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Of all arts forms, protest finds its most vocal, powerful, and effective expression in drama. In the Indian context, many women dramatists delineate and decry in their plays the crimes perpetrated against women in the name of tradition and culture in a male-dominated society. Dina Mehta is an accomplished Indian writer in English who raises her voice in protest against a host of crimes against women such as the evil of dowry, female foeticide, rape, child abuse, subjugation of women, and so on. In her plays, she dramatises real life incidents to bring to light these social issues. This paper attempts to study the dynamics of protest that the tragic spectacle of abuse and cruelty towards women evoke in Dina Mehta’s play Brides Are Not for Burning (1993).
Keywords: protest, subjugation, dowry, corruption, injustice
Introduction
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
—Elie Wiesel, winner of Nobel Prize for Peace
Protest is a deliberate and conscious expression of disapproval of situations; it analyses, exposes, agitates against, and assaults the system and as such has an immense artistic potential. Of all arts forms, protest finds its most vocal, powerful, and effective expression in drama, for it has the unmatched advantage to establish live contact with the people it purports to reach and move (Agnihotri, 1990). Playwrights very often appear before us as spokesperson for their society, making their plays serve as powerful tools for social critique and reform. When a dramatist confronts a situation he cannot appreciate, much less tolerate, he protests and his dissent takes a variety of forms depending upon his vision, intensity of feeling, intellectual awareness, imaginative experience, artistic sensibility, and above all, his purpose. In such a case, the play serves not merely as the dramatist’s tool to register his protest; it becomes the thing wherein the dramatist catches the conscience of the people.
Playwrights of protest drama seek, like Hamlet, to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. In the Indian context, it has been seen that the “Theatre of Protest” involves many women dramatists who delineate and decry in their plays the crimes perpetrated against women in the name of tradition and culture in a male-dominated society. Mahasweta Devi, Uma Parameswaran, Dina Mehta, Poile Sengupta, and Manjula Padmanabhan are some of the leading names of this movement who, for a wider reach write in English, plays that project the situation of the woman. As for the use of English as a medium to communicate non-native contexts, Naik (1997) offerred the defence: “In making his Indian characters speak in English, the playwright needs… no qualm at all. Let him first create living characters in living situations, and the language will take care of itself” (p. 91). By doing so, the Indian English playwright can effectively overcome challenges and pave the way for a better and brighter future for Indian English drama which has all the possibilities and potentialities to survive the test of time and carve a niche for itself in the corpus of literary writings in the days to come. In the hands of the women dramatists, Indian English drama intersects with feminist thought to showcase the politics of exploitation that is gender-biased. This paper attempts to study the dynamics of protest that the tragic spectacle of abuse and cruelty towards women evoke in Dina Mehta’s play Brides Are Not for Burning (1993).
About the Author
Dina Mehta is an accomplished Indian writer in English who has to her credit two novels (And Some Take a Lover (1992) and Mila in Love (2003)), two books of short stories (The Other Woman and Other Stories (1981) and Miss Menon Did Not Believe in Magic and Other Stories (1994)) and several prize-winning plays like Brides Are Not for Burning, The Myth Makers (1969), Tiger Tiger (1978), Getting Away With Murder (1989), and A Sister Like You (1996). In her plays, she dramatises real life incidents to bring to the limelight social issues such as the evil of dowry, female foeticide, child abuse, rape, subjugation of women, and so on. The purpose of the theatre is to express what is suppressed and Mehta’s plays do just that. Her play Getting Away With Murder is “a provocation, a raging challenge to our orderly pigeon-holing minds…” (Yarrow, 2001, p. 5). Brides Are Not for Burning won for her first prize in a worldwide playwriting competition sponsored by British Broadcasting Corporation for radio plays in 1979. As the title connotes, the play depicts the harassment that women who fail to bring in enough “dowry”—money goods or estate which a woman brings to her husband at the time of the marriage—face, which indeed is a social problem that is widespread in India. The play goes beyond the typical feminist agenda by encompassing a broader perspective in which abuse and violence against women is unleashed by not just men but also complicit females caught in a narrow patriarchal order.
Brides Are Not for Burning is a powerful play presenting a “burning issue”. “Burning” is a theme that occurs in various dramatic texts ranging from the burning of Joan of Arc in Shaw’s St. Joan (1924) to the burning of witches in Arthur Miller’s Crucible (1952) and Christopher Fry’s marvellous poetic play The Lady Is Not for Burning (1949) where with typical British wit Christopher “fries” the issue away (Ramaswamy, 2006). Dina Mehta presents in Brides Are Not for Burning the burning issue of dowry deaths, along with a series of others that are deftly woven into the mainframe of the narrative. It is the issue of dowry that initiates the probe into others such as the failure of law and justice to protect the subjects, the tardiness of government action, and problems of unemployment as well as environmental and economic issues.
