Abstract
The
culture and ethnicity of India is one of its high points, perhaps that is the
reason why even in a host country the Indian communities find it hard to
disassociate themselves from the place of origin. This hardship could be
produced as a reason for needing to adhere and preserve the social and cultural
norms. This need for adherence expected by the senior members of the community
puts an enormous pressure for those who have newly migrated. And as often
witnessed it is the woman in the house who must ensure that the ways of past
and the cultural order is still upheld despite the difference of the host makes
it hard for them psychologically and socially. Thus the result is an extremely
confining situation. The cultural and
ethnic norms are better understood with the critical reading of the book
Provoked by Kiranjit Ahluwalia, which is an autobiographical in nature and will
explain the lack of self definition and the patriarchal order that is perhaps
harsher than it is at home for a migrated married woman. This article will
therefore serve to throw some light on how the Indian diasporic ideas that affects
the battered woman and how her arrest changed the life of other through
collective consciousness.
Role
a woman place in her culture and community
Provoked is the autobiographical
account of Kiranjit Ahluwalia who came from a well to do rural background and
was married to Deep and moved to Crawley, West Sussex, UK. It was within the
months of moving in, that the nature of their relationship changed
dramatically. She suffered through ten years of severe domestic violence. It is
while reading the book Provoked, that one can understand how the sense of
control through patriarchy and culture is maintained for women to be
submissive. This book is a narrative account that speaks of the unimaginable violence
that Kiranjit suffers. It gives the detailed descriptions of spousal rape,
physical and mental torture and beating she went through for ten long years
before her alleged murder of her husband after which she was arrested. She had
supposedly burnt her husband and was initially sent for lifetime in prison but
later she was tried again and was beheld for reduced responsibility for her
depressive state during the time of the murder.
The general consensus of what patriarchy is
basically a “cultured man” and a “natural woman”. This role of a
woman as being a natural woman is further encouraged because of their
domesticity, as they are typically in charge of the primary type socialization
of the children even in the Indian diasporic communities. The responsibility of
propagating the ethnic and culture identity falls on the woman. Kiran in Provoked describes her husband beating
her in details for wearing a skirt in front of their two sons while dropping
them off to their school. The patriarchy
in the community expects the woman to comply and be the one to propagate the
culture and if in case of any misbehaviour or transgression, the shame and
dishonour is because of the woman, for her lack of control and thus another way
to control the women. Maintenance of ethnicity and culture hence does not allow
any space and expression. The lack of space and expression can be understood
when Kiran is in the jail and is being question by her lawyer about her chance
of freedom from jail, Kiran timidly expresses that this was the first time she
felt free
.
Controlling
a woman through honour and sex
Michel Foucault in the book,
History of Sexuality explains that sex and sexuality is often used as a form
control. It is in most communities felt that sexual honour is a thing for woman
that must be kept private and be control only there. Also according to Ladislav
Holy, “‘honour is a similar resource to property, economic cooperation or
power. It too has to be secured and protected in the same way as these other
resources’” .
For Kiranjit this was especially
the place where her husband Deepak would exercise his control and power. As
explained in the book, Deepak had once inhabited Kiran to have sex before their
children to affect their psyche and for her to later feel guilt over it, thus
leading to a semblance of spousal rape. This female honour is especially a
thing of great consequence where by a woman is measured - Kiran’s mother in law
who was asked to bear witness to her son’s brutal treatment to Kiran, she
refused anything against her son and instead said how Kiran always demanded
money and wanted to go out, basically demeaning the honour Kiran held as a wife
and mother. Thus ‘honour’ becomes a central part of self identification of a
woman. The women in the community have therefore got to protect their honour
and hold all their social behaviour such so that this honour is not tarnished however,
this is another way of control over the women, as such Braden and Hafez
commented that the society have been able to “‘embed ideas of honour in culture
by asserting their right to be the civil, political and economic leaders of
society at the expense of women’”.
Furthermore Ortner emphasises
that social constructions of womanhood manages to strengthen controls and
ensures compliance.
“Further, she is
almost universally socialized to have a narrower and generally more
conservative set of attitudes and views than man, and the limited social
contexts of her adult life reinforce this situation. This socially engendered
conservatism and traditionalism of woman’s thinking is another – perhaps the
worst, certainly the most insidious – mode of social restriction, and would
clearly be related to her traditional function of producing well-socialized
members of the group.”
Dealing
with pressures of being a woman in a diasporic land
In the book Provoked, Deepak, Kiran’s husband insists Kiran to dance with his colleague
in a social function, but later comes home and beats her up for accepting his
word for dancing with his colleague. This shows the Indian diasporic
construction to assimilate with the host country and nonetheless, feel a constant
dislocation to the host country. It is not a very proper thing in Indian culture
to dance with another man, perhaps this angers Deepak into reacting so
violently.
