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Performing Silence : Gender, Violence, and Resistance in Women's Narratives From Lahaul, India
Himika Bhattacharya Qualitative Inquiry 2009 15: 359 DOI: 10.1177/1077800408326844 The online version of this article can be found at: http://qix.sagepub.com/content/15/2/359

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Performing Silence
Gender, Violence, and Resistance in Womens Narratives From Lahaul, India
Himika Bhattacharya
State University of New York, Stony Brook

Qualitative Inquiry Volume 15 Number 2 February 2009 359-371 2009 Sage Publications 10.1177/1077800408326844 http://qix.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

This article presents two different ways of understanding silence, through a discussion of women's narratives of violence from Lahaul, India. Here I illustrate how feminist ethnography works its way into re-conceptualizing silence as a tool women use to resist existing patriarchal discourses of honor, tribe and nation. Keywords: Silence, Feminist Ethnography, Tribe, State

was at a local womens collective meeting in the rural, northern Himalayan valley of Lahaul, India, during my dissertation fieldwork, when the group was discussing how to bring up the question of violence against women in an upcoming community meeting. One woman Tsuki, said, Nobody wants to hear our versions of our own lives . . . so we use our voices in silence. Tsukis words lie at the core of this essay and embody precisely the ambiguous space that bring together silence, voice, and agency. Broadly speaking, my feminist ethnographic project documents womens narratives of violence, marriage, and culture among the tribal community of the Lahulas in India. My first job took me to this area and I stayed on in the valley till I began graduate school in the United States, returning for fieldwork again in between, and by the time of this writing have known the women whose stories I attempt to retell for nearly 9 years. Constantly, through the last few years, I have worked with Tsukis words through the writing, re-writing, retelling of storiestheirs and mine. Lahauli womens stories of silent resistance and silent oppression; my own history of sexual

Authors Note: Please address correspondence to Himika Bhattacharya, Womens Studies, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3456; e-mail: hbhattachary@notes .cc.sunysb.edu. 359

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violence and silence about it till the recent past; my work in Lahaul years later, my friendships with the women there; and their collective efforts to talk about their experiences and to fight such violence is what makes me write about silence in a way that dismantles the oppressor (silencer) and oppressed (silenced) divide. My attempt is to illustrate the ways in which feminist ethnography can negotiate the messiness of re-telling stories of violence, even those that emerge from silence. Methodologically, I position myself as a critical feminist ethnographer who conducted fieldwork for a collaborative research project in Lahaul, India, and is now writing it with multiple audiences in mind. So, then the most important thing for me iswho am I communicating with? And what am I trying to communicate with? Clearly, the answer to the first question has at its forefront the women of Lahaul. But it also includes, among others, academics, activists, and a largely conservative group of people who are representatives of the states machinery in different parts of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. What I communicate with therefore is also fraught with the contradictions that these three groups I have chosen as my audience are separated by. Within these constraints, I try to foreground the womens stories, their struggles, their resistance, and their performance of theory in everyday life. In all these things that I try to do, my story, my position as woman, class and caste elite, survivor, ethnographerall creep in as I narrate and analyze years of conversations, friendships, one-time interviews, hours spent in the state departments, and theories learnt and unlearnt during my graduate education. For me the silence surrounding violence is messy and exhaustive, similar to the speaking about violence. For many of the women I spoke to silence was definitive and oppressive. For some others silence was necessary to survive, but was deployed as a tool to resist the very discourses that imposed the silence in the first place. Here, I discuss three womens stories of violence, honor, and silence, to illustrate how the process of silencing is used by larger structures of state and society to maintain dominant ideologies,1 and yet how this very oppressive power of silence is dispersed even within this highly imbalanced (in terms of power relations) interactions. Although there is a silencing, there is also a subverting of precisely the structures that silence, which is employed by individual women in and through different acts of resistance. These are the interventions the women make and negotiate everyday. I begin with a conversation I had with a police representative from Lahaul (referred to as PR from hereon), which eventually reveals the violence experienced by one Angmo and the role of the state in silencing her.

