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MAPPING SPACES BETWEEN AGING AND AGENCY
HOW OLDER KINDU IMMIGRANT WIDOWS REINEGOTIATE SPACE AND POWER IN METROPOLITAN VANCOUVER
Marie-Therese Reinarz B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1994
THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
In the Department
Of
Sociology and Anthropology
O Marie-Therese Reinarz 1999
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
August 1999
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The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. MAPPING SPACES BEmENAGING ANID AGENCY HOW OLDER HINDU IMMGRANT WIDOWS RENECOTIATE SPACE AND POWER IN METROPOLITAN VANCOUVER
Set among South Asian comrnunities of Meuopolitan Vancouver, this research focuses on the immigrant experience of aging among Hindu widows. The gist of this project rests on identifying the kinds of strategies immigrant widows deploy in order to fulfill their desire, needs and expectations for a ôetter life in Canada and give meaning to their social realities. While acknowledging older Hindu widows' endemic social marginaiity as a distinct social category against the dominant social values and practices among South Asian cornmunities of Greater
Vancouver and mainstream Canadian society, my prirnary focus is to examine how the women who participated in this research rnake connections and interact with others. 1 specifically focus on how they reshape their social realities by negotiating new relations of power within a
Canadian social landscape. This project is grounded in a qualitative methodology of open-ended interviews that examine the Me-stories of six elderly widowed participants through their references to spatial metaphors and to theu notion of personality that they Iink with autonomy and power. Their Me-stories are set in a postmodern concept of a third-tirne space which considers home and community as dynamic and fiuid spaces that are contingent to hurnan agency and social structures, and, therefore, are grounded in a politics of location that contextualizes their individual immigrant experiences. in that vein, a 'third-time space' becomes a useful theoretical toot that grants women a fluid but provisional space wherein they can select the most effective strategy of the moment in order to manipulate relations of power when the need arises. Hence, their life-stories give us some valuabie insights in the way they are actively engaged in a continuai process of redefining their identities in relation to others and to their social realities as older wornen living in the South Asian diaspora of Metropditan Vancouver. Table of Content
Pages TITLE PAGE
Title Page Approval Page Abstract Table of Content List of Tables
PRELUDE
CHAPTER 1 - Methodologies 12 - Aging and Ethnicity 13 - Hindu Communities of Greater Vancouver: A Demographic Profile 16 - Access to Research Sites 19 - Methodological Shifi 23
CHAPTER II - Mapping Third-time Spaces beîween Aghg, Ethniciv & Agency 27 - Third-time space as a Site for Power and Resistance 29 - Edcentric Subjects and Marginalized Agents 34 - Subversive Speeches as "hidden transcripts" 36
CHAPTERIII - Topophilia - Mapping Spaces between 'here ' and 'back there ' - Sites of Empowerment - Continuity through Worship & Rituals
CHAPTER IV - Meentrie & Marginalized Widows - Widows Stories - Udsettling Relations
CHAPTER V - Balancing Acts: beîween Righi5 and Obligations - Persondity as a Means for Agency - A Brief History of the Status of Women - Mapping Connections: A Widow 's Story
ENDMGS 98
References Glossary LIST OF TABLES
Tables
# 1. South Asian Population: Demographic distribution throughout Greater Vancouver
#2. South Asian Population in British Columbia
#3. South Asian Women Population in British Columbia: Religious Status, Marital Status and Age
#4. South Asian Women in British Columbia: Age sets
#5. Immigration Profile of Participants
#6. Sites and lengths of Interviews As part of South Asian communities of Greater Vancouver, older Hindu women who immigrate to Canada hold expectations for 'a better life' with their children that will provide emotiond and economic stability in their later years. They also expect to retain their traditional familial role of influence and authority while enjoying some level of autonomy in building sociai ties with other community members. Resettling in a new geographical and cultutal landscape, however, inevitabfy generates dismptions and changes that challenge women's roles and positions as well as their cultural identities.
Hence, the fundamental question in consideration is whether Hindu immigrant women's expectations for 'a better life', particularly older widows, are necessarily fulfdled and in what ways? Moreover, what kinds of strategies do they resort to in order to alleviate existing discrepancies between their expectations and the realities of their everyday Iives?
How do they map spaces for self-assertion and recenter their position within their families? How do they regain some level of autonomy in their communities and develop social ties? In an attempt to answer (at least partidly) these questions, 1 will focus on the oral accounts of some older immigrant Hindu women living in Metropditan Vancouver with different life experiences. 1 will also analyze in what ways their life-stones reflect the immigrant experience in king located between pst and present and between the
'here and now' and 'back there'. However, before examining those questions a brief historical account of successive influxes of South Asian immigrants to Canada and in
British Columbia is mandated. We must fmt specify who we label as "South Asians". South Asians: an Ethnic Mosaic
The term "South Asian" is commonly used by Statistics Canada as an overall ethnic category that comprises people from the Subcontinent and people of indian origins from other parts of the world. This term wrongly suggests a culturally hornogenous group despite its diverse ethnic, religious and geographical characteristics.
As Buchignani (1985: 144) remarks, "South Asiaas exhibit a greater degree of cultural, linguistic and religious diversity than any other ethnic population in Canada." In fact,
South Asians originate not only from India proper but also fkom Pakistan, Sn Lanka,
Nepal and across the diaspora in South and East Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji and
Great Bntain. Aside from their geographical diversity, South Asians speak at least a dozen different languagesl, from which four linguistic groups emerge: Punjabi in the north of India, Gujarati in the West, Bengali in the East and Tamil in the South. Hindi, however, holds the status of the official language since Independence dong with English.
South Asians share not only a linguistic diversity but also practice a religious pluralism.
Although Hinduism is still the dominant religion throughout the Subcontinent and has thus influenced every aspect of Indian life in the 1st two thousand years, Buddhism,
Islam, Sikhism and Christianity evolved dong with it. Regional differences, linguistic diversity and reïigious pluralism fonned integrai parts of what is broadly termed as South
Asian culture which reflects the Indian belief of unity in diversity as inscnbed in the
Indian Constitution. Religious affiliations are thus enmeshed with culture and language.
I Aside fiom the four dominant Indian linguistic groups, Urdu, Rajastani, Kashmiri, Bihari are spoken in the North, while Malayalam, Tclegu, Kannada are spoken in the South of India. Within a Canadian population of over 30 Millions, Canada Census estimates that there are 320.00 South Asians of which fifty percent, or 158,435, reside in British
Columbia, with a high concentration settled in the Lower Mainland. Moreover, of al1 minority groups living in British columbia2, South Asians comprise the second largest group (2 1.3%) after the Chinese (49.4%). Until 1947 when Canada graduaily lifted immigration restrictions based on a tight quota system, the flow of South Asian immigrants remained almost the same since early 1900. Though in small numbers, chah migration dlowed immigrants to bnng relatives and friends to join them. As Buchignani
(1996- 149) further explains, "most South Asians have not immigrated in [ .. .] isolation from each other, largely because of the chah migration and the development of strong social links between individuals fiom the same ethnic background." Hence, early settlers gathered in small communities, rnostiy in Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island where they found work in forestry companies and pulp mills. The first South Asian immigrants who arrived in British Columbia in rather small numbers in 1903 were mostly
Sikhs from the Punjab, north India (Buchignani, 1985; Adhopia, 1993). According to the 196 1 Canada Census, only 6,77 1 South Asians lived in Canada with 4,77 1 settled in
British Columbia. Due to significant changes in the 1962 Canadian Immigration Act, immigration increased drasticaily and the major influx of South Asians started to arrive in
Canada around 1967. "Between 1962 and 197 1, immigration was over fwelve times what it had ken in previous years," (Buchignani: 1985-1 14). Whereas earlier settlers were unskilled workers fiom rural India, fifiy percent of South Asian immigrants who arrived from the Subcontinent and former British colonies during that period were professionals
* 1996 Canada Census. and technocrats (Adhopia: 1993-59). They were usually weil-educated middle and upper-rniddie class urbanites who inherited the British educational system, which
facilitated their social integration in Canadian Life. From 1970 onwards South Asian immigrants were selected by Canada Immigration from the urban working class from
India, Trinidad, Guyana and Fiji to respond to the needs of Canadian job market
(Buchignani (1985-114). Between 197 1 and 1982, over 200,000 South Asians came to
Canada, making them one of the largest immigrant population to settie in Canada during that period. Most South Asians live in the large urban centers of Toronto and Vancouver, and as Buchignani (1985- 178) remarks, they tend to associate wiihin their own cornmunities, as Fijians, Sri Lankans, Punjabis from north India, or Ismailis from East
Africa, but also with non-South Asians. There is nonetheless often littie social interaction between these cornmunities. When settling in urban centers, South Asians do not deliberately set up ethnic neighborhoods and rarely do so. In fact, as Buchignani (178) notes, "housing considerations are given more importance over social ones." As a result,
South Asian communities set in a large urban center such as Vancouver are dispersed across the city and its suburbs, and thus do not form geographically delineated cornmunities as, for instance, the old Vancouver Chinatown. Instead, South Asians are dispersed throughout Greater Vancouver and reside in various locations (Refer to Table
2, p. 16). They comprise 5.1 percent of the population in East Vancouver, 3 percent in
CMA, 3.4 percent in Richmond and 8.9 percent3 in the Surrey/Delta area wherein they are the most concentrated.
"A Question of Race'*by Alana Mitchell, in the Globe & Mail, February 18.998. Sources taken from "Sumrnary Data, 1991 of Greater Vancouver Community Studies. South Asian Networks and Communities.
The overall South Asian population of Greater Vancouver is divided in groups and subgroups across the metropolis. They do not fom delineated boundaries but are made up of networks of overlapping personal ties that link one person to another sharing the same ethnic identity (Buchignani: 1985). Hence, relations among South Asians are not formed randomly but are based on class, age, gender and social status that are similar to their own (Adhopia; 1993; Buchignani; 1985). "People move around in networks," contends Dossa (1994). "within which their views, actions and reputations are taken into account and considered as being significant." Networks operate at an informai and a forma1 level and are enmeshed in one another. They play an essential role at both levels in communicating information regarding local, provincial, and federal govemment services and organizations, and also about the range and accessibility of medical and educational services, job training and access to jobs. Whereas informal networks devefop spontaneously as generally South Asians enjoy socializing and visiting, they also emerge in response to specific needs that arise from various segments of South Asian cornrnunities. For instance, some senior women's groups were established in response to the desire of some elderly women to meet and socialize on a regular basis. Such informal networks often link to established ones in order to gain their support and create a space beyond their home wherein they may redefine their identity as older South Asian women.
Family life is central to South Asian cultural and social life (Adhopia, 1993;
Buchignani, 1985). Hence, many adult children bring their parents over as 'dependents' by making use of the Family Reunification program since its inception as part of the 1967 Canada Immigration Act. In most cases, parents iive with their adult children and because of their age, they are no longer expected to work once in Canada. They sül play nonetheless an important role in family affairs (Buchignani, 1985). Ln many instances, adult chitdren sponsor their widowed mothers to come and Iive with them, as tradition requires. They do so in order to provide emotional and financial security for their widowed mothers, which they might not necessarily get once on their own back home in hdia4 due to the social stigma that is still attached to widowhood. Moreover, such social marginalization is further entrenched by a lack of financial resowces that affects most widows since there is no universai pension plan5 in India yet. Those concems are echoed by Sonal, the main participant of this projet, as she comments about an older widow who recently arrived in Vancouver: "[Leila] could almost be a destitute [if she remained in India] and it is not good for a widow to live alone, at least in the countryside."
Although widows from different castes and social groups face different destinies, they must remain econornically dependent on a male kin, preferably a son (Wadley, 1995;
1 14; Mitter, 1991). Consequendy, widows must secure and maintain close ties with their male kin in order to be looked after in their later years. The current statistical data on
South Asian widows over sixty years-old of age living in British Columbia comprise only six percent of the total South Asian women (Ralston: 1996-34f. Because of their
' Widows in lndia have traditionally baen considered as social pariahs (Mitter: 199 1; Wadley: 1995; Courtright; 1995). and depending on their castes and social status, they must fend for thcmsclves if they have no son to support thtm Moreover. prejudice against widows is more prevdent in mal than in urban areas.
5 Cohen explains in "No Aging in India "(1992),that pensions in India only bcnefit the male middle and upper rniddle-class civil servants but are unavailable to the elderly prand espccially widows. 'The only significant form of state support is a pension for a minority of rclatively privileged elderly [mostly male] argues Cohen in page 124.
See Tables 3 and 4 page 17. insignificance in terms of numbers, widows as a social group have been overlooked
outside their community. Hence, older Hindu widows represent a unique category of
single women, in which ethnicity. gender and aging are enmeshed. Such a social
category thus becomes of particular interest for studying the social construction of aging
set within the immigrant experience. Therefore, their life stories may be enlightening in
regard to the singularity and the commundity of their immigrant experiences and to the
creative strategies they may resort to in redefining their identities as widows. Buchignani
contends (178) that older parents ''often live out their lives in a social circle bounded by
family and community. quite uninfluenced by Canadian culture and having Little contact with other Canadians." Such a statement only reflects a partial truth as to their immunity to Canadian life in general and thus deserves further debate.
Despite older parents' frequent lack of direct contact outside their community,
Canadian social and cultural nomnevertheless permeate their lives due to their children and grandchildren's daily immersion in mainstream society either through work or schooling. In fact, work and schooling are the two contentious areas that epitomize the underlying cultural gaps that are ofien cause for tensions between older parents and their adult children and grandchildren. One salient example is the children's daily long absences from home and the subsequent lack of time they spend with their parents because of work and outside social commitments. Hence, parents often lament about feeling neglected? as an elderly widow named Asha remarks: "Everybody is too busy working to make money. They do not have time to talk to me or spend time with me."
' Some widows often translate the Iack of timc spmt with their adult children as a lack of love and comfort that are inherent to the Hindu notion of arum and seva (comfort and service from their children, particularly their daughters-in-law and grandchildrcn.) Such a concem is shared among older South Asians as reiterated by one Ismaili elder,
"from nine to five, 1 am ail alone; when the farnily cornes home in the evening, they do not have much time; everyone is busy," (Dossa: 1994-346). Canadian work ethics and famil y values emphasize self-suff~ciency and individuaiism and are in collision with
Indian cultural nomof interdependency and reciprwity. Such a gap is further deepened among older widows who recently immigrated. Many either spend most of their days alone in an empty house or are busy caring for young grandchildren without the Company of other adults. Their recent dislocation, migration and resettlement into a new country initially displace their positions within the family. Despite the multiplicity of roles as mothers, mothers-in-Iaw and grandmothers, they arrive in their children's home as widows carrying with them some of the negative stereotypes attached to widowhood.
Furthemore, they are ofien initially perceived, or perceive thernselves, as outsiders in their own family due to prior lenghy separations. Although they gain emotional and financial support, widows lose nonetheless some degree of power and authority, not only caused by their recent dislocations but also by their children's changing values in their adherence to Canadian family nomwhich often result in a generai feeling of dienation on their part. Those changes are inherently linked to living in the diaspora wherein people cannot claim a singular space. "People living in the diaspora," Lavie ( 19%) contends, "cannot reproduce lost and authentic cultural values; instead they are enmeshed in transnational circuits of social, econornic and cultural ties encompassing the country of settlement and the homeland." Yet, their immigrant experience cannot be reduced to such a generalization without essentializing it. The position held by widows in the farnily is mutti-layered since it is affected by their caste, religion, social status - as widows - socioeconomic and educational level, as much as it is influenceci by their place of origin in the Subcontinent or in some other country in the diaspora. Moreover, the longer they reside in Canada the more iikely the has had a positive influence on their position in the family and on their social integration. Despite the diversity of their iived experiences. these elderly widows share a common desire to renegotiate a space for self-assertion8. In doing so. they can by reclairn the power and infiuence that they believe to be their nght as older Hindu women and develop or expand their social ties within and between comrnunities.
However, several questions inevitabiy arise from my problem statement. which cal1 for further investigation. Firstly, in general terms, we must chart the underlying links between the various aspects of space, that is in its physical, personai, social. cultural, genderized and generational aspects. and between power and agency, autonomy and self- assertion? Specificaily. how does the process of unmigration alter the position of older widows within their family and within the community they now live in? Secondly, in what ways are Hindu widows' lives affected by Canadian cultural values as they pertain to aging women? How do widows reconcile the South Asian traditional values of interdependency and reciprocity with the Canadian values that promote independence and individualism? Thirdly, we must explore the importance of linear thein assisting women's integration into familial and community life? In answering those questions, space, time and power emerge as intercomected eiements that greatiy influence the position and the role of Unmigrant Hindu widows. However, rather than laking at how these three components influence these women's lives, we may turn the question around and ask instead how these widows develop creative strategies in order to renegotiate spaces for self-assertions and autonomy. Specificdy, how do they succeed in repositioning themselves in a Canadian landscape in which Hindu cultural and social values become hybridized or reinterpreted by members of the Hindu diaspora. Hence, space in its diverse aspects is not only implicitly linked to notions of time but also to power and agency. Spatial metaphors therefore become central in the context of this ethnographie project in exploring the strategies older immigrant Hindu widows living in
Greater Vancouver deploy in reshaping their social realities in order to redefine power relations.
This work is divided in five chapters. Chapter 1, "Methodologies" explores various methodological approaches to fieldwork and their influence in subsequently constming my theoretical framework. Chapter II, entitled, "Mapping Spaces between
Aging, Ethnicity and Agency in the Hindu diaspora ", explores multi-layered constructions of social spaces (private and public, religious or secular, and genderized) while it attempts to articulate my theoretical framework grounded in Tnnh-Minh ha's notion of 'third-tirne space'. Chapter III, entitled, "Topophilia", looks at the proçess of rnigrating, dislocations and relocations through elderly Hindu women's narratives as they unravel their immigrant experiences through adjustments and changes to a new social landscape. Chapter TV, "Ex/centric Subjects and Marginalized Agents ", relates the life- stones of Hindu widows living in Metropolitan Vancouver, looking at how they make connections with others within their social realities. Chapter V, "Balancing Acts: between Righfs a& Obligations ", explores the meanings of personality as understood by the women participants while it profdes the story of one particular widow. Sonal, as she creates a role for herself as an immigrant older women. Chapter 1
Methodo Logies
As a fundamental element to this research, aging is intrinsically linked to gender and ethnicity, and thus demands a closer while bnef examination. The ongoing socioiogical and gerontological debates are set between two intercomected viewpoints: one which Iaments the loss of status and the declining role of the aged caused by modernization, while the other fosters a nostalgia for a contentious golden age in which gerontocracy prevaiied. Cowgül and Holmes (1972, cited in McPherson: 1995-37) argue in their modemization theory that "as a result of modernization. the aged lost power, security and status . . . because they were no longer looked to for knowledge and information." Moreover, they argue, adult children left family homes and felt they had no longer any moral obligation to support their aging parents. McPherson contends that this theory is challengeci by conflicting evidence as to the elderly apparently continuing high status in some contemporary industrialized societies such as, Japan, Russia and
Ireland. Another criticism of the modemization theory stresses that the status of the aged was not always as high as commonly presumed in pre-industrialized societies. Some elden were held in high esteem9 as in most Asian and Afncan societies, while others were abandoned by their children once sick and too old, mainly among nomadic societies. We may easily draw similarities, remarks Harlan (1964, cited in McPherson:
1995-38) between the abandonment of the elderly among nomadic tribes with the
- - McPherson (1995-41) argues that in literate pre-indumial societies. the elderly geneally held high status and power in the carly years of Hebrew, Grtek, Roman and Amencan socictics. Thcy lost status however, as wars, migrations and changing values accordcd higher status to youth and to those who acquircd wcalth. contemporary institutions for the a@. McPherson acknowledges that there exist some universal patterns in the process of aging and the status of the aged, but with cultural variations between and within societies. The ambivalent status of the aged living in today's pst-industrial societies is epitomized by the widespread loss of respect and status they rnust endure since they are seen as no longer economically productive. Aging as a social phenomenon is contingent to cultural attributes in which issues of gender and class may diverge. Such a general statement is further supporteci by Neugebauer-Visano
( 1995- 15 1) when she argues: "Aging in North America transforms power relations in the family. Beyond a certain age, deference to the authority of more senior family members decreases." Conversely, the elderly are now recipients of social programs from health care to pension benefits. The North American trend that homogenizes the aged into one entity under the label of 'seniors' leaves questions of gender, ethnicity and class unaddressed. As a social phenomenon, aging is contingent to culturai attributes in which issues of gender and class may diverge. Aging is nonetheless a cultural phenomenon that varies significantly according to those discreet but fundamental charactenstics.