Kiran wishes to leave her abusive
husband for years however, doesn’t just as many other women accept that it
would maintain their marital status and not make them the gossip among the
community members and hold the difficult social status of being a single woman.
Kiran explains in her own words that, becoming single would make her a burden
to her family and her community would accuse her of being a woman without
character. Thus the chains of divorce, character, ‘izzat’ and family held her
down. Kiran herself explained that in
order to hold the family honour she had suffered horrors and pain silently. Her
culture and religion taught her to respect her husband that his word and desire
is her command and a religious duty. And those women, who do not follow such,
had no place in the society. Thus the honour dictates that she is responsible
for not just her husband’s but also his family’s. The Indian diaspora dictates
as much, but how is one to follow such norms if one is a battered woman. This
explains the social, religious constructs and also points the psychological impression
it had on her. These constructs are what gives a woman her stronghold in the
family and community and if one deviates from the norms Kiran explain the
society would ostracize her. In other words Kiran explains that escape is
limited and despite her trying her husband threats and family’s pressure on
maintaining ‘izzat’ held her back.
Recognition
of the self and lack thereof at home and away
Kiranjit tries to find some self
recognition (internal recognition of their relationship) when she confronts her
husband about his affair but is then again beaten and at last pushed to the
edge when she decides to burn him. The life she lead with him was one of severe
abuse and violence and sees no way out. He threatened to break her ankles, burn
her face, etc. Kiran has said in many interviews as well as in the book that
she wanted him to feel the pain just as she had and not being able to after
her. This is perhaps Kiranjit’s defining moment in her abusive marriage that
shows her mental state when she finally gave into self preservation and
affirming herself.
It is mostly assumed that most of the
migrated Indians are not as thoroughly immersed in their ethnicity and cultural
codes as those back home. It is expected of them to inculcate and immerse themselves
in the host country’s way of life to be accepted. The western ideas of women’s
independence and assertion are one of the highlighting points. As such, parents
rather have their daughters married off to a man of Indian diaspora. Just as
Kiran’s father had done, expecting their daughter not to be as thoroughly succumbed
to their culture as the women to back home, to have an independent life as a
woman to but instead the escalating dowry demands are often witnessed and if
not met these young new brides experience violence that comes close to death,
something Kiran experienced more than once. It is essential to understand that
Indian diaspora have a perhaps much more stringent lifestyle.
Survival and the fight for self identification by bringing in change
When
Kiran was imprisoned her only defence was the pathetic way she was treated in
her marriage, but what could have finally lead her or ‘provoked’ her to take
final step? Was it her husband or was it the communal hard codes of their
culture? Or a combination of both? Why did self- control finally break? To understand
these questions one must understand the problem. The problem with all this was
perhaps the hypocrisy that was made to be the centre of her self-definition,
like respect from her husband and support of the family. Kiran rose out of her
prison sentence with much help from the South-Hall Black Sisters, who spoke against
the domestic violence that she suffered that lead her to murder her husband.
But how did Kiran, a shy, poor English speaker and a foreigner at that manage
to accumulate such enormous support, that it compelled the jurisdictions to
look into their law and re-examine and change them. It is perhaps the political pole of diaspora,
the feministic approach that refused to look at colour, race and country. Here
the feminist, the Southall Black Sisters gave a lot of support to the
campaign for protection of several Asian married women who were domestically
violated. The political diaspora gather many from around the world to express
the view and support the campaign against domestic violence. The feminist may
not have physically deterritorilized people but in a metaphysical manner it
certainly did as there is a major motion picture on the book, and the case of
Ahluwalia is taught in legal areas. Articulation of a being a
battered woman and surviving ‘honour’ of the Indian society It is only after analysing
the book that one can come face to face with the hypocrisy of honour that runs
in the Indian community system and increases tenfold in diaspora communities. The need to keep up the familial and communal
honour limits the female of the family and this honour is often used as a
measure to control and abuse the women. The large sense of maintaining culture
is on a woman’s shoulders and places her in a place where she must remain a piece
of purity and self sacrifice, this limits her from any form self advances of
her own individuality. It is through the murder of her husband that, Kiranjit
Ahluwalia sets a form of self assertion and finally is able to take back
control of her life. It is through the act of utterance of the autobiographies
like that of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, that we come to understand they engage in
creates a space for the existence and articulation of the self. The
‘pedagogical discourse’ of the construction of honour as the principal opinion
of society is challenged in the articulation of the voice of the women who are
marginalised by this discourse. It is the homogeneity that rationalises the
authoritarian and depicts a picture of “normalizing” the tendencies with the cultures
in name of national interest and ethnicity.
