dereliction of paternal duty. Sita, a mother of two princes, delivered and brought them up in the hermitage as mendicants because the father took no further notice of mother and her sons. The archetypal happy family is Siva, Parvati, Ganesa and Karttikeya, with the later addition of Lakshmi and Sarasvati. But the family started with the birth of Karttikeya. In the preamble to the story of Siva and Parvati’s union, we are told that the demon Tarak had been pestering gods and goddesses; they flocked to Brahma for a remedy. Brahma told them that only a son of Siva and Parvati would be a fit general of the gods against the demon; after some divine machinations, the union of mighty Siva and Parvati was brought about. According to one variant, ‘Rudra entered Agni and created Skanda’.64 Another says that Uma entered Agni’s wife Svaha for the conception and birth of Karttikeya.65 Still another says that Siva’s seed fell in Agni who was unable to bear it and deposited it in Ganga. Since Ganga was suffering from the immense heat, she deposited it on the bulrushes where the Krittika sisters reared it.66 All these versions have two things in common: while Agni is a mythological alter ego of Siva, the source of the seed is definitely Siva but motherhood is positively denied to Parvati. What is really striking in the anecdote and in its variant versions is that nowhere is the motherhood of Karttikeya ascribed to Parvati. Ganesa was not quite the son Parvati had borne. Sarasvati, like Athena, came from Brahman’s head, and Lakshmi, like Venus, came out of the churned ocean. Thus, we are left with the curious fact that Parvati is not the ‘full’ mother of any of her children. Why this hesitation, this inexplicable ambivalence? Since the seed is Siva’s, the fatherhood remains undisputed in the case of Karttikeya, who was the son par excellence, the destroyer of the arch-demon Taraka, and the general of the divine army. But although the ownership of the seed is clear, it did not grow in any female womb; in other words, no woman was allotted the glory of being Karttikeya’s mother. Motherhood in Ancient India F 55

Tradition connects Parvati with Karttikeya, but mythology does not. Let us bear in mind that other divine families like Indra–Sachi and Jayanta, Krisna–Rukmini and their sons are quite pale beside Siva, Parvati and their children. And yet in the biological sense, this is not a real family. The reason seems to lie in the subconscious social assumption regarding the role of the sexual partners in procreation. When the Vedic Aryans arrived in India, circa twelfth century BC, they themselves were a pastoral nomadic people who watched procreation among their herds and were acquainted with the rudimentary knowledge of biological reproduction. But India was already inhabited by an indigenous agricultural people. The Aryans learned agriculture from them, gave up their nomadic habits and retained hunting and pastoralism only as a supplementary source of procuring food. In pastoral societies, the whole herd, belongs to one owner, and the newborn calves automatically become his. In agriculture, there is binary ownership: the owner of the land need not necessarily be the owner of the seed. Also, the owner of the land may not plough his land and raise the harvest. At different stages of society’s economy, there were different owners of the land, the seed and the labour. In the Mahabharata we have an episode where the earth, in tears, comes to god complaining against sale and transfer. Presumably in the olden days, the ownership of land was a foreign concept: land was tilled to produce food for men.67 The mythographer’s reluctance to assign Karttikeya’s motherhood to Parvati was one way of making Siva the sole mythical parent of Karttikeya. The semen which in Parvati’s womb was fire, turned to gold when she threw it away; it burned Ganga severely until she cast it off on the grassy bank, and the divine mothers, the Krittikas, tended to it. Decoding the language, one learns of the superior power required to bear it. Finally, it grew almost by itself on a bed of bulrushes although nursed by the divine mothers in an almost servile capacity. This brings us directly to the social attitude to the respective positions of the father and the mother. While the seed was indisputably Siva’s, the womb was not Parvati’s, nor was it any other woman’s — Parvati cast the seed off; so did Ganga while the Krittikas were mere wet-nurses. By the seventh century BC, the Aryans had become an agricultural people and their’s was an agriculturist’s way of looking at life. 56 G sukumari bhattacharji

This led to a positively male chauvinistic view of parenthood: the woman was the field, and the man sowed the seed in her. As both the land and seed belonged to the man in this predominantly patriarchal society, the son belonged primarily to the father. Manu is quite brutally explicit about it, ‘of the seed and the womb, the seed is superior. All creatures of life assume the qualities of the seed.’68 ‘The qualities of the womb are never shared by the seed.’69 To whom then does the off-spring belong? Again, Manu is quite unambiguous and unequivocal, ‘As in cattle, horses, camels and maidservants, in buffaloes, goats and sheep, the male (sexual) partners (of these) do not possess the calves, etc., so it is for the women.’70 ‘Now if a man other than the husband begets a son, then in that case the field is greater than the seed — the son belongs to the husband, and not to the begetter.’71 There was however a controversy regarding who owned the son, the begetter or the husband.72 ‘The woman is the field, the man, the seed.’73 What is then the utility of having a wife? ‘The generation of a son, the rearing of the infant, the day-to-day service — all this depends on the wife.’74 Over and above, Manu categorically stated that a ‘woman was created for the exclusive purpose of giving birth, to men for the continuation of the line’. Since such ideas were deeply embedded in the social consciousness, the concept of motherhood assumed certain overtones: in the generation of a child, except at parturition, the woman’s role was passive like the field. Just as the sown seed, after ploughing, grows of itself without visible active effort of the field, the mother also just carried the seed passively; the foetus grew automatically. Also, just as the owner of the field not only sows the seed, but also gathers the harvest, the husband can also claim the child. The pastoral values also corroborated this concept: the young of the cattle, buffaloes, camels, horses, goats and sheep belong not to the begetter but to the owner of the herd. The inclusion of the maidservant in the list poignantly brings out the social attitude to the maidservant’s sexual position in society: she could be freely enjoyed by the male members of her master’s family. Also her son, even though begotten by her husband, belonged not to her nor to her husband but to her master to whom the child became an additional hand in productive labour, on the field or in craftsmanship. Motherhood in Ancient India F 57

Reproduction of children, like any other form of production in society is influenced by the economic system as well as by nutritional and material resources. In ancient times, science and technology had not advanced enough to be able to increase nutritional resources substantially when required, nor did people know much about birth control and abortion. The state, in order to be in control of means of reproduction, and in order to submit these means to the interest of the economic system, has been obliged to extend its control and subjugation over that of the woman’s body. The two proofs of a woman’s loss of control over her own body comes from the fact that as maidservant or wife, she has to yield to the sexual demands of her master or husband, and second, the husband or master is the owner of the fruit of her womb, and not her. She frequently went through the pain of forced intercourse, the suffering of long months of gestation, the excruciating labour pain, the care, anxiety and service of suckling and feeding the infant, of tending to it in sickness and accidents, but in the ultimate analysis, the child did not belong to her but to her husband and/or master. Despite this, motherhood came to be increasingly glorified; it is an emotional and ideational compensation for the reality which in most cases was imposed upon her. In India, it was extolled in an inverse ratio to the demotion of woman’s position in society. ‘The apotheosis of motherhood has reached a greater height in India than anywhere else.’75 While the Rig vedic pantheon was predominantly a male pantheon,76 gods were gradually being shown as married, and thus from the time of Brahmana literature, marriage became obligatory in society. Further, in the epic-Puranic literature, they began to have sons. Inheritance of the father’s property became an all absorbing issue in society which recognised various categories of sons who could inherit property. Then the ‘divine’ mothers also came to be known by their husband’s names. Meanwhile, the social reality had relegated the woman to the socially significant role of the procreatrix; she had lost her identity as a woman, as social being, and as an individual with free scope for intellect, volition and emotion. She was primarily (if not solely) a mother, preferably of male children. Around the sixth–seventh century AD, the influence of Tantra was felt prominently in India; in Tantra, a woman was given a 58 G sukumari bhattacharji

supremely important role. It is then no accident that Banabhatta, a major prose author of the seventh century, wrote a doxology to the goddess Candi. Others followed suit and an entire hymnology came into existence which extolled goddesses. The seven matrikas were worshipped iconically; their feats were invented, and clusters of myths accrued to the cultic worship of these goddesses. Thus, impressive myths of how these mother goddesses nurtured, looked after or rescued their children were innovated. This exaltation of motherhood on the divine plane had its inevitable repercussion on the mundane level: a woman’s sole raison d’etre was motherhood. ‘Women were exhorted to live in and through patriarchal family roles and exalted, above all, as mothers.’77 This had happened elsewhere also: ‘Uneasy Victorians often rationalised this felt power by diluting womanhood into the more selfsacrificial and digestible holiness of motherhood.’78 Not only was motherhood imposed on women, but they were also conditioned to regard it as the summum bonum of life; they deplored barrenness and suffered untold torture from rituals directed towards fertilisation of the womb. Male impotence was known only hazily, it was always the woman who paid socially and emotionally for childlessness. It was in fact a woman who condemned and ridiculed the ‘unfortunate’ childless woman because even women had internalised male social values regarding the merits of having a son. Thus, each girl was looked upon as a potential mother of sons, was trained and conditioned for this ‘divinely allotted’ role, and if she failed to fulfil this function, she was regarded by society as a wholly inauspicious, incomplete and futile being. ‘Women’s mothering was the primary cause of the sexual division of labour and of the continued domination of women by men.’79 The attitude towards a woman and her role as a mother is fashioned by the socio-economic condition in which it rises. When an agricultural society uses primitive tools for ploughing and there is little certitude of a good harvest because of the many natural calamities that beset farming, this society needs many hands for tilling; it also needs sons for inheritance. Incidentally, it also needs girls who will wed and bring forth children. Hence, a huge premium was laid on female fertility per se and it will not be wrong to surmise that women themselves used fertility as a power in the early stages. In a polygamic family, the mother of children enjoyed Motherhood in Ancient India F 59

and flaunted a social superiority over the barren or childless cowife. In fact, for many rituals only a woman, whose husband and children are living, was eligible for an auspicious rite. With the in-laws, the fertile woman enjoyed some privileges which were denied to the childless one. In the epic-Puranic literature, many men are known by their mothers’ names.80 But evidently in a polygamous society, the use of metronymic was one way of identifying the son. Even then, it connected the mother to the son and, at least notionally, established a bond between them, creating a social recognition of motherhood But a mother’s social captivity usurped her power and used her fertility to achieve its own interest. Then for her, motherhood was suffering — pure and simple — because ultimately she could not claim the offspring as her own. She suffered in the process but obviously derived some gratification emotionally in terms of social recognition of her auspiciousness. ‘Women’s capacities for mothering and abilities to get gratification from it are strongly internalised, psychologically enforced and are developmentally built into the feminine psychic structure.’81 This is a very vital fact that moulds the behavioural patterns of mothers. Social motivation for the increase in female fertility was thoroughly assimilated, imbibed and unconsciously internalised by women. Another factor helped this internalisation — married women were denied the opportunity for education. Child-bearing was the one avenue left open to them whereby they could prove their social utility, and command some respect within the familial and social context. Keeping women in abject subjugation was made possible by denying them the opportunity to earn their livelihood; the husband was their lord (lo [af ] + wa [rd]). Therefore, they were totally dependant on the breadwinner, and felt that by bearing children they were but partially repaying their debt to their masters. When the Aryans had conquered northern India, some of the indigenous people were either subjugated or enslaved, while others fled towards the Vindhya region. Some of those who fled were captured and made slaves. In the newly arisen affluent sections, these slaves were employed for domestic chores, and not in socially productive jobs as in Greece and Rome. With much of the domestic work devolving on the slaves, women in these households were totally divorced form all productive jobs. This made them partly redundant and, as a result, the 60 G sukumari bhattacharji

production of children became their sole ‘function’. This function however proved to be socially productive, because society at this point needed more hands to make the economy viable, and to generate surplus. Men ruled the society, they controlled the economy and they allotted roles to the several constituents of society. When women’s primary task became child-bearing, they were doomed to suffering and received scant honour or compensation in return. Indeed maternity was, as Rich puts it, ‘a keystone of the male control.… It was not the fact of women’s enslavement … but the mode by which that fact had become integrated into the system of male political and economic power over women.’82 The tragedy of motherhood in ancient India was its compulsion which resulted from economic and political forces at work in a society over which the women had no control. These forces were also by and large quite incomprehensible to them; the menfolk gained progressively, and as a direct concomitant, the women lost in inverse ratio. That motherhood can be a pleasure when the woman chooses it and gets ready for the sufferings of pregnancy and labour in the expectation of some measure of joint control by the couple over the child; that a girl-child can be as welcome and as gratifying as a boy; that mother is entitled to some honour because she has voluntarily suffered to bring life on earth — these were never experienced by a mother in ancient India. She only vaunted her fertility but never expected to be recognised for her suffering, her pleasure, and her hopes and dreams which were bound with the child until the latter came of age, and on a different plane, even after that. She was denied the ‘willing’ of a child, it’s mental upbringing and education, and was reduced to a mere childbearing machine. The scriptures say that if a wife refuses to oblige a husband’s sexual advances, he should coax and cajole her; if she still refuses he should offer her gifts, but if she persists in her refusal, he should thrash her with his bare fist or with rods.83 The speaker of this passage is the august sage Yajnavalkya; such men set the ethos of a society. Texts like these take away women’s freedom in sex and make her an automaton to be used at will by the husband. Hence, pregnancy could be thrust on her. Could she enjoy such a pregnancy, or look forward to the child with any degree of pleasure? This might not be true for all pregnancies, but numerous texts in the epics and Puranas do present unwilling women being freely used by men. Such motherhood itself became Motherhood in Ancient India F 61

a burden, an imposition. The joy of procreating together is not present in this literature. During infancy, the mothers remained closer to the children, while the fathers would be occupied with their outdoor vocational responsibilities. So the children would naturally know their mothers more intimately. ‘Given the social monopoly over childcare by women, the father became a significant and known quantity much later.’84 And yet the moment the son ceased to depend on the mother for his everyday physical needs, he became his father’s ward, and soon after the daughter became physically independent of the mother, she was married off. Then the mother was lonesome unless she went from pregnancy to pregnancy, as was frequently the case. Thus came a time when she lost her youth and charm through successive childbearing and through household chores; that was when the husband brought home a younger and prettier woman who could please him and would start bearing children to him. Some of the older wife’s children, especially the sons would be home and would imbibe a pattern of conjugal life from the father’s conduct. They would realise, like their mother, that being a mother does not bring emotional security. Rather she was a mere child-bearing machine who could be discarded with impunity as soon as she failed in her primary reproductive function. Motherhood thus was fraught with suspense, tension, insecurity and physical and mental pain, with little compensatory pleasure. True, she was fed, clothed, sheltered, and even when she slipped sexually, the son would offer the obsequial rites and pray for her. When the husband died, the sons were morally responsible for the mother’s upkeep. But since she enjoyed little social honour even during the husband’s lifetime, it would not be a conjecture that the sons did not feel bound to honour her. This was the irony of motherhood in ancient India. The woman was brought up in an ethos that taught her that potentially she was a mother. Since girlhood, she was prepared for this socially allotted role. However, it is the father who takes charge of the baby and conducts all rituals — the naming, the first rice–meal, the tonsure, the piercing of the ear, and the ritual initiation for education. The mother, after all her suffering, tension, anxiety and pain, is quietly forgotten, shelved to the dark oblivion of the interior of the house until she conceives again, when the same cycle is repeated. She gave birth, brought a new human being into the world and yet 62 G sukumari bhattacharji

the ritual limelight was entirely stolen by the father. The mother was just an instrument for bearing children; no more, no less. She was indispensable for the advent of the child, yet the child belonged to the father whose one prayer is quite significant: ‘born from me, limb by limb, born art thou from my heart, you, son are but my own self.’ It completely ignores the mother’s contribution to the growth of the foetus and leaves no room for her participation in the child’s mental growth. It also severs the emotional link with her, at least notionally, by claiming that the newborn’s heart is from its father’s alone. The mother is completely ignored. Just as the field produces the harvest but does not possess or enjoy it, the mother was also considered inert and inanimate, and hence could be safely forgotten ‘after the harvest was collected’. The two ideologically exceptional situations need to be explained. The first statement, ‘the mother is equivalent of a thousand fathers’ is homage to the fact of physical birth without which the father could not obtain a son whom he could possess. This is also somewhat compensatory because the statement, ‘through devotion to mother a son gains this world, through devotion to father he gains heaven’ clearly brings out the disparity between the social status of the parents. Despite the socio-economic necessity of glorifying the father at the cost of the mother, the selfless service of the mother was bound to raise her to an exalted position for some of her children and this has found expression in the injunctions to respect one’s mother. The second discrepancy is existence of mother goddesses through the creation of which society sought to compensate for the miseries of ‘real’ mothers in society. These goddesses mostly have children but the myths do not present the mother-and-child syndrome except in postures, paintings and sculptures. These mothers are supremely powerful and are demon-killers par excellence, or at least they thwart evil forces which seek to seduce or harm. In doxologies, they are praised for succouring their children; when men in distress come to them, they grant boons and the distress passes. In this they are qualitatively different from human mothers whose wishes and words are thoroughly impotent. What they wish for their children does not come to pass, even when the mothers are actively engaged in doing good to the children. The major differences however is that mother goddesses are absolutely free and autonomous agents, while human mothers Motherhood in Ancient India F 63

are mostly under the thumb of their husbands, in-laws and other elderly relations, and even of their sons in their old age. Also, and consequently, human mothers do not enjoy that kind of supernatural power, not even natural powers which goddesses enjoy. Subordinate to their husband and superiors, and as totally powerless and inactive agents, human mothers suffer the pangs of impotence. And yet mother goddess worshippers point out that they have actually elevated the position of the mother conceptually. What they have actually elevated is motherhood ‘in the abstract’ where they defeat demons and avert cosmic holocausts, just as the male gods of yore had done. Can the luckless human mothers draw any consolation or spiritual sustenance from the images and myths of the mother goddess, which the various cults produce as Shaktis of the male gods? The basic assumption comes from Samkhya philosophy where the male principle, Purusa, is inert until acted upon by his consort, Shakti. Tantra advanced the philosophy, until Shakti on her own became a significant and formidable goddess. It is therefore disingenuous to claim that India elevated its mothers to a lofty altitude; it is only because history glaringly brings out the discrepancy between the rise or exaltation of the mother goddess and the progressive deterioration of the human mother’s position. The two belong between the period of the 20 Dharmasastras and the hermeneutic texts, the Nibandhas. There is a steady decline in the mother’s social status as a woman, an independent moral agent, a social entity, a free sexual partner, a co-responsible parent for child-rearing, and as a parent participating in the decisions regarding the children’s development and growth. The human mother does for her children what the mother goddess never does: the human mother carries the foetus for nine strenuous months and then gives birth through great pain; she suckles the infant, feeds, changes and puts it to sleep, tends to its physical needs, and nurses it in sickness. These are arduous tasks undertaken physically, from which all mother goddesses in their capacity as mother goddess are wholly exempted. After a period when the father takes over, the mother remains a silent and somewhat distant spectator, expecting very little in return: occasional ceremonial homage, food and shelter during old age and tending to grandchildren whenever the occasion demands. The mother goddess on the other hand meets her children on the plane of ideas and emotions; they get frequent homage and worship, and 64 G sukumari bhattacharji

in crucial junctures they speak potent words of boon to avert the crisis. They are active at the cosmic level; where male gods fail to avert cosmic holocaust the mother goddesses succeed. Can any human mother feel any empathy with such formidable figures? Or project herself into these goddesses? The two mothers belong to diametrically opposite planes. The human mother is within her heavily circumscribed domestic region, with little scope to assert her will even for the good of her children, because all vital decisions are the father’s domain; her consent is not sought at any stage. On the other hand, the divine mother’s will is creative at the cosmic level. The mother goddess discharges her functions without any pain, with divine delight; the human mother begins and ends her motherhood in pain. After the boy begins his education and vocation, and after the daughter is married off, the mother returns to her cocoon of isolation until she conceives again. Her motherhood brings her some months of bliss when the infant is very young and is totally dependent on her. But soon, rather too soon, this brief reprieve is over and the glory of motherhood fades slowly but surely.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Altekar 1956: 101. Hiranyakesin Grhyasutra: I: 6:22:14. Italics mine. Atharvaveda. Hymns III: 23; V: 25 and VI: 11. Brhadaranyaka Upanisad VI: 4: 2; 13: 19–22. Hiranyakeshin Grhyasutra 11: 1–2. Gobhila Grhyasutra II: 7: 1–12; Khadira Grhyasutra II: 2: 24–28. Bharadvaja Grhyasutra. I: 2: 1. Jaiminiya Grhyasutra. I: 17. Samvarta Samhita XX: 4. Sankhayana Grhyasutra I: II: 4. Rgveda X: 86: 23. This ritual with minor variants is repeated in Asvalayana Grhyasutra I: 14: 1–9; Apastamba Grhyasutra XIV: 1–8; Hiranyakesin Grhyasutra II: I; Baudhayana Grhyasutra I: 10; Paraskara Grhyasutra I: 15; Vaikhanasa Grhyasutra III: 12 and in Kathaka Grhyasutra XXXI: 1–5. That so many texts dwell on it in such detail proves the important place it held in the series of gestation rites. It amounts to expecting the child to be a bringer of good fortune. Motherhood in Ancient India F 65

13. Atharvaveda VI: II: I. 14. Literally meaning ‘the birth of a male child’, which is the prime objective of all the gestation rites. Here the enceinte internalises the social expectation and responds accordingly. 15. What is important is the name of the rite; the word literally means ‘for not making X greedy’; this makes sense if we bear in mind the host of spirits who waited eagerly to harm the foetus. Through this rite, the enceinte protected the foetus from their greed. 16. Apastamba Grhyasutra XIV: 13–15; Hiranyakesin Grhyasutra II: 2: 8–11; III:1; Bharadvaja Grhyasutra I: 22, Gobhila Grhyasutra II: 7: 13–14; Khadira Grhyasutra II: 2: 29, 30; Paraskara Grhyasutra I: 16; Kathaka Grhyasutra XXXXIII: 1–3. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad also mentions it at VI: 4: 23. 17. Paraskara Grhyasutra I: 16; Apastamba Grhyasutra II: 13: 7–14 and Bharadvaja Grhyasutra I: 23. The significant point is the number of the Rudras, a set of gods who traditionally do harm to the foetus and newborn babies. In Book XIII of the Mahabharata, the grisly companions of Rudra–Siva are described; some of these feed on foetus-flesh, others on newborn infants. 18. Visnu Dharmasutra LXVIII: 46. 19. Of the caturmasya. 20. Satapatha Brahmana II: 5: 2: 20. 21. Jaminiya Upanishad Brahmana XVII: 3: 1. 22. Satapatha Brahmana VI: 2: 3: 13; V: 3: 1: 13. The supreme emphasis on fertility produced this idea of a woman being possessed by nirrti, a negative concept of spirit who is exceedingly ugly and wholly evil but whose special function is to destroy everything good. For the concept of nirrti see the author’s The Indian Theogony, pp. 80–92, 129, 162–63. That the barren woman was possessed by nirrti is a direct corollary of society’s subconscious assumption that the woman’s primary obligation to society was to reproduce. We shall come to this later. 23. We should not lose sight of the important fact that all rituals in this section are for a male child. Subsidiary texts say that the same rite may be performed for the girl child, but without mantras, i.e., no sacred texts are to be muttered for her at the time of the ritual performance. 24. Baudhayana Dharmasutra II: 4: 6; Apastamba Dharmasutra II: 5:11–14; Yajnavalkya Samhita 1:73: 81 and Manusamhita IX: 4. 25. Vasistha Dharmasutra XXVIII: 2–3. 26. Aitareya Brahmana III: 24: 27; Apastamba Dharmasutra I: 10: 51–53. 27. Sasthi is presumably an apotheosis of the six Krttikas — Duta, Nitatri, Cupunika, Abhrayanti, Meghayanti, and Varsayanti. The last three are directly connected with rain as their names testify, and the first 66 G sukumari bhattacharji

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

three are possibly defined from ancient Middle Eastern mythology and stand for the same function: Duta, e.g., is derived from the Arabic verb ‘dili’, to pour. The other two are yet unexplained. Anyway, Sasthi’s connection with the Krittikas bring out her fertility aspect, of which rainfall is a mythological symbol. Interestingly enough she is called Devasena (divine army) and is the wife of Skanda, the six-faced general of the divine army created for the destruction of the demon Taraka. So Sasthi is very closely connected with the would-be or actual mother. The Sasthi varta (vow to Sasthi) is observed by the mother through fasting on the fifth day and worshipping the sun on the next two dates. Mastsya Purana C I: I–83. Bhavisya Purana, Uttarakhanda. Vratakhanda II: 315–18. Bhavisya Purana V: 313. The assumption presumably is that as the durba grows plentifully, the woman has many sons. Vratakhanda I: 572. Hemadri Vratakhanda II: 524 Matsya Purana C: 29–30; Visnudharmottara Purana III: 189: 1–5. Hemadri Vratakhanda II: 171–72; Krtyakalpatarudri Vratakhanda II: 374–75. Hemadri Vratakhanda II: 231–33. Visnudharmottara Purana II: 55: 1–12; Putreyasaptami (op cit.; also Vratakhanda I: 789–90). Taittiriya Samhita VI: 5: 10: 3; Maitrayani Samhita: IV: 6: 4. See earlier for drink taboos for the mother. Aitareya Brahmana VII: 3: 7: 13. Aitareya Brahmana I: 73; 10. Even later literature reflects this attitude. Part of this can be explained by the dowry system prevalent in the country which put the parents in financial difficulty. Yet the Mahabharata says at one place that Laksmi resides in daughters (XII: II: 14; also Visnu Smriti 99: 4), but this by no means represents the general social attitude. Mahabharata IV: 22: 17. Samyutta Nikaya I: 6: 4. Vasistha Samhita XVII: 3. Vasistha Samhita, 55; Mahabharata V: 88: 68. Manusamhita IX: 168. Manusamhita X: 171. Manusamhita IX: 145. Manusamhita II: 233. Apastamba Dharmasutra I: 10: 28: 9. Baudhayana Dharmasutra II: II: 2: 48. Motherhood in Ancient India F 67

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

Vasistha Dharmasutra XXI: 10; XIII: 47; Visnu Dharmasutra LVII: 1–5. Visnu Dharmasutra LVII: 1–5. Atri Samhita 151. Mahabharata I: 37: 4. Mahabharata XIII: 268: 30. Amitayurdhyanasutra. Hiranyakesin Grhyasutra II: 4: 10: 7; Manusamhita IX: 18. Visnu Samhita XXXI: 1–3. Visnu Samhita V: 34. cf. Atri Samhita 186 and elsewhere. Yajnavalkya Smriti I: 72. Mahabharata III: 228: 30–31. Mahabharata III 230: 9–11. Vulgate version of the Mahabharata IX: 44. According to a later account, when Agni deposited the seed in Ganga, she fainted; the creatures in the water groaned and she refused to hold it (vulgate XIII: 85: 55–82). cf. Atharvaveda XII: I for an ancient but already changing attitude to land. Manusmriti IX: 35. Ibid.: 37. Ibid.: 48. Ibid.: 52. Ibid.: X: 32. Ibid.: IX: 32. Ibid.: 27. Altekar 1956: 101 El-Saadawi 1980: 63 Altekar 1956: 101. Auerbach 1982: 82–61. Ibid.: 219. Chodorow 1978: 94. Ibid.: 39. Eisenstein 1988: 71. Brhadaranyaka Upanisad VI: 4: 7. Eisenstein 1988: 81.

References Primary Sources (This list has been prepared by the Publishers. Citations in the text may not be from the editions listed below; details of some Sanskrit texts could not be found and thus are not included here.) 68 G sukumari bhattacharji

Aitareya Brahmana Agashe, R. R. (ed.). 1977 rpt 1979. Aitareya Brahmana, 2 parts. Poona: Anandasrama. Trans. A.B. Keith, Rg Veda Brahmanas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. Apastamba Dharmasutra Sastri, A. Chinnasami and Ramanatha Sastri (ed.). 1932. Apastamba Dharmasutra with the Commentary of Ujjwala. Banaras: Jai Krishnadas Haridas Gupta. Trans. George Buhler, Sacred Laws of the Aryas, Part 1, Apastamba and Gautama. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965, rpt 1979. Apastamba Grhyasutra Sastri, A. Chinnasami and Ramanatha Sastri (eds). 1928. Apastamba Grhya Sutra. Banaras: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. Trans. Hermann Oldenberg, The Grhya Sutras, pt. 2. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1892, rpt 1964. Atharvaveda Chand, Devi. (ed. and trans.). 1982. The Atharvaveda: Sanskrit Text with English Translation. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Atri Samhita Bhattacharya, V. Raghunathachakravarti and Manavalli Ramakrsnakavi. (eds). 1943. Samurtarchanadhikarana (Atri-samhita). Tirupati, Tirumalai: Tirupati Devasthanam Press. Baudhayana Dharmasutra Olivelle, Patrick. (ed.). 1999. The Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Apastamba, Gautama, Baudhayana, and Vasistha. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baudhayana Grhyasutra Shama Sastri, R. (ed.). 1920 rpt 1982. Baudhayana Grhyasutra. New Delhi: Meharchand Lachhmandas. Bharadvaja Grhyasutra Salomons, H. J. W. (ed.). 1913 rpt 1981. Bharadvaja Grhyasutra. New Delhi: Meharchand Lachhmandas. Bhavishya Purana Das, Purnapraja. (ed.). 2007. Bhavishya Purana. 2nd edn. Vrindavan: Rasbihari Lal & Sons. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Vasu, S.C. (ed. and trans.). 1933. The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. Allahabad: The Panini Office. Gobhila Grhyasutra Tarkalankara, C. (ed.). 1880. Gobhila Grihyasutra. Bibliotheca Indica, vol. 73. Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press. Motherhood in Ancient India F 69

Hiranyakesi Grhyasutra Kirste, J. (ed.). 1889. Hiranyakesi Grhyasutra, with Extracts from the Commentary of Matridatta. Vienna: Holder. Kathaka Grhyasutra Suryakanta. 1943 (rpt). Kathaka-samkalana: Extracts From the Lost Kathakabrahmana, Kathaka-srautasutra and Kathaka-grhyasutras. Lahore: Mehar Chand Lachhman Das. Khadira Grhyasutra Sastri, A. Mahadeva. (ed.). 1913. Khadiragrihyasutra: The Khadira Grihyasutra with the Commentary of Rudraskanda. Mysore: Govt. Branch Press. Krtyakalpataru Rangaswami Aiyangar, K. V. (ed.). 1948. Krtyakalpataru. Baroda: Oriental Institute. Manusmriti Nene, Gopalasastri. (ed.) 1935. The Manusmriti. Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. Matsya Purana Debroy, Dipavali and Bibek Debroy (eds.). 199-. The Matsya Purana. 7th edn. Delhi: Books for All. Mahabharata Sukthankar, V.S. and S.K. Belvalkar (eds.). 1961. Mahabharatam. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Maitrayani Samhita Janert, K. L. (ed.). (1970-). Maitrayani Samhita. 4 vols. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Manava Grhyasutra Sastri, R.H. (ed.). 1982. Manavagrhyasutra of the Maitraniya Sakha. New Delhi: Panini. Trans. M.J. Dresden, Manavagrhyasutra: A Vedic Manual of Domestic Rites, Translations, Commentary and Preface. Groningen: Wolter, 1941. Matsya Purana Wilson, H.H. (ed. and trans.). 1997. The Matsyamahapuranam. Delhi: Nag Publishers. Paraskara Grhyasutra Upadhyaya, Karka. (ed.). 1982. Paraskara Grhyasutram: Sri Karkopadhya … samalamkrtam. 2nd edn. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Rg Veda Muller, Max (ed.). 1877. The Hymns of the Rg Veda. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, rpt 1965. Trans. R. T. H. Griffith, The Hymns of the Rg Veda, 2 vols. Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1896, rpt 1963. 70 G sukumari bhattacharji

Samyutta Nikaya Kashyap, J. (ed.). 1959. The Samyutta Nikaya. Nalanda: Pali Publication Board. Sankhayana Grhyasutra Sehgal, S. R. (ed.). 1987. Sankhayana Grhya Sutram: (Belonging to the Rgveda) A Treatise on Religion, Sociology and Folklore. 2nd edn. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publication. Satapatha Brahmana Weber, Albrecht. (ed.). 1885 rpt 1964. Satapatha Brahmana. Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office. Trans. J. Eggeling, The Satapatha Brahmana. 5 parts. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1885, rpt 1963. Taittiriya Samhita Dharmadhikari, T.N. (ed.). 1981. Taittiriya Samhit, 2 vols. Poona: Vaidika Samsodhana Mandala. Trans. A.B. Keith, The Taittiriya Samhita, 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914. Vasistha Dharmasutra Olivelle, Patrick. (ed.). 1999. The Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Apastamba, Gautama, Baudhayana, and Vasistha. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vasistha Samhita Dutt, Manmatha Nath. (ed.). 1907. Vasistha Samhita: Original Text with a Literal Prose English Translation. Calcutta: Elysium Press. Visnu Dharmasutra Jolly, Julius (trans.) 1880. The Institutes of Vishnu (re-edited with Sanskrit text by J.L. Kamboj). Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, rpt 1991. Visnu Samhita Unni, N. P. (ed.). 1991. The Visnu Samhita. 8th edn. Delhi: Nag Publishers. Visnu Smriti Krishnamachary, Pandit V. (ed.). 1964. Visnusmriti: With the Commentary Kesavaijayanti of Nandapandita. Adyar: Adyar Library Research Centre. Visnudharmottara Purana Shah, Priyabala. (ed.). 1999. Vishnudharmottara Purana: Pauranic Legends and Rebirths. English trans. of First Khanda. Delhi: Parimal Publications. Vratakhanda Bhattacharya, Yajnesvara. (ed.). 1879. Vratakhanda. 2nd edn. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal. Yajnavalkya Samhita Ray, Kumudranjan. (ed.). 1964. Yajnavalkya Samhita (Vyavaharadhyaya). Calcutta: K. Ray. Motherhood in Ancient India F 71

Yajnavalkya Smriti Basu, B. D. and Rai Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vudyar nava Vidyar nava. (eds). 1918. Yajnavalkya Smriti: With the Commentary of Vijnanesvara. Allahabad: Panini Office.

Secondary Sources Altekar, A.S. 1956. The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation: From PreHistoric Times to Present Day. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass. Ardener, E.1975. ‘Belief and the Problem of Women,’ in Shirely Ardener (ed.), Perceiving Women. London: Dent. Auerbach, N. 1982. Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Bernal, Martin. 1987. Black Athena: The Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation. London: Free Association Books. Bhattacharji, Sukumari. 1970. The Indian Theogony: A Comparative Study of Indian Mythology from the Vedas to the Puranas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Briffault, Robert. 1959. The Mothers. New York: Macmillan. Chodorow, Nancy. 1978. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press. de Beauvoir, Simone. 1953. The Second Sex. New York: Jonathan Cape. Eisenstein, Hester. 1984. Contemporary Feminist Thought. London: George Allen & Unwin. El-Saadawi, Nawal. 1980. The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World. London: Zed Press. Falk, Nancy Auer and Rita M. Gross. 1980. Unspoken Words: Women’s Religious Lives in North-Western Cultures. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Gaur, Albertine. 1975. Women in India. London: British Library Hall, Edward. T. 1966. The Hidden Dimension. New York: Doubleday. Lazarre, Jane. 1976. The Mother Knot. New York: McGraw Hill. Licht, Hans. 1932. Sexual Life in Ancient Greece. New York. McAuslan. McLuhan, Marshall. 1967: The Mechanical Bride. Boston: Beacon Press. Plato. (360 BC) 1871. Laws. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons. Richter, D. C.1971. ‘The Position of Women in Classical Athens’, Classical Journal, 67: 1–8. Ruddick, Sara. 1980. ‘Maternal Thinking’, Feminist Studies 6(2): 342–67.

72 G sukumari bhattacharji

chapter 4

In Search of the

Great Indian Goddess: Motherhood Unbound

kamala ganesh I Goddesses abound in India — varied and diverse, they sometimes contradict each other. There are those who are consorts, those who have consorts, and there is the one who is alone. She is bedecked with jewellery or with a garland of skulls; at other times, she is the nude goddess. Many-armed and wielding weapons, she sometimes disarms you with just a lotus in hand, and uses the abhaya and varada hastas to dispel fear and grant boons. Then there are those other goddesses — with no arms or arms that end in stumps; repulsive, angry or gracious, or expressionless with no facial features, sometimes not even a head; riding ferocious animals like a lion, tiger, leopard, or seated in tranquil equipoise on the lotus. Portrayed in vivid anthropomorphic detail or expressed symbolically, she could be a pot with eyes scratched on it, a cowrie shell, or a piece of stone smeared with vermilion. Sometimes the goddess is also abstracted into a flash of energy, colour, sound and geometry. Who can say which of these represents the ‘true’ goddess tradition? Which is the ‘essence’ and which is ‘derived’? How does one invest chronology, historicity, linearity — qualities that the goddess cuts through in her many-layered presence in ritual, cult, icon, art, text and philosophy?

I think it is possible to see a basic unity of theme and continuity of ideas in what, for convenience, I will call the ‘mother goddess tradition’.1 The mother goddess can be interpreted as expressing ideas of power, autonomy and primacy in the widest sense of the term. She conveys not so much the idea of physical motherhood but a world-view in which the creative power of femininity is central; the goddess mediates between life and death, and contains in herself the possibility of regeneration. The ‘mother’ aspect of the goddess is open to interpretation, and indeed has been developed in different ways at different points in time for various purposes. The modern iconography of India as mother goddess, is a particularly interesting example of the ‘use’ of the goddess for the end-goal of nationalism. In this article, I am not concerned with establishing whether different goddess types are derivable from the mother goddess, or whether they are equally and independently significant, though the question is of interest. The ideas conveyed by the mother goddess are sometimes found in other goddesses; at other times they are muffled, and at yet other times, there is a complete inversion. But as I see it, she is always a reference point. A word about the scope of this rather exploratory article. For me, the exercise is to understand how I — as an anthropologist familiar with feminist and iconographic scholarship, and as a woman and mother in India — perceive the signals coming from the goddess. It is admittedly tricky to handle material spanning across disciplines and time periods, straddling across different media of expression. One does not try to do justice to its sheer volume and richness. One cannot even be fair in terms of looking for representative material. The effort is not to dwell on the incredible variety, but to synthesise and extrapolate, without giving cavalier treatment to established facts, and hopefully without violating the spirit of the material. This article draws primarily on iconography, occasionally using textual, ritual or cultic material to make a point. Visual traditions of the goddess are very strong in India; they stretch back in time to pre-textual levels. They are a vibrant presence in current worship as well. The icon tells a story which is sometimes at variance with the textual gloss, and it is likely to be more ‘original’. There is a prolific literature on the mother goddess. But in the context of the current feminist-secularist critique of religious 74 G kamala ganesh

symbols and imagery, and a simultaneous feminist ‘rediscovery’ of the goddess, the theme is of continuing relevance.

II The Indian mother goddess is more than 5,000 years old and there is a continuous tradition of imaging and worship of the goddess as a mother, though there are many diversities in form and material. The first iconic finds are from the Kulli and Zhob valley excavations in Baluchistan.2 In terms of content, they show linkages with the mother goddess figures from other regions and periods, and can be seen in the background of the paleolithic and neolithic discoveries in Europe, West Asia and Anatolia. The Paleolithic ‘venuses’, as they are called (the implicit valuation extends beyond terminology), have been excavated from across a wide stretch of territory in Europe, in sites including Spain, France, Austria, the Balkans and Siberia.3 Despite the geographic dispersion, they convey a sense of unity in artistic intent and by extension, in belief and worship systems. Typically small (less than a foot high), made of stone, bone or mammoth’s ivory, the recurring motif is that of a nude female with vastly exaggerated breasts, hips, belly and thighs. The head, arms and legs are highly abbreviated; usually there are no toes, feet, hands or fingers since the legs and arms end abruptly like stumps. The facial features are blurred or missing, the head is just a featureless knob or conical appendage. Some of the ivory carvings are meant to be worn as amulets (Absolon 1949: 207). Some of the figures show traces of red ochre colouring, a surrogate of blood, implying votive or ritual function. The ‘venuses’ are widely recognised as significant markers of human aesthetic activity, but the nature of their significance is rather vaguely explored by the majority of writings — academic and popular. Though they have been frequently seen as reflecting a fertility cult, this possibility has been typically and speculatively sandwiched between several other questions: are they ‘anatomical peculiarities of some ethnic types’? Do they represent the ‘sexual taste of the paleolithic man’? (Agrawala 1984: 6). Are they the ‘stone age man’s pin up’, his bleated idea of female beauty? Or is the steatopygy ‘an adipose adaptation to winter?’ (Reader’s Digest 1984: 11–13). Do they represent ‘idols, fetishes, cult figures, divinities or real women with sexual emphasis?’ (Absolon 1949: 204). Motherhood Unbound F 75

The first ‘venus’ discoveries in the late nineteenth century created a lot of puzzled excitement, but the ‘fertility cult’ argument was used in a way that implied a kind of fetishistic peripheral oddity. Campbell (1959: 139) sharply chastises anthropologists who pretend they cannot imagine what functions these numerous figurines performed. The remarkable feature of this whole group of figures is the extreme stylisation, expressionist if you will, where the contrast between what is emphasised and what is minimised or dispensed with altogether, suggests the underlying motive: veneration of the birth-giving powers of femaleness. Paleolithic excavations have yielded no male human figures. In cave paintings of the same period, the stylised ‘venus’ motif dominates the composition. Male figures are quite common, but they are realistically painted, usually at the back or the periphery of the composition: a pointer to the centrality of the female principle in votive and ritual activity. The basic ‘venus’ type, with elaboration and variation, recurs in the settled agricultural societies of Anatolia and West Asia.4 In particular, the goddess and the bull is a striking motif in the sites of Catal Huyuk and Hacillar: the pregnant goddess squatting as though in childbirth; the goddess giving birth to a bull’s head or to a ram’s head; cow-headed goddess with bull-headed child in arms; the goddess riding on a lion or on the back of a bull, or sitting between the horns of a bull. Scenes of life in one wall contrast with scenes of death in the other. Rows of breasts are shown on the wall along with the heads of bulls. In some cases, the breasts incorporate the lower jaws of a wild boar, the skulls of fox, weasel or vulture — all symbols of death. This early expression of the dual orientation of the goddess towards life and death, and the presence of the bull motif have links with the iconography of the Indian goddess.

Lajjagauri In the profusion of iconic representations of the goddess in India, I would see the ‘Lajjagauri’ genre as best expressing what I think is a core idea in the paleolithic and neolithic icons. This group of sculptures, excavated from across different sites in the Deccan region, date variously between first and eighth centuries AD.5 Typically, the sculpture is of a nude woman squatting with legs spread out and bent at the knees in a birth-giving position. Usually 76 G kamala ganesh

the head is replaced by a lotus. In some cases, as in the figure from Ter, there is no head. The body ends abruptly and intentionally at the neck (Sankalia 1960: 113). In another case, the head is replaced by a stupa (ibid.: 120). The hands may be holding lotuses, or folded across the breasts. The structure of the Alampur sculpture indicates that it was an actual altar under worship. According to Kramrisch (1956: 259), the tension in the muscles in the lower part of the body indicate the dynamic process of giving birth. Some of the sculptures are under worship, usually by women for progeny (Sankalia 1960: 120). Aiyar (1989: 415) notes that they are common in arid regions where their function is to be to bring rain. In one example from Nagarjunakonda, the area below the navel is filled with the drawing of a highly decorated purnaghata (overflowing pot), which symbolises abundance and fertility (Bhattacharya 1977: 138–39). In a fourth century terracotta plaque from Keesaragatta, the lotus-faced woman holds Siva as a lingam in her right hand, and Vishnu as Narasimha in her left. The image unmistakably conveys a sense of primacy of the goddess.6 Recent finds of Lajjagauri plaques of fourth–fifth century AD from Nagpur region, show close association with a bull and a lion.7 She is catechetically called ‘Lajjagauri’ by the local population (lajja: ‘shame’); more circumspect writing refers to her as kamalamukhi. The ‘displayed goddess’ motif is found in many cultures, for instance the ‘Bobo’ figures of Egypt.8 Lajjagauri, the headless one, is body incarnate; the personified yoni. The artistic device is to remove the identity-giving part, the face, and portray the female principle of creation literally. There are, of course, various interpretations of the symbolism of the lotus as head,9 but as I see it, the basic idea expressed is strikingly similar to that of the ‘venuses’. In contrast to various forms of devi or goddess which are iconically more detailed and specific, and in which diverse trends coalesce, Lajjagauri expresses an elemental idea. What are the antecedents of this Lajjagauri of the Deccan? There is a fairly active mother goddess tradition in iconography starting with the terracotta busts from Kulli and Zhob where no male figures have been found. The female figures — nude, jewelled, with hooded faces, circular eyeholes, beaked nose, slit mouth — have a somewhat anonymous look and are interpreted by many as intentionally inspiring terror and awe. Hundreds of female figures (far outnumbering male figures) have been found in Harappan sites, especially in the granary area. They are nude, Motherhood Unbound F 77

wearing elaborate jewellery and a distinct headdress. There is some indication of votive function. In all three — Kulli, Zhob and Indus Valley — nudity is not accentuated. The form shows some independence from the west Asian forms, though in intent it would be very close (Gajjar 1971: 13).10 The headless female figures with stumpy limbs from postHarrapan chalcolithic settlements, for instance from Inamgaon (where the figure is associated with a bull), Nevasa and Bilwali, are interpreted to belong to the mother goddess tradition. The nude, steatopygous female or the ‘opulent goddess’, as she is often referred to in the literature, is not uncommon in pre-Mauryan finds, for instance, the gold plaques from Lauriya Nandangarh and Piprahwa, and the finds from Kausambi, and the numerous ring-stones of the Maurya and Sunga period in sites from northwestern to eastern India.11 However, the precise iconic details of Lajjagauri would seem to have no precedent, except, for example, from an unexpected quarter. The hymns of Rigveda are, in the main, addressed to male nature gods. Goddesses are few and in the vedic scheme of things, definitely secondary. Tucked away amidst the bland beauty of vedic nature goddesses is the elemental figure of Aditi, literally, ‘the unbound one’. Aditi is the subject of an anthropomorphic creation myth: In the first age of the gods, existence was born from non-existence After this, the quarters of the sky were born from her who crouched with legs spread. The earth was born from her, who crouched with legs spread, and from the earth the quarters of the sky were born. From Aditi, Daksha was born, and from Daksha, Aditi was born. O’Flaherty 1981: 37

To find a word–picture in the Rigveda recreated in an icon after fifteen centuries12 and worshipped currently, is to realise with a shock the tenacity of the goddess. Aditi does not fit into the pantheon of vedic goddesses. She is in fact an ill-defined figure ‘virtually featureless physically’ (Kinsley 1987: 8–9); she is not portrayed as a spouse. Her salient characteristic is her motherhood — ‘mighty mother’, ‘protectress’, ‘all men are her children’, ‘she is the 78 G kamala ganesh

mother of gods and kings and mother of the world’, ‘she is all what there is, father, mother, child and begetting’.13 Though textually and iconically she is portrayed as a birth-giver, her motherhood is an encompassing one of cosmic dimensions. She is ‘unbound’, not tied to specifics, to a particular husband, family or lineage. Aditi and Lajjagauri, even as birth-givers, have been abstracted and universalised in a way that would have been impossible under the assumptions of patrilineal systems.

Consort Goddess and Autonomous Goddess In popular Indian perceptions of divinity, the dominant image is of a male god accompanied by his consort who is his benevolent Shakti, the actualiser of his latent power, the embodiment of his grace. Kali and Durga are of course a ubiquitous presence, but the safe domestic mode is represented by Lakshmi — quintessential spouse, symbol of auspiciousness and prosperity. It is tempting to connect the spheres of worship with cultural norms concerning women. There is an active genre of writing on the divide between the powerful, ‘unhusbanded’ goddesses (like Kali) whose power is seen as dangerous and destructive, and goddesses who are appropriately married (like Lakshmi) whose power is positive and benevolent, and how this is echoed in social arrangements and evaluations, particularly in the obsessive cultural theme of control and management of female sexuality (see for instance, Babb 1975; Beck 1969; Das 1976; Hart 1973; Papanek 1973; Wadley 1975). I shall come back to this shortly, but a specific aspect of this idea is the concept of ‘auspiciousness’, which in current understanding is almost exclusively tied up to the state of being married. Virtually, every language has a specific word to denote a woman whose husband is alive (for instance suhagan, suvasini, sumangali in Hindi, Marathi and Tamil respectively). She is the embodiment of auspiciousness. She has a special ritual status. By extension, even the insignia of marriage that she wears are considered to have sacred power. A widow has a diametrically opposite position in the realm of the auspicious, as are all things associated with her. As we shall see, early iconography has a different message. Motherhood Unbound F 79

The other temptation is to see in the spouselessness of a goddess like Kali or Durga, the source of her power, a blue-print for autonomy, counterposed against the domesticated Lakshmi, consort par exellence. The iconographic scenario is somewhat more complicated and the signals are mixed. It is not a simple case of spousehood conveying dependence and spouselessness, autonomy. The goddess is portrayed either by herself or with a male partner. If the latter, then there are various possibilities. She could be the subservient or the dominating partner, or a balance could be attempted. A vivid example of Lakshmi as clearly a secondary consort, is the icon in which she sits by the side of Vishnu, who is recumbent on the serpent adisesha on the ocean of milk. Lakshmi pressing his feet, Lakshmi offering him betel leaves: this replay of idealised domestic relations is more common in kitsch iconography. Usually, the consorthood of the goddess is shown by her small size in relation to the god, as in the case of Lakshmi sitting on the lap of Narasimha, or Parvati as Sivakami watching from the wings while the dancing Nataraja dominates the composition. Sastri (1916: 187–89) makes the point that the goddess as consort is shown with two arms, while the single goddess with four or more. The goddess may well have an independent shrine within the temple as is usual in Tamil Nadu. The philosophical and textual traditions of pancharatra and saiva siddhanta schools place Lakshmi and Parvati respectively in a position closely approximating independent status, though nominally they are the Shaktis of male gods. The popular Radha–Krishna couple is typically shown in a totally non-hierarchical relationship. Roles are reversed and rereversed in delightful abandon and celebrated in icon, poetry and song. But then, Radha is not a spouse. The whole relationship is, as Marglin (1982) puts it, outside the realm of instrumentality — of marriage and birth — and exists in itself, for itself. The ardhanarishvara icon captures a concept of gender as a holistic unity. There is no hard dividing line between male and female; there is an implied interchangeability and flow. Though Kali is often an independent goddess, she is equally often portrayed with a spouse. Here the conventional relations are completely reversed. In the ultimate icon, Kali dances with abandon, her foot trampling on a prostrate, corpse-like Siva, who is not so much husband as polar opposite. Durga is perhaps the only important goddess who is portrayed alone. Though created from the combined energies 80 G kamala ganesh

of the gods, she wields weapons and battles alone with no male support, and slays the buffalo demon Mahisha. However even here, there is a strong underlying suggestion of a sexual/marital relationship between Durga and Mahisha, as we will discuss a little later. Finally, there are the truly ‘single’ goddesses, whose iconography the male is not part of. This is the goddess who neither confronts nor is subservient; she exists in herself, by herself. By her very presence and femininity, she symbolises abundance, fertility and auspiciousness. She contradicts the idea of auspiciousness being tied to marriage, as she does the idea of spouselessness being associated with danger and anger. Chronologically, this goddess appears earlier than the consorts and spouses. She is a descendant in the mother goddess tradition. In the latter, ‘auspiciousness’ is implicit; in the former, it is elaborated and explicit in the form of a frequent motif in temple and domestic icon. Thus, we have srilakshmi and gajalakshmi, auspicious ones, whose images are put on doorways and thresholds for magical protection. River goddesses, always single, are again threshold deities. Decorating arches and pillars is salabhanjika, who makes vegetation bloom into life by a touch of her hand or foot,14 and close in spirit is the yakshi of free and vegetative quality, with her body twined around a tree and creeper. There is also the archetypal sakambhari, the herb-nourishing one from whose body plants grow. The development of srilakshmi is a striking illustration of the shift from an independent, auspicious goddess to a spouse. She is a preBuddhist icon, and the earliest images do not show her with a male partner. The Kushana srilakshmi stands amidst lotuses issuing from a purnaghata, pressing her breasts to assure plenty and prosperity (Sivaramamurti 1961: 39). Medallions from Bharhut have the motifs of both srilakshmi and the closely allied gajalakshmi — seated on a full-blown lotus, surrounded by lotus flowers, leaves and stems issuing from a mangalaghata, with elephants pouring water on her head (Kramrisch 1956: 252–53; Ray 1975: 111). In Srisukta, she is described as lotus-faced (padmanana), lotus-thighed (padma uru), with lotus hands (padma hasta), evoking memories of Lajjagauri.15 The early sri has a strong association with vegetation, growth and fecundity; a teeming vitality marks her presence. In later icons, she is linked to a number of gods — Soma, Dharma, Indra and Kubera — and texts refer to her unsteady, fickle nature. By about 400 AD, she settles down as the steadfast and benign Motherhood Unbound F 81

consort of Vishnu, involved in moral order, righteous behaviour and correct social observance (Kinsley 1987: 19–26). Colloquial phrases about the ‘Lakshmi of the home’, popular in many Indian languages, refer to the quality of auspiciousness of women who play the proper wifely role. The issue of spousehood is a complex one. The very goddess who is the domesticated spouse is demonstrably independent in earlier forms. The consorthood of the same goddess is often differently expressed in text/legend and icon. For example, in the myth, the confrontation between Kali and Siva is resolved by the ultimate taming of the former, but the icon invariably captures the moment of confrontation, not the denouement. The popular Bengali legend about how Kali became embarrassed when she realised that she had trampled on her husband (and hence the outhanging tongue), would be a cute example of trying to make a consort out of Kali, were it not so absurd! The ashtamatrikas are nominally the female versions of eight gods, but they usually occur as an independent set. The sthalapurana (temple legend) of the village goddess often concludes by making her into an aspect of Parvati, spouse of Siva, but the icon says otherwise. She is given pride of place in the shrine, accompanied by male attendants or servants. It is as though having paid token tribute to the married state, she is free to pursue her activities independently. ‘True’ consorts are very few, and even they express autonomous personality in various degrees. The power associated with the goddess of fertility, creativity, nurturance, protection does not stem from her consorthood which seems to be a later development. It is relevant to remember here that the concept of the goddess as virgin–mother is deep-rooted across cultures. It contains a suggestion of parthenogenesis — self-created, self-supporting — and is linked with the magico-religious domain of fertility and agriculture. It forms the kernel of the autonomy of the goddess.

Two Faces of the Goddess Much of the current literature on the goddess is dominated by the theme of the benign versus destructive goddess, or the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ aspects of the goddess. It is virtually impossible to read a paper on the subject which does not have a reference to the ‘ambivalence’ of the goddess. It is treated as axiomatic. Some of the approaches grounded in psychological analysis develop 82 G kamala ganesh

the idea of a radical split in the mother image into the ‘good sheltering’ versus the ‘monstrous terrifying’ mother. The great mother archetype is seen to reflect early childhood feelings about the primacy of mother or mother–figure. While Freudians see the goddess imagery as rooted in the experience of the personal mother, Jungians see its base in the collective unconscious (Preston 1983: 328–41; Wulff 1982: 283–97). The intense feelings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa towards Kali as his mother, and the emotionally charged poetry of Ramaprasad do in fact articulate the good mother/bad mother theme. But to accept a clear relationship, one needs to understand why the mother goddess is absent or eclipsed in some cultures.16 The ambivalence of the goddess has been linked by many writers to the cultural evaluation of female sexuality as dangerous and disruptive if not harnessed appropriately. The two faces of the goddess are both faces of power, but as a properly married spouse, she is the embodiment of grace and benevolence; as the independent goddess, she threatens to destroy the very basis of the social order. The concern with the control of female sexuality manifests itself in many institutions, norms and customs that are current in India. The point to note here is that the stress on female sexuality and reproduction are part of the requirements of patrilineal systems, and the particular way in which they are expressed in the Indian context have to do with the ideology and language of caste. The ‘ambivalence’ described in the current writing seems to be between the ‘spousified’ goddess under developing patriarchy, and the earlier fiery, independent goddess. But the goddess expresses a duality (a term perhaps more appropriate than ambivalence) in her earliest iconic forms, from a phase in which caste and gender hierarchies would perhaps be amorphous. That this duality has been superimposed with the ambivalence of controlled versus uncontrolled sexuality is evident, but the meaning of the goddess could be read in a broader frame. What then is the duality that the goddess mediates? The cycle of festivals of the goddess is closely tied up to the agricultural cycle, and to seasons of sowing, germination and harvest. The female power to create life and the soil’s power to produce crop are seen as interlinked. But the goddess has strong funerary associations as well, starting from the ‘venuses’17 to the concept of Motherhood Unbound F 83

smasana kali who haunts cremation grounds, wears cut arms as girdles, children’s corpses as ear-rings, uses oozings from corpses as cosmetics, and skulls as drinking vessels. The association with death runs parallel to the theme of slaying and sacrifice, but seems to have an independent aspect as well. Then of course there is the very strong connection with blood sacrifice: literal, ritual and metaphorical. Beginning from Frazer, much has been written on the subject, but the point to stress here is that blood sacrifice and fertility — vegetative and human — are not two separate aspects. In Tamil Nadu, the kodai (animal festival of the amman goddess) temple of the village has as its central event, the sacrifice of the goat (which has replaced the buffalo). Simultaneously, the festival has strong vegetation/sprouting rituals. The connection is highlighted in the ritual soaking and sprouting of different types of grains in the sacrificial victim’s blood in order to be able to predict the season’s successful harvest (Whitehead 1976: 64–65). The other side of fertility is the association of some festivals of the goddess with suspension of normative sexual behaviour.18 Dramatically capturing some of these linkages is the icon of chinnamasta in which Kali stands in a cremation ground on the copulating bodies of Kama, the god of love, and his wife Rati. She has severed her head with a sword which she has in one hand. On the other hand, is a platter which holds her severed head. Blood spurts out from her neck in three jets, two of them are drunk by two female attendants on either side, and the third is drunk by the severed head of Kali herself. As Kinsley (1987) puts it, this is a way of showing that life, sex and death are part of an interdependent and unified system. The goddess, who represents the vital forces of the cosmos, needs nourishment — life feeds on life, and death is a necessity for life (ibid.: 162–63). The other dramatic icon is the famous sakambhari seal from Harappa in which a woman (goddess) is shown upside down, with a plant issuing out of her womb (Marshall 1931: V.1: 52). The precise form is never captured again visually, but a word–picture in Markandeyapurana (ch 11 verse 48–49 tr. Pargiter 1904), that is part of the Durga saptashati section, repeats the image: Next O ye Gods, I shall support the whole world with the life sustaining vegetables which shall grow out of my own body during a period of heavy rain. 84 G kamala ganesh

I shall gain fame on earth then as sakambhari.

The goddess mediates between the ultimate duality of life and death: death in which is the implicit regeneration and transformation. It is a world-view in which life feeds on blood; forms of life — plant, animal and human — are interconnected. Fundamental perceptions of reality are chosen to be represented through the female body which is seen as a source of magical power. Starting with two faces of life and death, the iconic journey proceeds, bridging dualities at multiple levels. For instance, the goddess of war reveals in herself a vegetational substratum underscoring the marital character of fertility. As the popular and ubiquitous Durga, she is the presiding deity for several martial/royal castes like Rajputs, Marathas, Mysore kings, etc. The annual worship of weaponry and of Durga as a warrior to ensure success in war is a major event in these communities. The martial overlay notwithstanding, Durga has a distinct vegetational substratum, as when she says that in an earlier incarnation, she was sakambhari (quoted above). While the legend and icon are about the warrior goddess, the rituals — for example ghatasthapana and navapatrika — show her as a vegetation goddess.19 Even the popular mahishasuramardini icon has evolved over time from the Kushana period, when the battle aspect is somewhat subdued, to the later Ellora and Mahabalipuram versions which elaborate and develop the goddess as a warrior (Agrawala 1958; Viennot 1956). A striking group of icons is that of the goddess who wears five miniature weapons or ayudhas in her headdress. There is no other sign of the martial. The cult of pancacuda, as she is called, is widely prevalent from Bengal to Rupar (second to first centuries BC), and Desai (1977: 155) suggests that she was a fertility goddess whose symbolic marriage was celebrated for the general welfare of the community and for agricultural productivity. The martial could be interpreted as a metaphor to underscore the protective function of the goddess who, as bestower of plant, animal and human fertility, has to be a fighter. The ideology of motherhood, as developed in patrilineal systems, subsumes the category of woman in that of the mother, and sublimates the erotic. The goddess, on the other hand, is imbued with a conscious femininity with implied or explicit eroticism. Durga as warrior is portrayed as the pinnacle of feminine beauty, Motherhood Unbound F 85

as is evident from the icon, but even the Sanskrit text Devi mahatmyam is eloquent about the goddess’ beauty that lures Mahisha, and the texts of Chandisataka and Saundaryalahari are explicit in their description of the physical beauty of the goddess.20 In contrast, in the older stream of the mother goddess, the sexual and reproductive aspects are so starkly explicit as to go beyond eroticism. By completely depersonalising the context, the icon moves from details into abstraction, and transforms the specific into the universal. Both in the erotic and universal forms, the mother goddess iconography is at variance with the ideology of motherhood as applied to real-life mothers. She is a mother, but not a spouse; she is a mother but not often portrayed with children. All over southern India, the village goddess, valourised as an aspect of Durga–Parvati, has the suffix amma (mother), but rarely is she shown as a physical mother. Blessing women with offspring is one of her functions, but by no means the only or main one. The most important concern of the village goddess is protection — of the hearth, field, soil, crop, boundary, foetus — from disease, pestilence, flood, drought and famine.

III What does She Stand for? Few of those interested in the goddess — writers, scholars, devotees, feminists, or various combination of these — have been able to resist the temptation of seeing in her attributes an implied cultural evaluation of women, and of developing this into propositions based on the type of society the ‘goddess culture’ represents or is a survival from. It is pertinent to distinguish between different genres of scholarship on the goddess. In India, it has generally been the province of historians and has formed part of the ongoing discussions on the theme of Aryan versus pre-Aryan, and includes a spectrum of approaches that attempt broad synthesis of the subcontinent’s early history (for example, the work of Basham (2005) and Kosambi (1962). The confrontation and eventual assimilation of the autochthonous with the incoming has been pitched at several levels: belief systems with the earth goddess 86 G kamala ganesh

at the core versus vedic male-centred worship of sky gods based on contrasting systems of primitive agriculture versus nomadic pastoralism. The key element in the Indian context has been the continuity of the goddess tradition at many levels. Though temporarily eclipsed in vedic material, the goddess resurfaces in the Puranas, and thereafter at various points becomes a symbol for the coalescing of counter traditions. It is possible to see the developments in iconography as a dynamic process of the interaction between the substratum of goddess-centred worship, and mainstream worship which inverts and neutralises but ultimately accommodates the former.21 The goddess has philosophical roots in the mainstream as well, for samkhya after all recognises the categories of purusha and prakriti. The latter, which activates the inert purusha, is primary so far as world–process is concerned. This idea is developed and elaborated in tantra. The classical mainstream text of Devimahatmyam, which sees the ultimate reality as feminine, is based on this germinal concept borrowed from samkhya. In another genre of anthropological writing of the last century and early part of this century, the theme of the goddess became part of the arguments marshalled in the debates around the idea of the ‘matriarchate’. Pitched on a grand scale within the general framework of evolutionism, the general thrust of the argument, for a universal stage of matriarchy preceding and later overtaken by patriarchy, was based on the rich goddess-centred mythology of non-semitic cultures, as well as the ethnographic material on communities with simple economies.22 The subject, at one stage, generated considerable academic discussion. But due to the serious gaps because of the universal scale and the embarrassing colonial baggage that came with it, it was not taken up by subsequent anthropological scholarship. By default, it was assumed that some form of patriarchy must have been universal,23 but this also was a recognisable problematic assumption. The theme has therefore had an irresistible fascination with predictable revival of debunking cycles. Feminist writing has raised the issue again, and archaeologists and anthropologists have been stung into trying afresh for solutions.24 Leacock’s would be one example of recent work which queries the notion of the universality of gender hierarchy. Based on ethnographic work among hunter–gatherers, she suggests that Motherhood Unbound F 87

principles of gender structuring, other than hierarchy, are real possibilities in pre-class societies, and to see incipient hierarchy everywhere is to project our own ethnocentricity on to all societies (Leacock 1978).25 Eisler (1987), writing during a different genre, asks much the same questions. Looking at ideology of gender relations manifested (or such as is manifested) through icons and artifacts of early cultures, she makes the point that in societies where the images of divinity are female, social structure must surely be different from societies where worship is of the divine father who wields the thunderbolt and sword. In such societies, gender relations would be based on principles other than that which we are used to; in which ‘linking’ rather than ‘ranking’ is the operative principle. Though freely utopian and millenarian in tone, the point being made opens up a constructive line of inquiry: what is the principle of gender-structuring in pre-patriarchal cultures? How is it articulated in terms of the overall stratification? What is the relationship between female autonomy and the autonomy of the individual? Can we project contemporary definitions of words like ‘autonomy’, ‘power’ and ‘equality’ on to a different time-scale without thinking about issues of meaning and value? The point that the mother goddess does not correlate with high secular status for women in India does not need labouring. In fact, it is possible to argue for an inverse relationship. Ena Campbell (1983) provocatively suggests that mother goddess worship is prominent in cultures that polarise male and female roles; that it has an inverse relation to secular status. She suggests that the mother goddess may be a compensation for the subordinate status of women (ibid.: 5–24). A related example is that of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand which has rejected the goddess at the formal level. The women in these countries have a high secular status, which has its roots in the bilateral kinship systems of Southeast Asia (Ferguson 1983: 283–303). The actual situation of women at a given point in time reflects a complex mix of ideological and material factors. While the goddess cannot guarantee status in real life, ‘talk about god, goddess, gods and goddesses is talk about the (male and female) self in relation to the environment’ (Yocum 1982: 281). The attributes of the goddess give us an indication of what is defined in that culture as feminine. Gross (1978) says ‘the goddess does impart a certain 88 G kamala ganesh

sense of dignity, self-worth, personal assertiveness and simple visibility’ (ibid.: 274). I would qualify that, or rather extend it by saying that the goddess is an untapped potential of possibilities. To say that goddesses in India are powerful is a restatement of the obvious. They are certainly visible and worshipped, but the way in which power is articulated by different goddesses, suggests that the combination of autonomy and power is socially less acceptable than power acquired through playing a familial role. Stretching the point a little further, the nuances in the goddess may give a clue as to how individual women, provided they are materially situated, could and do exert ‘power’ in real life, or convert it to socially acceptable forms. The sub-text in any contemporary essay on the goddess could well read ‘but why such interest now, when she has always been there?’ And in the manner of the hymn the which ends with the ‘fruit of listening’, phalasruti, one could ask, ‘what will be its outcome?’ There is currently a definite revival of interest in the goddess; the impetus is broadly from the growth of feminist consciousness in the west, specifically North America, though arguably, this too is set within the framework of Orientalism. For women within the church, and for students of theology and religion in general, the understressed femininity of the divine in Judaeo–Christian religions has raised nagging questions and created a profound dissatisfaction, a spiritual vacuum (see for example, Christ 1979). Efforts at looking at the roots of biblical tradition (for example Patai 1967), at Mariology, at pre-Christian fertility and earth goddesses beneath the overlay of Roman Catholicism which reinterprets them as Madonnas (Moss and Cappannari 1983); efforts at reinterpreting the figures and concepts of the Bible to include androgyny (for example, Gelpi 1984) — these are responses to a consciousness of the vacuum. Gross argues that imagery, metaphor and personal gods are inevitable and intrinsically satisfying. The need is to move from ‘God the father’ to an open espousal of the cause of ‘God the mother’, rather than an impersonal, abstract godhead. This may serve as a corrective to current sexism in theology and ritual (ibid.: 276). What could be a more alluring model than Indian goddesses? Within the western feminist movement too, there are trends indicating a shift in emphasis. Having travelled on a long journey of becoming aware of and trying to change external structures of Motherhood Unbound F 89

oppression, some individuals and groups are now turning to look inwards for sources of empowerment, for the ‘goddess within’. The rediscovery/re-imaging/reclaiming of the goddess in her ‘second coming’ is a theme that has appeal to other groups working on alternatives, for example those in the ecological movement. Within mainstream academics — art, history, archeology, philosophy, comparative religion — recent writing on the goddess is informed by the large and lively feminist scholarship in general; it asks a somewhat different set of questions (see for example, Gimbutas 1982; Hawley and Wuff 1982; Kinsley 1987). The contrast between the ‘exuberant, polytheistic iconolatry’ of Indian goddesses, and the ‘single, transcendental masculine divinity’ of the Christian west (Nicholas 1983) has been so sharp that the ‘rediscovery’ of the Indian goddess by North America has been one of uncritical enthusiasm. Within the Indian feminist discourse, response to the goddess has been much more cautious, and at times tinged with suspicion. The specificities of the Indian situation that feminists are trying to tackle are so intimately tied up with oppressive and restrictive traditions affecting women, that symbols and imagery with a religious association are by definition suspect. Violent and vicious cleavages along religious lines, and the appropriation of traditional symbols by fundamentalist groups is part of the contemporary political reality, and the goddess is caught in the crossfire. But there is a general movement towards a more introspective phase within feminist scholarship and activism. It is inevitable that in discussions on culture as power versus culture as oppression, the goddess will resurface. The question is, what are we to make of her? Is it possible to transplant the goddess from her native environment and ‘use’ her as a ‘resource’ for filling the vacuum in a completely different setting, as a certain genre of western feminist writing seems to imply. Johnson’s (1989) caution that the mother goddess monotheism ‘may leave out spinsters and lesbians and equate birth with creativity’ is a case in point. One cannot ‘use’ the goddess for finding solutions to contemporary problems any more than one can apply a specific modernist yardstick of gender equality to measure all cultures at all times. Perhaps the goddess can only remain a source of inspiration, a vision.26 But what of India, where the goddess tradition has live roots? Even within an overall climate of extreme commodification of the 90 G kamala ganesh

female image, and even in the most intense form of kitsch, the goddess iconography has resisted being objectified and completely recast in terms of the male gaze. It is part of the world of meaning for many. It is a potential source of empowerment. The challenge is how to creatively link it with the lives of ordinary women, without getting identified with sectarian and divisive interests. The goddess is a powerful symbol of linkages. She bridges realms and levels, hierarchies and schisms: between the autochthonous and alien, conquerors and conquered; between brahminised and lower-ranking castes, and between caste and tribe; between mainstream and protestant philosophy; between sophisticated theology and living cults; between reified ritual and the immediacy of local practice: hook-swinging, fire-walking, blood, meat and liquor; between classical sanskrit text and oral tradition, and between materials: metal, stone and clay. Inverted, neutralised, absorbed and mainstreamed, she still exists as a disturbing presence; by daring to exist, she begs to differ.

