Negotiating Structural Inequalities in Post-independence India: The Case of Deserted Women and Widowhood in Indira Goswami’s Neel Kanthi Braja and A Saga of South Kamrup

Abstract

The present article focuses on the plight of deserted women and widows in post-independence India, drawing its arguments from Indira Goswami’s novels Neel Kanthi Braja (Shadow of Dark God 1986) and A Saga of South Kamrup (1993). It exposes the collusion between masculinity, patriarchy and national identity. While doing so, it not only interrogates the traditional concerns associated with wifehood and widowhood but also foregrounds the need to reclaim women’s bodies from becoming site and symbol for patriarchal and institutional control, especially as evident in the drafting of the Hindu Code Bill. It also seeks to privilege alternative modes of identifying relationships and concerns of women’s sexuality that may rest on mediation of lived experience and individual subjectivities so pertinent to ‘constructing new modes of politics and identity in post-independence India’ (Sreenivas 2009: 128).

Keywords

Widowhood desertion gender sexuality nation

The gendered contexts, post-independence, have continued to circumscribe possibilities of re-forging the extant gendered habitus, thereby rejecting alternative sexual and emotional subjectivities within and without marriage. Consequently, the devaluation of women’s unpaid labour and their appropriation by the social–sexual contract of patriarchy has become a norm. In fact, what is interesting to observe is how patriarchy segregates women’s labour to suit its purpose, simultaneously slotting women as good, bad and sexually promiscuous. While so-called good wives and mothers are seen as ‘repositories of self-less service, devotion and altruism, defining patriarchal labour as essentially a labour of love’ (Gopal 2013: 92), the widows in the family are usually relegated to mobile labour, employed as cooks, caretakers and governesses at their rich relatives’ homes, ‘which would leave them vulnerable to sexual threats and temptations. Thus, their domestic situation as well as deployment of labour [generally] constitute widows as transgressive and therefore “bad”, removing from their own control any bargaining power over the value of their labour’ (Sangari 1993: 21). Moreover, widowhood is perceived as one of the most stigmatised aspects of women’s desertion, so much so that the gendered modes of power structure are intensified through social conditioning, rendering such women all the more vulnerable.

Reading Indira Goswami’s novels Neel Kanthi Braja (1986) and A Saga of South Kamrup (1993), this article engages with the plight of deserted women and widows in post-independence India within the context of religious proscriptions, caste prejudices and property rights of women. It further highlights how a widow’s desire and individuality are condemned and subjected to patriarchal surveillance, reducing her to the status of, what Susie Tharu calls ‘an appendage in a household organised around its active householder subjects’ (1996: 1311). By so doing, it exposes the collusion between masculinity, patriarchy and national identity. In fact, the article not only interrogates the traditional concerns associated with widowhood, but also foregrounds the need to reclaim women’s bodies from becoming site and symbol for patriarchal and institutional control, especially as evident in the drafting of the Hindu Code Bill. It also seeks to privilege alternative modes of identifying relationships and concerns of women’s sexuality that may rest on mediation of lived experience and individual subjectivities so pertinent to ‘constructing new modes of politics and identity in post-independence India’ (Sreenivas 2009: 128).

According to the Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI), which prepared the Towards Equality report (1974), the number of women who had been divorced or/and deserted had considerably increased between 1961 and 1971. Moreover, ‘the proportion of women who remain in this state continues to be higher than that of men, both in the urban as well as rural areas’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 88). The CSWI draws these inferences from its research on the ‘male–female disparity in regard to selected demographic characteristics in India in 1971’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 24). While the number of widowed women was 2772 per 1000 males, divorced or separated women constituted 1630 per 1000 males, exposing how kinship norms, gender assumptions and household structures perform a definite role in the oppression of women. In fact, the issue acquired such gravitas that it was classified as a ‘special problem’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 68) faced by society and institutional structures. Furthermore, the research conducted by Marty Chen and Jean Dreze (1995) also corroborates the findings of the Towards Equality report. In ‘Recent Research on Widows in India: Workshop and Conference Report’, they refer to the Census data (1991) on the incidence of widowhood, according to which ‘widows represent a little over eight per cent of the female population’ (1995: 2437). They further state that high incidence of widowhood among older women is in sharp contrast to the corresponding patterns for males, that is, ‘only 2.5 per cent of all Indian men were widowers’ (Chen and Dreze 1995: 2437).

However, what are the common factors that led to the emergence of such a problem in the first place? One of the plausible reasons could include the structural inability to recognise the intricacies of changing social patterns and provide for a supportive institutional framework. In fact, the sanctioned trajectory of womanhood in this country, that is, ‘progress from being a virgin daughter to a chaste and dutiful wife, daughter-in-law and a mother under the sanction of her father, husband and son, respectively’ (Kulkarni and Bhat 2010: 60), is challenged in the absence of men in their lives.2

In fact, the patriarchal context delimits the choices and agency of women in a manner that their existence is defined/determined by the presence or absence of a ‘legitimate sexual partner, most commonly, the husband being perceived as this qualified partner’ (Pappu 2011: 371).

It not only puts women’s identity and sexuality on the scrutinising radar of patriarchy but renders them vulnerable in the absence of any support system, either from the marital family or the natal family. Alternatively, as Chen and Dreze suggest, ‘a widower not only has greater freedom to remarry than his female counterpart, he also has more extensive property rights, wider opportunities for remunerative employment, and a more authoritative claim on economic support from his children’ (1995: 2438). Such biases in gender codes not only naturalise and obscure the unequal power relations in family but also delimit women’s negotiations with the deprivations of widowhood.

Goswami makes a perceptive statement about the warped structure of the homogenised nation state that conspires to marginalise and exclude a certain section of society out of its esteemed rubric, ‘I have tried to show how the mental and physical state of a young widow takes a different shape and how this change affects her life after her widowhood’ (1986). However, it is pertinent to analyse the author’s illustrations of widowhood within a particular context, ‘When I stayed at Vrindaban in Uttar Pradesh, I saw the naked side of this place, one of the holiest in India’ (Goswami 1986) especially when we know that widowhood is allied with specific connotations, contingent on the caste and class affiliations of women.3

Bama’s statement in Sangati (1994) is significant in this regard, ‘We don’t even use the word “widow”. We are all the same, and live alike…We say there is nothing wrong in [women marrying again after their husbands die]. It is the upper castes who find it ugly’ (1994: 113). In fact, it is this upper caste-class context, which also tends to perceive women’s right to their bodies as essentially dovetailed to a larger focus on men and masculinities.

