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83 revolutionary marriage: on
the politics of sexual
stories in Naxalbari
Srila Roy
abstract
Marriage practices, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and the politics of
sexuality are relatively under-researched themes in the study of Bengali communism.
Historical scholarship on the revolutionary politics of the extreme left Naxalbari
andolan of the late 1960s-1970s, the object of this piece of study, is no exception.
The article engages with women and men's narratives on the practice of
'revolutionary' marriage in the movement through the prism of contemporary popular
memory studies and narrative analysis. Drawing on field interviews with middle-class
male and female activists, the article draws attention to the contestatory nature of
marriage in the collective memory of the movement. Narrative contestations over
marriage in the Naxalite movement underscore, I argue, a tension between a utopian
ideal of transgressive interpersonal relations and dominant middle-class codes of
sexual morality. At the same time, individual attempts to 'compose' (in storytelling)
socially recognizable and acceptable subject positions are grounded upon the
silencing and abjection of more risky memories. Given the discrepancies and
contradictions within the narrative repertoire from which individuals construct their
identities, these 'marriage stories' are a tremendous resource for investigating the
politics of love, sexuality and subject-formation in middle-class Bengali society.
keywords
sexuality; identity; narrative; memory; revolutionary movements
100 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
4 I put marriage in This article explores narrativesof 'marriage'4and the politics of interpersonal
quotation marks gi-
ven that the manner relations and sexuality in Naxalbari,a problematicthat has found little or no
in which it was attention in the movement's historiography(Banerjee, 1984; Ray, 1988). In
practiced by the
Naxalites (or at tracing the contestatory nature and shifting meaningsof 'marriage'in collective
least by a large
number of them) memory,I am particularlyconcernedwiththe narrativeand discursiverepertoires
does not comply with fromwhichstories are told, and the forms of identitythey 'compose'.Thetelling
the conventional
practice of marriage of 'marriage-stories'can thus be understoodas one among a range of 'narrative
(civil or religious).
I also wish to draw practices' (Redman, 1999) in and through which a particularversion of the
attention to the subject is mobilizedin responseto existing powerrelations and forms of social
underlying politics
of this act of nam- recognition. I concentrate on the narrativesof middle-class men and women
ing; most people
chose to use the activists.5
term marriage
('beye') to charac- Myapproachto narrativeis less as a text than as 'social actions' productiveof
terize relationships
of the time even meanings and images of communityand self. To this extent, I draw on Ken
though they existed Plummer's(1995) idea of a 'sociology of stories', an approachthat seeks to go
outside the bounds
of marriage. This is beyond the structural or textual work that narrative performsto the social,
dealt with in greater cultural and political role of stories in everydaylife. I am equally interested in
detail further below.
the discursiverepertoiresfrom which stories are generated, the intersubjective
5 These narratives
were obtained domains in which they are told, and the historical and sociological workthey
through interview-
ing. The study relied
perform.A concomitantarea of interest is that of subjectivity.6HereI focus on a
on a 'narrative ap- very specific problematic, that of 'composure' or the narrative function of
proach' to inter-
viewing informed by producinga coherentsubject-positionthat is recognizableand 'livable'(Dawson,
the principles and
ethics of feminist
1994). The question of recognition (and its intimate relationship with
interviewing prac- subjectivity) goes back to the idea of the 'cultural circuit' (Johnson, 1982)
tices (see Gluck and
Patai, 1991; Sum-
where narratives are understood as located within a feedback loop between
merfield, 1998; personaland public stories (Summerfield,2000).
Hollway and Jeffer-
son, 2000; Lawler, I begin by brieflyhistoricizingthe practice of marriagein the Marxisttradition,
2002). The narrative
approach crucially
differs from the
drawingattention to the anxieties aroundfemale sexualityin radical left politics.
traditional ques- Thenext section lays downthe discursiveframeworkof 'revolutionarymarriage'in
tion-answer inter-
view format in that Naxalbari,and the inherent instabilities of this discourse. I then move to a
it rejects standar- discussion of two narratives that draw on dominant discursive renderingsof
dized questions for
open ended, non- 'revolutionarymarriage'to compose self-identities that are potentiallyfragile.
directive ones in or-
der to encourage the
telling of stories
rather than to ob-
tain a factual re-
port. politicizing marriage
6 The narrative
constitution of the Freechoice marriagesand consensualunionshave been a commoncharacteristic
self has emerged as
a legitimate area of
of most communistmovements.Thistradition can be traced back to the early
scholarship on its Marxist analysis of the 'women's question' that included a critique of
own (see, for in-
stance, Ricoeur monogamousmarriage, the basis of the bourgeois family. Socialism, it was
1991; Somers 1994). believed, wouldlead to a higherform of monogamy,one that was not marredby
Feminists have been
especially attracted property relations.7 'Socialist monogamy' (Evans, 1992) was the ideological
to the possibilities
motivationbehindthe progressiveredefinitionof conjugalityin communistChina.