The play begins on a dramatic note with an exchange between Malini and her father who is still in a state of shock over his elder daughter Laxmi’s death by immolation at her husband’s house. Malini, a college student, suspects her sister Laxmi’s death to be a case of bride burning, in other words, a dowry death. Their father, a government clerk, gave his daughter Laxmi in marriage to the affluent businessman Vinod Marfatia, hoping to rescue her from a life of penury, from the constant scrimping and saving to make both ends meet, dreaming of his daughter’s happiness in marriage. But that happiness is consumed by the flames. The bitterness in Laxmi’s father voice is hard to miss:
Marriage is 12 tolas of gold, 2,000 rupees for a hall, utensils of steel, saris of silk… Their expectations were endless because they imagined a government clerk makes so much on the side. They thought I had feathered my nest with bribes and kickbacks… And I let them think that because I wanted to do my best by Laxmi. (Mehta, 1993, p. 13)
Laxmi, the daughter of a father who fails to honour his promises in the business of marriage, is unwelcome in her in-laws’ house. She is treated no better than a servant; her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law capitalise on every opportunity to belittle her with snide remarks and barbed words. Being too weak-willed to raise her voice in defence, Laxmi, in five years’ time, is reduced to the state of a cook, a servant, and finally a victim of dowry death.
Dowry Deaths
Mehta, in Brides Are Not for Burning raises her voice against the deaths of innocent women like Laxmi, which are abundant in India. Her spokesperson Malini is, unlike her passive sister Laxmi, a rebel who challenges the discriminatory system, the judiciary biased in favour of the rich, and the corruption rampant in all fields. She is “the stuff militants are made of” (Mehta, 1993, p. 92). She is an angry young woman who wants quick solutions for the various maladies of the world. It is through Malini’s protest against the manner in which her sister’s death is treated by her husband’s family, the police, and the court that the plot progresses.
Laxmi is the victim of the ruthless dowry system that is, undoubtedly, a product of the patriarchal social order. As Kumar and Narendra (2006, p. 142) noted, the andocentric system is sustained to a large extent by the subjugation and oppression of women. Brides Are Not for Burning poses several questions that embarrass the patriarchal order. Malini asks: “Isn’t it funny… that with a fat dowry Laxmi would have been a flaming success overnight—instead of a heap of ashes today?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 51). Laxmi should have led a happy life in her husband’s house had she had a sound bank balance to back her. Malini rightly tells Anil: “… Freedom is money in the bank, Anil. You think if Laxmi had a fat bank account they could have trampled over her? Never” (Mehta, 1993, p. 21). This mercenary attitude towards marriage and relationships clearly is a pointer to the general disintegration of values in society.
Laxmi is falsely accused of infertility. Constant naggings from Vinod’s mother goad Laxmi, under severe mental stress, to immolate herself in order to free her husband. The mother-in-law stops others from breaking open the door to save Laxmi from the flames before “the garland of fire… embraced her flesh” (Mehta, 1993, p. 78). A doctor is called three hours after the incident. “But can a doctor revive a half cooked corpse with no skin to speak of?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 78). Tarla, Laxmi’s neighbour and friend who knew of Laxmi’s place and plight in the house of the Marfatias, is forced by the circumstances of her poverty and an errant husband to give evidence in favour of an “accident” during the trial. The fact that Vinod has tried aallopathic, ayurvedic, and homeopathic medicines in all forms, all dosages, pastes, powders, pills, and injections to cure his infertility is conveniently suppressed from public eye.
The coroner’s verdict of her sister’s death as an accident frustrates Malini. Insinuating murder, she mocks at the verdict: “They decided Laxmi’s sari was soaked in kerosene by accident. A match was set to it by accident”(Mehta, 1993, p. 15). Malini brings to Anil’s notice the cases of a husband’s family coming into a lot of money after such accidents as Laxmi’s: “Last year 350 women died of burns in the city alone, some of them over-insured wives” (Mehta, 1993, p. 15). Laxmi’s life was also insured for a sum of 80,000 rupees. The issue of insurance claim unfolds yet another significant injustice against women, for it is common knowledge that many a hapless woman in India is murdered for the insurance money and the murder passed off for accident or suicide.
Women Against Women
Mehta projects the patriarchy practised by women themselves. Kumar and Narendra (2006) spoke of this situation in which women themselves “contribute to the perpetration of patriarchy that objectifies and destroys them” (p. 146). She shows women suffering more at the hands of women than at the hands of men. Laxmi’s in-laws ill-treat her callously. The mother-in-law taunts Laxmi ever so often about her father not honouring his promises regarding dowry. The two sisters-in-law take up the chant that a goddess of wealth—Laxmi is the name of the goddess of wealth according to the Hindu beliefs—has entered their home “with clothes fit for a servant and jewels not worth the name” (Mehta, 1993, p. 16). The women further wound Laxmi’s feelings by harping on her infertility. Laxmi’s alleged infertility is the cause of her suicide, if suicide it be. Mehta questions the scenario where infertility is ascribed to the woman rather unscientifically and deliberately to save the man from the ignominy of infertility, which is a trend common in India.
