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/ 32
SAMALOCHANA
“Sur”
( Translated from Odia by
Animesh Mohapatra and Umasankar Patra)
Translators’ Foreword
The translated text is a pseudonymous review published in Utkala
Sahitya, the literary periodical which had published “Rebati” and serialized
Fakir Mohan Senapati’s novels like Chha Mana Atha Guntha and Lachama,
“Rebati” was published in the October 1898 issue of the periodical, and
its “Samalochana” came out three months later, in January 1899. A similar
dialogue discussing Chha Mana Atha Guntha (serialised in 1897-98) was
published in the 1 October 1898 issue of Utkal Dipika which attempted
to identify Senapati as the man behind the mask of Dhurjati. “Samalochana’
has been attributed to Fakir Mohan Senapati himself by some scholars
and denied by some others. There are enough justifications on both sides
either to claim or deny this authorship. The autobiographical allusions
and the style make a case for Senapati writing this review whereas ‘Shri,
the pseudonym used here, was rampantly used by many authors at that
time. Hence, no conclusive argument could be made either for or against
the case.
The review is in the form ofa fictional dialogue between two readers
the short story. One of them, Mohan, tries to defend
Shankar attempis to be critical. One may @
interlocutors, Mohan and Stiankar, could be
d the renown?
jon sometiin®
who are discussing
the author while the other,
here that the names of the
ossible references to Fakir Mohan Senapati himself an
Utkal Dipika, Gourishankar Ray. The conversati
t nonsense. Some of the references @
. eli
text. The reader is forced to read betwee? th
editor of ni
veers towards apparen a
ace in con!
difficult to pl SAMALOCHANA | 191
recover Subtexts and topical allusions, nn
10 : i i
f the reception of Senapati during his ti
P pan ,
Herodotus and Fakir. The cruci
text provides us
8 me—him being Valmiki,
al Positioning of himself
at the be
of atradition takes a new turn if we attribute the text to Seana
He seems to be suggesting that this short story is an attempt to reach out
to the masses. As “Rebati” was the first short Story in Odia Language,
discussions steer towards the generic identity, realism and the characters’
fate, The dialogue asks important questions about the nature of
storytelling and the aesthetics of the short st
‘ory. Moreover, it is a playful
conversation filled with irony, humour and Tepartee. Both the characters
engage in rhetorical exchange, mostly ending up in wordplay. While
Shankar is desperate to elicit answers, Mohan defending the art of the
author, continues to be evasive. Such evasiveness seems to be echoing the
touter narrator of Chha Mana Atha Guntha,
Many 20th century critics have read the story as a proto-feminist
plea for women’s education. Many others think of it as a story in which
agirl child is caught between traditional superstition and modernity. This
difference in critical perception seems to mirror Senapati’s ambivalent
views—one expressed in his discursive prose that pleads for woman's
education; and the other, a point-of-view represented by the narrators in
his short stories like “Sabhya Zamidar” in which educated women are
given a negative portrayal. As is clearly spelt out in the ‘last word’ of the
‘author of “Samalochana’, the narrator wants the reader to figure out for
herself the ‘authorial’ intention in the story
The original text published in Utkala Sahitya is in such a damaged
state that it is impossible to decipher some of the letters and words. Our
‘ranslation is based partly on the version reprinted in the Fakir Mohananka
Duspraypya Rachanaabali edited by Kailash Patnayak (Cuttack: Friends’
Publishers, 1998),
a glimpse
We would like to thank J. P. Das, Sudarshan Acharya, Sumanyu
5 5 Shaswat P.
Satpathy, Jatindra Kumar Nayak, Bigyan Ranjan Das and Shaswat Panda
without whose help the numerous footnotes, topical allusions and
ve been possibile.
“omprehensive analysis of the text would not have been possible
Ny Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar;
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
SAMALOCHANA
Have you seen Rebati?
Rebati, who?
Rebati is a two-three month old infant.
Whose daughter is she?
Saria’s! sister.
Whose daughter?
Chha Mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a Third) is one of her
brothers.
Tam asking whose daughter is she. Why are you telling me
about Chha Mana Atha Guntha?
Rebati’s father is often on tours.
Who is he? Where does he go on tours?
He has travelled throughout Odisha. He is also about to tour
the South?.
Who is he?
He is Valmiki?,
This is so typical of you. You never talk straight.
He is the Odia Valmiki,
Please tell me whose daughter is Rebati?
Shyamabandhu Mohanty’s daughter.
Who is Shyamabandhu Mohanty?
He is from Patapur. He is a gumasta* to the Z minds
Which Patapur? Our Alasua? Patapur? Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Samatociana | 193
No, it’s the Patapur village in Harih,
arapur. Alasua Pat
in Baleshwar. apur is
Isn't this Patapur also in Baleshwar?
Yes. Rebati’s father too is from Baleshwar. His house is towards
the south of Gopalpur, near Gudipokhari. He
DOF GOI Is on very good
terms with Guvindababu®, "hon
What rubbish are you talking?
Do you want to see Rebati?
Have you directly lifted the infant from the Antudishala?’
Let me show you.
Ate AB
Yes, I saw’.
So how is it?
Quite an impressive work. Dhurjati!” is a fine writer.
Anything else?
But, why is it so short?
How much longer did you want it to be?
I wish Rebati had been like Scott’s Rebecca or Dwitiyachandra’s!!
Durgeshnandini. It got over in a moment.
The writer is very clever. He has thorough knowledge of desha
kala-patra'*. He could not enter every household when he
emerged as Valmiki. His reach was limited only to the Bhagabata
ghara"; in his incarnation as Herodotus, his circulation was
confined to school children and later were left to rot in
warehouses!*. Asa result, he kept quiet for a while and travelled
to different parts of Odisha as a fakir'. In a newly built house,
Dhurjati gleaning knowledge from his travels fathered “Rebati”.
A favourable reception of Rebi!® would encourage him to travel
more and bring out her brothers and sisters.
Why did he have to kill everyone? He is very cruel; he could
have at least saved one character by treating him with the
medicine prescribed by his younger brother, Madhu doctor!’. 194 | Faxix Monan SENAPATI
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Shankar:
Mohan:
Author:
ovani Biswal’s family also died 4
: rs of Bh
All seven membe bs
jarrhoea.
single day of diarr! /
single e they the same? Ok, why did the innocent
. Rel
as innocent? ba
But how ar
have to die? Basudeba too w:
Right. Jiban Babu, teacher at the academy; Harikrushng ta
,
the deputy; Ragunath Bhuyan of Damodarpur et al, they ~
also equally good?
The writer is old-fashioned. He is not liberal-minded,
Wajib!®, His hair has started greying and so has his Pen. He has
also become a widower.
Isn’t his worldview narrow? Isn't he opposed to the idea of
modern education for women?
I too sought an explanation from the author under the section
250 demanding why shouldn't he be held guilty under the
section 512 and 513 of IPC!®. Even before receiving his
explanation, out of generosity, I myself wrote an explanation,
Once when I ran into him at the pilgrimage of Harihara we
compared our explanations and the possible answers he would
offer to probable questions of another person. His and my
explanations turned out to be similar and the other was
washed down the river Falgu2?,
Could you elaborate? Mallinatha . . , 2!
You want to know what happened—Well, let me analyse his
apology and mine. Dhurjati says, . . 2? “from the Sathia
Company”, would I become Chaturbhuja if some ears and
noses are not straight?”