Aginn and Ethnicitv
As a pst-industrial, mainly urban and multicultural society, Canada's mosaic presents a rather complex social blueprint that makes it difficult in detecting consistent patterns of aging. The aged in Canada comprise a heterogeneous segment of saciety in which gender, ethnicity, class and socio-economic considerations play a fundamental role in influencing patterns of aging. In that vein, South Asians form a substantial segment of the Canadian social mosaic. On a symbolic level. South Asians' notion of aging differs greatly from North Americans since the traditional view of aging in hdia accords pater respect from al1 family members. "They enjoy status, prestige, control of family wealth within the context of particular socioeconornic circumstances, play an influential role in counseling the young and arranging maniage," (Naidoo: 1987-86). This is corroborated by Sonal when she comments: ''This is a time to rest, go to the temple or do puja. They are aiso very influentiai in their farnily and are listened to for advice." There is nonetheless always a gap between stated "ideal" values and the actual attitudes and behaviours of a society's members. Moreover, there is ofien a loss of status for older women once widowed. Hence, Hindu widows are likely to experience a loss in status, influence and independence within their families because of a stigmatization that is still entrenched to various degrees in Indian cultural values. Their status is thus one set in ambiguities and contradictions.
McPherson (1995-65) remarks however that the elderly belonging to ethnic subcultures are more likely to retain their basic cultural values as a source of continuity and stability in their lives. For instance, most South Asian elderly widows regularly, if not daily, participate in temple activities that involve religious practices as well as social activities. In this context, religion plays an important role in older women's lives as it may becorne a means to adapt to a different lifestyle or to cope with life crises they may experience (Naidoo, 1987), or help to exorcise anxieties about the possibility of dying
(Dossa, 1994). While widows may be perceived as an 'economic burden' as they reach old age, they still remain influential in marriage and birth ceremonies. Hence, widows' status is rigged in ambiguities and contradictions, as Wadley's (1995-100) comment further points out. "Widowhood [in India] demarcates the transference of power [in the home] to the next generation". Consequentiy, they ofien enjoy more time for outside activities, such as visiting fiiends or going to the temple as they are now freed from household responsibilities. By contrast, one major problem facing most older immigrant women, argues Neugebauer-Visano (1995- 150) is the loss of independence, especially arnong recent immigrants who are non-English speaking. in her studyI0(1995: 143-166) about older immigrant women in Canada, the author argues that non-English speaking immigrant women who iive with their families tend to accept more traditionaiiy defined subrnissive roies and develop few social ties outside their families. Conversely, English speaking immigrant women who live alone tend to develop a multiplicity of social ties, enjoy a richer social life and have access to various sets of resources for the elderly.
Many of the participants (70%)felt that because they had concentrated their energy in raising a family, they had little time left to develop numerous outside links except for limited ethno-cultural activities. However, both groups experienced a loss of status and a sense of isolation from their families. Because of their Iack of options, non-English speaking women internalized their isolated situation while English speaking women engaged themselves in outside activities, partly as a diversion in order to cope with the sense of distance from their families. Despite fears of isolation and abandonment as expressed by recent women immigrants, Neugebauer-Visano stresses that older women were engaged in the active social constnictions of identities, through "recoveries of self, acceptance [. . .] managing information, seeking control and reshaping their identities,"
(150). The author concludes that against al1 stereotypes, older women "are less concemed with memorializing and immortalizing images of themselves; rather they are
10 Data: Demographic profile of older immigrant wornen in Canada: N=200;110 English speakers; 90 Non-English speakers.
15 more determined to express themselves as individuals struggling [ . . . ] to remove the blinders of bigotry that stigmatize them," (1995- 150).
Hindu Communities of Greater Vancouver: a Demoara~hicProfile
As previously mentioned, South Asians form a multicultural, multilingual and multi-religious mosaic of which Hindus fom an integral part. Neither a specific ethnicity or an organized religion, Hinduism is primarily a way of life based on a multipiicity of philosophical doctrines, mythologies and devotional patterns chat have been integrated through diverse regionai interpretations over time. Hence, Hinduism varies widely in its interpretations f'rom one geographical and linguistic area to another. Similarly, Hindus living in Greater Vancouver are widely dispersed through the metropolis (Table 1). This may explain my initial diff~cultyin identifying "the Hindu community" of Greater
Vancouver as a homogenous entity when gaining access "to the field in order to pursue research among older Hindu widows.
In Greater Vancouver, most South Asians originate from the Punjab, north India, wherein Sikhs are the dominant religious and cultural group. Similarly, Sikhs have grown as the major religious and ethnic group among South Asians living in British
Columbia. Likewise, most Hindus in the province also originate from the Punjab and share the same language and local culture. In fact, 60 percent of the South Asian population originates from the Punjab. (Buchignani, 1985). As Buchignani purports, both Sikhs and Hindus from the Punjab socialize easily together and form the major ethnic group among South Asians. Such a statement is fùrther supported by Sonal who contends that Punjabi culturd (and linguistic) ties combined with a religious genesis shared by both Hindus and Sikhs facilitate social association. By contrast, Hindus fkom
ot her ethnic communities from the Subcontinent and the diaspora cross cultural and
linguistic lines in order to associate with each other when they fmd themselves in
rninority (Buchigani: 1985-178) as it is the case in Greater Vancouver. There are indeed
for instance relatively few Hindu immigrants from South India States, such as Kerala,
Madras or Tamil-Nadu,or from Sri Lanka or Nepal.
Table 2. South Asian Po~ulation:
Dernoma~hicDistribution throunhout Greater vancouver' '.
East Vancouver 5.1%
CMA 3% I Richmond 1 3.496 1
Although there is still no extensive demographic data available on Hindus living
in British Columbia, Ralston's (1996:34) statistical data on South Asian women across
Canada prove nonetheless very usehl in estimating how many Hindu women reside in
British Columbia. According to Ralston's data, nearly 40 percent of South Asian women
are Hindus, while there are only six percent South Asian widows and eight percent of
women who are between the age of sixty-five and seventy-five years old. Hence the
overall figure of Hindu widows residing in British Columbia can be estimated
approximately around three percent from a total of South Asian females.
" Sources: Summary Data of Grtater Vancouver Community. Statistics Canada, in "A Question of Race" by Alana Mitchell, The Globe & Mail: Feb. 18. 1998. Tdle 2: South Asian Po~ulationin British ~olombia'~
Total 1 Men Women
I 1 1 I Total B.C. Population; 3,689,755
Table 3: South Asian Women in B.c.'~
Religious M41jt4IS#us Age A@&n Hinduism: Married: 82% 65-75: 8%
- - 40% I Sikhism: 40% Widowed: 6% 75-85: Islam: 9%
1 7% I I *data based on 100 South Asian women sample
Despite or perhaps because of theü small number, 1 focused my topic of research on
Hindu widows living in Metropditan Vancouver as a unique social category, which to
my knowiedge, had been to-date overlooked.
Table 4: South Asian Women in B.C.:
1 Total 1 Women between 1 Widows Age 65-70 79,540 8%: 6,364 6%: 4,772
Sources: Ralston: 1W6:34,
'' 1996 Canada Census.
l3 Data extrapolated fiom Ralston (1996:34. Tables 3.4.5). The wealth and diversity of Hindu religious and cultural customs and practices form a context in which the stanis of Indian women is embedded in a web of contradictions. The most salient example that confounds many Westerners is the fact that -du women have ken raised to the ali powemil stanis of goddesses in Hindu mythologies and in sacred texts while they are expected to be submissive and subservient to their husbands. Such a paradox demands further examination in its articulation within the local Hindu diaspora of Greater Vancouver. Moreover, linking the immigrant experience to aging within a specific ethnic environment may add complexity and bring new insights to the current interest in aging that is set dong genderized and cultural lines.
Access to Research Sites
One way of meeting with older Hindu women was by assisting in Sunday morning congregational worship at one of the local Hindu temple and by attending
Punjabi women's communal events. 1 visited the mandirf4on three occasions. Sitting among worshipers gave me the opportunity to observe closely their interactions through their movements or their stillness, their chanting or their silences in the rnidst of their elaborate Hindu religious rituals. 1 sat on the floor among the women as a neophyte attempting to make sense of a sacred world that was unknown to me until then except through books and movies. How to translate into words such a rich and vivid scene?
Taking notes from mere observations created a tension between what seemed to be novel, odd or unanticipated and what I thought to be important and relevant to my research.
What appeared novel at fmt becarne les obvious and almost familiar with time; 1 thus
14 Hindu temple. realized the importance of writing things down almost irnmediatel y. 1 focuseci ultimatel y
my attention upon a group of elderly women who sat in front of the altar and who
altemately Sung bahjans (devotional songs), remained silent or chatted freely among
themselves. Some of these women were to become the focal point of my research on this
particular site.
Before describing the process of selecting women participants in this project, 1
must briefly address how 1 situate myself as a white woman researcher in relation to the
participants who, as South Asian older women, are identified within the Canadian
multiculnual mosaic as part of a visible minority. Feminist and postcolonial scholan
have cnticized the unequal (and unlquestioned) relations of power that often prevail in
positivist anthropology between the ethnographer and her 'subjects', comparing it to the
one between colonizer and colonized, or between First and Third worlds. Instead, they
propose to transcend such a binary thinking by looking at relations of power between
parties in tenns of relational positionality, which is, "situationally constmcted and defined and by dissolving fixities between whitelothei' (Friedman: 1995- 17). in fact, my privileged position as a white female researcher studying 'brown women' quickly underwent a shifting of positionalities, placing me at times in a vulnerable position as 1 had to rely on the willingness of the participants to speak of their livedexperiences and share their knowledge abwt current South Asian women's issues. Hence, my alleged power and authority as a researcher swiftly dissolved in light of my obvious lack of knowledge on these matten, which brought me to do research in the fmt place. With time, the notion of "othering" that initially separate the interviewer from the interviewee becarne obsolete as personal and meaningful relationships develop and blur boundaries between public and private realms. Ultimately, it is not so much a question of who is doing research - either as outsider, insider, or as halfie - but how the research is done.
Selection of participants was done non-randornly by king introduced by women organizers both at one of the local Hindu temples and at one of the South Asian Senior
Centres. While some older women declined to participate, others offered to be interviewed. Ultimately, the two women I interviewed at the temple, respectively narned
Asha and Munni, are two elderly widows who come regularly to the temple. 1 interviewed seven women in total, who were between their rnid sixties to late seventies.
Al1 participants were Hindus and widowed, except for Mrs. Desai who is married. Four of the women are originaily from the Punjab, the fifth one from Delhi, and the sixth from
Kenya, East Africa, and the last participant frorn the state of Kerala in south india.
Table S. hmiaration Profiles of Partici~ants:N=7
Pseudonyms Age Country of Origin Lengtb of Residency in Canada
Veena Earl y 70s Punjab, India Over 15 years As ha 69 Delhi, hdia 3 years Sonal Late 60s Punjab, India 23 years Munni Mid 70s Punjab, India 55 years Mrs. Bhatt Late 70s Kenya, East Africa 23 years Mrs. Roy Mid 60s Kerala, India 28 years Mrs. Desai Early 60s Punjab, India 28 yeap
Most of the women are high caste Hindus and come from diverse geographical, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds. Whereas 1 interviewed Asha and Munni at the Hindu temple, Mrs. Roy and Mm.Bhatt granted me one lengthy interview each at their homes (refer to Table 6, p. 2 1). WhiIe 1 met Sonal and Mrs. Desai at a South Asian Women's local community event organized for elderly women, Soaai became the centrai participant of my research, She is active in community affairs and links her efforts with other South Asian women's groups. Moreover, she has extensive knowledge of Hindu culture and religious traditions as well as a broad understanding of Canadian society and its cultural nom. 1thus came to rely on her expertise regarding specific issues that affect older Hindu women in their communities. Hence, Sonal's role and position became complex and central to this reseatch, as she was at once the organizer of one women's group, an informant and the main participant.
1 initially thought of interviewing older women as one homogenous social category in which age, ethnicity and religion were the only necessary critena while overlooking the underlying gaps in social status and positions between married and widowed women. After the first round of interviews, 1 soon realized that these critena were skewed as there existed significant gaps not only in status but also in lifestyles between married and widowed. As the sole married women 1 interviewed, Mrs. Desai conveyed that she enjoyed her "free time" with her retired husband, especially since their children had al1 lefi home. According to her, those were the best years of her life as she enjoyed greater autonomy by traveling either alone or with her husband to visit friends and relatives across Canada and overseas. Married women, she claimed, generaily hold a higher social status than widows and 'are listened to* within their families, and thus have significant influence and authority over family affairs. Traditionally, Hindu cultural values regarded married women as auspicious while widows are more likely seen as social pariahs'5. Such views still survive in the local Hindu diaspora but in more diffkd
'' ~itter.1991; Coumight & Hancock, 1995. This is further supported by Sonal's personal vitws on widowhood (refcr to page 48). ways. 1 thus decided to focus my research on elderly widows as a unique social category
that is rooted in its historical and culiural stigmatization in india, and which is further
entrenched by the North Arnerican's general stance on the wlnerability and the social
invisibility associated with older women.
Tdk6: Sites and Lenmhs of Interviews. l6
Pseudonyms Home ltfindu Senior Hours U of Temple Centre btemews Asha X 2 2
Munni X 2 1
Mm. Roy X 2 1
Mrs. BW X 3 1
Mm. Desui X 2 2
SOM^ X X X 15 6
Interviews were in-depth with openended questions aimed at soliciting their present everyday lifeexperiences and practices as immigrant older women living in the diaspora. Interviews lasted between one to three hours each and were held either at their homes, at the temple and at the Senior Centre, (refer to Table 6). Such a small qualitative sample is not necessarily representative of al1 elderly Hindu widows living in
Metropolitan Vancouver. Instead. the women's accounts in this sample are testimonies to what Julie Cruikshank (1990) calls "a window on ways the past [and the present are] culturally constituted and discussed." These accounts give us some insights into the way older Hindu widows living in diaspora reconsinict their lives. Hence, my methodology is
16 Veena was never intcrviewcd. Hcr story was recounted by Sonal who kncw her at the Centre.
23 grounded in a qualitative approach that is prirnarily concerneci in Iocating the women's
desire and motivation in redefining their power relations through spatial metaphors as
conveyed in their life-stories. Altbough I attempt to convey their oral accounts from their
own perspectives as older immigrant Hindu women living in Metroplitan Vancouver, 1
also consider such accounts as texts and as "cultural productions open to multiple
readings and interpretations" (Opie: 1992-42), of which my own observations and
analyses are only one interpretation. 1chose to privilege widows* accounts whose
membership in a 'visible* ethnic minority ironically renders 'less audible*. 1 therefore
thought it fundamental to gant them a safe space wherein they may speak open1y about
the rnultiplicity of their life experiences as older women, as mothers and grandmothers,
and as widows.
Methodolonicd Shift
1 thought initially to link memory as an effective methodological approach for
collecting women's narratives and connect their experiences of growing older with power
and agency. Relying on Okely's (1995) methodological approach of 'sensory
knowledge'", 1thought of introducing the use of visual aids, such as memorabilia and
family photographs, as a way to elicit vivid and detailed life stones. Early in my
interviews, however, 1 realized the irrelevance of such an approach. As women participants recounted their lives, the notion of space emerged time and again throughout their accounts as an important marker, located in symbolic and semiotic levels as much as
" In her approach to ficldwork, Okcly (1992) pnvileges extra-sensory perception over speech, that cornes from al1 the senses, both of the ficldworker and of the subjects. She argues that spoken uttcrances, especially the brief and seemingly band, made grcatcr and profoundcr sense when piaced in a broder, learned contcxt. in their physical geographies. Space emerged as a multi-layered and fluid metaphors that
allow participants articulate personal, religious, social, cultural and geographical fields of
interactions. Hence, geographical concepts of space emerge time and again throughout
their life-stones in reference to their immigrant experience and that are expressed through
cornparisons about "here" and "back there". One of the participants narned Munni relates
her immigrant experience in the following words: "1 know my life is here! 1have been
back to India several times to visit my sister near Delhi. Life is easier there! There are
always many people there! But al1 my children were born here. So, what would 1do in
Lndia?" Despite the longing Mumi expresses for India wherein she finds social life
easier, she acknowledges that after several decades of living in Metropolitan Vancouver
where she raised her children, this city has become her true home. Time in this instance,
has instilled some distance and defmed clearer boundaries between Vancouver and her
natal home in the Punjab, in north India.
Transnational spaces between countries that link sentiment with environment are easily identifiable. There are however, other notions of physical space that take on symbolic meanings, as expressed in the Hindu concept of purity and pollution.'8 As such, it defines some physical spaces within the Hïndu household as sacred and others as profane. For instance, next to the puja room, the kitchen is the most sacred space and occupies a remote and private area of the house while food itself is consumed in privacy with one's close kin or ritual equals (Mazumbar & Mazumbar, 1992). These spatial metaphors underline the gendered and social boundaries inherent to Hindu cultures, as
18 Tyler (1 971- 149) furthcr explains that this samc unitary notion of pwity and pollution, inhercntly linked to the Hindu cast system, is rooted in a idcology which clairns that al1 things of the universe can be classified into categories of pure and impure and that these categories can be hierarchically ranked . well as they highlight the physical and cultural distances that exist between the home country and the host country. Accordingly, participants' refetence to spatial metaphors as a point of entry into their narratives as weil as a means to negotiate greater personal power and autonomy influenced a shift in methodology.
Oral accounts, Cruikshank (1996) informs us, are there to establish connections between past and future, between people and place, and people whose social noms and lifestyle differ. Those accounts also attempt to make sense of everyday realities within a complex and fragrnented social order. This is clearly illustrated with the vanous strategies widows resorted to in telling their stories by choosing to omit, diven or emphasize some aspects of their Iives with the implied understanding of "how their stories should be told" (Cruikshank, 1996). Such narratives epitomize their immigrant experiences that are embedded in culturally constructed and shared metaphors that are also unique to their generation.'g Those oral accounts are in no way neutral nor are they to be taken as mere evidence since they are subjective and selective reconstructions of their life-stories that are in turn transcribed and interpreted through the cultural lenses of the researcher. Oral accounts are nonetheless inherent to the ethnographic project as a rneans to contextualize life-stories and connect them within coherent methodological and theoretical frameworks. Hence, the women's accounts in this ethnographic research bnng specific insights about the changing roles and statuses of older immigrant Hindu widows who li ve in a particular spatial and temporal social reality. Moreover, the roles and positions that these widows hold within their families are not merely prescribed but more Ii kel y result from their interactions with others. "Interactions define situations",
l9 Cruikshank (1996) contends that these culturally constructed and shared metaphors respond to common problem in one generation but that they may be reworked quite differently by the next. Neugebauer-Visano (1995) points out. Those interactions are intrinsic to power relations,
which are by essence unequal. Power relations are articulated within ascribed gendered, cultural and social boundaxies that can nonetheless be contested when the need arises.
While unveiling their endemic social marginality against dominant social values and practices in Canada, the focal point of this work is to examine how widows interact with others and make sense of their social realities in order to negotiate positions of power and autonomy. In the same vein, throughout their oral accounts, widows refer to the notion of personality as one of the means they resort to manipuiate and negotiate dominant social norms to their advantage but within the bonds of established social structures. The specific meanings they attach to notions of personality that they reduced as either "having a strong personality" or "having a weak personality", differs from the Western paradigrn, which considen penonality in tems of normality or abnomality. The women's concept of personality partiaily displaces what Demda (1980) calls "the logocentnc and ethnocentric claims [of the self]", while it underscores the particular genderized and cultural landscape in which Hindu widows live in. In the following chapter 1 will explore physical, social, cultural and genderized spatial metaphors and how they become intertwined with power and autonomy.
20 DSM IV defines 'normal' personality as possessing enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to. and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts. . . only when personality traits are inflexible and maladaptive and cause signifiant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute personality disorders (p. 630). MaMing Titud-time Spaces beîween Aging ,Ethnw und Agency
Understanding the concepts of space cannot be divorced from the real fabric of
how people live their lives. To do so, Shields (199 1) argues, would be Ike saying that
culture is made up of beliefs and traditions but has no impact on people's lives. The
notion of space is not merely associated with physicai sites but aiso with more abstract
notions that are reflected in particular events, social and cultural values and as a way of
life. Space can be transformed into what Shields identifies as **genderedstates of mind",
and by extension generationai states of mind or different value positions. Hence,
crossing borders - symbolic or real - means entering into different social, cultural and
genderized spaces. In the same vein, Bachelard (1958, cited in Shields, 1991:29) submits
the idea of "topohilia**to express people's affective ties with their environment which
links sentiment with place. In sociological terms, space and time are not oniy enmeshed
with one another but are also interchangeable with power and autonomy. This is best
illustrated by Virginia Woolf s (1945) argument for a woman's need for "a room of
one's own" as a matter of physical, mental and spiritual survival in order to assert their
identities. Rooted in the Western cult of individualism, such a notion of private space
may not however necessarily resonate with older Hindu women's own notions.
