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Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics
Sarada Thallam
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics
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Foreword .................................................................................................... ix
Rajam Krishnan
A Voice Registered..................................................................................... xi
C S Lakshmi
Rajam Krishnan and the Indian Feminist Hermeneutical Tradition ........ xvii
Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 25
Widowhood and Asceticism
Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 37
In Praise of the Lord
Notes.......................................................................................................... 79
RAJAM KRISHNAN
…..it is not an exaggeration to state that the sociology of women has been
inadequately documented, since sociology is almost synonymous with
masculinity. Religious texts and other major works have never been
enunciated from a woman-centered perspective, since women are hardly
accorded a human status and continue to be devalued as mere objects of
pleasure and as child bearers. Even as we proceed into the twenty first
century (these essays were penned in 1995) women still continue to battle
for lives from their fetal stages to their graves. Why is it so? Both men and
women remain indispensable and reciprocal in this world. Why is it then
that a woman hardly receives human rights and dignity? Akin to gold and
soil, women are also perceived as objects of acquisition, childbearing and
labor. Although it is proven that women are in no way inferior to men,
they are still ruined and chattelised, which has almost become a “dharma”
as exemplified in numerous stories, puranas epics, etc. These essays seek
to interrogate the facts behind such biased views.
The human race had not evolved without a mother, since motherhood
remains a primal power. Contemporary genetic mappings of biological
anthropologists trace the evolution of the first human being to a primitive
tribe of Central Africa. The male sperm lacks “cells”. Women’s ovarian
eggs multiply for impregnation. Research proves the wonder of women’s
menstruation, which is actually a self-cleansing process that in fact
disinfects the ovary. Matriarchal cultures opine that nature has thus
endowed women with such miraculous powers that accord her a primal
status so much so that she is transformed into a cosmic Sakti that moves
the multitudes of the universe. But in the passage of time, men enslaved
women by placing their "selves" in a position of centrality as illustrated
through numerous stories, puranas and itihasas. In fact, patriarchal
imagination has generated myths wherein a male god divided himself into
a male and a female principle and created the first woman. According to
such bigoted norms, the God of creation was himself created from the
navel of a male god sans the necessity of a female ovary. The story of the
birth of progeny from the third eye of the god is also no different. Such
x Foreword
C S LAKSHMI
In 1953, when Rajam Krishnan won the Kalaimagal award for her
novel Penn Kural I was not yet nine. Kalaimagal with its scholarly editor
Ki. Va. Jagannathan, referred to as Ki Va. Ja by everyone, was considered
a literary magazine and it made its appearance in our house every month
without fail for my mother was an avid reader of Tamil fiction. Penn
Kural was about non-communication in a traditional arranged marriage,
and about how a woman caught in the politics of the family tries to find
love in a marriage. Even though I was a young child, I read the novel as it
was serialized in Kalaimagal and although the novel was a very subtly
written psychological exploration of a marital situation, I could feel the
resonance within myself although I could not understand what I was
responding to. I re-read the novel later in my teens and understood what an
extraordinary analysis of life in a family it was. Its title Penn Kural was
also unusual, for it meant a woman’s voice and the novel was about a
woman trying to find her own voice in a marriage. This aspect of a woman
needing to voice her opinion was what appealed to me most when I re-read
the novel.
In later years I found that many girls of my age had been touched by
the writings of Rajam Krishnan. In 2002, when Rajam Krishnan came out
with Uthara Kaandam after a series of crises in her own life like the death
of her husband and her having to shift many residences, we admired her
not only for her never-say-die spirit but also for not giving up her pursuit
of understanding women’s history and locating it within the history of
nation. I would like to dwell on this novel for a while before talking about
the essays written in 1995 which form the content of this book. The reason
why I would like to do it is because the novel shows Rajam Krishnan’s
relentless pursuit to give centre space to women and their voices.
