Intimate revelations: Conversations among “evil” women in Rokeya’s Padmarag

Abstract

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain creatively demonstrates in Padmarag (1924) the socially embedded association of women with evil. She brings together a group of women on the premises of Tarini Bhaban in order to explore their psychological terrain, as they share with each other previously untold memories and document their experiences of patriarchal oppression and domestic abuse. Through their reminiscences and memories, Rokeya lays bare the angst of women in a patriarchal social order that silences and suppresses them. Beyond the belief of sisterhood at Tarini Bhaban, in one way or another, most of these women are considered “evil” in society as a whole. For example, Saudamini is a stepmother with no biological children of her own and is regarded as a dakini (witch) and rakshasi (a female demon). Other women of Tarini Bhaban have received comparable tags from society and experienced similar victimization. Based on the representation of “evil” women in the novel, in this article I will discuss their stories and examine some of the contributing factors to their victimization and characterization as wicked in the context of early twentieth-century Bengal.

In their monumental work Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Present (1991, 1993), Susie Tharu and K. Lalita include about 150 Indian women writers writing in Bangla, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Pali, Persian, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, out of the more than 600 their research uncovered, writing from 600 BC to the late twentieth century in various local languages. Nevertheless, Muslim women writers appear largely underrepresented in the anthology. Meanwhile, regrettably, Kumari Jayawardena does not include a single Bengali Muslim woman writer in her much celebrated book Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (2003/1986), even though she does address a number of Bengali Hindu women writers. So there is an attitude of neglect and apathy towards Bengali Muslim women writers in mainstream literary discourse (Hasan, 2012; Sarkar, 2008). Among the few who have received recognition and critical attention, Rokeya ¹ is the most eminent.

Rokeya’s literary career spanned three decades beginning from 1902 to her death in 1932. She is better known for nonfiction works, especially Motichur-I (2006/ 1904), Motichur-II (2006/1922), Abarodhbasini (2006/1931), “God Gives, Man Robs” (2006/1927), and “Education Ideals for the Modern Indian Girl” (2006/1931). She displays argumentative skills, wit, and humour in her writing, which speaks in favour of female education and refutes common cultural stereotypes that hold men to be superior and women inferior, and confine women’s activities to the private, domestic sphere and to subjugated social positions. Rokeya disapproves of misogynistic mythology about women, promotes women’s education and empowerment, and asserts their agency and autonomy against patriarchal authority and against forces that exclude them from public life. Among her fictional works, the most famous are the English novella Sultana’s Dream (1908/1905) and the Bangla novel Padmarag (2006/1924). As Rokeya mentions in the dedicatory note, she had written (an earlier version of) the novel about 20 years before it was published. She wrote Sultana’s Dream also in the first few years of her writing career. This suggests that, even though Rokeya did not write many novels, she was naturally inclined to, and had a certain knack for, fiction. However, perhaps in order to convey her ideas about social reform and women’s liberation more directly and patently than is done through fiction, she gradually focused more on nonfiction, persuasive, and informational writing.

In most of Rokeya’s works, the key feminist concern is not only to show how women are oppressed within patriarchy and suggest ways to liberate them, but also to explain why misogyny remains a strong ideology in the social milieu. One reason why anti-woman ideas prevail in society is the association of women with evil, as “traditional views of evil […] are not only male but masculine in the sense that they maintain and even glorify traits and opinions that have been genderized in favor of males” (Noddings, 1991: 2; emphasis original). Interestingly, even in cases where women are characterized as embodiments of goodness, the situation resulting from such chivalric attitudes of adulation and romanticization to them eventually goes in men’s favour. For example, Coventry Patmore (1823–96) glorifies the caring, meek, nurturing, and self-effacing woman in “The Angel in the House” (1866/1854) mainly to inscribe Victorian gender ideology and to reinforce a gendered double standard. That is to say, neither gender stereotypes of women as evil nor fulsome praise of them as domestic queens elevate their status or promote their rights in society unless the patriarchal underpinnings of gender relations are challenged. Hence, a central task of feminist scholarship is to espouse “a fundamental shift in the valuations of good and evil” (Ruether, 1993: 160). In light of this perspective, in this article I will discuss (feminist) conversations among women in Rokeya’s Padmarag that address issues revolving around the conventional definition of good and evil in relation to women.

Feminist conversations

In many societies women are domesticated and subservient to men and are associated with natural and moral evil. In early twentieth-century Bengal, women who broke cultural stereotypes and refused to fulfil gendered expectations were by default considered evil, just as their European sisters once fell “into a very old literary and cultural stereotype of the wicked witch or hag” if they defied social norms (Kaplan, 2004: 252). In the South Asian context, such associations have more familial than social dimensions, which renders them particularly complex. Both in literary and philosophical writing as well as sociopolitical activism, with a view to making the best of women’s potentials and ensuring their inclusion in mainstream activities, Rokeya sought to challenge such societal and cultural gendered expectations that proscribe women’s rights and assertive behaviour in various ways. Especially in Padmarag, she does so by depicting an assemblage of women across racial and religious boundaries who are regarded as “evil” as they break loose from society, resist conformity to social norms about gender, and do not capitulate to patriarchal standards of femininity.

Having been victimized and stigmatized by the outside world, Rokeya’s strong-willed and atypical heroines have gathered on the premises of Tarini Bhaban — a sanctuary for women escaping patriarchal confines — to share their intimate experiences and understanding of society. In fact, this tradition of bringing distressed women together runs through South Asian literature. For example, the very title of the poet and educational reformer Altaf Husain Hali’s Majālis ul-Nisā (Assemblies of Women [1971/1874]) suggests that the coming together of women to converse and share experiences in an exclusive female cohort — where women are both performers and audience — is fundamental to the structure and theme of the work. Hali presents a realistic image of patriarchal power and control through their conversations, as Bari Bagum, Mahmuda Begum, Maryam Zamani, and the heroine Zubaida Khatun in various sessions give “a fascinating glimpse of women’s lives in an upper middle-class urban household of North India” (Minault, 1986: 5). Another predecessor of Rokeya, Krupabai Satthianadhan (1998/1894: 95), brings together secluded and socially marginalized women such as Kamala, Harni, and Bagirathi in order that they can meet “and take a walk outside prisons”, that is, restrictive patriarchal structures. Rokeya’s Padmarag is perhaps part of this creative tradition. It recounts conversations between the inhabitants of Tarini Bhaban — who are victims of social exclusion — in various contexts and settings involving different interlocutors and participants at different times. They regard each other as sisters and converse in an enabling atmosphere of self-expression in the semi-utopian space where they feel free to sit together to speak their minds among themselves.