Attack on Government and Judiciary
The inefficiency of the authorities comes under Mehta’s scathing attack. She makes Malini her spokesperson to condemn the complacent attitude of the government towards its subjects. Malini’s frustration over the inaction of the government in her sister’s case accelerates her decision to oppose the unjust democratic system. She tells Anil: “I’ve come to the conclusion that the weakness of democracies is that they move too slowly in the right direction” (Mehta, 1993, p. 21). Mehta also condemns the judiciary in very strong terms. Malini denounces the judiciary that fails to deliver justice when she fumes: “I spit on your law courts! Playthings in the hands of the exploiters and reactionaries, they deal out one kind of justice to the rich, another to the poor”(Mehta, 1993, p. 18). She seeks retribution for her sister’s murder:
Roy says the law is only for those who can hire it to serve them—can you deny that?… He says even protection in uniform has its price—go and ask a Harijan. How many cases of arson against them have reached the courts? I demand justice! That was my sister they set fire to. (Mehta, 1993, p. 19)
Role of Media
Even the media offers no solace to the poor victimised; it is shamelessly biased in favour of the rich and powerful. Malini’s bitterness is surely not out of place: “Of course there is no report of it in the papers. We are not important enough” (Mehta, 1993, p. 11). The increasing reports about dowry deaths in the newspapers are alarming; but what is even more alarming is the fact that only a small fraction of these come to light and get reported.
Extremism
Tired of poverty, Malini turns to Marxism and takes up cudgels for the cause of the poor and the oppressed. She, who once cherished dreams of pursuing a career in the legal profession, now turns to the path of revolution. It is obviously the shock of her sister’s violent end that pushes her to embrace an extremist philosophy. She is influenced by Karl Heinzen, a German who wrote on terrorism and guerrilla warfare 100 years before Mao-Tse-Tung. Malini is easily attracted to the anarchist Roy’s and his ideals of quick and extreme solutions. To Roy “murder on colossal scale has been and still is the chief means of historical development” (Mehta, 1993, p. 25). He favours violence and terrorism which, he believes, instils fear in the hearts of oppressors. He points out, “There is no remedy for the evils of our system except total destruction and a new beginning” (Mehta, 1993, p. 29). But Anil tries to wean Malini away from the path of violence and revolution:
You are not really sacrificing your life to make the world a better place, but you think you don’t very much want to live. The question then is, are you capable of living?… you are only looking for an exit. That to live you have to love yourself. And to love is to do something far more difficult than to give way to savagery. (Mehta, 1993, p. 91)
Thus there is a plea for peace, a message against violence in the play.
Towards the end of the play, Anil gives up his idealism and joins his sister in her quest to unravel the mystery behind Laxmi’s death. Malini’s quest for truth inspires him and he begins to look for more cracks in the wall of deception: “Yes, a new inquest will certainly bring out new flaws, little breaches of the law that were overlooked, little erosion of truth” (Mehta, 1993, p. 62). Mehta also makes the father, though to a lesser degree, preach against the practice of dowry.
Voices of Dissent
Mehta’s primary voice of protest remains Malini, whose dissent functions at two levels. At one, she protests against the subordination of women, and at the other, she fights against the ruthless capitalistic set-up of which Sanjay, her rich boyfriend is the representative. The dialogue between Sanjay and Malini brings out in clear terms their respective ideologies:
Sanjay: Certainly as a businessman, I concern myself with profits. How can a business run without profit?
Malini: Which means the rich will continue to be rich and the poor to be poor-precisely because those who have nothing to sell but their labour are in the worst possible bargaining position. (Mehta, 1993, p. 45)
Malini’s convictions are firmly rooted in Marxist paradigm:
But for centuries we have taken up battle positions on either side of a great divide—the haves, a mere handful, arrayed in all their strength and splendour against great numberless ragged masses of have-nots—and I know where my place is.(Mehta, 1993, p. 87)
At the same time, she wishes to cross over, to be “where the fortunes are, where the fun is and where the lights are” (Mehta, 1993, p. 87). Thus the word “rich” has a hypnotic appeal for her and she believes that there is no use living in the jet age if you have no money for the tickets. She despises the rich, yet craves for wealth. In the words of Anil, “She is still Cindrella sighing for her rags to turn into riches, her pumpkin into a shiny Mercedes”(Mehta, 1993, p. 39). Malini, like Roy, believes that violence is action, and that her brother’s idealism is ineffective. The news of her professor’s falling a prey to her terrorist-friends makes her stop in her tracks. She realises that in joining Roy, she should only exchange one servitude for another. As these “cracks in the smooth wall of deception” come to light, one sees not only the immediate theme that is explored—that of harassment of women for dowry—but also the indignities of the human condition, the inequalities that divide man from man in a Kurukshetra without Krishna (Kumar & Narendra, 2006). The play poses a lot of questions about the many injustices that prevail in the present day society.