Ok, I understood.‘ If all of them died then who performed 7
funeral rites? Who lit the pyre of Rebati and her grandmothe
The Lat CounciP’ performed their rites, The grandmothers
lighting Rebati’s pyre, immediately lit herself with the fire oft
chullha.
;
Beware reader Sir! Read the last lines [of the story / “
dialogue?) attentively. Notes
10.
Saria is a character from Fakir Mohan Senapati’s novel Ch)
Guntha (Six Ares and A Third) hha Mana Atha
The reference here is tthe Madras. Pre
session of the Indian N,
2931
December 1898. This article was published in Ja 1899 and
twas in all
nuary
probability written before Senapati left for Madras.
Fakir Mohan Senapati is addressed as Valmiki. fo
Ramayana. He started translating the epic in 1879,
Aandas between 1880 and 1885. In his autobiograp|
undertook the translation of the
immediately after the
this translation of The
and published its different
hy Senapati writes that he
epic in order to assuage the grief of his wife
death of the couple's six-month old son. Initially he read
out to her the sixteenth-century translation of the epic by Balaram Das, Since
she found it difficult to follow the existing version, Senapati started rendering
the text in a more accessible idiom,
A gumasta or gomastha is an accountant in charge of a zamindari, ‘Bailiff’ is
a close equivalent in English.
Alasua in Odia means lazy thus its use in the name of a region adds humour
to the dialogue.
Refers to Senapati’s friend and colleague Gobinda Chandra Pattanaik. The
description of the place is a reference to Senapati’s residence.
Antudishala can be loosely translated as lying-in-room. This refers to the
maternity corner in a traditional household with a hearth for the delivery and
post-natal care of the mother and the infant.
These asterisks are meant to suggest the passage of time during which Shankar
reads the text.
In a playful vein, Shankar retorts to Mohan by using ‘seeing’ the infant Rebati
rather than ‘reading’ the recently published “Rebati’.
Dhurjati was the pseudonym under which Senapati wrote “Rebati” and several
other works. Literally it means someone who carries a heavy jata (the matted
iva, who along with his jata
locks mainly seen atop Indian sadhus); or Lord ‘
has to carry the burden of the three /okas (i.e. heaven, earth and the
underworld). os
Bankim Chandra can be literally translated as crescent moon in’ dia.
Ye new moon is a
Dwitiyachandra or moon on the second night following the nm
Playful reference to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
. id people. A person
Desha-kala-patra can be translated literally as place, time and people. & p
three is supposed to be worldly wise or
with an awareness of the above
ages, where sacred books were kep
Bhagabata ghara or tungi is a place in village ro alee Be
; equivale
and read out by the priest to the villagers. An ea 196 | Faxik MOHAN SENAPATI
14,
16.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25,
‘naamghar’.
The name of ‘Herodotus’ is used in the original Odia text and
k . . 2 the
here is to Senapati as a historian. Senapati’s Bharatabarshay, releren.,
‘a Itihas
textbook for several years and was withdrawn from the syllab Sa Schoo)
‘ — . Us ji
following the objection raised by Radhanath Ray and Baikunthanath 1884
De,
BEd from
d ailment
F ; F F Prom
to give the child away to the saints. After his recovery however, she coulg vd
Not
published in two volumes in 1869 and 1870 and was Prescribed a, Way
In his autobiography, Senapati recounts how his name was chan,
Brajamohan to Fakir Mohan. When he was 7-8 years old, a childhoo,
was cured by two Muslim saints (pirs). His grandmother had earlier
bring herself to hand her grandson over to the pirs completely. Instead the
child Brajamohan would symbolically be given to the pirs for eight days each
year at the time of Muharram, when he would be dressed as a fakir (o,
mendicant) and go begging for alms for the benefit of his saviours,
‘Rebi’ is an affectionate diminutive of ‘Rebati’ and is used throughout the story.
The writer taking advantage of the eponymous text conflates the text and the
character and plays on it.
Though it is almost impossible to fathom who Madhu doctor was, one may
speculatively identify him as Madhusudan Rao, the poet. Rao wrote a defensive
preface to Radhanath Ray’s Mahayatra (or The Great Rite of Passage, 1897), an
unfinished epic written in blank verse. Pre-empting the criticism the use of a
new verse form might cause in Odia literary circles Madhusudan Rao had
written the preface. Perhaps it is suggested that “Rebati’, being the earliest short
story, deserved a similar apologia.
Senapati has a knack for using Perso-Arabic expressions in his texts. The writer
here, if it is not him, is certainly trying to imitate Senapati’s style.
The Indian Penal Code has altogether 511 sections and thus the reference to
Sections 512 and 513 is intended to set the unsuspecting reader on a wild goose
chase.
In an apparently serious note he offers a riddle. It seems as if he deems the
question of Shankar to be irrelevant and offers him in the veil of a complicated
narration, a nonsense.
A couple of letters in this sentence are smudged making it undecipherable.
Mallinatha in all probability is a reference to the famous Sanskrit scholar and
commentator.
Another couple of letters missing.
A reference to a contemporary photo studio.
A desperate attempt to end the conversation.
The Privy Council of England (which during the colonial period hear,
from the decision of Indian High Courts). (Purnchandra Bhashako soi
5
ha 7349) MOHAN SENAPATI AND THE EMERGENCE
tHE MODERN Obta SHort Story* *
Vidya Das
Fax
Modern prose writing in i. began, as in other Indian languages, in
the second half of the nineteenth century. In most parts of India, the
complex interaction poweey two factors contributed to the emergence
and shape of the new writing—colonial modernism via European thought
and literature anda growing nationalist consciousness as evidenced in the
concerns of identity and socio-political change.
In Odia literature, however, the former had little immediate influence,
distanced as Odisha was from centres of power, and ignored by the
British except for its natural resources. The reasons for this and the
circumstances that led to the emergence of the literature, with its distinctive
quality of rootedness, is often forgotten. Despite Odisha’s ancient artistic
and cultural heritage and the fact that Odia is almost a 1000 year old
language with an established literary tradition, modern Odia writing
arose from an urgent need to preserve the language and prevent the
submersion of an Odia identity. That the language and the culture have
shown such resilience is significant given the specific history of the state.
Long past the Kalinga and Utkal periods, Odisha was invaded in
turn by the Mughals, the Afghans and the Marathas. i had no stable
central power and was split into semi-independent principalities. This led
‘0 the gradual political amputation of Odisha into separate parts that
Were annexed to neighbouring states. When the British occupied Odisha
: stories ed. Vidya Das.
Eeerpted from the “Introduction” to the volume Oriya Stories ed. Vidya
Delhi:
sl
. vin hat were
“Orissa” and “Oriya” tl
nged in this volume
on .
he original “Introduction” used the spellings
passed
a oi rate
a ee at the time of its publication. These ha’
by we and “Odisha’, following the Constitution
le C
ve been cha ‘
a3") Amendment Bill
Jovernment of India in 2011. 198 | Vinva Das
1 the extremely weakened Marathas, this Vivise-,.
in 1803, taking over from ’ sy "
i are and attachment of Odj, n
was consolidated with the separation dia Seg
regions to the Madras, Bengal and Central provinces for Teaso
egions
i Ns
ministrative expedience. Other parts were gover, of
commercial and ad we ‘ were ned,
f udatory states, unconnected to these administrative districts, is
feudatory states, :
Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, though boung
together both linguistically and through abiding community, Social ang
religious practices (the most visible cultural marker being the Cult of
Jagannath, with its seat Puri providing a sense of cohesion), the Odia
people themselves were dispersed and dispossessed.
