Deepa Mehta's _Fire_

[Michael Rabe]

On  Fri, 08 Jan 1999 17:43:43 -0500 Georgana Foster  wrote:
...
>        As I remember in seeing the film, I felt the scene of fire in the
>kitchen was evocative of dowry deaths in India, which are often called
>"accidents" which happen in the kitchen. . .

Exactly MY strongest reaction to this film as well.   So much so that, for
me at least, the lebsianism is but a diversionary plot twist--not the core,
name-giving challenge posed by Deepa Mehta.  Rather, this is the burning
question by which I was struck IMMEDIATELY, and still ponder [since I've
not seen it commented on, let alone answered definitively, in any of the 50
posts of the SAsiaLit thread or elsewhere]:
 To wit: _How, in fact, does the film end?!  Is the final sequence in the
Nizamudin gardens but a ghostly after image of what might have been, or
does Radha PHYSICALLY survive the accident unscathed?_

I wanted to research this question further before bringing it up
myself...especially given recollections that on Indology several months ago
some objected, and rightly so, that a news-reported human sacrifice to Kali
should be dismissed as nothing more than an isolated crime story...Yes,
Laurie Patton, who DOES speak for Hinduism?    But, obviously, the film's
finale allusion to this kitchen-fire phenomenon is not so easily disallowed
as beyond the pale of indological discussion, given the scores of thousands
of incidents in recent years:  5,817 in 1993 alone according to one of the
articles I cite below, from the Journal of South Asian Women Studies. Not
that I intend to read them all before continuing this thread for at least
one final post on my part, here, for the record are abstracted abstracts of
revelance to this aspect of the _Fire_ motif:

http://www.asiatica.org/publications/jsawsbookabs.asp#abstracts
                Abstracts of the Papers
                            Vol. 1, No. 1 (November 1995)
Whether Inheritance to Women is a Viable Solution to the Dowry Problem in
India by Subhadra Chaturvedi
        Abstact: The gravest form of the problem is dowry death, the
enormity whereof can be visualized by the fact that according to the
National Crime Records Bureau of India, in 1994, there occurred   a dowry
death in India every 102 minutes. According to a statement made by the
State  Minister for Home Affairs in the Parliament of India, the number of
dowry deaths in 1993 was 5,817..... Female inheritance will give financial
security to women and will eliminate the rationalization of money transfer
before and/or after wedding  in the form of dowry and/or "stridhan".

                           Vol. 2, No. 2 (May 15, 1996)
Sati Was Not Enforced in Ancient Nepal by Jayaraj Acharya
        Abstract: Sati, the ancient custom in the Hindu religion of a wife
being burnt with her dead husband,   does not seem to have been enforced in
ancient Nepal, that is during the rule of the Licchavi dynasty (c. A.D.
300-879). In this paper, about 190 stone inscriptions from this period are
considered. The only Licchavi inscription which has a reference to the sati
system is the inscription of Manadeva I at the Changu Narayana temple in
the north-eastern corner of the Kathmandu valley (A.D. 464). This
inscription does not refer to the committing of sati but abstention from
it. ...

Practical Steps Towards Saving the Lives of 25,000  Potential Victims of
Dowry and Bride Burning in India by Himendra B. Thakur
        Abstract: This paper offers an analysis of one of the remedies that
could be suggested for dowry: young women should refuse to marry as soon as
the groom's family asks for dowry. It gives statistics and examines: 1) the
cases of dowry-deaths in India; 2) the geographical  distribution of the
concentration of dowry deaths per million Hindu population. In the last
part of the paper, Thakur outlines three immediate, and a long-term
solutions for women who refuse to marry because of the demand for dowry.

                          Vol. 2, No. 4 (December 22, 1996)
 Domestic Violence: A Daily Terror in Most Mauritian  Families by Ranjita
Bunwaree-Phukan Dowry, 'Dowry Deaths', and Violence Against Women by  Julia
Leslie
        Abstract:         For several months in 1994 Leslie made a
collection of clippings on dowry deaths from several papers in India: the
daily newspapers The Hindu, The Deccan Herald, and The Indian Express, the
monthly India Today, and an occasional Times of India. She noted that the
giving of dowry in the first place is traditionally justified in terms of
giving the daughter her "inheritance" at the time of marriage, even though
only a small proportion of   that dowry is ever intended for her own use.
Through this unsystematic survey, Leslie studied whether dowry deaths were
a middle-class phenomenon, how prevalent was the custom of demanding and
giving dowry, and whether dowry deaths and the system of dowry were
generally increasing. She asked people who was to blame for dowry, and the
result was that  83% of the women respondents in this study criticized the
system of dowry, while men said that women were responsible for it. She
concludes that anyone can be victimized by the dowry  system, even men. Her
last question is whether dowry is the real problem. Finally she lists a
series of proposals to eradicate the phenomenon.

Hindu Marriage System, Hindu Scriptures, and Dowry   and Bride-Burning in
India by Ram Narayan Tripathi
        Abstract:    The paper by Ram Narayan Tripathi is a survey of the
traditional forms of Hindu marriage through the scriptures and its
connection with the modern crime of dowry and bride-burning in India. ...

Little Dowry, No Sati: The Lot of Women in the Vedic Period by Michael E.
J. Witzel
        Abstract:     This paper focuses on two main topics: sati and dowry
in Vedic times. The wife was bound  to her new family for life, and beyond
it. Whether she had to follow her husband to the other world at the time of
his death or shortly afterwards, has been a keen topic of discussion.
Rigveda 10.18.8 talks about the return of the widow to her settlement,
together with her  relatives. In Atharvaveda 18.3.1 this argument is
further expanded. These passages indicate clearly that a widow was not to
be buried or cremated with her husband. Later Vedic texts are silent on the
topic. In short: there was no sati in the Vedic texts, from the Rigveda
down to  the Upanisads and the Sutras. In the case of dowry, even less
material is visible from the  early Vedic period. However, even in the RV
there are a few indications of the right of  women to inherit. In the
post-Rigvedic texts, the Brahmanas, it is clear that a woman was regarded
as the possession of her husband, and generally in a socially lower
position. In  some texts there is a form of "a bride price" to get a
husband for the daughter. On the other hand, dowry in a mild form existed
as well: at the time of marriage, the father of the bride  gave presents to
the bridegroom. These gifts were expressively described as "mutual"
between the groom and the bride or their families. In Vedic India, the wife
did not have her  own possessions; she did not even own herself. If women,
especially brotherless maidens,  were freer than they were in later India,
their freedom was restricted in many ways. Bride   burning or dowry deaths,
of course, did not occur at all. Dowry did exist at the time, but is was
given in a framework of mutual exchange between the two families involved.

Michael Rabe
SXU & SAIC