English Literary Studies, Women's Studies and Feminism in India

Author(s): Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 43 (Oct. 25 - 31, 2008), pp. 66-71
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 English Literary Studies, Women's Studies
and Feminism in India

RAJESWARI SUNDER RAJAN

1
English literature has been a unique site for politicisation
by feminism. Drawing on the author's involvem^t disciplinarisation of literary studies has followed varied
trajectories in its different locations, metropolitan and
as a teacher in Delhi University the essay exan
(post)colonial. Its recent developments in India, or at any
the trajectories of teaching literature inratethe
those that da n,most closely acquainted with as a
I have been
the kinds of contestations and transgressions
lecturerthul thecolleges (intermittently from 1976 to
in Delhi University
1994), will inform how I view its connections to the women's
women's movement and women's studies initiated,
movement and its inputs into "women's studies" in what follows.
and the influence of English studies across and
However, though I shall be speaking mainly of the academic
beyond the disciplines. study of English literature at the tertiary level of university educa-
tion in this paper, the more general sense of literature and its
influence - to which I shall return in a bit - cannot be entirely
kept out of our understanding of its disciplinary functioning.
The fact that disciplinary literary studies in India has for the most
part focused on canonical British literature has required attention to
two different if related issues: on the one hand that of the specific
language and nationality of the literature in question, and on the
other the institutionalisation and protocols of literary studies as such.
As to the first of these issues: the connections between the study of
English literature and feminism in India are not far to seek, and they
are not limited to the academy. Both in conflict and in conjunction
with the anti-colonial nationalist movement, representations of
women in western literature were responsible for creating the model
of the liberated female "subject for the bourgeois Indian woman. The
paradigmatic fictional representation in Indian literature of such a
female subject is to be found in Tagore's Ghare Bhaire (1916) in the
figure of the female protagonist, Bimala. Bimala's access to sexually
advanced and hence forbidden texts, such as the poems of Robert
Browning and the psychology manuals of Havelock Ellis, is made
possible because of the tutoring she receives in English; and it is this
education that gives her a sense of maturity and daring (though these
books, we must not forget either, are placed in her way by the men
who seek to fashion her after their own desires and ideals).
The connections between the educated bourgeois woman's know-
ledge of western literature clid her emancipation cannot be offered in
the spirit of simple celebration. The costs and limitations of the enter-
prise are only too apparent: a <4western" feminism that essentially
promotes the individualism of the singular female subject, and access
to which is mediated by an elitism of class and caste positions is
clearly limited and problematic. But the fact remains that to a notable
extent the rallying cries for the emergent new Indian woman were
framed by the literary representations of an Antigone, a Nora Helmer,
or a Jane Eyre.1
Given such a readymade connection between a bourgeois feminist
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (rajeswari.5underrajan@[Link]) is consciousness and the texts of western literature in recent Indian
with the English department at New York University.
history, what are the terms of the contemporary institutionalisation of

6v> OCTOBEH 25, 2008 rravi Economic & Political weekly

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{^=^==^======^======-j=====.-z