Writing about Uthara Kaandam in my column Different Registers in
The Hindu, I wrote:
xii A Voice Reegistered
of big dams and life around dams. After many novels and short stories,
around the nineties she felt that it was important to deal with the position
of women in Indian culture and critically view how the degradation of
women is not a later phenomenon but something that has been part of its
mythology and inherent in epic texts. It was necessary to do this for after
Periyar’s book Penn En Adimai Aanaal? (Why did Women Get
Enslaved?), for there was no book in Tamil for popular readership which
dealt with such issues. She did this in a series of essays which were very
well received.
The essays, one after another, break the myths surrounding women and
her central role of reproduction, and her body which is in constant
ownership to be bound and redeemed by men like in the case of Ahalya
turned into a stone by her husband and redeemed by Rama, another man.
Rajam Krishnan begins with origin myths and then writes extensively
about mythologies and epic texts, including Silappadhikaram and
questions the veneration accorded to Kannagi for an exaggerated act of
revenge. She also praises women poets of the Sangam age like Avvai but
while writing about the women Bhakti poets she admires Akkamahadevi
and her ways of devotion to Shiva, but is not enamoured by Karaikkal
Ammaiyar who turns into a ghoul merely because her husband cannot look
upon her as a wife anymore since she has become a glorified devotee of
Shiva who can perform miracles. Karaikkal Ammaiyar is an icon in Tamil
culture when they talk about the power of a woman who is acclaimed for
her spiritual pursuits. Rajam Krishnan mercilessly tears apart this exalted
image accorded to Karaikkal Ammaiyar.
Rajam Krishnan also writes about prejudices within religious practices
including Buddhism. She writes in great detail about the attitude towards
widows and the pain of widowhood. She deals with the process of
commodification of women and follows it with a critical analysis of
national idols like Vivekananda and Gandhiji. She speaks about
Vivekananda’s obsession with Indian womanhood and women like Sita
and similarly criticize Gandhi for imposing his views on Kasturba and sees
Kasturba as the woman who struggles within marriage for a place for
herself.
Rajam Krishnan’s inability to accept some of the major failings of
Indira Gandhi and her view of Indira Gandhi as a woman who struggled
against the odds to give a place for India in the international map, may
seem to some, as the only discordant note in this book of essays. Although
she criticizes the imposition of Emergency and her indulgence of her
younger son’s excesses, perceives Indira Gandhi a determined administrator
at a crucial phase in the history of the nation and as a pioneering modern
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xv
***
RAJAM KRISHNAN AND THE INDIAN FEMINIST
HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION
(i) Basically, the theories of Indian womanhood need emanate from its
native soil so as to aptly articulate its specific socio-cultural
experiences, unique systems of bondage and its specific milieu.
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xix
critiquing sexist ideologies and also for the production of novel images of
womanhood that are affirming of women's autonomy. The modes of a
feminist hermeneutics approach are manifold. Basically, a Radical or
Rejectionist approach may deny the authority of the divine texts. A Neo-
Orthodox or Critical approach may accept the prophetic nature of these
texts and consider these works as taking the side of the oppressed women.
Seen from this perspective, Draupadi's disrobement scene are a classical
instance of how a distressed woman is rescued by a benevolent man. A
Historico-Critical approach may ensure a historical understanding of the
original intention of the author. The interpreter is presented with a
fundamental and a literal reading of the texts. A feminist hermeneutical
interpretation of this approach may easily comply with the socially
sanctioned cultural norms and hence view the incidents delineated in the
texts as historico-cultural compulsions. A Revisionist approach asserts
that these "sanctioned" texts are not by themselves misogynist, but remain
patriarchalized by interpreters who project their androcentric cultural bias
on the "sanctioned" texts. Hence the feminist hermeneutical school of
thinkers attempts to liberate these texts from the fetters of patriarchal
interpretation to advance women's freedom. Finally, a Reformist or
liberationist approach entails within itself a deep consciousness of
patriarchal chauvinism in the religio-cultural texts and interprets the same
to emancipate women as well as all marginalized sections. Despite their
superficial differences, the underlying aim of all these approaches is to re-
write and re-interrogate "sanctioned" texts, cultural codes and signifiers
from a woman-centered perspective and to reveal its innate androcentric
bias.
