The censor within

Women writers across the board face censorship of some kind or the other. Social taboos, familial relationships, gender bias... the list is endless. AMMU JOSEPH writes on some of the matters that were raised during discussions she had with writers on the subject. This was the theme of a three-day national colloquium held at Hyderabad.

Cultural constraints

DISCUSSIONS at all the workshops suggested that choice of subject or theme was also restricted by other considerations. For instance, virtually all the writers across the country were in agreement about the fact that certain topics were more or less taboo for women to tackle: sex, religion and politics.

Extensive and intensive discussions took place on the difficulties of writing on issues, experiences, thoughts and feelings related to sex and sexuality. The "good girl syndrome" was clearly in operation in this context. While some writers were of the opinion that too much was made of writing on sex these days, others proposed that it was not always necessary to write about it in an explicit manner. "When we are walking about wearing clothes, is there any need to write nakedly on paper?" queried an Urdu writer. "I write about love, not lust," said a Kannada writer.

However, it was clear that many writers felt constrained by their inability to express their thoughts and feelings on what they saw as an important and problematic aspect of human life. This was one "area of evasion," as an English writer put it, in which self-censorship seemed to rule, with many opting to keep sexuality out of their work for the sake of family and friends, and to avoid the risk of being identified with the characters they wrote about. "We still consider it good for women to be frigid," said one writer, in a wry comment on the social mores which make women hesitate to express themselves on sexual matters.

A Gujarati writer who has written a three-act play on a woman's experience and perception of sex and its impact on her marriage, said she did not have the courage to get it published: "I say to myself - where is the need? Just continue to walk along the rajmarg. Write of 'good things' and people will respect you. All is fine as long as they do not know what's actually going on in your mind, what you actually feel..."

Of the few who had explored subjects related to sex and sexuality in their writing, most paid for their temerity in one way or another. Some faced problems in their personal relationships, others had to contend with gossip and innuendo at the workplace or in the public sphere and several faced censure from critics.

A Hindi writer was actually, formally arrested some years ago on the grounds of "obscenity" for one passage in a novel, which exposed the facade of the traditional sexual role prescribed for women. A number of Telugu poems dealing with sexual politics were viciously attacked by the literary establishment. It was evident that problems arose mainly when women's writing questioned or transgressed "acceptable" (patriarchal) sexual norms. As an English poet put it, "It is the politics of sex and not the act of sex" that brings into play the most extreme forms of social censure.

One problem identified by even those who said they were willing to brave adverse reactions and consequences was the absence of appropriate language for exploring sex and sexuality from a woman's perspective. Several writers spoke of their anxiety to avoid both romanticising and sensationalising sex, and to ensure that their attempts at erotic writing did not descend into pornography. Others highlighted another problem with language: many words associated with sex and sexuality conveyed patently patriarchal attitudes, were derogatory to women and/or were otherwise inadequate or unsuitable for communicating women's thoughts and feelings on the subject. According to many writers, there was an urgent need to innovate and transform language in this context.

Political Pressures

Thanks at least in part to the mobility and access factors, not many women appeared to have tapped the political sphere for subject-matter. However, a few had attempted to write on issues relating to religion only to have their fingers (if not their works) burnt, especially if they took a critical position on matters of faith, custom or tradition.

A Kannada writer had to face public protests over one of her novels which was seen as a misrepresentation of her religion. A number of Gujarati writers said they had received threats when they wrote anything questioning religious practices. Others said they had refrained from publicly criticising religious customs that they found abhorrent for fear of attracting the ire of community leaders if they "disturbed the beehive," as one of them put it. A Marathi writer found it difficult to explain the tremendous pressure she was under on account of her exposure and criticism of certain aspects of the religious institution to which she belonged.

The current, communalised atmosphere in the country has not helped matters. Many writers have found that their own religious identity was brought to the fore whether or not they liked it and identified with it. For instance, two English writers found that their criticism of the Hindutva brand of communalism or particular Hindu practices was seen as something "only a Hindu could have written." One Gujarati writer recalled the death threats she received for writing an appreciative review of a poem by another woman which dealt with changing relationships within the modern family; letters from enraged readers accused her of trying to break up the traditional Hindu family.

An Urdu poet mentioned several instances in which even apparently progressive editors refused to publish her poems; only some of them were openly critical of fundamentalist trends in religion that were inimical to women but negative meanings which allegedly had the potential to alienate readers were read into the others. According to her, "purdah is not only of the body but of the creative self as well. There is a steady and increasing pressure on women from fundamentalist groups to conform to traditional roles and purdah; there is also a systematic attempt at censoring language and thought so that all democratic alternatives are sealed off from women."

In the wake of recent public controversies over books, plays, films, art and other cultural products, the spectre of street censorship or censorship by mob has turned into a monstrous reality. The violent protests against the films, "Fire" and "Water," in particular, seemed to have made many writers nervous, especially since both films featured a woman director and questioned patriarchal norms and practices.

