20 Class, Caste, Gender: Intersections in New Writings in English

Sarani Roy

About the chappter:

This module shall focus on the politics of identity in some of the New English fictional narratives. The politics of identity is primarily negotiated in terms of a complex intersection of class, caste and gender categories. It has been argued that New English Literature is not only a response to the linguistic imperialism of the nineteenth century European colonialist project but it is also a critical interrogation of the indigenous systems of oppression that often overlapped and allied with the former. We have chosen  texts from a wide variety of background that challenge the essentialist categorization of human identity by the hegemonic narrative of official history; be it the Partition narrative of Cracking Identity that decides the nationality of individuals in terms of religious identity or the way Communism, casteism and patriarchy collaborate to silence the deviant sexuality in The God of Small Things, or the aggressive discourse of Talibani masculinity that ruthlessly excludes the minority identities. Thus a text like Sea of Poppies becomes representative as it shows that identity is a disguise which can be switched to resist power structures time and again.

The Idea of New English Literature: Rise and Spread 

If it is true that Europe used military prowess to subdue a good part of the world especially in the last part of the nineteenth century, then it must be admitted that military power alone could not ensure the victory of the war; it needed the help of cultural texts to complete what military might had merely started. In other words, it was clear that to assume control over a territory or a nation was not only to “exert political or economic power, it was also to have imaginative command” (Boehmer 5). The use of language and literature as a “mask of conquest” — to use the title of Viswanasath’s book – was only part of a larger scheme. It engineered the process of manufacturing and disseminating specific cultural stereotypes that consolidated the rhetoric of the “White man’s burden” and justified the presence of the colonizer in the colonies. But the process was never one sided; the empire soon started writing back. As Boehmer states in her Colonial and Postcolonial Literature it was only natural and automatic that “resistance to imperial domination — especially on the part of those who lacked guns or money – frequently assumed textual form” (14).Some of the textual forms that emerged as “resistance” to imperial domination later came to be named and grouped under the category of the New English Literatures, a term often interchangeably used for categories like Commonwealth literature, Third World Literature or Postcolonial Literature, though each of these terms has a specific historical baggage and a cultural context of use. But the relevance of the term “New English Literature” is that- these literatures not only invent the new possibilities of English language robbing it of its exclusivity and elitism of being the ruler’s language, but it continues to interrogate newer aspects of power-relations and more implicit forms of domination and subjugation in former colonies. The New English Writings have taken the word ‘colonialism’ out of its narrow historical context and expanded its horizons to include the layered and complex nature of any kind of power-relation that imitates the stereotypical colonizer-colonized relationship. Even after gaining political freedom the colonies have struggled with more subtle and nuanced forms of colonization due its inability to negotiate with the asymmetry that exists between classes, genders, castes, and other ethnic identities of its peoples. In order to understand the subversive potential of the New English Writings we have to pay heed to each of these categories individually and also have to take into account the ways in which these interact with one another.