The disintegration of Odisha had of course begun much before
British rule and it had suffered greatly under the petty rulers and the
terror tactics of the Marathas who came after the Mughals. But the
livelihood of the people had continued much as before. The systematic
destruction and upheaval that took place within a short time of British
occupation was unprecedented. The trade policies virtually wiped out the
cottage industries of handloom, leatherwork, filigree and other handicrafts
that were the traditional livelihood of the Odias: And monopoly over the
sale and manufacture of common salt took away the economic mainstay
of the people of coastal Odisha. The revenue policies and the notorious
Sunset Law that accompanied it ensured that the rich too were deprived
of their lands and uprooted. Many in desperation got their lands settled
in the name of temple authorities, relying on the British policy of not
interfering with religious institutions and also, somewhat naively, on the
honesty of the priests. Resistance of any kind, such as the famous Paika
rebellion, only led to further deprivation and displacement. By the second
half of the century, the people depended almost entirely on agriculture for
their living. These Odia areas, however, were largely treated as the
backwaters of the provinces they were attached to, with no railway lines
orin migation systems being set up by the administrators to develop the
eat a oe gen
Poin ee ap ~ x. igins i the voice of the masses without ati ‘ feu
courte However anskritised stage under the patronage co atob?
felt that political dig, vaaleny inte ie a ish
and when ade EEsa could lead to the erasure of Odia ee "iti
Ministrative homogenisation threatened to becomea lin EMPRGENCE OF THE Mopppyy
ODA Sor Story | 199
and cultural one as wall
ie most be emphasised that administrative indiffer
ar ue
ase of British rule meant that Odia spe. ven nn the
aking regions had few
; et ry states had ne
spall, Education was the privilege of the rich, and the Iterture of
a Of this
period tended to be localised, developing without contact with liter:
writing in other Odia areas. The only official recognition of Odia “
Indian language made by the British administration had been an nee
English glossary published in 1807 to assist British officers, °
The Christian missionaries who entered Odisha in 1822, however,
contributed singularly in laying the foundations for the literary revival a
Odisha, recognising in their efforts to spread Christianity that the only
access to the people was through their language. The first Odia Bible had
already been published outside Odisha in 1811. But later they started
schools and did much to spread literacy generally, brought out Odia
newsletters and periodicals that published both religious and literary
pieces, as well as set up the first Odia printing press in 1836.
early ph F
inode" schools and no universities. The feudato
In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a growing
attempt to officially displace and de-recognise the Odia language could be
discerned. Caught up in the regional overtones that some aspects of the
emergent nationalist movement took, Indian functionaries of the East
India Company belonging to the Bengal province to which the entire
coastal belt of Odisha was attached, tried to prove that Odia was merely
a derivative or dialect form of Bangla and that Odia areas belonged to
Bengal. In 1868, it was proposed at a meeting of the Asiatic Society in
Calcutta that Bangla should be compulsorily imposed in Odia schools.
This led to heated protest and resistance, and a unification of the people
who had begun to organise themselves to fight for common causes after
the famine of 1866 that killed one-third of the population.
Itis in this struggle not for survival but for recognition t —
of modern Odia writing has to be contextualised. The challenge wae
up by several radical intellectuals of the time such as Gourishankar O.
Fakir Mohan Senapati, Radhanath Ray and Madhusudan Rao, —
Many others, who vehemently opposed the move and we ap aign.
Utkal Sabha, an organisation formed in 1362, to strengthen their camp?
: poke of the Odia
What is significant about this movement is that If SP°
hat the birth 200 | Viva Das
people as a collective. Previous revolts against the Administ ;
primarily attempts to re-establish the hierarchies ofa traditional a Wey
social order. The language struggle, however, was to bea lon, on ali
as in 1895, it was the Central Province administration that a late
the replacement of Odia by Hindi in schools belonging to dig
policy that was reversed only in 1905 after Protracted Tesistance eas,
By then the movement spearheaded by the intellectual
strengthened and expanded. The fight to prevent the linguistic subm,
of Odia had become part of the larger campaign for S0cio-econg
reform, which included the restoration of the livelihood of attisans fy
revival of the salt industry, the mechanisation of agri oi
‘culture, the buildin
of railway lines and the development of the use of, natural resources, Their
main demand was for a separate Odisha province. The Risley Citculap
issued in 1904 indicated for the first time that the Government was will
to act on these issues and was favourable to the idea of the Unification
of Odia areas. However, the Odisha province came into being only jn
1936, just eleven years before Independence.
The major figures in this struggle were simultaneously involved in the
nationalist movement. The first Odia newspaper Utkal Dipika was begun
in 1866 by Gourishankar Ray, and several other newspapers and journals
quickly followed with the specific purpose of Providing a platform for the
€xpression of the people’s Srievances and anger. Fakir Mohan Senapati’s
Sambad Bahika was started in 1868 to deal directly with the Tanguage
policy and to restore the Position and stature of Odia literature. It is
through these publications that Odia prose and literature entered anew
Phase, and the impetus and shape of Odisha’s literary awakening came
from this political Tesistance to cultural colonisation.
lad
eEsion
te
Acknowledged as the Pioneer of modern Odia prose, Fakir Mohan
Senapati’s writi ing began as an interventionist response to these historical
circumstances, One of the most revered writers of Odisha, Senapati had
litle formal education himselt ang Was largely self-taught. But he wet!
on to become a schoolteacher, administrator, journalist, nationalist leader,
social reformer as well as a scholar and a writer. He emphasised the pe
EMERGENCE OF tt Money Opia Sor Story | 201
, of education TP the struggle for social reform and in the
aed ; . 7
fn 2et0 the engulfment of the Odia language. In this he
stan . ; m8 had managed
re janet the support of John Beams, the District Magistrate of Balasore
x pavareubs .
‘ qalinguist who in a subsequent session of the Asiatic Society argued
. ¢ substitution of Odia and later, of T. E. Ravenshaw, the
commissioner of the Odisha Division. It is through them that the
“age struggle came to a successful conclusion.
against th
janguage SUBS
senapati’ literary career cannot be separated from his reformist one.
He began by writing much needed school textbooks on mathematics,
geography and history in modern Odia. He set up the second Odia
printing press in 1868, the first Odia to do so. He brought out an Odia
journal, a news bulletin, and translated ancient epics into modern Odia,
in addition to his literary writing.
His twenty short stories are a small output in comparison to his total
literary achievement. But the publication of his Rebari in 1898 marks the
beginning of this genre in Odia. Set in a cholera epidemic, Rebatiis a tragic
story pushed to its absolute limits not to examine the workings of fate
but of social attitudes. With it, the Odia short story set out on sure-
footed first steps.
Senapati’s concerns are primarily with social reform and often
specifically with the empowerment of women and the underprivileged. If
there seems little heroism in Rebati, the subject is handled very differently
in Patent Medicine, a vastly popular comic story that has over this century
Virtually achieved folk status. The story itself has been set to music and
the title has acquired the resonance of a common idiomatic phrase.