English? Thiseverywhere
leads us exp
into t
the study of and at the
literature wor
in th
that a BA honours program
oblivious to the
privileged ature
option belonged
in the uni
taught observed
predominantlyat the
by w
women's of a
college.2gendered
The p
reaso
feminist all this
content, buttransla
rather
in terms of academic
we set up value
betwe
the here,
féminisation so
of that
the re
disc
no natural identity but in
Text and Context
female following implies a
feminist A small collection of essays by
pedagogy English lecturers in Miranda
would calHouse
and from some other Delhi University colleges, reflected these and
Relevance of
similar concerns English St
in a volume titled Woman, Image, Text.7 Although
The the majority of
anomalous the essays were written under the influence of of
centrality Anglo-
in American feminist
independent criticism, they were consciously
India has offered as not
immedi-
has it led to atethe
pedagogic interventions.
abolitionThe volume itself, as a product of
of a
that long collective endeavour, was fairly
history, or homogeneous
intoin its outlook. AUth
the
relates to my own
texts discussed knowle
in it were curricular texts, and the essays asked what it
phenomenon meant to teach them as women
that beganlecturers to (predominantly
in but not
t
ised by entirely) female departments
English students in the contemporary Indian classroom.
which Rashmito
began Bhatnagar's comment in a footnote to her essay on Alexanderq
articulate
studies, Pope's Rape of the Lock
explore the is the most explicit and poignant of the remind-
historie
native ers of the
texts, disjuncture between text and context,
syllabi and and the consequent
pe
tional production of meaning againstto
constraints the grain. Bhatnagar
chang spoke of the
- might in "new and painful associations" that the narrative
hindsight becrisis of the poem
calle
This came to have,
moment was in 1984, for the students at the Sikh private college
closely lin at
ness and an which she taught, following the
active massacre of male Sikhs in Delhi
politics t
Delhi during the riots. The colleges
University heroine Belinda's loss of a lock of hair,
at cut off
The clandestinely
ferment by her lover, reminded them of "how rioters
paralleled de had
contexts in India at
desecrated the sacred symbols of the the time
Sikhs by forcibly cutting off their
others. The hair
Emergency
in public". (19
groups, the anti-Sikh
The poem thus became not only about the riots i
desecration of women but
Delhi University Teachers'
obliterated the "sexual differential" as Gayatri Spivak puts it, and became
were among athe
poem about the desecration
events that can be visited even upon
thatoppressed
the men...this is the hidden
humanities andand imperfect core of my paper, against which my
social s
deconstructive readings appear expressly like a false closure.. .it reveals
crisis in English studies was
what is anterior to my textuality in short what this note is about.8
as a feminist challenge at t
participants Similar inquiries were instituted
would have in many subsequent
rem essays
spect the that beganof
fact to ask how we
themight teach literature
fémin in India, and in
political particular British literature, across a cultural divide, with atten-
consequences.
The tion to the specificities
connection was of gender, class,
much-mreligious community and
that is, caste that the teaching
women context demanded.
teachers of
aspects of The demand of students and
literary teachers of English literature that
productio
syllabus the content of their
within the subject be made more relevant to their situa-
immedia
tion, and tion predictably met withIt
society. apathy from the university system. But at
helped
a number of space appears to be finally opening
novels by up, if reluctantly
19th and by
canon - degrees,Austen,
Jane to the study of literatures outside the Anglo-American
Charl
the canon (though here
well-known too the undergraduate syllabus
figures - is thewh
last to
context. They were
be affected, this also
despite the fact that undergraduates th
represent the
feminist largest segment of the university
criticism, then population). And
inthe Delhii
books like Gilbert and
University ba English honours Guba
course now offers an optional paper
ter's A on "women's writing".of
Literature their Ow
many interested
It may be objected thatreaders am
I assume too easily that the only signifi-
time when the issue
cant "literary studies" to be found in Indiamost
is the conventional study p
movement of canonical British
was to literature
makein departments of English.
visi I should

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 REVIEW OF WOMEN'S STUDIES - -