Moreover, they may assign different connotations to the notions of power and autonomy that are based on the Hindu ethos (and by extension on Indian culture) of
interdependency and reciprocity. Woolf s concept of pnvate space is nonetheless worth exploring further as in a tme modemist tradition she often substitutes or compresses space with the. This is particularly appropriate when she quotes Miss Nightingale as
saying that women "never have an half-hour [ . . . ] that they can cal1 their own; and are
always interrupted".2' If they stole sorne time for thernselves, they had to resort to
subversive strategies in order to do so. In this instance, space and time become blurred
and often take on similar meanings to account for a lack of power and agency. Whereas
Woolf introduced the notion of private space in the turn of the century as not only
necessary but also vital for women in order to gain some autonomy and assert their identities, second wave feminists and scholars, by contrast, have contested this private space. They dismissed it as obsolete since this private space was set within the boundaries of the family home and accessible only to the upper and middle classes.
Instead, they appropriated the public realrn as a rightful space for women. Ln contesting and sharing the public realm with their male counterparts, feminists politicized the personal by the blumng of boundaries between private and public realms. Thud wave and postcolonial feminists brought in gradation (through standpoint theory, for instance) and ambiguities in their notions of space by reclaiming the private realm while holding their grasp on the public one.
Before moving forward with the multiple meanings of space, 1 must fmt examine the significance of home as it usually stands in the imaginary as a safe place and a safe haven. Images of home are inscribed in people's minds - people living in the diaspora and often in the periphery, women, children and the elderly - as a safe and familiar site, wherein hannony and loving care prevail. Paradoxically, old age in India has traditionally ken a time for rest and leisure for older women but also a tirne that offers
2 1 *'A Room of One's Own", Woolf (1945). more autonomy to engage into social activities outside home. Notions of service 'seva' and cornfort 'arum' are intrinsically connected with aging and imply a willing acceptance of dependency while benefiting from more time and freedom to participate in social and religious activities. Such images eiicit nostalgia for a home that often never was, and which Domne Kondo (1996) describes as a place that (ideally) erases exclusion, asyrnmetrical relations of pwer and ciifference. Conversely, home can also be a site of confinement, of oppression and exclusion, and even a site of violence. Yet, to paraphrase
Kondo, home is "a site that which we cannot not want." But home is more than a dweliing place and a safe haven cut off from the public sphere: it expands into the community in which one's lives and does become a site for identity production, wherein age, gender, social and cultural affiliations intersect and interact. A postmodem gaze of space considers home and community not as static sites immune to the workings of time and power relations; rather, as dynamic and fluid spaces, contingent to social stmctures and human agency.
"Third-time S~>ace"asa Site for Resistance and Power
Contemporary postmodem, postcolonial and feminist scholars have produced complex and fluid spatial and temporal analyses that they intrinsically linked with power relations. Whereas Abu-Lughold (1992), Tsing (1993) and Watkins (1996), contest the fixed positioning of women located away from the centre of power, they also assert that power is by essence contingent to a range of social and cultural phenomena and is thus provisional but sitiuated. Hence, women's marginality becomes a tool for resistance to manipulate relations of power within a particular situation. The status and role of Hindu women as described in the Lows of hfanuU and as later encoded under British
Colonialism is a case in point- This religious treatise lays down in minute details the rule
of conduct, privileges and obligations based on caste and gender, and regulates women's
movements in both the private and the public domains. In a nutshell, in order to access a
respectable status and become an integral part of Hindu society, a woman must many.
She can further enhance her position and gain some degree of kdomthrough
motherhood, especially if she has produced a son (Mitter, 1991; Wadley, 1995).
Conversely, either unmarried, divorced or widowed, a single woman is seen as a social
pariah (Mitter, 1991; Courtright. 1995) and as a threat to the widespread Indian
patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal family system, which places her under the direct
control of male kin. In this context, her public space is erased while her private space is
severely restricted. Morwver, the status of 'wid~w*~is in itself a cornplex and
ambiguous one, since a widow is traditionally often treated as an outcaste, especially
when younger, whereas she may have gained greater independence once older. Such
generalizations are nevertheless contingent to caste, geographical location, and local
practices. Without entirely dismissing the negative Hindu standpint which considers
widows as social pariahs, we may examine their ambiguous social status through the
The Lows of Manu is the first of the Dharma Shastras, and are treatises that are written in a verse-form instructions in the sacred law. Eigh~nth-centurycolonial govemor Warren Hastings, in consultation with Brahman pnests subsequently imposcd it upon India as the Hindu law code (Mitter: 1991-88). Such codification resulted in displaying the existing more flexible local customs that gave a wider range of interpretation and applications of the marriage laws, and which particularly benefited non Brahman women.
Because marriage is Ken in the Lnw of Mmu as indissoluble. husband and wife are seen as indivisible, and they must never remarry, although most men do and are encouraged to do so, preferably with a much younger woman. Thus, the widow facts a crisis of interprctation about the mcaning of her own life, as she is seen directly responsible for the death of ber husband due to accumulattd bad karma for not practicing pativrata rigorousiy enough. She is also stcn as a social threat by her kin as widowhood prescrit both an ideological and economic challenge to Hindu society (Courtright: 1995) framework of a politics of locationU that is prirnarily grounded in historicity, and which
will thus aliow for a better understanding of the complexity and the diversity of widows
lives. This is why 1 submit the concept of a "third-time space" which 1 borrow from Trinh
T. Minh-ha (1991) as a concept that is inclusive of a politics of location that gants a fluid
and provisiond space from which power may emerge. While a third-time space refuses
permanent closure by constantly shifting practices, it exerts nonetheless some arbitrary
closures in order to dismantle the Eurocentnc standpoint and opens an avenue for power
and agency. Furthemore, a third-time space enables the practice of an identity politics
that expands beyond the "reactive mode"= while it selects the most effective strategy of
the moment. In a nutsheil, a 'third-time space' is comparable to a liminal state or to an
"ungraspable middle-~~ace"~~that simply transcends the old binary mode1 of culture in
which identity productions are essentiliazed in modemist thinking or are the result of
unpredictable set of cucumstances in some postmodern circles but cm never be both.
Hence, a third-time space, such as living among the South Asian diaspora, offers some alternative modes of location, which are temporarily grounded w ithin a specific his torical context without establishing permanent closure. Moreover, it transcends Homi Bhabha's
(1 990) engaging notion of "third-space" - that is a hybrid space - by not only including a temporal element to the spatial one but also by giving precedence to gender. A third-tirne space is therefore grounded in a politics of location that addresses the uniqueness of
24 A term that has bcen initially coined by Adrienne Rich (1980), cited in Grcwai & Kaplan (1994) to challenge the category of woman as a unived and hornogencous one, ddcentering feminism, particularly white feminism, by making it plural and diverse. The concept was later taken up by postcolonial and feminist s of color. zi What Sandoval(1991: 2-14, cited in Lavie & al, 1996:17) calls a 'diffcrentiai mode of resistance*.
26 (as coined by Harraway, ciW in Kaplan. 1994-20. Hindu widows* everyday experiences and practices. Moreover, it aiso opens up a space
for women to articulate strategic modes of resistance at the individual and collective
levels. Women may resort to such strategies in response to specific needs or
circumstances that may affect their autonomy in order to reclaim spaces for self-
assertion. in doing so, they may opt for a mode of resistance that will be the most
effective approach at that moment. This cm be best understood by the devolution of
power many older women experience when they first amive from abroad to live in their
daughters-in-law's home. It often results in subtle (and not so subtle) power stmggles
wherein mothers-in-law attempt to recapture some of the former power and authority they
used to enjoy when living in their own house. In theory, their daughters-in-law were
under their strict authority although practice may have often been otherwise. Their desire and motivation in re-asserting their identities are often hindered by the misconceptions and false expectations they hold as to their roles and positions in their children's household. Veena's story is a case in point, (refer to Chapter IV). In effect, South Asian diasporic communities are not mere reproductions of their motherland cornmunities or any others in the diaspora; instead they are the outgrowth of the local and global social, cultural, political and economic productions, that coalesce into a unique community of its own that interacts with rnainstream society. Such spatially dispersed communities remind us of what Appadurai (1991: 192) calls 'ethnoscapes', which are landscapes of group identity no longer tightly territorialized, spatially bound, historically unself- conscious, or culturally homogenous.
Living in the Diaspora, as Salman Rushdie (1991) reminds us, is living out of the country but also out of the language experience, which is the outward expression and the moorings of a culture. Citing L. P. Hartley's novel, "The Go Between ", in which the fmt sentence reads as, "the past is a foreign country", Rushdie (199 1:9) inverts the idea as he stares at an old photograph of his former family home in Bombay, dating back to 1946, shortly before he was bom. The picture reminds him that it is bis present which is foreign and that the past is home. For many older immigrants, home is still 'back there' and more iïkely if they have only recently migrated to the host country. The longing for going back home, even for a short stay, is always present in their memory. Yet, despite their desired reunion with their family and the betterment of their lives as cornfortable and secure, 'here' is still for these elderly immigrant women a provisional space set in an alien land. In more general tenns, and as Lavie (1996) contends, living in the diaspora speaks of the double relationships or dual loyalty that immigrants have to places, and of their connections between the space they currently occupy and of their involvement with
'back home'. At the individual level, it speaks of re-inventing and asserting one's identity as an aging Hindu woman coming to share the private space of her chiidren's nuclear household. The 'traditional' position of older Hindu women (Mitter, 199 1;
Wadley, 1995; Narayan, 1996) as an influential presence who draws respect for playing an influential role in family relations, is not only often contested but in some cases simply decentered by their children and grandchiidren's changes of attitudes. Such changes have occurred over time through their integration of Canadian social values.
As Shield (1991:276) remarks, living in the margins does not necessarily imply exclusion from the centre. In fact, the social, political and econornic relations that bind peripheries to centre, do keep them together in a series of binary relationships rather than allowing complete disco~ection.In sum, periphenes and centres are enrneshed and as a result margins can &orne sites for 'creative resistance', which could capitalize on those
"in between time-spaces", Lavie & al (1996) contendw In response to Shield (1991) and
Min-ha (199 1) spatial metaphors, De Lauretis (1990, cited in Tsing: 1993-232) suggests the notion of power and agency embodied in the 'eccentnc subject' as another usehl concept in locating the subject positions within the zones of exclusion. This is echoed in
Tsing's (1993) idea of marginality wherein subjects stand outside the dominant frarnework, but whose agency unmasks the limits of its structures and challenges and reaffirms those subjects' power.
Exkentric Subiects and Marrrinalized Arrents .
Eccentric subjects, de Lauretis (1990) contends, are multiple and complexly constnicted according to their relationship to power or difference. De Lauretis 'eccentric subject' links with Joan Watkins's (1996) notion of the subject becoming an agent in quest of a space for self-assertion and who can act freely. A subject becomes an agent,
Watkins argues, "when she has the capacity and knowledge to act, to intervene, and bring about the effects to a particular situation, with both the desired results and the unintended consequences that reflect the limits of 'practical consciousness"'27. Yet, Watkins warns us about the limits of agency as individuals are never 'free-agents' but are hindered by social structures. Hence, while the ability to articulate agency is grounded in a context contingent to social structures and by the reaiities of everyday life, desire, motivations and interests cannot be overlooked as they also play an important role. Watkins's viewpoint is shared by Neugebauer-Visano (1995) who contends that older women are
- - *' Giddens, 1979. cited in Watkins, 1992:216. actors and agents who engage in a continual pmcess of meaning construction in relation to their social realities, and who reflectively shape their experiences by closely interacting with those around them. Those interactions, the author concludes, define situations.
Construction of self is influenced by the subject's perception of the culture and the society she lives in, as much as the desire and motivations that may compel her to act.
Desire and motivation compel subjects to act through apparent compliance or resistance against ongoing struggles over power to cultural noms or social structures, argues
Watkins (1996-220). However, these two means of expressing agency cannot be solely explained in social terms as they also reflect aspects of subjectivity. In their analysis of agency, Mahoney & Yngvesson (1992, cited in Watkins, 1996:220) propose to look at iiow subjects "make meanings" in their relationships with others. Such a process, which is beset by disjunctures and contradictions, induces subjects to oscillate between compliance and resistance, not necessarily as a conscious choice, but more ofien as a matter of survival. Moore (1994) suggests that we must thus account for the unconscious sources of motivation and cognition without assuming the agent to be "~u~erhurnanl~"~~ knowledgeable and also recognize that no one can ever be fuiiy aware of the conditions of their own constructions when "making meanings with others." One crucial aspect of the workings of power as emphasized by Mahoney and Yvgvesson is the need to comprehend howZ9power relations are constructed psychologically. In undentanding how subjects confonn or resist, the authors offer a new approach to the notion of
Henriena Moore, 1994. subjectivity in agency without neglecting the structures of power in their relationships with O thers. The y recount stones in which disjunctures and contradictions enable individuals to challenge authonty by complying with social and religious structures - a process that paradoxically enables subject to create a space for self-assertion while leading to the involuntary reproduction of familiar forrn~'~.For instance, some elderly
Hindu women may be appropnating Hindu retigious texts, mythologies and ritual practices in order to regain respect and reassert their own authonty over their husbands, children and grandchildren. In this case, tradition serves as a tool for self-assertion through everyday forms of resistance. As a result, acluiowledging resistance and tradition may not always be in contradiction with one another.
Subversive S~eechesas "Hidden Transcri~ts"
Some forms of resistance may be contained in what Raheja & Gold (1994) identiS as 'hidden trao~cn~ts"~~that are implicit in women's speech and songs. Often veiled but sometimes OVeR and public. In analyzing women's oral traditions the authors suggest that women have in fact created their own mythoiogies with ironic and subversive commentaries on the representations of gender and kinship roles found in the
" Michel Foucault (1988: 103-104, citcd in Trinh. 1991-19) raid a similar question when he argued that the question of who exercises power cannot be rcsolved unless that other question "how does it happen?" is resolved at the same time.
The authors (Watkins: 1996-298) give an example of an evangelical Christian woman who used the scriptures to successfully obtain a divorce from her husband on the grounds of his lewd behaviour.
Raheja & Gold's (1 994) ethnographie analysis focuses on women's use of language in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in norrhem India, and its telationship bctwten women's moral discourse and everyday resistance and women's communication devices as a space for potentially subversive speech. official epic te~t?~in male foikiore genres, in their songs, but also in everyday
conversations. Among the participants, subversive discourses ofien translate into jokes.
Favorite jokes seemed to be about husbands - past and present - from the "1 used to tell
him" to "1 keep telling him". For instance, one of the women participants said during a
roundtable session at the centre. "I keep telling my husband that he better behave and be
good to me, because if there is such a thing as reincarnation, you never know, 1 may
become his husband and he may be my wife next time around!" The women al1 laughed
heartedly, cornpethg for the best joke. Mrs. Desai, a married woman, said with uony:
"My husband always keeps telling me that 1am his better half!" So, 1tell him: "Well, you know best!" Indian women have been too often portrayed as passive and powerless
(Mitter, 1991; Mati, 1989). In their ethnographie analysis of women's speeches, Raheja
& Gold (1994) contest the general assumption that "women were unquestionably accepting a single discourse that ratifies their own subordination and a negative view of
femaieness and sexuality." Women were seen (and still are to some extent) as the guardians and preservers of tradition - a tradition which has been encoded by British colonial mle as part of its civilizing mission (Chattejee, 1989; Mani, 1989;
Visweswaran, 1994) - and further reinforced under Indian nati~nalism'~.Women's
32 In her preface to " Women. Androgynes. ruid Other Myzhical Beaszs" (1980; cited in Raheja & Gold: 1994- 12), Wendy Doniger O'Haherty observes that if women composeû their own mythologies, we do not have them and that representation of women in major Hindu texts have been written by men into 'one dimensional and monologic set of cultural premises and moral perception . . . . although there have been over time many interpretations of the Ramayanu, for instance. Tharu and Lalita (1991:94-98. cited in Raheja & Gold: 1994) report that a sixteenth-century version of the epic composed in Telegu by the femaie poet Atukuri Molla who speaks of the validity and strengh of Sita with more coherence and consistency than the male-authored versions. Of course, the current ferninist argument is that tficrc has been a minonty of women's writers in al1 cultures at al1 timts, but very few were given attention, or published for that matter.
33 Ketu Katriak (1 1992, cited in Raheja & Gold: 1994) observes that in the national cause, the 'fernale* virtues of sacrifice, purity, humility, and silent suffering [ .. . ] wcrc cmbtaced for the attainrnent of independence. 'hidden transcripts', which reflect women's perspectives through storytelling, songs and jokes they share among theaiselves. become an "unofficiai" version of the off~cial discourse which is too often overlwked. Similarly, Raheja & Gold bring attention to the polyvalent nature of women's discourse and to the multiple moral perspectives inscribed into them. In the same vein. such scripts express what ~rauvick~~identifies as 'haif- tniths' and partial knowledge that displace the official discourse in its portrayal of women as repressed and submissive and offer alternative discourses on the roles and positions of women in India. Moreover, subrnission and silence may be conscious strategies of self-representation deployed when it is effective to do so before particular audiences and particular contexts. Silences, observes Visweswaran ( 19945 l), can be markers of women's agency, and resistance can be predicated by silence as a conscious refusal to ~~eak.'~~~Hence, Visweswaran argues. a feminist ethnography should focus on the silences among women as an important site for the analysis of power between them and by 'measunng' their silences, as what one cannot Say or does not want to Say. For instance, when 1 asked one of the participants named Asha if she wished she had more time visiting fiiends, she answered cryptically: "This is not for me to say! 1am here to do seva." Further dong in the interview, however, she expresses her feeling of dienation and loneliness, concluding that: "Things here are different from India," which is a way to covertly acknowledge her sentiments in her personal stmggles to adapt to a new way of
3J Trauvick, 1990-5. cited in Raheja & Gold. 1994.
Visweswaran*~(1994) ethnographie work centers on the life stories of oldcr Indian women who had been poIitically active in the Freedom Struggle prior to Independencc and who had knimprisoned during that time. Most women talked rather rcluctantly about thcir role as frcedom fighters, or talkcd cryptically about it or simply rcrnained silent for various masons. life. Women may also mort to non-verbal gestures, intonations of spech in reading
meta-discourses and comrnenting upon them (Das, 1988: 198). These alternative means
of communication among women, more particularly present throughout northern india
where women are often prevented hmspeaking publicly in front of seaior males due to
the established structures of power relations, wiii often subvert the official language
(Raheja & Gold, 1994:23). These diverse foms of resistance have often been interpreted
by anthropologists as no more than "rituais of rebeliion and role inversions"" with no
more than a social cathartic effect that had a rather limited transfomative power in
women's lives, and thus only reinforced the established hieruchies of power. Such
hidden transcripts may be articulated in "feminist coding" (Narayan: 1996- 193) that is
found, for instance, in the prevalent belief that women sing from happiness, and thus
permits women to camouflage their bitter critiques of gender and kinship relations. As
submitted by Raheja & Gold, hidden transcripts found in women's speech genres shouid
rather be understood as a condition of practicai resistance than a substitute for it. A story
is always situated, argues Abu-Lughold (1992- 15), since it has both a teller and an
audience, and thus reveals only half-tmths and partial knowledge. Expressing diverse
aspects of human agency, such hidden scripts inform us against a unitary mode1 by linking systematically agents with their actions, and with the reproductions of social structures (Watkins: 1996-221). The emphasis placed upon the various foms of "hidden transcripts" in women's speeches brings attention to the complexities and subtieties of oral accounts and to the significance of their positionalities as to when, where and to whom they choose to speak out or not.
" Gluchan. 1963; Zcmon. 1975; cited in Raheja & Gold. 1994:25.