Epilogue Re-reading my article seventeen years after it was written invoked feelings simultaneously of kinship and distance. My passion for the subject had been triggered by my friend Chandralekha (Chandra), the celebrated dancer and choreographer who passed away a few months ago. In 1987–88, I was interacting professionally with her on the exhibition Stree: Women in India which was held in Moscow as part of the Festival of India. During the months of preparation that preceded it, I was discovering the goddess in her company. Work was heavy and intense, but in typical Chandra style, streaked with playfulness as well. And it was all interspersed with hairstanding-on-end moments of revelation, moments many have experienced watching her productions like Angika and Sri on stage. My own ‘primitive accumulation’ in goddess rituals, in Sanskrit and Tamil stotras (hymns) and in musical compositions by Muthuswami Dikshitar and Shyama Sastri had given me some sort of feel for the subject. But Chandra’s oevre, on-stage and off, delivered a stunning coup de grace, altering my perceptions radically. I soaked myself in articles and books on the subject. The ‘Ideology of Motherhood’ project by Maithreyi Krishnaraj was timely; it gave me an opportunity to articulate my ideas. Soon thereafter, I got busy with routine academic life and the subject of Motherhood Unbound F 91

goddesses got left behind. I don’t have the disciplinary grounding for this topic, I told myself then. The article I wrote for Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) was just a flash in the pan, it was not a systematically worked out piece, I could not pursue it further, I did not have the stamina for it, so on and so forth went my excuses to myself. Looking back, I think I was apprehensive that the topic could be construed as being of a piece with Hindu revivalistic chauvinism. The goddess continued to buzz in my head though and eventually, I think I internalised her. It remained no mere topic of research. Since that time, there has been quite some writing on the goddess from a feminist standpoint, both in the rediscovery and critical, cautionary modes. Broadly, these are a continuation of earlier writings that I drew upon for my article in 1990, though some have made deeper as well as newer explorations. In general ‘goddess feminism’ has been gathering momentum with meditations not only on spirituality but also on knowledge itself; its inevitable/ inherent embodiment, thus making a contribution to epistemology and methodology as well. Gross (1994: 329–33) demonstrates how ‘goddess feminism’ has shown itself as distinct from conventional history of religions and religious studies methodology by openly acknowledging the link between experience and scholarship, and by stating one’s methodological and philosophical standpoint right at the beginning. It has also critiqued androcentrism and offered a two–sex, androgynous model of humanity. In the last two decades, new editions of well-known books on goddess have been reissued, for example, Spretnak’s Lost Goddesses, Condren’s Serpent and the Goddess, and Starhawk’s Spiral Dance and Dreaming the Dark. There has been fresh writing by them too as also by Christ (1998); Raphael (1999); Gross (1994); Mantin (2000) and several others, endorsing the goddess as a resource for contemporary feminists’ reimaging of the sacred and the divine. ‘Goddess feminism’ has also generated a distinct vocabulary. To give just two examples, ‘theology,’ with its generic use of the Greek masculine prefix ‘theo’, is often replaced with ‘thealogy’ to mean analysis of goddess thought and mysticism. The term ‘goddessing’ is used to mean goddess culture, goddess way of life, goddess practice, and individual experiences and interpretations of the goddess. This is following Daly’s (1985) suggestion that this most active and dynamic concept is better expressed as a verb than a noun. 92 G kamala ganesh

‘Goddess feminists’ in the West have also had to face criticism and hostility from several quarters for being ‘narcissistic’ with their ‘self-indulgent rituals affirming female sexuality’, and for being ‘quiescent on the global need for structural justice’ (Christ 2003–07). Grey (2001) refutes these charges, lashes out at their sloppy scholarship and sharply interrogates the basis for this criticism coming mainly from Christian feminists. She sees the cavalier dismissal of the pioneering contribution of ‘goddess feminists’ as an attempt to write them out of history, motivated by the need to be in the good books of church-related institutions where most academic Christian feminists are employed. Feminist writings on the Indian goddess have been not so prolific, although a few have raised sharp questions. The edited volume by Hiltebeitel and Erndl (2000) directly addresses the question ‘Is the hindu goddess a feminist?’ through a range of scholarly articles from feminist as well as non-feminist perspectives. The relative paucity of writing on the Indian goddess by feminists reflects the complexity of the Indian scenario where the goddess is a living tradition, where the abundance of ethnographic and textual materials has already created a considerable non-feminist body of writing, and moreover, where the political mobilisation of the goddess tradition has made it a tricky cause for feminists to espouse. The feminist engagement, whether critical or positive, is only one part of the contemporary story of the goddess in India. Far more prominent and striking is her enhanced presence in popular culture. In the heightened and overt religiosity since the 1990s, which is, at least in part, an obverse of the anxieties of globalisation, popular culture has simply exploded with goddess tracks. From devotional audio cassettes, dedicated channels on television, jagrans and goddess rituals that feed into real life, to lifestyle products in the west by sporting kitsch gods and goddesses on dresses and bags — the theme has become ubiquitous in a range of everyday contexts and been exploited to the hilt commercially. The popularity of male gurus who worship the goddess in the srividya and tantric traditions, the rise of women gurus and the phenomenal growth of female devotees in charismatic sects and cults, in India and in the diaspora, have also contributed to the pervasiveness of goddess oriented religiosity and sentiment. The theme has found expression in the work of distinguished dancers like Mallika Sarabhai, Anita Ratnam, and of course Chandralekha; Motherhood Unbound F 93

Raza Hussain, Rodwittiya, Rekha Krishnan and other contemporary artists have drawn from this source, which is such an important part of folk art traditions like Madhubani and Warli painting and the dramatic Mata-ni-pachedi from Gujarat. The overall climate of awareness that feminism has created, I believe, has had a role in the footprints of the goddess being found everywhere, from kitsch and commerce to sophisticated and reflective realms of art and thought. In the arena of formal politics too, the goddess has been invoked as a source of inspiration for diverse and contradictory agendas. One prominent example is the mobilising of concepts like Shakti for hindu right-wing politics. Nineteenth century hindu nationalism promoted the image of the militant goddess to bolster the image of Hinduism, and to invest the motherland with goddess attributes as inspiration for the national movement. In more recent times, this agenda has become sharpened with sinister overtones. Bacchetta (1994: 136–37) argues that women in right wing movements are not merely agents of men, they make active choices, and in this they harness the symbolic dimension. She details the role of the warrior goddess image in the life of Kamlaben, a member of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (RSS), which is a part of the Sangh parivar. The Samiti differs from the passive model of femininity endorsed by the RSS. It invokes the image of Bharatmata who is seen as an aspect of Durga and Parvati, and ‘Ashta Bhuja’ who carries weapons in all her eight hands. This very image of the armed goddess is also harnessed for mobilising the samiti women’s sentiments against muslims; ridding India of muslims is projected as akin to the goddess destroying the evil demons in Devi Mahatmyam (ibid.: 153). In the aftermath of the demolition of Babri Masjid, Ramachandra Gandhi wrote Sita’s Kitchen as a counter to the aggressive masculinity of hindutva. It was about the now forgotten Sita tradition in hindu, Jain and Buddhist folklore and philosophy, invoking the nurturant goddess tradition with its tribal origins, and associations with nature, preservation and pacifism. In a qualitatively different kind of example, we find the goddess being invoked in the image building of Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), in the phase of her political consolidation, argues Narayan (2006: 62–63). While in the initial phase of Mayawati’s rise, and that of the BSP, the women heroes of the 1857 movement were used as symbols of dalit assertion; the image is now being 94 G kamala ganesh

extended to one of a devi, which is a very influential symbol in the collective psyche of dalits. This goddess is not from Devi mahatmyam but from the pantheon of local village goddesses of Uttar Pradesh (UP), simultaneously violent and protective. Even though she represents the folk stream, the ‘little tradition’, Devi Maiya, and her other avatars who preside over disease and pestilence — Kalejewali (controls the liver), Mari mai (goddess of cholera), Thandi (who loves the cool), Agwani (goddess of fever) — are not far away from the great goddess of the sanskrit Puranas who battles ferocious demons and protects her devotees. While goddess-inspired Hindutva feminism and political activism are problematic, they do not hold a monopoly in deploying her for making ideological points and counterpoints, or for direct instrumental gains. Simultaneous with and undergirding all the feminist, commercial and political interest in the goddess, is her inspirational quotient for a wide range of individuals who find or make deeply personal and moving connections with her. What is striking is the multiple contexts in which the goddess is being invoked and the many meanings, old and new, that are being invested. Whether or not the goddess is compatible with feminism, several women and men have experienced it as a source of psychological and psychic empowerment, even while superstition, fraud and fleecing also continue to be performed in her name. The question ‘is the goddess a feminist,’? to my mind can only be answered if one has to answer such a question in the negative. But that does not preclude individuals from interpreting her images, myths, and presence as inspiring feminism. To quote Starhawk (2001), ‘Goddess religion is not based on belief in history, in archaeology, or in any great goddess, past or present. Our spirituality is based on experience, on a direct relationship with the cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration, in nature and in human lives.’ To me, a most fascinating question about the goddess is academic and historical, and the fields of archeology, linguistics, Indology, prehistory, history and ethnography are fertile grounds for clues. Here, we have to shift gears, ‘for there can be no easy passage from studying a historical epoch or another culture to utilising those materials in one’s world construction; these are two different enterprises’ (Gross 1994: 341). Given the strong presence of the goddess in multiple realms of art, worship and life in India, Motherhood Unbound F 95

the question needs to be re-explored: what kind of societies and cultures does goddess worship hark back to? I think it is fair to assume that the evolution of goddess worship does reflect some level of material reality with regard to gender relations. Regretfully in the west, the subject has become embroiled in polemics. Goddess worship, as had been speculated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is a residue of ‘matricentric’ cultures of female power, and within the conventions of that time, it was termed ‘matriarchy’. After a long period of discrediting anthropological theories of the matriarchate, implicated as they were in evolutionism, there has been a revival of ideas of female power as a result of the women’s movement and especially ‘goddess feminism’. This has set off alarmed reactions on the part of mainstream academia, exemplified by Cynthia Eller, who has joined issues with new theories of female power. ‘Matriarchy’ is actually a straw doll, as Dashu (2000) points out in an elaborate essay rebutting Eller and others, since what ‘goddess feminists’ suggest or imply is not matriarchy as the mirror image of patriarchy, but a more egalitarian pattern of gender relations. She documents the diversities and internal controversies within this broad approach. Anthropology has a vast accumulation of ethnographic data on societies that express aspects of non-patriarchal gender relations. Rejecting the idea of universal patriarchy throughout history does not mean espousing a ‘feminist matriarchate’ which is actually a monolithic construction by critics who (deliberately) conflate scholarship. This is remedial and provisional with the burgeoning goddess movement which is essentially inspirational. Pointing to the lack of nuance in the criticism, Dashu shows how the work of pioneering archaeologist and linguist Marija Gimbutas is either lionised or dismissed in toto, rather than being critically evaluated for its enormous data and prodigious scholarship. Her assertion that Neolithic Europe was matristic, peaceful and goddess-worshipping, into which the Krugan invaders brought in patriarchy, is criticised by archaeologists of the New Archaeology as feeding notions of a feminist golden age. In India, goddess worship coexists with a patrilineal and patriarchal system. There is no direct evidence that goddess worship is a concomitant of matrilineal societies, even though it could well reflect a matrifocal, matristic cultural milieu. Matrilineal kinship is after all to be found only in pockets, in the south west and north east, and that too in symbiosis with patriliny in the case 96 G kamala ganesh

of the former. Is it necessary to assume a pre-patrilineal stage of matriliny of which the goddess is a continuing residue? In most of northern India, patrilineal kinship, in tandem with caste ideology, has resulted in rigid and inequitable structures for women, but patriliny in tribal communities and in south India, which has a bilateral ethos, has been less inequitable. As Dube (1997) demonstrates in her work on Southeast Asia, not just matrilineal societies but bilateral ones have significant spheres of female power. It is necessary to deconstruct patrilineal kinship historically and examine its linkages with other axes of social stratification as well as with the ethos and worldview of the particular culture (Ganesh 1998: 119–27). What we see in modern India is an overlap between patriliny of the domestic realm combined with caste ideology, which furthermore reinforces a larger societal patriarchy whose source is not in the sphere of kinship. A re-exploration of historical and ethnographic data may lead to a more nuanced picture of the relation between patriliny, patriarchy and matrifocality at different historical and pre-historical periods. To quote Dashu, ‘we don’t have to choose between the two extremes of pan-historic masculine domination or a utopian negation of violence and oppression … There’s a vast expanse of variation in human culture, with much more to be learned about the history of women’s power, oppression and resistance. However, theory needs to take a back seat to assembling a broader range of knowledge, one that accounts for female clan heads in Yunnan, women shamans in Chile and South Africa and Korea, Alaskan huntresses, Bulgarian midwives, and priestesses in Togo and Okinawa … The real task of synthesising and analysing information from archaeology, oral history, linguistics, and written records is just beginning.’ One of the aspects of the mother goddess that struck me when I wrote the paper many years ago, was the abstraction and universalisation of motherhood. She was not the mother of particular sons and daughters, nor was she perpetuating a family or lineage, compounding its glory and honour, providing sons for the battlefield or the farm, or saving ancestors from the hellish ignominy of sonlessness and thus incomplete mortuary rituals. She was the creator of life and the cosmos. Hence, the title of my article in EPW ‘Mother who is not a mother’. In hindsight, I now feel that it is not easy to separate physical birthing from its abstraction in the way the mother has been conceptualised. The metaphor is rooted in the materiality of birth and yet transcends Motherhood Unbound F 97

it. It may not reflect the rigid patriliny or patriarchy of our own times, but I dare not give it a feminist interpretation of ‘freedom from the compulsions of physical motherhood’, for that is a concomitant of liberal thought stressing individual choice and has been enabled by the technologies of contraception! I would like to acknowledge Chandralekha whose work opened up the conceptual possibilities for this theme, C.S. Lakshmi, Prabha Krishnan, Devangana Desai and Sujata Patel for helpful comments on earlier drafts, Heras Institute of Ancient Indian Culture for generous access to its library, The Asiatic Society of Bombay for research facilities, Indira Aiyar for loaning her then unpublished manuscript, Arvind Gupta for tracking and sending a rather inaccessible paper and Maithreyi Krishnaraj for the insight and support.

Notes 1. Though I have used the word ‘mother goddess’ in some contexts for convenience, I am sensitive to the fact that it is a term created by early archaeology and evokes a certain pattern of responses. In local usage, the goddess is not usually referred to by this compound term. She could be referred to as devi or its equivalent, and addressed as devi or as ma or the equivalents. More usually, the suffix ‘mother’ is added after the personal name of the goddess. Thus, we have Sita maiya, Durga mata or Mariamma. But there is no implication for physical motherhood. Such a suffix is added behind personal names of women in southern India, regardless of their age, marital status or maternity. 2. Sankalia (1978: 8) reports on a small figure from Belan Valley, Mirzapur district, UP, dated to the upper Paleolithic. He calls it ‘India’s earliest dated work of human origin’. Though originally regarded as a bone harpoon, he identifies it as a female figure with a featureless triangular face and stick-like trunk with a pointed portion for the legs. The figure, with pendant breasts and broad loins, shows ‘a remarkable affinity’ to the European ‘venuses’. Since this is a solitary find, the Zhob and Kulli figures can be taken as a point of departure for the present. 3. For an overview, see Graziosi (1960). 4. There is extensive literature on the subject. For a sample, see Campbell (1959), James (1959) and Mellaart (1967). 5. Some of the sites are Alampur, Mahakut, Ter, Bhita, Jhusi, Kausambi, Vadgaon, Nevasa, Nagarjunakonda, Kunidene, Guntur, Bhavanasi, 98 G kamala ganesh

6.

7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15.

Sangameshwaram, Yuellala, Pratakota and Kondapuram. See Aiyar (1989: 415), Desai (1975: 12–13 & also 1989), and Sankalia (1960: 113–120) for detailed descriptions. My identification is based on an unpublished photograph from the Director of Archaeology and Museums, Hyderabad, who in a personal communication says that the piece was excavated from Medchal Taluk, Ranga Reddy district from the Vishnukundin level, along with a large number of coins and a complex of structures of the same period. See also report in The Hindu, December 24 1989. Personal communication from Devangana Desai. In southeast Asia, it is a common motif on the façade of houses and on dolmen graves (Sankalia 1960: 113,121). It is also found in Babylonia, New Zealand, pre-Columbian South America and Ireland (Donaldson 1975: 87). The multiple meanings of the lotus as head are explored at some length by Kramrisch (1956), but the fact that some figures have neither head nor a lotus as substitute suggests that the symbolism of the lotus may not be critical to the message of the icon. Dhavalikar (1987: 281–93) links Lajjagauri with the well-known Harappan seal of sakambhari. Though the icons do not seem to be directly linked, the plant issuing from the womb of the female figure could be interpreted as completing what Lajjagauri is only implying. Kinsley (1987: 176–77) refutes attempts to connect Lajjagauri to chinnamasta, an aspect of Kali in which she severs her own head. His point is that in the former, the emphasis is quite different, and the headlessness lacks the force of the latter. For a general idea of the excavations of that period, see Fairservis (1956) and Sankalia (1960). For a brief overview, see Desai (1983). Kramrisch (1956: 268), like O’Flaherty, translates the word uttanapad as the birth-giving position (‘the world was born of her with the legs spread open’). Sankalia (1960: 113) reads Aditi’s position as ‘squatting with knees raised and turned outward’. The dictionary meaning (Monier–Williams 1899) of the term is ‘one whose legs are extended in parturition’ and uttana is listed as ‘stretched out, spread out…’ etc. There seems to be a strong case for identifying Aditi with Lajjagauri. The epithets are from Atharva veda and other vedic and post-vedic sources. See Agrawala (1984: 79). Salabhanjika and Asokabhanjika festivals involving ritual rejuvenation of trees by a girl wearing sala/asoka leaves on the ears are known in classical literature. Srisukta, considered to be a fourth century BC appendage to Rig Veda, is a hymn in praise of goddess sri. Motherhood Unbound F 99

16. The nature of primary group interaction in the paleolithic and neolithic is obviously a conjectural matter. But it is fair to presume that the intensive and exclusive character of interaction with the mother in early childhood which is implicit in the ‘Great Mother’ archetype is not typical of most cultures across space and time. 17. Some examples: in the Lez–Eiyzies burial, the corpses are surrounded with carefully arranged cowrie shells, some of which are coated with red ochre (Eisler 1987); at Dneiper, USSR, ‘a number of mammoth skulls were found arranged in a circle, and in the centre were a number of tusks, some plaques of mammoth ivory scratched with geometric patterns and a “venus”’ (Campbell 1959: VI: 327) ; in Quetta valley, the goddess and bull pair were found on a mud brick platform which had in its foundation, a disarticulated human skull (ibid.: V2: 149). 18. An interesting example is the Bhagavati amman temple in Kerala where on a particular day, men and women devotees are supposed to hurl sexual abuses at each other. 19. Navapatrika: Worship of a bundle of nine different plants. Ghatasthapana: Ritual in which leaves of different plants are brought in contact with a ghata or pot of water. 20. The former is by Bana (seventh century AD) and the latter attributed to Sankara (eighth century AD). 21. In general, art historians have been uneasy about tackling this theme head on. Sometimes, the mother goddess is completely underplayed, with the emphasis being laid on the less disturbing devi iconography, and sometimes, the whole emphasis is on ‘the beauty of the female form’, and sometimes descriptions of the mother goddess figures are dismissive or bland or project her as a fetishistic oddity. 22. For a comprehensive overview, see Fleur–Lobban (1979) and responses to her paper. 23. Such a position had considerable influence on feminist scholarship in the 1970s. See, for example, Rosaldo (1974). 24. See Webster’s (1975) review of the work of Leacock, Gough, de Beauvoir, Firestone and Gould Davis. 25. Another version of the same idea, but more rigidly expressed, is reflected in the dominant current of Soviet scholarship. The premise of equality of men and women in the early evolutionary stages of primitive society is so universally accepted in USSR that it has long since been introduced in text books (Semenov 1979). The tone of finality that is used in writing about societies of which we have fragile and fragmentary knowledge is worrying as is the projection of the concept and term of ‘equality’ into what would be completely different cultures. The ‘primitive commune’ idea has the same utopian connotations that the matriarchate has. 100 G kamala ganesh

26. Webster (1975: 156) puts it in perspective when she says that ‘I would not encourage women to confuse myth with history or vision for science’, and that the vision of matriarchy can be used for furthering the creation of feminist theory and action.

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Kosambi, D.D. 1962. Myth and Reality. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Kramrisch, Stella. 1956. ‘An Image of Aditi–Uttanapad’, Artibus Asiae, 19: 259–70. Leacock, Eleanor. 1978. ‘Women’s Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution’, Current Anthropology, 19: 247–55. Leroi-Gourhan. A. 1968. The Art of Prehistoric Man in Western Europe. London: Thames and Hudson. Marglin, Frederique Apffel. 1982. ‘Types of Sexual Union and Their Implicit Meanings’, in J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff (eds.), The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses in India. Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series, pp. 298–313. Mantin, Ruth. 2000. ‘The Journey is Home: Some Theological Reflections on Narrative Spirituality as Process’, Journal of Beliefs and Values, 21(2): 157–67. Marshall, Sir John (ed.). 1931. Mohenjo Daro and the Indus Civilization. 3 vols. London: Arthur Probsthain. Mellaart, J. 1967. Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. New York: McGraw Hill. Monier-Williams, Sir Monier. 2002 rpt. Sanskrit-English Dictionary: Etymologically and Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Moss, Leonard W. and Stephen C. Cappanannari. 1983. ‘In Quest of the Black Virgin: She is Black because She is Black’, in J. Preston (ed.), Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Narayan, Badri. 2006. Women Heroes and Dalit Assertion in North India: Culture, Identity and Politics. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Nicholas, Ralph W. 1983. ‘The Village Mother in Bengal’, in J. Preston (ed.), Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. O’Flaherty, Wendy (Trans.) 1981. The Rig Veda: An Anthology. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Papanek, Hanna. 1973. ‘Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelter’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15: 289–325. Pargiter, F.E. 1904. Markandeya Purana. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society of Bengal. Patai, Raphel. 1967. The Hebrew Goddess. New York: Avon Books. Preston, James (ed.). 1983. Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Raphael, Melissa. 1999. Introducing Theology: Discourse on the Goddess. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Ray, Niharranjan. 1975. Maurya and Post-Maurya Art: A Study in Social and Formal Contrasts. New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research. 104 G kamala ganesh

Reader’s Digest. 1984. ‘Stone Age Venuses: The First Statues’, in Quest for the Past: Amazing Answers to The Riddles of History. Readers Digest Association Inc., pp. 11–13. Rosaldo, Michelle. 1974. ‘Woman, Culture and Society: A Theoretical Overview’, in Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds.), Woman, Culture and Society. California: Stanford University Press, pp. 16–42. Sankalia, H.D. 1960. ‘The Nude Goddess or “Shameless Woman” in Western Asia, India and Southeast Asia’, Artibus Asiae, 23: 111–23. ———. 1978. Prehistoric Art in India. New Delhi: Vikas. Sastri, H. Krishna. 1916. South Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses. Madras: Government Press. Semenov, Yu I. 1979. ‘More on Marxism and the Matriarchate’. Comment by Girenko and Semenov on Fleur-Lobban’s paper, Current Anthropology, 20(2): 814–20. Sivaramamurti, C. 1961. Indian Sculpture. New Delhi: ICCR/Allied Publishers. Spretnak, Charlene. 1992. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press. Starhawk, 1997. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press. ———., Diane Baker and Anne Hill. 1998. Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition. New York: Bantam. ———. 1999. The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: Harper Collins. ———. 2001. ‘Response to Charlotte Allen’s article’, The Atlantic Monthly, 5 January 2001. Reproduced in Marija Gimbutas Legacy and Controversy Page. Belili Productions. Site by Terrapin & Crystal Point. The Hindu. 1989. ‘Woman–The Deity and Devotee’. Report on Mother Goddess Worship in Andhra Pradesh. Viennot, Odette. 1956. ‘The Goddess Mahishasuramardini in Kushana Art’, Artibus Asiae, 19: 368–73. Wadley, Susan. 1975. Shakti: Power in the Conceptual Structure of Karimpur Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Webster, Paula. 1975. ‘Matriarchy: A Vision of Power’, in Rayna R. Reiter (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 141–56. Whitehead, Henry. 1976. The Village Gods of South India. New Delhi: Sumit Publications. Wulff, David M. 1982. ‘Prolegomenon to a Psychology of the Goddess’, in J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff (eds.), The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India. Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series. Yocum, Glenn E. 1982. ‘Comments on the Divine Consort in South India’, in J.S. Hawley and D.M. Wulff (eds.), The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India. Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series. Motherhood Unbound F 105

chapter 5

In the Idiom of Loss: Ideology of Motherhood in Television Serials · Mahabharata and Ramayana

prabha krishnan I The average Indian today lives in an environment of violence. Some part of this violence is structural, emanating from the caste system, from sharp class differences, and from inequitable man–woman relationships. A part of this violence is derived from our colonial history, which produced an economic system designed to impoverish the land and the people. On the other hand, some of this violence stems from our inability to jettison those social systems and patterns of commerce which enhance the rich–poor differential and mortgage our collective resources to external agencies like the World Bank. A very significant component of our violent landscape stems from our increasing militarisation. India’s image in some of her neighbouring countries is that of a regional superpower, ever ready to use her military muscle, as events in Sri Lanka and the Maldives have borne out. The work of international agencies such as Amnesty International and Indian groups, such as Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, have lent weight to the belief that ‘the growth in the third world military expenditure contains a significant component intended for domestic repression and violence, rather than for national defence.’

(DAWN 1985: 65). Apart from the increase in violation of human rights, and torture and training schools devoted to the subjugation of civilians through physical and psychological violence, we can also discern the endorsement of a ‘macho’ ideology that defines women’s real place as within the home, and their control through violent means as natural and proper. Militarisation has indirect effects also on women and other disprivileged segments of the population through the depletion of natural resources such as mineral wealth, croplands, grazing lands and forests, and ever increasing inflationary pressures (DAWN 1985: 63,65–66). In the last decade or so, the country has witnessed the congealing of communal ideology; communalism (here used in opposition to secularism) can be defined as the common social, political and economic interests shared by a group of people who follow a particular religion (Pal 1984: 3). This view ignores class stratification as an integral facet of social organisation. In fact, communalism as an ideology is vulnerable to the manipulations of party politics. Increasingly, India’s plural society is being reduced to a majority–minority confrontation which manoeuvres religious minorities into defensive positions. Ironically, the hindu majority too feels beleaguered on account of the educational and employment reservations as well as the special economic deals available to the minority communities (Kothari 1989: 84). A struggle for scarce economic resources is expressed in terms of religious strife. A further dimension of macho–wimp dichotomy is added to the majority–minority debate, with hindus perceiving themselves as weak and ineffectual, and the others as aggressive, virile and lust-powered (Kothari 1989: 575). Thus, organisations like the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh stress on hierarchy and military traditions (Chhachhi 1989: 85). On the other hand, those who appeal to communalist tendencies, repeatedly emphasise the alleged violation of mothers and sisters by adherents of opposing religions. The presence or absence of male virility, and the defence of female vulnerability coalesce into an identity formation which links the masculine–feminine with religious attributes. Women become symbols of culture and tradition and need to be ‘protected’ with ever increasing force and vigour (ibid.). The trend in the country is towards a communal state ideology with a hindu fundamentalist majority as a dominant component; In the Idiom of Loss F 107

this ideology also provides support for the centralising tendency of the state (Chhachhi 1989: 568). The unbroken northern leadership which the country has experienced since independence, brings with it the culture of the hindi speaking twice–born hindus who, as Oommen (1984: 17) notes, ‘define themselves as the norm setters and value givers, the cultural mainstream’, against whose onslaught ‘a multiplicity of other primordial collectivities, who occupy the periphery of the system, face the threat of either expansionism or exclusivism.’1 The overt and subliminal messages contained in the televised versions of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata need to be read in the context of an all-pervasive violence fashioned out of a similar kind political expediency, religious fundamentalism and the essential male identity.

II Television as a Human Construct Television is a human construct and the job that it does is the result of human choice, cultural decisions and social pressures. The medium responds to the conditions within which it exists (Fiske and Hartley 1978). Through 363 transmitters,2 television in India can theoretically reach out to at least 75 per cent of the population. An indirect way of approximating viewership is by estimating the revenue generated by advertisements on this medium. While in 1976–77, the Indian television authority, Doordarshan earned Rs 77 lakh, ten years later that figure stood at Rs 185 crore, which is about one-third of the total estimated expenditure on advertisement in the country, which is Rs 600 crore.3 In 1987–88, the gross revenue earned from spot advertising and sponsored programmes was Rs 136.29 crore (the average monthly revenue being Rs 11.4 crore). In 1988–89, the corresponding figure was Rs 161.3 crore.4 In July 1989, it was reported that Mahabharata had generated a gross revenue of Rs 23.60 crore, each episode netting Rs 60.5 lakh.5 The sponsorship of various programmes and the clustering of advertisements preceding them are indications of the popularity of the programmes.6 108 G prabha krishnan

Doordarshan’s role was perceived as that of a catalyst in the developmental process, i.e., through providing education, information and entertainment, it would enable people to meet their goals of health, education and employment, while elevating the status of the disprivileged. However since 1959, when Doordarshan was set up, there has been consistent criticism of the quality and the direction of the programmes offered.7 Television’s role, often described as bardic (Fiske and Hartley 1978), is that of structured subordination to the primary definers (Woollacott 1982). Because it is wholly state-owned, Doordarshan is biased in favour of male elites besides attempting to project a pan-Indian culture in which the country’s progress is measured in terms of the goods and services available to the elite (Krishnan and Dighe 1990: 112–13). As regards its ‘developmental’ thrust, the medium, through a variety of programmes, consistently projects India as a welfare state with the government as the benevolent leader in command of every situation (ibid.: 114). Democratic institutions are subverted in favour of administrative fiats from the ruling elites, thus engendering feudal dependency. Doordarshan, through its relentless projection of the ruling elites, worships state power and insists that the viewers too participate in this process of adoration. The sample for this study consisted of 52 episodes of the Ramayana, 26 episodes of the sequel Uttar Ramayana and the first 60 episodes of the Mahabharata. In the case of the two Ramayanas, the sample represents the total television output; in the case of the Mahabharata, the framing is arbitrary, governed by exigencies of time. Henceforth, these programmes will be referred to as ‘epics’ and the versions of various authors will be referred to by their names. The programmes have been subjected to semiological analysis in order to elucidate how meanings have to be generated and coveyed. Semiology essentially deals with the construction of the ‘subject’. In the case of a visual medium like television, both speaking and spoken subjects are constructed. Because such construction is a ceaseless human activity, the interiority of the subject is always in relation to the symbolic order that surrounds and embeds it. Thus, the analysis needs to transcend the text and look at the political conditions in which the text generates meaning. In the Idiom of Loss F 109

Analysing these epics can be a very insightful experience since the central assumptions of Freud, Lacan, Bathes, Althusser, Levi– Strauss and Benveniste regarding the subject come alive. According to Benveniste (Silverman 1983: 199), subjectivity is constructed within the discourse, and the subject cannot be distinguished from ‘signification’. Apart from this, the subject must be constantly reconstructed through discourses such as conversation, literature, film, painting, photography and television. Within such discourse, ‘signifiers’ are deployed for the purpose, as Barthes would have it (1972: 126), of expressing and surreptitiously justifying the dominant values of a given historical period.

Semiological Analysis In both epics, the primacy of the family is fully articulated. Karna, for example, would be in anguished agreement with Levi–Strauss (1989: 490) when he holds that the family is the agency whereby an entire symbolic order can be articulated; the family can be perceived mainly in terms of its capacity to confer identity upon its members. In Karna’s words, Parivar key sadasya hone sey atma ko reed ki haddi mil jati hai (the soul is strengthened if one is part of the family). A dialectical relationship exists between the social matrix and the symbolic order. The viewing subject is fully inscribed into the existing discourse as a slightly amnesic approver. This induces in the viewer a sense of shame that self-evident truths should have been forgotten. Every character, major or minor, becomes a semiotic unit. For example, Sita becomes a signifier, and ideal womanhood becomes the signified. By appropriating Sita’s world-view, women can hope to appropriate the signified, much like a commercial, for say instant coffee, whereby using the coffee can confer on the user membership of a certain privileged class. Sita and all other ideal and non-ideal types become semiotic units, while the narrative as a whole becomes the symbolic order. Lacan (1977: 68) has noted that symbols envelope the life of a man to such an extent that every aspect of his life, from birth to death, is mediated by this network. Once again, the pathetic figure of Karna comes to mind, and his abandonment at birth can be contrasted with Guru Vashistha’s words to the pregnant Sita, 110 G prabha krishnan

Prani ka pehla sanskar kokh mein hi hota hai, (the human being receives his first sacrament in the womb itself ). This sacrament ‘marks’ the human being. According to the epics, it would appear that there is no life outside the confines of the family in spite of the constant reiteration of the ideals of kingship and leadership which demand the valuation of the state above that of the family. Consider the conferment of the title Angaraaj on Karna by Duryodhana. The essential futility of such a gesture could not, till the very end, offset Karna’s lack of lineage. Among others, authors such as Lacan and Althusser (Silverman 1983: 182, 189, 220) point out that the discourse of the family is absolutely essential to the perpetuation of a phallocentric order. Such a discourse serves to activate the paternal signifier, and one of the most important ways in which it does so is through the evocation of its binary complement, i.e., ‘lack’. Karna and Kunti exemplify important signifiers in this respect. Althusser (1983) notes that the family exists as an ‘ideological state apparatus’, as an agency for reproducing the existing cultural order by supplying it with sexually differentiated subjects. In the discussion that follows, part III describes the construction of the patriarchal order through the discourse of the epics, and part IV, the construction of femininity. Two important figures in the Mahabharata are Brihanala and Sikhandi, both eunuchs. The significance of these figures when analysed in detail would enrich the discussions contained in parts III and IV, but the episodes dealing with them fall outside the sample. Confronted with the cinematic discourse, the viewer performs the act of identification assuming the position of the spoken subject. The discourse originates at two points — the broadly cultural which encompasses the symbolic field, and the technological (which too is a function of the dominant culture) which encompasses camera positions and movements, lighting editing and script. Both epics call to mind the cinematic techniques used in the so-called mythological films such as Sampurna Ramayana, Maha Sati Anusuya, Jai Santoshi Ma and the like. Watching these films is like watching stage plays or folk theatre performances because of the largely static camera angles and shouted dialogues. Though the epics are presented in the serial format, they exhibit all the characteristics of popular cinema. In Kakar’s (1981: 12–14) terms, both the epics are high fantasy products where viewers find In the Idiom of Loss F 111

the fulfilment of wishes, the humbling of competitors and the destruction of enemies. The directors of both programmes are drawn from hindi cinema, as are most actors, song and scriptwriters, music directors, camera and other personnel. The serials speak the ‘metalanguage’ of popular cinema which in turn owes it inspiration to the Parsi theatre of the late nineteenth century (Beeman 1981: 84). One of the major functions of semiology is to lay bare polarities and systems of relationships buried in texts. However, such excavation is rarely necessary since the speaking subject routinely reveals the polarities, for instance between dharma and adharma, man and woman, king and commoner. In one scene, Bheeshma comes to know that the Pandavas, whom he had feared dead, were actually alive. He then proceeds to light all the lamps in his house and a visitor comments that it appears that Bheeshma is celebrating the festival of Diwali. At one level, the absence of light can be an external expression of Bheeshma’s mood — this is a connotation; at another, its reappearance can signify (denote) , as does the festival, the triumph of good over evil.

Melodic Devices In both epics, speech becomes an important signifier. When speech is suspended, the discourse continues in the form of music or song. The screen is thus never silent and the viewer is given no opportunity to think at all. An integral part of the vocabulary in this kind of cinema is the music which constitutes one of the principal semiotic levels on which the filmmaker communicates with the audience, and thus taps into a powerful current going back some 2,000 years (Beeman 1981: 77, 82). Both epics have title songs as well as theme music that allow for quick aural identification. The title song for the Ramayana and Uttar Ramayana is based on the melody used for the recitation of Tulsidas’ in temples and in homes Ramcharitramanas — a melody which is both simple and repetitive. The appealing lyrics which allows for audience participation, goes like this: Sita Ram charita ati paavan Madhur saras aur ati manabhaavan 112 G prabha krishnan

Puni, puni kitne ho sune sunaaye Hiya ki pyass bhujat na bhujae (The story of Rama and Sita is sacred, beautiful and sweet; no matter how often sung or heard, the heart’s thirst for it is never slaked).

In the case of Mahabharata, the theme music is based on a bhajan, Jai Jagdisha Hare (Hail Hari, Lord of the Universe), again widely prevalent in the hindi speaking belt. The lyrics however are descriptive of a particular situation in which the song is used, which at times is banal, as in this description of Keechaka, a minor character who attempts to rape Draupadi: Durjanta ke vriksh par Phal lagta jo shraap Keechak aisa shraap hai Keechak aisa paap, Keechak aisa paap (Keechak is like sin and curse which appear like fruits on the tree of evil).

By the use of these melodic devices, metonym is struck among Hindi-speaking hindus. The title song of the Mahabharata unfolds against backdrop scenes depicting the Geetopadesa, featuring Krishna, Arjuna, Vishnu, and the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The illustrations are taken from publications of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) which has for many years been engaged in spreading the Krishna cult in western countries. A verse from the Gita prefaces title song — ‘to act is your duty, not to ever expect the fruits thereof, hence do not act in expectation of the result, yet do not refrain from action. Whenever righteousness is on the decline, and immorality on the increase, at such times am I born, for the protection of the good and the destruction of the evil, to establish righteousness, I am born from time to time.’ The speaker here is Krishna, assuring his devotees of his incarnation from time to time. The actual title song8 occurs in two segments in the beginning of the episode and at the end; thus: This is the beginning of the epic Mahabharata It is the story of deeds done of the selfishness, Of living for others, of the son of Bharat, In the Idiom of Loss F 113

Whose charioteer was none other than the Lord Krishna. The final and eternal words were pronounced, for truth always prevails.

And at end of each episode, the song goes: We learn from history and usher in the new age. This is the story of Bharat, older than the centuries themselves. It is the river of knowledge, It is the immortal spoken words of the sages It is a university A salutation to the brave It is new as well as old, everlasting It is the story of Bharat.

A universalising mechanism is at work here, claiming this to be the story of Bharat that is India, a claim further supported by the title Mahabharata being showed in several Indian languages. The visuals and the lyrics establish the divinity of Krishna. Language is the crucial means of establishing inter-subjectivity. As noted before, in both epics, the spoken word is given primacy over cinematic techniques such as camerawork, lighting, and editing. Therefore, dialogues and songs are analysed in greater detail.

The Patriarchal Evaluator An important device in the Mahabharata is that of Samay or time. Samay introduces every episode, sums up the preceding one, delivers homilies at different points during the narrative and underscores the obvious. Samay is projected as a disembodied male voice, set against the backdrop of a rotating globe, wreathed in mists. The wheel, symbolising Kaalachakra, comes on as the globe recedes into the blue distance; superimposed on this wheel is the silhouette of a rishi with knotted hair. Over a period of time, we understand the ascribed qualities of Samay who invariably speaks in the first person, as for example: Samay does not have to explain, only narrate Listen, do not get involved in explanations or criticisms. I am like a river, some swim in me, some sink. Duryodhana is seeking Shakuni’s support, He who is a gambler; he does not like to listen to me. 114 G prabha krishnan

It is Samay who constantly reiterates the divine qualities of Rama, Krishna and their spouses: Krishna has said Khandavprastha is Karmabhoomi, so it has to be so. I am also going there to see why he said that, for he does not speak lightly.

Though the Khandavprastha territory was gained by the merciless burning of the Khandava forest and all its inhabitants, the process is not shown in the epic. Instead, the Pandavas together with Krishna and Balarama are shown toiling over the stony ground in a highly unlikely situation, bereft of any helpers. Samay pronounces: The life line of the Pandavas is now safe. The nagas and the asuras problem (they were the original inhabitants of the forests) has been solved by Agni Dev ( Lord of Fire) who gave Arjuna various missiles. The Dhaanavas (aborigines) have also been overcome, now the Rajasuya Yagna is possible.

When Rukmini writes to Krishna to save her from marriage to King Shishupala, Samay proclaims: Rukmini did right. I uphold the rights of Indian women. Narayan will come to rescue naari (women). Society has made the varamala into vadumala (that is, transferred right of choice of spouse from female to male).

Bhattacharji (1970: 10) notes that time is personified as Kala, Yama or Dharma, and that Yama, as Dharmaraja, dispenses justice. In other words, Samay is a patriarchal evaluator, it is that privileged voice that smoothes over opposition, any dissent or discord that the discourse may generate, and attempts to prevent any ‘aberrant’ decoding. Samay constantly draws attention to the symbolic order from which all draw their subjectivity; by aligning itself with Krishna as a symbol of justice, it attempts to prevent the production of multiple subjectivities, as exemplified by the present article. It is interesting to recall Griffin’s (1982: 280) comment that truth is more truthful when it emanates from a disembodied voice, thus presenting the illusory possibility of objectivity, and ‘objectivity’ as is well known is a male trait. In the Idiom of Loss F 115

The ÂGenealogyÊ of Pleasure Over the last five years, television viewers have been witnessing the proliferation of the ‘serial’ culture, i.e., tremendous increase in programmes where the text provides continuity by way of narratives, or characters, or themes and situations. An overwhelming number of these are fiction programmes, and viewers are now accustomed to, what Irene Penacchioni (Tracey 1985) calls, the ‘genealogy’ of pleasure associated with the narrative of the story. When these serials are based on well-loved epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata, the pleasure is increased manifold. Over a period of some centuries, both epics have undergone translations, adaptations and transcreations to various forms — an attestation to their enduring popularity (see for example Lal 1987; Brockington 1984: 226–306; Karve 1974: 1–6). In the northern parts of the country, especially in the Hindi-speaking belt, the Ramayana, in the form of Ram Lila, is a vibrant folk-form, enacted every year at the time of the Dassera festival. Stories from the Mahabharata too are presented in both classical and folk forms. Additionally, a popular children’s comic series called Amar Chitra Katha has published tales from both epics in many languages, informing and entertaining many children who might otherwise be out of touch with the popular recounting of these tales. Thus, both epics have had many lives and are familiar to a vast population. This familiarity greatly assists suturing which, as Silverman (1983: 221) points out, not only constantly re-interpellates the viewing subject into the same discursive positions, thereby giving that subject the illusion of a stable and continuous identity, but also rearticulates the existing symbolic order in ideologically orthodox ways. Both epics claim to have standard works on the subject as their sources. The Ramayana and the Uttar Ramayana were derived from the Valmiki version and supported by the Ramcharitramanas of Tulsidas and regional variations from Tamil, Telugu and Bengali sources. For the Mahabharata, the producers claim to have used the critical volume edited by V.S. Suktankar and others. However, dissonances within the stated sources are apparent. Brockington (1984: 13, 49) notes that, in what has come down as the Valmiki version, there is an obviously discernible expansion either for the sake of ethical justification or for valorising the 116 G prabha krishnan

Brahmins who engaged in the expansion. Thus, the deification and the identification of Rama with Vishnu occur only in the first and the last books that are later interpolations. Brockington notes that in the five middle books of the epic, Rama is an ordinary human. In pursuit of Rama’s total deification, the epic engages in some convoluted mathematics, adding and subtracting to the original. The most important instance of an addition is the episode on Maya–Sita which, as Brockington (1984: 237) notes, appears first in the Kurma Purana and substantially post-dates the Valmiki version. On the other hand, the Valmiki version, which does contain the description of Sita’s fire–ordeal (see for instance, Sivaramamurti 1980: 47; Brockington 1984: 49; Srinivasa Sastri 1949: 159; Sen 1989: 638, 688), notes that the desertion of the pregnant Sita was perhaps the only justification for Uttara Kandam which was a later addition to the core work. However, there is nothing to justify the epic’s presentation of the entire incident as a total voluntary gesture on Sita’s part. It is Rama who banished her, and that too after issuing secret instructions to Lakshmana to abandon her near Valmiki’s hermitage (see Srinivasa Sastri 1949: 174; Sivaramamurti 1980: 49). Much is made of the Lakshmanrekha and of Sita’s error in transgressing it, and thus enabling Ravana to abduct her. However, Chakravarti (1983: 73) notes that the Valmiki version did not mention the incident, nor did the Ramacharitramanas of Tulsidas; it first appeared in Tulsidas Geetavali and was later made popular through the performances of the Ram Lila. What the epic omits with respect to Sita is equally interesting. When Lakshmana is grievously wounded in the battle, Rama gives way to the woe, wailing that in comparison to a brother like Lakshmana, Sita was of no account; he could find another wife like Sita, but not another brother like Lakshmana (Brockington 1984: 163). Moreover, after Ravana is defeated, and Sita is brought to the seashore, Rama repudiates her as entirely unworthy of his continued regard; he had fought the battle only to safeguard his own name. She was now free to choose another man such as Lakshmana, Vibhishana or Sugriva (Srinivasa Sastri 1949: 164; Sen 1989: 37). The epic is also silent on, what Srinivasa Sastri (1949: 154) describes as, Rama’s ‘naked imperialism’. This occurs in the context of Rama’s clash with Valin, where he claims that he was Bharata’s deputy, and must restore Sugriva to the throne. As in the case of In the Idiom of Loss F 117

Lavanasur’s overthrow by Shatrughna, all such actions are presented as the triumph of good over evil. In the case of Mahabharata, the key incident is Draupadi’s laughter at Duryodhana’s discomfiture at the Mayasabha.9 This is supposed to have led to Duryodhana’s revenge in the form of the rigged dice–game which resulted in the exile for the Pandavas. Draupadi is berated for this rude behaviour by Yudhishitra, and she repeatedly refers to her abhimaan (pride) which got the Pandavas into crises. Yet there is nothing in the critical edition to support this depiction. Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva are implicated (Roy n.d.: 544) and Duryodhana, while describing the incident to his father, adds Draupadi’s name (ibid.: 551). A notable omission from the epic is the origin of the Mayasabha. This came through the merciless burning of the Khandava forest by Krishna and Arjuna. All the animals and human inhabitants were burnt; only a handful escaped, one of whom was Maya, an asura who subsequently built the magical palace (Karve 1974: 97). A similar omission is noted with respect to Shakuni who, as we shall see, is painted uniformly black. When Duryodhana re-turns from the Mayasabha, he is consumed with jealousy and in page after page of the Dyuta Parva, he can talk of nothing but the riches amassed by the Pandavas (Roy n.d: 546). But Shakuni counters by urging him not to be jealous; that the sons of Pandu were enjoying what they deserved in consequence of their own good fortune. He goes on to suggest that Duryodhana was entirely friendless or luckless (ibid.: 546). None of this is shown. Instead, Shakuni is a constant goad to unrighteous behaviour. The endeavour in both serials is to present the protagonists as all lustre and righteousness, while their opponents are presented as steeped in villainy of the darkest hue. Such an endeavour reduces the multi-faceted richness of the epics to the level of morality tales, which then function as the basic bricks of a fundamentalist edifice.

III Identity, Hierarchy, Patrimony At the heart of the epics are problems relating to identity, hierarchy and patrimony. The focus in both epics is on Kshatriya dharma, 118 G prabha krishnan

or the right conduct for a Kshatriya. The discourse is carried simultaneously on two planes — on the establishment of Kshatriyas as a class, and the struggles of some individuals to find their place in this class. Karna is a truly pathetic figure in the highly structured society of the Mahabharata. Where individual identity is forged from familial ties, not being able to name one’s father can have tragic consequences. However, to the extent that Karna internalises this ethic, and devalues his own accomplishments, Karna can only be described as pathetic. To this day in secular democratic India, we glorify patrimony — as I revise this text for publication, Rahul Gandhi is being hailed as ‘Yuvraj.’10 The unacknowledged son of Kunti by the sun god, Karna is found as an infant by a charioteer and brought up as his own son. He wears gold ornaments that indicate his high-born status, but his parents never come forward to acknowledge him, nor does he receive the sacraments due to his high birth. He has to seek martial training in the disguise of a Brahmin. When he challenges Arjuna at the valedictory function to mark the end of formal training for the Pandavas and Kauravas, he is asked to declare his parentage. Since he cannot do this, he is denied the opportunity to show off his skills in archery. Duryodhana bestows on him the kingdom of Anga, but this does not end Karna’s torment. At various points, he betrays both his dislike for devious means and his anguish at his anonymous birth. For instance, he tells Duryodhana that by not being a Kshatriya he cannot be insulted by a woman — he is only a Suta until his mother steps forward to explain his birth. He does not allow Dushasana to cast aspersions on the Pandavas’ birth, saying that Kunti’s declaration of this parentage must be honoured, for all mothers were honourable. When Pandu and Madri had died in the forest, Kunti had brought the five boys home to Hastinapur, saying that they were the property of the kingdom (raj gharana ka dharovar). Karna also describes himself as being weighed down under his obligations to Duryodhana. He often rails at Shakuni, saying that conspiracy is the tool of cowards; when his pleas for open conflict with the Pandavas are rejected, he declares that he is ashamed of the title of Angaraj. At one point he sneers at Shakuni, saying that a Kshatriya who remains in his sister’s house has no standing in society. In the Idiom of Loss F 119

In contrast we have Vidura, also a Suta, who accepts his position as justified by his birth. Compared to the blind Dhritarashtra and the impotent Pandu, he was better fitted to rule Hastinapura. Instead, he remains as advisor to his half-brothers because he was born of a serving woman. Noted for his wisdom, Vidura declares that a son inherits only the father’s wealth, and not the kingdom. The king cannot own the kingdom, but the king can only function as the representative. Vidura sees it as his duty to serve the kingdom of Hastinapura even though his sympathies lie with the Pandavas. He continually addresses Dhritarashtra as king and rejects the title of a brother. Following Draupadi’s harassment at the Kuru court, he declares that Hastinapura has become his Karmabhoomi (i.e., the locus of his struggle for right conduct in that particular birth), and he cannot therefore abandon the Kurus. As the dasiputra (son of slave), he would serve his masters and tolerate even pain. In the hermitage of Valmiki, the lives of the twin sons of Sita’s — Luv and Kush, present a different picture. Though their father does not acknowledge them until the end, they are declared to be Kshatriyas and Raghuvanshis by the sage. They therefore receive the sacraments and education due to their station in life. Shatrughna, who was present at the hermitage, is asked by the sage to officiate as the children’s uncle. Shatrughna does so and blesses them, hoping that they would grow up and add lustre to the Suryavanshi clan. He gives them lockets inscribed with the symbol of the kingdom of Ayodhya, while Sita on hearing of this smiles blissfully. Forms of address regularly recall parents and ancestors — Kuntiputra, Janakinandan and Raghuvansh-Siromani, while some personal names are indicative of descent. Thus, though Kunti’s name was Pritha, she was invariably addressed as Kunti or daughter of Kunti-bhoja, while Draupadi is the daughter of Drupada, Janaki of Janaka, and the like. On the other hand, Angaraj for Karna was a title neither rightfully earned, nor indicative of descent, and so not to Karna’s liking.

Kshatriyas as a Class The establishment of Kshatriyas as a class is attempted through ascribed qualities and expected behaviour. Thus, Karna’s taunt 120 G prabha krishnan

that Shakuni was no Kshatriya because he remained at his sister’s house, is indicative of the strong bias of this group towards patrilocality. Another desired trait is bravery or veerta which included never refusing a challenge to combat, defending the ‘weak’ such as children and women, and overcoming emotion. When Sita decides to leave the palace, she notes to Rama that a real veer would always overcome emotion when faced with duty. Similarly, Sita’s father Janak exhorts Rama to forget his loss in creative work, saying that the wise man knows that in a lunar month, there occur both bright days (shukla paksh) and dark days (krishna paksh). It was the duty of time to change (kaal ka dharma hai badalna), and the best thing would be to await the coming of the good days. Kshatriya males are depicted as those who claim to have basic education in literacy, numeracy, the arts and the use of weapons. However as we have noted, the epics are elitist in their orientation, and it is not clear whether poor Kshatriyas could lay claim to the same quality of education, as illustrated in the story of Ekalavya. The epic is at pains to point that Ekalavya was obliged to cut off his thumb not because he was a Shudra, but because he stole knowledge over which he had no right. Ekalavya is pictured as accepting his mutilation as just and as a measure of his devotion to his guru. Thus, is sophistry employed to gloss over the extreme caste and class differential existing in the society of that day? Kshatriyas are also shown as offering sacrifices and patronising various Brahmin teachers and advisors. They are entitled to wear the sacred thread, and the yagnopavit sanskar of various royal children is shown in great detail. The Kshatriyas apparently placed emphasis on hierarchy based on various characteristics such as age, rank and sex, though a meritocracy also appeared to operate. Where age differentials are concerned, the observance dictated service and obedience of the younger to the elder. Forms of address such as brata-shri (elder brother) and anuj (younger brother) were apparently used in the conversation. The most insignificant interaction is depicted as being highly structured. Thus, wandering through a forest in exile, Draupadi, overcome by exhaustion, asks her eldest husband Yudhishtira if she may rest. He in turn directs Nakula to climb a tree and locate a nearby water source. Subsequently, one brother after another is directed to procure the water, beginning again with the youngest. In the Idiom of Loss F 121

Wives defer to husbands, addressing them as Arya-putra, while husbands address wives by name or priyae. Wives also engage in personal service and routinely eat after their husbands. Individual instances of criticism and rebellion do surface; at such points, the younger members are adjured to defer to the elders. Primogeniture is at times in conflict with merit, and the effects of this ensuing conflict can be both far reaching and intense as depicted in the Mahabharata. Dhritarashtra is senior to his halfbrother Pandu, yet because he is born blind, the throne goes to Pandu. During Pandu’s sojourn in the forest and after his death, Dhritarashtra rules. The conflict continues in the next generation when Duryodhana as son of the reigning king challenges the right of Yudhishtira, the eldest son of Pandu. This is the cause of the Mahabharata war. The conflict arises also from efforts to overthrow the rule of primogeniture, as in the case of Rama and Bharata. Rama accepts fourteen years of exile, but Bharata refuses the crown, preferring to rule as regent. Ideals of kinship and proper management of patrimony are elucidated through the characters of Bheeshma, Bharata and Rama.

Ideal Statesmanship The epic projects Bheeshma as the ideal elder statesman who, though gives up his rightful claim to the throne, maintains throughout his life a firm guiding hand on the affairs of the state. To this day, the term ‘Bheeshma Pitamah’ is used to indicate an elder politician who may have retired but either rules from behind the scenes or whose guidance is sought in affairs of the state. Karve (1974: 7–25) analyses the effects of Bheeshma’s renunciation of the throne and it’s consequences, painting the picture of the man who is determined to rule by proxy. The epic however projects him as wise, well-meaning, and often overtaken by events beyond his control. His tall figure, stately gait, white clothes and golden ornaments are constructed to contrast sharply with Shakuni. This is a life of sacrifice and commitment to truth; of a man who overcomes his natural affection and inclination for the Pandavas to stay and fight on the side of Duryodhana and Shakuni, whom he despises. Bharata, on the other hand, is not only projected as noble and stainless; he also does not seem to have taken a single wrong step 122 G prabha krishnan

in his life. A man’s kinship is legitimised by three factors according to Bharata — the blessings of his teacher (guru ka aashirvaad), support of his ministers and peers, and his support from his people. All these factors had endorsed Rama’s candidature for kingship. Bharata therefore urges the council of ministers and the people to reject Dasaratha’s decision of conferring the crown on him. This was actually happening on the insistence of one queen and Bharata’s mother, Kaikayee. He urges the ministers to use their authority to crown Rama, then in exile in the forest. He however accepts Rama’s request to act as regent for fourteen years, and carries away Rama’s slippers on his head to enthrone them as symbols of Rama’s continuing authority. Guru Vashista hails him as Mahatma, while the background song proclaims: Ram le chala rey Ram ki nishani Bhavna mey beh chala re, dhir, vir aur gyani. (Rama’s devotee carries away Rama’s insignia, while the strong, the brave and the learned are overcome by emotion).

Subsequently Bharata rejects the palace, preferring to live in a hermitage outside the city. King Janaka hails his actions and says that all the good characteristics of his ancestors are centred on Bharata, while Kaushalya remarks, ‘You Raghuvanshis are stubborn in the performance of your duty.’ Rama recalls his father’s advice to him: Raja hone ke naate, stri, putr, mitr, sab kuch tyag dena chahiye (a king should in the peoples’ interest overlook ties of a wife, children and friends) to justify Sita’s banishment from the palace. He further adds, Jeevan ki sabse pyaari cheez praja ke karan tyaag denge (I will sacrifice my most valued possessions — in this case Sita — for the sake of the people). We will see in the next section how the epic transfers the onus of Sita’s abandonment on to her own shoulders.

Control of Female Sexuality The control of the female sexuality is a central plank of patriarchy. Niyoga or begetting heirs outside marriage is shown as normal, if conducted under male control. Thus, the sons of Ambika and Ambalika, and of Kunti and Madri are seen as descendants of their In the Idiom of Loss F 123

social fathers. However, Kunti’s son was born before her marriage and so is not legitimised, though the child must have been expected and provided for by Kunti’s father (see Karve 1974: 39). Sathyavati’s liaison before marriage is also legitimised, and her son, Vyasa, by this union becomes the ancestor of the Pandavas and the Kurus. While polygyamy was a widespread practice, polyandry was not, and Draupadi’s five husbands are legitimised by Krishna’s sophistry. Bheesma, Krishna and Arjuna, all abduct brides at various points; indeed Krishna urges Arjuna to abduct his sister Subhadra (Kshatriya dharma ka palan karo, kanya ka haran uska varan hota hai). Both epics portray a woman’s honour as located in her sexuality, an honour which is fragile and easily fractured. Such was the case with Amba who was abducted by Bheeshma who intended her for Vichitraveerya. She refuses, saying she was promised to the king of Shalva, but he in turn rejects her, claiming that since she spent time with Bheeshma, her honour was suspect. Bheeshma refuses to marry her on account of his vow of celibacy. Amba then commits suicide, vowing vengeance on Bheeshma. Ahalya, wife of rishi Gautama, is tricked into losing her chastity to Indra. She is thereafter condemned by her husband to remain in the ashram in the form of a rock. Her redemption comes when Rama’s foot falls on the rock; cleansed of her sin, she ascends to heaven. The crisis of Sita’s chastity (see next section) is precipitated by the wife of a villager. This woman goes to visit a friend, and since she is unable to return home before dark, elects to stay over. Her chastity is immediately under suspect, and she is abandoned by her husband who says that if he did not do so, other women will be encouraged to stay away from home (aisey striyon ko prothsahan milega). The husband further adds that he is not as large-hearted as Rama to accept back a Sita who had spent more than a year with Ravana. The wedding ceremonies of Sita, of her sisters and of Draupadi are occasions for emphasising the notion of the kanyadaan (gifting the daughter) and all its attendant ideologies of the comparative positions of men and women, especially paraya-dhan (or daughter as wealth of the matrimonial home). Though in the Valmiki version, Sita’s wedding was a simple affair where the bride and groom clasped hands and walked around the fire three times (Sen 1989: 58), the epics depict the present-day ceremonies extant 124 G prabha krishnan

in northern India. These include jaimala (garlanding each other), kaanyadaan, saptapadi (seven circumambulations around the fire) and vidaai (sending off the bride). While Sita’s mother gazes entranced at Ram’s face, exclaiming, ‘The mother’s heart extols those who rob her of everything!’, Sita’s father cannot bear to send away the bride. The palanquins wait everyday, while the palanquinbearers nod wisely and tell each other Maya ki roop hi bitiya hai, and Bitya ki jaath hi aise hai (the daughter is an illusion; she is bound to break your heart). Janaka, in conversation with Dasaratha, constantly defers to him, saying he is sending the four brides to be sevikas in his house. On his part, Dasaratha claims that Janaka as ‘donor’ has higher status. Draupadi too is sent off with great pomp and ceremony, laden with gold and ornaments. So long drawn out is this sequence that it can hold two song segments; thus: Kanya hai dhan dhupsa, tapna jis ka kaam, Subh pita ke dwar divas piya ke dham Beti chali paraya desh Pankh laga kar udi chali Pankh laga kar udi (That golden maiden; she grows wings and flies away to a foreign country).

and, Agni suta Draupadi Dharam karm ke saath Pandu suta ke sangh chali Laane naye prabhat (The fire-sprung Draupadi goes with the Pandavas to usher in a new dawn).