A pertinent question that has been raised in the context of the colonial encounter that “Since men and women were affected differently by the experience of colonialism while gender relations were utilized on a discursive level to conceptualize the relationship between colonizers and colonized…” (Ako7) continues to be relevant in the postcolonial milieu as well; and is therefore addressed urgently by New English texts. On the problem of gender and class, Ahmad reminds us that, “nationalism in the present (century) has frequently suppressed questions of gender and class and has itself been frequently complicit with all kinds of obscurantisms and revanchist positions” (38). Not only class or gender but caste, religious and ethnic minority identities are also to be brought to focus as these groups experienced colonialism in various forms and in varying degrees. Ahmad notes that the Subaltern Studies Group in India set out to formulate a corrective to “elitist nationalist Indian historiography in order to investigate afresh the ways in which subaltern classes were affected by and reacted towards the colonial encounter”. What this means is that there were differences between and within colonies which makes it impossible to present postcolonialism as a simple binarism. Arun Mukherjee makes this point when he notes that “the postcolonialists’ generalizations about all ‘postcolonial people’ suggest that Third Worldism and/or  nationalism bind the people of these societies in conflictless brotherhood, that the inequalities of caste and class do not exist in these societies and that their literary works are only about ‘resisting’ or ‘subverting’ the colonizers’ discourses”. Although used as an umbrella term, “New Literatures” (significantly in the plural), true to its objective of not falling into the trope of generalization or any kind of forced assimilation, incorporates very different literary products, each with its own cultural and geographical specificity. I think it is important to be aware of this specificity as it was long denied by the colonialist project which aimed at making a homogeneous group of subjects. As a counter-narrative to this denial, New Literatures search for a meaningful identity and a local cultural specificity that resist the cultural assimilation of colonial rule or contemporary globalization. This search for identity has been particularly meaningful for writers who dealt with minority identities such as women and Dalits. Their challenging of the established norms is to be seen as a fight against patriarchy/heteronormativity and colonialism or its contemporary legacy in the globalization process.

The Concept of Intersectionality: A Theoretical Tool of Analysis

Therefore the theoretical approach we take in this module to read the interrelation of caste, class and gender issues in some of the New English fictions is the one informed by the theory of Intersectionality. The term intersectionality was coined by American feminist academic Kimberlé Crenshaw in an article published in 1989 on violence against women of color in the lower classes in the United States. Intersectionality (or Intersectionalism) is the study of intersections between different groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination. Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion- or belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination (Nimsadkar 1-2). According to Leslie McCall “inequalities are rooted in relationships that are defined by race, class, sexuality, and gender,…” (53); therefore the only way to eliminate oppression in society is to eliminate the categories used to section people into differing groups. In the course of the paper we would take up diverse geographical and cultural contexts with the common factor of English being used as a tool for resistance and indigenous identity construction ranging from the Caribbean through the Indian to Afghanistan.

Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea: Dialectic of the Self and the Other

Wide Sargasso Sea, a pioneering New English novel by the Dominica-born British author Jean Rhys critically interrogates the politics of stereotypification inherent in the project of colonialism. The book “inquires into the production of knowledge about Englishness and, in the process, puts Englishness itself into crisis” (Ciolkowski 339). Wide Sargasso Sea takes on the issue of how difference-the difference between English and Creole, white and black, man and woman- determines what we know and how we know it.

Class Conflict:

The novel talks about three primary classes-the British white master-colonizer, the White Caribbean plantation and slave owner, and the Black Slaves and Workers of the plantations. The relationships between these classes are governed by asymmetries of power. The novel depicts the growing hostility between the former slave owners and the Black slave workers after the passage of 1833 Emancipation Act. As an aftermath the Jamaican elite falls from its glory as represented by the misfortunes Antoinette’s family is subject to. The strained relationship between the family and its servants is also an extension of the rise of the working class after the demise of plantocracy; the servants are shown to be gossiping all the time. Racial and class animosity becomes obvious when Antoinette is rejected by her childhood friend Tia, the servant’s daughter whom she runs to after the attack on their farm by some of the former slaves. The servants do not form a homogeneous group in the novel. There is Christophine, who like her mistress, comes from Martinique and is therefore treated as an outsider by the Jamaican servant women. There is also Amelie young half-caste servant who accompanies Antoinette and her husband to Granbois. When Antoinette slaps Amelie for an impudent comment, Amelie slaps Antoinette back, calling her a “white cockroach” and smiling suggestively at her husband. Later she sleeps with Rochester to complete her  revenge. She challenges the racial hierarchization of social classes vehemently.