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When responding to my question about violence against women in Lahaul, the PR said,
Sure, there are some cases of such things here and there, but really, there is no reporting to the police, and also, the bigger struggle here is the tribal peoples struggleas an indigenous community . . . actually, violence against women in this area is very, very rareone or two cases in years together.

In a sense, what he does is similar to Freuds joke about the borrowed kettle, which he used to discuss the strange logic of dreams. The joke is around the returning of a borrowed kettle to a friend, in response to a reproach. The three responses are, as discussed by Zizek (2005),
(1) I never borrowed a kettle from you; (2) I returned it to you unbroken; (3) the kettle was already broken when I got it from you. For Freud, such an enumeration of inconsistent arguments of course confirms per negationem what it endeavors to denythat I returned you a broken kettle . . .

The PR in the first quote does exactly this:

1. Sure, there are some cases of such things (violent, forced marriages) here and there. 2. But really, there is no reporting to the police (and the bigger problem is . . .). 3. Actually, violence against women in this area is very, very rareone or two cases in years together.

These rhetorical tactics were repeated several times, by different representatives of the state across this conversation with me. The PR begins by acknowledging the existence of force and thereby a problem. However, he quickly blames the community (once again the onus is on the women as because they are the ones violated they should be reporting such events) for not reporting such violence, indicating the helplessness faced by a state representative in the face of such events. Then he goes on to talk of the bigger struggle in Lahaulwhich according to him is that of tribal rights in relation to the rest of India. And finally, he disavows the existence of violence by saying that violence against women in Lahaul is almost unheard of. As a state representative who is aware of at least the existence of a few police records of instances of violence, he doesnt deny the presence of violence entirely. However, he diminishes its presence as a real problem, especially in the face of other real local issues such as the indigenous peoples movement. This sentiment that the PR expressed was repeated in

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several conversations by men, women, and other representatives of the state throughout the course of my fieldwork. The larger goal, the larger struggle is for the Lahauli peoplemen and women together. Any appearance of a crack and the larger struggle will suffer. Hence, repeatedly in Lahaul, as in many parts of the world historically, the womens struggle has been and continues to be underminedfor the greater good. What is most ironic in the quote above is that the PR uses the fact that there is such little reportage as a lament to start with (what can I do, sure such things happen, but nobody reports it, etc.). However, that exact same lack of reportage is the information that he uses to conclude that violence against women is not a problem locally. What he doesnt state is that the problem is one of reporting, and therefore, the issue of violence against women is difficult to understand or tackle for the police. Instead he disavows the presence of violence as a serious problem in Lahaul, altogether. I discussed several cases of violence with the PR. I will use one example here to illustrate in greater detail the process of disavowal, and the role of the state in upholding, and creating silence. When discussing violence against women in Lahaul, he started giving me the details of one particular womans deathAngmo. Angmo was in a violent marriage with her husband. He suspected her of having an affair with the neighbor (as per the PRs statement at the start of the conversation, the initial police records, and subsequent conversations I had with Angmos family and friends, her husbands suspicions were unfounded, and he was regularly violent with his wife on some pretext or the other). One night when he was particularly enraged, this man set Angmo on fire. It was the month of January and there was a lot of snow outside. Angmo ran out of the house and began rolling on the snow, to stop the fire from killing her. Their neighbor saw this and ran up to the police station. By then Angmos husband himself had started to help her. However, she was badly burnt, and when taken to the local hospital, the doctors asked that she be sent to a hospital with better facilities in Shimla (the state capital). This being winter and all access to the valley being shut off, they had to wait 3 days before the scheduled government helicopter arrived and transported Angmo to better care. Within another 2 days she passed away, at the hospital in Shimla. Her parents managed to reach there, and she made a dying declaration to them stating that her husband was the one responsible for her death. However, Angmos father, when he had enquired from the police station about the technical details of a dying declaration in a court of law, was not informed that a witness from the state was needed. Angmo died and her statement couldnt be used because of this one gap. The PR informed me that the police had registered a case of attempt to murder, and under the Domestic Violence Act of India, Section 398A, it is

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a nonbailable offence. When I asked him if Angmos husband was therefore in custody, the superintendent of police (SP) was evasive. Within a few minutes a member of the states judicial system walked in to the SPs office. This was my first meeting with a judicial representative in the area and he joined our conversation. I brought up the case we had just discussed and here is what followed. At first he couldnt recall which case I was talking about. Then, he remembered and started out to correct me,
This was not an attempt to murder case, Madam, it was registered as a suicide . . . The woman, Angmo had committed suicide . . . Such things dont happen here. There is no violence against women here. You should see other parts of India.