The only other group whose lives are depicted in some detail are the Brahmins (except for a few like Drona and Ashwatthama, the others are not integral to the texts), but the exaggerated respect shown to them was only a later accretion. Vashista, as the court chaplin, was individually influential (Brockington 1984: 156, Karve 1974: 109); the Brahmins, as advisors and arbitrators, are accomplished expositors of the patriarchal ideology. Their rule as redactors resulted in the sacralisation of Rama and Krishna (Brockington 1984: 13, Kosambi 1962: 15). In the Idiom of Loss F 125

Divinity of Rama and Krishna There are innumerable instances within the epics depicting the divine nature of these two characters. Their births were both miraculous. The gift of the magical payasam to the three wives of Dasaratha resulted in the birth of Rama and his three brothers. When Rama’s birth is announced, the camera cuts to Vishnu’s discus (a symbol of the sun, wheel and kingship). When Kaikayee’s son is announced, the camera focuses on Vishnu’s Sheshnaag, recalling the myth in which Vishnu decided to incarnate himself as Dasaratha’s four sons in order to destroy Ravana (Brockington 1984: 6). The inevitable background song informs us that god had manifested himself to show people the way of truth and righteous living (sattkarm acchayi ka raasta dikhane). In one scene, we are shown that Dasaratha asks about the future of his sons, particularly Rama. Sage Durvasa, who is present at the hermitage along with Vashista and Atri, forecasts Rama’s life in detail, stating that Rama is an avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu. Hence, these sages, his father and later, Sumantra and Lakshmana, also come to know of Rama’s divinity. Krishna’s birth is similarly miraculous considering his uncle Kamsa killed seven of his siblings earlier in prison. Kamsa is shown loving his sister Devaki, but in response to the prediction that he will be destroyed by Devaki’s eighth child, he has her and her husband imprisoned, growling, Brahma ne tumhari kokh ko apni aur teri ranabhoomi bana diya (Brahma has turned your womb into a battlefield where you and I will clash). However at Krishna’s birth, the chains fall away from his parents, the prison guards fall asleep, all the doors open, and father Vasudev is enabled to carry away the infant to the surrogate mother, Yashoda. Raglan (1936: 14) notes in his study of the hero that all heroes have similar mythology surrounding their lives, and most of his 22-point test is applicable to Krishna’s life; thus (in short) royal mother; reputation as son of god; attempt at birth by near relative to kill him; spirited away; reared by foster parents in a far country; on reaching manhood returns or goes to future kingdom; victory over king/giant/dragon/beast; marries a princess; prescribes laws; finally meets mysterious death. Both Rama and Krishna vanquish demons and beasts in their respective boyhoods; Rama overthrows 126 G prabha krishnan

Taraka, and Krishna destroys Puthana, and drives away Kaliya, the serpent. As adults, Rama and Krishna continue to perform miraculous feats — Rama brings Ahalya to life, while Krishna lifts mount Govardhana to shelter his people from the torrential rain. Their spouses are similarly deified. Rukumini is described as Sri, the incarnation of Lakshmi. Sita, notes Bhattacharji (1970: 290), maintains Rama’s direct link with Vishnu and Indra from the connection with agriculture (seeth means tip of hoe or furrow). Brockington (1984:14) notes that the linking of Sita as spouse to Rama was probably influenced by the etymology of the word and the presence of a minor Vedic goddess associated with Indra. Whatever the case, the epic sacrilises her in most definite terms. Luv and Kush, singing the Ramayana, state ‘Jagmata, Haripriya, Lakshmiswarupa, grinds corn and cooks it’ (hailing her as Mother Earth, beloved of Hari and incarnation of Lakshmi). The children invoke Valmiki’s words that he had written in the poem on Rama’s life on the advice of Narada, Brahma and other divinities. They sing, Yeh Ramayan hai punya katha Shri Ram ki (this Ramayana is the sacred story of Lord Rama). The single most important indication of Krishna’s divinity is his exposition of the Bhagavat Gita, or ‘song celestial’ in which he propounds the theory of Karma and rebirth. Every episode begins with a quotation from the Gita (see Section II), but the seminal scene is still very far in the future. However, apart from the frequent references to Nar key roop mein Narayan (god in the form of man), in the scene of Draupadi’s disrobing, Krishna’s divinity is unequivocally depicted. Draupadi invokes Krishna; thus: Hey Govinda, hey Dwarakadeesh: (king of Dwaraka), hey Sarvashaktimaan (strongest of all), hey Jogeshwar. He appears with nimbus, hands in shanti mudra, while in the background, flutes, temple bells and drums play. From his raised hand flows endless metres of fabric, clothing Draupadi’s modesty. The coercive patriarchal propaganda of the epics is inscribed and endorsed by devaluation and denigration of non-patriarchal communities and elements, especially that of mother–right. The most obvious depiction of the marginalisation of autochthonous people is the victories over groups such as nagas, asuras, daanavas, daithyas and rakshasas . These groups are not only presented as dangerous and vicious, but victory over them is presented as the In the Idiom of Loss F 127

outcome of exceptional valour, hailed not only by people but by the gods themselves. The Ramayana depicts the interaction of Rama and his brothers with rakshasas like Taaraka, Maaricha, Supanakha, and of Ravana with asuras such as Lavanasur and forest dwellers like vaanaras. The Mahabharata depicts interactions of Krishna and the Pandavas with Kaliya the serpent, Puthana the rakshasi, Jarasandha, Hidamb and others. Typically, every conceivable vice is attributed to the enemy whose vanquishing is then shown in great detail with its attendant gore and fury. Thus, Lavanasur has imprisoned hundreds of rishis who are daily whipped in his presence. He calls himself god, and insists that people worship him, while declaring: Vaidic puja nished hai (vedic puja is forbidden). Lavanasur is pictured as lolling on his throne and enjoying the company of dancing girls. He wears a bizarre dress and headgear, and unlike his courtier, is not of a dark complexion. Lavanasur’s opponent is Shatrughna, Rama’s brother, who is given weapons which are not even used against Ravana. Shatrughna, the very epitome of the solar-hero comes to conquer Lavanasur. The sun symbol is prominently displayed on banners, flags and standards. After a grim fight, all the rishis are freed, while Lavanasur’s queen who pleads for security is graciously assured of it. A long dance sequence follows where Shatrughna is hailed by the people, singing Bhayo suraj uday, andhakari gayo (The sun has risen; darkness has fled). Kaliya’s overthrow is similarly detailed — with child Krishna dancing on the serpent’s head, and accepting the homage of the naagkanya (serpent daughters) and of his grateful people. Bhattacharji (1970: 233) notes that the serpent not only symbolises evil, but also the female principle. The serpent Kaliya however is not killed, but escapes from the river to the sea, showing that the cult was marginalised and not annihilated. The serpent was later solarised to Sheshnaga who became Vishnu’s bed on the sea. Bheema clashes with Hidamb and marries his sister, who with her son Ghatotkacha, become useful allies of the Pandavas. Hidamb is clad in tiger skin, has dark complexion, red hair and beard, is of awesome proportions, wears a skull necklace and carries a spiked mace. Bheema is clad in white clothes, wears the sacred thread and wears the sign of a twice-born on his forehead. 128 G prabha krishnan

The destruction of the Khandava forest, as we have noted, merited only passing mention. The overthrow of Puthana and Jarasandha, and the implications for the feminine principle are discussed in the section on ideology of motherhood. The killing of Valin, Sugriva’s brother, has incited many defensive comments 11 because Rama killed him while hidden from Valin’s sight behind a tree. Sivaramamurti (1980: 74) notes that Rama’s reasons — that the greatest of rajarishis go hunting, using nets, ropes, and are camouflaged that Valin as a monkey was a likely target; that he had given his word to Sugriva; that Valin had raped Sugriva’s wife and appropriated his kingdom — were hardly convincing. In this context, it is interesting to note that while the vanaras are all shown with monkey faces and tails, their wives are all human. The killing of Ravana, his sons and brothers constitutes a major section of the Ramayana. The rakashasas are all depicted as mayavi, or possessed of magical powers or guile which the solarhero has to overcome. In the persona of Shakuni, we find accumulated all the negative ascriptions of patriarchy. Physically, Shakuni is portrayed as short, dumpy, lame, and invariably clad in black clothes. His contrast is Bheeshma — tall, erect with a commanding voice and direct gaze, and always clad in white. Shakuni has his own signature tune, full of danger signals and discordant notes. While Bheeshma is described as incapable of telling a lie, or using dubious means even to save his life, Shakuni is the ever-devious conspirator. His constant advice to Duryodhana is to guard his face and not betray his thoughts (mukhmandal bhojpatra hai — your face is a clean papyrus). He plays on Dhritarashtra’s own fears of his inadequacies to act against the Pandavas. When the Pandavas are quite young, Shakuni encourages the Kuru brothers to try and drown Bheema. Later, he plots to build the Pandavas a wax palace and to set fire to them all. Both these attempts fail but his plot to involve Yudhistira in a dice game and cheat him of his inheritance succeeds. He is shown worshipping his dice, claiming that they are his army, his life-long goal. He avers that conspiracy is also a weapon (shadyantra bhi shastra hai). He gloats over the supposed deaths of Kunti and the Pandavas, and expresses glee over Duryodhana’s confirmation as heir apparent (Mera Duryodhan raaj mukut pehankar virajmaan hai). In the Idiom of Loss F 129

Even Gandhari, his sister is against his policies and he admits that he is often afraid of the goodness of her heart (Gandhari key sacchai sey dar lagta hai). The Pandavas, Kunti, Vidura, Drona and Bheeshma, all distrust him and expand on his negative qualities; Bheeshma going so far as to say that the one great shame of his life would be to fight a war on his side, and that Shakuni was a curse on the Kuru family. Even though Shakuni’s son arrives at the Kuru court to take his father back to Gandhara, Shakuni refuses to go, saying that war was imminent and that it was imperative for him to stay and guide his sister Gandhari and her sons. Clearly in the epic, the remnants of mother–right are sought to be destroyed by locating every evil in it.

IV Constructing Femininity and Masculinity Since masculinity and femininity are constructed as polar opposites, every episode within the sample indicates some facet of what idealised women and men should be, either implicitly or explicitly. However, two events are outstanding in their implications for ideal male and female behaviour — one is the debate about Sita’s sexual chastity, which occurs in two segments far apart in time, and the second is the assault on Draupadi’s chastity which within the sample occurs three times. In both cases, the women, Sita and Draupadi, are structured as redeemers of patriarchy. The debate about Sita’s chastity begins after she is rescued by Rama. She is made to undergo a purification trial by fire. This is witnessed by Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, Sugriva, Vibhushna, and all the vaanara hosts. In the epic, the Sita who enters the fire and who has been captured by Ravana is not really Sita, but Maya Sita, she is an illusion. The real Sita has been given by Rama into Agni’s keeping. The real Sita is thus untouched by Ravana’s lust, and is returned by Agni in that pure state. The purification by fire was just an appearance, and this fact is known both to Rama and Sita. Brockington (1984: 237) points out that the Maya Sita myth first appeared in the Kurma Purana. He further notes that chronologically, the Puranas post-date the main phases of composition of the epic (ibid.: 233). This development, which 130 G prabha krishnan

is theologically motivated, occurs in the Brahmavaivarta, the Adhyatma Ramayana as well as the Adbhuta Ramayana, and in the Tulsidas version (ibid.: 253, 282). This version seeks to valorise Rama by removing all traces of jealous and un-heroic behaviour on the one hand, and by affirming through his far-sightedness and magical powers, his divinity. The Maya Sita device allows Sita to be portrayed as the participant rather than the victim in the process that seeks to affirm her intrinsic value as flowing only from her immaculate chastity. Srinivasa Sastri (1949: 159) rightly points out that the illusory Sita device is not at all justified by Valmiki’s text. He further repudiates the suggestion that Sita brought such calamity on herself by her behaviour towards Lakshmana, namely the sin (apachara) of doubting his noble intentions towards her (ibid.: 160–61). Back in Ayodhya, Sita is the focus of popular gossip, and according to the epic, she once again participates in evaluating herself according to sexual standards, and volunteers to banish herself from Ayodhya. She begins by pointing out that it is the people’s opinion that she is unchaste (Praja ka math hai ki Sita apavitra hai), and that their opinion should be heeded because heaven speaks through their voices (janta janardhan key swar mein swarg hai). This being the case, she should remove herself from Ayodhya, so that Rama can do his duty undisturbed. She takes Rama to the ancestral hall and there recalls tales of his valorous ancestors — of Harishchandra who gave up his kingdom and family in pursuit of truth; of Shibi who fed part of his body to a hungry pigeon, and of many others. She points out that she is his friend, not a slave, and so chooses to sacrifice their happiness together. She asks Rama not to call her Sita anymore, since she has given up that defiled name (Kalankith naam ko tyaag kar chuki hoon). Yet she insists that Rama grant her permission to go because without her husband’s expressed desire, a wife cannot even defend truth and honour (Pati ke agya bina patni dharm ki rakhsha nahi kar sakhti). In the same Durga temple where she had prayed to be united with Rama (Karohu morey raghuvar ke daasi — make me Rama’s slave), Sita prays for strength to sacrifice herself (aaj tyag ke liye shakthi maangne aiyee). By insisting that it is the people of Ayodhya who are suspicious of her character, Sita, and thus the text, seeks to absolve Rama of any unheroic and unjust deeds. Ayodhya ne swayam apne aanchal par kalank In the Idiom of Loss F 131

laga diya, Sita maintains (Ayodhya has itself sullied its fair name in doubting Sita’s chastity), and goes on to add that the son she would bear would clear her name (Santaan ko yogya banoongi; praja vir putra sey kshama maangegi). Srinivasa Sastri (1949: 157–58, 161–68, 171–74) analyses in detail Valmiki’s version of the text in regard to Sita’s banishment. He notes that Rama’s fears were all for his good name; he feared that he would be damned forever in the other world for the slanders of the people. Shastri states bluntly ‘Rama desires to re-establish himself and his great name by abandoning his wife’. Moreover a wife, when balanced against values in a crises, can be abandoned — Rama feels that she is no more than a means of gratifying the senses (indaarth). He thus gives secret instructions to Lakshmana to abandon Sita on the pretext of taking her to the hermitage. In the epic, Sita’s false complicity is valorised by kith and kin. While Lakshmana and Bharata, their wives, and various ministers are shown expressing their mute sorrow, many others are vocal in their praise of her actions. Chief among these is Sita’s father Janak. He claims that far from being alone and abandoned in the forest, Sita has the support of righteous conduct (woh nis-sahai nahi hai; dharm uski raksha karega). He reveals that Sita had written a letter to him, requesting him not to burden her grieving husband with any questions. Sita, according to her father, had set high standards for all women to follow (sari nari jati yug yugantar tak garv karengi; nari dharm ka kirti-stamb stapith kiya). Because of Sita, he says, all Aryavan would become a place of pilgrimage since Sita had sacrificed her happiness to uphold Ram’s ideal of serving the people. Rama too praises her; she modestly declines this praise and states that her strength is wholly given by him — ‘I’m only your shadow, I have no identity of mine own’, she states. Valmiki however differs, notes Brockington (1984: 166), when he makes Vashishta suggest to Kaikeyee that in Rama’s absence, Sita could act as regent, since the wife is the self of all married men. However, Rama and Sita do part; she in tears, he looking tight lipped and stoic. The background song spells out their state of mind — Dridh sankalp ke aagey Raghukul Raja hara, Aadarsh ki pratima badh gayi Ram sey aagey (In the face of Sita’s firm resolve, he had to give in; that epitome of idealism, she has gone far ahead of him). 132 G prabha krishnan

In Valmiki’s hermitage, she gives birth to twin sons who do indeed grow up and defend their mother’s honour. They do succeed in proving to the people of Ayodhya that they had wronged Sita. However, in spite of Valmiki’s assurances and the people’s endorsement, Rama requires that Sita appear in court and take an oath of her fidelity. Valmiki at this juncture states that the faithful wife will endure every hardship for her husband’s sake, so Sita should go to court as required. However, at the court, Sita swears her loyalty but also calls on Mother Earth to take her back. Yet she says that in every following birth she should be Rama’s wife, only that he should not reduce her to this present state.12 Draupadi’s case is complicated by the fact that though she is wedded to five warriors, and is never alienated from her natal family; she is also humiliated in public and molested by various men. She is reduced to a slave by being staked and lost by her husband at a dice game. In spite of her describing herself as the honour of the house of Hastinapura (Kuru gharane ka laj), she is unable to defend herself or solicit help from her husbands and relatives. Her trauma comes to an end only when Gandhari, afraid of the power of the curse of a loyal wife, intervenes. Both Gandhari and Kunti do not hesitate to abuse their sons for causing this crisis. Kunti rails at her sons for being gamblers and cowards, and declares that they had made a mockery of her love. Gandhari begs forgiveness from her ancestors that the product of her womb had defiled the race. She says that had Draupadi wished it, the rivers would run dry, the earth would stop bearing grain, the moon would not appear, nor would the sun shine. Gandhari avers that the throne of Hastinapur and the wisdom of the gurus, Drona and Kripacharya, had all been blemished by Draupadi’s humiliation. Draupadi on her part vows not to tie up her hair until she can wash it with the blood of her tormentors. That hair would be her weapon, she states, and uses it to taunt her husbands for their failure in protecting her honour. Her open hair would be the symbol of honour of all womanhood (nari jati ka swabhimaan ka prateek). Krishna fans the flames of her vengeance by saying that all civilisation has been shamed by the incident (sanskriti, sabyatha, maryada ka vastaharan hua) and assures her that the war would not be long in the coming, where she and her husbands could get their revenge. He specifically states that the wives of those who insulted her would weep on the battlefield. In exile, Draupadi is In the Idiom of Loss F 133

one day accosted and molested by Duryodhana’s brother-in-law. Furiously, Draupadi bid him to beware the vengeance of her husbands, saying that she was Yudhistira’s javelin, Bhima’s mace, Arjuna’s gandhiva bow, and the swords of Nakula and Sahadeva. She is indeed rescued by her husbands and while the younger men demand his death, Yudhistira refuses saying that the world might well ask why they had all abandoned their wife in the wilderness. Draupadi is asked to punish the molester herself; she suggests he become Yudhistira’s slave rather than be sentenced to death, since that would make a widow of Dushala, who was innocent (Dushala ki mange per koi aanch ne aye). Yet we remember that she had accepted with satisfaction Krishna’s promise of widowhood for the wives of Duryodhna, Dushasana and Karna. In the last year of their exile, Draupadi is again molested, this time by Keechaka, brother of Queen Sudeshna. Draupadi’s arguments in defence of her modesty remain the same. While the Pandavas are still in exile, there occurs an incident that sets the issue of female chastity in perspective. Duryodhna attempts to molest a Gandharva girl. He is caught by her kin and sentenced to death. Their leader states that they are not great men like Draupadi’s husbands and kin who could tolerate insults to their women. However, Bhima and Arjuna rescue Duryodhana; Bhima states that if Duryodhna was killed, then he, Bhima, would be baulked of his revenge. No further thought is expended on the Gandharva girl who presumably is beyond the reach of sanskriti sabayata and maryada. It is not the female chastity that is important per se but honour of the men who set themselves as the defenders of it. Several other women in the epics indicate facets of femininity, though they play lesser roles. The most important of these is Sunaina, Sita’s mother, who states that while the father gives wealth to the daughter, the mother gifts her the tenets of nari-dharm or ideal feminine behaviour. This nari-dharm consists of treating husbands like gods, so there is no need to worship anyone else; to accept marriage as tapasya (penance) and work towards the betterment of the husband with mind, body and heart; to worship the husband’s entire home, and never to extol the natal family. Following these tenets, the wife would become a sahadharmini (companion on the path of righteous conduct), and would thus not require the blessings of anyone else. 134 G prabha krishnan

Lakshmana’s mother, Sumitra orders him to go into exile with Rama and Sita saying, ‘Your Ayodhya is where Rama and Sita are; treat them as mother and father.’ While Sita follows her husband to the forest, the other wives, Urmila, Mandavi and Sudhakriti, are enjoined to look upon their lives within the palace as their respective penances. Mandavi, Bharat’s wife is relieved that he has refused the crown. She feels that she can now hold her head high. She visits him in his hermitage outside the city and asks for the right to share his hard life (seva aur kator tapasya ka adhikar maangte hoon). Predictably, Bharat urges her to forget their mutual need in Kaushalya’s service, and equally predictable is Mandavi’s reply, i.e., Bharat is great. Another important female role is that of Anusuya, rishi Agastya’s wife. She is introduced to Sita as Maha Sati Anusya whose learning and piety were universally acknowledged. She is hailed as Vishva Vandaniya Mata (worthy of the respect of all the world), who had bested many scholars and whose penances ended ten years of drought. Anusuya too gives all the credit to her husband, and claims that her knowledge of the world is refracted through his vision, and thus her wisdom and experience is the result of unswerving service to her husband (pati charno ka seva hai). She also goes on to expound on wifely duties, covering much the same ground as Sunaina, adding that in future all women need to only think of Sita to achieve pati-vrata (ideal wifehood). She gifts Sita with jewellery, and notes that a wife should always look pretty and young, so she is always assured of her husband’s love (Suhagan ko sada sunder hi dikhna chahiye; pati ka ekh nish prem milega). The incongruity of a hermit’s wife gifting jewellery to another ascetic did not strike the redactors or the epic makers.

Uncontrolled Female Sexuality Against this backdrop of serene fidelity and selfless service, looms the grotesque shadow of Kaikayee, the very anti-thesis of the ideal. Her power in Dasaratha’s household is shown as flowing from her overt sexuality (for a fuller description, see next section), and she is shown as exploiting this power to the utmost. Using her charms, she demands two boons of Dasaratha — exile for Rama, and the crown for Bharata. Describing herself as the daughter of one king and the wife of another, she avers that it is In the Idiom of Loss F 135

natural for her to ask for the kingdom (Raja ki putri, raja ki patni, raaj hi maangoongi). Uncontrolled femininity is thus posited as dangerous. The danger is shown as well as recognised by the women themselves who are structured as upholding the pillars of the patriciate by denial of self-hood in its entirety. Autonomy such as that exhibited by Kaikeyee, is shown as having catastrophic outcome for the family and the state. Even the much wanted practice of the swayamvara or self-choice in marriage was hedged in by considerations of birth and class, to say nothing of various deeds of valour such as the breaking of bows and shooting impossible targets. The marriage of a daughter or sister was an occasion for forging military alliances, and the self-choice was often simply a gloss on the practice. Thus Rukmini, who was abducted by Krishna, was expected to marry King Sisupala (her brother Rukman says ‘Adhikar ko ulangan karna chahta hoon’ — I am about to limit your autonomy). Amba was as good as promised to King Shalya when Bhishma abducted her from her swayamwara. Again, Subhadra was urged by Krishna to elope with Arjuna, though she was expected to choose Duryodhana. On that instance, Krishna suggests that Subhadra take the reins of the chariot and become the sarathy (driver), since it was her yatra (journey, that is towards motherhood of Abhimanyu, and thus as preserver of the Chandravanshi lineage). Krishna declares that a daughter is neither an animal nor an object to be gifted away (‘putri pashu ya vastu nahi hoti’), and further declares that it is Subhadra who had abducted Arjuna (‘Subhadra ney Arjunharan kiya’). It helps of course to show that Subhadra is already in love with Arjuna — at least half an episode is spent on showing her swinging in the rain in true cinematic style; her ripe sexuality recalling Urvashi and other apsaras (‘Main boondan bheegi saari,’ goes her song). On the other hand, sexuality that does not serve the patriciate is widely condemned. Surpanakha, the rakshasi is shown deserving Lakshman’s violence, while Kaikayee brought about the downfall of a ‘good’ man and king by misusing her sexual prowess. Ideally, women are located within the palaces and homes, and their skills outside the private realm are elided. Thus, though Kaikayee originally gained her two boons by skillfully saving Dasaratha’s life on the battlefield, it is her sexuality that is projected as the source of her power, and her subsequent downfall. 136 G prabha krishnan

An important function of femininity is interiorised inferiority, where the women are quick to deny any learning skills, preferring to credit these qualities to their husbands (‘pati gati hai’, as Rama reminds his mother Kaushalya, i.e., the husbands needs should dictate the direction and speed of the wife’s life). Through nuturing criticism, women mouth the rhetoric of subordination. Draupadi’s fiery speeches in the Kuru court, her subsequent goading of her husbands, and the condemnation of their sons by Kunti and Gandhari — all serve to uphold Kshatriya dharma, i.e., warrior-like action to preserve the honour of their women-folk, and thus the honour of the family. When the camera focuses on Draupadi’s enraged face and the lowered heads of her husbands, the background song informs us, ‘Jo naari jaati ka apmaan karta, us ka naash avashya hi kardeta bhagwaan’ (God definitely destroys those who humiliate women). As we have seen in the case of the Gandharva girl, this philosophy is limited in its application. Further, the carnage of the Kurukshetra war and the clash with Ravana killed hundreds of soldiers and orphaned and widowed hundreds of children and women who could not, literally or morally, be held responsible for Draupadi’s trauma or Sita’s suffering. Violence is therefore an integral part of the male identity and specifically Kshatriya identity, and recourse to divine sanction only serves to sanitise this malodorous trait.

V The Essence of Motherhood We cannot do better than to begin our discussion on the essence of motherhood than by focusing on Kaikayee, who is constructed as the very anti-thesis of the idealised motherhood. Kaikayee, the third wife of Dasaratha and the daughter of the king of Kekeya, was many years younger than her husband, and extremely beautiful as well. In the epic, her sexual ascendancy over her husband is emphasised. The actress playing her role is a lush young woman, well known for her roles as a vamp in mainstream hindi cinema. She is considerably young and more attractive than Dasaratha’s other wives. Her thick pouting lips and swaying gait call attention to her sexuality even when she is shown with her young children, when, on the other hand, we would expect the In the Idiom of Loss F 137

depiction of a radiant and de-sexualised motherhood. Srinivasa Sastri (1949: 418–19) comments on Dasaratha’s infatuation and his capitulation on that fateful night when Kaikeyee denies him access to her. She thus goads him into granting her the two boons — elevate her son Bharata to the crown prince, and banish Rama to the forest for fourteen years. Kaikeyee is shown changing from a complacent young wife to a fearful co-wife, which is the result of a grim picture drawn by her maid Manthara. With Rama as the king, Manthara warns Kaikayee that her power would be eroded, and that she would soon be Kaushalya’s hand-maiden on the assumption that Kaushalya would certainly avenge the several years of Dasaratha’s neglect. While Kaikeyee gradually dawns an angry expression, the background song tells us that every wife fears her rival co-wife (souten). Kaikeyee wins her two boons, but earns universal opprobrium. The first to abuse her is Dasaratha himself, berating himself for denying his eldest son’s right to the throne because of his stree moh (love for his wife). This particular accusation is repeated by many characters — eldest wife Kaushalya, impetuous Lakshmana, Kaikeyee’s son Bharata, minister Sumantra, rishi Vashishta and his wife, and even the tribal chieftain Guha. Dasaratha falls at Kaikeyee’s feet and begs to be relieved of his vow. When she stubbornly refuses, he storms at her for being a neech nari (fallen woman). The epic strains to eliminate any suspicion of anger on Rama’s part. He is shown as expecting and revelling in the thought of his coming exile, claiming that as his mother, Kaikeyee had an equal right to order his life at her will. Yet it does not appear that Valmiki’s Rama was as detached as this (Srinivasa Sastri 1949: 67–68; Sen 1989: 124). Alone with Laskhmana and Shatrughna on the banks of the river, Rama in the Valmiki version says that in her eagerness to make Bharata king, Kaikeyee may even deprive the old king of his life. Kaikeyee was wicked and unscrupulous enough to poison her co-wives. Bharata would do well to enjoy himself when he could, for his father’s fate awaited him. As for himself, after seeing his father’s actions, Rama was within his rights in believing that for the old helpless man, kama (lust) ranked higher than dharma (right action) and artha (wealth). This near-universal condemnation of Kaikeyee peaks in Bharata’s estimation of her. Even in his grandfather’s house, Bharata has premonitions of doom. He dreams that riding on a chariot, his 138 G prabha krishnan

father is moving south (a sign of approaching death). Summoned to Ayodhya, he sees ominous signs everywhere. He meets Kaikeyee and is shocked by her widow’s weeds. Slowly the story unfolds — Kaikeyee says that she has cleared Bharata’s path to the throne and his ascent would have been very smooth only if god introduced a ‘small’ delay in king Dasaratha’s death. Bharata however would have none of this. He rants at her, calling her a ‘papini’ (sinner) and ‘kulanasini’ (destroyer of the clan). He says, ‘you should have killed me at birth. I was born into the Raghukul, with Dasaratha as father and Rama as brother. Only you have turned out to be unworthy. You have betrayed your sister Kaushalya. Why did your tongue not fall to pieces when you made this outrageous demand?’ Kaikeyee — it was my greed to make my son king. Bharatha — ‘Yes’ greed is at the root of this disaster. You are not a woman but a rakshasi. You are no longer my mother. You will live in hell forever.

He calls his father’s spirit to witness his renunciation of his mother, and says he would gladly kill her. When he meets Kaushalya, he defends himself in order to dissociate from this conspiracy to grab power. He feels Kaikeyee should have been barren (bhaanj). Bharata accepts the kingdom on the condition that he will act as a regent for Rama. He lives like a hermit outside Ayodhya city. Repentant, Kaikeyee goes to meet him there, but is abused yet again. Bharata sneers at her, ‘Maharani, have you any instructions for your slave?’ She pleads with him, ‘Call me mother once’. ‘You killed my mother, Maharani’, he replies, ‘My mother was a clear, placid river. You are devious, scheming’. Kaikeyee reiterates her repentant state and begs to be allowed to remain as a hermit (tapasvi) in the hut. Bharata however decrees that unending pain is to be her lot. She should live in the palace and realise that power and wealth do not bring happiness. Kaikeyee salutes him and leaves weeping. The camera pulls away from their faces and we see that they have been divided by the throne on which are placed Rama’s slippers. Scenes of Dasaratha’s collapse appear in the flashback, while Kaikeyee runs about in the empty palace weeping. In case we remain in doubt about her pitiful situation, the background song In the Idiom of Loss F 139

informs us, ‘Kaushalya has lost her power of speech, Urmila cannot even weep. Kaikeyee, only you are queen in the palace. The punishment for a woman deviating from idealized motherhood is harsh indeed.’13

The Pain of Every Mother Every woman is primarily a potential mother, whereas men are primarily kings or warriors, or wood cutters, and fathers only incidentally. Motherhood is an emotion-based state, a natural outcome of the feminine nature. When Kunti and the Pandavas are hiding with the Brahmin family, they get to know that a man-eating demon, Bakasura, is terrorising the village. The Brahmin refuses to sacrifice his unmarried daughter because he says he would be guilty of killing a family, rather than an individual. Repeatedly, Subhadra, Krishna’s sister, is told that she is the keeper of the fortunes of the Chandravanshi. She has a son by Arjuna who perpetuates the family line at a time when the Pandavas lose all their other sons in battle. In a long speech, Krishna assures her that Abhimanyu would participate in a mighty battle. She should therefore fill his quiver with her blessings, and amour him with her prayers. Pregnancy is celebrated — Sita is enjoined to eat well, think happy thoughts, hear stories of heroes (vir purush) and remain surrounded by sacred texts. Says guru Vashishta, ‘the human being receives his first sacrament in the womb itself.’ Though her world vision is extremely limited, the ideal mother is the epitome of selflessness and survival power, and grim tenacity of purpose. In prison, Devaki is heavily chained and manacled, yet goes through eight pregnancies, witnessing the murder of seven infants, only to bring forth the eighth who is to be her redeemer. Sita is shown toiling in guru Valmiki’s ashram, gathering firewood, pounding grain, cooking on a open stove, and rearing her infants who also will be her redeemers — infants who will grow up into vir-balak (brave sons) and show the citizens of Ayodhya their error in besmirching their stainless mother. The sons sing her praises at their father’s court, thus: Raja ki putri, raja ki vaadhu, chakravarati raja ki patni, Swabhimaani, daasi bani, apni udaasi chupati hai 140 G prabha krishnan

(Daughter of a king, daughter-in-law of another, wife of an emperor, proud woman, she becomes a servant [daasi] in order to hide her sorrow [udaasi]).

Look where we may — within rural arts, folk songs, puppet shows, or the classical oeuvre — we will not see the celebration of the mother–daughter bond. This lack of celebration enables women and men alike to take a distanced view of the personhood of the daughter; she is that much easier to destroy within the womb or outside it. I like Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s (2001: 4) formulation of the girl child as the essential orphan; one who could be abandoned at will when circumstances so dictate. Of all mother–son interactions portrayed through the televised epics, the Yashodha–Krishna bond consumes the greatest amount of telecast time, almost six episodes. Inordinate length of time is expended in establishing Yashoda’s radiant motherhood. The song Yashoda Hari Paalna Jhulave (Yashoda rocks Hari’s cradle) lasts almost one entire episode. Yashoda bathes and dresses the child, cooks for him, feeds him, tells him stories, rocks him to sleep, wakes him up the following morning with sweetly smiling mien — all the rituals which can be seen at any one of the larger temples of India when priests perform exactly these same rituals for the presiding deities such as Venkateshwara. Yashoda’s absorption in Krishna to the total exclusion of everything is explicated through action, dialogue and song. Thus, Yashoda’s lap is a sarovar (lake) wherein Kaanha (another name for Krishna) blooms as a kamal (lotus), ‘Nandgaon phayley toh vishwa hai, simte toh Yashodha maiya ki ankhon mein hai’ (Nandgaon, Krishna’s village, can expand to encompass the whole world, or compress itself into Yashodha’s eyes). Child Krishna describes her feet as swarg ka chaucat (threshold of heaven). When Krishna has to go to Mathura to slay his uncle Kamsa, Yashoda, weeping, demands to know what right does trilok (the three worlds) have over her child. Husband Nand has to explain the imperatives of the larger world to her. Krishna also attracts a number of mother substitutes, notably his guru’s wife whose dead son Krishna later wrests back from Yamalok. Gurumata says she is not equal to Devaki or Yashoda, but pleads with her husband to extend Krishna’s education. She too performs every service for Krishna. When the guru decides to send Krishna back, he asks her to think of Devaki, for she too as a In the Idiom of Loss F 141

mother would miss her child. To this the guru’s wife replies even that God as param pita (great father) cannot understand the pain of a mother’s heart, for he is not param mata (great mother). The relationship between Sita and her sons is also explicated in great detail, as that between Kaushalya and the child Rama. A great deal of romanticisation is involved in these relationships, the portrayal of which is calculated to strike resonances in every viewer’s heart. Sita’s infants are described as mamta ke do phool (the flowers of love) whose fragrance will help her forget her pain during exile. In the sequence expanding on Rama’s childhood, Dasaratha and his wives are shown delighting over the children to the strains of a famous bhajan, Thumak chalat Ramchandra baajat paainganiya (His anklets ring as Ramchandra walks).14 Thereafter, very soon Kaushalya and the other mothers experience their pangs of loss when the children leave for the gurukul. Dressed in the garb of ascetics, the children come to take their first bhiksha (charity) from their parents, for henceforth they will live on charity. The mothers break into loud lamentations — ‘who will sing lullabies to them? What food will they eat?’ Kaikeyee wishes to send royal food for Rama. When prevented by Dasaratha, she says that he is pretending to be stern. In the gurukul, the gurumata is again shown as mother–substitute. She feeds the children, sings them to sleep, and decides to teach them music. For she says, ‘children should know the tenderness of feeling (bhaavna ki komalta) as well as the hardship of duty (kartavya ka kathorta), which the guru would teach.’ The early socialisation of the children is on gender-specific lines. Young boys are groomed as future leaders and warriors, while daughters are groomed as redeemers of patriarchy. Moreover, we are shown nothing of the lives of the various women when they were children.

Socialising the Girl Child Sita’s mother, Sunaina, who is only a name in the Valmiki version, merits significant length of footage in the television epic. She is shown urging Sita to pray for a perfect husband. Later, when Sita follows Rama into exile, Sunaina in a long speech describes her daughter as mahaan pativrata, tyaag aur seva ka kirtimaan (a picture of fidelity, sacrifice and service). She says that Sita has thus 142 G prabha krishnan

ennobled all womanhood, and that all women can now hold up their heads with pride.15 Sunaina goes on to praise Kaushalya’s womb which has brought forth putra-ratan (gem of a son), and urges her daughters to salute the feet of the vandaneeya mata (mother worthy of worship). In a reference to Kaikeyee, she urges her daughters to support her in the future, not to allow any Manthara to divide the brothers. Satyavati and Kunti are again projected as redeemers of patriarchy. Satyavati calls her son Vyasa before his marriage to beget sons onto her widowed daughters-in-law. She asks him to repay the last debt he owes to her motherhood (mamta ka antim rin jukhana hai). He in turn asks her how long was she going to remain embroiled in the affairs of the state, that is to ensure a successor to the throne of Hastinapur (mamta ki ghat par kab tak tiki rahogi?). As the mother of the five Pandavas, Kunti has herself undergone niyoga (union outside marriage) in order to provide heirs to the throne of Hastinapura. She is fiercely protective of the children — in the episode involving the demon Bakasura, she says that she will sacrifice all four sons to ensure Yudhishtra’s life, since he is the crowned prince. Her role in Draupadi’s polyandrous marriage is lauded. Karve (1974: 75) suggests that this marriage forged an unbreakable link among the five brothers which their enemies tried to break in vain. A politically shrewd and eminently pragmatic move by a beleaguered woman is given a divine tint in the epic. The voice of time comments — Kunti’s command that the brothers share whatever Arjuna had won must have a deeper meaning. Destiny itself has spoken through Kunti’s tongue (jeev par baithkar swayam kaal ne nirnay liya hai). We rarely get glimpses of non-patriarchal motherhood in the epics. Hidimba, Bhima’s rakshasi wife, is one such. This marriage too was Kunti’s doing; as Karve (1974: 47) again points out Hidimba and her son Ghatotkacha proved to be invaluable allies of the Pandavas. Hidimba is described as living in her own house, and Bheema urges her to keep their son. For he says, ‘I have experienced the sweetness of motherhood, and respect no one more than a mother’. A mother has more right over her child since she feels the pain of birth; a son needs a mother as a plant needs soil. Thus, patriliny and patrilocality are not for the non-Aryan woman. On the other hand, we are shown examples of the destruction/assimilation of In the Idiom of Loss F 143

the pre-patriarchal forms of group-mothering and mother–right in the examples of Puthana, and Kamsa and Shakuni. Almost an entire episode is devoted to the destruction of the demoness Puthana by Krishna. Bhattacharji (1970: 304) notes that ‘Puthana’ refers to rotting and putrefaction of matter by the sun. Kosambi (1962: 85, 109) notes that Puthana was a special goddess in Mathura, and one of the thousands of mother-companions of Skanda, some 192 of whom are named in the Salya Parvan of Mahabharata. These mother-companions are described as horrific as well as beautiful and as eternally young women. They are said to have spoken different languages — a sure sign of varied tribal origin. In the epic, Puthana is constructed as tall, dark with long strides, angular male features, and a deep voice and horrible laugh. Through her magical powers, she can transform herself into an acceptably pretty woman. This demoness is recruited by Kamsa to suckle infant Krishna at her poisoned breasts and thus kill him. Krishna in turn sucks the life out of her. Puthana may have been of preAryan origin, perhaps a group mother. Her over-throw by Krishna possibly indicated transition to patriarchal societies. Jarasandha, a demon overthrown by Bheema, was reputed to have been put together from two children by Jara, and hence had the strength of two. Kosambi (1962: 84) notes that this legend may indicate a tradition of group-mothering which was in opposition to the vedic father–right. Once again Krishna participates in the overthrow of mother–right. Kosambi in reference to Krishna, notes that Kamsa’s slaying ‘gains a new and peculiar force, if it be remembered that under mother–right, the new chief must always be the sister’s son of the old’ (ibid.: 19).16 We have noted that in the epic, both Kamsa and Shakuni are constructed as the epitomes of unalloyed evil.

VI In the Idiom of Loss Puthana, the rakshasi offered her poisoned breasts to infant Krishna, but it was she who died and ascended to heaven. O’Flaherty (1980: 250) concludes that in Hinduism, ‘bad’ mothers can also be good, 144 G prabha krishnan

while only the ‘bad’ women are non-mothers. It seems far-fetched to describe Puthana as a ‘bad’ mother who made good by offering her breasts, since her objective was not to nurture Krishna but to kill him; that is she was using her breasts as a weapon. But insofar as she was under male control, the male raconteur would certainly have her ascend to heaven, and it seems fair to say that the only ‘bad’ mothers are women not under control. O’Brien’s comment (1982: 109) that men’s post-ejaculatory alienation from the reproductive process had led to patriarchal praxis, has much to recommend for from among the epics, we are left with the overriding impression of men ceaselessly at work to create institutions that will out-live their own individual lifespans. The chief of these is of course the lineage. Men become actual social reproducers, able to provide women through conquest or through negotiation, to build up political networks, i.e., become managers of reproduction at the political level (Meillassoux 1986: 16–17). Women are highly visible in both epics and are very often constructed as objects to be consumed by the male gaze. Visually pleasing, the ideal woman is not only male controlled, but shown as accepting that control as natural. Thus Draupadi agrees with Bheeshma that the husband’s authority over his wife is self-evident; she was only questioning the idiom of that authority (patni par adhikar siddh hai par uska paribhasha kya hai?). When the husband is not sufficiently in control of his wife, he is open to criticism, as in the case of Dasaratha whose infatuation for Kaikeyee threatened to destabilise the established order. However as we have seen, it is Kaikeyee who attracts universal condemnation and is thus the prescriptive model of the non-ideal. Dasaratha ascends to heaven and is able to dispense forgiveness to Kaikeyee at Rama’s behest. Women in the epics have exemplary functions as opposed to revelatory (Hansen 1988: 26). Being completely under control, they are totally predictable, and do not have to be propitiated. The characterisation of Sita and Draupadi illustrates the preference of the patriarchal order for the sati, ‘the female ascetic who gains her power through sacrifice and suffering’, rather than the shakti, ‘the powerful, ferocious, feminine cosmic principle that reverses the normal relationship between men and women’ (Das 1981: 50). Every time Draupadi is molested, she threatens her molester with dire consequences, flowing not from her shakti, but from her satitvata, claiming, ‘Mere sir par maryada ki odhni hai’ In the Idiom of Loss F 145

(I am veiled in respectability, i.e., married). Though she is repeatedly referred to as divyajanmi or fire-sprung, she is neither selfmotivated nor self-actualising, and though her open hair may be referred to as a sign of widowhood (mukta-veni [see Dange 1985: 62]), it is not a sign of renunciation, but a goad to action, specifically to uphold the kshatriya dharm. The married status not only fails to protect these women, but rather entrenches the power differential. Brockington (1984: 165), studying the various terms used for husband, notes that bhartr, natha and pati represent the dominant partner, or supporter, while among those used for wife, bharya is indicative of one needing support and is comparatively used more frequently. The term often appears in the Ramayana as Rama, introducing Sita, says, ‘Meri bharya, Janaknandini Sita’ (my wife Sita, daughter of Janak). With its connotation of power and autonomy, motherhood is reduced to motherliness, a function of the emotional female. Thus, gurumata’s claim that param-pita (the creator) will not know the loss of offspring since he is not param-mata (the great mother) is ironic since it reduces the mother goddess function from the cosmic to the biological. Further, it is only to be expected that if at all Kali appears, she is totally contained within patriarchal boundaries of bestowing a Rama-like husband on Sita, or granting Sita the strength to leave the illustrious husband for his own good, and that of the people. As we have noted, the women are quick to deny any knowledge of the wider world, and scrupulously avoid any display of visible wisdom; Sunaina says ‘Ma ka hriday gyan ki bhasha nahi janti, keval mamta ka moh janta hai’ ( The mother’s heart does not speak the language of wisdom; it only knows maternal warmth). The loss of autonomy is compensated by exaltation, which immures the woman and effectively removes her from the realm of decision making; thus, the frequent comments, ‘Ma ka sthan Bhagwaan se bhi ooncha hai’ (the mother’s position is higher than God’s). When Kunti and the Pandavas Kunti are preparing to flee the wax palace at Varnarata, Nakula asks Kunti to set fire to the palace, but Bheema intervenes saying, ‘Maatshri sab shadayantra se oonchi hai’ (mother is above all conspiracies), and sets the blaze himself. Meeting her grown sons after thirteen years of exile, Draupadi claims that not only does the mother have a third eye with which she recognises them, but that she also has an extra heart in which only the sons dwell. 146 G prabha krishnan

The loss that women suffer as mothers needs to be grasped in terms of their essential subordination. The loss is that of transforming power, of moulding the world according to their own lights. The loss flows from their interiorised inferiority, resulting in a complicity that assists the patriciate in perpetrating injustice on all women. The women in the epics however do not weep over the loss of their own potential, but over separation from their offspring. This loss, which is a function of patriarchy, is presented as inevitable and immutable. We had noted that the discourse of the family serves to activate the signifier whose binary complement is ‘lack’. Apart from experiencing loss, women signify lack in essence; Kunti’s experience exemplifies this. None of her children was fathered by Pandu, yet the three who were begotten under his control, namely Yudhishtira, Bheema and Arjuna, were valorised, but not Karna. Of her own, Kunti could not confer legitimacy on Karna, and the lack of legitimacy overshadowed all his personal traits and accomplishments. Yet the Ramayana contains two dramatic scenes of male loss, the death of Dasaratha and Indrajit, and Mahabharata hints at another to come, that of Abhimanyu. Dasaratha is said to have died from putr-viyog or separation from son Rama, while mighty Ravana almost collapsed on learning of the death of son Indrajit. Dasaratha and Ravana are caught in an Aristotelian tragedy in which they, as the central figures, experience a sudden reversal of fortune which can be traced back to their own wrong-doings. In Dasaratha’s case, this is the accidental killing of Shravan Kumar, the ascetic’s son, and in Ravana’s case, the abduction of Sita. These two could have avoided their terrible devastation had they led their lives according to the established moral code, but for women the loss is structural, an outcome of the system itself, which the most blameless of women need to necessarily suffer.

The Politics of Bhakti The concept of bhakti is relentlessly emphasised in both epics. Thus, when rishi Valmiki is casting the horoscopes of her sons, Luv and Kush, Sita says that she does not understand the trends being forecast. But Valmiki says there is no need for her to understand, she needs only to rest assured in the knowledge that god will always, like a mother, protect his bhakt or devotee. When In the Idiom of Loss F 147

Sudeshna agrees to send Draupadi to her brother’s room knowing that Draupadi would be assaulted, Samay notes that Sudeshna’s action illustrates the difference between bhakti (loyalty) and moh (love). Love gathers the bonds of kith and kin, whereas bhakti represents the soul detaching itself from earthly ties to search for the higher One. Yet the relationship of bhakti between god and devotee is often compared to that between mother and child. Thus, Krishna assures Draupadi that the bond between the mother and child was greater than that between God and devotee, else he who was known as Narayan would have appeared (prakat hota) rather than taken birth (janam leta). Though bhakti as a concept was enunciated by Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, it appears throughout the story of Rama who was supposed to have been the seventh avatar. Bhakti is an ideology that emphasises a personal chain of loyalty binding god and devotee, and is peculiarly suited to the solar cults, since, as Bhattacharji (1970: 235) notes, the solar cults are cults of personal salvation. Bhakti can evidently contain within it conflicting objectives; punished by the Pandavas for molesting Draupadi, Jayadrath embarks on austerities to win a boon from Siva. Parvati is puzzled because a boon granted to Jayadrath will work to the detriment of Arjun who, as Siva’s devotee, had already won several divine armaments from him. Siva however replies that he is ever approachable through the asceticism of his devotees, and thus would have to grant him a boon. In Gramsci’s terms (Simon 1982: 58), bhakti is therefore both religion and ideology, which is ‘religion understood in the secular sense of a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct’. In the epics, the world is conceived as regulated by divine beings whose mediation in human affairs can be sought by personal loyalty. The all-pervading emphasis on honee and kaal (destiny and time) serves to inscribe this belief system, and bhakti becomes the bedrock of practical politics. Thus the encounter between Krishna, Rama and Valin, between Krishna and Sisupala, and between Bheema and Jarasandha are all illustrative of the benefits of bhakti. The epics seek to interpellate the viewer into an existing discourse which exists simultaneously on two planes — that of the religious/ritualistic, and that of modern day politics. In either 148 G prabha krishnan

case, the viewer is apt to respond with a sense of recognition. As a means of personal salvation, bhakti is highly seductive, promising varied benefits, even if, as Kosambi (1962: 32) notes, ‘the object of devotion may have clearly visible flaws’. 17 The Geetopadesa is essentially schizophrenic in nature; its emphasis is on ahimsa coexisting quite happily with its incentive to war and destruction. Thus, violence as a tool of public policy gains divine sanction, and we have already discerned the effects of militarisation on women and the poor. Bhakti is an highly evolved method of securing political hegemony, and its essential blindness can condone immense social disparities. Subscription to the concept of bhakti also signals the shift from obtaining citizens’ rights to the acceptance of the donor’s/ruler’s goodwill and charity. Brockington (1984: 129) notes, in his study of Valmiki’s Ramayana, the shift from the term ‘niti’ in the older parts of the work to ‘dharm’ in the latter expansions/additions. The impact of the epics on female and male spectatorship can best be theorised if it is recalled that both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are regarded as dharmashastras, that is, sources of tradition and guides to the right conduct (Kane 1929: 10). Unlike Christian and Jewish traditions or for that matter Sikhism, the Hindus have no central sacred book. The sacralisation of the Ramayana and Mahabharata (containing the Bhagavat Gita) was an attempt to withstand political pressures of medieval times (Thapar 1985: 18). Though a number of women like Kunti, Gandhari, Draupadi, Ganga, Kaikeyee and Sita play important parts in these epics, it is Sita, and that too the Sita of the Tulsidas version, who is upheld as the ideal woman. Valmiki’s Sita had her moments of authority and autonomy, not so Tulsidas’ (Brockington 1984: 166). In fact, it is the Tulsidas version which provides the bedrock for the television serial and not Valmiki’s, as the credits state. Personal observations suggest that viewership of these programmes is not confined to followers of hinduism. A Madras-based muslim entrepreneur is engaged in subtitling the Ramayana in English, describing this as a labour of love and an act of faith.18 A muslim professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi commented that the story of the Ramayana embodied some universal values, and that his family, including his young sons, were regular viewers.19 A neighbour travelling to Najibabad in In the Idiom of Loss F 149

Uttar Pradesh found her train compartment on a Sunday morning full of muslim women regretting that their travel has caused them to miss that week’s telecast of the Mahabharata. While awaiting detailed spectatorship studies, we can theorise that these programmes speak to a vast audience. For some who are participants in the interpellation process, the serials provide a detailed portrait of Hindutva or pristine hindu culture. Others, for whom these myths do not form part of their cultural inheritance, seem to see instances of ideal individuals — ideal sons, husbands, fathers, rulers, daughters, wives and mothers. Like the Gita, which is open to varied interpretations by a determined person without denying the validity of class system (Kosambi 1962: 15), the political victor at any point can identify himself with the Pandavas or with Rama. For women, however, Ramrajya or rakshasrajya remains essentially the same. Karve writing about Draupadi’s last moments, imagines her asking Bheema to be born the eldest in the next birth, so that the family may live in peace and joy (1974: 93). Similarly, Sita in her last speech before descending into the earth says, ‘in all the other births I should have you as my husband, only please do not doubt me again’. Thus, all that women can ask for is change in the language of authority, not for change in its essential nature. We are witnessing a confluence of political expediency, religious fundamentalism and cultural confusion in which stated national ideals of secularism and gender–justice are threatened with subversion. Hope lies only in the ability of the people to fracture the hegemonial process, that is, to deny consent to the process of marginalisation of women and the disprivileged. True secularism cannot approve of, or remain neutral to, the content of all religions; it would have to provide a constant critique of all religions in the attempt to humanise them all (Nauriya 1989: 406).

Notes Grateful thanks to Susie Tharu, C.S Lakshmi, and Kamala Ganesh. 1. Oommen (1984: 20) also refers to the dissent generated by the claim (made during the Constituent Assembly debates of 1949 on the adoption of Hindi as the national language) that the existence of a large, powerful well-organized state in the Gangetic valley was the 150 G prabha krishnan

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10.

only guarantee for India’s unity. Both epics are products of this ‘hindi heartland’, and consistently project that culture as the norm. This is seen in the styles of dress, dance, music, wedding customs and the like. Krishna at one point claims he was going to relish sarson ka saag in Vidur’s house. Centre for the Monitoring of Indian Economy, Economic Intelligence Service — Basic statistics relating to the Indian economy. V2 — The States, September 1989. Table 6. 14-1-3; Existing TV Centres as on 31 March 1989. The Hindustan Times, 28 January 1988. Statement made in the Parliament by Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ajit Panja. The Times of India, 17 August 1988. Statement made in the Lok Sabha by H.K.L. Bhagat, Minister for State for Information and Broadcasting. The Times of India, 19 July 1989. Statement made in the Parliament by K.K Tewary, Minister for Information and Broadcasting. Another indicator is the Television Rating Points (TRPs) provided by the Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB). These weekly ratings are indicators of viewership of various programmes, each point representing 1,064 lakh adults. Thus, the closing scores for Ramayana and Uttar Ramayana were 79.7 and 77.4 respectively, while Mahabharata has varied between 80–83 points; episode number 60 netting 87.3 points. Though accuracy of the system is debatable, it has some legitimacy among advertisers who use the ratings to position their advertisements. Another indicator of the programme’s popularity was noticed on 21 November 1989 — because elections were scheduled in the states of Punjab, Bihar and Sikkim, the telecast of that morning’s episode was repeated on November 28 1989. See for instance An Indian Personality for Television produced by the Working Group of Software for Doordarshan (Joshi Committee) in 1985. Translation courtesy Satish Bhatnagar of B. R. Films, Bombay. According to the epic, Draupadi is supposed to have said, ‘Andhe ka putr andha’ (the blind man’s son is blind). Samay at this juncture blames Draupadi, claiming that the history, dignity, and the future of Bharatvarsha were all threatened. Yudhishtira suggests prayaschit (expiation) for the apradh (crime). Duryodhna reporting on the incident fumes, ‘a woman has stung me with poison’. Congress and Rajya Sabha member, E.M. Sudarsan Natchiappan hailed Rahul Gandhi as ‘Yuvraj’ a people’s prince and by implication heir apparent. Rahul Gandhi had lately been making the right moves by visiting and spending time with Dalit communities in a effort to know and understand rural India. According to the Congress Party, this would help him in discarding caste distinctions and In the Idiom of Loss F 151

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

propagating the message of ‘no difference in people and people.’ http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/3213 accessed on 5 May 2008. Brockington (1984: 256) notes that in the Kamban version, for instance, there appears the story in which Valin had obtained a boon from Siva whereby he could appropriate half the strength of his adversary. Rama thus had to kill him unseen, otherwise Valin could not have been vanquished. Bhootalingam (1980: 73), approaching Ramayana through Jung and Maslow, notes that it might be argued that Valin was only a shadow aspect of Sugriva, and Rama’s promise was only to help Sugriva overcome his inner impulses. Nevertheless, she too suggests that this should have been done in the open. Sen (1989: 296) avers that this incident proves Rama’s historicity, and that Rama is not a myth, nor the Ramayana an allegorical poem. In February 1989, Gopinath, a retired judge of the High Court, entertained a petition from some individuals who claimed that the religious feelings of hindus would be hurt if the epic carried insinuations against Sita, showed scenes of her banishment, or showed a washer man cast aspersions on Sita’s character. The telecast of the epic was allowed when the lawyers for the producer gave their assurances on these points (Data India February 13–19 1989: 74). O’Flaherty (1980: 248) notes that the persistent separation of eroticism (the mare, whore) from fertility (the cow, wife) in hindu myth is reflected in actual behaviour patterns, that in turn resonate in myths. It is possible that in Kaikeyee, the mare was shown manifesting itself more strongly than the cow. Yet Brockington (1984: 6) notes that even though the Balakandam is a late addition to the core poem, nothing of Rama’s childhood is described until he turns fifteen and rishi Viswamitra appears at Dasaratha’s court. In the Tulsidas version (Atkins 1954: 482), it is Janak who praises Sita’s actions with all the words attributed to Sunaina in the epic, for example, ‘you have sanctified both families’, etc. This change is along the lines of the so-called free choice discussed in the section on femininity. It is women who themselves wish to practice selflessness, or the occlusion of their individualities. Sita’s very human love for her husband is raised to the status of ideal behaviour for every woman. Kakar (1981: 15–19) attempts psychoanalysis of the mother–son bond in hindi cinema. He notes that many films depict the idealised mother at the service of child Krishna, the quintessential son, in the private world of her prayer room. The mother’s all-pervading suffering leads both mother and son to fantasise about the son as the saviour. Kakar notes further that the maternal uncle who in real life 152 G prabha krishnan

might often be protective and affectionate, is usually constructed as villainous, seeking to rob the nephew of his birthright. Kakar theorises that this birthright is actually the mother’s undivided attention and exclusive love, thus shifting the debate from the political to the private arena. 17. An attempt to create a personal chain of loyalty under the guise of devolution of power was seen in the recent introduction of the Panchayati Raj Bill which in effect would have by-past locally elected governments in favour of the authority at the centre. 18. Personal communication from Maithili Rao, film critic, Bombay. 19. Ali Baquer in Delhi.

References Althusser, Louis. 1983. Ideologi og ideologiske statsapparater. Aalborg: GRUS. Atkins, A.G. 1954. The Ramayana of Tulsidas Rendered into English Verse by the Reverend A.G. Atkins. 2 vols. New Delhi: Hindustan Times Press. Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies. Selected and trans. Annette Lavers. London: Paladin Books. Beeman, William O. 1981. ‘The Use of Music in Popular Film: East and West’, India International Centre Quarterly, 8(1): 77–87. Bhattacharji, Sukumari. 1970. The Indian Theogony: A Comparative Study of Indian Mythology from the Vedas to the Puranas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhoothalingam, Mathuram. 1980. Voyage through the Ramayana. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Brockington, J.L. 1984. Righteous Rama: The Evolution of an Epic. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chakravarti, Uma. 1983. ‘The Development of the Sita Myth: A Case Study of Women in Myth and Literature’, Shramashakti, 1(i): 68–75. Chhacchi, Amrita. 1989. ‘The State, Religious Fundamentalism and Women: Trends in South Asia’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24(11): 567–78. Dange, Sindhu S. 1985. Hindu Domestic Rituals: A Critical Glance. New Delhi: Ajanta Publications. Das, Veena. 1981. ‘The Mythological Film and Its Framework of Meaning: An Analysis of Jai Santoshi Ma’, India International Centre Quarterly, 8(1): 43–56. DAWN (Development Alternatives for Women for a New Era). 1985. Development Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspective by Gita Sen with Caren Grown. Delhi: DAWN Secretariat. Dev Sen, Nabaneeta. 2001. Alternative Interpretations of the Ramayana: View from Below. New Delhi: Centre for Women’s Development Studies. In the Idiom of Loss F 153

Fiske, John and John Hartley. 1978. Reading Television. London:Methuen. Griffin, Susan. 1982. ‘The Way of All Ideology’, in Nannerle O’ Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Barbara C. Gelphi (eds.), Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology. Sussex: Harvester Press, pp. 273–92. Hansen, Kathryn. 1988. ‘The Virangana in North Indian History: Myth and Popular Culture’, Economic and Political Weekly, 23(18): WS 25–33. Kakar, Sudhir. 1981. ‘The Ties that Bind: Relationships in the Mythology of Hindi Cinema’, India International Centre Quarterly, 8(1): 11–21. Kane, P.V. 1929. History of Dharmasastras: Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Karve, Iravati. 1974. Yugantar: The End of an Epoch. Delhi: Sangam Books. Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand. 1962. Myth and Reality. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Kothari, Rajni. 1989. ‘Cultural Context of Communalism in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24(2): 81–85. Krishnan, Prabha and Anita Dighe. 1990. Affirmation and Denial: Construction of Femininity on Indian Television. Delhi: Sage Publications. Lacan, Jacques. 1977. Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton. Lal, P. 1987. An Annotated Mahabharata Bibliography. Calcutta: Writer’s Workshop. Levi-Strauss, Claude. 1989. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Trans. James Harle Bell et al. Boston: Beacon Press. Meillasoux, Claude. 1986. ‘The Pregnant Male’, in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardener (eds.), Visibility and Power: Essays on Women in Society and Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 15–21. Nauriya, Anil. 1989. ‘Relationship between State and Religion: Antinomies of Passive Secularism’, Economic and Political Weekly, 24(8): 405–6. O’Brien, Mary. 1982. ‘The Feminist Theory and Dialectical Logic’, in Nannerle O’ Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Barbara C. Gelphi (eds.), Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology. Sussex: Harvester Press. O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1980. Sexual Metaphors and Animal Symbols in Indian Mythology. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Oommen, T.K. 1984. Insiders and Outsiders in India: Primordial Collectivism and Cultural Pluralism in Nation-Building. Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University. Pal, Bipin Chandra. 1984. Communalism in Modern India. Delhi: Vikas. Raglan, Baron Fitzroy Richard Somerset. 1936. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. London: Watts & Co. Roy, Pratap Chandra. (n.d.). The Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayan Vyasa, translated into English Prose from the original Sanskrit. Calcutta: Datta Bose and Co. 154 G prabha krishnan

Sen, Makhanlal. 1989. Ramayana from the Original Valmiki. Calcutta: Rupa & Co. Sen, Sukumar. 1977. Origin and Development of the Rama Legend. Calcutta: Rupa & Co. Silverman, Kaja. 1983. The Subject of Semiotics. New York: Oxford University Press. Simon, Roger. 1982. Gramsci’s Political Thought. London: Laurence and Wishart. Sivaramamurti, C. 1980. Rama: Embodiment of Righteousness. New Delhi: Kanak Publications. Srinivasa Sastri, V.S. 1949. Lectures on the Ramayana. Madras: Sanskrit academy. Thapar, Romila. 1985. ‘Syndicated Moksha’, Seminar, 313: 16–22. Tracey, Michael. 1985. ‘The Poisoned Chalice: International Television and the Idea of Dominance’, Daedalus, Fall 114(4): 17–56. Woollacott, Janet. 1982. ‘Messages and Meanings’, in M. Gurevitch et al. (eds.), Culture, Society and the Media. London: Methuen.

Glossary Abhimanyu Amba

Ambika and Ambalika Angaraaj Anusuya Bheeshma

Dasaratha Draupadi

Duryodhana

Son of Arjuna and Subhadra, sister of Krishna. Daughter of Kashiraj, king of Kashi. She was abducted by Bheesma for Vichitraveerya, but refuses the alliance since she was promised to King Shalya. She commits suicide on being rejected by Shalya. Widows of Vichitraveerya; they later had sons by Vyasa. Karna was given this title by Duryodhana. Wife of sage Atri. Son of King Santanu by Ganga. He was the first commander-in-chief of Kuru army. He was also known as Devavrata. Rama’s father and king of Kosala. Daughter of King Drupad. She was won in swayamvara by Arjun and married the five Pandava brothers. Eldest Kuru; son of the blind king, Dhritarastra. In the Idiom of Loss F 155

Dushasana

Jarasandha

Karna Kunti Lavanasur

Madri Nakula Pandu Puthana

Rukmini Sage Durvasa

Satyavati

Shakuni Shalya Subadhra

Sudeshana

Son of Gandhari and brother of Duryodhana. He humiliated Draupadi by dragging her by the hair in the Kaurava court. Son of King Brihadaratha and his two queens, the twin princesses of Kashi. He was born as half to each queen and put together. He was also the father-in-law of Kamsa, and hence enemy of Krishna. Illegitimate son of Kunti by sun god. Wife of King Pandu and mother of Karna, Yudhistra, Arjun and Bhima. Evil son of the kind and beneficent demon King Madhu. He was killed by Shatrughana. Younger wife of Pandu and mother of Nakula and Sahdev. Fourth Pandava, known for his patience. Pale-skinned son of Ambalika (widow of Vichitraveerya) by Vyaasa. Demon sent by Kamsa to destroy Krishna. He was killed by infant Krishna when she tried to feed him her breast milk. Principal wife and queen of Krishna at Dwarka. Son of Atri and Anusuya, he was known for his short temper and his curses which all materialised. Great grandmother of Pandava and Kaurava princes. She was the mother of Vyasa by rishi Parashara, and of Chitrangada and Vichitraveerya by King Santanu. She was the daughter of a ferryman or fisherman, and was also known as Matsyagandha. Brother of Gandhari and uncle of the Kuru brothers. Madri’s father. Only daughter of Vasudeva and Rohini, half-sister of Krishna, wife of Arjuna, and mother of Abhimanyu. Sister of Keechaka who tried to rape Draupadi. 156 G prabha krishnan

Valin (Vali) Varnavata

Vashista Vichitraveerya

Vidura

King of Kishkinda, son of Indra, and elder brother of Sugriva. Location of the wax palace (Laaksagrha). Duryodhana had constructed this palace of combustible materials and planned to burn down Kunti and the Pandavas. They were saved by Vidura who revealed the plot to Yudhistra. Head-priest (kul guru) of Ayodhya. Son of king Santanu by a low caste girl, Satyavati, and husband of Ambika and Ambalika. Son of Vyasa and a maid servant, half brother of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, and advisor to both families.

In the Idiom of Loss F 157

chapter 6

Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal

jasodhara bagchi The great historical endeavour of man has been to reconquer the reproductive function of woman and to fight off the incipient power derived from the latter’s procreative capacities. Violence, war, education, law and ideology have served this purpose… Meillasoux 1986: 15

I Women’s exclusive confinement to the reproductive function, and the attendant emphasis on nurturance have rendered the domain of motherhood specially vulnerable to patriarchal control. The idea of an original matriarchate conceived by Bachofen (1981) and Morgan (1877) that was taken up by Engels (1884) is no longer acceptable as a historical reality. However as Meillasoux (1986: 15) has pointed out, this myth of an original matriarchate is an acknowledgement of the power of the reproductive arena and its later appropriation by the patriarchy. This appropriation has taken many different forms in different societies which display little similarities with the European model with which Bachofen had originally conceived his study of mother–right. Possibly it was

an acute sense of the controlling device of the patriarchal norms with which the European society was being reorganised, that prompted Bachofen to explore the idea of original matriarchate. Engels certainly considered the origin of private property, which led to the overthrow of the mother–right, as the great ‘world historic defeat of the female sex’(1884: 231). It fostered his utopian dream of freeing women by breaking down the capitalist mode of production. However, de Beauvoir (1952: 89) pointed out that it is by denying the reproductive power of women that this conception of emancipation is made to stand. One of the most spectacular ploys of capitalist patriarchy has been the simultaneous privatisation and institutionalisation of motherhood. Loving nurturing mothers and healthy babies are the most prized showpieces in the world of advertisements, the strong arm of capitalism. Science has brought some possibility for women to be in control over their own reproductive powers but this control is constantly vitiated by patriarchal norms within which women produce children. Patriarchy, whether in its more traditional or modern form, constantly tries to glorify motherhood as the most prized vocation for women. A survey of the ideological content of popular literature would have yielded interesting results, but will not be attempted here as it falls outside the purview of this study. What this article proposes to do is to focus on a specific phase of Indian history when, in order to lend force to nationalism, the ideology of motherhood was given an enormous importance in the cultural life of Bengal. As a phenomenon, it was quite unique — religious, cultural and the aesthetic domains were politicised with the help of the notion of motherhood. This was specially facilitated by the ideological aspect of motherhood — it has served the purpose of taking away real power from women and creating a myth about their strength and power. The glorification of motherhood in colonial Bengal was merely in the domain of ideology. Such an ideology was based on a philosophy of deprivation for women in the world of practice. The burgeoning nationalism in colonial Bengal of the last quarter of the nineteenth century caught hold of the image of the mother to represent the nationalist aspiration. Was the choice of the mother merely an accidental one? Or was there something Representing Nationalism F 159

about the culture of Bengalis that created the requisite precondition for such a choice? One obvious way of presenting the glorification of motherhood in the colonial period is to interpret it as a retrograde step — a betrayal of the liberal package of the social reform era of the first six decades of the nineteenth century in colonial Bengal when there were attempts to improve the lot of women. According to such a reading, the choice of the problematic in this article may therefore be read as an exercise in reactionary social thought. Such a reading however turns a blind eye to the fact that motherhood was all along a culturally privileged concept in Bengal. The early nationalists did not have to invent it in order to overthrow the social reformers. Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the avant-garde poet of Bengal renaissance, once described his close friend, the great social reformer Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, as a man ‘with the courage of a lion, the energy of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother’. The paradigmatic description of a perfect gentleman redolent of renaissance contains the seeds of a very real typology. The colonial intelligentsia had to accommodate the public image of the foreign rulers into an unmistakable indigenous sign that would mark a colonial Bengali man as distinct from the alien rulers. The ‘Bengali mother’ was such a sign, and its force increased as the experience of colonialism began to make itself felt, and Bengali society entered its nationalist phase. Coming from the great ‘moderniser’ Michael Madhusudan Dutt who is a living embodiment of the liberal radical phase of colonial Bengal — usually referred to as ‘Bengal renaissance’ — this description indicates the continuity in the line of thinking from the ‘liberal’ social reform era to the ‘conservative’ nationalists who were supposed to have set the clock back for women in colonial India (Murshid 1983: 175–98). The principle of selectivity and the use of ideology, not merely from the west but also from the east, is evident in this particular cluster (Chatterjee 1989: 236–37). Bengali mothers proverbially stood for unstinting affection, manifested in an undying spirit of self-sacrifice for the family. The social reform era, with vigorous protests against overt oppression of women in the form of child marriage, perpetual widowhood for the upper caste hindu women, and widow burning on the husband’s funeral pyre, considered motherhood in a very positive light. Vidyasagar was supposed to have swum across a turbulent river just to keep 160 G jasodhara bagchi

his appointment with his mother. With the exception of Raja Rammohan Roy, the hagiography of all social reformers contain eulogies of their mothers. Mothers were justified by the greatness of their sons. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa suggested this with his graphic expressive Bengali when he complimented the mother of the great religious reformer, Keshab Chunder Sen by pointing out that ‘people will celebrate her entrails’, implying that her son has glorified her womb. This is the kind of compensatory history of Bengali womanhood that is sought to be explored in this article which will lean a little heavily on the mythicising of the concept of motherhood that nationalism borrowed from, considering the prevalence of mother cult in Bengal, both in the great and the little traditions. With the emphasis on the fact that one’s selfhood and identity were opposed to that of western rulers, motherhood emerged as the domain which the colonised could claim as their own. The proliferation of the symbol of motherhood should not be seen as a mere victory of traditionalism over the modernising tendency of the social reform era — in their search for something that was distinctly their own, what other symbol of nationalist aspiration, apart from motherhood, would better serve the Bengali male? In this symbolising act we get a microcosmic view of the configuration within which the nationalist ideology worked in colonial Bengal. It was obviously an overt symbol of patriarchal control over the notion of womanhood. The nationalist glorification of motherhood had a far reaching impact on the ideological control over women. Motherhood was seen as the ‘ultimate identity’ of Bengali women.1 It was an excellent ploy to keep women out of privileges, like education and profession that were being wrested by men, and to glorify womanhood only though her reproductive powers. The difference is that while the social reform era addressed women and tried to bring the colonial state machinery to bear upon their lives, the nationalist era used motherhood as the only viable symbol of Bengali womanhood. Moreover, it was a symbol that helped to bridge the social, religious and political domain of colonial society. Motherhood, representing nationalism, was a multi-dimensional symbol: its authenticity arose out of its natural appropriateness to the social climate of Bengal. With the emergence of Bengalis as a distinctive identity in the Gangetic delta, a confirmation of the spirit of tender motherhood was Representing Nationalism F 161

found in the natural setting which Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay had described so movingly as well-watered and fertile (sujalam suphalam shasyashyamalam). The natural bounty of the soil encouraged the representation of the Bengali woman as an affectionate mother, ever ready to respond to the demands of her children. This is picked up in the social life of Bengal. The texture of social communication in Bengal is permeated by addressing a woman as mother. This is perhaps the only part of India where such an addressal is used not only by the offsprings and their spouses and by servants to the mistress, but also towards women and young girls who could be complete strangers. The ideology of motherhood in Bengal is a complex phenomenon that needs a full-length study involving anthropology, history, politics, literature, mythography and semiotics. What I propose to do here is to provisionally cut a slice of this complex web and put the literary, religious and political material under a historical scrutiny. Choosing the ‘moment’ of the burgeoning of nationalism in colonial Bengal, I wish to capture something of the special in-vestiture that the notion of motherhood went through, in order to represent the commitment and the agony generated by the colonial experience. The masculine accident conceived the Orient as a feminine image. Ironically, the nationalists conceived of their own country as the great mother figure, in keeping with the sanction derived from the religious practices of hindu Bengal. This helped to hinduise the tone of nationalism in Bengal. By representing the country as a hindu mother/goddess, the nationalist culture helped to inject a significant order into the struggle to rejoin what is intimately and unmistakably one’s own. It is this political image that resulted in a composite, often self-contradictory image of the mother. The human ideal was one of the all-suffering mother. To use Swami Vivekananda’s words, ‘that marvellous, unselfish, all-suffering, ever-forgiving mother’ (Vol. 8: 58). As the stable centre of a fragile colonial society, she provides constant solace to the humiliated son; on occasions her heroism acts as an inspiration to lift up the downtrodden spirit of the son. But she is also a divine ideal. In her divine form, she is the destructive Shakti, ready to destroy evil. Literature of the colonial era, despite its assimilation of western genres, continued to pay fulsome tribute to mothers who upheld the pristine essence of 162 G jasodhara bagchi

what is durable. From Anurupa Devi’s (1920) Mother to Mahasweta Devi’s (2001) Mother of 1084, motherhood is made to stand for the sacrosanct space, not sullied by any petty influence. Even in the sphere of education, mothers were valued as the wholesome agents who will not allow a drastic reversal of indigenous values. In the image of the mother, order and progress mingle to form one of the most compelling myths of colonial Bengal. The refraction of this may be found in popular fiction and cinema even today.