A pioneering figure in this larger domain is undoubtedly Irawati
Karve. Her seminal works include Kinship Organization in India (1953),
Hindu Society: An Interpretation (1961) and Yuganta: The End of an
Epoch (1967). The third among these is her most influential work, where
she depicts a gallery of characters from the mammoth Indian epic-the
Mahabharata, at a human level, susceptible to normative errors, passions
and the like. The characters are analyzed from secular, scientific and
socio-anthropological perspectives, who respond to human situations in
times of antiquity. As the eminent critic Norman Brown, W. mentions:
"Like the noble figures in Greek epics and tragedies and in Shakespeare's
chronicle plays, they exhibit a wide range of human feelings and passions-
love, devotion, bravery, chivalry and also hatred, envy, rage, violence,
deceit, cowardice, unchivalry, injustice, censurable conduct even by the
prevailing standards." (Foreword to Yuganta). Karve's earlier books entitled
Kinship Organization in India and Hindu Society: An Interpretation, analyze
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xxi
the Indian kinship structure in a diachronic manner while also probing into
the different facets of Hinduism. An influence of Karve is undoubtedly
evident in Rajam Krishnan's present work that has been taken up for
translation. Although Karve analyzes the epic figures of the Mahabharata
from a human perspective, she does not render any specific feminist
perspective into her characters. Rajam Krishnan fills this void by
analyzing the epic figures in the Mahabharata, the Vedas, women from
Tamil epics and Cankam Tamil poetry, from a gendered perspective. She
clearly analyzes the patriarchal bias in Indian thought that derogates Indian
womanhood. Her essays begin with a genealogical analysis of the
evolution of human society and the gradual evolution of patriarchy in the
Indian socio-cultural ethos. It is a penetrating probe into the psyche of
Indian patriarchy that has systematically sought to inferiorize women. The
author recourses to a methodical study of patriarchal value systems which
remain deeply embedded in Indian thought through her analysis of
wedding rituals, our speech habits, socio-cultural habit formations, our
mythological figures and thus transmutes her thought into a critique of
overarching grand discourse of patriarchy against which all her essays
launch a powerful tirade. Rajam Krishnan's essays are of paramount
importance in the current world of hermeneutical inquiry since she adapts
multi-dimensional approaches like social, cultural, anthropological and
literary perspectives with a powerful simultaneity that often disturbs the
readers’ smugness. One clearly evinces a logical structure in her thought.
The first three essays in this volume analyze the primal place accorded to
motherhood in Indian culture and the gradual commodification and
debasement of the same under the garb of hospitality.
To Rajam Krishnan, women's greatest liberation is from their ovarian
destinies. Sita and Draupadi are the two epic characters who receive a
special treatment in her essays. It is rather a significant co-incidence that
Rajam Krishnan's delineation of Draupadi in these essays and the eminent
Oriya writer Pratibha Ray's Yajnaseni (a novel based on a feminist re
visioning of the inner trauma of Draupadi) were published in 1995 and
1996 respectively. On the lines of Karve, Rajam Krishnan also analyzes
Sita and Draupadi from a socio-anthropological perspective to describe the
injustices meted out to the mythico-historical Indian women who remain
the arch figures of Indian womanhood. But she differs from Karve in
imbuing a strong woman-centered perspective to her analysis. A probe
into the literary imagination of Indian women poets, especially the Bhakti
women poets like Mahadevi Akka, Karaikkal Ammai and Antal deserves a
special mention. While the author is all praise for Antal's creative
imagination, she also unfailingly presents a novel dimension by refuting
xxii Rajam Krishnan and the Indian Feminist Hermeneutical Tradition
the fact that such gynocentric verse which delineates the viraha (erotic
yearnings) Bhakti in her Nacciar Tirumoli could not have been composed
by a 12 year old child reared in an ambience of brahminical orthodoxy.
