By: Dr. Ratan Bhattaccharjee
This year International Women’s Day seems to have a special significance all over India as the 2024 Lok Sabha Election will be fought on the major issue of the rise of Nari Shakti in India “All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception” –wrote Simone de Beauvoir.In the poem ‘Phenomenal woman” Maya Angelou wrote,” That’s me. I walk into a room just as cool as you please, and to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet.” Today on the International Women’s Day we recall the author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Civil rights activist, poet, playwright, director, actor, professor and writer Maya Angelou is perhaps best known as the most popular Feminist writer of African American literature. She voiced all that is essential in the feminist thinking or Simon De Beavouir Virginia Woolf, Kate Millett and Betty Friedan Maya Angelou advised women, “Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option”. She was bold enough to advise women,” If you don’t like something, change it. Because she knew, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” Maya Angelou could say in clear words”. I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, “I love you”. Her most famous work is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiography about her childhood. The book is a testament to the need for resilience in the face of discrimination.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiographies, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She was best known for her “trailblazing work in feminist philosophy”, The Second Sex (1949), a detailed analysis of women’s oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. She argued that patriarchy was a political institution that could only survive through women’s subordination to it. Millett also claimed that all Western social institutions reinforce this dynamic. Because of the overnight success of her book, she found herself a reluctant spokesperson for the feminist movement.Virginia Woolf was best known for her novels, especially Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). She also wrote pioneering essays on artistic theory, literary history, women’s writing, and the politics of power Briefly, Virginia Woolf wants women to be free in every field. She states that the rights given to men about working with equal rights as men, fair wages or equal pay, having equal right in education and sex equality should be given to women, as well.
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Betty Friedan’s feminism emphasized career-oriented independence for women and men instead of domestic life. Betty Friedan launched modern feminism, arguably the most influential and successful intellectual movement of the 20th century. The phrase “feminine mystique” was coined by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. The prevailing belief was that women who were truly feminine should not want to work, get an education, or have political opinions.
Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Women: 1792), Elizabeth Stanton (History of Woman Suffrage: 1881), Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique: 1963), Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch: 1970), bell hooks (Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center: 1984), Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: 1984), Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth: 1990), Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues: 1996) and, recently, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (We Should All Be Feminists: 2014) inspired India’s robust tradition of feminist writers who have stood up for the cause and added powerful voices to the women empowerment movement. Tarabai Shinde was born in Buldhana. She wrote many books and was the first author known for feminist writing. Her work, “Stri” is a comparison between men and women and is considered as one of the country’s modern feminist.
The Scroll once published an article regarding the robust line of feminist writers from India who have been writing against male injustice since the sixth century BCE. Many of the nuances of gender, religion and caste struggle in the Indian context can be understood through the writings of such women. The brilliant l anthology Unbound (2015), edited by Annie Zaidi, contains records of “breakaways” voices of women who chose their spiritual aspirations above everything else. Advocates of the “great tradition of ancient Hinduism”, include the names of the sages Gargi, Maitreyi and Lopamudra. The Bhakti Movement became a level playing field and yielded stars like Andal (7th or 8th century CE), Akka Mahadevi (12th CE), Lal Ded (14th century CE), and Meerabai (16th century CE), among others. Though primarily devotional and directed towards male gods, their poems reflect autonomy of spirit in a society.
In their outright rejection of conventional gender roles and attributes, they set the earliest examples of feminism in action. The written records Ahval-I Humayun Badshah by Gulbadan Begum (sixteenth century CE) made her perhaps the first female historian of the Mughal court. Writing was also among the many talents of the great empress Nur Jahan – she is known to have written poetry. Like her, Padshah Begum Jahanara too was renowned for her ideas of female freedom. A renowned Sufi faqirah (ascetic) herself, she wrote Risālah-i-Sāhibīyah was – a biography of her chosen spiritual master, Mullah Shah – and Mu’nis al-Arwā, a biography of the great saint, Moinuddin Chisti. Her niece Zeb-un-Nissa followed in her footsteps and became an accomplished scholar, a patron of the arts. Indian feminists included the trailblazer such as Savitribai Phule, who is rightfully considered the pioneer of women’s education in India. Along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule, she worked tirelessly for those oppressed by caste and provides access to education for girls. She wrote poetry reflecting her struggles and ideals, which were published as the compilations titled Kavya Phule and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar. Maharashtra’s glorious feminist Pandita Ramabai in her personal life married outside her community and caste. Urmila Pawar’s book The Weave of My Life (1988), written a century later tells us exactly those tales.