II The ‘investiture of motherhood’, as I have called it, has had roots in the popular religious practice of Bengal. Mother goddesses of Bengal have attracted considerable attention from anthropologists who have traced local mother cults at the village level. Some of these have been related to realities such as fever epidemics (Nicholas 1982: 198–207) or to social nobility of rural classes, like Mahishyas in rural Bengal. Commenting on the importance given to mothers in Bengali culture, Ralph Nicholas observes, ‘The mother herself is a person to be worshipped in hindu Bengal. In this however she is no different from the father’ (ibid.: 192). However, the relationship is ‘complementary with subordination’. Yet, the subordination is not to be taken at its face value: goddesses sitting at the left of gods are not to be taken as mere consorts: To accept a view of the feminine half of the Hindu pantheon as simply a collection of ‘consorts’ of the gods would be to miss something fundamental about Indian religion as well as to pass silently over a critical part of what Hindu culture says about women. Nicholas 1982: 192

While it is difficult to accept the significance attached to goddesses as evidence of what hindu cultures say about women, it is undeniable that the prevalence of goddess worship in Bengal certainly facilitated the empowering of the mother image in the state so that it becomes the most dominant myth of colonial Bengal. It is difficult to think of any other myth that might have been a more compelling emblem of the humiliation and deprivation caused due to colonial exploitation. The mother image is Representing Nationalism F 163

drawn as much from the mainstream religious worship of hindus as from their local religious practices and folktales. The first good wife who has been neglected due to the machinations of the glamorous second wife is a quintessential mother figure.2 In a famous nationalist song of Tagore, the deserted woman is made into a poor mother and made to stand for Bengal under foreign domination: When I had neglected to look you in the face, I had thought you were the poor mother left deserted in a broken house, suffering endlessly…

The moment of nationalist uprising is seen as that of the transformation of the mother; she comes out resplendent in a goddess form from the ‘heart of Bengal’: Where are your rags, where is your pale smile? The splendour of your feet has overspread the sky.

Tagore continues to explore the paradox dear to the heart of hindu Bengalis; in her transformed shape, Bengal combines the image of Shakti, the all-powerful goddess who puts fear into the lives of miscreants, with the reassuring smile of an affectionate mother: Sword in your right hand you remove fear with your left Two eyes smile with affection, the third emits fire…

The mother image that was projected by the anti-colonialist uprising was a combination of the affective warmth of a quintessential Bengali mother and the mother goddess Shakti — known by various names such as Durga, Chandi or Kali — who occupies a very important position in mainstream religious practice. Das Gupta (1953) notes the special place that mother worship occupies in the Indian society. Without any consideration of mother–right, as we find in the writing of Bachofen, Das Gupta comments on the prevalence of mother worship to be found in most early societies: Belief in some form or other in the mother goddess may be found in the good old days (sic) of many of the races — Semitic, Hellenic, 164 G jasodhara bagchi

Teutonic and Nordic alike. But what singles out India in this respect is the continued history of the cult from the horary past down to the modern times, and the way in which religious consciousness, developing and deepening round this mother concept, influenced the ideas of the whole nation through the ages. Das Gupta 1953: 49

Bhattacharji (1970: 160) eloquently shows that the Aryans, the creators of Vedic literature, were worshippers of sun; it was no mean matter that the mother goddess Aditi is seen as the mother of sun. The other Vedic mother goddess mentioned by Das Gupta (1953: 52) as being of more immediate significance for Bengal is Prithvi, the mother goddess of harvest and prosperity, and is constantly associated with the male deity Dyans (sky). However in this form, she is the ‘field’ to be inseminated by the seed (Dube 1986). Even to this day Bengali cultivators observe the ritual of Ambabachi when mother earth is supposed to menstruate. No ploughing is allowed on those days in many agricultural communities in Bengal; also no cooking is allowed so as not to pollute the earth. This was seen as a propitiation ceremony as it occurs at the end of summer and the beginning of monsoon. A symptom of the patriarchal hold over such mother cult practice is that while the original performers of this penance included Brahmins as well as widows (Bandyopadhyay 1933: 172), today the burden has fallen entirely on the widows, who in any case are the worst victims of gender discrimination in terms of nutrition. The most popular religious festivals among the Hindus in Bengal is Durga worship in autumn, which lasts about four days. Das Gupta suggests quite plausibly that it is an amalgamation of goddess Durga with the goddess earth. It is worth quoting the detailed evidence that he gives for this: ... worship of mother goddess in her various aspects begins in autumn, which marks the beginning of the harvest season in Bengal… In the autumnal worship of Durga, her first representative is a branch of the bilva tree… In the second stage, the representative is the Navapatrika — female figure made with plantain trees and eight other plants and herbs. Also in her worship the mother is often identified with rice (dhanya-rupa); an epithet of Durga is Shakambari i.e. herb-nourishing goddess. In the autumnal worship Representing Nationalism F 165

of the goddess as Lakshmi, the Navpatrika is taken to some parts of Bengal as the best representative of the goddess. Das Gupta 1953: 54

This association with agricultural prosperity contributed to the worship of devi or Shakti as the female principle, even though it had very little sanction in the male-dominated Vedic pantheon. The feminine principle was worshipped among the different sections of society, both elite and non-elite. The nationalist appropriation of the Shakti image possibly owed a great deal to its incorporation within the hegemonic culture of the religious and temporal rulers of society. Worship of the devi as the female principle has an old tradition in Bengali culture. There are records of devi worship going back to the sixteenth century. Most of the great twelve chieftains of Bengal, known as Baro Bhuiayas, were worshippers of Shakti. In the seventeenth century, there were celebratory poems extolling the devi, derived mostly from ‘seven hundred Durgas’(Durgasapt ashati), or Chandi, derived from the Markandeya Purana. Among the famous mangalkavyas written in the eighteenth century, Chandimangalkavya is one of the most famous. However, the worship of mother goddess showed a resilience in Bengali culture that was quite remarkable. In the great tradition, Shakti worship helped to bring together different schools of philosophy and worship, such as Samkhya,Vedanta, Vaishnavism and Tantrism (Das Gupta 1953: 68). However, the village level deities were mostly female and looked after the everyday problems of disease, epidemics, childbirth and so on (Ray 1949: 852–53; Raychaudhuri 1953: 137–39; Nicholas 1982: 200). It was certainly fed by preAryan, often tribal cults of mother goddess, sometimes going back to matriarchal forms of society (Kosambi 1962: 86–91; Ray 1949: 588–92). Mother worship in India necessarily developed through a synthesis of the pre-Aryan and the Aryan. Vedic worship is dominated by the male deities. Only the Devi-sukta in the Rigveda is a reminder of the prevalence of mother worship. In the one hundred and twenty-fifth hymn in the tenth mandala, vacha (speech) ecstatically expresses her complete union with the great One (Brahman, Logos): 166 G jasodhara bagchi

I am the sovereign power (over all the worlds), bestower of all wealth, cognisant of the supreme being, first among those to whom sacrificial homage is to be offered; the gods in all places worship but me, who am diverse in form and permeate everything… I transcend the heaven above. I transcend the earth below — this is the the greatness I have attained Das Gupta 1953: 61

However, it is the union with the male logos that brings about the state of blissful perfection in the devi. Curiously enough, the Rigveda talks about another goddess which is probably the form that facilitates her assimilation into the practices of more popular culture. This is ratri (night) who is invoked as a devi; as the daughter of the heaven above who pervades the worlds; as the one who protects all beings from evils and gives them peaceful shelter in her lap just like an affectionate mother (Das Gupta 1953: 61). This dark devi, associated in the later Puranas with the female principle of Maya, links Vedic worship with many of the late tantrik forms used by the worshippers of Shakti. According to Das Gupta, epithets suffixed by ratri are applied to Durga in the chapters on Chandi in the Markandeya Purana. Despite references to other mother goddesses in the Vedas, popular worship of the mother goddesses such as Durga, Chandi or Kali did not take off either in the Vedic age or the age of the epics. However, it is made amply clear that the cults of mother goddesses, though marginal in these phases, remained associated with harvest and fertility. Any survey of the evolution of Shakti worship in India shows that the mother goddess, Maya or not, stands for the creative principle. Destruction stands in a binary relation with creation, and the mother goddess is the fierce goddess Chandi — destroying evil — and hence providing a refuge in the shape of Durga, the deity whose name means a fortress. It is the Markandeya Puranas that provides the glorification of the goddess (Devi mahatmya) in the form of Durga or Chandi. This is the form in which she is supposed to protect her devotees from all troubles (durgatinashini). As the creative principle, Shakti is also mahamaya — the great principle of illusion which makes the world go on. However, this Shakti is also manifested in the form of Mahakali, since she Representing Nationalism F 167

embodies the eternal time (kala) in her. It is as kala that she not only destroys but also creates. It is this all-destructive Shakti that controls the creative powers in the cult of Kali worship which prevailed in Bengal in the eighteenth century. In a comparative study of folktales from seven different regions of India, Kakar (1974) has demonstrated that Bengali culture is exceptionally prone to a destructive and threatening aspect of the mother. The presence of the mother goddess at the lower reaches of society is usually associated with such poverty and deprivation that many of the mother goddesses were forces of the dark, needed to be propitiated. Of all the forms of Shakti worshipped in Bengal, the darkest and the most terrifying was Kali, the female energy that stands on a male corpse. This is possibly the most unique form of a consort who dances on the corpse of her husband. Outsiders to Bengali culture possibly notice the terrifying form of Kali, but miss out the tenderness that gets addressed to even such a terrifying symbol. The Shakti cult among Bengalis, paradoxically enough, is upheld by the affective qualities of a son’s yearning for the mother. A blend of the Vaishnava sentiment of Bhakti with the worship of Shakti marks the mother worship in Bengal. This ‘woman’ at any rate has no fear of being ‘womanly’. According to Ray (1949: 666), the form of Kali changed within hindu culture in Bengal in the eighteenth century in the face of the alien presence of Muslim rulers. The combination of tenderness and yearning with the fearsome image of Kali is the hallmark of the great devotee of Kali in the eighteenth century, viz., Ramprasad Sen. He still remains a great culture hero in urban and rural Bengal as his composition of devotional songs addressed to Kali form a major genre in the repertoire of Bengali lyrics — Shyamasangeet — sung even today. Ramprasad’s address to Kali does not relate to the polity but to an intense note of spiritual cultivation. The songs are highly charged with emotion, expressing the yearning of a son wanting to unite with his mother. When Ramprasad’s employer asked him to show the accounts (Ramprasad was a book-keeper), it was found that he had written: Mother, make me thine accountant I shall never prove default. Sister Nivedita 1900: 46

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Simple imagery taken from everyday life of the toiler keeps the songs of Ramprasad perennially alive: Mother, how much longer will you make me go round in circles, Like the ox in the oilpress, blindfolded?

This image of Shakti has no hesitation in appearing in womanly– motherly overtones. The goddess Kali is addressed in these songs in familiar and familial terms, without any of the hegemonic overtones that characterise the revival of the icon of Kali by the nationalists: Dive deep of my mind, taking the name of Kali.

Sometimes esoteric doctrines of mother worship are communicated in accessible images: In the market place of this world, The mother sits flying Her kite In a hundred thousand, She cuts the string of one or two And when the kite soars up into the Infinite On how she laughs and claps her hands. Sister Nivedita 1900: 55

The freedom that is envisaged here is spiritual freedom. In analysing the transmission of icons in political struggle one has to take into account internal channels such as religious history. Ramprasad’s intimate and heart-rending songs to Kali were given a new currency in the nineteenth century by the other worshipper of Kali, Ramakrishna Paramahansa. Through the mediating channel of Ramakrishna, the songs of Ramprasad jumped the barrier of colonial education and entered the arena of the post-colonial mainstream culture of nineteenth century Bengal. Motherhood becomes the site of struggle in colonial Bengal, as the notion of unadulterated motherhood is constructed as the marker of the superiority of the culture in the dominated east. This is evident in the writings of two main disciples of Ramakrishna — Swami Vivekananda and his disciple, Sister Nivedita. One of the most articulate among foreigners, Margaret Representing Nationalism F 169

Noble, an Irish woman, became Sister Nivedita in order to make Calcutta her home. Sister Nivedita was no ordinary convert to the hinduism of Ramakrishna’s organisation, but she made the leap into the anti-colonial struggle in Bengal and later on became a pan-Indian nationalist. In her book, Kali the Mother, Sister Nivedita makes a distinction between the Semitic (Judaism, Christianity) worship of the father, and the Aryan (sic) devotion to the mother. Sister Nivedita says, ‘In the Aryan home, woman stands supreme. As wife in the west, (lady and queen of her husband) and as mother in the east, (a goddess throned in her son’s worship) she is the bringer of sanctity and peace (Sister Nivedita 1900: 16). The cult of mother worship in the west, centring around Virgin Mary, has emphasised the association ‘of all that is tender and precious with this thought of woman worship’. Sister Nivedita feels this to be an incomplete package. She feels that in India, ‘the thought of the mother has been realised in its completeness. The completeness arises from the assimilation of the destructive Shakti into the motherly tenderness that generates confidence’. The following is the description given by Sister Nivedita: In the east, the accepted symbol is of a naked woman with flowing hair; so dark a blue that she appears to be black; four-handed – two hands in the act of blessing and two holding a knife and a bleeding head; garlanded with skulls and dancing with a protruding tongue on the prostrate figure of a man, all white with ashes. Sister Nivedita 1900: 20

Sister Nivedita, an iconographer of no mean stature, goes on to assert the special relationship with Kali: to her we belong. Whether we know it or not, we are Her children, playing round Her knees. Life is but a game of hide-and-seek with Her, and if in its course, we chance to touch Her feet, who can measure the shock of divine energy that enters into us? Who can utter the rapture of our cry ‘mother’? Sister Nivedita 1900: 21

In the changed context of an Orient that has been colonised by the Occident, Sister Nivedita tries to restore the balance by reviving the tradition of Ramprasad Sen. In her splendid translation, the hide-and-seek image comes alive in a song by Ramprasad: 170 G jasodhara bagchi

Whom else should I cry to, mother? The baby cries for its mother alone— And I am not the son of such That I should call any woman my mother. Sister Nivedita 1900: 53

The edge that comes out in the revived context is the pride of Swadeshi — the colonial subject is acutely conscious of his own mother. This mother is superior to all religious acts of penance, such as visiting the holy places of Benares: Why should I go to Benares? My mother’s lotus-feet Are millions and millions Of holy places. Sister Nivedita 1900: 54

Sister Nivedita was paying her respects to the original guru of her order, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, who had found a live context for Ramprasad’s songs for Kali. Ramakrishna had once admonished someone ‘don’t say amar, amar, amar, (mine, mine, mine) but say ma, ma, ma (mother’s, mother’s, mother’s)’ ( Das Gupta 1953: 83). Sister Nivedita therefore worships Ramakrishna: the great incarnation of the spirit of the mother towards her children Sister Nivedita 1900: 56–57

Sister’s nationalism was not negated but sustained by this ascetic devotee of the mother, for in the foundation of his order she sees a rejuvenated India with its new universal message of humanity: it is not true that he expresses the mind of India alone, or even chiefly. For in him meet the feeling and thought of all mankind, and he, Ramakrishna, the devotee of Kali, represents Humanity. Sister Nivedita 1900: 80

Sister draws a contrast between the semitic worship of god the father with the Indian worship of the mother goddess, thereby implying the greater spiritual purity of India. In her emphasis on the ritual of mother worship as a Bengali/hindu tradition, there was an attempt to turn Orientalism upside down. Mother worship Representing Nationalism F 171

helped to define for Sister a more humane land of the east, away from the masculine iron chains of the west. Her essentialist vision, one must remember, is not feminism, but utopia of the humane nationalsm she envisaged for Bengal/India. The technique perfected by Sister Nivedita was really her master’s. Before a western audience Swami Vivekananda used motherhood to assert the distinctiveness of Indian culture: Now the ideal woman in India is the mother, the mother first and mother last. The word woman calls up to the mind of the hindu, motherland, and god is called mother. In the west, the woman is wife. The idea of womanhood is concentrated there as the wife. To the ordinary man in India, the whole force of womanhood is concentrated on motherhood. Vivekananda 1951 Vol. 8: 57

Women’s reproductive domain is thus abstracted, even fetishised, as Sarkar (1987b: 2011) suggests. Since the spiritual domain was a weapon in the hands of the nationalist, the glorification of motherhood was the double-refined sprituality that was used as a major mode of representation by the Bengali nationalists (Chatterjee 1989: 249). If worship of the mother goddess was the exclusive domain of Bengal/India, then the land itself became the mother. The symbolic representation of India as the mother as well as the mother goddess became a major source of ‘mass contact’ (Sarkar 1973). It helped to spread the message of swadeshi, both economic and cultural, which erupted in Bengal at the turn of the century. It was Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay who had first made the mother into an emblem of the country through the song Vande Mataram. The song which was originally written to fill a gap in his journal Bangadarshan, found its political context in his protonationalist novel Anandamath. The novel, with its apparently collaborationist tag, became the parable of militant nationalism. The emphasis on the crisis-ridden social order provides a fitting context for the rhetoric invoked by Bankim Chandra in a mixture of Sanskrit and Bengali. The ‘invention of tradition’ is so successful that it became the slogan of all militant nationalism. However, the song Vande mataram is merely an item in a far more consistent effort of Bankim Chandra to politicise the mother goddess image. We begin to notice a new domain emerging. In their intense search 172 G jasodhara bagchi

for what may be considered their own, Bengali writers often turned to that intensely Bengali festival of the autumnal worship of Durga. Bankim Chandra attempts to build up of the religious sphere of Shakti worship into a political domain. This phenomenon deserves a study of its own. I shall touch upon only the salient points that are germane to the argument here. Throughout his career, Bankim Chandra meditated upon the political significance of the goddess Durga in her different manifestations as Shakti. In his creation of the early but brilliant confessions of his opium-sodden ‘double’, Kamalakanta, Bankim Chandra writes a very telling piece on the worship of the mother goddess Durga. In one of his psychedelic visions Kamalakanta sees floating on turbulent waves The gold-adorned autumnal mother image of The first day’s festivity (Saptami) smiling. Floating on water, radiating lights. Is this Mother? Yes, this is mother. I recognise my mother, my land of birth in her image of clay, embodying mother earth, adorned in many jewels but now buried in the wombs of time. Chattopadhyay 1962, Vol. II: 80

Kamalakanta’s prayer is full of the agony of the subject race. Arise, O my mother, golden Bengali arise Now we will be good sons, will not let you Down. Arise, Blessed mother – we will henceforth renounce narrow self-interest, will do good to other, will give up indolent sacrilegious sensuality. Arise, mother, tears are blinding me, arise, O mother Bengal. Ibid.

Bankim Chandra has tried to historicise this metaphor of the mother goddess as the motherland. In a very early piece published in 1873 in his own journal Bangadarshan, Bankim interprets the ten forms of the mother goddess as Dasamahavidya, and sees the evolution of the Indian society in the ten successive forms, right from the past when non-Aryans were subdued by the Aryans (Kali), through the wretched conditions of India under Muslim rule (Dhumavati), and right up to the futurist vision of Mahalakshmi Representing Nationalism F 173

when the Indian society will be prosperous and bountiful. This, one may say, is a very early prefiguration of the famous series of mother images mentioned in Anandamath, the fiction that gave shape and form to militant nationalism. This is the novel in which the full span of the ‘condition of India’ question is to be found in the three successive images of the mother goddess, corresponding to past, present and the future of Indian history. In his presentation of the then current misery, Bankim Chandra collapses Muslim as well as British rule, and thus creates one of the most powerful icons of nationalist struggle. The description of the three images, ‘mother that was, mother that is, mother that will be’, deserves to be quoted in full. What follows, occurs in the eleventh chapter of the first part of the novel: Then the hermit (H) took Mahendra (M) to another room. Mahendra saw there the image of the great mother, upholder of the world, adorned with all ornaments. She was an astounding embodiment of perfection. Mahendra asked the hermit: ‘Who is she?’ Hermit: ‘Mother as she was.’ M: ‘What do you mean?’ H: ‘Wild animals — lions and elephants — have covered at her feet. She has made a lotus garden of their verdurous gloom. Resplendent with smiles and bedecked with all ornaments, the mother shone forth with the brilliance of the rising sun. And there was no wealth that was not hers. Kneel before her.’ When Mahendra had knelt reverently before the image of the divine nurturer that was his motherland, the hermit showed him a dark tunnel. ‘Come this way’, he ordered. The hermit himself went in and Mahendra followed with a throbbing heart. Deep down there was a dark chamber, illuminated faintly with some unknown source of light. In the translucent darkness, Mahendra could see the image of another goddess, Kali. The hermit said, ‘Do you see? Mother. As she is’. ‘Kali?’ Mahendra’s voice trembled in fear. ‘Kali. The deity of darkness and vile insights. Dispossessed of all she had; therefore naked. Our land is nothing but a graveyard now. And so she has that garland of skulls around her neck. She tramples on her consort, her own Shiva… who is bliss and benediction . Oh mother!’ 174 G jasodhara bagchi

The hermit’s eyes were full of tears. Mahendra asked, ‘Why does she hold the skull and scimitar?’ ‘These are all the weapons we have given her; and we call ourselves her children’ Come say with me Vande Mataram.’ Mahendra repeated ‘I worship thee mother’, and knelt before the goddess. Then the hermit said, ‘Come this way’, and this time he began to climb up another tunnel. Suddenly the rays of the morning sun dazzled their eyes. Honey-voiced birds began to sing all around. Mahendra saw a huge marmoreal temple, and a golden deity with ten arms smiled forth in the gold of the rising sun. The hermit knelt in front of her. ‘This is the mother as she will be’, he said, ‘Ten arms stretch out in ten directions. Each holding up a weapon that declares her power; the enemy of man lies vanquished at her feet and the ferocious lion is subjugated and turned against all those who dare to oppose her. Mother, let your arm direct us.’ The hermit (Satyananda) began to weep in adoration. ‘Mother, let your arms show us the way. O mother with many weapons, rider of lion—most valiant of all animals – show us the way…’ Mahendra spoke with effusion, ‘When shall we see this image of the mother?’ The hermit replied, ‘That day, when all her children shall call her mother. That day the mother will be pleased.’ Chattopadhyay 1962, Vol. I: 728–29

III In an early Sanskrit text of fifth–sixth century AD, we get a reference to the presiding deity of Bharat, well famed as Bharatmata (Mother India): ‘To her north is the Himalaya, and Kanyakumari in the south is forever present. Prayer to this great Shakti frees men from re-birth (Samavidhana Brahman)’. This ancient redeeming image of the Bharatmata as the presiding deity Shakti is taken up in a big way in the nationalist phase of Bengal. There were of course loyalist songs sung to queen Victoria in the pleading style of Ramaprasad (Sarkar 1987b: 2011), but these were not marked by the interlocking crises of power and resistance that signifies the nationalist use of the icon for which Bankim Chandra sets the tone. His message of Vande Mataram Representing Nationalism F 175

became a political battle cry (a travesty of it is still maintained by the Congress today). The extremist nationalist movement took it up with great gusto. Tripathi sees in this ‘An escapist mood which sought respite from the inexorable gruelling debate with the western culture, technology and material power in the protective womb of the past’ (Tripathi 1967: 2). The image is particularly apt in this context; it is applied to the nationalist obsession with motherhood in a feminist analysis referred to earlier: A new acute consciousness of the inexorable march of history, with which India had never kept in step, of technological time with a westernised notion of progress as its goal, produced intolerable anxieties and a violent desire to break out of its frame by a return to a post, to one’s mother, a reversion to the womb to a state of innocence, of pleasure where the infant is as yet un-differentiated from the mother, as yet unaware of his own distinct self. Sarkar 1987b: 2011

The sense of inadequacy that the heroism of the mother was supposed to cover of course belonged to the colonial male. By coalescing the mother goddess, terrible and destructive with the affection for one’s own mother, nationalists helped to domesticate Shakti within another nationalist image — the ideal Hindu joint family. The juxtaposition of the political and the familial marked the autumn worship of Durga that is carried on to this day with great fanfare. When Sister Nivedita writes about the civic pageantry of Dura Puja, she does not miss out its political significance: ‘For the mother of the universe shines forth in the life of humanity, as a woman, as family life, as country’ (Sister Nivedita 1900: 324). Bankim Chandra’s presentation of Durga that we had seen earlier, with its accompanying agony of a colonial subject who has not yet found his proper national idiom, is invoked by Sister Nivedita as an unhesitating call for freedom: It is more than thirty years since Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyayji, the great Bengali romancier, sang the vision of the ended Durga Puja as the hour of the motherland’s need, as he saw the image plunge beneath the waves. That the poet spoke the innermost thought of his countrymen… is proved by the history that has gathered round his song…

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Mother and motherland — where ends the one and where begins the other? Before which does a man stand with folded hands, when he bows his head still lower, and says with a new awe: My salutation to thee mother! Sister Nivedita 1900: 326

Extremists like Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal read deep political messages in Bankim Chandra’s crisis-ridden images of Durga and Kali. Interestingly, it is in these two forms that the Puranic goddess Chandi was believed to have emerged in the colonial period (Nandy 1980: 8–9). What the nationalists did was to try and infuse a new hegemonic significance in the worship of these two mother goddesses. Ramakrishna’s Kali worship contributed to this mainstream. Vivekananda’s poem, Kali the Mother, sets the tone of desperate heroism that was later politicised by ‘extremist’ nationalists, setting the ideological tone of so-called terrorism in nationalist politics: Dancing made with joy, Come, mother come, For Terror is thy name, Death is in thy breasts Thou ‘Time’ the All-Destroyer! Come, O Mother, come! Who dares misery love And hug the form of Death Dance in Destuctions dance To him the mother comes.

Thus, the image of the destructive mother goddess builds up a particular involvement with the motherland which has been exploited and ravished by foreign rulers. The strength of the icon worked on two of the unlikely converts to the movement — Bipin Chandra Pal, a Brahmo, and originally loyal to the providential present of the British in India, and Aurobindo Ghosh whose original notion of freedom came from Europe, viz. France and Italy. Bankim’s image of Durga and Vivekananda’s of Kali served to give shape and form to the extreme need to defend one’s country heroically. For both, it was a shift away from a masculine ideal to a feminine one. Aurobindo’s

Representing Nationalism F 177

invitation into an Aryan revival as a naionalist agenda first took place in western india where the ideal was one of a male warrior like Shivaji. Shakti as a political ideal of swadeshi certainly was specific to Bengali culture, fed by the literary experiments of Bakim Chandra and the Kali cult of Ramkrishna, and popularised by Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita. ‘I know my country as my mother, I adore her, worship her’, wrote Aurobindo Ghosh, the revolutionary. He accepted Bankim Chandra’s periodisation of Indian history through the mother goddess icon. He wanted to rescue the mother from being denounced by the rakshasa (demon) in the form of British rule: I know my country as my mother, I bow to her, I respect her. If a Rakshasa sits on the body of the mother and tries to suck blood from her, what does the son do? Sit and eat with ease; or run to the mother’s rescue? Tripathi 1967: 42

Commenting on Bankim Chandra’s contribution to political thought, Bipin Chandra Pal invokes a vivid, though un-selfconscious presentation of the womb we had discussed earlier: Just as the foetus lives in the mother’s womb, each of us is living in the womb of the Societal mother. Just as the mother’s blood builds up the foetus, the mother’s vitality protects the life of the child in the womb and gives it strength; the strength of the society derived from the wealth, knowledge and religion, becomes the vehicle and resting place for each of us and lends justification to our individual existence.

The sense of a personalised well-being generated by the warm affection of the mother is beyond the reach of an impersonal concept of a ‘nation’. This is how the nationalist revolutionaries appropriated the mother image into thin politics of heroism. The visual symbol of the swadeshi nationalism, Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore, was a blend of a Bengali woman with her conch-shell bangle and the image of Shri, the harvest goddess of prosperity. The picture was immediately appropriated by the nationalist discourse in Sister Nivedita’s commentary revealing her usual mythopoeic imagination: 178 G jasodhara bagchi

This is the first masterpiece in which an Indian artist has actually succeeded in disengaging, as it were the spirit of the motherland — giver of faith and learning, of clothing and food — and portraying her as she appears to the eyes of her children. Sister Nivedita 1900: 58.

She is the familiar Bengali woman, defamiliarised by the spiritual halo, four arms and the lotuses at her feet. The aggressiveness of the hindu Shakti is certainly muted in this emblem — she is to be identified more with the ideal of Bangalakshmi, propounded by yet another swadeshi movement — initiated by Ramendra Sundar Trivedi. It was he who had involved the women of Bengali in the antipartition swadeshi movement of 1905 by giving the call of ‘Arandhan’ (no cooking). Tagore’s patriotic songs about the motherland have resonated through the cultural fabric of Bengal. Writing about the theme of motherland as a mode of representing nationalism, I realised that it was the songs that came flooding to my mind. In the words of historians of the swadeshi movement quoting Yeats’ memorable line, a ‘terrible beauty’ had indeed been born in swadeshi Bengal (Sarkar 1973: 296). Ulhaskar Datta, a young revolutionary on trial for his life in Alipore, held the court spellbound by singing one of the songs of Tagore: Blessed is my birth in this land Blessed is my birth, O my mother, in having loved you. Sarkar 1973: 293

Apart from nationalist euphoria, the colonial experience was also refracted in Bengal at the turn of the century as the concern of a male child for a neglected mother. As D.L. Roy, another nationalist poet, wrote: Bengal, my mother, my muse, my country, Why is your face so sad, hair uncombed?

So powerful was the rhetoric of motherland in the swadeshi nationalism that more than half a century later, the liberation movement of Bangladesh could bring it alive. They took as their battle cry a tender swadeshi song of Tagore: Representing Nationalism F 179

My golden Bengal, I love you Your sky and winds have played music To my ears forever.

Language was one of the main issues of the movement; as a result, mother tongue became, literally, the mother’s tongue: The words in your mouth are like nectar to my ear. O my mother

Motherhood was the most significant emblem specific to Bengali culture which offered the kind of root that the early nationalists needed. Yet at the same time it will be wrong to think of the representation as a non-contentious domain. Tagore’s representation of motherhood eschewed, as far as possible, the hindu revivalist tones of the mother goddess — he was more inclined to present her as the natural land; her soil and fruit inspired him more effectively. At least in one presentation of a mother, i.e., Andandamaya in Gora, Tagore has given his note of dissent to hindu orthodoxy (Bhattacharya 1996: 56). In a memorable letter to Pulinbehari Sen, Tagore reports of the occasion when he had been approached by Bipin Chandra Pal to write a song combining the Durga form with that of the goddess who was the motherland to celebrate their special autumnal worship of Durga. Tagore felt he could not compromise his own religious conviction and write such a song for a puja. Instead, he wrote his memorable song: O the enchanter of the Universal mind, O mother The land washed by the radiant rays of the sun.

Tagore did not wish to transcend the legitimate limits of the natural mother, even though it displeased Bipin Pal. The price that the swadeshi movement had paid in hinduising the nationalist movement is made clear by Tagore in Ghare Bairey (1916). In 1937, writing to Nehru about the appropriateness of Vande Mantaram as a national anthem, he does mention the threat to muslim susceptibilities — the original context in which the song was located in the novel. Nevertheless, he felt that the first two stanzas had enough broad humanitarian appeal. It was Tagore 180 G jasodhara bagchi

who had set it to tune and sung it to an early session of the Indian National Congress.

IV As feminists, how do we view this phase of one’s own history? Was it, as the nationalists claimed, a process of authentication for a fulfilment of the search for one’s own identity? Or, was it just a manipulative attempt to set up a counter hegemony which hardly changed the rules of the game? The kind of divisiveness that this ideology implied had far reaching implications. By abstracting hindu goddesses as the motherland, what did this universalist sounding deploy have to say to the muslim sensibility? By extolling an ideology that apparently rested on a show of empowering women, it was ultimately a way of reinforcing a social philosophy of deprivation for women. It was a signal to women to sacrifice everything for their menfolk. The internationalisation of this so-called ideal that nationalism put up for women simply reinforced their traditional notion that the fruition of women’s lives lay in producing heroic sons. The nationalist ideology therefore simply appropriated this orthodox bind on women’s lives by glorifying it. This renewed ideological legitimacy made it even more difficult for women to exercise their autonomy in the matter. Bengali mothers had to contend with the unspoken call to renounce any other form of self-fulfilment. Child-bearing and nurturing became the only social justification for women’s lives. Without any control over her own reproductive powers, this amounted to a form of slavery, however magisterial it may have been made to look. Numerous women died trying to produce yet another son, and were deserted for their failure to produce a male child. Childbirth was not the end. The ideal of motherhood permeated the entire lifestyle of mothers in colonial Bengal; if they were unfed or uncared for, this became their great claim to social recognition and fame — their distinct superiority over their well-fed western counterparts. I suspect this may lead to some eyebrows shooting up from within the rank of feminists themselves. Is this not a denigration of your own women folk, a reductive exercise in curbing the Representing Nationalism F 181

supreme status given to Bengali women as mothers? This kind of feminism would welcome a strict division of spheres, for within the household of a joint family, the antahpur (the inner domain) was an exclusive domain of women. Did Bengal not realise the utopia of sisterhood in its andarmahal (the inner apartments)? Was the affective domain, so elaborately worked out in the specificity of Bengali culture, not an adequate compensation for the deprivaton to which the women are submitted? This is the kind of essentialist approach to womanhood that the present analysis would like to contest by focusing on the genesis of such a weltanschauung in a given historical moment. It was the political need of the hour that made the nationalists take up the myth. The compulsions of that brand of politics again helped to unify the religious, the social and the aesthetic domain. Innumerable novels, poems and songs glorified the Bengali mother for her overweening affection. So robust was this sentiment, that occasionally she had to be rebuked for spoiling her sons: O you infatuated mother You have brought up seven crores of sons As Bengalis, not as human beings

Over-nurturance can be socially counterproductive — hence the ideal of Shakti with which mothers were supposed to fill up their sons. The relationship however remained instrumental. As Tagore had once said in a different context, ‘You will earn the merit but the penance of starvation will be performed by them’. One reads a distinct male anxiety in the glorification of motherhood — the need for authentication and valour in the face of better organised cultural order of the rulers. The legitimacy that it accorded was not to the daughters but to the sons of the mother. Socially and ideologically, the glorified Indian mother belonged to the world of myth. Where it touched reality, apart from the indirect sense of power, it may have given way to a few exceptional Bengali women; the ideology of motherhood otherwise strengthened the social practice of hidden exploitation of women. It made negative contributions to the lives of women. Empowered by their male progeny Bengali mothers thought little of neglected daughters and torturing daughters-in-law. Bengali mothers upheld

182 G jasodhara bagchi

the hierarchy of patriarchal control within the family. No wonder she was mythicised as a symbol of order.

Notes I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Chandreyee Niyogi in compiling material for this article and for translating the passage from Anandamath. 1. How deeply entrenched the notion of motherhood, as the ‘ultimate identity’ of women, was may be seen in the following conversation between the nationalist novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and his friend and poet, Radharani Devi (1976): He looked at me with a hard glare: ‘what is the ultimate destiny of women? Answer.’ We were all embarrassed before his burning look…. In an ice-cold voice he said, ‘Mother. The motherly affection is the ultimate identity of the race of women.’ He looked at me still with his piercing eyes. It was Radharani Devi who was entrusted with completing Shesher Parichay (The Ultimate Identity), a novel Sharatchandra did not live to complete. 2. Abanindranath Tagore, the painter of ‘Mother India’, had immortalised the triumph of the good queen in his children’s story, Kniner Putul (The Milk Doll). What is interesting is that her main aide, a monkey, rescues her by tricking Sasthi, a local Bengali goddess of fertility. 3. There is an attempt at glossing over the nature of oppression on women in India, since it makes one uneasy. Nandy says, ‘I have already said that in India, competition, aggression, power, activism and intrusiveness are not so clearly associated with masculinity. In fact in mythology and folklore, from which norms often come for traditionally undefined social situations, many of these are as frequently associated with women. The fantasy of a castrating, phallic woman is also always round the corner in India’s inner world’ (1980: 42). No wonder Nandy goes on to talk about ‘the psychological benefits of being a victim’ (1980: 34). The present investigation takes its stand on the realisation of how much of the ‘inner world’ is really the product of patriarchal ideology.

Representing Nationalism F 183

References Bachofen, J. J. 1981. Myth, Religion and Mother Right. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bandyopadhyay, Haricharan. 1933 rpt 1978. Bangiya Shabdakosh. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Bhattacharya, Malini. 1996. ‘Rabindrasahityey o Srishtite Narimuktir Bhabna’, in idem, Nirmaner Samajikata o Adhunik Bangla Upanyas. Kolkata: Dev’s Publishing. Bhattacharji, Sukumari. 1970. The Indian Theogony: A Comparative Study of Indian Mythology from the Vedas to the Puranas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chakrabarty, Jahnavi Kumar. 1956. Shaka Padavali o Shakta Sadhana. Calcutta: D. M. Library. Chatterjee, Partha. 1989. ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’, in Sudesh Vaid and Kumkum Sangari (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Chattopadhyay, Bankimchandra. 1962. Rachanavali. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad. Das Gupta, Sashibhushan. 1953. ‘Evolution of Mother Worship in India’, in Swami Madhavananda and R. C. Majumdar (eds.), Eminent Indian Women: From the Vedic Age to the Present. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. Datta, Tara Prasanna. 1919. Bangasahitye Chandimongol. Kolkata: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad Patrika. de Beauvoir, Simone. 1952. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred Knopf. Devi, Mahasweta. 2001. Mother of 1084. Calcutta: Seagull Books Pvt. Ltd. Devi, Radharani. 1976 rpt 1982. Sharatchandra: Manush o Shilpa. Kolkata: Ananda Publishers. Dey, Akshay Kumar. (ed.). 1901. Prasadsangeet. Dube, Leela. 1986. ‘Seed and Earth: The Symbolism of Biological Reproduction and Sexual Relations of Production’, in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardener (eds.), Visibility and Power. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Engels, Frederick. 1884. ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. 3. Moscow: Progress Publications, 1970. Kakar, Sudhir. 1974. ‘Aggression in Indian Society: An Analysis of Folktales’, Psyche 28(7): 635–50. Kosambi, D. D. 1983. Myth and Reality. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Meillasoux, Claude. 1986. ‘The Pregnant Male’, in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock and Shirley Ardener (eds), Visibility and Power. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Morgan, Lewis Henry. 1877 rpt 1982. Ancient Society. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi & Co. 184 G jasodhara bagchi

Murshid, Ghulam. 1983. Reluctant Debutante: Response of Bengali Women to Modernisation 1849–1905. Rajshahi: Sahitya Samsad. Nandy, Ashis. 1980. At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Nicholas, Ralph. 1982. ‘The Village Mother in Bengal’, in J. Preston (ed.) Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Pal, Bipin Chandra. 1955. Nabajagen Bangal. Calcutta: Jugajatri. Pomeray, Sarah B. 1975. Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Scholar Books. Ray, Niharranjan. 1949. Bangalir Itihas: Adiparba. Calcutta: Book Emporium. Raychaudhuri, Tapan. 1953. Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir: An Introductory Study in Social History. Calcutta: A. Mukherji and Co. Sarkar, Sumit. 1973. The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908. Calcutta: People’s Publishing House. Sarkar, Tanika. 1987a. Bengal 1928-1934: The Politics of Protest. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1987b. ‘Nationalist Iconography: Image of Women in 19th Century Bengali Literature’, Economic and Political Weekly. 21 November. Sister Nivedita. 1900 rpt 1983. Kali the Mother. Almora: Advaita Ashram. ———. 1967 rpt 1972. Complete Works, 3 vols. Calcutta: Nivedita Girls School. Sri Ramakrishna. 1974. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Belur: Sri Ramakrishna Math. Tagore, Rabindranath. 1916 rpt 2002. Rabindra Rachanavali. Calcutta: Rupa Publishers. Trans. in English as The Home and the World. New Delhi: Penguin, 2005. Tripathi, Amales. 1967. The Extremist Challenge. Calcutta: Orient Longman. Vivekananda, Swami. 1951. Complete Works. Advaita Ashram: Mayavati.

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chapter 7

Mother, Mother-Community and Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu

c.s. lakshmi I Introduction Like many young girls brought up on Tamil classical literature in the early 1960s, there was also no doubt in my mind that all women are essentially mothers. To be a mother was as natural and essential as the earth sprouting a tree or a tree bearing fruits. It was an effortless and natural act which came along with being a woman. A lullaby in a Tamil film set to a haunting melody was very popular in those days and in a way summed up our idea of a mother. We were quite convinced that what the mother in the song felt, all of us shared by virtue of being biologically women. The song went thus: Can a tree be a burden to the earth? Are the leaves a burden to the tree? A child she has given birth to — can it Be a burden to the mother?1

The song is an extension of the notion that the need for begetting a child is naturally lodged in the body of a woman. This need exists as a biological adjunct, like a nail, hair or appendix. Those without

these needs or unable to execute this need are believed to be defective in some way. The woman who does not bear a child is ‘incomplete’, ‘unfulfilled’. Not surprisingly, the most tragic folk songs or laments in Tamil are sung by barren women who compare themselves to barren trees, dry rivers and unfertile soil. In one such song, the barren woman talks of herself as a coconut tree that has not borne fruits. In the wet soil was planted the coconut sapling. You planted it to spread, to bear four lakh of fruits. But it didn’t grow nor bear four lakh of fruits. It turned barren! In the ploughed soil was planted a coconut sapling. You said it’d grow with speed, bear a lakh of fruits. Neither speedy growth, nor a lakh of fruits. It’s fallen down– your word went wrong! Vanamamalai 1964: 37–71

The exultant mother far removed from the physical world of pain, blood and excrement, and the sorrowful barren woman caught up in the net of her own body are the two dominant ideas of a mother that Tamil girls and boys grow up with. The attempts to invest the maternal body — as if it is one universal body with one meaning — with ‘truths’ about the meaning of women’s existence have been fairly constant in Tamil cultural ethics and practices, and have proved to be a fertile ground for the flourishing of a certain kind of politics. The purpose of this article is to examine not only the concept of the mother, but also the context of the mother. The attempt is to locate the mother in the functional context of Tamil culture and politics, and to understand the multiple ways in which meanings have been loaded on the term mother, literally splitting mothers into mothers and non-mothers, pure mothers and whore mothers, Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 187

and mothers of sons and mothers of daughters. The effort is to problematise the term ‘mother’ by contextualising it and revealing its multiple and constantly altering meanings and the kind of politics that accompanies essentialisation.2

II Goddesses, Mothers and Politics Tamil mothers in classical Tamil literature have bodies which motherhood has turned into sites of divinity, sanctity and purity. Their bodies are also sites where all societal notions of life and living seem to converge, endowing their bodies with some mystical qualities which make them ‘naturally’ produce, what is termed, ‘the milk of valour’ for their sons to infuse in their blood bravery and courage to make them warriors. Their wombs become ‘lairs of tigers’ from which emerge sons, majestic like tigers, who can be found only in the battlefields. One does not know what kind of milk these mothers fed their daughters, or for that matter whether these womb–lairs are meant for daughters at all. The birth of valorous sons is decided by the quality of the womb and quality of milk from the breasts of a woman. Where the son is a coward or a warrior, in classical poetry, the mother has considered it her own limitation or achievement. A cowardly son is because the mother’s milk has failed, and the first instinct is to slash those breasts off. Poems from the Purananuru (Songs of Valour) depict such mothers. Most of these poems on heroic mothers are by women poets: The old woman’s shoulders were dry, unfleshed with outstanding veins: her low belly was like a lotus pad. When people said Her son had taken fright, Had turned his back on battle and died, she raged and shouted, ‘If he really broke down in the thick of battle, 188 G c.s. lakshmi

I’ll slash these breasts that gave him suck.’ and went there, sword in hand Turning over body after fallen body, she rummaged through the blood red field till she found her son, quartered in pieces, and she rejoiced more than on the day she gave him birth.

Another heroic mother saw her warrior son dead in the battlefield and her milk began to flow: There, in the very middle of battle camps that heaved like the seas, pointing at the enemy the tongues of lances new forged and whetted, urging soldiers forward with himself at the head In a skirmish of arrow and spear cleaving through an oncoming wave of foes, forcing a clearing, he had fallen in that space between armies, his bodies hacked to pieces: When she saw him there in all his greatness, mother’s milk flowed again in the withered breasts of this mother for her warrior son who had no thought of retreat.

Yet another woman looks upon her womb as a lair of tigers: You stand against the pillar of my hut and ask: ‘Where is your son?’ I don’t really know This womb was once Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 189

a lair for that tiger. You can see him now Only on the battlefields. Ramanujan 1985: 182–84

Even in common parlance, the mother’s milk is seen as having special attributes — ‘nothing can quench thirst like a mother’s milk’ says a Tamil proverb. It is quite common in an argument to accuse a man of having drunk impure milk from his mother. A mother with breasts and womb to create only those sons who are warriors and fighters is an idea which the Tamil mothers think is their own internal, natural–biological power. It is a way of laying siege of their bodies from within. It is a co-option where they offer their breasts and wombs as implementing tools. The Tamil mother whose breasts and womb have supernatural powers has to be placed in the context of the functioning of the world in which she has been taken in as a mother. Her breasts and womb are seen as organs of ‘naturally’ superior succour, through which lies her eventual and ultimate realisation of herself as a woman. Kannagi of Silapadhikaram, the Tamil epic, runs on the streets of Madurai with her breast cut off — the ultimate disfigurement — and it is generally seen as a gesture of anger. And yet it is really a masochistic gesture of inflicting punishment upon herself. Her breasts don’t serve the purpose they are supposed to — she never becomes a mother, and so she is unfulfilled and incomplete in terms of the values of the world. Her breasts, that have not suckled a child, become her burden. They are the most visible parts of her body that she sees as having ‘gone to waste’, now that her husband is dead. And caught in an unstabilising anger, she cuts off her breasts — drawing blood, not milk. Endowed with a specific quality, her breasts become her punishment. In the ultimate analysis, the breasts and the womb are put to the kind of use that is allowed to them in different conditions in the functional world. The epic-mothers only as mothers of sons occupy the positions they do with breasts that spew milk and wombs that are lairs of tigers. Even Tirukkural3 only talks of a mother’s feelings towards her son — when she hears her son praised, she would feel happier than at the time of his birth (Tirukkural: 69th verse). The epic mothers whose motherhood is seen as divine, 190 G c.s. lakshmi

miraculous and powerful are mothers of sons — Yashodha, mother of Krishna; Kaushalya, mother of Rama; Kunti, mother of the Pandavas; Sita, mother of Luv and Kush. In order to understand the true nature of their motherhood, one should place them in hypothetical situations of them being mothers of daughters. If Sita had borne twin girls, how would she have brought them up; what would she have taught them? Yashodha brings up a son who is not her own and she becomes the divine mother of Krishna. King Janaka’s wife also brings up a girl child who is not her own; this is Sita, but one does not quite remember Sita’s foster-mother’s name. Epic women who have given birth to daughters have not been particularly remembered. Madhavi of Silapadhikaram is a dancer. She gives birth to Manimekalai who becomes a saint, while no special credit goes to Madhavi. Menaka gives birth to Shakuntala but has to abandon her. For all purpose, Shakuntala is rishi Kanva’s daughter. Rishi Kanva’s wife, like Janaka’s wife, does not turn divine. Shakuntala however has the chance to rebuild her life because she gives birth to Bharata, a son who plays with tiger cubs. An undercurrent running through the idea of the essential mother is the notion of dysfunction or defective functioning. The mother who has only daughters has ‘brought this upon herself’ by not functioning in a particular way; giving wrong signals to her body. This was referred to at one time in a discourse given by Shankaracharya, the head of the hindu religious mutt. He raised the question of why women delivered more sons in the past and were delivering more daughters in the present times. He explained the phenomenon by linking the gender of the child with the level of intelligence of the mother vis-a vis the father. He elaborated that in the past, men were superior in knowledge, spiritual achievements and mental growth. In the present times, men were busy eking out a living whereas women continued to preserve the arts, good customs and religion as they always did. Due to this superiority, more girls were being born. His explanations made a few things very obvious — that women, by the way they live and think, decide the gender of the child; that the cultural expectations from them is for sons; that women who become more intelligent than what they ought to be are in danger of producing daughters (Gugapriyai 1989: 21–22). Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 191

III Mother as Metaphor In 1892, the first printed version of the entire Silapadhikaram came out through the efforts of U.V. Swaminatha Iyer. It coincided with efforts being made at that time to discover a ‘pure’ Tamil language as the beginning of establishing a ‘pure’ Tamil identity. In the process of this discovery, evolved the ‘pure’ Tamil woman whose embodiment was the mother. Tirukkural talks about children, but does not have a special chapter on motherhood. However, the neo-Tamilians needed a peg to hang all their ideas of purity and sanctity which validated the greatness and depth of their identity. The mother figure seemed to be the epitome of all that they were seeking in terms of identity, since all women were seen as potential mothers. In this interpretation and elaboration of Tamil culture, the Tamil mother became the central element as guarantor of purity of progeny and authenticator of historical continuity. In the mother’s body is vested the totality of an identity. Once the mother’s body is established as a sacred site, all other elements of identity are rendered valid and hence necessary to revive and hold on to. The mother’s body then becomes a metaphor for anything considered sacred and pure like land or language. Anything that is valued is turned into ‘mother’ to validate its existence and continuity. The mother-metaphor is used as being congruent to ideals of purity and chastity — Tamil language is referred to as virgin Tamil and Mother Tamil. Time and again, purity has been the operative word in assessments of events and personalities, in perspectives, and in evaluations where purity and ownership is a matter of debate or pursuit. The mother-metaphor is invoked sometimes as a yardstick of measure, sometimes as a goal, sometimes as a touchstone and sometimes as a tool of punishment. There is also another aspect to the mother-metaphor. As a historical continuity, a non-changing, static mother-metaphor necessitates no redefinitions or search of who the Tamil man is or what his actions ought to be. Everything decided in terms of the mother-metaphor becomes a historical inevitability. His areas of operation become clearly demarcated and he becomes 192 G c.s. lakshmi

the protector, guide and indirect owner of what he venerates. The mother becomes the object of veneration but as a subject, in order to survive, she has to aid the continuation of the veneration by accepting and abiding by the deal of veneration; it is a doublebind. By feeling towards a language and nation, as he would feel towards a mother, a Tamil man is comfortable in what he thinks is his ‘manliness’. which lies in protecting his women; he feels humiliated when his women are oppressed or humiliated. Nation and language belong to him in the sense his women do. In other words, nation and language become his responsibility, his domain. The mother-metaphor thus becomes a metaphor of exclusion. Women are part of this activity as aids, assistants, supporters and perpetrators, but not as transforming elements. Whatever transformation is possible, happens within the all-pervading influence of the mother-metaphor. Individual identities are erased and women are clubbed together as the mother–community with motherhood as their natural vocation. In public speeches in Tamil Nadu, men are addressed as friends, elders or youths, but women are always ‘mothers’. The term thai (mother) and thai-kulam (mother– community) are used alternatively to refer to women. One intellectual whose writings consolidated all these ideas in a structured manner was Thiru Vi Kalyanasundaranar, Thiru Vi Ka as he was known. His Pennin Perumai (1927) was one book that was most quoted after Tirukkural. Thiru Vi Ka was a social reformer and worshipped the divinity in each woman. He saw motherhood as the centrality of femininity. He wrote against oppression of women and wanted mothers to be given a high status in the society. He argued that man has used woman as the object of his lust and as his maid, and that he had no right to take way the birthrights of women, for women were the procreators. He argued that in India, women enjoyed a high status in the past, and that their low status came about later. He spoke of the Purananuru mothers, of women poets and Kannagi, and explained that these women were valorous and worshipped for their chastity because they were educated. Thiru Vi Ka was of the opinion that traditional education made these women what they were. He was against western education for women for he felt that western education was not liberating. He wanted women to learn about Indian culture and arts. As a nationalist, he was of the view that western education did not infuse nationalist Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 193

feelings in women, nor did it make them courageous like Kannagi or virtuous like Manimakalai. The kind of freedom women may get through western education, will make them disrespectful toward men and indifferent to marriage; it will lead them to bad habits and make them lose their feminine qualities. If the nation had to rise to its ancient glory, then women must be given the education that women of ancient times had. Education must not destroy a woman’s natural qualities and through that destroy man (Rajagopalan 1988: 288ff). ‘What leads to good conduct is education. Women who are mothers must value good conduct like their own life. A girl must grow up like an incarnation of good conduct. A woman who is not this way is not a woman. She is a ghoul. Hence from her childhood, a woman must receive that kind of education which will make her divine.… What is the purpose of a woman’s life? To become a mother. That is also the purpose of creation. An education which goes against both and purports to help women’s life how can it be called education?’ (Thiru Vi Ka 1986: 73). According to Thiru Vi Ka, household work like pounding and grinding and traditional dances were enough exercises and distractions for women. He was against convent schools where girls played games and where songs and dance were introduced at the primary level. Thiru Vi Ka compared these schools to hell. Songs and dance of the kind taught even in elementary schools was likely to create ‘evil excitement’ in girls (Lakshmi 1984: 18). A woman must have varied knowledge — she must be the personification of a university, for how else could she become a mother and bring up children, as Thiru Vi Ka asked (Thiru Vi Ka 1986 : 76). ‘What makes the woman great? It is motherhood which helps the world grow and is of service to the world — that makes it great. All that is great in a woman is due to motherhood. There is divinity in motherhood. And divinity is the ultimate realisation of womanhood’, he wrote in his book (ibid.: 299). For his efforts to recreate what he considered ancient glory for women, Thiru Vi Ka was known as a radical in his days. But in the process, very specific definitions and areas of functioning for women were being re-established. Education, knowledge, expression and work were all to centre around the concept of motherhood with its implications of purity and sanctity. Even a radical poet like Bharatidasan, who was closely associated with activities to assert the dignity of the Dravidian, wrote: 194 G c.s. lakshmi

Women without education Are infertile soil Grass may grow there But not good sons Rajagopalan 1988: 274

In personal life, when one opts to be a mother, a pure woman or chaste woman, these become personal choices arising from one’s own personal needs. It is when these choices become concepts which are utilised as yardsticks for a particular gender that they turn into a creed. Women become embodiments of what is considered the purest values in the culture, and their dignity is maintained by constant assertion and implementation in action of this fact. Those who deviate are not only considered violators of the ‘truths’ of the woman’s body and traitor of a culture, but also non-realised souls. According to this view, women’s ultimate realisation lies within her own body; in utilising her body for what it is ‘naturally’ meant for — motherhood; realisation was achieved not by transcendence, but by immanence. There was a fear that once unbound from their bodies, there will be no site to situate control over them. This concept of ultimate realisation of divinity through their maternal bodies has created in the Tamil culture legends of women abandoning the bindings of their bodies in most unusual ways. Avvaiyar, the poet, opted to do away with a young body so as to remain single.4 Karaikal Ammaiyar converted her body to that of a ghoul because her husband did not think he could have conjugal relations with a saint. The body that was of no use to her husband — hence for procreation — she turned into a skeleton. While men transcend their bodies, women have to circumvent their bodies. Renouncing and accepting the body has to be done in legitimised manners. Mysticism and miracle accompany a woman’s action of rising above her body. In the process of establishing the burden of the over-determined body, one inevitably reaches the area of female sexuality. If why and how women become mothers (a biological event) is not determined by anything inherent in the body (some essence), but because of the body in a context, how does one then view female sexuality and its expression? For an answer to this one has to understand the erotic tradition in Tamil culture. Who expressed this sexuality for what purpose and in what context, and Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 195

how pursuing this enquiry also leads to the good woman/bad woman split are details I shall not go into at this juncture. I am concerned here about female sexuality being perceived by women and men. Open acknowledgement of sexuality in particular ways is part of Tamil culture in its literary tradition, and it has not been seen as freedom or assertion of sexuality. Eroticism and passion — stylised and structured — is one aspect of its language tradition. Women and men have written about viraha (pangs of separation) of a woman in exactly the same way in Kurunthogai, a collection of poems of the Sangam period in Tamil history. What exactly is female sexuality is clearly defined in physical terms, and women and men have evoked the same images, idioms and language to portray passion, longing and love of a woman. A woman’s expression of her sexuality is done within a certain tradition of a woman’s consciousness of her body. The Tamil women poets normally describe passion as it is experienced by another woman — as a narrator or raconteur. When it is her own passion she is talking of, like in the case of the saint–poet Andal, the physical description of her passion — to be embraced, crushing her breasts; wanting to be rid of breasts which touched by passion have become weapons of torture — is given within the structure of eroticism in the Tamil literary tradition. There is a particular literary form in Tamil called the Ula, where the hero of the poem — a king or a man much admired — walks or rides along the road, and various women describe him and the erotic feelings he evokes in them. These women are of various age groups. Ula describes physical growth and awareness of the female body in various stages — as a girl, as a very young woman, so on and so forth. Some Tamil scholars regard the Ula as a description of female sexuality. It is to be noted that the person who wrote such a deeply erotic Ula, hence setting the tradition of Ula, was a man called Ottakoother. It should also be remembered that eroticism in the traditional koothu dance, contained in the mood of sringara or love, is expressed expertly by both women and men in the same manner. Two important inferences emerge from this analysis. First, if poetic imagination and depth of feeling can make awareness of female sexuality accessible to men, it is not exclusive or only experimental. In this case, motherhood is not a realm of experience for women. Making that exclusive and raising it to the level of veneration is a matter of functional convenience. It does not 196 G c.s. lakshmi

radically transform the functional world and ensures that there will not be any functional trespasses. The emphasis of the mothermetaphor contains within it all these ramifications. The second inference is that the mother-metaphor with connotations of purity chastity and sanctity is for the continuity of a particular kind of Tamil woman. As a metaphor, it not only depicts maternal feelings, but is also a metaphor that legitimises woman’s existence in the family and the world in a specifically prescribed way.

IV Politics of Dignity and Degradation In the late 1920s a movement began whose mission was to articulate and recreate Tamil origins of dignity and existence as opposed to Sanskritised origins of members of the major political factions in Madras at that time. It was known as the Self-Respect Movement. Its leader was E.V. Ramaswami Naicker or E Ve Ra or Thandai Periyar as he was known. The Justice Party which called itself a non-Brahman party was already there but the Self-Respect Movement’s mission was to revolt against rituals and superstitions that perpetuated the caste system. It was against discrimination and degradation of human beings, an attitude associated with Brahminism. Philosophers against established religious practices had existed even earlier. Scholars of the medieval period, and the nineteenth century saint Ramalingaswamy had written several Tamil verses questioning the sanctity of the Vedas and Shastras and the authority of the caste system. Some nineteenth century Tamil scholars like Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai, who popularised the worship of Siva as a deity, belonged to the Tamil region, and the Saiva Siddanta Samajam, that was reviving religion meant for the common man irrespective of his caste, had already laid the ground for questioning established religious and social customs. The SelfRespect Movement drew a lot of inspiration from these earlier philosophical attempts and made specific plans to bring about a society of true equality by encouraging inter-caste marriages, widow remarriages, doing away with the Brahmin priests during marriage ceremonies, and working against religion and blind beliefs (Irschick 1986: 79f.) Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 197

The Siddars (saints mostly of the Saivite denomination in Tamil Nadu) looked upon all women as mothers stressing their procreative abilities, and Saivism brought with it the emphasis on Shakti, the mother-energy. At the time the Self-Respect Movement was spreading its influence, Bharati, a known revolutionary poet was writing impassioned poems on the ‘new woman’ who was personification of Shakti. Bharati was inspired by the rhythm, momentum and vitality of the Shakti image, and many of his poems were addressed to Kali, the destroyer of evil. The ‘new woman’ was a woman energised by education and a new awareness of her culture, but her major task was to create a new race of human beings to destroy political and social enslavement. His ‘new woman’ sang thus: to rule the realms and make the laws we’ve risen; Nor shall it be said that woman lags behind man in the knowledge that he attaineth Dance the kummi, beat the measure To know the truth and do the right willing we come Food we’ll give you, we’ll also give you a race of immortals Dance the kummi, beat the measure Swaminathan 1984: 49

In 1906, when Bharati edited a journal for women, he wrote that what women needed was to save themselves from humiliation at the hands of uncultured men. Political rights were not important for them. In fact, he claimed that women in England and America who were fighting for political rights were in fact unmarried because of ugliness and other reasons. ‘A woman’, he wrote, ‘who is eager to see her children come up in life; who is immensely happy to train them in education and manliness from within the home as housewife, will not bother much about being a parliament member’ (Viswanathan and Mani 1979: 82–83). The mother–woman of the Self-Respect Movement was erected on this foundation. Passionate poems appeared in Vidudalai, a journal inspired by Bharati propagating the views of the Self-Respect Movement. One of them elaborated their plan of action: women’s rights to increase we’ll remove their ignorance we’ll find homes for all women on this soil who have no companions 198 G c.s. lakshmi

we’ll act with courage– we know to succeed with no mistakes we’ll remove the wrath of caste that is ruining us Vidudulai 1937: 1

In their rhetoric and vitriolic speeches against degradation of women, the Self-Respecters often quoted Bharati. A radical poet like Bharati Dasan, from their own ranks, was perhaps able to visualise this new Tamil woman culled out of a glorious heritage; who nurses a passion for Tamil and Tamil fine arts and whose company inspires and soothes the Tamil man. One of his poems written like a plea of a lover was used in a Tamil film Ore Iravu (One Night). It went thus: When there is sorrow won’t you take up your Yaz5 and bring happiness to me; bring happiness The pain of a heart that knows no love won’t you take it away with a song in Tamil, dear won’t you take it away? To bring feelings to life in a nation of strength and simplicity, won’t you dance and demonstrate in the ancient Tamil tradition? When there is doubt– what is virtuous and what is valourous– when there is doubt, won’t you quote a word from the Tamil god’s Thirukkural won’t you quote?

The women cadre of the Self-Respect Movement gave fiery speeches against religion and men who enslave women. All these Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 199

conferences were referred to as ‘Mother’s Conferences’ and ‘Mother’s Meetings’ by the movement. In the 1930s when women went on a procession protesting against hindi, it was referred to as ‘Mother’s Procession’. In some of these meetings, the topics discussed were ‘Women’s education’; ‘Mothers who helped Tamil grow’; ‘Women in Sangam age’; ‘Mothers and compulsory Hindi’, etc. A particular advertisement of one such mother’s meetings invited all mothers to attend and made a special note that men were not allowed (Vidudalai 1939: 3). Having sworn to recreate Tamil culture of the past, all actions and activities were presented as activities of warriors preparing for a battle. The protest against hindi became a battle like the Purananuru battles where Tamil warriors were being sent to battlefields and jails by their women, and where the women themselves entered the battles as supporters of their men. In 1939, many of these women went to jail with their children protesting against hindi. Not all the children were breast-fed. The mothers took them because they were considered responsible for them and also possibly because there was a constant need to prove to themselves and others that whatever activities, their roles as mothers would not suffer. The photographs of mothers going to jail with their children were prominently printed in Vidudalai (One of them, Salem Sevaki Ammal, went to jail with three kids). The movement immediately announced an anti-hindi calendar which was known as Calendar of Valorous Tamil Mothers who went to jail protesting against Hindi (Vidudalai 1939). To carry out its programme against Brahmins, caste discrimination and inequality, the Self-Respect Movement worked out a plan of action at several levels which covered a wide range of issues from language to lifestyle. One of the most interesting aspects of this concerted effort had to do with the ideology of Tamil mothers instilling ideas of culture and courage in their children. New lullabies talking of the greatness of Tamil culture and the need to fight casteism and rituals were written for the Tamil child. Bharati Dasan wrote some lullabies which became very popular. In his lullaby for a girl child he wrote: They put the vermillion mark on a lump of cow dung 200 G c.s. lakshmi

and call it god Feel the shame of this and sleep Laugh at this and sleep.