In the late nineteenth century colonial India, as the nationalist patriarchy reformed itself, redefining the site of home in the process, it could only think of women either as mothers and companionate wives. Widows, unfortunately, did not have any stake in the recast patriarchal relations in the absence of their benefactor husband. Thus, they were deemed unfit and ceased to exist within the (re)productive schema of upper caste Hindu families, community and subsequently the nation state post-independence. They were pushed into, as termed by Uma Chakravarti (2006), the realm of ‘social death’ (p. 157). In fact, ‘deporting them to a distant land was a convenient strategy to get rid of them. And a pilgrim place served as the right choice’ (Ghosh 2000: 1151).

In Neel Kanthi Braja, Saudamini, the only daughter of the Raichoudhury’s is also brought to Vrindavan, when her husband dies soon after their marriage. Her parents hope that it would bring her ‘a calm of mind and …give her strength to bear its ordeals’ (pp. 1–2). It is not as if Saudamini does not have other alternatives. She belongs to upper caste, is educated and holds a graduate’s degree. She could have easily found a job and sustained herself. However, the status of a widow makes things difficult for her and restricts her choices. Goswami reflects how in the absence of husband, widows are reduced to ‘institutionalised marginality, a luminal state between being physically alive and being socially dead’4

In fact, as research reveals, ‘widows had little choice. They were easy victims and a social eyesore—adultery, illicit relationships, increase in prostitution, abortion deaths were often associated with young widows…. Thus, they were sent to places of pilgrimage in Varanasi, Vrindavan, Mathura and Navadwip to live on small monthly allowances’ (Ghosh 2000: 1151).

(Chakravarti 2006: 157). Once the husband dies, his wife becomes useless, redundant to the reproductive logic of Brahminical patriarchy and has to face severe social, cultural and economic deprivations, seeking refuge in widow ashrams.

Similarly, Giribala and Durga in A Saga of South Kamrup are sent back to their natal home after the death of their respective husbands. The religious ideas and cultural practices of Brahminical patriarchy, which had once incorporated Giribala and Durga as wives in their affinal homes, redefine them as ‘domestic enemies’ (Chakravarti 2006: 157) in the event of widowhood. Their community perceives them as essentially sinful for failing to prevent their husband’s death. For instance, Durga remembers, ‘Her mother-in-law always thought she, Durga, had brought the shadow of death to the house and killed her son…. She was never invited for any auspicious occasions in her family or elsewhere. She was considered inauspicious’ (p. 9). Thus, widows are subjected to elaborate rituals which mark their expulsion from not only legitimate sexual activity but also normal community life, thereby announcing their social death. As Chakravarti further suggests:

Widowhood was perceived as a disrupter of social order and a potential violation of the moral order. There were two modes of representing the social death of widows: one was intrusive, in which the widow was conceived of as someone who did not belong because she was an outsider (as in the affinal home); and the extrusive mode, the widow who had left her natal home following marriage became an outsider because she no longer belonged. (2006: 157)

Contesting the Paradigm of ‘Social’ and ‘Sexual’ Death: Widows’ Right to Life

A widow’s desire has to be censured as the social death is inextricably linked to sexual death within the logic of upper caste relations. Thus, the widow ceases to be a person, a social entity and has no right to express herself. As Uma Chakravarti states, ‘the stringiest control of female sexuality among non-labouring castes, with permanent enforced widowhood at the apex of the cultural codes becomes the index for establishing the highest rank in the caste system’ (2006: 156). Alternatively, the narratives of A Saga of South Kamrup and Neel Kanthi Braja unfold to portray widows as individuals who have a right to express their bodily desires and sexuality without any sense of guilt. By doing so, Goswami problematises the passive status assigned to widows as either the subject or object of social reform.

In A Saga of South Kamrup, Giribala’s urge to clandestinely eat the dish of mutton curry during the shradha ceremony5

Ceremony conducted in the memory of a dead person.

of her grandfather marks her dissent from the cultural and material practices which reduce widows to the realm of ascetic excesses. However, the ‘drama of purification and ritualistic atonement’ (p. 125) and social censure which follows this act of transgression alerts us to the need of locating terms like culture and tradition within a historical and political praxis. In fact, set in the period of transition to independence and immediately after it, the novel records the decline in power, caste privileges and authority of gossains6

A member of the highest caste among the Hindus in Assam; who is also a religious head and a highly respected figure in Assam’s sattra or Vaisnavite religious institution (Goswami 1993: 311).

in the wake of the rise of modern nation state. The looming shadow of land ceiling laws and ‘democratizing movements’ (Sangari and Vaid 1989: 19) by working class and peasants eventually challenged the feudal power and landownership of the rich gossains. These changing political formations had significant consequences on ideological formations, which were responsible for ‘reconstituting and strengthening patriarchies’ (Sangari and Vaid 1989: 23) in a particular historical context. Since widows are placed at the margins of gender, social relations on the one hand and (re)production processes on the other, it is pertinent to look into the patriarchal dynamics of modern nation state and how it marginalised women, especially widows, under its feudal ascriptions and cultural hierarchies. For instance, Sudesh Vaid has shown that the resurgence of Sati and sati dharma7

Sati is a widow who immolates herself on the pyre of her dead husband. Sati dharma is a cultural practice which endorses such an action.

in the Shekhawati region (Rajasthan) after independence was entwined with the aim of regaining lost authority. She asserts that

with the abolition of princely states, and the further abolition of the zamindari and jagirdari8

Zamindari/jagirdari system is a revenue collection system wherein zamindars (landlords) were recognised as owners of land and given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants.

systems of land relations, together with land reforms, the Kshatriyas and Banias9

These are members of the Hindu upper caste.

lost some of the power and privilege they had held… Sati now began to be projected as exemplifying the true Rajput (upper caste) identity. (quoted in Kumar 1994: 176)

In this light, Giribala’s refusal in A Saga of South Kamrup to go back to her parents-in-law’s house is meted with severe punishment. The affinal family, which had abandoned her after the death of their son, suddenly becomes conscious of their respect and prestige in community when they learn about Giribala’s affections for Mark, the Christian missionary. Alternatively, Giribala’s act of suicide by choosing to stay inside the burning hut comes across as a powerful critique of the symbolic structure which deprives a widow sexually, socially and financially in the guise of tradition. A Brahmin woman has to undergo ‘the nineteen dhanuprayaschita,10

Purification rite for expiation in which 19 quarters of a rupee and valuable gifts are given to the officiating Brahmin.

for the sin of having sexual relationship with a low-caste man’ (p. 255), but Giribala turns this proscriptive logic of the dhanuprayaschita11

Purification rite for atonement/expiation in which valuable gifts are given to the officiating Brahmin.

on its head when she decides to embrace actual death rather than social death. Though the incident parodies the sati ritual, where the wife mounts the pyre of the dead husband, facilitating his ascendance to heaven, it actually marks Giribala’s rebellion against the prescriptive texts which recognise ‘devotion and loyalty to one’s husband as the key point of a widow’s life’ (Chakravarti 2006: 164).