Senapati’s stories have a folksy oral style of narration and his usage of
_ the colloquialisms and colourful exuberance of ordinary spoken Odia is
@conscious move to return the literature to its people. y
REBATI’S SISTERS: SEARCH FOR IDentyry
THROUGH EDUCATION
Sachidananda Mohanty
The blindness to gender in Odia literary history seems to follow the classic
insight of the French feminist Luce Irigaray in her Speculum de LAutre
Femme. According to Irigaray, “The uniquely metaphysical logic of
dichotomous oppositions” has always dominated “philosophical thought:
for instance Presence/Absence, Being/Nothingness, Truth/Error, Some)
Other, Identity/Difference, etc.”! Women must constantly define themselves
in terms of one half of the repressed categories as the Other, Absence,
Silence, Error, Nothingness and the Insane. In the case of Orissa, feminist
historiography of the kind Elaine Showalter had in mind is compounded
by the problem of covering wide gaps even in newly retrieved areas of
Odia literary/cultural history. We must routinely make inexplicable leaps
from a sparsely populated female landscape, from isolated instances of
early women writers like Madhavi Dasi, Vrindavati Dasi, Tribhuvan
Mahadevi, and Nih Shanka Devi to a more fecund region membered by
those who wrote during the twenties and thirties of this century: Kokila
Devi, Reba Ray, Narmada Kar, Pratibha Devi, Kuntala Kumari Sabat and
others.
I suggest that one of the ways by which this fractured literary cultural
history can be bridged is by subjecting key literary texts of the late
nineteenth century, including those of the sympathetic male writers toa
closer study. More specifically, I shall be arguing in this paper that a
novelist Fakir Mohan Senapati’s (1843-1918) early, acclaimed and ae
pape eaed tale “Rebati”? (1898) could act as a valuable missing 7 :
tracing the continuity of the female literary tradition in Oriss® on
from the concern with the issue of woman's education that is ce
bore out by the content of this first short story written and 2°" Reware’s Sisters | 203
in Odia literature, I contend
that Ser
senapati’s larger historic.
ing the ger historical and socio
-nlonialis a unique cc ‘i
colonialism and ethnicity in Orissa is vital i Sreuealia
s 10 underst:
realistic interest in dramat
question. anding the woman's
It’s not that “Rebati” is a startlin
. n sci
adequate attention. Indeed 18 New discovery or has not received
, it’s hy
bo ard to come across a tale in Odia
In i
ine mandatory and authoritative citations
IC)
ism. However, equally unfailingly, has the
literature that can equal “Rel
in the genre of fiction and
the inauguration of an alternative tradition of women’s writing has
remained concealed as an interesting cultural subtext. Indeed, it is amazing
to see how “
could have been glossed over for so long, given the compelling factors and
circumstances surrounding the creation of this tale and the life and times
of the writer.
The facts themselves are revealing. Fakir Mohan spent a considerable
part of his career in teaching, writing and in journalism. He played a
pivotal and pioneering role in the “save Odia” movement for the
preservation of Odia language and culture. In his autobiography, he
movingly chronicles the travails of physically carting the first printing
press to Balasore in Orissa from Calcutta.’ His insight into colonialism
and its collusion with the native zamindari system that led to the
illiantly recorded in his Chhamana
Great Famine of 1866 In Orissa! lace
remchand dealt with
pauperisation of the peasantry (bri
Athaquntha) and his account of the
his writings with a deep political ¢
similar themes in Hindi literature after
ot famili
ill to a certal
onsciousness. E
about two decades. In Bengali
ar before the twenties, and
li jal realism was
erature, social realism a extent romantic in
contemporary Telugu fiction was st
character. i NTY
204 | SACHIDANANDA Moa’
It is not hard to see the nexus between Fakir Mohan's life anq 7
t 1s $ ; a
hiswriting career al the incredibly late age of fifty three, Betvee,
and at Barabati and The Mission School Of Balasore
ht
1862 and 1871, he taug} a
He married twice, the first time to Lilavati, when he was thirteen, The ing
marriage turned out [0 be a particularly unhappy one. “The de
er e more pain than my prolonged childhoog
ines” he recalls in his autobiography. TI he first wife died early leaving
hehind a daughter At the bidding of @ female relative, he allowed himsel
to get married in 1871 to @ girl named Krishna Kumari Dei who was a
mere eleven at the time of the marriage. This time around, the marrige
s. The second wife, however, died in 1894 at the
behind a son and a daughter. Fakir Mohan’s
autobiography provides a sketchy account of his personal life. It is worth
noting that the genre of autobiography as understood today did not exist
in Odia literature before Fakir Mohan. In a middle-class feudal society,
there would predictably be great reluctance to chronicle the intimate
details of one’s conjugal life. By the time Fakir Mohan published his
autobiography in 1917, one year before his death, he had become a
distinguished public figure and eminent man of letters.
‘education and cultural gap between literary Fakir Moh and his
child brides remains at present an area of darkness and enij ut the
fact of the gap is certain to have shaped the novelist’s thinking on the
obvious issue of women’s education and their place in society, Furthermore,
it was only the Christian girls who went to The Missionary School in
Balasore.6 The difference between the relatively advanced members of the
Christian community and the more orthodox Hindu parents who
confined their daughters at home, was bound to be a matter of interest
and concern for an educationist/novelist like Fakir Mohan. Education,
therefore, especially female education, occupies a pivotal place in Fakir
Mohan’’s life and art.
ity occasioned in m\
apparently was a succes
age of thirty-six leaving
Nineteen years after the British came to Orissa, the first Missionary
oe se up in Cuttack in 1822. This was despite the fact that the
responsibly vn taken up education as a part of their administra"
Within the Note fer the East India Company's Act of 1813, Section 43.
e-and-a-half years after 1822, the missionaries took UP ay
i
Renarr’s Sisrens | 205
the management of fifteen native schools in Orissa, including The English
Charity School set up in 1823 in Cuttack, later taken over b the East
India company in 1841. Realising the near-total absence of alas in a
administrative setup and its obviously harmful consequences, Orissa’s
then Commissioner, Henry Rickets, had sent a proposal to ie Sadar
Board of Revenue. Rickets argued that the apathy of the Odias and their
lack of stake in the administration was chiefly due to their educational
backwardness. Similarly, the proclamation of Lord Harding holding out
English education as a carrot for job opportunities in government services
also acted as a catalytic agent. In his poem “Utkala Bhramana’, for
instance, Fakir Mohan wrote:
All are foreigners—the babus and the lawyers
Even the post office clerk is not one of us!”
(Loose translation by the author)
The educational situation was even bleaker. For the supervision of a
handful of schools in the whole of Orissa, there was just one Deputy
Inspector of Schools. Fakir Mohan strove hard to spread education,
particularly in the rural areas. With the help of the King of Balasore,
Baikuntha Nath De, a school was set up in Remuna. As Dewan in the
many Princely states of Orissa, Fakir Mohan assisted in the spread of
education in Nilgiri, Keonjhar, Anandpur and Dompara.*
While public education in Orissa was pathetically dismal, education
for women was more or less absent. Whatever education was traditionally
given to women was private and confined to the home. Even this was
restricted, as the editor of Utkal Deepika astutely observed, to female
members of the royalty and the upper class/caste literati.’ For the rest,
formal education for girls was confined to a few members of the
Christian community. For the first time in 1871, a school for Hindu girls
was set up at Cuttack in the house of Abinash Chandra Chattopadhyaya.