A lullaby for a boy talks of him as the warrior who saves this situation: Religion is presented like an epidemic by the orthodox. Warrior, young warrior, you’ve come to fight, to axe this at the root no flowers, no fruits will it bear. (Tamizhavan 1974: 66)6

With Tamil language, Tamil music and Tamil lifestyle to fortify its spirit, the movement began to propagate certain reforms. One of them was the popular Self-Respect marriage that did away with the rituals and the Brahmin priest and the tali, the sacred thread tied around the neck of the bride. The tali was termed a chain of slavery. The Self-Respect marriages were seen as business contracts. Another aspect of these marriages was that they were referred to as love-marriages since they were inter-caste marriages, even if arranged by party elders or the families. Photographs of the couples holding hands, or with the husband’s arm around the wife’s shoulder standing close, appeared often in Vidudalai. These photographs were different from conventional marriage photos of those days with the husband seated on a chair and the wife standing beside. These photographs asserted an equal relationship. Another social reform that the Self-Respecters spoke about and encouraged was widow remarriage. Bharati Dasan wrote moving poems on widows, and widow remarriages were boldly advertised and notices about these marriages stressed the fact that the bride was a widow. In Karaikudi, Maragathavalli Ammaiyar brought out a journal called Madar Marumanam, entirely devoted to widow remarriage. However, after such a flurry of activities — detailed news of SelfRespect marriages, widow remarriage and news of women going Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 201

to jail to protest against hindi — women practically went out of news apart from occasional references. It was as if a non-ritualised marriage was the only solution to the question of granting selfrespect to women. Once the door to Tamil education and a Tamil warrior–husband was opened to her, she had nothing left to aspire for. Following the death of Nagammaiyar (Periyar’s first wife) who kept up the familial quality of the movement by being mother to all the followers, calling some women her daughters and others her daughters-in-law, the women in the movement did not figure so prominently in the news. After Periyar’s marriage in 1949 (10 years after the death of his first wife) to one of his followers who was much younger than him, largely against the reform he himself undertook to stop old men from marrying young girls, news about the women cadre of the Self-Respect Movement became practically nil. Maniammai, his second wife, regarded herself as someone dedicated to serve him. ‘I have dedicated myself totally to serve him and to take care of his welfare, and I have placed him in my heart as a child, and I have found happiness in protecting that child from harm’ she remarked. She worked along with Periyar. The next we hear of ‘mothers’ going on a protest procession representing the movement is only in 1974 (after Periyar’s death) when a general protest was organised against degradation. Maniammai was jailed during the Emergencey and her final protest was in 1977 when she organised a black-flag protest against Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister who was visiting Madras (Iraiyan 1981: 5–14). Maniammai personally continued Periyar’s struggle, but she did not utilise her position to strengthen or train women supporters for leadership of the movement. The movement split into two at the time of Periyar’s second marriage, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazagam (DMK) was born under the leadership of C.N. Annadurai. The DMK was like an extended family and it was almost an all-male party with members who thought of themselves as warriors fighting battles of a different nature in the Purananuru tradition. Ensconced in ‘Self-Respect’ marriages, the women were now the real glorified mothers sending their sons and husbands to ‘battles’, feeding them and their friends, and bringing up sons with ‘valorous milk’ with as much ease as ‘Maltova-mothers’.

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V Self-Respect and Tamil Mothers In the 1920s, self-respect was a word everyone recognised and used. It was a catch-word to sell an idea or object. A strange advertisement for a book on hypnotism and mesmerism appeared in Kudi Arasu, a voice of the Self-Respect Movement. It read, ‘If you want to learn hypnotism and mesmerism, if you want to gain selfrespect, read this book…’ (Kudi Arasu 1928). The advertisement was accompanied by a drawing of a woman reading the book. It looked like the word self-respect could entice women into doing anything, even reading a book on hypnotism! The programme for granting self-respect to women, in its emotional outpourings in the print media and in its public speeches, seemed like a revolutionary programme with an earth shattering impact after which a Tamil woman would not be the same. But once the hyperbolic speeches and priestless marriages became a common occurrence, it became clear that the term self-respect for women came with qualifications. In its theoretical content, apart from the anti-god and anti-ritual slant, it was not very different from the clamour for social reform like education and widow remarriage that had started at the end of the nineteenth century. The women self-respecters took up actions that were supportive of the men, and to a large extent believed that in order to gain self-respect, they had to change themselves in terms of their attitude towards language, religion and lifestyle. To the male self-respecter, self-respect meant not being denied his rights in society whatever his caste, not being bound by religious superstitions, and not tolerating any insult to Tamil language and Tamil culture. To the female self-respecter, self-respect meant supportive actions and acceptance of whatever was meant for them as mother–community. For the man, self-respect was for relating to the world whereas for the woman, self-respect was for relating to the family. A woman who held on to her views of god, often lost a self-respecter husband to another woman self-respecter. Many of the ‘Self-Respect’ marriages, termed love marriages, happened to be of self-respecters who were already conventionally married. Periyar was questioned in one of the marriages where

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speeches were normally given by a leader, whether bigamy was the policy of the Self-Respect Movement. Periyar replied that his movement advocated equality based on rationality and that every self-respecter has the freedom to choose a wife who supports his views. He said that a self-respecter offered the same freedom to his wife (Ramasubramaniam 1983: 19–21). However, no instance of a wife wanting to leave her self-respecter husband was ever reported. In a ‘Self-Respect’ marriage, the bride and the groom took oaths saying, ‘I accept you as a companion in life. From today you have a share in all the happiness and sorrow of my life. Whatever rights I demand from you, I am willing to give you the same.’ As an oath, this was probably a very precise and effective one. And in the initial years, these marriages became tools of propaganda for Periyar, and other leaders came and gave speeches on these occasions. Periyar used these marriages as platforms to speak about self-respecters as individuals. ‘A woman has no freedom. She lives as a slave under her in-laws and husband. A woman is told that a husband is to be respected even if he is a stone or a blade of grass. A woman’s valour and human qualities have been destroyed. Women are told that they must live like Nalayini, Sita, Chandramati, etc. If she has to live like Chandramati, it means the husband can sell his wife for a loan taken. What can be more harmful to women’s self-respect than the fact that a husband has the right to sell his wife? Sita’s story is very vulgar. Imagine how foolish it is to drive a wife away to the jungles when she is pregnant. Nalayini’s story is similarly obscene. The husband wants to go to a prostitute’s house and the wife takes him there in a basket. This is like giving him license to go to a prostitute. Taking a husband to a prostitute’s house is this woman’s chastity? A self-respecting woman should push him out and close the door…’, he said in one of his addresses in a marriage (Ramasubramaniam 1983). All this was powerful rhetoric. But these became as meaningless as the ‘mantras’ they objected to, for in later years, the ‘SelfRespect’ marriages themselves became empty rituals and even the tali as a symbol was reintroduced. Periyar himself could only exhort women to be self-respecting individuals and not give in to their husbands, but this did not reconcile with the idea of a Tamil mother that was being encouraged as part of the movement. His 204 G c.s. lakshmi

own wife Nagammai had to put up with his womanising ways in his youth. Periyar openly acknowledged it and got absolved, but Nagammai continued to stay with him. The self-respecting woman, while she initially fought against symbolic chains like the tali, was not very different from the ritual-bound wife who a self-respecter sometimes left behind to remarry another. Some of them wrote against the craze for jewellery and saw blind beliefs as concepts that bound women. They spoke of visible bindings but left unsaid what was supposed to be inherent in their nature as women. This was obvious in some of their speeches. In a particular speech, a woman spoke of what education ought to do for women: If it is a boy, an educated girl would bring him up to be intelligent, healthy and to be a warrior in the world. If a girl, apart from education, humility, sobriety, patience and chastity which are womanly qualities, as future mothers and as those who have to obey their husbands and bear children who would have good qualities and indulge in good activities; as those who would bring a good name to their families and let their husband’s clan flourish, the mother would train them accordingly … An educated woman would know how to sense her husband’s needs.… She would run the household without bothering her husband in any way. Vidudulai 1939: 2

Speeches such as these have to be set in the context of issues that Periyar himself was raising regarding enslavement of women. Apart from explaining how issues of property, divorce, love marriage, etc., can enslave women, Periyar in a set of very powerful essays located the site of enslavement of women in their wombs. He wrote that for a true women’s liberation, women must rid themselves of the problems of bearing children which made them dependent on men and the laws of men. ‘Pregnancy acts as a hurdle in the path of women’s freedom. Women don’t have property, income or a profession. And hence they are dependent on others to raise their children.… Moreover among men, there are celibate saints attached to religious institutions. Pregnancy prevents women to be saints and Sankaracharyas, to live with freedom, to own property, and to be revered by others. It is because Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 205

of this that I say women must stop bearing children in order to progress, to be liberated and free…’ (Periyar 1932: 86f.) In his eagerness to confront issues directly, Periyar glossed over the real issue of motherhood. The crux of the issue was not women getting pregnant but the manipulation of pregnancy and the prejudgement of the woman’s body, with the womb as a house of valorous Tamil sons. Where a woman’s salvation lies through her womb, in order to become a saint she has to transcend her body at two levels — at the physical level and at the notional level. Not having children — as in the case of barren women — did not liberate them to relate to the world differently. No discussion or debate was generated among the women self-respecters on issues that Periyar spoke about. Some of the questions he raised were probably considered part of the excesses Periyar often indulged in when he spoke, and his women followers regarded him chiefly as someone who had overthrown the mythical superiority of the Aryans. In his own lifetime, Periyar sat through meetings where women addressed him as ‘the sun of knowledge, the Buddha’ who had removed the darkness engulfing their minds which used to make them think it was a sin to talk of deeds done by the Aryan marauders in the name of god, religion, shastras, and rituals (Vidudulai 1939: 3). In one such meeting in 1939 where a portrait of Nagammai was unveiled by Tamaraikanni, one of the important writers and speakers of the movement, she made it clear that his ideas of enslavement of women were not taken seriously by women. Nagammai was a cousin of Periyar. At a young age, she had insisted on marrying him. The period of courting in Tamil literature is referred to as the code of morals where stealth is the practice (Kalavu Neri), because the lovers meet in secrecy. The married life is referred to as the Karpu Neri. Referring to this, Tamarikanni said that Nagammai had (in the true Tamil tradition) entered Karpu Neri through Kalavu Neri. She further elaborated upon Nagammai’s way of life: She took up the sacred fast of not living for herself. She considered herself as living only for her husband’s welfare.… Without exaggeration one can say that she thought of herself as a slave created for the pleasure of Ramasami Periyar. Women should not be slaves to men; they should be free. If necessary, they should wage a war against men who degrade them — all 206 G c.s. lakshmi

this propaganda that Ramasami Periyar did outside his house was of no use in his own house. My dear sisters! There is a great moral that we have to learn from this. Nowadays, there are some women who talk of all kinds of things in the name of freedom. Their thoughts stray to undesirable paths. They say women must compete with men in every field. Do you know what is the consequence of this? Women who are tender, instead of being protected by men, are being roughly treated by them. In the field of cinema, femininity and chastity have become a rarity these days. Vidudulai: 1939: 2–7

Tamaraikanni’s speech made it clear that the women selfrespecters would be exactly where men wanted them — behind them. It was obvious that by essentialising the woman as the mother, the Self-Respect Movement converted begetting children into a political act invested with power.7 Also, the entire debate about karpu was to be carried on. As Tamil mothers, women had to live and accept the purity-versus-impurity conflict and the moral judgement of ‘good’ women and ‘bad’ women; not intelligent or dull, tall or short, fat or thin, dark or fair, but pure and impure. Bound to the body are wombs that are lairs of tiger-sons whom the Tamil mothers send to battlefields. The battle image and the image of the valorous mothers were such dominant ones that they continued to persist in the language of politicians who had been nurtured by the Self-Respect Movement. In 1953, the DMK chose three reasons to launch a protest — to protest against the then Congress government’s educational policy; to condemn Nehru for saying ‘nonsense’ to the Tamilians; and to change the name of the station Dalmiapuram to Kallakudi. Referring to the incident in his autobiography, M. Karunanidhi calls it a ‘righteous war with three battlefields’. C. N. Annadurai, fondly called Anna, announced, ‘I am sending a brother to the war against the educational programme. Another brother I am sending to the Kallakudi battlefield…’ Karunanidhi writes that the clapping of hands following the announcement sounded like lances hitting lances and swords touching swords. He refers to Anna as the Tamil commander who commanded the brothers to go to the war front. (Karunanidhi 1989: 180f.) Within such familial addresses and elaborately built up imaginary battlefields, it is natural to refer to women in specific Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 207

ways — the sons go the battlefields and the mothers stand by them. The Tamil language itself is the mother — humiliated, insulted and violated — who is sending her sons to the battlefield to avenge her. Karunanidhi personifies Tamil as the angry Kali who nurtures her sons and demands their blood to purify her. Writing about those who died in the 1953 protest, he says: Mother! Mother Tamil!… Look at this corpse that has stained your body with blood, Mother! Mother! Cry! Cry! Weep bitterly! Only if you cry, only if you shed tears can an army be prepared to overthrow the rule of these lowly men … Karunanidhi 1989: 204

Autobiographies of participants in these and other protests of the DMK refer to women as Tamil mothers who fed their colleagues, and wives who went through ‘Self-Respect’ marriage with them and waited at home in the true Tamil tradition, while their husbands fought their political battles. The only female colleague referred is Satayani Muthu, but since she does not fit into the Purananuru picture, she is referred to sparingly. The most active expression of this politics came through the medium of cinema and the most prominent idiom was the mother-woman as opposed to the prostitute who was not seen as someone with legitimate procreative possibilities — she was the mother gone awry.

VI Mothers, Marauders and Prostitutes At the time the DMK entered the cinema medium, it was not a party in power. The previous decades had used drama, print and digital media for propagating ideas of nationalism and social reform (Bhaskaran 1981). The Self-Respect Movement had effectively used print-media and social occasions like marriages to propagate its views. Apart from propagation, the DMK needed to be in the public eye, giving the illusion of participating in its everyday struggle with familial and social problems. It chose historical and social themes to portray the superiority of the Dravidian culture and its own views of the political situation of the Tamil region.

208 G c.s. lakshmi

Apart from its rational and anti-exploitation themes, these films constructed particular meanings of what women were in the emerging political climate. Mothers, sisters, educated women, vamps and widows were presented in stark bad-versus-good, pure-versusimpure contrasts through dialogues, songs and picturisation. Tamil mothers, as controllers of their sons and as a sobering presence in the lives of their warrior sons, as beloveds who loved Tamil language and culture, happy to lay their heads on the valorous shoulders of the warrior, poet or self-righteous husbands, were presented in a cleverly woven pattern of sequences that gave them the illusion of centrality while really being marginal. The fact that two men emerged as the all-Tamil male heroes while no single heroine emerged as essential Tamil woman is a pointer — what was firm, steady, rock-like and active was the male; the female was the element of secondary importance — manipulated, venerated and set aside. The Tamil woman of these films spoke alliterative dialogues, called her lover by his name, and sang songs recreating the kalavu neri. However, she was constantly in danger of losing her karpu, had to deal with wayward husbands and wait for their return, and prepare, sons and daughters for battles and marriages respectively. The mother-versus-the-whore contrast was first presented in Manohara with the screenplay and dialogues written by Karunanidhi. Manohara was a successful play of Sambanda Mudaliar, the father of Tamil drama. It is the story of a king enticed by a woman who plots to take over the country by alienating him from his wife and son, the crowned prince. The real queen and prince succeed and the temptress gets punished. In his screenplay, Karunanidhi introduced elements that characterised the queen as the ‘true’ Tamil woman. The temptress has a son and he is a coward, implying that an impure woman cannot have a warrior as a son. The humour of the film centred around this coward. In a particular scene, the son is pretending to go to war, since Manoharan too has gone to war to retrieve the sword and the throne of his grandfather from an enemy king. The temptressmother enters and the son says he wants to go to the battlefield. She tells him not to go as his health would get affected. In contrast is the ‘good’ Tamil woman, the mother of the warrior. Thus:

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He enters her quarters: – Mother! – Son! (She applies the vermillion mark on his forehead) Manohara, come back a victorious warrior who would bring joy to his mother and to the nation he has taken birth in. – Mother! If victorious, the precious stone-studded throne would arrive. Or else my sword soaked in blood would reach you to give you the news!

Manoharan wins the war. His enemy’s daughter comes to kill him but falls in love with him. Now Manoharan is the Tamil lover as he parries with her. ‘Warriors have never won against lanceeyed women’, he says. He refers to her as a fruit: ‘My sword acts only in the battlefields, it does not hurt fruits.’ Later he saves her from suicide: ‘From the storm of death, I have saved a creeper.’ Manoharan returns with a sword, a throne and a woman. Manoharan’s mother, the queen commands him never to hurt his father and his mistress. Manoharan abides by his mother’s command. His mother — the personification of a ‘true’ Tamil woman — worships her husband and puts up with everything, even being called a whore by her own husband. But the task of protecting her and proving her purity lies with her son. In a dramatic court scene, Manoharan declares: My mother is one from whom love arises; she is the image of kindness; she is the personification of chastity; she is the precious stone with no defects; she is pure as gold …

The queen also has to prove that apart from all this, she is also patient. She stops Manoharan from killing his father. She comes and holds his sword, and what follows is a passionate exchange of words: – I will not let a person get away after insulting my mother. – Manoharan, if it is true that you are my son, listen to me. – Mother! – Pierce the sword into this stomach first, where you grew and then go to the king. Stand on your mother’s corpse and fight with your father! … – Mother, are we to be patient, still? – Now is the time to be patient. 210 G c.s. lakshmi

After a series of dramatic events, Manoharan is in chains and it is then that his mother commands him to fight. She speaks against the temptress and her gang, and swears by the purity of her motherhood; the chains break: If it is true that the tears of mothers born in valorous clans have power, if it is true that Manhoran, who has never bowed before others is my son, let the chains break …

Not just by these overt assertions of the Tamil woman, but by subtle signs, the screenplay reveals its true spirit. Manoharan is caught on the one hand by the power-politics of being the crowned prince, and on the other, as a warrior, his major effort is to assert his mother’s purity. The mother’s purity and his courage have a one to one equation just as the temptress’s impurity and her son’s cowardice are equated. What is constantly being put to test is the mother’s character. The Tamil mother has not only to prove constantly that she is not a whore, but she also has to prove that her mother too was not a whore for otherwise her tears have no effect. The queen swears by her clan that gives power to her tears. This need to assert clan-purity makes it clear that Tamilians are going to assert their superiority by the purity of their race and their actions are going to be placed in the context of this racial superiority. This is not very different from a street brawl where a man tells another, ‘You are wrong! Your mother is a whore!’ In other words, this obsession with purity is inverted casteism, a concept the movement initially wanted to eradicate. Putting all women of a particular racial group together and attributing specific qualities to them as a mother-clan, is in effect creating a new casteism. Moreover in wars to win swords and thrones, women are collaborators — Manoharan has to fight a war not only for his nation but also to please his mother. In the course of the story, Manoharan’s wife gives birth to a child. This event is packed with cultural connotations — it is a boy, born in a jail, on a haystack. Although Murugan is considered the Tamil god, this event has all the elements of Krishna’s birth. The child being a boy is another sign to prove the nature of Manoharan’s wife’s womb. If a child is born in a jail, on a haystack and its mother is from a clan of warriors, the child cannot but be a boy. No such dramatic build-up is associated with the birth of girls. Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 211

The temptress is the outsider — language and rule from the north — and the Tamil motherland is being insulted when the queen is insulted. Language-nationalism, mother-morality and national purity — all these get combined as the queen mother. When requesting for his mother’s permission to fight, Manoharan says: My Tamil Mother! Won’t you grant me permission at this point when these cunning foxes have entered the country through a pass and have decided to rule? No need for swords, your words would do. No need for an army, it is enough if your binding oath is removed. No need for armours, a signal from your eyes would do.

Regarding an outsider as an enemy is not unusual, but the conflict here is not between nation and the enemy, but between purity and impurity, and both concepts are characterised as women. The entire film centres around the two women physically embodying these two notions. Parashakthi was another film which was a kind of manifesto of the DMK party and as such, the images of women and memories of Tamil culture it evoked are of great significance. The film begins with a song praising the Dravidian country — it is a country that has the ancient Tamil language and other languages like Telugu born out of Tamil; it has been made great by the action of courageous men and the beauty and chastity of its women. With that song, the stage is set. There are three women characters in the film around whom the story revolves. Two of these women are like the two aspects of Kannagi — valour and chastity — and one who appears for a short while is Madhavi or the harlot. The heroine who becomes a widow with a child, and a young girl who is portrayed like an early woman self-respecter are two sides of the same coin. The widow has three brothers abroad who don’t recognise her. Burdened with a child and left to fend for herself, she opens an idli shop. ‘Isn’t this the best job this country can offer a widow?’ she asks bitterly. One of her brothers comes to India but loses his money to a dancer (shades of Kovalan, the hero of Silappadhi karam). He finally meets a young girl who tells him to act politically — not just for the sake of his sister, but also for others like her. The sister tries to kill her child and is arrested for murder. She and her brother (whom she still does not recognise) come out with a 212 G c.s. lakshmi

long indictment against society. The child is saved by this radical young girl. The film ends at a point when each one discovers the identity of the others. In a layered manner, the film constructs Tamil lifestyle and women’s place in it. The obvious story moves in a particular way. The dialogues, songs and the visual presentation add several layers of meaning to the story. Before she becomes a widow, the sister sings a song with her husband. He calls her the lamp that lights his married life and goes on to call her a fruit and virgin. In Tamil language, the words ‘fruit’ and ‘virgin’ are similar but for one additional middle letter in ‘virgin’; they are hence often used together in alliteration — it is rather convenient for those who look upon women as edible virgins. Once widowed, the heroine’s honour is constantly threatened. Local goondas, (thugs), a religious person and a temple priest try to rape her. Unprotected by a man, she is open to the dangers of losing her chastity. Throwing her own child into the water is similar to the eighteenth century Nallathangal legend where Nallathangal pushes her seven children into the well. In the legend, the children come alive by divine grace; but here the child is saved. The heroine is one aspect of the Tamil mother. Several visual metaphors are used to evoke certain connotations that go with her widowhood. There is a long shot of her sitting under a barren tree. As if her fate is foretold, in a previous scene another woman jumps into the well with her child. The heroine’s helplessness is constantly emphasised showing her in dark streets with street lamps shedding their dull light on her. The heroine has a male child to whom she sings a lullaby. This lullaby is the picture of the ideal Tamil family. She tells the child about his three uncles who would take care of him. Maternal uncles are considered as the closest relatives of a child. The brother’s status and high gifts from him are the pride of a sister. The song recalls this custom of maternal uncles giving gifts: Your have three maternal uncles, little boy They’ll come to give you a good life They’ll come to kiss you on your cheeks fleshy like a mango A milk-feeder made of precious stones A cradle of emerald Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 213

Even a white elephant for you to ride — Your uncle will offer as stridhan8 With silver slate and A diamond pen, your Uncle will come to put you in school To learn pure Tamil

The radical heroine calls the hero by his name addressing him in the singular, and is presented as the ‘new’ Tamil woman. She talks to him about social revolution. But lest the audience thinks she is intelligent by her own reckoning, she is provided with a self-respecter type of brother; her ideals come from him. Her talk with the hero is counter-posed to the lullaby. The lullaby tells the hero what his familial duties are and the talk tells him what his political action ought to be. Both are provided by two types of Tamil women. One instigates men to follow certain norms, and the other inspires men to act in a revolutionary manner. In essence, they are not different at all. The first woman wants three loving brothers to observe social customs, and the second needs a self-respecter brother to tell her not to observe them. The third character is the ‘impure’ woman; she cheats the hero of his money. The male characters in the film are of several types — the tough, the stupid, the timid, the rapist, and the idealist — but the women characters fall into definite categories of purity and impurity. At the end of the film, the hero is shown following the radical girl in an exaggerated fashion, assuring the audience it is all a joke. One literal symbol of the film Parasakhthi, i.e. the goddess being used by the unscrupulous to cheat the gullible is presented to put forward DMK’s views on religious exploitation. But in a figurative way, it forms the right symbol for the entire film, for the women characters in the film are used to present a particular view of life and to act in particular ways and to refrain from particular actions. There is an illusion of care and reverence, but they are really Parasakhthis to be glorified and manipulated. Velaikari, a film for which C.N. Annadurai wrote the story and dialogues was released in 1949. It contained a lot of comments on caste and class. According to the film, the solution for both was marriage. The film presented two directly contrasted images of women in the good woman–bad woman category. The ‘good’ woman is poor, beautiful and the epitome of Tamil culture; she 214 G c.s. lakshmi

is the servant of the family. The ‘bad’ woman is rich, Englisheducated, interested in social work and is insolent. Every now and then, the main story is interspersed with people worshipping Kali with no obvious benefits, and telling her that she is goddess of the rich. The rich woman talks of women’s freedom and she is part of a women’s association. She plays tennis and wears pants. She is rude to the servant girl. Her brother who is in love with the servant says, ‘Wonder which man is going to come to control this girl.’ The rich woman is finally ‘controlled’ by marrying a poor boy pretending to be rich, who reveals he did it to take revenge for the death of his father, as her father was responsible for it. On the other hand, the poor girl marries the rich boy and there is a general declaration that there is only one community and only one god. The rich girl is a comment on the various women’s organisations in the Tamil region at that time. The members of these organisations were not considered Tamil mothers although their concept of a woman was not really different. These women were considered part-time charity workers who did not have finer human qualities which the real Tamil mothers were nurtured in. Their qualities were made obvious by the clothes they wore, and finally they were brought back to the fold by a ‘true Tamil man’. These obviously contrasted women have continued to appear in Tamil films, and true Tamil heroes like M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) and Sivaji Ganesan in the earlier days, and younger heroes in the present films have been in the task of turning them into Tamil mothers metaphorically. In a film (Valiba Virundu) directed and produced by Murasoli Maran, Karunanidhi’s nephew and one of the leading figures of the DMK, there is a song describing the kind of bride needed: Wanted a bride a good bride … Even if she gallivants freely like the temple bull9 romping around with no one to check her I shall put a string around her nose and drag her and control her, I shall make her as patient as a buffalo. Wanted a bride a good bride. Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 215

Another film that was a distorted Silapadhikaram was Rathakkanneer. One of the staunchest supporters of the SelfRespect Movement, M.R. Radha acted as the hero. Rathakkanneer — tears of blood — was about a man educated abroad who had forgotten many elements of Tamil culture. But one aspect of the culture he remembered and followed was womanising. He becomes a gruesome-looking leper and requests his wife to marry his friend Balu who works for the upliftment of workers and is a social worker. The ‘tears of blood’ are supposed to be those of the oppressed wife. The film’s dominant motif is the purity-versusimpurity one. The wife is the pure one, and the dancer who entices him is the impure one. The wife is used not only as a symbol of purity but also change. She has her pride and dignity and while she believes that as a wife she has to be totally faithful and loyal to her husband, at one point she also thinks of starting a new life with another man. In a particular scene, she tells her husband’s friend to take her to the dancer’s house. He tells her: – Chandra, you are expecting tenderness from a stone. A whore’s heart is harder than iron. To which she replies: – A pattini’s10 tears are stronger than fire.

When she reaches the dancer’s place and pleads with her husband, he calls her a whore. Who is a pattini and who is a whore is a matter to be pronounced by someone else and the greatest insult to a Tamil woman is to invoke the exact opposite image and call her a whore. From Manohara days, the crux of all debates has been whether a woman is a pattini or a whore. A song in the film which talks of women’s exploitation by men is virtually the women’s programme of the Self-Respect Movement. But how exactly women must respond to this exploitation is actually to be guided and decided by men. The film makes several points clear. One is that a woman oppressed by her husband must make a new life for herself. But this new life can only come from a good-hearted man. If not, she should take up a life of service for others. Another aspect the film is careful to guard is the virginity of the woman. The husband never sleeps with her and in the end, 216 G c.s. lakshmi

he literally forces her to marry the good guy as she is unable to take the decision. The film also makes several allusions to the fact that what she is really yearning for is physical intimacy. In the classical style, she blames the moon for torturing her. At one point, she requests the husband’s friend to start a new life with her, but he being a true Tamil man cannot accede to this request. This is shown as her moment of faltering — driven by her own sexual needs — when a man saves her from making a mistake. This particular sequence shown as a sympathetic gesture towards women actually reveals a lot of doubts about a woman’s capacity to remain ‘pure’, if not aided by a man by situating her in a marriage. The moment the guiding spirit of a man is removed, her sexual needs overcome her and she is on the path to ‘impurity’. The sequence also is to assure the audience that her virginity is intact and even if married again, her purity cannot be doubted and her pattini status won’t be harmed. The movement encouraged several widows to remarry and several notices used to appear in Vidudulai about marriages of single mothers and women separated from their husbands. But the Tamil need to generally abide by the purity concept is expressed in the film. The heroine’s request and the friend’s reply form the crux of this conflict and resolution. Chandra attempts suicide and her conscience tells her: … surrender yourself to a young man and live if you want. Why should you give up what the world has given you? Announce to the world that to withdraw within like a tortoise and begging men is the task of lowly persons. Marry a young man suited to you and be happy. See a new world. Women like you can take a new path. (Balu arrives) – What is this Chandra? – I want to remarry Balu. – You belong to the women’s clan that looks upon joy and sorrow equally. When your heart is full of worries, teach blind children; love orphaned children. – I did show love that way. But I need a companion to take care of my loneliness. – Companion? Nature has provided us with so many companions. Look at the creeper there. Look at the bird. And here is the mullai flower blooming. – I saw the creeper. It is shaking looking for a support. I saw the bird. It told me about happiness and flew away. I asked this mullai and it told me there is no happiness. Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 217

– What can I do about it? – Give me support. If you will it, there can be a way. Let a new chapter begin in our lives …

Before Balu can reply and let the audience know how the issue is resolved, the husband enters accusing her of infidelity and adultery. At the end of the film, the husband allows her to marry and thus the question of her purity is resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned. Contrary to rational theories of the movement, the film incorporated the idea of punishment of evil/sin and reward for goodness/purity. The man who womanises becomes a leper; the ‘impure’ woman who entices him dies in a plane crash. In her case, it is also a dual punishment because she is trying to get into a relationship with a hindi-speaking man from Bombay. The wife who waits, overcoming her loneliness and need for a companion, is rewarded with marriage and a husband who is a social worker.

VII Goddesses, Mothers and Politics In 1967, the DMK party formed its first government in Tamil Nadu. In the years of stabilisation preceding this, it had avoided extreme stands on issues. The radical social programme of atheism, abolition of the caste system and the destruction of hinduism had been replaced in these growing years by an emphasis on reform within the existing system by promoting rationality and the ‘One God, One Clan’ idea of theology. The focus of attack during these years was the imposed hindi and the northern leadership (Barnett 1976: 86; Karunanidhi 1989; Arangannal 1988) During these years of stabilisation, in keeping with the pattern of their films which at a surface level gave the impression of taking up issues of women’s exploitation but in intent were only trying to establish the invincibility of the true Tamil mother-woman, the DMK Party functioned in a way that put women in specific roles where they did not play a prominent role in making decisions or generating debates. Women’s support for the party was expressed in ways considered ‘womanly’. When the rising sun was granted as the party emblem, many women drew the figure of the rising 218 G c.s. lakshmi

sun outside their door step as a part of the kolams they drew every morning. In 1975, the secretary of the women’s wing of the head office of the party could only list opening of orphanages and building of marriage choultries (dharamsalas where marriages are conducted in an inexpensive manner) as active programmes for women. This is the logical outcome of the place assigned to women in the party from the beginning. Thirukkural classes were conducted for women stressing their family duties. The women went along with the decisions of the party and when they staged plays, they were full of foamy, bubbling dialogues of social change, not very different from the dialogues and screenplays their own party leaders wrote. For example, when women staged a play called Porattam or Struggle for the district meeting of the party in 1951, the theme was similar to that of films which MGR was going to make popular — the factory owner’s daughter falls in love with a worker’s son in the play. The DMK was familial in structure and women in the party occupied the same position they did in families. When Satyavani Muthu left the party after disagreement with Karunanidhi, it was seen as an act of defiance to the head of the family. The secretary of the women’s wing put the situation in an analogy that was very expressive. She said that the party was like a family and that a wife must not leave the family if the husband, in a fit of temper, asks her to leave. In a very succinct way, this analogy expresses where women stood as far as the party was concerned (Lakshmi 1984: 31–32). There were no more figurative battlefields left for Tamil mothers to send their sons to; the DMK government now needed a different kind of support from Tamil mothers. For the sake of the economy and for the sake of women’s own health, it wanted women to control their procreative abilities. The government stepped up intensive mass-contact programmes through plays, folk songs and folk-theatre, and incentive-programmes for familyplanning propagation. Much of this was aimed at women. Until then, vasectomy camps had been organised in what had been termed ‘crash programmes’ to popularise surgical methods. But with the coming of the DMK government, the emphasis was on tubectomy.11 This trend has continued and the family-planning hoardings and captions on the walls often appeal to the women. ‘Women who beget only two children are as precious as eyes to Tamil Nadu’ is a popular hoarding. Journals of the family planning Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 219

department have poems written by men on women telling their husbands about family planning.12 In 1977, when MGR, the popular actor and leader of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (AIADMK), became the chief minister, he devised an entirely different way of making the women feel that their welfare was constantly on his mind and that he venerated them. Even before MGR became chief minister, while he was associated with the DMK, he had been projected by it for its own propaganda — as a spokesman of their populist political views in his films. These films became so popular that the characters he played — rikshawala, worker, fisherman, peasant — and the mannerisms he adopted made him one among the masses.13 Without having to organise a real strike or doing union work or dirtying his hands with soil, MGR was able to make a majority of the audience feel that he was one among them and part of their everyday life, accessible to them and sympathetic to their causes. As a studied strategy, the DMK had used the mothermetaphor in their films and to this MGR added his own personal idiosyncrasies — his own house was called Annai Illam (Mother’s House) and his studio was named after his mother Satya; he was thus projected as a saviour of women. The mothers in his film commanded, sacrificed and died for their sons. Often MGR swore by them and by Tamil, thereby lending to them each other’s qualities and values. ‘I swear by Mother! I swear by Tamil!’ is one of his famous songs (Nan Annaittal). Almost all his films had one song on a mother or an allusion to a mother, and gestures and dialogues revealing his tenderness towards them. There are a number of films he has made with the word ‘mother’ in the title: Thayin Madiyil (In Mother’s Lap); Thai Chollai Thattadhe (Don’t Go against Mother’s Words); Thaikupin Tharam (After the Mother, the Wife); Deiva Thai (Divine Mother); Thayai Katha Thanayan (Son who Protected the Mother) to cite a few. In Thayin Madiyil, he sang a song that projected the mother as the only refuge of a son and as a perfect human being: Whatever wealth one gains Whatever joy one gets Can it equal a mother? Mother … Mother … Mother Can anything replace you? 220 G c.s. lakshmi

If I put my head on mother’s lap Sorrows are forgotten When I see god in mother There is no other god She is more patient than the earth She bore me for ten months In the cradle of her pure mind She cuddles her child The miracles of love Are mother’s deeds It’s mother’s deed It’s mother’s lullaby That sets the mind at rest …

Through his films MGR was projecting himself as the ‘true’ Tamil man — he was brave, courageous, a devoted son and a virile lover. He combined all these elements in the character of the hero, and in emphasising the macho-quality, he also played the class card. Like in Annadurai’s Velaikari, educated rich girls in MGR’s films were shown as shallow and heartless till he appeared and reformed them or often controlled them if they were shrewd. MGR used his young heroines to project his own virility and manhood. It was difficult to tell MGR apart from the characters he played, and his own biographers, while elaborating his political philosophy, quoted his film songs (Lakshmanan 1986). When he became the chief minister, MGR had all these films behind him as testimony of his political philosophy and work. Having proven his commitment to the cause of women through his films — that his heroines were empty-headed shadows looking up to him for guidance and emancipation; no one really objected for this got blurred by stressing the mother-metaphor — MGR wanted to stabilise the support of women. He began a blitzkrieg of wellcalculated assaults, generating a euphoria that in whatever he did, women were his central concern. He appointed women ministers and before one could point out exactly when it all happened, the word thai-kulam (mother–community) was in everyday use to refer to women. In his whirlwind tours around the villages, he remembered to embrace old women and be blessed by them. At another level, he set into motion a revival of the worship of goddesses. Idayam, a popular magazine owned by a close friend, began an ongoing column on various goddesses, some of whom were long forgotten.14 Dilapidated temples of goddesses at places Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 221

like Mangadu were repaired and gained a new status when special buses began to ply to these places. New verses on these goddesses began to be written and sold in shops around various temples. Drama troupes hired by the government to perform plays for propagating family planning now also began to perform plays on goddesses.15 A general impression was created that MGR worshipped goddesses because to him mothers were goddesses and goddesses were mothers. How effective this mother-goddess revival was and how deeply it had penetrated became evident when women’s associations in smaller localities took up grouplearning of verses on mother-goddesses as one of their major activities. Along with the revival of mother-goddesses there was also the revival of the woman who stayed at home and contributed to the country by being a ‘good mother’. The skits and plays that more than 90 women’s organisations put up in a conference in 1983 at Madras harped upon this theme.16 In this well-calculated game MGR had one more trump card to deal, which he did in 1982, Bharati centenary year. Keeping in view Bharati’s ‘new woman’, he organised a women’s rally and a procession around the streets of Madras to culminate in Valluvar Kottam, a gigantic stone structure which in design is a combination of an ancient temple and a palace. Although it was dubbed a nonparty rally, it was mainly an AIADMK affair and the women were mostly government employees and school girls. This women’s rally served two purposes. First, it asserted that the mainstay of MGR’s support came from women and second, it served as a launching pad to launch the political career of Jayalalitha, the ‘new woman’ of Bharati, who was to be the propaganda secretary of the party. A gigantic woman-goddess became a kind of accompanying symbol of the MGR government. But when this gigantic creature was turned over, its underbelly was full of scars — scars of callosity left by many allegorised maternal years, scars of marginalisation in politics and scars of still having to deal with certain issues as women’s ‘special’ problems. Rise in prices of essential commodities, water scarcity, etc., were still considered problems which affected women most. Women’s organisations like the Penn Urimai Iyakkam and the Democratic Women’s Front referred to these problems in their publications and interviews as those especially concerning women for they directly affected the home, and the home was still a woman’s special responsibility.17 On the day of the rally 222 G c.s. lakshmi

itself, the then opposition party, DMK indulged in a gesture that emphasised this specific aspect. It organised a rally for women, no doubt self-respecting, who carried mud-pots and broke them to symbolise water scarcity. The publications on mother-goddess that poured into the market, the thai-kulam idiom and MGR’s own films of the virile, valorous Tamil man — all led to a series of films, some of them rural-based, which began a trend of an earnest hero, macho in a less pronounced and almost bumbling style, and of heroines who were Tamil-mothers with, what is referred to in Tamil as the ‘Tamil-fragrance’ — pure, simple, righteous with controlled anger and subservient to men. These films were by K. Bhagyaraj whom MGR termed as his protégé in the world of cinema. The clever manipulation of the mother-metaphor was revealed recently when Bhagyaraj advertised his latest film: ‘My leader lived because of his loving mother–community. The same mother–community is helping me to survive. To honour that mother–community, I have been careful to handle the theme and screenplay of this film…’18 That this politics, where the mother-community became a pawn, did not really contribute in a positive way to the lives women lived or to the values with which women were assessed became obvious in the noisy scenes in the Tamil Nadu assembly sometime back. It seemed that ‘the mother-versus-the whore’ was still the yardstick for Jayalalitha who was known as anni (sisterin-law) at the time of MGR and who, eager to prove her purity, declared that she really wanted to commit sati when MGR passed away. She claimed that she was called a whore in the assembly by the chief minister Karunanidhi.19 While Jayalalitha had to legitimise her status as a pattini and as a as a Tamil-mother by evoking memories of sati, those who wanted to question her claim to political leadership, had to evoke the totally contrasted image of the whore to de-legitimise her claims. Her political claims had to be made and denied on the basis of purity. This yardstick was deliberately nurtured and cultivated for the political advancement of a particular group of politicians and ‘glory’ of a culture — something inherently natural and unalterable. Like the time when Madras was facing one more of its rainless drought periods, I was traveling in a taxi and struck up a conversation with the driver about the drought. ‘It cannot rain’, he said with a lot of conviction. ‘There are no more chaste women.’ Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 223

Notes Originally published in Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42–43), 20–27 October 1990. The Tamil word for mother–community is thai-kulam, the literal translation of which is mother–clan. But since the term ‘clan’ has connotations other than what is intended by the Tamil word, I am using the word ‘mother–community’. The word kulam (clan) is used in ways that go beyond the circumspection of the word ‘clan’. For example, at times all Tamilians are grouped together and referred to as Tamil kulam (the Tamil clan). This article when published in Economic and Political Weekly, 20–27 October 1990, evoked critical responses from a few scholars. For their responses and my rejoinder see Economic and Political Weekly, 16 February 1991; 20 April 1991 and 15 June 1991. 1. From the film Thei Pirandal Vazhi Pirakum (A way will be shown in the month of Thei [January]. Thei is the auspicious month for marriages and other occasions. The title is a Tamil proverb. 2. Kamala Ganesh and Prabha Krishnan offered useful comments on an initial draft of this paper. I thank them both for their suggestions. I also thank Maithreyi Krishnaraj for her support and indulgence. The debates involved have been summarised and reviewed in numerous books and articles. Of particular interest to me were Birke (1986); Jones (1984); Thiele (1989); Alcoff (1988); Lovibond (1989). 3. Tirukkural is a book of aphorisms based on moral, codes and ethics written by Tiruvalluvar 2,000 years ago. It has become like a bible for Tamilians as it is supposed to elaborate the ‘true’ Tamil life. 4. Avvaiyar is a poetess who lived during the Sangam period who was a wandering bard like many other bards of her period. Having chosen to remain single she wanted to do away with her youth and the associated encumbrances of marriage and family. According to a popular story, she prayed to god Ganesha and was transformed into an old woman. For more details of miracles surrounding the body of female devotees (see Chakravarti 1989). 5. Yaz is an ancient Tamil musical instrument. 6. The lullaby form which was closely associated with the mother in fact became a very effective propaganda material in Tamil politics. Vanidasan who wrote during the time of Annadurai used the lullaby form to talk about the battle against domination by the north: Raging tiger, Is the cradle the place Where you learn to 224 G c.s. lakshmi

Save your mother-country? You cry aloud you kick your legs Are you thinking– How long this slavery? Rest in sleep There are eight thousand brothers, Male-lions Following the path of Anna. Anna means elder brother but here it refers to C.N. Annadurai, the Tamil leader. Kannadasan wrote a lullaby stressing the Tamil identity: Brave child, accept You are a Tamilian– Being an Indian Comes second Tamizhavan 1971: 66–67 7. The kind of politics elsewhere that has followed essentialisation, like in Germany that made staying at home a political act, has been analysed by Frigga Haug in her note on ‘National Socialism’. She says that total productive labour was divided into gender-specific spheres — household, culture, child-rearing, psychology and social work on the side of women, and politics, military matters and science on that of men (See Haug 1988). 8. Stridhan here refers to the gifts in cash and kind given by the uncle to the child as a part of the continuing gifts that the mother receives from her paternal home on all important occasions throughout her life. 9. The bull that belongs to the temple wanders about freely and no one controls it. 10. A pattini is a woman loyal and faithful to her husband. 11. Family Planning Activities as gleaned from indices of Health and Family Planning Department, GO No: 2320 (Ms) November 4 1964; GO No: 1612 (Ms) July 21 1965; G.O. No.1010 (Ms) SM June 24 1967; No; 1020 (Ms) CBC July 1 1968. 12. Kudumba Nala Saidi Kadir (‘Family Welfare News Bulletin’). Journal of the Family Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, July 1981, p. 17. 13. See Pandian 1989. 14. These articles were printed into books later from 1981 onwards. 15. Interview with Kanchi Rangamani, Secretary, Azagiri Nataka Mandram, April 24 1984; Interview with Mariamman Temple priest at Salem, Tamil Nadu, April 29 1984. Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 225

16. I attended the conference as an observer and spoke to members of the various suburban ladies associations. 17. Issues such as these where women positioned themselves as essential caretakers of the home are not very different from the demand for a feminine sphere — for the mother and child — raised by women in the Green Party in their manifesto called the Mothers’ Manifesto, which has been seen as a ‘withdrawal into a feminine motherly sphere in which mothers seek to cultivate a sheltered public zone’ (see Haug 1988: n 7). At present, most women still do manage the household but rise in prices and water-scarcity affect the household in general. By turning them into a ‘special’ problem of women, its methods of solution also become specially geared to women at home (For example, in Madras in 1982, water was supplied in various streets during the day when most working women were not at home. They had to employ someone to collect the water or seek the co-operation of a friendly neighbour) and the division of particular responsibilities between women and men get further confirmed. This acts in ways that increase the burden on women at times, shifting the responsibilities away from men, thus strengthening and sustaining a politics based on difference (Penn Vidudulai April 1981 p. 21; Uzaikum Magalir Mada Edu October–November 1983 p. 14). 18. Dinamani Kadir (Madras), December 3 1989. 19. Indian Post (Bombay) March 26 1989.

References Alcoff, Linda. 1988. ‘Cultural Feminism Versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory’, Signs 13(3): 405–36. Arangannal, Irama. 1988. Ninavugal. Madras: Nakkiran Padipagam. Barnett, Margueritte Ross. 1976. The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baskaran, S. Theodore. 1981. The Message Bearers: The Nationalist Politics and the Entertainment Media in South 1880–1945. Madras: Cre-A. Birke, Lynda. 1986. Women, Feminism and Biology: The Feminist Challenge. Brighton: Wheatsheaf. Chakravarti, Uma. 1989. ‘The World of the Bhaktin in South Indian Traditions: The Body and Beyond’, Manushi 50–52: 18–29. Chidambaranar, Sami. 1983. Tamizhar Talaivar. 8th edn. Madras: Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Organisation. Guga Priyai. 1989. Pengalukku. Madras: Alliance Company. Haug, Frigga. 1988. ‘Review of Mothers in Fatherland’, New Left Review, 172: 105–14. Iraiyan, A. 1981. Suya Mariyadai Chudaroligal. Madras: Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Organisation. 226 G c.s. lakshmi

Irschick, Eugene F. 1986. Tamil Revivalism in the 1930s. Madras: Cre-A. Jones, Ann Rosalind. 1984. ‘Julia Kristeva in Femininity: The Limits of Semiotic Politics’, Feminist Review, 8: 56–73. Kalayanasundaranar, V. 1986. Penin Perumai. Madras: Poompuhar Padipagam. Karunanidhi, M. 1989. Nenjeekku Needhi. 2 vols. Madras: Tirumagal Nilayam. Kudi Arasu. 1928. Madras, August 12. ———. 1932. Madras, May 29. Lakshmanan, Vidwan. 1986. Makkal Thilagam MGR. Madras: Vanadhi Padipagam. Lakshmi, C.S. 1984. Face Behind the Mask: Women in Tamil Literature. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Lovibond, Sabina. 1989. ‘Feminism and Postmodernism’. New Left Review, 178: 5–28. Pandian, Jacob. 1982. ‘The Goddess Kannagi: A Dominant Symbol of South Indian Tamil Society’, in James J. Preston (ed.), Mother Worship. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Periyar, Thandai. 1932. Penn En Adimaianal. Madras: Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Organisation. Pillai, Vaiyaburi S. 1955. Divya Prabandham Mudalayiram. Madras: S. Rajam. Rajagopalan, Sarla. 1988. Thamizh Tendralum Penmaiyum. Madras: Oli Padipagam. Ramanujan, A.K. 1985. Poems of Love and War. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ramasubramaniam, Neelavati. 1983. Vazkai Varalaru. Kumbakonam: S.A.K.K. Raju. Sanivi, N. 1975. Perunthamiz. Madras: Madras University Press. Swaminathan, K. (ed.). 1984. Subramania Bharati: Chosen Poems and Prose. Delhi: The All India Subramania Bharati Centenary Collection Committee. Tamizhavan. 1974. Irubadil Kavidai. Nagercoil: Publisher not mentioned. Thiele, Bev. 1989. ‘Dissolving Dualism: O’Brien, Embodiment and Social Construction’, Resources for Feminist Research (RFR)/Documentation sur la Recherche Feministe (DRF), 18(3): 7–12. Tiruvalluvar. 1962. Tirukkural. With trans. by G.U. Pope et al. Madras: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publications Society. Vanamamalai, N. 1964. Tahmizar Nattu Padalgal. Madras: New Century Book House. Viswanathan, Cheeni and Mani, T.V.S. 1979. Chakravartini Katturaigal. Madras: Vanavil Prasuram. Vidudulai. (Madras) 1937. July 29, (1939) January 26, (1939) January 10 (1939) March 18, (1939) April 19, (1939) August 14. Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu F 227

chapter 8

The Mother in Sane GurujiÊs

Shyamchi Ai

shanta gokhale Sane Guruji was born Pandurang Sadahiv Sane in a small village called Palgaad in the Konkan district of Maharashtra on December 24 1899. His family were ‘Khots’, collectors of revenue, and thus rather wellto-do. However by the time young Pandurang was born, the family had fallen on bad times. Their property had been confiscated and life had now become a struggle for survival. Pandurang was a bright student, but it was impossible for his father to educate him beyond school. Not wishing to discontinue his studies, Pandurang went to the princely state of Aundh where he heard that education was free for the poor and deserving. He went through many hardships, surviving on one meal a day, often eating no more than stale scraps. He matriculated in 1918 and enrolled himself in New Poona College (S.P. College) from where he did his BA and MA and then joined a school in Amalner as a teacher. This is where he came to be known as Sane Guruji. In 1930, he gave up his job to enter the national freedom struggle. For him, this was the most satisfying (yet ultimately disillusioning) part of his life. He met Vinoba Bhave during his first imprisonment in 1930. Vinobaji used to conduct discourses on the Gita in prison and Sane Guruji would listen to him very attentively. He was tremendously affected by the man and his teachings.

Sane Guruji was imprisoned from 1932 to 1934, and then again from 1940 to 1942 for having spearheaded the farmers’ rally to demand for the waiving of revenue tax after the floods had destroyed crops. He was imprisoned once again in 1943 for his participation in the Quit India Movement and freed with the other leaders in 1945. Independence was not the only thing Sane Guruji was fighting for. In 1946, he campaigned throughout Maharashtra for six months for the Vitthal temple in Pandharpur to be opened to Harijans. He went on a 21-day fast as penance for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a fellow Maharashtrian. Guruji was a socialist; he left the Congress with other socialists after independence. He started a magazine called Sadhana through which he propagated the socialist ideology. In fact all his writings — novels, short stories, essays — were informed by the urge for social progress. His concept of Antar-Bharati was directed towards overcoming regional chauvinism. He wished to set up a complex on the lines of Shantiniketan which would work towards national integration and brotherhood through the learning of each other’s languages, rituals and customs. He even collected some funds towards this project. However, death came unexpectedly on June 11 1950 and the dream was snuffed out. Sane Guruji committed suicide. Sane Guruji undertook the writing of Shyamchi Ai (‘Shyam’s Mother’) in 1933 when he was at the Nashik jail. He began writing it on the night of February 9 and completed it on the night of February 13. The routine he followed during these five days was to do his prison duties all day and write all night till the early hours of the morning. He wrote 45 episodes in all during this period, but dropped three of them for unnamed reasons from the published copy. His prison mates found his stories very moving; so did readers of a school magazine in which some of them were published. This emboldened him to hope that they would find a wider readership amongst people who value the ‘sacredness of the mother–child bond’ and ‘greatness and glory of the mother’. It was with the hope that Shyamchi Ai would enter schools and mould young minds the way Shyam’s mother had moulded Shyam’s mind and spirit, that Sane Guruji had the book published in 1940 and 1954 respectively. The third edition which included six penand-ink sketches has been reprinted 21 times, the last reprint appearing as recently as 1985. The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 229

The famous journalist, humourist, satirist and playwright, Acharya P.K. Atre says in his Introduction (1954: 1) to Shyamchi Ai: Some people write with their blood, but Sane Guruji has written Shyamchi Ai with his tears. Every sentence in the book emerges from a choked throat and is the expression of a suppressed sob. Which is why it is quite impossible to read the book with dry eyes and a dry heart.

Sane Guruji writes in his Preface (1954: 2): All the love that a heart is capable of has been poured into this writing. How often have my eyes grown moist as I wrote these stories; how often did my heart heave and brim over with emotion. This book will have done its work if it succeeds in creating in the reader’s mind the feeling of profound love, devotion and gratitude that I have experienced towards my mother.

The quality of writing is thus avowedly sentimental and the aim is to win the reader over by wringing tears from the heart. This article deals with the mother as she is portrayed in Shyamchi Ai. While it is a powerful portrayal, it becomes important as a study because one may assume it to have greatly influenced middle-class attitudes towards motherhood, judging by the fact that in the period between its first publication and its last reprint, a span of 55 years, every middle-class home in Maharashtra is said to have possessed a copy of Shyamchi Ai, and every member of every such household may be assumed to have read it. It was also made into a film which instantly received the same kind of adoring viewership. This study is a close examination of the text based entirely on my personal reading of it.

Sane GurujiÊs Narrative Method The narrator of these forty-two ‘nights’ is Shyam, a fictional character placed in a fictional situation, but bearing so close a resemblance to Sane Guruji and his life, that one may take the book to be largely autobiographical. Yet the author has warned us in his Introduction: ‘Readers must not take this book to be an account of my life. While the stories here are true, there is a possibility of a character, an incident or a remark being fictitious.’ The fictional situation that he creates for Shyam is an ashram where the 230 G shanta gokhale

ashramites exchange stories about their lives and experiences after evening prayers. One day, some of them ask Shyam why he never tells stories about his life. He says he would be greatly saddened to recall the incidents of his life. The ashramites then persuade him to narrate only such incidents that would make him happy. He thinks over the suggestions and then confesses that the only happy memories he has of his past life have to do with his mother, who he says not only gave him life, but gave him his character, his spirit and everything else he had come to value in life. He offers to tell them stories about his mother if they would like to hear them. They are delighted with the suggestion and the stories begin. The titles of some of the stories give an indication of the range of themes handled: Savitri Vrat, Flowers Cannot Speak, Guarding Your Self-Respect, Taught to be Independent, A Petty Theft, Indebtedness is Hell on Earth, Mother’s Last Illness. The tenth story entitled, Parnakuti (The Cottage) is translated here in its entirety to serve as an example of Sane Guruji’s narrative method, which is under analysis here.

Parnakuti (The Cottage) ‘Take me with you to hear the story, brother. You go everyday. Ai, please tell brother to take me with him,’ Vachhi was pestering her brother, ‘Why do you want to come? You will only fall asleep there,’ her brother answered. ‘Take her along. Let her also hear the stories. If they are good, then everybody should have the chance to hear them. Even I would have loved to come, but by the time I finish these chores, it is already night,’ their mother said. ‘Bhimi from next door goes, Hanshi goes, even Harni goes because her brother takes her. Aren’t you my brother?’ Vachhi pleaded in an attempt to soften her brother’s stony heart. ‘Oh, all right; but don’t you dare start nagging me to bring you home if you feel sleepy,’ warned Vachhi’s brother, finally agreeing to take her to the ashram. Many children and adults had started coming to the ashram every night to listen to these story-like discourses. By the time Vachhi and her brother arrived, the story had already begun.

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Finally my father’s brothers drove him out of the house. Enmity between brothers is an old tradition in India, starting with the Kauravas and Pandavas. My father, who had spent all his life in this house, had looked after everybody’s interests as best as he could for thirty years — where he had fed others on milk and curd, while he himself had tamarind water; where he had gotten his sisters and brothers married, tried to please them, give them everything they wanted — now was being driven out of this very house. My mother too had to endure all kinds of humiliating comments from the family. We were very small then, but later mother used to tell us about how it all happened with tears in her eyes. I still remember that day. It was the day of the Ganapati festival in the month of Magh (the eleventh month of the hindu calender; corresponds to January in the Gregorian calender). The usual public festival used to take place even in our village in the month of Bhadrapad (August–September), as it did everywhere else. But the Magh festival was held in fulfilment of a promise made by a family from Mahad. This particular year, a famous kirtankar, Abyankar was presenting a series of kirtans for the festival. All the villagers used to go to the temple everyday to hear him. On this particular night, we had not been allowed to go, but were sent to bed. Mother woke us about nine or ten o’clock in the night. My parents were preparing to leave home at that hour. Mother’s eyes were streaming with tears. She was leaving the house where she had milked Mori the cow, given the servants their fill to eat, where she had once adorned herself in ornaments of pearls and gold — this was the Gokul she was now leaving. Ashamed to do so during the day, she was doing it at night. She was carrying my younger brother, the one who came after Yeshwant (who died). My father strode ahead, followed by my mother and then me. And where were we going? We were going to my mother’s parents’ home which was in the same village. My grandparents were away. They had gone to Pune on a visit to their son. They would be back in a few days time. We made our silent way to their house, afraid of being seen. The temple was bursting with joy, while we slinked by, sunk in our grief. Many are the scenes one sees simultaneously on god’s expansive earth. Soon we got used to being in our new house, but the shadow on my mother’s face wouldn’t lift. Grandmother returned a few days late. She was a loving person but very stubborn. Knowing our situation only too well, mother made sure that she didn’t go against my grandmother’s wishes in anything.

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Mother was inwardly very unhappy about having to live in her parents’ home. She felt humiliated. She felt she would be better off dead than living in her parents’ home with her husband. She was a very proud woman. One day, when our grandparents had gone to the temple, and my father was sitting on the verandah writing his accounts, mother came out on the verandah and said, ‘I cannot stay here any longer. If you want me to live, you will have to build an independent house. It is painful in the extreme for me even to eat and drink here.’ Father said, ‘But we are eating the rice we grow. We only live here. Building a house is no joke. You women say these things so easily. You have no idea of the problems we have to deal with.’ Mother suddenly lost her temper and said, ‘You men have no selfrespect at all.’ My father answered calmly, but dejectedly, ‘We have no self-respect indeed! We are not supposed to be human beings. The whole world insults a man who is poor. Why shouldn’t his wife do the same? Go ahead. Insult me. Say whatever you wish.’ Hearing father speak in this fashion, mother began to weep, ‘I didn’t mean to insult you. Don’t take what I said needlessly to heart. But I really don’t like living here’. ‘Do you think I like living here? But you know our circumstances. I can’t even pay the interest on the loan I’ve taken. What do we build a house with? We can’t live in a cowshed, can we? Living in that kind of house would be equally demeaning,’ father was trying to pacify mother. ‘Even a cowshed will do, as long as it’s independent and belongs to us. Build a simple thatched cottage. I won’t find living there demeaning. It would be better than living in my parents’ house. Once my brothers are married, even their wives might say insulting things to us. It is better to leave before that happens. I am not particular about living in a tiled house. It won’t cost us much to build a simple cottage. Here, take my gold bangles. If they won’t fetch enough, here is my nose-ring. It makes no difference to me if I don’t have bangles and a nose-ring to wear.’ ‘I don’t in any case go visiting anybody. Our independence is our best ornament. I am quite happy as long as I have the kumkum on my forehead and the mangalsutra around my neck. What use are these bangles and this nose-ring if I’ve lost my independence?’ So saying, mother actually placed her ornaments before father. Father was stunned. ‘I didn’t know you were so unhappy. I shall soon build us a small place’, he assured her.

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Mother would always say, ‘if you want freedom, you should be prepared to discard your ornaments if need be, for freedom is the most valuable and becoming ornament you can wear.’ We began building our cottage on the small plot of land which was our share of the family property. The walls were made of mud and unbaked bricks, which are larger in size than baked bricks. After the walls were built, the roof was thatched and the floor evened out. It was decided to celebrate our house entry on the muhurat of Akshayz-trutitya. Mother was both happy and sad. Seeing the disparity between the other brother’s large houses that stood next door to ours and our own, she would feel sad. Then she would say, ‘But large or small, this is our house. I am the mistress here. Nobody has the right to move me from here.’ First we installed our household gods in the new house, followed by the rest of our belongings. Mother had made a coconut sweet for the house-warming because the occasion had to be celebrated. It was a busy day. Father was constantly telling everybody, ‘This is only a temporary place. We’ll build something bigger later.’ But mother said to us, ‘He will never manage to build a large house now. God’s house will be the next big house I shall live in. But meanwhile, this little cottage is heaven to me because I am free here. I don’t have to cringe and beg here. The salt and bhakri we eat here will taste like nectar compared to even basundi-puri if it is eaten in another’s house.’ That night we were sitting out in the frontyard. The stars were out in the sky. The moon had set a long time ago. Mother was feeling fulfilled. Though the cottage was small, the front and backyards were large and they seemed more like the home than the house itself. Mother said, ‘Shyam, do you like our new house?’ ‘Yes, I like it. It’s like poor people’s houses. Our Mathuri will like it a lot.’ Did my mother feel sad that I had compared our house to Mathuri’s, the woman who came in to pound our grain for us? No she didn’t. She said, ‘Yes, Mathuri is poor. But her heart is rich. Let us also live in this poor man’s house and grow rich in spirit.’ Just then a star shot across the sky and disappeared. All of a sudden, mother grew depressed. My younger brother shouted, ‘What a large star it was!’ Mother, still gloomy, said, ‘Shyam, do you think the star was telling us that your mother too will soon disappear. Do you think the vast sky up there is beckoning me? Do you think the star appeared in order to invite me there?’ ‘No my dear mother, it appeared because it wanted to get a glimpse of this independent house. It probably liked what it saw better than heaven itself. Haven’t we been told that the gods from heaven used 234 G shanta gokhale

to descend to eat the grains of rice that fell into the river Jumna when Gopal washed his hands in the river? The stars will descend in the same way to look at this house. Because there is love here. You are here,’ I said. Mother stroked my back with a handful of mother-love and said, ‘Shyam, who taught you to speak like this? How sweetly and beautifully you talk; truly, the stars and everybody else will find this house a beautiful place.’

The moral of the story is clear. It is the storytelling method that we are interested in. Let us look once again at the situation in which these stories were written and at the choice of narrative modes that were available to the author. The author’s actual situation was the jail in Nashik. He must have been assailed here by memories of his mother, and her role in making him an independent spirited, self-respecting human being. In the larger context of the independence of the nation for which Sane Guruji was fighting, and for which he was undergoing this particular imprisonment, the values that his mother had tried to inculcate in him must have struck him as being of great value not only to himself, but also to others. He could then have written these stories about his mother and his relationship with her as an autobiography. Instead of doing so, he chose to distance himself from the stories by creating Shyam as the narrator and the ashram as a micro-world in which to locate the stories. Sane Guruji not only begins the storytelling with an introduction to both the character Shyam and the location, the ashram, but also at the same time begins many individual stories with, what one may call, ‘environmental’ passages which create another layer of narrative. In Parnakuti, there is the preliminary argument between Vachhi and her brother. This layer does two things: it develops Shyam’s character as it does during the narration of the stories which is two decades after the events have taken place, and it gives individual lives to his listeners, like Vachhi and her brother. There are many advantages to be gained by such a method. Placing the stories ‘outside’ of himself, so as to say, the author gives them a credibility that they would not have possessed had they been a purely subjective autobiographical narrative. Second, this distancing makes it possible for the author to add The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 235

fictional details without incurring the charge of distortion of truth. He can thus introduce, with impunity, details that serve his ideological purpose. However, he does not, and is not interested in using the third advantage that he could have gained from this three-tier narrative structure. He could have used Shyam as a questioner of the attitudes and values implicit in the stories which chronologically belong to his earlier life. Since then, Shyam, alias Sane Guruji had grown, become more aware of the injustices of the world, seen the new directions the country was moving in, and been part of the political struggle himself. That Sane Guruji had no wish to question the past is evident in his choice of an ashram as the location for storytelling. It helps him to totally sidestep politics. An ashram is a place for meditation and prayer, not for struggle and conflict. It is a place, which by its very definition, promotes status quo in the material lives of people. Change is supposed to take place in their souls. It is assumed that this change will automatically bring about the desired changes in society. Thus the credibility that the author gains out of creating a narrator outside himself, thereby objectifying the stories of his life, is actually used not for a progressive purpose, but to reinforce prevalent attitudes towards mothers and motherhood. The author seems to have chosen a narrative structure in which there are, at one time two points of view at work, viz., that of Shyam, the narrator of the stories (which sympathise with and include the story of Shyam as he was of twenty years ago — the actual point of time to these stories belong), and that of the children and adults who listen to the stories and represent the potential reading public. The reason for this structure is to make it less embarrassing for himself to speak about himself, and at the same time, through the responses of his listeners, to establish the wholesome pleasures to be derived out of hearing/reading the stories. Actually the author goes a step further. He uses the listeners as vehicles by which he may in fact speak of his virtues and goodness. It is important to do this, not for pleasing one’s ego-, but because the author sees himself as the product of his mother’s upbringing, and if people are shown to admire this product objectively they will be led to admire and emulate the means of its making. In the introductory chapter, where the ashramites are persuading Shyam to relate the stories of his life and he demurs, saying it would betray pride to speak about himself, one of the ashramites says: 236 G shanta gokhale

‘There is nothing in our ashram that belongs to any one person. Everything here belongs to all of us. Why then do you keep the treasure of your experience to yourself? There is no pride in telling us about yourself; tell us the secret of the sweetness that pervades your life, its open simplicity, its tenderness, love, your smiles, your commitment to serving others, your lack of ego, or of shame in doing any kind of work, even the most menial. How did you acquire all these virtues? Like you, we also help to nurse the ill, but you seem to become the patient’s mother! Why can’t we be like that?’

Thus, we see that the author has used a narrative structure that would appear to ensure objectivity, while in fact using it to validate the extreme subjectivity of the narrative and his own values and attitudes. In the actual telling of the stories, the narrator plays around a great deal with the details of this structure. Sometimes he has pre-narrative passages, as in the above story (the dialogue between Vachhi and her brother), sometimes he goes straight into the story, sometimes he may begin the story proper with an elaborate introduction, and sometimes he jumps straight into the media res, as in the story above. He can use the conventional format of a dramatic highpoint which is then resolved, or he can make a story into a sermon or a character sketch; the author is addressing a live audience with whom he shares a life which inspires and shapes his memories. He is free to range as widely as he wants to over the canvas of his life, unconstrained by strict chronology of formal concerns.

