RELLENO Y COMPACTADO DE ZANJA CON TIERRA CERNIDA UNIDAD: Metro Cubico (m3)

This thesis employs two distinct forms of gender analysis methodology. The first follows on from the above intended approach to the Ramayana, and employs the goddess (virgin)/whore dichotomy. This theme, which is a common feature of gender analysis, refers to the almost impossible demands of perfection that woman in many religious and historical texts are forced to face, and the disgrace they experience should they fall short of this

standard. This is intertwined with the second approach to gender that this thesis employs; the othering of women, where women are defined by their passivity and silence. This is best exemplified by the notion of the subaltern as outlined in the literature review of the last chapter, and framed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in the essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”239

238 _{Zacharias, “Trial by Fire,” 29.}

61 This virgin/whore dichotomy is a Western feminist concept originating in the theories and work of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century psychologist Sigmund Freud.240 It describes a construct which emerges in several narrative traditions in varied forms and under different names; each of which describes the polarisation of women between two rigid

models. According to the virgin/whore dichotomy, ‘good’ women are those who either do not express themselves as sexual beings, or who only do so within the bounds of marriage.

Women who do not reach this ideal, meanwhile, are immediately classified as ‘whores’.241

Wendy Doniger points to the theme of the mother as an “ancient and persistent Hindu mythology”, who is characterised as virtuous and wholly devoted to sons.242 _{While a mother}

is not chaste in a sexual sense, her unwavering loyalty to her husband and sons places her in the category of the positive and virtuous female archetype. The other key character in this archetype is the chaste virgin. Like the mother figure, the girl is obedient to the men in her life. Contrasted against this, Doniger continues, is the female villain; often a demon in Sanskrit texts, who attempts to use her sexuality to manipulate men and undermine pure women. This dichotomy associates positive womanhood strongly and irrevocably with the non-sexual, and in some cases, elevates this to goddesshood. Any deviation from the ‘good woman’ mould irrevocably categorises women as a “bad mother/whore”.243

Priyadarshini Vijaisri, a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi applies this construct specifically to Indian feminism and feminist movements. While Vijaisri is specifically concerned with the alienation of outcaste (Dalit) women in opposition to caste women, the same construct is transferable to the relationship between the ideal of the

240 _{Browyn Kara Conrad, “Neo-Institutionalism, Social Movements, and the Cultural Reproduction of a}

Mentalité: Promise Keepers Reconstruct the Madonna/Whore Complex,” The Sociological Quarterly 47, no. 2 (2006): 11.

241 _{Jonathan Gottschall et al., “Can Literary Study Be Scientific?: Results of an Empirical Search for the} Virgin/Whore Dichotomy,” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 7, no. 2 (2006): 2.

242 _{Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, “The Mythological in Disguise: An Analysis of Karz,” India International}

Centre Quarterly 8, no. 1 (1981): 25.

62 female deity or the virtuous woman in Hindu texts, and Hindu women in India. The

adaptation of Vijaisri’s construct serves as a bridge between the ‘Madonna/whore’ complex as applicable to Indian culture, and the model of the subaltern. The ‘subaltern’, which as stated in the previous chapter was drawn from the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, has become popular in South Asian Studies. The term “…was used to signify the centrality of dominant/dominated relationships in history”, where the ‘subaltern’ is the subjugated or subordinate group.244 Subaltern studies therefore aims to focus on the experiences and actions of subaltern groups, from the perspective of the subaltern rather than that of the oppressor. In reference to gender, this model is best expounded upon by Gayatri Spivak, a prominent Indian literary and gender theorist.

In the essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Spivak examines the role of women particularly in colonial Indian society as silent actors. She argues that there is a key

distinction between the terms ‘speak’ and ‘talk’. Women may physically talk and be vocally expressive but, but according they cannot be heard as active social voices with independent agency. Additionally, women’s history and female narratives are viewed from external, dominant perspectives as objects of examination rather than individual beings. Furthermore, whether women were living under colonial rule or participating in anticolonial insurgencies, the same gender constructs applied to keep males in the dominant position. Spivak goes on to state that “…the protection of woman…becomes a signifier for the establishment of a good society…”245 _{In both situations, women are judged by their ability to act according to a script}

which furthers the aims of men.

By applying this lens to the Ramayana and to women in colonial and postcolonial India, it is evident that women have been primarily represented as actors in predetermined

244 _{Gyan Prakash, “Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,” The American Historical Review 99, no. 5} (1994): 1477.

63 roles, with limited autonomous action and thought available to them. Moreover, attempting to subvert or break this imposed archetype leads to negative consequences for those individuals, as acting out against the dominant discourse is a violation not against specific persons, but rather against the social fabric. This thesis considers Spivak’s theory of the subaltern and its distinction between the Indian woman’s ability to talk versus their ability to speak, in relation to the female voice in Indian history, culture, and politics, and the role of Hinduism as

defined by Hindutva in shaping the limits of how women are heard in modern India.

3.6. Conclusion

By combining these related frameworks and understandings, this thesis’s analysis builds on the methodological framework of Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined community’ and Charlotte Linde’s ‘tacit knowledge’ in the role of narrative as a unifying force. These terms operate as a joined lens to examine how the Ramayana has been used in establishing a foundational narrative for Hindu nationalists. The reading of the text and text analysis is focused on the Valmiki Ramayana as the basis for the modern popular understanding of Hinduism and the extremely popular television serial, while acknowledging that there is also a rich and vast Ramayana culture.

The model of secularism that this thesis refers to is distinct to that of Western secularism, and the extent to which the Indian state and legislature may be called secular is debatable.246 According to the nation’s Constitution it is a secular state. Legally members of all religions are considered equal citizens in the eyes of the government, and this is what Hindu nationalists seek to question.. Considering the framework provided by Ashis Nandy,

246 _{Baber, “Religious Nationalism, Violence and the Hindutva Movement in India”; Nandy, “The Politics of} Secularism and the Recovery of Religious Tolerance.”

64 ‘secularism’ is the most appropriate term for the system of government and society proposed by Independence activists and currently in place in modern India.

The next chapter applies the literary interpretive methodological approach outlined above to the Ramayana, to extract readings in light of the virgin/whore literary paradigm against the backdrop of Spivak’s construction of women as part of the subaltern. It also considers the 1987 television serial Ramayan (Ramanand Sagar) as a tool for reviving the imagined community of consumers of the Ramayana in all its forms, as well as for adding to the swell in traditionalist Hindu nationalism through the 1980s.

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