Naxalites), marriageand sexuality have been dealt with in less structuredways 7 In his Origins of
the Family, Private
but have displayed similar disciplinary mechanisms within a rhetoric of Property and the
State, Engels (1884)
revolutionarychange. Women'snarrativesof the TelanganaPeople'sStruggle, a spelt out the eco-
majorcommunist-ledpeasant insurrection,show howwomencontinuedto be the nomic foundations
of monogamous
bearers of tradition, and were consequently the objects of social policing marriage, and its
(Kannabiranand Lalitha, 1989). A Marxisteconomic determinismrelegated relationship to the
production of capi-
questions of marriage, sexuality and family to the private domain while re- tal and private
property. Bourgeois
establishingculturallyprescriptivepowerdifferentials between men and women. monogamy necessi-
The experience of the Srikakulammovement, a contemporaryof Naxalbari, tates, Engels ar-
gued, the production
displays similar anxieties to questions of interpersonal relationships and of heirs by women in
order to preserve
sexuality.Theleadershipof the movementwas often caught betweenthe ideal of wealth and property
comradeship and pre-existing patriarchal norms that extended disciplinary in the hands of in-
dividual men. The
controlover individuallives (Vindhya,1990;see also Vindhya,2000 on the sexual key to women's lib-
eration was the ter-
politics of contemporaryradical groups). Vindhya'sobservationsthat the Party mination of the
had no coherent policy towards the organizationof interpersonalrelations and bourgeois family to-
that the socialist ideal of gender equality had not been conceived of in clear gether with partici-
pation in social
terms, ringstrue for the Naxalites.Likeher, several of my intervieweesexplained production. This
classical Marxist
this conceptual lack in terms of the temporalstructureof the movement,saying approach to the
that it was too short-livedfor the developmentof any consciouspolicy.Decisions 'women's question'
held a number of
with regardto marriageand divorcewere made, in the case of both Srikakulam relevant insights for
Communist women
and Naxalbari, by local area committees, some of which (in the case of like Alexandra Kol-
lontai who argued
Naxalbari)consisted of nothingmore than three members,usually all male.
beyond economic
considerations to
In the BengaliMarxisttradition, membersof the undividedCommunistPartyof issues of sexual
morality and emo-
India (the CPI) are generally credited with a degree of radicalism in tions in discussions
of women's emanci-
experimentingwith social relationships,althoughthe private is silenced in most pation. However, in
memoirsof the period (see Sen, 2001b; Lahiri,2001). Severalwomenwhojoined general classical
Marxism remained
the Partybetweenthe late 1930sand early 1940swerefromwealthy,conservative limited by its mate-
families, and lived in a communerun by the political activist ManikuntalaSen. rialist basis of ana-
lysis. The other
This commune hosted both male and female activists and is often cited as major trend that
attracted feminists
evidence of the Party's potential to break gender barriers(Ray, 1999, n186).
during the 1830s and
Neither the CPInor the CPM(the CommunistParty of India, Marxist)would 1840s was that of
the utopian socia-
entertain such a possibilitytoday (ibid). Membersof the women'swing of the lists who envisaged
a new world order.
ruling CPM have a contradictoryrelationshipwith the Party. The Party often Utopian movements
occupies the position of familial authorityin arrangingthe marriagesof women have historically
been more open to
activists, and even presidingover issues of divorce. At the same time, women sexual experimenta-
cannot politicize power structures within the family that are still considered tion than revolu-
102 femrninist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
tionary movements 'personalmatters' withinthe organization(Ray, 1999: 81). In the case of both
have (Poldervaart,
2000). Like Engels' organizationaland radical politics, the personal is negotiated in contradictory
'scientific theory' of
women's subordina-
ways - relegated, at times, outside the domain of the political while
tion, utopian socia- constituting, at other times, the very object of a disciplinarygaze.
lists located
women's subordina- The bhadralokNaxalites,9one could say, inheritedtheir radicalismfrom their
tion in the sexually
oppressive bourgeois Bengali communist predecessors and their Chinese counterparts in that they
patriarchal family,
with its origins in the rejected the institution of marriage,especially that of arrangedmarriages,for
development of pri- companionatemarriagesbased on love and mutual respect. Yet narrativeson
vate property. Uto-
pian socialists like 'marriage' in Naxalbari reveal similar contradictions and anxieties about
the 19th-century
British Owenites en- sexuality and gender that seem endogenousto radical left politics.
couraged experi-
mentation in
changing the forms
of family, childcare,
and marriage. How- discourses on marriage: dominant and
ever, their efforts to
redefine sexual and
conjugal practices
contradictory
remained limited by
their largely male- 'Marriage'remainsa sticky issue in the historyof the movement.Forsome, the
defined sphere of
vision. The question organizationof marital relations is evidence of the movement'sempoweringand
of women's emanci- progressivepotential. For a small minority,by contrast, it demonstrates the
pation eventually
became margina- Party'sfundamentalconservatismwith regardto issues of sexuality and gender.
lized within the Inthe narrativesthat I considerbelow, we can see the workingsof at least three
contest between
gender and class discourses on marriage- a dominantdiscourse of 'revolutionarymarriage'and
(Taylor, 1983). Else-
where in America two contradictoryrenderingsof it. Whilethere is no Partydocumentationon the
and Germany, early
20th-century socia-
practice of marriage, an 'official' version can be identified in normative
list-feminists faced constructions of revolutionarymarriage in male/female narratives and in
political isolation literatureas well. Inthis discourse,movementparticipantsdefied the institution
and even hostility
for their views on of marriage as they did with all other social institutions, displaying their
sexuality. Even in
the 1970s student revolutionaryzeal and progressivenature. This is a discourse of radical change
movements, a com- and dramatic rupture in the manner in which 'revolutionary'marriage is
mitment to Marxist
politics foreclosed constructed vis-d-vis arranged marriage, the dominant form of marriage in
discussions on fa-
mily alternatives
middle-class Bengalisociety. The rejectionof traditional arrangedmarriagesto
and sexuality (Pol-
dervaart, 2000).
emphasizepartnershipsbased on love, equalityand comradeshipis accompanied
8 The Communist
by a rejectionof both the religiousand civil natureof marriage.In her short her-
Party of India story of Naxalbari,KalpanaSen (2001a), an ex-activist, arguesthat the Naxalite
(Marxist)(CPM)was (re)definitionof interpersonalrelationshipssignaled not only a transgressionof
formed in 1964 after
a split in the Com- societal normsbut the breakingof gender barriersfor women.
munist Party of In-
dia. In West Bengal, Withinthe literary imagination of Naxalbari,love and romantic relations are
the CPM-led Left
Front government infusedwith similarmeanings.Muchof this literatureincludingMahaswetaDevi's
came to power after
the 1977 emergency (1997) acclaimed Motherof 1084 emphasizescomradeshipbetween partners,a
(partly owing to its chief componentof true revolutionarylove of the time. Therelationshipsbetween
success in crushing
the Naxalites) activists Bratiand Nandiniin Motherof 1084, and between Bibiand Antuin Bani
and has never
lost since. Basu'sAntarghat(The EnemyWithin,2002) are characterizedby friendshipand
mutualitythat give meaningto a form of love-as-comradeship.1?However,an
104 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
recently translated many of these relationshipsdeteriorated (often in ugly ways), and the moral
into English as The
Enemy Within, 2002. implicationsof such separations for bhadralokrevolutionaries.
11 A 26-year old The second discoursethat the dominantone on marriagehas to contend with is
British woman who
was arrested in re- far more threatening to middle-class codes of sexual respectability. The
lation to the famous
Jaduguda Naxalite possibility of rejecting traditional normsthat governedconjugal relations also
Conspiracy case, meant the possibilityof relationshipsexistingoutside the boundsof conjugality.
Mary Tyler was by far
the media's favour- Insubtle and not so subtle ways, womenand men'sdiscussionson marriagetry to
ite Naxalite (and the
only woman to re- negotiate this possibility of pre-marital sexuality and sexual licentiousness,
ceive such enormous which was encoded in the liberal reconstruction of 'marriage'. More than
publicity). She spent
five years in prison, anywhereelse, it is here that we see how these narrativesof dramatic change
which forms the ba- and ruptureare far more continuous with middle-class discourses of sexual
sis of her memoir My
years in an Indian morality.
prison (1997). In his
interview, Saibal Much of the discomfort that ex-activists feel in discussing 'marriage' is
Mitra, a well-known
ex-Naxalite and a attributable to these contestatory discourses that effectively place the entire
fairly established
contemporary writer, polemicof revolutionarymarriageinto question. Intelling (and silencing) stories
revealed to me how of relationshipsin the movement,narratorsoften strive to present a version of
the character of
Katherine and the events that negotiates the contradictions and limitations within a dominant
novel at large is a
fictionalized ac-
discourse of revolutionarymarriage.In the narrativediscussionsthat follow, we
count of Mary Tyler. see howthe subject drawson contendingdiscoursesto presenta coherentversion
12 In Bengali so- of events, and a versionof the self that can elicit social recognition.HereI am
ciety, the bhadra-
mahila or the drawingon Dawson'snotion of 'subjective composure'which suggests that the
gentlewoman is de- narratorconstructs a story from multiple possibilities that best allows her a
fined through mid-
dle-class codes of sense of 'psychiccomfort'through'a subjectiveorientationof the self withinthe
respectability, hon-
our (izzat), passivity
social relations of its world' (1994:22-23). Thomson(1994) similarly uses a
and sexual modesty,
concept of memory as composurethat ties together cultural resources and
expressed in the
acquisition of individualpsychicresponses.Thepractice of 'composing'memoriesthen has both
shame. Lajja - a culturaland a psychologicaldimensionto it. Onthe one hand, it is a thoroughly
shame and mod-
esty, attributes clo- public one implicatedwithinlarger,more dominantversionsof the past. Onthe
sely connected with
virtue and respect- other hand, rememberingis vital to the workof identity, constitutingthe basis
ability' (Ray, for the 'composure'of personal identities. Throughthe practice of composure,
2000:24) is a central
signifier of middle- Thomsonargues, individualsseek to transformrisky,even traumaticmemoryinto
class femininity.
'a safer less painfulsense' (1994:10). Composureis, moreover,achieved through
complex practices of repressionand exclusion that nevertheless threaten its
foundation:
Composure 'based as it is on repression,and exclusion,is neverachieved,
constantlythreatened,undermined [and] disrupted'(ibid).
Although Thomson does not entirely develop his observation, the point is
significant - personal remembranceis based upon patterns of expulsion,
rejection and repressionthat safeguard the coherency of the subject. At the
same time, what is excluded threatens this very coherency; it threatens to
destabilize our sense of self, and to produce not composure but what
Summerfield(2000) calls discomposure.Thethreat of discomposurepointsto the
Kalpana and Gautam have 'lived together'; they didn't get married. My first
relationship,there was no registrationor red book exchange. 'Wejust started' ...
no problems.[...] you wouldjust have to informthe Partyas a so-called married
couple. We challenged the institution of marriage, like we challenged all other
institutions. [Whatabout the red book marriage?]But how is that 'binding'?There
is nothingbindingin it. Todayif I don't want to stay-lots of men marriedpeasant
womenand then left them and came away. Whatdo you understandby marriage?
Whenan institution 'controls' you in some way. Herethere is no control.14 14 Interviews were
conducted in English
There are two distinct senses of marriage that are at work in Kalyani's oral text. and Bengali. All
translations from
The first refers to the dominant way in which marriage is practiced in bourgeois the original Bengali
are mine. Words in
bhadralok society - civil marriages that are legally registered and socially single quotations
were originally said
recognized. A second sense of marriage refers to the way in which it was in English. I inter-
practiced in the movement and which moreover 'challenged' the nature of viewed Kalyani once
which lasted for
marriage as a legal and social institution. Kalyani equates this second sense of
106 femrninist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
roughly 4 hours. The marriage with 'living together' and disassociates it from any form of
interview with the
couple thot I go on institutionalization. She emphasizes that 'Kalpana and Gautam have 'lived
to discuss spanned
over four meetings,
together'; they didn't get married'.Similarly,she speaks of her own relationship
each interview last- within the movement as one where there was no 'registration' or 'red book
ing 3-4 hours.
exchange'. This is revealing since she locates her relationship outside the
contractual nature of the state/civil society and the Party.
Whilealmost all male and female activists use the term 'marriage'in the context
of the movement(irrespectiveof whethersuch marriageswere legally recognized
or not), Kalyaniis one of the few who spells out a distinctionbetween marriage
and 'living together'. Giventhe uneasiness with which the concept of 'living
together' sits on the Bengali middle-class (see, for instance, Basu, 2001),
interpersonalrelationshipsformedat that time are defined as conjugalones even
though individualswere very often livingtogether. As the narrativebelow makes
clear, even within the revolutionarycommunity,'living together' is associated
with sexual licentiousnessand indecency.In Kalyani'sdiscussion,however,'living
together' is positively associated with individual freedom and choice while
marriageis negatively understoodin terms of institutionalcontrol.
At the same time, she conveys the dual sense of rebellionand disenchantment
with the question of 'marriage'in the movement:
By drawingattention to the fact that manyof the alliances formedat the time
did not last (our first contradictorydiscourse), Kalyanipoints to some of the
limitationsof a revolutionarydiscourseof marriage.Giventhe arbitrarynatureof
'divorce'at the time, the freedomto experimentwith interpersonalrelationships
did not always guarantee security, especially for peasant women. In contrast to
other narratives,the concept of 'living together' is not denounced as immoral
licentiousness but neither is it valorized given the heartbreakof divorce and
abandonment.
In recognizingthe subversivepotentials of the practice of 'livingtogether' and its
concomitantfailures, Kalyani'saccount of 'marriage'in the movementdoes not
contradicther contemporaryfeminist politics or her social personaas a women's
rights activist. On the contrary, by critically evaluating 'marriage' in the
movement's history through a contemporaryfeminist lens all of Kalyani's
observations complement our recognition of her as inhabiting a particular
subject-position which she does throughoutthe interview- that of a middle-
class woman,feminist-activist. Herpast and present seem to be fused together
to achieve subjective composure,yet this composurerests on the weight of a
studied silence that pervadesher entire movement-story.
108 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
The discordancebetween female subjectivityand cultural storylines of gender
offers us a provisionalreadingof the genderpolitics of Kalyani'ssilence. Herneed
to silence a personalstoryof 'marriage'is suggestiveof the limitationsof available
discursive repertoires (around 'revolutionarymarriage') to culturallyvalidate
personalexperience.Sucha silence is not Kalyani'salone, and can be located in a
moresharedsilence that structureswomen'sstories on marriagein general.
Women'snarrativesoften voice betrayal,disappointmentand anger at the way in
which everydaylife remainedunchangedeven though they 'married'so-called
political men. Formost of the women I interviewed,marriageto 'political' men
within the movement, as opposed to an arranged marriage, came with the
promiseof a radicallyaltered organizationof gender relations and the domestic
sphere. Idealizedrevolutionarymasculinityincluded,for them, a commitmentto
genderequality. Yet what these women'snarrativesrepeatedlyunderscoreis the
disparity between expectations and reality, between ideals and their
actualization. The contradictionbetween men's public and private lives comes
out forcefullyin their accounts on conjugality.Whilemale activists were urgedto
renouncethe role of the 'householder'for that of the 'revolutionary',womenwere
expected to conformto middle-class normsand expectationsof domesticityand
15 Ex-Naxalite and womanhood.is'Revolutionarymarriage'withinthe movementwas thus a site that
established Bengali
writer, Joya Mitra potentially reproducedmiddle-class ideals of femininity,wifely submission,and
(1994) writes scath- sexual respectabilitythat most women (includingKalyani)had consciouslyleft
ingly of her first
marriage (at the age behind. The next section demonstrates more trenchantly how beneath the
of nineteen) with an
older communist apparent radicalismof the Naxaliteswith regardto the institutionof marriage,
man. She writes of there were manifest continuities with normative codes of sexual morality.
the disparities be-
tween communist Identificationwith regulatoryideals of gender, (hetero)sexualityand class was
ideals and everyday
practices in the
very much implicatedwithinthe radical redefinitionof marriage.