The Problem of the Colored Woman and the “Half-Caste” Child:

There is not only constant Juxtaposition between the White and the Black Woman but there is even deeper juxtaposition and hierarchy between English whiteness and Creole Whiteness. Rochester’s constant suspicion of Antoinette’s madness is symptomatic of the Victorian fear of uncontrolled female sexuality leading to miscegenation and hybridization. The anxiety to ensure racial purity entails the need to do moral policing over the biological boundaries of Englishness especially when it comes into contact with other racial, ethnic and cultural groups. “And because the healthy nation that embraces the values of the patriarchal family in order to reproduce itself also criminalizes the behaviors of overproductive subjects, the unchaste Creole woman must be the object of sustained legislative attention and state control” (Ciolkowski 343). Not only women but men are also held with contempt by the English. The English hate the Creole men for being drunkard and lecherous. Antoinette’s father is the prototype of this kind who is known for fathering a number of illegitimate children having numerous sexual affairs with Black women. According to Barbara Bush, “In the West Indies, sexual relationships between black and colored women and white men were widespread, commonplace and generally accepted by the plantocracy to be an integral part of the social structure of the islands” (11). Rochester leaves Jamaica to avoid moral contamination. Antoinette is scolded for acknowledging her half-brothers. One of them Sandi is extremely handsome and the text suggests the possibility of incest between him and Antoinette. Another of the bastard sons of Antoinette’s fathers Daniel informs Rochester of her hereditary madness and is instrumental in ruining their relationship. Thus the text suggests how the boundaries of traditional hierarchies are faltering. While the blacks and the bastards (the racial and classed others) threaten the white Jamaican plantocracy, the Creole woman (the colonial and gendered other) plans to set the English home at fire.

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: the Issue of Untouchability, Gender Discrimination and Consent Building

A representative New English text dealing with the intersections of caste, class and gender would be Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. 

Hypocrisies of Christianity:

The Christian intervention in India despite its high claims of equality has not been able to erase the stigma of lower castes or untouchables for those who have been converted. Lancy Lobo in the essay ‘Visions, Illusions and Dilemmas of Dalit Christians in India’ (2001) deals with the Christian dalit dilemma in India. According to Lobo in the 20 million Christians in India about 70 per cent, that is 14 million are dalits (243). According to him the converts suffer from four distinct types of discrimination: from the church, state, upper castes and from the lower castes (246). So even after conversion, the Dalits have remained to be the most disempowered and dispossessed group. While people like Tanika Sarkar argue that the colonial rule and the church compromised considerably with the Hindu brahmanic patriarchy and upper caste norms in retaining hegemony, Arunoday Guha is concerned about the double labyrinth of Christian dalithood that betray the victims their constitutional rights (Sekhar 2). On the other hand the upper caste Hindus who have converted into Christianity continue to believe in the traditional hierarchies of caste. Roy has effectively captured this dilemma in her novel. The first chapter of the novel takes us directly to the heart of the problem. Estha the boy among the two egg twins (the other being Rahel) of Ammu the central woman character in the novel, encounters the history of oppression and rhetoric of charity reinforcing it: “Estha walked past the village school that his grandfather built for untouchable children”. The novel ironically demarcates between ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ paravans. Unlike Velutha who was literate and independent, Vella Paapen and Kuttappan were good, safe paravans. They could neither read nor write. They were tied to their family profession and never dreamt of any class upliftment. That is the important thing about the untouchables, as long as they remain simple, humble and naive without knowing anything of the world, even letters, they are good. The moment they become questioning and assertive and aware of their rights they become bad and even worse. We have seen this gender, economic and cultural capital appropriation and monopoly in the character of Pillai, who is a typical capitalist, patriarchal, feudal minded man who uses the state machinery to eliminate a deviant body like that of Velutha.