The Ideal Mother In the first chapter of Shyamchi Ai, Sane Guruji makes this statement: ‘The greatest responsibility in a child’s education is borne by the mother. After all, the child lives in her womb and is born as a part of her. Even after the baby is born, it spends all its time with her. Naturally, his first teacher is his mother. The child’s mind is highly impressionable in infancy — it is like clay or wax; it can be moulded to any shape. If the nursing mother eats fried food, the baby gets a cough; if she drinks sugarcane or mango juice, the baby catches a cold. Similarly, if the mother throws a fit of temper in the child’s presence, if she shouts and quarrels, the child’s mind is affected. Unfortunately, mothers forget this. The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 237

Everything that a mother does within the child’s orbit — the things she says, the way she carries herself, the way she laughs — every single gesture and movement is like nourishment to the child’s mind. If the mother’s eyes grow red with anger or cloud over with envy while she is nursing her baby, the baby too grows up to have a temper.’ 1954: 5

In another place, when talking about his married sister, Shyam explains: ‘My sister was an exact replica of my mother — the epitome of love and forgiveness, hard work and endurance. Though she was terribly harassed by her in-laws, she didn’t breathe a word of it at home. She didn’t once raise her hand on her children. Indeed, if she did ever lose her temper with them, she would go far away from them till her anger subsided and only then return.’ 1954: 6

These passages represent the attitudinal frame within which Sane Guruji fits the portrait of Shyam’s mother. Each of the 42 stories narrated in Shyamchi Ai carries a moral. In most of the story, it is the mother’s words and action that point to the moral. Thus, once when Shyam’s mother is ill, she requests Shyam to circumambulate the shrine on her behalf. He is embarrassed to do so. She coaxes and cajoles him, even emotionally blackmails him till he feels quite ashamed of his reluctance and does her bidding. At the end of the story, she says, ‘Never be ashamed of doing good work; be ashamed of doing evil!’ (1954: 7). This is directly didactic. In another story, a wedding party is crossing a river by ferry. An infant begins to cry and will not stop. The infant’s young mother has too little milk to satisfy it. Shyam’s mother who is also nursing, takes the infant from its mother and feeds it, not only that one time, but throughout the wedding festivities. At the end of this story she says, ‘Shyam, you must always give to others what you have. It is easy to love your own child. Loving another’s child is the real test of your capacity to love’ (1954: 8). This lesson follows her exemplary action. Shyam’s mother’s love extends to untouchables too. She cannot bear to see an old Mahar woman waiting helplessly for some 238 G shanta gokhale

other Mahar to pass by so as to help her with her headload of firewood which has fallen down. She tells Shyam to help her, then buys the wood herself and gives the old woman some leftovers to eat. The moral of this story is that god does not discriminate between one human and another, but resides in them all. Shyam learns this lesson by participating in an action which is based on this belief. There is a story about Shyam’s jealousy towards a neighbour’s son, who unlike Shyam, is able to recite the whole of the Ramaraksha, because he owns the book and Shyam doesn’t. Shyam’s mother points out to him that instead of burning with jealousy, he could borrow his friend’s book for a day and copy out all the slokas and learn them by heart. Shyam does as she says and in the process learns a valuable lesson which his mother expresses thus: To have all your mental and physical faculties intact, and to possess intelligence and will power is all you need. You must achieve success by working hard at it, not by depending on others for it. But always remember this — if you are more able than another, don’t despise him. Teach him what you know and make him like yourself. 1954: 9

Another story is about the time when there is no money in the house to buy clothes for anyone in the family for Diwali. Shyam’s father’s dhotis and mother’s saris are equally tattered and patched. Unexpectedly, Shyam’s maternal uncle from Pune sends his sister Rs. 3 for bhai dooj. Shyam’s mother instantly sends him off to the local cloth merchant to buy a pair of dhotis for his father. When she presents her husband with the dhotis, he is saddened because she has spent her gift money on him, while her own saris are in equally bad shape. Shyam’s mother however is very happy to see him in his new dhoti, because ‘the joy of self-sacrifice, when it is inspired by love, has to be experienced to be understood’ (1954: 10). Thus, Shyam learns as many lessons in love, in respect for self and other people, animals, plants and flowers, in industriousness, in independence, and in self-sacrifice and humility, as there are episodes in Shyamchi Ai. In most of the episodes, Shyam’s mother is portrayed as a soft, sweet, gentle person, but despite all this, she is not a passive person. When she is angry, she is just as likely to The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 239

express herself violently as anybody else. However even when this happens, there is a lesson to be learnt form her words. There is an episode in which Shyam’s sister is visiting with her baby daughter. The sister falls ill and requires her mother’s attendance. The mother is already hard-pressed with her normal household chores. She asks Shyam to look after the baby for a while, but Shyam leaves the baby alone on the verandah and continues to play. The baby howls till it is blue in the face, upon which Shyam’s mother shouts: Where is that miserable wretch? Shyam, why don’t you pick up the child–she is holding her breath. Can’t you do even that much? Or do you think you can just swallow your three meals a day, hulk of an ox that you are? You won’t do a spot of work and you won’t die either. You will live to torture your mother. 1954: 11

The harsh words hurt Shyam but he realises that ‘A person who is of no use to others has no business to be alive’ (1954: 12). One of the most important stories in Shyamchi Ai is entitled Ardhanari Nateshwar. The story demonstrates the difference between Sane Guruji’s attitude towards motherhood and the conventional patriarchal attitude. Motherhood has been glorified in patriarchal societies in order to limit women to this single role by encouraging them to believe that their finest fulfilment lies in achieving this state. Sane Guruji, on the other hand, believes that motherhood or ‘motherness’ is a state to which all human beings should finally aspire. In Ardhanari Nateshwar, Shaym has come home for the summer holidays. As usual, his mother has been working hard all day. At the end of the evening, there is still one chore left to do — grinding the grain for the next day. She sets up the hand-mill in the courtyard and Shyam sits down to help her with the grinding. The next door neighbour, Janakibai hears the sound of the mill and comes over to find out who could be grinding so late at night. She is shocked to see Shyam feeding in the grain and pulling the round stone with his mother. This is how the incident is reported: Janakibai told Ai, ‘You have turned Shyam into a little woman.’ Ai said, ‘There is nobody else in the house to help me. Women often do men’s jobs, Janakibai. Men must also learn to do women’s jobs. 240 G shanta gokhale

Why should they feel ashamed of doing them? Shyam helps me to pick the rice, wash the clothes, scour the pots and pans. He even washed my sari the other day. When I said, “Shyam people will laugh at you,” he said, “I feel happy to wash your sari–I cover myself with it at night. If I’m not ashamed to do that, why should I be ashamed to wash it?”’ 1954: 13

Underlining the moral of this story, Shyam says to his ashramites: Friends, I still remember those inspiring words of my mother. We cannot consider men to have evolved fully, until they have acquired the capacity for love, tenderness, service to others, willingness to endure hardships and to toil without complaint. Similarly, women cannot be considered to have made progress until they have cultivated courage, an ability to be ruthless when the need arises and to manage their affairs boldly when the men are away. This is what marriage should mean. Marriage should enable the husband to acquire the qualities of the heart and the wife to acquire qualities of the mind. Ardhanarishwar is the ultimate goal of mankind. Alone, man is incomplete; alone, woman too is incomplete. Their coming together completes both. 1954: 14

Despite the liberalism evident in this thought, it is located strictly within the structure of the middle class (Brahmin) family, where gender ‘virtues’ and roles are given and accepted without questioning. Sane Guruji/Shyam does not question the subservience of women in society. A telling episode that throws light on Sane Guruji’s acceptance of the wife’s subservience to the husband in important affairs of ‘business’ is the one entitled Karja Mhanje Jiwantapanicha Narak (Indebedtness is Hell on Earth). Shyam’s father has borrowed money from the moneylenders and has not been able to pay back even the interest, leave alone the principal amount. The moneylender’s man, Wamanrao has come to collect the dues in full. Shyam’s father has spent the morning being as obsequious as he can to Wamanrao in order to soften him for his impending confession of his inability to pay. He has told his wife, Yashodha to prepare a good lunch for him. Yashodha has been chaffing under the humiliation of having to entertain this uncouth, arrogant man. After lunch, the men have moved out to the verandah and Yashodha has sat down for lunch. Her entire attention however is on what The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 241

is taking place outside in the verandah. Wamanrao is saying he will not accept less than full payment of the debt, while Shyam’s father is pleading with him for time. Ultimately, Warmanrao says that anybody who could have built himself a spanking new house, can just as easily repay his debts. This is the conversation that follows, as narrated by Shyam: ‘Wamanrao, what can I say? Do you call this a house? A thatched roof and walls of unbaked bricks? I built this hovel with the cowshed at my wife’s insistence; I didn’t have money even for that; I had to sell my wife’s gold bangles to do it,’ my father confessed, deeply ashamed. In the kitchen, my mother’s tears fell into her rice as she heard him plead. Her grief could hardly be contained. She was unable to swallow a single mouthful of food. ‘If you sold your wife’s bangles to build a house, you can sell your wife now to repay your debts,’ the moneylender’s man shamelessly suggested. Mother shot up like a streak of lightening. She washed her hands and came out in the verandah, her eyes emitting sparks of anger and anguish. Standing in the doorway, she said fiercely, ‘Get out of here. Aren’t you ashamed to talk about selling wives. Have you no control over your tongue? Get out and tell that moneylender master of yours that he can auction off this house if he pleases, but we will not stand for this kind of language from you.’ ‘Suits me fine. We had planned to do just that. Wait and see, if we don’t have your house attached within a month. Bhaurao, how can you permit a mere woman to insult us in this way?’ he asked my father. ‘Go indoors, will you’ my father shouted. Mother went indoors quietly and sat weeping. Tears were her only solace. In the verandah, my father went all out to pacify Wamanrao. Finally, after debating back and forth, Wamanrao agreed to accept Rs 25 as part payment for the debt and left. My father came into the house. ‘You women do not have half a paisa of sense in your brains. You aren’t capable of understanding anything. How careful I’d been with him all morning, trying to keep him in a good mood. You women should stick to your chulahs and cook — that’s all you’re good for. Inviting trouble like this! Does getting angry help solve problems? One has to use tact; do you women have any idea of the pressures and tensions we have to face?’ My father scolded my mother thus. 1954: 15 242 G shanta gokhale

The author does not make a single comment on the justice or injustice of his father’s remarks. The story ends with the narrator describing how piteously his mother wept and how he and the other children consoled her and promised to do anything if she would only stop weeping. The last line of the story is: ‘The young consoled the old. Flowers supported the tree. It was indeed a piteous sight.’ The concern, again is to sentimentalise, rather than to distance and judge.

Father in Shyamchi Ai It has already been demonstrated through the episode entitled Ardhanari Nateshwar that Sane Guruji did not subscribe entirely to the gender stereotypes prevalent in the patriarchal world. He rather sought to break these stereotypes, if not in terms of familial and social roles, then at least in the psychological and emotional lives which affect human relationships. One of the factors which influenced him in this respect was surely the role that his father seemed to have played in his upbringing. Though Shyamchi Ai glorifies the mother — it’s avowed intent being to show her as the source of everything the author values most in life — Shyam’s father is also an important protagonist in the tales, often contributing to our underlining in a direct or indirect fash-ion, the lessons Shyam learns from his mother. There is no disparity in self-esteem between the father and mother that would exist, for instance, between a successful man and his wife who stayed at home and knew nothing about how he made his money, and whose powers were contained within the kitchen walls. Shyam’s father too suffered social humiliation, but he has not responded to his situation aggressively. He is humble, enduring, understanding of how his wife feels, loves his children, and only on occasion allows the frustration of his financial strains to express itself in unjust words and actions against the wife or children. The episode entitled Alani Bhaji (Unsalted Vegetable) is one of many which show him in the light of a gentle, loving and considerate family man. This is how the narrator tells this story: That day we all sat down for lunch. Mother had curried the leaves of sweet potatoes (my mother knew how to curry all kinds of leaves and roots), but had forgotten to add salt to the dish. We started eating, but because father wasn’t saying anything about it, The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 243

neither did we. Every time mother came around with the vegetable he would say ‘its really delicious.’ He neither added the salt that had been served on his plate, nor did he ask for more salt. Had he done so, mother would have suspected something was wrong. So he continued eating the vegetable with relish which forced us also to eat what was on the plate without asking for salt. Mother asked me, ‘Didn’t you like the vegetable? You’re not eat-ing it the way you normally do.’ To this father said, ‘Studying English in the English schools has put him off our leaves and grasses.’ ‘That’s not true. If learning English is going to spoil me in this way, why do you send me to the English school? Please don’t send me.’ Father said, ‘I was only pulling your leg. I like to see you angry Yashoda, our little fellow likes curried jackfruit doesn’t he? I’ll get some jackfruit from Patilwadi tomorrow. And if it’s tough you can curry just the seed kernels.’ When mother had cleared after us, she sat down to eat. With the first mouthful of vegetable she realised that the salt was missing. I happened to be nearby. Mother said ‘ Shyam, there’s no salt in the vegetable. You should have told me Shyam. How could you have eaten this unsalted stuff?’ I said, ‘We didn’t say anything because Bhau didn’t say anything.’ Mother was very upset. What we serve to others must be made with care and attention. She was very upset because she felt she had been careless and negligent. Father had not said anything about the vegetable in order to save her from feeling upset. He believed that one should never complain about the food that somebody has taken great pains to cook. If mother had spent so much time and energy sitting in front of the chullah, with all that smoke in her eyes, we should eat what she had cooked happily, without any complaint. ‘Dear friends, which of my parents is to be judged as the finer human being — my father who had enough control over his taste buds to find the saltless vegetable, which mother had served him, tasty, or my mother who was upset because she had served something which was badly made? They are both equally great. Hindu culture is based on self-control and contentment. At the same time, it also enjoins upon us that we should do everything to the best of our abilities. Between the two of them, my parents taught me both these lessons.’ 1954: 17

244 G shanta gokhale

Elsewhere too one sees the supportive, gentle aspects of Shyam’s father. In the episode entitled Satvik Premachi Bhook (Yearning for Sublime Love), Shyam has returned home unexpectedly from his school in the taluka town because he is feeling deeply depressed and is in need of being close to his parents. Shyam’s father returns home from his morning business to find him home. Disturbed perhaps by his own problems, he scolds Shyam rather harshly about letting his hair grow. Hurt by this unwarranted scolding, Shyam is all set to go back to school the very next morning, when his mother explains to him that his father’s scolding is actually an expression of his concern for his children’s welfare, and tells him that his father would feel very upset if he left home in a huff. As proof of what she is saying, his father returns from his following morning’s round with a favourite vegetable of Shyam’s, bought specially so that he can have a treat once he returns home. Shyam’s father then is not exploitative. He respects his wife’s work and her feelings. He subscribes to the values she is trying to inculcate in Shyam — the values of independence and moral integrity. There is thus no friction between husband and wife which would, perhaps have forced the author to see women in terms of their larger problems because the father then would have been a representative of the repressive male-dominated society. Here he is as much a victim of the feudal order as she is: if she suffers, so does he.

ShyamÊs Feelings towards His Mother It is clear from all the 42 episodes in Shyamchi Ai that Shyam had an unusually close relationship with his mother. He portrays himself as having been short-tempered, hot-headed, over-sensitive, and self-willed till his eleventh year. During these years, his mother is shown to have dealt with him in a variety of ways — by persuasion, coaxing and cajoling, forcing, arguing, and sometimes by countering his stubbornness with her own, or even by emotional blackmail. In one episode, Shyam hints that there was a turning point of sorts in his life at the age of eleven. This came as a result of the incident already quoted — regarding his refusal to pick up his sister’s daughter when she was crying and nobody else had the time to look after her. The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 245

At the end of this incident, we find Shyam telling himself that he really had no business being alive if he wasn’t going to be a useful member of society. The episode ends with Shyam praying to god to help him to be a good and useful human being. Most of the episodes after this, show Shyam in a progressively different light. He is now his mother’s close ally. He has begun to translate his love for her into action which includes cooking and cleaning of vessels, saving out of his pocket money for a coat for his little brother, applying himself seriously to his books, and vowing to grow up to take away the toil and misery out of her life. On her death-bed, it is Shyam whom she calls out to again and again. He is seen by the family as being her favourite. Shyam knows nothing about her illness. He is away in Aundh, studying. He narrates how he saw his mother in his dream, calling to him. Fearing something is amiss, he borrows money from a friend to make the two-day train–boat and bullock-cart journey back to Palgaad, only to find that his mother died the day she appeared to him in the dream. In taking his relationship with his mother to a mystical level where extra-sensory perceptions operate, Shyam is underlining its very special nature, its almost super–normal character. While the relationship is raised to this sublime level by the narrator in his conscious telling of the stories, what comes through unconsciously in many descriptions of his feelings for his mother is a strong sexual/regressive element. There are, for instance, at least two occasions on which the author lingeringly describes the pleasure of lying under the sari which his mother uses to cover herself with at night. The nine-yard sari, folded over four times, makes just the right length for covering oneself. It is therefore called chaughadi or ‘four-fold’. On one occasion, Shyam has returned to Palgaad because there is a plague epidemic in Aundh and all schools are closed. He arrives home at dawn, when his mother is already up and about her morning chores. She suggests that he sleep a little, because he must be tired. Says the narrator: I undressed, washed my face and lay down on my mother’s bed. I pulled her four-fold over me. It didn’t seem like a sari at all, but her love itself that covered me. It gave me the feeling of sleeping nestled against my mother’s side. I can still recall the feeling of the early morning when I slept on mother’s bed, under her four-fold. So often 246 G shanta gokhale

when I lie in bed even today, I imagine that I am lying snuggled against my mother. My life is filled with the feeling of having my mother’s arms always around me, and it moves me to tears. 1954: 18

A second and even more significant example of a regressive mother–fixation comes in the thirty-first episode. Shyam has been entrusted with the task of escorting his mother on a day’s pilgrimage to a nearby village. They are traveling to this place by bullock-cart. This is how the narrator describes the journey: The flowers were blooming. A gentle breeze was blowing. Birds warbled. The waking-up hymn in nature’s temple had begun. There were just the two of us in the cart, I and my mother; my mother and I. Only the two of us — just us. We loved each other very deeply. I was about fourteen or fifteen then. Yet I was like a child to my mother. I lay with my head in my mother’s lap. The cart was large and spacious. I slept with my head deep in my mother’s lap. I was in a state of bliss. Mother and I had never been together on a journey like this. We had never wandered by ourselves unhindered and free. Mother and I. Yes. That day the world belonged to the two of us. Many were the castles I built in the air as I lay there. I would grow up, study, and not allow my mother to want for anything. I would give her a heaven of happiness on earth — such were the daydreams I saw in my mind. Mother said, ‘Why aren’t you talking to me, Shyam? Are you still sleepy?’ ‘Mother, I want nothing more than to be able to lie in your lap with you looking at me lovingly, and stroking my body. Mother pat me. Mother, I long to be an infant when I’m with you. Pat me and sing to me.’ 1954: 19

The contradictory pulls in Shyam’s relationship with his mother are obvious. On the one hand, he wishes to take his father’s place and to give her everything that his father should have given her but couldn’t. On the other, he wishes always to remain an infant who is loved and looked after by her. If one is to interpret the strong feeling of security he experiences when he is wrapped up in her sari, one might even say that is expressing, unknowingly, a deep desire to return to the secure warmth of the womb. The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 247

Conclusion Shyamchi Ai makes a compelling narrative on two counts — it is skillfully crafted in terms of structure, portrayal of character and evocation of the right mood for every episode, with the device of the pre-narrative descriptions of the narrator and his listener. It is also a strong statement of the author’s world-view, each episode chosen and constructed to underline and propagate the same. The third factor which makes the narrative interesting is the contradiction one discovers between the author’s political work and the position he takes with regard to familial roles and structure. An analysis of the last factor lies outside the scope of this article, but a brief look at it would serve to underline the author’s personality which is of interest to us here. The contradiction would seem to lie in Sane Guruji’s revolutionary approach to the larger social structures such as the caste system for instance, and his acquiescence in the secondary position of women in society. However, if we consider a remark he is supposed to have made at the end of the hunger fast he undertook to pressurise the priests of Pandharpur into opening the doors of the Vitthal temple to Harijans, we will see there is no real contradiction. When the doors of the temple in Pandharpur were finally thrown open to the Harijans, Sane Guruji was congratulated on having won his battle. To this, his comment was, ‘I wasn’t fighting to have temple doors opened but to open people’s minds. This had not happened yet.’ Thus, he seemed to say that political action could bring about changes in legislation and the outward forms of public life and was therefore necessary, but it was by no means sufficient. For the change to be real, it had to occur in people’s minds, and there could be no revolutionary action here; only a long, slow struggle of which the results would appear only imperceptibly and in gradual progression. In Shyamchi Ai, the battle is on for the ennobling the human mind, of ridding it of all that is base and dross. Sane Guruji believed that people could change if they accepted and practiced the virtues he propagated. He was an idealist and like all idealists, ultimately suffered bitter disillusionment. If one considers the manifestations of extreme emotional states to be forms of violence, then Guruji was to my mind a violent man. The violence in him was suppressed both because he was probably 248 G shanta gokhale

physically timid, and also because of his upbringing which upheld non-violence as one of the guiding principles of life. In the course of the narrative, he states categorically that his father never once hit him nor any of his brothers or sister. It is worth remembering that this was at a time when corporal punishment for children, whether by parents or teachers, was considered the only effective tool of upbringing and teaching. While non-violence is enforced upon the physically timid as the only suitable and possible form of protest, it is not easy when the timid are also intense and impatient. The boy who once ran away from his parental home to go on a pilgrimage that he had set his heart on, and several times from his maternal uncle’s home because he had got into trouble with him, had to accept his physical limitations each time. He had to face the fact of his timidity, his inability to last in the world without family love, and so returned to the family home. But ultimately, he died by an act of violence — violence inflicted upon himself because no amount of violence inflicted upon the world, even if he were physically capable of such violence, could change it into the ideal world he was fighting for. Sane Guruji’s admirers and followers tend to blur over the fact of this last, bitter act in their assessment of him as man and writer. It introduces an unnecessary and unwholesome complexity into the clean consistent picture they of him. It is easier to see Sane Guruji as a shining example of the sentimental-moralistic-idealistic school of literature in Maharashtra, rather than as a tortured soul, full of internal conflicts. Shyamchi Ai thus became a picture of the ideal liberal Brahmin middle-class family, full of hardships and poverty, but illumined by the light of love and integrity. Its sentimentality allows the reader a feeling of vicarious nobility without urging him to inconvenient action; for sentimentality is a way of ‘feeling’ and ‘speaking,’ rather than acting. One cannot quantify the influence that Shyamchi Ai has had on the generations of post-independence children who have read it. One cannot, for instance, say that it caused these many mothers to become like Yashoda and these many children to become like Shyam. But one can say pretty confidently that these characters did enter the very bloodstream of the people and set a few ideals afloat there.

The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 249

What exactly is the ideal social order which is evoked in Shyamchi Ai? We have seen that the mother, though gentle and long-suffering, has a strong sense of self-respect and is granted a voice. Except in extreme situations, her say carried weight in the family. But with all the specificity of character that the author gives her, he does not treat her as an individual woman. She exists solely and exclusively as a mother, or rather as motherhood incarnate — a concept that is extendable to the notion of motherland and, in the ultimate avatar, to the Jagatmata. Thus after his mother’s death, when Shyam speaks of giving up his education because he feels it is no use studying when the person for whom he was doing it is no more, his aunt consoles him by pointing out that he must now study for the sake of his father and brothers and for the world. ‘You wanted to give all your love to your mother; now give it to the world, to the suffering mothers of the world,’ she says. It is no coincidence then that Sane Guruji makes Shyam’s ashram-mates comment on the mother-like quality of Shyam’s nursing. It is part of the role that Sane Guruji took upon himself to be mother of the world. It would seem then that Sane Guruji was not moved by the plight of wives and mothers as women. He was moved rather by the potential which their plight offered by idealising them as symbols of an all-inclusive, all-encompassing, selfless love and compassion. He is perfectly aware of the humiliation women suffered on account of the dowry system and harassment by in-laws. In Akkache Lagna (Elder Sister’s Wedding), there is a strongly worded diatribe against the evil custom of dowry and the insufficient action taken by the educated youth to get rid of this evil. Yet in his actual description of his sister, he talks glowingly of her ability to suffer in silence, of her never having breathed as much as a word to his mother about the way her in-law’s treated her. Sentiment has traditionally been used to validate reactionary values. One always looks backward with misty eyes. The forward looking must have clear eyes of reasoned passion. For Sane Guruji, sentimentality itself is a value. Descriptions of his own and other people’s weeping or being choked with emotion abound. Writing twenty years on from the events he narrates, living in an atmosphere of political turmoil when several norms and conventions were being questioned — Sane Guruji would have addressed the larger questions of women’s lives, using his 250 G shanta gokhale

mother and sister as illustrations. Why he didn’t do so was simply because he immensely revered the value-system in which he was brought up. If this value-system had produced him, and he was a good and noble man, then it was capable of producing many others like him. This belief seems to have been his naive and fallacious understanding. The sub-title to Shyamchi Ai reads: ‘A sad and sweet narrative picture of a mother’s sublime and loving teaching, and of a simple and beautiful culture’. Not much new thought is possible with the adjectives ‘sweet’, ‘sad’, ‘simple’ and ‘sublime’, the very same words which have been used so effectively throughout history to keep exploited people firmly in their socially appointed places.

Appendix I: Interview with Kamal Bhagwat Kamal Bhagwat was interviewed by Vasudha Ambiye about the kathamala (story-telling sessions) she conducted for many years in her house. The state-wise activity was inspired by Sane Guruji’s belief that moral values could be effectively inculcated in children through moral tales like Shyamchi Ai. Vasudha (V): Why did you feel like starting kathamala? Have you ever met Guruji? Kamal Bhagwat (KB): I was actually inspired to start this because of Prakash Mohidikar (principal of the Sane Guruji Vidyalay, an ardent follower of Guruji). I decided to start it when I heard that he was running this activity by himself in order to build up a children’s movement. I hadn’t actually met Guruji ever, but I had once heard him speak in Pune. I don’t remember now what he spoke about, but the meeting had a powerful effect on me. Thousands of people were present, but there was pin-drop silence. Guruji was quite insipid to look at, but there was great power in his speeches. There was such sparkle and skill in his oration that you wished his speech would never end. The impression he made on me remained till I heard in 1962 that Prakashbhai meant to continue Guruji’s work through the kathamala. That’s when I decided to start the activity in my house too. Guruji believed that moulding children’s mind was necessary for any youth movement to succeed. V: The country was already independent when you started your kathamala. With what view did you start it then? KB: My kathamala was a little different in the sense that in other kathamalas, only the organiser told stories, whereas in mine, even the children told stories. In all, there were 75 children in my group. Though we had won our freedom, it was still necessary to mould children’s The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 251

minds. I felt that the teaching at school was inadequate for this task. I didn’t think that mere story-telling would do either. So there was a lot of reading, discussion, games, dramatics, recitations, etc. The children found this a very entertaining way of learning the values of life. When I meet those people now, they still remember the times and continue to find what they learnt then of great value. V: Precisely what were the values you inculcated in them? KB: Integrity, national pride, social awareness. V: Did any of the children enter politics later? KB: No. But they still uphold the kathamala values in whatever profession they are practicing. There is one other attitude that I tried to inculcate through my kathamala, and that is the scientific approach. Guruji was a very sentimental person. He would become even more when he spoke about women’s lives. He used to be known as a weeping writer. But when you read a book like Kranti (Revolution), also by him, you realise he wasn’t always that way. There are other writings in which his scientific attitude comes through clearly. I wanted my kathamala group to absorb this aspect. There’s another thing I remember hearing about him — that he had no objection to doing any kind of work; he was always industrious. This was another thing I wanted the children to learn. When Prakashbhai and his brother were students, they spent many days in Guruji’s company, and so have many stories to tell about him. The boys used to run out to play as soon as they finished homework, leaving their books scattered around. By the time they returned, the books would always have been tidied by Guruji. The boys felt ashamed and began tidying their own books before going out to play. This was Guruji’s way of teaching children what is wrong without saying anything directly. Of course, the children were also different then from what they are today. If I were to tidy away my grandsons books, his reaction would most likely be, ‘How nice that granny has put away my books–saves me the bother!’ V: Would a Kathamala be as effective as it was in those days? KB: Actually the need is still there for such an activity. But if you run it in the old fashioned way, it cannot last, at least not in the cities. I had started a second kathamala group when my grandson was growing up. But I realised that what I could give these children was not enough to hold their interest. They were receiving such large information through the television and through other forms of media, that the narrator in a kathamala had to be particularly skilled to entertain them. V: Is the skill of the narrator the only factor? How relevant do you think are the values propagated by Guruji in the context of children’s lives today? KB: You are right. Some of his values have to be questioned today. There are stories from Shyamchi Ai which I never told even in those 252 G shanta gokhale

days — the story about circumambulating the banyan tree and eating special food on fasting days. Also, the stories one tells should depend on the actual life of the children they are being told to. The values one would want to teach children belonging to slums will be different from those we would want middle class children to think about. An interesting thing happened about five years ago. The film Shyamchi Ai was shown on television. My grandson just couldn’t watch beyond a certain point — ‘I can’t bear to see it,’ he said. Today’s children will find Guruji’s scientific temper appealing, but they will not accept his humility and compassion. Our children want to know the reason why they should do this or that. They will not do something just because their mother asks them to do. Adults must think about what they say. Guruji was oversensitive; that’s why he committed suicide — shocked by Gandhiji’s assassination. One cannot afford to be so sensitive these days. Yet today, more than any other time, we need people like Gandhiji and Guruji.

Appendix II: Interview about Sane Guruji with Sudha Varde (with Sadanand Varde present) I have not had the privilege of spending very much time in Sane Guruji’s company, but I have two or three very vivid memories. The first one has to do with the cleaning campaign that used to be organised by the Seva Dal on January 30. Sane Guruji would also observe the 30th of every month as a day for maun. On this particular January 30, we had decided to clean Dharavi. Dharavi is improving now, but in those days, ordinary brooms wouldn’t have done to clean it — you needed shovels and pails. The municipality had been notified of our plan and asked to provide us with these implements. We gathered there at seven o’clock in the morning as decided and waited for the shovels and other things to arrive. Till 7.30 there was no sign of them. Suddenly we realised that Sane Guruji was nowhere to be seen. A search began, and somebody found him wordlessly engaged in cleaning a four-feet deep ditch with his bare hands. This incident is so deeply engraved in my memory that ever since then, I have never felt squeamish about doing any work, however dirty or filthy it may seem. The second memory I have of Guruji is when he addressed a meeting at Tulsi Pipe road where the flower market is. The subject was cleaning campaigns. Gadge Maharaj was the first speaker. His speech was a veritable keertan. Sane Guruji sat through that speech with his mild and The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 253

tearful expression which bordered on naivety. But when his turn came to speak, he turned into an intense flame. As he spoke, he took us from the cleaning of roads and drains to the cleaning of bodies and minds and society itself. The third thing I remember about Guruji is that he respected women in every way. He had a real awareness of the lives of women and the hardships they had to bear. Even in the Seva Dal, there were only two men who could be called feminists in the real sense — one was Bhausaheb Ranade and the other was Guruji. The other members of the Dal were certainly sympathetic to women’s problems, but often made the usual jokes about women. These two would never even do that. V: Since you mention feminism, do you think Guruji’s feminism and today’s feminism have anything to do with each other? Sudhatai (S): Perhaps you are referring to that story in Shyamchi Ai about circumbulating the peepul tree on Vata Savitri day. Well, the younger members of the Dal would also raise such questions and accuse us of ‘protecting’ Guruji against such questioning. All we said was, ‘Those times were different. We wouldn’t expect you to do exactly what Shyam did, but you must understand the spirit of his action. He did his mother’s bidding in order to lessen her burden. Shouldn’t you also help your mothers in this fashion? You are free to argue with them if they ask you to do something you are not convinced about, but surely wanting to help out is a good thing? And we do not “protect” Guruji. All we want is that you should understand his times, and see his works and thoughts in that context. You people haven’t read his writings. You can argue about him only when you know what he thought and wrote’. V: Did all the younger members of the Dal have a negative attitude towards what Guruji represented? S: By the time I became an active member of the Dal, Guruji’s influence over the thinking in the Dal had begun to diminish. Some ‘Young Turks’ were taking over, people who had only heard of Guruji, but had no firsthand knowledge of how dedicated a reformist he had been. I doubt if any of these younger people had read his writings. I certainly know that my own children hadn’t. Jhelum didn’t because she went to an English medium school, and Abhijit who went to a Marathi medium school didn’t because he used to say, ‘Who is going to read this weepy nonsense?’ But then, he was also going through a period of disillusionment at the time. He could see us living according to certain principles which don’t seem to have any value in society. He went off the rails for a while, but then he also had certain experiences which brought him a kind of perspective so that now, though he may not actually go back to Guruji’s writings, he will at least feel he musn’t criticise them without reading them. Though neither of my children read Guruji’s writings, Smita (Patil) who was the same age as Jhelum, and used to spend a lot of time with 254 G shanta gokhale

me, read Guruji’s books with great pleasure. She was certainly influenced by them, and in her one found shades of the same sensitiveness and sentimentality that one found in Sane Guruji.

Appendix III: Relevant Passages from Writings on Sane Guruji Dinkar Sakrikar, July 1977, ÂAnuradhaÊ Many aspects of Sane Guruji’s personality were revealed during his terms of imprisonment. Thousands of people were imprisoned, but his life in jail was quite unique. The man who being given a ‘B’ type of cell, asked for the ‘C’ type when he discovered that boys younger to himself had been put into ‘C’ type cell; he worked on a 35 pound hand-mill everyday, put up quietly with every kind of punishment awarded in prison, and as soon as he found some free time from all this, gathered the boys and youth around him and told them stories and spent night after night, writing books. He was indeed a man of uncommon lustre. Swami Anand, the well-known social worker from Gujarat, describes Sane Guruji as thus: ‘He used to be in the midst of the students all day. He would teach them, entertain them with stories. The boys too would be constantly around him, like ants. Guruji would become totally engrossed in telling them stories. He would be lost in memories of his boyhood in Konkan. He would evoke the country of cashew nut and jackfruits and mangoes. The fragrance of the Alphonso mango arose from every word he uttered.’ Sane Guruji led Maharashtra into the final phase of the freedom struggle. No other leader in Maharashtra was given the kind of love he received from the people. He set the ideal of doing effective political, social and educational work without being part of organised power politics and holding party positions. Though the Gandhian leaders of Maharashtra were tolerant of other religions, they were not tolerant of others’ opinions. Jealousy, anger and hunger for power held them enthralled. Guruji was the only one who had internalised the Gandhian principle of overcoming all temptations. Guruji did not want love to be tainted by temptation. Therefore, he could never accept any love other than a mother’s selfless love. The hero of one of his unpublished plays, struggling against the temptation of physical love says, ‘Why do I feel these urges? Why is there this earth-boundness, The Mother in Sane Guruji’s Shyamchi Ai F 255

this physicality in my love?’ The idea that physical love was sinful, was deeply rooted in his mind. He always said, ‘Every woman is like a mother to me.’ It was as if all life-forces were organised around mother–love. He was fortunate to have experienced mother–love, but not fortunate enough to have had the chance to make his mother happy. He was inspired by the urge to be a mother to every child. He did indeed become a mother to thousands of children. His tears used to be the tears of a grieving mother.

Reference This is a revised version of an article originally published in Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42–43), 20–27 October 1990. Guruji, Sane. 1954. Shyamchi Ai. Pune: Pune Vidyarthi Griha Prakashan.

256 G shanta gokhale

chapter 9

Rites de Passage of

Matrescence and Social Construction of Motherhood among the Coorgs in South India

veena poonacha The ambivalence that characterises feminist response to motherhood is because of women’s experiences within patriarchy. Women find that despite idealisation of motherhood, and a mother’s love and sacrifice in religion, art and literature, they are effectively alienated from reproduction and their reproductive labour. By constructing an understanding of reproductive biology, stressing the male role in procreation, and conversely denigrating women’s bodies as receptacles to contain the embryo, patriarchy has justified male control over women and children (Dube 1986: 22–53; Krishnaraj 1995: 34–43). Yet undeniably, motherhood — the act of giving birth and nurturing children — is profoundly satisfying for many women. Many feminists therefore contend that women’s experience of rearing and nurturing children has created a unique culture which provides a counterpoint to critique masculinist norms of dominance (Tong 1992: 71–94). To understand some of these contradictions, it is necessary to examine the cultural context in which women experience motherhood. Assuming that motherhood is not just a biological process, but also a socio-cultural construct, this article examines the practices governing motherhood, and particularly among the Coorgs, a small endogamous community in south India.1 Using

these rites de passage of matrescence as the springboard of the inquiry (since these cultural metaphors express societal valuation of women’s reproductive power and define their experiences of motherhood), the article examines the socio-political and economic imperatives that inform it. The idea is to delineate the processes that exacerbate social/familial controls over reproduction and reproductive labour (seen, for instance, in the changing notions of legitimate/illegitimate children), and to elucidate women’s status as mothers and define the investment they make in their nurturing and socialising roles. In folk societies particularly, these broad contours of motherhood are experienced and mediated through the institutions of marriage and kinship, household and family structures.2 Since colonialism was a period of radical change, this article examines its impact on these structures to delineate the ways in which the social construction of motherhood is altered. It is argued that the emergence of the colonial state, the politics of legitimising the state, and the economic restructuring of the period from rice cultivation to coffee plantations redefined gender relationships. The process resulted in greater controls over women’s sexuality and modified their motherhood experiences. This re-scripting of gender roles and motherhood experiences was augmented through Victorian ideas about femininity and sexual morality which the people imbibed through English education (Sangari and Vaid 1989: 1–26).

Theoretical and Methodological Considerations The best known social anthropological work on Coorgs is The Religion and Society of the Coorgs in South India by M.N. Srinivas (1952). Undertaken to examine the social function of religion, the study presents an extremely comprehensive account of Coorg culture. Contained in this broad canvas of inquiry are glimpses of the pollution–purity norms observed by women and ritual idioms that mark their life-cycle experiences of puberty, marriage, birth, widowhood or divorce. It also cites many of the ballads and folk songs referred here. But as a product of the anthropology of the time, the study does not question the ideological content of motherhood or the prevalent sexual norms. It does not elaborate on the rites of passage governing women’s reproduction, nor does 258 G veena poonacha

it focus on how the process of social change modifies institutional definitions of motherhood, marriage and family. Focusing on women’s experience of motherhood — the rites de passage of matrescence — this study explores the complex interconnectedness between ideas and social institutions by integrating ethnographic details into a historical framework. An ahistorical approach to anthropology maintaining the ‘myth of the ethnographic present’ tends to coalesce customs that are defunct and in currency to distort social reality (Leacock 1983: 263–83).3 The continuity and uniqueness of each culture — the ancient cultural scripts of a group — are often re-scripted, making it difficult to fit folklore into a time scale. Moreover, folklore is not always a mirror image of culture, and different forms of oral sources have different functions. But this does not mitigate their importance in understanding folk cultures (O’Flaherty 1980: 1–5; Ramanujan 1992: 2–15). The idea that historical inquiries should go beyond textual sources and draw from anthropology, linguistics etc. is not new as has been suggested by Kosambi (1962–63:177–202). Orally transmitted folk forms are specially useful in the reconstruction of women’s histories because their concerns, work and contribution to civilisation are sketchily documented by men with the power to determine historical discourse (Minault 1983: 59–62; Kelly 1984: 1–17; Lewis 1981: 55–70; Varadarajan 1979: 1009–14). Also because they have had no access to codified knowledge, women have created a niche for themselves in these oral cultural forms (Webster 1986: 219–26). To specify the methodology used in this article, women’s childbirth experiences (gathered though in-depth interviews and oral histories) are contextualised within the historical and cultural framework. The cultural context is examined from ballads, folk songs, proverbs, etc., committed to writing only recently by a few members of the indigenous population. Among these, the Patolme Palme (1925) is widely accredited by the Coorgs as an authentic account of their customs. These oral traditions are examined here along with the extant written sources of history, such as the gazetteers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the Hukkamnamas, i.e., ‘royal edicts’ (1811–20; cf. Curvengen 1911) and the Rajendranama (1808; cf. Wodiyar 1957) of the precolonial period.4 Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 259

Over the centuries, Coorg culture has been maintained through its oral traditions. Since there is no specialised group in the community entrusted with the task of maintaining and interpreting the culture, the inference is that these neatly structured songs (sung in monotonous unison to the beat of the kettledrum) played a vital role in its transmission. The language and idiom of expression in these songs sung during festivals, weddings, as well as the funeral dirges, attest their antiquity. They describe in details the rites that continue to be performed even today on these occasions.5 Ballads, on the other hand, are unadorned tales of heroic deeds, probably of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the reference to them in the existing political organisation, the ruling dynasty, identifiable geographical locations and clans, there is no reason to doubt their historical veracity.6 Our interest in them is their picturesque descriptions of the everyday concerns of the people and the prevalent inter-personnel relationships. Genealogies gathered during field work are part of the mane pat tradition (song of the house), committed to writing by the members of the respective clans. These genealogies enable us to weave the personal narratives of families with that of the community from the pre-colonial days to about the 1950s. Proverbs referred to as palanjols (words of the ancient) in the Coorg dialect, provide clues to the prevalent values, mores and norms governing behaviour in the community (Poonacha 1993: 47–72). Beginning with the historical background of the community in Section I, the article explicates the societal valuation of motherhood as seen from the rites de passage of matrescence described in Section II. Contextualising this data against the socio-economic and environmental factors that influence ideas about motherhood and the management of women’s fecundity in Section III, the study in Section IV goes on to examine the impact of colonialism on social institutions and the shifts in the meaning imputed to motherhood.7

I Historical Background The Coorgs, locally known as the Kodavas, are identified in nineteenth century ethnographic literature as a land-owning community of 260 G veena poonacha

warriors. Even today, most of the members of the community own some land and are found in the Indian army in large numbers. They regard themselves as the original inhabitants of Coorg, a tiny district of Karnataka on the summits and eastern declivities of the Western Ghats. The Coorgs zealously guarded their independence until the advent of the British in 1834 (Hunter 1885: 28–48; Thurston 1913; Baines 1917: 42). The extant epigraphic records and the writings of Ferishta, the Mughal court historian, suggest that the fortunes of various dynasties of the south affected Coorg. After the fall of Vijaynagar in 1564 AD, Coorg was a conglomerate of mutually warring petty chiefdoms. Taking advantage of the prevailing local conflicts, a prince of the Ikkeri dynasty from Haleri established suzerainty through political strategy rather than military strength (Rice 1806: 9–25; Kamath 1993: 63; Krishnayya 1974: 87–88). The 200 years of Lingayat rule is important in the evolution of a distinct cultural identity as Coorgs were brought under one rule for the first time. Its significance in their consciousness of group identity, different from others, is summarised from their ballads and genealogies (manepat) detailing family histories from this point of time. The Lingayat rule however cannot be construed as a complete break with the past. The old order was retained and the Coorgs constituted its feudal aristocracy. The song Deshakatt pat indicates that the thirty-five petty principalities were organised as administrative divisions and mentions the names of clans who were its thakkas (chiefs). The Hukkamnamas issued by Lingaraja, between 1811 and 1820, show that hereditary (jamma) land was linked to military service, while the umbali land was a gift from the king for exemplary military service (Hukkamnama XIII; cf. Curgenven 1911: 18). The political history of this period was also characterised by wars, feuds and raids into the neighbouring lowlands (Richter 1870: 126; Baden 1974: 465–82). Cohesive patrilineal clans (okka) were the basis of the Coorg social organisation. Landed property was impartible and vested on the house (ainemane, ancestral house). This property, administered by the eldest male member, devolved from one generation to another. The Coorg households were isolated homesteads, built amidst their jamma property consisting of paddy fields, some forest land and meadows. The ainemane was a solid structure, marked with the design of fortification, comparable to the tarwad Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 261

of the Nayars. Near the house, lived the Poliya, Kuruba and Yerva servants in thatched roof huts of mud and bamboo. The nearest neighbour of the household lived at a considerable distance away, perhaps on the other side of the hill or valley, and was another Coorg family with its satellite families. A few such houses and their dependents scattered over the hills and valleys constituted a Coorg village (Iyer 1948: 5–8). The mainstay of the economy was paddy cultivation, undertaken with the help of the praedial slaves (jammada alu) and women of the household.8 According to Rice (1878: 221–23), Coorg men did no menial work. Apart from civil and military service, there are references in ballads to men going in caravans to Malabar to sell paddy and buying salt in exchange. They also went to Mysore to buy cattle. They enjoyed hunting tigers, wild boar, elephants, and warlike sport. The killer of a tiger was entitled to ceremonial honour. After the British political takeover in 1834, Coorg was administered as a separate province by a Commissioner subordinate to the Governor General through the Resident of Mysore, also designated as the Chief Commissioner of Coorg (Rice 1878: 25–26). This was a period of radical socio-political and economic transformation as Coorg was brought under the ambit of western enlightenment through English education and into closer contact with the rest of the country. Under the British, the economy was increasingly monetised. Land revenue which previously was partly paid in kind was now converted entirely into a cash payment. The abolition of praedial slavery in 1843, transformed the basic production relationship to wage labour. This encouraged an influx of labour from the plains, especially after the introduction of coffee in 1845. The civil and military appointments sought by Coorgs led to the growth of self-acquired property, undermining the cohesion and authority of the clan. The reason for the continued existence of the okka (clan organisation) was because colonial administration treated jamma (ancestral) land as impartible (Baden 1974: 465–82). The division of ancestral property that has occurred is an internal understanding, recorded in the ‘sixth column’; the sale or transfer of this property requires the consent of all the male members of the clan. The ancestral property is also jointly held, though administered by the eldest male member as its pattedar (head of the clan). 262 G veena poonacha

After independence, Coorg was constituted as a ‘C’ state until its merger in 1956 with Karnataka (Muthanna 1953: 16–35; Kamath 1993: 104). The process of socio-economic change evident under colonialism has continued since independence. Coffee has steadily outstripped the importance of paddy cultivation and few people live in their ancestral homes (Kamath 1993: 223). Many of them have either migrated from the district or have set up nuclear households close to their ancestral homes. But the okka is not without social relevance — clan exogamy is observed and the members get together during festivals, marriages, naming ceremonies and deaths. A distinctive feature noted in the nineteenth century gazetteers and various ethnographic accounts of the Coorgs is that despite perceiving themselves as part of the hindu-fold, they reject altogether the notion of caste, owe no allegiance to any religious authority within or outside the district, and do not utilise the services of Brahmin priests in any of their religious ceremonies (Satyan 1965: 103; Hutton 1931: 15–16; Emeneau 1938: 123–47). This is not to imply the absence of social hierarchies along the lines of various endogamous communities in the region. It merely suggests that the Coorgs do not ascribe to rigid notions of caste pollution–purity and distance. As the dominant group in the region, they do not concede to the ritual superiority of the Brahmins. Some of the other noteworthy features are the absence of prostitution in the region or pre-puberty marriages and polygamy within the community (Satyan 1965: 120; Hutton 1931: 15–16; Emaneau 1938: 123–247).

II The Rites de Passage of Matrescence Marriage, birth and death among the Coorgs are occasions for affirming community ties and are celebrated without elaborate religious rites. During pregnancy, a woman receives a great deal of social approval from relatives and neighbours who visit her with hampers of nourishing non-vegetarian food called kupadi. A pregnant woman is discouraged from going out after dark, especially near graveyards. If she has to go out late in the evening or night, Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 263

older women generally advise her to carry a pod of garlic (Allium Sativum) or a sprig of a herb nervissa (argyreia nervosa) to avoid sudden cramps. Women go to their natal homes either in the fifth or seventh month of pregnancy. The mother or an aunt (who in the Coorg kinship system is referred to as mother) is responsible for the well-being of the pregnant woman. Her mother visits her along with two or four other married women (sumangalies). They carry a food hamper with them. After offering medi (oblations to the ancestors) and a sumptuous lunch, they accompany the expectant mother to her parental home. Parturition these days takes place in the hospitals. But when the new mother returns home with the baby, she is given the best bedroom in the house. She remains secluded for two months. During confinement, the parturient woman is not supposed to enter the kitchen or the kanni komabra (the room set aside for storing weapons and worship of the ancestors). She is expected to concentrate on her baby and in recouping. Through an elaborate system of traditional healthcare practices, the mother and child are carefully nurtured to health. The Coorg idea of birth-pollution does not seem to have been particularly rigid compared with some communities of the hindufold. The rules did not prevent parturient women from touching vessels or other household goods. There were also no separate birthing sheds (Jeffrey et al. 1985: 15). This was probably due to the Lingayat influence. Not even the older women who continue to live in the ainemane, maintaining the ancient rites of the house, mentioned strict rules of defilement or the existence of separate birthing sheds. They perceived confinement as a period of recooperation and said that they rather had their babies in their own bedrooms. Formerly, during the seven-day period of birth pollution, the members of the natal and marital okkas of the parturient woman could not participate in communal dances during festivals of puthari (harvest) and kailpod (worship of weapons), or enter temples, serpent shrines and sites of ancestral worship (kaimata). The taboos however did not interfere with celebration of weddings or other auspicious ceremonies. Breaking these rules did not entail elaborate purification (Chinnappa 1924: 77; Biddappa 1991: 91). 264 G veena poonacha

Childbirth Experiences Recorded from Oral Histories In the old days, to find out if the labour pains were real or false, the woman was given jeerege kasai (a decoction of cumin seeds [Cuminum, Cyninum] mixed with red sugar candy and butter). If the pains did not subside, the mattress was rolled back and a straw mat placed on the cot. Assisted by experienced women of the household or neighbourhood, the woman gave birth, either squatting or kneeling down, holding a rope suspended from the roof. Between contractions, she reclined on the mattress. After birth, she was given coffee sweetened with palm sugar (borassus flabellifier). Women in the Coorg community do not seem to have made use of the services of a dai (mid-wife) to deliver the babies. As mentioned by the older women of Nellamakkada, Kuttetira and Paleccanda okkas, the parturient woman was assisted by other women in the household; subsequently, the cleaning up was done by the Kuruba and Poliya servants. Kuttetira Kaveriamma also spoke of the ever present fear of maternal mortality in the old days. In the absence of the present day concept of infection, maternal deaths were explained as yoi pattetia (hurt by finger nails of the birth attendant). It sometimes happened that the women working in the fields rushed to assist a woman suddenly in labour, causing puerperal infection.9 Immediately after birth, the parturient woman was given cold water to drink to hasten the expulsion of the placenta. If there was any delay or difficulty, she was asked to tickle her throat with her finger or hair so that the retching motion would hasten the expulsion of afterbirth. The room was then fumigated with nukki poga (vitex negundo), sambrani (boswellia glabra) and almadi (canarium strictum). There is today a synthesis of modern obstetrical practices and local customs of post-partum and neo-natal care to achieve what they believe, is the best of both worlds.10 After the first three days from delivery, the parturient woman is given only rice gruel with restrictions on ‘cooling’ foods such as fenugreek (trigonella foenum grecum), yogurt, etc. Preventive herbal medicines are given during her confinement — a decoction of galithopu (artemesia vulgaris), a few cloves of garlic, two teaspoons of powdered cumin seeds and nanjinbeeja (corchorus aestvans) or Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 265

karijeeriai (nigelle sativa) is given for three consecutive days, followed by a juice extracted from two bitter limes (citrus medica), mixed with garlic paste fried in clarified butter, from the fourth to the twelfth day. For a month after the thirteenth day, a daily morning dose of four teaspoonful of powdered pepper (piper nigrum) mixed with honey and clarified butter is given. After forty days, a ‘cooling’ porridge made from fenugreek, coconut and palm sugar is given for ten days, followed by a mixture of roasted fenugreek, rice flour, coconut and honey for the next ten days. If she complains of aches and pains, a decoction of sok creeper (rhaphidophora pertusa) is given. Post-partum care includes an elaborate oil massage with medicinal oils followed by a hot water bath daily. Buckets of piping hot water are thrown on her lower back and abdomen by a trained maid, who also vigorously scrubs her body with a mixture of nutmeg and green gram flour.11 The bath, which is extremely exhausting though relaxing, takes about three or four hours daily. As Coorg is a cold place, great care is taken to keep her warm. She is quickly dried, wrapped in a blanket and brought to the bedroom, warmed with coal fire and fumigated with nukki poga and garlic peels. While she dries her hair with sambrani smoke, she is given either a bowl of hot liver soup or porridge. Home-made collyrium prepared from the leaves of the nandibatala (ervatamia divaricata) plant is applied to her eyes and her abdomen is corseted with a full length sari. Explained from the viewpoint of health and beauty, restrictions are placed on the parturient woman’s speech, movement and other activities. Reading and needlework is discouraged as she might ruin her eyes in her delicate condition. She is asked not to talk too much, as she might develop buckteeth. Drinking water, especially cold water, between meals is forbidden, for they believe it will give her a paunch. She is expected to lie flat on her back, keeping her legs together to prevent prolapse of the uterus. A lactating mother’s diet is extremely nourishing. Her breakfast generally consists of egg flip, rice bread, honey or chutney, with clarified butter and milk at mid-morning. For lunch and dinner, she is given piping hot rice with clarified butter, fried green banana or other green leafy vegetables and bitter lime soup, seasoned only with salt and pepper. She is also given a bowl of hot liver or bone soup at noon and at night. Red chillies and pickles, other than salted lime or gooseberries (embilica officinalis), are never included 266 G veena poonacha

in her diet. White meat is avoided for the first twelve days and pork for six months. Betel nut chewing is encouraged. A sweet — specially prepared with black sesame (sesamum indicum), fenugreek, poppy seeds (papaver somniferum), honey, coconut, palm sugar, raisins, almonds and the milk of coconut — is given to her as an extra snack. If there is insufficient breast milk, she is fed a porridge of semolina, clarified butter, honey and the juice of the thorale (polygonum chinensie) leaves. In the old days, in the absence of any sedatives, the post-partum care included a peg of brandy at night time. These days however with greater awareness, there is an avoidance of alcohol.

Post-Natal Care of the Baby In the past when childbirth took place at home, the infant was placed on a plantain leaf and the umbilical cord was cut with a bamboo knife only after the expulsion of the placenta and once the baby started breathing properly. Turmeric (curcuma longa domestic) powder was applied to the umbilicus for six days and subsequently a paste of roasted baemb (acorus calamus) with milk for two more. The bamboo knife used to cut the umbilical cord was placed by the baby’s bassinet till the naming ceremony to ward off the evil eye. The placenta was buried under a milk-exuding tree like soap nut, acacia, cinchona, etc. These days, with hospital deliveries, this custom is defunct. But the concern for the proper disposal of the umbilical cord continues according to custom. The cord is either buried on the ancestral land or thrown into the compound of a nearby educational institution — this comes from a belief that the child’s future will remain tied to that spot. In the past, immediately after birth, the infant was smeared with the white of an egg and only clarified butter made from cow’s milk was applied on its head. The infant was then bathed, scrubbed with green gram (vignia radiata) flour and fumigated with sambrani. The birth of a boy was announced by firing the gun and celebrated as the birth of a hero (bira parandath), while a girl child was welcomed with the beating of the bell metal vessel in the kitchen. Despite the prevalence of son preference, there was no custom overtly discriminating against daughters. There is in fact a beautiful folk song welcoming the birth of girls. As a blessing for long life, the new born is dressed in an old frock and swaddled with old white linen sheets.12 Using a gold spoon as a Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 267

souvenir, a little jaggery or honey mixed with clarified butter and powdered pepper is given to the baby with blessings of longevity and a firm yet gentle character. The juice extracted from the leaves of the bitter gourd (momordica charantia) and katchunda (solanum tarvum) is mixed with castor oil and applied to the baby’s eyes. Herbal medicines such as the extracts of eli kemi thopu (emilia sonchifolia), kake thopu (solanum nigurm), katchunda and dodpatre (coleus ambinicus) are given to clean the baby’s stomach. Subsequently, the juice of the brahmi leaf, considered a tonic to enhance intelligence, is given. The child is massaged daily with a warm mixture of sesame, coconut, castor oils, clarified butter and peppercorn, then bathed in hot water. Even if breastfed, the baby is given honey water or sugar water. Fruit juices are introduced after the twelfth day and fresh butter mixed with a little nutmeg is given after a month. If the child develops green motion, a little hing (asafoetida) is rubbed on his stomach or a little nutmeg is given orally. Believing in the harmful effects of bright lights on the baby’s eyes, the kerosene lamp was not brought into the baby’s room in the past. The room was only lit by the mellow glow of a castor oil lamp. Nowadays the electric bulbs are carefully shaded to reduce glare. A steady stream of relatives and neighbours visit the family with nourishment for the mother and gifts for the child. This might include meat, liquor, medicinal herbs, marmalade, clarified butter, or even biscuits and Horlicks. As a blessing, visitors generally place some money in the hands of the child to help families to bear the additional expense. Men, other than family members, do not enter the childbirth room.

Naming Ceremony and Ganga Puja In the past, the aruvadu (naming ceremony) took place on the twelth day. These days, it coincides with the ganga puja, a rite marking the conclusion of the confinement period. On that occasion, the parturient woman has an oil bath and dresses like a bride. The cauldron in which her bath water was heated is filled with cold water as the attendant intones ‘may your womb remain as cool as the copper vessel.’ Apart from her pay, the attendant is paid a dakshina (tip) along with two saris and the glass bangles worn by the mother during her confinement. In the nadubade 268 G veena poonacha

(central hall) of the house, the cradle is placed on a straw mat. The lamp is lit before the ceremony begins. Both the mother and one of the grandmothers, i.e., if she is not a widow, sit on tripod stools and bless the baby with a long life. To ward off evil, a black thread is tied to the baby’s wrist, waist and ankles, while a gold pendant strung with white beads, called palmani, is tied around its neck. The baby is also fed its first solid food of a little rice and milk from a silver plate with a gold sovereign used as a spoon; subsequently, this food is shared by three older children. The child is then blessed by the other members of the kin group and given gifts of gold, silver or money. Accompanied by sumangalies (married women) from her marital home, the woman goes to the well with a coconut, three betel leaves (piper betole) and an areca nut and some rice placed on a plate to perform the ganga puja. Facing the east, she prays to the goddess Kaveri, sprinkling rice eastward, breaks the coconut, pours the coconut water into the well, and drops the betel leaf and areca nut into the well. She thereafter drinks three sips of water, chews betel leaf with the areca nut and then carries two small pitchers of water on her head to the kitchen. She is accompanied by two unmarried girls carrying small pitchers of water. Praying to the wall lamp in the central hall of the house, she takes the blessings of the elders by touching their feet. While the mother goes to the well to perform the ganga puja, the baby is placed on the mat. On her return, her brother carries the baby with the cradle to the inner chambers saying that if the child is a boy, he will ‘be one who does not know the meaning of defeat in a battlefield.’

III Factors Influencing the Management of WomenÊs Fecundity Viewing these rites de passage of matrescence from the theoretical position delineated by Sanday (1981: 2–3), it would appear that they perhaps crystallised due to certain historical and environmental imperatives confronting the group.13 Situated on the hilly tracts amidst dense jungles, Coorg has historically been sparsely populated. In the nineteenth century, the population density was Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 269

only 84.2 per square mile. The Coorgs constituted less than 15.6 of that population (Richter 1870: 81). Hunter (1885: 6) writes: in 1836, the population of Coorg was returned as 65,437, in 1870 — 1,14,161, in 1871 — 1,68,312 with persons dwelling in 22,900 houses in 495 villages. [Given the approximate area of Coorg at that time as 2000 square miles], the persons per square mile were 84.2, villages per square mile — 2; houses per square mile 11.5; the average number of persons per village — 340.

The Coorgs who constituted the dominant group in the area were only returned as 26,309 in these records. In the first half of twentieth century, there was a steady rise in the population by about 27 per cent. In 1941, for instance, the density of the population was 106 per square mile and in 1951, 145 per square mile. The reason attributed for population increase in census records was the immigration of labour to coffee plantations rather than due to a natural increase. Even today despite the influx of labour, its population density per square kilometre is below the average of Karnataka (Hutton: 1931; Census 1951:194; Kamath 1993: 114). As indicated in the folk songs of the pre-colonial period, the natural abundance of flora and fauna ensured there was no dearth of food supply. Even today Coorg remains a surplus food producing area. Climatically however the region was considered unhealthy, with several chronic diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis eradicated only in the twentieth century (Muthanna 1953: 229; Rice 1878: 210).14 The underlying concern to populate the area is apparent in the Hukkamnamas encouraging immigrations through concessional land cess (Curgenven 1911: 3).15 Frontier guards, ukkadas were stationed to prevent migration.16 At the same time, the pre-colonial political history of Coorg is a record of wars, raids and foraging into low lands. The institution of motherhood as it evolved during the pre-colonial period, was obviously a product of a social setup primarily concerned with increasing the population of the region. A proverb describes having children as vital as heavy rainfall — a matter of grave concern to an agricultural society. Considered as an essential part of the feminine identity, biological motherhood was honoured. The saying was that a man should die in the battlefield and a woman at childbirth (Ann potith 270 G veena poonacha

chavandu; ponn pethith chavandu). Women who became mothers of ten children were entitled to a special honour called the paithanda kelapa ceremony. Chappudira Bollamma (aged 80) said that her mother Seethavva was honoured after the birth of her youngest daughter in 1927. This rite is now defunct as people no longer have such large families. In recognition of women’s essential role in the propagation of the species, it is asserted that there are no sins without eyes, no people without women. Another proverb reiterates — the man who gives you his daughter in marriage is equal to the god who has given you eyes. Societal attempt to strengthen the mother–child bonds can be gauged from proverbs and folk songs. In a martial community which took interest in hunting and war-like sports, the birth of sons was hailed as the birth of heroes. It is said, ‘nari parenda kadulu nari pereta era’ (Is it likely that in a forest where tigers are born that tigers will cease to be born?)? Daughters were not looked upon as a burden and they were closely identified with their mothers. As suggested in a proverb, avvanu movallu ponnu onde; chatti kudike mannu onde, a mother and daughter have the same traits, just as the pot and the ladle are made of the same mud. So deep-rooted is this identification of the daughter with her mother that the mother’s temperament is scrutinised before sending marriage proposals even today. Expressing the feeling is a proverb, avva poobalichengi; movak chullengi ikku — if the mother has a white tail, the daughter will at least have a white spot. This is not to suggest that close mother–daughter bond meets with approval. On the contrary, efforts are made to weaken the relationship with a proverb that warns how a mother’s love can destroy a girl’s marriage, just as the hen’s excessive fondling ruined the egg. Despite the absence of specific folk songs glorifying motherhood, it is obvious that women’s ability to bring forth life was a source of prestige. The honorific terms for women in folk songs included bhoomi thai — mother earth, and petta avva — mother who gives birth. The encoded message in the ballads of Poledevi Appayya from Boliyur village in Edenalknad, and Kalyantanda Ponnappa, is that the birth of heroes is divine grace. The latter ballad in particular contains a rudimentary attempt to glorify the mother’s self-sacrifice for her son. The father in a fit of temper, when the son inadvertently let the cattle stray, broke his bow and arrow. As the son wept tears of frustration saying he felt orphaned without Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 271

his weapons, his mother consoled him with the promise, ‘listen oh son! grieve not for an old man’s anger. The broken bow and arrow were made only of bamboo. Soon it will be replaced by myself as a bow of silver’ (Muthanna 1987: 82).

Controls over WomenÊs Fecundity Closely related to the interest of the group in women’s fecundity is the management of women’s sexuality through the institution of marriage. Societal definitions of legitimate or illegitimate children are also largely coloured by the perceived group interests. There are instances in ballads of the eighteenth century, when a liaison was considered as binding as marriage, lending credence to the proverb, rajak band awane dora; avvana bechavanne appa — the man who ascends the throne is king, the mother’s protector is father. The ballad Avyangovira Appiah recounts the life of the hero Appiah. While leading a caravan to Malabar to sell rice, he was accosted by Chembavva of the Bonnira family, who was manuring her paddy fields. Chembavva invited him home and subsequently propositioned him, telling him at the same time that the young men of Kanta Murnad village were interested in marrying her, especially Madayanda Devvayya, the Thakka (village headman). They spent the night together. The next day, promising Chembavva to take her to his home in Ghuya on his return, Appiah proceeded on his journey. Unfortunately, he was ambushed and fatally wounded by a Poliya servant at the instigation of Madayanda Devvayya. Devising a ploy to avenge himself, he applauded the servant’s skill in archery and offered him his gold bangle as reward. But when the servant came near, Appiah summoned his last ounce of strength and killed him. The inconsolable Chembavva ministered to her lover in vain. Realising that his wounds were fatal, she escorted him back to his home in Ghuya where he died after introducing her as his ‘wife’, and entrusting her to his mother’s care. At the funeral, Chembavva diverted the attention of the mourners by pointing to the sky and leapt into the funeral pyre. While examining customary practices governing marriage, it is seen that marriage was stressed for both men and women. Apart from the kanni mangala or primary marriage, the Coorgs have several other forms of sanctioned marriages, most of which 272 G veena poonacha

are now defunct. Re-marriage of a widow or a divorce (kudavali mangala) do occur even today, but in the past considerable effort was made by families to ensure that a woman did not remain unpartnered. A widow could either have a levirate marriage with a clan brother of her late husband or marry someone else. A divorcee could not have a levirate marriage as it could pose a threat to the structure of the household. Children belonged to their patriclan and were generally left behind unless they were very young. The customary law protected the right of the widow to visit her children even if she remarried into another clan. But what is significant is the instances in genealogies when a widow or a divorcee retained the custody of children and got them integrated into either her natal clan or even into the second husband’s clan. The juridical procedure followed in such cases was similar to the breaking of a marriage contract on divorce and redefining it on remarriage. The children’s jural rights were broken with their patriclan through the kole adanga samband muripa ceremony (even death does not mean relationship), and redefined in their adoptive clan through kole adanga samband kodupa (relationship unto death). Once adopted, their rights were no different from biological children. Divan Bopu, a prominent general in the army of Virarajendra Wodiyar, who successfully opposed Tippu Sultan’s expansionist ambitions, was born in 1768. On the pretext that the child was born on the day of Vinayak Chaturthi, his father divorced his mother Subbavva of the Cheniyapanda family from Poovada village in the Kadiathandu Taluk, and married his widowed cross-cousin Kunnakka from the Jainra family, Chelevala village in the Kadiathandu Taluk. Kunnakka had a twelve-year old son named Bollu by her first marriage to Joyappa from the Marandol Mukkatira family. When she married Medappa of the Biddanda clan, she broke her son’s relationship with his patriclan and got him adopted by his stepfather’s clan. It is evident from the subsequent section of the genealogy that Bollu not only got the same rights as the children born to his mother after her marriage to Medappa, but was also venerated as one of the mola purusha (forefathers) of the Biddanda clan. Ironically, Bopu, the son of Madiah by his first marriage, was brought up by his mother’s family (Chenniapanda okka) until the death of his father and step-mother. It was only after the death of his father that his rights in his patriclan were recognised by his uncle Poonacha. Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 273

To ensure the continuity of a lineage in the absence of male heirs, the daughter of the house was retained and her husband transferred to her okka. Known as manek nipa (standing for the soil) or as okka pareje, the alliance required that the man gave up his rights in his paternal home and assumed the identity of his wife’s okka. A slight variant of this custom was the makka pareje marriage, a short-term sexual relationship for the continuation of the girl’s parental lineage. In the okka pareje marriage, the man was metaphorically seen as a ‘stump’ and grafted on to his wife’s clan. He renounced both his patronymic and patrimony in precisely the same way as a woman is usually expected to do so and continued to stay in his wife’s okka until the marriage proved fruitful. While the marriage lasted, he received maintenance from his wife’s okka, but he was not required to give up his patronymic. After the birth of children to ensure the continuity of the lineage, he was freed of the obligation and could return to his patriclan, take another wife and start another family. A childless widow, if she did not wish to adopt, had the option of this marriage to continue her husband’s lineage. She could not however raise issues for her natal home so long as she claimed her rights in her marital home (Poonacha 1988: WS 50–56). The antiquity of these customs is attested in thirteenth century inscriptions (Rice 1806: XXV). Family genealogies also refer to such occurrence. An elderly informant told me that when all the male members of the Mukkatira okka were executed in Amatinadu by a royal decree, a member of the Paleccanda clan was transferred through marriage to continue the lineage. The Biddanda genealogy mentions the okka pareje marriage entered by Poonacha, the son of Bopu and Kuttavva, after the death of his first wife Muddava from Marandol village of the Mariyanda clan, approximately aroun 1761. Leaving his children from his first marriage behind in the Biddanda house, he entered into an okka pareje alliance with Ummavva of Mukkanda house in the Bavali village and fathered two daughters. It has also taken place in one of the branches of the Parvangada clan in the 1930s. Attempts were made to see that the paternity of a child born out of wedlock was recognised. Referred to as mai kanat makka,17 the child was either incorporated into the mother’s okka or the father’s through a bendu pareje ceremony in which the girl’s family hosted a dinner for the members of the father’s village and paid witness 274 G veena poonacha

money to the village elders. If either of the partners died before the bendu pareje marriage, the integration of the child into the father’s clan was effected through a kutta pareje ceremony, requiring the collective payment of four panas as witness money to the village elders. The ceremony also entitled the surviving partner of the relationship to participate in the funeral rites and the women to be buried in the husband’s ancestral burial ground. The Patole Palme,18 considered by the Coorgs as an authentic record of their customary laws and usages, suggests that a woman was inviolate. She could not be fined for transgressions of the social norms. If she was with a child or lactating, she and her immediate family could not be punished for any offence. What however is unclear is the nature of the offence that was condoned. There is a suggestion in the text that sexual transgressions by either a man or a woman with a member of a lower caste group was punishable. This perhaps should be seen as a specific attempt to maintain household boundaries as the Coorg household included praedial slaves from the Kuruba and the Poliya castes. A person accused of liaison with a lower caste was excommunicated. This meant civil death, for the individual was cut off from all social interactions, entitlements and services of the artisans in the village. A man could explicate his offense by paying a fine; a woman did not have this option. However, to circumvent the execution of this extreme punishment, the woman had to get a Coorg to step forward and accepted paternity of the child before the village elders (Chinnappa 1924: 505). The present day code of sexual morality among the Coorgs is in consonance with patriarchal ideology. None of the people I interviewed mentioned cases of illegitimacy. They felt that such cases rarely came to light and perhaps women might have risked death by trying to abort themselves. Only one of my informants admitted that such a death had occurred in her family. It obviously differs from those that prevailed in the pre-colonial period or even the early phase of colonial rule. Underscoring this is an incident narrated by Moegling who established the Basel Missionary in Coorg, in 1852 approximately eighteen years after the British political takeover. Chiyavva, wife of Biddanda Bopu, was accused of adultery with a Poliya servant and was excommunicated, while her husband was away on a trip to Malabar. Rejected both by her natal and marital home, she turned to Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 275

Moegling for help. On his return, Biddanda Bopu approached Moegling and informed him that his wife was a victim of a domestic intrigue. But as he loved her and preferred her above his caste and family, he was prepared to renounce everything for her (Moegling 1855: 210–14). This incident is brushed aside in the Biddanda genealogy which merely states that Bopu, the grandson of Diwan Bopu from Kadiathnadu and the son of Madiah, became a Christian and does not mention his wife. It is significant that a man did not equate his wife’s fidelity with his honour. This does not presuppose that women enjoyed complete control over their bodies. It merely remains an incontrovertible proof of how ideological adjustments are made to meet perceived group interests. Viewed in a historical framework, the primary concern of the Coorgs was ensuring group survival in a harsh and unhealthy climate, coupled with the lack of stress with regard to food supply. So far as this was their paramount concern, the institution of marriage sought to ensure that women were not unpartnered during their reproductive years. Towards this end, women were sometimes coerced into repeated marriages as seen in a case cited by Moegling (1855: 210–11). Poovakka, from Modur village near Armeri in Beppunadu, married Pooviah and had a son named Ponappa, while her elder sister had an okka pareje marriage with Pooviah’s brother Monayya. By this marriage, Monayya ceased to be a member of his patriclan in order to continue his wife’s lineage. Meanwhile widowed, Poovakka entered a kudavali marriage with Kambayya, who also died shortly. The panchayat (the caste council) then decreed, against Poovakka’s wishes, that she should marry her sister’s husband Monayya. Poovakka requested Moegling to intercede on her behalf to prevent the marriage as she was concerned about her son’s welfare.