Like a psychological novelist, Rokeya in Padmarag seems to be less concerned with outer details of time and place than with the inner exploration of female characters who share with each other tales of suffering under patriarchy. Rokeya’s graphic repertoire of their experiences represents a revival of their memory of past events that involve performing the culturally constructed role of wifehood. The sisters of Tarini Bhaban — Din Tarini, Zaynab, Saudamini, Helen, Quaresa, Usha, Rafia, Sakina, and others — open their distressed minds to each other, which in the feminist epistemology is termed “intimate revelations” (Coward, 1997: 32). Their reminiscences comprise the predominant subject matter of the novel.

The women of Tarini Bhaban sit together — in some cases one-to-one and in some others in groups — to narrate their lived experiences, while stories of some others are told by fellow sisters, as the story of Hali’s female paragon Zubaida Khatun’s in Majālis ul-Nisā “is recounted by one of the participants” (Minault, 1986: 5). In what follows, I will describe the intimate revelations of the inhabitants of Tarini Bhaban and show how society wrongly associates these unconventional women with evil. I will discuss the anecdotal accounts of the ordeals that these victims of patriarchy endure, and will analyse factors that contribute to their vulnerability to patriarchal subjugation. I will describe how Rokeya fictionally constructs an almost exclusively female domain for her heroines to negotiate positions of greater power with more opportunities for self-reflection, self-expression, and autonomy.

The “greedy” and “harlot” Din Tarini

In Padmarag, the central character around whom the plot of the novel revolves is Din Tarini. While other characters’ accounts of subjection to conditions of extreme vulnerability and social neglect are self-narrated or peer-narrated, the fictional story of Din Tarini’s life with all its twists and turns is described by the narrator of the story. In the novel, Din Tarini, the only inheritor of affluent and promising barrister-at-law Tarinicharan Sen, loses her father at 17 and becomes a widow at an even earlier age. Once she adapts to the stresses and strains of widowhood and becomes physically and mentally stable, she establishes Tarini Bhaban as a shelter for widows or victims of spousal or domestic abuse. In the Tarini compound, she also sets up Tarini Vidyalaya (school), founds an organization named Nari-Klesh Nibarani Samiti (society for the prevention of women’s sufferings), and establishes an atur-ashram (a refuge for the sick and distressed). Thus she is depicted as an educational philanthropist who has started comprehensive and inclusive humanitarian programmes for women of diverse backgrounds. As Sonia Amin puts it:

Its inmates gathered from various creeds, classes and communities, to live a life of hard work and dignity. Though some of them were married, most of them were no longer bound in a state of matrimony or circumscribed by other institutions of patriarchy. (1996: 264)

The Tarini complex in the novel houses hundreds of female students, teachers, matrons, and caregivers who are envisioned as family members to its founder. The only males in this imaginary space are the office-boy, the messenger, the chef, and the man responsible for water supply. Of them, the messenger and the chef do not stay there overnight. As such, like Rokeya’s construction of Ladyland in her feminist utopia Sultana’s Dream, the fictional compound Tarini Bhaban portrayed in her novel Padmarag is a uniquely female-dominated space where an atmosphere of trust is created and a notion of transracial and trans-communal feminist sisterhood is rooted. Rokeya depicts a strong sense of equality, racial harmony, and religious tolerance between her heroines who are viewed as sisters born of the same mother. In the fictional space of Tarini Bhaban, its inmates (feminist sisters) share a commitment to work for women’s emancipation and for their deliverance from patriarchal injustices and oppressive conditions.

In the story, Tarini’s exit from the hardships and humiliations stemming from widowhood and her search for independence and a significant role in this public sphere of charitable activities does not make her relatives happy. She has to defy the wishes of relatives who are opposed to her involvement in humanitarian work outside the home. They exhibit annoyance, accuse her of squandering a huge sum of money, and deride her work, saying: “Where shall Tarini get people? Will women of respectable families go to her? All sorts of prostitutes, lepers, the downtrodden, and orphans have gathered in Tarini’s world” (Hossain, 2006/1924: 269). ² The mother-in-law of a minor character named Banu (a former student of Tarini Vidyalaya) goes to the extent of calling Tarini a harlot and enjoys licence to characterize her thus:

[Tarini] is a woman who embezzles people’s money by way of opening a shop called Tarini Bhaban and has brought Bengali daughters and daughters-in-law out of domestic space. She is extremely selfish and greedy. Her thirst for money is like that of harlots. (348)

Isolated from family and relatives as well as from mainstream society mainly for widowhood, Din Tarini makes a world of her own on the Tarini compound. She has devoted 22 years of her life, health, energy, and ability to selfless community service. However, as Rokeya portrays, in return she receives only opprobrium and disdain from society, especially from the guardians of the school children. Some of the complaint letters she receives from them following the school’s annual prize ceremony are petty and ridiculous. These letters represent society’s negative perception of women in professional (public) roles and in educational activism, and they speak for themselves:

Letter One:

Why has my daughter Sharmila not got a prize? Why has she not stood first or second in the class? Whose fault is it? You only know how to charge money all the year round and do not know if you have any responsibility. You are a woman, that’s why I have not said much.

Letter Two:

My daughter Zulekha attends your school. Previously, she used to stand first every year. This year she could not attend school for 8/9 months owing to illness, and you did not give her a prize. What kind of judgment is this? How could you function well with feminine intellect? If there were a man on the school executive committee, you would have some ideas about how to run a school.

