Page 1
Women, N and N.
Collective Images an
Ele
SELWYTHIRU
 
 

arration ation
Multiple identifies
by CHANDRAN

Page 2
'Women, Narration and Nation' is a collection of papers presented at a conference in Srí Lanka, organised by Women's Education and Research Centre from the 27th to 30th of April 1998. Scholars from the Netherlands, USA, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh participated. A selection was made on a common theme as our first publication under this title.
Nation, Nationalism and Ethnicity are indeed polemical constructs, sometimes imagined, sometimes historicised and sometimes politically and culturally grounded as emanating from lived experiences through and across space and time. But how and to what extent they cross cut gender, creating new paradigms is a process that is undertaken in this publication by the various feminist scholars.
Collective experiences across countries are documented here with empirical research but not excluding subjectivities, by those who are internal and external to the problem. The scholar from the Netherlands and the U.S.A. have made meaningful external interventions. It is indeed a case of women narrating about nation, women and women's narratives.
Rs350

Page 3

Women, Narration and Nation Collective Images and Multiple Identities

Page 4

Women, Narration and Nation Collective Images and Multiple dentities
Edited by Selvy Thiruchandran
2
VIKAS PUBLISHING HOUSE PIV TID

Page 5
VKAS PUBLISHING. HOUSE PVT. LTD 576, Masjid Road, Jangpura, New Delhi - 110 014 Phones: 4314605, 4315313 o Fax: 91-11-4310879 Email: chawlapGgiasdl01.vsnil.net.in Internet: www.ubspa.com
First Floor, N.S. Bhawan, 4th Cross, 4th Main, Gandhi Nagar, Bangalore-560 009 o Phone: 2204639
F-20, Nand Dham Industrial Estate, Marol, Andheri (East), Mumbai-400059 o Phone: 8502333
Distributors: UBS PUBLISHERS’ DESTRIBUTORS LTD 5, Ansari Road, New Delhi-110 002 Ph. 3273601,3266646 O Fax: 3276593, 3274261 E-mail: ubspadelGdel3, vsnil.net.in o Internet: www.ubspa.com o 10, First Main Road, Gandhi Nagar, Bangalore-560 009 o Ph. 2263901
6, Sivaganga Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai-600 034 o Ph. 8276355 8/1-B, Chow ringhee Lane, Calcutta-700 016 o Ph. 2441821, 2442910 5-A, Rajendra Nagar, Patna-800 016 o Ph. 672856, 656169 80, Noronha Road, Cantonment, Kanpur-208004 o Ph. 369124,362665
Distributors for Western India: PREFACE BOOKS
Shivali Apartments, Plot no. 1, 25/4 Chintamani Co-operative Housing Society, Karve Nagar, Pune-411 052 o Ph.346203
Copyright © Selvy Thiruchandaran
First Published, 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publishers.
Information contained in this book has been published by VIKAS Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. and has been obtained by its authors from sources believed to be reliable and are correct to the best of their knowledge. However, the publisher and its authors shall in no event be liable for any errors, omissions or damages arising out of use of this information and specifically disclaim any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular use.
Printed at Kumar Offset, Delhi- 110031

Contents
Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgement
. Staging Reality: Nationalist Politics and Gender
in the Contemporary Sri Lankan Theatre in English Neluka Silva
Making Women Visible: Female Impersonators and Actresses on the Parsi Stage and in Silent Cinema Kathryn Hansen
Bodies Called Women: Some Thoughts On Gender, Ethnicity and Nation C. S. Lakshmi
Homemakers and Homebreakers: The Binary Construction of Women in Muslim Nationalism Rubina Saigol
Post Victimisation: Cultural Transformation and Women's Empowerment in War and Displacement Darini Rajasingham - Senanayake
Fighting for Rights or Having Fun? A Case Study of Political Awareness and Participation of Rural Sinhalese Women
Subhangi Herath
vi
vi
xi
22
53
89
136
152

Page 6
vi
CoNTENTS
Constructing "Womanhood', "Tamilness', and "The Refugee' : Internal Refugees in Sri Lanka Joke Schrijvers
Index
169
202

Contributors
KATHRYN HANSEN was Professor of South Asian Studies at the
University of British Columbia for sixteen years. She is currently a visiting Scholar (1998-99) at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University.
RUBINA SAIGol Completed M.A. in Developmental Psychology from
Columbia University (1982) and Ph.D. in Sociology of Education from the University of Rochester, NY (1995). She is a National Faculty Member of the Institute of Women's Studies, Lahore and is currently working at the Society for the Advancement of Education on the issues of feminism and education.
C. S. LAKSHMI is a Writer and a Researcher who is currently the
Director of Sparrow (Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women).
NELUKA SILVA is a Senior Lecturer with the English Department,
University of Colombo. Her Ph.D. focused on the Representation of Gender and Nation in selected contemporary writing from India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. She has been involved in the English theatre in Sri Lanka for the last 15 years as an actress and director.
SUBHANGI HERATH is Senior Lecturer with the Department of
Sociology, University of Colombo. She did her M.A. in Sociology from the University of Colombo and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Waterloo - Canada.

Page 7
viii CONTRIBUTORS
DARINI RAJASINGHAM is an anthropologist working as a free lance researcher and is presently fellow of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
JoKE SCHRIJVERS is attached to the University of Amsterdam as Director of International Development Research Associates and Amsterdam Research School for Global Issues and Development Studies.

Foreauvord
oth-Nation and Narration-as concepts and terminology are loaded and have meanings specific to historical periods. Both can be subjected to hermeneutic interpretations. This publication however, is limited to a few discourses as interpretation of the texts and spoken words as an attempt to delineate how construction of nations and nationalism have very peculiarly interpreted the subject of Gender. The interpretations have differential meanings constructed on the biological sex differences. This has necessarily connected the interpretations to structures of power and therefore become a site for hierarchy. Rubina Saigol brings out the conflicts and accommodation in the multiple identities of women created within nationhood in Pakistan. As how to include modernism of the enlightenment discourse, such as rationalism, into the new construction of nationalism and to accommodate women within that has indeed posed problems for nationalists. That "chadar or burkha' as agent of surveillance and control has also to be retrieved, as national/cultural symbol for women was indeed the paradox that cannot be resolved. Patriarchy is made to co-exist with Nationalism. Men and not women are the authors of this new discourse.
Rubina Saigol's detour in the nationalist writings pertaining to women attempts to show how women are located within the binary construction of home (mother, wife) and a series of negative terrain such as discord, despair disunity and destruction.
Neluka Silva's paper is on the Sri Lankan English theatre. She deconstructs T. Arasanayagam's play, The Intruder, which has underpinnings of the cthnic conflict in Sri Lanka. she argues that nationalist ideologies are transposed on to the familiar role. She is also

Page 8
FoREWORD
equally categorical that the play includes "the deployment of gender stereotypes within the nationalist/separatist context which, when applied on a practical level, reinforces the strenuous policing of culturally and socially prescriptive notions of masculinity and femininity; the rehabilitation of "tradition.'
Kathryn Hansen also takes up theatre as the site of her interpretation and includes a part of the silent cinema as well. Taking up a cliché from Marjorie Garber she says that gender and race are considered as categories in crisis. She argues that the use of female impersonators and the Anglo Indian actresses to represent women was explained simplistically as the cultural taboo of women to appear in public which has connotations of seductive availability but they, in fact contain racist notions. White Anglo Indian woman is within the construction of otherness-the opposite of the nationalist, cultural, serene and pure Indian woman, who cannot be viewed on a public stage. She concludes that at one level it manifests with a patriarchal control of the Indian women by their men, and at another, the racial construction of gender.
Joke Schrijvers paper is also on the Sri Lankan situation of the conflicting gender constructions with conflicting nationalisms. She argues that in war torn societies gender differences are increased and nationalist projects use gender notions to the extreme: men are seen as creators and defenders of the new nation and women as the core symbols of national identities. She moves on to a more specific analysis within this theoretical explanation to the construction of identity of the Tamil women in the refugee camps as the internal refugees.
C. S. Lakshmi, a well-known writer in Tamil, talks of the postcolonial constructions of gender in her paper. Nation and ethnicity have sometimes common demands in claiming women's bodies as sites of nationalist views through ideological construction through the literary texts and the media. An attempt to project modernity as a combination of this creation, which includes education for women and "ability to read', becomes the main theme of this new construction. Women are reminded that the nation/culture has to be asserted not through being politically alive but through becoming "proper" women. The private/ public inside/outside home/world, dichotomy is revitalised at every stage and the private, inside home becomes the site on which the

FoREWORD xi
yardstick, nay the criteria, for the identity of the nation is judged and reclaimed. This same position is also raised with regard to the imperialists versus the nationalist construction. The inside private home becoming the mother India and the coloniser the outside public otherness-one being the feminine and the other, the non-feminine. Lakshmi asserts that the notion of separateness is constantly maintained between these constructions.
Subhangi Herath's paper is on the Sri Lankan Sinhala women's narration with regard to their political participation. Her analysis sees social class as a differentiating agent in the political participation of women. The matrix of education has had ambivalent results on women, some subscribing to Victorian norms and others getting more radicalised. However, she concludes that in the final analysis neither participation in the labour force nor high political involvement has contributed to the emancipation of women.
In short the common theme that runs throughout the papers is based on subjects like discourse analysis which focuses on the naturally occurring spoken language and text analysis, which focuses on texts, songs, and essays. Though this separation is needed for some reasons to distinguish some notions of subjectivity and objectivity, they are both the same as far as possessing a communicative function both through the written and spoken words/texts/discourse.
Another interesting phenomenon of this collection is the underlying similarities of identity constructions across nations, culture and ethnicities.
Selvy Thiruchandran Women's Education and Research Centre 58, Dharmarama Road, Colombo 6.

Page 9

AcKnowledgements
his book could not have been published without the support and
cooperation of many people. The papers included in this book were originally presented at the South Asian Conference held in Sri Lanka in Colombo between 27/04/1998 and 30/04/1998 organised by Women's Education and Research Centre. However, all the papers are not included in this publication. We have made a selection on a specific theme. The rest of the papers are being published in our Journal on Gender Studies called Nivedini.
We take this opportunity to acknowledge our grateful thanks to the Global Fund for Women in California, U.S.A. for the generous grant given towards the conference and this publication.
Mariko Hirano, the Director of Operations from the Global Fund was exceptionally kind and helpful in comprehending the need for such a conference on a Common South Asian platform. We want to place on record the services of Global Fund. Ms. Kavita N. Ramdas, the President of the Global Fund was our first contact at the Global Fund who responded favourably towards our Project. Ms. Laila N. Macharia, the Programme Officer of Global Funds has performed an important task of expediting the process. She too deserves to be thanked.
I take this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to this volume. They have, amidst a lot of difficulties, managed to send their contributions on time.
Selvy Thiruchandran Women's Education and Research Centre 58, Dharmarama Road, Colombo 6.

Page 10

Chapter 1
STAGING REALITY
Nationalist Politics and Gender in the Contemporary Sri Lankan Theatre in English
Neluka Silva
T. Arasanayagam's The Intruder and Political Theatre
he theatre is a conduit through which the encrypted codes of culture are deciphered and translated into a medium that is accessible to the public consciousness. Gilbert and Tompkins argue that, in post-colonial states, the theatre's capacity to intervene publicly in social organisation and its capacity to critique political structures can be more extensive than the relatively isolated circumstances of written narrative and poetry (1996: 3). In terms of genre, post-colonial theatre has the potential to be much more discursive than other media because of its non-verbal language, as well as providing a public forum where questions about the very nature of the post-colonial context and subject can be provoked and visualised. Moreover, it is evident that in times of social transformation or national crisis, the insecurities, anxieties and fears of a community can be either assuaged or exposed in the theatre even when simplified and made visible through the use of ideological stereotypes. These stereotypes may be deployed in an attempt to establish a sense of security and identity amidst shifting norms and realities.
In this paper I will examine four plays written after the ethnic riots of 1983. These works are intended to exemplify the dominant trends

Page 11
2 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
within the contemporary Sri Lankan theatre in English and foreground the concerns of the nation at large and will enable me to illustrate ways in which gender is appropriated for political purposes.
Until the 1980s, the English language theatre in Sri Lanka was primarily confined to continuing a theatrical tradition established during colonial rule. Although this has come under intense criticism from both critics and audience, but as Shelagh Gunawardene argues:
An original theatre, rooted in our own national and social ethos and experience is no easy thing to create-it could not be done overnight in a society where foreign influence is pervasive. Just as the mere proclaiming of political independence in 1948 did not bring about a clear articulation of national identity, ... ) so for the English language theatre in Sri Lanka, the colonial past could not be transcended completely (1994: 86).
The insubstantial number of original plays performed between Independence and the early 1980s were confined to the comical or historical genres. A comedy like H.C.N. de Lanerolle's He Comes from Jaffna or Well Mudliyar, written in the 1930s and 40s, but immensely popular in the post-Independence era, derive their humorous appeal by satirising the English language of the stereotyped figure of the 'county bumpkin'. De Lanerolle's work reveals the snobbery and the insecurity of the English speaking audiences who, after the Swabhasha policies of the late 1950s, found their privileged position threatened, thus forcing them to affirm their privilege in a public space. The historical genre, on the other hand, exemplified by plays like Lucien de Zosya's Rama and Sita (1965), attempted to rehabilitate the indigenous literature which had hitherto been suppressed by cultural colonisation. In the 1970s, despite some attempts to situate the theatrical productions within a more socially relevant context, the comic and historical modes continued to hold sway. Ernest MacIntyre's work provided audiences with social comment but the wit and humour sometimes subsumed the social content. On the whole, critics, audiences and theatre practitioners recognised that the theatre was not catering to the sensibilities of the nation and the dominance of western plays increasingly came under attack by theatre critics and audiences in the 1970's and 1980's. This recognition is expressed in the following comment:

STAGING REALITY 3
The sterility of the English language theatre, its preoccupation with trivial drawing-room comedies and musicals is a widely accepted truth among the more sensitive elements of the day. This is a reflection of the English language elite's alienation from the mainstream of normal life and their inability to relate to the life lead by the generality of the people (Ajith Samaranayake quoted in De Silva,
983: 29).
The ethnic riots of 1983 were instrumental in challenging the complacency of the English theatre audiences. Since then there has been a change in the concerns expressed in the English theatre, with playwrights engaging with themes and subjects drawn from their daily realities. Against the general background described above, T. Arasanayagam's The Intruder is groundbreaking in terms of bringing the politics of 1983 and its repercussions in the life of the innocent civilian into the public arena. The play won the Sri Lankan Arts Council Award for the Best Play in 1987.
The play concentrates on the ways in which nationalist ideologies are transposed onto the familial domain. It exploits the 'underside' of conflict through the eyes of the victims and maps out several interlocking themes. These include: the deployment of gender stereotypes within the nationalist/separatist context which, when applied on a practical level, reinforce the strenuous policing of culturally and socially prescriptive notions of masculinity and femininity; the rehabilitation of "tradition' which becomes the cutting edge of victimisation of women; and political violence and repression, which are often sanctioned and ignored by the agents of power during armed conflict. These themes are brought to the forefront through the characters of the Old Woman and the Boy. The Boy's character is an acute portrayal of the kind of masculinity promoted by nationalist discourse and the tensions within such constructions. In turn, the Daughter enacts the burden of carrying a "pure' ethnic identity conjoined with a narrow construction of femininity and projects a different form of victimisation.
The Intruder revolves around the plight of a family whose home is forcibly occupied by a young Boy. The father of the house is killed by 'person or persons unknown' and the sons have "disappeared', leaving only its female occupants, the Old Woman and her Daughter

Page 12
4 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
(Arasanayagam, 1987:' 49). This situation symbolically renders the plight of the innocent victims of the 1983 riots and the ensuring armed conflict. From the Old Woman's narrative one infers that she is forced to provide shelter for the Boy whose rationale of 'protecting the women'justifies his presence in her house.
Throughout the play the Old Woman is pitted against the Boy soldier. The former is enmeshed in a web of political and social ideologies and accepts them at face value. She exposes the suffering and helplessness of the innocent civilian, the private lives of the noncombatants who provide the non-heroic contrast to the rhetoric of the Boy. In contrast, the Boy continuously propagates the ideology of the cause', that is, of a new nation'. However, the subtextual nuances suggest that he too is a kind of ventriloquist's dummy and is ideologically entrenched in the politics of struggle. It is a position which disavows possibilities of individual freedom or resistance apparent in, for instance, his interminable vigil which involves waiting for orders from higher authorities. He is therefore tethered to this mission and in the interim is denied the agency to make an independent decision.
The Old Woman inhabits a position that reflects the paradoxical location of a large number of Sri Lankan woman in relation to the nationalist conflict. On the one hand, the Old Woman conforms to the socially prescribed gender roles. She is preoccupied with the men folk of her family, incessantly describing their plight, waiting for their return, and subservient to what she perceives as the 'wishes' of her husband or sons. Her role as the self-sacrificing mother and wife reinforces the nationalist position. Her anxiety to safeguard the stability of the home at any cost can be read as signifying the 'nurturance of national culture' which has to be achieved by building proper homes. Thus even when her home and its occupants are destabilised-literally through the occupation by the Boy, and figuratively, through the "madness' of her Daughter-the onus of maintaining a facade of "respectability' is foisted upon her. Respectability relates to an idealistic vision of motherhood. One of the responsibilities conferred upon motherhood involves acting as the repository of tradition and maintaining the domestic sphere as the proper and rightful domain of the family. Such idealisations, as Samita Sen explains, were, and

STAGING REALITY 5
continue to be, based on "a general valorisation of motherhood as the creator and protector of the sanctuary of the home, as the good and chaste wife, and as the iconic representation of the nation derived from classical and religious) mythology' (1993: 231).
The capacity for endurance of pain and suffering revealed in the Old Woman accentuates the qualities associated with certain religious icons in South Asia. Patience, acceptance and the ability to wait are identified with the goddess Sita and Pattini. The latter is ‘all-enduring and, more than anything, she knows how to wait, wait for love, wait to be needed'. In The Intruder the Old Woman laments that “we are both waiting for my son, like we've waited all these days. I don't know how long we have to wait’ (Arasanayagam, 1987: 47). The image that the Old Woman projects here resonates with the Pattini goddess and also encodes the self-sacrificial aspect of motherhood that is often aligned with the patient and brave "motherland'.
It can also be argued that the underpinnings of the nationalist mother image is subverted in the portrayal of the Old Woman. If, as C.S. Lakshmi suggests in her discussion of Tamil discourses, the socially advocated image for a woman is that of the 'valorous mother whose womb becomes the "lair of tigers' and derives pride from "a solider son's military prowess', the Old Woman does not conform to this role (1990:72). Her sons are neither soldiers nor heroes but are victims of militant nationalism. In this case the Old Woman's sons are shot while trying to escape and their bodies are found washed ashore on the beach. Their deaths are stripped of any dignity. Unlike the mother of the soldier who can fall back on the rhetoric that champions his death as an act of heroism in defending the "motherland', the Old Woman has no claim to such moral consolation.
The traditional nationalist image of the mother as passive and willing to succumb to any demands made in the name of her protection is subverted in another way. The atypical circumstances engendered by conflict-the removal of the men from the domestic sphere-grants the Old Woman responsibility. Although forced to become the head of the house, it is an empowering role. The material reality inscribed by the war situation has the potential to subvert the gender hierarchies, in turn effecting political structures since authorities cannot ignore the needs of women. In a time of conflict, opportunities may arise for women to

Page 13
6 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
enter social organisations in an unprecedented way. As Janna Thompson argues, "The developments associated with the requirements of modern war have meant, not only the entry of women into public life, but also the transformation of the domestic concerns of women into public concerns' (1991: 74).
Power invested in the Old Woman as head of the house provides her with a voice to enunciate her concerns about the Boy's occupation of her house. As she tells him: "I only wanted to know why you are in my house, now at this moment. Shouldn't I have the right to know? ... ) This is my house isn't it (.. ) and I being the head of this house?' (Arasanayagam, 1987:44). The Boys response reveals another dynamic of the politics of conflict: "What about the man of the house ( ... I he wears the apron and you pull the strings?', typifies patriarchy's refusal to accept the new condition brought about by war (Arasanayagam, 1987: 44). The paradox here is that while the political and material realities lead to the reversal of stereotypical gender roles, an abstract and often outmoded gender paradigm may still be perpetuated by the defenders of a "liberal' political vision.
In her new role as head-of-the-house, the Old Woman has the capacity to intervene in the political situation, in denouncing the "madness' of the war and its brutalising effects on her family. Throughout the play her voice is privileged and her plea to the audience to recognise the futility of armed conflict is powerful. Her exposition of the arduous conditions she faces as a civilian does not in any way romanticise or condone war. This exposition is intensified when it is conveyed through her, because we as the audience are socially conditioned to believe that a mother's grief embodies the utmost emotional depth. The symbolic value attached to her role allows her to vocalise the suffering of the entire community.
The Old Woman's persistent reference to the conflict as "madness' achieves a dual purpose. On a figurative level it stresses the incomprehension and meaninglessness of the armed conflict for the innocent civilian. At the same time, "madness' also has a literal application in the play, in depicting the mental state of the Old Woman's Daughter and later in the brief appearance of her "mad' son.
Arasanayagam employs madness as a theatrical device-with its non-verbal language and what is regarded as irrational forms of

STAGING REALITY 7
behaviour-to draw attention to specific networks of power. The "madness' of the Daughter serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it is the most blatant critique of the hierarchical power structures encoded in "traditional' practices and institutions, for example, arranged marriages. Secondly, it is through the effects of the breakdown of "rational" human behaviour that the audience is made aware of the conscious and subliminal impact of the dichotomy of reason/madness on social relationships. Shoshana Felman offers an insightful reading into the consequences of making the distinction between reason and madness. She argues that this binary coincides with the Man/Woman dichotomy. “Women as such are associated both with madness and silence, whereas men are identified with the prerogatives of discourse and of reason (1991: 13-14). Applying this comment to the play, the Daughter's emotional outpourings which may be projected as "madness' are pitted against the callous reasoning of the Boy in an attempt to critique nationalism's divestment of human emotion. Significantly, the Daughter's behaviour is not simply a visual statement of the effects of the "madness' of war on the whole community but, through her, the Boy's mission is also rendered absurd. Her disjointed, “nonsensical' utterances are an effective theatrical device that can be read as a form of resistance, a conduit that unveils the brutality attendant upon nationalist conflict. It also centralises the sexism that pervades the social network represented in the play.
Arasanayagam is also concerned with how tradition plays a determining role in nationalist politics and a vigorous critique is made of the sexism that subtends the Sri Lankan cultural tradition through the positioning of the Daughter. Nationalist vocabulary sets up an interdependence with tradition, myth and legend, and allocates a space for rehabilitating and reinforcing traditional' practices. One of nationalism's "obligations', Rajeswari Sunder Rajan argues, " ... ) is developing an idiom which equates its discourses with a valorisation of the traditional' because, by implication, tradition serves the need of promoting and safeguarding the ethnic identity of the community/ nation (1993: 134). In The Intruder, the Daughter's relationship with a "boy from the university' is prohibited because he does not satisfy the traditions of her family (Arasanayagam, 1987: 54). She adheres to the social and religious traditions of an arranged marriage only to discover .

Page 14
8 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
that her husband from England is already married to a British woman. When she returns home after this betrayal, she is obstracised by her community. Paradoxically, even though her role changes during the nationalist conflict, the Old Woman remains a vehement apologist for maintaining the dominant traditions-as the neighbour tells the Boy "the Old Woman wanted the Daughter to marry according to convention, race, religion and all (Arasanayagam, 1987: 54). Hence the Daughter's position does not undergo an ideological shift and her traditional role is intact. On an individual and day-to-day level, the demands of nationalism, masquerading under the guise of tradition, works to compound the oppression of women. In the context of the play, adhering to tradition results in the Daughter's nervous breakdown, which is conveyed visually through the image of a desolate girl cradling a doll. The centrality of this image has a powerful impact on the audience. It reflects the inimical effects of attempting to maintain the notion of an unbroken tradition. Here the institution of arranged. marriages enjoins the freedom of women and denies them from making their own choices. This constraint is not only operative in the sphere of marriage, but has an effect in the spheres of education and employment. The Daughter's character is utilised for another purpose in the play. Her interventions accentuate but also destabilise the Boy's machismo. It is accepted that war fulfills a facilitative function in defining and confirming masculinity and male prowess. Although "heroes' have always been perceived as "manly', proof of their 'virility' is gauged, not in love-making but in war-making. In the realm of armed conflict, whereas battles can regenerate the strength of males, contact with women is perceived as debilitating, enervating and ultimately destroying virility (Huston, 1986: 121). Similarly, in The Intruder, the Boy's purpose in occupying the house and his attitude towards "protecting its occupants, is a part of the clinical military objective that subliminally reaffirms his masculinity. The notion of protection is predicated on a collective male need to maintain women in a state of helplessness and dependency. Men derive their so-called masculinity from the efficiency with which they protect "their women (including mothers) from the violence inflicted by men of the "other' side (Tennekoon, 1986: 13). For the Boy, the defencelessness of a house, devoid of traditional male protectors (father/son) and the vulnerability

STAGING REALITY 9
of the Old Woman and her Daughter is not merely a localised military objective. Both the house and its occupants can be seen to represent the threatened motherland. Safeguarding the house and its occupants, defined by walls and roof, is analogous to providing front-line defence of the borders of one's homeland. The use of the analogy is not arbitrary, given that the family is represented as the locus of national power and representation. His frequent references to "protecting the motherland' depicts a characteristic of nationalism: the ability to forge an even more virulent form of sexism by aligning nationhood with femininity. Not surprisingly, when the old woman laments the loss of her sons and husband and appeals to the boy for sympathy, his response is:
Stop it woman, we have had enough of your characters that get killed, if so call an undertaker (...) that should be your story laughs) that's not my job. I only carry out orders, you know, I am not the mop up man, I only execute ... I leave it to the garbage man to do the rest (Arasanayagam, 1987: 49).
For him the objective of occupying the house is purely a military one and does not call for any emotional response. The human side of his involvement is irrelevant. The exaggerated display of bravado reveals the self-delusory note that accompanies nationalist rhetoric. In order to secure a political objective, human emotions have to be obliterated. Though the Boy's aggressive stance affirms his overt authority over the occupants in the house, the Daughter's character seems to disturb him profoundly. In the presence of the other characters his self-doubts can be contained or suppressed, but the Daughter confronts him in a more direct way by pleading: my baby needs a father' (Arasanayagam, 1987: 46). His mechanism for coping with her is to violently dismiss her story as "romantic nonsense', and the ensuring violent outburst can be interpreted as an excessive display of his machismo (Arasanayagam, 1987: 48). He straddles a precarious position in that his authority over the occupants can only be maintained by resorting to fear and coercion and he has to maintain this stance constantly. The seeming nonchalance that is associated with this form of ruthlessness and aggression masks the insecurity of his paradoxical subjectivity. For instance, his vision of the Nation allows him to deride

Page 15
10 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
tradition. When he hears the story of the Daughter's wedding he feels justified in attacking the family's valorisation of tradition, yet his own reactionary ideology emerges in the assumptions he makes about the house, that a man is in charge and his perceptions of the Old Woman, as a domineering virago (Arasanayagam, 1987: 54). His vision of the motherland therefore, is male-centred and exclusionary.
This vision is undermined by the Old Woman's continuous references to the violence that pervades her milieu. Violence is figured in two ways. Firstly, Old Woman's narrative of the ordeal of her husband and her sons stresses the political objective of nationalism with its attendant violence. Secondly, the ubiquity of violence is transported to the stage through the screams of the characters, the Boy's incessant polishing of his gun and the gunfire of the last scene. The audience is rarely allowed to escape from it. In attempting to transpose the violence of nationalist politics into the domestic realm, Arasanayagam brings contemporary political reality into the public arena and registers the way in which nation-state politics and family are intricately conjoined. The tension between the characters is created and maintained through the dialogue and continuous references to the violence outside the familial domain.
The Intruder marks a significant juncture in the English theatre in Sri Lanka through its exposition of the brutality of war and recuperation of the position of women, in much the same way that Brecht's Mother Courage (1962) did for Western European drama. The mute Daughter and Mother Courage in Brecht's play has an analogous role to the Daughter and the Old Woman in The Intruder. Furthermore, the most striking comparison between The Intruder and Mother Courage occurs in the final scene of The Intruder, where the Old Woman's son starts beating a drum, recalling the final scene in Brecht's play which endeavours to capture the turmoil of war on the civilian. Here the Old Woman and Daughter are seen clinging to each other in the midst of the sounds of gunfire, while the Son marches the other characters in single file around the room and, between them, they carry a stick wrapped in bands of red and white. The colours make associations with blood and peace and is a theatrical representation of the psychological state of the characters.

STAGING REALITY
The final scene of The Intruder heightens the surreal atmosphere. Any endeavour to create a sense of verisimilitude would seem contrived. As in the morality tradition, the characters emerge as types rather than clearly-defined individuals. For instance, the Old Woman epitomises the voice of suffering, the Boy can be translated as an embodiment of ruthless inhumanity, while the Daughter emblematises the victimisation of society at large. One of the most forceful aspects of the play is the menace that is captured through the dramatic devices such as the sound effects and lighting changes. Some elements from the genre of absurd theatre are enlisted to reflect the futility of war in the daily lives of the common person. The atemporal and ahistorical setting and deliberate avoidance of place and character names is similar to: strategies in theatre of the absurd. In addition, the discontinuous plot, lack of character development, disjointed sentences and incomplete dialogue establishes a sense of confusion for the audience and mirrors the bewilderment of Arasanayagam's protagonists. An economic use of stage technique, that is, the sparse sets and costumes, serve as visual indicators of the dehumanising effects of war that strips people of their psychological and material security.
The Intruder not only enacts the inimical effects of nationalism with its violence, rehabilitation of repressive facets of tradition and the rigid demarcation of gender roles, but also points to the emancipatory possibilities afforded by shifting norms. It presents the empowering possibilities for women as a result of masculine conflict, as the paradoxes and insecurities of "masculinity' epitomised by the soldier's reluctance to confront human emotions are revealed.
In terms of performance, unfortunately, Arasanayagam's play has not been widely performed and therefore its impact has been limited. Nevertheless, it can be regarded as groundbreaking for mapping out issues relating to the ethnic conflict in a progressive manner. Following Arasanayagam's example, playwrights such as Ruana Rajapakse and Senaka Abeyratne have taken up these issues, playing to larger audiences, and examining the ramifications of the ethnic conflict within their own class milieu.
Ruana Rajapakse's War Story (1990) is a conscious attempt to centralise the issue of ethnic conflict on a public platform and her

Page 16
12 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
strategy forges a link between historical antagonisms and the present. Set during the era of Portuguese domination, spanning 1550 to 1581, the play follows the lives of two cousins, Sugathipala and Tilakasiri, lieutenants in two opposing Sinhala armies. The war ravages Sugathipala's home, whereupon his family is forced to seek refuge with Tilakasiri's family.
Rajapakse's project is to rehabilitate and present the voice of the common man, generally excluded from dominant historiographywhich privileges the elite voice. In addition, the play questions the effects of war and the machinations of politicians. It successfully encapsulates the way in which war becomes normalised in society.
At the beginning, going to war was the biggest thing that could happen. Now battle has become like everyday life and it's only when we do something else that it's worth talking about (Rajapakse, 1990: 12).
The historical genre merits several readings. Firstly, in the terms of the playwright "it struck (her) that many of the conflicts and dilemmas of that time still arise in one form or another'." In employing a narrator in modern uniform the link between past and present is established. His frequent interventions, most prominently at the beginning of each scene, provides factual details such as the number of casualties and refugees. However, his function transcends that of a reporter, rather he moralises, deploring the futility of war and for the most part, serves as a mouthpiece for the playwright. His reportage reinforces the events in the play. For instance, they visually enact the consequences of armed conflict that he alludes to. The protagonists become the refugees and suffer the destruction of property and home, all of which are common phenomena in contemporary Sri Lanka.
Although the Sinhala kings are also positioned as evil, in imputing blame the main malefactor is the Portuguese. As a force the former drives a wedge between the Sinhala factions creating disunity in order to strengthen their own position. What is interesting here is that Rajapakse falls prey to a certain essentialism which I have also witnessed in relation to the Sinhala theatre where the foreigner is constructed in a narrowly nationalistic and xenophobic idiom. He/she is posited as rupturing the status quo and typically rendered in over

STAGING REALITY 13
simplified terms as a ruthless and mercenary (Silva, 1992: 33). Similarly, in the case of War Story if the audience is to view the play as a metaphor for the contemporary situation, the Portuguese are most culpable, tapping into the traditional argument that colonialism is solely responsible for the present crisis. Although in the play, the two factions represented are Sinhalese, it is the Portuguese who are held responsible for the infighting, a bias that still underwrites a subliminal strain in nationalist discourses.
During the play, the protagonists, Tilakasiri and Sugathipala launch into a lengthy debate on the ethics, legitimacy and national ramifications of war and during the course of this debate, Tilakasiri makes a crucial point which marks a prominent dynamic in Sri Lankan politics.
There is a time for compassion and a time to fight. Even the Maha Sangha have recognised that from ancient times (Rajapakse, 1990:6). Throughout history, the leaders, whether it is kings or politicians, have endeavoured to elicit the support of the Buddhist clergy in their military ventures. Parallels can be found in this strategy with the methods employed to stimulate the emotional fervour among both Saracens and Christians during the medieval crusades. Paradoxically though, overt expressions of violence are condemned and S.J. Tambiah's thesis in Buddhism Betrayed relies on the question "given Buddhism's presumed nonviolent philosophy, how can committed Buddhist monks and lay persons actively take part in fierce political violence ...? (1991: 1). Popular appeals to endorse armed conflict can only be framed in propaganda that alludes to war as a necessity to safeguard the Buddhist religion and an "authentic' identity. S.J. Tambiah supports this in the following comment:
Since classical times the monk has participated in the Island's politics as advisor, mediator, and guide; he has always been actively involved in the achievement of the Island's welfare and prosperity, that Buddhism has always been the national religion of the people, hence the label 'religio-nationalism' aptly described its role (1992: 102). Such ideologies underpin works like War Story where subtextual nuances typify nationalist rhetoric at work, enunciating the hackneyed debates waged by the nationalists.

Page 17
4. WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Nationalist ideologies are perpetuated by constant references to 'Son's of Mother Lanka' reinforcing the signifier of the nation as a suffering mother, embodying divine qualities and patiently waiting to be avenged by her brave and warrior sons. This deep involvement also ties in with the nationalist use of sexist images derived often from Buddhist and Hindu iconography to secure a stronghold. Vanguardist sentiments exhibited by political leaders are made with the backing of religious leaders. Hence the chauvinist structures are difficult to contest, either by feminists or political moderates. Rajapakse does not challenge such regressive attitudes, neither does she complicate the binaries of equating motherland and mother, enemy and whore. While a moralistic and didactic tone is adopted in expounding the view of the 'common person' and the price they pay for an ongoing war, the sexist ideologies that become a part of the propagandist machine are overlooked. The problematic of mother of the nation can be evinced from such elisions. Spivak analyses this position in her essay on Mahasweta Devi's Yashoda (1989).
Furthermore, the input of women's voices is a notable absence in the play. When a female character appears, it is largely tokenist. The point could be made that there is a reductionist move here because they function solely for plot manipulation. The two female characters do not participate in the debate about war. On the contrary, when Sugathipala's wife Leela questions him about the political situation, his reply is:
You keep out of this, Leela. Certain things have happened which you
don't know about yet (Rajapakse, 199: 19).
Such exclusions have been identified as a part of nationalist discourse. Edward Said explains this as the "unmistakable patriarchal cast” which can be discerned everywhere in classical nationalism with 'delays and distortions in women's and minorities rights that are still perceptible today' (1992: 270). In fact, national metanarratives reveal how gender informs the dominant imagery of the Nation and, as Elleke Boehmer has pointed out, " .. ) in its inconographies of power, nationalism may be characterised as a male drama' (1992: 233, my emphasis). In keeping with this position, Anne McClintock convincingly describes how no state has allowed a large proportion of

STAGING REALITY 15
its women equal access to the rights and resources of the Nation (1995: 10). Exclusion of women's voices and disparities in representation, which are a part of public discourses, are reflected in cultural production as we see in the plays.
In addition, nationalist ideology, in its avowal of a homogeneous identity, impinges upon mixed race relationships. Once again it is the women who are victimised in such a context. While women are made responsible for safeguarding their ethnic purity, in contrast, the women of mixed ancestry (in the case of Sri Lanka, the Burgher women) occupy a denigratory space in the nationalist discourses. Very few attempts have been made to subvert the dominant images. In Nedra Vittachi's Cave Walk (1986), underlying racial tensions culminate not simply in the rupture of the relationship but ultimately in the deaths of the protagonists. Written at the time of the ethnic conflict, the romance of a secret mixed-race relationship is undermined by societal issues of ethno-racial hegemony. Here the Boy is unable to tell his parents that his girlfriend is a Burgher (a group that is perceived as racially inferior to the Sinhalese and Tamils). The play begins with a walk into some caves and they discover that they are trapped there. At this moment, the Girl, momentarily rejecting the monolithic gender role of subservience, questions the ethnic chauvinism that characterises the attitudes of her boyfriend and his family. The tension reaches a crescendo and, unable to accept her challenge, the Boy resorts to violence: he first hits her until she becomes unconscious and then tries to strangle her. When he thinks that he has killed her, his 'solution is to kill himself.
There are two main problems with Vittachi's depiction of this relationship. Firstly, she fails to subvert the parameters of what is considered 'safe' (that is, marrying within the community), by advocating cross-cultural relationships. A cross-cultural relationship can only take place in secret, and the Boy's attitude towards his girlfriend is underlined by a sense of ethnic superiority. This position is a prominent undertone in nationalist discourses where the emphasis on racial or ethnic "authenticity' disallows possibilities of inter-racial mixing at several levels. The woman of mixed ancestry occupies the "liminal' space which is predicated upon the blurring or confusions of racial boundaries. Caye Walk exmplifies how culture plays a collborative role in policing these boundaries.

Page 18
16 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
The plot of Cave Walk is analogous to Romeo and Juliet. No attempt is made to critique physical violence as a means of unequal power relations. The mental and physical trauma generated by such extreme behaviour is denied a space of expression. On the contrary, when the Girl regains consciousness, she refutes the abuse she has suffered in the hands of her lover and instead is overcome with grief that her boyfriend has left her alive while he has killed himself. The brutal subtext is a testimony of the dominance of violence where it cannot be prevented from infiltrating society at every level. Such a negative denouncement and the eagerness with which the Girl vindicates her boyfriend manifests an unwillingness on the part of the playwright to deal with the social status quo and challenge the overarching structures of violence operating within Sri Lankan society.
Perceived as a crime of passion, the brutal subtext uncovers the violence at every level in post-1983 Sri Lankan society. This violence infiltrates cultural production. The play, subtitled "Every Man Kills', reveals the overtones of menace and violence that has the potential to subvert any relationship-personal or political. Attributing the tension in the relationship to racial difference discloses the subliminal force of the ethno-political realities that have culminated in armed conflict and get reproduced in the media. Images of violence that are prolific in the media and literary production become normalised and cultural production that attempts to eschew the fraught tensions are predicated upon the violence that the ethnic conflict engendered. The above representations of violence reinforce the assumption that women are as ۔ vulnerable and susceptible to violence not only from unknown men but by men in their closest and most familiar social environment.
Violence against women is sanctioned in literary production. Television also reinscribes the structures of violence. Advertisements and soap operas have, in the last decade, become more violent. The scenario that takes place in Vittachi's play has become a familiar formula. It is perceived in terms of a tragic love affair or crime of passion. The proliferation of violence in popular culture and literature is a part of the continuum of violence against women. A growing pattern of violent victimisation of women within personal relationships is displayed in other contexts. As a result, women who dare to make a choice against the established social norms, for instance, the Girl in

STAGING REALITY 17
Cave Walk, who dares to challenge the racial prejudice of the society by falling in love with a man from a different community, are publicly condemned and made to live in constant fear of violence, rape and even death.
Sexual violence and subjugation that is recognised as intrinsic in patriarchy is intensified and validated in times of conflict. In periods of national crisis, ideas of feminised sacrifice and masculine valour become even more exaggerated. This sense of valour is often manifest as physical and sexual control over women. The notion that she is the property or bound up with the honour of a man has made her a prime target of violence in war situations. In Senaka Abeyratne's play Por La Libertad (1994) the above is forcefully foregrounded. Set in an imaginary Latin American military state, the play is a thinly-veiled indictment of human rights violations that are effaced within discourses of war, particularly in the realm of gender relations through the use of rape. Abeyratne's blatant use of sexuality deliberately shocks the complacency of the English-educated audience into active realisation of heinous effects of political machinations. The radical content is established at the very outset of the play.
(A woman is lying on the floor, with a man on top of her. ... The
guard gets up and pulls up his pants).
Pedro: You know what, Senorita, I do it to a lot of women but never
do it to a poet before. You like it, Anita? (Abeyratne, 1994).
Here is an instance of institutional rape, perpetrated by members of repressive states like the police or the army upon any woman who is perceived as a threat. That the protagonist in this context is from the middle or upper class demonstrates the playwright's recognition that rape transcends class divides. The violence that accompanies the rape questions the dynamics of male domination which can then be harnessed for and becomes a weapon of political power. The macabre pleasure that the Guard derives from terrorising his victim illustrates the force of this tactic. Here is evidence to support the argument that rape is more properly understood as the expression of a particular form of violence sanctioned by various modes of social power-rather than of sexual desire per se. Feminist theory has identified the body as the site of power, that is, as the locus of domination through which docility

Page 19
18 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
is accomplished and constituted (Diamond and Quinby, 1988: x). In addition to the defilement of the female body, Adam Jones has identified that rape and the experience of fear and death is pervasive. The terror is that this other person has total control over you and can overpower you (Jones, 1994: l 18). In the play, Anita, while trying to appear brave by resisting her oppressors, prefers death to the incessant sexual torture. As a weapon of nationalist supremacy, rape may have a more potent effect than killing. While killing has the potential to make martyrs out of victims, rape defiles and shatters the dignity of not only individual women, but also of her family, especially in tradition-bound societies. Rape further punishes the victim by adding a social stigma. In today's context, it has also been co-opted into the repertoire of ethnic cleansing and atavistic nationalism. The background is not only a territory but also the female body.
In this work charting the commonalties between feminist and postcolonial discourses, W.D. Ashcroft notes that the female body, like territory, is posited as a trope for contesting, challenging and reinforcing personal and political aims. The exploitation of land and female body are conjoined and Ashcroft sees the " ... linking of the female body in feminism and the link between place and nation in some ways as inextricable' (1989: 30). The metaphor of the female body is not merely inscribed to depict the anxieties of the nation, but is cast in such a way as to construct national and personal identities. Thus the multiple rape inflicted upon Anita can be construed as an erasure of her identity, both as a woman and a member of an ethno-racial group.
Conclusion
Before making a conclusion about the texts, it is important to note that the impact of the English theatre in Sri Lanka is marginal, partly because of the limited theatre-going population who are mostly from the middle and upper classes and the modes of representation that are employed. While the above plays are exceptions, on the whole, the most common mode is the traditional, drawing-room comedy or the "well-made' play.
However, since 1983, creative writing (which includes dramatic works) in Sri Lanka has awoken to the cries of communal violence and the sound of gunfire. It is no longer possible to eschew the ongoing

STAGING REALITY 19
ethno-political and religious tensions that pervade the nation's social, economic and political fabric. Armed conflict based on the issue of ethnicity has meant that identity politics are contingent upon ethnic identities and these identities are frequently in a state of negotiation. As we find through the protagonists in the plays, identities are contested and challenged as politics creates new situations and unsettles the past certainties while, simultaneously, abstract and arbitrary terms of reference become fixed and immutable and set up binary oppositions which utilise women as symbols. The Burgher woman emblematises the immoral other and, as Cave Walk illustrates, she is ostracised as a threat to the 'authentic' identity of the other communities. Through such portrayals the audience is made aware that the two-dimensional, gendered representations of the Nation that influence both public debate and private opinion fail to account for the empowering possibilities that arise when individuals struggle for a sense of meaning and identity in their personal and political worlds.
Bibliography Abeyratne, S. 1994. Por La Libertad (un published manuscript). Arasanayagam, T. 1987. The Intruder in Navasilu Journal of the English Association of Sri Lanka and the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, 7&8, 43-58. Ashcroft, W.D. 1989. "Intersecting Marginalities: Post-colonialism and
Feminism', Kunapipi, 11(2), 23-35. Boehmer, E. 1992. "Motherlands, Mothers and Nationalist Sons: Representations of Nationalism and Women in African Literature' in From Commonwealth to Post-Colonial, A. Rutherford (ed.), Aarhus: Dangaroo Press, 229-247. Brecht, B. 1962. Mother Courage and her Children in Plays: Vol. 2, London:
Metheun. De Silva, L. 1983. "Ernest MacIntyre: Potential and Performance' in New
Literature Review, 13, 29-38. Diamond, I: and Quinby, L. (eds.). 1988. Feminism and Foucault: Reflections
in Resistance. Boston: Northwestern University Press. Felman, S. 1991. 1975). Women and Madness', Feminisms, An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, R. Warhol and D.P. Herndl (eds.), New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 6-19. Gilbert, H. and Tompkins, J. 1996. Post-Colonial Drama, Theory, Practice,
Politics, London: Rouledge.

Page 20
20 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Grosz, E. 1991. "Contemporary Theories of Power and Subjectivity' in A Reader in Feminist Knowledge, S. Gunew (ed.), London: Routledge, 59
2O. Gunawardene, S. 1994. Stage and Set: A Theatrical Odyssey of Our Time' in Navasilu. Journal of the English Association of Sri Lanka and the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Languages Studies, l l & 12, 86-98. Huston, N. 1986. "The Matrix of War: Mothers and Heroes' in The Female Body in Western Culture, S.R. Suleiman (ed.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 119-136. Lakshmi, C.S. 1990. "Mother, Mother Community and Mother Politics in Tamil Nadu' in Economic and Political Weekly, October 20-27, 78-82. Paldano, J. 1996. "Pattini Worship' in Explore Sri Lanka, 37&39. Sen, S. 1993. "Motherhood and Mothercraft: Gender and Nationalism in
Bengal' in Gender and History, 5(2), 231-243. Silva, N. 1992. Representation as "Othering" the Other-the Foreigner in the
Sinhala Theatre' in Pravada, Sept.
1994. "Advertising in Sri Lanka: How Does it Affect Women?” in Images, Colombo: WERC, pp. 49-74. Sunder Rajan, R. 1993. Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Post
Colonialism, London and New York: Routledge. Tambiah, S.J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics and Violence,
Chicago & Longon: Chicago University Press. Tennekoon, S. 1986. "Macho' Sons and "Man-made' Mothers' in Lanka
Guardian, 8(18), 3 & 24. Thompson, J. 1991. "Women and War' in Women's Studies International
Forит, 14(1/2), 63-75. Vittachi, N. 1986. Cave Walk (unpublished manuscript). Young, R.J.C. 1990. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, London
and New York: Routledge.

