Feminism and Gender Consciousness in Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve

“Life is a challenge”. It has to be met. The cliched saying is far more true in the case of a woman. For a woman life is always a challenge and since ages she has been subjected to the many challenges thrown by society, customs, traditions and men.

Tradition, the world over, has assigned a lower and subordinate position to women in it’s social set up. However important the functions and duties of a woman are, she is always relegated to the background. And woman is obliged to subordinate her interests and desires to the collective will of her community, and in particular to the male members. These constricting and narrow social norms constrained her to obliterate her ‘self’, her individuality and separate identity.

Change is the law of life, and the status of women all over the world has been undergoing a rapid change in recent times. Traditionally, the Indian woman accepted the frame work of the family with a blind faith and rarely, if ever, showed a spirit of rebellion. But times have changed and the women of India too are taking strides though slow at the moment towards attainment of selfhood, independence and personal dignity.

The post independence era in the Indo-Anglican novel marks a striking departure from the traditional depiction of the female as but I weak, dependant adjunct to her counter parts in society. It is an obvious advancement. A galaxy of women novelists have sprung up, a remarkable phenomenon by itself. These women novelists have contributed to the development of the Indo-Anglian novel by an inclusion of new themes, with special focus on the issues that concern women, their joys and sorrows, ills and blessings.

Indian literature of the earlier era has depicted woman as one who is docile, self sacrificing, the very embodiment of self less love and a veritable monument of patience, ever willing to suffer. Such virtues are highlighted as the virtues of true womanhood, the virtues of a “pathivratha”.

The Smrithis, the Puranas, even the Epics and Vedas speak of woman’s lower position. It is a man made world, and woman is bound within the narrow confines prescribed by man. This kind of male chauvinism resulting in female enslavement has been a set feature of Indian society, since ages. However, with the spread of education, wider exposure to society, both at home and abroad, woman in the Indian context, has been able to achieve a breakthrough from the shackles of ages-old servility and subordination.

Originally published in https://www.eng-literature.com/2020/07/feminism-kamala-markandaya-nectar-in-sieve.html