Home and Confinement in Tagore: a Feministic Appraisal

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Continuous Issue-45 | June– July 2020 Home and Confinement in Tagore: A Feministic Appraisal

Abstract

The writer who fights for the socio-political rights of women is termed feminist. It’s true that male authors have a subtle feminine sensibility that emerges out of their humane attitude towards the needs and desires of the women, co-inhabitants of the planet and great writers transcend the barriers of race, gender or class to achieve a greater artistic effect and to realize the role of literature. Critics argue that Tagore was a landlord occupying his authoritative place over the boat Padma as he ruled over peasants and workers of his vast feudal estate. He’s also termed a feminist for raising alarm against issues of dowry, child marriage and love or arranged marriage etc. His love and concern towards the females of his family – sisters-in-law, wife, mother and daughters could have shaped this finer sensibility which he internalised and relocated as an artistic empathy towards the women of his country.

There are easily discernible instances of cultural practices followed by Brahmins or other communities of Bengal in his works yet such descriptions cannot belittle the greatness of an author of his stature. The present paper aims to underline that he was a true mahrishi who believed in granting equality to both the sexes. He lays bare the threads that weave men-women relationships. Pained to witness the maltreatment meted out to women, he paved the stage for reform in a unique way through his writings.

Tagore’s short stories have been analyzed for the purpose of this paper. The study is limited in ignoring certain other aspects presented through his poetry, novels, letters and essays. The paper makes a thematic analysis of the content and omits the scrutiny of certain natural symbols like river, rain, light, shadow and local flora.

Keywords: Feminine, oppression, subjugation, nationalist, difference, domesticity. An author has an essentialist purpose of showcasing the world in its reality and to give vent to some dominant impulses shaped by his/her ideology. With every progressive author, the ideology is in a state of flux. The propositions get continually modified with the ripening years of an author and few even deviate significantly from the views held dear earlier. Great works are produced when the conscious effort, subconscious impulses and unconscious collective wisdom stored in deeper labyrinths float together at one surface level to lend unity and harmony to a work of art. Great artists have a sensibility too refined to be cast in narrow moulds of race, religion, caste or gender. Their human endeavour enriched with superb imagination and subtle observations transcends the physical boundaries of time and space to make their experience universal and eternal regardless of the mortal confines of biological or cultural segregations.

Feminists or the people with political repercussions to secure certain rights for the biologically determined and socio-culturally established woman in the rubrics of gender stereotypes strove hard to read between the lines and therefore undermined the aesthetics in the oeuvre of great litterateurs. With the advent of Millet’s Sexual Politics and with an upsurge in psycho-analytical re-readings of literature, many masters fell from high pedestal for misogynist or sexist portrayals and their gendered narratives lost the sacred spaces on the literary shelves not for their path

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breaking efforts or figurative language but for [mis]representation of women in line with the demands of patriarchal culture or an audience of educated gentlemen.

The colonial powers in Europe that boasted of one shelf worthier than the whole of oriental literature put together; that promoted the study of English - - the superior dialect of masters to rule over natives under the garb of enlightenment and that which tailored the tongue of natives to spit out venom against indigenous culture or equipped their minds for a comparative outlook, propagated the idea of hierarchical superiority of men and relegated a lower derogatory status to women. The use of native women bodies to heap insults on their laborious or chivalrous men, to subdue their masculinity to hard labour for the fear of shame, to suppress any uprising of revolt that can uproot their honour was an easy weapon with the rulers and whipped bloody scars on their bodies that went much deeper than epidermis. Whatever be the mode of oppression, it took different course in varied cultures and climes inspired by the nationalist discourse and fuelled by the cultural idiom. This branching off into Black, Lesbian, Third World or Eco-feministic discourse put a serious jolt on the main tenets of feminism and the conservative demands of separate identities and individual solutions created wider rifts among the theorists. Amidst this chaos, the aesthetic beauty of classics, offers ointment to the wounds ripped apart by different knives each claiming its separate share.

Before feminism could assume disparate shapes and niches, the cultural regeneration from the colonial past of oppression was exercised by the reformists and the nationalists. Indian cultural enigma kept the woman within four walls of the house for whom liberation was a distant reality. Burdened by social evils and barbarous customs, she was rather objectified as a commodity readily available for exchange. Polygamy further accentuated her subjugation. In the pre-independence era, Indian women were never conscious of their rights and were not even provocative at their subjugation at the hands of the society. The behaviour was attributed to the sacred figurines in religious texts- - pure embodiments of chastity, virginity, sacrifice and meek obedience. The society cared to nurture this ethos at a tender age through its institutions of family and marriage. Going abroad for higher education especially in medicine and law was an exclusive right for affluent men whose wives and mothers devoted themselves entirely to the educational pursuits of their husband curbing all impediments and then bore the alienated selves on their return from foreign lands with all their idiosyncrasies and hatred of local customs and traditions.