STAGING REALITY 2
Notes In an analysis of the English language theatre in Sri Lanka up to the early 1980's, Tissa Jayatilaka describes this lack of relevant. I am grateful to Jayatilaka for his ideas on this area. C.S. Lakshmi in an interview with Neluka Silva, London, 5 June 1996. In Sri Lanka Pattini occupies the most important position in the pantheon of gods and goddesses. Although a woman, the dominant iconography of the goddess is devoid of the polluting' qualities associated with women in religious discourses. Strict procedures, pertaining to cleanliness and sexual abstinence are followed because the goddess is revered as a 'superior' and 'sacred' object (Paldano, 1996: 39). Tennekoon quotes the verses of several songs which encode the sentiments of "motherly pride'. For instance, "This my son, makes me so happy/A son who defends the country” (1986: 13). According to Elizabeth Grosz, major manifestations of power, such as penal or psychiatric incarceration are either ignored or politically minimalised in dominant discourses. "Power does not simply take on a massive form: even if it did, it would still require minute or micropolitical channels to disseminate it throughout the whole of the social body’ (1991: 81-82). At the level of non-discursive events, power establishes technologies that direct themselves towards bodies and behaviours of subjects. Within this framework, madness as the "other' enables a space from which a critique of power can be made (Young, 1990:72). The matrix of war inscribes notions of male sexuality. Myths of male assertiveness are reinforced in war situations. In addition, Nancy Huston makes the point that "hunting and warring were instituted as the sacred privileges of the male' (1986: 129). She asserted this point in an interview with me in Colombo, Sri Lanka in September 1991. Ruana Rajapakse in interview with Neluka Silva, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 29.09.91. See Neluka Silva, "Advertising in Sri Lanka: How Does it Affect Women?' in Images (Colombo: 1995).

Page 21
Chapter 2
MAKING WOMEN VISIBLE
Female Impersonators and Actresses on the
Parsi Stage and in Silent Cinema
Kathryn Hansen
St. Draupadi, Subhadra, Damayanti and other heroines from epics
and myths have long been celebrated in the visual and verbal arts and rightly credited with establishing gender roles for women in Indian society. But what did it mean when men played their parts, as was so often the case in premodern performance traditions?' Were the paradigms of womanly virtue parodied by the cross-dressed actor, or did his masquerade contribute to the construction of a powerful ideal? How closely did the stylisations of dramatic genres in different periods correspond to social practices of female attire and comportment? Such questions have rarely been asked, perhaps because they expose to selfconscious inquiry a practice so ubiquitous and widely accepted in South Asia as to appear invisible. Bringing theatrical transvestism into the limelight, moreover, threatens to reinvigorate stereotypes of effeminacy among the male population, a bitter legacy of colonial domination that lingers in post-colonial India. Yet surely if one is concerned with issues of representation, one cannot ignore the fact that, for most of the history of theatre in South Asia, women have been represented by men. And when women do come on stage in the late 19th century and appear in the cinema in the 20th, their identity is

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 23
constructed as racially Other: actresses of Anglo-Indian, Jewish, or mixed parentage (including courtesans) predominate. What does it mean for women as a social group when they are figured on such alien bodies? For whom, or in whose interests, are these anomalous gender categories produced and how are they consumed?
Here I will attempt a limited response to these issues by looking at evidence I have gathered from the Parsi theatre and the early Indian cinema. My context is the commercial entertainment industry arising from new entrepreneurial modes, uses of urban space, structures of leisure time and the consumable pleasures of music, dance and drama, all in complex interaction with technologies and cultural forms introduced during colonial rule. The period covered is from 1853, when Vishnudas Bhave and his troupe performed Raja Gopichand in Hindustani before a public audience in Bombay and sparked an upsurge of theatre activity, to 1931 when the first sound feature film, Alan Ara, was released, also in Bombay, following which Parsi theatre began to wane. While the geographical focus is on western and northern India, the extensive tours of the Bombay based troupes to Madras and Ceylon, Calcutta and Rangoon, Peshawar and Sindh and points in between, and the founding of innumerable local and regional groups styled after the Bombay companies, extend the implications of the thesis to a wider territory.
My argument has a broad theoretical contour and a more narrowly focused critique to offer. At the first level, I find that gender and race in these popular venues can be considered "categories in crisis', modifying a notion from Marjorie Garber. The representation of gender and race is negotiated, exploited, avoided and displaced for decades. I do not mean to imply that the Parsi theatre and the silent cinema were not significant sites of gender formation. Bringing the heretofore invisible woman onto the stage and screen constituted a rupture, both with the systemic of mehfil and court performance, wherein patrons exercised exclusive control over female performers. However, within the urban entertainment economy, factors such as the high degree of publicity and access, the new set of relationship between spectators and actors and the profit-making goals of management configured the represented woman–the actress or her surrogate-as an object of visual consumption. Female accoutrements like hair style,

Page 22
24 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
jewellery and clothing, together with the fair skin and sexual availability symbolised by the exotic "foreign' woman, were enshrined as denominators of desirability. Although the popular theatre and early cinema created a public space in which societal attitudes towards women could be debated (particularly in the melodrama of social reform), the actress herself retained a disrespected status. Only towards the end of the period does one find moves towards what became the normative representation of the Indian woman', the bharatiya mari of the nationalists; before that, she is neither truly bharatiya, nor indeed a nari.
More specifically, I argue that preconceptions about the difficulty of finding actresses have been utilised to dismiss or evade the phenomenon of female impersonation. It has been held that because of the stigma connected to acting and the relegation of singing, dancing and other performance arts to a marginalised courtesan class, women were at an extreme social disadvantage with respect to the stage and were not only unwilling to become actresses but were ill-equipped for its rigors and lacking in skills. Even in the early years of film making, suitable women were said to be unavailable and directors like Dadasaheb Phalke resorted to using female impersonators. While acknowledging that debates about the propriety of women in acting careers, as in any kind of public role, were at the forefront of bourgeois colonial society, I will detail the strategies by which actors, managers, and reformists restricted women's access to the profession. The historical record shows that, for a considerable duration, the employment of female impersonators and actresses overlapped and they effectively competed against each other. Companies and publics, then, chose those whom they wanted to represent women on stage-men and women. The contest remained unresolved well into the 1920s, when Bal Gandharva of the Marathi stage and Jayshankar Sundari of the Gujarati stage achieved unparalleled popularity with sophisticated urbanites. I maintain that tensions within the theatre-going public about the nature of spectatorial pleasure are crucial to understanding this contestation. The discourse of respectability promulgated by reformists existed uneasily beside a fascination with erotic display, a perennial staple of audience enjoyment and both were manipulated by the profit-seeking proprietors in a struggle for control of the represented female body.

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 25
While there is no need to outline the major themes of social history and the status of women in this period, several points about the Parsi theatre and its relation to the Parsi community need to be clarified at the outset. The term "Parsi theatre' is used herein to indicate a broadly based commercial theatre, whose influence extended far beyond the community of Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran from which it took its name. Amateur theatricals became fashionable among Parsi college students in Bombay around 1850. Shortly thereafter, Parsi business managers and shareholding actors organised the first professional theatre companies. Until roughly 1875, the languages of the plays were English and Gujarati and plots were based on the Persian Shah Nama and Shakespearean comedies and tragedies. After the successful staging of the Indar Sabha, a song-and-dance spectacle written by Amanat of Lucknow, companies turned increasingly to Urdu dramatists and the Indo-Muslim corpus of legends and fairy tales. Until the 1920s, almost all the Urdu dramas written-and there were hundreds-were under contract to the Parsi theatre. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Hindu epics became very popular along with romantic 'social dramas' and Hindi gradually became the language of choice.
Writers, actors, company managers, musicians and theatre service personnel belonged to a mix of backgrounds. Generally, paid employees (including actors) were more disadvantaged with respect to education and family income than company owners. Audiences similarly were diverse, comprised initially of British officials and elite Parsis, then centering on the middle class of 19th century Bombay, particularly the various trading communities and professional groups. The working class, especially immigrants to the growing city, also formed a significant audience share by the end of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century. A range of ticket prices accommodated the different classes of public. By language, they were speakers of Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil and other languages and the dramatic medium was fluid and polyglot. It is important to remember that the literary forms of these languages over this entire period were undergoing change and stabilisation; certainly the association of community with linguistic identity was not yet rigidly fixed.

Page 23
26 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
The notion that the Parsi theatre had a special relationship to the Parsi community is thus highly problematic, at least beyond the first two decades of its development. Parsi business interests, specifically the Madan family, did manage to retain control until the 1930s, partly by converting their empire of theatre halls to cinemas. The important theatre houses of Bombay, while owned mostly by Parsis, were not utilised solely by Parsi theatre troupes. Most of these were on Grant Road in the so-called Black Town but there was also the prestigious Gaiety Theatre opposite Victoria Terminus in the Fort area. Both, the Marathi and Gujarati stage, got their start in the metropolis and remained important to Bombay's cultural life and their companies performed in the same theatres as did visitors from other parts of India and abroad. This meant a great deal of imitation and rivalry within the entire urban theatre economy and it is within this larger context that I wish to situate the questions about performing women.'
The young Parsi men who pioneered the cosmopolitan practice of female impersonation were of high social standing, unlike their forebearers in the rural or 'folk' theatres found all over the subcontinent, who were traditionally of low rank." When the students of Elphinstone College formed a club to rehearse Shakespeare and try out new Gujarati scripts, it was probably obvious that some of them would take up women's roles, although it is not known by what criteria they were chosen. The first on record to play female roles was D.N. Parekh, later a medical doctor and lieutenant colonel in the Indian Medical Service. He was a close associate of Cowasji S. Nazir (18461885), who had entered Elphinstone College in 1863 and founded its influential dramatic society. Parekh's notable roles included Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Mrs. Smart in G.O. Trevelyan's The Dawk Bungalow. The Elphinstone Dramatic Society's productions were held under the patronage of luminaries such as Sorabji Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy and Jagannath Sunkersett.'
Even at a time when theatrical activity was principally conceived as an amateur pastime, anecdotes suggest that a considerable premium was placed on successful female impersonation. Framji Joshi completed his matriculation in 1868 and in the same year played the

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 27
lead in a Gujarati version of Lytton's Lady of Lyons presented by the Gentlemen Amateurs Club. His performance was so original and impressive that the club's director feared his star performer would be lured away by another company. He delivered a stern lecture to the membership but it backfired. Framji Joshi left ("the bird flew from his hand, as Gupta says) and joined the Alfred Company, where he went on to several new female roles. In 1871 he resigned from the stage and became Superintendent of the Government Central Press.'
With the establishment of the long-lived Victoria Theatrical Company in 1868, the Parsi theatre entered a period of professionalisation. Young men of pleasing figure and superlative voice were sought out to play women's roles. An acting career normally began with a period of apprenticeship involving schooling in female roles, especially in the minor parts of saheli or sakhi, companions of the heroine. Certain actors became known as 'all-rounders', capable of performing the role of hero, heroine, or comedian, as needed. In other cases, with age and changing physical characteristics, the performer shifted from female to male roles at a given point in his career. Khurshed Baliwala (1852-1913), who later managed the Victoria Theatrical Company and became one of the most renowned Parsi theatre personalities of his time, provides a typical example. In 1870 when he was eighteen, he played the female role of Sohrab's beloved Gorda Farid in a production of Rustam and Sohrab.' This play was written by Edalji Khori, who later became a prominent barrister in Rangoon and it was performed in Gujarati. A year later, Baliwala appeared as Firoz, the hero of Sone ke Mul ki Khurshed, in the Victoria Company's first venture into Urdu drama.' From then on, he acted primarily in male roles. He normally played Gulfam, the princely hero of the Indar Sabha, as an example.
Other actors specialised as female impersonators. Success in a role led to the public affixing the name of the character to the actor's name or nickname. Two brothers of the influential Madan clan acquired this popular status as successful female impersonators. Nasharvanji Framji Madan became famous as Naslu Tahmina for his performance as Sohrab's mother in the aforementioned Rustam and Sohrab (1868). Naslu's younger brother, Pestanji Framji Madan, was called Pesu Avan, after the heroine, Avan, in a Gujarati version of Shakespeare's

Page 24
28 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Pericles. He played the heroine Khurshed opposite Baliwala in Sone ke Mul ki Khurshed. Pesu was greatly favoured by Dadi Patel (18441876), the manager of the Victoria Theatrical Company from 1870 to 1873. In 1873, there was a split in the Victoria Theatrical Company. Dadi Patel took Pesu Avan and some other actors with him and formed an offshoot called the Original Victoria Theatrical Company. C.S. Nazir, who became the new manager of the Victoria, was at a complete loss without his female lead. He organised a group of recruiters to begin looking for new boys and finally found Edalji Dada aka Edu Kalejar and Ardeshar aka Ado to fill the gap left by Pesu Avan. This was particularly urgent as Nazir wanted to make a strong showing at a large function in Delhi, probably the Delhi Darbar of 1877. He could not outdo his rivals and win a sizeable audience without topnotch female impersonators.'
Female impersonators seem to have played various types of stage roles. On the one hand there was the romantic heroine, beloved of the hero and inevitably an embodiment of feminine perfection and modesty. On the other, there were the women magician roles, like the Jogin in Harishchandra. ' During the Victoria Company's tour to Delhi in 1874, Kavasji Manakji Contractor, a female impersonator whom Nazir affectionately called 'Bahuji, created a sensation by delivering countless lashes to the tormented dancing figure of Baliwala playing Lotan. This particular gesture was later to become a trademark of the actress Nadia, known as 'Hunterwali', who appeared in stunt films in the 1930s and 40s.
By the early 1870s, the debate regarding the admission of actresses was not only commonplace in the theatre but being discussed by society at large. Male company proprietors feared the stigma that would attach to their shows if women from the singing and dancing trades were allowed onto the stage. But professional women were eager to join the Parsi companies. While the Victoria Company was away on tour in 1872, the Parsi Natak Mandali put on a, performance of the Indar Sabha with Latifa Begam, an accomplished dancer, in the role of the Sabz Pari (Emerald Fairy). At the play's conclusion, just as she entered the wings, she was abducted by a Parsi man. Throwing his overcoat over her costumed body, he whisked her into his waiting carriage. The company owners did not have the courage to confront

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 29
him. Latifa's disappearance created a sensation and was widely discussed in the newspapers, as a result of which the introduction of women on stage received a setback. But soon Amir Jan and Moti Jan, two Punjabi sisters, replaced Latifa in the company.
Meanwhile Dadi Patel had been invited by Sir Salar Jang, the Diwan to the Nizam of Hyderabad, to visit the state with his troupe. In 1872, before long-distance transport was available, he made the difficult trip with his entourage and once there met with tremendous success. Dadi Patel's performances before the harem of royal women are recounted with particular gusto. This could have been the moment when he became persuaded of the virtues of employing real women, for when he returned to Bombay he brought several Hyderabadi singers with him. His groundbreaking use of these women in his 1875 production of the Indar Sabha turned fairies into females, although the play is said to have been a flop. Dadi Patel was still engaged in intense competition with Nazir. To insult his rival, he prepared a drop scene with a picture of himself as a beautiful youth and Nazir as a huge snake, presumably illustrating the theme of Krishna subduing the serpent-demon Kaliya.
The transition had now begun and other companies continued the trend to bring in actresses, although not without controversy. Female impersonators likewise held their ground and remained as popular as ever. When Jehangir Khambata founded the Empress Victoria Theatrical Company in Delhi in 1877, he took full advantage of the talents of a popular female impersonator known as Naslu Sarkari (Nasarvanji Ratanji Sarkari). Famed for his sweet, "cuckoo' voice (kokil kanth), Naslu played the Sabz pari to Kavas Khatau's Gulfamin the Indar Sabha. She was Laila with Khatau as Majnun; Bakavali with Khatau as Tajulmulk, and performed a number of other classic themes opposite the hero known as "India's Irving.'
What happened to Naslu Sarkari when Mary Fenton entered the scene? This story has not been told but what is recounted is that during one of the rehearsals of the Indar Sabha, a "doll carved out of marble, a houri from heaven' came looking for a deshi admi. Mary Fenton, the daughter of a retired Irish soldier, was herself an entertainer; she put on magic lantern shows and had come to book the hall where the Parsi troupe was performing. She admired Khatau's acting, met him, and a

Page 25
30 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
romance ensued. Mary, who already spoke Hindi and Urdu, is said to have been trained in singing and acting by Khatau. Eventually she and Khatau were married but they separated later; she bore him a son, Jehangir Khatauo
Mary Fenton's appearance on the Parsi stage launched a new era. Her ability to mimic Parsi and Hindu modes of feminity, her touching singing, accurate pronunciation, acting talent and fair skin, as well as the salacious stories circulating about her relations with Khatau, created a sensation in the theatre. But it also sparked dispute. Khatau split with Khambata, left Delhi for Bombay and joined the Alfred Natak Mandali. Its owner, Manek Master, was opposed to allowing Mary to act and as a result Khatau separated and started his own Alfred Company. In 1890 Fenton appeared in Gamdeni Gori at the Gaiety Theatre, a play which was performed many times by Khatau's Alfred and Baliwala's Victoria and which later became a popular silent film starring Sulochana (1927).2 Mary Fenton also featured in Alfred productions of Alauddin (1891), Bholi Gul (1892), Tara Khurshid (1892) and Kalyug (1895). She is said to have died at the age of 42, perhaps in 1896, which would indicate a birth date of 1854 and a likely first meeting with Khatau at the age of 23 or 24. Khatau died in 1916.’
K.N. Kabra (1842-1904), the original founder of the Victoria Company in 1868, was an important figure in Bombay society, a reformist and community leader. Aside from organising theatrical groups and writing plays, he edited Rast Gofitar, a major Gujarati journal established by Dadabhai Naoroji. He also started the magazine Stribodh in 1857, one of India's first publications for a female readership. Kabra's opinions illustrate an important trend of thought at the time. He argued for greater independence for Parsi women, including the freedom to move outside the home and to wear socks, boots, and carry an umbrella.' Simultaneously, he criticised the lewd behaviour (bhrashtachar) that supposedly flourished with the arrival of courtesan performers and opposed the acting of women on the stage. To combat this "defect' as well as to protest the increasing use of mechanical stage devices, he started a company called the Natak Uttejak Mandali in 1876. This company performed plays in Gujarati, among which the most successful venture was Harishchandra, which played for 100 nights with Ardeshar Hiramanik in the role of Taramati.

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 31
In the company's sixteen-year history, the lifelong female impersonator, Darasha Patel, also achieved great distinction. He poured himself into his roles as Damayanti, Subhadra, Shirin, Tahmina and brought the company considerable profit.'
The Natak Uttejak Mandali's productions of Harishchandra and Nala and Damayanti attracted large Hindu audiences, especially women. Cradles were set up for infants outside the hall with childminders to tend to them; these servants fetched the mothers from inside if the children began crying. Although K.N. Kabra wanted to keep actresses off the stage, he campaigned for the freedom of Parsi women to come to the theatres to watch, preferably accompanied by their husbands and brothers and it was not considered improper for women to attend theatre shows under such conditions. Sometimes performances were held for women only. Pardanashin women would be accommodated within a special seating area. Prostitutes from the town also frequented the shows and apparently would sit in the same secluded section.'
A similar policy line was followed by the New Alfred Theatrical Company; again, the actress issue was held accountable for internal dissension. Mohammed Ibrahim joined Manek Master in opposing Kavas Khatau's performances with Mary Fenton. Leaving the Alfred, these two formed the New Alfred and engaged Sohrab Ogra (18581933) as company director. Ogra, unlike Kabra, was from a poor family and had no formal education. He was known for his complete opposition to allowing women to perform and never even permitted his wife or children to see a play, let alone perform in one. Because of his rigid stance, the company banned actresses for over forty years, until his death in 1933. He is said to have enforced strict discipline within his company, for example outlawing the backstage prompter and making the actors memorise all their lines. On stage he mostly acted the role of the comedian. Not surprisingly, the New Alfred acquired the reputation of being one of the most orthodox and 'respectable' Parsi troupes and as a result attracted the likes of Madan Mohan Malaviya and Motilal Nehru to its performances. A number of female impersonators were associated with the New Alfred-Amritlal (Ambu), Narmada Shankar, Master Nisar (who later played opposite actress Kajan in films) and Motilal-and Ogra is said to have sought young boys from the Gujarati Hindu Tirgara caste.’

Page 26
32 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
III
Although the New Alfred was the last major Parsi theatrical company to hold out against women performers, female impersonation as a stage convention continued well into the twentieth century, retaining its popularity with audiences and with company managers. The long lists of men who played women's roles in the history of Parsi theatre are remarkable; they seem to form the majority rather than the minority of the class of actors. Those who became dedicated to portraying feminine parts and who achieved success in this pursuit were of course fewer. Unfortunately, these actors have been virtually forgotten. Written documentation of their lives, their habits, even their careers are extremely limited. No biography or autobiography has emerged to illuminate this important institution. However, records are somewhat more complete in the case of two non-Parsi actors, Jayshankar Sundari from the Gujarati stage and Bal Gandharva from the Marathi musical theatre (sangit natak). Both the Gujarati and Marathi theatre movements were heavily influenced by the Bombay Parsi theatre. Indeed, they were in competition with Parsi productions for the heterogeneous cosmopolitan audience throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Linguistic and communal differentiation became more marked after 1900 but the mutual contact and exchange among these theatres continued, particularly in the areas of musical style, popular stories and scenery and costume design.
Jayshankar Sundari (1889-1975) received the Padmabhushan in 1971. He dominated the ranks of female impersonators in the Gujarati theatre from 1901, when he starred in Saubhagya Sundari (the role that gave him his stage name), to 1932, when he retired from the commercial theatre. For most of this time he was a member of the Gujarati Natak Mandali, based at the Gaity Theatre in Bombay. The early stages of Sundari's career may be representative of other female impersonators. Sundari was born to a village family with a musical background. His grandfather, a sitarist named Tribhuvandas, took him to see a touring drama troupe when he was eight, an experience that created a memorable impression on him. Disliking school and possessed of charming features and fair skin, he was discovered by recruiters from the Urdu-language Parsi company of Dadabhai Thunthi. His parents essentially leased him to the company for a period of three

MAKING WoMENVISIBLE 33
years and he left for Calcutta. At the age of nine, he received a salary of six rupees a month for performing in the chorus of 'girls' (saheliyan) every night at the Thanthania Theatre. During the day he attended rehearsals, presided over by the strict disciplinarian Thunthi, who frequently caned the boys. His first important role was, as with so many other aspirants to the field, that of the Sabz Pari in Amanat's Indar Sabha. He went on to perform the female leads in Chitra Bakavali, Gulru Zarina, and Sitamgar. On Sundays, he attended theatre shows at the Madan Theatre, known for its gorgeous sets and actresses. The Madan company was the chief rival of Thunthi and Jayshankar is said to have filled the vacuum created by the departure of actresses from Thunthi's troupe to the Madan.
Sundari perfected his knowledge of Urdu and developed his characteristic feminine gait during his apprenticeship with the Parsi company. His trademark became a distinctive stage entry which created a "mesmeric appeal'. He returned to Gujarat for studies briefly at the age of 11 but a year later he was chosen by Bapulala Nayak as his female counterpart and joined the Gujarati Natak Mandali in Bombay at twenty rupees a month. He soon mastered the Gujarati language and achieved resounding success with his debut in Saubhagya Sundari (1901). He then played the character of Rambha, the dudhwali in Vikram Charitra (1902). This play lasted for three years and was performed 160 times, every Saturday night. Sundari's fame in the dudhwali role seems to have been based on a particular scene, wherein he enters with a pot (matki) on his head and offers milk to the hero, while singing Koi dudh lyo dilrangi. Maintaining "the thin line of demarcation between a refined conduct of a cultured woman and that of acting verging on vulgarism', Sundari enthralled his audience. The song became so popular that Bombay textile companies printed it on their milled dhotis and saris.’ ረ
Throughout his acting career, Sundari kept his hair long and his face clean-shaven. He modeled his characterisations on real women, for example basing his portrayal of Lalita in Jugal Jugari on close observation of one Shrimati Gulab, the sister of Babubhai Seth. K.M. Munshi found in this role "the ideal model of a true Gujarati woman. Aside from his method of total identification with women, Sundari appears to have excelled at the depiction of feminine pathos or karuna

Page 27
34 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
ras. In Kamalata (1904), an adaptation of the Shakuntala story, he played his part with such superb finesse that it moved the entire audience to tears. Like Bal Gandharva, his stage movements, attire, and speech became models for women off stage. The Padmabhushan citation observed that "it was a fashion for ladies in Bombay to imitate him in their daily lives'.' Although Sundari appears to have been married, next to nothing is known of his personal life. Upon retirement, he reverted to a masculine public image, grew a moustache and cut his hair.
Bal Gandharva (aka Narayan Shripad Rajhans, 1888-1967) was a contemporary of Sundari's; the two men met on several occasions and are alleged to have been friends. Born into a middle-class Brahmin family in Satara District, Bal Gandharva acquired his name at the age of 10 by singing before Lokamanya Tilak. His family members had various musical interests and like Sundari, he did not distinguish himself at school but rather was fostered by several male relatives who introduced him to music and drama. In 1905, he joined the Kirloskar Drama Company, replacing Bhaurau Kolhatkar, the first successful female impersonator of the Marathi musical stage, who had just died. His debut was in the title role of Shakuntala on a newly built stage before the prince of Miraj. The object of adoration and esteem from the start, Bal Gandharva became the pet of the students of Deccan College, where he was frequently invited to sing and he struck up a special friendship with one of them, Balasaheb Pandit.'
In 1911, on the opening of Khadilkar's drama Manapman, Bal Gandharva's eldest child died but he carried on with the performance, adding a particularly tragic aspect to the role that moved his spectators to tear. The play marked the beginning of the appeal of Marathi Sangit Natak to wider audiences, including the offspring of genteel Gujarati, Sindhi and Kannada families. Bal Gandharva formed his own company in 1913 and over the next two decades he produced increasingly lavish productions based on mythological and social themes. For the court scene of the Kauravas and Pandavas in Draupadi, he spent Rs. 75,000 on decor and scenery. During the height of his fame, 1921-31, he earned Rs. 1.75 lakhs annually but was chronically in debt and he died in penury. Like Sundari he received the Padmabhushan in 1964. He was a major recording artist and cut over

MAKING WoMENVISIBLE 35
two hundred 78-rpm discs. His birth centenary was observed in 1988, resulting in several English-language biographies, and the reissue of some of his recorded songs.
To an even greater extent than Sundari, Bal Gandharva set fashions for women's dress and behaviour. First, he expanded the nine-yard Mharashtrian sari to ten yards. Later in life, when he had gained weight, he switched to the six-yard version, which does not wrap between the legs, a factor leading to greater liberation for women, according to one commentator. He popularised embroidered jackets that were worn oversari blouses and brought into vogue hairstyles such as the bun. Strings of flowers worn in the hair, jewellery such as the nath, or nose-ornament, and the practice of carrying handkerchiefs are also credited to him. Equally, he set the tone for men's fashions: the Gandharva cap, Gandharva turban and Gandharva coat and trousers. Photos of him in his female roles adorned the drawing rooms of elite homes and many firms used his image to advertise their products, e.g. calendars, diaries, and stationery. The appellation "Gandharva' itself was imitated by several singers and performers.
In the accounts of the impersonations of Bal Gandharva, erotic allure is more clearly indicated than in most other references. He possessed an attractive appearance and sweet voice, the two features that were considered essential for all female impersonators, but he appears to have exploited their seductive potential more overtly. One way of doing this was by displaying his long hair, which flowed to the waist. in Manapman he entered the stage with his hair undone, indicating that the heroine had not yet had her bath, while in another. scene he turned his back to the audience to reveal a long pleated braid. These gestures, rather than being read as crude, were understood as modest and charming representations of the educated young women of the day. As a biographer notes, The manner in which Bai Gandharva made himself up and the way he moved on the stage fully evoked the persona of the contemporary young woman of the middle or upper middle classes.' Similarly, his songs are considered memorable for the expressivity and emotional quality in them, particularly the projection of shringara and Karuna. His voice production was not falsetto but midway between today's male and female registers, as was true of other singer-actors of the time,

Page 28
36 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
regardless of gender. His spoken voice is said to have been an idealised version of (presumably upper-caste) women's speech."
In 1922, Bal Gandharva began to attempt male roles in the theatre but he was deemed unsuccessful at shedding his feminine mannerisms and returned to female impersonation, despite increasing obesity and baldness.' A bid to enter the film world, as the male saint Eknath in Dharmatma (1935), resulted in financial failure. The subsequent effort to portray the female saint Mirabai in a film of the same name in 1937, also flopped but perhaps for different reasons; the picture was a stiff, unmodified rendering of the musical stage play.
Not surprisingly, Bal Gandharva was opposed to women acting.' Kamalabai Gokhale, one of the first women on the Marathi stage and an actress in Phalke's film company, recounts:
In my time we faced fierce opposition particularly from actors who were playing female roles on the stage. We were their first natural enemies. They hated us. Some companies actually would not have women performers as a matter of policy. Like Bal Gandharva. He wanted my husband to join his company for major male roles opposite his female roles and when my husband accepted only on the condition that myself and my mother should also be taken in the company, Bal Gandharva refused, saying that no woman will ever appear in his stage productions.'
Yet eventually, Bal Gandharva surrendered his reputation and control of the stage to a woman. Contrary to the image of respectability he assiduously maintained earlier, later in life he entered into a sustained liaison with Gohar Karnataki, a Muslim singer. He taught her his female roles and handed her the reigns of his company. After her death in 1964, he was deserted by his former friends and is said to have lapsed into a state of 'complete degradation.'
Bal Gandharva's story points to some of the themes that can now be summarised on female impersonation in relation to issues of spectatorship. First, spectators were fascinated with the idea of a man passing as a woman. The desired end of this performance of gender was that the female impersonator appear so "natural that he could not be distinguished from a real woman. Thus, an anecdote concerning Bal Gandharva's attendance at a haldi kumkum ceremony for married women in the Baroda Palace emphasises that he was able to negotiate

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 37
the event undetected even by the Maharani.' For the audience, whether in the theatre or in everyday life, such an act of passing was lauded as a virtuosic feat. It provoked a sense or awe and wonderment, akin to the adbhuta rasa of classical dramatic aesthetics. From the repeated mention of the necessity of the female impersonator having an appropriate voice and physical features, it is clear that hearing and seeing were the senses actively engaged by this spectacle. The training of these senses through the act of theatrical spectatorship, a process which quickened in the late nineteenth century, is evident in the larger frames within which the female impersonator performed, notably the proscenium arch with its elaborate painted backdrops and curtains and the predominance of musical sound through orchestration, singing and musical interludes.
Second, the masquerade motif was multivalent; it could be read in various ways depending on the dramatic text and the spectator's preconditioned interpretive apparatus. Many classical and folk tales from the subcontinent employ gender disguise as a narrative device to bring the hero into closer proximity with the heroine. The hero disguises as a female to get past a guard, enter a garden, or penetrate a bedchamber, whereupon he reverts to his masculine role and seduces the heroine. Transvestism in these cases only thinly cloaks a somewhat aggressive male heterosexuality and the transvestite, rather than being read as a woman or as identifying emotionally with her, is actually understood as very much a man and potentially a threat to the woman's honour and that of her male kin. That such ruses were still employed in everyday life is suggested from reports that during "family shows' in the Parsi theatre, when no unaccompanied men or women were allowed, rasiks, i.e. men in women's clothing, would be caught attempting to gain entrance." This ribald, comic mode of crossdressing is found in various folk theatre forms and may have featured in the farcical skits that were presented after the main drama in an evening of Parsi theatre. For some spectators, it was like the primary position from which female impersonation was viewed.
In contrast, the kinds of roles mentioned in connection with Sundari and Bal Gandharva suggest a high mimetic mode of female impersonation, particularly in conjunction with scenes of pathos and tragedy as found in the epics and domestic melodramas. The many

Page 29
38 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
references to an acting method based on identification with feminine sensibility suggest that, in these roles, actors tried to disguise their male gender characteristics entirely. Photographs of our male heroines with heads bent in submission, or eyes gazing up to the hero, or body turned away coquettishly, show the match between these actors' poses and iconic postures of the female. The internalisation of these gestures by the female spectatorship marked a new direction in theatre art, for instead of fearing the transvestite, the viewer was instructed to model herself on him. Particularly through the figure of the tragic woman, the wronged wife, the victim, the abala nari, the female impersonator was rendered non-threatening, a stimulant of tears rather than titillation. This spectatorial position made possible the notion that the female impersonator was said to surpass any woman in his representation of the beauty of womanly suffering. W
Not in opposition to these kinds of reading, but more difficult to trace in the historical record, I would suggest an underlying homoerotic valence that linked the gazes of hero and male heroine on stage and heroine and male spectator in the theatre hall. Hints of this emerge in comments such as that of actor Londhe, who playing opposite Bal Gandharva, felt a "unique thrill' pass through his veins when he stood close by, or references to the "lusty applause' of the college boys when Bal Gandharva as Shakuntala entered the stage surrounded by her 'companions'." The physical attraction generated by the cross-dressed performer through the gaze and the voice could travel into various types of roles and dramatic situations, intersecting with other kinds of responses. My understanding is that the male-to-male dynamic was a major factor in the passionate idolisation of impersonators like Bal Gandharva, whether it was acknowledged Or not.
My third observation is that the kinds of pleasure produced by these spectatorial positions-the pleasure of witnessing a gender 'stunt', or of weeping while feeling a homoerotic "buzz'-may well have surpassed the pleasure of seeing a real woman on the stage, a sensation that could have been quite discomfiting, at least initially. The sight of a woman in public was enveloped in such moral condemnation and the actress's low status was reinscribed in the theatrical discourse itself so continuously, that the spectator's response could not be expected to be one of authentic attraction or sympathy. For the viewer
W

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 39
thus incapacitated in his/her ability to read the actress as other than prostitute', the female impersonator offered a more palatable Surrogate. Naturally, his acceptability was exploited by company managers and advertisers and the fixation on clothing, jewellery, and other fetishes of feminine appearance cannot be accounted for without reference to the burgeoning consumer economy and the creation of new markets in an industrialising society. For actresses who managed to gain access to the theatre, conformity to the new norms of glamour could at least partially offset the stigma of being 'essentially female'.
Fourthly, through the institution of female impersonation, a publicly visible, respectable image of 'woman' was constructed, one that was of use to both men and women. This was a representation that, even attached to the material male body, bespoke modernity. As one response to the British colonial discourse on Indian womanhood-the representation helped support men, dovetailing with the emerging counter-discourse of Indian masculinity. Moreover, women derived from these enactments an image of how they should represent themselves in public. Female impersonators, by bringing into the public sphere the mannerisms, speech and distinctive appearance of middleclass women, defined the external equivalents of the new gendered code of conduct for women. That such tastes were crafted by men (albeit men allegedly imitating women) gave them the imprimatur of acceptability. I would argue that it was the possession of the external markers of feminity-the armour of correct sari style, hairdo, and jewellery, together with appropriate gestures-rather than (or at least in addition to) some internalised essence as suggested by Partha Chatterjee, that made it easier for women to begin to move in public. Without a visual template that enabled recognition of their “spiritual” essence, Indian women could not actually become visible.
Yet women were kept at a distance from this process of gender formation, in several senses. In so far as female impersonators usurped the position of actresses within the entertainment world, they not only denied women opportunities for employment but intensified the misogynist discourse that held that women had to remain off stage and out of the public eye. Furthermore, by asserting that female impersonators could "do gender' better than women, the theatre system and its public served to perpetuate longstanding male control over the

Page 30
40 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
female body and its representation.' The satirical overtones of some impersonated female roles as well as the use made of the homoerotic address-both factors whose precise reception remains to be determined--would have further strengthened the marginalisation of women as spectators and undermined their centrality as represented subjects (characters). In this way, female impersonators and the commercial theatre system behind them served to "re-form' women, much as male novelists, journalists and social activists attempted to do throughout the same period.
V
Returning now to those women who did make space for themselves in the theatre, with the arrival of Mary Fenton (aka Meharbai), actresses gained a certain degree of access to the Parsi companies. Around 1880 Baliwala brought women into the Victoria Company, beginning with Miss Gohar, who was followed by Miss Malka, Miss Fatima, Miss Khatun and others. Lurid tales accompany some of these names: Miss Fatima once entered Baliwala's room while he was sleeping and the sight of her when he suddenly woke up caused him to have an attack of paralysis. Miss Khatun's nose had been cut off by a lover. Miss Gulnar ran a pan shop in Rangoon.' Whether these stories have any truth value, they confirm that the actress continued to signify prostitute' and was remembered for her offstage behaviour (imagined or real) rather than her abilities as a performer.
The 'foreign' or Anglo-Indian actress, however, managed to avoid much of this savaging. Perhaps it was assumed that she was a loose woman, like all of her tribe and was incapable of reform. More likely, the stereotype of Anglo-Indian women as sexually available followed rather than preceded their entrance into the entertainment industry. These 'white' actresses represented the epitome of perfection for a heroine. Not only were they appropriated to pre-existing conventions of the beloved as a pale fairy or a houri from paradise (see previous anecdote re Mary Fenton), they allowed for a powerful transformation of the colonial gender hierarchy. Through the exercise of the gaze, the male Indian spectator could possess the "English' beauty and in so doing enact a reversal of the power relations that prevailed in Britishdominated colonial society. These relations, while grounded in

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 41
economic and political control, were figured as a gendered domination of the 'masculine' West over the 'feminine' East. Moreover, the AngloIndian actress could be read within an existing complex of literary understandings of the ideal feminine. Here was a beloved, an idol or but, who truly could be 'worshipped'. To prostrate before such an immortal', that is, to become a fan, invoked the familiar vocabulary of sexual mastery under the guise of masochistic self-surrender, a legacy of the Indo-Muslim ghazal tradition. Perhaps what appealed the most was the conjunction of the two: the fantasy of duping the master by turning the Anglo-Indian half-caste, the dishonorable offspring of a humiliating act of sexual domination, into an image of purity and then proving one's masculinity by possessing her.
A given actress could racially be Irish, British, Anglo-Indian-(i.e. Eurasian, of mixed parentage), or Jewish (generally Baghdadi); the distinctions were often lost on the audience or muddled. Mary Fenton was said to be 'Irish' or 'Anglo-Indian'. Patience Cooper is most often listed as "Anglo-Indian' but she is also called 'Jewish'. Gauhar is occasionally described as Jewish as well. Later, confusion was consciously manipulated by film actresses who masqueraded under Hindu names, e.g. Sulochana (Ruby Myers), Sita Devi (Renee Smith), Indira Devi (Effie Hippolet), Manorama (Winnie Stewart). The primary constructed identity, in each case, was as "white' or 'foreign'. In a secondary formation, whereby an Indian name was substituted for the foreign name, the 'white' actress was denominated within the indigenous system. The shift from Parsi or Gujarati aliases in the 19th century ("Meharbai') to Sanskritised aliases in the 1920s ('Sulochana') says a great deal about the ways in which nationalism and gender formation were increasingly being brought into alignment. In this period, moreover, Anglo-Indians were classed together with the British in many contexts. When the Indian Cinematograph Committee was constituted in the 1920s to investigate the progress of Indian cinema, it included 114 Europeans, Anglo-Indians, and Americans' and 239 Indians'. Spectator bias probably gave the benefit of the doubt to the actress who was trying to pass as anything Other, because this made her more desirable and alluring.
Meanwhile, the woman of one's own community remained safely at home, or at least by the side of her male chaperone, protected from

Page 31
42 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
the public gaze. It is important to remember that, as a rule, Parsi women did not appear on the Parsi stageloo Hindu actresses in the Parsi theatre were also next to non-existent. What he audience wanted from the Anglo-Indian actress, nonetheless, was a convincing portrayal of the Hindu or Parsi middle-class housewife. Mary Fenton’s ability to imitate the signs of the respectable married woman-the use of the sari anchal over the head, the jewellery, the particular cut of the bodiceearned her the highest esteem from the public. One more, the spectator's pleasure lay in the seemingly effortless impersonation of domestic feminity.
The advertising employed by Parsi theatre companies evertly appealed to audience desire to gaze upon 'whiteness'. Handbills for Pandit Narayan Prasad Betab's plays in the 1920s advertise gori-gori misen, 'white misses who will present enchanting songs and dances.' Another poster boasts, "Houris from Iran-Fairies from BombayMagician ladies from Calcutta ... will take part'. Just as the Parsi companies had used the names of the British monarchy to exploit the appeal of the foreign and exotic, they used the foreign-sounding actresses' names to lure the public. One interpretation is that these ads were intended to fool the public into thinking that the Parsi companies were actually composed of English actors and that the spectators would get to see English memsahebs dancing, preferably men and women dancing together. The memsaheb fantasy was not only fed by the Anglo-Indian actress, it was perpetuated by playwrights who were required to craft particular kinds of narratives. As Betab noted in his autobiography, "If the dramas of that time didn't have a gori bibi and a kale miyan, they were not plays at all.' In this way the slippage between the fantasised English memsaheb, the material Anglo-Indian actress and the fictional Indian heroine enabled a fluidity of spectatorial positions. She could be Other, as well as one's own, affording the pleasures of both attraction and control.
The photographed image of the actress's face became a critical marketing vehicle and acquired a mobile life of its own. Billboards would be taken around the city advertising a drama and its actors and when actresses began appearing on stage, their names and pictures were featured on these boards. Actresses' faces began to adorn the covers of the song books and libretti that were sold at the performance site and

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 43
followed during the performance. Match boxes and postcards featuring famous actresses circulated, although apparently they were printed abroad. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the voices of singing actors and actresses were first recorded on wax discs and these too began to move independently of the staged performances. Among the female theatre artists, Gauhar Jan and Binodini Dasi of Calcutta were heavily recorded in the first five years of the industry (19021907).59 Both, the circulation of images and recorded voices, were to increase exponentially as the film industry and its star culture subsequently developed.
The quest for fair-skinned representatives of the female form carried over into the first two decades of India's cinema history. In 1912, when Dadasaheb Phalke began making silent films on mythological themes, he searched for actors and actresses through a newspaper ad that read, “Handsome Faces Wanted for Films'. Although he received replies from prospective artists from the red light district, his search for women to play the female roles turned up only 'dark, ugly and emaciated persons'." Consequently, he engaged Anna Salunke, a female impersonator, to play Taramati in Raja Harishchandra. In the famous fountain scene in the film, the king cavorts with a whole bevy of cross-dressed men in wet saris. Salunke later played both Sita and Rama in Lanka Dahan (1917), Phalke's greatest success, making him simultaneously the most popular film actor and actress in India.' Other examples of the use of men to play women's roles in films are K.P. Bhave as the heroine in Shakuntala Janma (1918) and Master Vithal as a dancing girl in Kalyan Khajina (1924). In South India also it was common for men to play female roles. The screen was poorly paid and performing before the camera was considered not only more degrading than stage acting but potentially injurious to one's health.' -
By the 1920s, female impersonation on the screen had virtually ended, having been considered anachronistic even in Phalke's time by such leading figures as Baburao Painteroo Principally Anglo-Indian women were recruited and employed throughout the silent film era. Several of these, such as Patience Cooper (b. 1905) and Sita Devi (nee Renee Smith, b. 1912), had come from the theatre world. Cooper started as a dancer in Bandmann's Musical Comedy and later was

Page 32
44 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
employed by the Madan's Corinthian Theatre. She also played in the Parsi Elphinstone Theatrical Company. Some of her chief roles were as a comic actress in Bharatiya Balak, as the supporting actress in Dil ki Pyas and as Uttara in Vir Abhimanyu.°" In the film world, Agha Hashra Kashmiri, a major Urdu dramatist for the Parsi theatre, adapted several of his plays especially for her, e.g. Turki Hoor and Hoor-e-Arab.°* Sita Devi had been a star at the Madan Theatres' Elphinstone. Apparently she had a sister, Percy Smith who, V.K. Dharamsey suggests, also appeared under the name Sita Devi in the films she/they made with Himanshu Rai.' Other actresses, such as Sulochana (nee Ruby Myers, 1907-1983), came from the "modern' class of young working women. Sulochana had been a telephone operator, a theme used as an autobiographical reference in the 1926 film The Telephone Girl. She made her debut in silent films as a stunt actress and was billed as "queen of romance or the jungle queen'. In the mid-30s she started her own Rubi Pics production Company, although she continued acting until the 70s."
Because these films had no sound track, actresses were not required to be fluent in any Indian language. The experience in the cinema hall was hardly a silent one however. Along with the loud whirring of the projector, orchestras provided almost continual accompaniment, either of a Western variety in the big cities (piano and violin) or the deshi version of harmonium and tabla. Narrators read out the titles for the benefit of non-literates or translated them into the local language if it was not represented by titles. Sometimes a narrator improvised upon the script or enacted it in dialogue with a partner.' Actual theatre pieces, such as comic skits, could also be interpolated between reels. How the voice of the actress (particularly the AngloIndian actress) was represented in such a setup, particularly by a male narrator, is a logical question proceeding from this research. As far as is known, the Anglo-Indian actress in this medium could claim no specific "voice'. Any voice attributed to her was disembodied, emanating from elsewhere; her representation operated almost solely in the realm of the gaze.'
The absence of sound in these early films has been held to be the source of their detachment from specific national and regional referents, assimilating them to a global visual culture. Within this, the

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 45
Anglo-Indian actress has been interpreted as an outright imitation of the Hollywood icon. The imitative strategy could have been adopted by film makers to counter the popularity of American films which far outnumbered British, European, and Indian productions in the early days of Indian cinema. No doubt Indian cinema acquired more national characteristics once it entered the sound era, not only in the area of language use but in the representation of gender as well. The postures and dress characteristics of silent screen actresses certainly show the influence of Western fashions and a new assertive stance for women. But considerations of the larger performative environment in which screen images were consumed, as well as the inflections created by narrative structure and genre, prompt me to interpret the reading of these Anglo-Indian actresses on a continuum with the spectatorial practices of the Parsi theatre. Since only thirteen of the over one thousand silent films made in India have survived, and since there is no moving image record of the Parsi theatre as such, my argument remains beyond definitive proof. All I will attempt to do, in this final section, is look at a few key roles that brought these Anglo-Indian actresses to fame.
The first part of Patience Cooper's film career, the decade of the 20s, is dominated by mythologicals. She appeared in such classics as Nala Damayanti, Dhruva Charitra, Raja Bhoj, Bhagirathi Ganga, Ramayan and others. Her first important role within the 'social' genre vas Pati Bhakti (1922), vhose English title, curiously, vas Human Emotions.' This Madan hit was adapted from a very popular play by Agha Hashra Kashmiri and it may be that Patience Cooper had already performed the role on stage. The film had Cooper as Leelavati, a dutiful wife advocating devotion to the husband.' Signora Minelli, an Italian actress, played the Other woman in 'semi-transparent costumes', while Patience Cooper portrayed, according to J.B.H. Wadia, "the adarsh abla, ideal Hindu wife, who worshipped the very ground on which her wayward husband trod'. The film was a rage at the box office everywhere in India.' A highlight in Cooper's career, Pati Bhakti became a significant prototype of the 'social genre.
It was followed in 1927 by Gun Sundari, or Why Husbands Go Astray, directed by Chandulal Shah. This film featured Gohar ("Glorious Gohar', 1910-1985, a different individual from the Gohar of

Page 33
46 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Calcutta's Parsi theatre), one of the most popular actresses of the silent film. Again the story focused on the dilemmas of a dutiful wife. To win her husband away from his dancing girl mistress, the heroine begins to act "modern'. Going out at night alone and transforming herself into the all-round companion, she wins him back." Both Pati Bhakti and Gun Sundari were remade in sound versions, the former in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, the latter in Hindi, Gujarati/Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. The 1934 Gun Sundari, again with Gohar in the lead, was a more traditional and more complicated, version of the original plot."
If these films indicate a successful negotiation between earlier definitions of wifely devotion and the new roles for women emerging in the cities, other socials work to construct images of tradition' and "modernity' that appear unreconcilable, putting the actress in the position of oscillating between the two. Gamdeni Gori/Village Girl had been a successful Parsi theatre play for decades before it was filmed by Mohan Bhavnani in 1927. Sulochana, the most popular of the silent film actresses, played the role of Sundari, an innocent village belle of light skin color cast adrift in the big, bad city. While lustful men try to lure her into prostitution, she meets the hero, a film actor. Features of the urban landscape such as electric trains, cars, buses, a race course, theatres and cinemas were featured in the mise-en-scene and generated a special allure." -
One year earlier, Sulochana starred in two parallel films, The Telephone Girl (Telephone ni Taruni) and Typist Girl or Why I Became a Christian. As her most famous silent film, Telephone Girl played upon public fascination with Sulochana's real-life occupation as a telephone operator and it pioneered the use of authentic locations, being shot in the Grant Road telephone exchange in Bombay. The village gori and the telephone/typist girl suggest two halves of the bifurcated female, one presumably closer to Sulochana's constructed screen identity as a modern, sophisticated young woman, the other displaying the ability of the Anglo-Indian outsider to masquerade as an innocent village maiden. Her most virtuosic performance, however, was in Wildcat of Bombay (1927), remade as the sound film Bambai ki Billi in 1936. In this film, Sulochana performed eight roles, including a gardener, a policeman, A Hyderabadi gentleman, a street urchin, a banana seller, and a European blonde. (The gender of these roles is not

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 47
specified, but presumably many of them involved cross-dressing). Her main role is as a mysterious criminal nicknamed the Wildcat, who in the end is revealed as the daughter of a judge who had been kidnapped longago.o
In the silent films then, the 'white' female image not only affords the pleasures of colonial inversion through sexual domination but adds the pleasures of consumption of the 'modern'. The Anglo-Indian actress's outsider status permits her a relatively greater degree of freedom of dress and action and several films openly flaunt the possibilities, even showing the later-banned kiss. At the same time, these films demonstrate the continuing desire of the public to dress up the Anglo-Indian as a good Hindu girl, whether as a mythological heroine, rural damsel, or dutiful city wife. A doubled racial passing animates these images. The Anglo-Indian actress first masquerades as 'white' and then assumes her domesticated role within the Indian narrative frame. All of this manipulation is performed while she remains mute. The equivalent of the "dumb blonde', the silent gori continues the displacement of agency from the represented figure of the woman and in this way forms the counterpart and logical successor to the female impersonator.
To sum up, this paper has focused on a period of transition when the public image of Indian womanhood was being crafted not only through literary representations and social experiments but in the highly accessible, widely circulated commercial media of the Parsi stage and silent cinema. Within these, the use of female impersonators and Anglo-Indian actresses to represent women was widespread. Although taboos on acting, particularly women acting, are frequently cited to explain the social necessity of these practices, I believe that deeper issues of representation are involved. The high incidence of gender and racial masquerade points to a crisis in the understanding of these categories, a confusion focused on the boundary between male and female and between "white' and Indian'. Indian women were most often represented by Indian males passing as females, particularly on the Parsi stage, or as white females passing as Indian, in the silent films. Both images afforded greater spectatorial pleasures that those accommodated within the conjunction of female and Indian. Both perpetuated the patriarchal control of not only the material female body

Page 34
48 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
but its visual manifestations. Nonetheless, these practices made women, finally and on a mass level, publicly visible, no longer objects of imagined desire but represented in the flesh (even if not female or Indian flesh), with a cluster of visual signs, habits, and gestures to denote feminity. As a passing phase, so to speak, this period was later forgotten with the emergence of the full-blown bharatiya nari. But in all its ambiguities and blurred boundaries, it remains worthy of further study and interrogation.
List of Works Cited Agraval, Pratibha, 1986. Mastar Fida Husain: Parsi Thiyetar men Pachas
Varsh. Calcutta: Natya Shodh Sansthan. Barnouw, Eric and S. Krishnaswamy. 1980. Indian Film. 2nd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press. Chakravarty, Sumita S. 1993. National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema
(1947-1987). Austin: University of Texas Press. Chatterjee, Partha, 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and
Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Garber, Marjorie B. 1992. Vested Interests: Cross-dressing and Cultural
Anxiety. New York: Routledge. Gupta, Somnath, 1981. Parsi Thiyetar: Udbhav aur Vikas. Hlahabad: Lokbharti Prakashan. Jaffrey, Zia. 1996. The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India, New York: Pantheon. Kak, Siddarth, ed. 1980. "Pioneers of Indian Cinema: The Silent Era', Cinema
Vision India, special issue, Vol. 1, no. 1. Kinnear, Michael S. 1994. The Gramophone Company's First Indian
Recordings, 1899-1908. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Kumar, Radha, 1993. The History of Doing. London: Verso. Lal, Lakshmi Narayan,. 1973. Parsi-Hindi Rangmanch. Delhi: Rajpal and
Sons. m Luhrmann, T.M. 1996. The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a
Postcolonial Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Marmon, Shaun. 1995. Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society.
New York: Oxford University Press. Mehta, Kumud A. 1968. "Bombay's Theatre World-1860-1880”, Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bombay, Vol. 43-44 (New Series), 251-278. Nadkarni, Dnyaneshwar. 1988. Balgandharva and the Marathi Theatre.
Bombay: Roopak Books. Nadkarni, Mohan. 1988. Bal Gandharva: The Nonpareil Thespian. New Delhi,
National Book Trust.