Quite taken aback at this new piece of information, I turned to the PR and asked him to correct the judicial representative, as he knew best, and he had just given me different details. However, at this point the PR quickly changed the subject and asked for my leave (meaning that I should leave his office) as they needed to discuss some extremely urgent matter. I thanked him, got permission to go through the police records and left. At another point, I found out that Angmos case was indeed registered at first as an attempt to murder. However, sometime later, it was changed to suicide. It didnt take much to understand the significance of the fact that her husband was an employee of the state police. The reason I discuss this story here is to talk about the states role in the process of silencing. Angmo was set on fire by her husband. She made an effort in her dying moment, to speak, which became a kind of silence, because it could not be seen as legal speech by the state. The medical staff and the hospital did not attempt to find out exactly what had happened and didnt insist on a particular kind of report despite the fact that Angmos parents spoke to the doctors in Shimla. Separately, when Angmo was taken to the hospital in Lahaul the night she was set on fire, a police report was filed based on what the doctor at the hospital stated. Therefore the initial medical report was one which spoke of the manner in which she was set on fire and her own attempt to save herself by running outside and rolling on the snow. What happened to that report? When I spoke to the doctor who had been on duty that night at the hospital I just got vague, evasive responses,
I remember this case . . . well, she was kind of delirious and in extreme pain when she was brought in. I dont think she stated very clearly what had happened to her. I told the police constables what she had said, and what I suspected from her injuries . . . but you know theres no way for me to know

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whether she tried to kill herself, and then jumped into the snow when she couldnt take the pain, or whether truly her husband set her on fire.

Once again, there is the disavowal of violence. He alludes to that possibility, but undermines it by talking of how it could as much have been suicide as murder. There is no question of relying entirely on the womans own story. The collusion of representatives of different arms of the statethe police, the medical system, and the juridical structure is illustrated clearly in this one example. Finally, Angmo was silenced completelyby the state changing her story, her death, to one where she chose it. The state disavowed, stayed silent, and silenced Angmos story in distinct ways throughout this story. All members of the medical community locally that I had several conversations with, at different times denied the existence of violence against women as a problem locally, despite acknowledging specific cases, when I brought them up. These cases were however, always referred to as anomalies (just as by the police representative and the member of the judiciary). I see the states silence operating in two stages. First, it affirms that the violence is real, but then acts as though it doesnt exist. Disavowal all at once affirms something, but denies it at the same time. The denial of what is initially affirmed is important so that things can go on functioning normally. Disavowal always serves some purpose. It keeps some structure from crumbling. So the question, then, becomes, what purpose is served by the disavowal; by this silence, and by this silencing? What structures are kept from crumbling? What we have is the silence of the state/men that upholds a certain structure and is necessary because that structure cannot be made to crumble, and the silence of the women is different because that structure is already in place. The difference, one might say, is in terms of agency and the power relations between and among these groups of peoplewomen, men, state. The state/men use silence as a strategy. Its by choice. The state/men must disavowbe silentregarding the violence or meet the demands of the women who experience this violence. And wouldnt this be tantamount to having a structure crumble? Wouldnt an acknowledgement of the use of force in marriage by abduction bring to crisis interlocking/multiple structures of culture, tradition, and state?

Pushpa
Pushpa is a low caste woman who was raped by an upper caste male priest when she was 16 years old. Pushpa and her family were silenced

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after her rape, in that, the police were unsupportive of legal action against her rapist. In her own words,
My father went to the police. But they did nothing. They told my father to leave it, as what was the point of getting a girls name in this kind of muck they said. Especially when she is already from a low caste family. A case was filed. But on their recommendation, my family dropped the case after the first hearing. When the police came to our house my parents made me sit in the other room because they were scared. The police people said to them that they should not take me to a doctor as it would be very expensive. So, no doctor.