This all was accentuated by the fact that during nationalistic revival of Indian classics, utmost care was taken to present a model of ideal femininity to Indian women that was based on classical heroines—the embodiments of virtues. It was an attempt to discourage them from following western ways. In Calcutta, during the establishment of playhouses and revival of puranic culture in 18th century, many playwrights composed and popularised works where chastity was the supreme ornament for women. We must not ignore at the same time that women had a secondary place in works that magnanimously outlaid the heroic adventures of pious and brave kings or mythic figures. Parineeta, Viraj Bahu, Binodini were later additions making up the world of ordinary women in Bengal. Over the backdrop of national upheaval amidst cultural hybridity, thinkers like Gandhi, Vivekananda, Bankim Chander, Tagore, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and others were struggling to ameliorate the condition of women. Tagore, as Bose, A (1983), reflects was rarely didactic in his stories. He wrote tales centred on ideas, used words like a lyricist and was sensitive to what remained unsaid. She continues to point out that his were not ‘sob stories’ but were meant to explore social evils. Certainly, Tagore was a writer par excellence. Extremely naturalist, he sings with nature and praises earth in all its beauty and reflected on the agonies arising out of social fabric out of polemics of race, class and caste divisions. Nourishing his mother tongue and people like the waters of the beloved rivers of his motherland, he only exposed the truths deposited at 2 | P a g e

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the bottom in the silt over a long history of oppression and subjugation and brought to the shores dead and decayed customs of orthodoxy to ensure rejuvenation into tender bamboo shoots under favourable conditions and circumstances.

Morris, P (1993) quotes Anne Stevenson that ‘a good writer’s imagination should be bi-sexual or trans-sexual’ (94). Tagore is a living testimony to that. His consciousness is not masculine or feminine but humane pained at the seething tales of injustice and oppression. It’s believed that the ‘images of women in male-authored texts may offer an evidence of a failure of power and of areas of insecurity in men’s control of representation’ (Morris, 16). While highlighting the flaws or the negative portrayals by Spenser, Milton, Dickens, Shakespeare etc., she stresses that such ‘opposition and difference’ being the basis of ‘gender identity’ also ‘encourages the impulses in both sexes for hierarchy, competitiveness, aggression and domination’ (6). Rabindranath, well versed in Western classics and ancient texts felt the liberating impulse of the west but felt contentment in the great pull of Indian thought, its spiritual healing powers and above all philanthropy and all-encompassing tolerance. In his essay ‘Women and Home’, he tries to bridge the dichotomy between the sexes created by Western thought while assigning separate functions to both and demanding sacrifice and extreme filial adoration from the woman. Being critical of the men of his age, the blind followers of material pursuits like their colonial masters changing their lifestyles from a rustic one in close proximity with nature to the bourgeoisie urban life marvelling over hotels, pipes, guns and gambling clubs, he believed that ‘the material ambition of man has assumed such colossal proportions that home is in danger of losing its centre of gravity for him’ (scroll.in). Therefore, the responsibility of establishing this filial harmony rests with the woman who should react and rebel for restoration of peace and not assume equality with men like her western counterparts. Bestowing this saintliness on women, he may be considered a perpetrator or a proponent of patriarchal culture but this narrowing down of a man’s genius would mean ignoring his realism towards life. His biographers are certain that women of his house including some foreign guests exercised a deep influence on him and he could not underrate women at any cost but tried to ascertain and assimilate their opinions. Whereas he criticised western women for their economic independence that disturbed the social structure, he ‘leaves it to women to blossom with effortless grace’ (The Telegraph). Gupta, A (2016) finds that his grandmother Digambari, Prince Dwarkanath’s wife who banished her husband was a powerful influence on the family. Jnanadanandini’s role (Satyendranath’s wife) cannot be diminished who was in a sense first modern woman.

