Abstract
Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam is considered to be an iconic Hindi film whose status derives from the pivotal character of Chhoti Bahu, the youngest daughter-in-law of a wealthy family on the brink of decadent oblivion at the end of nineteenth century in colonial Bengal. Eschewing the sacrificing/accepting model of the Hindu wife, Chhoti Bahu demands that her sufferings be addressed; especially in terms of her sexually sterile life. She rebels against the convenient segregation of femininity by impersonating the ways of the ‘public’ women, the site of deviant sexuality. The subsequent brutal silencing of Chhoti Bahu is glossed in the film that is obsessed with consolidating her credentials as an exemplary Sati-Lakshmi. The chapter illustrates how the film reduces the diverse social realities of its historical context and continues to function within the essentialized binary opposition of purity and pollution in its representation of Chhoti Bahu and all the other female characters.
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Notes
- 1.
Mitra (1953/1974). The film won the ‘President’s Silver Medal’ and the Filmfare Award, the most prestigious corporate and critical recognition of its times, for Best Film, Director, Actress and Cinematography.
- 2.
All translations, unless otherwise stated, are by the authors.
- 3.
The Sati Abolition Act was passed in 1829 by the colonial government though in 1840 the Indian Penal Code distinguished between voluntary and forced Sati. The Government of India enacted the Sati Prevention Act in 1987 that makes it illegal to abet, glorify or attempt to commit Sati.
- 4.
Mitra’s novel takes as its context the period of 1897 (the year when Bhootnath comes to the haveli ) till what seems like a bit after 1911 when the Calcutta Improvement Trust, where Bhootnath is employed as an Overseer, was formed.
- 5.
In three of Daroga Priyanath Mukhopadhyay’s immensely popular case accounts (titled Darogar Daftar, serialised between 1891 and 1903 and based on his actual investigated cases as a Daroga (constable)), for instance, the ‘punishing’ of the adulterous/transgressive woman by members of her family (by killing and mutilating her) lead to an unsympathetic and half-hearted investigation as also to a considerably light sentence for the perpetrators once they are apprehended. See Girijasundari, Aashmaani Laash (The Mid-Air Corpse) and Kaata Mundu (Severed Head) in Mukhopadhyay (1892–1903/2004).
- 6.
Mitra (1953/1974:518).
- 7.
- 8.
A Calcutta survey of 1850 reveals that out of 12,000 sex workers, nearly 10,000 were abandoned Kulin widows. Chakrabarti and Chakrabarti (2013: 36–7).
- 9.
The word ‘upper’ signals the oppressive caste hierarchy of Brahmanical Hinduism and has been retained here to foreground the a priori stratification that is embedded in the language and practice of caste.
- 10.
Skillman (1986: 133–144, 133).
- 11.
Manuel (1988:174).
- 12.
Ghosh trans. The Natyashastra (1967: VI.46).
- 13.
- 14.
Saran (2008:149).
- 15.
Sarkar (1999:33).
- 16.
Even writers like Bankim Chattopadhyay who represented widows (for instance Rohini in Krishnakanta’s Will [1878] or Kundo in Bishbrikhha [1873]) in terms of sexual assertion seem to have ultimately ‘punished’ them with brutal deaths or suicide by the end of their novels. There was a spate of novels centred around young widowed women as protagonists like Bidhhaba Bangabala (A Bengali Widow [1875], Nirmala [1895]), Debi na Manabi (A Woman or a Goddess? [1895], Lila [1893], Kamalini [1892], Snehlata [1893]) that extol these women for remaining exemplars of virtue. There were, however, instances of widowed women in zamindari households who administered their estates and were ‘feared for their power, strength and tyranny’ (Borthwick (1984: 21).
- 17.
What also comes through in a number of these writings is that such rebellious acts often resulted in brutal reprisals within families. In several case accounts that Daroga Mukhopadhyay talks of having investigated, he refers to upper caste widows of wealthy households who were either killed by family members or exiled to Kashi to spend the rest of their days in abject misery. Also, in the famous Kery Kolitani case that was at the centre of controversies in 1885, the validity of the widowed woman’s claim to her husband’s property was judged by the jury (as also most contemporary commentators) in terms of whether she had been chaste after her husband’s death or not.
- 18.
- 19.
About antahpurs in wealthy households in late nineteenth-century Bengal, Chitra Deb writes, ‘Everywhere, as far as women were concerned, there was overwhelming emphasis on aabroo (seclusion though the word also means honour), purdah, closed windows and doors. Even in their own houses, women were prohibited from stepping on to the courtyards, going to terraces and there was never any question of their crossing the threshold on foot’. Deb (1984:86).