The Failures of Communism in eradicating the caste-system:

The novel shows how there developed an unholy alliance between high-caste Hinduism and West-imported Communism. Communism like Christianity (of which Pillai and Namboodiripadu, are typical representatives) launched itself as a reform movement in kerala which never really questioned the traditional systems of authority. It also shared a strong camaraderie with the Syrian Christians (among them Chacko, Ammu’s brother the Oxford scholar and communist is one). It had to take up the masque of benevolent social reform movement so that it could mobilize the muscle power and voting potential of the untouchables. Velutha, the central character who is an untouchable Paaravan and who eventually engages in a passionate love affair with the high-class Syrian Christian woman Ammu, is introduced in the novel through a communist workers’ rally, being a card holding member of the party. The Syrians are ardent practitioners of untouchability, since they claim the lineage of caste Hindu and even brahamanic origins. They do not allow the Paaravans entry through the front door of the house; whenever they require their service they are given entry through the back door. The narrative also identifies the purity pollution core of caste psyche in Baby Kochamma’s contemptuous remark; “how could she stand the smell, these paravans have a peculiar smell”.

Gender Discrimination:

Into this caste-class nexus gender also intrudes viciously. The novelist sarcastically refers to Chacko’s “Marxist mind and feudal libido” (168) as he does not hesitate to sexually exploit the untouchable women of the village. Even the women of the family see nothing wrong in “men’ s needs”; they rather gladly arrange back-door entry of these women to the house to ensure the smooth functioning of this patriarchal practice and even bribe the women themselves. But the same conditions do not apply on Ammu when she loves Velutha the untouchable man; instead the state, family and religion all conspire against her to eliminate this act of defiance. Ammu is immediately castigated because the question of honor of a caste/community is always associated with the idea of normative female sexuality and is more specifically written on her body. Committing suicide in a hotel room away from her children is the only option left to her.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner: Religious Intolerance, Cultural Illegitimacy and Quest for Personal Integration

The next text that we would talk about is Khaled Hosseini’s The kite Runner which is set in the very different cultural milieu of the Afghanistan but has some of the same affiliations as that of the previous texts.

Hierarchy of Ethnic Groups:

There has been a long history of an ethnic divide within Afghanistan. It has created imbalances in wealth, influence and education within its society. Traditionally Pashtuns or the Sunnis have dominated the country because they are the presumed majority of the population and the Hazaras or the Shias have lived a life of deprivation and humiliation. Kite fighting is a perfect example of this hierarchical caste system. The team of two in the kite- fighting competition comprises of the one who shall fly kites and the other whose job is to chase fallen kites. Hassan who is a Shi’a is assigned the latter job while Amir being a Pashtun is entitled for flying kites. Caste identity inevitably finds its parallel in class identity as Hassan is the son of the servant Ali who serves Amir’s family. The entire issue of power- positions is not uninformed by gender as well. The novel reveals the hollowness of the arbitrary categories of caste and class by showing that Amir and Hassan are half-brothers; the Hazara boy is actually the illegitimate son of Amir’s father. Ali’s (the servant) subjugated position in terms of class and caste identities amounts to the loss of his masculinity as well. He is shown to be an impotent figure and is well aware of the adultery that his wife commits with his own master. Even the ethnic cleansing that happened in Mazar-i-Sharif is one of the ways by which the ‘masculine’ Pashtuns subjugate the ‘feminized’ Hazaras and reinforce their dominance. Hosseini, in many ways, has feminized Afghanistan by emphasizing values like love, friendship, compassion and forgiveness while the Taliban and the other forces which ravaged it are the so-called ‘masculine’ forces trying to gain a control over her by a display of physical valor.