In fact, the Dharamsutra12

The Hindu law codes and/or manuals which illustrate human conduct based on moral righteousness.

literature clearly outlines only two models of widowhood: that of the ‘dying sati who mounts the pyre, rejects widowhood and proves herself to be the best follower of “stridharma”;13

It defines devotion and loyalty to one’s husband and domesticity as the high points of a Hindu married woman’s life.

and that of the living sati who becomes an ascetic within the home, remaining celibate, steadfastly devoted to her husband till she dies’ (Chakravarti 2006: 164).

However, Giribala’s affection towards Mark, the Christian missionary, and her desire to partake of his quest of knowledge has the seed of a third model in the making, which is purely based on individual volition and desire. She heartily assists Mark in writing the history of sattra (Vaisnavite religious institution in Assam) based on ancient manuscripts, written on sanchi leaves.14

Sanchi is a kind of tree. Its bark was used in ancient times for writing Assamese manuscripts (Goswami 1993: 315).

This act of writing history, suggests the author, could lead to a reorganisation of the gendered contexts of society and/or nation state. It significantly acknowledges the potential of widows to productively contribute to the development of the newly emergent nation state. Thus, a reconceptualisation of widows’ role is important because it could systematically pull them out of the drudges of unrecognised labour, lending meaning to their lives and ‘transforming them from “waste products” to useful citizens contributing like others to the wealth of the nation’ (Chakravarti 1993: 143).

Similarly, Saudamini in Neel Kanthi Braja is represented as a young woman, completely in love with her life. The fact that she transfers her emotions to a Christian man sensitises us to her intense desire to defy the traditional injunctions imposed on a widow. It marks her refusal to lose her individuality within the socially defined mores on widowhood. As she asserts, ‘I am not going to live all my life upon other people’s charity and service to society…. I declare myself free, unfettered. I fear nobody. If you think that I’ve changed, you’re mistaken. Badly mistaken, I say’ (p. 57). Here, Goswami upturns the logic of pativrata (devoted to one’s husband) and sumangali15

A Hindu woman is called sumangali or auspicious when her husband is alive.

as Saudamini not only asserts her desire to live but also expresses her unfulfilled sexual desires after her husband Subrata’s death. More to the point, though she is required to restrict herself to a dark hovel in the narrow lanes of Gopinath Bazar, she refuses to submit herself to the ‘constant surveillance of the patriarchal gaze’ (Chakravarti 2006: 163). Her gesture of opening the window and locating a source of fresh air is the first step to defy the injunction. She also roams around Braj, openly defying the proscriptions of the elderly sadhus (religious ascetics). Her insistence on meeting the radheshyami widows,16

The widows of Vrindavan are called radheshyamis because they earn their living by singing devotional songs and chanting the name of Lord Krishna (who is also called radheshyam) in temples.

‘every speck of dust of this sacred place is dear to me, and interests me. Let me go and see’ (p. 15), can be linked to the authorial aim of exposing the notions of family honour inscribed into the gender and caste codes. However, her unfortunate encounter with old radheshyamis, who assault her, has violent undertones. ‘More widows came out of their hovels and began to feel the soft touch of Saudamini’s body. Then they started pulling her limbs in great excitement as if to dismember them. Her braided hair got loose and dishevelled, her blouse was torn’ (p. 17). It deeply reflects on the deprivation of widows and taking away of their personhood in the event of widowhood. They have ceased to exist as women and reduced to being a source of ‘real moral panic’ for society (Chakravarti 2006: 163). In fact, one could suggest that the source of violence does not lie in them, but in the community which formulates distinct cultural codes to foreground certain ideological and material arrangement of societal hierarchies. Thus, within the dominant schema, they are reduced to sites, which reflect the most repugnant and despicable core of the Brahminical patriarchy. The fear and hatred of society is then conveniently transposed onto the vulnerable widows, confined to inaccessible dark hovels and victims of dreadful diseases.

However, Saudamini refuses to submit to dreadful power relations, which reduce widows to being sites of traditional and ideological injunctions. She tells an agitated Shashiprabha what she wants from her life, ‘Follow the truth and annihilate yourself in the pursuit. And do not complain. This is the story of my life—the story of utmost truth’ (p. 50). The process to arrive at the truth of her existence (as a woman and not as a widow) is ridden with many difficulties. Malashri Lal suggests in ‘Indira Goswami and Women’s Empowerment’ that Saudamini ‘agitatedly probes and digs as deep as possible into the meaning of widowhood’ (2012) for a woman and finally rejects the social constructions associated with it.

In fact, Saudamini asserts her desires and lack of love in her life openly, ‘Believe me, I’m still very much a woman of flesh and blood, still greyed by mundane passions and desires. And I don’t foresee any change of attitude even afterwards’ (p. 83). It is not something to be ashamed of or forcibly repressed.17

On the contrary, Manusmriti (a Hindu conduct book/manual) advocated for perpetual and celibate widowhood:

Let her emaciate her body by living on pure flowers roots and fruits: but she must never even mention the name of another man after her husband has died. Until her death let her be patient of hardships, self-controlled and chaste and strive to fulfil that most excellent duty which is prescribed for wives who have only one husband. (quoted in Chakravarti 2006: 163)

For her, love and longing are natural expressions and are no different from the ‘peculiar sensation in her heart and veins, experienced when she gazed at the idol of Krishna’ (p. 19). However, Goswami does not suggest a convenient transposition of desire on the divine in order to sanitise it within the scriptural authority. What she suggests is the impossibility of social obliteration and sexual death imposed on a widow otherwise. The authorial attempt is to circumvent, what Lal describes as the ‘social attitudes and the inner consciousness of a woman who has been brought up to believe that widowhood is somehow her fault or her destiny and that she should undertake penance’ (2012). Moreover, there is no such emotion that becomes illegitimate when a woman loses her husband. In fact, Saudamini constantly yearns for the solace that the Christian youth provides her with.

