The seeds of violence in domesticity: The case of post ... - JPCS

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Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies ISSN (USA): 1948-1845 (Print), 1948-1853 (Electronic) The sphere of control may also involve police prevention. Such is the case of a young couple surprised by a patrol at night in a village while talking. They were identified and brought to the police station, where it appeared that they were planning elopment. Given the recurrence of such episodes, elopment has become an offence, one equated to abduction. The exchange of responsibilities between family and nation-state conceals what a newspaper has termed “caste drama”. The social status of the couple indicates a double standard of hypergamy – as far as castes are concerned he is a brahmin (but a driver, so relatively low in the professional hierarchies), whereas she, although being a dalit, is given as a postgraduate. Having eloped, the couple first married on November 23, 2010 (a second marriage took again place in early March 2011), but when the girl came to know that the boy had lied to “her” apropos of his caste she filed criminal charges against him. A further side to the issue concerns the possible harassment, and eventually death, of a dalit wife in a brahmin household. In the Hindustan Times chronicle it is reported that “the police took an undertaking from the youth’s family to make sure that nothing wrong happened to Kiran Devi [the Dalit wife] later on”. After her son was sent to jail, “his mother Rami Devi filed a writ before the high court in January alleging that her son was the victim of police frame-up”. Later on “the girl expressed her desire to marry him and drop the charges”. (See Appendix 1, for a case of compulsory marriage, in which court and police authority substitute the family circle). Casteism and domestic harassment stand bleak at the background of the whole story, but a whole string of self-authorizing councils or self-styled courts stand in-between family circles and the authority of the nation-state. Among them are especially notorious the illegal khap panchayats, which ban women on wearing jeans or punish, even with death, intercaste marriages. The term khap (khāp, Hindi, m/plu) can mean group, tribe and designates councils based on caste and on the respect of its norms. Their authority, together with a host of similar grass-root institutions puts well to light the dissemination of authorities which is typical of the Hindu society. (See Appendix 2). This fragmentation, on decentralization of responsibilities, is partly coincident in purpose and values with the power of the nation-state, but in most cases interpretates and enacts a stiff conformity to backward tradition. They stand in-between the intimations of corporate morality (behaviour) operated via nationalism by the nation-state and the networks of micro-social organisms represented by the extended families. In some ways and matters (especially when rape is concerned) they substitute absentee officers of police, but as a rule they guarantee such issues as modesty in dressing and intervene for a further and final safeguard of family honour. These intermediate institutions promote as a matter of fact violence within the domestic domain and keep rural India outside the pale of modernity and development. Similar agencies, these ones as by-products of political ideology, spread communalism, particularly in cities and towns, introducing discriminating separation where tolerance should instead reign. They disseminate seeds of violence in the name of the archaic and imagine on their own what is right or wrong. In the “strange” case of cops acting as matchmakers marriage is enforced on a controversial, and reluctant on the part of the girl, couple by an authorized and imposing (not actually authorizing) bench, in contrast with a self-stated authority like the khap panchayat. The ensuing order to marry the girl and the promise and guarantee that the brahmin family of the boy won’t harass the dalit wife, or won’t even stage a domestic death, is meant to ensure or at least protect the safety of the girl. Harassed or murdered wives or women constitute a major theme in “The seeds of violence in domesticity: The case of post-Independence India,” Alessandro Monti JPCS, Vol. 2, No 3, July 2011. http://www.jpcs.in 84
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies ISSN (USA): 1948-1845 (Print), 1948-1853 (Electronic) Indian filmography. These stories are set either in urban low-middle class (Fire, 1996), in the Bombayte urbanite milieu (Bhoot, 2003) or in the expatriate experience (Provoked, 2006; Videsh. Heaven on Earth, 2008). They highlight violence in the domestic circle as a dispossessing sign of refused or marginalized belonging, in a way that defers to an undistinguished tomorrow the supposed affability of national inclusion stated by Nehru. Post-colonial Indian identity relied and relies on the family cell, as the interpreter of accepted corporate behaviour and the guardian of authorized hierarchies. In the transition from the colonial period to the post-age of Independence whatever diasporic movement outside homogeneity and homologation acted around issues of unconscious mimicry, to symbolise the confusion caused by the mottled reality concealing behind the multicultural layers of the Indian world. This might be the case with Dharmaputra, a film in which transitions of identity from one community to another are frown upon. This theme is rehearsed in the many films concerning assumed identities within the domestic circle, whose closed frame generates continuous intimations of expulsion and discriminating violence. The complex network implying both belonging and refusal goes beyond the authority of the nation-state, since it maintains the domain of the archaic (casteism, fundamentalism) within the plea for modernity. Consequently, the power of the nation-state should be viewed as split between corporate authorizations and communal autonomies asserting difference. The clash takes primarily place inside the domestic sphere, out of which arise the basic marks allowing or forbidding the exchange across communities in terms of caste and religion. Khap panchayats within villages and rural communities define the next step towards separation, in a bid to maintain supposed specificity. On a higher level, the centrality and pan-Indianness of the political parties is nowadays crumbling down in terms of regionalism, casteism and religion. These are provoking micro-partitions within the unified body of the Indian nation, from communalism to insurgency. Domestic control is no more sufficient to encapsulate corporate ethos within safe channels of unity in difference. The flaw perhaps lies in the imposition of corporate authority to domestic life, as a form of genetic heritage which cannot be changed, since discriminates and makes the difference of Indian culture, in terms of nationalism and superiority. __________ Biography Alessandro Monti is former Full Professor of English Language and Literature and Head of the Department of Oriental Studies (University of Turin, Italy). Visiting Professor at the Kakatya University (Warangal, A.P.), 2002, and Research Fellow (Indian Centre for Cultural Relations) with the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, BHU, Varanasi), 2011: Research on Indian Cinema. He founded and edited till December 2010 the critical series DOST (Department of Oriental Studies in Turin). He collaborates with several Indian publishers. He resigned from the University in September 2010. “The seeds of violence in domesticity: The case of post-Independence India,” Alessandro Monti JPCS, Vol. 2, No 3, July 2011. http://www.jpcs.in 85
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