LANGUAGE IN INDIA

FEMINIST CONTRIBUTION TO INDIAN SOCIOLOGY
A Book by Shalinee Gusain

INTRODUCTION

Over a hundred thousand women marched in the scorching sun in Chennai recently last month. They trekked through the streets, walking on hot tar roads, with no shade or shelter to protect them from the intense heat. They walked several miles. The hot sun was not hot enough when compared with the fire they have to face in the hands of stubborn males who, sitting inside the portals of democracy, continue to deny their due representation in the Indian Parliament. Their sign was Rising Sun, hoping this sign would spell the darkness that has captured the male dominated society. Some women brought with them newly born babies to be christened by their staunch supporter and leader Karunanidhi. A magnificent sight of determination and loud war cry! Women in Tamilnadu have come a long way, and now is the time for them to show to the world that they will get their rights! Will they, despite their demonstration?

The book under review is a clear record of current thinking on the subject of women's role, and how some leading Indian sociologists have studied them.

THREE INDIAN SOCIOLOGISTS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF WOMEN

Shalinee Gusain's Feminist Contribution to Indian Sociology is an eminently readable and insightful study of the contributions of three eminent sociologists in India: Leela Dube, Tanika Sarkar and Vandana Shiva. The author calls them feminist sociologists or anthropologists.

LEELA DUBE, A PIONEER

Leela Dube's work focused on issues relating to Gonds (tribal life, family and community), caste relations in Rankhandi village in western Uttar Pradesh, and matrilineal society in the Kalpeni Island of the Lakshadweep group of islands. As Shalinee points out in this book, Leela Dube came to the conclusion that "woman as a … field researcher has a natural advantage. Once she overcomes the limitations of her upbringing, her greater patience can become an asset in studying the subtle nuances of daily life and has better situational adjustability" (p. 16).

Shalinee has done an excellent research into the making of Leela Dube as a great sociologist, especially with reference to her role and function on the field as a woman researcher. She cites very interesting quotes that throw light into Leela Dube's view of research and such matters. Leela Dube writes, "… It is a woman who has more adjustments to make [on the field]."

Leela Dube's research is fundamental to the study of Indian women, because she probed the womanhood more intently than anyone else. She wrote that her attention was focused on,

what does it mean to be a girl? At what age does a girl become conscious of the constraints under which she will have to live, of the differential values accorded to male and female children, and of the justifications behind these? When and how does she learn the content of the roles appropriate to her? What are the mechanisms through which women acquire the cultural ideas and values that shape their images of themselves and inform the visions they have of the future? How do they acquire sensitivity towards the contradictions in the values and norms presented to them and towards the limits within which they have to function, necessitating the adoption of particular strategies? In other words, how are women produced as gendered subjects? (Shalinee Gusain, p. 19).

A NEW DIRECTION FOR INDIN SOCIOLOGY

For most part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, modern Indian sociology, especially study of women, was reflected and studied mainly through the insightful eyes and minds of great fiction writers in Indian languages. The contribution of these creative writers from all parts of India is still valuable. However, we also know that such insightful observations, though revolutionary and path breaking in many ways, had and still have their own limitations. Addition to the fund of knowledge we have from various sources through the descriptive and explanatory work of Leela Dube has really enriched the study of Indian sociology. Shalinee is able to bring this out effectively in this book.

TANIKA SARKAR AND THE STUDY OF HISTORICAL RECORDS

Tanika Sarkar's treatment of sociology of women focuses on

how the feminine gender of the nation as 'motherland' had played a very important role in the process of invocation of goddess worshipped in Hindu household and glorified the deprivation for women of various generations.

Her choice location is the nineteenth century Bengal of Hindi belt. Tanika Sarkar is more of an active sociologist utilizing a variety of past sources in early modern literature, early British India laws that tried to bring some changes in the role of women and their place in Hindu society, and her current understanding how past trends come to influence present movements. With great force and moral anger, Tanika looks at the double standards that we all practice:

Women's chastity had become a keyword in the political vocabulary of Hindu nationalism, which had begun to develop … The Hindu woman's unique steadfastness to the husband in the face of gross double standards, her unconditional, uncompromising monogamy, were celebrated as the sign that market Hindu claim to nationhood. The chaste body of the Hindu woman was thus made to carry an unusual political weight since she had maintained this difference in the face of foreign rule. The Hindu man, in contrast, … had allowed himself to be colonized and surrendered his autonomy before the assaults of Western power-knowledge. She tries to correlate the present political system where woman represents the 'icon' created and campaign to elaborate them in representative terms (Shalinee Gusain, p. 49).

Tanika Sarkar's study is really a reflection not of the past but of the present.

VANDANA SHIVA'S CRITIQUE OF GENDER IDEOLOGY AND GENDER-HIDDEN SCIENCE

Shalinee points out in this book,

Vandana Shiva represents the trend of feminists who have more holistic views" and "non-dualistic perspective society." Shalinee writes, "Vandana Shiva traces the historical and conceptual roots of development as a project of gender ideology, and analyses how the particular economic assumptions of western patriarchy, aimed exclusively at profits, hve subjugated the more humane assumptions of economics as the provision of sustenance, to make for a crisis of poverty rooted in ecological devastation (p. 53).

OBSERVATIONS OF THE AUTHOR, SHALINEE GUSAIN

The book concludes with very insightful observations such as,

1. Leela Dube's ethnography reminds us of the extraordinary sensitivity that a sociologist need to be gifted with, in order to listen to the inner world of women …
2. Tanika Sarkar shows how historical documents are of great significance for the study of Indian women. She makes an interpretive study of the relevant historical documents to shed light on Indian sociology of women.
3. Vandana Shiva's contribution lies in the fact that she debunks the neutrality of the science and sees its relationship to the rationale of the patriarchal colonial domination. Her feminism is in tune with environmental sensitivity or ecological consciousness.

The book is well written and gives us the basic trends in the work of Indian sociologists in the area of the study of Indian women.

Shalinee Gusain, 2005.Feminist Contributions to Indian Sociology: A Study of Select Texts. Academic Excellence, Delhi 110031, India.

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