manner in which she
was expected to Whilethese womenmarkthe discursivelimits of 'revolutionarymarriage'in the
fulfill her wifely du-
ties, curb her poli-
movement,their stories are eventuallysilenced in the publicsphere, expressedin
tical involvement, an overwhelmingneed to remainanonymous.Barringone, all of the womenwho
and support her
child in the face of voiced their experienceof conjugalbetrayalexpresseda strong desire to remain
her husband's re-
nunciation of
anonymouslike Kalyaniherself. Kalyani'sindividualsilence has to be located, I
household duties as believe, in this collective silence that structureswomen'sstories on marriageas a
relics of tradition-
alism. Joya's feel- whole; a silence that is suggestive of the difficulties of conformingto a utopic
ings of anguish that vision of 'marriage'that neverthelessdemandedadherenceto hegemonicgender
even led her to
contemplate suicide norms. Forwomen like Kalyaniwho came to the movementfor its promiseof a
resonate with the new egalitarian society (that included gender equality), this incongruence
personal testimonies
of some of my in- between ideals and reality becomes all the more significant. Perhapsit is this
terviewees. These
have yet to be ar- collective betrayal and the inadequacies of our narrativeregisters to give it
ticulated in the
public domain like
meaningthat rendersit unspeakablewithinthe publicdomain.
Joya's. The theme of
betrayal runs Kalyani'ssilence is, in this way, suggestiveof a moregeneralkindof silence - the
through the repre- lack of the culture in whichone lives to provideadequate narrativeresourcesto
sentation of ro-
meaningfullyfigure one's past and the anticipated future (Freeman,2000). A
110 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
and infuses it with certain qualities. Womenare representedas sympathizerswho
took several 'risks' for their revolutionarypartners. Both Saumenand his wife,
Latika,suggest that womensaw young male Naxalitesas their 'spokesmen'who
could voice their shared sense of oppressionin the face of their own collective
inability to do so. In the Naxalite, the archetypicalwoman-in-love sees the
possibilityof rupture,change and renewalthat she cannot herself affect. In this
imaginingof an idealized revolutionarymasculinity lay a particularvision of
dependentfemininity,not verydifferentfromthe way in whichwomenhave been
represented in elite nationalist politics as the husband's helpmate. This
constructionof revolutionarymasculinityand, correspondingly,of a dependent
femininityechoes literaryrepresentationsof the time. Forinstance, in Antarghat,
the male Naxalite tells the female protagonist, 'Do you want to die with me,
Bibi?'She replies:'If that is my destiny, then yes, I do.' Similarly,in Manabputri,
the revolutionarytells his newlywed wife that even LordRamcould not leave his
wife behindand go into exile. Thusshe too will accompanyhim into the villages
for political work.
Latika interrupts to say that these were not a fallout of the movement and
Saumen continues:
Absolutely.These have been made up. A lot of people have done this. Youwon't
even see this in the literature, what today, what in the name of 'feminism'or
somethingelse, what, you know,varioustypes of 'free mixing'- this didn't exist in
our time. But obviouslysome girls and boys got the opportunityto 'freelylive' and
workin one area, but deviationshappen;there's no pointtheorizingthem. Theyare
just deviations. Forinstance, at Bankurawe saw an 'apparent'closeness betweena
girl and a boy. I mean a real closeness that was acceptableto us. So we all sat and
as a gang told them 'get married'.It was just the opposite actually. Weneverlet
anyone take liberties. It was just the opposite. Wedidn't like it at all. [...] We
would always think that we shouldn'tget a bad name. [...] (Emphasisadded).
Much of the above extract works in order to convince me, the audience, of a
particular definition of the word 'liberal'. Saumen sharply rejects 'liberal' as
implying 'sexual freedom' or 'living together' from his own usage of the word to
describe the privileging of love and companionate marriage in the movement.
While Kalyani differentiates between 'marriage' and 'living together' to assert
that individuals were not married in the Naxalite movement, Saumen vociferously
argues 'just the opposite'. The concept of 'living together' insofar as it is socially
unacceptable to the bhadralok class is rejected as a 'deviation' from the norm
112 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
'marriage'. 'Liberal'for him means a rupturein the traditional discourse of
arranged marriage where love is subordinated to other 'variables' such as
economicstatus, social class and caste. yet 'liberal', he repeatedlyremindsus,
did not translate into an acceptance of sexual licentiousnessin the movement.