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 49
Namra, Vidyavati Lakhmanrav. 1972. Hindi Rangmanch aur Pandit
Narayanprasad “Betab”. Varanasi: Vishvavidyalaya Prakashan. Nanda, Serena. 1990. Neither Man nor Woman. The Hijras of India. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth. Panchotia, B.B. 1987. Jayashankar Sundari and Abhinaya Kala. Bombay:
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Pani, Jiwan. 1977. “The Female Impersonator in Traditional Indian Theatre",
Sangeet Natak No. 45 (July-Sept.), 37-42. Patel, Sujata and Alice Thorner, eds. 1995. Bombay: Mosaic of Modern
Culture. Bombay: Oxford University Press. Rajadhyaksha, Ashish and Paul Willemen. 1994. Encyclopaedia of Indian
Cinema. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ramachandran, T.M., ed. 1985. Seventy Years of Indian Cinema (1913-1983).
Bombay: Cinema India-International. Singh, Ranvir, ed. 1990. Parsi Thiyetar. Jodhpur: Rajasthan Sangit Natak
Akadami.
Notes 1 Presented in an earlier version at the workshop "Re-Presenting Women: Women in the Literary, Performing and Visual Arts of India', University of California, Berkeley, on April 26, 1997. The essay is part of a larger study of the history of the Parsi theatre and its modes of representation. 2 Among the traditional and folk theatre forms that employ female impersonation, Pani (1977) lists Krishnatam, Kathakali, Ras Lila, Ram Lila, Ankia Nat, Yakshagana, Therukuttu, Vithi Natakam, Svang, Nautanki, Khayal, Bhavai, Bhand Jashan, Jatra and Chhau. Many of these are primarily devoted to dramatising the epic and Puranic story corpus. 3 Luhramann (1996) uses the theory of colonial discourse to account for the shift in the Bombay Parsi community’s self-image from hypermasculinity in the late 19th century to effeminacy in the late 20th. 4 Garber 1992: 16-17. 5 Carla Petievich points out that this evasion is analogous to the silence regarding gender representation in the Urdu ghazal, based on the argument that the Persian language lacked gender distinctions. Private communication. 6 The 19th-century literary and theatrical worlds centered in Bombay are described in essays by Naik, Mallison, Shukla, Gokhale and Gangar in Bombay. Mosaic of Modern Culture, edited by Patel and Thorner (1995). 7 The cosmopolitan theatrical practice of female impersonation also must be distinguished from the ritualised performances of the cross-dressed hijaras, a community formed primarily of transvestites and transsexuals

Page 35
50
WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
10
2
13
14 15
16
17
18 19
2O
21
22 23
(often termed "eunuchs'). While this group is rather well-known to Western students of drag and queer theory, the scholarship on hijaras lacks historical and methodological sophistication. I suspect that hijara performance has an organic relationship with certain regional "folk' dramatic and dance forms, and therefore is important to the discussion of female impersonation in those contexts. Regarding a relationship between Parsi theatre and hijaras, my intuition is that the stretch is much greater, but I am by no means ready to draw conclusions. I wonder if audience perceptions engaged the same vocabulary used in reference to hijaras. Were female impersonators ever spoken of as hijaras, or compared to them, or abused by association with them? Regrettably, a fuller treatment of these issues is beyond the scope of the present paper. See Jaffrey (1996), Nanda (1990), and Marmon (1995). It would be useful to investigate the all-male college environment of Victorian India to determine whether it developed any of the same rituals that infused British public schools with homoeroticism. Gupta 1981: 133-137; Namra 1972: 93-95; Mehta 1968: 262-64. Gupta 1981: 122, 147-48, 174-75. This practice continued well into the twentieth century. The actor Fida Husain, who started his apprenticeship in the New Alfred Company around 1918, became famous first for his female roles (Namra 1972: 83; Agraval 1986).
Namra 1972:.. 52, Gupta 1981: 108.
Namra 1972: 55.
Gupta 1981: 201.
Gupta 1981: 109-1 10.
Or Gopichand. Gupta: 111, 166.
Gupta 1981: 140.
Namra 1972: 72; Gupta 1981: 109, 210.
Gupta 1981: 1 18-19.
Gupta 1981: 120-121; Namra 1972:99.
Gupta 1981: 146-47.
Gupta 1981: 124-25; Namra 1972: 110-11. While the right to wear shoes and carry an umbrella appears today an insignificant step in the history of women's advancement, it was a highly charged issue at the time. These accoutrements were required only for women who intended to step out of doors; thus their acquisition symbolised that fraught process of moving beyond the threshold of the home into public, heretofore "male', space. When Kashibai Kanitkar, Maharashtra's first female novelist, and Anandibai Joshi, its first woman doctor, ventured out wearing shoes and carrying umbrellas, they were

MAKING WoMEN VISIBLE 51
24
25
26 27
28 29
30
31
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
41
42 43
45
46
47
48
49
50 51
52
53
stoned in the streets for "daring to usurp such symbols of male authority'. (Kumar 1993:32). Namra 1972: 72, 96-97, Gupta 1981: 34-40, 129-132, 210. Gupta 1981: 213-14. Namra 1972: 106-109; Gupta 1981: 125-128. Jahangir Khambata's autobiogrpahical Mahro Nataki Anubhav in Gujarati may constitute an exception. A copy of the 1914 work has recently been located in the University of Bombay library.
Panchotia 1987: 2-23.
Panchotia 1987: 42.
Panchotia 1987: 45-46.
Panchotia 1987: 48.
Panchotia 1987: 131.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 41.
M. Nadkarni 1998: 23.
M. Nadkarni 1988: 34.
D. Nadkårni 1988: 59.
M. Nadkarni 1988: 67-68.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 36, 49, 57.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 34.
D. Nadkarmi 1988: 1 l 8.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 95.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 105.
Kak 1980: 25.
M. Nadkarni 1988: 56.
M. Nadkarni 1988: 64-65.
Namra 1972: 48.
D. Nadkarni 1988: 106; M. Nadkarni 1988: 17.
Chatterjee 1993: 130. A similar process was at work as the "classical' dance traditions of the subcontinent were constructed in the early twentieth century, largely by male practitioners (gurus) who defined canons of feminine costume, gesture and repertoire and then taught these reconstituted "traditions' to respectable middle-class women.
Gupta 1981: 210-212. Ruby Myers (or Meyers) was also Jewish. See Ramachandran 1985: 27: 'Sulochana, a Jewess by birth, named Ruby Meyers'. Barnouw 1980: 45. Only one exception is recorded in which a Parsi woman performed at the suggestion of Khamvada Navsherji, a female impersonator, who had left the Victoria Company under Baliwala to form his own troupe. The appearance of the Parsi actress caused an uproar in the Parsi community

Page 36
52
WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
73
74 75 76 77 78 79
and she left the company eventually. (Gupta 1981: 170) Saraswati Devi (Khurshid Manchershah Minocher-Homji, 1912-1980). A female Parsi music director also had to face fierce opposition from her community for her association with films. -
Singh 1990: 61.
Lal 1973: 35.
Lal 1973:55.
Gupta 1981: 214.
Kak 1980: 1.8.79.
See Kinnear 1994.
Kak 1980: 18.
Chakravarty 1993: 39.
Banou w 1980: 14.
Kak 1980: 30.
Kak 1980: 63.
Kak 1980: 39-40.
Rajadhyaksha 1994:77.
Lal 1973: 135.
Rajadhyaksha 1994:77.
Rajadhyaksha 1994:84.
Rajadhyaksha 1994: 207.
Kak 1980: 1 17-l 18. The assumption that Anglo-Indian actresses had to drop out of cinema after 1931 because of their deficiencies in Indian languages is not corroborated by the filmographic record. In the case of Patience Cooper, already a popular theatre artist, language was obviously not a problem; between 1931 and 1944, she made 27 sound films. Sulochana continued making films through 1978; of the 35 films after 1931, many were remakes of her silent hits. Ermeline, another popular silent Anglo-Indian star, continued making films into the 30s, although Sita Devi's last film was in 1932. Some lesser known actresses, like Miss Jones, Indira Devi and Thelma Wallace, do apparently disappear once talkies take over, but for unknown reasons. Another version of the English title was Human Evolution. (Ramachandran 1985: 25).
Rajadhyaksha 1994: 226.
Kak 1980: 94.
Barnouw 1980: 34.
Rajadhyaksha 1994: 241.
Rajadhyaksha 1994: 231-232.
Rajadhyaksha 1994: 232.

Chapter 3
BODES CALLED WOMEN
Some Thoughts On Gender, Ethnicity and Nation
C. S. Lakshmi
famous team of Tamil artists (N.S.Krishnan and T.A.Madhuram)
went as a part of a cultural delegation to Moscow in 1951. An item they presented was a popular song from a Tamil film. The song is about the attributes of a good woman. It went thus:
A good woman, a very good woman is she who maintains the culture of the mother-country.
It went on to elaborate other details.
At the crack of dawn when the cock crows, (She) must bathe and wash her saree clean; Must go to school every day She who has good habits and also reads books - she is (a good woman, a very good woman) While helping mother
Must learn to cook;
Must light the oven and sweep and clean "bending the waist'; Must follow every day the wise counsel of father; One who combines
Timidity, bashfulness, implicit acceptance and
physical sensibility - She is (a good woman, a very good woman...)

Page 37
54 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
The song got into specifics in the next paragraph with a set of don'ts. "Never praise the parental home in the house you enter (as a daughter-in-law); don't fight with your husband unnecessarily; don't look down upon anyone; one who is not swayed by prosperity, she is - a good woman, a very good woman...', the song declared.
Additional attributes were knowing how to do the kolams at the entrance of the house and knowing how to sing folk-songs of wisdom. Whatever the odds, a woman must guard her honour. The dear one who looks after the husband's welfare every day, she is - a good woman, a very good woman, the song affirmed at the end. For at least a decade this particular song was popular in Tamil Nadu. Throughout my school years which lasted till 1960, little girls used to dance to this song at gatherings. The memory of putting on a benign expression to portray a "good woman' still lingers.
The song contains many notions. Coming four years after independence it puts many things in perspective. The order of the song also indicates an attempt to reorder women's lives. Education and nurturing the culture of the mother-country are given top priority. Then come the talents that are supposed to bè womanly. This stanza following the first one on education is very expressive. There was a general fear that the educated woman was becoming "unwomanly' and not doing enough domestic work which needed physical straining. That is why the advice to sweep and clean and "bend the waist'. The last two stanzas, in fact, indicate that the "national-culture' is to be preserved not in terms of political initiatives, but by being "proper' women. The advice on how to behave in the marital household clinches the entire issue. The nurturing of the "national culture' has to be done by building proper homes, a task considered essentially that of a woman.
That the song is a reflection of the times is to state the obvious. What the song also is, is a carrier of certain assumptions made over the years about women. The song is also an indicator that certain attributes change with the times. In the song itself are some altered ideas. For example, the song talks of girls going to school. Referring to education in school for a girl, although school education was quite widespread by this time, carries with it memories of the fight for female education which the social reformers and the nationalists had taken up. It is also an echo of Bharati, the great poet, who had sung about 'studies first

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 55
thing in the morning and then music to melt the heart' in his song for little girls. Education for women was also something that all the enlightened thinkers of the Tamil-speaking region fought for with a crusading spirit. What kind of education they wanted women to have is another matter altogether. −
The song also refers to the culture of the 'mother-country'. The culture of the "mother-country' as a concept to be examined separately had figured in women's lives only in the last few decades. Although culture-preservation was considered a woman's responsibility always, here it is linked with patriotism and becomes one of the qualities of a 'good' woman. It was not a "womanly' quality earlier. Among the talents of a woman, the song adds the talent to sing. Singing was not considered the talent of a 'good' woman a few decades ago. Only a particular community of women called devadasis sang and danced. The song includes the talent to sing as one of the attributes, but qualifies it by saying it is the talent to sing folk songs.
The song tries to stay close to some 'specifics". These 'specifics' apply to a woman whatever-her age. That is why the song can cover the period from girlhood to womanhood in one clean sweep as if it was all one age and one body that has not been touched by time or history. The song makes it clear that while certain functions keep getting altered according to the times, there is a tendency to look upon certain things as "basic" to functioning as a woman. This "basic' thing is referred to as 'womanliness', 'woman's nature', 'woman's instincts' etc. While what constitutes this can change in different periods, there is generally a feeling that when everything is peeled off, there is a certain core, an essence that a woman is born with. This essence is considered the "real' woman and it is said to contain "truths' about woman. This notion of a defined, unalterable, definite 'base' (a body) operates strongly in constructing women's lives and in women constructing themselves. In other words, tradition is not static, its contents keep changing and it contains within it elements that oppose it. Its boundaries keep getting erased and re-formed. But the "notion' of an unbroken tradition is constant and attempts are made to write this notion of tradition on the body of the woman to dictate its movement, needs, attire, aspirations and spheres of existence even while the body is moving along time, space and history. These attempts are born of a need to perceive women

Page 38
56 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
as those who authenticate a cultural or a national identity and as guarantors of the purity of this identity. Whether it is a struggle for nationhood or a cultural identity, how a woman generates life, how she dresses, how she lives, what she reads - what she does with her body - become the most crucial issues of debate.
That the nationalist project dichotomised the cultural domain into inside/outside; the home and the world; with woman representing the home and the home becoming the very identity of the nation, with the world becoming the space of external influences, politics and intrigue against which the home (the spiritual domain) is to be protected, is one way of looking at it. (Chatterjee 1994: p.119 ff.). But what is more interesting and immensely more complex which we can glean from narratives and writings of/on women, some of which we shall see here later, is that the two worlds, in every day life and dealings, constantly run into each other blurring the boundaries But the notion of separateness is constantly maintained. All the activities of women had to be rendered feminine for them to be accepted. The comments and description of the activities by others and by women themselves had to infuse an interior quality to everything women did. In other words, the justificatory efforts involved making the activities seem associated with selective images and memories of what was perceived as those belonging to the feminine with its axis being the home. And in this process, the outside world had often to become an extension of the home for women's justifiable entry into it and women's functioning in the outside world had somehow to be accommodated into a certain logic of what is termed feminine to make it seem like a continuation of her historical and cultural role. Such a notion of separateness also created a mental image of women 'coming out for a specific purpose and then 'going back' to where they really belonged.
Such image associations made entry into the politics of the outside world take place without really severing notional links with the home and qualities it denoted. It also made the outside world an extension of the familiar and familial space with power relations often based on familial terms of relationship with men leaders becoming fathers, elder brothers and younger brothers and women's participation in the politics of a movement or a struggle being patterned within these patriarchal terms of reference. While such familial terms of reference to leaders

BODIES CALLED WOMEN 57
apply also to the male participants of a movement or a struggle, in the case of the male members it serves the purpose of male-bonding of a certain kind whereas in the case of the female participants it makes their participation be set in terms of their being women. Such efforts don't seem to have ceased, for, even in recent times, an aggressive woman politician has to be seen as a Durga or some goddess or as Mother or Amma as Indira Gandhi was and Jayalalitha is.
The purpose of this paper is to observe and attempt to understand the complicated process of bargains, negotiations, benefits and punishments which form into a pattern of entry and withdrawal, protest and acceptance and complicity and resistance with regard to women's position in a specific culture and its politics and their participation in the national politics with particular reference to Tamil Nadu. The idea is not to see if women are "empowered' or not or if the "women's question' has been 'solved'. The method of determining what is 'empowerment' is not an easy one, if at all there is one. What empowers one can disempower another. And what empowers at a given point of history can disempower at a later period. Also, who determines what is empowering is not devoid of politics. As it has been rightly observed:
Frameworks are embodied in practical strategies, tacit beliefs, detailed stories... I may feel empowered or disempowered, heroic, a victim or stoical, depending on the framework. (Johnson in Davis 1994: p. 186)
Nor is there a simple 'solution'. What is necessary and is possible is to map the web of patterns that constantly form like complicated transport networks colliding and receding, running parallel and leading to dead-ends. Journeys can be undertaken only with the help of maps.
Tamil Culture, Tamil Identity And Tamil Women
What is Tamil culture is not something that can be defined. Any attempt at defining specific elements as constituting a culture can turn out to be a falsification. Of late some Tamil diasporas abroad have begun to wonder what exactly is being referred to when one is talking of preserving Tamil culture. Even the most simple and fundamental element like a saree which is considered a Tamil attire, can be put to

Page 39
58 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
doubt. Some research into attire has in fact, stated that what we now call the Tamil attire is actually of Greek origin. (Wales 1994: pp. 1234). To get even more specific, the Sungadi saree of Madurai has for a long time been an aspect of the Tamil wraving tradition. But it is actually the weavers from Saurashtra who settled in Madurai many years ago, who brought with them this weaving tradition. Recently a Tamil scholar who believed in promoting the use of pure Tamil words coined several Tamil words as alternatives to what was currently in usage. It turned out that the alternatives he had coined were not really pure Tamil words. (Ravi Subramaniam 1994: pp.6-9; G. Kannan 1994: pp.-9). So when we talk of Tamil culture we are actually talking of some elements like myths, symbols, proverbs, folk legends, epics, literature, language conventions and some specific images that continue to exist and dominate the Tamil cultural memory. When we talk of Tamil identity, however, we are actually talking about the politics of choice; of selectivity; the politics of picking and choosing and perceiving some elements of the culture in a certain way and transforming them into basic elements of an identity. Retention of certain elements in the cultural memory as also the politics of restricting the choice and perception of elements are both open to control and manipulation based on varying power-relations through history.
Women embody culture and participate in the politics of cultural identity through this selective process. They can be united by a language at one time or a region at another time; at a given point caste can be the major marking of their identity and even though speaking the same language, they can stand divided on this ground. The politics they choose to participate in can similarly keep them apart even if their ideas of what constitutes a woman and what needs to be done for women are similar. But we shall come to that later.
Some strong images have persisted in Tamil memory regarding women. The point here is not if these images have been operative at all times. The point is that the images still remain in the memory of a culture. Some dominant images exist to obscure and overshadow other images or other aspects of the same images that are not necessarily opposite, but which, if seen along with these images, would widen the angle, giving more depth and perspective to the images. When these

BoDIES CALLED WoMEN 59
images are put in perspective, other elements contained in the images that have for all purposes been ignored, get revealed. In this process one can read the pattern in which choices are exercised by a culture.
Three dominant images that have become part of Tamil language and literary conventions are that of Nallathangal of the 18th century folk-legend, Kannagi of the epic Silappadhikaram and the Purananuru mother who sends the son to the battle-field. The three images are not exclusive of one another. They merge into one another. Their qualities are similar. But each image is evoked for different purposes at different times. The Nallathangal story is one of the popular legends which has been handed aown by oral-tradition from 18th century onwards although it is available as a written text. It is performed in the traditional street-theatre in performances lasting all through the night. It has been performed on the stage also in the early theatre performances. Through this legend the well and the suffering woman have become associated symbols in the Tamil region. The humiliated woman seeking death by jumping into a well with her children is the most prominent image of the Nallathangal legend. The name of Nallathangal is a symbol of the suffering woman. "I have suffered like Nallathangal' is a common way of talking. Nallathangal is also a Pattini, a woman who gains moral strength by adhering to a strict code of conduct and who maintains the purity of her marital status. In the legend, she opens closed doors by swearing by the purity of her marital status. Nallathangal's misery is seen as a just punishment for her disobeying her husband and venturing out alone to go to her brother's place against her husband's wishes. In the legend she rises from the dead only to chide herself for her stupidity:
Husband, my husband, one who rules the world, Not listening to you made me gullible; Disobeying your words, I got cheated; My woman's wisdom has ruined meThe sky has fallen on my head...
In the legend her life begins so differently. The legend begins with the information that the king who had no children for a long time was blessed with a son and a daughter. Both the children are educated

Page 40
60 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
together. Both of them learn to master archery, horse and elephantriding and all other aspects of education. Where does this Nallathangal disappear in the course of the legend? She is afraid to walk alone in the jungles and she tells her brother that she has never come out of the house and so cannot recognise his house. What the legend is focusing on is the fact that the husband's household is the only one where a woman can live honourably. Whatever one's capabilities, the quality of a wife is to obey her husband. Otherwise disaster awaits. Not even her Pattini qualities can help. This transformation of a girl riding elephants and horses with a knowledge of archery and a good education into a Pattini jumping into a well finding death a solution, is not the way the legend has been seen generally. But what is remembered is the wailing Nallathangal who talks derogatorily about her 'woman's wisdom' and the well as her chosen symbol of death.
The great epic Silappadhikaram is said to contain the seeds of Tamil culture. Kannagi of the epic is also seeking justice for a grievance. Her husband gets beheaded for a theft he has not committed. It is royal injustice that Kannagi seeks to avenge. Kannagi is also a Pattini. Kannagi has become the symbol of not only the woman with righteous anger but also the Pattini symbol. The image of the righteous anger of a woman turning into fire to burn an entire city is an overwhelmingly powerful image. But it will be pertinent to raise a few questions. Where did Kannagi hide her anger all these days? When her wayward husband comes back every time only to take one more of her jewels to be presented to Madhavi, his mistress, Kannagi's capacity to burn things to cinders is not exercised. One would imagine she would seek justice from Kovalan for his behaviour towards her. Even those involved in efforts to claim a Tamil identity did not want to deal with this aspect of the epic. Writing an introduction to Karunanidhi's dramatised version of the epic, Annadurai says that the epic is so brilliantly written that even though it is not the right thing, the readers become like Kannagi, patient and with no rancour and accept Kovalan's relationship with Madhavi. (Annadurai : 1968 in Karunanidhi : 1994 p.3). But the patience and acceptance is only for this aspect of it. In his dramatised version Karunanidhi makes some changes. He changes some of the events which seem "unreasonable and unexplainable'. What are these events? One is Kovalan's relationship

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 6
with Madhavi. In his dramatised version, Karunanidhi introduces the character of an old Greek businessman who wants to be the highest bidder for Madhavi. Kovalan saves her from this fate because he does not want a 'Tamil woman to be in the clutches of a Greek man'. Although he saves her, Kovalan himself does not want to have any relationship with her. But Madhavi is in love with him and insists that she would be only his. Kannagi herself sends him to Madhavi's house to explain to her his position. But Kovalan gets involved with Madhavi overwhelmed by her love for him. In the epic, Kovalan takes the jewels of Kannnagi to give them to Madhavi. But in the dramatised version Madhavi's greedy family takes away his money without Madhavi's knowledge which she finally returns to his family. In many places in the dramatised version Madhavi and Kannagi defend each other and thereby Kovalan and his behaviour. It is as if Kovalan has been pushed into a situation not of his choice. The most important event of the epic is Kovalan taking a single anklet for sale. That is also explained here with an emotional scene which adds to Kovalan's character. Kovalan tells Kannagi that she should continue to wear a single anklet for its sound will remind him constantly of his treatment of her. The jeweller in the epic is the villain who steals the anklet. But Karunanidhi explains that this part of the epic has hurt those who belong to the jeweller-caste. So he changes this and makes one of the guards attached to the palace (one does not know which caste this guard belonged) to do the stealing. (Karunanidhi: 1994). Kannagi's patience and total lack of anger don't seem unreasonable enough to warrant any retelling because a Pattini is all-enduring by her very nature. More than anything else the good wife is one who knows how to wait - wait for love, wait to be needed, wait to be seen, wait to be recognised, wait to be accepted. The waiting woman has been the dominant image of songs, stories and anecdotes. It is this waiting woman who holds conversations with caged parrots at home talking of her love for her lord who figures in many songs. And in Tamil, the woman is, in many instances, referred to as the parrot - 'as beautiful as a parrot' is a commonly made statement about women. The waiting, patient, enduring woman who is the Pattini, is seen as someone holding in check a reserve energy which she can unleash against anyone other than her husband. What is the yardstick for measuring the level of Pattininess of various women and apportioning

Page 41
62 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
equivalent amount of reserve energy for purposes of unleashing is not clear and it has not particularly bothered many persons. It is not unusual even in present times to link even the most trivial of demands by women to this Pattini status. In a letter published in a popular journal, a woman wrote that men are allowed entry into the ladies' compartment in the local train after 7 P.M. and the kind of situations this leads to. She wrote that the compartment gets very crowded and often women have to stand while men sit. Some of the men when requested to vacate the seats would retort: Do you think you have a superior moral character? Are you a Pattini? When the women police (in their pant uniform) tried to intervene and take care of the situation during one such time one of the men told them: Go first wear a saree. (Latha Ramakrishnan: 1995, p.50). And when particular women or a particular type of women or a particular community is subjected to criticism it is the character snf these women - their Pattini status or the purity of their bodies - that is put to doubt.”
The valorous mother of Purananuru, whose uterus is the "lair of tigers' and who sends her sons to the battlefield and who swears she would cut off her breasts that gave him suck if she finds him dead in the battlefield wounded in the back , is another dominant image. Whether these valorous mothers bore any daughters at all and if so whether they gave them breast is a moot question. Valorous mothers are associated only with sons and battlefields. These images stressing married life and motherhood as the only meaningful, virtuous one, apart from stressing home and nurturing, also perceived women only in relation to a man. Several elements contained in these images and the images themselves get invoked in many different circumstances and contexts. In living their lives, Tamil women have not, at every step, paused to weigh a thought or action in relation to the values contained in these images. The ideals these images contain which are considered "truths' of a culture are not operative all the time. But they are not entirely forgotten either. They are also not identifiable as binds or weapons always. Often they come guised as love, affection, warm advice, security, protection, political philosophy and religion, sometimes their nature hidden deliberately but often their nature not understood. Even when their nature is clearly perceived there are situational compulsions that make acceptance inevitable.

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 63
Here, it would be tempting to see women as 'victims' or as "Shaktis' with some unleashed power that is linked with certain specific functioning of theirs - reproduction and wifehood. In one it is assumed that power is exercised over them by some other persons or forces. In the other, it is presumed that a highly volatile power is contained and turned benevolent - like damming a wild river. But real life does not offer such easy possibilities. Women have been part of these formations which have been building themselves like some ancient troop formations changing constantly. It is difficult to see the women and the formations separately. Often you cannot tell them apart. It is not possible to draw a perfect line of demarcation around women and decide that after that line begin the formations. Reality and the formations are so closely linked that they come to be seen as the “nature' of women. Instead of a separate force controlling her from outside, elements of control become part of her everyday life turning into little rituals, activities and gestures. But women have entered these formations and broken them at times using whatever historical manipulations that are possible. Formations have also closed in and surrounded the penetrator at times. What cannot be denied is that these formations exist like unused atomic weapons constantly there during peace time. It is part of the reality of peace.
At various points in history, many persons, specially men, have chosen to tell a woman what it is to be a woman. These attempts have been done with kind notions of “uplifting women, telling them how to make their life worthwhile. Such advice became so much a part of writing that many early dramas, based on stories from the Puranas, contained several long speeches of advice to women. Often the advice was incongruous with the content of the drama itself-like telling a girl to go to school and study properly in a play on some Puranic characters! But the act of giving advice to women was so much in keeping with what was being written for them that no one associated it with any specific period or historical time. Small books, pamphlets and notices kept coming into the market explaining codes of behaviour for women, from the later decades of nineteenth century onwards. Some of the do's and don'ts are quite rigid and in terms of punishment extremely imaginative. From pundits to head constables, one subject on which everyone had something authoritative to say was women. The

Page 42
64 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
books begin to appear almost along with the increasing use of the print media and they come from small towns and small printing presses. The punishments some of them elaborated for an unchaste woman or a disobedient wife range from suffering from diseases like tuberculosis, leprosy and venereal diseases to being reborn as a dog or a pig. Some punishments get a little more elaborate like tongues being pulled and being held up by the breasts.' It makes one shudder to think that may be some man satiated after a good meal prepared by his wife, sat down and wrote out those punishments.
A very well known poet whose poems have been popular from late nineteenth century onwards is Vedanayakam Pillai. He was a Christian but his songs are non-denominational.' He wrote many songs on women's education, on qualities of women and on how to treat women well. Some of his similes and metaphors are very expressive and make it clear that certain specific values and qualities are attributed to women. One of his well-known songs which was very popular at one time is one where a woman tells her friend about relationship with husbands:
Whether he beats or whether he scolds Can there be a support other than him? Even if he kills can one lose control over what to speak? Can one live in a forest and be afraid of rain and thunder?
The most striking factor in all these pieces of advice is the violation of the woman's body - turning it into an animal's or inflicting violence upon it - and making it seem like a necessary part of a woman's life.
The Tamil woman is a combination of all these images. While who exactly is a Dravidian/Tamilian was open to several interpretations 11 there was no doubt about who a Tamil woman was. One person who vociferously tore this image apart was E.V.Ramasamy Naicker, or Periyar as he was known, who was the leader of the Self-Respect Movement. Like most social reformers of that period, Periyar also advocated widow-remarriage and education for women. In addition he also insisted that rationality should be the guiding principle of life. He de-ritualised marriages and rejected symbols of marriage for women.

BODES CALLED WoMEN 65
Many women who were in the Self-Respect Movement were convinced that religion that bound women and men who enslave women have to be tackled before social reform can be taken up. Many of them were good speakers. In a meeting where women's freedom was the major topic only one hundred women had come. There were, however, more than two thousand men. Pointing this out, one of the most powerful speakers of the Self-Respect Movement, Neelavathi, asked the male audience how much they thought they had progressed by enslaving women. She spoke again over a roar of protest. “What have you gained," she asked, "except our enslavement?” She added sarcastically that many Tamil poems speak of the beauty of women's feet but have forgotten to mention how to take care of these feet which are like flowers. She told the men to buy them slippers at least. She said that a woman must be able to use an umbrella. "They are protection against the rain,” she said. "If your women hold it, nothing will happen to their chastity,” she said bitingly. (Kudi Arasu 1932: p.9). Slippers and umbrellas were not considered important for women probably because they were not expected to go out much.
Despite Periyar's questioning of all traditional images of women and his questioning the very validity of motherhood in the literature inspired by the movement and in the day to day functioning of the movement, several elements found in these images got invoked.' These elements got woven into the language and functioning of the female and male participants of the movement not intentionally countering or suppressing the ideology of a struggle for self-respect but existing along with it and running parallel to it and continuing to occupy the thinking of the participants. Thus the women who took part in the anti-Hindi agitation figured in a calendar entitled Calendar Of Valorous Tamil Mothers Who Went to Jail Protesting Against Hindi (Vidudalai, 1939) and there were those who conceived women's education as something that must not make her give up her feminine qualities or make her give up household chores. (Kudi Nool 1938: p. 15). While activities of women in the movement are referred to along with a listing of their various political activities, there is invariably a reference to their motherly nature. (Iraiyan, 1981). And women who entered the movement and made their overwhelming presence felt almost fade out in the latter years getting into their own private

Page 43
66 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
activities. Tamaraikanni Ammal, a powerful speaker, formed a Mothers' Association in later years and was very active in it until her death. (1971: p.21). Ramamridhathammaiyar, a very active participant, withdrew into a self-imposed exile after 1949. An entire phase of the movement was dominated by Sa..Ra.Kannammal (Periyar's sister) but she does not assume major leadership roles later and a note written on her elaborates her achievements and contributions which are formidable but also mentions that she was a mother of rare qualities. (Iraiyan, 1981: p.174). In a book on those who contributed to the movement, out of 167 persons listed there are only seven women. (Iraiyan, 1981). It is not that these women cease to be supporters of the ideology of the movement but that after a phase of active physical participation they let the movement take its course. They enter the movement with Periyar being considered the father (thandhai) and Nagammal, his first wife, the mother (annai). Their activities fall within a patriarchal idiom and Maniammai, Periyar's second wife, stayed very much within this idiom. The commitment of her leadership was to continue Periyar's fight and propagate his ideas and when her contribution is referred to, apart from all the activities she took part in, again, her motherly love and her humility is stressed. (Iraiyan, 1981: р.7).
It is very important to understand the nature and method of women's participation in this movement, for, unlike other movements that aimed at amelioration, Periyar geared his movement to create a new woman. This new woman did not want any language, rituals or customs to bind her and yet this woman chooses to not entirely abandon certain recognised and accepted role-models which colour her participation in a certain way. When despite such strong commitment, other ideas of what women were, continued to exist and colour a movement, other movements which seek a Tamil identity with no such commitment to creating a new woman chose not to make women a matter of any controversial debate. If Periyar problematised the person of the Tamil woman by deriding all epic and other models, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a breakaway group from Periyar's movement and one with political ambitions of capturing power, wanted no critical stands on this or any other issues which may weaken its political claims to power. The stand on atheism got watered down to

BoDIES CALLED WoMEN 67
one god, one caste idea of theology. No controversial stands were to be taken with regard to the subject of women either. As I have argued elsewhere more elaborately, (Lakshmi: 1990; 1994) the leaders of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam wanted the woman back at home or back to values that emanated from a certain concept of the home and women's political participation has continued to justify itself on these terms. The Tamil woman now held herself and was held by her body, notionally bound by ideas of chastity, wifehood and motherhood. Deviations and rejections were absorbed and legitimised within the boundaries of what was generally believed to be Tamil culture.
Politics of The Nation
There were many women from the Tamil-speaking region who were actively involved in legislative reforms for women in the first half of the century. Some of them were also active participants in the struggle for freedom for the Indian nation. This group of women who were admirers of Gandhi and were involved in the struggle for legislative reforms and the women participants of the Self-Respect Movement don't seem to have maintained any links. One can point out several reasons for this. The women in the Self-Respect Movement were committed to Tamil as a language and considered themselves anti-caste, anti-god and anti-rituals. The main targets of their attack were the Hindi language and the brahmanical way of life which was bound by certain ideas of caste, rituals and symbols. The women activists who were fighting for legislative reforms and the participants in the freedom movement, on the other hand, were working within the wider concept of nation and did not have the same ideological commitments. They were also against caste-rigidities and as Gandhians they were committed to harijan upliftment , widow remarriage and legislative reforms for women and promoting swadeshi products specially khadar,but functioning within the wider arena of nation, they were not committed to Tamil language in the same way as the women in the Self-Respect Movement. Thinking in terms of the nation, they were not against Hindi either. Persons like Margaret Cousins and Dorothy Jinarajadasa who had made the cause of the Indian women, specially in Madras, their own cause, were not Tamilians in that sense of the term. Margaret Cousins was a strong supporter of the freedom

Page 44
68 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
movement and even went for the prabhat pheris where women went around various areas in the mornings singing nationalist songs. Then there were Maharashtrian family women like Kamala Bai Rao and her daughters Krishna Bai Rao and Indira Bai Rao who were actively involved in the freedom movement activities. They had made Madras their home a long time ago and Kamala Bai even wrote her short autobiography in Tamil. 'Women like Rukmini Lakshmipathy, the first woman in Madras to go to jail and a social reformer and freedom fighter, whose mother tongue was Telugu, was again functioning in the larger space of nation. Although they were not haters of Tamil or antiTamil, they could not have left the ground they were functioning in to participate in a struggle for a language. It is also possible that although at a humanitarian level they were committed to fight all forms of oppression caste and otherwise-an anti-god stand and atheism as an ideology may not have been very appealing to them.
Many of the participants and sympathisers of activities at the larger national level wrote literary Tamil and some of them even edited journals and were staunch Gandhians. The late writer Gugapriyai used to travel a lot giving talks on religion and Tamil literature. In fact, she said that love of nation, devotion to god and attachment to language were part of the contents of her writing. She narrated an incident of how she was invited to speak by an iconoclastic group who did not know her caste-identity. She said they were quite surprised to see a woman in a nine-yards saree get off the train! (Lakshmi 1984: pp. 6971). While the love for Tamil could have brought some of these women together to share their ideas and debate issues, what probably prevented this was the fact that some of these women were also living ritualised, caste-based lives with a strong belief in god and the caste system. As Gandhians they were committed to Harijan upliftment and bringing dignity to the harijan but that was a position meant for the public space outside the home' and the brahmins among them reacted strongly and unreasonably vehemently to the anti-god and anti-brahmin stand of the Self-Respect Movement.' From among those who fought for legislative reforms, Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi was the only one who maintained close links with the leaders of the Self-Respect Movement, with Periyar especially, during her fight for legislation to prevent dedication of minor girls to temples.From among those women who

BODIES CALLED WOMEN 69
were active supporters of the ideology of the Self-Respect Movement, Neelavathi Ammaiyar was the only one who went over to participate in the freedom movement. Thus although their basic concept of what constituted a woman was not very different, they were working in two different spheres of politics. The women who were advocating legislative reforms some of whom were also active participants in the fight for freedom, were functioning within the chastity-wifehoodmotherhood frame and their participation was also within what can be called a familial space with Gandhi assuming the role of the father. The causes they fought for were also termed causes that specially concerned them as women. We will see how this coloured the nature of their participation and shaped the methods they employed.
In 1917, E. S. Montague, the Chief Secretary of India, came to India to examine the claim for Home Rule. When he visited Madras, the newspapers reported a stream of deputations going to him. Not a single deputation represented the voice of women. Margaret Cousins, the Irish Suffragist, was in Madras very much identified with the women's movement which was demanding education and other facilities for women. Having been a lieutenant of Pankhurst in the Votes For Women Cause in England and Ireland, she felt that this psychological moment must be taken hold of by women to further their cause. She contacted twenty of India's best known women whom she had met through the Senate meetings of Professor Karve's Indian Women's University. She was able to organise the one and only women's deputation for Indian reforms. Fourteen women waited on the Viceroy and Mr. Montague in Madras city with Sarojini Naidu as their spokeswoman on 18th December 1917. Their memorandum requested better and increased facilities for education, improved health and maternity services and the same franchise rights as would be granted to men. This deputation has since been referred to as 'votes for women deputation'. Actually, when Margaret Cousins requested permission to meet Mr. Montague, the original draft of the memorandum mentioned only education and social reforms. But the Secretary wrote back saying that deputations would be received only on political subjects. So the claim for vote was added later on to make it possible to meet Mr.Montague. (Cousins 1941: pp. 32-4). Although the deputation was all-India in character, it is a good event to remember for it is very

Page 45
70 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
representative of how women in the Madras Presidency felt about political subjects.
The entire discussion for female education had centred on the “mother-woman' concentrating solely on her maternal body and self. Two qualities that were built around this maternal body were service and sacrifice. Activities that did not comprise these two qualities were considered unfeminine. Even the great poet Bharati, whose later poems on women's freedom were said to have heralded the truly modern woman who "walked erect with an unfaltering gaze" did not feel that women needed political rights. He wrote in 1906 that women who want to give their children education and manliness will not bother about politics. He also added that women in England and America who were fighting for political rights were unmarried women who could not get married because of ugliness and other reasons. (Viswanathan and Mani 1979: pp. 82-3). If women had any strong disagreement with this theory, it was not voiced. Even when they decided to move out of home and choose a career, women had opted for service-oriented education like teaching, medicine and nursing. Women who dared to choose a non-service oriented education like law ended up as failures. The first woman to pass the barrister exams in Madras Presidency, Sita. Devadoss, could never practice law for she had no clients. Another enthusiastic girl, Anandi Bai, who studied law in Madras Presidency, approached a famous Brahmin lawyer to be his junior. The lawyer categorically told her that he had never supported higher education for women and that having her as a junior would distract his male juniors. She did work under another male lawyer but her career never really took off.
Important male participants also did not envisage women's role in the national politics as anything other than sustaining the home front. S.Satyamurthy, the famous politician, wrote several letters to his daughter. Two letters given below clearly indicate how women were viewed:
Letter dated 24-5-1941
... For women in India, specially South India, marriage is a very important thing. You may think today that marriage will control your independence.

