Writing as resistance
By Usha Bande

Poetry must become a kind of courage. — Mulk Raj Anand

R. K. NARAYAN, in an interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, entitled ‘India Accent’ once remarked... "I think we have an advantage over all other countries of the world where life is so standardised that they’re hard up for material. We have abundance of it here". He was referring to the rich heritage and cultural past of the country as also to the diversity which provided wealth of material to a writer to choose from. These could well be applied to the neighbouring countries of India from where prolific literature is pouring forth in English as well as in their respective mother-tongues. India and her neighbours share an identical political, historical, economic and cultural past which gives the same coherence of meaning to their experiences and binds them together. The literature of the sub-continent presents a "mosaic of cultures" representing the system of values, meanings and social practices in the society.

Of late, women writers are coming forth courageously despite the stifling patriarchal traditions that have long since silenced the female voice. There is a movement towards a kind of metamorphosis. This transition is not movement away from the "essence" it is rather an indication of the kind of possibility and potential. If Talat Abbasi, a Pakistani writer, exposes the commodification of servants in middle-class and upper-class sub continental culture, Mahasweta Devi, Pratibha Ray and a lot of Dalit writers are giving voice to the tribals and the down-trodden. If Taslima Nasrin is angry at the religious fundamentalism, so is Bapsi Sidhwa (Pakistan) and Amerinder Kaur (India). If political shenanigan hurts the finer sensibilities of Yasmin Gooneratne (Sri Lanka), Moneeza Hashmi (Pakistan) too is not very comfortable either. Significantly, women are raising issues which were taboo a couple of decades back. Resistance and protest, Bhisham Sahni says, "pre-suppose a close relationship between the writer and the society, and an identification with the struggle for the future perpetually going on the in society". Speaking of the significance of resistance Michael Foucault observes, "to live in superb indifference to the external world is to live in narcissistic isolation and madness and to forfeit the world to the power-hungry".

Issues raised by the women writers of the sub-continent vary from gender-bias to violence; exposure and censure of social evils, the economic and moral iniquities to the inhuman caste bias and dehumaning superstition from corruption to nepotism, as also from nostalgic reminiscences to the alienating forces of modernism. Kishwar Naheed, a Pakistani poetess vociferously defends those women who have the guts to speak up. Society may call them ‘sinful women’ but they, though unconventional, have the courage to articulate and stand for truth:

It is we sinful women
Who come out raising the banner of truth
Up against barricades of lies on the highway
Who find stories of persecution piled on each threshold
Who find the tongues which could speak have been severed.

Another poetess Razia Hussain from Bangladesh, interweaves the horrors of war with the promise of life, Razia Hussain, a Dhaka-born poet is a peace activist and a feminist. In the Sound of Leaves she depicts the war and the resultant violence.Her motherland is ravaged by the hand of the power-hungry male but the earth cannot be left barren. Neither the poet, nor the earth, which is being torn apart in the battle to possess her, submits passively to violence:

War, only war all twelve,
months of the year. Our eyes are cactus plants.
The thorns growing inward to pierce our tenderest nerves.
Still, sometimes the sound of leaves makes me open my eyes to the sky.
Again the mind begins to build its nest among quiet wings,
the shadow of the Shal tree falls green
over my house over the smell of this warm, wet earth.

Contrary to the notion that women can only write sentimental carp, the women writers today demonstrate defiant awareness and have undertaken purposeful writing. Sri Lankan poetess Yasmin Gooneratne shows technical prowess and maturity. She channels her strong personal feelings of resentment and bitterness in her poems like The Wall, The Brave Man Who Keeps Snakes As His Pets, The Anniversary, The Lizard’s Cry, In The Wall she wishes to shut out all regret and compassion for the past.

"Build the wall high
shut out memory"

Describing the man who keeps snakes as pets she says:

Ithink it is wisest when you have to live with snakes,
That are not safely pickled and stoppered.

To let them doze —

The metaphorical meaning is too clear to be missed.

