"Proto-feminist Hindi World: Mothering a nation" a talk by Dr. Anamika at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 2nd July 2013

Time : 3:00 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
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Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar on ‘Proto-feminist Hindi World: Mothering a nation’ by Dr. Anamika, Affiliate Fellow, NMML.

Abstract : Both the Marxist and the post – colonial notions of nation are so very different from atleast the Indian women’s notion of ‘nation’ as a home without walls, an ‘angaiya’ with everyone seated on the same mat, knitting stories, spinning songs in the spirit of Soordas’s ‘joi – soi kachu gave’, a non – formal, nor – hierarchical intimate space for talking one’s heart out, structuring one’s thoughts, nurturing creativity and working hard towards the egalitarian goals in a manner that none overpowers the other, all excesses are denied and an equipoise, a balance, a samyak drishti of a ‘sthitpragna’ is achieved by one and all. Atleast the proto - feminist nation is a family of friends where bonding of souls merrily replaces blood-bonding or even a sexual alliance. Even a cursory glance at classics like ‘Jhootha Such’ and ‘Zindaginama’ and biographies of icons like Nirala, Bhikari Thakur, Mahinder Misir, Balraj Sahni, Sudhir Kakar and Osho reveals that children in the proto- feminist Hindi world enjoyed the regal privilege of multiple mothering. Biological mother was not the only one who nurtured the child with love and lores. Grandmothers from both sides, buas, masis, tais, chachis, mamis, deedis, bhabhis not only from the family but also from the ‘mohalla’, the neighbourhood were simultaneously and (sometimes serially) involved in raising the child, especially the male child, into a ‘Kanha’, an admirable, lovable, patient, magnanimous Dheerodatta or atleast Dheerlalit nayak of sorts who could set the ‘community, if not the nation, free from the clutches of a Demon.
Topping the list of these mundane mothers was the mother of mothers, the Divine Mother, so well – entrenched in the psyche of the child through big blowups of Paramhans and the Mother or Aurobindo and the Mother or Maa Anandmayee of the late forties bedecking the alls not only of the Pooja – ghars but also of the Baithaks. New additions to the list of mothers were the icons of Mother India and Mothertongue. Encouraged to live in this mythical, magical, multi – mothered world for a long time, children growing up in the Hindi heartland naturally got a little dreamy, dependent, relaxed and ambivalent, willing to be led and guided by others till circumstances (wars, battles, dire public insults and the clarion call of the Freedom Movement as a whole) pressed them hard to take an initiative and raise a hand in solemn oath, proclaiming something like, ‘ab laun nasani, ab na nasainho’.
As studies in ego - formation reveal, detachment from the Mother by degrees is essential to the development of a strong, independent ego, since it allows a child almost imperceptibly to take over his mother’s functions in relation to himself. Multiple mothering or serial mothering dampens the prospect of a strong Ego, which in the Indian scheme of things, is a good thing. Both love and bhakti are supposed to be supernal states just because they help us dissolve our ego, but the problem is that after the proper dissolution of Ego, one becomes a man of contemplation, practically ceasing to be a man of action. At turning points of history, nation needs men of action backed up by men of contemplation. The Paramhans – Vivekanand or Mahinder Misir – Bhikhari Thakur duos worked well in this direction, but on the whole, people in the Hindi – belt remained week – willed and biographies, autobiographies, letters and diary – entries bear a witness to the fact they all needed mothers or mother – like entities to break the inertia and gear them up to action : ‘tumhi ne dard diya hai, tumhi dawa dena’ seemed to be the guiding principle of this proto – feminist universe of the mohallas which women, especially elderly women, ruled by proxy.
The issue of mothering became more complex when women started going to jail as political prisoners. Even at that stage of political awakening there were parallel stories of young mothers driven out of the securities of home at the slightest of mishaps, landing up straight either at kodhas or at beggars’ den. But noteworthy is the fact that the narratives that most of these victim women and young mothers leave behind do not have the greeting card quality of sentimental onrushes. They present complex stories throbbing with a unique sense of humour. Resilient good humour there emerges as a style of mothering and also as a tool of subversion.