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 71
But believe me, if you go to see, you will find that in 99 out of 100 communities, there is freedom in marriage. It is not an easy job to earn food by the sweat of one's brow. Men must earn; women must mind the house. That is the honourable thing. I accept that women must have greater economic freedom... but this should not be taken to extremes....
...The pativrata dharma of the Hindus has an important quality. I know that you will act according to that....
Letter dated 18-7-1941
...The conditions for seriously entering public life and doing service are not conducive to the nature of women. Even if they are in public life women must not forget that they are women.... (Satyamurthi 1956).
For women to go into the world, the world had to become their home. The world had to be part of their household. Famous leaders used this language to make their foray into national politics seem an extension of what was considered the world of the feminine. See for example this appeal to women to boycott foreign cloth and support agriculture and weaving by C. Rajagopalachari:
Tamil women, famous for their chastity, beauty and work, along with children, husband and household, let the country also be one of your concerns...(Rajagopalachari 1925: p.7).
Nine years after the women's deputation, with the intervening years taken up by Women's Indian Association formed in 1917 in organising public meetings to support women's suffrage, when the All India Women's Conference was formed in 1926, it had written into its constitution that it "shall not engage in any party politics, but shal unite on such points as affect women and children.' (Cousins 1941: p.45). The Women's Indian Association through its journal StriDharma was already carrying several articles on child-marriage and women's suffrage and other related issues. And yet the All India Women's Conference thought it could tackle for the present only education and health issues. But it was inevitable that social

Page 46
72 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
reform issues like child marriage, divorce and inheritance could not be left untouched. With the launching of the non-violent, non cooperation movement, the political status of women became an important issue. And the Conference was forced to expand its previous clause to read:
The A.I.W.C shall not belong to any political organisation nor take an active part in politics but shall be free to discuss and contribute to all questions and matters that affect the welfare of the people of India. (Cousins 1941).
This act of redefinition one could say was illustrative of a reconsideration with regard to the concept of service. It had to now extend to include participation in the political process . This participation meant exercising and defining franchise (women opposed communal electorates, reserved seats for women, and wifehood qualification. They favoured literacy qualification but considered adult suffrage the only satisfactory solution) and entering legislatures as active legislators to bring many issues like the devadasi issue, maternity and child welfare and social hygiene and related issues which were termed "women's issues', to the forefront for consideration. But this was at that time still not considered a political act rather an act of public service for a larger family, the nation, as Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi put it. (Muthulakshmi, 1930: p., xi). What Stri-Dharma wrotein one of its issues was an echo of this. While commenting on women to be elected as women councillors, Stri-Dharma stated that women of India must take every possible advantage of this new opportunity of service that had opened before them. "An enormous amount of good", it said, "can be done by women in the councils, if they will rise to a realisation of their responsibility. The right has now been given to Indian women. So may they go forward and prove that they are anxious to serve their country in this most useful field of service.” (Stri-Dharma 1925: p.146) At this point the word politics still had connotations that were non-feminine.
This cautious gesture of separating women's issues from activities that were considered political was also reflected in the literary and

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 73
other activities women participated in. Vai Mu Kodainayaki Ammal was one those talented women who could write, edit a journal, sing and give impressive speeches. She took part in the national movement and went to jail in later years. And yet in the journal which she owned and edited, Jaganmohini, she wrote in 1926, that the journal was for general matters, jokes, stories and songs. "No mention of political matters will be made in this", she specifically stated. (Jaganmohini 1926: pp. 1-2). The other magazines for and by women also avoided political matters.
Though dealing with women's issues and politics were treated as two separate domains, women in the public sphere found themselves dealing with conflicting emotions. They did not want any dramatic breaking away from what they thought a woman ought to be and yet they were doing things that women had not done as a group for a long time. They were getting into the legislative councils, demanding certain reforms, expressing vociferously and taking part in the struggle for freedom for the nation. Within themselves, among themselves and around them they had to deal with emotions, values and gestures trying constantly to fit everything into a known and acceptable framework. They faced this situation in many ways. Kodainayaki Ammal, for example, resorted to explanations. She explained her entry. into the national movement in her journal. She said that service to the nation was service to god. "Some people wonder," she wrote, "how husbands allow their women to speak on the stage. There is nothing surprising in this. Those who look upon the home and the nation as one will not find anything unusual in this.... Work at home is personal. But work for the nation is public service. It is something virtuous.” (Jaganmohini 1931: p. 163) Rukmini Lakshmipathi, on the other hand, had to deal with a sense of guilt for abandoning her home to go to jail and the letters she wrote from the jail are full of . worried queries about her children, their exams, their health and constant instructions about dealing with home situations." The letters below of Rukmini Lakshmipathi reflect clearly the conflict in the situation:

Page 47
74 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Mannargudi 24-1-1930
My dear Dr,
Last night we left Vedaranyam for Malaimarudur about 16 miles from it, had a fairly crowded meeting. It appears as though it is months since I left you and the children. Pramila's examination must be nearing and do ask the teacher to coach. her up well. She is very bad at spelling and she is inclined to be lazy unless she is constantly reminded of her school work. Kindly have an eye on her...
Presidency Jail For Women, Vellore, 16-7-1930.
My dear Dr. Sahab,
I am eagerly looking forward to meet you and the children together with Sarojini on Saturday afternoon. I was pleased to learn that little Pramila and Indira are getting on famously with their swimming baths. Ask Sarojini not to give up her swimming exercises as it will immensely help her to make her body look robust and graceful.... ...When I am away from home it is usual for children to grow lazy to the neglect of their studies and unless you have an eye on them they won't work hard....
18-12-1930
My dear Sarojni,
...I trust the children are keeping well. Since Pramila has failed in English make her do a lot of general reading. I think she will improve her language by reading plenty of story books. Ask her to read through Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare....
By the way how is Baba'? I trust he is free from itch. I think it is after all want of care that brings in all kinds of skin diseases. I know you

BODLES CALLED WOMEN 75
can't be blamed as you are still too young to know the responsibility of a family. I would blame Daddy for everything that goes wrong in the household. You can't imagine how very, very much upset I am over the utter mismanagement about Pramila's promotion. I am very, very angry with Daddy and so I haven't written to him. I really can't understand how you could have neglected her so miserably. The reason for her failure in English is that she would not have done well in grammar. That only requires a little bucking up in that subject. She is after all not so bad in composition except that she is awful in spelling. Now that they have holidays make her write to me as often as you can and you correct the letters. Ask her also to describe a stroll on the sea shore or a picnic party or anything that she could write about....
Presidency Jail for Women 30 March 1932
My dear Dr. Sahab,
...I should therefore like to see you and Sarojini and the children if they can come. As for Pramila I am afraid she won't be able to come along with you as she has school on all Saturdays except the last Saturday. I should not like her to miss her class.... How is little Baba? I wonder if his teeth have begun to appear. Do you think the front two teeth he has lost will ever grow again?...
That someone sitting in jail was among other things, thinking of composition lessons for her daughter and the front two teeth of her little son is illustrative of how much the home as a responsibility continued to occupy the minds of some women. Among themselves women were not in agreement as to how far they wanted to go. Some persons like Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddi wanted to stay out of active politics because they sincerely believed that the priority must be for social reforms. Although she resigned from the legislature in protest after the arrest of Gandhi in 1930, Muthulakshmi Reddi did not participate in the national movement. Even within the Women's Indian Association there was a difference of opinion. When the Simon Commission was being boycotted, some women felt that at that level anti-government attitude

Page 48
76 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
should not be taken. Some others were, however already boycotting the Simon Commission. The active women politicians were referred to with sarcasm as "Adyar feminine politicians' by another member of the Women's Indian Association. (Lakshmi 1984: p.24). Reporting on an All India Women's meet in 1931, K. Visalakshmi Ammal pointed out how disparate women were bound together only by their love for the nation. She also reported that the dominant group was one that felt that higher education was unnecessary for women and that home life was the best education. This group wanted home science to be taught in college. (Lakshmi 1984; pp. 24-5).
It is within this situation of conflicts and personal resolutions that the women participated in the national movement. The paternal figure of Gandhi enhanced this personalised aspect of their participation. Gandhi emphasised their Hindu past where great women like Sita lived. (Ibid) and it is as makers of home that he wanted them to participate. In fact, he never allowed a woman to enter politics unless her husband or her guardian approved of it (Ibid). Gandhi wrote in Young India that he had found the work for women. "The picketing of liquor shops and foreign cloth shops by men, though it succeeded beyond expectations up to a point of a time in 1921, failed because violence crept in. If a real impression is to be created, picketing must be resumed. If it remains peaceful to the end, it will be the quickest way of educating the people concerned. It must never be a matter of coercion, but conversion, moral persuasion. Who can make a more effective appeal to the heart than women? (W.I.A Publication 1956: p.73). The choice of liquor and foreign cloth was an excellent strategy. The effects of both - drunkenness and unemployment - affected the home directly. And that was the designated and chosen sphere of women. And the causes were popular enough to draw literate and illiterate women. Gandhi wrote that this would give women access to power (Ibid p.74) but did not specify what kind of power.
Women responded to the call of Gandhi in a variety of ways. Some of them did it by certain gestures like beginning to wear khadar and wearing it for the rest of their lives like Gugapriyai and so many others, resigning from the legislature like Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddi, not letting any adverse comment go unanswered. Sir Hilton Brown was the collector of Madras at one time. Speaking on the "Role of South India

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 77
in Contemporary Fiction' at London, he referred to Vai Mu Kodainayaki's slogans at the end of one of her novels Saramadhi, which said: “Wear Khadar! Vande Mataram! Hail Mahatma Gandhi!” He said that it was like ending an English novel with the slogan: "Use Pears Soap; Long Live Britain; Hail Hitler'. Kumudini, a great admirer of Gandhi and a Tamil writer, attacked him in an article for this statement saying that there was an obvious difference between the two slogans (Lakshmi 1984: p.68). Many of them participated in more obvious ways. Some took part in salt-satyagraha. There were also other kinds of participation. Most of the women were good singers. They started several meetings with their powerful songs. They spoke in several places travelling long distances. In smaller villages, they were greeted as Gandhi's daughters. "Gandhi could not come. He has sent his daughters", some villagers would say. They burnt foreign cloth on the streets; picketed liquor shops and cloth shops and hawked khadar from door to door. Hawking khadar was not an easy task. When they approached women at home many of them expressed desire to buy but they said that their husbands had left no money with them. Women also went on a morning singing round called prabhat pheris. They went early in the mornings in groups singing national songs. Walking in the narrow streets of Triplicane, the orthodox citadel of Madras, they were watched by women who came to the doors to view this strange procession. They often sang loud enough to reach the daughters-in-law in the kitchens. There were occasions when other women joined them. Several of them went to jail at Vellore and there was an excitement that can only be described as euphoric (Jaganmohini 1931 : p.218; Ambujammal 1942: pp. 9-10).
There was a general feeling that the way in which women participated in the national movement was exactly the way it should be. Margaret Cousins remarked that women were using the swadeshi economic weapon they possessed as buyers of clothing and household necessities and as keepers of morals, they picketed before liquor shops. "Because the qualities which this new form of warfare is displaying," she wrote, "are of the nature usually characterised as feminine rather than masculine, we may rightly look on this life and death struggle of India to be free as the Women's War" (W.I.A publication 1956: p.78). Margaret Cousins made it seem like a struggle fought on terms set by

Page 49
78, WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
women. Put that way, it made participation itself seem like both the goal and the achievement. But using "feminine' strategies and making the freedom struggle seem like a struggle to keep their home limited the reach of their struggle and put constant irritants and obstacles in their way during and after the struggle. Some roads remained untravelled and some other roads became more easily accessible. -
Muthulakshmi Reddi who had resigned in 1930 found it difficult to enter the state legislature in 1937. She writes in her autobiography that Rajagopalachari who was called a radical politician was a social reactionary. He, she says, even prevented her entry into the state legislature in 1937 although he had promised her one on account of her social reform activities. In her early years of reform Muthulakshmi Reddi had made out a strong case for the Adi Dravidas but the Women's Indian Association had not taken it up seriously and in later years, women's organisations found it easier to deal with specific welfare activities for women (Lakshmi 1984: p. 23-4; 31).
In 1948 the following debates took place in the Madras Legislative Assembly:
16 March 1948
Muhammad Abdul Salam Sahib: May I know the number of posts that are reserved for men in the medical department but are now held by women in Madras? A.B. Shetty: (Minister for public Health) About seven posts. Muhammad: May I know why the government are continuing women in these posts? Shetty: The posts reserved for men will be filled again by the warreturned men and women will have to make place for them. (A few quips on women doctors follow) Muhammad Raza Khan Sahib. In view of the expert advice given by the honourable leader of the house on this issue, may I inquire, Sir, whether at any time he had occasion to be operated upon either by a male or a female doctor? P. Subbarayan: , have had operations, Sir, fortunately by men doctors. (Laughter)
15 July 1948 Begum Sultan Mir Amiruddin: ....Mr. Kaleswara Rao has brought a bill for eradicating polygamy from Hindu society. I hope one of the

BODIES CALLED WOMEN 79
men members of my party will bring forward a similar measure for eliminating the evil from Muslim society in strict consonance with the terms of the Shariat.' R.V. Swaminathan: Why not the honourable lady member herself bring it forward? Begum: It is a matter of common knowledge that there is no chance of my succeeding in getting the Bill through unless the men members change their attitude towards the question.... (Madras Legislative Assembly Debates, 1948).
Then there were those minor irritants that came as humour and comments. A "humorous' short story on a fashionable widow appeared in 1930. A fashionable widow was described as someone who is westernised with short hair etc. In the story, she looks like a wrestler. She opens many women's freedom associations. She gives many speeches that men and women are equal. She says that if women do exercises properly, they can be as strong or even stronger than men. "To prove this', the story goes," once she extended her iron-like hand and showed it to the audience. Who are the men here who say that a woman is meek, ignorant and has no strength to defend herself?, she screamed in one of her talks and banged on the table and the table broke into several pieces..." (N.R, 1930: pp. 376-77). Some 1926 jokes went thus:
A report was written on women in the Karachi Congress in 1931. The report says that the Congress was dominated by women. One of them was crying because her husband did not bring her idlis' and another was crying because someone took away her fountain pen (Kalki, 1931: pp. 536-7).
Body, History And Nation
Dorothy Jinarajadasa, while discussing the Age Of Consent Bill in 1925 wrote:
One of the characteristics of the Women's Movement is that we are never ever downhearted and that those of us who are really in it, heart and soul, have a rubber ball quality - we are thrown up into the air of hope, dashed down to the earth with a bang and up we bounce again as lively as ever. (Dorothy Jinarajadasa, 1925: p.82)

Page 50
80 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
The ball is a good metaphor for it is in constant movement and can reach unattainable distances but is earth-bound and has fixed goals. With the body as the base, women kept returning to it, using language emanating from it and sticking to its rules. Although the nature of the body kept altering and its chemistry kept changing, it was perceived and presented as a fixed base. A woman quite joyfully wrote, entitling her article "Women's Problems" for anything to do with women even if it did not deal with a problem, came under the "problem' category, "I want women to be happy, free and find their own level again.... Woman must learn that her place is the home. Her role is domesticity and her duty in life is wifehood and motherhood. Oh yes, there may be many a thrill and triumph in career. I know. I have had them. But I can assure you none of these thrills and triumphs ever came up to the positively enormous triumph I felt when a nurse showed me a very red, fat baby in a blanket and said, "Eleven pounds, isn't that great?'" She cheerfully advised women: Let us go back to our kitchens (Nary Lakshmi, 1948: pp. 154-56). A more realistic statement came from another woman who preferred to remain anonymous. She wrote in 1948 that the progress of women was as badly off as untouchability. To talk that women have come forward will be as false as saying that untouchability does not exist, she said. Women do not want to be deified and worshipped but to be respected, she wrote. If women continued to be thus, she declared, India has not really attained its freedom (Lakshmi 1984: p.26).
That anonymous statement often returns to mind when one is participating in gender and developmental policy seminars. In one such seminar held sometime back, terms like woman's natural inclination and programmes to give sewing machines to widows, kitchen gardens for women and so on began to sound like words of abuse after a while. Some of us wrote on the huge black board: No more sewing machines and kitchen gardens for women for the next twenty five years.' One wishes there is a way of such declarations taking shape. Until then the body and its history and the space it moves in will remain inaccessible through language, with historical memories blurred.

BoDIES CALLED WoMEN 81
References A. Pughazendi Pulavar (1967) Nalathangal Kadhai, R.G.Pathi Company,
Madras. Ambujammal ( 1942) “Muthulakshmi Reddi” Jaganmohini (Madras) July C.Rajagopalachari (1925) “Verukku Neerootungal” Navasakthi (Madras) 6
November C.S. Lakshmi (1994) "Seduction,Speeches and Lullaby: Gender and Cultural Identity in a Tamil Film" - Paper presented at the USEFI and Madras University Seminar On Ethnicity and Nation-Building in March 1994. C.S. Lakshmi (1984) Face Behind The Mask. Women in Tamil Literature,
Vikas, New Delhi. C.S.Lakshmi (1990) "Mother, Mother-Community and Mother-Politics in Tamilnadu” Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay) October 20-29 Cheeni Viswanathan and T.V.S Mani (1974): Chakravartini Katturaigal
Madras: Vanavil Prasuram. Dorothy Jinarajadasa (1925) "Age Of Consent Bill" Stri-Dharma April G.Kannan (1994) "Murattup Pidivadam Thamizha?” Kumudam, 22 September Iraiyan (1981) Suyamariyadai Chudaroligal Madras: Self-Respect Propaganda
Organisation Jaganmohini (Madras) October 1926; June–July 1931. Kalki (1931) "Penn Deivangal'Anandavikatan 17 August Ko. Kesavan (1991) Dravida lyakkamum Mozhikkolgaiyum Sivagangai: Chelma Kudi Arasu (Madras) 29 May 1932 Lata Ramakrishnan (1995) Letter in Kalki (Madras) 5 February M.Karunanidhi (1994) Silappadhikaram Natakak Kappiyam Madras: Bharathi
Pathippagam Madras Legislative Assembly Debates Vol. XI and Vol:XIII pp. 176-79 and
pp.235-39. Margaret Cousins (1941) Indian Womanhood Today, Allahabad. Muthulakshmi Reddi (1930) Autobiography, Madras. N.R (1930) "Nagarika Vidavai”Anandavikatan 17 September. Nary Lakshmi (1948) "Women's Problems' Ladies' Herald (Madras) May. Niranjan (1994) "Bio-Data” Kumudam (Madras) 27 October. Nithila Kuviyal (Madras) May 1971 (Tamarai Kanni Ninaivu Malar). Partha Chatterjee (1994) The Nation And Its Fragments, Delhi: Oxford
University Press. “Pathirigai Araichi” Kumaran (Karaikudi) August-September 1924-25 "Pedai" (1948) "Iyo Penna?" Kumari Malar (Madras) June Ravi Subramaniam (1994) “Thani Tamizh Thevaidana?” Kumudam (Madras)
September 1. Interview with Kudanthai Kadir Thamizhvanan.

Page 51
82 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Report On Women's Conference, Welcome Speech of Tamaraikanni
Ammaiyar, Kudinool (Coimbatore) Annual Issue, 1938. Richard Johnson (1991) "Frameworks of Culture and Power: Complexity and Politics' in Critical Studies 3 (1), special issue on Cultural Studies: Crossing Borders quoted in Nira Yuval Davis (1994) "Women, Ethnicity and Empowerment" Feminism and Psychology vol.4 (1)pp. 179-97, special issue on Shifting Identities, Shifting Racism. S.Satyamurthi (1956) Arunai Pudalvikku, Madras: Kalaimagal. Stri-Dharma (Madras)(1925) Notes and Comments August. Vidualalai (Madras) January 1939. W.I.A Publication (1956) Mrs. Margaet Cousins and Her Work, Madras Wales (1994) “Pudavaiyai Kandupidithadhu Yar?” Anandavikatan (Madras)
September 18.
Notes In the reference style used internationally only the last name of the author is referred to in the text. In western countries the last name is a family name like Dirks or Marriot. While referring to Indian women authors this poses a problem in my point of view. The last name which is often a caste name like Nadar or Rao is not used by many women. Instead they take on their husband's name or father's name like Kamala Ganesh or Lalitha Gopalan. If this is used as a last name, you begin to refer to a woman author as Ganesh or Gopalan wiping out her identity and referring to her in a way in which she is not referred to in real life. This is also the case when women use initials like C.S. Lakshmi. So I have used the woman author's first name to make identification easier and closer to practices in our country. 1 The song is from the Tamil film Manamagal. The information about this
song being sung at Moscow was given by Theodore Baskaran. 2 These four qualities are considered basic qualities that a Tamil woman must possess. The four terms used for these qualities have signified different meanings to different scholars. The term for timidity has been seen as fear or the general nature of being afraid easily. Some talk of it as wariness. Likewise the term implicit acceptance has been viewed as ignorance by many, seeming ignorance (not revealing one's knowledge; holding one's knowledge in check) by some and as innocence by a few. The term for physical sensibility has been interpreted as disgust for men other than the husband and as abstaining from doing forbidden deeds. As students, we always thought of the last quality as some kind of "honour' to maintain. Linked to it are, of course, notions of chastity, purity etc. I have used here the interpretation offered to me by two well-known scholars in

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 83
Tamil and English literature, Professor C.Jesudasan and Dr. Hepzibah Jesudasan, because it comes closest to my understanding of the four terms. See for example, Geraldine Meaney's paper on the Irish experience. Geraldine Meaney, "Sex and Nation: Women in the Irish Culture and Politics', Irish Women's Studies, ed., E.Smyth, 1993, pp.230-244 The well-known painter, M.F. Hussain presented Indira Gandhi as Durga in his painting. Dancer Yamini Krishnamurthy dedicated a dance to Indira Gandhi during the Emergency period where she imagined her as Mahishasuramardini. In 1993, all over Tamilnadu, posters and cardboard cut outs were put up to celebrate Jayalalitha's 45th birthday. One of them in Madras portrayed her as a goddess. During 1994 Christmas celebrations in Madras, Jayalalitha was portrayed as Mother Mary in a poster. See for example Deva (1993) “Kalacharam Enum Poochandi” Udha (2) January-April pp. 13-14: In her travelogue of her visit to Mauritius, writer Sivasankari meets a Tamil woman recognisable by her saree who has yellow sacred thread called "thali', a sacred symbol of marriage around her neck. She explains to Sivasankari that Friday fasting etc, to enhance the power of "thali' are to her the symbols of Tamil culture. (A powerful' or 'strong' ' thali' is supposed to protect the husband). But the woman in Mauritius could not speak Tamil. She could speak only Creole. And yet she thought she was obliged to keep these rituals and symbols to preserve Tamil culture. Many women in Tamilnadu have given up wearing the yellow thread and in stead wear a gold chain because the yellow thread has to be smeared with turmeric paste every two or three days and it stains the blouse. And "power-giving rituals associated with the "thali' are not observed so very regularly in the present times. And yet, for someone living so far away these symbols and rituals represented the Tamil culture. (Sivasankari (1995) “Sorganggalil Sila Natkal” Kumudam (Madras) 12 January, pp. 106-08). The written text is authored by one A.Pughazendi Pulavar. The version that I have read and quoted is the 1967 edition of this text. For example, according to newspaper reports, in 1989, the then chief minister Karunanidhi called Jayalalitha a whore in the Assembly. (Indian Post (Bombay) 26 March 1989). The ongoing discussion had nothing to do with the epithet he had used. But it was made in the course of a heated political discussion. Where a woman is concerned, the comments can and do directly go to the pattini status of a woman as if her purity or nonpurity is directly linked to her activities in the sphere outside her home. During her election campaign Jayalalaitha made good use of this abuse and the consequent physical attack made on her in the Assembly. The

Page 52
WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
posters portrayed her as Draupadi whose honour was outraged by the Kauravas in their court. The well-known Tamil. poet Abdul Raghuman in his comments in a popular magazine on Taslima Nasreen, said that the rights that Taslima demands are ones that rule out marriage and grant the woman the sexual liberty to have a physical relationship with one or many men. He also commented that these were not merely her views. She was living her life by these views (Kumudam (Madras) 4 August 1994, p.89). When changes a particular community is going through have to be written about, often one of the aspects would be a girl running away from home. (See for example, the recent novel, Kakkai Pon (1993, Madras, Bama Padhipagam) of C.R.Raveendran or Eru Veyyil (1992, Madras,Thirugnyi) of Perumal Murugan). When certain notions of a particular community have to be criticised, sometimes the women of that community will be cast in ways which flout those notions. In a particular story in his recent collection the Tamil writer Aswagosh presents a Brahmin man who observes extreme form of ritual cleanliness even in the present times and ends the story with the information that his wife is a whore. He presents the two of them in opposition as clean and dirty. The man tries to stay clean but there is dirt in his own house. (Aswagosh (1994) Tarcheyal: Mayilam, Manibharadhi Padhipagam pp. 148-159) It is also not unusual to cast brahmin women in the Draupadi model saying they have many husbands in contrast to the chaste women in the Tamil epics like Kannagi. The purity of their mothers was referred to by two children who took part with their parents in 1957 in the struggle to eradicate castes. When they were arrested and found guilty they declared that they were not children of the mistresses of brahmins (Iraiyan 1981: p.261). The imagery of dishonouring a woman is also used while dealing with concepts like the Tamil mother. In 1937 Kudi Arasu used this imagery to describe the fate of Tamil language. "Tamil-mother is being dishonoured. Achariar (Rajagopalachari) is disrobing Tamil-mother,' it announced (Kudi Arasu 1937 in Ko. Kesavan 1991: p.44). After the Roop Kanwar incident when women in Jaipur went on a march to protest against sati, a Hindu religious leader commented in a lecture that these women were those who needed different men during the morning, afternoon and night. (In the segment entitled Agni Pariksha (Trial By Fire) which is the first part of Anand Patwardhan's film entitled Pitha, Putra, Dharmayudh (Father, Son and Holy War), 1994). In the recent communal riots in Bombay and Surat in December 1992 and January 1993 apart from violence, a planned attempt was made to outrage the modesty of Muslim women (See SPARROW Report 1995 on

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 85
Communalism, Violence and Women workshop). This is done with the notion that to insult a community you have to insult their women and put them to shame. For example, see A.Atmalingam Pillai(1928), Satiavan-Savitri, Songs by M. Arangasami Naidu, manager of Original Hindu Dramatic Company, Madras, p.78. In this play based on the story of Savitri bringing her husband back from death by her clever argument with Yama, the god of death, a scene was created where Yama is so impressed with Savitri that he tells her to explain to his wife Jayamala how to be a pativrata. Savitri is most willing. Among other things Savitri tells her that chaste women when they are girls, will go to school and get educated properly. See Ayyakkannu Mudaliar, Madar Ozukka Ilakkanan (Madras, 1895); Head Constable Ramalingam Pillai, Madar Needhi Ammanai (Madras, 1895); "Pa-Pa", "Karpu" Anandavikatan, May 1926, pp. 156-58 and June 1926, pp. 196-99 ; Stri Dharma from the Sanskrit writings of Triyambagarayamari in Hitabashini, November 1947, pp.6-10; Muhammad Saiyam Pulavar, Penn Buddhi Malai (Tiruthanikai, 1888); Halat Muhammad Miran Ali Sahib, Nasikatunisa Enum Tokaiyarubadesam (Tirunelveli, 1930) (Some of the old books and some books on codes of conduct or ethics have been printed by the individual authors themselves or by their patrons. No publishing house was involved). Ayyakkannu Mudaliar has given a long series of advice to women on everything including how to be clean. Two of them are very interesting in terms of what he considered "male right.' He says that even if a man is having an affair with another woman a woman must not become indiferent to him or stop serving him. She must keep a bright face, speak sweet words to evoke his pity and to attract him to her. He also says that the woman who screams and comes to the street and cries out and humiliates her husband when he beats her will suffer terrible pain even in this birth. It is interesting that he thinks beating a woman is not a humiliating act but her screaming is. Mudaliar wants the husband to be comfortable always for he advises women not to fall on the husband and cry while he is dying for that would upset him! The Head Constable even writes about women's menstrual seclusion. He says that on the first day of the periods she is equivalent to the lowest of castes, on the second day she is equivalent to a murderer and on the third day, she is like a washerwoman. The 1926 article on karpu has an animal-fixation, to say the least. It says that a woman who disobeys her husband will be born as a dog and a fox. One who has insulted the husband will be born a tiger. One who has desired another will turn into a devil. One who has eaten when the husband is

Page 53
86
WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
10
11
12
hungry will be born as a pig. And those who have broken the code of chastity will suffer in every birth with many dreadful diseases including leprosy and live in poverty. The kind of punishments listed by Miran Ali Sahib can strike terror in anybody's heart:
Those who have bared their heads to other men their heads and brains will burn like fire. The tongue that insults the husband will be pulled and boiling water hot as metal will be poured on it. Those women who have plotted against their husbands will be held by their breasts and pulled up. Those women who do not follow the prayer-washing will have their hands and feet tied along with their hair. And scorpions and snakes will be run over them And women will turn into pigs and donkeys Those who have secret lovers Will burn in hell turned into dogs.
See Mayuram Munsif Vedanayakam Pillai, Sarva Samaya Samarasa Kirtanai (Madras, 1924). Dravidian meant all Tamilians, Telugus, Malayalis and Kannadigas at one time. At another time the word included everyone other than the Aryans including the Muslims and the Christians. Periyar at one point said that clan identity should not be done in terms of birth but in terms of habits. Annadurai has said that all those who support the varnashram dharma are Aryans and those who oppose it are Dravidians and that the term Dravidian is only symbolic. Before the linguistic division of states, Periyar considered all non-Brahmins to be Dravidians. But after that he said that only Tamil Nadu was the Dravidian region. But he still did not add the term Tamilian to the name of his association because he felt that if a language identity is used then even brahmins would call themselves Tamilians (See Ko. Kesavan, Dravida Iyakkamum Mozhik Kolgaiyum (Sivagangai, Chelma, 1991: pp.7-9). Periyar spoke in terms of blocking the entry to the uterus or making the uterus dysfunctional and perceived the uterus as an emburdening organ. (See group-discussion in Nirappirigai, Kumbakonam, No.:7, January 1994, pp.3-32). But the problem was not the organ but in whose body it was in, who has access to it, what it produced and who controlled it. A dysfunctional uterus like that of a barren woman or a post-menopausal woman does not "free" her from a given situation. The problem is not reproductivity but who wants to reproduce and when and how she wants to

BODIES CALLED WoMEN 87
13
14
15
reproduce. In other words, the problem is motherhood as it exists in a patriarchal and caste-bound system. Although Periyar did not go into the deeper ramifications of what he was saying, the fact that he questioned the validity of motherhood remains. It was not unusual to refer to the motherly nature of women while talking or writing about them. The women who went to jail protesting against Hindi were called valorous mothers. Bharatidasan, the famous poet who has written some very inspiring poetry and who was closely associated with the movement, has also used the valorous mother image in his poetry. In one of his poems he gives a call to mothers to send their sons for the war against enemies . The beginning of the poem makes a specific reference to the Purananuru mother. (See Bharatidasan Kavithaigal (Madras, Poompugar Padhipagam, 1992) p.257. Kamala Bai's autobiography in its original Tamil form is with me. It was translated into English by her daughter Indira Bai and later published. There was a cautious approach to this also. Ambujammal, for example, said in an inerview, that she supported Harijan temple entry but that she was not for allowing Harijans into the family prayer room (See Lakshmi 1984: p.24). Vai Mu Kodainayaki wrote a novel Magizchi Udayam based entirely on the temple entry issue. Although apparently humanistic, the basic approach to the problem was one of brahminising the harijan. The hero in the novel pleads with the brahmins to let the harijans enter not the real temples immediately but to let them first enter the "temple of their hearts.' A character in the story succumbs to a harijan girl and this is mentioned as an "irreparable sin.” The point was to turn the "animals' into "human beings." (See Ibid., pp. 191-92) Vai Mu Kodainayaki wrote a novel called Pudumai Koil, which was a novel that directly attacked the Self-Respect Movement and its anti-god stand. The atheist husband in the novel is presented as someone with animal tendencies. He -is finally "punished" for his "evil" ways and declares: Drive away the devil of self-respect from this world. She also wrote a novel called Gopala Ratnam which was about a Brahmin not being able to get jobs. Finally he has to change his name to a Christian one. (See C.S.Lakshmi 1984: pp. 191-93 This kind of attack ön particular groups can be seen even in later writings. Rajam Krishnan's Roja Idazhgal (Madras, 1973) attacked everything non-brahmin as animal-like and uncultured. In Verukku Neer (Madras, 1972) she sees all leftists in their very appearance, not to talk of their minds, as being inhuman and devoid of culture.(See c.S.lakshmi 1984: 198-21 1) Interview with Sita Devadoss, 27-9-1983; Interview with Savitri Rajan, a close friend of Anandi Bai, 24-4-1983.

Page 54
88 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
17 Rukmini Lakshmipathi's family kindly allowed me to photocopy some of
these letters. ·
18 Ecumenical Christian Centre, Whitefield Consultation on Gender and
Development held from 17-21 October 1994. What we wrote on the black board did not mean that after twenty five years women can again take it up. But in a consultation where women who were part of developmental policies were participating, it was difficult to make all that they had worked for seem absolutely futile. Some of them were sporting enough to narrate stories of failed efforts. Arati Ganguly narrated the experience of a women's group involved in "sustainable development." She said that this group decided to start a dairy project for women and got funding for it and bought some jersey cows. After a while the cows went dry and they did not know what to do with the cows. Some people suggested that the cows can be used for ploughing. But that was not possible because jersey cows don't have the hump which makes yoking possible. One of the women suggested that what was really needed was a redesigning of the plough. She or someone else could have done such a redesigning but the plough is used only by men. So twenty-five years was not any time or period we were fixing but more an attempt to alter the course of the discussion. Needless to say, there were men in the consultation some of whom threatened that their current kind attitude towards women will get hardened if we did not stop asking, "But why should women do this?” One. of them drew a man with his entire body in plaster saying he was a victim of battering by women. So even an attempt to alter the course of the discussion was seen as a "life-threatening' gesture by some.

Chapter 4
HOMEMAKERS AND HOMEBREAKERS
The Binary Construction of Women in Muslim Nationalism
Rubina Saigol
Introduction
Gender, class and nation come together to create the home and harem both as spaces within which people belong to a heterogenous nation or can be normalised within it by comparison to various racialised and gendered others. Home is the domestic space that is also a political entity invested with history and tradition represented through the female bodies located within it. Such a home is a site of resistance by the women living there, who wish to break the binary of home/outside, private/public on which nationalist culture grounds itself in India. Resistance is articulated by showing these to be infiltrated by each other rather than being inviolate and reveals that inviolate spaces are created by authoritarian and patriarchal forces so that women become not the subjects but the objects of the nation.
P nationalism tends to rely substantively on the division of the public and private or, in the words of Partha Chatterjee, "the home and the world'. Chatterjee argued that the dilemma for Indian

Page 55
90 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
nationalists was how to integrate women within the nationalist project which entailed asserting one's difference from the colonising power while, simultaneously, appropriating aspects of modernity that are necessary for progress and development. Fven while rejecting colonial rule, nationalists appropriated large parts of imperial ideology based on post-enlightenment rationalism. Progress, development, nationalism, modern statecraft and representative government were ideas that were absorbed uncritically. On the other hand, women's insertion within the new space of the state and nation was problematic because, as Chatterjee argues in his essay on the nationalist resolution of the women question, it was in the sphere of the home and family that difference from the colonising Other was most strongly marked.' The home represented the sacred, spiritual sphere of the inner world which needed to be protected against the modernist encroachment of the colonising power.
Modernity, it was argued, must not cross the threshold of the home where women, as wives and mothers, protected the last bastion of national patriarchal power - the family. Women were thus called upon to preserve and protect religion, tradition and culture, while men were to be in charge of public intercourse with men of other nations and the colonisers. Men, it was believed, were by necessity forced to enter the public sphere of the marketplace and engage in business transanctions in the course of which they intermingled with men of other nations. Women, however, could be kept pure and untainted by foreign influences by being made the guardians of home, family, tradition, culture, spirit, self and identity. It was feared that the free mixing of women with others would lead to an erasure of the difference and distinction so central in all nationalist discourse. In a speech delivered in Jullundhar in 1894, Sir Syed, the architect of Indian Muslim nationalism argued that
There is no doubt that I strongly disapprove of the building of common schools for girls where they go without the chador or burqa (veil) and without regard to the nation and family to which they belong. How is one to know what kind of women they will associate with. How can one ascertain what kind of girls will assemble in such a place? How is one to know what kind of behaviour and conversation they indulge in? I say with complete conviction that

HoMEMAKERS AND HOMEBREAKERS 91
respectable families should get together and arrange for their daughters an education which reflects the teachings of the past.
Here, not only is nationalist anxiety over class and caste mixture evident, but also the fear of loss of control due to lack of surveillance and control over the activities and conversations of women.
According to R. Radhakrishnan, Western nationalists were able to generate their own models of autonomy from within. Rationalism, positivism, science, technology, modernisation, industrialisation, democracy, representative government and secularism had cultural roots within the development of Western culture. However, in colonised countries, these ideas were imposed from above as superior imperial knowledge on the basis of which Europeans were able to subjugate the colonised people. It was recognised by Indian Muslim and Hindu nationalists that preservation of identity lay in acquiring the modern sciences and knowledge of the coloniser. However, indigenous superior spirituality also needed to be preserved and this could be done by keeping the home, family and women strictly away from "modernisation' so that older cultural customs and practices could be preserved and promoted.
However, as Kumari Jaywardena has argued, women's position in society was a popular barometer of civilization. According to Jaywardena, it had been argued that "oriental backwardness' was partly due to women's low status in colonised societies.” Indian social and nationalist reformers believed that by initiating reform in the legal and social structures to allow widow remarriage and by prohibiting the custom of sati, ending polygamy, abolishing purdah and providing Indian women with modern education, the charge of "backwardness' could be countered and such symbols of modernity and progress could be useful for nationalist reconstruction. This consciousness, argues Jaywardena, demanded an enlightened woman, a new woman who would be a companion and friend to her husband and not merely a childbearing and childrearing, incarcerated, subordinate being. Thus, arguments for women's education ensued, not only for the purposes of countering the coloniser's charges, but also to achieve conservative and traditional purposes such as the creation of educated and enlightened mothers and civilized wives. The goal of nationalist education,

Page 56
92 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
therefore, remained essentially conservative and primarily oriented towards the preservation of patriarchal values and norms, while its methodology acquired the modern mass schooling form.
Women were required to be both traditional and modern - traditional because the roles of wives, mothers and homemakers were still considered their primary roles; and modern because mothering and housekeeping could now be done along modern, rational and scientific lines instead of being based on superstitious beliefs and practices. The purpose of modern schooling in 19th century India was thus the creation of not only moral motherhood but enlightened and modern motherhood. As Kumari Jaywardena states:
The objectives of the reformers were thus twofold: to establish in their countries a system of stable, monogamous, nuclear families with educated and employable women...and yet to ensure that women would retain a position of traditional subordination within the family.
This education was not intended to liberate women as Jaywardena
argues:
The policies of promoting women's education and the type of education provided, were not intended to promote women's emancipation or independence, but to reinforce patriarchy and the class system. The plea that education would only improve women's efficiency as wives and mothers left its indelible mark on the education policy.
The argument for a modern, scientific and efficient motherhood came from the colonser's language of efficiency, modernity and a scientific, disciplined and ordered world of regularity and organisation. The family and home were to be run like efficient, disciplined and organised governments with a definite system of power, roles and responsibilities. The family was expected to replicate the nation and state on a smaller scale. While describing the processes of colonising Egypt, Timothy Mitchell writes:
A particular theme that could be drawn from these political discussions of the Egyptian mentality was a link between the country's "moral inferiority' and the status of its women. The retarded development of the nation corresponded, it could now be argued, to the retarded development of the Egyptian women. This

HoMEMAKERS AND HOMEBREAKERS 93
was a favourite theme of the British colonial administrators... ...The position the British had in mind was that of modern motherhood; for the political and economic transformation of Egypt required a transformation of the household. If modern political authority was to work through the forming and disciplining of "character', the individual household, it followed, had to be transformed into a site of this discipline. To this end it was necessary to break down existing patterns of association and segregation, mystified and romanticised under such labels as "the harem'...This should give place to the healthy and elevating influence of a generation of mothers keenly alive to their responsibilities as regards the moral training and welfare of their children (quoting Cromer). In such ways political power would hope to penetrate that "inaccessible' space "invisible to the observation of the police' and thus commence..."to work from the inside out'.
Surveillance of Private Life
The coloniser was thus concerned about the invisible sphere of the private life of the colonised, a life that was not under the control and surveillance of the conquering power. As such it was threatening, mysterious, dark and veiled. The coloniser's eagerness to bring this hidden world of the harem and purdah into public view where it is visible, open and amenable to control, reflects a fear that the power of resistance to colonial intervention lay in this hidden part which was kept strictly closed to public scrutiny. This world was where the darkest secrets and desires of the colonised lay - the inner sanctum of escape, fear, desire, action, sexuality, women and power. The efforts to bring this hidden world into public gaze and scrutiny, that is, under the observation of the police', were couched in the rhetoric of freedom, liberation, emancipation of women, and modernising and moralising incarcerated women. Inderpal Grewal has argued that until the nineteenth century arguments about purdah, harem and the incarceration of women did not become public, the women inside their homes did not feel like captives, limited in freedom and liberation. It was only when contrasts were constructed with "free' Englishwomen and the freedom of streets, moving about and travelling available to the English woman, that women in harems and purdah began to experience their situation as suffocating. While this argument is contestable, it

Page 57
94 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
does point towards the creation of the kinds of contrasts, binaries and oppositions that were created by the colonial encounter and which resulted in newer ways of Seeing, knowing, perceiving and understanding women, home and the family.
Family as Social Order
However, Mitchell turns our attention towards the notions of social order, discipline and organisation which were colonial constructs and became essential to any form of collective life including the family. The 'educated Egyptian motherhood' was set the task of ensuring the principle of order to be able to provide scientific answers to the eternal questioning of children. The 'modern political order was to begin on the mother's knee'. 'The family, argues Mitchell, was to be organised as a house of discipline "which would then be able to produce, alongside the schools, the military...the proper "mentality of the Egyptian - upon which the very possibility of a social order was understood to depend.' This notion of order and discipline, as will become clear in the discussion on Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's novel, was central to women's domestic training.
The Nationalist Construction of the Home’
In nationalist thought, the notion of "home' has varied connotations although all of these revolve primarily around the idea of the inner core of self. The term "home' is used to denote the literal home where the family lives, the city as opposed to the rest of the country, the country as opposed to the rest of the world, the nation as opposed to the empire. The body is the "home' of the self and the territory of the country is the home where the national spirit resides. The home/nation not only has connotations of beauty (it is frequently referred to as a chaman, gulshan, gulistan, baagh, that is, garden in Urdu poetry), it also has associations with the notion of peace and comfort. Even in English the phrase "home and hearth' is a frequent phrase used to signify warmth, comfort, ease, care, love, togetherness and joy.
The home has a metonymic connection with nation and, according to Chatterjee, it is the original site on which the project of nationalism is launched, usually by means of the strategic deployment of female bodies within this sphere. In her book Home and Harem, Inderpal

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 95
Grewal argues that the nation's beauty and the beauty of the home are connected.' England, in Grewal's opinion, is represented in English poetry as the beautiful and ordered home as opposed to which the colonies are the dark, ugly and mysterious spaces of fear and danger. The beauty of the landscape (which is often described as feminine, dharti/zamin in Urdu) is depicted by using the metaphors often used for women. The land is a flower, the moon, moonshine, sun or sunshine, and these metaphors are also often used for the land in nationalist poetry and Songs, such as the famous Pakistani nationalist song chaand meri zamin, phool mera watan, that is, “my land is the moon, my country is a flower'. The morality and virtue, which are often believed to coexist with beauty, are transferred from women to the landscape which takes on moral characteristics. England, in English romantic poetry, is beautiful and moral as compared to the land of the natives which is full of deceit and trickery, like the natives themselves, as represented in English colonial moral discourses. While writing of Wordsworth's poetry, Grewal argues that domestic space is central to political constructions of Englishness.'
Nationalism draws upon the discourses of morality, beauty, patriotism and peace to construct both the home-as-nation and the literal home where the family lives. The nation often comes to be described in terms of a large family. On March 20, 1998 an advertisement for recruitment in the army in The News carried the caption: "A Family Called Pakistan'. The caption is followed by further familial and primarily masculine metaphors. It reads, “Whenever faced with natural calamities and major disasters, the Pakistan army and the civilian brethren work together to provide succour and relief. This is only natural. After all, the Pakistan army and the civilian population both belong to the same family called Pakistan. The nation-as-home is the larger collective within which the family-as-home is the smaller but no less important collective, holding the entire national edifice on its shoulders.
Grewal describes how during the world war, suffering men returned to what were often described as "peaceful scenes of home'.' In its idealised constructions, home signifies peace despite the fact that it is the hotbed of intrigue, discord and disunity. Families usually have conflicting and confrontational relationships, but in its ideal

Page 58
96 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
representations, the home means comfort, joy and peace. It also signifies usefulness and order and a place where the daily management of necessary work takes place. It is the place where food is cooked, clothes are washed and ironed, cleaning is done, daily household accounts are kept, children are taught and looked after and comfort and ease provided. The providers of these services are usually women and the receivers are usually men and children, but the home is meant to signify comfort and ease for all. Women are expected to receive comfort and ease only in providing it to others.
The home is thus at the nexus of several interlocking binary discourses such as order/disorder, management/mismanagement, peace/ discord, comfort/discomfort, inner/outer, closed/open, licit/illicit, virtuous/shameful and a number of other polar oppositions. Virtually all of these discourses are woven around the behaviour and actions of women who must be peaceful, virtuous, caring, good managers, ordered, disciplined, self-effacing, closed-in and legitimate in all their actions. Failure to live up to such constructions means disorder, discord, disunity, sorrow, discomfort and the threat of the dissolution of the home. By a metonymical slide discord, infighting, civil war, disunity and immoral or debased behaviour of those occupying the nation's space can potentially threaten national dissolution. Familial and national discord and disunity occupy the same semiotic space - they threaten the self with annihilation. The home-nation connection is noted by Grewal when she writes:
A transparent society of representative government and its counterpart in the home and marriages that are companionate serve as the solution to this despotism; here transparency implies an ability to govern through knowledge rather than through domination. In places that are seen as unknown and opaque, colonisation becomes a way to render transparent that which is threatening.
Grewal contrasts the imperial idea of the transparent national representative government (central for nation-state formation) with oriental despotism and the counterpart of transparent government in companionate marriage is contrasted with a harem, a place seen by colonial rulers as one of incarceration and imprisonment. In this way, the private life of the home could be rendered up to the gaze of the

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 97
colonial state making intervention easy and access possible. Private life in India was being reconstituted because of the colonial accusation of despotism, but in ways which were placing new demands upon the family and, in particular, upon women. These demands will be elaborated upon while discussing two specific Muslim reactions to colonial rule. The home in Muslim nationalist thought is constructed as the repository of a reformed and redefined national culture. However, the reform itself tends to re-create older forms of power and domination in newer, more complex and rational ways.
Grewal argues that colonial paradigms were reconstituted by nationalists in such a way that women were utilised as grounds for a discourse rather than as subjects of it.' According to her, the Englishwoman was constructed as opposed to the woman "caged in the harem or the purdah. In the nationalist reappropriation of this discourse, the purdah construct of English imperialists becomes the "home' of the Indian nationalists. Indian women's location in the zenana, that is, the women's part of the house becomes a symbol of what is "sacred and private for Indian national culture'. In this form of nationalist reconstruction of imperial knowledge, newer patriarchies were created. The changing role of women in the new state and nation was fraught with anxiety and fear. It, therefore, had to be contained and regulated even in the process of modernising it. This is why the disciplining of women's minds and bodies became a prime concern among North Indian Muslim nationalists seeking to resist colonial interventions in a conflicted and contradictory way. Women's sexuality, argues Grewal, had to be managed and "Home and harem were useful spatial tropes by which female subjects were constructed in both England and India within a colonial context that linked patriarchal practices." Grewal asserts that as "improvement of the natives became a metaphor for reform, home' came to be seen as the nursery of all virtue, the fountain-head of all true affection, and the main source of the strength of the nation.
Grewal argues that another binary that was created at that time was the one between freedom/unfreedom.' Seclusion of Indian women in the home was articulated as lack of freedom, while English women supposedly had this commodity. The street represented freedom since English women could go out and walk about freely on the streets.