If some writers were under pressure from religious sources, others said they had faced criticism from other types of communities. For example, a number of Dalit writers in different languages revealed that they had encountered objections from Dalit men and organisations when they wrote about the situation of women within their communities. According to a senior Dalit writer from Maharashtra, "Their argument was that, since ours was such a backward community, we ought to be writing against other forms of social oppression, not against patriarchy... It is more difficult for women writers because we have a dual fight - against caste and patriarchy." Several women shared similar experiences and difficulties in the context of their other identities, too; it became clear that censorship is often exercised by a wide range of institutions, including political parties and progressive movements.

Literary leverage

The literary establishment came under fire from virtually the entire spectrum of writers for its role in muffling women's voices. The overwhelming consensus was that writing by women was not taken seriously enough by the predominantly male clubs that make up the literary establishment, and that the patriarchal norms upheld by decision-makers in the literary world ensured that women writers who wished to "join the club" would try to conform to what was deemed appropriate and acceptable for them in terms of both style and substance.

Control obviously operates at different stages and levels. Women writing in a number of languages said they found it difficult to clear the first hurdle: getting published. While some spaces have opened up for women's writing, especially in magazines and journals, they said accessing them is not easy and often involves compromise of one kind or another.

A few writers spoke of sexual harassment by editors or publishers. Some decried the fact that women who were regularly published risked gossip about their possible relationship with the concerned (male) editor. Others pointed out that male mentors were sometimes necessary to breach the walls of literary fortresses. Yet others experienced direct censorship by editors and publishers, as well as film-makers and television producers using their work, who changed their stories to make them more "acceptable". "It is as if there is one language for men and another for women," said a Malayalam writer. Another revealed that she was asked to rewrite a scene in one of her novels because the publisher said readers would not expect or accept such a situation in a book by a respectable writer like her. A Tamil publication changed the conclusion of a story by an established writer on the ground that readers would be shocked at the idea of a man continuing to live with his wife after she was raped. Women were often forced to accept such interference in order to continue being published. "Half a loaf is better than none," as one of them put it. But more common was the tendency by writers themselves to become self-conscious and cautious about anything liable to be seen as objectionable by editors, publishers and, of course, critics.

Writers in almost all the workshops waxed eloquent about the negative role often played by powerful - invariably male - literary critics in assessing women's writing. The choice seemed to be between total neglect, dismissal and belittlement, nit- picking over words, and savage criticism, especially when women transgressed patriarchal roles and rules. Many writers regretted the paucity in most languages of female literary critics with some stature and sensibility, although some seemed to be emerging in most languages.

At the Urdu workshop it was pointed out that when women struggled to express themselves within the boundaries laid out for them, their writing was generally dismissed as "vegetable curry" (in other words, weak and insipid), but when a few attempted to overcome such barriers, they were attacked for being coarse and vulgar. According to several writers, many critics had rigid notions about women's writing and based their criticism on stereotypes. "Is this a woman's poem?" a Kannada critic reportedly asked about a poem by a woman that he found less than feminine. "It has no sound of bangles, no scent of flowers."

Most writers acknowledged the tendency within the literary establishment to isolate and brand women who went beyond what was considered "decent" writing and conveyed unconventional ideas on sensitive subjects - especially any work that questioned or otherwise threatened traditional "family values". According to many writers, since critics and publishers usually had the power to make or break a writer, especially in regional language literatures, their writ generally ran - and this amounted to censorship of an indirect but effective kind.

A number of writers also complained that their writing was unnecessarily and unfairly traced back to male family members or mentors. One Telugu writer, for example, ultimately decided to write only prose because her poetry, although totally different from her writer-husband's, was always assumed to be written or at least influenced by him. Another, who found her prize-winning novel attributed to her father on the grounds that she could not possibly have written so convincingly on such a theme, said, "For my next novel I want to choose a subject far removed from my father and my husband so that it will be recognised and accepted as my own."

Many writers also spoke of exclusion by literary bodies such as the Sahitya Parishads (quasi-official literary academies). "There is rarely any mention of us as novelists, short story writers, poets or essayists in our own right," said a senior Gujarati writer. "If at all we are mentioned it is as an afterthought and always as a group rather than as individual, independent voices." According to another, within the literary press, too, while entire articles were devoted to individual male writers, women writers were generally featured as a group and their work presented in a category such as "writings by women this year or this decade" - as if they and their writing could stand up to scrutiny only when clubbed together.