Letter Three:

Remove my daughter Nirupama’s name from the school register. For the fact that she made a mess on prize-distribution day, teacher Biva gave her an angry look. If I could get hold of Biva, I would have uprooted her eyes.

Letter Four:

If you cannot run a school, why do you keep it? Only to earn fame? My daughter Probhati has been attending it for three months. She has not passed the exam. Nor has she got any prize except for a doll.

Letter Five:

My daughter Abbasi cannot spell words even after attending this school for three months.

Letter Six:

My daughter Atifa still wets her bed; can’t you discipline her a bit? What do you then teach students at school?

Letter Seven:

Regrettably, your school is not under government’s control; otherwise, I would have taught you a lesson. Although my daughter Manorama has been attending it for two months, she has not learnt the vowel sounds yet. (337–38)

The feminist protagonist, Tarini, does not feel sad receiving such mortifying, ludicrous letters of protest or hearing such disparaging remarks. Instead, she smiles away any potential anxieties and says that one should be ready to embrace such social reactions when serving noble causes.

Rokeya’s portrayal of Tarini contains autobiographical references. Like Tarini, Rokeya also became a widow at an early age and was deeply engaged in educational and social work intent on transforming the world of women through a struggle for gender justice. She established Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School in Calcutta in 1911 and founded the Calcutta chapter of the Aligarh-based Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam in 1916. She “used all her financial inheritance from her husband to fund the school and devoted most of her time, knowledge and energy to running it, braving numerous challenges” (Quayum and Hasan, 2017: xiii). She walked from door to door to persuade reluctant parents to send their daughters to her school and took personal responsibility for tutoring and looking after them free of charge. In order to get community support and increase students, she had to appear in public, which earned her slurs and expletives. One such public aside reads: “This young widow wants to flaunt and advertise her youthfulness by establishing a school” (qtd. in Sufi, 1986: 41). When carrying out socio-educational work, she was accused of peddling her youthfulness under the guise of establishing an educational institution and promoting the public good. We do not know the full extent of the abuse Rokeya received from her opponents. However, in the story, Tarini is a consistent target of pervasive derogation and exclusion due to her gendered identity and other complex circumstances.

In Indian metaphysics, the legend of Khana that illustrates how a praiseworthy trait for men can potentially become blameworthy when pursued by women is perhaps relevant here. Khana was the wife of Mihira, whose father Varaha was one of the ten avatars (incarnations) of the Hindu god Vishnu. Both the men were astrologers. One day, as they were struggling to unravel an astrological question, Khana’s intervention helped them solve the problem right away. King Vikramaditya came to know about it and was impressed by Khana’s superior scholarship and wanted to appoint her “the tenth jewel, along with the nine scholars who were called the nava ratna of his court” (Acchamamba, 1991: 328). However, her superior intellect made Varaha apprehensive of a possible loss of male superiority and patriarchal power, as he believed that women should live in domestic confinement and be quarantined from public life. In order to avoid taking her to Vikramaditya’s court, he wanted to end her life, so

ordered his son to cut Khana’s tongue off. Mihira loved his wife and was not prepared to obey his father. Khana came to know of the predicament and offered to let her tongue be cut off in obedience to her father-in-law’s order, and begged her husband to carry out his father’s orders […]. Mihira turned his heart to stone, and cut Khana’s tongue off. Khana left this world after a short while only to become immortal. (Acchamamba, 1991: 328)

Instead of being appreciated, Khana’s superior knowledge encountered mistrust and hostility. Similarly, in early twentieth-century Bengal there was a gendered double standard though not to the extent pursued by Vahara. The pursuit of education and social work was considered commendable for men, but unacceptable for women. Through the medium of fiction, Rokeya expresses herself and seeks to illustrate the kinds of constraints and pressures a self-sacrificing woman reformer like she herself was under. By conducting social service programmes and launching educational reform activities, her male counterparts commanded huge respect from society. Conversely, by carrying out similar activities in the face of more severe challenges and obstacles, women like Rokeya in her material culture and Tarini in the fictional world attract public criticism and sometimes outright verbal abuse. To some extent, their experience resonates with that of Judith Shakespeare in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Woolf imagines Judith as Shakespeare’s

wonderfully gifted sister. Shakespeare himself went to […] the grammar school, where he may have leant Latin—Ovid, Virgil, and Horace […]. Very soon he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe […] even getting access to the palace of the queen. [… Judith] had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The Manager […] bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting […]. At last [… she] killed herself one winter’s night […]. (Woolf, 1929: 46–47)

Even though Judith had a comparable interest in and talent for artistic expression, unlike her brother, she did not have access to favourable conditions and was denied opportunities available to him. Once the hypothetical Judith made extra efforts to enter a profession closely tied to traditional notions of masculinity and considered a male preserve, due to sex-role stereotypes and sexual harassment, she ultimately met a tragic end. For having the same passion for creative activities and for pursuing the same goal, Judith’s brother was celebrated while she was castigated; his talents were applauded and recognized, and hers slighted and wasted — all because of gender bias. Similarly, while the male educationalists and social reformers received accolades and recognition, like Tarini’s, Rokeya’s educational activities elicited negative reactions, especially from those who thought that women’s rejection of traditional roles would result in moral decline and the destruction of the family. However, women away from prominent public roles did not fare well either, as the experiences of other inmates of Tarini Bhaban discussed below suggest.

The “child widow” Zaynab

The story of Zaynab, the heroine of the novel, is structurally more developed. Her story is partly told by the narrator and partly revealed by her to Din Tarini and Saudamini. As Zaynab’s part of the story recounts, she was betrothed at 12 to Latif to be formally wedded after three years. As the time of her ceremonial conferment approaches, Latif’s uncle Habib Alam demands her share of inheritance be given to her on paper well before marriage. As the reader progressively learns, Zaynab’s older brother Sulaiman, appalled by this blatant manifestation of greed and social misconduct, communicates his determination that Zaynab herself will get hold of her share of property upon reaching 18, the age of legal adulthood. The story takes a dramatic turn when Sulaiman sends Latif a “registered letter” to know his take on the financial wrangling. However, as a zemindar, Habib Alam holds the local post office in his grip and confiscates the letter; so Latif remains unaware of its content. Habib Alam arranges for Latif to be married to the only daughter (Saleha) of one of the former’s deceased relations who had supposedly left an abundant inheritance.