Other Issues
Brides Are Not for Burning showcases a host of other social issues too. Dina Mehta exposes an economic system in which the poor sell their labour for a living and the rich become richer on the fruits of the former’s labour. Sanjay is the representative of the money-minded who care little for the people they employ, and instead focus on the profits they accrue from the goods they produce. The workers are looked upon as an item of cost that must be reduced to a minimum. Mehta decries such an economic system where there is no law to secure the rights of the proletariat. Environmental conservation, one of the burning issues the human race confronts, is amply highlighted in the play. The playwright speaks through Anil whose concern for the environment prompts him to criticise vehemently the production of objects like pesticides that are harmful to nature. When uncompassionate and business-minded people like Sanjay tend to reduce quality to quantity it causes much damage to nature. The play also criticises the prevailing educational system that bestows degrees and diplomas on the youth and leaves them on the road to nothing. The number of educational institutions has escalated beyond one’s imagination and yet, they are over-crowded and ballooned for beyond their capacity to educate. Though education aims at employment, it scarcely achieves the goal: “Why bother to educate, when we are only going to swell the ranks of the unemployed?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 37). Mehta’s cynicism is totally justified, for the authorities seldom take effective measures to tackle the problem of unemployment which is one of the gravest problems that India faces.
The playwright raises her voice against child labour which is another of the scourges that mar India’s face. It is indeed a sorry state of affairs in which the children are denied their right to education and are forced to work for their livelihood, to sell their labour for their basic requirements. Poverty is the root cause of this evil too. Anil would prefer to teach the children in a village school but “In most of our villages children are hired out in the fields after their eighth year” (Mehta, 1993, p. 35). The playwright voices her objection to this condition and hopes for a change through people like Anil: “But that’s just what I would like to change” (Mehta, 1993, p. 35).
Thus Brides Are Not for Burning is a direct attack not only on crimes perpetrated against the woman in a patriarchal society like dowry deaths but also on a series of related and other repugnant issues that mar the lives of the less privileged in Indian society. Mehta makes the story of Laxmi and thousands like her—the victims of the dowry system and the insatiable greed of the in-laws—a vehicle for expressing her concern over many issues. Discussion of the dowry system forms the main stream into which other issues flow and merge like rivulets to become part of the flow. The play presents a series of issues pertaining to Indian life and social institutions like marriage and allied social customs, education, law, and justice etcetera. Mehta makes a dig at the passivity of the authorities, that of Indian women, children, the educational system and even the environmentalists, and advocates active resistance. The play is in fact a protest against the perceived injustices in Indian society and a plea for change.
Conclusions
As a writer with a deep social commitment, Mehta uses drama more often than not as a platform to raise a voice of dissent against many an evil that afflicts society. Her protest is evinced in a thought-provoking manner in the main thread of her plays, in their theme, characterization, and dialogue. Characterization plays a significant role as a strategy to enhance the intensity of protest in the play. Malini is presented as an incarnation of protest. In fact, it is she who initiates as well as completes the jigsaw, the crossword puzzle behind the crime of her sister’s death under suspicious circumstances. Her brother Anil is also made to voice the playwright’s concern for society and her fellow beings. Professor Palker and the father too, to a lesser degree, express the playwright’s resentment and dissent. The portrayal of the three women characters is also a pointer to differing attitudes: While Laxmi and Tarla passively accept the patriarchy and the subordinate status of the female, Malini questions it and exposes the hypocrisy and inhumanity behind it. Mehta strikes a note of optimism when she stresses the support or involvement of male characters. Mehta’s dialogue, tinged with brilliant wit and humour, though slightly on the darker side, is packed with a lot of punch, irony, sarcasm, and even vitriol, to deliver the message of protest in the most telling manner. Ravindran (1993) offerred an interesting comment on the play:
As it is a play of ideas rather than action, the characters seem to represent certain social attitudes like the traditional, the revolutionary, the idealist, the na?ve, the uncultured and the “nouveau-riche” rather than flesh and blood individuals. And dialogue, being the vehicle of ideas and attitudes, tends to relegate other dramatic elements to the ground. (p. 32)
It is indeed significant that Mehta dedicates Brides Are Not for Burning to “all angry young women who can be whatever they choose to be” (Mehta, 1993, p. 5). The dedication itself bears testimony to the playwright’s consciousness of women’s power and competence. It is certainly this awareness of and commitment to the cause of the female and her empowerment that has motivated Mehta to protest against the shameful treatment meted out to her by the iron hand of patriarchy. She sends across to her spectators and readers—strongly and vehemently—the message that brides are not for burning as a sacrificial ritual at the altar of avarice and greed!
References
Agnihotri, A. N. (1990). Protest as art: Contemporary Hindi drama. In S. Pandey & F. Taraporewala (Eds.), Contemporary Indian drama (pp. 26-31). New Delhi: Indian Society for Commonwealth Studies, Prestige Books.
Iyengar, K. R. S. (1995). Indian writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling.
