Hindu women, destiny and stridharma

Religion

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 15-35

  Knott, Kim ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0041854885     PISSN: 0048721X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/reli.1996.0002     Document Type: Article

References (97)

1. Pauline Mahar Kolenda, 'Religious anxiety and Hindu fate', Journal of Asian Studies, 23 (1964), p. 73.
2. Zerbanoo Gifford, The Golden Thread: Asian Experiences of Post-Raj Britain, London, Grafton Books 1990, p. 172. Bapsi Sidhwa is a Zoroastrian. Although I shall be looking at destiny among Hindu women, it is important to note that women of other religions in India (and Britain) often speak or write in a similar way to their Hindu sisters on matters of agency and constraint. I will quote from several such women in the course of this article.
3. Sandra Wilkinson, 'Young British Hindu women's interpretations of the images of womanhood in Hinduism', PhD thesis, University of Leeds 1994, p. 70.
4. My thanks go to those who read this and gave their comments prior to publication. I have tried to do justice to most of their observations.
5. Hindu women in Britain, in addition to inheriting Hindu norms and expectations about womanhood, are exposed to liberal secular and racist perspectives which also seek to define them as women. See Gita Sahgal and Nira Yuval-Davis (eds), Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain, London, Virago 1993; Avtar Brah, Kum-Kum Bhavani and Ruth Frankenberg in Feminist Review (Thinking Through Ethnicities), 45 (Autumn 1993).
6. Hindu women in Britain, in addition to inheriting Hindu norms and expectations about womanhood, are exposed to liberal secular and racist perspectives which also seek to define them as women. See Gita Sahgal and Nira Yuval-Davis (eds), Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain, London, Virago 1993; Avtar Brah, Kum-Kum Bhavani and Ruth Frankenberg in Feminist Review (Thinking Through Ethnicities), 45 (Autumn 1993).
7. I am aware that this differs somewhat from the commonplace use of 'destiny' to imply that which is predestined, as in the phrases, 'it was my destiny', or 'I was destined to . . .'. I am following and building on a definition of destiny given by Douglas Davies, in Jean Holm and John Bowker (eds), Human Nature and Destiny, London, Pinter Publishers 1994, p. 1, 'Men and women are not content with a simple awareness of the present. Not only do they reflect upon and interpret their past experiences to produce history, but they also turn to the future and anticipate the unwritten history of what is to be. Destiny is this anticipated future'.
8. It could be argued that my definition of destiny and the use of myself as an example too firmly situate this study in Western categories. I write as a White, British feminist scholar. Although I have researched aspects of Hinduism inside and outside India for many years I accept that I cannot fully place myself in the worldview of Hindu women or of any particular Hindu woman. For example, I am profoundly affected, through my education and upbringing, by the Western intellectual valorization of the individual subject. I am fully aware that this position has its weaknesses and that other societies and cultures have developed and transmitted different ideas about personhood. In India, while the idea of an individual self has strategic importance in relation to concepts such as sva-dharma and moksa, there are other, perhaps overriding notions which relate to the person in community, such as vama and jati. Empirically, membership of families, local communities and caste groups is of immense importance, as are relationships between people. While clearly aware of this, I cannot write from within this perspective, only about it from my own position. Several scholars, working in related fields, caution against imposing Western models or values in our analyses, e.g. Stanley Kurtz, All the Mothers Are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis, New York, Columbia University Press 1992; Nita Kumar (ed.) Women As Subjects: South Asian Histories, New Delhi, Stree in association with The Book Review Literary Trust 1994. While trying to heed their advice I accept that my own perspective has consequences for my reading of the data. My hope is, nevertheless, that this is a valuable exercise which enables debate on the issue of destiny and stridharma to proceed, and I look forward to the responses, particularly from among Hindu women themselves.
