On Motherhood [in the Land(?) of Mothers(?)]

This piece I owe to a volley of questions that I had rather benevolently been showered with at a recent conference where I presented a paper. Though it has always seemed impossible for me to spell out it a few clear words (i) as to the exact point of any such paper (as this one), yet, broadly speaking, that paper dealt with masculinities in Indian context and, at some point, I also tried to see how women have been imagined as a subordinated other vis-à-vis men. One of the scholarly people, whom I was privileged to have as my distinguished audience, raised vehement opposition to this latter point. Her contention was that I was being too “western” (yes, I quote it from what she said) in my views as my talk did not care to mention the higher pedestal and prestige assigned to women in India since time immemorial; that I was not taking into purview the fact that women have never been viewed/perceived as the subordinated other in the Indian context; and, in defence of her argument, time and again, she uttered phrases such as stree-shakti, nari-shakti, and the like. What I would like to mention and take off from there is not what I had to say in reply to her questions and comments on my paper1, but the points she further raised while we were having a conversation over tea during the break.

While we were chatting over numerous issues and my points were seemingly heading further distant from her, I mean to say, our perspectives and outlooks were seeing further dissimilarities, she, at a point, raised the issue of motherhood. She asked me to imagine how great a thing this entire phenomenon of being a mother is. By that, and a little more, what she wanted to hint at was that I was not ready to accept the greatness associated with this idea of motherhood, and so on. In fact, this is what I would like to talk about in the present paper: my take, if I may say so, on the entire notion of motherhood.

This is not at all a new thing to me. I mean to say, even earlier, on numerous instances, I had chats, and that includes serious debates as well, with my friends over the question of motherhood. So, I have always felt the necessity to retrospect on the entire issue and clarify (to my self?) my position on it.

To begin with, let me put this in clear unambiguous words that I have always remained a vehement opponent of over-glorification2 of the phenomenon of motherhood. I have got at least that much training in biological sciences to know the events that result in procreation, in one’s giving birth to a child, in one’s becoming a mother (and a father). I am also well aware of the fact that women, after having conceived, have to go through a process that gradually becomes painful and often causes a good deal of suffering to the pregnant woman that ultimately leads to the event of giving birth which, in its turn, causes a lot of physical pain to the mother-to-be. Even the entire period succeeding the procedure of giving birth, when often the new mother has to undertake a lot of physical pain as well as self-restrain, too has never gone unnoticed. I am also often delighted by the magnificence of the idea of nurturing a life within one’s life system; you are sharing your air and nutrition with a life that is yet to be; you are undertaking all the sufferings and pains so that, after the end of those nine months, you may allow a new life to see the first light of the world. What can be more beautiful than this! Yes, this idea of the life within life does amaze me, sweep me with an emotion filled with utter delight. But, that amazement, that delight, that glorification, just like any other thing in our lives, too have to know its limit. Else, it will go – and, in fact, it does go – a long way in being yet another instrument that may only strengthen the patriarchal logics. It will be criminal to ignore that it plays against the liberation that women yearn for; the emancipation that women of all parts of the globe, with all their differences and all their uniqueness, have so far and so hard yearned for.

I know what I said just now calls for an elaboration; an explanation. I will do exactly that.

People who, like me, are taken by utter amazement by this magnificent phenomenon of life within life but, unlike me, move a step or two further to advocate the over-glorification of the phenomenon of motherhood, actually emanate an idea that being mother is one of the greatest, if not the greatest markers of womanhood. Their emotions, at times backed by their sets of theoretical formulations, tend to equate womanhood with motherhood. Just consider the ways in which cultures in India have been imagined and it becomes even clearer. Take the instance of a father or an elderly uncle (or some other elderly male) addressing some (younger) woman as ma. I get to hear such form of addressing almost everyday and almost everywhere – at out homes, at shops, schools, and so on. Now, this form of addressing women as mother – ma – is considered to be a manifestation of our adoration and affection towards the woman thus addressed. After all, that eight or ten year old little girl is not your biological mother. It is just a call out of your love and affection. This call of ma is filled with the warmth of your emotion. Isn’t it? It is, so to say, a part of our culture. It has become a part of our culture; it is our culture. But does not it constitute itself as a nuance of the culture that equates womanhood with motherhood? If we take some time out and think solely over this particular thing, does not it become all the more evident that this form of addressing actually, while examined further critically, declare the idea of being a mother as the greatest symbol of any woman? We may not like to admit but it is the fact that our culture, through nuances such as this, declare motherhood as the epitome of womanhood.

From this logic, it follows that the ability to be a mother also proves a woman’s ability to be a complete woman (Women do not need to wear the Raymonds suits to be complete women. That is for the men folk to follow). All they need to do in order to posit them as being complete in themselves is being mothers. Now, with slight alterations, we may now state that if you do not become a mother, you cannot proclaim yourself to be a complete woman. And, if you cannot become a mother, you will never be a complete woman. No wonder then that it is in our this very culture that married women who have not given birth to a baby or who have been unable to conceive and deliver are kept out of active participation in pious occasions such as marriages and pujas. I know well that those very theoreticians who tend to over-glorify the idea of motherhood and go to the extent of advocating an equation of motherhood with womanhood would try to differ with and oppose this logical conclusion drawn by me. They would, at least on humanitarian grounds if not anything else, like to draw some kind of exception in this regard and try positing some different set of logic so that those unfortunate women may be included in the scheme of things; may be as exceptions. However, they would still go on stressing the importance of being mothers – they would still go on to show how it attaches a sense of completeness to any woman. And, as they do so, I would like to ask about those women who have not yet reached an age when they may conceive or have passed that age and entered what is described as the menopause. What about those women, I would like to enquire from them, who have never wanted to become mothers? I personally know several such women who have never cherished the idea of being a mother. I also have encountered such women who have been forced to conceive and be mothers. Are they, then, incomplete women? Are they lesser women? Just as a man lacking in sperm-count is a lesser male! If that be the case, there should not be any hue and cry over exclusion of such lesser women from the pious festivities in life. Is it not so? What does your common sense3 say about this?

One suggestion: You may watch one of Satyajit Ray's films at least - DEVI. I think... well... up to you...


NOTES:

a Now, whenever I write this - this CLEAR WORD or clear language or unambiguous language, or something similar in meaning, I feel utterly uncomfortable because I have always loads of reservations regarding the clarity of language. I have grave doubt whether any word in any of the named languages actually means what it is supposed to(?)mean... Yet, despite all such reservations, I happen to use such phrases. May be, it is what calls for the sous rature ('under erasure').

i To be very honest, I must confess with all my humility, that I really do not feel any need to further point out how this idea of nari-shakti et al, and assigning the pedestal of the Devi to Indian women has been a much more subtle and much more nuanced form of ghettoising and thus marginalising women… I really do not feel it necessary anymore. Even then, if someday I feel the need and/or urge to, it may see another paper being written.

2 Now, this is one among many instances that reflect the fallacy, I suppose, of language itself. The moment we prefix any word/term with ‘over’, it gets already attached with a bit negative sense – oversimplification, overstress, and such. Yet, I felt almost compelled to use this term – over-glorification – in this connection.

3 I deliberately use this term - common sense - in this connection and I would like this term to be accepted not in the familiar manner but, as Antonio Gramsci, had long ago pointed out in his seminal Prison Notebooks, in an interrogative manner. What, after all, does constitute our common sense? What is so common about this common sense? Also, where from does that sense in common sense come?