Page 59
98 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Although the English woman did not have the vote, she acquiesced in the imperial masculine venture, argues Grewal, because she felt superior to the incarcerated, caged and confined Indian woman. Since the empire was a symbol of masculinity and virility, giving women the vote was seen as the emasculation of England because women were supposed to be the 'keepers of morals and the angels of the house'.' For the Englishwoman, domestic space came to replicate the power of the empire, and the Orient became a symbol of female seclusion and the harem not only a sign of incaceration but also of indolence, laziness, vanity, idleness, deformity and immorality.' Walking and getting fresh air was the newest medical discourse enabling the surveillance, control and production of healthy bodies and minds. While colonial practice demanded greater opening out for greater surveillance of the bodies and minds of their subjects, nationalists campaigned for stricter surveillance of sexual purity, along with a sterner demarcation of the lines between the public and private.
Another binary that was set up after the travel culture began to flourish and Indians began to travel to England, was that of home' as opposed to "abroad'. Several young men were sent to England to study even while imperial knowledge was being contested as regards women. Many Urdu poems reflect a sentimental and nostalgic yearning for home while studying abroad; or they reflect the sorrow of a parent whose child is studying abroad. One such poem appears in Akbar Allahabadi's poetry in which he misses his beloved son who is studying abroad. His son was studying in England despite the fact that almost all of Akbar Allahabadi's poetry reflects a reaction against modern ways, the New Light, science, European domination and English products. The following lines reflect not only a parent's yearning for the son far away, but also the anxiety of a national as regards racial purity and honour:
Leave London, Oh young man, and turri to home Life will go on, first make your home
turn towards your country and start upon the journey
Nature calls upon the true race within you History tells you to go occupy your home

HoMEMAKERS AND HOMEBREAKERS 99
Those who don't return, who waits for them Mothers are sorrowful, poor fathers die of grief
In these revealing lines, national and racial honour and pride are blended with the honour and pride of home and parents. In these lines ghar (home) and watan (country) are used interchangeably as they signify each other. This kind of conflation of home and country recurs throughout Allahabadi's poetry to be discussed in the last section.
The contrast of "home' with "abroad' builds an emotional and sentimental attachment to home-as-nation and nation-as-home as a place which is beautiful, comfortable and familiar as opposed to the strangeness, distance and coldness of "abroad'.
In the process of its reconstitution as a place of ideal, heterosexual companionate marriage, instead of a harem of incarceration, the "home' acquired a complex positioning in the struggle between colonialists and nationalists both of whom claimed to rescue women from each other. The male nationalist binaries between domestic/public were, argues Grewal, homologous to binaries such as spiritual/material. Any foreign intervention in the home threatened to destroy the spiritual fabric of society, that is, its very being, its innermost core of self and existence. The nationalist struggle, therefore, was steeped in anxiety. The women who participated in the nationalist project earlier in India, tended to remain within the bounds of nationalist binaries. Only later did many of. them start to question the nationalist patriarchy itself, especially when they perceived its collusion with imperial patriarchy.’
The "home' is thus a highly contested terrain. As the repository of desire and conflict, it is equally penetrated by colonial and nationalist knowledge both of which attempt its appropriation for their own purposes. The colonial rulers try to interpellate this sphere of mystery, darkness, veiling, purdah and invisibility for purposes of surveillance, control and the need to subordinate it to the goals of the public sphere of statecraft, laws, regulations and education. The Muslim nationalists were equally eager to protect this last bastion of national patriarchy, the only space where the colonised and subjugated colonised males still had some power left. They were adamant about protecting the home against invasion and subjugation. In the process, they reformed it, revitalised the family and changed it. But they did not surrender the

Page 60
100 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
private to the colonial gaze without a fight or in any direct way. The surrender occurs behind the walls of the home in the form of teaching women to be modernised and educated wives and mothers; but it was a partial surrender as the model of wifehood and motherhood was not the Western or imperial one based on heterosexual companionate marriage, but a highly traditional Muslim one. The way in which the Muslim nationalists selectively appropriated and rejected various aspects of colonial modernity, is evidence of a conflicted terrain on which they wanted to write their own history. What comes out quite transparently is the unconscious, yet definite, connection between home and nation and the binaries that accompany this connection, for example, peace versus discord, harmony versus disunity. Women were positioned in the nationalist narratives in ways that the narratives came to be written through and across their bodies and in terms that divided women into a series of dichotomous constructions. These binaries were equally applicable all the way from the home to the nation.
Dipty Nazeer Ahmad: The Homemaker and the Homebreaker
Dipty Nazeer Ahmad was a nineteenth century Muslim reformer who wrote reformist novels for his daughters in order to ensure a 'good traditional' education for them. He was highly influenced by the educational reform movement (which later gave rise to "Indian Muslim nationalism') led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. However, while he was a supporter of Sir Syed, he was not an uncritical follower of Sir Syed’s views.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, India had been made a part of the British empire ending the three hundred year old Mughal dynasty. The Muslims of India were despondent and a sense of defeat and despair was prevalent throughout the various Muslim communities of India. They were no longer the ruling minority and their language and culture was no longer the ruling culture as it had been replaced by English cultural values and norms. On the one hand, they felt threatened by the new imperial knowledge and culture which was fast spreading through modern educational systems and threatened to erase their identity, on the other they viewed the large Hindu majority, over which they had in the past ruled with fear and suspicion. A great deal of the British wrath over the Mutiny of 1857 had fallen upon the Muslims

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 101
who began to lag behind the Hindus in the acquisition of modern knowledge required for service under the imperial state. Thus, the Muslim communities felt a three-way conflict of values and culture in which the dominant values were those of the British. These values were rapidly taking hold among young people and were central in creating an educated middle class with new ideas and thinking. Older feudal values were declining among the younger people and a new modern morality, based on ideas of liberty, equality, representative government, rationality and nationalism, was beginning to take shape. On the other hand, the Hindus were in a large majority with an age-old culture that was deep-rooted and virtually intact. This large majority threatened to engulf the precariously balanced Muslim self that felt assailed from several different sides. The Muslims were suspicious of British intentions in launching English education and common schools for girls of all communities. They viewed this measure as a serious threat to their culture and identity until Sir Syed Ahmad Khan convinced them to join the march towards modernity by acquiring science and technology for the sake of progress.
Sir Syed was, however, vociferously opposed to women's education in the modern arts and sciences and staunchly opposed giving women any education other than the one designed to make them good mothers, daughters, and wives. He was against common schools as there was a threat of social mixture with girls of other religious communities and a consequent dilution of cultural identity. Sir Syed strongly believed in keeping women's education not only confined to the traditional roles of motherhood and homemaking, he also believed in maintaining strict surveillance over the content of women's education as well as the pedagogical process. He was opposed to teaching women history, geography and trigonometry and supported the idea of teaching women the Quran, religious injunctions, stitching, sewing, cooking and caring for the young.'
Dipty Nazeer Ahmad was Sir Syed’s contemporary and upheld cultural nationalism in his exhortations to women to learn. While Nazeer Ahmad was also in favour of a strong content of domestic and religious education, he differed from Sir Syed in that he believed that women should also be taught history, geography and other public sphere' subjects. He was a staunch believer in rationality and supported

Page 61
102 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
the argument that an educated and enlightened mother is not only a better mother but also a better homemaker. In fact his strongest arguments for women's education were based on the need to make them more modern, rational and enlightened mothers.' He was convinced that an educated, and therefore rational, mother would break free from ignorance and superstition in which women are often steeped. A frequent accusation levelled against Indian and in particular Indian women, was that they were superstitious and believed in indigenous cures for their children's ailments instead of taking them to proper medical practitioners. Colonial modernity was introducing modern medicine in India which was replacing age-old traditional remedies often practised by women at home. Medical practice was thus further disempowering women by undermining their skills and knowledge and wresting the power of curing from them. The reconstituted national imaginaire had to be modern and based on scientific principles, however dubious or questionable these might have been. The origin of science in myth, magic and superstition was disavowed by relegating science entirely to the realm of the "rational' and this rational was constructed in opposition to the religious, the superstitious, the emotional and, most importantly, the feminine. Masculine science was expected to replace feminine superstition and magic thereby removing the control and surveillance of the human body from female hands in the home and placing it within professional and expert hands in the public sphere. Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, in keeping with his modernist consciousness, condemned what he termed ignorant superstition and magical cures and advised women to refrain from indigenous cures and remedies. The private sphere was thus being reconstituted in modernist rhetoric which continued to make women primarily responsible for childcare but denied them the power of the knowledge of curing. The new knowledge of curing was appropriated by men who capitalised on their new expertise thereby placing the act of curing into the world of commerce and industry. The power of curing became yet another commodity with a high value in the market of "disciplined and "healthy' bodies".
The idea of the disciplined, managed, administered, controlled and systematic body, home and family was central in Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's construction of woman as a homemaker. He was impressed

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 103
by the administrative and managerial skills of the colonial masters who, in his opinion, were running the affairs of India with a precise and systematic discipline, excellent management procedures and rational methods. Modern methods of statecraft appealed to his rationalistic mind and he was enamoured of the order and organisation exhibited by the British government. He paid gushing and effusive tributes to Queen Victoria and her style of management which was attributed to her rationality. In an almost unconscious way, he connected the running of a home with the running of a state and was extremely impressed with notions of order, organisation, precise administration and methodical management. Disorder, mismanagement, weak administrative skills and lack of organisation were abhorrent to him and he connected these with discord, lack of peace and stability and ultimately the fear of dissolution of "the system'. In his opinion, the home should be run like a state, or even more like a perfectly functioning machine reflecting clockwork precision, order, organisation and control. Absence of these qualities from the home, he feared, would lead to dissolution, disarray, breakup, anarchy, discord and chaos. It is probable that the conflict, confusion, chaos and discord that followed the end of Muslim rule causing Muslims to feel insecure, defeated and in disarray, resulted in the need for stability, preservation, continuity and predictability. Since these could no longer be ensured in the public sphere which was now under British rule, the private sphere came to be the object of reform, control, order, discipline, organisation and management. It was only in this sphere that a sense of continuity, power, stability and preservation could be maintained albeit in an illusory way since the private sphere was also undergoing massive changes. AV
In Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's view, it was the woman who was responsible for maintaining peace and stability in the home and it was her role to organise, order and manage the private space in a precise and clockwork manner. Her failure to do so could lead not only to the breakup of the home, discord and dissolution of the home, it could potentially weaken "Muslim society' and its moral and cultural underpinning. Woman was responsible for keeping the Muslim home together, preventing it from falling apart and for overseeing its perfect management. Men's failure to hold on to power in the public sphere could be compensated for by women who could hold "the Muslim

Page 62
104 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
family' together and preserve Muslim cultural and civilisational identity.
Notions such as "the Muslim society', 'Muslim identity' or "Muslim culture' are obviously nationalist essentialisms designed to homogenise diverse communities and erase the difference that was now being perceived as a threat to emerging Muslim nationalism based on religion. Shahida Lateef has argued that there was no single or monolithic Muslim consciousness in India as Muslim practices were regionally specific and varied according to class but the construction of Muslim nationalism in Northern India required the erasure or denial of this diversity in order to create the sense of common identity which came to be organised around religion.' Islam was the organising principle of Muslim nationalism as articulated in the two-nation theory and women's insertion into the newly emergent Indian Muslim nationalism was problematic and riddled with contradictions. They had to be allowed to be nationals or citizens of the Muslim nation or state but their roles had to be kept apart from those of male nationals and citizens, otherwise the difference between Muslim women and those of the colonising or Hindu Other would disappear thereby dissolving the boundaries and distinctions so central to the nationalist project.
The problematic, conflicted and incomplete insertion of Muslim women into the nationalist agenda was later evident in the discriminatory laws against women which effectively made women lesser and unequal citizens of the Pakistani state.' Post-colonial nationalisms, especially those based on religion, cannot allow women's equal citizenship since it would undermine the religious ideology of gender differentiation. When nationalism is based on religion, it cannot ignore the gender injunctions of religion since those injunctions mark the boundary between Them and Us. Men, associated with the outside world of the market are expected to interact with men of other religions and cultures which makes intermingling and the dissolving of boundaries possible. However, such boundary dissolution cannot be allowed to occur as regards the home, where "our women' who are in purdah and protected from the gaze of the outsider/coloniser/conqueror, are different from and morally superior to the exposed and visible women of the subjugator. As regards the capacity to protect, preserve, hide, conceal, control and limit women, the subjugated Muslim male is

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 105
victorious and the sanctity of his home is preserved. In this area, the coloniser is the moral loser as "his women' are visible to the public gaze and the gaze of other men, including colonised men.
The home/world distinction is thus central to all post-colonial nationalisms besieged by a superior and conquering Other; in the case of Indian Muslims, the home came to be premised on religious principles of gender differentiation. The national narrative therefore came to be written clearly on and across the bodies of the women - women as mothers and homemakers. The nation could be held together only by holding the Muslim family together and the Muslim family could only be held together by means of order, organisation and discipline. This order could only be achieved by women who were primarily responsible for the home and, by a metonymical connection, for the Muslim nation. The preservation of "the Muslim nation' therefore, came to rest on the shoulders of Muslim women as guardians of the home and family, keepers of morals and preservers of "Muslim tradition'. Discord and rupture in "the Muslim family' could potentially lead, feared Muslim nationalists, to the rupture of the Muslim nation' and Muslim society'. The family, the mainstay of Muslim identity and nation, had to be kept together in unity and harmony at all costs.
As a consequence, homemakers were virtuous and good women, while homebreakers were virtually traitors and betrayers of the nation. Such women could not be allowed to exist and women's education, therefore, had to be oriented around teaching them the skills and abilities of the precise art of home management and peace-keeping. Disunity and discord leading to homebreaking had to be avoided at all costs, as the threat to the family posed a threat to the nation.
It is in this connection that Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's novel, Meeratul-Uroos, becomes significant. Written in 1869, Meerat-ul-Uroos, which means "The Bride's Mirror', was meant as a reformist text for the author's eldest daughter. It was brought to the notice of the Director of Education of the Northern and Western provinces and was recommended as a textbook and guide for the education of girls. Within a period of about two years, ten thousand copies were sold and several editions published. Sections of the novel continue to be a part of textbooks until today. The Class VI Urdu textbook contains an abridged version of the novel so that girls of about twelve to thirteen

Page 63
106 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
years can be influenced by it. Umrao Jan Ada, a novel written by Mirza Hadi Ruswa around the same period, went into only two editions. This novel depicts a prostitute and highlights the moral complexities, contradictions and dilemmas of the nineteenth century society of the shurafaa (the gentry, respectable bourgeosie)''.
Meerat-ul-Uroos which according to Salim Akhtar, does not deserve to be called a "novel' but a textbook or guidebook for women's behaviour, o carries a sermonising and moralistic tone throughout. It is replete with advice to women from fathers or aunts but mostly wise and sensible men. Its main character, Asghari who represents the good, desirable woman, sermonises and exhorts at the age of thirteen. She gives advice on household and other matters to her husband, her elder brother-in-law, her father-in-law as well as her mother-and sister-inlaw. She comes through as a highly domineering and manipulative woman who controls, manages and administers everyone's life with perfect precision and order. According to Salim Akhtar's assessment, Asghari is unconsciously the projection of Nazeer Ahmad's own personality.' Her highly aggressive, opportunist and self-interested traits, argues Akhtar, are a direct reflection of Nazeer Ahmad's own worldliness and desire to accommodate to a changing world, despite the need to retain the swiftly eroding older values and traditions. Interestingly, Nazeer Ahmad's female characters are far more powerful, strong and action-oriented than his rather dry, lifeless and passive male characters.” The entire action of the novel takes place around the intentions and actions of women. The men seem to be passive and quiescent receptors of the consequences of female actions. This could possibly be a reflection of the sense of loss, chaos and disorder in the masculine public world where an older ethos had been replaced and the new world was being created. There was confusion, defeat, loss, despair and sadness over the fact that Muslim males had lost political, administrative and organising power. In other words, the Muslim male seems to have been castrated by the colonial intervention. To overcome this loss in the public world, Nazeer Ahmad creates the image of the phallic woman - powerful, domineering, in control of matters, an excellent organiser and administrator who runs the home, her men and her school with exactness, precision, order, stability and marvellous organisation. The disorder, chaos and confusion of

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 107.
conflicting and clashing values in the outside world are matched by the order, peace and stability of the well-managed inside world. The ultimate advice about how to create this well-ordered and disciplined world of course comes from the male patriarch, that is, Asghari's sensible and wise father who could also possibly be a reflection of Nazeer Ahmad's male self.
In underscoring the centrality of family harmony, Nazeer Ahmad begins Meerat-ul-Uroos with a full chapter on the importance of a rational education for women in order to make them good mothers and homemakers. After outlining the desirable female virtues of subservience, docility, obedience, chastity, love, care, respect for elders, love for the husband, service, charity, kindness, loyalty and honouring parents, he does not fail to mention the importance of the avoidance of quarreling and arguing. To underline the vital importance of this last virtue, that is, maintaining peace in the home, a little further down he writes:
You must have heard the names of heaven and hell. Real hell and real heaven of course belong to another world and the mystery of these will be revealed long after I am gone. But the forms of heaven and hell can be found in all homes. How can these be recognised? In the love and mutual affection of a husband and wife. In homes where the husband and wife love each other, heaven can be found right there. If, on the other hand, there is frequent quarreling and arguing, constant mutual discord, both are living in hell...This harmony will have to be created by women since they are weaker than men...women have a
number of ways of creating harmony which they know better than
30 ԱS.
He continues his argument by warning women of the life in "the next home', that is, the husband's house. He describes this life as full of discord, confrontation and strife and then places the responsibility for keeping peace upon women. He argues that in order to maintain peace and quiet in the home, the wife must constantly please the husband and ensure his comfort and happiness. This should be her first and foremost duty and if she accomplishes this she is likely to have a fulfilling life. In chapter 10, Asghari's father writes a letter of advice to his daughter regarding how she should behave in her future home:

Page 64
108 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
In very rich homes, there is often discord and quarrelling...In contrast to this, joy and happiness in the majority of homes is dependent upon unity and harmony...Nawabs and begums are often miserable because of a disharmonious atmosphere and mutual disagreements. Not only should the wife love the husband, she must respect him. It is a terrible mistake to consider yourself his equalo
Thus harmony depends upon the wife's love and respect for her husband and an acknowledgement of his superiority and higher status. The assumption is that it is disregard for such matters that causes marital discord. By not placing any responsibility for peace-keeping on the husband, he implies that all discord and disorder is caused by women who start fights and quarrels. At one point in the novel, Asghari's father informs her that most quarrels are started by - daughters-in-law and that they should be careful about doing so. The entire discourse around peace and conflict, harmony and strife absolves the husband of any responsibility and presents him as a mere innocent victim of female intrigue and manipulation. Woman is thus fitna (trouble, source of discord and disunity) and chaos and disorder result from her actions. Nazeer Ahmad thus attributes a great deal of power to women, perhaps not consciously or intentionally since he consistently makes claims about male superiority and strength, but quite perceptibly and spontaneously. Women, in his view, can literally single-handedly make and break homes while hapless men watch and suffer the consequences of female desire and action. Muslim family', 'Muslim society' and "Muslim nation' are virtually pawns in the hands of women because family stability depends on their whims and fancies. The underlying fear seems to be that men who have already lost political power to outsiders and their nation-as-home is already broken, might also lose the familial home, the only place where they wield some power and where a sense of continuity, certainty and predictability in a rapidly changing world exists.
Significantly, in the passage quoted above, the father admonishes his daughter never to consider herself her husband's equal. Such an assertion would be sure to invite discord as the husband's established power in the home would be threatened. This admonition is a direct response to the spread of liberal political philosophy based on the equality of all citizens including women. Muslim writers and poets

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 109
found this aspect of liberal theory particularly pernicious, especially after loss of political power in the public sphere where they were unequal to the British. It was only within the home that superiority over women could be claimed and women's acquiescence in this inequality was vital for Muslim family life to survive the intrusions of the colonial state. The ordered hierarchies of the home could not be disturbed by fast and unpredictable changes in the public world.
However, when the husband becomes wayward and the home is threatened with dissolution because of his weakness, it is the wife's duty to save it from destruction. The husband is absolved from any responsibility as though marriage were a one-way street. When Asghari finds out that her husband has fallen into bad company and has become wayward in another city, Sialkot, where he works, she rushes to save him from his own destruction as well as that of her home. As she says: “What does any city mean to me? For me home is where my husband is' and a little later "If I don't go to Sialkot immediately my home will be destroyed forever'.' She travels by herself to Sialkot to rescue her helpless and childish husband from bad company and organises his environment before she returns. Again towards the end, Asghari's father writes her a long condolence letter over the death of her child and says: "Once you marry your daughter, you take up a quarrel...along comes the daughter-in-law and begins endless strife and discord. She constantly fights and mistreats her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, fails to respect her elder brother-in-law or father-in-law. Despite being a woman she removes the pagri even of men defeats men in fighting)...the son takes her side instead of seeing that his wife is in the wrong. He begins to fight with his own parents. So much so that the parents have to leave the home and take up a separate abode...”* He ends this passage by telling his daughter not to be too sad over the death of her child as children do not necessarily bring joy to parents. Once again the daughter-in-law appears as the quarrelsome, phallic/ mother figure-devouring, destructive and a homebreaker.
Nazeer Ahmad achieves his main purpose of highlighting the importance of good homemakers through a binary division of women into homemakers and homebreakers. He does this by creating two sisters, Akbar and Asghari as mirror images of each other, in that they represent characteristics which are couched in polar oppositions.

Page 65
10 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Akbari, the elder sister, is thoroughly spoilt by her maternal grandmother through excessive love, coddling and attention. She remains in his words, uneducated, uncivilised, ill-mannered, selfish and completely incompetent in running the affairs of the household. Since she is uneducated, she is irrational, a trait Nazeer Ahmad believed was gained through learning and studying.
A match is found with a great deal of difficulty by her parents and Akbari gets married to Muhammad Aaqil (which means rational) who is a sensible, good and wise man. Akbari's spoilt upbringing soon manifests itself in selfish behaviour and she receives the title of mizajdar bahoo (the ill-tempered daughter-in-law). Her "undesirable' qualities ironically include friendliness, the desire to go out, to visit her parents on Eid, to talk to someone, befriend women of different castes and classes and the need to have the freedom and independence to eat what she likes or sleep when she wants. Her husband, Muhammad Aaqil, is also described as having a very bad temper but in his case it is justified as maleness. Asghari gets a good husband and a decent mother-in-law but she is, in Nazeer Ahmad's estimation, so spoilt, selfish, insensitive to others and wilful that she convinces her husband to move to his own separate house despite his meagre income and much against his will. He is an angelic character who suffers her wilful and obstinate ways in silence and without complaint. However, since Akbari is basically stupid and childish she gets tricked into losing all her jewellery to a clever woman and the family is ruined. As she is also an extremely incompetent and inept homemaker, the marital home becomes hell; and because of her inability to cook, clean and run an ordered house, the husband and wife live a disorganised and illmanaged life. As the 'bad' woman of the story, she fails to conceive, a major sin because "good women procreate and provide sons as heirs and sons of the soil and sons to defend and build the nation. By breaking the home and separating the son from his parents, Akbari is the symbol of disunity, disorder, discord, chaos, disorganisation and destruction. As a homebreaker, she is akin to a traitor who betrays the nation and land.
The younger sister, Asghari who is the main protagonist in the story, is the mirror image of her sister. She represents exactly opposite traits in that she is a homemaker, an excellent cook, extremely thrifty,

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 111
careful with money, magnanimous, respectful of adults, obedient and loving towards her husband, thoughtful of her mother-in-law, educated and rational, not easily fooled or tricked and a superb organiser, administrator and household manager.
To continue the mirror opposition, Asghari marries the younger brother of Muhammad Aaqil whose name is Muhammad Kamil. The brothers are also polar opposites with the younger brother depicted as being careless, irresponsible, childish, silly and devoid of sense. From the day Asghari enters her marital home, she is keenly watched with every move under surveillance from the amount she eats to the length of time she sleeps. All her movements are watched, every gesture recorded and measured in a continuous process of scrutiny, evaluation and judgement. Asghari, of course, passes all the tests and all the rites of passage with flying colours. She is so affectionate, kind and goodhearted, so well-mannered and civilised that she receives the title of tameezdar bahoo (the well-mannered daughter-in-law). Her good qualities ironically include the gradual dropping of all her female friends, tendency to remain silent and immobile, lack of expression of want and desire, the clever trapping of an old housemaid who tries to trick her, the constant pleasing of her husband and parents-in-law, the subordination of all her needs to those of others and, strangely perhaps, the manipulation of her husband into refraining from doing what he wants to such as celebrating Shab-e-barat with fireworks, giving up playing and focusing on studies and so on. She is eulogised by the author as a person who at the age of thirteen seldom laughed, hated playing, detested joking and always studied, did housework or performed religious duties.
As soon as she manages to entrench herself firmly in the husband's home, she begins her mission for reform and control. She starts by reforming her husband's playful habits and turning his attention towards studies. Later on in the novel, her childlike husband once again becomes wayward and she travels all the way to the city of Sialkot to reform him and take care of his business. Asghari clearly comes through as a powerful mother-figure who reforms, cajoles and advises her husband like a mother would do for a son. She arranges her sisterin-law's match in a rich home arguing consistently that although her sister-in-law may be poor but the caste is suitable and she should be

Page 66
112 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
accepted. When the family's finances are found to be in a mess, Asghari takes over the management of the house and starts to run it more efficiently in less amounts of money. She manages to outsmart a housemaid who worked in the family for twenty-five years for eight annas a month. Without the slightest understanding of the woman's poverty, her exploitation by her employers and her years of service, she gets her dismissed from service and takes over the running of the house. Subsequently, her clever and ingenious money-saving methods are praised effusively by the author. When the family needs to raise money for the wedding of Asghari's sister-in-law, Mehmooda, Asghari finds ingenious ways of raising the funds that nobody else thinks about. She even advises her father-in-law to retire and have his post transferred to his eldest son. It is this aggressive side that has been especially noted by critics as a very masculine and powerful construction of Asghari as the 'good woman.
Asghari is the quintessential wonderful homemaker of male dreams and wishes. There are constant references throughout the story to her excellent intezaam and nizam (management, order, organisation), not only in her home but in the girls' school that she opens and runs with absolute precision, efficiency and order. It is in this school that she teaches the girls not only cooking, cleaning, housework, stitching, sewing and other feminine' tasks, buut also tells them about the greatness, rationality and superb ruling capabilities of Queen Victoria who, she argues, loves her Indian subjects and rules with absolute justice, fairness and excellent administrative procedures.
Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, was deeply enamoured of the British and was extremely obsequious toward them. It was possibly because of the chapter full of effusive praise for British ruling systems that the government recommended Meerat-ul-Uroos as a textbook in schools. It had the capacity to reconcile Muslims to British rule by informing them of the great inventions of Britain and her unmatched gifts to India. The effusive admiration for royalty is reflected in Asghari's collection of pictures of royal figures which she shows her students.
As behooves a 'good woman, Asghari is highly fertile and bears several children at a tender age. Female fertility tends to serve nationalist purposes quite effectively by producing strong sons for the

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 113
defence of the mother/land/nation. The 'good woman is thus a homemaker and fertile since motherhood is central to the nationalist definition of 'good womanhood'. The nation's purity and racial purity and continuity can be ensured by means of chastity and good motherhood. Asghari does not only make her own home which she runs with machine-like efficiency and thrift; she also makes' , that is, rejoins the mother-in-law's home by convincing her sister and brotherin-law to reunite with her husband's mother. She ends internal discord and disunity and re-establishes harmony thereby overcoming the break and rupture caused by her sister. She re-creates the sense of oneness of family, a notion central in nationalist thought. Nationalist thought derives a great deal from ideas of oneness, homogeneity, unity and "brotherhood', and relies on the depiction of nation as a family united by blood bonds. Asghari unites the brothers and the family and family unity is essential for the unity of society and nation. If Akbari was the national villain/traitor, Asghari is the national hero-the former breaks and the latter unites and rejoins. Asghari also manages to make' her sister-in-law, Mehmooda's home first by finding a 'good catch' for her and then enabling her husband to become rich and powerful. She teaches her own husband how to get a better job with better pay. She controls, manipulates, runs, manages, orders and organises all lives around her. Other characters come to look like puppets who seem to have no motives, desires, needs, wishes, strivings of their own. They respond as she wants them to respond, they do as she directs them to do.
Thus the split binary image of woman as goddess/whore, Eve/ Mary, mother/prostitute that seems to be a part of all patriarchal societies, appears in Meerat-ul-Uroos as Akbari the Destroyer and Asghari the Creator. Akbari represents discord, disunity, chaos and disorder-she is the Muslim notion of fitna. Asghari represents harmony, unity, oneness, togetherness, family, order, organisation and system-she is the ground on which nationalist fantasies are constructed. The breaking of the home is social, cultural and national disruption, disunity and discord; the making of the home is the making of the united and single nation-state.
Dipty Nazeer Ahmad ends his novel with Asghari's father's letter to her in which he describes the world as a temporary abode and God's

Page 67
114 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
garden where humans are merely the gardeners. It is, he tells her, the Maker's right to pluck any flower or branch that He created and the gardener does not have the right to question the Creator's act. He finally tells his daughter that the world is not our home; we are mere temporary travellers to our real home which lies beyond death. Here, home is God/heaven as opposed to the world.'
Akbar Allahabadi: Modernity and the Loss of Home
The several layers of the connotation of home' as family, city, nation, country, empire, earth, heaven all appear in the poetry of Akbar Allahabadi, a late nineteenth century and early twentieth century poet. Like other nationalists of his time, Akbar Allahabadi appropriated selectively from modernity what was convenient and rejected what was not convenient for his interests as the patriarch representing his class and religious affiliation.
Akbar Allahabadi's poetry is characterised by a satirical and mocking tone in which he critiques the various trappings of modernity and Anglicisation. Like other nationalists, his life was also riddled with colonial contradictions, in that while his son was studying imperial knowledge in England, Allahabadi was denouncing and condemning everything perceived as European and Western, from biscuits, pants, cigars, pipes, typewriters, the railway engines, machines, factories, hotels, hospitals, cars and aeroplanes to liberal philosophy, the emancipation of women, education of women and the movement against purdah. His poetry is shot through with a nostalgic yearning for the past and tradition along with a deep sense of loss of the old ways. He laments the loss of religion, the teaching of secular sciences and philosophy. He regrets the effects of what he calls the New Light on the younger generation which no longer seems to respect and obey elders and on women who seem to want to give up the purdah (veiling) and receive a modern education along with men.
Akbar Allahabadi, like Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, lived at a time of severe social upheaval and historical change. The cultural, social and moral values of the past were dissolving at an amazing pace and new ideas were being introduced by the British rapidly through modern schooling and legal reform. His poetry reflects a sorrowful reaction to

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 15
the loss of self, nation, empire, dignity and power. He mocks at the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin which replaced the theory of creation and argues that science can go only so far and can never replace faith-faith begins where science ends. He saw the older structures of power collapsing right before his eyes and newer realities emerging every day. His poetry seems to be a desperate way of trying to retain, rescue and salvage from the debris of social change, whatever was good and great in the older traditions which were being assailed from all sides. His poetry reflects a sense of betrayal of the nation by its own; a sense of a dying world in a state of chaos, disorder, uncertainty and confusion. There is a pervasive sense of gloom and doom despite the light-hearted mocking tone of the verses. It seems that Akbar Allahabadi is eager to create a predictable and ordered world of certainty by ensuring that the strict and rigid role differentiations and hierarchies inherent in Muslim family systems remain intact. He seems to need 'something to hold on to and the only choice left is to hold on to familiar and familial relations with their neat compartments and ordered hierarchies. Any threat of dissolution in this sphere would mean total annihilation of self since predictability and certainty have been lost in the public world of politics and business.
Interplay of Nation and Religion
Nevertheless, he appropriated from modernity the idea of the Nation (Qaum) by which he seems to have meant occasionally Hindus as well as Muslims, but at other times he seems to be referring only to the Muslims since he connects the idea of a nation clearly with religion. The following couplet illustrates this point:
Do not believe it to be a nation, when a gathering is so empty of the remembrance of God and the Prophet
A very large body of his work is focused on the condition of the nation and primarily on what he considered "the Muslim nation'. He tells Muslims that their national existence is dependent upon religion in the following couplet:
Your national existence is a religious branch If it breaks no home can be created

Page 68
116 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
In this couplet not only is the connection between home and nation made explicit, nation is clearly linked to religion which, in Allahabadi's view, was declining as a result of liberal political philosophy. It is difficult to summarise such a vast amount of work in one paper, however some central themes can be mentioned, especially his references to the state of the nation, its decline and downfall, the disunity and discord that characterise its current state and the relation of gendered subjects with national honour as well as decline and downfall. A recurrent image in his poetry is that of home - a home that is no longer united and one, where a brother is fighting his brother, where there is no harmony - a home whose women are out in schools without purdah so that the home/nation no longer seems to be based on complementary roles and functions as enjoined by Islam.
Central Themes in Allahabadi’s Work
The central themes running through the work of Akbar Allahabadi are (1) the nation is declining under the effects of progress and modernity (2) there is loss of national honour (3) national honour and pride are dependent upon strong and masculine sons/boys (4) loss of purdah and women's entry into education are indicative of loss of national honour and of masculinity (5) Muslim family life is being torn apart as women are emerging from purdah and seclusion (6) mutual discord and harmony are destroying the home/nation. There are several other themes organised around the nineteenth century dichotomies of tradition versus modernity, for example, religion versus science, creation versus evolution, progress versus stability and conservation, the West versus the East, Europe versus Asia and so on. These are satirised in contrasts created between biscuits and sheermals, pants and dhotis, horse-drawn carts and modern cars and other symbols of modernisation as compared with indigenous forms of food, clothing and transport. The tone is one of light-hearted mockery but underlying it is a deep sense of loss and nostalgia. However, the theme of women's modernisation and entry into the public sphere is a recurring one and seems to lie at the centre of his nationalist anxiety. For this paper only a few examples will be used but there are many more that cannot be accommodated within the scope of this paper.

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 117
A Nation Besieged and Loss of Masculinity
The loss of nation often appears in Allahabadi's poetry as the nation's death and annihilation. He compares the nation to a sinking ship in the following couplet
The captain makes merry while we sink The national ship is a burden on the nation
In another couplet he writes
The nation is the body and the empire its spirit Without this, it is not a nation but a corpse
There are several other couplets which refer to the death of the nation or its dying state. Bodily and physical metaphors are utilised to describe a corpse or a dying organism. In Allahabadi's view, modernity was destroying the very spirit of the nation making it soulless and dead. He felt that progress was hitting at the very foundations on which the nation was built.
The sense of loss of honour is most revealingly depicted in the following lines
When yesterday I saw some women without purdah Oh, Akbar I sank into the ground for loss of national honour When I asked, what happened to your purdah? They said, it was covering the brains of men
In these humourous lines, he connects national honour explicitly with the loss of purdah as he does in several other lines. In some couplets he compared women's loss of purdah to men's loss of the sword, for example,
When there are no swords left to protect the harem how long will the straws of the chilman' work?
Here, the reference is to loss of masculinity epitomised by the loss of power and control in the public sphere. Men, dominated by an intrusive outsider, are no longer capable of protecting the harem and the honour of women. The chilman seems to be the only boundary between the hostile and intrusive public sphere and the threatened

Page 69
18 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
private one. However, the chilman is too weak to protect the sacred sphere of home. The sword, which often appears in Muslim nationalist poetry as a symbol of Muslim conquest and power, is used here as a symbol of the protection of home and self. In another couplet, the sword as a symbol of Muslim manhood is invoked:
Place now swords and women into new moulds hide the sword, bring out the woman
In this humourous couplet, swords and women (both connected to Muslim honour) exchange places-swords go in, women come out. This couplet is once again about the loss of Muslim masculinity which has been hidden, destroyed, concealed and one sign of the destruction of this masculinity is that women are emerging from the harem, that is, purdah is being abandoned. In Allahabadi's view, colonial modernity had emasculating and castrating effects on Muslim men due to the loss of the Mughal empire which bore testimony to their greatness and was won with the sword. He lamented the inability and unwillingness of the Muslim male to protect and preserve his honour by keeping women in purdah. Allahabadi believed that the very survival of Muslims lay in covering women's bodies and that had it not been for purdah, they could not have survived verbal, moral, physical and ideological onslaughts. He expresses this fear of survival in the following couplet:
Oh Sir, only purdah has enabled us to survive so far, Despite living in bad times, we are still carrying on
Akbar Allahabadi believed that modernity and progress were bringing women out of the harems and exposing them to the gaze of the stranger, the foreigner, the outsider-something forbidden strictly in Islam. He held men, particularly modern men, responsible for this liberalism brought about by a modern education. He laments the fact that men no longer feel ashamed of their womenfolk walking around without purdah and being exposed to the gaze of the colonial state. In a sarcastic reference to the Muslim male's infatuation with civilised modernity, he writes:
By the grace of God both husband and wife are civilised She knows nothing of hijab', he doesn't get angry

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 119
For Allahabadi, purdah and harem, that is, women's seclusion were good ideas of the elders that should have been retained as the following lines reflect:
Not only was it the guardian of women's honour, but purdah in Hind was a symbol of the greatness and glory of Muslims
If there is any honour left in the blood of the anti-purdah, he will understand that purdah was great and a wise decision
Muslim glory and greatness resided in women's purdah. The imminent loss of purdah signified the loss of glory, greatness, honour and a sense of pride. Muslim nationhood resided in concealing women's bodies-a concealment that makes Muslim nationalism more visible, tangible and real. Women can be appropriated/incorporated within Indian Muslim nationhood only by internalising the symbols of a masculine nationalism. He tells women that their own glory and greatness lies in observing purdah as the following lines show:
The only manifestation of woman's glory is purdah
The wiles of the Western woman) may have many buyers but only God is a buyer at the shop of shame
Shame here is used to mean being shy, demure and veiled. Purdah is presented as a religious duty, as God's will making Muslim nationalism a religious imperative even though the language is one of commerce and trade, that is, God is a buyer at the shop of shame. The internal contradictions of nationalism become apparent here as he rejects the Western woman's lack of purdah as a sign of her inferiority, but speaks the language of the market while addressing Eastern women. The nationalist tension between rejecting all that was Western, while simultaneously competing in the market runs through the writing of most nationalists of the time. The very language and metaphor had acquired this tension.
To Akbar Allahabadi, those who were arguing for an end to purdah were tearing apart the fabric of Muslim society and he expresses this in the following lines:

Page 70
120 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
When men are rising in the world by becoming gentlemen Why should the women stay at home and suffer Rest assured that woman's hijab will not last With the folds of the national chadar opening up
And another couplet reads:
When you have lost the purdah of manly shame How long will the hijab survive on the faces of women
In these lines, the loss of masculinity in becoming "gentlemen' is connected with loss of women's veiling; and the emasculation of men and de-feminisation of women are then responsible for making the whole nation purdahless as the "national chadar' begins to unfold. The nation-as-woman is bared as men are too gentlemanly to protect and guard the women and/or the nation. Gendered imagery is deployed in powerful ways to depict the decline of the nation, which like the nation's women, is laid bare.
The notion of nakedness and laying bare recurs frequently in Allahabadi's poetry, especially when writing of women. He uses the traditional idea of woman as shama (candle, light) and re-articulates this metaphor in terms of purdah by describing the fanoos (shade) as the veiling of the shama. The following lines are an example,
The Light of Islam had deemed purdah appropriate But a dead (unlit) shama does not need afanoos (shade)
He strongly denounced the reformers who opposed purdah which, he felt, was like removing the shade from the candle and revealing it to the world. However, he was equally critical of women who wanted to give up the purdah and wrote that if the candle was no longer giving light and was dead, what was the need for a shade? Purdahless women had no light which is used here to mean the light of faith, belief and shame.
For Allahabadi, the loss of women's purdah and their release from the harems was a sign of loss of masculinity and maleness of Muslims who, along with losing the empire, had also lost self-respect and a sense of pride. He saw in progress and modernity, the inability of the Muslim male to carve out the boundaries of his identity by imposing seclusion upon his women. In this kind of castration, the Muslim male

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 121
was in a sense unable to protect his inner core of self, identity-his private life and his home. Home was thus naked and exposed to the foreigner and this was being passed off as progress. He decried the presentation of liberal philosophy as emancipation in a couplet in which he mocked the idea of liberal masculinity which was being espoused by the Reformers:
The philosophy of the West demonstrated such masculinity That the purdah of the women of this nation was parted
There is a clear sense of the colonial state parting the purdah of Muslim women (self) and managing a gaze into Muslim family life, a sacred but threatened turf on which the coloniser was able to tread by means of his philosophy. Allahabadi's critique of reformers and modernisers reveals his preoccupation with masculinity and its loss. The following couplet demonstrates this concern in a mocking, yet caustic style:
Why are you proud that the world has changed you Manly are those who change the world
Reformers like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan were proud that they had espoused liberal and modern values and ideas. However, in Akbar, Allahabadi's view, it is far more manly to change the world than be changed by it. To be the objects of change rather than the subjects of it, is to be feminised. By internalising the values of the conqueror, the conquered had assumed a passive position which is considered to be that of the woman. The colonised thus become feminine vis a vis the coloniser who imposes his law, rules, education and power on the subjugated. The mentality of siege and defeat speaks in gendered metaphors in which the strict divisions of sex roles and positions become central. The conquered consciousness required manly men and feminine women; in Allahabadi's view the opposite was happening as a result of reform, change and progress. Manly qualities, which in his thinking, were valour, strength, warlike virtues and the ability to change the world rather than be changed by it, were missing among the Muslims whose women were renouncing the veil and whose men were left undisturbed by it. Loss of Muslim manliness was matched by the strong masculinity of the coloniser who has managed to change the

Page 71
122 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
world and intrude upon the inner life of the native. Loss of masculinity of the natives' was equated with the acquisition of feminine skills. In one couplet, Allahabadi bemoans this loss thus:
They give you a position, a degree and moisy In the process they turn mujahids' into cooks
In the above lines, holy warriors (mujahids) have sold off their manly qualities for the sake of position and money. Cooking is here presented as a feminine task unbecoming for a real man. Once again the idea is that conquered men have been feminised. This feminisation is most apparent among the reformers who engage in 'soft' struggles rather than "hard' wars. The following couplet illustrates this point:
Men used to show their mettle in the battlefield Now they say Jai' when they pass resolutions
The struggle for Indian independence was being waged on the political front through resolutions and armed conflict was absent. This is regarded by Allahabadi as yet another sign of weakness and feminisation. The qualities that are considered unmanly are, by implication, associated with women. In this regard, the following couplet is notworthy:
Lying, deceit and cruelty are all part of him However, Satan does not have valour or manliness
As Satan is unmanly and lacks valour, his qualities by implication, are feminine. Women, again by implication, become deceitful, cruel and untrustworthy. This is an interesting slide since he also considers progress a Satanic design and laments the fact that women are even more excited about modernity and progress than men. This links up with his idea that lack of sympathy with the nation reflects lack of manliness. Manliness thus means valour and strength, the ability to protect women against the encroachment of the public sphere, sympathy with the nation and opposition to progress and modernity, especially to purdah and women's education. Women who staked a claim to citizenship rights, education and freedom from purdah were thus the handmaidens of Satan who seduced them by appearing as the serpent of progress. The preoccupation with manliness recurs

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 123
throughout his poetry and masculinity seems to reside in being able to protect women from the public gaze and containing their education within the bounds of tradition and religion.
Disintegration of Muslim Family Life
The loss of masculinity threatened Muslim family life which was dependent upon strict and rigid hierarchies and division of roles and responsibilities. The nation in turn was dependent upon Muslim family life where Muslim values and beliefs were preserved and passed on to the next generation. Allahabadi, like Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, believed that loss of masculinity (symbolised by loss of purdah and women's education) caused chaos and disorder within the highly structured Muslim life where the male is expected to be at the top of the pyramid with women serving him and looking after his needs. This privileged position was threatened because of the threat of the dissolution of family life. It was the home that was threatened with dissolution and, like Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, Allahabadi believed that women were responsible for maintaining the home, keeping peace and avoiding discord. In some of his couplets he openly associates women with discord and regards them as sources of chaos and disorder. The following lines illustrate the point:
Woman, land and money are the house of discord But I must say, Oh Akbar - One's wife, no matter how decent and humble Would surprise us if she could provide peace
There are other couplets that express the anxiety that women are the source of infighting, discord, disharmony and male weakness. He feels that were it not for sons and women, a man would be much stronger against worldly forces. Love for sons and women renders a man weak. In the lines above, woman as the source of discord appears as a homebreaker - she provides no peace or harmony. Since the outside world was chaotic and unpredictable, the desire for a peaceful and harmonious home is deep and pervasive among nineteenth century nationalists.
There are several couplets and stanzas on how women's education, loss of purdah and entry into the public sphere are leading to the breakup of homes and loss of male status. Some examples are given below:

Page 72
124 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Bad education in the end turned a husband-worshipping woman into a public-loving lady
He became a bearer in a camp, she an ayah when there was no wife, the qualities of a husband faded when the two meet they sing the line Our end is worse than our beginning
Husbands are lying depressed and followers are gallavanting because wives are in schools and the leader in the court
The paths of progress under the sky have taken men away from mosques and wives away from home
His wife talked only of the school She didn't tell him where his dinner was
An enemy of purdah was crying and telling the police, My honour gone, my wealth gone, my wife gone my jewellery gone
Akbar Allahabadi's poetry is full of stanzas and couplets on the destruction of Muslim family hierarchies and norms as a result of progress and imitation of the West. Underlying the humorous and lighthearted verses is a deep sense of loss of home and nostalgia for older ways and traditions. The break up of homes is linked to the break up of 'society' and 'nation both of which are referred to as home as in the following lines:
They form bonds with enemies and fight among themselves This is how destruction comes, this is how homes break They flatter strangers/foreigners and fight among themselves This is how destruction comes, this is how homes break
In the above lines, the home and nation are spoken of as one and discord, disunity and mutual fighting are regarded as the enemies of both. External and internal chaos and disorder are linked since the nation is imagined to be a 'blood brotherhood'. Women have the major responsibility for preventing the break up of homes if the nation is to last as the home is the last bastion of Muslim power as yet not fully trampled upon by the coloniser. All the hierarchical and differentiated relations of the home must be maintained and preserved if the Muslim self is to be saved from annihilation. In the process, the place, status

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 25
and activities of women must be confined within nationalistically legitimate bounds and limits. These bounds are the boundaries of home where homemaking activities must take precedence over everything else.
It is in this connection that the education of Muslim women became so central to the nationalist project. If they are to be educated at all (which became necessary to avoid the label of Muslim backwardness) then the content and form of that education must be strictly watched, controlled and monitored. Akbar Allahabadi wrote several poems, stanzas and couplets on women's education also representing a preoccupation with their containment in the home and domestic tasks, particularly the service of husbands and children. He candidly asserts that women are not to be educated for the nation, but for husbands and children. Their eduction must be designed to make them better housewives and mothers and not public women as public space of the nation belongs to men. The following are a few examples of Allahabadi's verses on women's education taken from a longer poem on women's education:
It is necessary that the training should be appropriate so that their value and status rises in the biradari'
Their education should not lead to freedom and pride but rather instill virtue and correctness
She must acquire the necessary knowledges to make her a husband-worshipper and servant of children
The principles of religion must be taught She must learn the rituals of worship
She must learn household accounts It is not good to leave such matters to strangers
What good is it if she does not know how to cook This is a woman's greatest achievement
Stitching and sewing are women's special skills They save her from overcharging tailors
If a woman is interested in sewing, she can ensure that nice clothes make children look like flowers

Page 73
26 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
It is important to understand the principles of health Without good health, life is useless
The food should be excellent, clothes absolutely clean It is hell if the house is not kept clean
Another step that women should take towards education is that they should learn the principles of health
There is no use going into the public There is no point in copying the West
If God has granted You women) wealth, be generous become educated, but remain goddesses of home
The routine of Eastern ways is different The School of Western ways and dances is different
This poem reflects virtually all of the concerns of Muslim nationalists as regards women's education. Such an education should be geared towards creating a woman who is a husband-worshipper, a service-providing mother, an excellent homemaker conversant with the principles of health, cleanliness and keeping accounts. The picture he paints of the ideal Muslim woman comes very close to Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's construction of Asghari in that such a woman must combine within herself all the virtues of tradition and modernity mixed together. She must be aware of the modern principles of health, household management and childcare; at the same time she must be a dutiful wife and mother who uses her knowledge purely in the care of home, husband and children. The Muslim home could thus be preserved not only by maintaining traditional power relations but also acquiring modern knowledges and placing them in the service of traditional requirements. In another couplet he clearly enunciates his argument for women's education:
Girls' education may be necessary, however It must make them homemakers, not romantic fairies
Homemaking was thus central to women's education. In another stanza he warns against giving women an education for the nation by which he meant the public sphere:

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 127
Who says women's education is not great? Wisdom requires that one thing must be said Give her an education for husband and children Don't educate women for the nation
Women's education, while being modern, was to be confined to the care of husband and children and not to enable them to become "a signaler in the Telegraph Office or a clerk in the Post Office' as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had feared.' Education was designed by nationalists to reproduce the public/private divide along with its masculine/feminine distinctions. When Allahabadi argues against educating them for the nation, he means their exclusion from political power which democracy by definition gives to each citizen. The conflict between democratic forms of political dispensation and cultural nationalism was an irreconcilable one. Democracy requires equal citizenship of women and their equal representation in public bodies, while cultural and religious nationalisms demand not only gendered hierarchies but the exclusion of women from the public sphere. Postcolonial cultural and religious nationalisms have not yet addressed this dilemma, that is, how to become fully democratic and involve women at all levels of public and private decision-making and, at the same time, maintain the public/private divide and women's seclusion in the home. This dilemma stems from the need of post-colonial and anticolonial nationalisms to usher in modernity and progress while maintaining the boundaries of demarcation between Us and Them.
Akbar Allahabadi believed that Millat (community, nation) was dependent upon homemaking as the following couplet demonstrates:
First make your home and teach homemaking When there is no Millat, how can there be law
This is in response to legal reforms which, along with educational reforms, were underway. Legal reforms also threatened to change societal arrangements despite the fact that the British patriarchies allowed nationalist and religious patriarchies to preserve their respective family laws. Thus when it came to women, imperial patriarchies collaborated with local ones. Nevertheless, Allahabadi's couplet expresses the fear that legal reform may reconstitute the

Page 74
128 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Muslim home which was the centre of the Muslim self. He wrote several couplets and stanzas on how modern education threatened to end purdah which had become the symbol of Muslim identity. He strongly condemned such education and repeatedly appealed to Muslims to not become so 'civilised' and "progressive' as to allow modern education to end purdah which was the distinctive sign of Muslim civilisation. He exhorts women in another poem to consider their household labour their honour, their feet their motor, shame their beauty and skill their jewellery. Thus women's virtues and skills were different to those required of men which included valour, chivalry, strength, power and domination. The nation and home for their survival required different actors and different skills; the nation required that men be valiant, strong, proud and dominant and its counterpart, the home, required that women be demure, shy, good homemakers, wives and mothers. Just as weak and effeminate men were a threat to the nation and had betrayed her, women who were quarrelsome, disagreeable, too modernised and incompetent homemakers were a threat to the home and also ultimately traitors to the nation. Homemaking was thus a national duty and not just a personal one. Women's contribution to the nation was the performance of traditional duties in modern and scientific ways.
The desire for an efficiently run, perfectly administered, properly organised and deftly managed home seems to have stemmed from the disordered and chaotic outside world where fast-paced changes were leaving "nothing to hang on to'. Loss and defeat in the public sphere of political and social power could be compensated for by power in the home over an obsequious and timid wife and obedient children. Order in the home was necessary to offset the effects of disorder and loss of meaning in the world. The home must balance the world and it becomes women's duty as homemakers to provide domestic peace and harmony in a world plagued by change, sorrow and loss of self and meaning. The performance of the duty to provide peaceful homes, places the burden on women to remain silent when the man is angry, provide comfort when he is worried, care when he is tired and sacrifice when he has lost in the world. Only then can she be a good Muslim woman, loyal to Muslim nation and society; alternatively like Akbari, the traitor and villain, woman is without virtue and usefulness.