Ruptures in the Discourse of Masculinity:

The discourse of masculinity prevails through the book. As the child-narrator Amir grows up, he learns what it means to be a man from his father and Amir’s childhood is scarred due to his failures to live up to his culture’s masculine expectations. For Amir his Baba represents all the normative markers of masculinity; Baba’s nickname ‘Mr. Hurricane’ symbolizes his fierce powerful personality, his muscle power and gigantic physique. Baba also clearly defines and demarcates between male and female activities; while doing sports and being active is identified as manly by Baba, Amir is more inclined towards ‘feminine’  acts such as reading and writing poetry. Yet Amir struggles to win his father’s approval all his life. Finally, when he is twelve, he wins the local Kite-flying tournament and gets what he always wanted, his father’s pride in him. However, on the same day, he sees Hassan getting raped by an older boy and fails to stand up for him. Unable to cope up with this defeat of his masculine self he shuns Haasan out of guilt. The saga of friendship comes to an abrupt end. Hosseini also tries to negotiate with the layered nature of the idea of masculinity. The aggressive brand of masculinity represented by Assef is to be distinguished from Baba’s brand of masculinity which is more akin to the idea of communal honor and personal integrity. Hassan’s rape by Assef is not only a violation of normative sexuality the limits of which are set by the culture but it is essentially an act of dominance over those who are in a less powerful position.

Reversals:

But the novel redefines the accepted boundaries of class, caste and gender identities in a way that demands notice. After moving to America Amir and Baba experience a significant loss of class privilege where they are started to be treated as second-class citizens. One instance is when Mrs. Dobbins offers them ‘free food’ and Baba considers it as a great insult that he would have to live off charity. This eventually results in the softening of his staunch masculine personality; in a way Baba becomes feminized in America taking care of the household in the absence of servants and also starts sharing a more compassionate relation with Amir no longer condescending him for not being man enough. Amir also rediscovers  his masculinity which he had lost after betraying Hassan in more than one way; first is when he decides to marry Soraya even after knowing that she is not a virgin. The final redemptive act, of course, is to stand up for Sohrab, Hassan’s son, a victim of sexual abuse administered by the same Assef, something he could not do when he was twelve. Being man is then not simply being powerful but it is to be true to oneself.

Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India (1988) and Fracture of Values:

Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India is another New English text that probes deep into the realities of the intersection of caste, class and gender in a historically troubled moment of the continent. It documents the traumatic experience of the Partition following India’s independence in 1947 that scars the history of South-Asia till date.

The dynamics of Majority-Minority Identities:

Cracking India is a text that mobilizes various marginalized subjectivities in its (re)construction of a counter-narrative to official histories of Partition. The world of Sidhwa’s novel is robust with characters from different ethnic and religious backgrounds including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsees; it maps their lives lived in the bustling streets of Lahore before the nation cracked down. The novel interrogates the dynamics of majority and minority identities in the making of a new nation and shows how power equations change with time. Even before the Partition the narrative world was a deeply divided one where characters were identified by their class positions or by the professions they are involved in; they are called Ayah or the nanny, Malishwala or the masseur and Icecandywala or the seller of ice candy. But soon after the news of Partition spreads their identities undergo a radical shift which reduces them to their religious identities like they are either Hindu Muslim or Sikh. Sidhwa’s choice of a Parsee girl narrator for Cracking India is also important. The Parsees constituted a tiny minority in British India. Lenny, because her religion situates her on the periphery, is able to narrate with objectivity, the implication being that someone speaking from “the middle” would be somewhat biased. In pre-Partition time Parsees happened to be an upper-class minority. The Parsee household has been portrayed with obvious signs of affluence. But Partition robs them of their class privilege. Some of their own servants turn against them. It is through Lenny’s changed perception of the world that the reality of Partition is made visible. Shortly after the Partition she feels the religious animosity in the air while coming across a Brahmin in the Lawrence Garden who gives a look of hatred and vengeance to Lenny and Yousaf and leaves without completing his meal. Suddenly the religious affiliations inscribed on bodies become significant. Hari’s “tuft of bodhi-hair” and shaven head suddenly appear fiendish and ludicrous disrupting Lenny’s amicable relationship with the Hindu gardener.