The whole episode surprises and shocks Sulaiman, who becomes hysterical out of dismay whenever he casts his eyes on Zaynab. One day he composes himself and addresses Zaynab thus: “You be prepared for life-struggle. I will make you ready for that and enrich you with proper education so that you will not have to submit yourself in marriage to any depraved man for provisions” (343). Once Zaynab reaches the age of 18, Sulaiman gives her share of inheritance to her in black and white, and says to her:

Let us keep the matter of your receipt of inheritance secret. Let me try to get you released from the clutch of that base man (Latif). If he divorces you, that will be well and good and your life will take a different course. If he does not, you have no other way — you will have to shed tears your whole life; that is to say, you will have to consider yourself a child widow. (343; emphasis added)

Accordingly, as Zaynab’s section of the narrative explores, Sulaiman facilitates her education in the best possible manner. Meanwhile, after Habib Alam’s death, the plot takes a new turn when Latif starts communicating with Sulaiman in order to reconcile and be matrimonially united with Zaynab. Sulaiman refuses to commit his sister to the charge of Latif in the presence of the latter’s second wife, Saleha.

In a tragic turn of events in Zaynab’s life, Robinson, a colonial indigo planter, demands 50 bighas of land-area from Sulaiman who remains uncompromising despite the former’s arrogant exercise of threats and intimidation. In the story, Robinson kills Sulaiman and his first son Aziz and dispossesses Zaynab. The knife he uses to kill Aziz belongs to Zaynab, on which ground he institutes legal proceedings against her. Zaynab manages to run away from her locality (Chuadanga), and takes refuge in Tarini Bhaban. There she becomes involved in its humanitarian and educational activities, though eventually, after Sulaiman’s death, she reluctantly leaves it to look after his eight-year-old son as well as to manage his zemindary. Leaving Tarini Bhaban, Zaynab eventually goes back to the real world, and her deceased brother’s widow (who is also Latif’s sister) is coming to escort her back home. However, this apparently desirable trip does not make Zaynab happy, as it seems like bidding farewell to paradise (374–75). Although Zaynab is not associated with any evil attribute per se, the tag of “child widow” itself is a social stigma, as child widows have been “considered outcastes and a bad omen” (Rao, 2013: 193). To the South Asian readers of Padmarag, therefore, Rokeya’s portrayal of Zaynab as a widow has cultural implications as they are aware of the predicament of widows in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Bengal. In particular, the psychological and emotional ordeal of child widows beggars description mainly owing to their tender age.

The main reason for Tarini’s predicament is her status as a widow who is alienated from the rest of society. Her establishment of Tarini Bhaban is actually an attempt on her part to relieve herself of the pain and mental agony of widowhood in Hindu traditions. In South Asia as a whole, “a widow may face a life of extreme wretchedness and deprivation” (Owen, 1996: 10), as “social norms and taboos consign the unfortunate widows to an even more disadvantaged position” (Patil, 2000: 99). In the novel, a minor character Shama turns victimizer and is in a position of dominance in relation to Saudamini, but she is also a victim of widowhood and lives in the latter’s marital home, having nowhere else to go. Even though the plight of Hindu widows is more deplorable, the condition of their Muslim counterparts is not very propitious either because the “position of [Muslim] widows is affected by the underlying Hindu attitude toward them” (Ashraful Aziz, 1979: x). As Mohsen Saeidi Madani puts it: “And like Hindu widows, Muslim widows had to lead a miserable life. The superstitions associated with widowhood among the Hindus crept into [the] Muslim community” (1993: 8). Widows face various restrictions and discriminations due to society’s adverse attitude to them.

Zaynab is initially a victim of Habib Alam’s patriarchal, exploitative attitude compounded by greed, and later she is falsely accused by Robinson of murder, which eventually dispossesses her. Since Habib Alam and Robinson are agents of the local patriarchy and the colonial power respectively, it can be argued that Zaynab’s whole predicament in the novel is caused by these two joint forces of oppression. She is a victim of what is called in postcolonial discourse “double colonization” which suggests “that women in formerly colonised societies were doubly colonised by both imperial and patriarchal ideologies” (Ashcroft et al., 1995: 250). Obviously, Zaynab’s case embodies “an alliance between the colonial government and Indian men in questions involving women” (Loomba, 1998: 169).

The “dakini” and “rakshasi” Saudamini and the “negligent” stepmother Quaresa Bi

In a prolonged one-to-one session, as the narrative of the novel progresses, Saudamini opens her heart to Zaynab. Coming from a typical high-caste Hindu family, Saudamini was living in Calcutta with her parents and other family members. After losing her parents in infancy, since she had no elder brothers from the age of seven she was brought up by a stepmother who was more like a real mother to her. By a strange twist of fate, Saudamini herself later ends up becoming a stepmother and faces a different (unfavourable) domestic environment and is beset by cultural stereotypes and myths about the stepmother. Through portraying the parental home of Saudamini and her relationship with her stepmother, Rokeya perhaps seeks to avoid a possible overgeneralization that could suggest that widows are uniformly destined to have difficult marital situations with husbands and in-laws in Bengal society.

Saudamini gets married at 17, an age considered late for marriage in Bengal society at that time. Her husband already has twin children — a son named Nagendra and a daughter called Janhavi — from a previous marriage. Saudamini’s stepmother exhorts her to take good care of these two children who are living with their maternal grandmother at the time of her marriage. Saudamini actually first sees them five years after her marriage when they come back home with their maternal aunt, Shama Didi. However, because of the cultural myths and stereotypes around the “wicked stepmother” and the stigma associated with her role, she receives suspicious and mistrustful looks and negative remarks from neighbours right after arriving at the marital home and long before she meets Nagendra and Janhavi. Curious neighbours who come to see the new bride make a series of curt, cursory, and unrestrained statements involving stepmother–stepchildren relationships, such as:

“From now onwards, Nagendra and Janhavi have become outsiders in their own home.”