In the field of fiction women writers like Bapsi Sidhwa, Taslima Nasreen, Yasmin Gooneratne have made a remarkable contribution. Bapsi Sidhwa, a Parsi Pakistani national, has depicted the horrors of the traumatic events of the Partition leading to arson, death and destruction. The secure world of the girl-child narrator suddenly loses its charm as she quietly, unobtrusively marches from innocence to experience. In The Pakistani Bride Sidhwa focuses her gaze on the Partition and shows the world of the women — so insecure, uncertain and nightmarish. It is not only Zaitoon, the girl from the plains, married into the barbarians of the mountains Kohistan region, who suffers, even the major’s elite American wife is not much better off. Zaitoon escapes from the clutches of her brutal husband but the American wife prefers to stay on with her Pakistani husband because she feels too diffident to return to the USA, back to her lacklustre life. In Ice-candy Man, Sidhwa lets her own nightmare to be expressed through Lenny: "I feel no pain, only an abysmal sense of loss — and a chilling horror that no one is concerned by what’s happening". This "no one" are none but-the political leaders responsible for the partition.

Nearly five decades after the Independence things have not changed much. There still is communal disharmony, religious fanaticism and political connivance. The 1992 Ayodhya incidents leave Taslima Nasreen numb and in her novel Lajja she reveals Muslim fundamentalism. In her preface to the novels, Nasreen says, "Lajja is a document of our collective defeat". It is the story of the Dutta family who live in Bangladesh from the beginning and claim it as their own motherland. They love its rich soil, evergreen forests, the blue sky and the mighty rivers. But the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India create communal tension in Bangladesh. The Dutta family faces an uncertain future in the face of religious frenzy. Sudhamoy Dutta, the head of the family, is agonised:

"He was a citizen of this country Bangladesh. He had participated in the language rebellion, fought to drive away the Pakistan and bring about independence, this country could not guarantee him protection."

The writer does not indict any particular sect or religious group, she is annoyed with the fundamentalist forces and advocates "secular and humanistic" approach to life.

Likewise, Amrinder in her novel Lajo regrets the loss of human values. Keenly aware of the enormous socio-political injustice and man’s inhumanity to man Amrinder shows how politics and its malpractices can shatter hope and bewilder the people. The novel transcends the narrow communal considerations and allows the reader to take a balanced view. The author categorically states: The best of all religions is humanity. In other words, man should be driven by inner dynamic power affecting both his individual and national life. Lajo rises above all petty religious considerations and she asserts "what matters to me is that you are a loveable human being", neither a Sikh nor a Hindu.

Another disconcerting aspect of the society on the sub-continent in the wide-spread prevalence of the practice of employing domestic servants. Talat Abassi, a contemporary Pakistani writer focuses her attention on the pathetic condition of servants and tries to give voice to the voiceless. She exposes her society’s attitude towards the poor hapless servants who are left at the mercy of the master/mistress. Exploitation of the powerless by the powerful demonstrates the continuation of the colonial culture with its master-slave syndrome. Class conditioning affects even children, the practice is further continued when today’s children grow into adults. In her story Ticketless Riders, the six-year-old narrator is aware of her position as mistress vis-a-vis her teenage maidservant, who is "only a servant girl". She exercises her authority to bend the servant as per her wish. By thus exposing the dominant class and recording the experience of the disempowered, Talat Abassi opens new vistas for the hitherto unrepresented class and hints at the necessity of change.

The psychology of the servants boys and girls is beautifully portrayed in regional language writing of India. A Marathi story by Sarita Padki Suud (revenge) depicts how Shalini illtreats a poor and needy boy Veenu, her servant. While the boy is treated like a dog, her own son is pampered. Once slapped for a minor mistake, Veenu takes his revenge by mistreating Shalini’s child. In another story Dhyas by Sudha Narwane, a servant girl of 12 or 13 is so enchanted by the lifestyle of the family she works for and so frustrated by her own inability to get the beautiful things she craves for that she takes a perverse pleasure in cutting holes in the new sari of the daughter of the family. The two stories depict unequal social distribution, the scourge of poverty and the ill-treatment meted out to the disempowered class.

Sri Lankan writer Punyakante Wijenaike beautifully portrays the Sri Lankan landscape and in some of her stories deal with the theme of love between man and animal. Two such stories are Ukku and Ukkurala and Siripinahamy. In the former , the author shows a mahout’s love for his elephant and in latter an old beggar woman’s love for dogs.

Resistance is itself an exercise of power, Foucault reminds us. By thus writing resistance the women writers are opposing evils and empowering themselves.