clarify representations of women, feminist

that my criticism then logically moved refer
ary studies. Undeni
into a recovery of women's writings as a "counter-history".9
every It-is not that thisof
one kind of feminist contestationthe
of the hegemonic Ind
by male authors
valourised images of women in the culture has been entirely absent in and
ingly India. Since the these
also most influential models of good femininity are to be are a
most found predominantly
part outsidein Hindu religious myth and legend, and since the
ent set these, further,critical
of are reproduced and circulated in contemporary times pro
via popular cinema and other media, it is these sites
departments of of ideological mo
how far value that seemed to demand greater attention than, say, recent
their liter-
curric
ary texts. There have indeed
influenced been significant feminist interventions
feminist
though I that challenge, for instance, the ideology of good wifehood
stand ready by
Two highlighting subversive versions of the
piquant Sita figure in narratives drawn
facts - c
model of fromliterary
the "little tradition". Attempts have been made also to seize stu
these are offered
different, more empowering images of militant goddesses and rebel as
women for feminism.10
exceptions exist): All the same there is a noticeable reluctance one,
even among secular
literature and progressives in India, including feminists
contin and
actually perhaps especially them, to be confrontationist where religion is
published cr
(unless itconcerned; and
be as for re-deploying religiousfrom
imagery, there is always a
chosen a certain uneasiness that attends its politics.11 For these
instead to reasons, wor
crossing that anyone
among others, the centrality of western feminism's critique of "images
ently of women" was not exactly reproduced in the Indian context.
interdisciplina
which, all the same,
English Representation
departments t
English The question of representation remains neverthelessfind
often a crucial t
helped inone for this
feminism and for women's studies in particular,
by and it has bein
of the been addressed in related if not identical ways in feminist schol-
English-langua
and most arship in
of India. Representation is not
theof course a question specific criti
to literary studies alone,
literatures nor is it limited to the literary text. But
have been
teach in feminist
English literary criticism has historically served as a point of* lite
abroad is departure
the for its analysis, especially in work
its most direct version of
etc.) I when it is a matter of identifying
offer these and responding to positive or as e
explore negative images of women in the implicati
their culture's repertoire, though
this, as I clarify later, is not a sufficient description of feminist
Z criticism's endeavours.

Despite the obvious importance of literature in both reflecting and Reading itself is so widespread and common an activity that litera-
actively shaping social values, of which not the least important are ture, it may be argued, can hardly be said to be a specialist field.
gender norms, it is noticeably the case that feminist literary criticism Anyone who is literate and is so inclined may engage in it for pleasure
in India has not had the kind of major, pioneering impact on the or profit, or both.12 Therefore literary studies as such tends to be a less
women's movement that it had in the west (and particularly on rigorously academic subject and one more open to general contesta-
second wave feminism in the us). There non-specialist large- tion than other fields of knowledge constituting the humanities and
circulation books like Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1968) led the way. social sciences. The impact of literature tends to be diffusive, register-

By exposing the misogyny that was perceived as informing the central ing as a pervasive cultural influence and even, we might say, as
male-authored texts that constitute the western literary tradition, ideology. While this is obvious and generally correct - and explains
Millett's book made the case for the reign of a universal patriarchal the widespread social influence of the literary as such - those trained
dominance. Explaining why literature served as such a primary refer- in literary studies bring to their task the particular skills of "close
enee point for feminism in the Anglo-American context, Jacqueline reading" that are developed through attention to genre, prosody,
Rose points to feminists' conviction that "one of the key instances of figures of speech, poetics and the production of meaning through
women's oppression" was to be found in the literary representation of these rhetorical means. The pedagogy of any literary discipline
women, "something that could be called the sexual imaginary that requires imparting the skills and respecting the protocols of reading.
the literary establishment chose to produce of itself \ Rose goes on to Though reading in this sense is not an activity limited to the literary
explain that "[feminism's] political argument and the accusation text, it is developed as a particular mode of expertise through the
against literature went together. Indeed feminism has always seen study of literary texts. Hence it gives to those trained in it a methodo-

how the first is implicated in the second: the problem of what needs logical tool of great usefulness and effectiveness in cultural studies,
to be, and can be, done for women being inseparable from what critical legal studies and historical studies in the archive - in this way
has been allowed a* the dominant representation of what is being, or both contributing to and drawing upon the contemporary trend of
is in need of being, said". From the critique of these dominant textualisation in many fields of knowledge.13