Parallel between Religious and Gender Violence:

The innocent game of pulling Hari, the Hindu gardener’s dhoti in pre-Partition days becomes a potential threat of sexual violence in the later part of the novel simply because he is now looked upon as an ‘other’ because of his religion. The description of his dhoti as “obscene” and “begging to be taken off” (126) evokes the image of a woman raped whilst wearing sexually attractive clothing which signals an “asking for it.” In this passage, then, Sidhwa draws a parallel between religious and gendered violence. The idea is that the Partition which was drawn on the basis of religious majority left the minority groups in a vulnerable position so much so that they were almost feminized. Ayah is unquestionably disturbed by what happens to Hari and her distress surely anticipates the final act of violation that is to happen to her. What is only a possibility in the case of Hari becomes reality for Ayah because being a Hindu and also a woman she is doubly marginalized. The woman’s body becomes the site to negotiate issues of contested nationhood by perpetuating systematic violence. After the Partition, we witness a spate of religious conversions as people attempt to escape brutal persecution. Just as Moti has become David, so Hari has become Himat Ali. The butcher’s brother, “bent on mischief” along with the rest of the mob, wants to “make sure” that Hari is no longer Hindu: “Undo your shalwar, Himat Ali. Let’s see if you’re a proper Muslim” (192). Men use their bodies to argue that their lives should be spared. As Ray notes, Ayah “has no recourse to such fundamental anatomic transformations”; her Hinduism is irrevocably inscribed on her body” (133-34).Thus religious conversion is never enough for Ayah unlike Hari turned Himmat Ali who can easily prove his conversion by showing a circumcised penis.

Intervention of Class: 

Ambreen Hai in her article “Border Work, Border Trouble: Postcolonial Feminism and the Ayah in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India” reads Ayah’s lower class position as a crucial factor in her objectification and victimization. She makes the point that because she is a lower class woman not only her group of men assume her to be easily available but also Lenny’s gaze(who is the master’s daughter) robs her of her subjectivity and reduces her to an object. For Lenny Ayah represents a form of sexuality very distinct from the sexuality of the upper-class Parsee women represented by Lenny’s mother. The ‘availability’ of Ayah is blantanly shown in the way she is forced to work as a prostitute in the red light district of Hira mandi; and when Lenny demands to know “which men do such things to [Ayah].” Cousin replies: “oh, any man who has the money [my emphasis].    My cook, wrestlers, Imam Din, the knife-sharpener, merchants, peddlers, the governor, coolies…” (253). A woman of lower class and minority religion is nothing but a ‘thing’ to be consumed.

Arvind Adida’s The White Tiger: the Emergence of a New India

Just when the world had started marveling at the economic miracle of India, a brutal confession by Arvind Adida’s The White Tiger exposed the widening gap between the rich and poor, rural and urban, the powerful minority and the helpless majority that characterizes contemporary India.

Caste a Residual Ideology, Class a Dominant Ideology:

The narrative of Balram Halwai, the protagonist and his rise from Munna to Ashok Sharma portrays a dark, sickening, half-dead India. The novel makes the statement that no longer in the Indian reality caste, class or genders intersect keeping their distinctive criterion but it is ultimately class that has gobbled up the other factors. As the book says that in earlier days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India but now just two castes (actually classes): “Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up” … That was all that counted now, the size of your bellies. It didn’t “matter whether you were a woman, or a Muslim, or an untouchable—anyone with a belly could rise up” (64). India is not only the country of high-rise buildings, shopping malls, business and entrepreneurs but it’s also the country of groups of drifters and homeless men—the part of underclass who seemed to have been left out of the story of India’s growth; people who beg for food, sleep under concrete flyovers, defecate on the roadside. In one India live many Indias.