This solace is no different from the solace felt by the old dancer of Braj (Vrindavan), whose only delight consists of dancing before Lord Ranganath (Lord Krishna) in ecstatic abandon. Similarly, the lower caste young widow whom Saudamini meets at artist Chandrabhan Rakesh’s place is well versed in dancing the mudras (hand gestures). What does this signify? Is it only a representation of divine fervour or something else? Though, the lower caste widow does not have a right to enter the temple she learns to dance herself. Herein lies the difference in the status of an upper caste widow and a lower caste widow. Unlike the former, they are not forced to adorn the shroud of social death and asexuality. In fact, as the young sweeper suggests, the day her husband died, ‘she won the Lord Vraja (Lord Krishna) for her master… I am now possessed by the Lord of Gokula (Lord Krishna) exactly as I was possessed by my husband’ (p. 89). What does this embracing the Lord signify? Her assertion offers a glimpse into her state of exploitation. This love of the divine, expressed frantically in dance is possibly a manifestation of years of hard work and practice in order to dance the mudras. Surely, the training was specifically meant to earn a living and in certain instances, conjoined to handling familial finances. Thus, widowhood among lower castes does not amount to social death as widows are already incorporated within the socio-economic order of the community rather than simply along the axis of reproduction, as is the case with upper caste widows. Thus, Goswami portrays the structural differences in the status of widows, suggesting how the deprivations of widowhood are contingent on societal constructions.18

It systematically trains women into believing that it is somehow their fault and they must punish themselves for having lost their husband. As Uma Chakravarti states,

The fate that befalls a widow is believed to be deserved. Expected to pray daily that she should predecease her husband, a woman if widowed is considered to be at fault. “It ate up its husband” is what people would say. A symbol of inauspiciousness, she can no longer participate in the domestic ceremonies that form a part of women’s culture’. (2006: 172)

Moreover, it is pertinent to analyse the way widows and destitute women negotiate the structural inequalities in the post-independence context. Saudamini’s much awaited intimate union with the Christian man that precedes her suicide also problematises the bourgeois dynamics of a new social imagery in the 1970s–1980s, which sought to legitimise ‘an upper caste Hindu, masculinist centrality, aimed at edging all other identities (women, poor, lower caste and minorities) to the margins’19

The 1980s witnessed a rise of the extreme right that led to curbing the rights of women and other minorities. Caste and communal identities were reinforced in the name of upholding tradition. For example, the head priest of Hindu temples at Benaras and Puri issued statements that Sati was one of the noblest elements of Hinduism. Thus, religious fundamentalists not only rationalised oppression of women but also mobilised others in support of the oppression. The Marwari (Hindu business caste) funded Rani Sati Organisation (mis)appropriated the feminist discourse to propagate a cult of widow immolation from 1982–83.

(Tharu and K. Lalita 1993: 77). A widow’s desire interrogates precisely all of this as she asserts her claims to become the modern citizen subject, capable of developing ‘an interiority that is rooted in sexuality and expression of natural feelings’ (Sreenivas 2009: 116). However, this desire need not necessarily culminate into remarriage as it would undercut their agency and contain their self in the heterosexual, patrilineal and privatised sentiments of romance. The fact that Saudamini commits suicide, therefore, is a sad comment on the resurgence of conservative, traditional forces that sought to undercut egalitarian currents that had ‘emerged from the women’s movement, from peasant and working class struggles and from Dalit (and other lower caste) movements’ (Tharu and K. Lalita 1993: 105).

Moreover, Shashiprabha’s experiences are a case in point. They might appear as more severe than that of Saudamini, but one realises that this poor, lonely soul has been realistic enough to deal with the vagaries of life. Orphaned at a young age, she had no option but to seek the security of an impotent priest at Biharimohankunj. Malashri Lal has termed it ‘loveless attachment’ (2012), however, as the narrative unfolds, we realise that Shashi finds the arrangement, somewhat, useful. The priest offers her refuge inside the temple without staking major claims on her body and soul. Despite the miserable life she leads, harbouring unrequited love for the young swami (priest) of Lord Vrindavannath temple and seeking comfort in Mrinalini and Saudamini’s company, what is significant to realise is the way Shashiprabha negotiates the choices available to her.

Unfortunately, Shashiprabha is forced to abdicate her claim on Alamgadhi’s money that he bequeaths to her. Her precarious status as a widow and kept woman disables her from claiming a rightful share in his inheritance. As Alamgadhi’s sister proclaims after his death, ‘you (all) know that my brother kept a girl to look after him. Now you be judge she could have any claim to inherit his property’ (p. 99). Thus, even though Shashiprabha shared a kind of domestic intimacy with Alamgadhi, it was never recognised as he was impotent. Moreover, she could never claim a wifely status as she was simply taken under Alamgadhi’s protection and was never ritually married to him.

However, Goswami proposes a new theorisation of domesticity through the Shashiprabha–Alamgadhi relationship, ‘But the priest has done me no harm. There are quite a few like me in Vraja who, “united in prayer” as they say live their woeful existence’ (p. 47). In doing so, she opposes the juridico-legal structure of contemporary nation, which could only define Shashi as Alamgadhi’s concubine. For instance, Mrinalini tells Shashiprabha, ‘Irrespective of whether he helped you or harmed you, Alamgadhi was giving you a kind of protection from a distance. Now… the human wolves of Vraja smelling about for young widows and harlots will think they can give themselves a free hand with you’ (p. 108). In fact, Shashiprabha’s relationship with Alamgadhi reveals possibilities of re-forging women’s relationships with men and constituting new subjectivities as against the patriarchal and hierarchical conceptions of conjugality and family relations. It would surely contest the banal conceptions of heteronormative, patrilineal and virilocal familial arrangements.

Patriarchal Structures and Propertied Rights of Widows and Daughters

An analysis of gender, caste and economy undertaken by critics like Pauline Kolenda in ‘Widowhood among Untouchable Chuhras’ foregrounds that ‘widowhood as well as the status of women in the high castes is related, among other things, to control over property inherited by men, which may foster the degradation of women to exclude them from a share in inheritance’ (quoted in Chakravarti 2006: 173).

In this light, A Saga of South Kamrup raises significant questions pertaining to the concept of widows’ rights and entitlement to the affinal home. Both Durga and Saru Gossainee (the junior Gossain’s wife) suffer on account of material deprivations. Their right to maintenance in the event of widowhood is jeopardised due to their inequality and social dispensability within the larger familial and communal context. Saru Gossainnee loses her right to property under the Dayabhaga system of inheritance.20

Dayabhaga Law is widely recognised in Bengal and Assam. As Flavia Agnes (1999) suggests, under the Dayabhaga system, ‘upon the death of the head of the family, the property was partitioned equally among the legal heirs. Women as widows, daughters and mothers were conferred a share in the family property’ (p. 17). However, since the delegation of property was primarily based on the will (legal document) prepared by the person before his death, there was a possibility that women (especially widows) might be ousted from their share in the family property.