A school with a mere thirteen to fourteen students!!° Even by 1881, the
school had registered practically no growth, nor could it catch the public
imagination. The number of girls merely increased to twenty five.'' This
and the astonishing fact that even after the school ran for ten years at
Cuttack city, only four Hindu girls were enrolled, was much regretted by
the then editor of Utkal Deepika who drew the attention of parents and Monanty
296 | SActIIDANANDA
to send their girls to the school in larger Dumber. 12
em Ss ' in .
ba shan’s growing interest in the shifting of the site g
sakir Mohan’ vind
Fakir less useful domestic/private arena to the more
urge
8 f Wo,
sducation froma! meee = Prod
ed lic sphere is well manifest in his varied portraya of Pedagogy a
pu DHE S
en ain he
ie of the female teacher in his literary works. In his acclaimed n,
role o' i A fi 7 : nl
Mamu, for instance, the character Chandamani receives instr
Mamu, s
en
Uctiy,
el
Uction in
ding, painting and sewing, traditionally regarded as marks of cu
reading, pa
female breeding, from a private tutor who was somewhat Similar ty ,
Christian governess.'? The examples were drawn from the Christen
Missionary school in Balasore. Similarly, in Prayaschitta, Indumatj along
with the other girls of her age, is shown to receive education at home. The
rationale for this education was made clear: women from middle-class
cultivated families were perceived as the custOdians and transmitters of
cultural legacy. For, as the character in Prayaschitta remarks, “they realise
that by being literate, women at home can keep accounts and can read
out Bhagavata and Purana to fellow women at home.!4
Thus, while the education of Mamu’s Chandamani and Saraswati Dei
and Prayaschitta’s Indumati was confined to the home, in “Rebati” Fakir
Mohan makes a clean break from such a practice. The issue at the heart
of “Rebati” is the desire of the adolescent girl to step out of the home and
seek education in the public domain. Clearly more than literacy isat stake
here. What is at issue is the very questioning of institutions, the
stranglehold of feudalism and Patriarchy and a whole gamut of responses
through which the trapped female voice is articulated, Thus Rebati’s act
is ultimately an act of defiance against the dominant patriarchy and the
feudal ethos of the village community of Patapur, most of whose
members are indifferent and
unsympathetic to Rebati and her parents.
The cruel hand of Fate that acts as a nemesis for Rebati serves only as
“ lansparent facade, a narrative device with its ironical tour de force
central to Fakir Mohan’s ideological vision, Through the use of the
narrative irony and many paralle| voices, the tale offers a counter politics
to the ¢s of late nineteenth century Orissa.
tivateg
dominant attitud
“Rebati” is written in
and
tot
4 colloquial, earth
Se of words,
literary” Practics
y language with an informal tone
in short, a style distinctly uncommon
€ of his times. Village Patapur in the
40 economical
he prevalent «| Rewar’s Sisters | 207
Hariharpur subdivision of Cuttack
shyamabandhu Mohanty unfurls, The
as the caste affiliation of Shyamab
district is where
choice of both the
andhu are
is where the major cultural and Politic
establishment of new schools for girls,
the drama of
setting as well
significant Cuttack district
al Movements, including the
— rl esas Similarly, Shyamabandhu
~ Narans” or the “Kayasthas” of Orissa
as record-keepers ; ce ionally,
d. 8 and accountant
at ; ; Pp s. Traditional
they also served in the field of education as teachers, a moot a
Sa pt point in a
story related to the question of women’s education. The family f
Shyamabandhu, we are further told, comprises four me: . a
Shyamabandhu and his wife, his mother and his daughter ebeti =
ten years. Shyamabandhu is a God-fearing, kind-hearted man. Indeed, his
name is a synonym for Krishna, the compassionate God. He is, for
instance, never known to show over-zealousness in collecting taxes for the
oppressive zamindar.'*
Right at the outset we are told that both Shyamabandhu and his
daughter Rebati are fond of singing bhajans or devotional songs. The
narrative even presents an extract from a devotional song that Rebati
regularly sings before Shyamabandhu. Fakir Mohan carefully cites this
fact early enough in the tale possibly as a contrastive argument to
distinguish later, Rebati’s real desire for education. For unlike the female
characters in Mamu and Prayaschitta, Rebati clearly seeks education for
reasons other than learning to sing bhajans.
The metaphor of learning, suggested early, is taken up again with
reference to the visit of the Deputy Inspector of Schools, two years ago to
the village (p.2). Patapur, we are informed, has an Upper Primary School
which was opened at the request of the villagers. The villagers are thus not
against education as such; they only harbour some reservation about
educating the females. The school at Patapur now hasa teacher aged twenty
years,a product of the “normal school” of Cuttack (p.2). He is significantly
named Vasudeva, another name for Krishna, in consonance with the name
of Rebati’s father Shyamabandhu. Like the latter, he too is a on
Presence, Like Krishna, Vasudeva the teacher represents hope. Hera 8°
. i and spiritual deliverance for Rebati.
symbolises possibilities of psychological and spiritua tints
Therefore, the advent of Vasudeva oF Vasu into Patapur an an
Shyamabandhu’s household is shown as @ particularly auspicious event
is significantly “Karan”
worked for zamindars 5 JOHANTY
298 | Saciupananna M
It is from Vasu that Shyamabandhu learns about a irls? Scho,
Cuttack, His natural desire that Rebati should study in schoo " in
instant support from the young teacher (p.3). While the father jg wt
the mother willing and Rebati jubiliant in her refrain, “I shajj Tead! ey,
read!” (p.3.) as she dances around the house, the response
grandmother is cool and on expected orthodox lines. “What d
female need to read for? Is it not better for her to learn to cook,
delicacies, floral designs and churn butter milk!” she asks (p.3),
The grandmother’s reservations spill over to the dinner at the eng of
the day. It is clear that she, as the matriarch and not Shyamabandhu’s Wife
(significantly the wife bears no name in the story), is the dominant female
figure and is shown to supervise many things, including the serving of
food to Shyamabandhu at the time of his dinner, traditionally a time
when major family decisions are made (p.3). Shyamabandhu attempts to
mollify his mother. To his mother’s insistent question—“Why must a girl
child read?”—his answer is to placate tradition and suggest that teading
poses no real threat to the establishment. Rebati can learn devotional
songs, can she not, by going to school! After all, Jhankad Patnaik’s
daughters too know how to sing the devotional songs of Upendra
Bhanja, he explains to his sceptical mother (p.3).
Fakir Mohan does not present a naive account of the joy that a
restricted girl child feels in suddenly encountering the world of reading.
He shows the powerful effect images produce upon the learner. “Some feel
happy to ride an elephant or a horse, our Rebi delights in seeing pictures’
the narrator tells us (p.4).
For Rebati, images as icons are important. For they help her to
escape from her entrapment and mediate with the outside world. That
Way, reality and fantasy get blurred. Education becomes the primary
means for snPowerment, Rebati learns her alphabet on the day o!
G odessa aly observed as a day dedicated to Saraswati
ari colle eae, ‘ compromise is struck between Shyamab i A
broached and pe i of marriage between Vasu and Re -
| Shyamabandhu as el sree unis is used as an argument bY sit
to their home, and - € narrator to legitimise Vasu’s recurrent V! 0
Rebati. in reality, it — ™Portantly, for the lessons he imparts
»"'S 2 compromise that Shyamabandhu strikes ¥!"
Usha
a
0S the
Prepare Renart’s Sisters | 209
orthodoxy, represented by the village community,
‘The intervention of cholera as an agent of destruction is introduced
in the tale at this stage. The use of this device serves both a realistic as
well asa symbolic purpose. Popular superstition has traditionally attributed
supernatural reasons for the outbreak of cholera, In the hands of Fakir
Mohan, this dreaded epidemic that used to be a real scourge in the early
part of this century, becomes a formidable symbol for retribution. This
becomes apparent as the narrator gives the account from the standpoint
of the grandmother:
The old woman is no longer able to see. She has become practically mad.
