Abstract
The present volume is a lucid account of an arguably under-explored aspect of gender history. On the one hand, while debates and discussions on Hindu widowhood formed a very crucial component of the colonial as well as the Indian discourse on progress, community and the nation, on the other hand, academic research works on widowhood seemed to focus primarily on popular pilgrim sites—Vrindavan, Mathura or Benaras.
The author professes to shift her investigation from Bengal-centric urban high-caste settings to rural North India exploring the lives of widows in the larger backdrop of politics and gender relations, seeking to dwell more on the discourse of widows’ sexuality and cultural representation—an area which she argues had remained largely out of focus.
With a view to contextualising the colonial Hindu widow, the author discusses the role of social reformism and inevitably underscores the legislation prohibiting sati as her entry point. Reflecting on the nineteenth-century debates on sati, the author argues that the official circle perceived sati as a voluntary act on the part of the ideal Hindu widow, implying whether the widow wished to ascend the pyre of her husband or lead a chaste and austere life was left to her own decision. The idea of a textual (shastrik) widow was extended to the public sphere by the Hindu reformist discourse in the nineteenth century. The author’s contention is that in both these notions the Hindu widow was either assumed to be ‘wretched or transgressive or both’ (p. 26). Surveying a brilliant range of primary records, such as British Parliamentary papers, the author draws our attention to the cases of sati performed in different parts of Ghazipur, Gorakhpur and Benaras and concludes that even when the colonial authorities professed a favourable attitude towards a complete abolition of sati by 1829, the notion of a voluntary sati was never really destroyed; it was merely cracked. She observes that ‘the voluntary sati was a shared construct of the colonial and Hindu patriarchy’ (p. 40). The cases of child widows in the North-Western Provinces questioned the colonial presumptions of dominant voluntary widows and generated difference of opinion in the House of Commons.
In the second chapter, the author attempts an ethnographical and regional journey to look into the discourse on widow remarriage. Relocating the widows within domesticity was once again induced by the fear of the widows’ uncontrolled sexuality. Although the colonial state encouraged widow remarriage with the passing of the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act in 1856 in Bengal, even the elite Bengalis who had a deep investment in developing social order of the colonial state did not embrace this innovation. As Sekhar Bandyopadhyay had indicated, not only did such attempts founder, but in fact the ideal of ascetic widowhood also became increasingly widespread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ideal of the pure pious widow became a crucial marker of respectability and a symbol that the Hindu nationalists often deployed as a key marker of particular moral purity of their community. This diffusion of the elite emphasis on the celibate widow and female sanctity had a particularly restrictive effect on women belonging to aspirational caste groups. These groups sought to redefine their standing by embracing models and practice and social norms of elite classes. In contrast, the present book argues that while some caste groups of North India made it customary for widows to remarry, in some lower castes, where addition and subtraction to the family labour had a direct impact on quality of life, widows were useful assets in themselves. The author thus attempts to contextualise the scope of Hindu remarriage within the frame of the agrarian economy. She argues that the reformist voice and action on widowhood remained loosely defined so that the Widow’s Right to Maintenance Bill of 1933 in favour of giving property rights to widows continued to be rejected by conservative Hindus in the United Provinces until 1937, when the debate led by Harbilas Sharda acquired a national status.
The author has also attempted to recover the voices of widows through their writings. She examined the world of literate widows of the early twentieth century many of whom were also writers. Some of them were conscious of the lacunae in the reformist agenda and developed a unique critique of their own regarding the economic, social and sexual oppression of Hindu widows. The early twentieth century, which saw the emergence of a Hindi public sphere, encouraged the mushrooming of women’s journals as a manifestation of this print culture. Helped by the emergence of this active Hindi public sphere, widows like Priyamvada could cultivate a literary language of social protest through her autobiography. In her autobiographical novel, Priyamvada ultimately accepted the Gandhian discourse of purposefulness and participation of widows in the anti-colonial struggle and nation building (p. 250) as the most cherished way of her life. While one might assume that such voices were not simply the voices of victimhood but also embodied a larger feminist perspective on women’s role and status in the society, it would not be out of context to argue that Priyamvada, representing the literate sphere of society, could not have reflected the majority of widows belonging to the not so educated rural agrarian countryside primarily discussed in this book.
In the last chapter of the book, the author concentrates on the representation of the Hindu iconic widowhood, more specifically on the aspects of cinematic imagination. She argues that the image of the self-abnegating, sacrificing, chaste widow and above all the suffering involved in widowhood helped in nation building and linking modernity with chastity. Gandhi seemed to have borrowed his discourse on inner domain from the widow’s spiritual domain. He introduced the ideas of celibacy and renunciation into the active sphere of politics. Gandhi’s articulation of sexual self-discipline and the inner feminine strength of a widow to preserve her chastity and honour had a precedent in the Hindu widow’s own perception of her honour. The enduring popularity of the idea of Mother India was shaped by the Indian experience of suffering and belief in God’s will, remaining stoic and steadfast in the face of misfortune. These were the elements which constructed the powerful cinematic image of the heroic mother. It was noticeable in the film Mother India which talked about a widow’s struggle but not with ‘widowhood’ alone. This struggle responded to a complex matrix of economic pressures of a ‘feudal/landlord’ rural peasant society where colonial ‘modernity’ was not a feasible alternative or option. In independent India, Nehruvian socialism uniquely combined with Gandhian moral reformism continued to produce renewed and reformed cultural codes for widows in particular and for Indian women in general.
To sum up, the author explores new grounds beyond the binary of reformism versus conservative discourses on Hindu widowhood while situating the ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ widows of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and explaining their position against the meta-narrative of nationalist politics and gender. But since the title of the book does not specify Hindu widows only, a section on Muslim widowhood could have enriched the volume further. On the whole, this well-researched book will be a valuable addition to the field of gender studies.