Dear Editor,
There are advertisements about a play being produced by the Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) which is supposed to contribute to efforts to prevent domestic violence in Guyana. The 1983 play, Kanyadaan, is by Indian author Vijay Tendulkar. The story (summarised from a reviewer at http://kpowerinfinity.spaces.live.com/Blog/) is about a girl (Jyoti) born into a “Hindu Upper caste” political family with progressive views who marries a Dalit man (Arun) because she sees angst in his poetry, and promise in delivering him from his devilish tendencies. Her father’s lofty ideals have inculcated in her a spirit where she tries to find the good in people, and strives to change them. However, after getting married to him, she soon realizes that the devil and the poet-lover are one and the same person; they cannot be separated, neither can he be cleansed of the vices (drinking, wife-beating) that are a part of him.
The play apparently exposes the contradictions in the caste system in India, and the efforts used to remove the gross inequalities which have arisen from the caste system. With reference to domestic violence, Jyoti at the end of the script decides to “accept her husband for who he is” and stays with him because “she cannot go back from the battlefield.” In this play, Arun’s abusive behaviour is explained away and excused as learned behaviour.
Basmat Shiw Parsad, in her 1988 paper, ‘Domestic Violence: A study of wife abuse among East Indians of Guyana’ noted the prevalence of violence in Indian families, and that more than 50% of her respondents indicated some belief that they were responsible for the violence. One reason for staying was to accept “god’s will and to wait out their destiny.”
Theatre has a role no doubt to educate by challenging, and to reflect on social issues in the society. Does the IAC want Indian people in Guyana to debate Jyoti’s belief that she should stay with a violent husband as part of her destiny? Or would a play like this put on by an ‘Indian cultural organisation’ send some message that Indian women should remain in their abusive relationships as part of their “Indianness”?
There are so many liberating stories in Guyana of Indian women who have survived abusive relationships and who have made choices which have forced the society to reconsider that “an Indian woman stays with her husband no matter what.”
The IAC might wish to look elsewhere for stories from the Indian cultural context as to how other Indian women have managed their relationships. The story of Sita, in the Ramayana who in the end went back to her mother rather than face any further questions from Rama tells a different tale from Jyoti in the play, and should leave the IAC audiences with a different perspective that it is okay for an Indian woman to leave. The story of Shiva and Parvati is also an example of the kind of union which many Hindu husbands and wives should have.
Domestic violence has intensified in Guyana. Edu-cation and awareness activities have to challenge the cultural norms which perpetuate domestic violence − the norms which excuse and justify abusive behaviour on the one hand, and which want to blame the women who find that in dealing with their abusive partners, they might have to also confront a large section of their society.
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