40 In the next chapter, 1 will explore the meanings and inferences of women's speeches as they relate their diverse experiences as older immigrant women. 1 will also explore and analyze the strategies they deploy, consciously or unconsciously, in order to relairn their power and authority. Tnnh T. Min-ha's concept of 'third-time space" will become useful in explorhg the diverse strategies that elderly widows resort to in articulating agency in uncharted territones. Chapter III
"Home or away, the choice is never wi'de and never free" Elisabcth i3isttop3*
Moving from one place to another requires making choices, often without anticipating the stniggies, disjwctwes and contradictions th& arise dong the journey.
Resettlement becomes a provisional space that engenders dual relationships and divided loyalty between 'here' and 'back tbere'. The term 'top~hilia"~seems appropriate in addressing the immigrant experience, as it alludes to people's affective ties with their environment which links sentiment with place. Some tiindu widows who participated in this project alluded to their desire to go back home, while admitting that it was an impractical, if not an impossible endeavour. One elderly widow, named Asha, recently resettled in Metropolitan Vancouver. conveys the ambivalence of the immigrant experience in her following comments: "1 was happy back in India, but I had to leave
Delhi because there was no one left to take care of me. But 1 lefi some sisters and many friends behind. 1 wish 1 could go back," she said, crossing her bands over her heart to express her longing to go back," but 1cannot!"
Memones of a distant homeland, however, often distort notions of home, located
'back there', as a safe and idyllic place. Munni, another widow who settled to
38 "Questions of Travers,in the Cornpletc Poems: 1927-79, cited in Kaplan, 19%.
39 Bachelard: 1958,in The Poetics of Spce,also citcd in Shields: 1991-29. Metropolitan Vancouver in the early 1940s, testifies about her affective ties to home in a different rnanner:
"1 know my life is here! 1 have been back to India several tirnes to visit my sister near Delhi. Life is easier there! There are always many people there! But al1 my children were born here. So. what would 1 do in India?"
Munni's statement contrasts greatly with the previous one. Tirne, here, interlocks with space, and plays an important role in giving roots to her place of resettlement. It brings a sense of belonging to this land, a place in which Munni was bom and brought up her children over several decades; she now considers India as a nice place to visit relatives, a space away fiom home. Leila, another elderly widow, admitteci feeling homesick: she had arrived from the Punjab only recently to live with her children:
''1 think about home al1 the time! Not a day passes without thinking of home, rny village, and al1 the people 1 used to know. If 1 could go back tomorrow, I'd go!"
Sonal, group leader of the Senior Women's Centre, intervened by saying that
Leila was better off staying here with her family.
"She has two daughters here but no son, and they are very nice to her. Back home in her village, she has no relative to look after her. She could almost be a destitute, and it is not good for a widow to live alone. at least in the countryside*."
These testirnonies express the ambivalence of affective ties and belonging to location between homeland and the land of resettlement, dong with its uncertainties, desires and hopes for a new place that is located away from home, wherein elderly immigrant women can chart for themselves spaces of empowerment and self-assertion.
40 Sonal*s last comment undcrline the cxisting divide between rural and urban customs and practices that affect family structures and relations, and more particularly widows. Ma~~ingS~aces beîween 'here ' and 'bock there '.
Despite their desire and motivations of resettling in the Hindu diaspora for a
better life, the experience of immigrating to a new and alien country can be particularly
trying. Back in India, they inspire respect as older wornen, and can aspire to retire from
their everyday duties and responsibilities while looking forward to enjoy a broder and
freer socid life. Sudden dislocations from their familia place not only disrupt such a
scenario but also bring to the foreground questions of identities, power and autonomy in a
new locus. Such dislocations decenter their positions, placing them closer to the
rnargins of the Hindu diaspora. Their marginal positionings compel these older
immigrant women to charter new spaces for self-assertion and recreate their identities through various strategies of resistance or cornpliance. Sonal's life narrative is a compelling example in the degree of determination and imagination she brings into renocating shortly after she becomes a widow. She started a retail business with the support of her brother-in-law, who had already resettied in Quebec some years earlier.
She now lives in Metroplitan Vancouver with her eldest son and his wife. WhiIe officially retired, Sonai is actively involved in organizing programs and activities for senior women in one of the Indo-Canadian centres in the Lower Mainland, where she holds the oficial position of Assistant Secretary. Here is how she reconsûucts the narrative of the earlier years, from the time she decided to immigrate to Canada as a middle-aged widow with two sons to support. Originaliy from the Punjab, Sonal first
"When my husband dieâ it was 1976. 1 did not know what to do or not to do . . . because in India, it is very difftcult to settle your children. As 1 told you, my in-laws were not landlords. They did not have big properties. They were service people, so 1 could not depend on anybody there to support m. My husband's younger brother was living in Canada, so when my husband died, he wrote to me from Canada and said: "how can 1 help you?" said: "1 don? know, because 1 am very much confused! 1 let you know if 1 need help!" After that, my brother-in-law wrote to me that if 1 wanted to corne here he might be able to help and we might be able to live a better life in Canada, because you see, 1 was thinking about my sons. We had to have some sorts of connections to settle them and 1 was finding myself incapable of doing that. See, 1 could educate my chiIdren because 1 had a very good job really, but the problem was in India, even if you are very highly educated, to have some job, you have to have some connections, or you have to give thern lots of money. and I was unable to do that. Well, 1 applied for immigration as an independent senler and somehow they accepted me. 1 came as an independent settler in 1977 on a visa to see if 1could survive here."
Sonai's narrative underlines the initial ambivalence and anxieties she experienced before deciding to emigrate. When speaking of immigrants' experiences in their country of resettlement, we often tend to reduce the act of migrating as a gesture for a better future while disclauning the past In other words, by focusing mainly on the ments of a better socioeconomic Iifestyle that awaits immigrants, we overlook the ambiguities, dislocations and contradictions that the immigrant experience entails. Sonal's narrative offers particular and valuable insights about the process of migration, with its impact on family relations and changes on family structures. Her decision to leave behind 'a very good job', a career for which she cannot expect to find a similar one in Canada, and to emigrate is solely based on her children's welfare and their access to better education and better job opportunities in Canada. She thus switches career by going into partnership with her brother-in-law, slowly building confidence and expertise to start her own business, and later expands it in order to transfer most of the shares to her elder son, who still lives in India. In this instance, based on her desire to keep the family together, she manifests not only the drive in becorning successful in her business, but also the Indian family values of interdependency and reciprocity.
"My eldest son came to visit from India. He said: 1 won? stay!" 1 said: "No way! We cannot be divided: one son there, the other in india. 1 had to get my eldest son hem, so 1 had to get my own business. 1 left Quebec City and went to Montreal. My brother-in-law helped me every step on my life, and then 1 had a boutique there. And 1did a lot for him [her eldest son]. 1 started another boutique, so 1 had now two boutiques: one was under his name . . . so he had some money to start here."
Whereas she recognizes that she could not have gone into business without her brother-
in-law's financiai suppon. she nonetheless succeeded in mnning her own retail business through hard work and persistence. With time she expanded it, with the view to transfer part of the business to her eldest son. and in Sonal's own words "to give him a gooâ start in Canada."
"1 was working very hard around the dock, seven days a week," Sonal explained. "1 used to go early to take care of my boutiques, and then I used to open them up and close them. Then I still had to buy things [fabric, etc.] in the evening. It was always 9:00 or 10:OO PM when I used to corne home!"
Sonai's endurance and entrepreneurship reflect the qualities of the "the Modem
~ioneef*',to describe a coveted category of business immigrants by Immigration
Canada. The immigrant profile from this redesigned business category is likely to be male, well educated. professional and economicaily mobile. The fact that Sonal is a
South Asian middle-age widow with two teenaged sons when she enters Canada somewhat displaces the stereotype of older immigrant women from developing countries, as passive and 'subjected' rather than subjects, and wiihout "Canadian" job experience.
We tend to categorize and lump al1 immigrant women as dependents, lacking local knowledge and the skills required to seize the job opportunities that Canada claims to equally offer to anyone admitted as a landed immigrant. We also tend to ignore their histories and to overlook how these women have constmcted their lives over time. We thus render them invisible by erasing their lived experiences once they set fmt in Canada.
'' Suggested term to describe applicanü of business and independent classes in1998 Report Proposal on Changes to the Canada Immigration Act fiom Roselyn Kunin. Despite echoing the ambiguous positions of many Hindu widows living in the
Vancouver Metroplis, Asha's narrative is dissimilar to Sonal's. A sixty-nine year-old widow, Asha emigrated from Delhi to live with her children in Metropolitan Vancouver.
She recounts her present situation since her arriva1 a few years ago in the following words:
"1 came here to Vancouver almost four years ago to join my children who sponsored me to corne and live with them when 1 became a widow back in India. Although 1 was happy there in India, and 1 had many friends, 1 had to corne because there was no one [inunediate relatives] ieft to look after me there. [Now] 1 look after my grandchildren and do sorne cooking and some housework while my son and daughter-in-law are busy working outside the home. But 1 feel a little bit sad because everybody is too busy working to make money in order to acquire material things. They do not have time to talk to me or spend time with me. There is never any tirne for anything- It is so different from where 1 corne from."
Asha finds herself housebound, caring for her grandchildren al1 week long while her daughter-in-law is out at work. She justifies her present situation by saying in a pensive tone that she came here to do seva for her children. Nevertheless, she expresses feelings of alienation and isolation from the outside world, and cornplains about her lack of personal autonomy, as she must rely on her daughter-in-law for a ride to go shopping or attend Sunday worships at the local temple. She also deplores the fact that she has little opportunity to socialize and make new friends from her age set. Asha's present situation illustrates the plight of many widows who recently immigrated. As widows, they lose some authority in the home since widowhood marks the transfer of power to the next generation (Wadley: 1995- 100). Furthemore, by immigrating they ais0 lose their autonomy to move freely in the public domain to socialize or go to the temple.
Traditionally, older women need not ask for permission to visit neighbours, to go to town, or to stay with relatives, (Wadley: 1995-98). By immigrating, Asha traded a farniliar way of life for the comfort and security that her son offers her in Metropolitan Vancouver; unable to anticipate some of the lifestyle âifferences she would experïence when she fmt came hem. 1 am reminded of Sonal's insightfûl comment about fdse expectations.
"1 think there are so many false expectations when these women arrive sponsored by their family to live with them here. They think it is going to be like India, but it is not!" Things are different here! [. . . ] They get reunited with their children and grandchildren, and are looked after financially. But this can have problems. Mostly, many are totally economically dependent from their son, and have no freedom of movernent. In many cases, they are in the house caring for the grandchildren and doing housework al1 week long, while their son and daughter-in-law are busy working long hours outside the house."
Asha was a poor widow living alone in Delhi, before she came to live with her son who sponsored her almost four years ago. She now enjoys a cornfortable lifestyle in her son's home. She is also financiaily dependent upon her children since she does not yet quidi@ for a pension. As stipulated by a recent amendment to the Canada
Immigration Act regarding eligibility to pensions benefits to immigrants over 65 years, she must wait until she reaches the ten-year pend from her time of arrival. Older women's lack of financial autonomy can be problematic and can fwther stress farnily relations. Moreover, her lack of personal autonomy further reinforces her sense of alienation as she relies on her daughter-in-law for her every move outside the home.
Veena's story further underlines how family tensions develop due to false expectations. Sonal recounts her story in the following words:
"Veena is a widow in ber late sixties who lives with her eldest son. She receives a pension, but she does not want to share it with her sons' family, and refuses to contribute to the family expenses. But she does not keep it to herself. She sends most of her pension money to her two daughters in the Punjab, who are very poor. She feels that they need it more than her son and his wife. Of course, you can imagine this does not go well at ail with her daughter-in-law, and there is a lot of tension between the two women. So, she weeena] is not even allowed to go to the kitchen and make herself a cup of tea. The son tries to stay out of it. So, she spends her days at the temple, leaving early in the morning before breakfast and coming home late at night to sleep. She spends the whole &y here socialking with the other women, and takes two free meals per day at the lungar. The family relations have deteriorated so much that she now only cornes home to sleep." Veena's behaviour emphasizes that sense of false expectations mentioned by Sonal earlier. Although she enjoys financial independence by receiving pension benefits, she
feels however that she should be free to decide how to use her money and therefore resents her daughter-in-Iaw's suggestions to participate in farnily living expenses.
Moreover, Veena feels that she should be given the attention and respect that is due to her age. As it is, she feels neglected by her adult children who are working hard in order to meet their rnonthly mortgage payment. Asha and Veena's stories identifj some of the obstacles these women encounter in becoming more autonomous because of restrictions in mingling in the outside world. Those restrictions ofien exist due to a lack of access to transportation and also because they find themselves living in their daughters-in-laws house. and therefore. more directly under their control and authority. Theu feeling of alienation is amplified by a lack of social interaction and activities beyond their home.
Although Veena's familial situation appears critical in the eyes of her peers because of her unwillingness to compromise, Veena and Asha's stones share nonetheless some cornmunality in their feeling of king "econornically trapped"42 dong with their sense of loneliness and alienation. In their view, their children's lack of time and support caused by the demands of work is at the root of the problem. Moreover, their marginal status as widows further exacerbates their situation as recent older immigrants, since the status of widowhood has histoncally been interpreted in India as an undesirable status (Mitter,
199 1; Wadley, 1995; Watkins, 1996). "Despised and rejected, widows become non- persons when their husband dies," (Mitter: 199 1- 1 17). Hence, no longer wives, widows are traditiondl y seen as unauspicious and as social pariah. Moreover, as prescribed by the Laws of Manu,either young or old, married or widowed, women must be controlled
42 Tenn used by Sonal. by men, since a woman must never be independent (Wadley: 1995-94). Ideaiiy, if women are to be widowed they are preferably widowed in old age with a son to control and support them, (Wadley: 1995-92). In the same vein, widows must never remarry but remain chaste and virtuous. This edict, however. applies traditiondly to high caste women, as remamiage is commonly practiced among lower castes. while widow remamiage has becorne more acceptable across al1 castes in contemporary hdia. While no longer excluded, widows in north India were previously barred from auspicious ceremonies such as marriages and religious ceremonies, wore white cotton saris, slept on the floor and aie a strict vegetarian diet. They also broke their glas bangles and stop wearing the tiko which are signs of auspiciousness and symbols of a married woman. As
Wadley (99) remarks, those customs were particularly entrenched in north hdia while they differ in other regions. This ideal is seldom achieved, however, as women must deai with everyday realities of famil y life such as, for instance, negotiating their children's marriages. Then exist differences in widows' statuses not only between high and lower caste widows but also between rural and urban India. In rural hdia, land is the most vaiuable thing and often women have iïttle right to inheritance. since it is transferred between male kin. As Wadley (1995-95) remarks, amendments to inheritance made in mid 1950s which granted women legd claims to inhentance in the absence of a male heir are still controversial in rural India since it is inconsistent with tbe Hindu notion of having a son as secunty in old age.
Sonal's personal and insightful genedogy on the status of Hindu widowhood conveys its original meaning from the Vedic period, in which a widow may choose in her own free-will an ascetic way of life, and the mies and customs that developed over time to dictate her conduct. Her perspective commingles with Wadley's ( 1995).
Mitter's(199 l), Raheja & Gold's (1994) and Courtright's (1995) analyses that highlight
some of the original meanings of widowhd, and their subsequent distortions and
misinterpretations that occurred over time.
"A wornan does lose her influence and also loses her status once a widow, and too often she becornes a pariah. AIthough a widow's status is different from one region to another, and it also depends on her caste and economic conditions, there are some extreme cases where widows are very oppressed. 1 have never been in Bengal but for what 1have heard and read, the worst cases of widows' oppression are in Bengal. Until twenty-five years ago, widows were forced to have their head shaved as soon as their husband died- They were also forced to Wear ody white saris, which symbolizes peace, and sleep on the floor. and eat only certain foods, any sweets or spicy food were forbidden as it would bring out passion. The whole idea was to make them unattractive to other men, since re-marriage for Hindu wonen was forbidkn by the scriptures. But let me explain fiuther. This is how it became distorted into a tool of repression. in the beginning, these custorns were not imposed from outside [fead priests and men in positions of power] upon women. The widows themselves had chosen Freely this way of life out of love and devotion for their dead husband. It was their own decision, in order to find peace with themselves and also for self-protection against the men who rnight have found them sexually attractive. It gave a widow the opportunity to create a space for herself and to use her shakti to her benefit and to the benefit of others by doing social work outside [the home]. But of course, it was always a personal choice. After a tirne, it became a nile, an imposition from outside and widows became oppressed. in the Punjab it is very different. Punjab is an advanced and economically rich province compareâ to the rest of India. Things are changing in the countryside as weIl as in the cities. People in the cities are better educated and econornically better off. But in the country, most people work on the farms, hard work and low wages and airnost no education, especidly women. So there is still a great difference if you corne from the rural areas or the cities. in a way, it is also a litùe bit like this here [in British Columbia). Of course, here in Canada, older widows have more freedom and rnany become aware of their rights!" *Interview at Sonal's home on September 1997.
Sonal's comments about a widow's ability to articulate agency by choosing a way of Life based on devotion and service echoes Courtright's (1995-19 1) comments about the
living satirnatu. The satirnata is interpreted in contemporary India as a modem
interpretation of sat~~~,which has lost its religious context since it has been relegated to a
In his essay on "Sari, SacRfice and Marriirge: The dernity of Tradition ", Courtright ( 1995; pp. 1 84- 203) posits agency and freedom of choicc in the act of self-immolation as contcntious. In Sanskrit.the term sari means " a wife who possesses great virtue". The traditional Hindu ideology regards widows as individuais who arc dcad in lifc, and many of the perceived contamination associatcd with dcath are transferrd to the widow. Sincc a wife becomes a widow only once hcr husband is crcmatd, she may choose to escape widowhood by becoming a sari. Hcnce, the author furthcr argues that by joining her criminal act under India's legal code. Instead, the author expiains that satirnaras are women who declared their intention to become satis but are prevented by fear of prosecution.". Their intention in itself endows them with supernaturd persona close to a goddess. They chose to live the ascetic life of a renouncer who remains "in this world but [ ] no longer of it . . . she is not technically dead. She breathes yet requires no food, dnnks no water. and needs no sleep. The fuel that keep her alive is sat, the intemal heat she has accumulated as pativrota45," (Harlan: 1992- 124- 133. cited in Harlan &
Courtright, 1995). Watkins (1 996) and Wadley ( 1995) offer similar interpretations to those of Harlan (1992) and Courtright (1995 dong with Sonal's genealogy on widows' s agency. The authors contend that when faced with the negative implications attached to widowhood, some women may mobilize Hindu religious traditions in order to recapture some level of authonty and autonomy. In the same vein, satirnatas manipulate religious tradition by redefining sati dong with their role and identity in choosing the path of renunciation and sainthood, in order to escape the social rejection attached to widowhood.
Sites of Emmwerment
The mandir (Hindu temple) and the Senior cornmunity Centre are sites tbat inherently link sentiments with place. Such topophilia not only nurtures social
husband to die on the pyre as his "half-body", she avoids the social marginality that is attached to widowhood. Becoming a sari implied two things: either she is not human or she is not acting on her own free will. The former took precedence in Hindu tradition and brought the sari to the statu of a goddess.
Courtright (1995) explains when the act of sati became illegal and thus criminal, women who attcrnpted sati as well as their relatives who influenced them into sati could be prosecuted and jailed.
" Pativrata meanS a wifc's dharma. Sacrifice (vm)of a wifc's self to her masterhusband (puti). interaction between elderly widows and other community members but also aitemately
gants them pnvate and collective, sacred and profane spaces. Munni's comwnts about
her frequent visits at the temple express the dual function the temple plays in her life: "1
came here [to the temple] as much as 1can . . . at least three times a week. Here I can
meet people, there is always someone around to talk to." As underlined in their life
scories, religion holds a central place in many older women's everyday lives. bnnging
coherence and a sense of continuity through daily rituais and practices. As Sond
emphasizes:
"Many women hem, either Hindus or Sikhs. becorne very religious, partly because of the social isolation they expience, and partly because it is also very much part of our culture in India, no matter which religion you belong to . . .but more so if you are a widow."
Sonal's comment is Mersupported by Hancock (1995) and Dossa (1994) who contend that religious practices give older women comfort and strength. Hence, the
significance of religion for these widows' lives and its comection to the physical and social experiences of aging demands further inquiry as how it transfomis and enhances their everyday lives.
