![]() Between Caste and GenderNeha Chatterji GENDER AND CASTE HIERARCHY IN COLONIAL BENGAL: INTER-CASTE INTERVENTIONS OF IDEAL WOMANHOOD By Deboshruti Roychowdhury Stree, Kolkata, 2014, pp. 246, Rs. 600.00 VOLUME XL NUMBER 7 July 2016 Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial
Bengal by Deboshruti
Roychowdhury explores how different
ranks of caste groups in colonial Bengal
contemplated the ‘ideal woman’. The subtitle
suggests that the book might talk about
significant ‘interventions’ by subordinate
castes on the ‘women’s question’ in colonial
Bengal, interventions that could possibly
bring out the contested and variegated nature
of the ideal(s). Reading the book, however,
makes it clear that the author’s point is
about ‘Brahmanical hegemony’ being ‘something
truly total in nature’ (p. 217). Thus
the author argues that claims of superior status
in terms of caste were organically linked
to claims of ‘purity’ which, in turn, placed
oppressive burdens of chastity, fidelity, subservience
and self-sacrifice invariably on
women. Amid unprecedented opportunities
offered by the colonial regime, low caste
groups saw their improvement of social status
in the imposition of oppressive patriarchal
norms, ‘Brahmanical in nature’ (p.
216), on their women. Roychowdhury assumes
that this meant a loss to lower caste
women’s erstwhile relative freedom ‘whose
way of life was subjected to fiercer scrutiny
than ever before’ (p. 204). To quote her: ‘The
absence of free choices for women thus became
a ubiquitous phenomenon prevalent
across almost all the social strata of colonial
Bengal’ (p. 9).
Which castes of Bengal does Roychowdhury
refer to in her book as ‘low-caste
groups’ and assume to have been relatively
less restrictive—in terms of Brahmanical gender
codes—on women in pre-colonial times?
Apart from a sparse mention of Dalit groups
like Namasudras and Rajbangshis drawn
entirely from secondary literature,
Roychowdhury’s book does not deal with
degraded castes of Bengal like the Bagdi,
Muchi, the several fishermen castes or even
the internally stratified Pod. The blurb itself
tells that Roychowdhury’s subjects are the
relatively middle-positioned castes (whom
she calls ‘marginalised so-called lower castes’)
like ‘Subarnabaniks (gold merchants),
Gandhabaniks (spice merchants), Mahishyas
(prosperous farmers), Sadgopes (prosperous
peasantry)’. Elsewhere she also includes the Tili and Teli (oil-pressers). By looking at caste
journals of the early twentieth century, the
author concludes that ‘low-caste women’
now ‘had for the first time the burden of protecting
the honour of their entire community’
(p. 204, emphasis mine). The blanket
category ‘low’, in this work, collapses the
considerable distinctions of ritual status between
‘clean’ Sudra castes and degraded/
‘antyaja’ castes. For ‘clean’ castes like
Sadgopes, Brahmanical restrictions on
women were hardly new.
Deboshruti Roychowdhury includes the
various categories of Brahmanas among ‘upper
... Table of Contents >> |