Adoption in Hindi Fiction: Contesting Normative Understandings of Parenting and Parenthood in Late Colonial India

Abstract

This article examines gendered lives in vernacular fiction by focusing on the topic of child adoption as fictionalised in Hindi literature in late colonial India (1920s). It argues that non-conformance and non-normativity dominated the short stories selected for this article. The feature of non-conformance towards normative assumptions in middle-class Hindu society also concerned Hindi literary realism of the time more generally, especially when presenting a diversity of intergenerational relationships between women, men, children and youth within the family setting, as well as beyond. The narratives discussed here show how social norms set by caste, class, gender, religion and biology were surpassed when it came to imagined family constellations in the late colonial period.

Keywords:

• Adoption
• colonial India
• family
• Hindi realism
• Hindi short story
• parenting

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefitted immensely from the international working group, ‘Literary Sentiments: Gendered Lives in Vernacular Fiction’, which convened at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL, USA) in October 2018. I thank the participants for their constructive feedback. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers of South Asia for their useful suggestions and encouragement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Shobna Nijhawan, ‘Gendered Lives in Vernacular Fiction: Unconventional Family Constellations in Hindi Short Stories of the Early 1940s’, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 56, no. 1 (Jan.–Mar. 2019), pp. 33–51.

2. Natural disaster is the setting in the short stories ‘Test of Humanity’ and ‘The Bloodstained Shawl of Martyrs’. Caste conflict is thematised in the short stories ‘Test of Humanity’ and ‘The Fear of Society’. Communalism is the topic in ‘The Bloodstained Shawl of Martyrs’ and ‘Revenge’.

3. In my understanding, normative literature is canonical literature as defined by leading literary personalities and institutions of the time. Amongst such personalities were Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and his literary periodical Sarasvati, and Dularelal Bhargava and his periodical Sudha, from which the short stories in this article are selected. Francesca Orsini also speaks of ‘normative institutions’ and includes in them the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan (Society for Hindi Literature, established 1910) and the Nagari Pracharini Sabha (Society for the Promotion of Nagari, established 1893). See Francesca Orsini, ‘What Did They Mean by “Public”? Language, Literature and the Politics of Nationalism’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 34, no. 7 (Feb. 1999), pp. 409–16 (413).

4. Analyses of short stories of the period with focus on conjugal relationships are provided in Nikhil Govind, Between Love and Freedom: The Revolutionary in the Hindi Novel (New Delhi: Routledge, 2014); Preetha Mani, ‘Feminine Desire Is Human Desire: Women Writing Feminism in Postindependence India’, in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 36, no. 1 (May 2016), pp. 21–41; and Shobna Nijhawan, Women and Girls in the Hindi Public Sphere: Periodical Literature in Colonial North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012).

5. See, for example, Bharat Bhushan Agarwal, ‘Thelevala (Cartman)’, in which the protagonist is a fifteen-year-old boy who survives as a cart carrier (Sudha, Vol. 14, no. 1, issue 2 (Sept. 1940), pp. 304–8); Svarupkumari Kak ‘Karuna’, whose protagonist in the short story ‘Haan (Yes)’ is a ten-year-old orphaned boy who works as a servant (Sudha, Vol. 14, no. 1, issue 2 (Sept. 1940), pp. 268–73); and Rajkumari Vaijal, whose protagonist in the short story ‘Chori (Theft)’ is a high-caste boy who runs away from mistreatment and abuse after the death of his mother (Sudha, Vol. 13, no. 1, issue 4 (Nov. 1939), pp. 322–6). There exists an entire genre of children’s literature in Hindi and Bengali journals (and in other vernacular languages) in which children, often orphans, are removed from their parents and—if at all—adopted by the state or the church. See Satadru Sen, ‘A Juvenile Periphery: The Geographies of Literary Childhood in Colonial Bengal’, in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring 2004), n.p.g. Colonial child control as exercised by the state or the church classified different types of adopted orphans, including military orphans, famine orphans, rescued African slave children and Andamanese aborigines. See Satadru Sen, ‘The Orphaned Colony: Orphanage, Child and Authority in British India’, in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 44, no. 4 (2007), pp. 463–88 (465). In developing the ‘rhetoric of the “orphan”’, the colonial state defied questions surrounding legal custody and instead followed the objectives of rescue and civilisation of parentless children (ibid.). Hindi periodicals for children are discussed in Nandini Chandra, ‘The Pedagogic Imperative of Travel Writing in the Hindi World: Children’s Periodicals (1920–1950)’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 32, no. 2 (Aug. 2007), pp. 293–325.