India’s second wave of feminism was reflected in the works of post-Independence writers like Ismat Chughtai, Amrita Pritam, Mahasweta Devi, Krishna Sobti, Kamala Das and Kamala Markandaya. They explored notions of boundaries, bodies and sexualities. Chughtai was known for her especially radical feminist views, and the story of Lihaaf (1942) and her persecution is of course well known. Other such discourses include Sobti’s Mitro Marjani (1966), Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar (1950), Kamala Das’s autobiography My Life (1973), Mahasweta Devi’s Breast Stories (translated from Bengali by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1997), and Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve (1955).
In addition to these fiction writers, academics such as Uma Chakravarti and Kumkum Roy, and activists such as Kondapalli Koteswaramma and Kamla Bhasin have contributed remarkably to the understanding and fostering of feminism in India. Women writers, activists, journalists and “influencers”, however, confronted the trolling and upheld the need to smash brahminical patriarchy. The oppressive systems of gender and caste hierarchy were questioned simultaneously. In cognitive psychology literature, empowerment means to enable one to act. Psychological empowerment at the individual level is a link between a sense of personal control and efficacy and a willingness to change and take action. The major contribution of women to literature has been their exploration of societal standards. Pioneer of such is Jane Austen whose works repeatedly explored the standards set for women, typically being marriage and gentility. Her works explored vanity of societal rules in the Victorian England. In India we see writers like Amrita Pritam, Anita Desai however; empowerment of women now can be categorized into five main parts – social, educational, economic, political and psychological.
Social Empowerment refers to the enabling force that strengthens women’s social relations and their position in social structures. The reading of literature may thus play an important part in developing the self of the reader: more particularly, it provides a context in which the reader’s own experience can be reassessed through constructive reformulation of the meaning and scope of the emotions. The roles of women in literature may be seen as cages – small and unnaturally restricting. And as birds in cages, if one flaps her wings too long and hard against the steel bars, the wings will break. Few women characters are given the strength or courage to resist these limits. Sahitya Akademi and Padmabhushan awardee Anita Desai dwells on descriptive passages and vivid imagery to bring alive nuances of the female ways of life in her novels Fasting, Feasting (about difference in lifestyle in India and America) and Cry, the peacock (a woman haunted by a prediction made in her childhood).
Anita Nair is a prolific writer, best known for her novels Mistress (focussing on Kathakali dance of Kerala), Ladies Coupe (conversations between women in a train compartment), Idris: Keeper of Light (Somalian trader visiting southern India in 17th century) and Better Man (about friendships). Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is best known for Mistress of Spices (a shopkeeper who helps customers satisfy their desires with spices tinted with magic) and Oleander Girl (journey across post 9/11 America to find the protagonists true identity). The Palace of the Illusions is, a retelling of Mahabharatha through Draupadi’s POV is an excellent one on Indian mythology. Divakaruni’s works are largely set in India and the United States, and often focus on the experiences of South Asian immigrants especially the female suffering Sahitya Akademi awardee K.R. Meera is a prominent Malayalam writer Yellow is the Colour of Longing, Hangwoman (thoughts on capital punishment and the story of a woman who has to continue her family tradition), The Gospel of Yudas ( love and betrayal in post Naxalite era) and The Poison of Love ( story of a woman with a philandering husband). Sudha Murthy best known for her social work focused on women life in her How I Taught My Grandmother to Read, The Old Man and His God: Discovering the Spirit of India, The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk, The Bird with Golden Wings: Stories of Wit and Magic and Dollar Bahu.
Janice Pariat a prominent writer from North East India in 2013, in her debut collection of short stories Boats on Land that won the Sahitya Akademi Young Writer Award for the English language and her debut novel Seahorse focused on female life. Jnanpith Awardee Indira Goswami the Assamese author also well known for bringing about social change through her books and acting as a mediator between the government and militant groups in The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker, Pages Stained With Blood and The Man from Chinnamasta focused on women life. Kamala Surayya, also known as Kamala Das or Madhavikutty is a prominent writer and poet who has written both in Malayalam and English shortlisted also for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984 did not shy away from topics such as female sexual awakening, much to the dismay of the conservative society that existed then. My Story is such a record of a feminist viewpoint. Meena Kandasamy is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and activist based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Feminism and disapproval of caste system are recurring themes in her works. International Women’s Day (IWD) is a holiday celebrated annually on March 8 as a focal point in the women’s rights movement. IWD gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. These writers in India and abroad all focus on the plight and the fight of women as the doubly marginalised population on this earth. (The author is currently an Affiliate Faculty of English Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond USA and a multilingual writer, he may be reached at bhattaachrjr@vcu.edu)