9. It could be argued that my definition of destiny and the use of myself as an example too firmly situate this study in Western categories. I write as a White, British feminist scholar. Although I have researched aspects of Hinduism inside and outside India for many years I accept that I cannot fully place myself in the worldview of Hindu women or of any particular Hindu woman. For example, I am profoundly affected, through my education and upbringing, by the Western intellectual valorization of the individual subject. I am fully aware that this position has its weaknesses and that other societies and cultures have developed and transmitted different ideas about personhood. In India, while the idea of an individual self has strategic importance in relation to concepts such as sva-dharma and moksa, there are other, perhaps overriding notions which relate to the person in community, such as vama and jati. Empirically, membership of families, local communities and caste groups is of immense importance, as are relationships between people. While clearly aware of this, I cannot write from within this perspective, only about it from my own position. Several scholars, working in related fields, caution against imposing Western models or values in our analyses, e.g. Stanley Kurtz, All the Mothers Are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis, New York, Columbia University Press 1992; Nita Kumar (ed.) Women As Subjects: South Asian Histories, New Delhi, Stree in association with The Book Review Literary Trust 1994. While trying to heed their advice I accept that my own perspective has consequences for my reading of the data. My hope is, nevertheless, that this is a valuable exercise which enables debate on the issue of destiny and stridharma to proceed, and I look forward to the responses, particularly from among Hindu women themselves.
10. Two writers who examine aspects of what I am referring to as 'destiny' in relation to self-consciousness and the reflexive nature of identity-formation are Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, Oxford, Polity Press 1991, and Zymunt Bauman, Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies, Oxford, Polity Press 1992.
11. Two writers who examine aspects of what I am referring to as 'destiny' in relation to self-consciousness and the reflexive nature of identity-formation are Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, Oxford, Polity Press 1991, and Zymunt Bauman, Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies, Oxford, Polity Press 1992.
12. One vehicle through which women explore this process is autobiography (others are fiction, journals and diaries, oral history). In this article I have made use of Hindu women's autobiographies, as well as interviews with some British Hindu women.
13. Most of the in-depth interviews on which this section is based were conducted in 1988-92 during fieldwork funded by the Leverhulme Trust for a project on 'The changing character of the religions of the ethnic minorities of Asian origin in Britain' (Kim Knott, Community Religions Project Research Paper 11, University of Leeds 1992). I am grateful to my co-interviewers, Sajda Khokher and Sandra Wilkinson. Eleven young Hindu women were interviewed (with thirteen Sikh, twenty-five Muslim and four Christian women) in the Leeds/Bradford area. The Hindu women ranged from 15-24 years of age and were from various socio-economic and caste backgrounds. All but one (Punjabi) were Gujarati by ethnic origin, and most were 'Sanatani' Hindus with two following Sathya Sai Baba and one being a member of the Swaminarayan Hindu Mission. All but one (Ugandan) were born in Britain. A number of interviews with older women were carried out in 1992 in conjunction with the production of an audio cassette on women and religion in Britain (Kim Knott, Open University/BBC Education 1993). Of the Hindu women cited here two were about forty years old and were 'Sanatani' Hindus, the third was in her late-fifties and was a Swaminarayan devotee. All these were first generation settlers from Gujarat, one via Uganda. To these I have added references to destiny from earlier interviews of mine with Hindu women in Leeds and from accounts on British Asian women by other writers (cited in footnotes below). Although this assorted sample of British Hindu women has no formal scientific value, it is of some importance that the women were of different ages (though with a preponderance of younger women), and different socio-economic and sectarian backgrounds.
14. To cite only one example, 'Sita', an Indian Hindu woman settled in Britain, bitterly notes that 'In our culture men are never to blame' (Rachel Barton, The Scarlet Thread: An Indian Woman Speaks (Her story as told to Rachel Barton), London, Virago 1987, p. 97). She explains how she was blamed for the ill-health of her son and, later, the death of her mother.
15. Wilkinson, p. 70
16. See the contributions in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed.) Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Berkeley, University of California Press 1980; Bruce R. Reichenbach, The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study, London: Macmillan 1990; Charles F. Keyes and Valentine E. Daniel, Karma: An Anthropological Enquiry, Berkeley, University of California Press 1983.
17. See the contributions in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed.) Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Berkeley, University of California Press 1980; Bruce R. Reichenbach, The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study, London: Macmillan 1990; Charles F. Keyes and Valentine E. Daniel, Karma: An Anthropological Enquiry, Berkeley, University of California Press 1983.
18. See the contributions in Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed.) Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Berkeley, University of California Press 1980; Bruce R. Reichenbach, The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study, London: Macmillan 1990; Charles F. Keyes and Valentine E. Daniel, Karma: An Anthropological Enquiry, Berkeley, University of California Press 1983.
19. Kolenda, pp. 71-81; Ursula Sharma, 'Theodicy and the doctrine of karma', Man, 8:3 (1973), pp. 347-64; and Judy F. Pugh, 'Astrology and fate: The Hindu and Muslim experience', pp. 131-46, Susan S. Wadley, 'Vrats: Transformers of destiny', pp. 147-62, and Lawrence A. Babb, 'Destiny and responsibility: karma in popular Hinduism', pp. 163-81, all in Keyes and Daniel.
20. Kolenda, pp. 71-81; Ursula Sharma, 'Theodicy and the doctrine of karma', Man, 8:3 (1973), pp. 347-64; and Judy F. Pugh, 'Astrology and fate: The Hindu and Muslim experience', pp. 131-46, Susan S. Wadley, 'Vrats: Transformers of destiny', pp. 147-62, and Lawrence A. Babb, 'Destiny and responsibility: karma in popular Hinduism', pp. 163-81, all in Keyes and Daniel.
21. Kolenda, pp. 71-81; Ursula Sharma, 'Theodicy and the doctrine of karma', Man, 8:3 (1973), pp. 347-64; and Judy F. Pugh, 'Astrology and fate: The Hindu and Muslim experience', pp. 131-46, Susan S. Wadley, 'Vrats: Transformers of destiny', pp. 147-62, and Lawrence A. Babb, 'Destiny and responsibility: karma in popular Hinduism', pp. 163-81, all in Keyes and Daniel.
22. Kolenda, pp. 71-81; Ursula Sharma, 'Theodicy and the doctrine of karma', Man, 8:3 (1973), pp. 347-64; and Judy F. Pugh, 'Astrology and fate: The Hindu and Muslim experience', pp. 131-46, Susan S. Wadley, 'Vrats: Transformers of destiny', pp. 147-62, and Lawrence A. Babb, 'Destiny and responsibility: karma in popular Hinduism', pp. 163-81, all in Keyes and Daniel.
23. Kolenda, pp. 71-81; Ursula Sharma, 'Theodicy and the doctrine of karma', Man, 8:3 (1973), pp. 347-64; and Judy F. Pugh, 'Astrology and fate: The Hindu and Muslim experience', pp. 131-46, Susan S. Wadley, 'Vrats: Transformers of destiny', pp. 147-62, and Lawrence A. Babb, 'Destiny and responsibility: karma in popular Hinduism', pp. 163-81, all in Keyes and Daniel.
24. Kolenda, p. 74.
25. Sharma, p. 350.
26. ibid., p. 354.
27. ibid., p. 358.
28. Wadley, p. 149.
29. Sharma, p. 358.
30. Pugh, p. 134.
31. ibid., p. 145.
32. Sharma, p. 354.
33. Unfortunately, the anthropological accounts discussed above do not tell us whether villagers expressed a belief in human capacity for free will. I do not intend to give the impression here that values such as free will and autonomy are unknown in India. The impact of the West in the last two centuries has had important cultural and philosophical as well as social and political consequences. In addition, both of these concepts can be found in Indian philosophy, though with a different stress and meaning placed upon them.
34. See also Hindu epics and an 18th century prescriptive text, Stridharmapaddhati (Julia Leslie, The Perfect Wife: The Orthodox Hindu Woman according to the Stridharmapaddhati of Tryamabakayajvan, Delhi, Oxford University Press 1989).
35. Mary McGee, 'Desired fruits: motive and intention in the votive rites of Hindu women', in Julia Leslie (ed.) Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass 1992, p. 77. I have inverted two sentences from McGee's original text.
36. Shudha Mazumdar from A Pattern of Life, edited by Geraldine H. Forbes, 1977, quoted in Gary Comstock, Religious Autobiographies, Belmont, California, Wadsworth 1995, p. 117.
37. Shudha Mazumdar from A Pattern of Life, edited by Geraldine H. Forbes, 1977, quoted in Gary Comstock, Religious Autobiographies, Belmont, California, Wadsworth 1995, p. 117.
38. McGee, p. 87.
39. Examples can be given of Hindu women for whom their own liberation or salvation is foremost. See particularly women in neo-Hindu movements or women ascetics, in e.g. Ursula King, 'The effect of social change on religious self-understanding: women ascetics in modern Hinduism', in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor (eds), Changing South Asia: Religion and Society, London, Centre of South Asian Studies 1984, pp. 69-83, Nirmala Pancholi, 'The role and contribution of women in the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampradaya' MPhil thesis, University of Leeds 1993, Lawrence Babb, 'Indigenous feminism in a modern Hindu sect', Signs, 9:3 (1984), pp. 399-416, Lynn Teskey Denton, 'Varieties of Hindu female asceticism', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 211-32.
40. Examples can be given of Hindu women for whom their own liberation or salvation is foremost. See particularly women in neo-Hindu movements or women ascetics, in e.g. Ursula King, 'The effect of social change on religious self-understanding: women ascetics in modern Hinduism', in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor (eds), Changing South Asia: Religion and Society, London, Centre of South Asian Studies 1984, pp. 69-83, Nirmala Pancholi, 'The role and contribution of women in the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampradaya' MPhil thesis, University of Leeds 1993, Lawrence Babb, 'Indigenous feminism in a modern Hindu sect', Signs, 9:3 (1984), pp. 399-416, Lynn Teskey Denton, 'Varieties of Hindu female asceticism', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 211-32.
41. Examples can be given of Hindu women for whom their own liberation or salvation is foremost. See particularly women in neo-Hindu movements or women ascetics, in e.g. Ursula King, 'The effect of social change on religious self-understanding: women ascetics in modern Hinduism', in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor (eds), Changing South Asia: Religion and Society, London, Centre of South Asian Studies 1984, pp. 69-83, Nirmala Pancholi, 'The role and contribution of women in the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampradaya' MPhil thesis, University of Leeds 1993, Lawrence Babb, 'Indigenous feminism in a modern Hindu sect', Signs, 9:3 (1984), pp. 399-416, Lynn Teskey Denton, 'Varieties of Hindu female asceticism', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 211-32.
42. Examples can be given of Hindu women for whom their own liberation or salvation is foremost. See particularly women in neo-Hindu movements or women ascetics, in e.g. Ursula King, 'The effect of social change on religious self-understanding: women ascetics in modern Hinduism', in K. Ballhatchet and D. Taylor (eds), Changing South Asia: Religion and Society, London, Centre of South Asian Studies 1984, pp. 69-83, Nirmala Pancholi, 'The role and contribution of women in the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampradaya' MPhil thesis, University of Leeds 1993, Lawrence Babb, 'Indigenous feminism in a modern Hindu sect', Signs, 9:3 (1984), pp. 399-416, Lynn Teskey Denton, 'Varieties of Hindu female asceticism', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 211-32.
43. The following examples - taken from the experience of both Indian and British Hindu women - might strike readers as needlessly negative. I believe them to be accurate, though counter examples could be given. It is not my intention to 'victimize' Hindu women (and I go on to give examples of their agency, subversiveness and resistance to oppression). However, I appreciate that there may be an ethical issue attached to a White feminist drawing attention to the oppressive experience of women in a different cultural setting. I have tried to do this not solely in the context of a Western liberal perspective but with regard to appropriate 'Indian' concepts and practices.
44. Urmila Haksar from The Future That Was, cited in Ranjana Harish, Indian Women's Autobiographies, New Delhi, Arnold Publishers 1993, p. 94.
45. 'Sita' in Barton, p. 26.
46. Sara S. Mitter, Dharma's Daughters: Contemporary Indian Women and Hindu Culture, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press 1991, p. 115;
47. also Viola Roggencamp, 'Abortion of a special kind: Male sex selection in India', in Rita Arditti, Renate Duelli Klein and Shelley Minden (eds), Test-Tube Women: What Future for Motherhood, London, Pandora 1984, pp. 266-77.
48. Mitter, p. 116.
49. Shudha Mazumdar in Comstock, pp. 119-20. See also Harish, pp. 130-6. 36 Comstock, p. 120. 37 Kolenda, p. 78.
50. Wilkinson, p. 169. For a further discussion of British Hindu women's use of vrats, see Merryle McDonald, 'Rituals of motherhood among Gujarati women in East London', in Richard Burghart (ed.), Hinduism in Great Britain: The Perpetuation of Religion in an Alien Cultural Milieu, London, Tavistock 1987, pp. 50-66.
51. Wilkinson, p. 169. For a further discussion of British Hindu women's use of vrats, see Merryle McDonald, 'Rituals of motherhood among Gujarati women in East London', in Richard Burghart (ed.), Hinduism in Great Britain: The Perpetuation of Religion in an Alien Cultural Milieu, London, Tavistock 1987, pp. 50-66.
52. Mitter, p. 171, citing V. S. Naipaul; Sharada Sugirtharajah, 'Hinduism', in Jean Holm and John Bowker (eds), Women and Religion, London, Pinter Press 1994, p. 71; and 'Sita' in Barton who says, '. . . to be unmarried was unthinkable', p. 26.
53. Mitter, p. 171, citing V. S. Naipaul; Sharada Sugirtharajah, 'Hinduism', in Jean Holm and John Bowker (eds), Women and Religion, London, Pinter Press 1994, p. 71; and 'Sita' in Barton who says, '. . . to be unmarried was unthinkable', p. 26.
54. Mitter, p. 171, citing V. S. Naipaul; Sharada Sugirtharajah, 'Hinduism', in Jean Holm and John Bowker (eds), Women and Religion, London, Pinter Press 1994, p. 71; and 'Sita' in Barton who says, '. . . to be unmarried was unthinkable', p. 26.
55. Ishvani Pseud from Girl in Bombay, in Harish, p. 32.
56. ibid.
57. A Hindu (or ex-Hindu) woman quoted in Gita Sahgal, 'Secular spaces: the experience of Asian women organising', in Sahgal and Yuval-Davis (eds), p. 193.
58. This experience is described in detail by two Indian women living in Britain, 'Sita' in Barton, and Sharan-Jeet Shan, a Sikh, in In My Own Name, London, Women's Press 1985.
59. Kamala Das in Harish, p. 105.
60. Of all the women whose autobiographies Ranjana Harish discusses, it is of Kamala Das that she writes, 'she succeeds admirably at the task of narrating her experience as a body - a task which even the great Virginia Woolf found herself facing diffidently' (Harish, p. 109).
61. Manushi, a Journal about Women and Society, 1 (1979).
62. Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, In Search of Answers. London, Zed Books 1984. Other public arenas in which Indian Hindu women have become active, many eschewing domestic responsibilities for their cause's work, have been those organizations associated with Hindu nationalism and those religious movements which offer an active role for women (Tanika Sarkar, ' Women's agency within authoritarian communalism: the Rashtrasevika Samiti and Ramjanmabhoomi', in Gyanendra Pandey (ed.), Hindus and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today, New Delhi, Viking Penguin 1993, pp. 24-45; and references cited in note 29).
63. Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, In Search of Answers. London, Zed Books 1984. Other public arenas in which Indian Hindu women have become active, many eschewing domestic responsibilities for their cause's work, have been those organizations associated with Hindu nationalism and those religious movements which offer an active role for women (Tanika Sarkar, ' Women's agency within authoritarian communalism: the Rashtrasevika Samiti and Ramjanmabhoomi', in Gyanendra Pandey (ed.), Hindus and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today, New Delhi, Viking Penguin 1993, pp. 24-45; and references cited in note 29).
64. See Sahgal and Yuval-Davis (eds), and Southall Black Sisters, Against the Grain: A Celebration of Survival and Struggle, London, Southall Black Sisters 1990.
65. Kishwar and Vanita, p. 16. See also Julia Leslie's account of Jyestha and the senior wife for a further example of such domination, 'Sri and Jyestha: ambivalent role models for women', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 107-128.
66. Kishwar and Vanita, p. 16. See also Julia Leslie's account of Jyestha and the senior wife for a further example of such domination, 'Sri and Jyestha: ambivalent role models for women', in Leslie (ed.), pp. 107-128.
67. More detailed examples may be found in the studies of Gloria Goodwin Raheja, 'Women's speech genres, kinship and contradiction', pp. 49-80, and Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery, 'Killing my heart's desire: education and female autonomy in rural North India', pp. 125-71, in Kumar, Women as Subjects.