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 29
Family life and homes, in Allahabadi's view, were being destroyed because of women's education and their entry into the public sphere. The theme of discord runs throughout his work. The following couplet is an example:
This nation is not inclined towards oneness Whatever makes for unity, is not in its temperament
In another couplet he bemoans the loss of "brotherhood' and solidarity in the race for elections, voting and political power as articulated in the idea of self-government. He writes:
Brother is fighting brother Self-government has come between them
In yet another couplet he writes
He breaks his own brother's legs but bows his head and holds up his hands in supplication to those in London
In Akbar Allahabadi's view, the weakening of manliness among the nation's defenders and protectors, partially caused by mutual discord, had led to immorality and vice in the form of purdahless women and the break up of homes and families which is akin to the break up of the nation which he frequently depicts as deademotionally, spiritually and morally dead. For the nation to be alive, its women must perform their traditional family duties and men should be the defenders of home and family.The double burden on the nineteenth century woman resulted from her having to strike a balance between preserving the good old traditional relations in the home and acquiring the new knowledges and sciences necessary to perform that traditional task more easily. She had to be simultaneously modern and traditional while knowing where to draw the line and switch from one to the other.
The new light called progress had diminished the boundaries and distinctions that separated Muslim homes, families and women from the colonisers as well as Hindus. This erasure of boundaries and erosion of self was experienced by nationalists like him as a spiritual and inner death. In one couplet he actually regrets that the progress of purdah has so reduced his capacity as a male to protect his inner bour that strangers can walk into his home without announcing

Page 75
30 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
themselves first. Allahabadi was deeply disturbed by the intrusion of the outsider into the sacred walls of home and the dismantling of the boundaries of self and Muslim'identity.
Nationalisms work through distinctions, differences and boundaries and nowhere are these boundaries so central and vital for the self as in the private sphere of home where women guard the inner frontiers. His entire poetry is replete with images of home versus abroad, nation as home, nation as a garden and home as the place of self. He appeals to younger people and women not to destroy this garden. Uldcr metaphors of garden, nightingale and candle, common in Urdu poetry. are used in the nationalist re-articulation. The garden is the natioil/cuuntry/home and the sad nightingale is singing the sorrowful death of the loss of home/garden/nation. Discord, disunity and infighting brought about by the modern forms of governing are decried as forms in which the coloniser has managed to break the home/nation/brotherhood/ and solidarity of the subjugated. This defeat is experienced as loss of masculinity, a feeling which is enhanced by the women of the colonised being rendered up to public gaze "naked' (purdahless). The coloniser is experienced as having entered the innermost self of the colonised, thereby erasing the boundaries so central to the maintenance of identity. The only way to protect these boundaries of self against the encroachment of the colonizing Other was by ensuring that women remained in purdah, that is, within the personal and political boundaries which marked off Muslim identity and could prevent it from dissolution in the face of a fast changing world where all social relationships, personal and political, were being reconstituted along the lines of modernity and progress.
Conclusion and Issues for Future Reflection
Colonial intervention in India rendered the public/private distinction more vital as a survival mechanism. The rapid and massive reconstitution of the public world of politics and business made it a matter of life and death to guard the private, inner, sacred sphere of "home against any encroachment by the immoral values of the market and public life. Women became the guardians of this sphere and their bodies the repository of honour, culture and national identity. The external world of public intercourse, where men had lost power and

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 131
privilege, had become hostile, foreign and unfamiliar. It was unpredictable and riddled with daily uncertainties. As a result, there were desperate attempts by nationalists to protect and preserve the inner world from the impure and vile effects of the chaotic and disordered outer one. It became imperative, therefore, to manage, control, administer, order and organise the inner world of home in such a predictable, controlled, ordered and efficient manner that some sense of certainty and continuity could be regained. Women, the guardians of this sacred world, were called upon to perform this task and, in the process, a particular kind of womanhood exemplified by the character of Asghari, had to be constructed. Her opposite, Akbari, was a potential annihilator and appears in Allahabadi's poetry in humourous forms as a modernised wife, interested in schooling but one who fails to provide the husband's dinner at the right time. This failure on her part threatens to dissolve Muslim family life, the basis of "Muslim culture' and "Muslim nation'. Constructions of women as mothers and wives become central to post-colonial and anti-colonial nationalisms as the ordered certainties of family life guarantee an illusion of power, control and continuity. In such constructions, the home takes on several important and interrelated meanings which come to be deployed in the struggle for a renewed masculinity able to create new nations and new StateS.
The nationalist appropropriation of "home' as the signifier of self and identity in all its various levels of manifestation from local community to country to the world, requires the construction of women -in particular ways that confine them to set roles, responsibilities and functions. The need to protect inner, spiritual boundaries against the Outsider/stranger in the construction of the honourable nation, makes it problematic to insert women into the public space of the nation, that is, the space of statecraft, governance and rights as equal citizens. Nationalism requires the differentiation of self and other and this differentiation is achieved via specific definitions of women within the cultural and traditional milieu. Difference comes to be marked on women's bodies where the national narrative is written. While women are major actors in the nationalist projects, they are simultaneously present and absent within it-present as idealised Muslim womanhood and absent as real human beings from the male public sphere of

Page 76
132 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
political power, governance and equal rights. Religious nationalism in particular militates against the equal insertion of women into state citizenship since boundary-mapping ends with equality. Boundaries require not only self/other distinctions but unequal and hierarchical differentiations for them to be able to be considered legitimate boundaries. Women within religious nationalism can at best be only second class citizens since giving them the same rights as men would erase the boundaries of psychic survival.
Post-colonial religious nationalism on the basis of which Pakistan came into being is in contradiction with the ideals of democracy which requires equality and liberty. Both equality and liberty for women are antithetical to orthodox Islam. Thus the two discourses of modernity, nationalism and democracy, come into direct conflict on the gender terrain; without gender equality there can be no democracy. Yet, gender equality would contradict religious nationalism. This is the dilemma that Pakistan as a state confronts: Is democracy possible in the presence of religious nationalism? If yes, what about the equal rights of women and minorities who are rendered out of this equation? If not, then what should be given up, democracy or religious nationalism since they cannot seem to co-exist. Furthermore, how can the contradiction within nationalism itself, for example its need to distinguish itself from the other, yet be like the other, be addressed? The concurrent need of the nation-state to be modernised while maintaining tradition and the past, and dividing these two purposes by gender, tends to construct womanhood in ways that exclude women from public space. However, exclusion from public space is contrary to democratic norms. How can this contradiction be resolved? Furthermore, within democracy itself there are contradictions as regards a formal equality combined with inequalities of class, gender, religion, region, sect and ethnicity. Democratic pluralism seems to be yet another way of enabling the marginalised and excluded to feel a part of the nation-state without actually improving their power and inclusion. These issues will need to be faced if the complexities arising from the construction of women within nationalisms is to be re-examined critically.

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 133
Bibliography Ahmad, D.N. (1994). Majmooa: Dipty Nazeer Ahmad (Collected Works).
Lahore: Sang-e-Meel. Allahabadi, A. Kuliyaat-e-Akbar Allahabadi (Complete Works of Akbar
Allahabadi). Lahore: Maktaba-e-Shair-o-Adab. Chatterjee, P. (1986). Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World:A Derivative
Discourse. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Grewal, I. (1996). Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures
of Travel. Berkeley: Duke University Press. Jaywardena, K. (1994). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. Lahore:
ASR Publications. Lateef, S. (1990). Muslim Women in India. Political and Private Realities,
1890s-1980s. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Mitchell, T. (1988). Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Panipati, S.M.I. (1973). Khutbaat-e-Sir Syed. Lahore: Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-
Adab. Parker, A., Russo, M., Sommer, D.& Yaeger, P. (1992). Nationalisms and
Sexualities. New York: Routledge. Sangari, K. and Vaid, S. (1989). Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Notes 1 Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem. pp. 230-231. 2 Partha Chatterjee's "Nationalist Resolution of the Woman Question' in
Recasting Women, pp.238-239. 3 See Partha Chatterjee's "Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, esp.
the chapter on the Thematic and Problematic of Nationalism. 4 See Chatterjee's "Nationalist Resolution of the Woman Question' in
Recasting Women. pp.238-239. 5 Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's speech on women's education delivered in
Jullundhar in 1894. Khutbaat-e-Sir Syed. pp. 279-280. 6 R.Radhakrishnan in Parker et al (eds) Nationalisms and Sexualities. p. 86. 7 See Jaywardena's Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. p. 12. 8
Ibid. p. 12. 9 Ibid. p. 12. 10 Ibid. p. 15. 11 Ibid. p. 89.
12 See Timothy Mitchell's Colonising Egypt. pp. 111-1 12. 13 See Inderpal Grewal's Home and Harem. pp. 168-170. 14 Mitchell, Colonising Egypt. p. 113.

Page 77
34 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
15 Ibid. p. 113. 16 Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem, pp. 26-31. 17 Grewal, Home and Harem. p. 33. 18 Grewal, Home and Harem, pp. 36-37. 19 Grewal, Home and Harem. p. 50. 20 Grewal, Home and Harem. pp. 52-56. 2 Grewal, Home and Harem. p. 56. 22 Grewal, Home and Harem. p. 59. 23 Grewal, Home and Harem. pp. 66-67; 166-170. 24 Grewal, Home and Harem. p. 68. 25 Grewal, Home and Harem. pp. 82-83. 26. In her paper in Recasting Women called "Whatever Happened to the Vedic Dasi?' Uma Chakravarty mentions that when the English court granted the restitution of conjugal rights to Indian men, Pandita Ramabai commented on the collusion of English patriarchy in terms of its contract with the male population of India. p.74. 27 See Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's speech delivered in Lahore in 1888 on the
subject of women's education in Khutbaat-e-Sir Syed. pp. 64-66. 28 See Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's Collected Works. pp.800-801. 29 See Shahida Lateef's book Muslim Women in India. pp. 17-18. 30 Discriminatory laws include the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 which effectively makes rape identical to adultery so that its forced character is eliminated; the Law of Evidence of 1984 which makes two women's testimony equal to that of one male; and the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance which sets the value of a woman's life at half that of a man's life. 31 See Dr. Salim Akhtar's introduction to Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's Collected
Works. pp. 23. 32 Salim Akhtar contends that Meerat-ul-Uroos does not come up to the literary standards of the novel. It lacks the aesthetic beauty, the narrative beauty and character complexity by which novels are judged. He argues that it should be read as a textbook as the character are types (good and bad) and the atmosphere is heavy and depressing. 33 Salim Akhtar's introduction to Dipty Nazeer Ahmad's Collected Works.
p. 13. 34 Ibid. p. 13. 35 Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, Collected Works. p. 801. 36 Dipty Nazeer Ahmad, Meerat-ul-Uroos, p. 843-844. 37 Nazeer Ahmad, Meerat-ul-Uroos, p. 918. 38 Nazeer Ahmad, Meerat-ul-Uroos, pp. 947-947. 39 Nazeer Ahmad, Meerat-ul-Uroos. p. 949.

HoMEMAKERS AND HoMEBREAKERS 35
40
41
42
43
45
46
Chilman is a chick or covering used in the subcontinent to cover doors and windows for purposes of purdah as well as to keep the heat out. Hijab means shame and is also the name given to purdah. Chadar is the cloth worn by women as a covering. Mujahid means holy warrior; one who wages Jihad or holy war. Jai is a slogan of greatness and victory. Biradari means clan; several related families. In a speech delivered in Jullundhar in 1894 on the subject of women's education, Sir Syed had strongly opposed educating women to take up jobs in the public sphere. He argued that Western style of education was unsuitable for Indian women for centuries to come. Khitbaat-e-Sir Syed, pp. 279-280.

Page 78
Chapter 5
POST VICTIMISATION
Cultural Transformation and Women's Empowerment in War and Displacement
Darini Rajasingham - Senanayake"
Women are often cast in terms of opposites and dichotomies. She is shakti (power) and a weaker sex. She is auspicious (sumankali) and polluted. She is the maker and destroyer. She creates but is herself polluted at the time of creation. She is the evil force but she is godly as a mother. As a young women she is sexually dangerous and vulnerable but in a married form she is harmless and passive. A devadasi is also a paradox par excellence. A Devadasi is nitya sumankali (Kersernboom 1987: xv) i.e. auspicious forever. Under normal circumstances the state of Sumankali is bestowed on wornen who are married and whose husbands are alive. Tali, flowers, gold and the mark on the forehead, pottu, are the symbols of being sumankali.... when the husband dies, all the symbols are removed and the widow is pronounced ritually inauspicious and kept away from events such as weddings... However in the case of the devadasi, she is not within the family, is never married to a man, does have relationships with many men and she is not governed by the rules of chastity and codes of restraint. But she is considered perpetually a sumankali. (Thiruchandran, S: 1997, 55).
Women have come out strong during the war... they have stood out as individuals or as small groups; exposing the atrocities and violations of dignity... Women, who in the midst of war pleaded and

POST VICTIMISATION 137
argued with the militants for their families and the whole nation... Women's history does have a triumph. There is powerlessness, disappointment and disillusion but also hope. We have done it...a little bit.
Objectively, the pursuit of truth and the propagation of honest positions were not only crucial for the Community, but were a view that could cost many of us our lives. (Dr. Rajini Thiranagama, senior lecturer, Jaffna University, assassinated by LTTE cadres on September 21, 1989).
Introduction H['''''''''''''''''; women who took on various non-traditional gender roles in situations of social stress, conflict, war and revolution, have been "pushed back into the kitchen after the revolution” as part of a return to everyday life (Jayawardane: 1986, Enloe: 1983). Arguably, one of the primary reasons that the return to peace often meant a return to the gender status quo was the lack of social recognition and a culturally appropriate idiom to articulate and legitimate women's empowerment in the midst of conflict, trauma and social disruption. This is particularly the case in societies where women's roles tend to be confined by kinship ties and ideologies and displacement out of a single caste village might mean loss of caste and Social status.
This paper attempts to trace languages of empowerment in the generally tragic story of displaced Tamil women's lives towards recognising and promoting positive changes to women's roles and lives wrought in armed conflict. In the Sri Lankan armed conflict, now in its 14th year, many young and middle aged women have had to take on an unaccustomed role as head of household and principle income generator after being displaced and/or suffering the loss of husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. Often the victims or witnesses of extreme violence and trauma, over time, many displaced women have also gained greater confidence, mobility and authority within their families and even their communities as they are forced to take on new, traditionally male roles due to the social disruption caused by conflict. This is particularly the case with a growing number of young Tamil war widows who are challenging conventional Hindu constructions of the 'good woman as one who is married and auspicious (samangali).

Page 79
138 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Increasingly many young widows are redefining the perception of widows (and to a lesser extent unmarried women), as inauspicious beings (amangali), by refusing to be socially and culturally marginalised and ostracised because they have lost husbands. Yet very few of these women seem to have found a culturally appropriate language to articulate the transformations that they have experienced and many feel ashamed, guilty and/or traumatised by their changed circumstances and gender roles arising from conflict.
The paper then also attempts to map civilian women's agency in moments of violent social transformation and cultural change, to configure a more complex picture of women's agency, as well as their languages of resistance and empowerment in conflict. It also takes a critical look at how the construct of the Sri Lankan Tamil woman as a double 'victim': of war, as well as Tamil caste, culture, and society in peacetime might obscure and indeed impede women's agency and empowerment in conflicts. I do not directly address the issue of militant women of the LTTE who might have found questionable if not deadly liberation in the Tamil nationalist project as fighting cadres or suicide bombers partly because there already exists a fairly extensive debate on the subject (cf. Balasingham: 1983, Coomaraswarmy: n.d, De Mel: Maunaguru: 1995).
I draw from ethnographic field research conducted during several field work stints over a number of years (1996-1998) in the "border areas' (as they have come to be termed in the media and popular culture), of the north-central province of the island which have experienced cycles of violent armed conflict, including repeated bombing and shelling of civilian populations. In particular, I draw from interviews conducted with women living in three different settings of displacement:
1) Welfare centres or refugee camps where people are housed in sheds, schools or structures constructed by UNHCR and other relief agencies working with the government. 2) Residents of border villages who have been displaced many times by the fighting, shelling and bombing, but chose to return to their villages rather than remain in refugee camps. These people live in constant fear of attack and displacement again but since the majority are farmers, they choose to return to their land.

POST VICTIMISATION 139
3) New settlements in the border areas of the Vanni where the Sri Lanka Government settles landless displaced families from the same province in a new plot of land. These new settlements are part of the rehabilitation and reconstruction programme in Vavuniya. In particular, I draw from interviews with young women heads of households in Siddambarapuram Camp, which is located just outside the town of Vavunia. This particular camp received a large number of displaced persons and families from Jaffna and the Vanni who had fled to India in the early nineties and were subsequently repatriated. I also draw from interviews conducted with women heads of households in the new settlement scheme adjacent to Siddambarapuram camp. Currently there is growing recognition among those involved in humanitarian relief and rehabilitation work that women frequently bear the material and psychological brunt of armed conflict and hence there is a need for gender sensitive relief and rehabilitation work. Yet few programmes have systematically explored how relief might aid recovery from individual trauma and social suffering and facilitate women's empowerment in and through conflict. Thus many gender programmes organised by the Government's relief and rehabilitation . authority and NGOs still remain within conventional development thinking rather than attempting to work out culturally appropriate and effective strategies for women's empowerment in the context of the social transformations that have occurred over years of armed conflict and displacement. The second part of this paper then deals with the impact of humanitarian relief initiatives on displaced Tamil women's lives and seeks to link relief with building and sustaining women's recovery from the traumas of war through a critique of the victim ideology that pervades many humanitarian interventions.
Tamil Women as Victims’ of War, Caste, and Culture
In Sri Lanka the tendency to view women as "victims' of armed conflict has been fuelled by a number of popular and specialist discourses, concerning several brutal rapes committed by the Sri Lanka Army, as well as the Indian Peace Keeping Forces when they controlled the conflict zones. Human rights discourse and humanitarian

Page 80
140 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
interventions have significantly contributed to the tendency to view. women as "victims'. For the various and systematic forms of violence that civilian women experience at the hands of armed combatants, whether state armies or paramilitary personnel in situations of armed conflict and displacement, was extensively documented and highlighted in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and other parts of Africa and Asia. This process culminated in the UN resolution that established rape as a war crime and saw the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women’. Highlighting gross violations of women's bodies and lives in situations of conflict and displacement has been part of an intervention by feminists and activists to promote women's rights as a human right internationally. Yet, the focus on women as "victims' has arguably resulted in the elision of how long-term social upheaval might have also transformed women's often subordinate gender roles, lives and position in non-obvious ways.
But the construct of the Tamil woman as 'victim of war also draws from another genealogy. Anthropological, sociological and literary ethnography has tended to represent Tamil women as living within a highly patriarchal caste ridden by Hindu cultural ethos, particularly in comparison to Sinhala women whose lives are seen to be less circumscribed by caste ideologies and purity/pollution concepts and practices. The figure of the LTTE woman soldier, the armed virgin or the nationalist mother stands as one of the few highly problematic exceptions to the representation of the Tamil woman as a victim of her culture and caste.
Of course the representation of Tamil woman in relation to caste and family is not entirely monochrome in the anthropological literature which is split on the subject. For many anthropologists have also emphasised strong matrilineal tendencies in Sri Lankan Tamil society, where women inherit property in the maternal line according to customary Thesawalamai law and enjoy claims on natal families, in contrast to the rigidly patriachal cultures of North India where patrilineal descent and inheritance is the norm (cf. Wadley: 1991). Feminist ethnography, on the other hand, has emphasised the subordinate status of Tamil women in the Hindu caste structure, while frequently noting the split between the ideology of Shakti or female power as the primary generative force of the universe (also associated

POST VICTIMISATION 141
with the pantheon of powerful Hindu goddesses) and the reality of women's apparent powerlessness (Thiruchandran: 1997). Both schools however emphasise the generally restrictive nature of the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu caste system on women and often tend to see caste and gender relations as culturally rather than historically determined. Women have rarely been centred in debates on caste and when they have been, they are more often than not constructed as victims rather than agents of culture.
More recently anthropologists have argued that colonialism permeated by British Victorian patriarchal culture eroded the status of women in the South Indian societies that follow the matrilineal Dravidian kinship pattern, where property is passed in the women's line, from mother to daughter - a practice which usually indicates the relatively high status of women in society. Rather, they highlight how colonial legal systems might have eroded the rights and freedoms that women had under customary law, particularly in matrilineal societies, while emphasising the historically changing circumstances of family, kinship, caste and gender relations. In this vein, this paper explores how fifteen years of armed conflict and displacement might have altered the structure of the family, caste and gender status quo among displaced Tamils in the border areas affected by the conflict.
Women in the Hidden Economies of Armed Conflict
Since 1983 when Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict transmuted into a dirty war perpetrated by a number of armed forces and groups, civilians in the border areas have lived amidst overlapping regimes of terrifying security. Between the major contenders in the war-the Sri Lanka government's military regime of passes and check points and the LTTE's parallel security regime-civilian men and women also have to contend with the sub regimes of several other armed groups--the Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Front (EPRLF - East coast) and Rafik group, People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE – Vanni), Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP-Jaffna) for fifteen years of war has generated a number of armed para military groups who seem intent only on retaining the power they wield at gun point. Many of these paramilitary groups which are bank rolled by the Sri Lanka government and work with the Army to combat the LTTE

Page 81
142 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
maintain regimes of terror and torture in the areas they control. All these groups, mainly youth, carry guns. The paramilitaries remain outside the authority and discipline structure of the Government's armed forces which are marginally better trained and better aware of humanitarian law. Thus, the paramilitary cardre tend to have a relatively freer reign than government forces to terrorise civilians, torture them and extort money at gun point. At the national level, several leaders of paramilitary groups are installed as members of Parliament and support the ruling government'. These groups have also developed systems of taxation of civilians by virtue of their control over the main transport routes and the movement of persons and goods through an economy of terror, scarcity and fear. In the Sri Lankan conflict, the LTTE pioneered this system of taxation on the movement of goods and trafficking in persons. Since then, the Army has resorted to similar practices. Where the army issues passes and identification papers, there is a high degree of corruption. Residents of high security areas complain of being asked to pay large sums of money to army personnel before they are issued with these papers.
Violence against women in this context is the stuff of rape, trauma and disappeared persons, torture, assassination, and the gendered politics of body searches at check points usually conducted by armed youth who have been trained in the arts of terror, torture and the degradation of their victims. Several instances of check point rape by the Sri Lankan government's security forces have occurred, though rape has not been practised as a systematic policy for ethnic cleansing by any groups in the conflict, unlike in Bosnia. Women suffer particularly from the poor security situation in the border areas. Their mobility and thus ability to go out to work is severely curtailed due to fear of body searches and check point rape, not to mention anxiety about being caught in crossfire. Mothers are often fearful for their daughter's safety and sexual vulnerability and tend to confine them to the home or refugee camp. Simultaneously, a sexual service industry has developed in Anuradhapura area where soldiers return from the conflict areas, with many homeless and displaced women engaging in prostitution.
The fear of checkpoint rape is a constraint on women's ability to move around and venture out of their immediate locale for work or any

PosT VICTIMISATION 143
other purpose. Conditions are considerably worse for displaced women who are forced to live in refugee camps where privacy is minimal if non-existent and levels of generalised violence, alcholism and domestic violence are high.
Spaces of Empowerment : Displacing Gender and Caste Hierarchies
Yet, displacement and camp life had also provided spaces for empowerment for several Tamil women who had taken on the role of head of household for various reasons. In this section I outline some of the processes of transformation in young single and widowed women's lives, women I met at the Siddambarapuram camp and adjacent new settlement scheme. Siddambarapuram was located a few miles outside Vavuniya, the largest town in the north central Vanni region. It had received a large influx of refugees from the north. In many ways the facilities, location and environmental/ climatic conditions at that camp and the adjoining new settlements were exceptionally propitious. The relative prosperity of the locale and its residents was evident in the fact that the market in the camp was a vibrant and happening place that had become a shopping centre for nearby old (purana) villagers as well. At Siddmbarapuram the sense of independence, empowerment and mobility of many women heads of household was tangible and remarkable in contrast to other women I met in camps in less propitious settings. This is explainable in terms of the camp's location close to the larger town of Vavuniya where women could find employment, particularly in the service sector. This is of course not an option for displaced women in other less conveniently located camps.
The Siddambarapuram Camp was initially constructed as a transit camp by UNHCR for refugees returning to Jaffna from India in 1991, who were subsequently stranded when the conflict started again in what is known as the second Eelam war. Many of the people in the camp had been residents for more than five years. One of the oldest refugee camps in Vavuniya, in many respects the camp was exceptionally well located and serviced. Several young Tamil widows I interviewed in the camp and the adjoining new settlement noted that while they had initially had a hard time adjusting to displacement, camp life and the

Page 82
144 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
burdens of caring for their young families, they also had gained freedom to work outside the household and increasingly enjoyed the role of being the head of the household and its principle decision maker.
Many women said that they had little desire to remarry, mainly due to anxiety that their children might not be well cared for by a second husband. Several women commented that previously their husbands would not permit them to work outside the household, even if they had done so prior to marriage. Of course one of the principle reasons for these women's newly found sense of control was the fact that they were able to and had found employment outside the household and the camp. Their sense of independence was evident in the defiance with which they wore the red pottu, the auspicious mark of the married Hindu women, despite being widows or women whose husbands had abandoned them. The demographic fact of a large number of young widows who were unwilling to take on the role of the traditional Hindu widow, who may not participate in auspicious social rituals such as wedding ceremonies and who are generally socially ostracised, indicates that there is space for redefinition of what it means to be an unmarried or widowed woman in the more orthodox Hindu tradition.
To a great extent the erosion of caste ideology and practice particularly among the younger generation in the camps had contributed to women's mobility and sense of empowerment. For, caste has historically provided the mainstay of the Hindu Tamil gender status quo since caste belonging often determines women's mobility and seclusion particularly among the high castes is a sign of high status. Unlike in Jaffna where village settlement was caste and region based, in the camp it was difficult to maintain social and spatial segregation, caste hierarchies and purity pollution taboos for a number of reasons. This is particularly true for members of the younger generation who simply refused to adhere to caste inhibitions.
As one mother speaking about the disruption of caste hierarchies in displacement observed: "because we are poor here as displaced people, we only have two glasses to drink from, so when a visitor from another caste comes we have to use the same glass. Now my daughter refuses to observe the separate utensils and she is friendly with boys we wouldn't consider at home. Everything is changing with the younger

PosT VICTIMISATION 145
generation because they are growing up all mixed up because we are displaced and living on top of each other in a camp'. This mother went on to detail how it was difficult to keep girls and boys separate in the camp situation. She thought that the freer mingling of youth meant that there would be more inter-caste marriages and hence an erosion of caste. Presumably this also means that girls had more choice over who might be their partners.
The reconstitution of displaced families around women who had lost male kin curiously resonates with an older gender status quo: that of the pre-colonial Darvidian matrilineal family and kinship system where women remained with their natal families after marriage and were customarily entitled to lay claim on the resources of the matri-clan and hence enjoyed a relatively higher status in comparison with strictly patrilineal societies. For as Binna Agarawal has pointed out in "A Field of One's Own' (1996), the existence of matrilineal systems where matrilineal descent, matrilocal residence, and/or bilateral inheritance is practiced is usually an indicator of the relatively higher status of women when compared to the status of women in patrilineal groups. Similar observations concerning the status of women in matrilineal communities have been made by anthropologists who have studied the Nayars of Kerala as well as the Sinhalas, Tamils and Muslims of the east coast of Sri Lanka where matrilineal inheritance is the norm (Yalman). These are also societies where social indicators have been consistently good, with high levels of female literacy, education and health care in South Asia.
During the colonial period in Sri Lanka there was however a general erosion of the matrilineal inheritance and bilateral descent practice, despite general provisions being made for customary common law for indegenous communities (Thesavallamai, Tamil customary law, Kandian Sinhala law as well as Muslim Personal law). In the same period the modernising tendency to the nuclear family enshrined in secular European, Dutch and British law, also privileged male inheritance, thereby reducing the power of women within their families. The switch from matrilineal, matrilocal, to virilocal forms of residence and inheritance, where women take only movable property to their affinal household might also be traced to various post/colonial land distribution schemes wherein title deeds for land were invested in

Page 83
46 WOMEN, NARRATION ANb NATION
male heads of household, with the injunction against the further division of land due to land fragmentation, which set a precedent for male inheritance of the entirety of the family's land. The result has been the tendency towards male primogeniture-with the eldest son inheriting the land and daughters being disinherited from land ownership.
Unfortunately similar pattern of title deeds being invested in male heads of households is still evident in the new settlement and land distribution schemes for landless displaced populations which are taking place in Vavuniya under the rehabilitation and reconstruction project. In these projects it is only where the male head of household is presumed dead that title deeds are invested in women. Women whose husbands have left them or whose where abouts cannot be ascertained are not deemed eligible for land grants.
Languages of Empowerment: Recasting Widowhood and the Return to Matri-focal Families
Nevertheless a generation of young Tamil war widows who have been displaced to and in the border areas for many years seem to be increasingly challenging conventional Hindu constructions of widow hood as a negative and polluting condition which bars their participation from many aspects of community life. Consciously or unconsciously, they appear to be redefining conceptions of the "good Woman' as one who lives within the traditional confines of caste, kin group and village. Many of these young women who have lost husbands to death, displacement or family fragmentation in the course of armed conflict and flight from bombing and shelling, increasingly refuse to erase the signs of sumankali (particularly the auspicious red pottu) they wore when married and refuse to be socially and culturally marginalised and ostracised because they lack husbands and children.
Displacement along with the fragmentation and reconstitution of families around women in a conflict where men frequently have had to flee to avoid being killed or inducted by the armed groups, appears to have provided a space to redefine traditional Hindu Tamil perceptions of widows and single women as inauspicious beings. As they struggle with new gender roles and identities, many of these young widows who refuse to wear the prescribed garb of widowhood appear to break with

POST VICTIMISATION 47
the ideology of Kannaki (Paththini), the exemplary faithful wife and widow of Tamil mythology and ideology. Rather, they seem to evoke the sign of the devadasi - Kannaki's, alter ego--who transcended conventional gender roles; the professional woman married to immortality for her talent and skill, most familiar to South Asian audiences in the name of the famed dancer and courtesan, Madhavi of the first century Tamil Hindu-Buddhist epic, Sillapaddikaran.
With the exception of the young Tamil widows, women who have found more freedom in the conflict, women still seem to lack a language to articulate this process of transformation and regeneration and clearly feel guilty about expressing their new found confidence. Only one woman directly told me "it is a relief now that he (her husband) is not with me. He used to drink and beat me up'.
Clearly the process of empowerment is not transparent, unambivalent, or free of guilt and this was evident in many young widows uncertainty about whether they should return home if and when the conflict ended. For them displacement clearly constituted the space of ambivalence: a place of regeneration and the hope for a future unfettered by the past loss and trauma. They were also concerned that a return home would mean a return to the pre-war caste and gender staus quo. Of course, anxiety about return was also related to qualms about personal security and trauma. Anxiety about return was clearest among young women heads of households at Siddambarapuram, who had integrated to the local economy and among those who had previously been landless.
Rethinking Displacement through the Changing Status of Women in Conflict
Many internally displaced women who have given up the dream of return are in the paradoxical position of being materially and psychologically displaced by the humanitarian interventions and human rights discourses and practices that define them as victims who need to be returned to their original homelands for their protection and for the restoration of national and international order and peace'. For, the assumption of return is a fundamental premise of State, international and NGO policies vis-a-vis internally displaced people. The fact is that these policies might be contributing to prolong the conflict and a cause

Page 84
148 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
of trauma for people who fled their homes over five years ago. This is particularly true of women for whom restrictions on mobility are difficult. Many of these women who wish to settle in the place where they have found refuge are being kept dependent on relief handouts rather than being assisted to build new lives and livelihoods. Thus, ironically, relief might be prolonging the trauma of the very people it is supposed to assist.
Under these circumstances, an approach which conceptualises humanitarian work as part of a development continuum with gendersensitive post/conflict intervention is especially necessary in instances where armed conflicts have lasted for several years with communities experiencing cycles of war and peace and displacement. Ironically, for some women the conflict has provided windows of opportunity for greater personal and group autonomy and experiments with identity and leadership, for others there is only trauma. Certainly this has been the case for many displaced Tamil women, many of whom have lost husbands and sons in the conflict'. It is hence important that relief aid should be conceptualised to sustain women's empowerment and leadership roles that initially arose as an effect of conflict within an altered family structure.
Women's Empowerment in Conflict: the Humanitarian Challenge
Unlike in Afghanistan where the situation of women has unambiguously deteriorated due to conflict and the victory of the Taliban, in Sri Lanka, the evidence suggests that despite many women's experience of traumatic violence and displacement, some changes to the gender status quo wrought by armed conflict might have empowered women whose freedom and mobility were restricted by patriarchal cultural mores, morality and convention in peace time. Several women who have faced the traumatic loss and scattering of family members due to displacement, conflict, and the break down of family structures have also assumed new roles which were thrust upon them as a result of the disruption of peace time community organisation, social structures and patriarchal values. Yet I do not wish to suggest that this is a general story which might be told of women living in conflict and displacement. Rather this paper has attempted to focuses on civilian women's agency at moments when they seem most

POST VICTIMSATION 149
victimised, to excavate some hidden moments and routes of women's empowerment in the generally tragic story of displaced women's lives in Sri Lanka.
The victim ideology which pervades relief and rehabilitation as well as social health and trauma interventions for women in conflict situations needs to be problematised especially as it may be internalised by some women with-damaging consequences. Clearly, noncombatant women who have found spaces of empowerment in the conflict need sustained assistance to maintain their new found mobility and independence in the face of sometimes virulently nationalist assertions of patriarchal cultural tradition and practices during the conflict and in the period of post-war reconstruction. The return to peace should not mean a return to the pre-war gender status quo. It follows that humanitarian and development interventions should be directed to creatively support and Sustain positive changes to the status of civilian women living in conflict. The need to conceptualise relief as part of a development continuum is particularly evident on the gender issue. It has taken long enough to put women on the development agenda and in situations of emergency and conflict, women tend to be once again marginalised, as quick responses become the primary agenda. Displaced women should receive priority in land grants.
I have argued elsewhere that nationalist women and women combatants in nationalist struggles waged by groups like the LTTE, or the nationalist women in Ireland or Palestine, are imbricated in ultraconservative "nationalist constructions of women' and tend to subordinate their gender identities to the nationalist cause (Rajasingham 1995). Suicide bombing is but the extreme version of this phenomenon which might, in Durkheimian terms, be glossed as altruistic suicide, when individual autonomy and personal agency is completely subsumed in the national cause. The question might well be raised as to whether women would be more given than men to altruistic suicide, given their socialisation in patriarchal Asian cultures where girl children and women are more often than not taught to put themselves second and their male folk, family, and community honour first. Clearly, non-combatant women are differently imbricated in nationalist discourses and the return to peace time (which entails the reassertion of the gender (status quo) is as problematic for them as it is for combatant women, but for different reasons.

Page 85
150 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Bibliography
Agarwal, Binna
1996 A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Enloe, Cynthia
1983 Does Khaki Become You? The Militarisation of Women's Lives.
London. South End Press.
Jayawardena, Kumari
1986 Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London, Zed Books
Rajasingham, Darini
1995 "On Mediating Multiple Identities: The Shifting Field of Women's Sexuality in the Community, State and Nation” in "From Basic Needs to Basic Rights. Margaret Schuler ed. Washington DC. Women, Law and Development International.
Thiruchandan, Selvy
1997 Ideology, Caste, Class and Gender. Delhi. Vikas.
Wadley, Susan Ed.
1991 The Powers of Tamil Women. New Delhi. Manohar.
Notes
1 Social Science Research Council-Mac Arthur Foundation Fellow in Peace
and Security Studies. 2 Reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. 3 Colonial evolutionary classifications of (primitive) societies presumed that fewer restrictions on women's freedom indicated a more primitive stage of civilisational advance. 4. Many paramilitants have been trained either by the State and have benefited from training in violence from various foreign sources including the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) as well as war experts from Israel and the U.S. 5 Since the armed conflict commenced in Sri Lanka, the population of displaced people has fluctuated from half a million to 1.2 million, or between a tenth and a fifth of the country's population at various points in the conflict. At the end of December 1995, the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Sri Lanka estimated that there were 1,017, 181 internally displaced people in Sri Lanka while 140,000 were displaced overseas (some of the latter have sought asylum status). Figures of displaced persons are however controversial. The University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffna (1993) estimates that half a million Tamils have become refugees overseas. The decennial census of Sri Lanka scheduled

POST VICTIMISATION 151
for 1991 was not taken due to the conflict. Estimates are that 78% of the internally displaced are ethnically Tamils, 13% are Muslims and 8% are Sinhalese (Gomez, 1994). Many displaced people, Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese alike, fled Sri Lanka Army and LTTE brutalities. For those in the conflict regions, the right to set up residence in an area of one's choice and the right to movement is seriously restricted by the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka's security regimes. While the Sri Lanka government restricts the movement of Tamils displaced southward, the LTTE will not permit Sinhalas to move or settle in the north. In fact, both the LTTE and the Sri Lanka government have used displaced persons as security shields or buffers during military campaigns. The Sri Lanka Government's restrictions on the mobility of persons and their confinement to camps have other implications for youth and children. Militant groups who infiltrate camps have very little difficulty in recruiting new cadres from deeply frustrated and resentful youth, men and women, girls and boys. Among internally displaced Muslim women, however, the pattern is slightly different. Depending on the location of camps and the resources that families had, some women feel they have gained autonomy in their new situations while others complain of greater segregation.

Page 86
Chapter 6
FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR
HAVING FUN
A case study of Political Awareness and Participation of Rural Sinhalese Women
Subhangi Herat
Introduction Pl participation and engagement in public activities are not strange phenomena for Sinhalese women. Historical data from the early history of the country well demonstrates that Sinhalese women were never culturally or socially separated from public life. However, this type of engagement is highly varied according to many reasons, viz. historical, social class, urban-rural dichotomy etc. Moreover, political participation in the Sri Lankan context always does not seem tantamount with political awareness which means that high political participation may not be a consequence of high level of political awareness. This paper attempts to discuss the meaning of politics for rural sinhalese women and to demonstrate within a historical framework whether centuries of political participation has increased the awareness of these women in motivating them towards actual emancipation.
Methodology and Setting
Field work was carried out during 1994 and 1995 in an up-country village. This was a remote village in the Nuwara Eliya district which

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN'? 153
had limited links with the outside world. Traditional agriculture was the major economic activity of both men and women in the village. This included both paddy and chena cultivation. Since this was an upcountry dry zone village, paddy could be cultivated only during the rainy season which lasted for six months. During the other half of the year, villagers had to resort to chena (slash and burn) cultivation. Despite the fact that the village was located in the high mountainous region, it did not become involved in tea or tobacco industry, apparently due to the climatic reasons. Although for several decades it had a bus route connecting the village with major towns such as Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, the village had retained most of its traditional and remote physical features and social relations until 1977 when the liberalised economy infiltrated the capitalist productive relations and encapsulated the village within its boundaries mainly through garment industry. The road system could not be well maintained due to the high occurrence of land slides during the rainy Season which the villagers consider as a result of tobacco cultivation in the upper reaches.
There were 280 households in the village and about one hundred of them lived below the poverty level according to Grama Niladhari records but many of them were agriculturally self-sufficient although it did not generate an excess income. There were only seven big land owners who had employed between 10 to 35 tenants but most of the others had small plots of land sufficient to meet their consumption needs.
All the villagers were sinhala Buddhists except for two families who were the descendants of some European planters. Rigid caste relations operated in the village with regard to certain inter caste relations but there were no severe restrictions in day to day relations among different castes. However, the majority of the villagers belonged to 'govigama' or cultivator caste.
Occupational variation as well as occupational mobility was very low in the village. Women belonged to limited occupations, namely 65% farmers, 4% teachers, 3% labourers, 1% in business and 25% housewives.
The major research methodology adopted in this study was the case study method. A sample of two hundred households were selected for a basic socio-economic survey which utilised a questionnaire. Out

Page 87
154 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
of that sample, case studies were prepared on sixty women through indepth interviews carried out with women themselves, their families, neighbours etc. The statistics...which follow are drawn from the analysis of these case studies.
The Historical Trends in the Public Life of Sinhalese Women
Historical documentation of Sinhalese women's involvement in public activity begins with the establishment of the order of Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka in the third century B.C, with the arrival of the Buddhist nun "Sangamitta' and the ordination of royal lady Anula, the consort of the sub-king, followed by thousands of other women. According to the chronicles, in the first three centuries of Buddhist history, the ratio of nuns to monks had been from 10:9 to 10:5. This is a clear indication of the rapid expansion of the order of Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka (Munasinghe, 1985: 6). Many nuns were recognised as experts on Buddhist philosophy. Some of the nuns became known as great historians. Buddhist nuns had established an international reputation by the fifth century A.D. There is historical evidence that Sri Lankan nuns travelled to China in order to establish the order of nuns in that country (Munasinghe, 1985: 6-7). Women engaged in politics, religion, economics and other social activities more or less equally with
IՈՇՈ,
In the public domain outside home, both her education and her spirituality were highly valued. Indeed, women were considered equally capable of attaining the highest spiritual levels and sometimes women excelled men in higher learning, an accomplishment that was greatly appreciated. Although there is no evidence that women attended formal educational institutions (de Silva, 1989), the knowledge displayed by the women of the royalty as well as by ordinary women in different subject areas such as literature, languages and religious studies has been well documented (Herath and Kulasuriya, 1985: 215216).
Although there is no reference in Sri Lankan history to any law or practice that prevented women from participating in politics perse, the records document only a few instances of such involvement. The written history of the country begins with the subordination of a reigning queen. Since then, for more than two thousand years of the

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN'? 155
country's history, only four sovereign queens have ascended the throne and few women have been endowed with ranks and titles within the non-royal political and social elite of the society. The role of women in politics, other than in the position of the monarch, is scarcely mentioned but it is important to note that male participation in politics was also limited mainly to the royal family (Kiribamune, 1990: 15-28). Among the women who ruled the country, there have been lecherous and despotic reigning queens as well as queen consorts who excelled in the knowledge of statecraft (Mahavamsa, 1950). According to Paranavithana (a renowned archaeologist and historian of Sri Lanka) from 972 to 982 A.D, matrilineal elements can be identified in kingship lineage, not only in legitimising the sons of the queens but also in conferring legitimacy on the husbands of queens (Kiribamune, 1990: 22).
All this evidence of women's status in ancient Sri Lanka does not necessarily mean that patriarchy never existed or that women were complete social equals to men.' I would argue that Sri Lankan women were subordinated to their men folk who, in practice, dominated most fields of activity. The patriarchy so widespread in India however, was never adopted totally within Sri Lankan society, although its modified influence filtered into what were considered to be wifely virtues. Although attempts were made to inculcate a Brahmanic code of wifely duties as expounded in Manusmriti, a code of law compiled in the era before 200 B.C, this code was never accepted, except for those laws agreeing with the Buddhist code of virtues. The pre-colonial history of Sri Lankan women thus delineates complete spiritual emancipation, but only a partial social liberation.
Nevertheless, the private and the public spheres were not clearly separated and women were never barred from participating in the public sphere. Robert Knox, an English prisoner in the Kandyan kingdom for twenty years, explains in his An Historical Relation of Ceylon (1681), the nature of social flexibility provided to women within the Kandyan social relations and marriage customs.
Jean Grossholtz mentions two reasons other than Buddhism which allowed Sinhalese women an easy and flexible status: their matriarchal past and ideas regarding land use rights. Referring to Hayley's A Treatise On Laws And Customs Of Sinhalese (1923), Grossholtz (1984:

Page 88
156 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
20) says that there is much evidence, especially the records on marriage customs, which support the fact that Sri Lankan society had been matriarchal. There were traces of polyandry as well as the special marriage custom called “binna', where the husband after the marriage, lived with the wife on her property (Peiris, 1956: 195-230; Yalman, 19: 130-135). According to this custom, the woman had more rights to the property as well as to the children and even the maternal name was passed to the children of such a marriage." Even the property rights of divorced and widowed women were protected to a high extent by Sinhalese law (Risseeuw, 1988: 16-30, Yalman, 19: 263-266). The woman not only had independent property rights, but within the feudal land tenure eligible for tenancy rights (Goonesekere, 1993: 7).
The changes which had the most adverse effects on women's rights occurred under European domination. Although the country was already a patriarchal society under Hinduism and European religions, the "capitalist patriarchal' social system was introduced when the British transformed the patterns of land use, labour and capital accumulation. With the era of colonialism (from 1505-1948), we notice a clear diminution in the status of women, especially in their confinement to the domestic sphere. The western ideals of womanhood were imposed upon urban upper class women through English educational institutions, new marriage laws, new religion and new economic system.
After being under the complete domination of an alien power for more than a century, the dawn of a new era seems to have held new promises for Sinhalese women with the introduction of universal suffrage in 1931 (Myrdal, 1968:344). It was in 1931 that a woman first became a member of the state congress. Since then women have been actively involved in public life, especially in politics under different political ideologies, in conservative parties as well as within extremely revolutionary political doctrines. The country produced the world's first woman prime minister in 1960. Women's movements were very popular in the country form the very early part of the century (Jayawardana: 1986, Shastri, 1993). As in the situation among Philippino women (Aguilar, 1993), the Sri Lankan women's movement was also linked to the national struggle (Jayawardana, 1986, 1995). Sri Lanka, however, never developed a feminist movement that was

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN 157
completely influenced by western ideologies, as was the case, for example, in the Philippines. The free education system introduced in 1948 also held promise.
After political independence in 1948 and during the independence movement leading upto it, a social cultural revival brought many. women back into the public sphere. Women increasingly engaged in higher education, politics, paid employment and many other social activities. By the latter part of the 1950's, with the establishment of Sinhalese as the official language, Sri Lankan women at every social level were increasingly becoming involved in politics, education, the arts and other economic activities.
By 1977, Sri Lankan women had realised significant gains, recovering some of the freedom they had enjoyed in the ancient past. They achieved a higher level of education and a higher employment rate. While women's involvement in mainstream politics was very low, they were very active in politics as voters and involved politically at the local level (de Silva, 1993: 75-96).
As a result of the change in government in 1977, and the new constitutional changes, new opportunities increased for female labour. The capitalist development however, marked an expansion of chauvinistic forces which results in the rise of a women's movement.
The following case study analyses how aware women in a remote Sinhalese village were about these political changes, and how active and involved they were in these processes.
Political Activities of Village Women
Women in the village roughly belonged to three generations: grandmothers, mothers and daughters, so that they represented thrée different time periods of history. Their political participation as well as their memories and concerns with regard to politics are therefore highly varied according to their generation gap.
There was a clear generation gap with regard to political participation and awareness. Women in the older generation were not much interested in politics other than voting. They never took part in any of the struggles that carried out in the city. They were provided neither with education nor with access to knowledge about such happenings. Their involvement in politics started much later, after

Page 89
158 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
independence. Before that they said, they had nothing to fight for, they were just peasant women who had no education, no high hopes, merely struggling for a daily living, content with the life they had. Thus the process of domestication which occurred through colonialism did not succeed in creating a sexual division of labour in the village, neither these women retreated to domestic sphere, thus making the husband the sole bread winner of the family as Hammond (1973) stated.
The enthusiasm of the younger generation was also not very obvious. However, they were more politically aware than the two other generations. They were more knowledgeable in other current affairs as well. Nevertheless, there were clear reasons behind their political nonactivity. Extreme politicisation of the country had made it impossible for them to achieve their goals. Political corruption and bureaucratic barriers limited their access to opportunities. Lack of knowledge in English made it even more difficult. The only hope most of them had regarding employment was in the garment industry regardless of their level of education. The result was either to develop a passive acceptance of their underprivileged status or an aversion towards politics. As Tinker and Bramsen (1976) argue, the traditional mythical beliefs about women that were transferred from the West together with development, such as her inability to participate actively in the US model of male dominated industrial production, incarcerated her within the domestic sphere or in marginal work. Risseeuw (1980) claims that this has been the case in Sri Lanka since the 1950s, as the country attempted to adopt modern industrialism in its development. Provision of employment opportunities for unskilled labour in the garment industry had worsened the situation of village women in some ways although they were provided with an income which they did not have before.
It is the second generation who were actively interested in politics. This is the generation which had the opportunity to pursue higher studies in the vernacular schools due to the social transformation that followed independence culminating in 1956 with Sinhalese becoming the official language of the country. Until 1977, the area was continuously under the leadership of the political party which made this change. Although there was another party that held leadership from 1977-1994, the hardships the villagers faced during that time and the

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN 159
faith villagers kept in a past leader who initiated the development of the area made them actively support the opposition leadership in the 1994 elections. These women had the benefit of free education under the changed curriculum in Sinhalese after years of British based English education, which prevented village children from obtaining higher education. One school graduate school teacher said: "I would have never been able to enter the university if Sinhalese had not become the medium of instruction. Neither our parents had money to send us to English medium schools, nor we had the ability to follow the courses without even having the basic knowledge of English".
Both Leacock (1981) and Mies (1988) treat this kind of situation as typical of the colonial exploitation of women. Through colonisation, women were systematically excluded from the benefits of capitalist development by categorising them as "backward' thus taking them out of the realm of social production and designating them as mere means of production. Leacock and Etienne (1980) see this situation as common to all colonies where there were previous signs of egalitarianism. British interest in Sri Lankan education lay not only in their goal to educate a certain number of Sri Lankans in English as Baker (1985) suggests, but to provide "fittingly intelligent' and "disciplined' Victorian wives for the local bureaucrats (Jayaweera, 1990: 210-225; Harris, 1994:30-39). The vernacular schools were also alienated from the local environment through a curriculum oriented to the needs of colonial rulers. Domestication of women was glorified and the Victorian norms of patriarchy were superimposed upon the traditional patriarchal norms of the society. All these were incorporated as part of the process of 'civilising indigenous women (Jayaweera, 1990: 210-225). This type of education for women could not be considered as an opportunity for women to escape from patriarchal oppression as Boserup (1970) argued, but it certainly instilled western patriarchal attitudes in local women.
However, as a whole, village women were actively involved in politics. They had their own branch organisation of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which at the time of field work was very active. The field work was carried out at a time when the general elections of the country were being held after seventeen years of rule by one political party, which elected a woman as prime minister of the country.