Rather, she considers Antal as having been reared in a sect that has
mastered the fine arts. However, the author is not free from moments of
divergent judgement also. Her opinion regarding the Bhakti of Karaikkal
Ammai as being inferior to that of Akkamaha Davy is personally
unacceptable to me given the fact that Karaikkal Ammai remains the lone
female saint in the Tamil Saiva historical canon who had deliberately
renounced her beauteous form to willingly embrace a ghoulish demeanor
in order to attain the Lord's holy feet. I firmly contend that through her
transformation, she has transcended her second sex status. Recent
scholarship on Ammai like Elaine Craddock’s Siva’s Demon Devotee
(2010) and Karen Pechillis Interpreting Devotion: The Poetry of Karaikkal
Ammai (2012) does greater justice to the sublime compositions of the
unique scent and enhance our understanding of her poetry from a lofty
perspective which it rightly deserves.
From an innate appreciation of the poetic genius of religio-literary
figures, Rajam Krishnan suddenly leaps forward by a few centuries when
she deftly analyses the personality of Indira Gandhi and her ascension in
the Indian political arena which was hitherto a male turf. Some may doubt
if Indira Gandhi is a cultural figure to be interpreted in a hermeneutical
analysis. But a serious thought would enlighten us with the fact that this
iron woman of India was not merely a political figure, but one who had re-
defined Indian notions of womanhood in the post-independence era.
Despite our agreement/disagreement with her political policies, one cannot
differ over the fact that she transformed Indian notions of womanhood.
One would definitely stand amazed at the patriarchal preference for a male
child, which had dominated Nehru's family! Indira Gandhi then, had to
wage a stiff war against patriarchal bias since her birth. Although the
author appreciates this first modern Indian woman leader for her political
sagacity and acumen, she is also not blind to the inherent faults in Indira
which indeed remained serious blemishes in her personality. Regardless of
her imperfections, her ascension in the Indian political scenario is indeed
remarkable to the author. The essays form a circular pattern when the
author reviews the position of women in the larger process of social
evolution in her concluding essay. From the pre-historical era of the first
essay to the current state of affairs in the culminating essay, the author has
made an effective analysis of the Indian feminist hermeneutical tradition
that is rather illuminating.
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xxiii
an orderly counter action that may set-right the imbalance among the
genders. Probing into our “knowledge” systems like the epics, Puranas,
oral narratives, etc. is one such move to unearth the bigoted visions that so
tend to subdue women. The need is greater given the fact that women
continue to live in what Gilman would label as a Man-made world.
Women’s life is itself perceived only in relation to men, as is their
personal, social, economic and psychological development. Gilman
succinctly states that “mankind meant mankind” (Gilman 33). A gender-
sensitized and gender-tolerant ambience thus needs to be created whereby
all the genders work towards a holistic natural order that may bestow
greater tolerance amongst them. Individuals then need to be educated with
unbiased knowledge systems to re-write the existing epistemes which seek
to belittle women.
The hermeneutical tradition scarcely witnesses textual interpretations
executed from a feminist perspective and hence it is crucial to possess that
vision which actually investigates and empowers thought. The feminist
hermeneutical method seeks to interpret scriptures, religious texts, cultural
works, epics, and practices, the written and oral forms of communication
from a woman-centric perspective, thereby highlighting the serious lapses,
gaps and misrepresentations of women that are circulated as cultural
norms/codes that demean her status. It further questions patriarchal
sanctions, interrogates religio-cultural texts, analyses the deeply-embedded
value systems and gender bias in both the written and unwritten texts
while also re-visiting the sanctioned knowledge domains. It decenters
androcentric/universal knowledge systems and ushers a reformatory
thought, whereby a more gender-friendly and integrationist approach is
greatly appreciated. Women remained triply marginalized from the
society, from the process of epistemic creation and the episteme itself. The
above mentioned tripartite discrepancy needs to be eradicated so that
posterity is bestowed with a bigotry-free knowledge that seeks to level all
gaps. The process is however assiduous since the method seeks to create a
total upheaval of deeply-ingrained and “time-tested” normative codes that
are often misquoted as possessing “divine sanctity”.