Market Forces

A number of writers also brought up the problems faced by women writers vis vis the literary marketplace, especially in the context of globalisation and the consequent dominance of English as a language, the ascendancy of transnational publishing, and the dictates of international markets. Many seemed to endorse the idea that the market also plays the role of censor in imperceptible ways. Several language writers highlighted the shrinking readership for literature in their languages, especially among the young, for whom English was the favoured language for education and communication. They expressed fears about the marginalisation of local languages and the trend towards monoculture in creative writing, thanks to the emergence of English as the global language. This, they suggested, was likely to hit women writers the hardest. To make matters worse, with few women writers being translated into any other Indian language, they could not reach out to readers in the rest of the country. One reason cited for the paucity of translation into English - the only way of accessing the national and international markets - was that the "culture" represented in the works was even more difficult to "translate" than the language itself.

On the other hand, some English writers pointed out that their high visibility on the national stage, thanks to possibly disproportionate media attention, was not necessarily matched by sales, income or popularity; they clarified that only a few writers in English had any hopes of commanding the large advances from foreign publishers that some celebrity authors may have secured. According to them, the problem of monoculture affected them, too, with mainstream publishers often looking for books conforming to one or other of the formulae popularised by the phenomenal successes of one or two Indian women.

Besides, they argued, most English writers could not ever dream of receiving the kind of attention and affection from readers that many established names in the regional literatures enjoyed as a matter of course. An English poet also pointed out that certain literary genres - such as poetry - that flourish in regional literatures had hardly any audience among English readers. As another poet dramatically put it, "The voices of poets are totally silenced in English. I feel totally drowned out, completely censored. I might as well lie down and die."

Subversive acts

That cry of despair notwithstanding, what was most remarkable in all this was the fact that there were so many women of different ages and backgrounds across the country creating literature in every language - despite the somewhat grim realities that a large number of them faced in their lives as women and as writers. Also amazing were the different ways in which so many of them managed to get around the various stumbling blocks in their paths to continue living and writing as much and as well as possible under the circumstances.

At times their acts of subversion were practical and simple. For instance, a Gujarati writer whose mother-in-law would not let her read the newspaper, let alone write poetry, managed to find a way to do both. She would read the day's paper while sieving flour for rotis onto it and use the margins for her poems! A Telugu writer said she dealt with the problem of time and space by sitting down to write the minute the rest of the family left the house and resuming housework only when they returned; according to her, she was able to do it with renewed energy after having savoured at least a few hours of peace and creativity.

At other times writers used genre to combat gender. A humour writer suggested that she may have taken to being funny in order to survive the domestic oppression she experienced in her life. A number of poets implied that their choice of form was at least partially influenced by the possibility of being oblique in poetry. As a Bengali writer put it, "Poetry allows for better concealment." "Poetry can be used as a shield," said a Kannada writer. "I write whatever I want in my poems. I have experimented a lot but have not faced any problems, probably because each reader understands a poem differently."

Some writers seemed to have found other acceptable ways of dealing with the tension between their need to draw on personal observation and experience, and their equally compelling desire to maintain the delicate balance of their lives and relationships. According to one Kannada writer, whose stories often featured women who appeared to have lost their minds, the figure of the "mad" woman served as a device that allowed her to write with a certain degree of freedom about sensitive issues. The reason why her work had not had any negative fallout could be because many people did not fully comprehend all that was implied in her writing, she suggested.

The persistence and perseverance with which women continued to write against all odds was evidently linked to their perception of writing as a virtual lifeline. Many of them said that writing was for them a means of survival, a way of expressing pent-up feelings, of dealing with loneliness and alienation, of handling claustrophobia and frustration, of finding relief from depression and pain. As one Kannada writer put it, "The first novel is to kill demons, the second is to live." Another said writing was what kept her from going "mad" like many of her characters. "Writing is like kasuti - an embroidery of memories through which women try to forget their pain and understand their lives," she said.

"Writing is an outlet for all the questions and dilemmas boiling within me," said yet another writer. "I think I would die if I didn't write."

At the same time, there seemed to be a widespread feeling that individual struggles were not sufficient. Writers in all the workshops spoke of the need to build a sense of community and create a more conducive creative environment for themselves by coming together to form some sort of network for mutual support and encouragement.

Some such organisations already exist at the local or State level. For many Urdu writers of Hyderabad, the Mehfil-e- Khawateen, an association of women writers that has been in existence since the 1970s, had proved to be a source of support and solidarity. The Karnataka Lekhakiyara Sangha, a large State- level membership organisation, not only provides a forum for women writers to interact but highlights literary achievements by women, although some writers implied that it could play a more proactive role.

While participants in most of the workshops expressed the need for some kind of common platform which could fulfil multiple needs, the writers who attended the Bengali workshop took the initiative to form a collective on the spot and christen it Shoi (a Bangla word with three relevant meanings: woman friend, signature and enduring).

Meanwhile, individual writers continued to stretch the limits imposed by society to live and write on their own terms - as the last verse of a poem by a Kannada writer suggests:

 

Breakinginging out of the dam
You've built, swelling
In a thunder storm
Roaring through the land,
Let me live very differently
From you, mother.
Let go, make way. 

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