Nowadays, there is less of crying and more of abusing Rebati. She has now
come to the firm conclusion that Rebati is the root cause of all sorrows
and all misery. Because Rebati read, therefore, the son died, the workers left
them, cattle had to be sold and the zamindar’s men took away the cows.
Rebati is definitely inauspicious. Her habits are evil. She drives away
Lakshmi. If the old woman is unable to see, Rebati’s education must be
the cause of it all. (p-6)
The old woman considers Vasu equally responsible for this tragedy. “After
all Rebati had not studied all this while. Its only Vasu who came and
taught her” (p.7). She is sensible enough not to drive away Vasu. For in
the absence of any other menfolk, only Vasu is capable of giving an
account to the zamindar’s men. Every other day “the zamindar’s man asks
for this or that account, if Vasu was not there, then who would check the
records and answer him?” (p.7). There is thus a progressive awareness of
the value of education as seen through the eyes of the old woman. While
earlier, Vasu was a saviour for Rebati, now he gets virtually metamorphosed
into the figure of Krishna, the supreme saviour for the old woman. As
the narrator strikingly observes:
Only when Vasu comes home does she sit up from the floor. With her big
eyes, she keeps staring at Vasu. When Vasu turns to her, she exhales a sigh
and gazes downwards. As long as Vasu remains she keeps staring at him.
There is no other thought at that time. Only Vasudeva in her eyes, Vasudeva
in her thought and Vasudeva in the whole self. (p.7)
Vasu’s departure from Shyamabandhu's house is again linked up with the 1Y
210 | Sacupananpa MOHAN
ation. He goes away, even if fo,
recurrent ise cheat of Schools happens to visit the ae ty
becaust “ eat the school, we are told, by talking gh
tre worl re Police Station. A perfectly legitimate way of avoid en
at the uw the village. However, Vasu’s death, caused by the aa 7
case vvrcholera isattributed by the grandmother to the evil of, educa”
“\hat a pity’, said the old woman. “You come from Outside, an, a
were the cause of your own undoing!” As the narrative voice drives hom. }
the point: “He died out of foolishness, because he taught Rebati, O, the
he would have never died then!” (p.8). ,
The tale thus leads to a progressive destruction of the whole famil
The sense of psychic and physical isolation acts as an apt backdrop a
the refrain of the old woman: “What is the remedy for self-created evil?”
(p.9). And the narrator adds: “You fell ill because you dared to acquire
education. Surely it is no fault of mine!” (p.9). The end of the tale shows
every one dead. The message is clear: Rebati was the cause of it all. She
invited a wholesale calamity because of her forbidden desire for edu.
cation. Symbolically, though a seemingly simple narrative, Fakir Mohan
reveals to us the supreme power of learning and the complex trade-off
int modernity has to make with tradition for the sake of female
individuation.
ae tie at questions still persist, Why; does Fakir Mohan not
, ly to the school? Is he being realistic in telling us of
the magnitude of opposition to female education shared by the villagers
a : oe mance what would have happened to the narrative had
this point of view: the Gore en recorded the consequences? From
does not make can only tet tohiside fae ae fhetion t ie a
‘ological predilection, his alleged
ambivalence to we
stern educ :
sexuality, ation and his anxiety regarding female
Rebati’s
Plea for educatio,
; , . |
carlier murmurings j Was not a cry in the wilderness, It had much Rewarr’s Sisters | 201
saing the simple Bengali alphabet. In a milieu where
. . educat
male preserve, even handling the simple ton was a
alphi i
jitical act And so it was with a furtive eo oe n F
manages 10 steal a page from a primer left behind by her on in the
jichen. She conceals it within the fold of her saree and thus be ins her
grduous and heroic attempt to learn the alphabet. As she a her
experience poignantly:
Let alone voicing my inner most feelings, my heart used to quiver at the
thought of anyone guessing how I felt: so much so that if I saw a sheet
of paper which had been written on I used to look away. This was in case
anyone accused me of wanting to study. But within my mind I kept praying
to Parameswar, teach me how to read and write.!®
As if in answer to Rasundari’s prayer, several developments took place.
By 1854, Wood's Education Despatch had stressed the importance of
female education and pointed out that “the educational and moral tone
ofthe people” would be distinctly improved by undertaking the education
of girls and women rather than only of men. Bamasundari and
Kailashbasini were among the first in Bengal to stress the advantage of
educating women. Bamasundari’s long essay “Which are the superstitions
that have to disappear for this country to prosper?” published in 1861 as
abooklet and Kailashbasini Debi’s Hindu Mahilaganer Hinbastha (Lowly
Position of Hindu Women, 1864) were significant landmarks. Many such
writings were to see the light of day only in the next century. For instance,
Kailashbasini’s Janaika Grihabadhur’s Diary (A Certain Householder’s
Diary) was serialised in the Bengali monthly, Basumati for the first time
in 1953.7 Like Fakir Mohan in Orissa, many enlightened male writers in
Bengal too aided Bengali women like Bamasundari and Kailashbasini.
For instance, Loknath Maitra who recommended Bamasundari to the
newspaper Som Prakash declared that “it is my humble request to the
People at large that after seeing this great achievement, they will become
More alert about educating hundreds of such girls in all their homes.”
Anoble exhortation indeed that would find echoes elsewhere. Chandu
whoo Indulekha the first novel written in Malayalam in 1889 presents
re a the female protagonist opposing orthodoxy. The point made
that Indulekha’s exposure to English education turned her into a 212 | SACHIDANANDA Mo#anTY
| heroine.'® However, in Orissa at least, it took Quite a w il,
rebe men writers could find their voice. Rebati displays _ fore
oabtibe learning and thereby invites the furies. But her Story algo mn
the beginning of a new tradition and inaugurates a new breed of Wong,
who learned to write and create a literature of their own: Kunt, ala Kup
Sabat, Sita Devi Khadanga, Sarala Dery Basanta Kumarj Patnaiy
Bidyutprabha and others. In recording their moments of joy, sotto,
doubts and dilemmas in poetry, prose, fiction and drama, they repli,
Rebati’s agonizing search for identity through education, In effect, they
become Rebati’s sisters.
ar
Notes
1. Quoted by Shoshana Felman, “Women and Madness: The Critical Phalags
Feminism: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Robyn’. Wath
and Drane Price Herndl, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 1971, p7.
2. “Rebati” was first published in Utkal Sahitya, Vol. 2, No. 7, 1898. Most cial
accounts of the work tend to be merely eulogistic and lack a theoretical rigou,
3. See “Balasore’s First Press”, My Times and I, Fakir Mohan Senapati, translated
by John Bolton, Orissa Sahitya Akademi, Bhubaneswar, 1985, pp.32-36.
4. Ibid., pp.27-31.
5 Ibid, p43. The account of his marriages, as provided in his autobiography,
's incredibly sketchy, barely one-and-a-half pages!
6. See “Working at Balasore Mission School (1864-71), My Times and I, op.it,
pp.21-26.
7. From “Utkal Bhramana’, Fakir Mohan’s Collected Works, Part 1, p.202.
8. Prafulla Chandra Mohanty, The Picture of Contemporary Orissa in Fakir
Mohan’s Literature, Friends Publishers, Cuttack, 1985, pp.192-93.
° Utkal Deepika, Vol. 16, No, 44, 5 November, 1881.
10. Utkal Deepika, Vol. 6, No. 38, 30 September, 1871.
; : tha Deepika, Vol. 16, No. 44, 5 November, 1881.