Kumar, V. L., & Narendra, V. N. (2006). Cracks in the wall: Dina Mehta’s Brides Are Not for Burning as a protest play. In K. D. Jaydipsingh (Ed.), Critical essays on Indian writing in English (pp. 141-149). New Delhi: Sarup & Sons.
Mehta, D. (1993). Brides are not for burning. Bombay: Rupa & Co..
Naik, M. K. (1997). Perspectives on Indian drama in English. Madras: OUP.
Ramaswamy, S. (2006). Dina Mehta’s Brides Are Not for Burning: A stageworthy play. In K. D. Jaydipsingh (Ed.), Critical essays on Indian writing in English (pp. 132-140). New Delhi: Sarup & Sons.
Ravindran, V. (1993, Sep.-Oct.). The unanswered questions: A review of Brides Are Not for Burning. Indian Review of Books, 2(12), 32.
Yarrow, R. (2001). Indian theatre. Surrey: Curzan Press.
Keywords: protest, subjugation, dowry, corruption, injustice
Introduction
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
—Elie Wiesel, winner of Nobel Prize for Peace
Protest is a deliberate and conscious expression of disapproval of situations; it analyses, exposes, agitates against, and assaults the system and as such has an immense artistic potential. Of all arts forms, protest finds its most vocal, powerful, and effective expression in drama, for it has the unmatched advantage to establish live contact with the people it purports to reach and move (Agnihotri, 1990). Playwrights very often appear before us as spokesperson for their society, making their plays serve as powerful tools for social critique and reform. When a dramatist confronts a situation he cannot appreciate, much less tolerate, he protests and his dissent takes a variety of forms depending upon his vision, intensity of feeling, intellectual awareness, imaginative experience, artistic sensibility, and above all, his purpose. In such a case, the play serves not merely as the dramatist’s tool to register his protest; it becomes the thing wherein the dramatist catches the conscience of the people.
Playwrights of protest drama seek, like Hamlet, to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. In the Indian context, it has been seen that the “Theatre of Protest” involves many women dramatists who delineate and decry in their plays the crimes perpetrated against women in the name of tradition and culture in a male-dominated society. Mahasweta Devi, Uma Parameswaran, Dina Mehta, Poile Sengupta, and Manjula Padmanabhan are some of the leading names of this movement who, for a wider reach write in English, plays that project the situation of the woman. As for the use of English as a medium to communicate non-native contexts, Naik (1997) offerred the defence: “In making his Indian characters speak in English, the playwright needs… no qualm at all. Let him first create living characters in living situations, and the language will take care of itself” (p. 91). By doing so, the Indian English playwright can effectively overcome challenges and pave the way for a better and brighter future for Indian English drama which has all the possibilities and potentialities to survive the test of time and carve a niche for itself in the corpus of literary writings in the days to come. In the hands of the women dramatists, Indian English drama intersects with feminist thought to showcase the politics of exploitation that is gender-biased. This paper attempts to study the dynamics of protest that the tragic spectacle of abuse and cruelty towards women evoke in Dina Mehta’s play Brides Are Not for Burning (1993).
About the Author
Dina Mehta is an accomplished Indian writer in English who has to her credit two novels (And Some Take a Lover (1992) and Mila in Love (2003)), two books of short stories (The Other Woman and Other Stories (1981) and Miss Menon Did Not Believe in Magic and Other Stories (1994)) and several prize-winning plays like Brides Are Not for Burning, The Myth Makers (1969), Tiger Tiger (1978), Getting Away With Murder (1989), and A Sister Like You (1996). In her plays, she dramatises real life incidents to bring to the limelight social issues such as the evil of dowry, female foeticide, child abuse, rape, subjugation of women, and so on. The purpose of the theatre is to express what is suppressed and Mehta’s plays do just that. Her play Getting Away With Murder is “a provocation, a raging challenge to our orderly pigeon-holing minds…” (Yarrow, 2001, p. 5). Brides Are Not for Burning won for her first prize in a worldwide playwriting competition sponsored by British Broadcasting Corporation for radio plays in 1979. As the title connotes, the play depicts the harassment that women who fail to bring in enough “dowry”—money goods or estate which a woman brings to her husband at the time of the marriage—face, which indeed is a social problem that is widespread in India. The play goes beyond the typical feminist agenda by encompassing a broader perspective in which abuse and violence against women is unleashed by not just men but also complicit females caught in a narrow patriarchal order.
Brides Are Not for Burning is a powerful play presenting a “burning issue”. “Burning” is a theme that occurs in various dramatic texts ranging from the burning of Joan of Arc in Shaw’s St. Joan (1924) to the burning of witches in Arthur Miller’s Crucible (1952) and Christopher Fry’s marvellous poetic play The Lady Is Not for Burning (1949) where with typical British wit Christopher “fries” the issue away (Ramaswamy, 2006). Dina Mehta presents in Brides Are Not for Burning the burning issue of dowry deaths, along with a series of others that are deftly woven into the mainframe of the narrative. It is the issue of dowry that initiates the probe into others such as the failure of law and justice to protect the subjects, the tardiness of government action, and problems of unemployment as well as environmental and economic issues.
