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Shakti: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women's
Empowerment in India
The patriarchal agendas of the 19th and 20th centuries have reproduced a complete epistemology where woman as prakriti or the regenerating force is required to have the necessary values of motherhood, patience and endurance. Such a set-up, fortified by the Dharma Shastras, Smritis and Puranas, seldom allows the existence of forms of politicisation among women. Neither does it focus on the negotiation women have engineered in oppressive regimes within their limited spheres of participation. The editors of this excellent collection draw attention to the significance of shakti, which is the energy that constitutes the world. More importantly, it connotes the power of doing, of empowerment, or of agency. It is shakti that sustains existence and life. The nature around us is the evidence of this energy. Shakti, or the female principle, even animates purusha or the lord of creation. Thus described, the concept appears to give women a certain militancy and might, turning her ideologically into an "ideal" figure. The mythical-imaginary devotion of post-Independence female cults in North India may be cited as examples. The worship of Vaishno Devi, Jai Mata Di, Bhawani Ma, Mamta Ma, Shakti Ma and Santoshi Ma have been brought into prominence by popular films. These are the various icons of shakti or women-power propped up in our socio-cultural ethos and disseminated through various representations. But the subtlety of the "shakti" image is often lost on us because the association of women with power is misleading. Although one might argue that the relationship with primal energy gives a kind of power to women, the representation is controlled by a patriarchy which is wholly male and will not tolerate any interrogation of its representational system. The discourse of Hindu religion, to take an example, has created Saraswati, the Goddess of learning, but there is hardly an instance of writing by women. The present volume looks at a wide spectrum of systems of representation—law, management, fine arts, media, literature—and brings that to bear on the world of reality. Ila Pathak argues against theatrical depiction of women as commodities. Nutan Damor prompts us to question the so-called gender neutral processes of the legal system and the concepts of freedom and democracy when she highlights gender discrimination, especially against Dalits. Malti Mehta steers attention away from the portrayal of women as objects of male gaze to the participation of women in media as a profession. The essays in the sections on law and management loosely cohere with conventional schools of feminism that have invariably taken an antagonistic stand against patriarchy for treating women as essentially different from men. The main emphasis is placed on the reversal of traditional gender binaries, and one may infer (though it is nowhere stated directly) that women should take up so-called "masculine" roles. The section on canon formation addresses the curricula in university courses: Neera Desai traces the introduction of women's studies by the University Grants Commission, especially in the 1980s. She also examines how women have "naturally" been the objects of knowledge rather than its producers. Yet women's studies have become part of research-oriented schemes rather than of active teaching which continues to conform to traditional structures of knowledge. Desai writes: "From the beginning, the thinking among the women's studies practitioners has been to look upon women's studies neither as a discipline nor a subject or topic which could be relegated to a corner of the academic arena." Desai argues with clarity and insight that the growing distance between gender studies and grassroots activism will gradually prove to be disastrous. The inadequacy of the current academic scenario indicates that we are grappling today not simply with the intellectual history of women but also their very site of enunciation, their location and their audience. Although Indian feminism has witnessed all kinds of liberal, Leftist and radical feminist positions, several steps have to be taken. First, the women question must seriously be addressed in the study of formal politics. It has to be recognized that so-called value-free political procedures and beliefs, such as nationalism and historiography are intrinsically gendered. And second, women should ask for a fundamental transformation of the very definition of the word "political" so that many of the activities undertaken by women can be included. This will enable us to tackle the complex issue of Third-World women in a plural way rather than through the binaries of man/woman, nature/culture or white/black; in other words, through the perspective of the multiplicity of difference rather than "otherness". |
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