"Hinduism is the oldest religion," Sonal remarks, "and it has a great influence over Indian culture, and has always been traditionally a tolerant and a flexible religion, unlike other [organized] religions." In effect, Hinduism is not an organized religion but has incorporated over time a plurality of philosophical doctrines and mythical and devotional patterns. As Thapara (1989) contends, there has never been a well-defined and historically evolved religion, which we now cal1 Hinduism, nor was there ever an
46 Thapar (1Q89-210) contends that some Oncntaiist xholars werc tw anxious to fit the "Hindu process into a comprehensive whole based on a known modtl. equally well-defined and a homogenous Hindu community. In the same vein, 0beroi4'
( 1994) argues that even the word "Kindu" was never used in religious texts and only gained connotation under the Moslems and later under the British Raj. It thus seems more appropriate to speak of various forms and interpretations of Hinduisrn, as it is a sy nthesis of religious, philosophical treaties called dursanas (a way of seeing), each of them offering practical means of achieving salvation (Tyler: 1973-69). A brief exposition of Hindu main tenets, which have over time permeated through its various cults and sects, seems appropriate in the context of this work in order to understand their impact upon Indian society.
The Vedas, the Upanishads and the Vedanta were al1 wrinen at different pends in the forms of aphorisrns. These treatises propound a worldview that intermingles cycles of cosmic creation and dissolution ôs illustrated in the cosmic wheel of life, and in which the individual is a microcosm witfiin the macrocosm, that is the universe. The central tenet is that the universe is ordered in the scheme of cause and effect expressed in the doctrine of karma, which is to unite the individual mind with the universal soul. As
Thapar remarks, orthodox and popular expressions of Hinduism have historically fed on each other by drawing their sources not only from beliefs and ideas but also from socio- economic and political reaiities. The more recent Bhagavaâ ~ito'' and the Bhagavod
Purana, which are at the source of popular religious practices, emerged in the midst of
47 Oberoi (1994- 16) contends that "the Vedas, the Ramayuna and the Bhagavad Gitc, which today are seen by many as the rcligious texts of the Hindus, do not employ the worid Hindu. At one stage, the word Hindu, as an ethno/geographic category, came to englobe al1 those who lived in India, without cthnic distinction. It was only undcr the Muslim nilers of India, that the tcm began to gain a religious connotation. But it was not until colonial times that the term "Hinduism" was coined and acquired wide currency as refcmng collectively to a wide variety of religious communities, some of them with distinct traditions and opposai practices."
48 Tyler: 1973. Both tcxts are late appendages to the epic of the Mcrhobhararu. the medieval india by introducing two new paths to Liberation. The first path is Karma
Yoga - action discipline - practiced oniy by an elite while the second path is Bakti - devotion - practiced by the religious Hindu majority.
Bakti has been the source of numerous devotional movernents to one or another of
the many deities from the Hindu pantheon, and is widespread across India and later South
Asia. One of the principal tenets of bakti is the absolute suppression of the individual
ego before the divine Being. Paradoxically, bakti practices can be manipulated to
become a source of individual and collective power. The Bakîi rnovement, Wolpert
(199 1-79) argues, opened the road to liberation to low-caste and outcast Hindus, that was
inclusive of women and slaves. Moreover. numerous saints and poets have inspireci and
popularized the Baki movement. The main literary sources of these movements, as Tyler contends, were the epics and the Puranas, which tell of the different incarnations of a
deity, holy places and forms of worships, and are an integral part of popular Hinduism.
The Bhagavaù Purana relates in great length of Khrisna's to which one of the local temples mentioned is dedicated. For women, bakti is an integral part of domestic life and public religious expressions. As Hancock (1995) remarks, it enables them to delineate a space in which they can isolate thernselves temporarily for personal time for worship and from the demands and desire of family life. Furthemore, the author also spealcs of the ambiguities of bakti that must be understood in the context of women's everyday practices. She argues that women's devotionalism, as expressed through their practices and experiences of bakti, entails efforts to renegotiate domestic relations of
49 The texts stress the ccstatic worship of the gopis (female cowherds). It asserts the Khriw is immanent as well as transcendent, and that he manifests himself in diffcrcnt incarnations for the benefit of humanity, and that he is not contaminated by the brma of his actions. authority while stili retaining their patriarchal derived identities as wives and mothers.
For example, the three women Hancock interviewed during her l987- 1988 fieldwork
conducted in Madras City, were high-caste Brahmin from the urban bourgeoisie who saw
bakti as a way to concentrate the creative energy of saki and to transmute it into
instrumental power. This last viewpoint is not only reflected among hi&-caste female
elite from Madras, but is also a notion commonly known among Hindu and Sikh women
alike. as Sonal's earlier comme ni^^^ on bakti confm. As Hancock hirther observes.
opportunity for practicing bakti varies, however, according to gender and life cycle.
Older women have usualiy more time to involve themselves in bakri practices. Singing
Bhajans (devotional songs) is an overt expression of bakri and is integral part of Hindu
(and Sikh) religious practices, as the following brief account of a Sunday worship in a local temple evidences; it underlines the place and role that older women hold during temple worship.
Continuitv through Worshiv and Rituals
Every Sunday moming, the spacious upper room of the temple gradually gets filled with worshipers who wait in line for their Nm to prostrate in front of the altar where the god ~rishnd' and his consort Radha stand taIl and upright at its centre. Dressed in their ornate clothes, with wreaths of marigolds around their necks, the gods exuded joy, happiness and love. Som worshipers stand straight, raising their hands to their forehead in a gesture of 'numuskara", bowing slightly as they turn back, others prostrate themselves to the floor, before leaving some donation into a large basket placed on the left-hand side of the altar. They walk back and sit crossed-leg on the red carpeted floor divided in the centre by a blue strip dividing space with men on one side and with women on the other side. A group of elderly women sit in front singing bajhuns softiy among themselves at first, until a powerful voice broke among them to lead them
Refer to page 45.
51 Krishna worship is widespread in India, and is an incarnation of Vishnu as well as a composite of a child-god, a hem-god, and a fertility god. Krishna and his consort, Rudha, incarnate love outside the marriage bonds. On a cosmological level, Krishna is God and Radha the human soul. through their singing in a punctuated tempo. Other women join them in choms. After some tirne, a small group of men emerges f'orn one side of the altar, carrying a set of t4bhand a srnall harmonium, which they place in front of a microphone close to the altar. The musicians briefly attune their instruments to the women's singing, accompanying them before leading the singers into a swifter tempo. Sitting crosseâ legged on the lefi-hand side of the altar, Punditji joins in by marking the rhythm, clasping rhythmicdly a set of small cymbals in his hands. The devotional singing rapidly intensifies in volume and Pace until it was brought to a level of fervor and intoxication that culminates into a trance-like state. which is rnaintained for some am. Clashing the cymbals loudly, repeatedly and resolutely, Punditji brings the singing to a sudden hait, followed by silence. Throughout, worshippers walk to the altar in a continuous flow, prostrating at their own pace, before sitting themselves comfortabl y on the floor. One group of elderly women sit in the front together while younger women, often accompanied with small children sit aside, propped cornfortably against the side wall, children dozing on their laps. As they tum back from the altar after their prostration, some el&rly women acknowledge each other with swift glances and nods while others hug each other warmly, as if a long lapse of time has gone by since they Iast met. Somwomen engage in a casual conversation, exchanging news before joining in the singing, while others sit quietly doing puja. An informal and relaxed atmosphere reigned among the women, whereas, except for the mate musicians, men sat silent and withdrawn. The worship ends with the waving and circling of the camphore lamp - diparadhana - in front of the deities, a ritual reflecting the symbolic rneaning of "OM, which represents the totality of the universe (Fuller. 1992). A number of worshipers gather around Punditji, taking turn in holding and raising the lamp in a circular manner, while chanting a mantra. As the ritual ends, the worshipers walk by the aitar and take some prmhad (blessed food) from the plate of fruits at the feet of the deities before walking downstairs for langur (free lunch) and socialize.
As a sacred site, the mundir endows its members with a provisional sense of harmony wherein time is temporarily suspended. Worshipping symbolically re- establishes cosmic and social order through the performance of ntuals (Myerhoff &
Simic, 1979). Moreover, the temple grants a space for a brief retreat from mundane activities through the performance of religious rituals, reflection, prayer and meditation.
Such practices and rituals often lead to self-empowennent as well as reinforce religious and cultural identity.
''Rituais are very important to Hinduism," Sonai comments, "[but] the mistake some people do is to see rituals as an end to themselves. Rituals have meanings, and are means to help us to reac h God. In the past, there was a lot of corruption [in Hinduism], and people distorted the meaning of rituals, and did not get further than the ritual itself."
Rituals, however, gain importance with older people, as they give continuity to their Iives through repetition and temporarily erase tensions, and in some cases, displace disjunctwes and contradictions. As Moore and Myerhoff (1979, cited in Mazumbar &
Mazumbar, 1995) observe, life is ordered and made more predictable through daily
performance of rituals. For Asha and Munni, going to the temple and attending regular
wors hip are activities of central importance that bring meanings to their lives. Singing bhajans in the Company of other older women, doing puja and doing seva in the langur gant them a devotional space and a shared experience that bnngs them temporarily
within the existentid realms of what Turner (1988) has coind as "~ornrnunitas"~~as a means of integraihg and socializing with others. Doing seva (free service) is a sacred act and is inherent to the Indian notion of doing good karma toward the path of liberation.
As her testirnony attests, Asha has given the practice of seva a place of prime importance in her life.
"1 see my life devoted to God through puja and seva My present situation has forced me to corne closer to God, and it was probably God's will that 1 corne here and serve my children."
A devout woman, Asha sees her life in old age as an opportunity to do seva both at home and at the temple. In doing so, she finds self-empowerment, which she perceives as an instrument toward her liberation. As mentioned earlier, Munni visits the temple often, as she finds it a safe and familiar place to do puja as well as to socialize with other members of her cornmunity. The temple is thus a site that grants her at once a private and communal space. Moreover, Asha's and Munni's testirnonies show how religion, especially for widows, becomes often a coping mechanism to resist the social alienation that affects them as widows. Their status as older Hindu women is set in ambiguities and
s2 Victor Tumer defines "Communitas*'in "Passages. Margins and Poverty: Religious Symbols and Communitas" as purcly spontaneous and self-gcncrating as opposed to structure. In, High Points in Anrhropology, by Bohannan, Paul and Mark GIazer (eds.). New York: Alfred A. Knoff, Publisher.
58 contradictions. As elders. they are traditionally accordeci great respect and stanis by ali
family members (Ujimoto, 1995; Wadley, 1995). As widows, however they loose
influence and are marginalized to various degrees. Their ambiguous status is mer
eroded by the negative representations that pervade mainstrearn Canadian society toward
the aged as a 'social problem' and as unproductive bodies by the fact they do no longer
work for wages. Aging in North Amerka, argues Neugebauer-Visano (1995-15 1).
transfonns power relations. "Beyond a certain age, deference to the authority of more senior family members di~a~~ean."~~Northcon (1984-44) remarks however, that the aging population in Canada is increasingly female, which causes a ferninization of poverty.
For many older Hindu women, the temple becomes a site where they can find spiritual, emotionai and social support as well as reassert themselves. Not al1 elderly
Hindu widows, however, visit the temple on a regular basis. Many do puja at home, as
Mrs. Bhatt's story conveys. In fact, Mrs. Bhatt rarely goes to the temple; instead, she does Krishna puja and reads the Hindu scriptures at home as part of her daily rituals.
There is a corner in the hailway of her house wherein stands a small dtar that has ken ascribed a sacred space for puja practices." Hence, the laxity and informai approach in
- - -- s3 Various scholars to the transition of societies from pre-modern agricultural societies to modem and post- modern industriaiized societies have linked the changing status of the elderly in Europe and in North America. England is perhaps a salient clear illustration of those drastic societal changes that occurred during the indusmal revolution. However, the modemization thtory is chailenged as discussed earlier in Chapter 1.
Y The space allocated for doing puja is a sacrai place dong with the kitchen and holds a central place in the Hindu home. It can be a room, more oftcn it is located in sorne quiet corner of the house. Although ail family members comc herc every day to worship, this is mostly a woman's place. According to Mrs. Roy, the wife has total freadom to decoratc the way she wishcs and to worship that she wants. She can expresses her personaiity. In many homes, it is not unusuai to sec pichirc of Gandhi, Nehru, Christ or Buddha dong with Hindu deitits hanging next to one another above the altar. Wornen usually pray twice a day in the puja room, while men only pray on special occasions. Mrs. Roy ends hcr comment by strcssing that men leave the praying to the women. which a Hindu may select and chart a sacred space for worship Meremphasizes the
adaptability and tolerance of various foms of Hinduism in space and tirne? A sacred
place in ~induism~can be a temple, a river, a mountain, a tree, or the corner of a house.
A Hindu home is divided in various levels of sacred and profane spaces, of which the
puja room is the most sacred, and musc be kept in a ritually pure state at al1 times.
Besides her daily practices, Mrs. Bhatt also meets regularly with a pupof older women
to read and discuss Hindu scriptures and do puja together. Stressing her disbelie f in
dogma and dis tancing herself from Hindu orthodox y, Mrs. Bhatt emphasizes that her
approach to religion is a very personal one. In perfonning daily religious ntuais, an Arya
Samajist worships a fodess god and needs no assistance from a pundit or a priest.
The Havana ritual, the worship of God by fire, is the only ritual performed by Samajists,
which founds it origin in pre-Aryan era. According to Rai (1967), fire must be
worshipped but is to be used as a means to worship God and not an end in itself. Mrs.
Bhatt's following commentary gives us further insights about the Arya Samaj:
"I am very religious and 1 have a mantra, which 1 repeat al1 the time and 1 do Khrisnu puja. When I was living in Africa, 1 used to belong to the Arya Samaj. . . it is a very progressive emancipation movement for women. Arya Samaj taught me to trust my own mind and be independent in my thinking, and make my decisions in life according to what I thought to be right. It is not a dogmatic but a very liberal movement; and 1 dont consider myself an orthodox Hindu."
The four stages of life are identifid as 1) celibate/studenthood - brahmacarin - ,2) householder - grhasrru, 3) hennit - vmaprahsa -, and 4) the wandering ascetic - yaii; the second one king considered as the most important.
55 Sacred spaces and sacred rituals structure the pattern of daily life within the Hindu home, and brhg cohesion to the family, as life is ordcred through rituals and is thus predictable, (Mazurnbar & Mazumbar: 1992-48).
56 Mazumbar & Mazumbar, 1992, in Ethos ...
'' See further comments on Arya Samaj, in Rai (1967). From its inception, the Arya ~omoj~~was influential in women's emancipation by
granting them equal social status to men's as well as access to education. Mrs. Bhatt's
individual approach to religion through her adherence to Arya Samuj may explain the
way she speaks her mind according to her conscience while keeping ntuals to a
minimum. The Havanu rinial, the worship of God by fire, is the only ntual perfomed by
Samajists, with its origin in pre-Aryan ed9.Commenthg on the Arya Sornuj, Sond
reflects: "In Hinduism, there are so many branches; some, like the Arya Samaj, for instance, do not worship in front of statues. But statue or no statue, God is God!"
Similarly, Sonal views religion as a means to unite and not divide.
"We should practice religion for its sake, and ask why we are doing it, and not see it as a divider . . . 1 mean, caste is so much in our heads that it will take time 1think before we become fully hurnan."
These last comments underline the Janus face of religion, which according to one's viewpoint, can liberate and unite or indoctrinate and divide. As Oberoi (1994) remarks, "symbols, myths, texts and rituds of religion only become meaningful, only when different groups of people interact with each other and are persuaded that what they are doing is of deep significance". Hinduism is a mosaic of religious cults, sects, and practices that onginated in various locations across South Asia and evolved throughout the diaspora. It also underlines the heterogeneity of its communities, Thapar (1989-220) contends, which are determineci by location, occupation and caste, none of which [are]
The Arp Samaj arose as a pro-Hindu, pro-independence religious and social movemnt against British colonialism in mid-nineteenth Century. From its inception, it rejected the notion of caste and subcastes as ascribed by birth as nothing les than a system of apartheid, while it advocatad education for nien and women alike from al1 castes, inclusive of outcasts. Its emphasis on ducation rejected superstition and ignorance in favor of a critical mind, and on volunteer work in response to social incqualities. The Arya Samaj has set up numerous philanthropie organizations across tndia and the Hindu diaspora. necessarily bound together by a common and cohesive religious identity. Hindu religious rituals and practices, while different in their interpretations. nonetheless offer a sense of continuity to older women's lives.
Myerhoff and Simic (1979-232) delineate continuity in terms of three measurable and perceptual points of reference; that of space, that of social relationships and that of ideas. The temple incorporates these three components of continuity by providing these older women with a link to their cultural and religious heritage - either red or syrnbolic - as much as with their surrounding community. in this instance, the membership of the local temple in Metroplitan Vancouver originates rnainly from North India, and thus forms a culturally cohesive community, with minority members onginating from other loci. Such a sense of continuity is even more vital, the authors argue, as it brings stability to counterbdance the dismptive changes and subsequent sense of alienation which older immigrant wornen often experience. Thus, "interco~ectedness'- actuai or imagined - becomes vital toward the end of their lives, as it fosters their sense of identity and gives meaning to their lives. As Watkins (1996) contends, 'religious practices ailow women to mediate between the collective memory of the homeland and the current image of an urban reality." The temple is therefore more than a site wherein religion is reduced to a coping mechanism, but enhances their everyday realities. It is also a space wherein women cm "rnake meanings" in their relationships with others through personal introspection and social interaction and become agents through the involuntary reproduction of familiar rituals, such as singing bahjans or doing seva as Asha's and
Munni's stories convey.
59 According to Rai (1976). fin must k wonhipped but is to be uscd as a means to wonhip God not an end. Chapter IV
Edcenttic and Marginlrlized Widows
" f?l~ehusband) is the main pillar of liïe. menhe dies, then there is nothing for women. Other supports are like the small branches of a tree. ïhese always break at wilL But when the main pillar of life falls, then it is most sud." (A widow's comment, in Wadley, I99S:W)
This quote epitornizes a widow's vulnerable position once her husband dies.
Once she is no longer a wife, a widow's sexuality must be controlled by male kin dong with her financial resources. Hindu and Sikh traditions alike demand that eldest sons care for their widowed mothers. In India, older wornen6' traditionally gain greater mobility and influence over their family otherwise denied to them during their early years in rnarriage, (Courtright & Hancock, 1995; Mitter, 199 1; Vatuk; 1980). Yet, far fiom king a homogenous social category, widows resort to different strategies of survival according to their social group, castes and geographicai locations. Hence, as their personaf accounts will attest, each of their life-stories is grounded in a particular historical context, which precludes essentializing their status as widows as one of mere social marginality. Their stories highlight the diversity of their positions fiom marginalized to privileged.
Widows' Stories: an Analvsis.
As they relocate in the Hindu diaspora, widows must reassess, redefme and reinvent strategies of survivai according to their particular circ~rnstances~While
-. 60 Inclusive of widows, as some of the most repressive rutes that afflicted widows in some parts of India have gradually disappeared, partly due to the expansion of what Cohen (1992) coined as the various "zations". recounting Veena's story, Sonal expresses disapproval about Veena's behaviour for
"going too far".
"She should compromise a little," acknowledges Sonal, "it has to be give and take, and she won't give an inch . . . she makes no attempt at comprornising because she feels so strongly she is in the right . . . she expected to be served and comforted by her daughter-in-Iaw, like she would have been in India, [wherej they are not supposed to work anymore, and they have some time to rest , do puja or go the temple. They also are very influential in their farnily and are listened to for advice. But it is oflen impossible when they corne here to live with their family because of those false expectations. She [Veena] did not accept changes! That is the problem! . . . Things are different here!"
Veena's particular situation incited her to adopt defiant strategies of resistance by spending her days at the temple in order to regain some autonomous space which trespasses Indian cultural boundaries of family relations rooted in interdependence and reciprocity. She uses her pension money as a means to regain some control over farnily affairs and reclaim some personal influence over her children. She disapproves of the fact that her daughter-in-law holds a full-time job outside the house and delegates some of the household chores and responsibilities to her. Veena expresses her discontent for what she perceives as not being treated right by resorting to strategies of resistance that she thought to be the most effective in her situation. In this instance, her decision to move out of her son's house is to resist openly what she considers to be her marginalized position within that household. She thought to resolve (at least temporarily) her situation by asserting her rights in leaving home during the day and by using her money as she saw fit.
As senior females in the extended household, Hindu women usually attain greatest power and autonomy and make decisions (Wadley: 1996-98). Poor women,
Wadley Merargues, especially in north India, are in different positions from that of wealthier women, and have little opportunity in ever attaining the level of power that cornes with ruling a joint household. In some instances, poor widows who are unable to work outside the home may be viewed as "economic burden" (Wadley 1995).