He condemns any form of sexual liberalism in the strongest of moral terms,
betraying his rootedness in a bhadralokdiscourse of respectability, of which
sexuality is a crucialsignifier.Such a discoursehinges on the sexual modesty of
women, the sacrosanct markersof respectabilityfor the Bengali middle-class.
Interpersonalrelationships in the movement had to fit such an 'acceptable'
standardof sexual morality,and were consequentlysubject to moralcensureand
public policing. In paradoxical ways, Saumen's narratives suggest that while
everythingchanged in terms of conjugal relations in the movement,everything
actually remainedthe same. While'marriage'in the Naxalbarimovementmight
have upset established hierarchiesof caste, class and age, it seems to have been
reticent on issues of gender and sexuality.
114 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
men comrades with- girls.I can bringyoua witnesswhohas 'helped'one suchgirl.Theywouldgo and
in the revolutionary
domain. The memory
as manandwife,wouldbe withthis girlandthat girl[...] thenat anotherplace,
of sexual violence is,
as a whole, one that
they wouldalso be husband-wife.[...] Thisincident,this 'reckless'behaviour
is repeatedly repu- that I can do anythingandthat it is 'justified'in the nameof revolution[...]
diated for the sake
of preserving the In the case of peasant women, a blurringof the boundariesbetween 'marriage'
cultural identity of
the Naxalite built and sexual abuse occurs withina masculinediscourseof becoming'de-classed'.
around the image of
the revolutionary
Subalternfemale sexuality functions, in this instance, as a metonymfor a truly
martyr. de-classed revolutionarymasculinity.Saumengoes furtherto suggest that the
radicalization of marriage practices that took place under the rubric of a
revolutionarypolitics provideda legitimate frameworkfor sexual violence. Acts
of male sexual violence remainedcouchedwithinthe fantasy of 'revolution'that
promiseda class-based societal transformation.The vulnerabilityof subaltern
women to male sexual power remainedembedded, routinized,and normalized
withinthis vision of a transformativeclass politics.
In implicatingthe 'brilliantstudents' of PresidencyCollege,the premierecollege
of Kolkata, and not all male Naxalites for acts of sexual violence, Saumen's
narrativeis able to preservea coherentself-image (self-righteous, respectable,
revolutionary)in the face of a threateningcounter-memorythat could produce
discomposure.His condemnationof elite PresidencyCollegestudents preserves
true revolutionarysubjectivity in the image of the lower middle-class, lower-
caste (male) political activist. Throughouthis movement-story,Saumenascribes
authentic revolutionarysubjectivityto this communityof male activists (to which
he belongs) rather than to the elite intelligentsia who have been the chief
beneficiaries of public recognition. No doubt, this (re)imagining of the
revolutionarysubject serves to stabilize his own place in history, and to
compose self-identity in its image.
conclusion
Inthe narrativesvisited herethe achievementof 'composure'is that of comingto
grips with contradictoryand competing constructions of the past. Marriage-
stories are also, we have seen, a part of the narrativeconstructionof identity;
individualsinvest in particularsubject-positions that offer them a degree of
psychic comfort. Such 'acceptable' self-images include that of Kalyani'sas a
middle-class feminist-activist, and that of Saumen'sas a middle-class Bengali
man with strong political (and moral) commitments.Theyalso includediscursive
images of revolutionarymasculinityand dependent femininityor even sexually
respectable femininity. Individual imaginings of masculinity/femininityfind
resonance in more popular forms of memory, underscoring the mutual
dependence between stories of the self and the public narrativerepertoireof
a culture (Redman,1999). Kalyaniand Saumendrawon the narrativeresources
of a lived Bengalimiddle-class cultureto offer a particularview on romanceand
acknowledgeme nts
I thank the FeministReviewTrustfor its contributiontowardsthe fundingof this
project, and the anonymous referees at Feminist Review for their fruitful
engagementwith this article. Mythanks also to DeborahSteinberg,ParitaMukta,
GauriRajeand RafaelWinkler for their commentson variousversionsof this piece.
author biography
Srila Roy is a doctoral candidate at the Departmentof Sociology, Universityof
Warwick whereshe teaches on gender/sociology.HerPh.D.researchengages with
116 feminist review 83 2006 revolutionary marriage: on the politics of sexual stories in Naxalbari
issues of gender, violence and memoryin relation to the 1970s extreme Left,
Naxalbarimovementof West Bengal.
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