Nityapriya Ghosh (2011) presents stunning accounts of child marriage rampant in the family with his mother and wife entering domestic [blissful] life at the ages of 6 and 10 respectively. Tagore married his daughters at the same tender ages and tried continuously for their settled married lives. He ‘justified child marriage in affluent joint families where tender girls could be looked after’ by their elders so that as ‘healthy mothers, they could bear healthy children’ (25). Does the poor not imitate the rich in India in following social customs? Can a poor father keep his daughter at home for want of dowry? Don’t young girls become victims of premature labour and domestic strife in starving families? Can the daughters of wealthy men be treated as embellishments in the house for the sole purpose of raising progeny? These questions find answers in the feminist theory of Mahadevi Varma and Mridula Garg who consider economic strata as crucial to laying norms for women in Indian culture. Goyal, S (2017) talks at length about these class divisions and their role in developing feministic theory. Perhaps, Tagore overlooked the fact that mortality rate then was high for the lack of awareness. He mentions in his stories that doctors arrived quite late and failed to make the patient recover. Ghosh, N believes that Tagore considered tender years as the right age to regulate marriage as per social will before desire sets in yet most of his stories reflect on sufferings of both men and women stuck up in arranged marriages, devoid of love and desire, that gets aroused in ripe years much after adolescence and that too for a person other than spouse.

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Kusum in ‘A Story of the Bank,’ becomes a widow at the age of 8 and develops liking for a Sanyasi at the local temple. Curbing of the desire is her only solution. She confesses, “I’m a sinner, Swami! Therefore, I don’t come for worship” (Representative Stories, 117). In another story ‘My Beautiful Neighbour,’ the author describes this yearning. “A desire is like a river of the mountain that refuses to die at its source, it rather wishes to grow” (136). The writer claims further that this desirous gaze seeks nesting in a warm human heart. Tagore’s greatness in projecting this desire lies in the fact that he allows full play of imagination and spells out emotions rather poetically. His Indian ethos abstains from every strain of obscenity and the reader achieves a perfect blend of emotion with diction. As a story teller, he draws sketches, presents men and women as persons of flesh and blood and names his stories after some of them. It was a usual trend with most of his contemporaries to sketch people though they concentrated more on describing physically but Tagore paints their emotions on the canvas of nature as resonating with its seasonal mood. Making his readers sympathise with the women and the inferior position they are given, he aims to sensitize the young Indians till some solution is reached. He doesn’t offer that salvation himself but leaves it to the individual characters to choose their paths. He believes that “many of the laws and social regulations guiding the relationships of men and women are relics of a barbaric age, when the brutal pride of an exclusive possession had its dominance in human relations” (scroll.in). The meek submission expected of wife in a marriage is proclaimed through the story ‘Punishment’ who is asked to take the blame of the murder committed by her brother-in-law. Chidam, the husband says, “Thakur, if I lose my wife I can get another. But if my brother is hanged I won’t get another” (Portraits of Women, 86). The woes of a helpless woman are revealed through another story ‘The Wife’s Letter,’ the wife laments how Bindu- the unwanted woman was married to ‘a raving lunatic’. She was told by her neighbours, “Bindi, for women refuge, salvation and all else are in the husband. If suffering is to be your fate, none can stop it” (Portraits of Women, 160). After Bindu commits suicide, the wife vows to be ‘severed from the shelter of your lotus feet’ – the reverential husband who failed to extend support to wife’s decision of providing refuge to another woman in distress. Kadambiri’s suicide must have moved Tagore to great agony. It’s beyond argument that a woman of her literary qualities could die of neglect and mismatch. Suicide is a recurrent theme in his stories though it’s not an escape from harsh realities for all. A few women rebel and challenge the established norms and behaviour. For instance, Shashikala in ‘Elder Sister,’ not only takes care of her orphaned brother but reports against her husband when the latter tries to take over her brother’s home and property. This rebellion meets an uncared for treatment, death and immediate cremation (Representative Stories). Krishnaswamy, S points out rightly that a Tagorean heroine “is the every woman of the Indian village who, however hard she tries to rise out of the slime like a lotus flower, is relentlessly ploughed back into the mire” (24).