After her husband’s death, she cannot seek maintenance from her affinal family as her father-in-law Harakanta Dev Goswami had disinherited his son (her husband) Rama Kanta from owning lands under the joint property. Saru Gossainnee has no source of maintenance except the little rent she manages to acquire from the property left by her husband at the time of his death. The resultant earnings are obviously not enough, as she asserts,

I am the daughter-in-law of the old gossain, the same gossain who was so powerful and had vast lands and ten elephants! Has anybody cared to come and find out about the wretched condition of this daughter-in-law at present?…Has anyone seen that her gatala21

Gatala is a short veil worn by women of South Kamrup in the state of Assam (Goswami 1993: 310).

is tattered to pieces? (p. 202)

Thus, the miserable condition of her house, the leaking roof, broken walls, and lack of food betray how a widow’s material entitlement is entwined with the larger cultural norms which construct widowhood as having limited or no sense of worth. As Uma Chakravarti asserts:

The case for social and cultural norms with respect to entitlement is relevant for all women but is especially so for the widow. Since widows are regarded even in the law as having only a claim to ‘maintenance’ the question of how much of the resources they actually get is crucial especially to the sense of worth that accompanies it. (1993: 132)

Similarly, Durga’s decision to ‘forsake her husband’s place’ (p. 86) to return to her natal home is not appreciated by her family members. Her childlessness makes matters worse as it leaves very little scope of negotiating her share in the deceased husband’s lands and property. However, what distinguishes her from Saru Gossainee is that Durga seems willy-nilly wanting to fight for her rights even if she ‘will have to go to the court at Gauhati’ (p. 86). Given the conservative socio-cultural context of her community, where ‘Damodariya22

In A Saga of South Kamrup, Goswami describes Damodariya as ‘those Gossains of South Kamrup who are followers of Saint Damodar Deva, the disciple of Saint Sankar Deva’ (p. 297).

Gossainees do not even look at the sun in the sky above’ (p. 23), this willingness to go to ‘courts of justice’ (p. 23) can be located in the changed socio-cultural and political dynamics of colonial India in early twentieth century. For instance, Mytheli Sreenivas in her essay ‘Conjugality and Capital: Gender, Families and Property under Colonial Laws in India’ engages with the legal discourse on property ownership and how it was entwined with the changing perceptions of individuality and conjugality in colonial India. She asserts that the property rights of widows are to be perceived within the new administrative and political contexts like the passage of the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act by the Indian Legislature in 1937:

The new law included a widow among the heirs to the intestate succession of her husband’s separate property and provided her with the same interest as her husband in his joint property. Although widows took this property only as the limited interest known as a woman’s estate, the 1937 law was the first to introduce women as owners of property within the coparcenary. In this regard, it represented a fundamental shift in legal conceptions of joint property relations. (2004: 950)

Moreover, the emergence of a nationwide women’s movement under the aegis of Women’s Indian Association (WIA, founded in 1917) and the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC, founded in 1927) could have been responsible for mobilising public opinion. The women’s groups critiqued the gendered aspect of legal inequality in India, demanding legislative changes to ensure that ‘property rights be vested in women themselves’ (Sreenivas 2004: 949).

However, such transformations in the social and political contexts could not empower women in the real sense of the term. Women were largely perceived as dependents under the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act (1937). As Sreenivas further suggests, though women got the right to demand partition of joint property in separate shares, in absence of other rights, they could not sustain their right of property ownership, thereby becoming dependents on male owned property (2004: 952).

In circumstances in which a woman inherited property—rather than simply being maintained by it—the inheritance was termed a ‘woman’s estate’. Distinct from men’s inheritance rights, a woman’s estate would revert upon her death not to a woman’s own heirs, but to the heirs of the last male owner. (Sreenivas 2004: 940)

Neel Kanthi Braja’s narrative takes this argument further, highlighting how women continue being victims of gendered biases and warped legal measures in post-independence context. Though widows are full owners of the share in her husband’s property under the Hindu Succession Act (1956) and cannot be divested of the share in case of remarriage,

section 24 of the Act disqualifies the widow of a predeceased son or widow of a predeceased son of a predeceased son or the widow of a brother, from succeeding to the property of an intestate, if on the date the succession opens, she has remarried. (Law Commission of India, 1979: 5)

More to the point, Bina Agarwal’s essay ‘Widows versus Daughters or Widows as Daughters? Property, Land, and Economic Security in Rural India’ further highlights how customary practices play a significant role in determining the right of widows to inheritance:

In a recent study on widows in seven states, out of 280 households with widows where the husband had land, 51 per cent of the widows inherited some but this also means that almost half of those eligible were disinherited. Moreover, in a rural Hindu household the extent and nature of rights that a widow enjoys in her husband’s land are usually contingent in practice on a variety of factors, such as whether or not she remains single and chaste; whether she has sons, and her sons (if any) are minors or adults; whether the deceased husband has partitioned from the family estate before his death; and so on. (1998: 21)

Thus, despite legal measures in place, many women do not gain access to property as individuals, rather their rights are subjected to the reproductive economy of the Hindu joint family and its allied cultural and material practices. For instance, Saudamini’s marginalisation with respect to property inheritance is conspired on account of both her widowhood and childlessness (read son less). The fact that Saudamini returns to her natal home (and is brought to Vrindavan by her parents) is a sufficient indicator to traumatic negotiations she might have had to retain her place in the affinal home. It is likely that in the absence of an heir, the affinal family would have rejected Saudamini’s claims in either the joint property or the property of her dead husband. Here, Goswami tacitly captures the contemporary trends leading to deprivation among widows. For instance, in a research conducted by Marty Chen on a 1991–92 survey of 562 widowed women in 14 villages,23

The list of villages included two each in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

it was revealed that only 3 per cent of women continued to share a common hearth with their parents-in-law after their husband’s death. As per the inheritance practices, though there were widows who were granted use rights over a share of their husband’s land (51 per cent), they were exploited and forced by brothers-in-law to abandon their rightful share of the land. ‘They would insist on share cropping or managing the land themselves.24

They would legitimise their stakes in the land under the Mitakshara coparcenary system and/or by offering excuses like they spent money on the widow’s husband’s death ceremony or on her children’s maintenance.

