Symbolic Power of Jijabai

he folklore surrounding Jijabai HER STORY has been appropriated by Twomen belonging to the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, one of the women’s wings of the Hindu Symbolic Power of Jijabai nationalist movement in India, to position themselves as subjects in a gendered nationalist history of the Folklore of Hindu Nationalist Women in India Hindu nation. Samiti women deify Jijabai as an “enlightened mother”, Kalyani Menon worthy of emulation, who fought for the Hindu nation through her son Shivaji, by inculcating in him values, making sense of the world”4 and as are clearly situated within the family ideology, strength and patriotism. such it is “an expression of deep- as the guardians of Hindu nationalist th Shivaji was a 17 century Hindu rooted cultural themes.”5 Nationalist traditions, values, morals and chieftain who has now become an folklore is a powerful means through ideology whose primary icon of Hindu nationalism. Through which subjectivity is constructed for responsibility is to cultivate these stories about Jijabai, Samiti women those belonging to the nation, both ideas in their children. Sarkar contends propagate a revisionist history of the through the ideals embodied in the that for the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Hindu state and, more importantly, stories and through the insertion of “motherhood is remarkably emptied establish a role model for women in individuals within larger historical of its customary emotional and the movement today. New recruits are trajectories, or “mythico-histories”, to affective load and is vested with a taught that they must aspire to notion of heroic political become like Jijabai, facilitating a instrumentality”. And there are many cultural and political renaissance in references to mothers who rear their India by moulding the new generation. children to die for their motherland10. While these ideas resonate with the This construction of female ideology of Hindu nationalism, the subjectivity resonates with the image stories about Jijabai can also be read of womanhood generally upheld by as “hidden transcripts”1 that contain the Hindu nationalist movement. In a challenge to the movement’s many a speech, Sadhavi Rithambara, construction of female subjectivity. a female ascetic who is an important Several scholars have suggested spokesperson for Hindutva, has that the anonymity and ambiguity of claimed that Bhagat Singh’s mother folklore makes it an ideal vehicle for wept at his deathbed not because she voicing resistance to dominant power had lost her only son, but because structures and providing alternative she had no other son who could take visions of the world2. It is worth up his fight. examining not only how female There are also significant subjectivity is imagined in the folklore moments of dissonance that suggest about Jijabai, but also how these Jijabai an alternative subjectivity for Samiti women. Paola Bacchetta explains this stories suggest “alternative self borrow a term from Liisa Malkki*. dissonance by arguing that the perceptions and alternative vantage Malkki defines mythico-history as “a points on their social world”3 that process of world making” concerned ideology of the Rashtriya disrupt the constructions of gender with “the ordering and re-ordering of Swayamsevak Sangh “leaves little propagated by the nationalist social and political categories, with the space for women-actors to exist and movement as a whole. defining of self in distinction to the so the Samiti, in order to craft a Hindu Folklore is a powerful means other, with good and evil”,7 in order nationalism which women can relate through which cultural ideals are to constitute “a moral order of the to, is obliged to exit the realm of the 11 translated and disseminated. Kirin world”8. Sangh’s discourse at some points” . Narayan contends: “A story is a Tanika Sarkar9 has argued that Bacchetta argues that this ‘cognitive instrument,’ a means of women’s roles within the movement dissonance is central to No.125 25 understanding the expansionary three virtues that the Samiti upholds guided him in his fight for Hindu power of Hindu nationalism. I suggest and impresses upon its members. The sovereignty. that it is also important to see this as first is kartitva, or the ideal of In contrast, the folklore that embodying a potential challenge to responsible administration, shapes Samiti women’s the ideology of the movement that exemplified in the figure of the Queen understanding of history projects has transformative potential. Stuart of Indore, Ahilyabai Holkar. The Jijabai as a visionary who played an Hall asserts that “there is no necessary second is netritva, or leadership, integral role in the shaping of the correspondence between encoding exemplified in the legendary figure of Hindu nation. Many women in the and decoding” and “any already the Queen of Jhansi, Rani Lakshmibai. Samiti told me proudly how they had constituted sign is potentially The third is the ideal of