“Alas! [In the presence of a stepmother] are they going to return back home?”

“Will they (their maternal relatives) send them here (to live with the stepmother)?”

“Now they have become fatherless [as well].”

“Who knew that these houses and buildings were not meant for them?”

“One who has lost their mother has lost everything.”

Two younger sisters of Saudamini’s husband kept wailing: “Lakshmi has been replaced by a dakini.” (297)

By Lakshmi (the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity), they obviously refer to Nagendra’s and Janhavi’s deceased mother and by dakini (witch), to Saudamini. Most other family members and proximity relations make comparable negative remarks; as a result, Saudamini subconsciously develops intense feelings of guilt as if she is the murderer of the divine Lakshmi and the source of all unhappiness in the home. She is categorically positioned as an outsider in the domestic space. It is worth noting that all these extremely negative comments towards Saudamini are made right after her arrival in the marital home. What is more, as evidence or prior knowledge about Saudamini’s personality and character is not considered necessary to make unfavourable comments about her, these neighbours are also not deemed to be in breach of social decorum. Her identity as a stepmother seems to have given the commenters free licence to make disparaging remarks about her.

Since Saudamini does not have any children of her own and her husband remains away from home most of the time for reasons of work, her two stepchildren could be a panacea for her loneliness. However, their presence further intensifies the stigma associated with her status as a stepmother and exacerbates her psychological suffering, as she is wrongly accused of mistreating and discriminating against them. Moreover, on top of the stereotype of the wicked stepmother, Saudamini’s childlessness has now become an added badge of disgrace attached to her. Furthermore, Shama’s presence in the domestic environment adds to Saudamini’s suffering. Rokeya depicts Shama’s character as complex and enigmatic. Herself being a widow and having suffered the predicament of widowhood in Hindu society, Shama is also subjected to gender norms and discrimination and is understandably supposed to be sympathetic to Saudamini’s plight. On the contrary, she keeps poisoning the minds of Saudamini’s mother-in-law, husband, and others by prejudicing them against Saudamini, saying that she does not look after the children with care and affection. As the plot develops, Shama’s continuous scheming in the domestic sphere finally creates suspicion in Saudamini’s loving husband who initially has not given any heed to Shama’s machinations. She steals Nagendra’s and Janhavi’s clothes and accuses Saudamini of not buying them any. Since food is continuously stolen (by Shama), Saudamini cannot feed Nagendra and Janhavi enough. Nor can she lock food items away to prevent theft, as that may trigger another accusation of not making them available for the children. Shama litters here and there the sweetmeats Saudamini keeps for Nagendra and Janhavi, and tells others that the stepmother throws away food in order to deprive the children. As Rokeya portrays Shama as a highly theatrical character, the reader is taken aback by her innovative trickeries. Once she secretly burns all the brocade clothes of Nagendra and Janhavi and thus fills the house with smoke only to put the blame on Saudamini, saying that the latter committed arson out of rancour stemming from having no sari herself. Saudamini receives a look of cold scorn from her husband on this occasion but dares not open her mouth to expose Shama. Nor does she risk confronting women from the wider neighbourhood who would predictably back Shama’s version of the events. Saudamini remains a silent sufferer of endless miseries, submits herself to Shama’s whims and fancies, and sees no reason to question these sordid acts as society has centuries-old fixed views about stepmothers — a kind of tacit acquiescence.

Another day, trained by Shama, Nagendra runs to Saudamini — who hugs him lovingly with a maternal embrace — only to start screaming to tell others that she is throttling him. Once Saudamini gives some uncooked food to a guest from the house chest and goes to the kitchen leaving it open. Meanwhile, Nagendra has entered the chest before she locks it unawares. Eventually, it becomes incorrectly apparent to all, including her husband, that her intention is to kill Nagendra by smothering him in the house chest. From now onwards, he stops talking to her completely. As her loneliness becomes increasingly unbearable and she needs some sort of human company, Saudamini seeks permission from him to visit her natal home, and it is granted. She shares her experiences with her stepmother who unfortunately fails to comprehend the full extent of her sufferings and wonders how she is unable to win the hearts of the two little children and bring them under her sphere of influence.

As the story progresses, one year later Saudamini comes back and tries again to establish an amicable relationship with Nagendra and Janhavi only to face a new string of carefully orchestrated scandals and trials of the same pattern. This time Janhavi’s jewellery is stolen and Saudamini is blamed. What is more, all in the neighbourhood seem to pay heed to rumours and wrongly believe that Saudamini attempts to kill Nagendra twice, and thus she comes to be named a rakshasi. Once Saudamini goes to the domestic well to fetch water. Out of nowhere, Janhavi comes and climbs onto its wall and then asks Saudamini to get her down. When Saudamini holds her to help, Janhavi starts screaming to tell everyone around that Saudamini is throwing her into the well. Seeing this, full of fury and rage, her husband leaves the spot before Saudamini has the chance to explain what has actually happened. Gradually, Saudamini becomes more and more distressed and psychologically estranged from her husband. Once he becomes completely indifferent to her, she has no one with whom she can even talk. All these long series of accusations, humiliations, and demeaning character insults on Saudamini come to an end when on a river boat journey with other members of the family, she and Janhavi are drowned and later caught by fishermen. Janhavi dies and Saudamini survives. Within days of physical recovery, she goes mad and is admitted to a mental hospital. Once discharged, she is on her own and begins a new life. She first works as a governess in a respectable household that is acquainted to Din Tarini, by virtue of which Saudamini comes to know her and finally becomes an employee and resident of Tarini Bhaban.