In their attempt to gain control of her land, the brothers-in-law of a widow may go so far as forcing her to leave the village, or even in extreme cases arranging her murder’ (Chen 1995: 2439).

More to the point, the Hindu Succession Act requires that the widow needs to be chaste in order to inherit her deceased husband’s property.25

However, according to the Eighty First Report of the Law Commission of India, ‘once a widow succeeds to the property and acquires an absolute right under the Act of 1956, she cannot be divested of that right on her remarriage’ (1979: 5).

Saudamini’s relationship with a Christian young man after her husband’s death, then, sullies the so-called sanctity of the marital relationship. Thus, a widow’s assertion of her desire, rather than becoming an agent of social change is (mis)construed as deviant sexual behaviour that ought to be penalised. The post-independence dynamics of conjugality did not alter the hierarchical gendered contexts, thereby naturalising women’s legal inequality in the face of Constitutional promises of equality. This is specifically evident as per the Census of 1971, which records around 8 million widowers as against 23 million widows. The main reason for this gender gap in the incidence of widowhood is a much higher rate of remarriage among widowers as compared to widows. Moreover, among the widows interviewed by Chen for her survey as well as among those who participated in the Bangalore workshop,26

The Widows in India conference was organised in Bangalore during March 1994.

many stated that they did not wish to remarry. The most common reasons listed for not wanting to remarry included: ‘absence of desire for more children, fear that a second husband will not take good care of the children fathered by the first husband, and wish to retain claim on the deceased husband’s land’ (1995: 2442), bearing in mind that actual inheritance practices discriminate against widows who wish to remarry.

Alternatively, the law discriminates against a daughter also from inheriting her father’s property. Saudamini has nothing to bank upon when she gets back to the natal home. Bina Agarwal (1998) discusses the widowed daughter’s vulnerable situation, suggesting that the importance of having sons to establish their claims in the husband’s property often leaves those with only daughters, few alternatives. Many among them end up returning to their natal homes. For example,

in the South Indian community he studied, Harper (1971) found that 80 per cent of widows without sons returned to their natal homes. But they return to a situation of dependency unless their property rights are established, and, especially in North India, widows are rarely welcome for extended or permanent stays. (quoted in Agarwal 1998: 36)

Thus, what is particularly disturbing in the case of Neel Kanthi Braja is that despite the fact that Saudamini belongs to an affluent parental/marital context, she is rendered financially vulnerable.27

Marty Chen and Jean Dreze’s investigation into actual inheritance practices reveals that among the widows whose fathers owned land, only 13 per cent reported that they exercise use rights over a share of their father’s land (1995: 2439).

This is evident when she goes to the temple office, looking for a suitable job and is refused by the manager. ‘We don’t engage a young woman for these jobs’ (p. 59). In fact, she is advised to stick to her father’s hospital and work as an attendant. It is interesting to observe that at a time when educated women’s participation in the academic and medical sectors was increasing (they offered lucrative career options to women in the organised government sector28

The Towards Equality mentions that there were 0.6 million women teachers as indicated by the Census of India, 1971. Nurses and midwives constituted to around 0.155 million. Moreover, their ratio to men is the highest in this field, that is, 72.7 per cent. Both these professions were accorded a high status in society and could elicit a greater degree of public cooperation (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 159).

) she refuses to work as a teacher at a girls’ college or nurse the patients at her father’s hospital. ‘No, she was fed up with her new vocation. She grew restless’ (p. 56). The Towards Equality reports mentions how the two professions recorded an increase in the number of aspirants in the post-independence era. It is evident that both the vocations, that is, teaching and nursing are accorded respect and high status in the societal imagination and accepting them as viable career options would have entailed, for Saudamini, a return from social marginalisation to normal communal participation, equipping her to confront the social disfavour. However, the fact, that both teaching and health sector are also vocations that demand selfless service29

One of the reasons why respectability is attached to women who are teachers, as the Towards Equality report interestingly notes, ‘Middle class families prefer to see women in this profession more than any other. One of the reasons for this is perhaps, because it gives women comparatively more time for her household duties, with more vacations and limited hours of work’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 159). Alternately, there are taboos attached to nursing and it includes night work also, but the fact that it is considered a noble profession, aimed at healing people, makes it not only acceptable but respectable as well.

becomes specifically problematic within the purview of Goswami’s text. Readers are given this impression that Saudamini is adamant about rejecting the construction of the widow stereotype and social attitudes concerning the same, that is, self-sacrificial, dignified demeanour and so on. Thus, what Saudamini wants is to be treated as a woman, an individual and not merely a site to facilitate the ideological and material arrangement of a specific caste framework and its appending hierarchies.

Similarly, the unmarried daughter could also suffer on account of the biased inheritance laws. Mrinalini’s father had squandered whatever little he had in his youth and finally sells the Biharimohankunj haveli (mansion), reducing his daughter and deranged wife to a state of penury. Goswami exposes the dominant patriarchal practice that ensures the daughter’s disinheritance from family property. Since women could not be coparceners in the Mitakshara30

According to Flavia Agnes (1999), under the Mitakshara law, ‘the property of a Hindu male devolved through survivorship jointly upon four generations of male heirs. The ownership was by birth and not by succession. Upon his birth, the male member acquired the right to property’ (p. 14).

joint family system, it is exclusively under the purview of Mrinalini’s father as the sole inheritor–coparcener of his father’s property to use it as he deems fit. Under the financial constraints, he is left with no option but to sell the property to the temple trust. Mrinalini is shorn off her rightful share in inheritance and doomed to suffer all her life, carrying the burden of her parents, suppressing all her desires and ambitions. Goswami clearly suggests how women are systemically oppressed by the patriarchal ideology institutionalised by the class, caste and community differences on the one hand and age, educational levels, socio-economic independence, marital status, equity and citizenship rights on the other. Moreover, women are not necessarily able to break themselves away from family or matrimony and even if they do so, it is a grave task negotiating their personal aspiration with the contemporary socio-political and cultural framework. Mrinalini’s problem is an acute one, wherein she is saddled with responsibilities without any sense of acknowledgement. In fact, women within marriage or those who remain single are ideologically trained and expected to be eternally dutiful to the patriarchal structures. Abha Bhaiya rightly suggests, ‘All single women face common problems, including not being recognised as heads of their own households, being seen as available for domestic labour in the household in which they live and having no social or cultural occasions on which to come together’ (quoted in Chen 1995: 2448). Thus, the author exposes the leverage granted to the upper caste patriarchy by the state policy on inheritance rights, resulting in a systematic curtailing of women’s independent access to economic resources.