13. From “Mamu”, Fakir Mohan’s Callected Works, Part HI, p.119.
A 4 ita” Eae;, Up.
nn Prayaschitta”, Fakir Mohan’s Collected Works, Part II, p.373. :
© narrator takes pains to underscore Shyamabandhu's basically hon‘
‘ature. See “Rebati” in The Stories of Fakir Mohan Senapati, Prachi Publishers
fe js edition
HI subsequent references to “Rebati” pertain to this edit
ices from
P24. Quoted in Malavika Karlekar’s Voices f
i i 551
nal Narratives °f Bengali Women, Oxford University Pr 17.
18.
Repari’s Sisters | 213
‘4 good account of the history of women’s education is provided by J.C. Bagal’s
Women’s Education in Eastern India: The First Phase, The World Press, Calcutta,
1950.
The opposition is between Madhavan and Indulekha, the hero and heroine
influenced by modern education vis-a-vis Panchu Menon and Suri Nambudiri,
representing tradition. See P.K. Parameswaran Nair, History of Malayalam
Literature, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1971, pp.119-120. 2
2. ‘ReBATI’: EMPOWERMENT
HAKIRMOHUN Ss ’
P p FEMINISM
IpENTITY AN
subhakanta Behera
Phakirmohun Senapati (1843-1918), the father of modern Odia prose
fiction has been perhaps one of the most discussed Odia writers and so
also the most misunderstood prose writer of his time. Yet, there is no
doubt that he was a social realist par excellence and imbibed the best
traditions of realism as a writer. Not guided by any theoretical paradigm,
Phakirmohun’s realism flowed from his sympathy and sensitivity to
changes of the Odia society, brought about in the wake of colonialism-
imperialism. Besides, his varied experiences from boyhood through
different professions he adopted at various stages of his life coupled with
the necessary imagination and insight to produce a genre of prose
narrative that was remarkably realistic. But perhaps, the most important
dimension of his narrative was the centrality of Orissa and Odia life.
This paper intends to explore different layers of dialogue with the
Odia society of his time that Phakirmohun provided in his most important,
but yet controversial short story, ‘Rebati’, The importance of ‘Rebati’ is
, But after carefully
examining the forms of ‘short story’ and ‘tale’, I have already suggested
elsewhere that ‘Rebati’ cannot claim to be purely a short story, it is at best,
the first successful Odia fiction, combining the elements of both ‘short
story’ and ‘tale’ It is therefore felt unnecessary to discuss here agai ihe
aspect of the story. Rather, the content of ‘Rebati’, which is still 9°
understood in all its ramifications, has been ce in this paper from
an analytical perspective to show its many-layered meanings and arg?
* The ; .
name 's spelt Phakirmohun instead of Fakir Mohan in the original «5%!
dh “RewaTr: EMPOWERMENT, IpeNnrry AND Peminism | 215
_point to the social history of Orissa of the time. The
_ an entry-P' al analysis'lies 4 i
iP for such a textual analysis lies in the claim as mentioned
js pat heralded the modern Odia prose fiction and hence, it
a an objectives analytical understanding.
calls i miatline of ‘Rebati’ is as follows. GRIEHENillage Patapuraninathe
sedistrict! there lived the family of Shyamabandhu Mohanty who
~ ated by the local landlord to collect revenue from villagers.
was ssrparhe's old mother was also staying with them. They had a
> — comfortable living. Shyamabandhu had only one child, the 10-
Se old daughter Rebati who was very fond of learning. Without any
formal education, she had managed to learn many/Odialbhajansjand
had memorised lines from the holysBhagavata, With the helpofjherfather)
fhe village hadone upper primary school where Basudey, a graduate of
the Cuttack Normal school, was the only teacher. In the course of time,
pasudev came closer to Shyamabandhu’s family. One day when
Shvamabandhu came to know about a girls’ school in Cuttack, he
fqjuested Basudey to teach “his ‘daughter. Basudev was really very eater
that Rebati should be educated. So he readily agreed to Shyamabandhu’s
pfoposal and Rebati’s lessons began) Within Wo, years, she managed. to
learn the Odia alphabet and reading and writing. But soon followed the
misfortune of Shyamabandhv’s family. Shyamabandhu and his wife died
of cholera one after another. The landlord took away the land given to
them for cultivation and their two bullocks were sold. The economy of
thefamily collapsed, whatever belongings were left in the house were sold
one after another. But Basudey,
“— ; who by that time had been close to the
amily'and had develo j
ped an j ward to hel
them in their dj :
iol their distress. ve it, one day Basudev also
s com nly, leaving Rebati nary aly alone and without any support
apove (M8
ted — i es had already convinced
oa r that all this happened because of Rebati’s education
came reactio
SUK Rebar nary and started abusing Rebati. After the death of
food = = 7 mentallyiSo-broken that ultimateljSHenfelimll, gave
Unbe, ted. Her grandmother too soon succumb
7 able shocks 5 ed tothe
hyamabandhu’s family was thus completely, wiped
Main.)
ni .
PIOt of the Story seemingly revolves around Rebati’s 216 | SUBHAMA Ne
education, which was informal, involving home tuition Olly. Crit
tried to rediscover it as the main driving force of the developmeny. ave
story. Gfaiipurely superticial reading, they have promoted hs OF the
‘Rebati’ is all about female education and more Pointed 4 thay
: — 5 : > GbE
superstitions-concerning It prevalent in the then Odia society, Ratan
Samantaray is one of the earliest exponents of this idea. In his Consider
Phakirmohun wrote ‘Rebati’ on the basis of the grandmothers bing
Sliperstitious apathy to femalé education. Subsequent crities and scholars
have followed this line of approach almost dogmatically. But Contrary tg
this approach, we find very fewpronouncements against female (Rebatis)
education in the story and incidentally, these were by the grandmother
who as a character, is very marginal to the main plot of the Sthry,
Moreover, she has only reacted to Rebati’s education, nowhere has she
opposedit.She has raised thelage-oldiquestion: What does it mean for
a woman to be educated? Then towards the end of the story after
experiencing the agony of the deaths of her son, daughter-in-law and
Basudev, she considers Rebati’s education as responsible for all the
misfortunes. Perhaps, had there not been such misfortunes, she would
not have held Rebati’s education a culprit. So the argument for a blind,
superstitious attitude towards female education as central to the story,
cannot. belitaken far. Nor is Phakirmohun messianic of releasing
womanhood from the bondage of ignorance and illiteracy. Had the
author supported Rebati’s education, he would not have surrendered so
silently to her misfortunes by allowing readers to conclude that these wert
the consequences of her education @mthe other handjPhakinmohun 's
silent on both Rebati’s education and reactions of the grandmother to her
education.
For ‘Rebati, the pro- and anti-female education debate i
peripheral because the question of Rebati’s education is never central (0
eee Cakiomohun has spoken of her informal education as oe
and empower Igger question of the time. This is about female x vel
a oie while writing this storys wi or the
British rule, — ees: of female education in Orissa vn aditio™
of women’s educati ir no doubt that he knew the historical tf
The early Odi feomreanaaed ol
"8 modern poet Banamali Das had given an accoun
is really “Rewat’: Emp
EMPoweRMenr, Ineiiry anp Feminisa | 217
the curriculum of woman education in his Chata Echchavati and how
Echchavati mastered shastras, smritis, puranas and music. Another princess
Parimala was also ee peed writing and ‘kavyas. We also know of
anoble lady called Sivarani during the Ganga period (1078-1435) who is
described as the ‘Kaliyuga Saraswat’ or the goddess of learning in the age
of Kali. Though these are stray examples from history of Odia women
excelling us education, we have strong evidence of efforts for female
education in Orissa in the later part of the 19th century. As a result of
Wood’s Despatch of 1854, Lord Harding's instruction for opening
vernacular schools and Campbell’s education policy of 1873, modern
education spread in the Orissa division. Separate girls’ schools were
established in Cuttack, which received ‘grant’ from the government. So by
the time Phakirmohun wrote and published ‘Rebati’ (1898), the educated
middle class of Orissa, to which he himself belonged, had already been
sensitised to woman’s education.
