Where Are the Women? the Representation of Gender in the Bhai Bala Janamsakhi Tradition and the Women's Oral Janamsakhi Tradition
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WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? THE REPRESENTATION OF GENDER IN THE BHAI BALA JANAMSAKHI TRADITION AND THE WOMEN'S ORAL JANAMSAKHI TRADITION by Ranbir Kaur Johal B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1997 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Asian Studies) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA April 2001 © Ranbir Kaur Johal, 2001 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of Asia" SJ-ndUS The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) Abstract: The janamsakhis are a Sikh literary tradition, which consist of hagiographies concerning Guru Nanak's life and teachings. Although the janamsakhis are not reliable historical sources concerning the life of Guru Nanak, they are beneficial in imparting knowledge upon the time period in which they developed. The representation of women within these sakhis can give us an indication of the general views of women of the time. A lack of representation of women within the janamsakhi supports the argument that women have traditionally been assigned a subordinate role within patriarchal society. Due to this subordinate position, they have not had access to written forms of expression; thus, their voices have not been heard, affirming the status of women as a muted group in society. Men, as the dominant group with access to the written word, have been able to make their experiences and opinions heard through written means. The result has been a literature which is 'political', in that it promulgates specific views about women, and 'male', in that it concentrates upon the masculine, masculine characters, masculine plots and masculine perspectives. A reading of the Bhai Bala Tradition, the most popular of the janamsakhi traditions, results in the determination that this literature is firmly rooted as a 'male' and 'political' literature. This conclusion is all the more apparent when comparing the written Bhai Bala Tradition to the oral women's janamsakhi tradition in the District of Jalandhar, in the Punjab. A firm division between the public and private spheres is very evident when comparing the two traditions. Males have exercised control over the written tradition, so that the stories contained within this tradition emphasize the public sphere, where men dominate and the focus is upon adventure oriented plots which take place away from the domestic world, which is familiar to women. In contrast, in the women's oral tradition, because they are exercising control, the emphasis is upon the private sphere, where women dominate and the focus is upon stories concerning the domestic world and the women's realm. The women's oral janamsakhi tradition is evidence that, though they may be denied a voice through the written world, women can succeed in finding a voice through alternate means of expression. Through these oral stories, women are able to voice their opinions and frustrations. Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Acknowledgements vii CHAPTER I Introduction 1 CHAPTER II An Introduction to the Janamsakhi Tradition 12 2.1 The Functional Utility of the Janamsakhi Tradition 12 2.2 The Different Janamsakhi Traditions 18 2.3 The Women's Oral Janamsakhi Tradition 25 CHAPTER III The Silencing of Women 33 3.1 Women as Muted Groups with the Written Tradition 33 3.2 The Lack of Representation of Women in the Sikh Tradition 36 CHAPTER IV The Classification of the Bhai Bala Tradition as a Masculine Narrative 45 4.1 The Number of Female Characters and the Frequency of Appearance .... 51 4.2 Female Characters as Positive Active Agents 57 4.3 The Stories and Their Plots 66 4.4 Empathy for Female Characters and Situations 78 CHAPTER V Women's Voices 86 5.1 Women Finding a Voice Through Alternate Means of Expression 86 5.2 Different Voices, Different Perspectives 90 CHAPTER VI Conclusion 95 Bibliography 97 Appendix I: Stories Told by Storyteller A 101 Appendix II: Stories Told by Storyteller B 104 Appendix III: Stories Told by Storyteller C 109 Acknowledgement: I would like to thank Dr. Kenneth Bryant for his supervision of my thesis and Dr. Harjot Oberoi and Dr. Tineke Hellwig for agreeing to be my on my committee and for their help and suggestions. I am also grateful to Mr. Sadhu Binning for his help with translations and to Mina Wong who helped me with the paperwork related to my thesis and graduation. I am also appreciative of Kathleen Wyma's helpful suggestion in the organization of my thesis and am especially beholden to Tanya Boughtflower for her countless readings and continual help throughout my work on this thesis. The Language Training Fellowship offered by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute provided me with a chance to go to the Punjab in 1999-2000 and gave me the opportunity to improve my language skills as well as to collect the oral janamsakhi stories of Punjabi Sikh women living in the District of Jalandhar in the Punjab. Without this fellowship I would not have their stories and thus would not have this thesis. I am also thankful to Dr. Gurnam Kaur, Dr. Balkar Singh and Dr. Surjit Singh of the Punjabi University in Patiala, Punjab for their suggestions and especially to Dr. S. S. Joshi for his great help with the translation of the stories from the Bhai Bala Janamsakhi Tradition. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their continued support, especially my father who always had confidence in my abilities and my mother who told me my first janamsakhi story. Most importantly, I would like to thank all the women who shared their stories and hope that they will remain active in continuing this tradition. Ranbir Johal iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION Many a child has participated in the family tradition of the bedtime story. My siblings and I also participated in similar rituals with our mother. We listened to countless stories told to us. My mother would entertain us in the evening picking stories from her memory banks - stories about her childhood in her village in India, stories from the Indian epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and so on. However, the most frequent and numerous among these stories were stories about the Sikh gurus and their families; and again, the most numerous among these were the stories about the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak Dev ji. One such story was about the great love between Guru Nanak and his sister, Nanaki: Then after leaving from there he went elsewhere. And there they had said to him, you stay here. And he said the task for which I had come, that has been accomplished and now I must go elsewhere, we are not going to stay any one place. And they went on and night fell and they sat there. And he told Mardana, there is a village there and if you can get anything there then see. He went to one or two houses and got some roti and they ate those and went to sleep. And he sleeps and he feels as if Nanaki ...and over there, Nanaki is making roti and she is thinking my brother. And while she is making the roti one rose a great deal. And before, old women used to say that if a roti rises very well then that means someone is very hungry. Or someone with a lot of love is remembering. And she said, "this roti rose a lot, perhaps my brother is hungry."" And she said, "If he was here then I would quickly give him the roti." And over there, he is all-knowing anyways and he realized that his sister had remembered him. And when it was a little later - he was in one village and she was in another and he had gone very far away so there was a difference in time between the two as well. And he said to Mardana, when it was morning, that, make preparations, we're going there, to visit Nanaki. And they said how can we travel that much in such a short time? You're saying we have to be there in such a little time. And he said, you close your eyes and open them when I say. And they sit in their bhakti and are singing hymns and he says you close your eyes and read this prayer, and he read it himself too and when they opened their eyes, within an hour they reached there. And when they opened their eyes, they said, "We really have reached here." And they went and knocked on Nanaki's door. And Nanaki said to Sulakhni, "Bahu [Daughter-in-law], someone is outside, you look, I am making roti and you go and open the door." And she goes to open the door - No, she says "Bahu, you look" and meanwhile, their servant goes and she comes back and tells Sulakhni, "Bahu, Nanak has come." Sulakhni laughs that, "How could Nanak have come this early? There was no knowledge of where he was or when he was going to come." And she does not believe it and meanwhile Nanaki calls to her that the door has been opened but no one has come in.