6. Well-known orphaned and/or adopted literary characters in Western literature of the twentieth century and later are Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, 1991–98), Mowgli (Rudyard Kipling, 1894), Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens, 1837–39), Mary Lennox (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1910–11) and Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847).

7. See Ishita Pande, ‘Coming of Age: Law, Sex and Childhood in Late Colonial India’, in Gender & History, Vol. 24, no. 1 (April 2012), pp. 205–30 (205).

8. Ibid., p. 205.

9. Ibid., p. 206.

10. Tanika Sarkar, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 194; and Ishita Pande, ‘Sorting Boys and Men: Unlawful Intercourse, Boy-Protection, and the Child Marriage Restraint Act in Colonial India’, in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Vol. 6, no. 2 (Spring 2013), pp. 332–58. As part of the Hindu Code Bills, a number of acts concerning adoption and guardianship were passed after India obtained Independence, namely The Hindu Marriage Act (1955), the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956) and the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (1956). There were also a number of ‘forgotten bills’ and ‘disappearing acts’ in the 1920s and 1930s such as the Bengal Child-Marriage Prevention Bill (1924) targeting boys alone, and the Old Men’s Marriage with Young Girls Restraint Bill of 1920 (see Pande, ‘Coming of Age’, p. 219). The modes of argument in these bills and acts differed: some turned to humanitarian modes of argumentation whereas others relied on Shastric logic (ibid.).

11. Of course there continued to exist plenty of short stories centred on the self-sacrificing mother: M.P. Kedar, ‘Daktar ki Fis (The Doctor’s Fee)’, in Sudha, Vol. 14, no. 1, issue 4 (Nov. 1940), pp. 515–9, is the story of a young widow’s struggle to save her three-year-old from dying; Ray Krishnadas, ‘Ma ki Atma (Mother’s Soul)’, in Sudha, Vol. 1, no. 2, issue 1 (Feb. 1928), pp. 49–51, is an illiterate widow’s story of her plight, exploitation and sorrow; and Kumari Lilavati Jhamvar, ‘Satya (Truth)’, in Sudha, Vol. 2, no. 2, issue 4 (May 1929), pp. 350–3, is about a poverty-stricken widow left to raise her abusive son; towards the end of the story, she can no longer tolerate the abuse and self-immolates. For a short story on women as victims of society, see Nandlal Varma, ‘Bhagyashalini (P.N.)’, in Sudha, Vol. 3, no. 1, issue 6 (Jan. 1930), pp. 657–64. On the changing conceptions of women’s and specifically mothers’ roles in Hindi short stories, see Ira Raja, ‘Signifying the Nation: Identity, Authenticity and the Ageing Body in the Post-Independence Hindi Short Story’, in Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol. 39, no. 3 (Sept. 2004), pp. 25–43.

12. See the serialised novel Ma (Mother) by Pandit Vishvambharnath Sharma ‘Kaushik’, in Sudha, Vol. 1, no. 2, issue 1 (Feb. 1928)–Vol. 2, no. 1, issue 5 (Dec. 1928). This novel is about Lucknow residents Savitri, aged thirty, and Babu Brajmohanlal Kapoor, aged forty, who adopt a boy. It gauges a diversity of motivations and reactions to such an adoption and then traces the life of this child up to his marriage.

13. See also the translation of the short story, ‘Admi (Man)’, by Shriyut Arun (1941) in the Appendix.

14. A pan-Indian overview of the emergence and development of the short story is offered in Sisir Kumar Das, A History of Indian Literature 1800–1910: Western Impact: Indian Response (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1991), pp. 302–10; and Sisir Kumar Das, A History of Indian Literature 1911–1956: Struggle for Freedom: Triumph and Tragedy (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1995), pp. 260–76.

15. Sujata Mody, The Making of Modern Hindi: Literary Authority in Colonial North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019); Shobna Nijhawan, Hindi Publishing in Colonial Lucknow: Gender, Genre, and Visuality in the Creation of a Literary ‘Canon’ (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018); and Francesca Orsini, The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (New Delhi/New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

16. See Lucy Rosenstein, ‘Sacetan Kahānī and Samāntar Kahānī: Principal Movements in the Hindi Short Story of the 1960s’, in South Asia Research, Vol. 13, no. 2 (Nov. 1993), pp. 117–31.

17. Mody, The Making of Modern Hindi, pp. 191–2.

18. Sudarshan, ‘Manushyatva ki Kasauti (Test of Humanity)’, in Sudha, Vol. 2, no. 1, issue 2 (Sept. 1927), pp. 152–60.

19. The Megh (also Meghwal or Meghwar) are a Dalit community in north-western India. One of the Megh’s most prominent members is Kabir, known primarily for his devotion to Ram. The short story uses the term achut (untouchable, outcaste) instead of dalit (fallen) because the latter term was not used often in the 1920s.