So, first, she is silenced by the police because silence is better than further dishonor attached to a womans name. Second, it is worse if the woman is already less honorable by being from a low caste family, suggesting that by not remaining silent, her honor will be more dispensable than it already is. The contradiction in this reaction of the police is striking, even when not surprising because if she is already less honorable, then what would the problem be in dismissing her honor completely and not remaining silent? Surely these men would not be supportive of any action that would bring down a male member of the higher caste. We see male and caste collusion working in harmony here with the states repressive machinery (in the form of the police). She is not even allowed to seek medical care. The police tell her father to not take her to a medical doctor as it would be expensive. Although access to all government hospitals in India, technically, and certainly in areas designated as tribal by the state, is free of charge. The actual reasons for the police misleading her father were different, though. Going to the hospital could possibly mean establishing evidence of rape, which could implicate the priest in serious ways if Pushpas father were then unwilling to withdraw the case. The authority of the state and of higher caste men was thus used to benefit only the gender and caste-privileged (in this case, the male priest). Pushpas family did not question the suggestion made by the police, even though they did go ahead and file the case. Her father finally withdrew it, under threat from the priest and his network of friends. The fear of the state and the higher caste is also further reinforced when the police come to the house. Pushpa, the individual who was raped remained silent and was made to sit in another room. Her story was narrated by her father, and she was only asked to speak once in court, after which her father withdrew the case.

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The aftermath of sexual victimization is followed by a second victimization. Instead of getting the support she needed, her needs were ignored, and all the focus was on preserving her already besmirched (as a raped woman, especially of the lower caste) reputation. She faced utter disillusionment by the event and by the states (in this case, through the police and the absence of any health care) refusal to hear her complaints, to validate her suffering, and she sees all these experiences as linked to her caste status. Pushpa then experiences two attempts at silencingonce through her rape and then through what follows afterwardsboth contribute in locking her caste identity in certain structurally convenient ways. For example, the gossip in the community focuses on her, and the possibility of the young female victim seducing the vulnerable male priest. She is the victim and the seducer at once. And is thereby dishonored, and he, forgiven, as male, and a member of the upper caste. He continues to live in the community and hold a government job. She had to go away to another part of the valley, in order to survive, and has only returned recently, after she had to escape from her husband. In all this, although she comes across as the violated, passive subject, who is being moved from one subject position to another, to somehow scramble together her now scattered honor, Pushpa was fighting back, and resisting the structures that were repeatedly violating her. Of that time, she says, Is my honor not honor? How is it that it seems so easy not to think of thatjust because Im from a low caste? She goes on to say at another point, I am honorable too, because I am not guilty here. And then again elsewhere,
Im a woman and I had to be ashamed that a man did this to me. Only because Im a woman. Those men who rape should be ashamed. If he (the priest) can lift his head and walk then why shouldnt I?

And finally,
Well, they thought that I would give up and kill myself or something. Thats what the priest wanted. But I never even contemplated suicide. I became isolated. I was now different from all the other girls. But still I didnt want to give up. I thought to myself that if this is what he has done to me, then I should also wait and watch the drama of his life unfold. Why should I give up after he raped me . . . I will stay alive and watch the drama of his life unfold . . . his sorrows . . . he is sure to be punished for his sins.

Pushpa rejects the possibility of the ultimate silencing but she has no choice over the silence she has to keep to preserve her familys honor.

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Despite holding onto one kind of (physical) silence (that which maybe described as the lack of speech about her rape), she rejects another kind of silence (that which she is expected to embrace through her own death). Not only does she reject the ideal of death before dishonor; she challenges the loss of her honor. Reinscribing the relationship between honor and gendered bodies, her challenge, Is my honor not honor? dismantles the dishonor that is routinely wielded on violated women. By redefining her self as honorable, with hope of karmic vengeance, she takes back the agency that patriarchy has always denied her. Like Pushpa, other women in Lahaul rearticulate too in a simultaneous performance of victimhood and agency. If Pushpas physical and social powerlessness signified victimhood by an association with her body as neglected by the state, labeled dishonored and made absent from her village; her rejection of that label and refusal to die, and instead wait and watch for the drama of his life to unfold undercut and turned that performance into one of agency. And, finally, in the moment that Pushpa and I were interacting and she was telling me her story, she repeatedly expressed the desire to break her silence (socially, in an aggressive manner, where her voice and story could reach other women of her community). She feels the need to be actively engaged in a process of fighting the kind of powerlessness faced by her and other women in her situation.