In the episode involving Saudamini, Rokeya employs considerable space to craft the character of Shama, which deserves some careful analysis. Her graphic description of Shama’s successes in all her plots and machinations tells the reader about Saudamini’s vulnerability and about society’s readiness to believe Shama’s made-up stories against her. Perhaps, Shama’s vituperations against Saudamini are a manifestation of her own insecurity and low self-esteem as a widow herself, since the former has inner anxieties and struggles to establish a sense of belonging in the domestic sphere. In other words, in the narrative one vulnerable woman is involved in a unilateral battle against the other as part of her efforts to strengthen her position in the household. In order to cement her own status and authority, Shama uses Saudamini as a foil.

Shama’s character can also be interpreted as one who represents a kind of composite social–psychic personality, or the psyche of the whole society in microcosm. Through her, Rokeya shows how society can be insensitive and thoughtless in its treatment of a vulnerable stepmother and thus reifies the latter’s defenselessness, makes her existence almost invisible, and frustrates her efforts to redress low social status and grievances. Interestingly, Shama is not a family member and represents an external intrusion of the social system into Saudamini’s family. The influence and pressure that she exercises on Saudamini’s husband and mother-in-law can be interpreted as the collective practice of patriarchal ideology that discriminates against the stepmother. Through the portrayal of Saudamini’s husband and mother-in-law as two decent human beings initially impervious to Shama’s wiles and manoeuvres, Rokeya shows how otherwise level-headed people are susceptible to social systems and expectations (embodied by Shama) and participate in women’s oppression in the domestic sphere. This is perhaps one reason why Rokeya significantly develops the character of Shama, who acts in the story as an agent of the patriarchal social system. Readers feel sympathy for both Saudamini and her husband though not to the same degree. The latter remains unyielding to Shama’s plots and conspiracies until a climactic episode when he cannot resist any longer. Finally, he relents to social pressures and expectations represented by Shama and thus shares victimhood — albeit of a different kind — with Saudamini. His character also exemplifies Rokeya’s gender neutral approach that does not regard all men as inherently evil, even if they are portrayed as somewhat subject to social influences.

In the novel, Rokeya is seen as an unusually level-headed social reformer in the sense that she does not leave any room for the reader to develop a notion that stepmothers are stigmatized only in Hindu society. She brings in the experience of a Muslim stepmother, Quaresa Bi, which is told by Zaynab and Saudamini. Quaresa Bi bears her husband’s neglect, insensitivity, and harsh treatment for a long period of eight years and endures the stigma of being a stepmother. Once her stepson Komorozzaman dies of cholera, her husband’s indifference and callous attitude reaches its height. Her elder and younger brothers-in-law, their wives, and Komorozzaman’s siblings — all collectively prevail upon and convince Quaresa’s husband, who happened to be abroad during Komorozzaman’s death, that he died because of her negligence and lack of care. Eventually, because of these unfounded accusations and her husband’s indifference she finds it unbearable to stay in the marital home. She decides to stay away, studies at a vocational institution, and ends up becoming a teacher at Tarini Vidyalaya. Meanwhile, the narrator does not develop the character of her husband to a great extent, instead fast-forwarding to the resumption of their not-so-ordinary marital life. When the husband returns from abroad, he resumes his conjugal relationship with her. Things get little better when, after 11 years of marriage, Quaresa becomes the mother of a son and hence seems to have gained some importance in her marital relationship. Her husband now comes to see her and she also visits him, but Tarini Bhaban remains her primary address. While, at the beginning, Saudamini’s husband is resistant to external influences and keeps loving her, Quaresa’s is predisposed to accept all lies against her. Perhaps one reason for his readiness to believe concocted stories is their source, that is, his family members, while Shama is not from the family of Saudamini’s husband. In Quaresa’s case, negative (malevolent) influences on the husband are internal whereas in Saudamini’s they are external, more complex, and insidious. Moreover, the change of heart of Quaresa’s husband only after the birth of a son suggests that his love for her is conditional. By portraying the characters of Saudamini’s and Quaresa’s husbands, Rokeya seeks not to essentialize all men as potential abusers of wives or complacent with patriarchal social structures to an undifferentiated degree.

The myth of the wicked stepmother more adversely affects Saudamini’s position than that of other characters in the narrative. That her husband initially remains unmoved by Shama’s intrigues can be seen by society as her feminine (seductive) power over him, for stepmothers are often perceived as cruel women who prevail upon their husbands and prejudice them against their children from earlier marriages. Importantly, the image of the stepmother especially in Hindu society in South Asia is largely influenced by the representation of Kaikeyi — the stepmother of the Hindu god Rama and the second queen of his father Dasharatha — in the Sanskrit epic poem Ramayana (300 BC) traditionally attributed to Valmiki. As Sally Sutherland (1992: 243) puts it:

[Kaikeyi] is considered by the tradition as a traitress to her husband and the “wicked” step-mother of the god-hero Rama in the Sanskrit epic, the Valmiki Ramayana. The treatment of Queen Kaikeyi is important to our understanding of Rama’s actions throughout the epic, and more importantly, to our understanding of the attitudes expressed toward women in this epic, an epic that has served as a pattern for female sexuality and familial conduct to countless generations of Indians.

The Hindu king Dasharatha’s immoderate love for Kaikeyi caused the exile of Rama, his wife Sita, and others into the forest. As the legend goes, Kaikeyi prevails on Dasharatha and talks him into giving a promise to fulfil her wishes of appointing her son Bharata the crown prince, depriving Rama of his primogeniture right of royal succession and banishing him to the forest for 14 years. Dasharatha and Rama are portrayed as victims of Kaikeyi’s feminine wiles and masculine vulnerability to such guile and mendacity. Bharata is depicted as a considerate half-brother who reluctantly takes the role of a regent — placing Rama’s sandals on the throne — till Rama comes back from exile. Moreover, Rama is also represented as forgiving and obedient to parents (Smith and Robert, 2007: 171). So the real villain in the story is the stepmother who is guilty of jealousy and hostile intrigue. Perhaps society’s negative attitude to stepmothers like Saudamini is somewhat inspired by Valmiki’s representation of Kaikeyi whom Sutherland regards “as a hidden ‘feminist heroine’ of ancient India” (1992: 243). Unlike in the Hindu religious tradition, in Islamic scriptures and teachings there is no such anecdote that prejudices people against stepmothers. Hence, it is widely believed that the stigma attached to Muslim stepmothers is due to Hindu cultural influences on Muslim society in South Asia. As Madani (1993: 8) discusses the influence of the Hindu attitude to stepmothers on Muslim society, the character of Quaresa in Padmarag can be regarded as a fictional embodiment of that influence.