The Indian woman who is romanticised in Sanskrit literature finds aesthetic description of her beauty in these stories, turns out to be a symbol of devotion towards family, submits completely to her fate and possesses intellect to question her and the society that regards her as a non-living object. She, like Devyani, snubs Kach, Vrihaspati’s son who refuses her earthen love, “A man represses desires and observes penance to earn power, education and fame. But for a woman, these things hold no value” (21 Stories, Cost of Love, 70). Only a writer with feminine consciousness could have remarked that love and loyalty are supreme for a woman. He paints the beautiful Draupadi as wiser than Yudishter who loses her in a game of dice to set himself free. She sends the messenger back to ask her elders to explain her dharma when summoned to come in the court. The readers are told that on watching “those beautiful hair turned holy with Amruta received from royal yajna, dishonoured by sinful hands, the whole gathering sank into despair” (Kaurava Pandava, 46). The tale projects that it was a humiliation not of a woman but of Kshatriya valour, of vedic rituals and of Hindu modes of worship. Writing in a similar vein, he

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delineates Subhasini, the mute girl who becomes ‘the animal for sacrifice’ in a tradition where parents secure ‘their caste honour and afterlife’ by offering her to another man (Portraits of women, 63). The socio-cultural practices require a critical revaluation and reconsideration when the widows learn to live a life bereft of passion and desire to perpetuate a religion that binds them perpetually to the remnants of a dead husband and the married women sell every single ornament to fulfil needs of a living husband.

Tagore voiced female sexuality in his short stories but he believes that womanliness is not chiefly decorative. She must restore human spiritual supremacy (scroll.in). His novels project the female desire—possessive, passionate love for husband’s cousin in Nashtanir and yearning of a widow in Chokher Bali. But he presents the maternal aspect of her in utter subtlety in other works. She maintains the tenderness and beauty of nature by her soft smile for her child, is pained when the child does not return from his wanderings on earthen shores (Tagore, The Crescent Moon). Commenting on Kalidasa’s Kumarsambhava and Shakuntalam, he writes that the crowning beauty does not lie in the attraction of body, it is achieved when beauty leaves sensuous pleasures and enters the whirlpool of gushing emotions, there, it, no longer requires ornamentation or any form of external aesthetic (Ravindranath’s Essays, 85). He praises Kalidasa whose verse and figurative language marvel at the beauty of Damyanti and Shakuntala but who immortalises them when they are purified by penance and attain radiance of bliss as tapasvanis. Their beauty is now pure, complete and harmonious sans ornamentation. Again the dusky beauty of Sudrak’s Kadambari wearing a blue dress and a red veil was chaste and pure like that of a sandal twig for Tagore. Goyal, S has explored the connection between beauty and ornaments to some extent.

Tagore praises the aesthetic sense of Sanskrit writers who were real surrealists in superimposing images of ethereal beauty one upon another unravelling which was a real pleasure for the reader. The use of figurative language reached its vortex in descriptions of nature and the humans. The romantic pining love finds conjugal bliss in Kalidasa as mangalmilan, but the dejected and cursed lovers cross the fire of pain and separation to receive eternal bliss. Shakespeare and Kalidasa retain their pristine glory by preserving the feminine grace of their heroines.

It is discernible here that as a mature artist, he could differentiate Indian aestheticism from English romanticism and he did this not for any nationalistic revival but to appreciate the finer literary taste of Indian audience. His stories projected the agony of contemporary women bound within domestic borders by orthodox practices and rituals but denied rights accorded to humans across the boundaries of class, caste or gender. His efforts to introduce women of respectable families to stage speak up volumes about his humaneness that recognised talent in women. A little discussion regarding women, their dresses, domestic duties and interests will not be out of place here. Tagore was sensitive enough to the difference in the other gender. His empathy and concern coupled with minute observation reveals the feminine beauty and grace in other forms. In ‘My childhood’, he is pained at the asphyxiating darkness of the palanquins kept for women. His grandmother used to travel in a magnificent one huge enough to be carried by 8 servants. The domestic chores of women were carried over roofs and included making pickles, wicks for lamps, drying clothes, cutting areca nuts and drying gram flour cakes. This strengthened their relation with children who gathered around to listen to stories. They waited eagerly for the bangle seller and rushed to decorate their arms with colourful glass bangles. They wore rajput styled pyjamas or sarees (special ones from Dhaka) and tied hair into neat buns. Detailing this routine, there is no mockery or sense of patriarchal supremacy. Instead it generates the vibrant picture of the household binding all family members together with the glue of domesticity. His sister-in-law’s death undoubtedly brought a significant change and shattered the concept of domestic harmony or conjugal bliss.