Laxmi
Laxmi is a woman born and raised in a Brahmin refugee family from Kashmir India, who at the age of 23 was abducted and forced to marry a man of a lower caste of the Lahula tribe. She was picked up from the field she was working in one evening, and was forced to stay the night with her abductor. When he attempted to force her to have intercourse, she accepted her fate, and didnt fight back or protest, as she realized that there was no way she could win and escape and still have her honor intact. She decided to silently bear it and married him the next day. About the day she was forced, she says, He had locked me in the room, and was trying to remove my clothes. At first I tried to protest, but then suddenly he was on top of me, and I realized that I couldnt fight him back. What was the point? I would just get more injured. I would have to marry him, and let him do this to me later anyway, as his wife. So I just let him do it to me then. We are Brahmins from Kashmir, you knowmy fathers family. Not tribal people, with these

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kinds of customs, but I had to accept it. It was a question of my honor. But that day itself I knew that I would make him sufferdifferently. She accepts her physical inability to fight him back and realizes that shes lost the chance to escape and return to the life before her abduction. Even if she escaped now, it would be at the cost of her honor, which is not acceptable to her. And if she were to agree to marry him, then anyway he would get his way with her, subsequently, if not that night itself. And on top of that she would be injured during the fight to not let him force her. Instead of fighting and choosing injury, she chooses to just bear her fate, and in a way allows him to have intercourse with her. Even though she has no choice in the matter, she still has some control over fighting back, making it more difficult for him, physically injuring herself further in the process, and losing her honor. Or, she has the option of saving herself the physical injury, and preserving her honor (by accepting this event and marrying him) and by not fighting him. She sees it as her fate, and takes a decision that seems the least harmful to her, in that moment. She chooses to fight back and get back at him differently for what he does to her, at an individual level. Separately, she retains her identity as an upper caste Brahmin woman, and looks down upon her husband, as not just someone who forces her, but as a member of a tribe (used by her as a derogatory term), which has such customs. By locking him in his identity of the tribal male who indulges in such violent customs she distances herself and her caste (Brahmins) from such practices. Yet as a woman, she must retain her honor, and therefore she has to accept him, despite his caste identity and marry him. At this point she privileges one standard of purity (that of female sexuality and honor), over another standard of purity (caste). Even though she is able to look down on her abductor and his tribe as lesser than her Brahmin self, as a woman, the question of honor remains all-important. She decided in the moment of giving up, that she will get back at him, and make him sufferdifferently. In this regard she says,
I have let him sleep with me whenever he wanted, for all these years. As his wife I cannot stop him from doing that. But I am silent and the fact that I merely put up with it because he wants it is clear to him. I dont talk to him except for the bare minimum that is needed in our lives. I have borne him 3 children, and I love them more than anything else in the world. But between him and me I have kept a wall all these years. We have never been happy together, and cant ever be. I will never give him happiness. I have maintained my familys honor, and fulfilled my duties as his wife. I lost touch with

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my own family after our marriage. What was the pointI was an outcaste, even though nobody would say it in my face. I have suffered hugely, but he has too. I have never let him forget that he is a low caste tribal, who forced a Brahmin woman to have intercourse with him and marry him. He will pay for this sin in another life. I never let him forget that I am a Brahmin woman and my honor and my pride is above his. When he gets drunk, he always yells at me, sarcastically, about how I am high and mighty because I am a Brahmin. He makes fun of me, only thenof how I, despite being Brahmin work on his fields. But I dont care. I know he suffers. In some sober moments he has tried apologizing. But there is no space for that anymore. I have never interacted with his family beyond the bare minimum. I dont eat with them. I cook my own food and eat, even when I visit his mothers house with him. He sees all this. It hurts him to be reminded of his caste origins.