Saudamini’s childlessness and Quaresa’s delayed childbirth are factors that exacerbate their difficulties and feelings of mental displacement in the story, which can be interpreted as an attempt to provide an account of the South Asian social system where “female barrenness is dreaded by married women as the cause of great dukh [sorrow]” (Basu, 2004: 64). While gender plays a role in their predicaments, their suffering is intensified by low self-esteem deriving from their status as stepmothers and condition of being childless. They are triply stigmatized as women, stepmothers, and childless. The worth of a married woman is, to some extent, ascertained by her childbearing potential, as Quaresa’s status is elevated only after she gives birth to a son. In most cases, the barrenness or fertility of the husband remains undetected, but the wife is routinely and by default blamed for childlessness. The stigmatization of childless women crosses geographical boundaries, as in many societies they are discredited, ridiculed, and regarded as causes of domestic misfortunes. Non-mothers are blamed for not performing their primary feminine role and for not ensuring reproduction and patrilineal genealogy. Childlessness can be tragic for married women who experience negative consequences for failing to meet the demands of normative femininity and are sometimes sent back to parental homes to become child divorcees or widows. Childlessness or giving birth only to daughters denies a woman a sense of belonging to her marital home, makes her vulnerable to various forms of neglect, and puts her in a lower status within the household. As Mahalingam and Wachman state, “giving birth to daughters [rather than sons] itself could lead to the maltreatment of mothers, and it is a potential risk factor” (2012: 253) in terms of having less freedom and fewer rights.

Stories of other wrong women

Apart from the main characters described above, there are minor characters too in Padmarag whose stories tell us about various ills from which they suffer. These stories are mainly told by fellow sisters. One of them is the divorced Rafia who was married to a renowned barrister. As the character Helen narrates Rafia’s story, three years after marriage, this husband goes to England to earn a barrister-at-law degree, leaving her and their two infant daughters at home. He spends a long period of ten years overseas under the pretext of education while Rafia patiently and with devotion waits for him to return. At the beginning, he sends her letters regularly, but gradually they become infrequent; and eventually he stops communicating with her altogether. She tolerates this indifference with magnanimity and fortitude, preparing herself to become a suitable wife for an England-returned barrister. However, only 11 days ahead of his arrival, Rafia receives a registered letter from him. Upon signing the receipt form, she enthusiastically opens it, hoping for romantic expressions and protestations of love as well as apologies for not writing to her for such a long time. However, she finds out that it is a divorce letter which she has received with a signature and is thus legally divorced; their 13-year marriage comes to an end with a scratch of the pen. Her husband returns from England with a white woman. All these experiences make Rafia most distraught and disoriented. After three years of regular treatment, she recovers from mental illness. In the end she comes to Tarini Bhaban, embraces it as a shield against indignity and social exclusion, and becomes Din Tarini’s private secretary.

Just as Helen narrates Rafia’s story, hers is told by another inmate of Tarini Bhaban, Sakina. Helen is depicted as a betrayed Englishwoman who gradually discovers her dissipated husband’s infidelities, cheating, and trouble with the law. Helen is married to Joseph Harris, a colonizer stationed in India, after a three-year relationship deemed adequate to gather trust in him. However, she becomes completely disillusioned only one year after their marriage when he becomes addicted to alcohol and dissoluteness, comes back home late (after midnight), and drunkenly berates and beats her. Enduring physical scars and psychological maltreatment, she tries her best to maintain her relationship with him. Often, in a state of drunkenness, he goes missing, and her job is to find and bring him home. Harris gets arrested for manslaughter, is admitted to a mental hospital, and eventually sent back to England. Desperate to trace his whereabouts, Helen travels to England only to learn that he has been arrested for an illicit relationship and for manslaughter, and admitted to high-security Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum (now known as Broadmoor Hospital). Attempting to be free from such a taxing relationship and to divorce the violent, dissolute Harris, Helen discovers that the English law provides her with no way out.

Sakina’s story is told by Rafia. As her story goes, she is married to Ghafur who has a past history of moral turpitude and debauchery. Unable to rectify his character flaws, his elder brother considers marriage the last resort to bring him back to his good senses and into the moral fold. However, there are two hurdles: no one wants to commit their daughter to a man like Ghafur; and Ghafur refuses to get married. Under intense familial persuasion, Ghafur eventually relents with one condition: that the bride must be perfectly formed and immaculately beautiful.

His brother eventually manages to find a bride, Sakina, from a remote area (Bardhaman). On the marriage day the bridegroom’s party includes Bela, the domestic help of Ghafur’s family, who is his secret mistress. After the solemnization of marriage, as Ghafur is called inside the women’s quarters for shubhodrishti (the rite of the newly-wed bride and bridegroom looking at each other), Bela whispers to Ghafur that the bride (Sakina) is not beautiful enough. Giving full credence to Bela’s account, Ghafur refuses to participate in shubhodrishti and storms out. However, after intimidation from his elder brother and persuasion by others, Ghafur concedes and completes the rite only to steal away the following day with all of jewellery and other ornaments.

Over the course of time, financial wrangling ensues, involving den-mahr (the dower that a husband has to allot for his wife in a Muslim marriage) which Ghafur owes Sakina. Ghafur seeks to reconcile and a deal is struck that Ghafur and Sakina will be reunited. When the process is underway, Sakina informs Ghafur in unequivocal terms that she has no intention to ever be united with him. Facing family pressure to cave in, Sakina attempts to commit suicide, which takes the pressure off her and allows her to choose the future direction of her life. Sakina finally lands in Tarini Bhaban and embraces its lifeworld.