Traditionally, female housework is defined by age, with mothers-in-law responsible for outside work, such as shopping, while the daughters-in-law cook and keep house. Veena and Asha find themselves in a role reversal, wherein they become housebound with more duties and responsibilities in old age, while their daughter-in-laws are working outside the home, as two- income family has now become the nom due to economic necessities.
Veena's behaviour, which Sonal qualities as "misuse of her ~hakti",6'is seen by others in the cornmunity as rather eccentric and even provocative. Through defiance and resistance, Veena embodies the conundrum that afflicts many older women, especially widows, as they immigrate to reunite with their families. Veena's situation brings to light the fragmented family relations caused largely by the process of migration and changes in social noms that inevitably affect cornmunities living in the diaspora. While Veena's story illustrates the workings of agency through overt resistance, Asha's strategies in coping with change and adaptation are subtle and more conventional.
A soft-spoken woman, who wore a sunny smile throughout Our meeting, Asha summarizes her present situation by claiming that she came here to serve her children.
Asha's acceptance of her renewed duties and responsibilities is rooted in her allegiance to her children. Whereas she constnies her present reality as full-time housekeeper and caregiver as seva, she camouflages a more dissonant reality, in which a sense of alienation and loneliness are present. Asha's acceptance of her present situation can be explained at first glance as a lack of power with little room to maneuver in order to exert
6 1 Sonal explains further on the uses and misuses of Shakti as both creative and destructive energy, aithough it is always for a good cause (see Appendix 1).
65 some influence. The sense of alienation that she imparts through her longings to go back
to India is she could, is Merheightened by her grandchildren's inability to converse
fluently in Hindi, while her lack of fluency in the English language is a Mer
impediment. She compensates for her feelings of alienation and isolation by doing puja
(prayers) and seva (service). The emotional support she perceived as lacking fiom her
children is somewhat atoned by her intense relationship with her God, while her lack of
persona1 financial resources, partially caused by her ineligibility for pension benefits, is
displaced by her sense of mission in doing seva for her children. This sense of mission
authorizes her to regain some level of power and influence. She thus transforms her
apparent powerlessness by reconstmcting her situation as "a gift from God", to teach her
love and surrender. In positioning herself on this angle, she erases any image of
victimhood. Asha's positioning highlights how subjects create meanings in their
relationships with othersP2 altemating resistance and cornpliance, more often as a tool of
survival rather than a conscious choice. It also demonstrates the limit ofagency within
Asha's particular but unique63family environment. Both Veena and Asha find
themselves decentered and marginalized through disjointed family relations. They
become 'eccentric s~bjects',~whose attempts at reclaiming power, either overtly or
covertly, unmask the limit of agency. It also underlines the endemic stress it puts on
mothers/daughters-in-law relations, due to societal pressures which force younger wives
6' 6' Mahoney & Yngvesson: 1992, cited in Watkins: 1996-220-
" 1 borrow the notion of 'particular' fiom Susan Chase(1992) which she means neither as personal nor private. Rather, it points out to something common that is part of the universal, representative of a certain categocy, or in this instance, a group of older widowed women.
@ de Lauretis (1993) and mothers to seek work in the public sphere, due to economic necessity rather than
choice. As Asha's testimony attests, religion holds an important place in older women's
lives, especially among widows, and can becorne a coping mechanism to deal with their
anxieties about their own mortality (Dossa; 1994-347) and resist their social
marginalization, which is embedded in various degrees in the patriarchal Indian family
structure. The marginalized social position widows carry with them fiom India is ofien
further heightened once they corne to resettle in the Vancouver metropolis partly due to
the immigrant experience of adapting to new social and cultural noms. Reflecting on
Asha's story coping mechanism, Sonal explained:
"[t is a typical reaction due to a string of events that may not have gone the way these women anticipated. Religion, in many cases, becomes central in their Iives, and more so if you are a widow . . . she loses her influence and also her status as a widow, and too often, she becomes a pariah. Although a widow's status is different fiom one region [in India] to another, it also depends on her caste and economic condition. . . .Of course, in Canada, older women, including widows, are more free and many are becoming aware of their rights"
Asha is using tradition to covertly challenge her lack of power and authority as a widow
by complying, and even embracing social and religious practices ofpuja and seva,
through involuntary reproductions of farniliar f~rms'*~.Her apparent compliance enables
her to create a space in which she can regain a measure of respect and reassert her own
power and influence. By rnanifesting good Shakti through her conscious efforts to iron
out differences, she uses tradition as a tool of self-assertion in order to keep the family
relations hannonious. In this instance, submission and compliance may be, at times,
conscious strategies of self-representation, employed in fiont of particular audiences -
65 Mahoney & al (1 992) her son's family and the temple congregation - and in a particular context of her comrnunity in Metroplitan Vancouver.
Despite their similar status as widows and their lack of power within their own family, there are some salient differences between Veena and Asha that influence their degree of autonomy and guide their strategies of self-presentations. In Asha's case, her lack of financial independence impedes on her autonomy, while Veena's relative financial independence is a cause of tensions and disharmony within her sons' farnily.
Sonal makes some relevant cornments about problems encountered by older widows who have recentty come to live with their children.
"When they come to Canada, no matter how old they are, they have to wait for ten years now before they cm receive any pension benefits, and they usually had Iittle or no money when they entered Canada. This is very problematic, as this can create a lot of tension in the farnily. 1 personally think that econornic dependence makes the women's Iives stressfid . . . In some cases, it al1 works well and they are in a happy and harmonious situation, but for what 1 have seen, many of these women are unhappy because they feel trapped in the house. The family is usually aware of it, but no one wants to admit it openly!"
Although family relations in India have also ken greatly altered over several decades, this lack of financial dependency is not necessarily as problematic as there is
Iittle emphasis on individuals to be econornically self-sufficient. Moreover, unlike
Canada's universal pension scheme, pensions in India still privilege male professionals while discriminating against the elderly poor (Cohen, 1992)1and particularly against older women who rnust rely on their children for survival. Conversely, despite their lack of eligibility for pension benefits and hence lack of financial independence, older women in India usually enjoy greater social autonomy with broader access to social networks and by experiencing fluid social intercourse with relatives and fiiends. However, the situation is often reversed when older women immigrate to Canada. As conveyed in Munni's story, the length of time women spends in their country of resettlement
influences the degree of physical, social and fuiancial autonomy.
''1 came here to British Columbia from the Punjab with my husband as a young bride in the early 1940s. There were very few lndian people back then, but my husband got a very good job with a lurnber Company in New Westminster, working for large construction projects . . .. When my husband died over twenty- five years ago, 1 was left al1 alone to care for the children. 1 had no relatives and no money, and 1 never worked outside the house before, Fortunately, 1 had the house that my husband left me, and his car. So 1 learned to drive. But 1 had to work outside the house at al1 kinds of menial jobs which were poorly paid . . . barely making it to the minimum wage," said Munni with contempt, brushing her had away and closing her eyes. "1 worked so very hard al1 my life, and now that I am finally retired, 1 get so little pension in return. But I got the house and the car to myself. . . and I'd rather stay in rny house, even if it means having very Iittle money to live on. 1 iike my independence, that is very important to me?
Munni has kena widow for over twenty-five years, and while she cherishes her
independence, she still speaks with sadness about the alienation and ioneliness she has
been experiencing over the years since she has been widowed. She worked for many
years in low-paid jobs in order to support her children and now lives alone on a small
pension. She acknowledges that she finds it hard these days to live alone in the empty
family home.
" 1 don't like to be alone too much in that empty house. . . none of my children live with me now . . . [but] 1 can drive the car and go places. 1 come here [to the temple] as much as 1 can . . . at lem three times a week. Here 1 can meet people, there is always someone around."
Like Asha, the temple offers Munni not only a place for worship, but also a public space
where she can socialize with other members of her cornrnunity. She remains nonetheless
ambivalent about her present situation. She is adamant about remaining independent and
autonomous, yet she grieves her children's absence whom now al1 live in separate
households. She interprets their absence as desertion, especially that of her eldest son.
Whereas such changes in the family structures have negatively impacted upon Munni's power and influence over her children, she remains autonomous. She is nonetheless marginalized as an elderly widow as her position has ken decentered toward the margins of family relations. But as Shields observes. living in the margins does not necessarily amount to exclusion fiom the centre, as margins and centres are intrinsicdiy co~ected.
Instead, her marginality that she identifies as loneliness and alienation becomes a condition for initiating strategies that will facilitate her integration into the public domain. In this instance, the temple becomes a site66that permits Munni to temporarily erase her loneliness by socializing with other members of the congregation, and finding empowerment by interacting and making meanings with others.
As corroborated in some of the women's accounts, not al1 older widows who live in a diasponc community are necessarily marginalized or feel marginalized fiom the dominant social fiamework. Nor do they necessary stniggle in rernapping a space for self-assertion, as Mrs. Bhan and Mrs. Roy 's narratives demonstrate. While both women are high caste and economically secure, the similarities nonetheless end there. Born in
East Africa in the early 1920s, Mrs. Bhatt fled her country in the mid 1970s because of political unrest. She subsequently emmigrated with her husband and young children to
London, England, via India, and later came to resettle in British Columbia with her children afier becoming a widow. By contrast, bom in Kerala in south India, Mrs. Roy went abroad to the US to study for her Ph.D., and later settled in Metro Vancouver where she raised her children while holding an academic position until retirement. While in
Britain, Mrs. Bhatt was left to fend for herself and her five children when she suddenly becarne a widow. She came to Metro Vancouver with her now adult children in the late
1970s, and she now lives a comfortable life in the house that she CO-ownswith her eldest
66 See Chapter III. daughter, who has become a successfiil career woman in telecornrnunications, while king actively invoived in the Indo-Canadian community.
"After we came to B.C. in 1976, my daughter bought this house and she made me part owner. At first, 1 was not sure about that, but she insisted, saying that it was as much rny house than hers . . . 1 am happy here, but it can be lonely at times. . . . everybody is busy working outside the home. You see, rny health is not as good as it used to be, and I have been very sick, so 1 am unable to go about the way 1 used to."
Despite her advanced age and her ailing health, Mrs. Bhatt still enjoys Company and a good conversation. She resents her Iack of physical mobility due to her ailing health, and consequently admits to feelings of loneliness for king alone at home during the day while her daughter is away at work. Mrs. Bhatt enjoys, however, a very close and loving relationship with her daughter, and while her other daughters live in separate households, they corne and visit regularly and include her in their Iives. Moreover, there is rnutual respect and affection between herself and her daughters.
A retired academic in her mid-sixties, Mrs. Roy's interpretations and representations of widowhood differ greatly from the previous ones. Here is how she construes her narrative:
" When my husband died we had been separated and later divorced for many years. But when he died 1 stopped wearing the rikn6' on my forehead, which in lndia is a sign of a wornan's rnarried status. Friends thought it was a strange thing to do since 1 had been divorced from him for many years. But 1 felt like a widow when he died. You see, 1 took care of him when he becarne il1 until he died. Not wearing the rika has been a cause for debate amongst my friends, as they think 1 shouid stiII Wear it. Today, many widows Wear the tika. It has now become comrnon practice."
Mrs. Roy's decision in adopting the fonnal statu of Hindu widowhood by removing her rika is an ambiguous gesture set in cultural contradictions. By becorning a divorcee years ago she was no longer a wife in the eyes of Canadian legal institutions.
Faithfûl to Hindu tradition, she became a widow at her estranged husband' death, as
'' Th.which symbolizes the third eye, is worn on women's forehead. and refer to the maniage status. coded in the Law ofManu, as wives are religiously construed as indivisible fiom their husbands during and &er lifeb8(Courtright: 1995-1 89). She thus constructs her identity as a Hindu widow by manipulating Canadian and Hindu cultural symbols as she desires.
Mrs. Roy's conscious gesture can be explained in what she sees as having some personality. She also credits her fiee thinking upbringing to liberal cultural trends that prevail in ~erala~~,south India, wherein women are seen as equals to men where she was raised.
"1 was brought up with the belief that 1 could do whatever 1 wanted. In Kerala, women were expected to yield to men in public, they had a lot of saying in decision-making, and they were consulted regularly by their male kin. For instance, my great-uncle, that is my grandmother's younger brother, was managing our lands and properties, but it was my grandmother who was consulted at every step of the way and made the final decisions. My grandmother was a very commanding person, and when she entered the roorn, everyone stood up as a sign of respect, men included. Relatives and &ends used to nickname her "the Queen Victoria of Kerala" as a tease. It ultimately comes down to a matter of personality ! Some women have strong personalities and are able to maneuver around social noms and taboos while others are weak and submissive and never take any initiative. Strong women were listened to, while shy and submissive women were ignored."
The position of women in Kerala differs and is unique fiom the rest of India mainly because of its taravaci system traced through matrilineal lineage. This variance of
68 White Hindu religious tradition as coded in the Larvs of Manu prescribe that husband and wife become one entity in marriage, it still applies for woman as a widow may not remarry while the reverse is the nom for a widower.
69 The Nayars of Central Kerala, a dominant Hindu caste group, which accounted for about 20% of the state's population, were traditionally structured around a matrilineal society until Independence, wherein the laws of inheritance and marriage systems benefited women. Descent was traced through female line, and property was passed from mothers to her children, both male and female. A girl is not seen as a burden on her family, and there are no social pressure on her to bear a son. Her turawad (extended family) is always her 'home*, and provides a great deal of security. As Shanti Menon (1996) argues, the taravad provides women with a space fiom which they can challenge the dominant gender ideology and exercise a certain degree of autonomy. Robin lefiey (1987) contends the women in Kerala have been more literate than women in others of India, and in light of economic changes in the region in mid nineteenth century, women literacy was seen as an asset and a means not only to good employment but also to professions. MatrilineaI Hindus, notably the Nayars, provided the reference group for Kerala society. Even low castes, given the opportunity, were eager to imitate matrilineai practices, which included schools for girls. In sum, Women in Kerala, experienced a greater freedom and access to education. the extended family grants women a higher degree of influence and authority both in the private and the public domains. Moreover, women had equal access to &ee education and to professional careers. Such a cultural context explains to some degree Mrs. Roy's liberal attitude and a strong sense of self. Such liberal attitudes impede in no way intergenerational family duties and obligations. By contrast, the practice ofporda70as practiced in rural north India and other States, restricts the physical and social autonomy of high caste women, while low caste women are oflen too poor to afford to stay home doing only women's work (Lindsay & Courtright: 1995). The practice ofparda is interpreted by Western feminists as a means of oppression while postcolonial feminists argue that the practice ofparda grants women a space to speak and act more freely away fiom the constant surveillance of men. Mrs. Roy concedes that it was easier for a woman to become educated and be autonomous in south India, especially in Kerala, than in north India where social noms toward women are stricter. Thus, women in rural north
India ofien resort to covert and subversive modes of conduct to resist dominant patriarchal authority, as described in Raheja and Gold's ethnographie research among village women in Rajasthan. Mrs. Roy's conscious removal of her rika however deserves meranalysis.
By removing her tika fiom her forehead, Mrs. Roy's ambiguous gesture is open to interpretation in two interrelated meanings. One interprebtion illustrates Watkins's
(1 996) notion of involuntary reproductions of farniliar forms of Hindu traditions in order to challenge orthodoxy, as it is in the case of the wearing the tika reserved solely to
70 Parda means veil or curtain, and is stiil practiced in segregating mostly high caste women among Modems and Hindus alike, as poorer women have no option to stay at home and must go unveiled to work in the the fields or factories. married women. The second interpretation emerges from Mrs. Roy's positioning between her Western officiai status as a divorcee and the Hindu one of widowhood. between
Western and Hindu cultural values. She thus seizes the liminal space that exists between
Western and Hindu cultural values, which enables her to redefme her identity as an older woman by selecting the most effective strategy of the moment to reclaim the status of
Hindu widowhood. In doing so, she does not necessarily collapse her identity as an older women and a divorcee into the one of a widow; rather, she repositions herself into a multiplicity of identities (Cole: 1995) that emerge altemately under when the need arises.
In the process, she releases those cultural symbols fiom their fixity and orthodoxy. In effect, she transforms those traditions into fluid and meaningîùl symbols and practices, that other women may deploy when necessary within their particular circurnstances.
Hence, Mrs. Roy's interpretation of widowhood allows us to examine through the manipulation of cultural symbols how Hindu widows recreate their identities. Similady, oIder widows such as Veena, Asha and Munni find and define loci for self-assertion within the constraints of their singular situations in understated gestures but with no less creativity. They do so by recentering their positions away fiom the margins whereas they simultaneously biur boundaries between private and public domains. Veena's more radical mode of resistance in refùsing to share familial responsibilities with her children is however indicative of what she perceives as a lack of options available to her situation.
She compensates for what she sees as her chikiren's unreasonable demands by stepping out beyond the confines of Hindu familial values of interdependence and reciprocity.
The diversity of their lived-experiences reminds me of Mrs. Roy's comment when
1 first interviewed her as she said: "1 don? know if 1 am the right subject for your research. You see, I am not your typical orthodox Hindu woman." When 1 inquired what she meant by 'typical orthodox', she referred to the cornmon Western stereotype of the oppressed and submissive Hindu woman. She made it clear that she did not fit that image. Moreover, when we look at Veena, Asha and Munni's narratives, neither do these elderly widows reflect such stereotypes. They are al1 actively engaged in repositioning and reinventing themselves within the limits of their particular situations in their family and surrounding comrnunities. As Mrs. Roy contends, none of these women could be considered as '%ypically orthodox" in the sense that the First World (and Western feminists) tend to essentialize them; neither can the Hindu monologic discourse reduce them into the submissive stereotype of Sira. When reflecting on their stories, paradigms constructed around orthodoxy and homogeneity of Hindu cuhrai and religious practices become obsolete in interpreting their lives. Instead, their stories displace the "ideal"
Hindu mode1 of aging, rooted in aram and seva, as descnbed by Vatuk (1980). Out of these narratives emerge a hybrid space set between what Moore (1 994) calls 'identity-as- essence and identity-as conjuncture', which reject the notion of either/or of modemist and postrnodernist thinking alike. Instead, such a hybrid space is fluid and dynamic while it is provisional, and thus allows those "eccentric subjects" and "marginalized agents" to maneuver and shift practices whenever the need emerges.
Udsettling Relations
One of the salient comments made by several participants is the increasingly changing roles of daughters-in-law as they now work in the public sphere; some holding rewarding careers, many others working in Iow-paid service jobs, more out of economic necessity than desire. They thus have less time to care for their children and to do house
chores. Consequently, rnany of these chores and responsibilities are transferred down to
their mothers-in-laws. Although they acknowledge being happy to be reunited with their
family and to enjoy a cornfortable lifestyle, they nonetheless express dismay and
apprehension caused by the lack of respect and consideration they ofien experience in
their family. They said laughingly that in India, children used to come to their parents for
advice, saying, "What shall 1 do? What to do?" Here, the situation is reversed, as it is the
parents who are feeling vulnerable and insecure, and who ask their children for advice.
As they spoke, they broke into laughter, more to veil their distress and confusion rather
than out of merriment. As another woman commented: "1 never know what is happening
in that house. They never tell me anything . . . and sometimes, my grandchildren can be
very rude to me." Sonal added, "This is what's happening al1 over now! . . . Children talk back to their grandparents and to their parents, telling them in their face that they are stupid!" They al1 nodded in agreement and laughed at her comment to release some of the tension that this round table discussion had brought up. They said they were shocked and confused about their grandchildren's behaviour and the lack of respect they often displayed toward thern. Sonal summarized the situation as follows:
"They suffer a loss of respect and consideration, and a loss of influence within their own family. They are not listened to anymore . . .they feel that they are not taken seriously by their family."
