A poignant element of postcolonial feminisms evident in Mehta‟s films is the interlinking of levels of resistance. The first level of resistance relates to her use of her marginal position as an „ovisible‟ minority65 and NRI (Non-Resident Indian) to redefine discourses, that have been used to establish Indian women as nationalist symbols. The redefinition of discourse affords her the opportunity to represent other Indian women, situated in different marginal positions, as self-standing and, when necessary, resistant nationalist beings. In doing so, she gives expression to a second level of resistance: characters who gain agency through the challenge of the inscription of their bodies in nationalist discourses such as history and myth.
Mehta, as already discussed, acknowledges her interstitial diasporic position as a major contributing factor to the issues she chooses to confront in her films. Her interstitiality allows her to be an external, yet involved, observer and critic of the, sometimes, blindly accepted values of her homeland, India. This is evident in the characters of Shanta in Earth (1999), and Radha and Sita in Fire (1996). Shanta, for example, realises, in her interactions with her male friends, that her body signifies territory that they all compete for. She challenges this traditional perception, however, by choosing the one she loves, instead of allowing herself to be won, and by engaging in pre-marital intercourse. These actions illustrate Shanta‟s exercising of choice, and her rejection of that which makes her an idealised symbol of land and nation: her sexual purity. Her engagement in sexual intercourse before marriage reveals Shanta‟s reclaiming of ownership of her body and in doing so, she finds a space of resistance within the historical context of war and land conflict.
65 Refer to page 79 for Deepa Mehta‟s discussion of this term.
The character of Radha, on the other hand, introduces sexual desire and pleasure into the realm of the Indian woman by engaging in a lesbian affair. This act proves that Indian women, as opposed to their cultural and religious construction, are self-contained sexual beings who experience passion. They can therefore, not be treated as objects that are meant to serve and that are under the control of their husbands‟ sexual needs. This proof is solidified by Mehta‟s re-fashioning of the myth of Seeta in the Ramayana, when, at the end of the film, Radha, engulfed by flames, as a symbolic test of loyalty to her husband, emerges alive because her transgression of the sacred laws of marriage did not signify unfaithfulness to her husband, but truth to her own being.
Sita, who also engages in a lesbian affair, does not defy convention in the same way that Radha does. Instead, Sita‟s transgression marks the exploration of alternate sexuality within the traditional Indian home. Sita‟s experiences reveal that heterosexuality within a marriage can be quite oppressive for the woman in the relationship and her choices reveal that same- sex love has the potential to provide a liberating, resistant space within its boundaries.
In so constructing these Indian women, Mehta confronts different levels of feminist struggle.
She begins by depicting the relation between ideology and discourse, and materiality, experience and everyday existence. Sita, Radha and Shanta all come to understand at some point that their identities are, in part, dictated to by the larger constructs of national discourse – history and myth. Mehta, however, reverses this process showing that if ideology can influence (and ultimately control) behaviour and choice, a connection between the two has been established – a connection that Mehta illustrates to be dialectical.
In Fire (1995), it would have been rather easy, for the women characters, to unquestioningly subscribe to the religious doctrines governing their roles as wives. In that way, confrontation and punishment would be avoided. Instead, these characters, at the material level of everyday existence, choose to subvert the ideological inscription of their bodies with a lesbian love affair. Similarly, in Earth (1999), Shanta, realising that Hassan and Dil Navaz‟s competitive love imposes on her body a territorial status – a status that drew from and held symbolic association with the greater discourses of land conflict and nation – disrupts the narrative of condoned female sexual behaviour. In so doing, Shanta began to map out a destiny she assumed would be untainted by dominant ideology. Mehta‟s manipulation proposes that Indian women do not have to passively accept or live up to the discursive expectations placed
on them, and that they can access agency through the charting of resistant spaces within discursive confines.
Mehta, illustrating the manner in which the struggle/suffering of the Indian female has emerged from the discourses informing her existence, reveals in her films that western feminist frameworks are not completely applicable to the condition of Indian women. This is evident in her layering of Hindu myths (the story of Seeta in the Ramayana and the story of Karva Chauth) and Indian history (the 1947 partition of India) into the multifaceted identities of her female characters. Once she establishes Indian women as distinctive from the very general category of women, she distinguishes each of her female characters as separate and different from each other. For example, she depicts Indian women from different class backgrounds, as in Earth (1999). Shanta and Bunty occupy spaces on opposite ends of the class spectrum, but they are both equally affected by the political turmoil ravaging the country. And even though Bunty has had the benefit of education and has access to resources, she is less forceful than Shanta in asserting her womanhood, especially in the context of the political struggle. Perhaps Bunty has more to lose materially. Shanta, on the other hand, is a subaltern in the sense that Spivak argues (in Williams & Chrisman, 1994). She has very little to lose, but, at the same time, refuses to be a victim, even though she is physically made one.