20. Sudarshan, ‘Manushyatva ki Kasauti’, p. 152.

21. Ibid., p. 153.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., p. 155.

24. Such discussions were and are also led by Dalits and in Dalit literature. See Toral Jatin Gajarawala, Untouchable Fictions: Literary Realism and the Crisis of Caste (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), p. 25.

25. Rischabhcharan Jain, ‘Badla (Revenge)’, in Sudha, Vol. 3, no. 1, issue 5 (Dec. 1929), pp. 552–5.

26. It could be that Lashkar is an Arya Samaji convert from Islam, as the name has Persian roots, but his origins are not addressed in the story.

27. Jain, ‘Badla’, p. 552.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., p. 554.

30. Nijhawan, ‘Gendered Lives in Vernacular Fiction’, pp. 33–51, carries a discussion of men as nurturers and single parents.

31. Shrinandlal Varma, ‘Shahidon ki Khuni Chadar (The Bloodstained Shawl of Martyrs)’, in Sudha, Vol. 3, no. 1, issue 5 (Dec. 1929), pp. 507–13.

32. Ibid., p. 513.

33. Literary depictions of once harmonious Hindu–Muslim relationships affected by communal strife written around the time of Indian Independence and the Partition of British India are common in Hindi and Punjabi fiction. See, for example, Khun de Sohile (Paean of Blood) (1948) by the Punjabi novelist Nanak Singh, which narrates the story of a Muslim girl adopted by a Hindu man in the midst of communal violence during Partition. See Das, A History of Indian Literature 1911–1956, p. 372.

34. Varma, ‘Shahidon ki Khuni Chadar’, p. 508.

35. Ibid., p. 509.

36. Ibid., p. 511.

37. Mohanlal Nehru, ‘Samaj ka Dar (The Fear of Society)’, in Sudha, Vol. 1, no. 1, issue 6 (Jan. 1928), pp. 652–62.

38. The Hindi term used is veshya (prostitute), although Accho’s epithet, bai, denotes belonging to the Islamic courtesan culture. She is also described as an ustad (Urdu, teacher).

39. Nehru, ‘Samaj ka Dar’, p. 656.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid., p. 660.

42. Ibid.

43. It is unclear how Malti’s father would have reacted because he has died of cholera by the time Malti returns to Lucknow.

44. Pande, ‘Coming of Age’, p. 222.

45. Paisley Livingston, ‘Language, Truth and Literature: A Defence of Literary Humanism by Gaskin, Richard’, in Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 92, no. 2 (2014), pp. 398–401 (398).

46. R. Radhakrishnan, ‘Edward Said’s Literary Humanism’, in Cultural Critique, Vol. 67 (Fall 2007), pp. 13–42 (16, 19). For Said, as a literary humanist, ‘passion for literature turn[s] into the means toward a humanist end’, and literary humanism manifests in text and language (ibid., p. 13).

47. Vasudha Dalmia, Fiction as History: The Novel and the City in Modern North India (Delhi/Banaras/Lucknow: Orient BlackSwan, 2017).

48. Subramanian Shankar, Fish Blood and Flesh: Postcolonialism, Translation, and the Vernacular (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).

49. Abikal Borah, ‘Pluralising the Narrative: Reconfiguring “Vernacular Modernism” in Assamese Literary Culture’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 41, no. 3 (July 2018), pp. 551–66 (554, 561).

50. The exact family constellation of the Muslim father in ‘The Bloodstained Shawl of Martyrs’ is not specified. It is briefly mentioned that he is a husband and father.

51. Shriyut Arun (BA), ‘Man’, in Sudha (May 1941), pp. 294–308

52. A man’s garment wrapped around the waist and legs.

53. An honorific term of address.

54. A woman’s garment wrapped around the waist with the end covering the upper body.

55. Small cakes made of molasses and sesame seeds.

56. Tobacco wrapped in a leaf and tied with string.

57. A simple roadside restaurant selling deep-fried breads.

58. A staff or club.

59. A dish made of greens.

60. Deep-fried vegetables in batter.

61. An honorific used specifically to address Pathans.

62. An areca nut and lime paste wrapped in a betel leaf.

63. An honorific title.

64. Here, he means the judge.

65. An earthenware jar.

66. A deep-fried sweet soaked in syrup.

67. ‘Patent’ and ‘felt’ are transcribed into Hindi from English.