Because of their feeling of powerlessness in front of their grandchildren, they displace the blame of their dissonant relationship with them unto their daughters-in-law, by deplorhg their absence fiom home as the cause of many ills, which engendered a lack of control over their own children. They interpreted their daughters-in-law's absence as the reason for their personal failure in teaching them what they identified as the lndian family values of parental respect and obedience. They also linked the problem with the local culture and the dominant social envuonment the children live in. They resurned the discussion by exclaiming intermittently, while shrugging their shoulden and sighing in frustration that "Things are different here!" This last statement, however, should not be taken at face value, but as a rallying cry that veils their anxieties and criticisms toward a social landscape they find anomalous. Their laughter, their glancing at one another for approval, their carefid choice of words. are al1 part of the 'hidden tran~cri~ts''~that veil their criticisms into covert resistance. As Rahaja & Gold argue, these hidden transcripts allude to the polyvalent nature of women's discourses and the diverse moral perspectives inscribed into them. But Sonal is openly critical:
"Greediness is creating selfishness, and it spreads like a disease. Parents, especially mothers, do not have time to teach love to their children anymore. That is the missing ingredient in their education. They don't tell them about love and sharing because they are too busy working outside. . . . This business of becoming successful is going too far and is taking over everything else!". Because these older women are seen as alienated fiom the local culture, their children and grandchildren alike do not turn to them for advice. Consequently, they suffer a loss of respect and influence within their own family. " We are not listened to anyrnore!" said one woman, reflecting the opinion of the others present. In sum, they are not given the attention they feel they deserve for two main reasons. One is due to the lack of farnily quality time, as everyone is too busy working outside the home; the other is their eroded influence as they are held as outsiders with no inside knowledge of a local culture firrnly rooted in individualism and self-sufficiency. Hence, they become ostracized and marginalized. Their stories, however, are situated and express partial truths in a conundm that also affects their daughters-in-law also caught in the midst of
" Raheja & Gold (1 994). changing family relations. Ofientimes, they set up separate households after marriage until their widowed mothers-in-law arrive fiom India to live with them. Hence, their initial position of autonomy within the private sphere has rendered their rnothers-in-law's traditional authority almost obsolete while they have themselves gained some financial autonomy in the public sphere. Yet, they are traditionally still expected to defer to their mothers-in-law. Mrs. Desai's cornments underline such a dilemma while reflecting on her personal experience:
"Mothers, young mothers are confused when they first come here. They are trying to adapt, and they are confronted with different values in a new culture. They really are trying hard. Most of them are working outside and when they come home, they are stiil responsible for the running of the house. They have two full-time jobs: shopping, cwking, dealing with the children, taking them to school, the doctor, etc. It gets too much sometimes, and they get no support. Al1 the responsibilities and the blame are put upon thern."
Mrs. Desai speaks fiom past experience fiom the tirne she first arrived to Canada with her children in the mid 1970s, to join her husband who had obtained an academic position in one of the universities in the Canadian Prairies.
"Life was different here. It was only rny husband and 1 with the children. We had no other relatives here, and no help. It was dificult at !kt. . . It was my sole responsibility to look after the children's education. My husband had no time for it, as he was too busy with his research."
She acknowledged that she found it hard to adapt to different familial and social values in a foreign culture. She traded the security and support of an extended household with servants in lndia for a nuclear one in Canada. She finds herself suddenly depnved of farnily support and domestic help. Sonal concurs with Mrs. Desai, adding:
"They [daughters-in-laws] must also drive their mother-in-law to the doctor, the dentist, to the temple, shopping, and sometimes, several times a week! But they are the first ones to take the blame." These changes have in many instances reversed the positions of mothers and daughters-in-laws, which have subsequently strained their relations. Whereas daughters- in-laws have gained more power and autonomy by working in the pubic sphere, older
women fmd themseives busier with housework and caring of their grandchildren - chores and responsibilities, which were initially done by their daughters-in-laws - while they see their power and influence diminishing. Such a situation inevitably brings tensions, anxieties, and in some cases, plain unhappiness.
Munni's narrative brings a different perspective about her loss of influence within the family. It also highlights changes in Indian fmily values based on interdependence and reciprocity. Born and educated in Metro Vancouver, and brought up for the most part by their widowed mother, Munni's children rewrote the scripts of family values by setting up separate households upon becoming financially independent.
"None of my chiIdren live with me now. They are al1 married, except for my younger daughter who also lives on her own. My eldest son used to live at rny house with his wife, but there were so many problems. Too much fighting at the time, . . . she [daughter-in-lawj wanted to have her own house. So they bought a place not too far from rny house, but 1 don? see them that oflen."
Munni is rather despondent when she speaks about her children moving out fiom the family home. Afier a short silence, she added: "They eat meat! . . . They go to
Macdonald's with their children and eat hamburgers! " pointing to their diet as the main reason for their moving out and setting up their nuclear household. A strict vegetarian,
Munni views the practice of vegetarianism as a cultural and religious marker, a taboo to be respected. It is one she had never transgressed over the years despite her early culinary struggles in finding Indian food as basic as Basmati rice. Such divergences in diet may have undoubtedly caused some fiction in the kitchen between mother and daughter-in-law. It also indicates how second generation South Asians ofien claim their independence by setting up separate households once they marry, often to the dismay of their parents. Setting up separate households, however, does not necessarily mean disintegration or even total rupture of family relations rooted on reciprocity and interdependence. Rather, it means redefining and re-mapping new parameters that respond to local values that are particular to a community living in the diaspora.
In the same vein, Mrs. Roy's comments bring an interesting dimension to her efforts in teaching her children the Indian notion of hospirality and reciprocity within a
Canadian landscape.
"Hospitality in India is one of the tenets of Hindu culture. Everyone is always welcome into an Indian home. When reiatives or friends corne for a visit, it is never seen as an inconvenience. We go and fetch them at the airport or to the train station. . . and so on! If one has a small house and lacks the extra room, the host always gives her room to her guest as a gesture of hospitality. Well! 1 had a hard time to teach those values to my own children! 1 made it clear that when they invited a friend to stay ovemight, they must give their bed to them and sleep on the floor and not the other way around. Of course, they argued the fact that when they were invited to sleepovers, they had to sleep on the fl oor, and they thought it was most unfair. But 1 insisted!"
Mrs. Roy's testimony underlines some of the contradictions in educating ctiildren in the Hindu diaspora. Because of their privileged situations within both Hindu and
Canadian societies, due to their high caste, economic class and education, Mrs. Roy,
Mrs. Bhatt and Mrs. Desai creatively manipulate cultural norms with greater ease in order to foster lndian family values to the benefit of their children's upbnngings without necessarily severing with Canadian social norms. In fact, such mediating acts, in their attempts to redefine Hindu cultural noms in a different landscape, are representative of people living in the diaspora who cannot daim a singular space (Lavie: 1996) but interact and mediate within the dominant social space. As a poor working widow, Munni spends most of her energy working for low wages in order to meet basic necessities to keep house and feed her children with no other familial or community support. Hence, instilling Hindu family values to her children is met by them with resistance. What emerges fiom these women's accounts is the importance of family relations and networks. Munni is depnved of both. Despite her owning her house and driving her own
car, she fmds herself as an alienated Hindu widow. Class, education and economics are
undoubtedly determinant factors influencing older women's lives, either by hindering or
by granting them some level of power and autonomy. Moreover. because of their
traditionai discriminatory status, widows are more easily excluded fiom society if they
have no male kin to protect or support them (Wadley, 1995; Mitter, 199 1).
Toward the end of a roundtable discussion with a group of older women,
questions about changing family relations were addressed. As some of the above cornments and testimonies indicate, the women acknowledged that there had always ken tensions between mothers and daughters-in-law in India, and they saw them as inevitable but manageable. These relationships, however, were easier to manage 'back home' because mothers-in-law remained in their own homes while their daughten-in-law entered their in-laws' home as young new brides and remained under their control.
Moreover, there was a complex social network of support to mediate conflicts. They felt that it was more dificult to iron out tensions and resolve conflicts here because of larger issues at stake. When 1 asked them how they would identiQ these issues, they categorized them as social and cultural, but could not be more specific. However, some women expressed the sentiment that the temple was to some degree a space for the reproductions of patriarchal values and control to keep women in their place. Such a sentiment was extended to community associations in which men traditionally assume central roles in the public space. Paradoxically, they al1 emphasized the role of personality as an important factor in their relations with their daughters-in-law. In fact, personality is ofien quoted either as a source of power and agency or as the culpnt for engenderïng conflict. Hence 1 wish to revisit the meanings the women participants attach to personality and how they articulate its various interpretations in their everyday practices. Chapter V
Bal ancing Acis Between Righis and Obligations
The concept of personality emerges as an attribute to which Hindu women give central place when mediating relations of power within the domestic sphere as well as the public one. They emphasize its significance as a means to subdue unequal relations of power to their advantage. Mrs. Roy surns it up in the following words:
"It uitimateiy cornes down to personality! Some women have strong personalities and are able to rnaneuver around social norms and taboos while others are weak and submissive and never take any initiative."
As Mrs. Roy's points out, having persofiality is a matter of knowing how to manipulate relations of power. Despite veiled or overt criticisms that underlie their narratives, they resist feeling victimized because of unequal social structures or practices.
They also dismiss the significance and the impact that some Hindu cultural norms, structures and institutions have upon their gender. Instead, the women emphasize the significance of their notion of personality in order to cope with the inequalities of daily life. They stress that it is a matter of knowing how to manipulate relations of power.
Despite their veiled or overt criticisrns present in their narratives, they resist in feeling victimized because of unequal social structures or practices. Instead, they appropriate the concept of personality as a means by which they can manipulate cultural noms in specific situations. In taking such a standpoint - either consciously or unconsciously - they reclaim their power in the private domain and their autonorny in the public one, while they avoid conffonting ovenly the complexities and ambiguities of the dominant
social noms that affect their status as women.
Personalitv as a Means for Agencv.
Personality, as understood as one of the aspects of the Western construction of
self, sits at the opposite pole of the Hindu concept of self, which construes the person as
'divid~al'~and derives her personal nature interpersonally. As Kakar (1 982:ZO) mer
asserts, "Hindu persons are constituted of relationships; al1 affects, needs and motives are
relafi~nal'~and their distresses are disorders of relationships." Paranjpee (1 988-54)
offers a more crosscultural interpretation of personhood, personality and the role of the
individual as expressed in Hindu scriptures. The author acknowledges the notion of
individualism as inherent to personality while it embodies nonetheless Kakar and
Marion's notions of "dividuol " and interpersonal relations. "While 'person' connotes a
human being with rights and duties, personality suggest distinct individuality." Hence,
individualism is not absent fiom the Hindu ethos as often claimed; rather, its articulation differs by emphasizing duties and obligations over rights. "Moreover, in the religious tradition, the individual is held responsible for the consequence of ber] actions as elaborated in the Law of Karma (action./retribution). As noted by Halbans (1 991, cited in
Paranjpee, 1998:65), karma is supposed to be personal, Le.: attached to one individual being or life process. Whereas the Western concept of individualism's emphasis on rights over duties has gained some universal meanings, it has nonetheless recently
71 Mariott, Kim, "The Open Person and Interpersonal Fluidity," unpubfished paper read at a session on the "Indian Self' at meeting ofAsian Studies, in Washington, D.C.,March 1980, cited in Kakar, 1982.
73 My own italics. integrated other cultural notions in the DSM IV (page 63 1) by suspending judgments about personality fûnctioning that must take into account the individual's ethnic, cultural, and social background. Personality, as conveyed in the women's narratives, diverts fiorn the Western "institutional and impulsive" notions of selves (Derne: 1Wî), which privilege the rights of individuals. Rather, it is more representative of the "situational pressures" that ernphasize duties and obligations over desire and self-gratification. As noted by Mrs. Roy, personality means knowing how and when to seize the opportunity in taking initiative in a given situation. It also means knowing how to manipulate gender relations while remaining within the parameters of prevailing Hindu cultural norms, which foster interpersonal relations, duties and obligations. Whereas such a notion of personality alludes to the limits of agency, as individuals are never "fiee-agents"
(Watkins: 1996) but must take into consideration the social structures surrounding them, it also brings up a realms of possibilities that transcends the binary models of individualism located between rights and obligations. Instead, it offers alternative models that emerge fiom specific needs and situations. In this context, personality implies the ability to enact the best strategy of the moment within a set of contradictions and disjunctures (Mahoney & Yngvesson (1992, cited in Watkins, 1996-220). As conveyed by most of the women interviewed, and as explicitly stated by Mrs. Roy, having personality is equated with having the ability to maneuver around social norms and taboos in order to gain power and influence. Yet, an overtly powerful personality can be seen as negative and is often considered as a potential source of conflict, as reiterated by Sond in regard to Veena's conduct. Hence, having the right amount of personality is a balancing act that requires manipulating circurnspectly cultural noms without trespassing them. Personaiity is thus a subtext of agency that becomes the informai but
preferential mode of resistance and empowerment. As such, it displaces the sanctioned
code of conduct of dharma and pativrataya as expounded in the Laws of Manu. Without
wholly rejecting Deme's argument about the South Asian conception of self as it may
relate to women, personality, as interpreted by the participants, is bestowed with multiple meanings that lie between the Western concept and the Hindu one.
Departing fiom personality as a means to agency, another essential set within the
Hindu ethos which is inherently part of power and agency is the inducement of shakti, as depicted by Sonal when she refers to the activation of shakti to one's benefit and to the benefit of others. Shakti is both positive and negative energy. In that vein, she also warns against the misusing of shakri when she refers to Veena's defiant behaviour in refusing to compromise with her daughter-in-law, when she says: "She veena] should compromise a little? it has to be give and take". In Sonal's eyes, this is using Shakti solely to one's benefit. Hence, personality implies the ability in knowing how to find a middle ground and how to compromise between a woman's desire and her duty to her family without creating tensions or conflicts, nor by compromising the tie of interdependence and reciprocity of farnily relations. It also points to the limits of persona1 power and individualism against the constraints of interdependence. In a broader sense, personality becomes a vehicle for mapping spheres of influence in relating with others, while it can become a tool of resistance to challenge the dominant sociai ideology. To some extend, personality becomes a means to find a ground for acknowledging dislocations, disjunctures, identity fragmentations and marginalization that are integral to their lives. Personality in this context is fluid and emergent and seeks to recapture power and authority. It is also a means that opens new possibilities for
'becoming', but as Trinh Min-ha suggests" "by remaining in the active and intransitive stance set in a 'in-between' world dilemrna" (1991 -59), in choosing the best strategy of the moment."
A Bnef Historv of the Status of Hindu Women.
The emphasis Hindu women place on personality as a means of covert resistance and empowennent, remains nonetheless within the confines of Hindu cultural noms, and may be interpreted as a way to compensate for their loss of status fiom post Vedic times and onwards. Such a general assumption deserves fiirtber elucidation, since Hindu women did not always retain a low social status nor al1 Hindu women experience discrimination in the same manner or at all. Questions of caste, class and ethnicity are fundamental factors that influence their positions as women, fiom the practice of purda among high caste women in north India to women's equal access to education and public life in Kerala, south India. Historically, in Vedic society, "women had the freedom to educate themselves, study the scnptures and achieve the status of sages, saints and s~holars",'~(Adhopia: 199 1-7 1). Sonal's comment hrther corroborates Adhopia' s:
"In eariy Hinduism men and women's roles were equal and complementary and although their roles in society were different, they had both access to education. So, women were very well educated. But what happened overtime is that everything becarne fixed and oppressive and we can see the results on the status of women across India; although, it is changing, especially in the last twenty five years.
74 Trinh: 199 1-6 1, suggest as a process: "to paint is to continue to paint", which is focusing on process without necessarily defining a goal.
'' Arnong prominent female scholars who gave indepth discourses on Vedas were Lopamudra. Unushi, Yami. and Gosha. The most il lustrious female scholars of the Upan is hadic age are Gargi and Mairreyi. On a symbolic level, the Hindu conception of God is both male and female.
Hindu scriptures glorie God through numerous gods and goddesses, of which the
worship of the Divine mother is a central one. Moreover, argues Adhopia, the
relationship between God and human beings is often compared with that of a child and a rnother who is the nurturer and the giver. Hence, " . . . because of this perfect analogy,
Hinduism gives the mother a higher statu than that of a father or a teacher7? (Adhopia,
199 1 ; Mitter, 1991). As a result, the status of motherhood is exalted throughout
Hinduism and becomes over tirne the sole legitimate role in which women can achieve some degree of verand influence. As mothers, women become responsible for fostering harmonious familial relations. But by becoming a mother, Mitter (1 99 1-90) argues, [a woman] compensates for the misfortune of king bom fernale." The Laws of
Manu codified the conduct of women to every detail with a great number of prohibitions.
In a nutshell, "marriage is indissoluble. divorce not possible, and remarriage not permissible," (Mitter: 87). Such rules were targeted against "respectable women" Le.: high caste women, whereas lower chss and castes women tended to dismiss them.
However, Manu's laws remained fluid enough in their interpretations and in their Iocal practices until they becarne permanently fixed in the eighteenth-century by colonial govemor, Warren Hastings, in agreement with Brahmanic priests (Mitter, 199 1). Manu's code of conduct for the ideal Hindu wife, which emulates surrender and devotion to her husband/master, was initially based on reciprocal - although unequal - relations of power. Overtime, local patnarchal customs were grafied on this model, distorting its
" According to Manu: "'the rank of a principal is equal to ten ordinaty teachers, the rank of a father is equal to that of hundred principals. The rank of a mother is equal to that of one thousand fathers." Manwrnriti If. 145, in Adhopia: 199 1 -72. original meanings to men's advantage while restricting women's rights and expanding
their obligations within the familial sphere.
In their analysis on the changing status of women in India, Liddle and Joshi
(1 986, cited in Hale: 1989-372) look at the impact of caste and class upon gender
hierarchy. They argue that preservation of the purity of caste has always ken the main cause of repression until class hierarchy, which emerged with capitalism, reinforced women's subordination, although in different foms (Le.: dowries). Hale (1989) suggests that the real site of struggle for women is the family wherein male and female principles are competing for power and supremacy. For Indian women, "the personal realm of farnily life is the site of women's political struggle," (Hale: 1989-381). Although entrenched in patriarchal dominance, the status of women in India is situated within contradictory cultural noms and practices that de@ generalization. Their positions within the family as daughters, wives, mothers, mothers-in-law and widows are conditional upon a number of factors, such as caste, class, and regional location. More importantly, their position is inherently contingent to the benevolence of family members in respecting reciprocal ties rooted in rights and obligations. Sonal's personal accounts of her childhood in north India, her educational years and her marriage demonstrate the fluidity of family relations wherein cultural values, personal ties and circumstances converge in constniing her unique life-story fiom which her resilient personality strongly emerges. Here is how Sonal reminisces about her life in the Punjab, north India.
"When 1 was in my fifth Grade, my father said: "Well! That's enough! Now you can read and write, so that is what the girls have to do. So you don? have to study any further. 1 was very sad. i wanted to study more. Why? 1 think because on my mother's side, everybody was quite well educated. So, the next time 1 met my matemal grandmother, she said: "don't worry!". And 1 went to stay with her and 1 started studying again. When 1 was in my graduation year, my exams were planned for April, but 1 got married in March . . . because nobody gave any importance to the studies of girls at that time. So 1 could not sit at the exams. AAer that 1 got pregnant. . . . . When my son was almost two years old, 1 started to study again. 1 did rny B.A. I did not have a good education, just an ordinary one, you know . . . and then, 1 applied for a job as Chief Lady Organizer. That was a social type of work, and 1 needed a good training for that . . . so, 1 had to go to the city of A, that is quite far away from my village. Those were also very dificuIt days as my mother-in-taw did not want me to go to the training. But 1 knew in my hem that 1 had to do it. My husband also did not agree, but my father-in-law knew somehow 1 had to work and said: OK! 1 am going to look afier your son. If you want to go you can too! My father- in-law was veu well educated. He was a doctor and he retired as a civil surgeon- So, 1 had to go and 1 stayed in the city of A for one full-year, cut-off from my family. But 1 passed the exams very nicely and after some time 1 got a job in the city of R. That was a good job: 1 had a jeep and a driver, 1 also had an accountant and a small office. It was a very independent job. My husband came with me and we started a new Iife. [ . . . ] 1 did that job as Chief Lady Organizer for almost nine years, and afier that, 1 applied for another job as a Farnily Planning Officer. 1 was selected and 1 started in the city of A, that is a welf- known city. 1 stayed there for eight years, and 1 had to go in al1 the districts and al1 the hospitals, and visit al1 the villages, because our job was to create an awareness of the family planning and hygiene. Then, in 1976, my husband died."
For women, marriage in India during that time often took precedence over
education. Although Sonal is not initially encouraged by her father to further her studies,
her desire to study is fundamental in convincing her parents to continue. She enrolls the
support of her matemal grandmother in order to do so. What surfaces from her account is
her ability in making connections with her kin in order to pursue the goals she has set for
herself. Later, she wins her father-in-law's support to go away to another city in order to
train in social work, leaving behind a husband and a son. Whereas she gains personal
independence by working in the pubic domain, she also secures her immediate family's
financial autonomy from her in-laws, and thus displaces in the process the encoded script
of the self-effacing young wife and the submissive daughter-in-law. Her decision to
study and to work is not solely derived fiom her desire to lùlfill a personal agenda; she is
also dnven by what she sees as her familial obligations in securing financial stability
since her husband was unable to obtain a position as a college superintendent.
