Difficult Subjects: Conceptualising the Politics of Women’s Lifewritings

Abstract

The paper seeks to enquire about a significant gap and absence in 19th and early 20thcentury literary history. While lifewritings as a genre was becoming increasingly popular among newly literate women, there is often a silence about the histories and life narratives of many recalcitrant, difficult subjects. Peculiarly and perhaps paradoxically, some of these subjects-often women- were well-known in their lifetime, but have later been relegated to anonymity and neglect.

This paper focuses on the autobiographical narrative of Sarala Debi Chaudhurani’s (1872-1945)“JibanerJharapata,” which could be translated to “Life’s Scattered/ Fallen Leaves”. As Rabindranath Tagore’s niece, she aspired to India’s freedom, and believed that the key to India’s freedom and progress lay in developing a physical culture. She propounded the invention of traditions which propagated and put forward a culture of ‘muscular nationalism’. In the course of her work, she came into conflict with Tagore whose ideas of nationalism were in stark contrast.

This paper glances at her ideological divide with Tagore, her interaction with Gandhi and wonders why her autobiography has been neglected for the better part of a century. Is it because her right wing views sat oddly with secular historians? Or is it because she was a difficult, recalcitrant subject whose story-and life narrative did not ‘fit’ in either with dominant trends in historiography or existing paradigms of women’s autobiography?