Page 90
160 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Presidential election campaigns were in progress and the villagers were faithful supporters of the candidate of the ruling party at the time. Both presidential candidates were women which fact aroused the enthusiasm of village women. One woman told me: "We women are very proud to have a woman as the leader of the country. It is good to have two women contesting for the presidency. I feel good when I think that all these men are working so hard to elect a woman as the president'. Women were very proud to talk about their preferred candidate. Both men and women were very active in campaigning.
For village women, political involvement was a leisure activity. This observation confirms Jayashinghe (1982) who says that the political awareness of village women has not still reached a considerable level, particularly in active participation. Nevertheless, political involvement provided them with the opportunity to come forward, get away from the work load of the household, meet other women, and go around the village canvassing for their candidate. This leisure aspect of political activities had become the main purpose of political involvement of many women in the village. One young housewife mentioned, "I never get a chance to spend so much time in the company of my friends. That is why I do not want to miss the chance'. Another young girl claimed, "From morning to evening we are on the road. We go house to house canvassing. Both men and women work very closely together. If I mix with young men so closely at other times, my parents would not be happy. Since I need to join the "party' to get a job, my parents would not say anything against my joining the women's society'. Despite the reason for their involvement in politics, women became active participants of public life in the village, holding office in women's political organisations, but, as Charlton (1984) suggested, this type of political involvement questions the possibility of women identifying the political bases of their own oppression.
Village women were never cut off from participating in public life. All village activities bridged the gap between private and public life. But later socio-economic developments individualised them in such a way that they were no longer as dependent on others as before, nor could they live independently without the help of others. The village community did not become urbanised, nor could it conserve the traditional social values.

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN 6
This separated women from the public life of the village since it was the community life that connected them with the public sphere. Individualisation was necessitated by the new economic trends, thus, removing women, although not totally, from public life. Therefore, the political movement provided an opportunity for women to re-enter the public domain. Several women claimed: "It is only during an election that we get a chance to get away from our routine work and meet other women and enjoy. Otherwise life becomes so boring sometimes, even the work in the paddy fields is less enjoyable than before, because now, everyone works for money. They want to finish work as soon as possible and go home'. But, these activities were limited mainly to election times. When the elections are over, the general enthusiasm fades away. This has hindered rural women from benefiting from their political awareness or productively developing a political consciousness. Therefore, as Peattie & Rein (1983) suggest, this kind of political involvement deters women from working as a "claiming category in ameliorating their position."
About 75% of the women were involved in political activities. The nature of involvement differed. There were office bearers (mainly president, secretary and treasure) of the SLFP women's society who were politically leading women in the village. Among the rest of the membership of the organisation, some were very actively involved while others just held membership without any actual participation other than attending meetings. A woman who was a member but who had attended only one meeting told: "I joined the women's organisation because all the others did. I have neither the time nor the interest to attend meetings. Sometimes, I would like to go their just to enjoy myself. But my husband never wanted me to go and says that a woman has better things to do at home and he doesn't want to see his wife loitering all over the village with other women'.
Many of these women mentioned that the unpleasant experiences they faced in the past due to youth unrest and political conflicts made them actively engage in political activities that helped in overthrowing the government. The younger women were born or grew up during that period where they experienced continuous political injustice. One of the main reasons was the difficulty of getting employment without political support although they had enough qualifications. The other

Page 91
162 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
was the disappearance of the youth in the village during the time of youth unrest for which they blamed the government. About four young men from the village had disappeared during this time and never returned. Some people believe that they were murdered and the families still wait for their return. According to de Silva (1995: 244), due to the "climate of terror' which prevailed in the country, which caused many political assassinations including women leaders has made "women's political participation even more formidable than before".
However, continuous political injustice decreased the political interest of these young women who were more keen on joining the garment industry and earning money for which they did not need any political support. Many young women agreed to one of them who told: "We have had enough of politics. Both we and our families worked for different political leaders, and none of them have helped us in return. Neither the village nor the people have benefited from politics. It is better to work in a factory rather than wasting our time supporting political leaders to enhance their own power and to support their kith and kin'. Both the economic situation and the political situation drew these young women away from these matters of public concern thus repudiating the idea of Kearny (1981) that improved life circumstances of women caused by modernisation will strengthen women's autonomy and competence thus increasing their entrance into politics of the country.
Regardless of how keen they were on politics, village women did not have much opportunities in the field of politics. They hardly met the leaders of the area. They did not have any political contacts outside the village. A woman said: "I have never met any other politician other than our MP, that meeting was also limited only to a normal greeting". Yet, another woman claimed: "I am very interested in politics. Where ever, there is a general meeting close to the village I usually attend if I don't have any other important work. Sometimes my husband also joins me, sometimes I go with other people from the village. I attended both the meetings our presidential candidate addressed within our electorate regardless of the distance I had to travel'.
However, they were very aware of the political scene in the country. Although they did not think that they could be of any help in promoting the status of women, some women believed that they could

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN'? 163
do plenty of things at the village level. However, about 20% of the women thought that political involvement was only a fun activity for them and they would not promote the status of women or of the villagers by joining political activity. About 60% of the women were positive about the organised involvement and engaged in various activities. About 10% of them became leaders at the village level when the opportunity arose.
Some leading political activists in the village had taken active roles in village level matters. The secretary of the SLFP women's organisation in the village revealed an incident where she and three other women prevented two young men from being taken away by unknown people during the youth rebel in 1987 by lying down across the road so that the vehicle could not pass through. They could gather people by screaming and inform the police authorities.
Most of the women in the village, although they do not perceive themselves as capable, believe that women are highly qualified to occupy top level political positions. They also think that women should join politics more, because, only women can understand women's problems. This expectation is counteracted by Jayasinghe (1982) who asserts that despite the fact that the first woman prime minister happened to be a Sri Lankan, several decades of universal education and women's franchise, direct political involvement of women in high decision making tends to be low. Therefore, if women are at the top of the leadership, that would benefit women. More than 75% of the women thought that their daughters can join politics if they want and some women even said they would encourage it. The few who talked against women in politics were mainly from middle class families in the village. They claimed that politics is an extremely corrupted area where women are not able to survive with dignity. They also said that politics is an area which consumes time and money, which would never be in harmony with family life. Therefore, while it may be good for single women, it is not an occupation for mothers. One school teacher stated: "If mothers begin to involve themselves in politics, who is going to raise the children. It is not nice to see women roaming around the village. A mother's main duty is to bring up her children properly, and that way she can contribute to her country". This attitude clearly reflected Victorian norms which denounced the liberalism of village

Page 92
164 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
women. Higher education had not made her perceive womanhood beyond these terms.
Social class had become a new dimension of social stratification in the village which created a disparity among women and had a direct influence on political participation of women. Although there were few elite families, village was free of an obvious division of social classes. Even the elite maintained kinship ties with the rest of the villagers. But at present, women of the new rich seem to consider village political activity as a lower class phenomenon. They did not involve in political activities except voting.
Therefore, social class could be seen as a major factor that politically made it impossible to create a women's movement that is directed towards the goal of women's emancipation. There was no women's organisation that had its membership across the social classes which could be inspired by a feminism which incorporates the cultural identity of Sri Lankan women. This is where a feminism informed by the "traditional liberalism' has to be the momentum of a Sri Lankan women's movement. Aguilar (1993) analyses how the Philippines women's movement has acquired its own characteristics informed by its own political history and attempts to identify the particular roots of its women's oppression. Except for a handful, rest of the village women had no idea about the roots of their own oppression which they considered to be the fate of being a woman. Therefore, what emphasised during the political activity of these women was the class factor thus ignoring the gender discrepancies within the class. This class division makes it impossible to create a class consciousness among women to unite them under one target as Ostrander (1973) suggested. The over emphasis of both class and gender as Dobbins (1977) explains has adverse effects on women as well as on lower classes since it will make it difficult to politically organise these disadvantaged groups.
This made it extremely difficult to mobilise these women towards action concerning women, not to mention creating equity between the sexes. The integration of women in development procedures has not provided them with the power to overcome gender or class discrepancies, despite their integration into international economic and political competition which in many ways widened these discrepancies.

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN 165
The political bases of gender discrepancies were never recognised by
these women organisations and women's education and increased work opportunities also did not seem to be building a foundation for women's emancipation, but it rather had created a new form of subordination through double day of work. Boserup (1970), Beneria (1982), Gannage (1986) and Tinker (1990) all agree on the importance
of analysing the domestic economy and women's double day of work
in order to evaluate their contribution to economic development.
Nevertheless, as Beneria and Sen (1981) argue, educated women confirm that, instead of improving their status, education and
employment have made women more vulnerable to exploitation.
However, the success behind many educated and employed women was
the help of traditional support systems, such as the extended family or
domestic helpers and not on their understanding of political reality. As
Gannage (1986) points out, in such situations, the family becomes not
so much a locus for working-women's gender oppression but a
resource for easing her double day of work. Women's increased
participation in the labour force or high political involvement thus does
not appear to be conducive to any political movement towards the
emancipation of women as a whole. The political participation on the
other hand has not been capable of educating women about the political
reality behind their oppression.
Bibliography Aguilar, Delia, D., "Feminism in the "New World Order", Nature, Society and
Thought, 6, 2: 179-205, 1993. Baker, Victoria, Going to School in Black Thicket Jungle, Colombo: NUFFIC,
1985. Beneria, Lourdes, Women and Development-The Sexual Division of Labour in
Rural Societies, New York: Praeger, 1982. Beneria, Lourdes & Gita Sen, "Accumulation, Reproduction and Women's Role in Economic Development: Boserup Revisited", Signs, 7, 2: 279298, 1981. Boserup, Ester, Women's Role in Economic Development, New York: St,
Martin's Press, 1970. Charlton, Sue Allen M., Women in the Third World Development, London:
West View Press, 1984.

Page 93
166 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
De Silva, Wimala, "Women and Higher Learning in Sri Lanka. During the Early
Years of Buddhism”, Colombo: marga, 10, 3: 1-1 1, 1989. De Silva, Wimala, “Political Participation of Women in Sri Lanka 1985-1995” in Facets of Change-Women in Sri Lanka 1986-95, Colombo: CENWOR, 1995. Dobbins, Peggy Powell, "Towards a Theory of the Women's Liberation Movement and Women's Wage-Labour", Insurgent Sociologist, 7, 3: 5262, 1977. Gannage, Charlene, Double Day Double Bind: Women Garment Workers,
Toronto: The Women's Press, 1986. Goonesekere, Savithri, "Women and Law" in Status of Women (Sri Lanka),
Colombo: Ministry of Health-Women's Affairs, 1993. Grossholtz, Jean, Forging Capitalist Patriarchy-The Economic and Social Transformation of Feudal Sri Lanka and its Impact on Women, Durham: Duke Press Policy Studies, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1984. Hammond, Dorothy, Women: Their Economic Role in Traditional Societies,
Philippines: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc., 1973. Harris, Elizabeth, J., The Gaze of the Colonizer-British Views on Local Women in 19th Century Sri Lanka, Colombo: Social Scientists' Association, 1994. Herath, S.B. & Kulasuriya, Ananda, "Chapter 11" in Mahaweli Saga, Part 1,
Colombo: Ministry of Mahaweli Development, 1985. Jayasinghe, Vinitha, "Women in Leadership and Decision Making", Background Paper, Colombo: National Symposium on Women, November 1982. še Jayawardana, Kumari, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, New
Delhi: Kali for Women, 1986. Jayaweera, Swarna, "Colonial Education Policy and Gender Ideology Under the British Colonial Administration' in Asian Panorama, (ed) K.M. de Silva, Sirima Kiribamune, C.R. de Silva, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1990. Kiribamune, Sirima, “Women in Pre-modern Sri Lanka”, in S. Kiribamune and V. Samarasinghe (ed), Women at Cross Roads-Sri Lankan Perspective, Colombo; ICES Sri Lanka Studies Series, 1990. Kearny, R.N., “Women in Politics In Sri Lanka" in Asian Survey, 21, 7, 1981. Leacock, Eleanor Burke, "History, Development and the Division of Labour by
Sex: Implications for Organization", Signs, 7, 2:474-491, 1981. Leacock, Eleanor and Mona Etienne, Women and Colonization
Anthropological Perspectives, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980. Mies, Maria, Women, The Last Colony, London: Zed Books, 1988.

FIGHTING FOR RIGHTS OR HAVING FUN 67
Munasinghe, Indrani, "Religious Life of Women in Ancient Sri Lanka" in University of Colombo Review, Vol. 5 December, Colombo: Sri Lanka, 1985. Myrdal, Gunner, Asian Drama, Vol. 1, New York: Pantheon, 1968. Ostrander, Susan A. "A Marxian Theory of Social Stratification', Case
Western-Reserve Journal of Sociology, 5: 38-58, 1973. Peattie, Lisa & Martin Rein, Women's Claims: A Study in Political Economy,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Peiris, Ralph, Sinhalese Social Organization, Colombo: University of Ceylon
Press Board, 1956. Risseeuw, Carla, A Woman's Mind is Longer Than a Kitchen Spoon, Colombo:
National Institute of Business Management, 1980. Shastri, Amita, “Women in Development and Politics: The Changing Situation in Sri Lanka”, In Exploration ion South Asian Systems, (ed), Alice W. Clark, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993. Tinker, Irene & Michele Bo Bramsen, Women and World Development,
Overseas Development Council, 1976. Yalman, Nur, Unde the Bo Tree: Studies in Caste, Kinship and Marriage in the Interior of Ceylon, Los Angeles: California University Press, 1971.
Notes 1 According to Jayawardana (1986: 113) there is much evidence in Sinhalese literature (quotes are from 13th century literature) that shows the prevalence of patriarchy. Although most of these stories take place in India, the Sri Lankan authors seem to be adopting some of the Indian attitudes towards women. 2 As in Kavya Shekaraya Canto XX 17-37, to which Jayawardana (1986)
also referred as evidence of patriarchy. 3 Fraternal polyandry was a marriage custom practised only in some areas in the Kandyan Kingdom. It was related to land tenure which prevented the allocation of land between several families (Peiris, 1956: 195-230; Yalman, 19: 263-266). This custom was not practised or accepted but was frowned upon in other areas of the country. 4. It was said that the binna husband had to keep his walking stick, his
umbrella and his lantern handy by the bedroom door. 5 This is a question worthy of further research. Villagers are being deprived of traditional social relations making especially women become isolated within the village. Neither they are provided with institutional support as in the West, thus making them more vulnerable to new socio-economic

Page 94
168
WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
pressures. The political participation of village women seems to substitute the social relations and leisure activities which they have lost under modern development. Literature reveals the effects of the transformation of "attama' and the disintegration of women from their economic environment on the lives of women (Rajapakshe, 1989; Gunatilake, 1989, Perera, 1989).

Chapter 7
CONSTRUCTING *WOMANHOOD”, “TAMILNESS' AND THE REFUGEE
Internal Refugees in Sri Lanka
Joke Schrijvers'
Introduction
he civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has continued for almost 16 years, has created two extreme images of Tamil women (1) Aggressive women soldiers and suicide bombers in the LTTE (2) Pathetic, poverty-stricken, dependent war victims in refugee camps. In between these extremes many variations have developed and women themselves actively try to influence the creation of these images. However, the various new identities have not replaced the earlier "traditional image of Tamil womanhood which is still at the back of everyone's mind in the Tamil community, colouring experiences and representations.
Constructions of gender, of "feminised and masculinised practices and ideologies in the imagined community of the nation (Maunaguru 1995: 158; cf. Anderson 1983) are central elements in nationalist movements (cf. Anthias & Yuval Davies 1993). Gender discourses are tied up with nationalist projects and in war-torn Societies the differences between men and women increase, they are exaggerated

Page 95
170 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
(Moghadam 1994: 17; Schrijvers 1995a: 72-75; Trawick 1996: 5). Nationalist projects use gender notions to the extreme: far more categorically than before, men are repres nted as the creators and defenders of the (new) nation and women as the core symbols of the nation's identity. The Tamil struggle in present-day Sri Lanka is not mainly over territory but over "Tamilness' as well and representations of “Womanhood' are strategic symbols in this struggle.
In this article I will focus on the identity constructions of Tamil women in Sri Lanka and in particular, of women whom I met in refugee camps (so called "welfare-centres') in the capital of Colombo and in Vavuniya in the north. Internal refugees in Sri Lanka are the subjects of cultural and political control, severely restricted in their physical and social mobility, restricted by discourses and practices that homogenise and degrade them and transform into vulnerable, dependent, low-status social categories. Yet many internal refugees in Sri Lanka and women refugees in particular, have impressed me precisely by the opposite qualities: by their resilience, their capacity for physical and mental survival, and their potential to rebuild their lives. How have they maintained and regained their sense of self? How are they manoeuvring within the politics of space and control, having to deal with two 'systems of control'--patriarchy and severe political repression-that mould and constrain the image created to the outside world? My answers to these questions are based on the study of literature and on anthropological research carried out in short periods in 1993, 1994 and 1998.
When I speak of Tamil people in Sri Lanka, I refer to a community of whom many have been forced to move from home, sometimes temporarily but mostly for a period of years without any security of ever being able to return home. This "generalised condition of "homelessness' (Malkki 1992: 37) and the continuous feeling of threat and violence that at any moment may force them to flee, has become the reality of everyday life for Tamils in Sri Lanka. During a conversation in January 1998, an academic colleague in Colombo told me: "Every Tamil is displaced.” She missed "her own soil", she said, not being able to return to the north where she had been brought up. What always has been seen as an exceptional situation, not only for Tamils in Sri Lanka but for an increasing number of people in minority

CoNSTRUCTING WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 71
positions the world over, has become more and more "normal'. This makes it urgent to problematise the dominant discourse according to which flight and displacement are represented as abnormal disturbances (cf. Stepputat 1994: 176).
Although people from other communities in Sri Lanka have been forced to leave their homes as well, the Tamil internal refugees constitute by far the majority. According to estimates, they make up around 80% of the internal refugees in the country, whereas 13% are Muslims and 7%. Sinhalese. The total number of internal refugees has fluctuated between half a million and 1.2 million, i.e. between one tenth and one fifth of Sri Lanka’s total population (cf. Rajasingham, this volume).
Tamilness’ and Tamil Womanhood
Sri Lanka gained independence from the UK in 1948. The main communities are the Sinhalese, mostly Buddhists (74%), the Tamils, mostly Hindus (18%) and the Muslims or Moors, all Muslim by religion (7%). The Tamils comprise very different communities: the 'Sri Lanka' Tamils (69%) who consist of both the 'Jaffna and Batticaloa Tamils who have lived in Sri Lanka since times unknown, and the "Indian' or "plantation' Tamils who are the descendants of a plantation work-force imported by the British from Tamil Nadu in South India, in the nineteenth century. The majority of the Sri Lanka Tamils live in the northern and eastern parts of the island. There are important socio-cultural differences between Tamils from the north and the east, as well as class- and caste differences within all Tamil communities.
Before independence, Tamils were well represented in state sector employment. After independence, successive Sinhalese dominated governments (organised according to the Westminster parliamentary model), created the impression that the Sinhalese were the discriminated and threatened group and systematically aimed to strengthen their political and economic position at the cost of the Tamil communities. Showing their pro-Sinhalese stand against the Tamils was the vote-winning strategy of the two main political parties. A few facts: the Indian Tamils were disenfranchised immediately after independence, losing their citizenship rights. Subsequently, in 1957,

Page 96
172 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Sinhala was made the official state language, which deeply offended the Tamils and blocked their access to employment. Their access to higher education was negatively affected by the policy of 'standardisation, which regulated the inflow of students according to their regional backgrounds. Buddhism gradually gained the status of a state religion. Through large irrigation-cum-colonisation schemes since the late 1940s, poor Sinhalese from the south were settled in the northern and eastern areas. The proportion of Sinhalese in the Tamilspeaking Eastern Province increased for instance from 7.8 to 11.6% while the number of Sri Lanka Tamils declined from 46.5 to 40% (Jeyaratnam Wilson 1974: 86). Such policies negatively affected Sinhalese-Tamil relations, bringing in ethnic elements and thereby ethnic tension. Incidents of violence increased, and Tamil youth began to radicalise, among whom the LTTE stood out as the most militant and strongly organised group. By their rule of terror, they eliminated the power of the other insurgent Tamil groups and managed to take control of the Tamil population in the north. All these Tamil political movements have used the construction of women's identity as a core element in their nationalism.
The prolonged civil war in Sri Lanka has not only exaggerated the social identities available to Tamil women; it has enabled the construction of a whole range of different practices and discourses on family values and women. At the one extreme there is the LTTE propaganda of "Tamil liberation by the representation and actual practice of young women as militant fighters. At the other extreme, a most conservative discourse has emerged about the complete collapse of family values-not only in the refugee camps but in Tamil society as a whole; and about the breakdown of relations between adults and children and between men and women. At the core of this discourse about the collapse of the earlier family values' is the concern about the reputation of women and gender power relations-discourses in which ideas on women's freedom of movement and the control of their bodies and sexuality form a crucial element. This new conservatism is a reaction to real changes. For instance, a Tamil woman in Colombo, who lives on her own, recently told me that she has much more freedom of movement and behaviour now than before the war. Most of

CoNSTRUCTING WoMANHooD', 'TAMILNESS" AND "THE REFUGEE' 173
her relatives have gone abroad and this has substantially decreased the social control. -
Although constructions of masculinity-e.g. men as the creators and defenders of the nation' and the 'community'-are part and parcel of these discourses, the images of men as a rule are taken for granted and so far I have not met any men in Sri Lanka who openly confessed to feeling confined or distorted by these gender representations. Although in general and in a situation of war in particular, I see the construction and practice of "manhood' as one of the major problems (Schrijvers 1995a, 1997; cf. Archer 1994), in this article I focus on Tamil womanhood with its many different constructions influenced by the war. In the second part of the article I will bring together the constructs of ethnicity ("Tamilness'), gender ("Womanhood') and forced migration ("The Refugee').
I do not view any of these constructs as the outcome of a passive victimisation of the people involved. Neither Tamils, nor women, nor refugees, should be seen as passive victims of mechanisms of control from above. They bring into play their own agency, their actions and initiatives and they create spaces even in situations that from the outside do not seem to provide any scope for exerting influence at all. People have, and use, different options and different means of power, however small, and use these even under extremely restrictive circumstances. A telling example is the way in which Tamil women in Sri Lanka at present are dealing with the prescribed pottu, the decorative mark worn on the forehead.
The Pottu as Ethnic Gender Marker
Woman's appearance and dress in many cultures are seen as symbolising the community or nation she belongs to. Hindu girls and women are expected to wear the pottu as a symbol of auspiciousness, a custom which has been adopted also by many protestant and Roman Catholic Tamil women. Married women wear a red pottu, which connotes active sexuality and which should be ritually removed when they become a widow (Thiruchandran 1998: 18). In Sri Lanka, however, Sinhalese and Muslim women do not wear the pottu. Therefore, in this country in which one's ethnic background has

Page 97
174 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
become a primary means of identification, the pottu has become an ethnic marker par excellence. Tamil women in present-day Sri Lanka face a dilemma: should they stress their Tamilness by applying the pottu, or should they hide their ethnicity for security reasons? Or, to put it more bluntly: should they renounce their sense of self, their deepest identity as a woman of good reputation and adapt to the habits of the 'other' who is experienced as the oppressor? For some Tamil women whom I met, this is a fundamental and emotional issue; for others it is one of those questions that can be solved in a pragmatic manner. fo give a few examples:
Banu, a married woman of 25, helped me as a research assistant in Batticaloa. When we visited Tamil communities she applied her pottu, but when we were about to go to a Muslim community she used to wipe it off as she was afraid that by labelling herself as a Tamil she might unnecessarily antagonise the Muslim people. Her husband once commented: "Now see, like this you look like a widow." Banu is now living in Colombo with her husband and two little children. Their house is in a Sinhala neighbourhood and for security reasons and following her husband's advice, she has stopped altogether applying the pottu.
Shyamala, a woman of inter/national repute, in her early forty's, started wearing the pottu at the age of 30, although she was and remained, unmarried. This, as she says, to be given the respect she needs. She dresses "traditionally but highly fashionably, using her pottu not only to be given respect, but as a symbol of fashion, too.
Rajini, a lecturer at one of the universities, married, about forty, tells me she would rather die than remove her pottu. "Not to wear it would be like going out undressed,” she said, and she gave me a long explanation about the positive functions of the pottu, stressing that besides symbolising the essence of a married woman, it protected you from the evil eye and that it was good for your health as the act of applying it every day stimulated the underlying chakra, having meditational value as well.
Gowry, middle-aged and with a good position in the higher management of a bank, explains that she stopped wearing the pottu altogether during the most difficult years in the 1980s and early 90s. She did not want to draw more attention to her "Tamilness', feeling that the pottu might antagonise her colleagues. Now, she applies it only

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND "THE REFUGEE' 175
when she wears a saree and leaves it off when she dresses in western clothes. At times, however, when she likes to challenge people, even when wearing western dress she applies the pottu very consciously as an act of defiance.
Sitha, an unmarried girl in her mid-twenties, has been trying hard not to be recognised as a Tamil at all. She never wears a pottu, she has practised her Sinhalese to get rid of her accent and says she feels satisfied that she even "looks like a Sinhalese', trying to explain to me the supposed physical differences.
Devi, a well-to-do middle-aged woman who drives her own car, removes her pottu'each time she approaches a check point, pastes it onto the dashboard and puts it back only after she has passed the area.
Many more women told me how they manoeuvred the pottu during the past years, having become aware of the different meanings attributed to it. Again, I was struck by the extremes: women who consciously chose to apply the pottu as an act of defiance on the one hand, and on the other those who altogether stopped wearing the pottu and tried to erase all other outward signs of Tamilness-with all the options in between. Even widows have started to use the new space created by the war: increasingly they are wearing the pottu as a public sign of rejecting the inauspicious, out-cast status traditionally attributed to Hindu widows. I heard about a group of war-widows in one of the refugee camps in the east who collectively decided to continue wearing the pottu. The personal' in this context is extremely political.
Discourses on Tamil 'Womanhood
The various ways in which Tamil women in Sri Lanka manoeuvre the pottu do not reflect merely individual attitudes. The various choices are informed-consciously or not-by a mixture of discourses that represent collective tendencies. Images of "Womanhood' in all their variations are part and parcel of this. For instance, in conversations with Tamil people about the present-day political situation, I encountered mixtures of extremely different constructs of womanhood that can be classified into four categories. For analytical reasons I have labelled these as gendered discourses. In practice, of course, these 'discourses' are rather loosely used and demarcated ways of thought and practice.

Page 98
176
WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
"Traditional Tamil discourse: Women in their behaviour and appearance represent and symbolise the ethnic community, they are ethnic markers (cf. Thiruchandran 1998: 5). The pottu has become essential for (Hindu) Tamilness and Tamil womanhood. The red pottu on women connotes active sexuality controlled by stable marital relations which are the very base of one's community and personhood; family values centre around these stable marital relations. The 'good woman and good morals are set against the imagined "loose morals' in refugee camps where "some women establish relationships with men without being married, in exchange for protection, gifts, or even money.' These women are stereotyped as devadasi's, i.e. promiscuous women and prostitutes. Nationalist, “ethnicised' discourse: Tamils belong to the north and east, it is "their own soil'. There is increasing fear that the Tamil community and culture will gradually disappear and ultimately be wiped out altogether. The Tamil diaspora is scattered around the globe, and Tamil culture is under severe attack. Women should wear the pottu as a symbol of their nation. Women are the mothers and caretakers of the nation, and their responsibility as the guardians of Tamil culture is more crucial than ever before. Not only that, their role as biological procreators is crucial as well: they should counteract the present population decline by producing Tamil children without any restriction of modern contraception. This discourse is produced in its most extreme form by the LTTE, but it can be encountered less pronounced in other Tamil circles as well. Leftist Tamil critique: "Traditional Tamilness' has to be combatted; it is seen as a positive development that inter-caste marriages have significantly increased as a result of the war and the influence of leftist nationalist Tamil movements. This development should be encouraged so that the caste system will finally break down. Women, whether or not they wear the pottu, have to be emancipated as co-revolutionaries, but within

CoNSTRUCTING "WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 177
the limits set by the leftist male political agenda. Women should not have an agenda of their own, their role has to be limited to defending the new Tamilness (Maunaguru 1995). 4. Feminist critique: Feminist values have inspired a critique of the discourses of both "traditional' and leftist "Tamilness'. Women members of the nationalist movements of the 1980s have made use of the new political space to assert themselves as defenders of their own women's rights. The dependence of women on men and inequality between marriage partners is seen as a negative situation that should be changed. However, the use of ideas of women's liberation solely or mainly for military purposes (the woman Tiger with gun) is rejected. The pottu can be worn as a symbol, an identification with "Tamilness', or a fashion, or it can be dropped - what matters is that women can make their own choices. During my recent stay in Sri Lanka, in 1998, I was struck by the ease and flexibility with which various elements of these gendered discourses could be mixed within one conversation. For example, an academic colleague told me, within a half hour, how she missed her own soil (discourse 1), that, luckily, the number of inter-caste marriages in the north was increasing fast which showed that caste barriers were eroding (discourse 3), that Tamil women in general and Tamil widows in particular were rather conservative (discourse 1, 2 and, because of the implicit criticism, 4), that she was very worried about Tamil fertility going down (discourse 2) and that she was also concerned about the loose morals in the refugee camps (discourse 1). Finally, she was quite emotional about the fact that according to traditional Jaffna Tamil family law a married woman (she herself included) cannot do any transaction without her husband's permission (discourse 4).
Gender and ethnicity, although circumscribed by what is considered to be "culture' and "tradition', are flexible and dynamic constructs, interlinked with each other and prone to fundamental or subtle changes, depending on the dynamics of the political discourses and practices by which people are informed (cf. Rajasingham 1995).

Page 99
178 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
The “Traditional Discourse on Tamil Womanhood
According to the "traditional discourse in all communities in Sri Lanka, women are conceptualised on the basis of their relations with men: they are daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, not persons in their own right. Although the Sri Lankan women's movement in all its diversity as well as some of the by-products of globalisation have created counter-discourses, the "traditional discourse is still very influential.
In my earlier work, I discussed Sri Lankan motherhood, as a source of both power and powerlessness, as the core of "Womanhood' (eg. Schrijvers 1985, 1986). Although based on research in the late 1970s in a rural Sinhalese area, my analysis to a great extent would apply to the Tamil ideal of “Womanhood' as well. According to Malathi de Alwis (1993), motherhood in Sri Lanka, apart from the act of reproduction itself, includes "nursing, feeding, and looking after babies, adolescents, the sick, the old and even grown women and men, including one's husband' (quoted in Maunaguru 1995: 160). This ideology is characteristic of Sri Lanka but also of (South) Asia as a whole: the duties of the good wife or daughter of a political leader, for instance, encompass the willingness to look after the whole nation in case of the decease of the husband or father - as shown for instance by Indira Gandhi, Benazir Butto, Sirima Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunge. .
According to the old ideal of Tamil 'Womanhood', girls were expected to be obedient daughters to their parents, wives had to obey their husbands and widows their brothers and adult sons. Women should be chaste, caring and self-sacrificing and this was symbolically expressed in their body language and way of dress. They should move around in a chaste manner, keep their legs together and cover their bodies decently. They should reserve their sexuality only for their legal husband and bestow on him respect and procreation. If possible, they should display their husbands' affluence by the wearing of rich sarees, brilliant jewellery, flowers in flowing hair, silver anklets, a silver toe ring and a red pottu on the forehead' (Coomaraswamy 1996: 9; Thiruchandran 1998: 9). But they should also be brave: in times of conflict, mothers should be willing to send their husbands and sons to the battlefield for the well-being of their nation. At the same time,

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 179
women and children were seen as being more "gentle' (menmai) than grown men (Trawick 1996: 5).
Maunaguru discusses how these images, used by the militant Tamil nationalist movements that emerged in the 1980s, were moulded into a miraculous combination of motherhood and violent battle imagery: "The woman who holds an automatic rifle in one hand and a child in another' (Maunaguru 1995: 164). Military men are represented as the heroes and their mothers as heroic women who sacrifice their children for the nation. However heroic, women according to this representation still have to be obedient, chaste and "pure'. There have been struggles in Jaffna, between the local women's movement and the militant groups, about newly prescribed restrictions on women's dress and behaviour (Maunaguru 1995: 169). Coomaraswamy (1996: 10) Comments:
"...the LTTE ideal of the armed guerilla woman puts forward an image of purity and virginity...The women are described as pure, virtuous. Their chastity, their unity of purpose and their sacrifice of social life supposedly gives them strength. They are denied sexual or sensual experiences...The armed virginal woman cadre ensures that this notion of purity, based on denial, is a part of the social construction of what it means to be a woman according to the world view of the LTTE.”
Militant Nationalist Discourse on Tamil Womanhood
Such Tamil nationalist representations of "woman' rest on images of firm family relations: stable families with chaste, obedient women and a strict hierarchy between men and women, parents and children, brothers and sisters. In discourse as well as in practice, this ideal was undermined by the civil war between the Sri Lankan government-in the late 1980s assisted by the "Indian Peace Keeping Force'-and the LTTE. The war has resulted in vast and continuous movements of people, forced and voluntary migration, a growing diaspora of Tamils all over the world, the disruption of the earlier generational, age, class and caste hierarchies and an increasing demographic imbalance due to the shortage of men, young men in particular. All this has had deep effects on the ideal and practice of 'stable family relations' in the north. This, in its turn, has fed a strikingly conservative discourse when it

Page 100
18O WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
comes to the so-called private sphere. The LTTE is clever in playing on peoples' deep-felt emotions about their family values and culture. A human rights activist explained this to me:
"Now see, our people are being tortured and we can't go out and live, so this is the only way, we'll have to fight for our nation. (...) A good daughter must be very careful of the family values and the community values and all that, very particular about that, and she will not exceed her limits because she is very frightened of it, and she can't bear it up. So suppose if she brings some sort of discredit or shame to the family, she would be ready to come to suicide. (...) So now in this atmosphere, in this war situation, the family values, the community values, the social values, now all is destroyed. All the things are in a disarray, but still by nature she (the good daughter) goes for the value of her own tradition. But the thing is, she must be married at a young age and go in to the family responsibilities and make a family of her own and lead a very good social life. Then only she has the social credits and respects and all that. A woman has been brought up that way. When she sees that all things are in a disarray, and her brother is dying there for a task, a concept, she must go and help him. Not only her brother, but her father, her neighbour, the village men, the village women, the area men, the region men, the whole communityso therefore the LTTE is really in a very good stand to have more people to their side. When a woman joins the movement, she knows she is going to die, but she is fully satisfied. She thinks I bring credit to my family this way, I know I die, but it is good for our family and it is good for our community. So that is the very reason why the fighters are more clever than the soldiers of the state' (taped 24 January 1998).
In the context of a prolonged civil war, the geo-politics of a "Tamil homeland', the ethnic cleansing that took place when in 1990 the LTTE by force expelled all Muslims from the northo, the reduction of the population by the war, the large-scale peoples' movements, all this instigated the LTTE-besides stressing woman's responsibility to participate in the military-to emphasise the crucial importance of woman's reproductive role.
The LTTE therefore banned all family planning services from the health departments and urged women not only to sacrifice their sons

CoNSTRUCTING WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 181
and daughters for the nation, but to produce as many children as possible to expand the nation that was threatened by decline and extinction. Now unmarried mothers were no longer regarded as the ultimate stigma of their community, but they were encouraged to have their babies and then hand them over to the LTTE to be brought up as heroes for the nation. The state's family planning policy was depicted as a conspiracy to control the demographic size of the Tamil population (Maunaguru 1995: 164). Although this conspiracy theory does not rest on official government policy, in fact during my own research quite a few Sinhalese civil servants expressed ideas to me that came close to eugenetics. For example, in 1993, a matron in a public maternity clinic where a woman of one of the refugee camps in Colombo had just given birth, referred to "these Tamils reproducing themselves like rats, they should all be sterilised." Seeing the expression on my face she explained: "When her son (pointing at the new-born baby) gets 14, he will take a gun and kill us all." Only later I heard that this nurse had lost her own son when he was fighting in the army.
According to Maunaguru (1995: 163-164), until the late 1980s women in the militant Tamil movements were only involved in propaganda, medical care and fund raising. But after the number of males available for fighting significantly decreased (due to the IPKF occupation and the number of Tamils who left the country), women in the movements were trained as fighters as well and the LTTE was in the forefront of providing military training to women. "This resulted in a categorical shift in the construction of 'woman' from "brave mother' to that of 'woman warrior'.
All Tamil nationalist groups addressed the woman question in their political agendas, framed in the conventional leftist setting of first eliminating the general conflict, then liberating women after the revolution. Women who participate in these movements have subordinated their own rights as women to the nationalist cause (Rajasingham 1995) - although in most cases this is not the result of conscious choice.
Feminist Critique
The acceptance of the militant Tamil groups, however narrow, of women's liberation as one of the ultimate goals provided an important

Page 101
182 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
space for feminist activism in the north (Maunaguru 1995: 164). Although in the 1980s the women there saw women's oppression mainly as stemming from economic relations, they also raised other issues such as rape in connection with the general violence against
WOC.
Another act of protest was that women organised themselves as groups of mothers, such as "The Mothers' Front' in the north, protesting against the gruesome human rights violations. Thus, by using the traditional, accepted identity of the mother, they went beyond the limitations of their gender, openly protesting against the violent repression of the state. "While the nationalist ideology perceived women as objects that were to be controlled for their interests, women formulated constructions that expressed gender interests that attempted to empower women' (Maunaguru 1995: 168).
The phenomenon of the armed women fighters of the LTTE, too, is "against the current' of mainstream thinking about women (Coomaraswamy 1996:8). Is this a "welcome step in the liberation of women' as Adele Balasingham (1993, quoted in Coomaraswamy 1996: 9) suggests? Sri Lankan feminist writers think otherwise: Kumari Jayawardena's (1986) analysis of the limitations of nationalist movements for women's space to develop their own aspirations would equally apply to the gender imagery in the LTTE nationalism. Radhika Coomaraswamy (1996: 10) summarises her feminist criticism of the LTTE-propagated identity of women as follows:
1. The earlier Tamil notion of the ideal woman, however negative, was a celebration of life. Prosperity, sexuality, love of music and the arts were all important aspects of the married woman's paradigm. The LTTE, in contrast, puts forward as ideals self-sacrifice, austerity and androgyny, and death, not life, is celebrated. 2. The LTTE ideal of androgyny celebrates only the "masculine' qualities, negating and eradicating constructions of "femininity' such as the networking among people, nurturance, gentleness, compassion, tolerance. 3. In the LTTE discourse there is no notion of woman as an independent person, empowered by her own agency, who makes decisions for her own self-realisation. There is no sense

CoNSTRUCTING "WoMANHooD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE 183
of autonomy or empowerment as ends in themselves. "Her liberation is only accepted in so far as it fits the contours of the nationalist project' (Coomaraswamy 1996: 10). And, I add, these contours are defined by the male leaders of the
mOVement. - 4. The LTTE ideal of the armed guerilla woman puts forward an image of purity and virginity. Their chastity and sacrifice of social life give them strength. To take this further, it comes close to the ideal of complete disembodiment, the ultimate release from the body. According to this discourse, cleverly manipulated by the LTTE, women, who are believed to suffer from bodily disadvantages and impurities more than men, have a congenital handicap, but they can be released from this by becoming martyrs; traditionally, as widows, by sati-selfimmolation; and today, as suicide bombers, by dying for the nation (Trawick 1996). Coomaraswamy (1996: 10) concludes that "unless feminism is linked to humanism, to non-violence and to a celebration of life over death, it will not provide society with the alternatives that we so desperately seek.’
Manoeuvring Between the Constructs of “Taminess”, “Womanhood and “The Refugee
The above discussion makes clear that neither "Tamilness' nor "Tamil womanhood' are static qualities, although these notions are informed and circumscribed by 'culture' and "tradition'. They are socio-cultural and historical constructs; dynamic, multi-dimensional and multi-layered and the outcome of both mechanisms of control and struggles for liberation. Women have been making use of the new spaces created by the political movements and the war, with their resulting mixture of gendered discourses, to reconstruct their identities and to put their own issues on the agenda. So far, however, the voices and agency of Tamil refugee women have remained in the dark; the different discourses I refer to mainly spring from urban, middle-class circles and have not been informed by the experiences and views of internal refugees in Sri Lanka-a group which, although extremely marginalised, should be taken into account, if only because of their

Page 102
184 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
sheer numbers and political importance. How do they come into the picture?
During my work with refugees and particularly women refugees, one of the recurrent questions that came to my mind was how these women, living under radically new, however miserable circumstances, reconstructed their identities (cf. Schrijvers 1997). Did they, too, like the Tamil women in the north who participated in the movements, make use of the new space for changing their gender identities? Tamil refugee women are living under and manoeuvring within, two 'systems of control: patriarchy and extreme political repression. both systems are severely oppressive and strengthen each other: Both Tamil women and refugees in Sri Lanka's present political situation are the subjects of cultural and political control, restricted in their physical and social mobility, restricted by representations and practices that tend to homogenise and degrade them, that can transform them into nonautonomous, vulnerable, dependent, low-status social categories. This double-patriarchal and political-system of control not only restricts their free movement, it can make them dependent on patronising and de-powering protection' in the private as well as the public sphere, and it can exclude them from participation in decision-making at all levels, including decision-making about their own private lives. Patriarchal control, thought to be "natural, tends to degrade them into second-class citizens, not allowing them full space for self-determination and selfdefinition, whereas the political control of refugees has turned them into third-class citizens who have been living as outcasts and prisoners of the state. The most extreme situation I encountered during my research was in Vavuniya, in January 1998, where twelve and a half thousand Tamil refugees-driven from home by the on-going war in the north of the country were forced to live in (semi) closed detention camps."
This sounds miserable, and it is. At the same time, however, the representation of victimised outcasts does not correspond with the overall impression women in refugee camps in Sri Lanka gave me. Many refugees in Sri Lanka, women in particular, have impressed me precisely by very different qualities: by their resilience, their capacity for physical and mental survival, their flexibility, their potential to reconstruct their lives-each and every time after each new flight.