When Subramanian Bharathi created his masterpiece Panchali
Sabatham (Paanchali’s Vow), he was interrogating the divine status
accorded to the Mahabharata, which like many other Indian Puranas,
myths and legends also subjugated women. When Bharathi’s Panchali
enters the hall, she is not the shy, demure Draupadi of Vyasa who silently
endures the multiple injuries inflicted on her body/psyche. A powerful
Shakti and an embodiment of India, even the heavens remain shocked
when she is pawned. Refraining from abject negation, she is:
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xxv
Even as the charioteer conveys to her the news of her being summoned
to Duryodhana’s court, she flares up thus:
frame work thereby underlining the need for a revisionist perspective. It would
not be an exaggeration to state that the Indian feminist hermeneutical position
emerged almost simultaneously with the western feminist hermeneutical
school, for Indian women were also openly interrogating our cultural
codes, hegemonic value systems, our epistemic centers like the Puranas,
Vedas and lore that attempted to subdue and enslave them. The thought
attained a higher impetus in the post-independence era owing the greater
participation of women in the multiple domains of Indian life. One needs
to only think of the eminent Hindi litterateur Mahadevi Varma whose
essays like “The Curse of Womanhood”. “The Modern Woman” and “The
Hindu Woman’s Wifehood” have had a powerful sway on its readers.
Rajam Krishnan‘s creative genius is simultaneously inspired by both
western literary masters like Shakespeare, Dickens, Pearl S.Buck and
others like Kalidasa, Subramania Bharathi, Pudumaipittan and others among
the Indian writers. Her feminist hermeneutic stance is intense in its style
since she effectively critiques the time-tested Indian knowledge systems,
evolutionary myths, Vedas, Puranas and the unwritten lore of Indian
thought. Most importantly, she questions two arch-texts of Indian thought:
The Rig Veda and the Mahabharata and critically evaluates them for their
deep patriarchal bias. Born in 1925 in Musiri of Trichy dt., T. Nadu, she is
a prolific novelist, short story writer, dramatist, travel writer and critic.
Her first short story was published in the year 1942. Since then she has
created a large corpus of literary works which number to 36 short fiction
and fiction, 300 stories, 20 plays, 2 biographies, travelogues and numerous
other literary essays. Her first full-length fiction entitled Sudandira Jothi
(The Torch of Liberty) appeared in parts in 1948. But it was unfortunately
banned and hence the fiction did not see the light of print in its entirety.
This unfinished fiction hardly finds any mention in the list of the author's
works. Hence, her first fiction is generally considered to be Penn Kural
(Women's Voice) (1963) which was published by the Kalaimagal Press,
Chennai.
As a creative writer too Rajam Krishnan is imbued with an immense
sense of social consciousness. She reposes enormous faith in the potency
of the pen to reform humanity. Refusing to yield to the pressures of print
capitalism, she self-published her later works. As a revolutionary thinker
and researcher, her fiction is not merely the imagination's creative child
since she pens them after undertaking deep and painstaking research in the
respective field. Rightly did Malan the Tamil writer comment on her death
that she was far from indulging in a facile "armchair imagination." In
many ways a trendsetter, she was a pioneering Indian woman socio-
anthropological creative writer since her fiction focused on the hitherto
Rajam Krishnan and Indian Feminist Hermeneutics xxvii
undepicted sections of the society like the Badugas, the salt pan workers,
the slum dwellers, jungle dacoits and small-time criminals. Her Dickensonian
eye for detail combined with a strong social commitment is evident in all
her large corpus of works.In an interview she once stated:
These lines express the writer’s capacity to “drink life to the lees” and
to move into the unending horizons of thought. Her close association of
life with literature and the deep reformatory zeal that she has inherited
from Bharathi offer a fresh perspective into her fiction and also her non-
fictional works As a polyglot, she strove for the translation of regional
literatures into other Indian languages. She has translated Bihari folk songs
for the Sahitya Akademi. Apart from translating numerous Malayalam
short stories in Tamil, she has also translated the Malayalam classic,
Kalignakalam of Kesava Menon in Tamil. She has also represented India
in numerous delegations abroad on creative writing.