68. More detailed examples may be found in the studies of Gloria Goodwin Raheja, 'Women's speech genres, kinship and contradiction', pp. 49-80, and Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery, 'Killing my heart's desire: education and female autonomy in rural North India', pp. 125-71, in Kumar, Women as Subjects.
69. See note 10. Further details about the identity of the women will be given in the text or in notes. Three women are referred to on a number of separate occasions, Meera, Bhavana and 'Sita' (in Barton).
70. Kolenda, p. 77.
71. McDonald, pp. 55-6.
72. Sheela was of Gujarati ethnic origin, in her mid-twenties.
73. 'Sita' in Barton, p. 85.
74. ibid., p. 97.
75. ibid., p. 85.
76. Philosophical explanations of karma are not, in fact, fatalistic, and they require individuals to take responsibility for their actions, just as 'Sita' does. See Reichenbach, chaps 4 and 5.
77. e.g. Shakuntala Devi in Gifford, p. 173.
78. Kim Knott, 'From leather stockings to surgical boots and beyond: The Gujarati Mochis of Leeds', in Roger Ballard (ed.), Desh Pardesh: The South Asian Presence in Britain, London, C. Hurst and Co. 1994, pp. 213-30; McDonald
79. Kim Knott, 'From leather stockings to surgical boots and beyond: The Gujarati Mochis of Leeds', in Roger Ballard (ed.), Desh Pardesh: The South Asian Presence in Britain, London, C. Hurst and Co. 1994, pp. 213-30; McDonald
80. Knott, 'From leather stockings'; Penny Logan, 'Practising religion: British Hindu children and the Navaratri festival', British Journal of Religious Education, 10:3 (1988), pp. 160-9; Robert Jackson and Eleanor Nesbitt, Hindu Children in Britain, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books 1993.
81. Knott, 'From leather stockings'; Penny Logan, 'Practising religion: British Hindu children and the Navaratri festival', British Journal of Religious Education, 10:3 (1988), pp. 160-9; Robert Jackson and Eleanor Nesbitt, Hindu Children in Britain, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books 1993.
82. Knott, 'From leather stockings'; Penny Logan, 'Practising religion: British Hindu children and the Navaratri festival', British Journal of Religious Education, 10:3 (1988), pp. 160-9; Robert Jackson and Eleanor Nesbitt, Hindu Children in Britain, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books 1993.
83. For further views of British Hindu women in this movement, see Pancholi.
84. I am intentionally referring to a Western liberal notion of free will as opposed to that which pertains in classical notions of karma and in relation to some Hindu theistic perspectives.
85. In Amrit Wilson, Finding a Voice, London, Virago 1978, p. 142.
86. Kolenda, p. 78.
87. This is confirmed in a detailed account by Wilkinson, also in McDonald, and Jackson and Nesbitt.
88. The first two girls referred to here were of Gujarati ethnic origin and in their mid-teens. The third was a Punjabi of the same age.
89. Knott, 'From leather stockings', pp. 224-6; John Bowker, Worlds of Faith: Religious Belief and Practice in Britain Today, London, Ariel Books/BBC 1983, p. 72 and p. 105.
90. Knott, 'From leather stockings', pp. 224-6; John Bowker, Worlds of Faith: Religious Belief and Practice in Britain Today, London, Ariel Books/BBC 1983, p. 72 and p. 105.
91. See Saghal and Yuval-Davis (eds), p. 22, and Southall Black Sisters, pp. 31-2.
92. The tension between a woman's fate and her freedom to choose in such circumstances is confronted poetically by Kumkum Sangari, 'If you would be the mother of a son' in Arditti, Klein and Minden (eds), p. 260.
93. Kolenda's work is a partial exception to this.
94. Research on destiny among middle-class, urban women in India would provide a useful comparison.
95. Sandra Wilkinson provides an imaginative model for investigating continuity and change in vrat practice in her metaphorical use of the alpana or rice powder diagram to express British Hindu women's dynamic sense of their needs and desires, in Wilkinson.
96. An excellent example of this was provided in the telling of the story of another 'Sita' by Deena Mehta in Absolution (broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 11 May 1995), a short story in which Sita transgresses her stridharma by mimicking her adulterous husband in taking a lover and buying her husband post-affair flowers (thus recasting the marital relationship in new terms).
97. Kumar, p. 19.