The play begins on a dramatic note with an exchange between Malini and her father who is still in a state of shock over his elder daughter Laxmi’s death by immolation at her husband’s house. Malini, a college student, suspects her sister Laxmi’s death to be a case of bride burning, in other words, a dowry death. Their father, a government clerk, gave his daughter Laxmi in marriage to the affluent businessman Vinod Marfatia, hoping to rescue her from a life of penury, from the constant scrimping and saving to make both ends meet, dreaming of his daughter’s happiness in marriage. But that happiness is consumed by the flames. The bitterness in Laxmi’s father voice is hard to miss:
Marriage is 12 tolas of gold, 2,000 rupees for a hall, utensils of steel, saris of silk… Their expectations were endless because they imagined a government clerk makes so much on the side. They thought I had feathered my nest with bribes and kickbacks… And I let them think that because I wanted to do my best by Laxmi. (Mehta, 1993, p. 13)
Laxmi, the daughter of a father who fails to honour his promises in the business of marriage, is unwelcome in her in-laws’ house. She is treated no better than a servant; her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law capitalise on every opportunity to belittle her with snide remarks and barbed words. Being too weak-willed to raise her voice in defence, Laxmi, in five years’ time, is reduced to the state of a cook, a servant, and finally a victim of dowry death.
Dowry Deaths
Mehta, in Brides Are Not for Burning raises her voice against the deaths of innocent women like Laxmi, which are abundant in India. Her spokesperson Malini is, unlike her passive sister Laxmi, a rebel who challenges the discriminatory system, the judiciary biased in favour of the rich, and the corruption rampant in all fields. She is “the stuff militants are made of” (Mehta, 1993, p. 92). She is an angry young woman who wants quick solutions for the various maladies of the world. It is through Malini’s protest against the manner in which her sister’s death is treated by her husband’s family, the police, and the court that the plot progresses.
Laxmi is the victim of the ruthless dowry system that is, undoubtedly, a product of the patriarchal social order. As Kumar and Narendra (2006, p. 142) noted, the andocentric system is sustained to a large extent by the subjugation and oppression of women. Brides Are Not for Burning poses several questions that embarrass the patriarchal order. Malini asks: “Isn’t it funny… that with a fat dowry Laxmi would have been a flaming success overnight—instead of a heap of ashes today?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 51). Laxmi should have led a happy life in her husband’s house had she had a sound bank balance to back her. Malini rightly tells Anil: “… Freedom is money in the bank, Anil. You think if Laxmi had a fat bank account they could have trampled over her? Never” (Mehta, 1993, p. 21). This mercenary attitude towards marriage and relationships clearly is a pointer to the general disintegration of values in society.
Laxmi is falsely accused of infertility. Constant naggings from Vinod’s mother goad Laxmi, under severe mental stress, to immolate herself in order to free her husband. The mother-in-law stops others from breaking open the door to save Laxmi from the flames before “the garland of fire… embraced her flesh” (Mehta, 1993, p. 78). A doctor is called three hours after the incident. “But can a doctor revive a half cooked corpse with no skin to speak of?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 78). Tarla, Laxmi’s neighbour and friend who knew of Laxmi’s place and plight in the house of the Marfatias, is forced by the circumstances of her poverty and an errant husband to give evidence in favour of an “accident” during the trial. The fact that Vinod has tried aallopathic, ayurvedic, and homeopathic medicines in all forms, all dosages, pastes, powders, pills, and injections to cure his infertility is conveniently suppressed from public eye.
The coroner’s verdict of her sister’s death as an accident frustrates Malini. Insinuating murder, she mocks at the verdict: “They decided Laxmi’s sari was soaked in kerosene by accident. A match was set to it by accident”(Mehta, 1993, p. 15). Malini brings to Anil’s notice the cases of a husband’s family coming into a lot of money after such accidents as Laxmi’s: “Last year 350 women died of burns in the city alone, some of them over-insured wives” (Mehta, 1993, p. 15). Laxmi’s life was also insured for a sum of 80,000 rupees. The issue of insurance claim unfolds yet another significant injustice against women, for it is common knowledge that many a hapless woman in India is murdered for the insurance money and the murder passed off for accident or suicide.
Women Against Women
Mehta projects the patriarchy practised by women themselves. Kumar and Narendra (2006) spoke of this situation in which women themselves “contribute to the perpetration of patriarchy that objectifies and destroys them” (p. 146). She shows women suffering more at the hands of women than at the hands of men. Laxmi’s in-laws ill-treat her callously. The mother-in-law taunts Laxmi ever so often about her father not honouring his promises regarding dowry. The two sisters-in-law take up the chant that a goddess of wealth—Laxmi is the name of the goddess of wealth according to the Hindu beliefs—has entered their home “with clothes fit for a servant and jewels not worth the name” (Mehta, 1993, p. 16). The women further wound Laxmi’s feelings by harping on her infertility. Laxmi’s alleged infertility is the cause of her suicide, if suicide it be. Mehta questions the scenario where infertility is ascribed to the woman rather unscientifically and deliberately to save the man from the ignominy of infertility, which is a trend common in India.
Attack on Government and Judiciary
The inefficiency of the authorities comes under Mehta’s scathing attack. She makes Malini her spokesperson to condemn the complacent attitude of the government towards its subjects. Malini’s frustration over the inaction of the government in her sister’s case accelerates her decision to oppose the unjust democratic system. She tells Anil: “I’ve come to the conclusion that the weakness of democracies is that they move too slowly in the right direction” (Mehta, 1993, p. 21). Mehta also condemns the judiciary in very strong terms. Malini denounces the judiciary that fails to deliver justice when she fumes: “I spit on your law courts! Playthings in the hands of the exploiters and reactionaries, they deal out one kind of justice to the rich, another to the poor”(Mehta, 1993, p. 18). She seeks retribution for her sister’s murder:
Roy says the law is only for those who can hire it to serve them—can you deny that?… He says even protection in uniform has its price—go and ask a Harijan. How many cases of arson against them have reached the courts? I demand justice! That was my sister they set fire to. (Mehta, 1993, p. 19)
Role of Media
Even the media offers no solace to the poor victimised; it is shamelessly biased in favour of the rich and powerful. Malini’s bitterness is surely not out of place: “Of course there is no report of it in the papers. We are not important enough” (Mehta, 1993, p. 11). The increasing reports about dowry deaths in the newspapers are alarming; but what is even more alarming is the fact that only a small fraction of these come to light and get reported.
Extremism
Tired of poverty, Malini turns to Marxism and takes up cudgels for the cause of the poor and the oppressed. She, who once cherished dreams of pursuing a career in the legal profession, now turns to the path of revolution. It is obviously the shock of her sister’s violent end that pushes her to embrace an extremist philosophy. She is influenced by Karl Heinzen, a German who wrote on terrorism and guerrilla warfare 100 years before Mao-Tse-Tung. Malini is easily attracted to the anarchist Roy’s and his ideals of quick and extreme solutions. To Roy “murder on colossal scale has been and still is the chief means of historical development” (Mehta, 1993, p. 25). He favours violence and terrorism which, he believes, instils fear in the hearts of oppressors. He points out, “There is no remedy for the evils of our system except total destruction and a new beginning” (Mehta, 1993, p. 29). But Anil tries to wean Malini away from the path of violence and revolution:
You are not really sacrificing your life to make the world a better place, but you think you don’t very much want to live. The question then is, are you capable of living?… you are only looking for an exit. That to live you have to love yourself. And to love is to do something far more difficult than to give way to savagery. (Mehta, 1993, p. 91)
Thus there is a plea for peace, a message against violence in the play.
Towards the end of the play, Anil gives up his idealism and joins his sister in her quest to unravel the mystery behind Laxmi’s death. Malini’s quest for truth inspires him and he begins to look for more cracks in the wall of deception: “Yes, a new inquest will certainly bring out new flaws, little breaches of the law that were overlooked, little erosion of truth” (Mehta, 1993, p. 62). Mehta also makes the father, though to a lesser degree, preach against the practice of dowry.
Voices of Dissent
Mehta’s primary voice of protest remains Malini, whose dissent functions at two levels. At one, she protests against the subordination of women, and at the other, she fights against the ruthless capitalistic set-up of which Sanjay, her rich boyfriend is the representative. The dialogue between Sanjay and Malini brings out in clear terms their respective ideologies:
Sanjay: Certainly as a businessman, I concern myself with profits. How can a business run without profit?
Malini: Which means the rich will continue to be rich and the poor to be poor-precisely because those who have nothing to sell but their labour are in the worst possible bargaining position. (Mehta, 1993, p. 45)
Malini’s convictions are firmly rooted in Marxist paradigm:
But for centuries we have taken up battle positions on either side of a great divide—the haves, a mere handful, arrayed in all their strength and splendour against great numberless ragged masses of have-nots—and I know where my place is.(Mehta, 1993, p. 87)
At the same time, she wishes to cross over, to be “where the fortunes are, where the fun is and where the lights are” (Mehta, 1993, p. 87). Thus the word “rich” has a hypnotic appeal for her and she believes that there is no use living in the jet age if you have no money for the tickets. She despises the rich, yet craves for wealth. In the words of Anil, “She is still Cindrella sighing for her rags to turn into riches, her pumpkin into a shiny Mercedes”(Mehta, 1993, p. 39). Malini, like Roy, believes that violence is action, and that her brother’s idealism is ineffective. The news of her professor’s falling a prey to her terrorist-friends makes her stop in her tracks. She realises that in joining Roy, she should only exchange one servitude for another. As these “cracks in the smooth wall of deception” come to light, one sees not only the immediate theme that is explored—that of harassment of women for dowry—but also the indignities of the human condition, the inequalities that divide man from man in a Kurukshetra without Krishna (Kumar & Narendra, 2006). The play poses a lot of questions about the many injustices that prevail in the present day society.