68 OCTOBER 25, 2008 GEC3 Economic & Political weekly

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 ~~

Howeve
suggest that it is not grounded in the material aspects of social life.
in Eng
And feminist scholarship in India -has engaged "representation"
part of
very broadly, well beyond the investigation of "images of women".
tory
Representation is instead the dynamic process whereby the forces h
of reform, regulation, and ideological self- fashioning "recast"
(poor l
women through a variety of textuallydif
the encoded forms such as law,
and
religious texts, myth and legend, conduct books, manuals,th
theatre
others)
and oral performances, devotional songs, sermons, popular litera-
motiva
ture.15 Any and all of these cultural texts therefore invite critical
indige
reading, interpretation and recuperation.
tailed
Tejaswini Niranjana's perceptive observations about the shaping
differ
of cultural studies in India are helpful in understanding the specific
called
ways in which it connects to women's studies.16 Cultural studies
could
has had a different genealogy in Asian countries in general from n
its counterparts in England or the us, she observes, because
wander
feminism has been "foundational" to the formation of the field -
neither
I rather than being a late (and disruptive) arrival on it (as it so
do no
pronouncedly was for British cultural studies for example). The
have ha
reason for this is the countries' shared history of colonialism,
amoun
which among other things led to close linkages being formed
outside
in betweenthe
culture, nationalism and women (or the "women
still
question", as it came to be called). Women became identified, and o
indeed continue to be identified, with the nation and "its" culture,
numbe
with
the "embodiment", as Niranjana puts it, of its difference from the "
west. Feminism then became the politics or practice that divorced
Since it
of women from "our" culture,
two the potent sign of western modernity.
One of the consequences of this historical connection has been
"theory
that women's studies "became the earliest site within the univer-
academ
sity for the elaboration of cultural studies concerns".17
develop
In this
Contemporary Popular Culture
seized b
Film studies in India has been an offshoot
ary stu of cultural studies seen
rather
in this broad framework, rather than the autonomous and specia-
on the
list field it developed into elsewhere. It has drawn much of its
ment a
stimulus and direction from the feminist investment in cinema's
(and fig
representation of gender issues. (We might speculate that the
have se
quantum
influence of literary practices and practitioners is to some extent at
least responsible for a noticeable tendency in film criticism inpr
The
India, especially in its earlier phase, to pay scant attention lit
tive to
manoeu
cinematic technology and form, instead "reading" films for content
as if they were literary texts). Mainstream cinema both draws from
3
and significantly shapes larger social realities (as well as fanta-
Let me elaborate on the shaping of these related endeavours in the sies). This is particularly true in a country like India which has the
Indian context. I have suggested that a certain pathway led feminist second largest film industry in the world, and where viewership
scholars in India from English in particular to cultural studies, as if cuts across class, age, region and language. The field has therefore
outside a cul-de-sac into the freedom of a larger field of operation. been exceptionally open to feminist intervention. Films were
Though this is not to suggest by any means that English was the Tegularly reviewed in the pioneering Manushi in the 1980s, the
sole disciplinary origin of cultural studies, it does trace a certain journal clearly seeing itself as performing a watchdog role over
trajectory and perhaps even argue for a certain influence in the the way gender relations were represented in them.
Indian context. The shift to cultural studies emerges from an Feminists may not speak in one voice about die issues that repre-
acknowledgement of the significance of the terrain of culture as a sentation brings to the fore, but the very fact of debate and discussion •
field for the study of gender. Few would question the position that has meant that popular culture and media - newspapers, advertise-
"culture" - the complex of language, religion, customs, morals, ments, and television, in addition to cinema have received signifi-
manners, art, aesthetics, and everyday practices -- crucially defines cant serious intellectual attention in India. Film and media, as the
the position of women, the relation of the sexes, sexual practices, most prominent forms of contemporary popular culture, have staged
kinship structures, marriage, and patriarchy in every society, or highly visible battles over representation. The campaign against

Economic &Political weekly iroTi October 25, 2008 69

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REVIEW OF WOMEN'S STUDIES ^

obscenity,
the a ma
fem
women's movem
modernit
government
explainpas
w
tion) women's
Bill in 1986
tation. English,
At this p
instead "theory"
about th
ered. its critiq
Represent
contentother
or in
inter
the tion,
policing sub
of
A history
piquant exam-
arena identifie
is the cas
before to
the "find
Bom
location where
relations
censorship and
question
as man/
expression.) Th
Writing
(supposedly in a
abject refuse
worshippto
refused- certific
implici
states that "visu
tional, go
man or tion of a
glorifyi
may be censore
might co
Board's wrotç, a
decision
Tharu
violation of a
Ar
women,f
Subsequently,
a
divergentnationa
inter
(Hindu) oppositio
wife: "R
inner of cultu
strength
intended
guideline 2 (iv-
refuse
depiction of a
Rek
line waslanguage
constitu
point sentation
of repugn
tionalist
constitutional, b
'culture')
audience", there
(Shah, some
J). pre
Justic
groundstation
of is
cens
for political
reform, the r