Modern and Traditional Methods of Exploitation Collaborate:

At the same time the book sheds light on the traditional systems of exploitation like Zamindari practice. Buffalo, Stork, Wild Boar and Raven are four landlords of Balram’s native village who exercise their monopoly respectively on the agricultural land, water, waste land and the transport of the village. It also draws attention to the continuing predominance of the dowry system in marriages of rural India. Balram’s cousin-sister Reena’s lavish marriage and lavish dowry compelled them to borrow big loan from Stork who in lieu of that demanded all members of the family to work for him and Balram was pulled out of the  school and started working at tea shop. The world of Darkness abounds in social taboos, rigid caste distinction, superstitions, and caste and culture conflict. In rural India man is known and recognized by his caste. The old driver of Stork asked Bakram: “What caste are you?”(56). Balram’s surname is itself the signifier of his caste and his family profession, “halwai” which means the sweet-maker. Ram Persad, the servant of Stork disguised his identity because the prejudiced landlord didn’t like Muslim—he claimed to be a Hindu just to get a job and feed his starving family. On disclosure he was sacked from the job. While playing cricket, Roshan, the grandson of Stork calls himself Azaruddin, the Captain of India. Stork reacts quickly, “call yourself Gavasker. Azaruddin is a Muslim”.

But the nature of the underclass in cities is of peculiar kind. While in villages exploitation is mainly caste based the city houses a heterogeneous group of the dispossessed and dismembered who have only one identity that they are poor and laborers; this includes workers of the industrial set-up, taxi and auto drivers, servants, and prostitutes. Balram as a chauffeur was hired by Stork, a village landlord for his son Ashok and daughter-in-law Pinky. Drivers also carry out the work of a servant washing utensils, cooking, caring for the pets; they sell drugs, prostitutes and read with full enthusiasm Murder Weekly because, “a billion servants are secretly fantasizing about strangling their bosses” (125). The hit and run case which legally belongs to Pinky is shifted to Balram: “The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind the bars because they are taking the blame for their good, solid middle- class masters”.

The Prostitute and the Bored Housewife: Two facets of Patriarchy Prostitution is another dark area of the enlightened India. In the big cities, due to poverty most of the women are forced to adopt prostitution. In Dhanbad, Delhi and Bangalore, there are red light areas where one can negotiate a price with these women. And the price depends on, “High class or low class? Virgin or non-virgin?” (227). In Delhi, especially rich people prefer “golden-haired women” (232). Forgery also involves in this racket; suppliers present a woman dyed in golden hair to snatch the maximum price. Nepali girls, Ukranian students join this racket; also poor laborers from the village working in construction sites allow their women for prostitution. But the novel hints at a different category of women as well. The character of Pinky, Balram’s master Ashok’s wife is symptomatic of the upper-class woman, the stereotypical bored housewife killing her time with make-up and shopping and occasional driving (which often meets accidents) puts a question mark on the discourse of feminism and women empowerment in Third world countries. They flaunt some of the markers of liberation like wearing short dresses or smoking or driving. But without any real economic independence and productive engagement this prototype of women consolidates the power structures of patriarchy.

Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies: Challenging Roots, Celebrating Liminality

The next book we shall talk about deals with a specific case of colonial history; the case of the indentured laborers. The forced diaspora was an offshoot of colonialism which incessantly negotiated with issues of caste, class and gender to settle questions of ethnic identity and cultural nationalism.

Caste and the Metaphor of the Sea:

Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies shows a curious connection between caste and the forced migration to plantation colonies. Rooted in religion and based on the division of labor, the caste system in India, among other things, dictated the type of occupation a person would pursue and the social interactions a person would have. The prospect of losing one’s caste was, therefore, was unthinkable for it permitted no possibility of social life outside the caste system. The crossing of the sea, the kala pani, Vijay Mishra observes, has remained a powerful symbol of travel across troubled waters to lands from which no body returned home. In his article “Memory and Recall” Mishra associates kala pani with the more general Hindu fear of crossing the sea, for it meant “loss of caste as well as indenture and servitude for earlier migrants to the Empire’s plantation colonies” (90); Hindu traditions have it that the sea was like the netherworld, a forbidding place from which no traveler returned (89). Unfreezing the meaning of kala pani from the OED, Mishra maintains that the more specific meaning of transportation and loss of caste is found in Mulk Raj Anand’s Across the Black Waters (1940) and Paul Scott’s Jewel in the Crown (1966). In the novel, Deeti, the upper- caste woman, who turns into a girmitiya on board to the plantation colony in Mauritius is allowed a moment of reflection on the implication of crossing the black water and thereby on losing one’s caste; for Deeti it means never being able to enter her father’s house and hugging her mother and enjoying a meal with siblings .