Other Issues
Brides Are Not for Burning showcases a host of other social issues too. Dina Mehta exposes an economic system in which the poor sell their labour for a living and the rich become richer on the fruits of the former’s labour. Sanjay is the representative of the money-minded who care little for the people they employ, and instead focus on the profits they accrue from the goods they produce. The workers are looked upon as an item of cost that must be reduced to a minimum. Mehta decries such an economic system where there is no law to secure the rights of the proletariat. Environmental conservation, one of the burning issues the human race confronts, is amply highlighted in the play. The playwright speaks through Anil whose concern for the environment prompts him to criticise vehemently the production of objects like pesticides that are harmful to nature. When uncompassionate and business-minded people like Sanjay tend to reduce quality to quantity it causes much damage to nature. The play also criticises the prevailing educational system that bestows degrees and diplomas on the youth and leaves them on the road to nothing. The number of educational institutions has escalated beyond one’s imagination and yet, they are over-crowded and ballooned for beyond their capacity to educate. Though education aims at employment, it scarcely achieves the goal: “Why bother to educate, when we are only going to swell the ranks of the unemployed?” (Mehta, 1993, p. 37). Mehta’s cynicism is totally justified, for the authorities seldom take effective measures to tackle the problem of unemployment which is one of the gravest problems that India faces.
The playwright raises her voice against child labour which is another of the scourges that mar India’s face. It is indeed a sorry state of affairs in which the children are denied their right to education and are forced to work for their livelihood, to sell their labour for their basic requirements. Poverty is the root cause of this evil too. Anil would prefer to teach the children in a village school but “In most of our villages children are hired out in the fields after their eighth year” (Mehta, 1993, p. 35). The playwright voices her objection to this condition and hopes for a change through people like Anil: “But that’s just what I would like to change” (Mehta, 1993, p. 35).
Thus Brides Are Not for Burning is a direct attack not only on crimes perpetrated against the woman in a patriarchal society like dowry deaths but also on a series of related and other repugnant issues that mar the lives of the less privileged in Indian society. Mehta makes the story of Laxmi and thousands like her—the victims of the dowry system and the insatiable greed of the in-laws—a vehicle for expressing her concern over many issues. Discussion of the dowry system forms the main stream into which other issues flow and merge like rivulets to become part of the flow. The play presents a series of issues pertaining to Indian life and social institutions like marriage and allied social customs, education, law, and justice etcetera. Mehta makes a dig at the passivity of the authorities, that of Indian women, children, the educational system and even the environmentalists, and advocates active resistance. The play is in fact a protest against the perceived injustices in Indian society and a plea for change.
Conclusions
As a writer with a deep social commitment, Mehta uses drama more often than not as a platform to raise a voice of dissent against many an evil that afflicts society. Her protest is evinced in a thought-provoking manner in the main thread of her plays, in their theme, characterization, and dialogue. Characterization plays a significant role as a strategy to enhance the intensity of protest in the play. Malini is presented as an incarnation of protest. In fact, it is she who initiates as well as completes the jigsaw, the crossword puzzle behind the crime of her sister’s death under suspicious circumstances. Her brother Anil is also made to voice the playwright’s concern for society and her fellow beings. Professor Palker and the father too, to a lesser degree, express the playwright’s resentment and dissent. The portrayal of the three women characters is also a pointer to differing attitudes: While Laxmi and Tarla passively accept the patriarchy and the subordinate status of the female, Malini questions it and exposes the hypocrisy and inhumanity behind it. Mehta strikes a note of optimism when she stresses the support or involvement of male characters. Mehta’s dialogue, tinged with brilliant wit and humour, though slightly on the darker side, is packed with a lot of punch, irony, sarcasm, and even vitriol, to deliver the message of protest in the most telling manner. Ravindran (1993) offerred an interesting comment on the play:
As it is a play of ideas rather than action, the characters seem to represent certain social attitudes like the traditional, the revolutionary, the idealist, the na?ve, the uncultured and the “nouveau-riche” rather than flesh and blood individuals. And dialogue, being the vehicle of ideas and attitudes, tends to relegate other dramatic elements to the ground. (p. 32)
It is indeed significant that Mehta dedicates Brides Are Not for Burning to “all angry young women who can be whatever they choose to be” (Mehta, 1993, p. 5). The dedication itself bears testimony to the playwright’s consciousness of women’s power and competence. It is certainly this awareness of and commitment to the cause of the female and her empowerment that has motivated Mehta to protest against the shameful treatment meted out to her by the iron hand of patriarchy. She sends across to her spectators and readers—strongly and vehemently—the message that brides are not for burning as a sacrificial ritual at the altar of avarice and greed!
References
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