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The confinement from pleasures outside home was not limited to women only; it was for young children as well. The elite women were saved from gaze by the veils of palanquins and the aristocratic children were denied the lap of nature by rigorous teaching practices of the family with home tutors and a strict schedule. The elite consciousness was a constant companion of Tagore and cannot be separated from his being entirely. The Crescent Moon is not mere poetry for children; it voices his philosophy on education. In his biographical description of childhood, he mentions how his father and elder brother had charted out his days for different subjects and how he failed to meet the expectations of his teachers both native and foreign. As a child, he felt confined to study at home and this paved the idea for Shanti Niketan. Though he was under the influence of Rousseau but personal experience had better stronghold. Kathleen evaluates how education at Shanti Niketan is ‘connected to the cultures of the wider world’ and individualized (infed.org). The young child (The Crescent Moon) wants to cross the seas and 13 rivers of fairyland to explore nature on his own but Tagorean child unlike Wordsworthian doesn’t return afraid or with mystic adventures, instead, he yearns to narrate his heroic adventures to his mother on return. The attachment with mother left forlorn by a father travelling to foreign lands or lost in literary pursuits is a recurrent theme in his poems. The child loves to explore nature like boatmen voyaging far and wide over Ganges whose shores are chaste being untouched by English merchandise (Tagore, My Childhood). His attraction lay in witches residing over trees, observing different men who frequented his house, watching Jatra performances and listening to folk Bengali music. Western education and its pedagogical practices in confinement was the most revolting thought for young Tagore.

To conclude, Tagore was a sensitive writer who portrays the fair sex in all her manifestations irrespective of his own gender. He reflects gender stereotyping with men receiving education and women just posing as distractions but such is the variety of life. His women are not argumentative like those of Shaw, or coquettish like those of Augustan age. They are Indian to the core, submissive and docile but oppressed by the societies and families. Some of them are rebellious though but their inquisitiveness and frankness is within societal limits. Unlike Sanskrit heroines, they don’t run after their lovers or pine for their return but willingly accept their fortunes. The feministic perspectives on Indian literature are incomplete without their inclusion. Instead of external beauty, their inner strength and talent is explored. Their healing touch, gentle humour, self-sacrificing motherhood and dedication to rituals are incomparable. Tagore seeks the blend of sun (Ravi) and rain (Inder) in nature. This binary division can be ascertained in varied ways as that of east and west; light and shadow; man and woman and so on. The sky is borderless; there are no divisions into genders, countries or races. As human beings, we must encompass entire earth and its creation. The domestic borders should not confine our individual pursuits. The humane waters must cut across the shores to make up the vast, borderless expanse of the vast sea of humanity. Works Cited

I. Bose, Anima. “The Bengali Short Story.” Indian Literature. Vol. XXVI, No. 4, 1983. Print. II. Chatterjee, Sati. “Tagore no feminist, his women are.” The Telegraph.20 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Dec. 2018

III. Connell, Kathleen M. “Rabindranath Tagore on Education.” Infed.org. 17 Mar, 2019.

IV. Ghosh, Nityapriya. Rabindranath Tagore – a pictorial Biography. New Delhi: Niyogi , 2012. Print. V. Goyal, Sarika. “Class, Gender and Identity: Politics of an Economic Superstructure.” The Criterion, Vol.8, Issue:5, October 2017. Web. VI. Beauty and its ornamentation.Shodhdhara. No:1, Jan.2018. 6 | P a g e

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VII. Gupta, Aparajita. “A take on women who influenced Tagore.” The Hans India. 23 Oct. 2016.Web. 19 Jun. 2018.

VIII. Krishnaswamy, Shantha. The woman in Indian Fiction in English. New Delhi: Sheetal, 1984. Print.

IX. Morris, Pam. Literature and Feminism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. Print. X. Rathi, Chandrakiran. Trans. Ravindranath Ke Nibandh. Part III. ND: Sahitya Akademi, 1996.

XI. Tagore, Rabindranath. Kaurava Pandava. Trans. Trilochan Singh, Piar Singh and Vidya Bhaskar Arun. Ludhiana: Punjabi Sahit Akademi, 2011.Print.

XII. 21 Kahaniyan. Trans. Yogendra Chaudhary. New Delhi: Sarvodya Sahitya Sansthan, 2013. Print. XIII. Portraits of Women: Selected short stories. Trans. Jadu Saha. New Delhi: Shipra, 2004. Print.

XIV. Pratinidhi Kahaniyan. Trans. Gurmukh Singh Jeet and Gurbachan Singh. Ludhiana: Punjabi Sahit Akademi, 2010. Print.

XV. My Childhood.Trans. Kuldeep Singh in Tagore Rachnawali. Vol. 2.Ludhiana: Punjabi Sahit Akademi, 2010.

XVI. The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems. Macmillan, 1914. XVII. Was Rabindranath Tagore a feminist? Scroll.in.Web. 6 Oct.2017.

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Sarika Goyal Assistant Professor Dept. of English DAV College Punjab

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