IV The Colonial Impact on Marriage and Motherhood One would naturally expect colonial ethnography to reiterate the customary marriage practices. But there are subtle differences between the colonial and indigenous accounts. The customary laws 276 G veena poonacha

codified in 1861, nearly three decades after the establishment of British rule in Coorg, suggests: The marriage ceases by infidelity on the part of the wife; but no such forfeiture of marriage rights occurs to the husband in the event of his infidelity as long as the connection is with a woman of his own or some equal caste. Connection with one of a low caste however does entail forfeiture of caste to the husband as to the wife. This is in accordance with the customs prevailing in most countries in which infidelity on the part of the wife becomes a deadly sin; on the part of the husband a venal offence. It is evident that women did not assist in the framing of laws. The husband, according to the Coorg laws which are in consonance with the hindu laws in this respect, is not entitled to receive damages from the wife. Cole 1861: chapter 2, para 26

This Manual referred to as the Cole’s Manual, describes makka parej marriage, providing for the continuity of the lineage through the daughter, ‘as adoption of the daughter’s son.’ By emphasising adoption, a subtle shift is created in the Manual from the existing concept of retaining the daughter’s potential fertility to continue the clan. It ignores okka pareje marriage, through which the man identified as a ‘stump’, was grafted on to his wife’s clan (Cole 1861: chapter 2, para 40). The key point of such a marriage was that the man was transferred to his wife’s clan in precisely the same way as a woman gets integrated into her husband’s clan in patrilineal and virilocal marriages. It is not that the nineteenth century gazetteers were not aware of these marriage customs. Both Richter (1870: 121–23) and Rice (1878: 222) refer to Doddava (Doddi Auwa) of Almanda house at Armeri village (circa 1650 during the reign of Muddurayya). As an only child, she inherited parental property and was married to Uttacha of the Mannanda clan, by which marriage he was transferred to his wife’s clan (okka pareje marriage) Doddavva gave birth to four daughters. The first three were married according to the rites of a primary marriage, but a short-term alliance (makka pareje) was contracted for the youngest daughter with a member of the Paleccanda clan to provide heirs to continue the Almanda lineage. The first two sons by this marriage, inherited the Almanda house and property. The sons born subsequently were incorporated into the Paleccanda clan. This was possible because in a makka pareje Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 277

marriage, the man does not renounce his patriclan and assume his wife’s family identity. The marriage is construed as a short term association for the birth of children to continue the woman’s lineage. But as the couple obviously wanted to continue the marriage, they subsequently took up virilocal residence and had other children who got no share of the Almanda property. The interesting addendum to this account is that the members of the Almanda house to this day offer oblations to the karonavas (ancestral spirits) of also the Paleccanda clan in recognition of this marriage (Paleccanda Subbiah — 82 years). Neither Cole’s account nor any of the other colonial writings mention bendu pareje or kutta pareje marriages which established paternity of children born out of wedlock and were given jural rights in either the okka of the father or mother. They merely assert that ‘illegitimate’ offsprings had no right to inheritance whatsoever and cite ‘unfaithfulness’ as a suitable ground for divorce (Cole 1861: chapter 1, para 158; Richter 1870: 140). There are discussions in nineteenth century literature as to whether polyandry existed among the Coorgs. Moegling, writing in the early phase of the colonial period stated, ‘The married life of the Coorgs is disfigured by the extraordinary and pernicious system of polyandry or rather the communism of women in one house’ (Moegling 1855: 40–48). Col. Wilks in his History of Mysore says that on one occasion, Tippu harangued the Coorgs on the subject of their ‘moral and political sins’ in the following words: If six brothers dwell together in one house and the elder brother marries, his wife becomes equally the wife of the other five and the intercourse, far from being disgraceful, is familiarly considered a national rite! Not one man in the country knows his father and the ascendancy of women, and the bastardy of your children is your common attribute. Richter 1870: 139

Subsequent writers however argue that polyandry was an excrescence of Coorg customs and not widely prevalent (Richter 1870: 139; Rice 1878: 219–38). As proof that polyandry did not exist, Rice argues: Among the Coorgs, unfaithfulness is a recognised ground for divorce and is solemnly carried out by the Aruvas of the unhappy couple and by the Takka of the village. The child remains in the 278 G veena poonacha

father’s house, while the mother returns with all her belongings to the house of her parents … should a reconciliation take place, the husband of the restored wife is looked down upon with contempt … no refutation of the alleged communism of women could be stronger than these facts. Rice 1878: 238

Since indigenous records do not mention polyandry, one is tempted to argue that Tippu Sultan’s harangue was merely a justification for his aggressive Coorg policy. Moegling was a German missionary who wrote his memoirs at the behest of Sir Fred Adam, the Governor of Madras. His account perhaps stemmed from his proselytising zeal and a desire to justify colonial rule (Muthanna 1953: 93).19 In the absence of evidence in local sources, it may be assumed that levirate and sororate marriages were arbitrarily defined as polyandry. The suggestion of polygyny in the Cole’s Manual is similarly unsubstantiated by indigenous accounts. The circumstances allowing polygyny, according to the Manual, were similar to the grounds for divorce and included: Want of chastity, confirmed ill-health, barrenness and one who for a period of ten years produced only daughters … incompatibility of temper or habitual disobedience and disrespect as justification for of his taking a second wife.… The wife who had been superceded should continue to reside with her husband, whether such second marriage was justified or not. Neither husband nor wife ought to force on separation in such an event. This is opposed to Hindu laws which allow of separation. Cole 1861: chapter 2, paras 28, 30

Polygyny seems to be in contravention of the spirit of the oral contract (samband edipa) legalising marriage. The contract gives a woman unconditional right to return to her natal home on widowhood or divorce. As the customary practices also allowed for remarriage, what could be the rationale for a ‘superseded’ wife’s continued stay in her husband’s home? Nor does this explanation resonate with the underlying principles of Coorg marriage as a system of alliance between two equal clans rather than a hypergamous union as among several other hindu groups. It must also be pointed out that despite the importance of ancestral worship, there was religious compulsion for the birth of sons. Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 279

A conceptual difference exists between the Coorg rites of oblation and that of mainstream hinduism, according to which libations offered by a son mediates a man’s salvation. The medi (libation) offered daily in a Coorg household either by men or women was a share of the food cooked for the family. It often included both meat and liquor. Similarly the annual celebration of karnova ter was to propitiate the first ancestor of the clan (karnova) rather than their immediate genitor. Sons were desired more to continue the lineage and for the prestige accruing from their participation in public spheres than for any religious merit. Considering these differences, one wonders about the process of social change.

Transformation of Social Norms and Institutions Apart from this subtle distortion of ‘native’ customs, there is also indications of direct state intervention to specifically ban practices that allowed women greater control over sexuality and motherhood. Towards the close of the Lingayat rule, an edict was issued by Lingaraja II seeking to curtail ostentatious celebration of women’s second marriage, ban sanctioned sexual liaison referred to as pachadak nadapa (makka pareje marriage?) and define children of such marriage as illegitimate: Hereafter, whenever a girl of the Coorg race is given in marriage she shall, if a maid, be wedded in accordance with the custom of the Coorgs, but if she has been previously a wife, she shall be united with her husband as the Sudras marry. These two usages are approved by the palace and therefore shall all who give or take in marriage in these dominion observe them. Further, whenever a woman of a reputable family is kept as though she were a concubine and given raiment [pachadak nadapa], and children are begotten of the union, such children are not worthy to enter the palace nor should their faces be looked on. They are fitted neither for this world nor the next. Good people will never accept them in marriage. Having regard to these things, none shall prefer or take a woman for raiments, but eschewing this practice, she shall if a maid be according to the custom of the caste, and if formerly a wife, according also to usage. These are the two methods enjoined and they shall be followed.20 Hukkamnama XXIII; cf. Curgenven 1911: 27 280 G veena poonacha

The specific question asked here is why did these customs suddenly get perceived as deviant, when they did not pose moral dilemmas to the two hundred years of Lingayat rule? Considering that the Coorgs were powerful and they had close kinship bonds with the ruling dynasty, interferences with their customs might have proved politically injudicious. Presumably, there existed certain powerful compulsions behind these dictates. Issued between 1811 and 1820, these royal decrees can be construed as part of a tottering regime’s last bid effort to stall an imminent takeover by the East India Company. Wars with Mysore had forced Coorg, as early as 1790, into a defensive alliance with the Company, leading to the stationing of a British Resident in the region. After the defeat of Mysore, the British intrigued to set aside native rule. The Coorg king, Viraraja, who died under suspicious circumstances in 1809, had designated his daughter Devamma as his successor and entrusted her to the care of the Company. He had also invested a sizeable fortune with them in her name. Setting aside the claims of the princess, Lingaraja II, his brother, usurped the throne in connivance with the British. Confronted with the need to legitimise his accession, he sought to streamline the administration through a series of decrees. He also hoped to gain control over the financial investments of the previous king with the Company (Richter 1870: 295; Poonacha 1996: 40–65). This is not to imply that customs die out with mere official decrees. The Biddanda genealogy, while narrating the story of Karyakara Somiah’s family, provides an instance of such a marriage and its social acceptance as late as 1861. Karyakar Somiah, the son of Karyakar Bopu was born in 1800. When the transfer of power to the British took place in 1834, Karyakara Somiah and his second wife Poovakka from Nadakeranda family, preferring exile, followed their king to Kashi. The daughter born to them during exile was given to Shivachara Mutt ‘as charity’. Somiah and his wife returned to Coorg, after the king and his daughter sailed to England to plead their case before the Parliament. When the child, Kunniyakka grew up, she was married to Chennavirappa (a Lingayat) of Marabanda mutt in Coorg. She subsequently had two children. Her son Madvirappa contracted a pachadak nadapa (makka pareje) marriage with a Coorg girl from the Monotira family and had a daughter called Seethamma. After Madvirappa’s death, his Pachadak nadapa wife went and stayed with Bolkaranda Ganpathy (a Coorg), along Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 281

with her daughter who was subsequently married to another Coorg, Kadira Iyyanna’s son Chinnappa, residing in Thonjigiri village. The point here is that the child of a sexual liaison, who would in the present day context be defined as illegitimate, did not face social discrimination.21 After this period, there is no mention of such forms of marriage. Presumably ideas of sexual morality began to conform to Victorian standards through their exposure to English education introduced by the missionaries in 1834. Their eager acceptance of western education was perhaps fueled by a social and political expediency of maintaining their hegemony in the region. They would not have liked to adhere to any custom which might demean them in the eyes of the rulers, or prove prejudicial to their prospects of gaining positions of authority. So much so, Cole’s Manual of 1861 denies customs which gave greater rights to women over their sexuality and made provisions for the integration of children from premarital relationships into either the clan of their father or mother.

Discussion The article has indicated the interference in local customs by the colonial state, particularly with those that gave women greater autonomy. The makka pareje marriage that gave women greater autonomy is seen as deviant and there is a subtle shift in the meaning of okka pareje marriage by which a man was transferred to his wife’s lineage. The overall economic and political transformation of the period affected the household structure, and in the process influenced the prevailing ideas about femininity and motherhood. Certain customs became defunct partly from a need to conform to the code of the rulers and partly from their greater interaction with other hindu groups. The pre-colonial household was based on clan organisation. The resources of the household were jointly owned. Even the head of the household had no authority to dispose off any part of the family property. All the members of the clan were only entitled to maintenance. In their anxiety to maintain clan unity, communitarian values were extolled and self-interested individualism was firmly checked. The division of labour in the house-hold suggests a separation of spheres of influence rather than arbitrary control 282 G veena poonacha

by men. Suggesting this division of labour in a Coorg household is the proverb ‘the grandfather wields authority; the grandmother controls the family purse.’ During this period, women’s contribution to the household economy was vital as men were away from home on military service for extended periods. The nature of women’s work gave them control over the household resources and also made it difficult for them to bring up their own children. Apart from cooking and fetching water for a large household of 40 to 80 members of the okka, women worked on land, particularly during harvesting and transplanting. They were responsible for the supervision, payment of wages and the overall welfare of labour. Storing paddy and other provisions in the attic, maintaining the kitchen garden, the cattle shed, the poultry and piggery were all women’s responsibilities, while men, as indicated from colonial accounts, did no menial work (Rice 1878: 221–23). In the colonial period, there was an overall change in men’s work. Wars and raids ceased to be their main occupation. They stopped going to the lowlands in caravans. The sale of surplus produce was undertaken through the Mappilas of Kerala who were the middlemen. The change in the male sphere of activity meant that they gradually entered into women’s areas of control. They took over supervision of labour and land. The withdrawal of women from economic roles, coupled with the absence of early marriage and motherhood, gave them access to education. In Coorg, unlike most other regions in India, education for women, not even co-education, was controversial (Mishra 1966:107). But through that education, the social construction of femininity was transformed as women were introduced to the ideals of housewifely roles and child-rearing practices. For instance, needlework which was done by both men and women was now taught exclusively to girls by the missionaries (Richter 1870: 443). The introduction of coffee as a major cash crop, encouraged through concessional revenue rates and the clearing of large tracts of forest land, led to the growth of private property, different from jamma (ancestral) property vested on the house. As men undertook this enterprise (as noted from the genealogies), the stage was set for an increase in male power. The anomalies created by self-earned property, different from jamma, land required the codification of the customary law. The judicial commission in an additional special appeal suit No. 117 of Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 283

1858–59 passed a decree that ‘division was contrary to the ancient custom of Coorg.’ It was however felt that allowance should be made to allow an individual to sell his share of the joint family property. However, in deference to the ancient custom, as a first option, the individual had to sell the family property and insignia to the coparcener. It was in the definition of coparcener that women lost out on property rights as men came to be considered the core members of the family. Property was now seen as devolving on the lineal descent rather than from one generation to another, as was the case in the pre-colonial system. Now widows were seen as tenants for life with no autonomy to dispose their share of the property like men. Daughters could inherit their parental property only in the absence of male heirs, and the unmarried woman’s share of the property would revert back to her male kin. How far removed this legal revision was from local systems of inheritance can be appreciated from the fact that previously men too did not inherit property. All the members of the clan were only entitled to maintenance from the property vested on the clan. If a man contracted an okka pareje marriage to continue his wife’s lineage, he had to renounce his patrimony. After marriage, he was identified through his wife’s clan’s name and got his maintenance from it. The growth of individualism and acquisitiveness created economic disparities, not only between the members of the community and the corporate kin-group, but also had implications for marital relationships. Marriage was now increasingly seen as defining the obligations of a man and woman to each other rather than as a system of establishing affinal bonds with mutual obligations between two okkas (Poonacha 1993: 47–72). The idea that property needed to be handed through sons made women’s sexual purity a matter of paramount concern. Women were increasingly seen only as wives and mothers. It is true that the pre-colonial system, due to several demographic and historical factors, stressed biological motherhood. But the nature of her economic work and the division of labour in the household meant that women rarely brought up their own children. Older women minded the cradle while younger women did all the strenuous work. The normative structure of pre-colonial society considered the clan more important than the individual. The entire clan, rather than biological parents, had a stake in the child. The responsibility of rearing and nurturing children was collectively shared by all the 284 G veena poonacha

women in the okka. This is evident from the classificatory system of kinship that prevailed. According to the system, the wives of one’s father’s brothers (real and classificatory), as well as mother’s sisters were referred to as mothers. They were distinguished from each other only by the prefixing of a terminology, indicating if they were older or younger to the biological mother. This meant that the mother’s older sister as well as the father’s older brother’s wife was doddavva (elder mother), while the mother’s younger sister and the father’s younger brother’s wife was kunniavva (young mother). The remnants of group mothering are seen in the marriage rites that continue even today. The bride and bridegroom are first blessed not just by their biological mothers but also by their group mothers in a strict precedence given to age. The honorific given to a woman in folksongs as petta avva (mother who gave birth) was not necessarily by her biological children but also by others. Since biological paternity of the child was not a matter of paramount concern, children born out of wedlock were not discriminated against. These practices contrast with the present day emphasis on conjugal fidelity, biological paternity and guardianship of children. These concepts are now in consonance with mainstream Hindu Laws and customs.

Notes I am grateful to Chappudira Bollamma and Kuttetira Baby for many details of childbirth practices, and to Dr Maithreyi Krishnaraj and Prabha Krishnan for their comments. 1. As explained by Raphael (1975: 1–4), the physical act of giving birth does not automatically unleash a previously contained flow of maternal love which will ensure the survival of the child or its social acceptance in the group. A seemingly simple decision on when a woman should become a mother is dependent on the roles assigned to women, the stake the group has in their reproductive labour, and the consequent control exercised over their sexuality. So integral is this relationship of reproduction to its social context, that even an intimate experience of breastfeeding goes beyond the limits of the mother–infant relationship to include several supportive kin relationships. Without such supportive caring for the well being of the mother and providing for the infant with social status, the natural process of breastfeeding is affected. It may also be noted here that the indigenous name of the community is Kodavas. Coorg is its anglicised form. Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 285

2. The term ‘folk society’ is used here to describe a society which is small, bound by traditions and intimate personal links (See Redfield [1941] cited in Robertson [1989:89]). 3. In my review entitled Ethnography Frozen in Time of M.N. Srinivas’s classic Religion and Society of the Coorgs in South India (1952), I have argued that Srinivas places his ethnography within a Procrustean framework. It fails to take note of the fluidity of cultures and the impact of socio-economic and political changes on indigenous cultures. 4. The Patole Palme, written by Nadikeranda Chinnappa, was posthumously published in 1925. This volume, written partly in Kannada and partly in the Coorg dialect, is considered a definitive work on their customs by the Coorgs. In 2003, this precious heritage of oral traditions of the Coorgs has been translated by Nadkeranda Chinnappa’s two grandchildren, Boveranda Nanjappa and Bollamma. The Hukkamnama are Royal Edicts issued between 1811 and 1820 by Lingaraja Wodiyar, and the Rajendranama, written in 1808 King Virarajendra, is the history of the dynasty that ruled Coorg since 1633. King Virarajendra was considered a hero of the Mysore wars between the English and Tippu Sultan. 5. Since the 1960s, these wedding songs or funeral dirges have not been sung as there are few people who know them, but the customs continue on the lines described in them. 6. The religious songs describing the migration of deities are obviously from an earlier period; but they have not been referred to here as they do not shed light on the prevailing social order. 7. Post-colonial studies have indicated the ways in which colonial policies radically altered indigenous customs. 8. There are two kinds of hereditary slaves belonging to the Coorg households: the bhumi jammada alu and the okkalu jammada alu. The former were attached to the soil and could not be alienated from it, while the latter had no such protection. 9. This is supposed to have happened to a woman from the Peggade community, a group slightly lower in the social hierarchy. 10. It may be mentioned here that these were the customs that I had to follow when I had my children, who are now young adults. The study itself was conducted in 1988. All the informants referred to here are dead. These practices mentioned here continue to an extent in Coorg even now. Although those women who are more Westernised may not have faith in the traditional practices and do not follow the restrictions imposed upon them. The Coorg economy however is changing drastically; rice cultivation is declining and other cash rops like ginger is increasing in importance. Tourism is also booming. 286 G veena poonacha

11. Older women tell me that the water had to be so hot that blisters appear on the woman’s back. Nowadays women do not submit themselves to such scalding baths. 12. The baby frock has to be old and previously used by other children who have survived the critical period of childhood. New white sheets are not used on the baby as it is considered too rough for the baby’s skin and because of its association with death, as the shroud which wraps the dead is also a new white sheet. 13. To understand the cultural construction of motherhood in a given society, this article is premised on Sanday’s (1981: 2–3) contention, as she pursues Benedict’s argument on cultural selection in Patterns of Culture (1934: 35). Sanday suggests that a basic sex-role plan evolves in each culture as it responds to the environment and man’s physical necessity. From this position, specific attempt is made to delineate the various compulsions that mould the institution of motherhood which lies at the core of this sex plan. But as these environmental, socio-economic and political imperatives are neither static nor unchanging, can it be assumed that ideological definitions of motherhood are subject to change? 14. Hunter (1885: 15) writes, ‘The most prevalent disease was malaria. In 1875, a total of 4167 deaths were reported of which 3255 were ascribed to fevers, 324 to bowel complaints, 66 to smallpox and 5 to cholera. The death rate was 24.76 per thousand.’ 15. The anxiety of the people to populate the region and cultivate the lands resulted in particularly light revenue assessments during the pre-colonial days. Cole (1861: chapter XII, Para 222) writes, ‘If any individual of the several Coorg races should take shelter in the house of a Coorg and work under him for a period of twelve years in succession without remuneration of any kind, the householder will have to meet the expenses of his marriage and will have to give him the following articles gratis: a pair of bullocks, one milch cow, ten batties of paddy, two batties of paddy seedling, one manuti, one knife called kadukatti, one felling axe, one sickle, one rupee for guttee jamma fee, ten rupees for nazar kanikke, one musket, one Coorg knife called peechekati and one thodangu.’ 16. In the Hukkamnamas, we find references to the frontier guards’ houses called Ukkada to check the arrival of outsiders and prevent people leaving Coorg. Passports were needed to leave Coorg. The Rajas made every effort to attract immigration through very light taxes and special concessions to farmers from outside (Hukkamnamas XXVI, XLVII cited in Curgenven 1911: 50, 42). 17. Translated the term ‘mai kanata makka’ means children without a body. This can be understood in terms of the Coorg social structure of the time wherein an individual had no social identity apart her/his Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 287

18.

19.

20.

21.

clan. The cohesive organisation of the okka or the clan was seen as an entity. As indicated in note 4, the Patole Palme is the earliest attempt made by a member of the community to put together all the customs and practices of the Coorgs. Even today, there is widespread acceptance of it as an authentic account of their customs. The book could be seen as representing the dominant male voices of the community. What the writer has to say about the folkways of Coorg are particularly significant when viewed in the backdrop of his other works which includes the translation of the Bhagavad Gita into the Coorg language and in the context of the nationalist politics of the time. Richter writes ‘upon careful examination of the matter, I may state as a fact that whatever may have been the custom in the bygone ages, there is no such thing now practiced among the Coorgs as a national rite. That a people without the restraint of a morality based upon pure and holy religious principles and enlivened by divine grace should live together exposed to great temptation without occasionally falling into grievous sin is too much to expect from fallen nature, but we are not at liberty to record those solitary outbursts of evil passions as an established system or even custom’ (Richter 1870: 139). Hukkamnama XXV also states, ‘If Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas or Sudras are found guilty of adultery, a fine from 3 to 12 varahas shall be exacted. In case of criminal intimacy between persons of different castes or of incest, a report shall be made to the palace and effect given to such orders as may be passed thereon’ (Curgenven 191: 30). There is no reason to doubt the historical veracity of this account because the British, appreciating Karyakar Somiah’s loyalty to his king, fulfiled his last wishes and allowed him to be buried by his father Bopu, another prominent general during the wars with Tippu. There still stands a mausoleum in the memory of these two in Mercara.

References Baden, Powell, B.H. 1892 rpt 1974. The Land Revenue System of British India. New Delhi: Oriental Publishers. Baines, Sir Jervoise Athelstane. 1917 rpt 1972. Ethnography: Caste and Tribe. Delhi: Concept Publishing House. Benedict, Ruth. 1934. Patterns of Culture. Boston: Mifflin. Biddappa, Poogera. 1991. Nellakki Nadubade: Coorg Culture and Custom. Virajpet: Akkala Kodava Samaj. Census of India. Vol. 3: Madras and Coorg. Part 1: Report. 1951. (Ed.) S. Venkateshwaran. Madras: Government of India Press. 288 G veena poonacha

Chinnappa, Nadikeranda. 1925 rpt 1975. Patolme Palme. Mysore: Prasarang, Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore. Trans. into English by B. Nanjappa and Bollamma. New Delhi: Rupa & Co, 2003. Cole, R.A. 1861 rpt 1947. A Manual of Coorg Civil Law 1861. Mysore: Mysore Residency Press. Curgenven, A.J. 1911. The Hukkamnama of Lingarajendra Wodiyar Raja of Coorg 1811–1820. Coorg: Coorg District Press. Mimeograph. Dube, Leela. 1986. ‘Seed and Earth: The Symbolism of Biological Reproduction and Sexual Relations of Production’, in Leela Dube, Eleanor Leacock & Shirley Ardener (eds.), Visibility and Power: Essays on Women in Society and Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 22–53. Emeneau, M.B. 1938. ‘Kinship and Marriage among the Coorgs’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 4: 123–47. Hutton, J.H. 1931. Ethnographic Notes by Various Hands. Census of India. 1931. Vol. I. India. Part III B. Simla: Government of India Press. Hunter, W.W. 1885. Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. IV. Cochin to Ganuria. London: Trubner & Co. Iyer, Krishna. 1948. The Coorg Tribes and Castes. Thiruvananthapuram: L.K. Balaratnam. Jeffrey, Patricia, Roger Jeffrey & Lyon Andrews. 1985. Contaminating States and Women’s Status: Midwifery, Childbearing and the State in Rural India. New Delhi: Indian Social Institute. Kamath, Suryanath U. (Chief Ed.). 1993. Karnataka State Gazetteer: Kodagu District (Coorg). Bangalore: Government of India. Kelly, Joan. 1984. Women, History and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kosambi. D.D. 1962–63. ‘Combined Methods in Indology’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 6: 177–202. Krishnaraj, Maithreyi. 1995. ‘Motherhood: Power and Powerlessness’, in Jasodhara Bagchi (ed.), Indian Women: Myth and Reality. Calcutta: Sangam Books, pp. 34–43. Krishnayya, D.N. 1974. Kodagina Ithihasa. Mysore: Prasarang, Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore. Leacock, Eleanor. 1983. ‘Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality: Conceptual and Historical Problems’, Dialectical Anthropology, 7(4): 264–83. Lewis, Jane. 1981. ‘Women Lost and Found: The Impact of Feminism on History’, in Dale Spender (ed.), Men’s Studies Modified: The Impact of Feminism on the Academic Disciplines. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Minault, Gail. 1983. ‘Women and History: Some “Theoretical Considerations”’, Samya Shakti, 1(1): 59–62. Mishra, Lakshmi. 1966. Education of Women in India (1921–66). Bombay: Macmillan. Rites de Passage in Matrescence F 289

Muthanna, I.M. 1953. A Tiny Model State in South India. Mysore: Usha Press. ———. 1987. Kodavas and Their Gala ‘Lela’ of Kodagu (Coorg). Bangalore: Swatantra Mudranalaya. Moegling, H. 1855. Coorg Memories: An Account of Coorg of the Coorg Mission. Bangalore: Bangalore Wesleyan Mission Press. O’Flaherty, Wendy D. 1980. ‘The Use and Misuses of Folklore’, in D.P. Pattnayak (ed.), Indian Folklore: The Report of Discussion from the Indo-American Seminar on Indian Folklore. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. Mimeograph. Poonacha, Veena. 1988. ‘A Contract in Social Relation: The Samband Edipa Ceremony among Coorgs in South India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 23(44): WS 50–56. ———. 1993. ‘The Use of Folklore in the Reconstruction of Women’s History: A Case-Study of Coorg’, in S.P. Gupta and K.S. Ramachandran (eds.), Dimensions of Indian History and Archaeology. New Delhi: Indian History and Culture Society, pp. 47–72. ———. 1996. ‘Redefining Gender Relationships: The Imprint of the Colonial State on the Coorg/Kodava Norms of Marriage and Sexuality’, in Patricia Uberoi (ed.), Social Reform, Sexuality and the State. New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, pp. 39–64. ———. 2005. ‘Ethnography Frozen in Time’. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(21): 2160–162. Ramanujan, A.K. 1992. ‘Who Needs Folklore? The Relevance of Oral Traditions to Asian Studies’, Manushi, 69: 2–15. Raphael, Dana (ed.). 1975. Being Female: Reproduction, Power and Change. The Hague: Mouton. Rice, Lewis. 1806 rpt 1972. Epigraphic Carnatica. Vol. I. Coorg Dist. Mysore: Insti-tute of Kannada Studies. ———. 1878. Mysore and Coorg: A Gazetteer Compiled for the Government of India. Bangalore: Mysore Government Press. Richter, G. 1870 rpt 1984. Gazetteer of Coorg. New Delhi: B.R. Publishers. Robertson, Ian. 1989. Sociology. New York: Worth Publishers Inc. Sanday, Peggy. 1981. Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. New York: Cambridge University Press. Satyan, B.N. (ed.). 1965. Gazetteer of India — Mysore State: Coorg District. Bangalore: Government of India Press. Srinivas, M.N. 1952. Religion and Society of Coorgs in South India. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Thurston, E. 1913. The Madras Presidency with Mysore and Coorg and the Associated States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tong, Rosemarie. 1992. Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction. London: Routledge. 290 G veena poonacha

Varadarajan, Lotika. 1979. ‘Oral History as an Historical Source Material for Traditional and Modern India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 14(24): 1009–14. Sangari, Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid. 1989. ‘Introduction’, in idem (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women, pp. 1–26. Webster, Sheila K. 1986. ‘Women and Folklore: Performers, Characters, Scholars’, Women’s Studies International Forum 9(3): 219–26. Wilks, Mark. 1810 rpt 1989. History of Mysore, Vol 2. New Delhi. Asian Educational Service. Wodiyar, Virarajendra. 1957. Rajendranama: History of Coorg from 1633–1808, (ed.) D.N. Krishnayya. Mysore: Usha Press.

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chapter 10

Motherhood: Different Voices

divya pandey A women’s capacity to grow a child inside her body is generally regarded as a spontaneous manifestation of her body. It is considered not only as a biological process, but also a natural one. The purpose of this article is to take into consideration the social organisation of reproduction. The subjective experience of motherhood and mothering is one where not only the social relations between the sexes dominate, but also the family as an institution, constantly intrudes, manipulates, reorganises and redirects the experience to suit the specific purposes of a given family. By a series of pressures — social and psychological — control is established over procreation.1 The field-study for this article was planned with the purposes of eliciting information from women of their personal experiences of motherhood — what it really meant to them — and the actual conditions of becoming a mother and mothering in every day life. The idea was to understand if the actual experience of motherhood in our society, particularly within the context of the family, had anything at all to do with romantic notions normally attached to motherhood and mothering. The focus on different voices that speak of different experiences is to lay bare the complexity of the processes of control. There were many questions to be examined: What are the experiences of women during pregnancy? How do women react to the process of childbirth? Do women really have a choice of

having or not having a child? What kind of family and sociopsychological pressures do they experience? In what way is motherhood influenced by their different family backgrounds? How did the character of a particular family affect meaning and experience? Were mothers of daughters discriminated against? How did this affect their attitude towards motherhood? What did women feel about control of their fertility by the family unit? How do women feel about infertility and the choices offered by many new reproductive technologies? What are the experiences of women regarding management of labour, medical monitoring and attitudes of doctors towards the process of childbirth?

Methodology Certain pre-conditions or requirements were very important for this kind of field investigation. The choice of a nursing home where a wide range of patients from different socio-economic backgrounds come was necessary. The help of the doctor to introduce the patients, permission to use one room in the nursing home for conducting in-depth interviews and the willingness of the respondents to participate in the investigation was also necessary. Establishing contacts and good rapport with women to generate confidence was an essential condition. It is not possible to get such intimate data by the survey methods using structured questionnaires and drawing samples from randomly selected households. Therefore, in-depth interviews were found more suitable. For the purpose of this study, one maternity home from Malad (suburb of Mumbai) was selected because the first two requirements mentioned above could be satisfied. I knew the doctor personally. I explained the purpose of this investigation and asked for help. I wanted one room where I could talk to women who came to this nursing home for monthly check-ups during their pregnancy or any other gynaecological disorder. The doctor’s role was to introduce me to those women and if the women did not object, to allow me to remain present in the consulting room during the check-up.2 In the duration of a month, forty women came for check-ups. After explaining the purpose of my study, twenty-five women participated and gave their valuable time. Some of them finished Different Voices F 293

their interviews in two sittings. All of them were accompanied by a relative or a friend, and during the interviews they were also present. A space outside their home and a third person being present during the interviews and talking to a stranger did not seem to deter them from saying many of the things they said, but what they have spoken must be seen with all these factors in mind. As already mentioned above, I did not use any structured questionnaires. After explaining the objective of the research and putting the research questions in proper perspective, I encouraged women to talk freely about their experiences of motherhood and all related aspects of it. My interventions were very brief and minimum. The women talked about the meaning of motherhood and various aspects of it — pregnancy and childbirth, taboos and rituals, beliefs and superstitions, childrearing and family support, medical management of childbirth and doctor’s attitude, fertility and sterility, son-preference and the status of women in the family and the necessity of a woman’s control over her own body. For the sake of convenience, I have divided what they spoke about motherhood under three broad headings — meaning, birthing experiences and choices — although all the three are interrelated and flow from one another.

Socio-economic Background The socio-economic background of the women was varied. They belonged to different castes, religions and linguistic groups. Fourteen out of twenty-five women had migrated to Mumbai after their marriage — mainly from Saurashtra and Gujarat. Most of them were Gujaratis (17). Among the others, five spoke Hindi, two Marathi and one English. Half of them were banias3 (13) Others belonged to various different castes and communities such as Brahmin, Maratha, Scheduled Castes and Backward Castes. The different religions were also represented in different proportions. Hindus were highest in number (13), followed by Jains (9). There were two Muslims and one Christian. Except four who were in the category of labour class, the rest were either in service (9) or belonged to the business class (12). The women came from the lower middle to the upper-middle classes. There was a wide variation in the educational level of 294 G divya pandey

the group. Seven of them studied up to Class VII standard, while eight women had passed SSC (Secondary School Certificate) examination. Three were undergraduates and six were graduates. One of them was a homeopathy doctor. Eleven of them were staying in nuclear families and the rest (14) in joint families. The average present age of the women and their husbands was 29 and 34.5 years respectively. The average number of surviving children was 2.36. Except for one sweeper who worked in the Municipal Corporation and the practicing homeopathy doctor, no other woman was gainfully employed.

Motherhood: Personal Meaning What the women spoke revealed the multiple sources from which meaning is derived. The personal meaning of motherhood for every woman springs out of a variety of personal experiences and responses to familial circumstances and social pressures. The meaning alters according to the familial atmosphere and expectations, sufficient or insufficient knowledge of motherhood, the order of pregnancy and sex of the child. The last one is an interesting example of the intrusion of technology into the private lives of women, altering experience and meaning. Through an amniocentesis test when a woman gets to know the sex of her child, the mystery of expectation, which is part of the process from which meaning is derived in pregnancy, is no more there. The personal meaning during the rest of the period of pregnancy alters according to the sex of the child as against what the family wanted from her and as against what she herself desired, which she may or may not have been expressed.

Family and Motherhood A very basic factor which curtails or enhances the personal meaning is that reproduction is not entirely a personal affair. Family, kin, neighbours and social groups of which women are a part, influence their reproductive behaviour. Whether women find mothering an enriching and fulfiling experience or not, depends on many aspects of family life. While women are brought up to regard motherhood as their role, the decision to have children is Different Voices F 295

not always theirs but is dictated and forced by their families. The hierarchical relationships, family background and atmosphere, size of the family, happy or unhappy family life, son-preference and attitude towards sterility and other family pressures have played a part in shaping women’s views on motherhood as reflected in the case histories. ‘To become a mother is one of the greatest responsibilities in the world. It is a full-time occupation. One is never without tension,’ said Heena. Heena is pregnant for the second time. She has come for a check-up accompanied by a neighbour. Heena has a five-year old son. Soon after her SSC examination, Heena was married at the age of eighteen. Her first son was delivered within one year of marriage. The couple has moved to Mumbai since the last four years from Disha in Saurashtra, Gujarat, when the child was a year old. Her husband is a diamond broker and all their near relatives are in their native place. She comes from a staunch Jain family and believes in religious practices. Heena associates motherhood with large families. She says she has never been fond of having too many children. Her attitude against large families has much to do with her natal family as well as her marital family. Heena said, ‘My husband’s family is very big. I have five sistersin-law and my husband is the eldest. We find it very difficult to manage. I myself have four sisters and two brothers.’ In both the families, the parents were always under financial pressure to get their daughters married. Getting them educated and settling them in their life created a lot of tension. ‘I wanted to get operated immediately after the first delivery but my son was very weak. I was scared of his health all the time. We used condoms for five years. Now he is five years old and quite healthy. Before I could decide to go for sterilisation, I realized that there was something amiss. It was such a strange thing. I was pregnant due to the failure of condoms! We didn’t know how it failed. We never had any such problems in the last five years. I had to make a choice between abortion and pregnancy, but I don’t believe in abortion,’ she said. Heena has continued with her second pregnancy and she wants to get sterilised soon after her second delivery. In Maya’s case, the values of her family have coloured her views on motherhood. I met her during her first pregnancy. She seemed very scared and nervous. Maya has grown in an atmosphere where 296 G divya pandey

nobody thought it fit to voice views on the process of motherhood. And now she has been told that she has a B-negative blood group which might make her delivery difficult or harm her child. Maya was tense and worried and seemed unable to cope with her pregnancy. ‘How free I was! Now it is a ‘bandhan’, she moaned. Bandhan expresses a mother’s feelings aptly. It means ‘binding’, ‘being tied up’, ‘caught inside’, ‘imprisoned’, and she seems to feel all this at once. Suddenly, she is faced with an enormous burden. ‘Everyone cannot do this role perfectly. Motherhood is a great art and one has to learn it. It requires a lot of patience’, she said. She also feels that she is too young to take up the responsibility of motherhood all by herself and bring up the child. Maya has studied up to Class XI standard in Pune. She comes from a Marwadi business community. She is the eldest among four sisters and two brothers, and hers was the first marriage in the family. In her marital family, her husband is the youngest among three brothers and three sisters. All his brothers and sisters are married. The family is a joint family unit in Mumbai, but five months before their marriage, her father-in-law opened a new shop at Urli Kanchan near Pune which is being managed by her husband. Maya stays with her husband at Urli Kanchan. Her parents are at Pune and her parents-in-law are at Mumbai. She had come to Mumbai for her delivery. She could not go to her mother’s house for delivery in spite of the custom of delivering at the parental home because her father met with an accident. She is not very happy with the thought of giving birth without her mother. Maya’s pregnancy was not planned. She became pregnant immediately after her marriage. When the doctor confirmed her pregnancy, she was shocked instead of being happy. Maya said ‘Motherhood is not something I have given much thought to. A life-long commitment to children cannot be taken lightly.’ Shayeda is eighteen years old. She had a miscarriage in the third month of her first pregnancy. In this, her second pregnancy, her parents are extra careful. She is staying with her parents since the second month. The second pregnancy occurred within two months of her abortion. She was extremely weak and was advised bed rest by the doctor. She comes to the nursing home for her pre-natal check-ups regularly with her parents. To Shayeda, the term motherhood brings memories of her natal home. She is the eldest in her family and she used to take good care of her younger brothers and sisters. She enjoyed doing that. She takes very good Different Voices F 297

care of her husband’s younger brothers and sisters also. They all like her for her loveable nature. Shayeda wishes to have only two healthy children of her own whom she can bring up with love and care. Her husband works as a casual labourer. She feels that with their limited income, she cannot afford to bring up more than two children. ‘Children are always loveable and I am sure I will find my life happier with them,’ she remarked. Gita has come to the nursing home for her post-natal check-up with her mother-in-law after her second delivery. ‘I had no fear of labour’, says Gita. ‘My sister-in-law was pregnant before I got married. We have a cordial relationship. My sister-in-law shares her confidence with me. I used to accompany her for pre-natal checkups. The lady doctor explained to us all the stages of pregnancy through charts, so I knew everything about pregnancy before my marriage. This has helped me to form a positive attitude towards sex, pregnancy and motherhood.’ Gita got married at the age of twenty-three after completing her graduation and came to Mumbai from Baroda after marriage. She lives in a joint family with her mother-in-law. It is a middle-class Brahmin household. Her husband has done his BSc and works as a processing superintendent. Gita has two children — a son and a daughter. She had her first child within the first year of her marriage. All the family members in her house wanted the first child soon since her husband is the only son. She had gone to Baroda for her first delivery. Her second child came three years after. The couple practiced the rhythm method as a family planning device (couples abstain from intercourse during the fertile period of the menstrual cycle) in the intervening three years. Gita is on pills after the third month of her second delivery; she intends to go for sterilisation. She has not experienced any difficulties in the task of mothering. She finds the mother–child relationship a wonderful experience. ‘Motherhood is a loving process. It is a unique experience which I value.’ To Gita, motherhood is closely linked with her ‘happy family life.’ Although the women I spoke to were not against becoming mothers and some even thought it was the only event that would confirm them as women and regularise their status in the family, the child itself was viewed by all of them from different points of view. For some, the child was a gift from god, to be loved and cherished. For a few others, the child was an incarnation of god, to be worshipped. But there was a dominant desire to have sons 298 G divya pandey

in most of them. A variety of forces seem to have influenced such feelings. Some desire sons as part of their family obligations and for some, sons represent their own security and status in the family. Bhavana anxiously craves for a son after the first three daughters. Bhavana has come to Mumbai from Junagadh in Saurashtra after her marriage. She studied up to SSC and got married at the age of eighteen. She is a Jain bania. Her husband has a business of dyeing and printing sarees. Bhavana had come for a check-up along with her mother-in-law in the last month of her fourth pregnancy. She said ‘My parental as well as my marital family is not very large. I am an only child in my parental family and my husband is the only son in his family. My father-in-law died at a very early age. My mother-inlaw was hardly sixteen when he died and my husband was born posthumously and was brought up by my mother-in-law and her in-laws. My husband respects his mother and does everything to fulfil her wishes. Everyone in the family feels that there is a need for one male child. I also feel the same and anxiously crave for a son after my first three daughters.’ Bhavana has made all efforts to ensure that she gets a male child this time. She has taken Ayurvedic medicinal drops from a doctor at Poddar College to produce a male child (details of which I will deal with later in this paper). She has also gone for an amniocentesis test to detect the sex of the child. During the fifth month, sonography was done to confirm the amniocentesis test which revealed that the child was male. Bhavana does not say anything special about the meaning of motherhood. Everything is subsumed by the craving for a male child. Harsha is a Jain bania from Saurashtra but the natal family has been settled in Mumbai since quite a few years in Malad, a suburb. She has studied up to first year of her BA and got married at the age of twenty-two. Her marital house is at Kandivali. They have a whole sale business of ready-made clothes. Harsha has a three-year old daughter. She has come for a check-up along with her mother in the ninth month of her second pregnancy. She changed the maternity home for her second delivery because she did not feel confident about the first doctor. She had a prolonged labour during her first delivery, lasting one day after which a caesarean section was performed because of a last minute emergency. Harsha wishes that she would get a son this time. For her, the meaning of motherhood is linked to a son. Different Voices F 299

‘Women’s worth is proved only when she becomes the mother of a son’, she said. Rashmi had a marriage of her choice at the age of twenty-one after graduation. Her husband is an engineer and has a business of his own. Rashmi stays in a nuclear family, in a large three bedroom flat with a full-time servant. Rashmi has a five-year old daughter. She got pregnant two months ago for which she was not at all prepared. Rashmi’s first pregnancy was also after many years of married life and after a lot of effort. She was afflicted with tubercolosis after her marriage. Rashmi had come to the nursing home along with her mother for her monthly check-up in the third month of her pregnancy. Her parents also stay in Malad. Rashmi wants to have a son. She wanted to take Ayurvedic medicinal drops but her doctor explained to her that the sex of the child was already determined. She was willing to bear any amount of suffering for a male child even though her first delivery was very complicated and she had to have the child through a caesarean section. Kamla comes from an artisan family. She has studied up to Class VI in the village Rajula in Saurashtra. She got married at the age of eighteen. Her father-in-law has a tailoring shop in Saurashtra. Her husband and his elder brother manage a tailoring shop in Malad. Since her father-in-law is alone and stays in their home town, the two daughters-in-law take turns to stay in the village. Kamla has three daughters from the eight years of her married life. Her first two deliveries were home deliveries. The eldest daughter is five years old and the second one is three years old. She had come to the nursing home for the delivery of her last child who is now (when this piece was being written) six days old. Kamla feels that though ‘everything is in god’s hand’, she would like to try once more to get a son. ‘A son is welcomed in my community with celebration of joy and happiness and the mother gets recognition after begetting a son. To keep the lineage, I need a son’, she said. Gangaben is forty years old now. She had come to the nursing home for sterilisation after six children. She is a Harijan from Saurashtra but settled in Mumbai since the last twenty years. Both Gangaben and her husband work in the Municipal Corporation as sweepers. She got married at the age of sixteen and was sent to her in-law’s place at the age of eighteen. She had her first child after one and a half years. 300 G divya pandey

Gangaben had a strong desire when she got married to become a mother, but did not know that she would be harassed so badly by her in-laws for not producing sons in the first four deliveries. ‘I know that sons are not going to take me to heaven but I craved for at least one son for my safety and status in the family.’ Gangaben had four daughters in the beginning, out of whom two died a few days after delivery. According to her, they were very weak. Gangaben’s married life was threatened by her in-laws who exerted pressure on her husband to bring a second wife. ‘She should be properly punished for producing four daughters in succession,’ was what they said. Her husband argued with them saying that they had not yet grown old and that Gangaben might after all be able to produce sons for the family. Luckily for her, Gangaben had two sons in the last two deliveries. Mrudula had also come for sterilisation. Mrudula has had four daughters, two miscarriages and two abortions over a married life of eleven years. ‘I was really upset about having abortions and miscarriages; it is an emotionally traumatic experience. Whether the child is a boy or girl, what difference does it make? I was looking forward to mothering for happiness and satisfaction. My first child used to remain sick and I had sleepless nights trying to fulfil her demands and yet I enjoyed seeing her grow up. But after the third delivery, I wanted to be free of this cycle of repeated pregnancies and found rearing children a very suffocating task. Mothering could be a wonderful experience if one has only a desired number of children. But under my present circumstances, it is only a sacrifice. I feel overburdened and tired. My health has also deteriorated.’ Mrudula stays in a joint family with her in-laws. They are good and the mother-in-law took good care in all her deliveries but wanted at least one son. This time they themselves advised her to go for an abortion and get sterilised. Their financial condition was not good. Her husband sells ready-made clothes working as a house to house salesman. Nirmala has studied up to Class VII in Surat. Speaking about herself she said, ‘I wanted to study but my grandmother did not allow me to go to school once I started menstruating. She was dead against my going to school and my parents got me married before I even reached nineteen.’ She stays in a joint family. Her husband has a business dealing in motor spare-parts. Nirmala feels that a Different Voices F 301

woman continues to be looked upon basically as a procreative machine for the continuity of her husband’s family. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘where is the question of choice for woman?’ Motherhood can become an ordeal when the woman becomes a tool in the politics of the family. Nirmala is a mother of four daughters and two sons. The last was a caesarean section. She got a set of male twins after first delivering four daughters in a row. ‘Thank god, the ordeal stopped with the fifth delivery. I had to succumb to family pressures at the risk of my health. The sons are after all power for the family’, she remarked. Champa has two daughters and is very happy with them. Champa is from the rabari (shepherd) community. She has studied up to Class V and she got married at the age of fifteen. She came to her marital home at the age of eighteen. Champa lives in a big joint family of fifteen members. The family has a milk business. Champa appreciates support from the family members who look after her children and she is relieved from the constant botheration, but she is unable to cope with the family pressures for producing more children for the family. She has come to the nursing home along with her elder sister-in-law for insertion of a contraceptive loop. She has two daughters who are aged two and a half years and six months respectively. She is very happy with her two daughters. Girls in the rabari community are considered precious for they are scarce. So no one comments on the fact that she has two daughters. They are more powerful in Saurashtras as they are involved in the milk business of the family and play a very significant role. In Mumbai, she says women are alienated from the family enterprise. ‘I don’t like Mumbai life. I feel suffocated and powerless. My mother-in-law wants me to produce more children. But I feel it is tough to have more than two children in a city like Mumbai. It is difficult to rear them. There is hardly any space in our joint family of fifteen members, and why should I be forced to produce more children when I am so happy with my two daughters? Motherhood should be seen as a personal need and not as a role for fulfiling family obligation’, she said. Most of the women forgot a great deal of what they had experienced as difficulties during childbirth and in the mothering process when they began to talk about their growing children. Despite sleepless nights and demands of the baby and motherhood itself 302 G divya pandey

are not easy tasks, they spoke about mothering and the mother– child relationship with tenderness and joy. The non-mothers among them desperately longed for children and they wanted to prove that they were ‘feminine’ and ‘perfect’. Subhaga left college after her first year in BA and was married at the age of twentyone. Her husband is ten years older to her. She stays in a joint family and her husband has an offset printing press at Goregaon. He runs the press jointly with his brother. Subhaga conceived after seven years of married life. ‘I am very happy. My anxiety cannot be explained’, she commented. Subhaga wanted a child desperately. She was considered a ‘bad woman’ because she was unable to conceive and not allowed to attend any ceremonies connected with pregnancy or childbirth, like Godi Bharana or the naming ceremony of a child. She was subjected to constant remarks and taunts from her mother-in-law. Subhaga has one daughter. ‘I wanted a child and spared no efforts to conceive. However, I was afraid of the effects the drugs I had consumed would have on the child. I was not ready to accept infertility and imperfection in my body. Being unable to be a mother is a very depressing and painful experience,’ she told me. She is pregnant again. She did not use any contraceptive methods after the first delivery. She did not think she would conceive a second time since the first pregnancy was after such a long interval after her marriage. She had come for a check up during the seventh month along with her mother-in-law. She had complaints of low pressure. The doctor has advised her rest. But her mother-in-law feels that if she keeps active till the last day, she will have a short labour and delivery will be very fast. She does all the household work specially sweeping and mopping the floor. She complains of over exhaustion and backache because of all this hard work. Mary is a graduate. Her husband has studied up to Class XII and works as a supervisor in a hotel. She lives in a nuclear family. Mary’s only desire in life is to have a healthy girl-child whom she wishes to bring up in the best possible way. Mary is a Catholic and feels that ‘abortion is a sin’. Mary has conceived after four years of married life. She was brought to the nursing home in a very bad condition. She was bleeding profusely. This was an ectopic pregnancy; the fallopian tube had burst, necessitating an immediate operation. She was very disturbed and said that Different Voices F 303

again, for her, the years of anxiety and tension had begun. ‘I want a child at any cost. I will go for any therapy to become a mother. I desperately long for a child, whom I can claim to be my own, from my own blood. Each conception, each new life is an exciting experience of motherhood’, she said. Krishna is from a village in Uttar Pradesh. She is barely twentytwo. Her parents are farmers. She has studied up Class VII. After her marriage, she has come to Mumbai. Her marital household is a joint family and they have a business dealing with coal. They are a backward caste from Uttar Pradesh (popularly known as bhaiyas in Mumbai). In Krishna’s case, motherhood is associated with the stability of her marriage. To retain her marriage, she has to become a mother. Krishna considers herself ‘barren’, when in reality, it is her husband who is sterile. They have been coming to this nursing home for the last one year and the doctor has given up hope as nothing is wrong with Krishna and her husband is not ready for any other solution. The doctor has not yet given up counselling because Krishna’s life is in danger. Krishna’s husband suffers from a case of azoospermia where the testes get atrophied. His parents are fully determined that he should marry again because his wife has not conceived even after four years of marriage. He is not ready to reveal the fact of his sterility to the family and his wife’s life is threatened. The husband is not ready for artificial insemination from a donor. Krishna tearfully explained that she cannot explain to the family that the fault does not lie with her. ‘My life is so full of sorrow, I am being condemned and held responsible (for no fault of mine). My husband has threatened to send me to my father’s house if I reveal the truth about him. I feel helpless. There is not a single word of sympathy from anyone in my marital family and my suffering only increases. God should not punish anyone like this. Barrenness is really a curse in our society.’ Inability to produce a child, according to her, meant oppression by the family. But she also realised that the family itself felt destabilised with no pregnancy.

Being Pregnant: Mother, Family and Child From what the women narrated, it became clear that each one of them had coped with pregnancy, childbirth and mothering 304 G divya pandey

in various ways in which their faith in religion and a particular family’s customs and practices played a prominent role. Their diet, movement, place of delivery, feeding their children were all matters in which they could not take decisions on their own. The focus in most cases is the child. The mother is some kind of a container or a vehicle. The experience of being pregnant, when spoken about by the women, revealed the complex process of control that came guised as religion or familial love at times, and as overt control at other times. Heena comes from a staunch Jain family and believes in religious practices. Heena had often suffered from mild fever during her first pregnancy. She had to completely stop sour and hot food. She did not like boiled vegetables and took a very unbalanced diet during her first pregnancy. She ate only bananas and chapattis during her first pregnancy for the first five months and during the other four months she was on tomatoes and chappattis. The reason was that the family god’s mother also ate the same food. Her son is five years old now. If she has had any health problems because of this strange diet, Heena does not mention them. Heena is pregnant again. She has completed two months. She has not observed as severe a diet in these two months as she did during her first pregnancy (she does not say why), but she is very superstitious. She has already started observing some restrictions of her religion like not taking any food after sun set, eating only one meal in the afternoon and avoiding all fried food, etc. She claims that this helps her, for any kind of sour or hot food makes her vomit or leads to diarrhoea and acidity. Yashoda’s first child was born four years after their marriage. She worshipped a local goddess, and did not drink milk till she got her first child. ‘My in-laws were not convinced but I convinced my husband to keep faith in the goddess. This was a period of fear and tension. There is a custom of second marriage in our community if the first wife cannot produce children. But I became pregnant without any medical check-up. After that I had four pregnancies. I have two daughters and one son now.’ ‘I was always afraid of deliveries as I used to suffer from pain but I have totally relied on god. It is god who is responsible for life and death and so he is the one who can relieve me from the labour pain. There is nothing in our hands and there is no use of living in fear’, she said philosophically. Different Voices F 305

Nirmala is a mother of four daughters and two sons. In her caste, the daughter-in-law does not go for the first delivery to her natal home. Nirmala did not observe the caste rules and brought ‘bad luck’ to the family by delivering two daughters. Subsequently, the later two deliveries were handled by the mother-in-law who was very superstitious. The last delivery dealt a blow to Nirmala’s health. No one seems to be much concerned about Nirmala’s constant health problems after the last delivery. She has a constant problem of body ache and weakness. ‘I had to breastfeed all my children till fifteen months. My mother-in-law feels that breast milk increases children’s self-confidence, but this has affected my health,’ she complained. Bhanumati is not allowed to visit a cousin who has not been able to conceive. ‘My mother-in-law feels that this can have a bad influence on my pregnancy. I don’t believe in such things but at the same time I cannot go against my mother-in-law’s wishes. This has put me in a dilemma’, Bhanumati said. The fact that Bhanumati is a doctor does not seem to matter.

Birthing Experiences and Attitude to Motherhood The first childbirth experience has a lot of impact on a woman’s desire to have subsequent children. Some women have gone through a lot of problems and some of them said that the first labour pains gave them a jolt because the process was more complicated than what they had imagined. The nature of delivery — normal, forcepsdelivery, caesarian — and other problems related to childbirth also shaped women’s views regarding motherhood. The women have complex feelings of these experiences. Their memories were a combination of jubilant emotions and physical experience of pain, relief and a sense of invasion of their bodies. Shobhana has an immense desire for children. ‘I love children. I always thought that my own child will make my life happier and worth living.’ She had her first child after three years of married life. Shobhana has gone through a series of problems during her first pregnancy and childbirth. The health of her only child is a constant cause of tension. Shobhana is not prepared for any more pregnancies and she is terribly afraid of childbirth. 306 G divya pandey

‘I wanted to experience joy and happiness of motherhood. What had I imagined and what has happened! Now motherhood to me means innumerable difficulties. I have vivid memories of those difficult days.’ Shobhana was pregnant again and had come to the maternity home to opt for an abortion. Her first child is fourteen months old. She is on oral pills now. She does not want any more pregnancies. At present, there is not much family pressure because the first child is a boy but she does not know about the future. Rashmi is pregnant again but her first childbirth has affected her health. Her labour was very prolonged and she had to undergo a caesarean section. Rashmi has no strong desire for children. She feels that motherhood is very difficult and involves a lot of hard work. Yashoda came from the Jasdan village in Saurashtra to Mumbai immediately after her marriage. Her husband is a salesman in a ready-made clothes shop in Mumbai. They used to stay in a joint family but for the last five years they live separately. She has two daughters and a son. Her first child was born four years after their marriage. After that, she has had four pregnancies within an interval of two years. Her first child is nine years old and the youngest is nine months old. She came to the maternity home for sterilisation. Out of five pregnancies, Yashoda had three live-births, one abortion and one still-birth. All her deliveries involved forceps and stitches. She was always afraid of deliveries, but she has accepted this as a part of a woman’s life. ‘These happy and difficult experiences make motherhood a difficult yet unique experience,’ she commented. Shubhangi married at the age of twenty after passing her SSC. Her husband is the eldest in the family. It is a joint family and the father-in-law is retired. ‘All the responsibility is on my husband’s shoulders. He works in an advertising company. He has a younger brother and two sisters. They are all studying.’ She explained. Shubhangi has a two-year old daughter. She was pregnant again and had come to the maternity home for her check-up. She says that her first delivery was normal and is confident that this one will be also normal. She has not planned her future and has not thought of using any contraceptive. To Shubhangi, ‘Mothering should not be seen as women’s occupation. It should be each woman’s prerogative to decide the number of children she would like to have because a child make’s a woman’s life worth living. Different Voices F 307

Kapila comes from a middle-class bania family. She stays in a nuclear family. Her husband works in a ready-made garment shop. Kapila had come to the maternity home for her first checkup after her second delivery. Kapila’s first delivery experience had made her tense all the time even during the second pregnancy. She lost her first child in delivery. She says that there were moments of anxiety about the baby’s health and normalcy as the months of pregnancy stretched on. She had a lot to say about that experience. Despite this, she kept narrating the graphic details of the experience and the functional aspects of being a mother and never referred to her emotions. In fact, she kept mentioning how emotional her husband was. The only reference she made that could be construed as revealing her emotions was when she said that the children were rays of hope in the routine life of a woman. How much this had to do with losing a child earlier, one could not quite say. Rani came to Mumbai with her husband ten years ago from the Devaria district in Uttar Pradesh. They owned a few acres of land which is now managed by her husband’s younger brother. The land was not sufficient to maintain two families and so her husband migrated to Mumbai. He started by vending vegetables at first, but now owns a shop in the Malad Municipal Vegetable Market. Rani married at the age of twelve. She came to her marital home at the age of fifteen. At the age of sixteen, she was a mother of a son. After two years, Rani had a daughter. Both the deliveries took place at home, assisted by her mother-in-law. Soon after, the couple moved to Mumbai. The subsequent three deliveries in Bombay ended in still-births despite the fact that they were hospital births. On the advice of the doctor, Rani has been permitted to go for sterilisation at the age of thirty. After the operation she suffered from frequent headaches. She had come to the maternity home for a consultation. Rani’s reaction to this experience is very different. As a child, she had been told that motherhood was the central experience in a woman’s life. But the experience has left her feeling a little disgruntled about continuing to conceive a child at the family’s behest until that time that the family tells her to stop. Fifty-five year old Jubeda Bibi has come to the maternity home for a hysterectomy due to a prolapsed uterus. To her, motherhood only means a series of pregnancies and nothing more. She narrates her long history of pregnancy, saying that she has no control 308 G divya pandey

over the situation. Married at the age of fifteen, she has gone through twelve pregnancies — two abortions, one still-birth and nine live-births of which seven are daughters and two are sons. She talks of motherhood as something she has coped with, rather than as an event she has chosen to participate in. Jubeda’s life has been far from easy. She has no mother or mother-in-law to help her. Her husband was uneducated and worked as a labourer in the dockyard. Often they had to go hungry. He never allowed her to use any family planning device as it was against their religion. Margaret has two sons. She had not experienced much trouble during both the deliveries. Both the pregnancies were without any problems and deliveries were normal. She mentioned that being a first-class patient, the treatment she received at the maternity home was very satisfactory. The attitude of the hospital staff, the nurse and the doctor was very good. She had been hospitalised for five days during both the deliveries and had received good care and support from the family. Her mother-in-law had stayed with her for one and a half months after both the deliveries, so that Margaret could get proper rest. Margaret does not associate motherhood with pain and suffering but with tender care and love. ‘All the family members are very happy to hear the news of my first pregnancy’, said Bhanumati. Bhanumati works as an assistant in a doctor’s clinic. Her mother-in-law is very loving. She takes good care of her and does not allow her to do any strenuous work. Her mother-in-law allows her to eat whatever she wants, since she feels that being a doctor, Bhanumati knows better about her diet. ‘Whenever I am worried about the complexity of labour and childbirth, my husband is an immense source of support’, she said. He advises me to read good literature and to think positively.’ Her pregnancy, which the family has received with happiness, and a caring husband are dominant images in her mind when she talks of motherhood and pregnancy. The doctor she was consulting was a cousin and she said that she found it a little embarrassing to be examined by a known male doctor. Kapila has very sad memories of her first delivery. She went to the maternity home in the evening and delivered the next day at about 4.00 p.m. After such a prolonged labour a forceps delivery was performed. However, the child died immediately after birth. Different Voices F 309

Kapila was sedated and came to know about the death of her child only the next day when she saw tears in her husband’s eyes. ‘It is unbearable to receive such news’, she said while relating the incident. Kapila felt that her child died of negligence on the part of the doctor and nursing staff who did not hear her cries of pain and perform a timely caesarean. She also felt that she should have been informed immediately about the death of her child. Kapila has changed her maternity home for her second delivery. She said that apart from the negligence of the doctor, she was concerned about the fact that her husband was not allowed to be by her side during her labour. She did not have any female relatives and felt that she was all alone. She was also very unhappy with the rude behaviour of the hospital staff. ‘The labour room nurse shouted at me when I screamed during labour’, she said, ‘and she used foul language.’ She was of the opinion that rich patients are looked after better by the hospital staff in the hope of receiving handsome tips. Shobhana has gone through a series of problems during her first pregnancy. She had to undergo a surgery for the removal of a tumour in her abdomen during the third month of pregnancy. She had gone to her parents at Hubli for the delivery. The doctor tried to induce labour. After three days, a caesarean was performed as she started bleeding. The child, born with congenital malformation was admitted to the hospital and given ten injections immediately. His treatment had to continue for six months. The child was now one and a half years old and was healthy. Shobhana had remained unconscious for 24 hours after the delivery. Her husband was called from Mumbai. There were many moments of anxiety. She could not suckle her child because she had retroverted nipples. The child was too weak to make the effort. The milk was pumped through artificial methods (using a breast pump) and given to the child. Shobhana associates motherhood with all these terrible experiences. Subhaga’s experience motherhood is full of agony and tension. Her first pregnancy was after seven years of married life. Subhaga desperately wanted a child because she was considered a bad omen and not allowed to attend any ceremonies connected with pregnancy or childbirth like Godi Bharana or the naming ceremony of a child. Her delivery was equally difficult. She had labour pains for one and a half days and then a forceps delivery. The child still 310 G divya pandey

continues to be weak. She spoke at length about their marital family. ‘My experience with pregnancy and motherhood are none too pleasant. Because my first child is a daughter, my motherin-law keeps taunting me that I have taken after my mother. My mother has four daughters. When I argue that all my sisters have had first sons, my mother-in-law retorts that they have followed their mother-in-law. There are no daughters in their marital families. It is very difficult to convince her about anything. It is my eighth month and I do require rest and food according to my body requirements. If I take my food earlier, she taunts me that I don’t even wait for my husband. It is very disturbing and humiliating sometimes.’ Kamla has no complaints about pregnancy and labour. She was in absolute good health during all the three pregnancies. She could eat properly, suffered no nausea or vomiting and could work till the last moment performing all the household chores, as there was no help of any sort. As soon as the labour pain started, within half an hour she had a normal delivery. She delivered her first two children at home with the help of relatives. No trained personnel were present. She was in the pink of health and very cheerful on the fifth day of her delivery. She has three daughters. She made an interesting comment that the mother of a girl child was given only 13 days’ rest after delivery while the mother of a boy child got 40 days’ rest. Rashmi’s memory of her experience of childbirth is a painful one. After her marriage, within two months Rashmi contracted tubercolosis. The doctor advised them not to go for pregnancy and advised complete rest. The couple decided to avoid pregnancy for five years. Her husband used condoms. When they decided to have children, Rashmi could not conceive for three years. Laparoscopic curettage was done after which she conceived. When she was pregnant, she had jaundice. She was put on intravenous glucose and the pregnancy was saved. She was put on medication for the next three months. Her labour was very prolonged and she had to undergo a caesarean section. She has a baby girl.