- 20.
Tagore (1916/1994:10).
- 21.
Perhaps, the bahus’ fixation with jewellery also needs to be understood in a social context where women had little access to immovable property (like land) and where stridhan (the legal term used for property owned indisputably by women) often consisted principally of ornaments.
- 22.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
‘mein ka karoon ram mujhhe budhha mil gaya’ in Raj Kapoor’s Sangam (1964) is also a song in which a wife attempts to seduce a petulant husband but Vyjanthimala’s dance movements and expressions as well as the song itself make for a more playful, light-hearted situation.
- 25.
In fact at one point in the song when Chhote Babu is shown losing interest and yawning, Chhoti Bahu , who has just described herself as his daasi (slave), pelts him with flowers with an expression that suggests her determination to have his attention rather than slavish supplication.
- 26.
Originally, the Calcutta Unitarian Committee in 1823, the Brahmo Samaj in 1829 and, finally, the Brahmo Samaj in 1843.
- 27.
Sastri, Vol. II, 1919–20: 263; Kopf (1979).
- 28.
These changes were also being propagated by Hindu reformers like Vidyasagar (1820–1891).
- 29.
- 30.
Kesvan (2008: 66–8. 67).
Works Cited
Films
Chitralekha. Director Kidar Sharma. Producer A.K. Nadiadwala. 1964
Dr. Vidya. Director Rajendra Bhatia. Producer Mohan Segal. 1962.
Ganga Jamuna. Director Nitin Bose. Producer Dilip Kumar. 1961.
Man Mauji. Director Krishnan-Panju . Producer A.V. Meiyappan. 1962.
Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam. Director Abrar Alvi. Producer Guru Dutt. 1962.
Sangam. Director and Producer Raj Kapoor. 1964.
Son of India. Director and Producer. Mehboob Khan. 1962.
Zindagi aur Hum. Director Anand Kumar.Producer Rashid Parwez. 1962.
Books
Bangla
Deb, Chitra. Antahpurer Atmakatha (Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 1984).
Chattopadhyay, Bankim. Bishbrikkha (1873. Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, 1940).
Chattopadhyay, Bankim. Krishnakanta’s Will (1878. Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, 1955).
Mitra, Bimal. Saheb, Bibi, Golam (1953, Kolkata: New Age Publishers, 1974).
Mukhopadhyay, Priyanath. Darogar Daftar. Vols I & II (1892–1903, Kolkata: Punashcha, 2004).
Tagore, Rabindranath. Ghare-Baire (Kolkata: Visvabharati, 1916/1994).
English
Borthwick, Meredith. The Changing Role of Women in Bengal 1849–1905 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984).
Chakrabarti, Kunal and Shubhra Chakrabarti. Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis (Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2013).
Ghosh, Manomohan trans. The Natyashastra (Calcutta: Calcutta Granthalaya Pvt. Ltd., 1967).
Kopf, David. The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
Majumdar, Rochona. Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal (Durham and London, 2009).
Manuel, P. Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey (New York/London: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Saran, Sathya. Ten Years with Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi’s Journey (New Delhi: Penguin, 2008).
Sarkar, Tanika. Words to Win: The Making of Amar Jiban: A Modern Autobiography (New Delhi: Zubaan, 1999).
Sastri, Sivanath. History of the Brahmo Samaj, Vol. II (Calcutta: Brahmo Mission, 1919–20).
Articles
Banerjee, Sumanata ‘The ‘Beshya’ and the ‘Babu’: Prostitute and Her Clientele in 19th Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 28, No. 45 (Nov. 6, 1993), 2461–2472.
Chatterjee, Ratnabali. ‘Prostitution in Nineteenth Century Bengal: Construction of Class and Gender’, Social Scientist, Vol. 21, No. 9/11 (Sep.–Oct., 1993), 159–172.
Kesvan, Mukul. “No One Writes to the Prison Doctor Anymore”, Outlook, 19th May, 2008, 66–8.
Skillman, Teri “The Bombay Hindi Film Song Genre: A Historical Survey”, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 18 (1986), 133–144.
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Roy, S., Sengupta, S. (2019). “haan, haan mein alaida hoon!” (Yes, Yes I Am Different!): The Disorderly Bibi in Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam (1962). In: Sengupta, S., Roy, S., Purkayastha, S. (eds) 'Bad' Women of Bombay Films. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26788-9_3
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