Many such narratives confirm that the whole experience of passionately loving a fragile creature in a physically threatening, socially violent, pervasively uncaring, competitive world is such that one learns to laugh against all odds – ‘dard ka had se guzarna hai dawa ho jana’. All these narratives, even folklores bear and evidence to the fact that in the face of danger, disappointment and unpredictability, even when mothers are liable to melancholy, they are not compltely oblivious of the fact that a kind, resilient good humour is a virtue, a first – aid box, a security-kit and also a ‘patheya’ mama’s tiffin of homely jokes, witty proverbs, humourous limericks, wise sayings and never ending talkstories of wisdom and grace that could keep one in good humour even against the oddest of odds.
The speaker aims to deconstruct songs, lullabies, folklore, prayan geets, articles, short – stories and poems by the Vidyavinodinies, the proto – feminist writers, mothers, folklorists who dared visualizing nation as a cosmopolitan, sovereign space, a home beyond boundaries and who also made the best of the “Kantha Summit Updesh” to inspire courage in men and the will to act towards the goal: bahujan hitay, bahujan sukhay. It is interesting to observe that even as wives and beloved, daughters and sisters, they seem to be mothering men, eager to cast them in the newer mould of a sathi, a hamsafar, and the best thing is that they never lose sight of humour. 
For the sake of convenience the speaker divided the article into two parts. The first is devoted to the agencies like the Calendar Arts, westernized theatres gramophones, silent movies and periodicals which played a great role in the new woman’s psyche- formation, and the second to the deconstruction of printed and oral songs and narratives to suggest that this proto – feminist world visualized ‘nation’ as an open house, a family of friends threshing out nervous points between economic, sexual and religious registers. Most of these narratives are intelligent enough to perceive that the self - sufficient, closed home is contaminated like everything else, by either the market principle of exchange or the military principle of forced acquisition. Like the poetic use of paranthesis, which seems to bracket off what it actually connects, the notion of both the home and the nation as a secure, sovereign, homogenous space could be self-limiting and detrimental in many ways which the new mothers even in the hightide of nationalism were conscious of.
This we all realize that societies are actually the sum total of their stories. Infused with domestic and family imagery of emotion, intimacy, love and generosity, nationalism both produce/reproduces and reflects understanding of gender difference and gendered obligations and roles.
The nation is usually imagined as female and the state as male, delivering particular expectations and demands upon the citizen-kin. Bharat Mata was a Mata too whose daughters were especially sensitized to their roles of an able mother aspiring to ‘improve her stock’ by producing right children (especially men). Their national obligation in reproducing the nation rested on their presumed, and often actual, responsibilities for children’s upbringing and cultural transmission as well as their care of the nation’s men and their households.
But in the Hindi region “household” has always been a problematic space, houses have often been run by elders supported by a “Virahini” whose husband has been packed off to distant trading centres and tea-gardens like Rangoon, Calcutta, Darjeeling and Assam. The ‘Virahini’ in Mahadevi’s Poetry is more refined than the one in folk songs, but stories of displacement, dislocation, longing and escape can be easily woven around her metaphors. “Routes” join “roots” also in the stories.
In proto-feminist poems too the connection between mother - country and home is complex, and in apparently humourous tone they underline in a flash how the problematic space called the nation translates into the problematic condition of femaleness itself. The step in or out of home is a risky crossing over for the female imagination and even the little girls like Trilochan’s Champa confront it in full awareness of its potential displacements. No longer a part of dialects of inside and out, safety and damages, home now harbours horror within. Naturally there is a serious disjunction between the secret feeling of the mind and the form of representation in a playful chit – chat.

Speaker : Dr. Anamika is an Affiliate Fellow, NMML and the author of six national award-winning poetry collections and four biomythographic novels, Dr.  Anamika teaches English literature at Delhi University. In her own words, “My poetry aims at spreading a mat where the highbrow and the lowly, the classical and the popular, the cosmic and the commonplace, the humorous and the serious sit together chatting like eternal sakhis.” Her inspiration comes from the folk and the metaphysical strain of the rebel bhakta poets. Currently, she is a UGC Fellow at NMML working on the dissertation, “Proto-feminist Hindi World: Mothers, Writers, Folklorists”.

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