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Indian Literature and the World pp 263–281Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

‘Home is a Place You’ve Never Been to’: A Woman’s Place in the Indian Diasporic Novel

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Abstract

This essay aims at refocusing the debate on the complex nature of the diasporic experience, where public and private discourses over issues such as displacement, identity, and belonging overlap and clash. Through the analysis of Meera Syal’s novel Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee and Tishani Doshi’s The Pleasure Seekers, Clini examines how, caught between contrasting discourses over national and transnational belonging, celebrations of hybridity, and the call for ‘authenticity’, Syal’s and Doshi’s characters articulate the negotiation between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses relating to the model of an Indian diasporic femininity that is split between tradition and modernity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bhaji on the Beach, dir. Gurinder Chadha 1993.

  2. 2.

    For a critique of celebrations of the concepts of diaspora and hybridity see also Brah and Coombes, 2000; Blunt, 2005; Kalra et al, 2005; Mishra, 2007; Puwar and Raghuram, 2003; Shackleton, 2008.

  3. 3.

    Despite the fact that ‘The Laws of Manu’ and the Ramayana are Hindu texts, their legacy has influenced Indian society at large, especially during the anti-colonial struggle. Moreover, Marie Gillespie’s research amongst the Punjabi community of Southall confirms that ‘women are deemed primarily responsible for maintaining religious and moral traditions’ (1995: 153).

  4. 4.

    Partha Chatterjee (1989: 626–627) has argued that the anti-colonial movement radicalized the myth of the Indian woman as the signifier of cultural identity by distinguishing between the outer, material world and the inner, spiritual world: ‘The home was the principal site for expressing the spiritual quality of the national culture, and women must take the responsibility for protecting and nurturing this quality. No matter what the changes in the external conditions of life for women, they must not lose their essentially spiritual (that is, feminine) virtues; they must not, in other words, become essentially Westernized’. Such a distinction between the material and the spiritual domain of life has, however, been criticized for its rigidly dualistic approach to identity. Moreover, it tends to place women’s role in nationalism in a marginal position, and to overlook the contribution of women to the struggle for independence. See Chakravarty, 2005; Kasturi and Mazumdar, 1994; Sunder Rajan, 1993.

  5. 5.

    The reference is to the spatial segregation of the Punjabi community in London (Syal, 2000: 39–40)

  6. 6.

    Ms Douglas’s portrayal is in tune with Alison Blunt’s description of Anglo-Indians in India: ‘Anglo-Indians are English-speaking, Christian and culturally more European than Indian. Before Independence in 1947, the spatial politics of home for Anglo-Indians were shaped by imaginative geographies of both Europe (particularly Britain) and India as home. Although Anglo-Indians were “country-born” and domiciled in India, many imagined Britain as home and identified with British life even as they were largely excluded from it. In many ways, Anglo-Indians imagined themselves as part of an imperial diaspora in British India’ (Blunt, 2005: 2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Media and Communications, John Cabot University and the American University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Clelia Clini

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  1. Clelia Clini
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Correspondence to Clelia Clini .

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  1. English and Anglophone Literatures, University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Naples, Italy

    Rossella Ciocca

  2. School of English, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Neelam Srivastava

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Clini, C. (2017). ‘Home is a Place You’ve Never Been to’: A Woman’s Place in the Indian Diasporic Novel. In: Ciocca, R., Srivastava, N. (eds) Indian Literature and the World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54550-3_12

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