Echoing The 'F' Word: Feminist Voices Above Chaos At Bihar Literature Festival

Seated on the stage of the Bihar Literature Festival, a woman defied the social norms of modesty reserved for her with a burst of laughter. In a country that continues its attempt to tame the daughters to only be polite and never make a sound, this voice above the chaos and the act of defiance belonged to Outlook India's first woman editor Chinki Sinha. She shared the stage at Ahad Anhad, a festival celebrating words and performances in Patna, Bihar, with eminent personalities of Hindi and English literature, all women. Usha Kiran Khan, Savita Singh, Geeta Shree, Vandana Rag and Chinki Sinha represent different generations, languages, and ideologies. However, what ties them together is their struggle in a patriarchal society and their journey to rise above. These women have not just been voices, but the noise above the chaos.

Beyond the male gaze

For centuries, men have controlled the channels of knowledge and language. They have dominated newsrooms and editorial boards. Men have shaped literature and promoted gendered labour, but Ahad Anhad's director, Sujata Prasad, through her visionary attempts succeeded in designing a session dedicated solely to discussing the importance of female voices in literature. On what motivated Sujata to design an all-female panel, she said, "It's poignant to have voices that defy conventions despite the forces of patriarchy, history, and violence conspiring against them."

Padmashree awardee and veteran writer Usha Kiran Khan talked about the innate ability of creativity within women. She outlined how men wanted to control the creativity of women for ages. "Men have wanted women to be creative but that creativity had to be confined within the four walls of his house. Men wanted women to be educated, but not so much that she would go ahead and burn his manuscripts."

She cited historic instances of women's creative abilities and that the same has lacked among men. Citing the example of folk songs and paintings, such as the world-famous Mithila painting, she narrated how women have been playing with words and weaving songs. "Paintings are also called likhiya (written) because women wrote their stories through art on the walls," Khan observed.

"You are inherently political when you are born a woman." Chinki Sinha resonated with Carol Hanisch's 'The Personal is Political' as she emphasised the necessity of the narrative 'I' in feminist writings. She talked about being a political journalist and a female editor in an all-boys media industry. "I would initially be asked to write on themes like lifestyle and be always kept from subjects concerning politics. Also, as a woman, our lens does not allow us to view politics from the male gaze which has a masculine objectivity".

Here, Sinha raised a key feature in feminist discourse; a feminist standpoint that perceives theorization and thinking from women's and marginalized lives, focusing on experiences not as mere subjects but as sites of knowledge production. Socio-political writer and thinker, Vandana Rag shared similar instances where she was told by her "well-wishers" to avoid writing on hard-core political issues and focus on softer, soothing subjects.

Love and the F word -- 'Feminism'

Political theorist and feminist poet Savita Singh broke the misconceptions of love and romance established through the male gaze. Narrating an episode from when she invited a storm through her ferocious critique of "romantic" author Shamsher Bahadur Singh, she slammed Bahadur's love for being too immersed in his own pain and suffering. "He doesn't seem to be in love but rather a jilted lover, defeated in his quest for love. How can this be the best work of Hindi poetry about love, he doesn't even love the woman he is writing about," she said in a sharp critique.

Singh's observation dispelled the popular narrative of love. She talked about how, under the garb of love and fabricated displays of emotions, women are manipulated by men and controlled. Singh critiqued the male idea of love through feminist literature. The feminist critique argued how such love breaks down personal boundaries, becomes intrusive and exerts pressure and oppression upon women, therefore resulting in control and domination. Singh does not reject romantics or love; however, she rejects the age-old established ideas of love and its display.

Breaking the glass ceiling

Commending Chinki Sinha for creating history and breaking the glass ceiling by becoming a female editor leading a newsroom, Geeta Shree shared her own experience of trying to get through the same which she calls an "iron ceiling" from a decade ago. Shree served as an associate editor but did not get to the position of becoming the editor herself. A firebrand, as called by Usha Kiran Khan, Geeta Shree blasted the critiques of feminist writing and feminism. She talked about two factions within women writers, one that distances itself from feminism and the other embracing feminism, as herself.

Taking the agency of her work, Shree decisively spoke in her Maithili accent that the lens to be allowed to critique her work must be feminist. "It cannot be only traditional, you are free to borrow your values and style from your tradition, but the lens has to be developed, it has to be hybrid." She also took pride in establishing that we are currently living through a feminist era of literature which has been possible because women have learnt to be carefree. Women have historically been taught to be careful, to behave, and to act in order, but Geeta Shree and Chinki Sinha unshed these weights that society incorporates within women, starting from a young age. On her laughter around the questions of "humorous tragedies" that embark on a woman's fate, Sinha said, "Men and others have rage and anger. We, women, have our laughter" she says, as wordplay for the last laugh.

Market for men

Women are neither naïve to the capitalist forces that drive the market and economy, nor are they unaware of the patriarchy that works in alliance with the capitalist economy. Sujata Prasad outlined the unfortunate status of feminist literature even in the third decade of the 21st century. "It is hard to believe that we still need a separate session with women authors. We long for the day when we don't need to single out women whose writing is a form of rebellion."

Over a century ago, revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg talked about human history's greatest theft of women's labour. The staunch figures, holding strong to their seats raised the same concerns as Luxemburg in Patna. Talking about the operation of a capitalist economy based on patriarchy, Singh opined that the economy must collapse. "If in order to pay women their dues of exploitation and centuries of unpaid labour, let it collapse." She, however, also added that women are unfortunately destined to do double or triple the amount of labour that men are, be it within the realms of her household or in writing because "nobody else is paving the way for us."

Vandana Rag opened up about the vices of gender disparity and how male authors have historically and in contemporary times helped promote, establishing works of other men, and denying their female counterparts the stage. She added this while pointing to the constant male gaze fixated on critiquing female writings.

Finding feminism

Meanwhile, Savita Singh made several contradictory statements during her session at the three-day-long festival. She spoke about feminist writings but labelled the "Burn the bra" movement as a radical wave of the feminist movement. Similarly, veteran feminist writer Usha Kiran Khan went ahead to defend post-Harishankar Prasad's glorification of women in his work. Khan justified Prasad's "Nari tum keval shraddha ho" by saying that Prasad's attempts to devote his honours to women through his poem must be seen in retrospect of the time he wrote it, therefore reinforcing the idea of honour upon a woman. However, she later admitted that time has now travelled beyond the structures of honour and faith but paints a utopian idea that women stand at par with men.

The all-female panel, moderated by author Vyomesh Shukla also agreed on the need for intersectionality in feminist literature and works in India, though, the lack of it was also visibly present at the festival. Savita Singh talked about her upcoming anthology that contains the work of women representing their respective communities, but it does not seem sufficient for the lack of marginalized voices quoted throughout the session.

However, it must be noted that the first Bihar Literature Festival was an attempt to create a synthesis between thesis and antithesis and carry forward the dialectics of democracy and feminism in an already polarized world.