Choosing Motherhood: Options What are the options women have with regard to motherhood? Does the option involve choosing as well as rejecting motherhood? Different Voices F 311

How, why and at what point do women exercise the choice? From what the women spoke, it was clear that the choices were not the same for all the women nor were they the simple choice of acceptance or rejection. Women’s choices were circumscribed by a complex web of relationship in the family. Very often while making the choice, they thought of it as their own ‘free’ choice. At times, they made the choices with a sense of inevitability. And at times, it seemed as if there were no choices. Let us take the example of Jubeda Bibi. Jubeda Bibi was very keen on having a tubectomy after the fourth delivery, but her husband did not pay any heed. He never allowed her to use any family planning device saying that it was against their religion. Jubeda was unable to do anything about it. The result was a series of pregnancies ending in two abortions, one still-birth and nine live-births. But while Jubeda had no choice in her own life, she was able to influence her daughters-in-law. She encouraged them to get sterilised. She is very happy and proud to declare that both her daughters-in-law got sterilised after having two children. The elder one has two sons and the other has one son and one daughter. Jubeda told them, ‘Save your lives. I never got rest in my life. I have suffered because of multiple pregnancies.’ Margaret has two sons. She has made up her mind that she would continue with the loop for a few years. She would get sterilised when the younger son (who is six-months old) would become five years old. The couple is very happy with two sons in the family. Obviously, she would not have even considered sterilisation if there were two daughters. ‘My husband feels’, she said ‘they (sons) will expand the family business once they grow.’ Rani was permitted to go in for sterilisation after two livebirths and still-births successive three at the age of thirty, only on the advice of a doctor. She does not keep good health after the operation. ‘A woman cannot remain childless within marriage for a long time,’ she said. ‘She will be blamed and abused for not presenting the family with a son. She will not be allowed to rest in peace till she becomes a mother of at least one son. It is her duty to fulfil the family obligations and provide her partner with the number of children he desires.’ Her mind was occupied by her unfortunate sister-in-law who has four daughters. She felt that she was trapped in the net of pregnancy and childbirth till she begot a son for the family. Rani pointed out to dowry as one of 312 G divya pandey

the factors influencing choice. She explained that since it was so difficult to get married because of dowry, a woman would like to make her marriage last; and if she is expected to produce sons, there is not much of a choice for her. Not only must a woman make her marriage work, but she also has to make her body work in a particular way to avoid snide remarks an accusations. Rani linked the issues of dowry, marriage and childbirth while talking of her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law has four daughters. ‘Every time after hearing the news of the birth of a daughter, she refused to eat. But what can be done? She remains under constant stress because of the custom of dowry in our community,’ said Rani. ‘Dowry is a great menace in our community. We have to give utensils, furniture, ornaments, clothes and cash money in dowry. We have to sell our land and get our daughters married’, she explained. ‘My sister-in-law is again pregnant. The question of sterilisation does not arise till they get at least one son. Every year, when I go with my children to our native place, she cries and tells, “Jiji, he does not listen to me. Ladke ka bhut un par savar hai (The obsession for a son has caught hold of him like an evil spirit). God has done injustice to me.” I feel concerned about my sister-in-law’s health and the future of her daughters. My sisterin-law is trapped in this. I wonder when she will be free’. Gangaben at the age of forty got sterilised when her last child was a year and a half, on the advice of their family doctor. She initially had four daughters (out of which two died) and two younger sons. ‘My husband has supported me throughout when there were family pressures to bring a second wife for I produced four daughters in succession. Luckily I had two sons in the last two deliveries, so when our family doctor advised sterilisation, my husband readily agreed. I could get free treatment in a Municipal hospital but he insisted that I should get operated in a private maternity home. I have taken one month’s leave for proper rest. Now I am happy and quite satisfied with my life,’ she said. Mrudula has come to the nursing home during the third month of her ninth pregnancy for abortion and sterilisation, after having four daughters, two miscarriages and two abortions in a married life of eleven years. She had no option or choice of pregnancy till she could produce one son. In the process, she has ruined her health. ‘I feel very week, there is no energy left for even routine household tasks. Our financial position is also worsening. Finally, Different Voices F 313

after all these repeated pregnancies, both, my mother-in-law and husband have agreed to abortion followed by sterilisation this time,’ she said. Nirmala who exclaimed that there was no question of choice for women has a similar story. Her ordeal, as mentioned earlier, stopped after the fifth delivery. She is a mother of four daughters and two sons. Her last delivery was a caesarean section and she had a set of twins, both boys, after initially delivering four daughters in a row. She was pressurised by her mother-in-law to have at least one son. ‘If my mother-in-law had not insisted, I would not have gone beyond two pregnancies. I had to succumb to family pressures at the risk of my health’ she remarked. She had wanted to get operated immediately after the second child but she was not allowed to do that. ‘Who will give me that freedom?’ she asked. The last delivery was detrimental to Nirmala’s health. Bhavana wanted a son by any means. After having three daughters, she had gone for an amniocentesis test during her fourth pregnancy. On discovering that it was a female foetus, she went for abortion. In this pregnancy, she has made all efforts to ensure that she gets a male child. Her experiment with the Ayurvedic medicinal drops will be explained later. She said that there was no option left to her. ‘I did not want to add more daughters to my family. My family also did not allow me to get sterilised after three pregnancies. My emancipation from continued pregnancies lay in producing one son for the family and in the process, I had to abort a female foetus’, she said in a matter-of-fact tone.4 Kamala is soon going to share the same fate as Mrudula and Nirmala — a slow, painful, seemingly endless journey in which reproduction will be her ‘career’. No one has any idea when she will beget a male child for the family and free herself from this chain of reproduction. Kamala can get sterilised only after having a male child. She has three daughters. Champa finds joint family rules very oppressive and she is unable to cope with family pressures for producing more children for the family. ‘I am quite happy with my two daughters but my mother-in-law is harassing me. She always gives examples from her life. I cannot act independently. I have to listen to my motherin-law and also accede to my husband’s desires. I am powerless in this joint family structure with fifteen members; I have reconciled to my fate. Hope my mother-in-law allows me to get operated at least after three or four children’ she said. 314 G divya pandey

Yashoda has two daughters and one son. Yashoda got sterilised when her son was nine months old. She is totally concerned about her son’s health as he is prone to frequent attacks of fits. Even after opting for sterilisation, Yashoda was wondering if her choice was right or wrong. ‘I know that neither a boy nor a girl is going to take me to heaven but I keep worrying about my son. If there were two boys then I would have felt less scared. Whether right or wrong, I have consciously felt that a son would help my husband in his old age and will stand by him. Girls will not stay with us once married’, she remarked. In the case of Maya, her husband’s sterility has become a danger to her own marital life. It is she who is condemned and held responsible by her in-laws. Her life is threatened because her husband is ready to bring another wife rather than reveal the truth about his sterility. Maya’s pilgrimage to clinics will continue. From the above accounts of women’s experience of motherhood and the question of choice, it is obvious that a major factor in enhancing and restricting choice is son-preference. This factor needs to be dealt with elaborately in order to understand the bandhan , which an earlier interviewee mentioned, and the nonexistence of choices.

Son-Preference and Family Pressures Kamala stays in a joint family. Her husband and his elder brother manage a tailoring shop in Malad. Kamala’s sister-in-law at first had a son, followed by five daughters. Her husband wanted one more son and in the process, the couple has added five more children to the family — all of them daughters. Her sister-in-law’s health has declined gradually but became critical in the last delivery. When the doctor told her husband that any more pregnancies could be dangerous to her life, he finally agreed on tubectomy. Kamala sees herself moving towards the same fate. She hopes she will be set free from the cycle of reproduction earlier than her sister-in-law and in better health. Bhavana has three daughters. She is in the last month of her fourth pregnancy and is sure of having a male child. All the tests — amniocentesis and sonography — have confirmed the sex of the child to be a male. Bhavana has taken some Ayurvedic medicinal drops from a doctor in Poddar Ayurvedic College. In Bhavana’s Different Voices F 315

building, there were five women who got sons, following two or three daughters, after this treatment of Ayurvedic drops. She explained that if the drops are taken within 65 days of conception, there is a 90 per cent guarantee of a male child. The lady doctor comes home with prior appointment and charges Rs 500 for the treatment. Bhavana has been asked to worship only male gods during the pregnancy and she also keeps the photo of Ganesh, a male god, in front of her bed. She has been told to think of a male child and read books written by male authors. She bought a framed photo of god Shankar and visited the Shankar temple on the day of the result of the amniocentesis test. I met Bhavana after her delivery. She said that in spite of making all the efforts, she had been worried about the outcome of the delivery. ‘What will happen, if there is no male child this time? Even amniocentesis can give wrong diagnosis. Thank god, I got a baby boy. All my three daughters came running to the hospital to welcome their brother. Forty kilograms of pedas were distributed. My motherin-law has got all her strength back. She does not allow me to even wash my baby’s dirty clothes.’ Bhavana said that during her first three deliveries, she used to keep ill and was very tense, but during the last pregnancy she was absolutely all right. After the birth of a son, her husband’s aunt came forward to feed and clothe the boy for one year. Bhavana’s parents were overjoyed and sent a load of presents for the boy. Nirmala, whose reproductive ‘career’ came to a blissful end after a set of twin boys, spoke about her family’s pressurisation. She was pressurised by her mother-in-law to have at least one son. ‘I had no courage to go against my mother-in-law. She is extremely happy at the outcome of my last delivery. I was praying to god all the time that it should be my last delivery. My health was very bad. I could not eat properly and became very weak. I had to work till the last day as my four daughters were studying. Their timings had to be managed. The younger daughter was in nursery and required proper attention. I was able to pull through the nine months just because of sheer will power and determination. Thank god, the ordeal stopped with the fifth delivery’, she explained. It is Sunita’s first pregnancy. She is very worried and anxious to have a son. Sunita is aware that the sex of the child is determined by the father, but she cannot explain this to her mother-in-law. Sunita’s anxiety is due to some previous experiences in her 316 G divya pandey

family. ‘My husband’s elder brother’s wife has three daughters. My sister-in-law’s mother has seven daughters. My mother-inlaw always taunts my sister-in-law that she has inherited her mother’s tendency of begetting daughters. She says, according to our customs, a childless woman cannot be invited for any good occasion in the family. Therefore, I am worried about the outcome of my first pregnancy,’ she said.5

Planning a Child: Options The women I spoke to seemed very uncertain about their future plans of having or not having more children. Their answers were very vague like ‘Everything will depend upon future circumstances’, ‘I cannot take any decision without my husband’s approval’, ‘I wish I get a son first and after that, no botheration of any pregnancies’. It seems that women’s choices were more dependent on the number of sons they could produce for the family. They could think of family planning only if they had at least one son. There was a marked indication towards son-preference among women while considering options and choices. Though Smita wishes to have only two children, much will depend on the outcome of her first two pregnancies. Smita feels that a son is a must for the continuity of the family name. What would she do if she has no son in the two pregnancies she is planning? Smita does not seem to have considered her choices yet. Similarly, Maya says, ‘I don’t know about my future plans — cannot take a decision without consulting my husband. I didn’t want to continue with this pregnancy because it was too soon after my marriage, but I also feel that one son is a must to continue the lineage. Without a son, a family’s business will disintegrate. Generally couples now a days get operated after two children. I wish I get a son and after that, no botheration of many pregnancies.’ Her choice was obviously linked to a son. Heena speaks in a resigned tone as if she may have done everything differently had she been given a different choice. She wanted to get operated immediately after the first delivery but her son was very weak. The couple was aware of family planning methods. They were using condoms after the first child but she became pregnant due to the failure of the condoms. ‘I had to make a choice between an abortion or pregnancy and I preferred to go Different Voices F 317

ahead with the pregnancy. Whatever may be the outcome this time, I am going to accept a permanent method’, she said. This is Subhaga’s second pregnancy. She has a daughter. Shubhaga was not at all keen on a second pregnancy. Her experience with pregnancy and motherhood has not been a happy one. However, her husband and mother-in-law wanted another child. Shubhaga feels that if her first child had been a son, her motherin-law would not have objected to her sterilisation after this delivery. She only hopes that she would get a boy this time. Her mother-in-law is very keen to have a grandson. ‘Her taunting will continue if I don’t have one son’ she remarked wryly. Shobhana has gone through a series of problems during her first pregnancy and childbirth. She is terrified of pregnancy and childbirth. Shobhana got pregnant a second time when her first child was just fourteen months old. She has opted for an abortion and is on oral pills now. Shobhana does not want a second child at any cost if it is left to her choice. At present there is not much family pressure because the first child is a boy but she is uncertain about the future. ‘There is always a fear in my mind, a feeling of insecurity. Suppose something happens to this child?’ she said. A few women were clear about their choices. Their clarity seems to have come from the type of family they come from and at times, their own educational background. Bhanumati is a medical doctor. She says that she got married at a late age and therefore decided to plan their first child soon after their marriage. It was a joint decision. Bhanumati had taken six months off from her work. It has been decided that she will resume work when the child is six months old. Her mother-inlaw would look after the child. They will plan the second child depending upon future circumstances but ‘not more than two children in any case’, she said. Maya’s first pregnancy was an ectopic one and the child could not be saved. She longs for a girl child. Maya said, ‘Though everything is in god’s hand, if I get a girl child, I will not plan for a second issue. But if I get a boy, I will definitely plan for a second child and wish it to be a girl.’ There is no sex preference in her family but she personally likes girl children. Gita has a son and a daughter. She has not experienced any difficulty in being a mother. Gita delivered her first child (a son) within a year of her marriage. Between the first and second 318 G divya pandey

pregnancy the couple had practiced the rhythm method. After the second delivery, when her baby was three months old, she started using pills. She plans to continue with this method till the child grows and then get sterilised.

Different Voices These women have spoken in various ways about pregnancy, children and family, and about their fears, emotions and joys with regard to motherhood. Their experiences and their language are not the same. But there are some elements that are common in their narratives although for each one of them those elements have come to be shaped differently. All of them have confronted, at one point or the other, personally or in the life of someone close to them, the pressures a family can exercise over a person either to prove her fertility or to force conception hoping for a male progeny. The different voices point to multiple determinants that shape attitudes, construct meanings and provide options. While being a mother is not experienced in one way that can be deemed universal, their voices when put together clearly convey one thing — that there is nothing ‘natural’ about being or becoming a mother. It seems to be one area where utmost familial and cultural manipulation is possible. The women spoke innocently, at times with an awareness of exploitation and often with resignation. In articulating their experiences, these women spoke as if in one voice, like different robins that sings the same song.

Notes I am greatly indebted to the women whose voices I used in this paper and their respective doctors who made the interviews possible. I thank Dr. C.S. Lakshmi for enriching my perspective and for helping me analyse my case studies in a meaningful way. 1. See Tabet 1987. 2. The choice of a doctor was for me more in terms of personally knowting the doctor and in terms of the good reputation of the nursing home. That the doctor concerned was a man did not particularly deter me, for male gynecologists have a very good reputation and are large in number in our country. The doubts and criticisms against Different Voices F 319

male gynecologists that western feminists have raised often, do not apply here. However, the choice proved useful in eliciting one piece of information from two women in their first pregnancies. They said that they felt a little shy to be examined by him. Otherwise, the other women had no specific comments to make on the doctor being a male. 3. Banias are a business community. In the sample, most of them are traders and owners of small-scale businesses. 4. Sex-determination tests have been banned in Maharashtra. Maharashtra was the first state in the country to ban sex-determination tests by passing the Maharashtra Regulation of Use of Prenatal Diagnostic Technique Act in April 1988. But this field-study indicated that it is very much in practice. Doctors feel that the socio-cultural factors forcing a woman to have a child of a particular sex are so intense that to allow her to go through an unwanted pregnancy may led to acute mental stress during and after pregnancy, and they cite this as a valid reason to let her seek abortion. For details of the amniocentesis controversy see Women and Health Files (No. 120 B.1) 1987–88, 1989, 1990, Documentation Centre, Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Juhu Campus, Bombay. 5. For a detailed analysis of son-preference based on data regarding ancient rites and on interviews with contemporary middle-class women, see Sangari 1989.

References Sangari, Kumkum. 1989. ‘If You Would be the Mother of a Son’, in Rita Arditti, Renate Klein and Shelley Minden (eds.), Test-Tube Women. London: Pandora Press. Tabet, Paola. 1987. ‘Imposed Reproduction: Maimed Sexulity’, Feminist Issues, Fall: 3–31. Women and Health Files, No. 120 B.1, 1987–88, 89, 90. Documentation Centre Research Center for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Bombay.

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chapter 11

Images of Motherhood: The Hindu Code Bill Discourse in India

chitra sinha For a very long time, the identity of motherhood, revolving around the idea of bearing and rearing the male child,1 played an important role in the socialisation process of Indian women. The social construction of Indian motherhood was influenced by customs and practices in which motherhood was assigned a sacrosanct space as a crucial determinant of the ultimate identity and worth of Indian women. The identity of motherhood thus completely overshadowed all other identities of Indian women and as a result, the Indian woman was raised in a culture that trained her to be an ideal mother from early childhood. Examples of such glorification of motherhood can be traced in Indian discourse from the distant past to the present. During the debate over the Hindu Code Bill in the Constituent Assembly, for instance, Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, a member of the Constituent Assembly from east Punjab observed, ‘Women are mothers of the race. No race can advance till its women can be responsible mothers and conscious citizens. There has been a good deal of propaganda about educated women. A handful of educated women, it is said, want this Hindu Code or want this very halting and mild measure of reform. Sir, so far as women are concerned, it must be a handful because after all the educated element of this country is 15 per cent and the women who are

educated are about 3 or 4 per cent even now. So, so far as the women are concerned, it must be a handful, but behind them are, not today only but from decades past, the large mass of enlightened and progressive men who stand behind them.’2 In a similar vein, in the clause by clause discussions on the Hindu Code Bill in the Parliament, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya stated, ‘In Brahman society, the woman has been given the highest place, there is nothing higher than the mother.’3 In a similar manner, legislator Krishna Chandra Sharma noted, ‘Our mother is a respected being and our daughter is part of our life and blood. Is that not so? Why then do you raise the cry that this is something which will bring down Hindustan and that Hindu society will be crushed to pieces? There is nothing in religion, there is nothing in culture, there is nothing on the basis of Hindu society that is against these conditions and repugnant to them.’4 Motherhood was thus central to the structural configuration of the family, and was characterised by a glaring dichotomy one associates with patriarchal dominance — glorification without empowerment. As a matter of fact, the glorification of motherhood co-existed with her low status in social structure. Rituals surrounding the birth of a child in a family clearly indicated that the centre of attention remained the father and the child, while the mother was neglected in the entire episode of childbirth. After the delivery of the child, the role of the mother gets over and the mother is pushed back into the inner courtyard, as observed by Bhattacharji (1990): the rituals and prayers are all directed towards the baby; the mother is neglected. From then on the father takes charge of the baby and conducts the naming, the first rice-meal, the tonsure, the piercing of the ear, until the ritual initiation into education. The mother, after all her suffering, tension, anxiety and pain is quietly forgotten, shelved to the dark oblivion of the interior of the house until she conceives again when the same cycle is repeated. Bhattacharji 1990

Women’s deprivation from access to food and basic necessities, reproductive health care, property rights, independent income, rights in decision-making process in relation to the children and family, and her rights as a widow did not get adequate attention for a fairly long period in Indian history. The patriarchal subordination of women as mother’s was premised upon Manu’s invocation 322 G chitra sinha

of the superiority of the seed over the womb, ‘Of the seed and the womb, the seed is superior. All creatures of life assume the qualities of the seed.’5 The notion got fossilised over time and broadened during the Mughal rule where also patriarchy made motherhood invisible in the anonymity of the harem. While the reproductive capacity of wives under the harem was important for continued expansion of the empire, motherhood was not considered worthy of much emphasis and ignored even in imperial birth. During Prince Salim’s birth for instance, there is no mention of the name of the mother in the official congratulatory note. Several other births mentioned in the Akbarnama also fail to recognise the mother. Indian society however began to demonstrate signs of change since the early nineteenth century. The nineteenth century witnessed extensive debates concerning core issues with respect to gender relations within the family and society, and the abject neglect of women as wives and mothers in Indian society was put under the scanner by enlightened social reformers and also began to be discussed in an emerging media. The common thread that ran across the presence of diverse social reform movements was a re-examination of social customs and institutions from a rational perspective and the consequent redefinition of the traditional role of Indian women as wives and mothers in society. The broad aim of the social reform movements that began in the nineteenth century was to emphasise the need for removal of social and legal inequalities. With regard to women, the voices of protest against customary practices centred around Sati,6 age of consent,7 widow remarriage,8 female education9 and the role and relationships surrounding the institution of marriage.10 While the British religiously followed the policy of non-interference in customary practices, they also projected India as a white man’s burden where colonial rule was essential for the salvation of a backward society. Legal enactments empowering women therefore concerned mainly those customs that were grossly unacceptable from the viewpoint of western rationality. Beginning with the onset of the twentieth century, emergence of several social forces enabled women to come out of their domestic confines and perform an expanded role in society. First, the necessities of the nationalist struggle brought women into the public sphere. The process was initiated during the partition of Bengal in 1905,11 and intensified during the Swadeshi movement Images of Motherhood F 323

due to the synergies created by co-movements of the participation of women in the freedom movement and growth of feminist consciousness.12 Active participation in the Swadeshi movement helped to bring about a remarkable shift in women’s perspective towards life. A deeper understanding of the basics of agitational politics propelled women towards fighting for their own rights as daughters, wives, mothers and widows as they began to perceive the need to organise for their own cause. Between 1903 to 1926, several women’s organisations surfaced in different parts of the country and an effective all India platform emerged with the formation of Women’s India Association in 1917 and All India Women’s Conference in 1926.13 During this period, nationalist leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi inspired women to join the path of nationalism. Gandhi in particular was instrumental in bringing Indian women out of their protected environment to join the Indian National Movement, thereby revolutionising the Indian social scene. In the 1930s, women’s movement started pressing for legal reforms in regard to family laws involving the rights of women including mothers and wives.14 In official circles too, discussions about improving the rights of women gained ground. There was a growing realisation that idealism surrounding the marriage and motherhood must be accompanied by effective rights for women as wives, mothers and widows. The report of the Hindu Law Committee, 1941 observed: But a lofty ideal of marriage ill consorts with a low standard of property rights: if a widow is expected to be true to her deceased husband till death, she must be assured of the means of subsistence during her widowhood.15

The process of change was most significant during the 1940s, and 1950s, not only because the base for further reforms for Indian women were laid down in the first three decades of the twentieth century; with regard to the legal rights of women, the Indian society was at its communicative peak in the 1940s and 1950s. The discourse of the time reflected the tensions of the prevailing incongruous ideologies. On the one hand, there was an emerging liberal outlook that was in favour of greater legal privileges to Indian women, thereby redefining notions of Indian motherhood, and on the other, the traditional religious 324 G chitra sinha

orthodoxy demonstrated the anxiety about preserving the highest morals as reflected in the customary practices of hindu society, which within the contours of the family meant upholding the notion of ideal motherhood. The decision by the Government in 1941 to form a Hindu Law Committee to look into some aspects of Hindu Law, mainly property rights of hindu women, and in 1944 to reconstitute the Committee to prepare the complete code of Hindu law in the contemporary context, raised the debate on the rights of hindu women to unprecedented heights. While the women’s organisations and liberal forces saw this as an opportune moment in history to put India in the path to become a progressive, modern and egalitarian nation, the orthodox segments strongly resented and resisted the Hindu Law Committee’s efforts to tamper with the sacred hindu religion. In the debate over the Hindu Code Bill, the motherhood identity became a contested notion. The pativrata — domesticated ideal mother dedicated to progeny — became the signifier for the immense virtues of hindu religion. At the same time, a new identity of motherhood gained ground — a mother who is placed both in the private and the public spheres, a mother whose education generated several positive externalities in the family, and as a companion to her husband, she made the Indian family worthwhile to live. While the legal resolution of the conflicting imagery can be found in the enactment of the Hindu Code Bill in 1955 and 1956, the interlinkages between social consciousness and law formation made the 1940s and 1950s an extremely fertile phase in Indian sociolegal history. The inclusiveness, vibrancy and the intensity of the process of law formation within the public sphere and the legislature ensured that the period was to be identified as a major break in Indian social history. The article tries to delineate the various threads of the debate over the notion of motherhood in Indian society during the 1940s and 1950s by looking at the process of law formation. The article is structured as follows. Section I deals with the legal debate over the patriarchal conception of motherhood during the formative stages of the Hindu Code Bill. It discusses the legal position of the mother prior to the Hindu Code Bill and highlights the improvements as embodied in the Hindu Code Bill. The progressive elements of the family law reforms of 1955 and 1956 are also discussed. Section II addresses the contesting images of motherhood over the Hindu Images of Motherhood F 325

Code Bill debate. Examining the debates in the public sphere as well as in the legislature, the section underscores the centrality of motherhood in the Hindu Code Bill controversy. Section III concludes.

I Motherhood in the Hindu Code Bill: The Legal Dimension It is now rather well understood that religious customs in India failed to ensure equal rights for Indian women.16 As a matter of fact, the legal system which emerged out of customary practices was also not very kind to the Indian mother. Under customary arrangements, plurality of law was an essential characteristic of Indian communities.17 Most disputes were settled by village and caste councils as per the ruling local customs which, though influenced by the Shastras and ancient commentaries, were flexible adaptations of Smritis and Dharmashastras.18 The British found the Indian personal laws at best puzzling and their attempt towards a definitive Indian legal system was cast in the mould of the structuralist rationality of the west. The British thus presumed that the personal laws in India must have drawn legitimacy from some fundamental religious source, and attempted at a codification of the Indian legal system. In May 1773, eleven Pandits started preparing a digest of hindu laws as per specifications from Hastings. In February 1775, Vivadarnava-Setu or ‘Bridge across the Ocean of Litigation’ was completed in Sanskrit and translated under the title A Code of Gentoo Laws or Ordinations of the Pandits in 1776. This marked the beginning of the ‘modern Shastric literature’, through which the process of Anglicisation of the scriptures by translating ancient texts to promote good governance in India was initiated. In the process of creating new law codes, British rationality came into conflict with a number of aspects of hindu law which they found derogatory to women. The conflict in the legal terrain also empowered the British with the justification of their existence in India. Strategically inclined towards non-interference with 326 G chitra sinha

personal laws in India, the British administration needed social triggers to alter the laws that seemed irrational to their conscience. In the nineteenth century, such an impetus came from the social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar who raised their voices stressing the necessity to stop cruelty towards women in the form of customary practices like Sati and the social isolation of widows. In response, the British started reforming some hindu laws which they found extremely harmful to women. The onset of the twentieth century saw an intensification of social pressure for changing the legal status of women. Alongside the social reformers, a number of women’s organisations stressed legal reform for women as a precondition for social success. The All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) attempted to remove the legal disabilities of Indian women. The reforms attempted included changing marriage laws to raise the age of marriage for women to fourteen in the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929. Women’s organisations also emphasised the need for giving property rights to women. In 1937, in spite of strong resistance from the orthodox quarters of the Assembly, the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act, 1937 was passed. It gave the Hindu widow, who had previously been excluded from inheritance, a right to intestate succession. It also gave her the same interest as her deceased husband in undivided joint families. However, this was only a limited interest, as this on her death would be inherited by the husband’s heirs. Also at remarriage, the widow could forfeit such property. In 1940, a Federal Court judgement ruled that Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act is not valid in the devolution of agricultural land. This is because the agricultural property falls in the ‘jurisdiction of provincial legislation’, while the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act was a central legislation; provincial reforms were also necessary to bring into its fold the crucial agricultural land in a predominantly agrarian society like India. In the wake of the controversial ruling of the Federal Court, the government was quick to appoint a four member committee to look into the limitations of the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act, 1937. The Chairman of the committee was Sir B.N. Rau, Judge, Calcutta High Court and the three members of the Committee were Shri Dwarkanath Mitter, ExJudge, Calcutta High Court, Shri J.R. Gharpure, Principal, Law College, Poona and Rajratna Vasudeo Vinayak Joshi, High Court Images of Motherhood F 327

Pleader, Baroda. In June 1941, the Rau Committee submitted its report to the government recommending the need for a complete overhaul of the Hindu Code, as piecemeal legislation will generate insurmountable contradictions in the system as has been amplified by the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act. Based on this recommendation, the Hindu Law Committee was revived on January 20 1944 for the purpose of formulating a complete code of hindu law, which should be complete as far as possible under the chairmanship of Sir B.N. Rau, with Shri Dwaraka Nath Mitter, retired Judge of Calcutta High Court, J.R. Gharpure, Principal of Law College, Poona and T.R. Venkatarama Sastry an advocate of Madras High Court.19 At the dictates of the government, the reconstituted Rau Committee prepared a complete Hindu Code and circulated it among lawyers, opinion makers and social and religious organizations in Bombay, Poona, Delhi, Allahabad, Patna, Calcutta, Madras, Nagpur and Lahore. A significant attempt at empowering the Indian mother was visible in the efforts of the Hindu Law committee. In a significant departure from the extant laws relating to marriage, the Hindu Code Bill attempted to introduce two types of marriage, i.e., the sacramental marriage and the civil marriage.20 The provision of civil marriage provided greater individual freedom in two ways. First, it was easier to escape the rigours of degrees of prohibited relationships since the Hindu Code proposed to be more relaxed, in keeping with the liberal outlook. Second, there was easier access to divorce under civil marriages which was not accepted in traditional hindu sacramental marriages performed under Samskara. Any hindu married through sacramental marriages as per the proposed Hindu Code Bill, could get registered under the civil marriages and thereafter apply for divorce. It provided for divorce (nullity) on grounds of impotency, Sapinda relationships (refers to the funeral ceremony where seven generations of male ancestors are to partake of the funeral feast, and hence any one who is part of it has a sapinda relationship), insanity of either of the partners, and where the marriage was completed by force and without the consent of guardians. The divorce rules were much more liberal as compared to the Indian Divorce Act, 1869. At that time, except in Baroda (Baroda Hindu Act, 1937), Bombay (Bombay Hindu Divorce Act, 1947), Madras (Madras Hindu (Bigamy Prevention and Divorce) Act, 1949) and Saurashtra (Saurashtra Hindu Divorce 328 G chitra sinha

Act, 1952), legal divorce rarely took place — men often simply abondoned their ‘unwanted’ wives. Thus, it represented a major structural break in social legislation, causing much consternation among puritans. For Indian mothers, it was an enabling provision, a recourse to escaping domestic turmoil and violence. Another empowerment of Indian mothers came from the proposed removal of polygamy. Arguing that ‘the pride of hinduism was that although polygamy was permitted in theory, it was monogamy which was actually practiced’,21 the report of the Hindu Law Committee, 1947 argued that the, provision of monogamy in the law will ‘prevent the husband from deserting the wife at will.’22 The Hindu Code Bill proposed significant expansion in the property rights of Indian women. The basic change proposed by the Hindu Code Bill was to treat the heirs of intestate succession not as coparcenaries but as individuals entitled to personal property. The Hindu Code Bill proposed to confer absolute property rights to the heir that would give him power to dispose of his portion of property.23 This system was prevalent in regions of India under the Dayabhaga rule. The Mitakshara rule of inheritance was thus proposed to be replaced by the provisions contained in the Dayabhaga rule. Second, the Hindu Code Bill proposed the removal of the law of inheritance through agnates, and stressed relationships in determining inheritance. In the process, the widow, the daughter and the widow who has also lost her son were brought on an equal footing under the proposed code prepared by the Rau Committee. Prior to the preparation of the Hindu Code, there existed two types of property that women inherited — Stridhana and women’s estate. The Hindu Code Bill proposed that so far as right to property is concerned, there should be uniformity which should recognise that the woman had absolute property. The Hindu Code Bill proposed absolute right to women in all property, not only in her Stridhana property. The Hindu Law Committee in their report of 1947 came to the conclusion that if in case of Stridhana, women were competent and intelligent to sell and dispose of their and other’s property. Accordingly, the Committee suggested that women should possess absolute property. In order to promote gender equality, the Hindu Code Bill proposed that the son would also get a share of the Stridhana, i.e., half of the share of the daughter. Images of Motherhood F 329

In order to contain the oppressive practices associated with dowry, the Bill proposed that dowry given at the time of marriage will remain a trust property till the bride reaches the age of eighteen years, to ensure that neither the husband nor any other relatives could exploit the situation. With regard to adoption, the Hindu Code Bill empowered the mother by restricting the right of an adopted son to take away all property accrued to the widow from the deceased husband before adoption. Also, by proposing to do away with customary practices such as Krithrima adoption (on the adoptee’s concent), Godhaya adoption (when paternity is not certain) and Dwaimushayan adoption (bereft of his father and mother, the child presents himself, saying ‘let me become thy son’), the Hindu Code sought to create a situation where the adopted son would no longer be in a position to divest the mother completely of her property. Consequently, it strengthened the widow’s position in the family by making her an absolute owner of her deceased husband’s property in the presence of an adopted son. However, the father continued to be the natural guardian of the child and the important decisions relating to the child continued to be determined primarily by the father. While these proposals that affect the Indian mother were progressive and some of them path breaking regarding certain rights surrounding motherhood, the Hindu Code Bill retained the orthodox patriarchal stance despite the plea made by the women’s organisations. Prior to the Hindu Code Bill, guardians could be classified into three groups, viz., natural guardian, guardian appointed by father by way of a will, and guardians appointed under the Guardianship and Wards Act, 1890. The first two categories borrowed their authenticity from the Hindu Shastras while the third was a result of the British endeavour of codifying the Hindu Law. The Guardians and Ward Act, 1890, did not alter the rights of a natural guardian as conferred by the Hindu Shastras. It however added that if the court appointed a natural guardian, the natural guardian under Hindu Law ceased to function. Its main features were: z z

The father was the natural guardian of the minor. The natural guardian could mortgage, sell or otherwise transfer immovable property of the minor and there was no need of prior sanction by the Court. 330 G chitra sinha

z

z

A hindu father could nominate a guardian, orally or through execution of a deed, so as to exclude the mother of the child as a guardian. The mother had no right to appoint testamentary guardian even if the father expired.

The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 made several modifications of the earlier Act, though the father remained the natural guardian of a child. If the father neglected the minor and avoided any responsibility, then the Court may accept the mother’s authority in the interest of the children. Further, the custody of the child below the age of five years would ordinarily be with the mother. The authority to the father to appoint a testamentary guardian and thus to exclude the mother from guardianship was retained in the Hindu Code, with the improvement that even if the father appoints a testamentary guardian, it shall not exclude the authority of the mother as a natural guardian if the father died and the mother was capable of acting as a natural guardian. The issue of maintenance was also not treated with the required detail in the Hindu Code Bill and the discretionary power to give maintenance rested with the Court. This later led to several undesirable outcomes arising out of the difficulty in establishing the income of the husband, expenses on litigation and lack of guarantee of regular payments of alimony. These difficulties associated with this aspect of the reform of the Hindu family law forced women to plead under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code which was not really the relevant procedure for the divorced wife. The very fact that women accepted this trade off between time fighting cases and monetary compensation clearly demonstrated the failure of proposals contained in the Hindu Code Bill draft regarding maintenance and in the subsequent Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. During 1955 and 1956, a modified version of the Hindu Code Bill was adopted by the Nehru Government in the form of four separate acts — the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956. These Acts were framed in the spirit of the Constitution of India which granted equal rights to all. These four Acts became the pillars of legislative efforts of independent India, and had profound effects on the lives of women. Images of Motherhood F 331

II Images of Motherhood in the Hindu Code Bill Discourse The process of transition which escalated with the introduction of the Deshmukh Act in 1937 to the family law reforms of 1955 and 1956 saw significant communicative interaction of the legal sphere and the public sphere. Law was created not merely by the lawyers; it was the outcome of intense social interaction. The Hindu Code Bill was intensely debated in the legislature, in Bar Associations, in social and religious organisations, in public meetings and in the women’s organisations. As a result of the intense debate, the Indian society got polarised into liberals who wanted to create a modern legal framework to build a secular India, and the conservatives who wanted to uphold the sanctity of the age-old hindu religion and its rituals. As the debate engulfed the educated segments in many cities across the whole nation, the discourse over the Hindu Code Bill came to represent the transient social consciousness of a nation trying to emerge out of colonial shadows through a major nation building project. The notion of motherhood was placed right at the epicenter of the debate over Hindu Code Bill. One of the central aspects of the debate surrounded the identity of motherhood. Under the British however the feudal form of Brahminism gave way to a modernised, updated, ‘reformist’ Brahminism which constructed an image of the ‘Hindu woman,’ transcending caste differences but drawing to a considerable degree from the patriarchy of traditional Brahminism. Beneath reforms such as the sponsorship of widow remarriage, were the important high-caste norms of pativrata, i.e., the ideal wife, the sanctity of marriage, and the authority of husbands in the home to all the sections of what was now seen as a ‘Hindu community’. Thus, even as castes were homogenised into a larger hindu legal structure, British administrators and their Indian counterparts ensured the maintenance of Brahminic ideology by establishing a legal structure that made Brahminic ideals the basis of the norms for everybody else. In effect, this meant that the lowercaste women were compelled to conform to the norms meant 332 G chitra sinha

for the upper-caste women. Whereas earlier, Brahmin women had in the ‘caste-patriarchal bargain’ traded prestige and status for greater confinement and bondage; now low caste men were offered a chance to trade the relatively greater independence of ‘their’ women for some of the status of the twice-born castes.24 Thus, the British efforts at codification of hindu laws aided in preserving the kernel of patriarchal notion of motherhood in Indian society, epitomised by the trade-off of glorification of the mothering as a social role at the cost of abject denial of absolute rights of the mother. This patriarchal conception of motherhood however came to be strongly challenged by a liberal segment of the Indian population during the 1940s with support from women’s organisations, which by then had assumed a pan-Indian character. Consequently, the proposed reconstruction of the frozen perception of motherhood through her empowerment turned out to be the key area of communicative action over the Hindu Code Bill. The process of redefining the Indian motherhood was painful and contentious. Opposing ideologies presenting divergent views of Indian femininity and ideal motherhood appeared in the discourse of the time. Broadly speaking, contesting images of motherhood appeared both in the public sphere and the legislative sphere. In the public sphere, there were debates over the Rau Committee report, 1941, over the evidence … collected by the Hindu Law Committee in 1944 and 1945, and over the sporadic references and letters that appeared in print media. The debate over the Hindu Code Bill, to a great extent, shaped the modern Indian notions of motherhood. In the absence of a social consensus, the power play between the liberal and orthodox segments was a foregone conclusion. But the extent of divisiveness brought about by the debate was indeed unexpected. In trying to figure out the role of women as wives, mothers and widows in society, the entire society got polarised — Bar Associations were divided, political parties were segmented across liberal and conservative ideologies, social associations took drastically different stances, and the women’s associations also looked at the issue from diverse positions of the liberal–conservative spectrum. It is noteworthy that several organised women’s associations (WIA, AIWC and others) with a pan-Indian character provided Images of Motherhood F 333

strong support to the Bill. Through its journal, Roshni, the AIWC pressed strongly for a Hindu Code in which men and women had equal rights in inheritance and marriage. The AIWC held a Standing Committee meeting in Bombay in May 1941 to draft a statement to the Rau Committee and answer its questionnaire.25 The women’s movement protested against the absence of women on the Rau Committee and urged for an expansion in the scope of the Committee so that all areas of Hindu Law could be codified and reformed. The demands of the women’s organisations encompassed equal rights in inheritance, marriage, guardianship, requirement of the consent of both parties for marriage, abolition of polygamy, and legalisation of divorce. The AIWC also urged provincial legislatures to extend the Deshmukh Act to agricultural land. The debate over the construction of motherhood in Indian society through legal reforms centered around several rights of women. These rights encompassed property rights, marriage rights such as monogamy and divorce, rights of guardianship and custody of children, rights relating to adopting a child and giving away a child in adoption and women’s right to maintenance.

Debating Property Rights Property rights for women was the reason why the Hindu Law Committee was set up in 1941. The orthodox view was that apart from disrupting the religious fabric of society, the Code also disrupted the economy by giving women more property rights leading to the fragmentation of property.26 When in 1943 and 1944, the Hindu Code Bill was debated in the Lok Sabha, a sizeable section of legislators did not want any deviation from our culturally grounded notions of motherhood as selfless, undemanding and not needing any rights, and of femininity as non-aggressive and suppliant.27 The legislature was divided by sharply polarised views over the emerging construction of femininity and motherhood embedded in the Bill. Babu Baijnath Bajoria, the leader of the opposition, for instance, argued that hindu women, being nurtured by society to fulfil the role of ideal wives and mothers, were not in a suitable position to manage property. He thus moved an amendment for postponement of the Bill that proposes to destroy the very notions of family and the place of women within the 334 G chitra sinha

family. In the same vein, Bhai Parmananda, a vocal legislator with orthodox views, criticised the Government for destroying the very basis of hindu society, when there was no demand for change among the people. The Bill, he felt, was likely to destroy the family structure and would lead to fragmentation of property. He felt that by giving women greater property rights in the form of simultaneous heirship of the daughter, the moral obligation felt by the brother to maintain and marry off his sisters would vanish.28 Another member of the Assembly, Lalchand Navalrai, warned women’s associations that ‘More or less we are plunged into the ocean of western ways and we should not allow ourselves to be drowned.’ He raised an objection regarding the right of a married daughter who would get a share from her husband’s side and also a share in her parental house. Therefore, she would get two shares whereas the son would get only one.29 Renuka Ray used texts which had been utilised by Ram Mohan Roy in the 1820s to demonstrate that women had originally enjoyed inheritance rights under Hindu Law. The question of property rights to women was one of the dominant themes in the public debate over the Hindu Code Bill in 1944 and 1945. Strong support in favour of property rights for women came from liberal segments of society and women’s associations. In the oral evidence tendered to the Hindu Law Committee in Bombay in January 1945, M.C. Setalvad, representing the Bombay Bar Association stated, ‘The Mitakshara Jurisdiction should fall in line in this respect with Dayabhaga. These doctrines lead at present to a great deal of litigation and immoral litigation at that. This is my personal view and also the view of the majority of the Bar Associations.’ Supporting widows’ right to absolute ownership of property, Setalvad argued that ‘widows should inherit in the family of the husband as at present in Bombay.’ 30 Lady Vidyagauri Neelkanth, President, Gujarat Social Reform Association and the Bombay Provincial Women’s Council (Ahmedabad Branch) observed the Hindu Code Bill as a compromise between liberal and conservative values in society. She said, ‘Much as I would like sons and daughters to have equal shares, I accept the provisions of the Code as a compromise.’ She also supported the conferment of absolute rights to women, ‘I support the absolute estate to women. I do not feel that women are incapable of safeguarding their interest in any property any more than men are. Women alone Images of Motherhood F 335

are not exposed to the dangers of squandering: men squander property quite as often.’31 When the Constituent Assembly debated the Hindu Code Bill in 1948, Hansa Mehta felt that the daughter should get an equal share in the property of her father along with the son, and the son also should get an equal share in the property of his mother along with the daughter. Supporting absolute rights to property for women, G. Durgabai observed, ‘This takes me on to another subject and that is about the status of women with reference to the holding of an estate absolutely and not for life. The Bill seeks to remove this disqualification attached to woman’s estate and it gives her the right to hold property absolutely and not for life only. The main argument in favour of limiting the estate in the case of women is that they are incapable of managing it and also that they are likely to be duped or exploited. Also, it is said that they are illiterate and they do not understand the principles of management, and hence there will be a strong inducement to designing male relatives to take away her right. My answer to all this is this. The house is aware that the daughter has an absolute estate in Bombay today. Therefore, on that ground I do not think they are exposed to any risk. The other argument is that we have score of instances where women have proved better managers than men.’32 The opposition to giving women an absolute estate in property was equally strong. The critiques of the Hindu Code were quick to point out that the Hindu Code was a deviation from the hindu Shastras as expounded in the well-known texts of Manu, Yajnavalkya and Parasara and others. One such outburst can be seen in the oral evidence of Sunderlal Joshi, President of the Hindu Code Deliberation Committee of Nandiad.33 Therefore, they were against conferring absolute rights to women in property. In a similar vein, Ganpat Rai, advocate, representing the Delhi Provincial Hindu Sabha, a branch of the All India Hindu Mahasabha stated, ‘I object the granting of an absolute estate to women. My objections are: (1) that in order to keep the property in the family, they will begin to marry sapindas; (2) that women are weak physically; (3) that their character will suffer, if they are given an absolute estate.’34 Rai Bahadur Harishchandra, on behalf of the Provincial branch of the all India Hindu Mahasabha (Delhi branch), observed, 336 G chitra sinha

‘Women should only have a limited estate, even if Vignaneswara declared otherwise. They are incapable of managing property.’ 35 The Hindu Code Bill, as it was drafted, omitted any mention of rights over agricultural and Pandit Nilakanta Das, MLA, stated ‘if women get an absolute estate, Muhammadans in East Bengal will take away both the women and the estate’.36 At the Constituent Assembly, Pandit Thakurdas Bhargava argued that if the Hindu Code Bill comes into vogue, the property rights for women as proposed in the Hindu Code will come into conflict with the cultural practices of hindus. He constructed a hypothetical situation when a lady succeeds to the property of the father as well as to the property of the husband, ‘Suppose the lady dies leaving husband and children, it is clear that the husband has been given the right and the children also succeed. So far so good. Then, when the husband and the children are not there, who succeeds? The father and mother of the lady. These people — there are lakhs like them — who do not even want to touch water from the house of the daughter, will get the property.... Sir, that as soon as the father gives away the daughter to the son-in-law, the father never goes to the house of the daughter, never takes his food in her house and never even drinks water in her house, so that the purity is maintained that no daughter may be given in marriage for mere consideration or any other material gain. That is the basis. There are many people who would not even go to the village where the daughter is married. We must recognise facts as they are; it is no use saying that they do not know. It is quite possible that they do not know. It will happen that the father-in-law would get property bequeathed by the lady. That will be an intolerable position.’37

The Tussle over Rights in Marriage The Hindu Code Bill sought to introduce two major changes in marriage laws with a view to improve the condition of women as wives and mothers. The first included legally ending the practice of polygamy and the second was the enabling provision of divorce in hindu law. Though polygamy was not practiced by hindu society in a major way, the debate could not agree on the need for introduction of legislations banning polygamy. The major contention for those objecting the ban on polygamy surrounded women as mothers. The Images of Motherhood F 337

main argument was that if a woman as wife failed to perform their principal function of bearing a child for the continuation of the family, the husband should be entitled to a second wife. In the legislative assembly debates of 1943, Renuka Ray narrated sufferings of hindu women due to lack of property rights and referred to the disastrous consequences of polygamous marriages on women. She asserted that the Hindu Code Bill would alleviate such suffering. She also argued that polygamy was immoral and had to be prohibited, as Sati had been in 1829. The President of the AIWC, Rameshwari Nehru, asked for the enlargement of the scope for the Hindu Law Committee and a complete revision of the Hindu Code. A telegram by the President of AIWC read, ‘We are definitely for the abolition of polygamy and would urge upon you to make your recommendations as strong as possible. But pending the provision of the Hindu law on marriage and the abolition of polygamy, we desire that the right to separate residence and maintenance be granted to hindu women whose husbands marry again.’ Lady Vidyagauri Neelkanth of the Gujarat Social Reform Association observed, ‘Monogamy should be the strict rule, without any exception whatever. Even in the case of barrenness, monogamy should not be permitted. Monogamy would not make men more moral, but raise the status of women in society.’ The All India Hindu Mahasabha was quite vocal in their dislike of monogamy imposed upon hindu society as a law. Ganpat Rai, its Delhi branch president noted, ‘I am against monogamy in the present day conditions. A hindu should have the right to marry as many wives as he likes without any restrictions, if any, mentioned in the well known texts on hindu law being revived.’38 The Sanatana Dharma Rakshini Sabha of Meerut linked polygamy to the male issue by the first wife, ‘We object to the monogamy provision: a man should be able to take a second wife, unless he has a male issue by the first wife. If he has a male issue, monogamy should be enforced.’39

The Divorce Discourse Prior to the institution of the Hindu Code, the legal right to divorce was not available to hindu women. Hindu society regarded marriage as an indissoluble institution. This enabling provision created a 338 G chitra sinha

significant amount of discomfort to the hindu community. Many religious organisations found divorce completely unacceptable. For instance, the Hindu Code Deliberation Committee, Nandiad, told the Hindu law Committee that ‘only a kanya (virgin) can be married with the sacramental rites… hence the reference to marriage as Kanyadan. The marriage of a kanya is indissoluble.’40 Such strong sentiments were echoed from all over the country. In Delhi, a representative of the Sanatan Dharma Rakshini Sabha strongly objected to divorce stating that ‘we would not allow a woman to get divorced and marry again even if her first husband became a lunatic or a convert.’ On the other hand, women’s associations such as the All India Women’s Conference provided strong support to the provision of divorce as an enabling mechanism for Indian women. Rameshwari Nehru stated, ‘It is difficult to expect unanimity–but the majority of vocal opinion among women is now in favour of it (divorce).’ She assured Hindu Law Committee that ‘no disturbance shall arise if divorce is permitted, it will be a permissive law of which who do not want it should not avail of it himself. If Hindu Law refuses to permit divorce, women will be forced out of the Hindu fold.’41 Renuka Ray added that ‘Baroda has a divorce law. Few have taken advantage of it: very few and only in extreme cases.’42

The Fight for Adoption Rights The debate over adoption was rather muted when seen against the rage and passion that engulfed the debates relating to marriage and property rights. As a matter of fact, there was little in the proposals concerning adoptions that may be termed revolutionary in terms of deviations from social practices. The status quo on adoptions was part of the balancing act of the Hindu Law Committee while drafting the Hindu Code Bill. The non-controversial nature of this part of the Code can be understood from the reactions of staunchly orthodox segments of hindu community. For instance, the Sanatana Dharma Rakshini Sabha, Meerut, which was opposed to the very idea of a Hindu Code, stated, ‘We have no objections to the adoption provisions of the Code; nor do we have any objection to the minority and guardianship provisions.’ This statement basically summed up the orthodox view of the Hindu Code Bill. The Nasarpur Bar Association, West Godavari District, claiming to Images of Motherhood F 339

speak on behalf of all hindus of the Andhra districts, stated, ‘We are against the provisions of the Code except as regards the parts relating to adoptions and guardianship. These parts, we accept, are subject to slight modification.’43 The liberal segments of the society pointed towards the limitations of the proposals of Hindu Code Bill relating to adoption. Ambedkar, while discussing the Hindu Code Bill in the Constituent Assembly, noted, ‘I think it is right that we preserve the right of adoption which the orthodox community cherishes so much, but Sir, I do not understand why there should be adoption. Most of us who make adoptions have no name to be recorded in history. I certainly would not like my name to go down in history because my record is probably very poor. I am an unusual member of the hindu community. But there are many who have no records to go down and I do not understand why they should indulge in adopting a son — a stupid boy, uneducated, without any character — not knowing his possibilities and fastening him and fathering him upon a poor woman whom he can deprive of every property that she possessed. Therefore, my submission is this — if you do want to cherish your old notions with regard to adoption, at any rate make this provision that the adopted boy does not altogether deprive the mother of the property which is her mainstay. I do not think that that limitation can be at all a point of controversy.’44 In the written and oral evidences submitted to the Hindu Law Committee, the women’s organisations in particular stressed the need for giving greater rights to the mother in cases of adoption. The AIWC President, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, wrote to the Hindu Law Committee that ‘the father should not be able to give a boy in adoption without the mother’s consent.’ The AIWC also urged that ‘in respect of this right as well there should be complete equality between the sexes. Both a man and a woman may be permitted to adopt either a son or a daughter.’45 The Representative Committee of Hindu Ladies, Mumbai sought to enhance the role of mothers in adoption: ‘we feel that in a case of adoption whereby a son is being introduced into the family and he is being sent out by his natural family, the consent of the natural mother of the boy should be compulsory where the father gives in adoption, and where the father adopts, the consent of the wife, if living with the husband, should also be made compulsory.’ In 340 G chitra sinha

a similar vein, Diwan Bahadur V.V. Joshi, in his letter to the Rau Committee in Bombay, suggested that as the mother is now fully competent to deal with property, in the context of adoption also she should enjoy rights similar to her husband in giving away her children for adoption.

Contesting Custody and Guardianship Primacy of the father as the natural guardian is embedded in hindu customary law. In Githa Hariharan vs Reserve Bank of India (1994), writer Githa Hariharan applied for 9 per cent Relief Bonds of the Government of India in the name of her minor son. RBI replied that ‘We advise you either to produce an application signed by the father (of the child) or a certificate of guardianship from a competent authority in favour of the minor son immediately to enable the bonds for you.’ In protest, Githa Hariharan filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court in July 1995 against RBI under Article 14 and 15 of the Constitution challenging Section 6(A) of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act read with Section 19(b) of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. Githa Hariharan herself wrote: ‘All the customary laws — beginning with hindu laws on marriage, succession and guardianship — need to be examined for their violation of women’s rights.’ The debate in which Githa Hariharan was engaged is related to the role of women in guardianship. This debate came up in the course of the Hindu Code Bill. During the Constituent Assembly debates of 1948, Ambedkar stated: ‘The Committee felt that as this was a Code intended to consolidate hindu society and their laws, it was desirable to impose this condition, namely, that the father shall continue to be the natural guardian so long as he continues to be a hindu. The Code in its altered form also has introduced another change, namely, that a hindu widow has been given power to appoint a testamentary guardian if her husband has not appointed anyone. She had no such power and this power has been given to her by the Select Committee.’ With regard to guardianship, Hansa Mehta pointed out that the father continues to remain the natural guardian of the children and observed that women’s organisations in India, like the mother, would also to be a co-guardian of the children with the father. Images of Motherhood F 341

III Conclusion The Hindu Code Bill set out to achieve the most challenging balancing act in Indian social history in its endeavour to arrive at a hindu law which, while fulfiling the dreams of modernity, is also compatible with core values of hindu society of the mid-twentieth century. This turned out to be a very difficult exercise, dividing the society in its opinion as never before. Families were divided in their support for the Code; the Bar Associations throughout the country got divided on the issue and many religious and social organisations had to debate internally within the organisation to find out an unified approach to the Hindu Code Bill. While the codification process of the Hindu Law enveloped the widest possible gamut of issues in relation to hindu family laws, the discourse eventually concentrated on the imagery of women as wives and mothers within the hindu family fold. The discourse was typified by the struggle of liberal and conservative forces over the contested terrain of motherhood. While the conservative segments over and over again upheld the elevated principles of motherhood in terms of model — pativrata wife — confined to the private spheres of the family and centrally focused to perform her role as mother, another image of a liberated woman was slowly gaining ground, owing to a fortuitous constellation of social realities characterised by the growth of western education, growing participation in the nationalist movement and emergence of pan-Indian and localised women’s organisations. The fractured social consciousness with co-existence of multiple images of women in Indian society called for a synthesis to sustain the social fabric. The Hindu Code Bill provided a platform to achieve a consensus on motherhood in Indian society and contributed towards transforming the Indian mother from her domestic confines with exclusive focus on child-bearing and rearing, towards a somewhat broader role with a presence in the domestic and public spheres. By providing an opportunity to Indian society to debate intensely on issues surrounding motherhood and women’s role in the family, the Hindu Code Bill discourse was an important communicative process that created an ideal pedestal for hindu family law reforms of the mid-1950s. Voices towards the creation of a legal backbone for 342 G chitra sinha

ushering an egalitarian society came in conflict with vehement opposition by patriarchal orthodoxy in the social sphere, followed by the expected resultant ripples in the legislative sphere. The discourse over the contested conception of motherhood played a critical role in the foundations of family law reforms in India and in the institution of gender rights.

Notes Originally published in Economic and Political Weekly, 42(43), 27 October–2 November 2007. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

See Bhattacharji 1990. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, 8 April 1948, p. 3470. Parliamentary Debates Vol. XV Part I, 19 September 1951. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, Vol. VI, Part II, 12 December 1949. See Doniger and Smith (trans.) 1991. See Nandy (1992) and Karkaria (1994). See Kosambi 1991. See Carroll 1983. See Basu (1988); Choudhury (1995) and Khandwala (1988). The educational development during the British rule led to a number of socio-religious movements in nineteenth century. The Brahmo Samaj, founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy in 1825, emphasised the need to remove deep-rooted gender injustices in religious traditions. The Samaj fought for the abolition of child marriages, removing polygamy and promoting education for women. Under Keshab Chandra Sen in the middle of nineteenth century, the Brahmo Samaj initiated inter-caste marriage in 1862. This was the precursor to the Civil Marriages Act, 1872. The Brahmo Samaj also attempted to improve the social interaction of men and women and career for women outside home. Prarthana Samaj was established in 1867. Its members, K.T. Telang, M.G. Ranade and Bhandarkar championed the cause of women. The Arya Samaj, established by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875, attempted reforms of the caste system and the status of women. The ideal of reviving Vedic social consciousness meant removal of many gender injustices that developed during the post-Vedic era. Social reform movement among the Muslims during the nineteenth century remained rather muted. However, in the late years of the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Begum of Bhopal, Sheikh Abdullah of Aligarh and Justice Karamat Hussain in Lucknow, educational opportunities of Muslim women increased. Images of Motherhood F 343

11. See Chatterjee 1989. 12. See Ray 1995. 13. Women’s India Association, founded in May 1917, was the first organisation of pan-Indian character; its branches were first opened in Srinagar, Madras, Calicut, Tanjore, Bezwada and Bombay. Later, its branches were opened in other parts of India as well. The association, under the leadership of M.E. Cousins, was instrumental in spearheading the women’s suffrage movement and succeeded in its mission. 14. In the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), women’s rights and empowerment through legal reforms were extensively debated. In Erode, Tamil Nadu in 1931, Saraladebi Chaudhurani stressed before the delegates of the Tamil Nadu Women’s Conference that women’s rights could be attained through the sheer force of agitation. She also stressed that while men had to be forced to concede to women’s demands, there was a strong need to convince women about their own rights in society. In the twelfth session of AIWC held at Nagpur in December 1936, the standing committee of the conference drafted a scheme for introducing legislation to improve the social status of women and forwarded it to chief ministers of the new provincial governments and to women members of legislatures. Bombay organised the seventeenth session of the conference in April 1944, presided over by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya and attended by 205 delegates. The AIWC conference organised an agitation in support of the Hindu Law Committee. 15. One example of the growing consciousness of gender rights cam be found in the Report of the Hindu Law Committee, 1941, p. 14. 16. The constraints posed by customs on gender rights are discussed in depth in the Special issue on Indian Motherhood, Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42&43), 20–27 October 1990. 17. See Agnes 1999. 18. See Mulla 1994. 19. Government of India, Report of the Hindu Law Committee, 1947, p. 1. 20. Ibid., pp. 64–65. 21. Ibid., p. 22. 22. Ibid., p. 23. 23. Ibid., pp. 54–59. 24. See Chakravarti 2000. Also see Omvedt 2000. The study is the first serious effort to analyse ‘patriarchy’ and ‘Brahminism’ in Indian history. 25. AIWC, Roshni, July 1941, pp. 25–30. 26. Ibid., page, 83. 27. See Levy 1973. 28. Legisative Assembly Debates, Volume II, 24 March 1943, pp. 1414–18. 344 G chitra sinha

29. Ibid., pp. 1605–11. 30. Government of India, Oral Evidence Tendered to the Hindu Law Committee, Madras, 1945 p. 7. 31. Ibid., page 8. 32. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, 8 April 1948. 33. Government of India, Oral Evidence Tendered to the Hindu Law Committee, Madras, 1945; Bombay 6 February 1945. 34. Ibid.: Delhi, 8 February 1945. 35. Ibid.: Delhi 9 February 1945. 36. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates, 8 April 1948. 37. Oral Evidence of Mr. Ganpat Rai to the Hindu Law Committee on 8 February 1945. 38. Statement of Mr Gyan Prakash Mittal and Shri Prabhu Dayal Sharma on behalf of the Sanatana Dharma Rakshini Sabha, Meerut in front of the Hindu Law Committee at Delhi on 8 February 1945. 39. Sunderlal Joshi’s Statement before the Hindu Law Committee in Bombay. 40. Oral Evidence Tendered to the Hindu Law Committee on 10 February 1945 in Government of India, Oral Evidence Tendered to the Hindu Law, published in Madras, 1945, p. 17. 41. Ibid. 42. Written Evidence Tendered to the Hindu Law Committee, Vol. II, 1945. 43. Constituent Assembly Debates, 24 February 1949. 44. Written Evidence tendered to the Hindu Law Committee, Vol. 1, p. 19.

References Agnes, Flavia. 1999. Law and Gender Inequality: The Politics of Women’s Rights in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. All India Women’s Conference. 1927–1956. Annual Reports. Basu, Aparna. 1988. ‘A Century’s Journey: Women’s Education in Western India: 1820–1920’, in Karuna Chanana (ed.), Socialisation, Education and Women: Explorations in Gender Identity. New Delhi: Orient Longman. ——— and Bharati Ray. 1990. Women’s Struggle: A History of All India Women’s Conference 1927–1966. New Delhi: Manohar. Bhattacharji, Sukumari. 1990. ‘Motherhood in Ancient India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 25(42 &43). 20–27 October. Carroll, Lucy. 1983. ‘Law, Custom and Statutory Social Reform: The Hindu Widows Remarriage Act of 1856’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 20(4). Chakravarti, Uma. 1993. ‘Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28(14). 3 April. Images of Motherhood F 345

Chakravarti, Uma. 2000. Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Chatterjee, Partha. 1989. ‘The Nationalist Resolution to the Women’s Question’, in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women. ———. 1997. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial Past and Post-Colonial Histories. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Choudhury, Pratima. 1995. Women’s Education in India: Myth and Reality, New Delhi: Har Anand Publications. Derrett, John Duncan Martin. 1957. Hindu Law: Past and Present. Being an Account of the Controversy which Preceded the Enactment of the Hindu Code, the Text of the Code as Enacted, and Some Comments Thereon. Calcutta: A. Mukherjee. Doniger, Wendy and Brian K. Smith (Trans.) 1991. The Laws of Manu. London: Penguin. Government of India. 1941. Report of the Hindu Law Committee Report. Madras: Government Press. ———. 1943. Legislative Assembly Debates. ———. 1947. Report of the Hindu Law Committee. Madras: Government Press. ———. 1948–49. Constituent Assembly of India (Legislative) Debates. ———. 1951. Parliamentary Debates. Karkaria, Bachi. 1994. ‘Identity in Waiting — A Long Haul from Sati to Tara’. The Times of India, Bombay, 4 July. Khandwala, V. 1988. Education of Women in India, 1850–1967, A Bibliography. Bombay: SNDT Women’s University Press. Kosambi, Meera. 1991. ‘Girl-Brides and Socio-Legal Change: Age of Consent Bill (1891) Controversy’, Economic and Political Weekly, 26(31), 3–10 August. Levy, Harold L. 1973. ‘Indian Modernization by Legislation: The Hindu Code Bill’. unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Mulla, Sir Dinshaw. 1994. Principles of Hindu Law. Bombay: N. M. Triphy. Nandy, Ashis. 1992. ‘Sati: A Nineteenth Century Tale of Women, Violence and Protest’, in idem, At the Edge of Psychology. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Omvedt, Gail. 2000. ‘Towards a Theory of Brahmanic Patriarchy’, Economic and Political Weekly, 22 January. Parashar, Archana. 1992. Women and Family Law Reform in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd. Ray, Bharati. 1995. ‘The Freedom Movement and Feminist Consciousness in Bengal, 1905–1929’, in idem (ed.), From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Note on the Editor Maithreyi Krishnaraj was formerly Director, Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. With her background in three disciplines — economics, sociology and education — she did interdisciplinary work in women’s studies and is considered a pioneer in developing the subject. She has published widely in national and international journals and taught as Senior Professor in many universities in India and abroad. Some of her major publications are Real Lives and Mythic Models (2000); Between State and Markets (2007); Gender, Food Security and Rural Livelihoods (2008); and Women Farmers of India (2008).

Notes on Contributors Jasodhara Bagchi, a feminist critic and activist, was the founding Director of the School of Women’s Studies, and Professor of English at Jadavpur University. She was also Chairperson of the West Bengal Commission for Women, and a founding member of the feminist organisation Sachetana. Her publications include the edited volumes A Space of Her Own: Personal Narratives of Twelve Indian Women (2005); The Changing Status of Women in West Bengal, 1970–2000: The Challenge Ahead (2005); The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in India (2003); and Indian Women: Myth and Reality (1995). Sukumari Bhattacharji was formerly Vice President of the Asiatic Society. After completing her Master’s Degree in English literature and Sanskrit, she taught at Brabourne College and Jadavpur University (Kolkata). She was recently awarded the prestigious Bankim Puroskar for literature. Kamala Ganesh is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai. Her research is in the areas of gender, kinship, culture and identity, and Indian Diaspora. Her publications on gender-related themes include Boundary Walls: Caste and Women in a Tamil Community (1993); and Care, Culture and Citizenship: Revisiting the Politics of the Dutch Welfare State (coauthored 2005). She has been Secretary, Commission on Women, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, and Joint Secretary, Indian Association for Women’s Studies. Shanta Gokhale is a writer, translator, journalist and theatre critic. Her Marathi novel Rita Welinkar won the Maharashtra State Award in 1992. Her critical history of Marathi theatre, entitled Playwright at the Centre: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present, appeared in 2000. She has translated several Marathi plays into English, amongst them Satish Alekar’s Begum Barve, Mahesh Elkunchwar’s Wada Trilogy and G. P. Deshpande’s Uddhwasta Dharmashala. She has also translated Uddhav Shelke’s classic Marathi novel Dhag and

Durga Khote’s autobiography Mee, Durga Khote. She has written documentary and feature film scripts. Narayan Gangaram Surve, a film script written by her, won the Golden Lotus. She has contributed columns on the arts and culture to the Times of India and Mid-Day in English, and Loksatta and Saptahik Sakal in Marathi. Currently she writes a fortnightly column for Mumbai Mirror. Prabha Krishnan is a social activist interested in issues concerning women, media and health. To this end, she has written extensively and participated in research projects, protests, seminars, workshops, etc. Her research activities and publications include Affirmation and Denial: Construction of Femininity on Indian Television, Health Care Earth Care: Interrogating Health and Health Policy in India (2000). Her current research, The Self Healing the Self: Narratives of Women in Paradoxical Healing, focuses on centrality of spirituality in health care. C. S. Lakshmi is currently Director, SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women), Mumbai. She also writes in Tamil under the pseudonym ‘Ambai’. Her translated stories have been published in two collections entitled A Purple Sea (1992) and In a Forest, A Deer (2006). She has also been an independent researcher with the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University for the past 30 years and has several publications to her credit. Divya Pandey is currently Fellow at the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, from where she retired as Reader in 1989. She is also a consultant at SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women), Mumbai. In a career spanning 30 years, she has numerous research papers to her credit in the area of population studies and women’s studies, many of which have been published in academic journals or have been presented at national and international seminars and conferences. Veena Poonacha is Director, Research Centre for Women’s Studies and Hon. Director, Centre for Rural Development, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. Recently she was awarded the Australia–India Council Senior Fellowship for 2007–8. With a Ph.D. in Sociology from SNDT Women’s University, her research interest in women’s studies straddles the interdisciplinary areas Notes on Contributors F 349

of history, sociology and social anthropology. She is a member of the Government of Maharashtra Task Force to review microfinance institutions, and Chairperson of the Research Advisory Committee for the National Research Centre for Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar. Some of her publications include From the Land of a Thousand Hills: Portraits of Three Women of Coorg (Kodagu) in South India (2002); Writing Women’s Lives: The Stories of Three Women from the Coorg/Kodava Community in South India Reconstructed through Oral Histories, Photographs and Family Papers (2002); and Negotiating Historical Spaces: Reclaiming Women’s Agency in the Writing of History (2007). Chitra Sinha is an alumna of Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, West Bengal. She did her Ph.D. in the Department of History, University of Mumbai. She had been a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Women, UCLA, USA. She is recipient of several prestigious fellowships including the Gulestan Billimoria Fellowship of Asiatic Society, Mumbai, Pandit Setu Madhava Rao Pagadi Felicitation Fellowship, Government of Maharashtra, New India Foundation Book Writing Fellowship, and the South Asia Regional Fellowship of Social Science Research Council (SSRC), USA. Her book on the ‘Hindu Code Bill’, prepared under the New India Foundation Book Writing Fellowship, is forthcoming. Presently she is working on her second book on women, law and society in Asia and the Middle East.

350 G Motherhood in India