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 185
In spite of the "traditional family values' with their strong patriarchal aspects, in spite of the control and terror from the side of the Sri Lanka Army, the LTTE and other movement and in spite of all the restrictions in their freedom of movement, many women refugees have created spaces within these two systems of control; they have enabled themselves to a certain extent to see to their family interests and to survive as human beings. I will try to illustrate these observations.
To start with, I found women refugees in camps in Sri Lanka to be very different from the image created in governmental and nongovernmental documents. Although of course they were in need of the most basic things in life, they were neither extremely vulnerable nor predominantly miserable. On the contrary, in all the camps I visited (altogether around 15 in Colombo, Puttalam, Batticaloa and Vavuniya, between 1993 and 1998) many women impressed me precisely by their activity and their pragmatic approach to coping with all difficulties. Of course, the camps sheltered many types of people and it would be unrealistic and degrading to describe them as one homogeneous category. People were differentiated according to class, caste, age, regional background, past experiences and personality. There were very miserable and very tough refugees. In terms of socio-economic background, the refugees staying in the camps in the main belonged to the poorer, lower-class and lower-caste sectors (cf. Ulla Sperber 1996; Oxfam 996).
The internal refugees in Sri Lanka form an under-class among all people (Schrijvers 1997). Both in the Tamil camps in Colombo and in Vavuniya the majority of the people most probably came from the plantation sector-being so-called "Plantation' or "Indian Tamils' who had been affected by the anti-Tamil riots in 1977, 1983 and thereafter. They were not even the Tamils for whose cause the LTTE was at war with the government. They were a group severely discriminated against in Sri Lanka already before the riots against Tamils increased during the 1970's and 80's and also looked down upon by the Sri Lanka Tamils. Now, they had become the most downtrodden outcast Tamils of all. So, most probably, although it is bitter to say, the previous experiences of these women of having to cope with a very insccure lifeworld in which socio-economic discrimination and difficulties of daily

Page 103
186 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
survival were the "normal' state of affairs, had helped them to carry on. When evaluating women's agency in the camps, then, it is necessary to keep in mind that the majority of the internal refugees are not from an (upper) middle-class/caste background-whereas this probably, although implicitly, is the primary reference group of the feminist writers quoted above.
There were five gendered elements of people's lives in the refugee camps in Sri Lanka that particularly struck me:
I. Gender differences in coping with refugee life On the whole, it was my impression that women more than men had been able to make the best of their new identity of "The Refugee'. There was an alarming degree of male alcoholism coupled with violence against women and children (cf. Schrijvers 1997). In Sithamparapuram camp in Vavuniya, for instance, a group of women with whom I discussed this problem together with my assistant became quite emotional, all talking at the same time:
"After drinking the men start harrassing the wife and children. The women have to go to the Grama Sevaka (local government representative) first, then to the police (the offices are in the camp surroundings). It is an enormous problem here, the Sinhalese outside the camp are selling kasippu (illegally brewed liquor) from their house. One man even died because of the kasippu problem. He had bought the stuff from a Sinhala man and wanted to sell it again here in the camp. Then the Sinhala man killed him." Without having to be asked, the women continued with a second example: "There was another man - her husband (pointing at one of them), we called him "the kasippu hero'. He was a drunkard always and used to beat her up." When I commented, suggesting that she may be better off now after he left her for another woman, their reaction was: "Yes, she escaped him; but now she is suffering from poverty...”
According to this group of women, the problem had increased tremendously after they had started living in camps. For the men, taking to drinking provided an escape from the reality of having lost everything-their work, their status, their network of relations, their property-in short, the core of their male identity. I was struck by the apparent ease with which women, uprooted from their homes and

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND "THE REFUGEE' 187
everybody and everything known to them, managed to cope with the facts of life. Widows and women with young children found it most difficult to cope. Many women whom I met in the camps, whenever they were allowed to leave the camps, had taken up work in factories and companies, they worked as housemaids, made food items and sold them in or outside the camps, they sewed, made flowers and knitwear, or were sweeping roads. For the majority, and in particular for the women belonging to the community of the plantation Tamils, this was in a way a continuation of their earlier work experiences as poor, lowcaste women who had been used to a tough life as second-class citizens in the class, caste and gender-hierarchy. However, I met women belonging to more affluent families of protected, - middle-class backgrounds, who had for the first time in their lives taken up work outside, now transgressing the strict boundaries of their gendered, caste and class determined identities.
According to my analysis this capacity of women to adapt to the role of "The Refugee' is linked, on the one hand, to the continuity in their gender roles-they continued their primary tasks as mothers, housewives, and second-class citizens, although under extremely miserable circumstances. Paradoxically, women adapted more easily to this new fate precisely because they were used already to living dependent, restricted and in many cases oppressed lives. For them, there was no rupture with the past such as most men had experienced (cf. Schrijvers 1997). But, on the other hand, the fact that even middleclass housewives, who had not seen much of the world outside their homes, took up paid work outside the camps and in a way enjoyed their new independence, shows that they made use of the situation to transgress the strict confines of their gender identity. As social agents they contributed to the changing images of womanhood.
In Sithamparapuram camp in Vavuniya, I met an elderly couple from Jaffna, originally of middle-class origins, who had stayed in Saraswathie Hall in Colombo before. The first time I could talk only with the husband who told me their history, suggesting that during their stay in Saraswathie Hall they survived on his occasional earnings and on the rations provided by the government. The next time, when I met his wife who had been a housewife in Jaffna, she told me (but only

Page 104
188 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
after her husband left) that after they fled to Saraswathie Camp in Colombo, in 1990, she started working as a housemaid for a Tamil family. They lived mainly on her income. She liked working for that family and continued her job for some time even after the camp was closed in 1994 and they were forcibly transferred to a camp in Vavuniya. She had to stop the work in 1996 after the state control became severer again and the refugees were not allowed to go out of the camp for more than one day at a time.
2. Gender differences regarding the identification with ethnic
politics The women whom I met in the camps generally had a strong distaste of discussing ethnic politics and sometimes plainly refused to occupy themselves with what they experienced as a most depressive and destructive subject. "We don't like politics, we hate all the groups", women in Sithamparapuram told me in January 1998, when I commented that generally when I talked with a group of men they immediately started discussing political affairs. Of course this does not mean that women were a-political, or not involved in a political sense. Taking a stand for peace is at least as political as taking part in war. However, in contrast to many men, women were involved predominantly with the down-to-earth responsibility of day-to-day survival of their family group-a gender-prescribed responsibility which did not tally with what they experienced as life-threatening and destructive politics. When the political situation was touched upon, many women in the camps referred to the danger that the LTTE and other movements formed for their sons and daughters. Very often they preferred to stay in the camps hoping to prevent their children from joining the LTTE. “We don't bring up our children to have them shot by the army", they explained. Men were worried about their children as well, but expressed this much less directly. Their communications with me were shaped more by the dominant, ethnicised discourse. It was as if most of the men tried to reconstruct their identities by stressing their ethnic community and the characteristics that symbolised this. Women's behaviour and the family values', resting on clear patriarchal principles, formed the core of this ethnic discourse (Schrijvers 1997). Thus, in the above example

CoNSTRUCTING WoMANHooD', 'TAMILNESs' AND "THE REFUGEE' 89
of the couple from Jaffna, the husband had tried not to disclose to me the fact that his wife had been the main breadwinner as a housemaid for a number of years. Admitting to have had a "working wife' could have presented him as an "idle, good for nothing man' who had not provided for his family. By hiding this fact, he tried to create an image of a "normal', middle-class family life with his housewife at the "home' centre. She, however, in her husband's absence without embarrassment came out with her own story of working as a housemaid for another family, and she was obviously quite satisfied about this period in her married life.
3. The gendered expression of the need for human dignity Most refugees experienced the camps as giving at least a basic sort of protection and security, which they had lost completely in the outside world. Increasingly I learned that this need for security should not be understood merely in its physical, material sense. It equally involved the regaining of (self) respect and human dignity-and this involved the emphasis on certain cultural, religiou and family values. For example, one day a refugee woman asked me to visit her house' in Sithamparapuram camp in Vavuniya, consisting of one 6mx 6m room, in which she lived with her husband and two grown-up children. Compared to other rooms I had seen, this one was extremely well-kept. A decorated hand-woven mat covered the wellswept floor and the room was tidy with the few belongings stored away behind a mat-curtain that separated off almost one third of the room. The woman gestured me to have a look behind the curtain: this was their prayer room, with a small Hindu altar constructed in the corner. It was obvious that all this was essential for her to live not as an animal in a shed, but as a cultural and spiritual human being.
Regaining a feeling of dignity was closely connected to the right of getting the space and freedom of movement to achieve at least a minimum of self-sustainability and self-determination. Again and again, in all the camps, people during our conversations stressed that they did not want to be refugees, they just wanted to have the space, however little, to live and work in freedom. For instance, in January 1998 I asked women in Sithamparapuram camp, in Vavuniya, whom I had also met in Saraswathie Hall in Colombo, in 1993, which camp

Page 105
190 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
was better. Without any hesitation they chose Saraswathie Hall: "There we did not need a pass to go out!" This in spite of the fact that they had lived there collectively with a few hundred people in one big hall and in Vavuniya their children had a better education. They mentioned this several times during our talk. It was precisely this freedom of movement and therefore the opportunity to earn which the government had taken away from them. When in 1993 and 1994 in Colombo all Tamil refugee camps were closed, the people who wanted to stay in the capital and continue their work in the informal sector were not allowed to. They were all transported to "transit camps' in the east and the north, to be subjected to a much more severe and oppressive pass system” that forced them to get permission to leave the camp, to identify themselves at each and every checkpoint, and to report back in the camp on the same day after a varying number of hours.
This third element, I found, did not differ greatly regarding women's and men's approaches. Regaining a sense of dignity was equally important for both sexes. For both women and men, reconstructing their identity and their sense of human dignity was a priority, but they expressed and shaped this need in very different ways. The expression of the need for human dignity was therefore genedered.This is not surprising when keeping in mind that the male and female gender identities are constructed in different ways. For the men, who primarily identified themselves with their public roles and interests outside the home, it was taken for granted and considered to be "natural' that they talked politics and reconstructed their selves through contrasts, oppositions and antagonisms with other ethnic groups. In this process, stressing the family values' and 'women's behaviour'-as opposed to the "customs' of other communities-were central elements (cf. Schrijvers 1997). For the women, however, regaining a sense of self and self-respect first of all seemed to emerge from the ability to continue their prescribed gender responsibilities in the private sphere, by providing the necessary motherly, wifely and household care. Paradoxically, and this was crucial, those women who transgressed gender boundaries by contributing to the family income, gained self-respect and confidence in themselves.

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND "THE REFUGEE' 191
4. The gendered processes contributing to the refugees' feelings
of dependence
There are many ways in which the deep-felt need for regaining dignity and self-respect described above can be taken more seriously. For instance, the encouragement of male and female refugees to form self-organisations and participate in structures of decision-making which directly affect their life-worlds in the camps, could be an important step forward. Unfortunately, the actual situation is the opposite. Both the discourse on "The Refugee' as well as the practice regarding refugees, have increased their dependency (cf. Oxfam 1996a; 1996b). Only recently representations of "The Refugee' in NGO-reports in Sri Lanka have started to include statements like: "While most expressed a gratitude for the assistance received, there is a general feeling that the dependency on relief is humiliating and that personal liberty is somewhat (sic!) restricted in the camp” (Sperber 1996). Yet, the dominant representation of refugees in these reports is still transforming them into miserable victims who should receive (not codetermine) aid and support-of a material kind only. Certain types of refugee women are represented as particularly in need of support: widows, female heads of household, young mothers, single women-as a rule to be mentioned together with other pitiful categories such as 'the elderly', the “handicapped', the physically weak' (Sperber 1996). Although widows and single mothers do constitute the most vulnerable group in conflict situations, I feel that reproducing discourses and practices that merely stress their misery and falsely suggest that they are passive victims, does not really help them. Widows, and particularly Hindu widows, feel degraded when they are unidimensionally identified and lumped together according to this inauspicious status.
The dominant practice of creating more dependency instead of less has had a tremendous impact on the overall attitude the refugees have developed towards the outside world. Many have started acting according to the miserable imagery of "The Refugee'. In my encounters it was evident for instance that people first of all hoped to get some concrete, material help from me-for them, I was a potential new resource to be tried out.'

Page 106
192 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
During my first visit to Sithamparapuram camp in Vavuniya, in January 1998, when I was talking with people in front of the cooperative store, I was approached by a thin, tired-looking woman who carried a child : would I please come to her place with her? She wanted to talk to me and tell me her story. I could think of no reason for refusing to listen to her, so after I finished talking at the cooperative, together with my assistant I went to her place situated at the outer limits of the camp. The woman, 28 and a mother of four children (she looked like she was forty) put a mat for us outside and told me her story:
She has one son and three daughters. When she had her last baby, a girl, her husband left her. (She cries). He went off with another woman. Originally she is from Navalapitiya (she must be a 'Plantation-Tamil' then). She thinks that her parents left that place because there was no work. They went to Vavuniya in 1977. No, she has no idea why they left in 1977 (showing that she is unaware of the anti-Tamil riots in 1977 by which many plantation Tamils were badly affected). In 1989 she and her husband illegally fled to India, by boat. They had to pay Rs. 1500 each, so she sold all her jewellery. After a few years they were sent back again by the Indian government. She is very poor now, she says and because of the children and the pass-system she cannot go out for work. Yes, she was selected for a resettlement scheme in Vavuniya, but she cannot build her house in the scheme or cultivate her new home-garden because there is nobody to help and nobody to look after the children. She cries and breast-feeds the baby. Through the open door I can see her room, which is in a complete mess, unwashed clothes and dishes lying all around. Later, we learnt that her husband beat her and her children regularly when he was drunk. It is clear that she cannot cope with the crisis situation she is in now. Yet, she was able to take an initiative at the cooperative store, investing in me, a potential source of support, by emphasising her misery and dependency, hoping to soften my heart so that she would receive some material compensation from me.
I noticed how many refugees, like this woman, not only felt their dependency but also used it as a strategy to mobilise outsiders' support. Sometimes people who had already been in the camps since 1983 could no longer imagine an independent, secure life outside the camp. But in

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 193
general, when given a choice, men and women would always opt for conditions enabling them to sustain themselves again. When, for example, I asked a group of six women in Sithamparapuram camp, where they thought I could meet them in five years time - where would they be by then? - they said without any hesitation: "We hope to be abroad, in India'. Four of them for a few years had stayed in India in refugee camps and had been forced to return. They preferred to go back to India immediately, because they liked it over there: "We had work, food was cheap, there was enough to eat and we did not have passes there. The biggest problem here is the pass system.” In other words, the best situation they could think of at the moment was a working life that would give them security, freedom and autonomy-even if this would be abroad. They could not return to the "uncleared areas they came from, in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in the north, and were not entitled to benefit from the government resettlement programme in Vavuniya, because this was only for people who had lived there since at least 1990.
5. The gendered discourse on the 'collapse of family values' Outside the camps, when talking with different peoplegovernmental and non-governmental officers, policy-makers, academics, journalists, human rights activists-many of them reproduced the conservative discourse about collapsing family values, moral deterioration, et cetera, particularly in reference to the situation in refugee camps. In this discourse gender and age relations had a central place. For example, a concerned journalist in Vavuniya told me about the camps:
"You know, all social values have gone, and family bonds are not there. There are not only broken families, but the people are kept inside the camps as if in a prison, women cannot attend to their natural problems during their sick days, they are living in the common hall so they cannot change clothes. If they keep on living like this for another few years, what will be their mentality? The families are split, women are without their men and children without parents and the values are gradually decreasing...'
Other people stressed the dangers of what they imagined to be the crux of life in a camp: promiscuity and prostitution. In their representations, too, gender and age were important dimensions, in

Page 107
194 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
that the imagined evils were projected onto women and youngsters. These representations and family values have been formed by the Brahmanical values of patriarchy, which are still very influential. According to Thiruchandran (1998: 7), this ideology with its code of renunciation imposed on women "is directed at controlling the sexuality of women' (Thiruchandran 1998: 7).
In fact, within the camps I did not get the impression that there was more promiscuity' or prostitution than in the other situations of poverty with which I am familiar in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Women, as far as they could, managed to keep their broken families together, they earned an income if they could and some women engaged in different sorts of (sexual) relations in exchange for protection, affection and maintenance (which exchange is fundamentally not very different from the exchange in a bourgeois marital setup) and some women prostituted themselves if there was no other way to keep their families going-just like in "ordinary' situations of poverty.
After my renewed contact with women refugees in camps in Vavuniya, in January 1998, I am even more convinced that, on the one, hand, they need outside support to be as self-sustaining as possible and on the other, that they are not the vulnerable and pitiful categories into which they have been constructed by the outside agencies. When listening to the refugee women's own views and analyses, so many things become clear. They need and want support that enables them to help themselves in a far more autonomous manner than assumed by the outside world. The problem is not that they are too subdued or inexperienced to look after themselves; the problem is the nature of the politics of space and control by which they first have been forcibly displaced and secondly constructed into dependent victims who to the outside world seem to be totally passive and even invisible recipients of aid. The worst of all is the pass-system as used in the Vavuniya camps, and the resulting lack of freedom to move around and to go out for work. When I asked them, women refugees again and again stressed their need for security and it became increasingly clear that for them security implied both the material and the immaterial aspects: they did not want to be treated as outcast-prisoners with all the restrictions in their freedom of movement; they wanted to be given the opportunity to

CoNSTRUCTING WoMANHooD', 'TAMILNEss' AND THE REFUGEE' 95
work in order to sustain themselves and their families and they wanted to be heard.
A recent Oxfam report (1996a) is the first document on internal refugees (so-called “IDP's', i.e. "internally displaced people') in Sri Lanka in which I found statements stressing the importance of listening to the refugees themselves, and particularly also to what women have to say:
"Tamil women are not particularly shy or slow in coming forward when given the opportunity. Unless an effort is made to include women then their needs and points of view tend to be overlooked (Oxfam 1996a, no page number). One wonders how refugee women would react if they could read this text - it does not impress me by being particularly dignifying to the category of "Tamil women', but it is certainly well-intended, like other
StatelentS.
'Women's responsibilities for food management and direct use of household items should be reinforced....Women's opinion should be actively solicited in matters relating to water and sanitation...Even in realms where they have responsibility within the household as managers, their role is being downgraded...Some older women we spoke to were highly disgruntled at even being told how to prepare the rations when doing collective cooking....women expressed frustration at not being able to voice their concerns, such as health and safety problems and the siting of communal facilities.'
When it comes to the establishment of people's (self) organisations within the camps, the report says that
"...committees exist...The people...complained that the camp leader was self-appointed and never spoke to them...Committee Selection procedures were a mystery to most people.'
Interestingly, no link is made in the report between the separate sections on 'refugee organisation' and gender": there is no mention whatsoever of the need for women's participation in decision-making through the formal membership of committees or (self) organisations of refugees.

Page 108
196 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
In Conclusion: Manoeuvring Within the Politics of Space and Control
In spite of the lack of gender-sensitive, let alone emancipatory support structures, many Tamil women in refugee camps in Sri Lanka all by themselves have increased their space for manoeuvre vis-a-vis their men and vis-a-vis people visiting their camps. As far as I know, they have not started any women's self-organisations in order to see to their rights as refugees and as women. Their experiences and views so far have not informed the different gendered discourses that are influencing mainly the lives of urban, middle-class people. Interestingly, however, without having had any support from a women's movement or women's organisation within the camps, these refugee women voiced ideals that came very close to a feminist discourse, according to which women can assert themselves as defenders of their own women's rights. Many of these refugee women are actually representing and even practising the ideal of women's liberation as formulated by Radhika Coomaraswamy (1996: 10):
"...an independent woman, empowered by her own agency, who makes decisions for her own self-realisation...(with) autonomy or empowerment as an end in themselves.'
It was precisely this elements however that provoked concerned people of Tamil background, when it came to women and gender relations, to fall back on a most conservative, patriarchal discourse of "Tamilness', stressing the danger of the collapse of family values', and the breaking down of the family structure'. These dangers were being projected onto the imagined life in the refugee camps, where women in particular were thought to represent the imagined promiscuous chaos. However, according to my own observations, refugee life in the camps was not representative of "an overall breakdown of family values'. It mostly reminded me of other situations of extreme poverty I am familiar with, aggravated by the humiliating state control and complete lack of freedom of movement. The situation was worst in the camps in Vavuniya, where all Tamil refugees were treated like dangerous criminals instead of war victims - a war for which the Sri Lankan state in the first place has to be held responsible.
Although living for years in a refugee camp is probably one of the worst possible situations to be in, the changes in family values' that

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHooD', 'TAMILNEss' AND "THE REFUGEE' 197
have occurred in the camps and, more generally, as a result of the war, need not be interpreted as a process with only negative aspects. The new spaces created by chaos and change have been used by Tamil women refugees themselves to increase their autonomy and selfesteem. They have taken on whatever work they could get, evaluating this not as a collapse of family values, but as an opportunity to gain more control over their lives and to survive at least somewhat better as human beings. Tamil women refugees have to endure what I have called "two systems of control': severe political repression and patriarchy. As Tamils and as women, they are forced to live a grim life affected by ethnic violence and double discrimination. However, many of them, by working and earning inside or outside the camps, have managed to loosen the grip of the state and of patriarchal control, finding spaces for transgressing earlier restrictive gender boundaries.
In summary, by connecting the constructs of Tamilness', 'Womanhood', and "The Refugee', I have tried to make clear how Tamil women in Sri Lanka and Tamil women refugees in particular, are continuously manoeuvring between these identities, negotiating new spaces and transformations. The outcomes are shaped by ethnic, gender, caste, class and age relations, by collective and personal identifications in which politics and power dynamics play a crucial and complicated role. There will never be a static "Tamil identity Woman identity', or "Refugee-identity'. Although informed and circumscribed by notions about 'traditional culture', such representations and practices are mouldable social constructs that, especially in the context of conflict and war, are not without danger. They can be, and are all the time, misused by those in positions of power, who stigmatise, humiliate and endanger particular categories of people, such as Tamils and particularly also Tamil internal refugees, in Sri Lanka. It is not Tamils, refugees, or women that are the problem, however. It is the violent discourses about them and the resulting practices, that are dangerous. The support to the peace-process, however modest, that academics can give is mostly non-material, but nonetheless substantial: by trying to deconstruct and reconstruct these discourses we can help to dissolve dangerously uni-dimensional constructs and to support processes of "multi-identifications' that support people to identify themselves with different dimensions of social life (Essed (1996: 129). I feel that

Page 109
198 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
listening to Tamil women refugees themselves and taking seriously their own analyses that point to the need of transformed and multiple identities, is the most constructive contribution I, as an outsider, can make at this moment.
References Adele Ann, 1993, Woman Fighters of Liberation Tigers, London: LTTE
Publication Section. Alwis, Malathi de, 1993, "Seductive Scripts and Subversive Practices: Motherhood and Violence in Sri Lanka, paper read at the research colloquium Violence, Suffering and Healing in South Asia, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics. Anderson, Benedict, 1983, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso. Anthias, Floya & Nira Yuval-Davis in association with Harriet Cain, 1993, Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle, London and New York: Routledge. Archer, John (ed.), Male Violence, London and New York: Routledge. Coomaraswamy, Radhika, 1996, "Tiger Women and the Question of Women's
Emancipation', Pravada Vol. 4, No. 9: 8-10. Essed, Philomena, 1996, Diversity: Gender, Color & Culture, Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press. Jayawardena, Kumari, 1986, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World,
London: Zed Books. Jeyaratnam Wilson, A., 1974, Politics in Sri Lanka 1947-1973, London and
Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd. Malkki, Liisa, 1992, National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees', Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 7, No.1: 24-44. Maunaguru, Sitralega, 1995, "Gendering Tamil Nationalism: The Construction of "Woman' in Projects of Protest and Control', in Pradeep Jeganathan & Qadri Ismail (eds.), Unmaking the Nation, The Politics of Identity and History in Modern Sri Lanka, Colombo: Social Scientists Association, pp. 158-75. Moghadam, Valentine (ed.), 1994, Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perpsective, Boulder, CO/ Oxford; Westview Press. Oxfam (UK/1), 1996a, Listening to the Displaced; Conversations in the Wanni
Region, Northern Sri Lanka.

CoNSTRUCTING 'WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 199
Oxfam (UK/1), 1996b, Listening in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, A Second
Series of Interviews in Oxfam Operational Areas of Northern Sri Lanka. Rajasingham, Darini, 1995, “On Mediating Multiple identities: The Shifting Field of Women's Sexuality in the Community, State and Nation', in Margaret Schuler (ed.), From Basic Needs to Basic Rights, Washington DC: Women, Law and Development International. Schrijvers, Joke, 1985, Mothers for Life; Motherhood and Marginalization in
the North-Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, Delft: EBURON. Schrijvers, Joke, 1986, “Make your Son a King' in M. van Bakel a.o. (eds.), Private Politics, a Multi-Disciplinary Approach to 'Big-Man' Systems, Leiden: Brill, pp. 13-32. Schrijvers, Joke, 1995a, 'Inter-ethnic Violence between Tamils and Muslims in Eastern Sri Lanka', in J. Abbink, P.Kloos, M. van de Port & J. Schrijvers, Societies of Fear, Utrecht: CERES, pp.55-79. Schrijvers, Joke, 1995b, 'Participation and Power, A Transformative Feminist Research Perpsective', in Nici Nelson and Susan Wright (eds.), Pover and Participatory Development: Theory and Practice, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, pp. 19-21 (in a slightly revised version published as "Dilemmas of a Transformative Research Ideal; Refugees and Resettlement in Sri Lanka', Nivedini, 1995, Vol. 3, No. 2:7-29). Schrijvers, Joke, 1997, Internal Refugees in Sri Lanka: The Interplay of Ethnicity and Gender, The European Journal of Development Research, Vol. 9., No. 2: 62-81. w Sperber, Ulla Glavind, 1996, Return Home? Social Survey of IDP'S and Indian Returnees in Vavuniya District (cleared area), Report for UNHCR (unpublished). Stepputat, Finn, 1994, "Repatriation and the Politics of Space: The Case of the Mayan Diaspora and Return Movement’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 2/3: 175-186. Thiruchandran, Selvy, 1998, The Spectrum of Femininity. A Process of
Deconstruction, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Ltd. Trawick, Margaret, 1996, "Gendered Aspects of International LTTE Image Formation', Paper for the Conference on Violence against Women in South Asia, ICES, Colombo 27-31 March 1996 (Unpublished).

Page 110
200
WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Notes For their valuable commens on an earlier version of this paper I wish to thank Selvy Thiruchandran and the participants of the "South Asian Conference on Gender Issues: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Strategies for the Future', organised from 27-30 April 1998 by the Women's Education and Research Centre in Colombo. I am also thankful to Philomena Essed, Kamala Ganesh, Colette Harris, Ranjini Manuel Pillai, Lorraine Nencel, Gowry Palaniappan, Kamala Peiris and Ton Salman for their constructive comments. Joke Schrijvers is professor of development studies at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ, Amsterdam, e-mail: j.schrijvers Gantenna.ni I prefer to speak of "internal refugees' instead of using the official term "internally displaced people' (IDPs). This, first of all, in order to make clear that these people are refugees, although officially according to UN legislation they are not yet recognised as such. Secondly, by using the term "refugees' I like to stress that they have an agency of their own. Thirdly, the term "displaced' falsely suggests a "natural connection between people and places - a notion I wish to avoid (cf. Stepputat 1994: 176).
use fictitious names here. Nowadays, most of the women in Colombo who wear the pottu use the stickers that can be purchased instead of painting it. The Sinhalese who lived in the north had left earlier already, after the 1983 riots. Although the government even here refers to the camps as "welfare centres', actually Tamils are kept (semi) imprisened in these camps for fear of Tiger infiltration into the south. The criteria to screen the refugees are not transparent, and procedures are more than slow and give rise to further Tamil resentment as well as bribery. As the registration of people in the camps does not distinguish the category of "Plantation Tamils', no statistics are available. However, my impression in 1993, 1994 and 1998 that there were many, if not a majority of, Plantation Tamils staying in the camps was confirmed by many persons who knew the situation well. People who are staying in Vavuniya, which is located at the border of the war zone, have to use passes issued by the police - this as one of the measures to prevent "Tigers' from infiltrating into the "cleared' areas. Depending on one's community and geographical background, people are given passes that permit them to move around in town for a limited

CONSTRUCTING WoMANHOOD', 'TAMILNESS" AND THE REFUGEE' 20
11
number of hours, days or months. People who stay in refugee camps cannot leave the camp for more than one day at the maximum. The permitted leave is reduced to four or two hours, or cancelled altogether when tensions increase or "incidents' occur. To avoid jealousy and misinterpretations about my role as researcher, never gave money or other material help to people in the camps, however difficult that was. Afterwards I informed government officials, nongovernmental agencies and human rights organisations about the support that I felt was needed most (cf. Schrijvers 1995b). In this case, informed the government agent, a highly respected and concerned administrator, to whom I had to report back about my visit anyhow, that female-headed households, and this one in particular, needed extra support, and that those selected for resettlement schemes needed help in constructing their houses.

Page 111
Index
Abeyratne, Senaka, 11, 17 Ado, 28 Agarwal, Binna, 145 Age of Consent Bill, 1925, 79 Aguilar, Delia D., 156, 164 Ahmad, Dipty, 94, 100-14, 123,
126 Akhtar, Salim, 106 Alam Ara, 23 Alauddin, 30 Alfred Company, 27, 30 Alfred Natak Mandali, 30 Allahabadi, Akbar, 98, l 14-31 Alwis, Malathi de, 178 Amanat, 25, 33 Ambujammal, 27 Amir Jan, 29 Amiruddin, Begum Sultan Mir,
78 Ammaiyar, Neelavathi, 65, 69 Ammal, K. Visalakshmi, 76 Ammal, Tamaraikanni, 66 Ammal, Vai Mu Kodainayaki, 73 Amritlal, 3 1
An Historial Relation of Ceylon,
155 Anandi Bai, 70 Anderson, Benedict, 169 Annadurai, 60 Anthias, Floya, 169 Anula, 154 Arasanayagam, T., 1- l l Archer, John, 173 Ardeshar, 28 Armed conflict, hidden
economies of women in, 141-43 Ashcroft, W.D., 18 Avan, Pesu, 27-28
Baker, Victoria, 159 Balasingham, Adele, 138, 182 Baliwala, Khurshed, 27-28, 30 Bambali ki Billi, 46 Bandaranaike, Sirima, 178 Beneria, Lourdes, 165 Betab, Pandit Narayan Prasad, 42 Bhagirathi Ganga, 45

INDEX 203
Bharati, 70 Bharatiya Balak, 44 Bhave, K.P., 43 Bhave, Vishnudas, 23 Bhavnani, Mohan, 46 Bholi Gul, 30 Bhutto, Benazir, 178 Binodini Dasi, 43 Boehmer, Elleke, 14 Boserup, Ester, 159, 165 Bramsen, Michele Bo, 158 Brecht, B., 10 Brown, Hilton, 76 Buddhism Betrayed, 13
Cave Walk, 15-17, 19 Charlton, Sue Allen M., 160 Chatterjee, Partha, 39, 56, 89-90,
94. Chitra Bakavali, 33 Contractor, Kavasji Manakji, 28 Coomaraswamy, Radhika,el 38,
178-79, 182-83, 196 Cooper, Patience, 41, 43, 45 Corinthian Theatre, 44 Cousins, Margaret, 67, 69, 71-72,
77
Dada, Edalji, 28 Darwin, Charles, 1 15 Davis, Nira Yuval, 57 Dawk Bungaloo, The, 26 De Lanerolle, H.C.N., 2 De Silva, L., 3 De Silva, Wimala, 154, 157, 162 De Zosya, Lucien, 2 Devadoss, Sita, 70
Dharamsey, V.K., 44 Dhruva Charita, 45 Diamond, I., 18 Dil Ki Pyas, 44 Drau padi, 34
Eelam People’s Democratic
Party (EPDP), 141 Eelam Peoples Revolutionary
Front (EPRLF), 141 Elphinstone Dramatic Society,
26 Elphinstone Theatrical Company,
44 Empowerment of Women, humanitarian challenge,
148-49 in war and displacement,
36-49 languages of, 146-47 spaces of, 143-46 Empress Victoria Theatrical
Company, 29 English Language Theatre in Sri Lanka, nationalist politics and gender in, 1-19 Enloe, Cynthia, 137 Essed, Philomena, 197 Etienne, Mona, 159
Fatima, 40 Felman, Shoshana, 7 Female impersonators and
actress in
Parsi theatre, 22-43 silent films, 43-48 Fenton, Mary, 29-31, 41

Page 112
204 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Gamdeni Gori, 30, 46 Gandharva, Bal, 24, 32, 34-38 Gandhi, Indira, 57, 178
Gandhi, Mahatma, 67, 69, 75-77
Gannage, Charlene, 165 Garber, Marjorie, 23 Gauhar. Jan, 40-41, 43 Gilbert, H., 1 Gohar, see, Karnataki, Gohar Gokhale, Kamalabai, 36 Goonesekere, Savithri, 156 Grewal, Inderpal, 93-99 Grossholtz, Jean, 155 Gugapriyai, 68, 76 Gujarati Natak Mandali, 33 Gullru Zarina, 33 Gun Sundari, 45-46 Gunawardene, Shelagh, 2 Gupta, Sommath, 27
Hammond, Dorothy, 158 Hansen, Kathryn, 22 Harishchandra, 28, 30-31 Harris, Elizabeth J., 159 Hayley, 155 He Comes from Jaffna, 2 Herat, Subhangi, 152 Herath, S.B., 154 Hippolet, Effie, see, Indira Devi Hiramanik, Ardeshar, 30 Home,
in Akbar Allahabadi's poetry,
98-99, 114-30 in Dipty Nazeer Ahmad
reformist novels, 100-14 in Inderpal Grewal's writing,
94-100
modernity and loss of, 1 14-30 nation and religion interplay,
15-16 nationalist construction of,
94- 1 16 women's role at, 100-14 Home and Haren, 94 Hoor-e-Arab, 44 Human Emotions, 45. Huston, N., 8
Indar Sabhla, 25, 27-29, 33
Indian Cinematograph
Committee, 41
Indian Peace Keeping Force
(IPKF), 179, 181
Indira Devi, 41
Intruder, and political theatre,
- 19
Iraiyan, 65-66
Jaganmohini, 73, 77 Jayalalitha, 57 Jayashinghe, Vinitha, 160, 163 Jaywardena, K., 91-92, 156, 182 Jayaweera, Swarna, 159 Jeejeebhoy, Sorabji Jamsetji, 26 Jeyaratnam Wilson, A., 172 Jinarajadasa, Dorothy, 67, 79 Johnson, Richard, 57 Jones, Adam, 18 Joshi, Framji, 26-27 Jugal Jugari, 33
Kabra, K.N., 30-31 Kajjan, 31 Kalejar, Edu, 28

INDEX 205
Kalki, 79 Kalyan Khaiina, 43 Kalyug, 30 Kamalata, 34 Kannammal, Sa. Ka. 66 Kannan, G., 58 Karnataki, Gohar, 36, 45-46 Karunanidhi, M., 60-61 Karve, 69 Kashmiri, Agha Hashra, 44-45 Kearny, R.N., 162 Kersernboom, l36 Khadilkar, 34 Khambata, Jehangir, 29-30 Khan, Muhammad Raza, 78 Khan, Syed Ahmad, 90, 100-01,
112, 121, 127 Khatau, Jehangir, 30 Khatau, Kavas, 29-3l Khatun, 40 Khori, Edalji, 27 Kiribamune, Sirima, 155 Kirloskar Drama Company, 34 Knox, Robert, 155 Kodainayaki, Vai Mu, 77 Kolhatkar, Bhaurau, 34 Krishnan, N.S., 53 Kudi Arasu, 65 Kudi Nool, 65 Kulasuriya, Ananda, 154 Kumaratunge, Chandrika, 178 Kumudini, 77
Lady of Lyons, 27 Lakshmi, C.S., 5, 53, 67-68,
76-78, 80
Lakshmi, Nary, 80 Lakshmipathi, Rukmini, 73 Lakshmipathy, Rukmini, 68 Lanka Dahan, 43 Lateef, Shahida, 104 Latifa Begam, 28-29 Leacock, Eleanor Burke, 159 Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 137-38, 140-42, 149, 169, 172, 176, 179-81, 185, 188 Londhe, 38 Lytton, 27
Maclntyre, Ernest, 2 Madan, Nasharvanji Framji, 27 Madan, Pestanji Framji, 27 Madhuram, T.A., 53 Mahasweta Devi, 14 Mahavamsa, 155 Malaviya, Madan Mohan, 3 1 Malka, 40 Malkki, Liisa, l70 Manapman, 34-35 Mani, T.V.S., 70 Maniammai, 66 Manorama, 4l Master, Manek, 30-31 Maunaguru, Sitralega, 169,
177-79, 181-82 McClintock, Anne, 14 Meerat-ul-Ulroos, 105-14 Meharbai, see, Fenton, Mary Merchant of Venice, The, 26 Mies, Maria, 159 Minelli, Signora, 45

Page 113
206 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Mitchell, Timothy, 92,94 Moghadam, Valentine, 170 Montague, E.S., 69 Mother Courage, 10 Moti Jan, 29 Moti Lal, 31 Munasinghe, Indrani, 154 Munshi, K.M., 33 Muslim family life,
disintegration of, 123-30 Myers, Ruby, see, Sulochana Myrdal, G., 157
Nadia, 28 Nagammal, 66 Naicker, E.V. Ramaswamy, 64,
66, 68 Naidu, Sarojini, 69 Nala and Danmayanti, 31, 45 Nallathangal, 59-60 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 30 Narmada Shankar, 3 l Natak Uttejak Mandali, 30-31 Nazir, Cowasji S., 26, 28-29 Nehru, Motilal, 31
New Alfred Theatrical Company.
31-32 News, The, 95 Nisar, 3 1
Original Victoria Theatrical
Company, 28
Ogra, Sohrab, 31
Ostrander, Susan A., 164
Painter, Baburao, 43
Paranavithana, 155 Parekh, D.N., 26 Parsi Natak Mandali, 28 Parsi theatre,
advertisement by, 42-43 Anglo-Indian actress, 40-43 female impersonators and
actresses in, 22-43 historical development, 25-26 women actresses, 29-30, 40-43 Patel, Dadi, 28-29 Patel, Darasha, 31 Pati Bhakti, 45-46 Peattie, Lisa, 161 Peiris, Lisa, 156 People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), 141 Pericles, 28 Periyar, see, Naicker, E.V.
Ramasamy Phalke, Dadasaheb, 24,36,43 Pillai, Vedanayakam, 64 Political theatre, and T.
Arasanayagam's Intruder, 1-19 Por La Liberated, 17 Pottu, as ethnic gender marker,
173-75 Private life of women,
Surveillance of, 93-94 Public life, of Sinhalese women,
54-57 Риraтатиrи, 59, 62
Quinby, L., 18
Radhakrishnan, R., 91

INDEX 207
Rai, Himanshu, 44 Raja Bhoj, 45 Raja Gopichand, 23 Raja Harishchandra, 43 Rajagopalachari, C., 71, 78 Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder, 7 Rajapakse, Ruana, l l-14 Rajasingham, Darini, 171, 177,
181 Rajasingham-Senanayake,
Darini, 136, 149 Rajhans, Narayan Shripad, see,
Gandharva, Bal Rama and Sita, 2 Ramakrishnan, Latha, 62 Ramamridhathammaiyar, 66 Ramayan, 45 Rao, Indira Bai, 68 Rao, Kaleswara, 78 Rao, Kamala Bai, 68 Rao, Krishna Bai, 68 Rast Gofiar, 30 Reddi, Muthulakshmi, 68, 72,
75-76, 78 Refugees, in Sri Lanka,
gender differences in coping
with life, 186-88 gender diferences regarding identifiation with ethnic politics, 188-89 gendered discourse on collapse
of family values, 193-95 gendered expression of need of
human dignity, 189-90 gendered processes
contributing to feelings of dependence, 191-93
Tamilness, womanhood and,
183-95 Rein, Martin, 161 Risseeuw, Carla, 156, 158 Romeo and Juliet, 16 Rustann and Sohrab, 27 Ruswa, Mirza Hadi, 106
Said, Edward, 14 Saigol, Rubina, 89 Salam, Muhammad Abdul, 78 Salunke, Anna, 43 Samaranayake, Ajith, 3 Sangamitta, 154 Saramadhi, 77 Sarkari, Nasorvanji Ratanji, 29 Sarkari, Naslu, 29 Satyamurthy, S., 70-71 Saubhagya Sundari, 32-33 Schrijvers, Joke, 169-70, 173,
178, 184-88, 190 Self-Respect Movement, 64-69 Sen, Gita, 165 Sen, Samita, 4 Seth, Babubhai, 33 Shah, Chandulal, 45 Shah Nama, 25 Shakespeare, 26-27 Shakuntala, 34 Shakuntala Janma, 43 Shastri, Amita, 156 Shetty, A.B., 78 Silappadhikaram, 59-62 Silent films, female
impersonators and actresses in, 43-48

Page 114
208 WOMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Silva, Neluka, 1 Silva, N., 13 Simon Commission, 75-76 Sinhalese women, public life of,
54-57 Sita Devi, 4l, 43, 44 Sitamgar, 33 Smith, Percy, 44 Smith, Renee, see, Sita Devi Sone Ke Mul Ki Khurshed, 27-28 Sperber, Ulla, 185 Sperber, Ulla Glavind, 191 Spivak, 14 Sri Lankan Arts Council Award,
for the best play, 3 Sri Lankan Theatre in English,
see, English language theatre, in Sri Lanka Stepputat, Finn, 171 Stewart, Winnie, see, Manorama Stri-Dharma, 71-72 Stribodh, 30 Subbarayan, P., 78 Subramaniam, Ravi, 58 Sulochana, 30, 41, 44, 46 Sundari, Jayshankar, 24, 32-35,
37 Sunkersett, Jagannath, 26 Swaminathan, R.V., 79
Tahmina, Naslu, 27-28 Tambiah, S.J., 13 Tamil culture, identity and
women, 57-67 Tamil women, victims of war caste and cultuure, 139-41
Tamil womenhood,
discourses on, 175-79 feminist critique, 177, 181-83,
196 leftist Tamil critique, 176-77 militant nationalist discourse,
79-81 nationalist ethnicised
discourse, 76, 179-81 politics of space and control,
96-97 refugees and, 183-95 Tamilness and, 17l-73, 83-95 traditional Tamil discourse,
176, 178-79 Tamilness, and Tamil
womenhood, il 71-73, 1 83-95 Tara Khurshid, 30 Telephone Girl, 44, 46 Tennekoon, S., 8 Thamthamia Theatre, 33 Thiranagama, Rajini, l37 Thiruchandran, Selvy, 136, 141,
173, 76, 178, 194 Thompson, Janna, 6 Thunthi, Dadabhai, 32-33 Tilak, Lokamanya, 34 Tinkar, Irene, 158, 165 Tompkins, J., 1 Trawick, Margaret, 170, 179,
83 Treatise on Law's and Customs of
Sinhallese, 155 Trevelyan, G.D., 26 Tribhuvandas, 32 Turki Hoor, 44

INDEX
209
Typist Girl, 46
UNHCR, 138, 143 Unrao Jan Ada, 106
Victoria Theatrical Company,
27-28 Vidualalai, 65 Vikrani Charitra, 33 Village Girl, 46 Village women, political activities of, 157-65 Vir Abhimanyu, 44 Viswanathan, Cheeni, 70 Vithal, Master, 43 Viittachi, Nedra, 15-16
Wadley, Susan, 140 Wales, 58 War Story, 11-13 Well Mudliyar, 2 Why Husband Go Astray, 45 Why I Became a Christian, 46 Wildcat of Bombay, 46 Women,
as home makers, 100-14 body, history and nation, 79-80 case study of political
awareness and participation, 152-65
cultural transformation and
36-49 debate in Madras Legislative
Assembly on, 78-79 dominant images, 59-64 empowerment in war and displacement, 136-49
ethnicity and, 53-67 impersonators and actresses in
Parsi theatre, 22-43 Silent films, 43-48 in Dipty Nazeer Ahmad works,
94, 100-14 in hidden economies of armed
conflict, 41-43 in Muslim nationalism, 89-132 in Sri Lankan English
language theatre, l-19 internal refugees in Sri Lanka,
169-98 languages of empowerment,
146-49 nationalist politics and, I-19.
67-79 political activities of village,
157-65 political awareness and participation, 152-65 politics of nation and, I-19,
67-79 private life, 93-94 public life, 154-57 refugees in Sri Lanka, 169-98 rural Sinhalese, 52-65 status in conflict, 41-43,
147-48 Tamil culture, identity and,
57-67 Tamilness, 169-98 Tamils, 57-67, 139-4 | thoughts on gender, 53-80 victimisation, I 36-49 womanhood, 169-98

Page 115
210 WoMEN, NARRATION AND NATION
Women's Indian Association, 71, Yalman, Nur, 156
75-76, 78 Yashoda, 14 Wordsworth, 95 Yuval-Davies, Nira, 169

Page 116

SELVY THIRUCHANDRAN is presently the Executive Director of the Women's Education and Research Centre (WERC), Colombo. She is the Editor of Nivedini, (English and Tamil editions) a feminist journal published bi-annually by her organization. Images, a collection of research papers of the multi-lingual mediamonitoring project conducted by Women's Education and Research Centre was edited by her. She is also the author of books such as Ideology, Caste, Class and Gender, The Spectrum of Femininity and The politics of Gender and Women's Agency in Postcolonial Sri Lanka. She has also authored books in Tamil-Varalartu Padimankal Silavattil Oru Pennilai Nokku and Penilaivathamum Kotpattu Muran Padukalam Oru Samukviyal Nokku.
Dr. Thiruchandran holds a B.A. Degree from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and obtained her masters and hcr Ph.D in the Netherlands. She pursued her doctoral studies at the prestigious Vrijc University of Amsterdam.
Cover Illustration by Nilanthi Weerasekara,
ISBN 81-2.59-0731-9

Page 117
ܠܐ
( Recent Pu
The Other Victin
Emergence of Female Households in Easter (Wolume II)
Selwy. Thiruchandran
This book makes an attempt t structural and emotional distu and children during times of households in Sri Lanka eme in substantial numbers only a uprisings, one in the south an among the Sinhalese and the Men went to war and died wic
and children to face their live insecurity and terror.
While undertaking a sociolog women and children, a politic inevitable, enters the scene of the state, or rather the complic coercive patterпs of govеппап the process as a side-line.
The women's narratives revea determines eventually the cor
WIKAS PUBLISHINC
576, Masjid Road, Jangpu Phones: 4314605, 43153 Eாal Chawlரஇgal.wாாக
 

blication )
ns of War
Headed
n Sri Lanka
o capture both the Irbances that affect women
war. Female headed ged as a social phenomena fter the two youth d the other in the north, one other among the Tamils. lently leaving the women sanidst uncertainty,
ical inquiry into the lives of
all focus which is
the research. The role of
city of the state in creating
ce, also becomes visible in
la subjectivity which e theme of the research.
HOUSE PVT. LTD
l, New Delhi- 114 Flxi. 1-431B) I. In IIIеглегамуилу шћspelicom.
N