this instance th
4
tivity (the per
The influence of Englishhoped-f
feminist studies may therefore be responsible to some
extent at least for the perception of a cultural turn taken by theory in
Literature
general, and by feminism in particular, in recent times. If Niranjana's in
The analysis helps us understand why cultural studies in India has
second of formed t
intimate ties with women'sstone
stepping studies, the reverse, women's studies' i
close connection to culture and its study alsocomp
implicitly needs to be understood
sense as feminism's investment in questions
for femin of representation, in all the
heterogeneous uses of the term. In general
languages rather the interest in cultural
when history, discourse analysis and the textualisatipn of social reality
studying g
taken evinced by feminist scholars
by across disciplines may be attributed to
feminis
in the theoretical and methodological
other Indian influence of literary studies.
Feminist historians of south Asia, in particular, have shown keen
significant recointer-
est in cultural studies and women's writings, and especially
revaluation of in w
the women's
special autobiographies. I am thinking of such examples
issu as Lata
mark Mani's work on sati, Tanika Sarkar's10th
its introduction to Rassundari Devi's a
years autobiography as well as her
by Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation, and most
the lan
Susie recently Mrinalini Sinha's Specters of Mother India.23 In the opposite
Tharu an
direction, the reading of history as culture, and the law as text,
particularly sign has

70 October 25, 2008 Bica Economic & Political weekly

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 ^il^l^E^fZ^ REVIEW OF WOMEN'S STUDIES

emboldened those trained in literary of

interest studies to cross into("w
a constituency h
cal legal studies or political theory. How far
marginalisation ofthese
(and are dev
in som
be welcomed or resisted will depend
feminist on how we
academics perceive
in the unive
or otherwise of interdisciplinary scholarship.
alliances Certainly
with colleagues acrot
to be said on both sides. the formation of Women's
not to say embattled, position
Syllabus Overhaul very reason.
Then there is the impact of
Mythe highly
final visible
point crisis
will be in n
in the E
- which was not inconsiderable.
sion of The questioning
hope. of the
As is generally th
the undergraduate syllabus,
1985pedagogy, examination,
to 1995 - have witnessed r
the profession of English in
which was initiated
the field, in the 198
the monumental W
tinues to resonate in the discipline,
tuting theircommunicated itself
most significant l
partments. Major overhauls inthen.
since the English
A sensesyllabus of
of having
course (Delhi University's general liberal
concessions artsto
is bound degree p
nag at
and in the ma and research degrees
energies followed.
have History,a
been expended
ence, sociology and other are
programmes in the for
not propitious artsradical
depart
. through syllabus revisions.
always a time of the consolid
"Crises" do not easily, or only, result
preparation ofina happy outcom
new generat
these of course. One would have The
come. to be careful
impact not the
that to over
cris
influence of feminism on pline
the was notThe
disciplines. trivial, and the
institution, s
male-dominated and conservative at in
contributed the higher levels
significant way
making, closes ranks against such intrusions
the academy. and resist
These beginning
breath what it considers new-fangled reforms.
the directions In future
in which literar
the Indian university some
too room
much may have
to claim been
that made
they ha
writers and feminist criticism,
ing. but forthis
Given the most part it
we would beha
j
nature of a concession. Feminism in
ments and the academy
new remain
initiatives in fe