Towards Equality: The Unfinished Agenda31
31
I have borrowed this title from the sequel to the Towards Equality report, which was published in 2001. It was authored by Sarala Gopalan and brought out by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi.

The authorial intention to re-forge the extant gendered habitus has acquired a renewed significance in contemporary times wherein a large number of widows and destitute women suffer throes of poverty and deprivation. It has also highlighted the urgency to locate the conservative cultural discourse on widowhood at the intersections of gender, class/caste and religious identities. In this light, the exploitation faced by poor radheshyamis in Vrindavan due to the absence of suitable structural measures (as represented in Neel Kanthi Braja) cannot be disassociated from the way dominant religious ideology functions in society at large, leading to women’s impoverishment. As Goswami asserts, ‘For sing they [radheshyamis] must, though they were perishing with hunger….Saudamini observed that the attention of the singers…was now and then directed towards the shanties of green grocers who kept aside rotten vegetables’ (1986: 18) for radheshyamis. This can be further understood in the light of Uma Chakravarti’s thesis on how religious prescriptions and cultural norms about widowhood (in upper caste Hindu society) enhance the power of families, communities and nations to ‘make minimum allocations to the widow’ (1993: 132):

The low entitlement of the widow is not merely culturally sanctioned but also sanctified in spiritual terms since the widow is meant to fast often, pursue the ascetic model and devote herself to the memory of her dead husband. Notions of self-sacrifice and self-restraint, which in any case are widely prevalent with regard to women, are doubled in the case of Hindu widows and they play a crucial role in formulating an ideology of low or minimal entitlement to the widow. (1993: 133)

More to the point, Goswami illustrates the repressive role played by religion in endorsing the nexus of patriarchal and patrilineal familial arrangements that would relegate radheshyami widows to institutions acting as ‘surface of absorption’ (Das 1995: 57).32

In the wake of the partition frenzy, when widows, destitute and single women were abandoned by their families in the name of purity and communal honour. We see a very similar logic playing even after 25 years after independence, when widows and destitute women are still not accommodated within the reproductive and productive roles assigned by the upper caste, middle class families in India.

As the Towards Equality report mentions, ‘Many of these widows had been sent by their families….They had no one who would take care of them or nurse them whenever they fell sick or otherwise’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 59). In fact, it would also entail that majority of women who stayed in the ashram33

Traditionally, ashrams are considered places of spiritual hermitage and/or retreat. However, in the context of the novel Neel Kanthi Braja, these are places where widows are abandoned and forced to live miserable lives.

did not inherit anything from either their natal or affinal families. The report further states, ‘Allowances from the family were either negligible or non-existent. Some joined “bhajanmandalis”34

Bhajanmandali is a group of Hindu bhajan (devotional songs) singers.

and earned about 37 paise in an evening and even that was not a regular income’ (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 59).35

Bhajan ashrams (where devotional songs in praise of Hindu gods are sung) are a world unto themselves and some say that are simply an encouragement for more women to flock to the city and for the management to convert their black money into white. The government authorities have no control over the operation of these bhajan ashrams. However, they have opened ration shops as they are key places for reaching this population. The women go to bhajan ashrams in shifts of 6–10 a.m., 10–3 p.m. and 3–7 p.m. For each four hours shift they receive ` 3 at the Bhagwanbhajan ashram and ` 3 plus 100 gm dal (lentils) and rice at Balaji. Considering the fact that they received 37 paise in the 1970s and 1980s, one can realise the extreme levels of destitution faced by such women (Vyas 2009: 6).

Furthermore, as Marty Chen’s research proves, such deprivation experienced by widows is a consequence of innumerable factors including ‘limited freedom to remarry, insecure property rights, social restrictions on living arrangements and restricted employment opportunities and lack of social support’ (1995: 2439).

The widows’ misery is aggravated in the absence of sufficient resources deployed for them by the state. For instance, there is little provision to provide widows with social security in the form of adequate pension.36

The amount of monthly pension received at present is ` 300. One could imagine how much it would have been in the1980s.

The CSWI clearly mentions how only 10 per cent of the recommended cases ever received pensions under the ‘widows’ scheme adopted by UP state (Sharma and Sujaya 2012: 59). Unfortunately, those who did receive some money, lacked control over it as the pass books and accounts were majorly managed by the ashrams where they resided, thereby heightening possibilities of exploitation.

Along with social ostracism, the radheshyamis are subjected to physical violence and emotional trauma. Charanbehari recalls how he, in his youth, would keep frequent company with goons and swindlers, who would assault vulnerable young widows like butchers slaughtering their animals. Saudamini is horrified to realise that the destitute radheshayamis are not accorded dignity even in their death. Their dead body is mutilated, ravaged just to snatch away even the last penny saved by the radheshyamis for their final rites.37

In a survey by the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) on the Plight of Forsaken/Forlorn Women—Old and Widows Living in Vrindavan and Radius, it was revealed how

the bodies of widows who died in government-run shelter homes in Vrindavan were being taken away by sweepers at night, cut into pieces, put into jute bags and disposed of as the institutions do not have any provision for a decent funeral. This, too, is done only after the inmates give money to the sweeper!’ (Dhar 2012)

It is horrifying to realise that the concerns about widows, raised by Goswami in the novel, have not been sorted out till date and in fact, have acquired hideous proportions in reality.

All this clearly denotes the lack of sufficient security measures arranged for widows living at the Vrindavan ashram. The severing of familial ties, uprooting of a familiar cultural context, combined with restrictions on food habits, place of residence, employment opportunities and ill-health impels them to suffer alienated lives and die degraded deaths.38

After a new report published in The Hindu, highlighting the miserable plight of widows, Justice Altamash Kabir, Executive Chairperson of the National Legal Service Authority, had asked the UP State Legal Services Authority to survey the conditions of the women at Mathura, Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh. In fact, the state has taken appropriate measures to protect the interests of widows and abandoned women. The report Widows at Vrindavan report published in 2008 focuses on the same problems that were highlighted by the CSWI in 1974. Thus, there has been no major change in their deplorable circumstances. However, such an action, that is, abandonment of the women by their families or children is now actionable under Section 24 of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007 (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dignity-denied-even-in-death-for-vrindavan-widows/article2784876.ece [accessed on 18 December 2012 ]).

In fact, it is disturbing to realise that as many as 51.80 per cent of widowed women have complained about adverse health conditions after the demise of their husband.39

In addition to this, a study conducted by Kitchulu (1995), revealed that nearly 34.4 per cent widows have been experiencing general weakness in their health. Widows suffering from mental depression are 12.0 per cent and 8.20 percent suffer from mental tension. Many others complained of frequent headaches, blood pressure, disturbed sleep, asthma, heart trouble, including fits (quoted in Ranjan 2001: 4093).