Gain of Sexual Agency in exchange of Caste:

It’s a telling moment in the text when Deeti loses her upper-caste identity but occupies an empowered position in terms of her gender identity; or rather it is suggested that it is only at cost of the former that the latter could be gained. As an upper-caste woman Deeti was severely oppressed; she was raped by her brother-in-law on her marital night; married to an impotent man she was denied sexual pleasure; and finally after her husband’s death she was all set to be burnt alive. She did not mind to run away with the untouchable Kalua from her death pyre and joined the group of indentured laborers in Calcutta. She introduced herself and Kalua to other girmitiyas as “Chamars” (234), of the leather workers’ caste. It is on the Ibis, the ship that is bound for Mauritius that Deeti starts taking control of life; she proves that she owns both her body and mind. On the ship she had sexual intercourse with kalua and was also impregnated by him. While her first child was the result of her rape, the child that she expects stands for a new future where accepted boundaries of caste, class and gender would be questioned and more heterogeneous, flexible and inclusive categories of identity would be available. Deeti also assumes the leadership of girmitiyas on the Ibis, showing characteristics of a very strong woman who had her own opinions. On the ship she ventures to put those men in their places “who tease and provoke and do all kinds of chherkani” with the young and pretty women (243). Again, she dares to confront the authorities when she hears Munia, an orphaned girl, crying for help.

The Multicultural Space of the Ship:

A final note on the cultural space of the ship and how it accommodates the intersection of caste, class and gender. In The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy theorizes the space of the ship as a site that involves “the flows, exchanges, and in-between elements” (190) of the migrants’ identity. Working upon Gilroy’s focus on diasporic study of the Black Atlantic, Vijay Mishra calls the ship as first of the cultural units in which the social relations were “re-sited and re- negotiated” (“New Lamps” 74). Mishra further notes that in the case of the old Indian diaspora, a ship “produced a site in which caste purities were largely lost (after all, crossing the dark ocean, the kalapani, signified the loss of caste) as well as a new form of socialization that went by the name of jahaji-bhai (ship-brotherhood)” emerged (“New Lamps” 74). Ghosh uses the Ibis to redefine and reshuffle codes of racial, ethnic and class relationships. It brings down the raja/zamindar to the level of his subjects (Nilratan Halder, zamindar of Rashakali), makes blueblood Europeans and Americans mingle with commoners (Paulette, the daughter of the French Botanist and Zacharay, the American sailor) and questions accepted gender stereotypes (Deeti assuming masculine model of leadership and Babu Nobo kissen indulging in feminine qualities like love, devotion and whimsicality.)

Conclusion and Summary:

In the course of this module we have tried to argue that human identity is itself a fictional narrative that can only make sense when put into particular contexts. Identity has no essentialist value because the markers on which it is dependent are certain cultural constructs like class, caste, gender and ethnicity. Each of these categories is extremely complex, multi- layered and has no universal meaning. We have chosen a handful of texts that range from distinct geographical and cultural contexts. But all of these texts taken together make the point that these categories cannot be understood in isolation; rather these work in an interrelated fashion. We have tried to show how caste, class and gender intersect in some of the New English Writings. There is a constant dialogue between all these categories which plays integral role in the shaping of personality of individuals; sometimes it contributes to the double marginalization of characters like Antoinette and Ayah (both racial/religious and gendered other) and sometimes to the empowerment of a character like Deeti who let go of her caste privilege to achieve sexual independence.

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