matritva, or managed to convince the government transformable into more than one enlightened motherhood, as to put out a postage stamp featuring 12 connotative configuration” . The exemplified in the figure of Jijabai. Jijabai holding a young Shivaji in her symbolic power of Jijabai resides in Jijabai is considered a model mother arms. When I went to meet Payal Gupta her multivocality because even as she because she taught her son Shivaji in the Samiti karyalaya (office) in represents the “space for women- all the proper Hindu values and West Delhi, which was also her home, actors” in her traditional role as a inspired him to fight against the I noticed that on the wall near the mother, she also embodies a challenge oppression of Hindus by Muslim entrance there was a shelf with to the constructions of gender by the rulers. pictures of gods and Mausiji movement. There has been very little (Jwakshmibai Kelkar, the founder of I am not arguing that Samiti scholarship on Jijabai and most the Samiti) and also a picture of the women have intentionally coded these references to her are contained within stamp of Jijabai with Shivaji as a child. stories with transgressive messages, larger histories about her son, Shivaji, Aparna Sharma, a woman in her 50s or for that matter that the women did who is projected not only as the first who is one of the leaders of the Delhi in fact read transgressive messages into them. Following Victor Turner, I freedom fighter against Muslim rule, Samiti, told me with pride in her voice suggest that we should think of these but also as the founder of the Hindu that Vajpayee himself had attended the stories as containing within them an nation in India. Hindu nationalist function organised by the Samiti to alternative vision that has the histories tend to focus on the launch the stamp. potential to transform13. As Bachetta accomplishments of Shivaji and This privileging of Jijabai by the has pointed out, the intention may usually simply mention Jijabai as a Samiti must be juxtaposed against the simply have been to create a history woman with a vision who taught supremacy accorded to Shivaji by the that women could use to define their Shivaji the right values that later movement and actually in almost all own roles in the movement. My Hindu nationalist accounts of purpose is to suggest, following history. A story about the birth of Mankekar, that we must not Jijabai’s resolve suggests that, assume that audiences according to the Samiti, she was “unproblematically accept the the leader of both the men and the subject positions created by women of her time: dominant ideologies” but, rather, Jijabai was Chatrapati Maharaj we must pay attention to the Shivaji’s mother. She was born in “fissures intrinsic to hegemonic 1597. Since childhood Jijabai saw discourses”14. As Mankekar the atrocities committed by argues, responses of viewers to Mughals against Hindus, their texts such as television or, in my temples and Hindu women. She case, folklore, “are refracted by saw screaming women being the discursive contexts in which abducted during the day. One day they live” and are thus always during her childhood she was “negotiated readings” shaped by standing on the terrace with a local conditions15. female friend (saheli). She saw a Three Virtues for Women man urinating on the wall of the According to Payal Gupta, a Shiva temple. She became very 29-year-old woman who has angry. She complained about this devoted her life to the Hindu Chhatrapati Shivaji to her family. But everyone nationalist movement, there are remained silent. An elderly person 26 MANUSHI said: “Daughter, he is a Muslim. larger statement about what she saw Nizam passed by and took a fancy to He is a government worker. We as the humiliation of Hindus at the either of them, they would be whisked cannot say anything to him.” Her hands of Muslims throughout off to the harem where he already had soft heart was filled with distress history—a juxtaposition that makes a hundred other women whom he was seeing all this and she wondered the connection between folklore and now bored with. They immediately whose victory are these Hindus Hindu nationalist versions of history went and hid. Neera added, “When struggling for? Why couldn’t this abundantly clear. An important part Sardar Patel chased the Nizam out of event show them the way to of this historical narrative is the there in 1953, they found about 400 independence? Who would projection of Muslims as sexual women in the harem.” Neera motivate them? Nobody was predators, a theme that is recurrent in continued that the Nizam was not the prepared to give her the answers the stories about Jijabai, as well as only one who was like this. She said to her questions.16 other Hindu nationalist folklore about that even Akbar, who everyone In this story Jijabai stands alone historical figures such as Akbar, the praises, used to hold a Meena Bazaar as the visionary who must teach Nizam of Hyderabad.

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