A study of morbidity trends in widows has also revealed how they get used to suffering minor ailments as a consequence of the ‘socio-psychological context of denial and deprivation’ (Ranjan 2001: 7). Moreover, ‘it is frightening to realise that widow mortality rates are 85 per cent higher compared to married women in the same age group—confirming that widows in India experience particularly high rates of deprivation’ (Banerji 1998: 41). Goswami particularly focuses on diseased radheshyamis, suffering from leprosy to bring home this argument. Thus, the state administration has failed in reaching out to one of the most destitute sections of society. The ill-health of widows signifies a certain sense of familial, social and administrative apathy towards them, revealing hideous alliance among the three. Chen cites a plethora of reasons why social security plans fail: ‘lack of public awareness, narrow eligibility criteria, inadequacy of, and discrepancies in, the amount provided, unrealistic rehabilitation and training objectives, and problems in implementation’ (quoted in Banerji 1998: 41). No doubt, it has not only affected their basic survival rights but also their access to the various welfare schemes devised to this effect.

Considering these aspects of women’s desertion and widowhood, how could we aspire to develop a gender inclusive nation? Is it possible to do so, given the ossified ideas of patriarchal control and possession of women as properties? The article engages with such questions, interrogating the marginalised status accorded to women, especially widows within the patriarchal epistemology of the nation state. It further establishes that the asymmetrical power relations between men and women within the family are a product of and influence the patriarchal and homogenous nexus of the family, caste, community, religion and nation. By doing so, it undergirds the need to reconstitute the gendered habitus both at the level of micropolitics and macropolitics.

References

Agarwal

Bina

. 1998. ‘Widows versus Daughters or Widows as Daughters? Property, Land, and Economic Security in Rural India’. Modern Asian Studies , Vol. 32(1): 1–48.

Agnes

Flavia

. 1999. Law and Gender Inequality: The Politics of Women’s Rights in India . New Delhi: Oxford Publications.

Bama

Faustina

. 2005. Sangati. Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom. New Delhi: Zubaan.

Banerji

Arunima

. 1998. ‘Review of the book Widows in India: Social Neglect and Public Action’, ed. Martha Alter Chen. Manushi , Vol. 115: 40–42.

Chakravarti

Uma

. 1993. ‘Social Pariahs Domestic Drudges: Widowhood among Nineteenth Century Poona Brahmins’. Social Scientist , Vol. 21(9–11): 130–58.

Chakravarti

Uma

. 2006. Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and Brahmanas of Ancient India . New Delhi: Tulika Books.

Chen

Marty

Jean

Dreze

. 1995. ‘Recent Research on Widows in India: Workshop and Conference Report’. Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 30(39): 2435–50.

Das

Veena

. 1995. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India . New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Dhar

Aarti

. 2012. ‘Dignity Denied Even in Death for Vrindavan Widows’, The Hindu. Retrieved 18 December 2012, from http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/dignity-denied-even-in-death-for-vrindavan-widows/article2784876.ece

10.

Ghosh

Swati

. 2000. ‘Bengali Widows of Varanasi’. Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 35(14): 1151–53.

11.

Gopal

Meena

. 2013. ‘Ruptures and Reproduction in Caste/Gender/Labour’. Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 48(18): 91–97.

12.

Goswami

Indira

. 1986. Neel Kanthi Braja [Shadow of Dark God]. Translated by Dr. Prafulla Kotoky. New Delhi: Gaurav Publishing House.

13.

Goswami

Indira

. 1993. A Saga of South Kamrup. Translated by Indira Goswami. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

14.

Kulkarni

Seema

Bhat

Sneha

. 2010. ‘Issues and Concerns of Deserted Women in Maharashtra’. Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 45(38): 59–66.

15.

Lal

Malashri

. 2012. ‘Indira Goswami and Women’s Empowerment’. Retrieved 17 December 2013, from www.indiragoswami.com/p/essays.html

16.

Law Commission of India. 1979. Eighty First Report: Hindu Widows Re-marriage Act . New Delhi: Government of India.

17.

Pappu

Rekha

. 2011. ‘Reconsidering Romance and Intimacy: The Case of the Single Unmarried Woman’, in Samita

Sen

Ranjita

Biswas

Nandita

Dhawan

, Intimate Others . Kolkata: Stree, 370–90.

18.

Ranjan

Alka

. 2001. ‘Determinants of Well-being among Widows: An Exploratory Study in Varanasi’. Economic and Political Weekly , Volume and Issue Number unavailable: 4088–94.

19.

Sangari

Kumkum

. 1993. ‘Amenities of Domestic Life: Questions on Labour’. Social Scientist , 21(9–11): 3–46.

20.

Sangari

Kumkum

Sudesh

Vaid

. 1989. Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History . >Delhi: Kali for Women.

21.

Sharma

Kumud

C.P.

Sujaya

. 2012. Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India . New Delhi: Pearson.

22.

Sreenivas

Mytheli

. 2004. ‘Conjugality and Capital: Gender, Families, and Property under Colonial Law’. Journal of Asian Studies , Vol. 63(4): 937–60.

23.

Sreenivas

Mytheli

. 2009. Wives, Widows and Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal in Colonial India . New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.

24.

Tharu

Susie

. 1996. ‘The Impossible Subject: Cast and the Gendered Body’. Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 31(22): 1311–15.

25.

Tharu

Susie

Lalita

. 1993. Women’s Writing in India. Vol II. The Twentieth Century . New Delhi: OUP.

26.

Vyas

Girija

. 2009. Study on Widows at Vrindavan . New Delhi: National Commission for Women.

Negotiating Structural Inequalities in Post-independence India: The Case of Deserted Women and Widowhood in Indira Goswami’s Neel Kanthi Braja and A Saga of South Kamrup

Abstract

Abstract

Keywords

Contesting the Paradigm of ‘Social’ and ‘Sexual’ Death: Widows’ Right to Life

Patriarchal Structures and Propertied Rights of Widows and Daughters

Towards Equality: The Unfinished Agenda31 31 I have borrowed this title from the sequel to the Towards Equality report, which was published in 2001. It was authored by Sarala Gopalan and brought out by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi.

References

Towards Equality: The Unfinished Agenda31
31
I have borrowed this title from the sequel to the Towards Equality report, which was published in 2001. It was authored by Sarala Gopalan and brought out by the National Commission for Women, New Delhi.