‘in
plot 0 endow Rebati with an identity. But
any question of identity of an individual or community immediately
brings forth the tension of empowerment because identity per se implies
a dichotomy of ‘self’ and ‘other’ and the division becomes meaningless
unless ‘self’ is empowered to assert itself at an interactional level. Only an
empowered ‘self’ can ‘think itself into difference. Otherwise, a weak,
passive, emasculated ‘self’ will be either absorbed in or taken away by the
more powerful ‘other.
In the late 19th century colonial Orissa, the question of women’s
identity was definitely a problematic issue because it involved not only
socio-cultural but also economic considerations. But this is also the
period when the question of Odia identity as a regional entity unfolded
having political ramifications. The rise
the great famine of 1866 and the
was accompanied by a remarkable
ly came to be manifested more
a literature and the Jagannath
gradually mostly in cultural terms,
of an educated middle class, after
language controversy of 1866-70,
‘Odia consciousness’ which ultimate!
categorically in the form of identity in Odi
cult. Yet, identity talk about Odia women was almost absent in any
discourse. Women were still discriminated against as they fell victim to
gender-related inequalities. In contemporary literature, their projection 218 | SUBHAKANTA BEHERA
was that of sufferers and ultimate losers, succumbing to some fo
divine determinism. Take for example, Phakirmohun’s ilu
contemporary, Radhanath Roy (1848-1908) all of whose famous 2
such as ‘Kedara Gauri, “Chandrabhaga, ‘Parvati’ and ‘Nandikeswagi
a tragic ending with the leading female character’s death, pethaps lad
divinely-ordained. Even Phakirmohun’s other fiction like his sy
Chhamana Athaguntha, Prayaschita, and short-stories like ‘Sab,
Zamindar’ treat the female characters rather under the shadow of gen a
disadvantages.
In = view, it is es ali
‘wth an identity of her own, :
Phakirmohun has first trie
And what else could be a mi
am using
here the term power (which comes from woes Wa in the definition
used by the famous specialist on women studies, Vina Mazumdar. Power
is not a mode of domination over others but a sense of internal strength
god confidence to face life, the right to determine own choices in life, the
ability to influence the social processes that affect own life, and an
influence on the direction of social change. This definition of power, when
pened Le feminist perception could be ideally applied to the understan i
‘t her empowerment in the direction of gainingsidenti
ad bee 10-year old girl of the Patapura village had her tuition
Eater an years without any opposition. Even her grandmother
marrying him he that she accepted the proposal of cos
Basudev, After th ‘k Proposal infused a feeling of love in Rebat! “
used to be obse : ath cine parents, whenever she met Basudevs a
other words, in he with him; thoughts of Basudev filled her heart. :
strength an d a distress, her love, Basudev—the lover gave her a
according to sy nce to face life. She could determine her choice- oo
'y reading of ‘Rebati’ is a result of Rebati’s wideniné ° tal horizon, which could be possible because of her education.
srhough 00 exposed to western learning, the traditional Odia learning—
jeces of Odia literature, Odia scriptures, etc—was potent enough
mastelP
e the world around her. So education for Rebati
. This
men
io helP her to appreciat
ilgrimage to understand and command her own life
y be further illustrated by Shyamabandhu’s interest in his
ducation. He initially took the pains to teach Rebati Odia
ptures. Then when he learnt of a girls’ school in Cuttack,
he became so inspired that he requested Basudev to teach Rebati regularly.
hat do% it syrbKolise ia conspKvative>Xral tradition Sound sooxty?
It symbolises his awareness and understanding of the fast-changing
world to which one should adapt. Shyamabandhu, both as a father and
a supporter of modern values, was eager that his daughter should have
education. But at the same time, he was cautious in maintaining the
unal-oral traditi Shyamabandhu represents that
us emergent middle class of the late 19th century that
holder of the traditional values and supporter of
point ma
gaughter’s e
‘phajans” and scrij
comm| ion. In a sense,
oup of conscio
was both the up
modernity,
At the’ outset of the article, I have indicated the many-layered
ings of ‘Rebati’ to readers. The most visible layer is, of course, that
mRebati. But on deeper analysis, one finds that
the sufferings areagaim gender-related Rebati had to face them because
she was a girl. Her jsolation resulting in loneliness, poverty and hunger
and even the abuse by the grandmother, all were ‘due’ to her because of
ali social orden Since
her gender-status in a highly conservative, commun:
Rebati was a girl, she had to be co! walls of her house,
she had to suffer in loneliness and she had no right to education: That
is why when the misfortunes fell on the family one after another, the
grandmother immediately tried 10 link them with Rebati’s education
which had really started two years back. Ag a result, Rebati became
inauspicious and fallen in of the grandmother, the custodian oF
a conservative social syste™- Rebati had no th tevennet0 reachstouthe
blame thrown-on-her. More | was the use of words by the
, the
grandmother to address Rebati ‘Towar
the words ‘fire replace’ for Re ati,
standmother repeal
implying that she was the source of all destruction. Like fire in a fireplace,
meant
of sufferings inflict€d 0 220 | SUBHAKANTA DEHERA
she burnt down the Shyamabandhu’s family to ashes, Rebaff
victim of such psychological souure and abuses because she inh
inequalities and discrimination, being born as a girl in tt
conservative Odia society. nal,
The tragic consequences of Rebati’s life are symbolic
oppressive, conservative and nina social order,
predominantly male-dominated society where women hi
many a gender-related disadvantage. Rebati was a victim of this trusty
hence in my opinion her initial empowerment could not Withstang the
@unitervailing force ofpher disadvantageous gender-related POSition i,
society. It ultimately prevented her to have an identity” of her Own,
‘The concern for identity in “Rebati” brings forth the question of
feminism and in D& opidfon, this is one of the first modern discourses
in Odia on feminism though in a disguised form. First by trying to locate
the cause of the precarious condition of Rebati in the given social
conditions, Phakirmohun suggests changes in the existing social
arrangements. If one subjects ‘Rebati’ to a critical appraisal within the
contemporary socio-cultural context, it becomes clear that Phakirmohun
is concerned with the identity of Rebati and by extension, of Odia
womanhood, and that in the dismal social milieu of Orissa, it was almost
impossible for them to have a separate identity. Only by getting their ‘due’
identity, according to a feminist Perspective, their social status could
improve because once aware of their rights and potentials, they could
manipulate surrounding social variables to their advantage. For example,
in a hypothetical scenario in the story, had Rebati been allowed formal
education and finally united with her lover Basudev who was really a
source of comfort and solace to her in distress, Rebati could have
managed to influence the social change to her advantages.
Why did Phakirmohun not allow thig? As a social realist, knowing
whan Pa ci ethos very well, he did not dare to endow Rebati
mass Eames ‘va, racy uh aoe later halfot the th 2
Very restricted and not. . nal