NOTES 8 Bhatnagar, 'A Reading of Pope's Rape of the Lock\ Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, Kali for
in Woman/Image/Text, p 51. . Women, New Delhi, 1989.
ì See, for example
and 9 Jacqueline Rose, The State of the Subject (II):
Nationalism 16 "Cultural studies" in India referred to studies of i
London The Institution of Feminism', Critical
andQuarterly, culture and cultural
Kali influences rather than a f
a 29.4, 1987: 9-15, especially 10-11.
reference defined disciplinary field, at to least in the early N
10 Urna Chakravarthi, The Development of rhe Sita
gathering stages.
in 1928
the footsteps of Ibsen's Nora. . • Myth: A Case Study of Women in Myth and Litera- 17 Tejaswini Niranjana, 'Feminism and Cultural
ture',.Samya Shakti, No 1 (1983): 68-75; Kàthryn
2 The féminisation of English literary studies Studies inindia', Interventions: Journal of Interna-
Hansen, 'The Virangaria in North Indian History,
appears to be a feature of the discipline in the tional Postcolonial Studies Special Issue on Women
Anglo-American academy as well. Myth and Popular Cultura', Economic & Political and Feminism in Contemporary Asia, edited by
Weekly, April 30, 1988: WS-25-33. The name 'Kali'
3 I have drawn on my article 'English Studies via Mary E John, 9.2, 2007: 209-218; especially 211,
for one of India's earliest feminist. presses laid
Women's Studies' in JEFL 7 and 8, 1991, for the 212,214.
claim (not uncontroversially) to the goddess's
material in this and the previous two paragraphs, 18 See Indra Jaisingh and Andrea Wolfe, The
power or 'shakti'.
subsequently reprinted in Susie Tharu (ed), "Ignoble Servility" of Pati Parameshwar: Towards
Subject to Change: Teaching Literature in11the
For an elaboration of this argument, see my Equality for Women' in The Lawyers, December
Nineties,-Qrient Longman, Delhi, 1998. article, 'Is the Hindu Goddess a Feminist?1,
1988; reprinted in Brinda Bosc (ed), Gender and
4 These volumes include Svati Joshi (ed), Economic & Political Weekly, Voi XXXII1, No 44,
Censorship, Women Unlimited, New Delhi, 2006,
October 31, 1998.
Rethinking English, Trianka, New Delhi, 1991; pp 127-37.
Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (ed), The Lie of12the
It is true of course that the literary text is studied
19 Susie Tharu and K Lalitha (eds), Women Writing
in the classroom from elementary school to the
Land: English Literary Studies in India, Oxford in India: 600 BC to the Present, Vols I and II,
University Press, New Delhi, 1992; Subject university
to and is even made a compulsory subject
Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991, 1993.
Change, above; and several other collections,throughout ■- but not necessarily "as literature".
For the most part it is treated instrumentally, as a 20 Joan W Scott, 'Deconstructing Equality-
some based on conferences sponsored by the
British Council. means of teaching the language in which it is Versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Post-
structuralist Theory for Feminism' in Marilyn
5 Sandra M Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Madwomanwritten. in This is particularly true of English
literary texts. Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (eds), Conflicts in
the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 19th
Feminism, Rout ledge, New York and London,
Century Literary Imagination, Yale University 13 At the same time literary studies in India has been
1990.
Press, New Haven and London, 1979; Elaine held accountable for promoting a certain forma-
Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British lised mode of reading which Gauri Viswanathan 21 Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and
Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, Princeton believes has promoted "a restrictive meaning of Post-colonialism, Routledge, London and New York,
literacy as the passive acquisition of the mecha- 1993:9.
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1977; Ellen
Moers, Literary Women, Oxford University Press, nics of language and structured ways of think- 22 Rose, 12.
New York, 1977. ing". The model of linguistic and literary studies 23 Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions: The Debate on
6 Rashmi Bhatnagar, Lola Chattcrjcc and Rajeswari in India, she argues, has been debilitating for Sati in Colonial India, University of California
Sunder Rajan (all college lecturers in English at the literacy since ir relies on a merely "mechanical Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998; Tanika
time) in an interview with Gayatri Chakravorty study of words". See Gauri Viswanathan in Sarkar, Words to Win: A Modern Autobiography,
Spivak, Book Review -published in 1987: reprinted Rajeswari Sunder Rajan (eds), The Lie of the Land: Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1999, and Hindu
in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Post-Colonial English Literary Studies in India, Oxford Univer- Wife, Hindu Nation: Religion, Community,
Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (ed) by sity Press, Delhi, 1992. Cultural Nationalism: Permanent Black, and
Sarah Harasym, Routledge, London and New 14 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large, University Indiana University Press, New Delhi, 2000;
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