Bunty, however, resigns herself to being a victim by making the preferred choices of an Indian woman (being a Parsee woman, she has no choice but to assume this identity), but does not experience the level of victimhood and marginality that Shanta does because she is protected by privilege.
In terms of Mohanty, Mehta combats the assumptions of western scholarship by actively representing other Third World women, being previously of the Third World herself. And, even though she does not open up western modes of representation as does Nair, she does unpack and reconstitute Indian nationalist discourses to reflect a more comprehensive perspective of the Indian woman as opposed to doctrines that she should abide by. For instance, in Fire (Mehta, 1995), Mehta critically assesses the impact of Hindu myths and tradition in shaping and confining the lives of married Indian women. She lays bare the story of Seeta (from the Ramayan) and reveals the lack of choice that it reinforces. By the end of the film, Mehta re-tells the myth through Radha and shows that the „trial by fire‟ is not a test of loyalty and devotion to her husband, but a test of being true to herself. She is indeed pure;
pure because she exhibited the courage and strength to confront her husband (and, by
implication, tradition) in order to free herself. The column of fire enveloped her and she emerged unscathed.
Mehta, in the construction of her narratives and characters, shows evidence of the concerns prevalent in the writings of Third World women. To begin with, the experience of social and political marginality as a simultaneity of oppressions. Using the character of Shanta once more, it can be argued that her plurality of identity allows for an understanding of the various oppressions that she experiences. As a Hindu, she is oppressed by the political circumstances of the country (the partition); as a Hindu woman, she is oppressed by the violence her body is made to endure in the name of nationalism; and as a woman, she is oppressed by the „trophy‟
or „prize‟ status that she comes to represent for competing male lovers, Dil Navaz and Hassan.
This leads on to another Third World feminist concern that Mehta subscribes to: the grounding of feminist politics in history. In Earth (Mehta, 1999), Mehta makes clear and overt the Indian woman‟s role in the partition. She highlights the fact that the struggle was fought on their bodies and written in the blood that they shed. Bapsi Sidhwa reiterates that the most damaging effect of the partition was the destruction of the bodies of Indian women on either side of the inter-ethnic conflict, “Victory is celebrated on a woman‟s body, vengeance is taken on a woman‟s body. That‟s very much the way things are [...]” (Wilder, 1998).
Mehta, as a result, draws attention to resistant women like Shanta in an attempt to rewrite Indian history to include women; to draw attention to the Third World feminist concern that argues that the hegemonic state has a crucial role in circumscribing the daily lives and survival struggles of Indian women. Even though the majority of Indian women in 1947 occupied the private sphere, it has to be acknowledged that they were active members of the struggle. While their men made crucial political decisions and fought for the honour of the country, women were responsible for the protection of the future generations and the daily survival of their families, even though their lives were uprooted and their bodies bore the physical destruction of the land.
The final Third World feminist concern that Mehta handles in both films is that of the significance of writing and memory in the creation of oppositional agency. Earth (Mehta, 1999) is based on memory; that is, the experiences of a young girl during the 1947 Indian partition told through her adult self. For the character of Lenny, the process of relating the story of another (Shanta) through her own was cathartic. She was thus able to work through
the guilt of her betrayal while, at the same time, give life to both Shanta‟s story and her story;
stories that revealed the true impact of national turmoil on Indian women. Memory allowed Sidhwa to write a novel that Mehta would convert to a film; a film that is critical of colonial domination, narrow and fanatical nationalism and gendered violence. It is this critical approach that fosters oppositional agency in the construction of Mehta‟s women characters;
specifically in terms of the choices made by these characters and the impact of the alternative/non-conventional nature of the film.
Fire (Mehta, 1996) also has an element of memory that ultimately leads to the accessing of oppositional agency. The memories of the Ramayan or Karva Chauth myths shared among Indian women provide a precedent or mould that can be resisted or that opens itself up to opposition. An element of memory also plays itself out in the character of Radha who constantly remembers a specific moment in her past when her mother taught her the power of dreams and belief. It is the recurrence of this memory and a reiteration of its message that gives her the strength and courage to break the confines of her role and to fulfill her desires.