'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)Also, the emergence of feminist publishing houses such as Kali for Women, Stree,Zubaan ,Women Unlimited aspart of the global women‘s and women‘s studiesmovements, created space for feminist voices and participated in feminist activism.Pioneering feminist scholars and activists in South Asia and abroad such as BinaAgarwal, Paola Bacchetta, Kamla Bhasin, Radhika Chopra, Radhika Coomaraswamy,Neloufer de Mel, Zillah Eisenstein, Rada Ivekovic, Indira Jaising, Kumari Jayawardena,Kalpana Kannabiran, Nighat Said Khan, Fatima Mernissi, Chandra Mohanty, MarthaNussbaum, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Shahnaz Rouse, Vandana Shiva and Romila Thapar;and the finest creative writers including Bama, Ismat Chughtai, Esther David, MridulaGarg, Qurratulain Hyder and Nayantara Sahgal were published by these womeninitiatives in print culture. Still there is a growing need to bring to light writings withfeminist commitment to social and economic justice and female sexuality by focusing onautonomous concerns and strategies which are historically, politically, and culturallygrounded.The present paper is an attempt to investigate and explore the not- so- large butdistinctive body of contemporary progressive literature by women in South Asia and itsengagement with the issues of caste, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, ecology and genderedviolence keeping in mind the specificities of these issues within different contexts thatconstitute ‗South Asia‘ and also the shared, unequal, and overlapping histories of theregion. (The term ―South Asia‖ is now applied to what, in colonial days, was commonlyknown as the ―Indian subcontinent‖ – a diverse mix of British India and a range of kingdomswith varying degrees of subservience and fealty to the colonial power.) This means thatthere is a need to explore ―race, class, gender, nation, sexuality, and colonialism not justin terms of static, embodied categories but in terms of histories and experiences that tie ustogether—that are fundamentally interwoven into our lives‘ (Talpade 191). And also, tothink relationally about questions of power, equality, and justice, the need to be inclusivein our thinking, and the necessity of our thinking and organizing being contextual, deeplyrooted in questions of history and experience‖(192)‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201182
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)The texts used in the present paper are either English translations from different SouthAsian ‗vernaculars‘ or indigenous writings in English. The reason for not including thecosmopolitan young women writers in English though far more accessible and visible orthe South Asian diaspora (with their attendant immigrant life and/or sensibilities),instead, opting for those who write in regional languages or ‗vernacular‘ (even thoughtheir works may be accessed through translation) is that the latter‘s writings arepreoccupied with contingent realities and grass root experiences that are often unknownto even to a majority of South Asians.This paper argues for a different academic practice in relation to women‘s writings andacknowledges their specifically literary and intellectual contributions of activisms. Thewriters selected for the purpose are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.Their writings go beyond the domestic spheres of 'hearth and home 'and they themselvesfreely and boldly on a variety of themes. Though there may still be cases of theoccasional male envy, these new writers are not holding back in expressing the point ofview from a feminine eye without adopting feminist postures. Or, as poetess RukmaniBhaya Nair puts it, " Have wrung poems from households tasks/carrying water, child,sorrow... The issues that occupy these writers are no longer feminist or chauvinistic, but,socio- political issues of everyday life.One of the earliest instances of ‗literary radicalism‘ in the Indian Subcontinent , to usethe phrase made popular by Priyamvada Gopal in her now famous work LiteraryRadicalism in India: Gender, Nation and Transition to Independence (2005) goes back tothe turbulent years of India‘s anticolonial struggle .The year was 1931 when Dr RashidJahan a Muslim young ‗lady doctor‘ from a progressive family contributed two of herstories: ‗Dilli ki Sair‘(A Visit to Delhi) and ‗Parde ke Peeche‘(Behind the Veil) to anUrdu anthology Angare (Live Embers). Angare was edited by Sajjad Zaheer andcontained radically progressive short stories and plays by Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, RashidJahan and Mahmuduzzafar .These writers were young and charged with the desire tochange the world, and the anthology was an attempt to shock the reader into a new‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201183
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