Rajam Krishnan's creative oeuvre was an instinctive response to her
times. Though born in the colonial times in the year 1925, nearly all her
writings could be located in a post-colonial India at a time when the Tamil
literary scenario was in a transitional state of attaining modernity.
Literature for/by women was fast evolving. Writers of both sexes created
literary pieces that were concerned with the upliftment of women. For
instance, Pratapa Mudaliyar Charitram (1879) of Vedanayakam Pillai has
as its protagonist Gyanambal who is educated, intelligent and confident.
The trend continued in his other works like Suguna Sundari Charitram
and also in B. R.Rajamayyar's Kamalambal Charitram (1893). Both Pillai
and Iyer were concerned with women's reformation and progress. A
strident promoter of women's rights, his Padmavathi Charitram (1898)
and Muthu Meenakshi (1903) advocated for women's privileges and
education. Numerous journals also flourished. A significant, but short-
lived group of writers who were concerned with women's progress and
education in Tamil Nadu was the Manikodi group. It comprised of writers
like Thi.Ja.Ra. Si. Su. Chellappa, Ka.Na.Su.La.Sa.Ra., Pudumai Pittan and
the like. These reformatory writers penned extensively on themes like
widowhood, women's education and the like. Ku.Pa. Ra. is a significant
writer, who pioneered in depicting the sexual freedom of modern Indian
xxviii Rajam Krishnan and the Indian Feminist Hermeneutical Tradition
Forced into family life at the young age of fourteen, I remained barred
from progress in multiple domains like education, intellectual progress and
music. My writings were born out of a struggle for self-recognition. I had
no support system initially and hence I wrote with immense apprehension.
My initial writings . . . [were] in the kitchen of the large family. (Nalini
Devi 10)
Thodakkamum, Oru Devanin Kathai, Alaigal and the like. She has also
penned more than 200 short stories. Between 1952-1953, some of her
stories were broadcast on the radio. Rajam Krishnan has also created
fables to parody the inherent human evils. For instance, in the fable called
Kaakkaan she uses the metaphor of crows to depict the debased human
nature in the contemporary society. Her biography on Dr. Rangachari is a
seminal work in the genre of Tamil biographies owing to her painstaking
research. An inherent theme in all her works includes her attempt at
reformation of the human society and the particular predicament of
women. Her writings often remain openly didactic, more so in her fiction
where her characters act as mouthpieces of the author's penchant for
restructuring human society.
Her fiction and short stories are a product of her assiduous research.
She writes after having spent at least 6 months in the respective
field.When one surveys her fiction, one clearly perceives the evolution of
her style. From being a writer of domestic fiction in her earlier works she
is the first Tamil writer to have created well-researched social fiction. Her
fiction is born out of a deep social consciousness where creativity is no
mere embellishment or entertainment, but a powerful weapon of social
change. Novels dealing with regional themes have existed in Indian
vernacular writings. For instance, the Marathi novel Bangarvadi (1954) by
Vyankatesh Madgulkar and the Malayalam novel Chemmeen (1956) by
Thagazhi Sivasankara Pillai reflect the lives of the region. The writer's
first-hand knowledge of the anthropology, topography, demography,
history and geography of the chosen region bear an indelible mark of
authenticity to her works. Her first work on regional themes (which is a
product of her profound research), is Kurinji Then which analyses the lives
of the Baduga tribes in the Nilagiris where she had stayed with her
husband. Commenting on the rigorousness of the task involved, she
mentions thus: