Patriarchy and Partition: Representation of Women in Anirudh Kala’s The Unsafe Asylum — A Commentary by Marusa Mushtaq

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Unsafe Asylum is an unsettling collection of interlinked short stories by Anirudh Kala that provide an insight into the aftermath of the 1947 Indo-Pak partition. The short stories reflect on the drawing of Radcliffe Line, the resulting communal violence, the exchange of prisoners and mental health patients, the abduction and forced recoveries of women, and even the Punjab insurgency in 1984, taking on the mental aspect of all these events as its primary focus. The Great Partition (as Yasmin Khan calls it) was not merely a geopolitical occurrence which left over 20 million people displaced and over two million dead but also a severe traumatic rupture that left individual as well as collective psyches scarred. Among those most affected, women faced double marginalization—first due to the political turmoil and then because of the impositions of power from patriarchal structures. But amidst the chaos of violence, rapes, murders, displacements, and forced recoveries, there were significant instances where women asserted their agency, rejected the notion of men as their “protectors” and “saviours”, and took active roles in shaping their own lives even in a state of exigency. Although Kala's work is primarily narrated from the perspective  of  a male doctor and the reoccurring characters are mostly males as well, it still places gender issues at the core of its narrative. From a feminist standpoint, the female characters in these stories hold significant importance as they assert their rights and challenge the patriarchal system even at the time of a national disruption of such magnitude.

In the short story titled as "Sita’s Bus", Kala presents the character of Harpreet Cheema, a physical training instructor and a volleyball player  who is married at an early age to Manjeet and reluctantly allowed to work by her mother in law. Because of her chirpy nature, Hapreet’s father strictly forbids her from talking too much and also worries about his daughter not being traditionally feminine enough. In line with his problematic yet traditional thinking, he tells her: “Otherwise they will think that I did not bring you up properly” (Kala 73). Here, Kala reflects on the way women are often seen as symbols of honour. This also anticipates the post-Partition reality, where, as Urvashi Butalia notes, women's bodies became "sites of honour, shame and revenge." (Butalia 128)

As the chaos of Partition intensifies, Harpreet’s husband and mother-in-law escape to the “other side,” abandoning her. She is then abducted and taken in by Murtaza, who, despite already being married, desires her as a second wife. Harpreet is forced to marry Aslam, convert to Islam, and altogether given a new identity as Firdaus. Just as she begins to adapt to this new life after enduring immense trauma, the Indian and Pakistani governments launch the ‘Abducted Person’s Recovery Act’:

“The agreement between India and Pakistan says that all the religious conversions and subsequent marriages of women which happened after 1^st March 1947, on both sides, are cancelled.” (Kala 85)

Harpreet actively questions the Act when she states:

“Honour my foot! Where were the countries when my house was burnt? When my family was made to flee and I was carried away like a sack of potatoes by a man who lusted for me.” (Kala 86)

She is forcibly retrieved, her pregnancy terminated without her permission, and sent back across the border. However, she resists conforming to the idea of honour—whether tied to her country or either of her husbands. She refuses to be defined by her association with any man, as she questions, “Am I a  possession which can be dragged anywhere and then cut up to throw parts of me which they don’t like?” (Kala 90) She affirms her sense of self, and when the bus conductor asks for her name, and she confidently states, “Harpreet, aage picche kuchh nahi.” (“Harpreet, nothing before or after [the name]”).

In the short story “The Mad Prophesier”, Anirudh Kala portrays Dr. Salma Ansari, a determined and assertive female doctor who closely resembles Imtiaz Begum, the bold “female mafia” figure from Anita Desai’s In Custody (Desai 88). Both women challenge traditional gender roles and defy societal expectations by entering professions once dominated by men. While Imtiaz establishes herself as a poet, Salma becomes the first female night-duty doctor in a psychiatric hospital. About her, doctor Asif Junaid Hussain remarks, “Wow, finally a woman as the night deputy. A first for Mental Hospital, Lahore. Should have been a headline in the morning paper” (Kala 133).

Salma defies stereotypes not just in her professional life but also on a personal level. She goes against her parents’ expectations and rejects her cousin’s advances to be with a man of her choice. She also displays a sharp, sarcastic attitude toward Dr. Prakash Kohli, engaging in intense debates with him on subjects like psychiatry, cricket, and politics, subjects initially attributed exclusively to men and their domains.

Kala also features the character of Rashida, Asif’s mother who is way more politically active than her husband Iqbal. She questions the decisions of leaders like Churchill, Mountbatten and Radcliffe when she asks, “Do you know the man Radcliffe, who is already in Delhi drawing the boundary line, came to India for the first time just last week?” (Kala 10). In reflecting about the absurd manner in which the Partition was conducted by the British, she has a greater grasp on the overlying conditions that defined the fate of two nations when she states, “He is a lawyer! A lawyer for God’s sake, and here he is etching a boundary spanning two thousand miles of hills, plains, deserts and marshes” (Kala 10).

Kala's work also portrays other strong female characters such as Jasmeet, Saba, and Nicole. Jasmeet is presented as the “pragmatic one” and  a grounded figure who warns Sunil about his treatment of  Brij, his mentally ill son. Saba, a Pakistani Muslim, challenges numerous societal boundaries by marrying an Indian Hindu, defying religious, national, and familial expectations. Nicole, meanwhile, embraces her hallucinations, using them as a means to question normative definition of womanhood and madness.

In summation, Kala’s female characters embody a wide range of portrayals of womanhood, with uncommon depictions of women who value independence and self-fulfilment above everything else. Through the presentation of their varied experiences, Kala’s collection of thirteen short stories reveals how women are often subjected to patriarchal attitudes and practices. Yet, despite these challenges, they emerge resilient, challenging and resisting patriarchal norms even in the face of great adversity.

Works cited:

Kala, Anirudh. The Unsafe Asylum: Stories of Partition and Madness. Speaking Tiger Publishing Pvt. Limited, 2018.

Desai, Anita. In Custody. Heinemann, 8 Oct. 1984.

Butalia, Urvashi. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Duke University Press, 2000.

Khan, Yasmin. The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan. Yale University Press, 2007.