Another character, Usha, tells her own compelling and suspenseful story of surviving multiple forms of gender discrimination. Once, during a nocturnal raid on her marital home, sensing the invaders’ presence in the room and the impending danger, her faint-hearted, cowardly husband leaps over the window ledge and runs away, leaving Usha completely defenceless against the dacoits. Having no other choice, she gives them jewellery and other valuables. At last, they muffle her mouth, tie her hands, and drag her away with them, while she receives no help from her husband and his three male siblings.

The story takes a dramatic turn when three volunteers intervene, set Usha free, and escort her back home. Seeing Usha, her mother-in-law exclaims in a whining voice: “Are you so foolish that you have come back?” The wife of one of her husband’s brothers scornfully remarks: “The love affair was going well — four men took you away and three men returned you back!” (316). The traumatic experience of the night and the humiliation in the morning prompt Usha to contemplate suicide, which is intensified once she comes to know from the maidservant Kestar Ma that, since she was taken away by the dacoits, her in-laws are not ready to accept her back into the family. Usha’s predicament becomes progressively thornier as she realizes that the wicked Kestar Ma, in the name of finding her employment, has made all arrangements to sell her to a female brothel-keeper. Usha manages to escape and finally meets Din Tarini, who sponsors her higher education, and eventually Usha becomes the Principal of Tarini Vidyalaya.

Rokeya’s depiction of the predicaments of Rafia, Helen, Sakina, and Usha is a fictional representation of the range of gender oppression that women of early twentieth-century Bengal experienced and which continues in various forms to this day. This stems mainly from the sexual double standard embedded both in cultural beliefs and legal systems. In the absence of any constraint against arbitrary divorce, men exercise it at their own whim or force their wives to remain in a bitter relationship, whereas women are “stigmatized, emotionally scarred, and left with no means of support” (Amin-Khan, 2012: 175). Post-divorce life for an Indian woman is unbearable, as divorce is widely seen as a mark of a woman’s inability to hold the attention of her husband and as her failure to keep him from being drawn to other women. While marital life favours men, celibacy is also not an option for women because of “the stigma attached to their unmarried status” (Hausner and Khandelwal, 2016: 5). Women’s legal inability to divorce or to release themselves from a bitter relationship reflects profound and structural inequalities between the sexes, which Rokeya creatively represents in Padmarag through the experiences of her heroines. Men can easily get away with their debauchery and cowardice, while women have to bear the brunt of gender bias and the cultural pressure of behaving in a particular, gendered way. Not many women are able to break such social and cultural constraints, challenge patriarchal norms, and choose a life of freedom and fulfilment, away from patriarchal modes of thought. In Padmarag, Rokeya portrays some unconventional heroines who think the unthinkable, are ready to challenge patriarchy, and create for themselves a (feminist) world of liberation, self-worth, and fulfilment.

Conclusions

Women in Tarini Bhaban set up an alternative environment of their own where they can transcend conventional gender roles and devote themselves to the service of humanity. For example, a minor character in Padmarag, Charubala Dutta, is 38 years old and a celibate. In early twentieth-century Bengal, an adult unmarried woman was considered scandalous and an imperfect being. Women of such an age were thought to be superannuated for marriage, as in colonial Bengal “there was considerable anxiety about having a girl remain un-married too far beyond her early teens” (Majumdar, 2009: 129). Saudamini, 43 years old and still very beautiful, is married but chooses to live in Tarini Bhaban separately from her husband. The English woman Helen is 41 years old and is known to be a widow. Other sisters of Tarini Bhaban also share similar atypical profiles. While in the wider society these women are characterized as evil, through her depiction of their suffering Rokeya arouses readers’ sympathy for them and promotes moral denunciation of their victimizers. Regarding the two key female protagonists — Tarini and Zaynab — Rokeya uses stylistic and semantic strategies to elevate them. “Tarini” literally means one who rescues and delivers others from afflictions. This is a worthy appellation of Din Tarini as her entire life is dedicated to the emancipation of women and to female education, Tarini Bhaban being the centre of her liberatory activities. Historically, Zaynab was the name of Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughter and is an exemplary character for Muslims. In Padmarag, Rokeya’s heroine Zaynab subsequently bears other names such as Padmarag (ruby), Siddiqa (honest and upright), Sufia (mystic), and Toposhwini (ascetic) — all with positive semantic connotations. Thus these women who are censured in society are commended in the novel.

Din Tarini and her cohabitants have to bear social ostracism and contempt for choosing this unconventional path that violates the cultural norm of domesticity for women. Inhabitants of Tarini Bhaban come from respectable family backgrounds but have ended up in marital breakup, marital limbo, or in the process of divorce — all of these negatively affecting women more than men. Their harrowing experiences in marriage lead to their entry into the Tarini complex. Because of the social stigma attached to divorce, separation, or any other marital problems, women with such experiences are negatively viewed. Hence, they prefer silent suffering to reporting, as they fear that the public outpouring of grief can further alienate them from society and family and calcify the association of evil attached to them. However, the feminist utopian environment of the Tarini complex protects them from any social repercussions of expressing pent-up feelings and frustrations, away from patriarchal inhibitions.

In portraying society’s antagonism to women’s rights and in depicting women’s predicament, Rokeya remains above any gender, racial, or religious biases. In most cases, women in Padmarag suffer at the hands of both men and other women. Rokeya represents both men and women as heavily influenced by gendered beliefs, attitudes, and expectations as both have internalized gender norms and stereotypes. Rokeya’s use of Hindu, Muslim, and English (presumably Christian) characters and inclusion of complaint letters from imagined school children’s guardians of both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds put her above any racial or religious prejudices. By referring to Tarini women as “sisters” Rokeya seeks to establish an alternative sorority that transcends racial–religious boundaries. On a final note, in Padmarag Rokeya depicts women’s misery and oppression in the marital relationships of 100 years ago. Reading this narrative through the lens of the twenty-first century, readers may find it overly contrived, far removed from reality. However, for many, Rokeya’s representation of women’s gendered experiences may ring true even today, and for others it uncovers pages of women’s social history in Bengal.