She gets married to him to preserve her own and her familys honor, but she fights him through their married life. When I spoke to Laxmi about her life she was already around 35, indicating that she has lived this life of getting back at him for 12 years. She plays caste and female honor off against each other, in circular ways. To start with, she privileges honor over caste and agrees to marry him. However, once their life together begins and she has the place of an honorable woman, she begins to privilege her caste above all else, in her relationship with him. This in itself is ironic. As Sunderajan (1993) points out, a woman is never Brahmin by birth. For a woman, Brahmin is a derived identityderived through her relations with men. And yet Laxmi uses this identity to fight back. Even when she realizes that she no longer has the space to call herself a Brahmin woman (this is clear when she talks of how her family looks on her as a lower caste woman now that shes married beneath the caste), she uses her past identity with her husband. She really has no place from a caste point of view to look down upon him as a member of a lower caste. The social procedures which invest caste and female sexuality (and honor) with so much power are precisely what allow for these contradictions to be present. She has lost her caste status among the Brahmins. She is able to hold on to her lost purity only with the lower caste man, who too realizes her position (as he does make fun of it when drunk). Yet even the derived and lost caste identity has the power to keep her in a position from where she can look down on him and make him suffer. There is a realignment of gender relations here based on caste identity. He, on account of being a man could force her to marry him, yet on account of being a man from a lower caste, he cannot really go beyond that and suffers as he is repeatedly reminded of his caste status.

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In another conversation she says,

I am not like that with everyone in the villagethe other tribals. I know all this about caste distinction is not much of a deal in big cities anymore. But this is my way of hurting him. I have my closest friend hereshes a tribal, from a low caste family. I eat the food she cooks. I talk to her all the time. She is the only one who really knows me and cares about me.

She breaks all caste barriers with her friend, who is a woman from a lower caste too, but still she is able to get back at her husband by reversing her own position. As an upper caste woman, she has the privilege in this situation of her living within a low caste community to use it to her advantage strategically. She has always maintained one kind of physical social silence about the violence of being forced into a marriage, and yet resisted her tormentor every day. Finally, as two women experiencing different forms of violence, both Pushpa and Laxmi at different points in their lives choose male protection and honor. However, in the unhappiness that follows, one (Pushpa) fights back and redefines honor and now wants to break the silence to help other women like herself. She reclaims honor for herself and resignifies the position that she holds in society (as a once raped woman), despite the events which have socially rid her of her honorable position. She uses what has been deemed socially acceptable to fight back directly. Laxmi, on the other hand, takes part in the system but undermines it anyway. In a way she upholds a regressive ideology (that of caste) and exposes its power, inconsistencies, and weaknesses, precisely through a powerful use of the silence she maintains about her violation. At an individual level most of the women remain silent. They are silent because their honor is at stake. That silence is necessary to hold their position in society. It upholds their own position in the social structure; it doesnt uphold the structure itself. In other words, to maintain a nonabject form of subjectivity, the women must remain silent about the violence they experience. Otherwise, they become dishonored and relinquish their subjectivity, relinquish their position within the community, this place in which they are acknowledged as entities that can make political demands, and are afforded certain types of rights. The silence of these two women, often, is not of their choosing and in Angmos case definitely not so either. However, the social dynamic of honor and sexuality is such that Pushpa and Laxmi have to choose it, yet they find ways to subvert it anyway. They cannot tell their stories, and they cannot make political demands by narrating their experiences publicly. However, they use their silence in different ways. Obviously this is not

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some kind of pure political resistanceit is compromised, negotiated, and yet powerful enough that within it is contained the possibility of activism, feminist critique of honor and sexuality, and actual practical changes with regard to different forms of violence against women.

Note
1. Sexual violence against women of the lower castes by men of upper castes has been and continues to be one of the main tools of silencing anticaste struggles and maintaining the supremacy of higher castes and has been one of the defining characteristics of caste politics in India.

References:
Sunderajan, R. (1993). Real and imagined women: Gender, culture and postcolonialism. London: Routledge. Zizek, S. (2005). Iraq: The borrowed kettle. New York: Verso.

Himika Bhattacharya completed her Ph.D. from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is currently teaching at the Women's Studies Program at SUNY Stony Brook.

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