Although Sonal has no male kin from blood relations to protect her she succeeds in developing close ties with her affinal kin, mainly her father and her younger brother- in-law - and gain their support. "Both Brahman and low-caste women are vulnerable if they do not have a male kin in their native households to protect (hem," (Wadley : 1995-
107). Sonal's account demonstrates the importance for women to acquire the support of
male kin. By situationally selecting the best strategy of the moment in knowing how to secure support fiom her materna1 grandmother and her father-in-law, Sonal's life-story offers an alternative mode of resistance that transcends the old binary mode1 of culture wherein identity is construed either as essence or as the result of a combination of circurnstances. Instead, her multiple-positionings (Cole, 1995) as a woman, a wife and a daughter-in-law are grounded in a specific historical context that is dynarnic and without permanent closure. Her account also highlights the flexibility of Indian farnily relations grounded in rights and obligations and interdependence.
Sonal's narrative about her life in India helps us to understand more clearly the underlying disjunctures and contradictions between her life in India and her immigrant expenence in Canada. Her Iife changed drastically once a widow by primarily pointing to her loss of social status (and loss of connections) as an Indian woman passing fiom the married status to one of widowhood. As she states, " we had to have some sort of connections to settle them [her two sons]". Those connections were no longer available to her after lier parents and father-in-law's deaths. Her options became restricted.
However, her brother-in-law who lives in Canada offers his support in helping her raise her two sons. "My husband's younger brother was living in Canada. So when my husband died, he wrote to me fiom Canada and said: How can 1 help you?" Ultimately, she chose to immigrate. Migrating and relocating is always a slow and intricate process of change and transformation. Dislocations, transmigrations and relocations compel immigrant women to develop various strategies for survivai and adaptations in which they may chart new autonomous spaces for themselves. Her particular case however illustrates the underlying contradictions that are currently present in the Canada
Immigration Act The Act highlights existing discrepancies between her professional qualifications in India, which granted her immigration to Canada under the independent class, and the erasure of her education and a twenty-year working expenence once in the host country. Similady, it underscores the discrepancies between Sonal's middle-class social status in India and her influential role as an educator in health management that brought her authority and respect against her sudden invisibility as a woman of color once she arrives in Canada. While granted immigration status under the independent class, Sonal becomes categorized through the process of crossing borders an "immigrant woman of color" who mut start over in a different occupation for which she had no previous knowledge or experience.
Mappine. Connections: A Widow 's Stow.
Shortly afier she resettied in Greater Vancouver with her two sons and their families in 1994, Sonal became involved in the affairs of the local Senior Community
Centre. She volunteered as Assistant Secretary and shortly after organized a senior woman's group.
"When 1 first came here to B.C., 1 did not know what to do. 1 was now retired and 1 did not know what to do in the house al1 day long, I've always worked ali my life, and after a few months of staying at home, 1 got bored. So, one day, 1 saw an advertisement in one of the Indian local newspapers about the Senior Centre. 1 phoned the Centre and shortiy afier 1 joined. It was in late October 1994. Soon afier, they offered me to become the Assistant Secretary. 1 have been involved with the Centre ever since, and 1 am here almost evey day." Sonal saw an urgent need for an older women's organization as she knows tw many older women who spend their days at home alone. Visiting is an important part of Indian social life; hence it is not for a lack of desire to socialize, rather, it is a lack of access to transportation, Sonal explains. Widows are more affected than mamed women. as the latter can depend on their retired husbands to give them a life.
"Lack of activity outside the home is a recipe for tension, dissatisfaction and even depression in the long mn, that affect not only the individual, but also impact on the quality of farniiy relations".
Sonal is concerned by the absence of outside interaction and activities that beset many older women. Some may be busy keeping house and raising grandchildren with little time for outside activities aside fiom going to the temple, as is Asha's case. Othen stay at home alone with no one to talk to while their children work.
"Mental heaith is as important as physical, but nobody pays attention to it. Once your mind goes down, it does not take much longer for the body to follow. 1 see it al1 the time! [ . . .] Some [elderly] people spend too much time alone in the house doing nothing. But it is not necessarily their fault . . . they have no other place to go!"
Hence, her relentless efforts in sening up programs and activities for older women are for Sonal ways of creating a safe and creative space for these women. In her roles as
Assistant Secretary at the Senior Centre, she has access to information while she builds connections and networks within and outside her community. Her role as group leader gives her the opportunity to reconstruct her identity by using the knowledge and experience that she developed back in India. She has created a position for herself wherein she feels confident and she is of service to her community. In ber mind she does good seva. She has found her niche fiom which she can conceptualize and implement various programs to the benefits of her peers. Some male members (husbands and sons alike) see the senior women's organization with suspicion. They perceive the organization as a hybrid of North American ferninism, she claims, which may disrupt
Indian family values. But her main thnist is far from encouraging older women in open
rebellion by severing their ties with their families. Rather, her main concern is to strengthen those family ties and foster harrnonious relations.
Sonal's organization offers a space in which women can feel safe to speak freely about what they perceive as problematic in their lives, mainly underlying tensions between themselves and their daughters-in-law and grandchildren.
"The purpose of these weekly meetings is to give these older women a safe space for themselves, in which they can socialize with one another, but also talk openly about current issues that concern them."
Sonal envisions the implementation of family counseling as a remedy to family tensions. She identifies the main problem encountered by older immigrant women as bringing with them a set of fdse expectations in their integration to the fmily and a lack of preparedness in adapting to a different lifestyle.
"What 1 mean by that is the idea of preparedness. What is needed here is counseling not only for the newly arrived mother-in-law from India, but also daughter-in-law and the rest of the farnily. The whole farnily must be counseled. They must understand that both sides have to give and take for the family to survive."
Refemng specificdly to older immigrant women who recently arrived fiom rural areas in the Punjab, Sonai explains:
"They are trapped!" says Sonal. "They are totally unprepared for that! It is a real shock to them. Of course," Sonal remarks by dariQing her last comment, "1 am referring to women who come from villages and who are poor and have Meeducation! They are the most aflicted ones. Ofien, [the children] think it is their right for their mother to look after the children and do some housekeeping. So these women become well-treated servants, but servants nevertheless!"
Such statement refiects a disturbing trend that is filled with ambiguities in its potential interpretations. A number of elderly widows may well be treated as "well-treated" servants, and arnong them, many may be denying this fact first to themselves, as a coping mechanism, since they may be unaware of their rights and may know of no other alternative. They may also deny this fact to others in order to save the family honour.
Others, more knowledgeable about their rights may voice their concems, either covertiy or overtly. Asha's account, for instance, is particularly ambiguous in a sense that she conveys finding fultillment in doing seva for her children. But she also conveys some frustrations about the lack of time and attention she receives fiom her children, compounded with feelings of alienation and loneliness due to lack of fkiends and general social intercourse. Her religious devotion, however, helps her in coping with her current situation. Her case is probably a common one.
The question remains, nonetheless, as to how much housework and caring for her grandchildren becomes too much? In more general terms, are such domestic tasks and responsibilities only part of their lives, hence, granting them some space to socialize, visit the temple or go to the Senior Centre whenever they wish, or are these household duties and responsibilities encompassing everything else in their lives? As SonaI mentioned earlier, it ought to be a matter of reciprocity between mothers and daughters-in-law. In other words, the situation of widows is ofien drastically altered when they come to live in the diaspora with their family, as they must adjust to different social and cultural noms.
Giving a 'helping hand' grants them a sense of king valuable while fostering their integration into the family. As senior women, they nonetheless anticipate receiving consideration and recognition that they feel they rightly deserve. Such transactions are in large measure subjective and ambiguous as each life-story is unique. Hence, there cannot be any set boundaries attached to them, as it is more a matter of degree rather than kind, and each situation must be mediated when necessary within its own singularity. The fact remains that some widows "are trapped", having no place to go for refiige in time of crisis, not having fiends of her age set or nor king on familiar grounds with their neighbours to cal1 for support. They have landed in an alien social landscape that is far different from their urban neighbourhood or their rural village in South Asia. However, women who have already established an informal sociai network may be able to leave the house for a short time and stay with a fiiend until tensions subside. It is nonetheless a temporary solution that does not resolve farnily differences on a long-tenn basis. and thus is bound to reproduce confiict.
Sonal's main concern is the welfare and integration of those older women in their families. However, she sees her role as one of a facilitator and a mediator set within a space in which women can articulate new spaces for themselves in order to regain power and influence within their families. Sonal's discourse, however, is set in contradictions and in diverse moral perspectives. Whereas she believes that women must assert themselves through education and work, like she did, she is critical of young mothers who work too many long hours to the detriment of family life, leaving little time to care for their children.
"Parents, especially mothers, do not have time to teach love to their children anymore. This is the rnissing ingredient in their education. They don't tell them about love and sharing because they are too busy working outside . . .this business of becoming successful is going too far and is taking over everything else."
By contrast, she underlines the difficult and stresshl position of young mothers and daughters-in-law in balancing work and family obligations and empathizes with their situation. in some ways, Sonal articulates unconsciously the prevalent Indian patriarchal values, although not quite in the same marner by her emphasis in retaining traditional
Hindu farnily values mainly for the sake of the children, which Mrs. Desai reiterates. Her discourse ties mother's role to the proper behaviour of dharma by placing the needs of her farnily over her own. She does not equate such a conduct with submission or oppression; rather, she sees it as part of rights and obligations that are encumbered on wives and mothers. Hence her discourse shifts between traditional and progressive cultural values.
Sonal's narrative shows her ability to generate some dynarnic but provisional spaces wherein she maps new connections with others and redefines her identity as a retired widow actively involved in comunity affairs. In many ways, while her new identity is a progressive one, it is also rather similar to the one she described in earlier times. Although unique in its historical context, Sonal's life-story highlights her multiple positionings as an older Hindu widow within an immigrant expenence that displaces the fixed categories of gender, age and ethnicity. Her life project is no less than a balancing act that seeks new roles by pushing against traditional barriers set for wornen without breaking through them. Although they comprise only a small percentage of South Asian women living in
British Columbia, 1 nonetheless suggest early in my thesis that elderly Hindu widows residing in Metropditan Vancouver present a unique social category in which sociai class and ethnic diversity are inherently connected. Such a social category provides an interesting mode1 that sanctions a better understanding of the social consîructions of aging through the immigrant experience. My central premise was whether the expectations of older immigrant women for a better life in Canada are necessarily fùlfilled once they resettle with their children. Mapping and identifying fiom their oral accounts the nature of women's expectations for a better life de@ generalization as their lived expenences are inherently subjective and ambiguous and are often embedded in contradictions. Yet, part of the problem can be identified in what Sonal perceives as widows' false expectations when they first come to live with their children. While diverse, their situations as older immigrant women can be still subsumed into two major characteristics that are closely co~ected:(1) a devolution of power and influence within their families and, (2) sense of alienation that is heightened by their difficulty in making connections outside their families.
As seen through the seven participants interviewed in this ethnographic project, two of them arrived only recently while the others have been living in Canada within an extended tirneframe of an average of twenty years. The former represent nonetheless a particularly vulnerable group of elderly widows who came with what Sonal identifies as
"aset of false expectations" and who become suddenly confionted with new cultural and social realities. They often experience various degrees of stress as they must make
substantial adjustments to a new way of life. Their angst is commonly expressed in a
terse retort: "Things are different here!" As such, they personiQ a vulnerable group of
older women who tend to encounter barriers in making social connections at the time of
their mival and subsequently express sentiments of loneliness and alienation. Migrating
and resettling involves an intricate and slow process of adjustrnents and transformations
from which immigrants develop creative strategies of resistance to deflect marginality
and alienation.
The notion of home and family life, which stands as a safe and familiar site
wherein harmonious relations prevail is somewhat challenged by some of their accounts.
Home is not only a site of loneliness and alienation, as conveyed by Asha and Munni, it
is also often a site wherein familial tensions and power struggles strive, as Veena's story
demonstrates. Their accounts reinforce Hale's (1989) suggestion that the real site of
struggle for Indian women is not so much in the public arena; rather it is entrenched in
the home whereîn family members are competing for power. The latter group of
participants, however, characterizes widows who have ken living in Canada for some
decades. They move around within a complex arena of formal and informa1 networks that
overlap persona1 ties, and they have successfiilly built connections while they were still
married which they have successfiilly maintained over time. Time becornes instrumental
in blurring the distances between past and present and between the 'here and now' and
'back there and then', and therefore plays an important part in the immigrant experience by granting a space wherein women develop affective ties to their new social landscape. Religion, however, also becomes the luik between past and present which plays
an important role in many older widows' lives by giving them a sense of continuity as
well as personal empowerment. Women become particularly religious as they age, partly
because of the social isolation they experience, and partly because it is very much part of
their culture in India, more so if you are a widow, as Sonal remarks. They usually also
have more free time to go the mandir or do puju at home. In a sense, their regular visits
to the mandir offers these widows a safe space for mapping and temporarily establishing
sacred and secular sites as well as personal and social spaces that enable their personal
growth along with social interaction. Moreover, as discussed earlier in Chapter III, bakri
practices also empower individuals wiîh creative energy (shakti) and encourage them to
renegotiate familial relations of authority. While providing some inner peace and a
temporary sense of personal empowerment, religious practices, however, do not erase
some of the most vulnerable women's feeling of loneliness from their families and their
irnmediate comrnunities. Nor does religion necessarily fiee them from their feeling of
"being trapped" in their children's homes, missing the opportunity to make new
connections around them and to transform their social realities through interactions.
As seen through their narratives, either as eccentric subjects or as marginalized
agents, widows deploy diverse creative strategies through overt or covert forms of
resistance in order to reclaim spaces for self-assertion. In some instances, they may resort
to the involuntary reproductions of familiar cultural noms, as Asha does through the
traditional Hindu practice of seva or as Mrs. Roy initiates when asking for an arranged rnarriage and by clairning her status of widowhood when her estranged husband dies.
Her reappropriation of Hindu cultural symbols through the rernoval of her tika, symbol of married life for a woman, deploys another subtle form of resistance in order to reassert her identity as an older Hindu woman, bluning their meanings in the process.
Furthemore, throughout their oral accounts, women participants emphasize the importance of personality as a means to assert their rights when the need arises. While they see it as a means to assert their power, personality is used as a strategic device to maneuver their ways within the confines of Hindu cultural noms that are set in reciprocal relations. Sonai's story exemplifies how an immigrant older women redefines her identity as a Hindu widow by her ability in making connections and networking within and between communities. She creates for herself a meaningful role in establishing a senior women's organization in order to answer to what she sees as an urgent need in providing a safe space for older women, wherein through interactions they redefine themselves and their roles within their families.
Hence, women's narratives provide us with some inspinng examples in their ability to adjust, change and transform their lives as immigrant widows, in the way they negotiate relations of power that is conditional to their particular situations. They thus engage in a continual process of redefining their selves in relations to their social realities by interacting with those around them and making comections. Neugebauer-Visano's
(1995) statement that "interactions define situations," subsumes the ways widows reconstruct their lives. This last statement resonates with the notion of a politics of location rooted in Trin Min-ha's notion of a third-time space that opens an avenue for agency because it is through interacting with others that these women cmrecognize and grasp that provisional but situated space that permits change. Located in the Hindu diaspora, these widows' life-stories transcend the old binary mode1 of culture in which identity production is either construed as quintessential or as caused by circumstances,
but is rather contingent to their particular locations. Their capacity to recreate their
identities as older Hindu widows is thus no less than an artful balancing act set within the
inûicate environment of the diaspora. However, Hindu widows' ability to transfomi and
redefine themselves is contingent to various factors, in which class, education and
economics play some important part in easing the process of adaptation. 1 must however
go beyond such generalizations by briefly identi&ing some significant social issues that
deserve Merscrutiny fiom policy makers.
One suggestion that may psitively affect immigrant women on their arrival to
Vancouver is the implementation of cornmunity based counseling programs. Such programs would be culturally designed for South Asian communities in order to respond not only to the needs of the elderly parent (more often an aging mother), who comes into the country with a set of false expectations, but also to benefit the whole farnily. Another contentious issue that must be revisited is the current Canada Pension Plan. Present eligibility requires a ten-year waiting period upon arrival to Canada from its earlier three- year period. Such extended period negatively affects the lives of older immigrant women in more than one way. It has brought unnecessary familial tensions by placing older women as financiaily dependent on their children, and thus limits their autonomy while it
Merexacerbates their feeling of "king trapped" in their children's homes. It forces them to live in a closed world and reinforces their feelings of alienation fiom the larger social reaiities.
A more insidious social issue that affects South Asian women as it does the
Canadian broader aging population is the question of elder abuse. While a segment of older South Asian women endure some form of abuse, from neglect to emotional and physical abuses, elder abuse often remains hidden as a shameful social stigma. Older women who experience abuse are often reluctant to cornplain to other mernbers of the community since disclosing family conflicts goes against the South Asian notion of family honor. While women shelters may be seen as the answer against abuse in mainstream communities, they may not be necessarily appropriate for elderly Hindu widows. For the sake of their families' honour, widows must keep up al1 appearances, and leaving home to take rehige in a shelter is to admit to their children's neglect. Such a move Merundermines their loyalty to family. Therefore, alternative fonns of services should be made available through community and service providers' expertise in order to implement programs and services that may take in consideration the specific needs of
South Asian women.
Lady, the question of guardianship has emerged as a recent social phenomenon arnong South Asian families when parents become too old or to sick to care for. There has been cases wherein older women have ken placed in mainstream retirement homes without their full knowledge and understanding. As such, issues of guardianship require fùrther investigation as a new social phenomenon that has as much serious ethical implications as another form of elder abuse, which requires practical solutions. Abuse, in its various forrns, generally affect the most vulnerable segment of a growing aging population, and as such demands Merresearch, not only within South Asian cornmunities but also arnong other ethnic communities within the overall Canadian social mosaic. While many Hindu widows in this project convey their generd feelings of
alienation and loneliness that we may mainly asctibe to their immigrant expenences, a
recently released article by Statistics canadanon widowhood places such a study in a
broader Canadian social context. The researchers assert that widows across the country
have fewer close relationships with family members than do their manied peers while
they struggle to maintain fiiendships after their husbands' deaths. Moreover, feelings of
alienation emerge as endemic among widows while their social marginalization is made
conspicious. Sbtistics Canada's study also points to class and economic differences as
important contributing factors. Women homeowners, for instance, have more close
fnends than renters. Homeowners, the researchers argue, are at an advantage over renters
as they are more likely to be not only economicaily more stable but also socially better
integrated in their neighborhood. While Hindu widows are less likely to be homeowners, they are more Iikely to share their children's home. Such findings highlight nonetheless the social and economic vulnerability of widows as a social category regardless of class and ethnicity.
Life-stories fiom Hindu widows living in Metroplitan Vancouver provide us however with meaningfbl insights about their individual and collective attitudes toward aging through the immigrant expenence. They also reveal how those widows redefine their roles and identities within a Canadian social landscape. Their life-stories may inspire further qualitative research on the social and gendered constructions of aging within the Canadian cultural mosaic. There is therefore ample space for mercross- cultural research among various groups in order to examine gender, cultural and socio-
n Nationd Post, June 9, 1999, "Trends: Widowhood," published by Statistics Canada. economic variations. It is a task that becomes imperative within the current Canadian social context of a rapidly aging population. References
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Woolf, Virginia. 1945. A Room of One 's Own. London: Penguin Books. Ayurveda Literally means 'knûwledge of life'. It is a complex Hindu medical system that comprises diet, herb remedies, massage, fast etc.
Aram comfort
Chai Spicy India tea
Dhurma Law, duty, morality
Bajhan Devotional Song
Bakt i Devotional practices
Homa Fire ritual during puja
Langar Communal kitchen on temple ground found in both Sikh and Hindu temples. Also free meal served to the congregation.
Karma Action of experience understood as a consequence of previous actions in this life or previous lives, and also fate,
Mandir Hindu temple
Parda Veil, seclusion of women behind the veil or partition in the house.
Prasad Consecrated food offered to congregation and to the gods
Puja Prayer, worship
Sakt i Female energy that is activated in contact of her male consort or deity
Seva Voluntary service to help others
Se vudur Servant, helper
TWbindi Veremillon dot placed on the centre forehead symbolizing married status for a Hindu woman.