CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1- Background and Introduction to the Study
Present work is an Ecofeminists critique of an Indian author Kamala Markandayas novel Nectar in a Sieve. It is important to write about author and her work in the beginning to ascertain her worth due to her approach to tackle such issues as are very critical even now after fifty eight year of this novel writing. So, this chapter is going to introduce writer, my proposed theoretical framework and the text Nectar in a Sieve. Kamala Markandaya (19242004) one of the former woman gifted novelist of Indian origin was born in Brahmin family in Mysore. She started her career as a novel writer after the partition of the sub-continent and after Indias independence from British colonial powers in 1947. The historical background of that time period is characterized by poverty, hunger and famine and the reason was political upheavals (Bhatanagar, 1995). Thus the author uses fiction as her vehicle and source to communicate her approach to life during the political unrest of that time when the basic setting of the novel was done. The said writer, Markandaya won international fame and recognition with the publication of her very first internationally best seller novel Nectar in a Sieve (1954). She portrayed the problems of changing times and explored the conflicting values of Indias people. Her novels depict diverse themes that touch upon domestic, economic, political, social and ethical aspects of life. She deals with the plight and predicament of women, especially of working class women and another oppressed entity: the environment. She portrays; how a societys women are totally degraded due to poverty, womens strong ties with nature and natures exploitation by industrialists. She also deals with East- West conflict, the problem of poverty and unemployment, and the problem of hunger and starvation. Thats why she was termed as realist in genre by many critics; A.V. Karishna Rao and Madhavimenon; define social realism as the awareness of social forces that surround the individual, their power to influence lives of men and women for better or for worse- and the overall interaction of the individual and society (1997). These writers aim to develop consciousness of genuineness and neutrality in their depiction of specific social environment (Jackson, 2010).

Though no one can get away from the history that works upon the people, who draw breath during the time, and also build the firm basis for the time of life to keep tempo with time, and aiming at future. Kamala Markandaya is also such a lady. In her girlhood, she was deeply touched by the depredation and negative effects of Second World War and felt the enthusiasm and eagerness of freedom fighters during the Quit India Movement of 1942. She found India awakening, enjoyed the unforgettable moments of freedom of India and witnessed the mass execution at the outset of partition of the subcontinent into two countries, India and Pakistan. During the war she worked for the army in India and afterward returned to journalism. Directly or indirectly she participated and contributed a lot in kindling the fire of loyalty and patriotism through her career of journalism. She came into enviable reputation soon after the publication of the present novel in 1954 (Arora, S.K. 2006). She due to oriental in cultural heritage and religious beliefs and occidental by dwelling, sums to have a mixed sensibility, with which she gives a precise and all-inclusive account of the clash of the both side values. Her grip to brief this facet is influential and authoritative due to advance knowledge and consideration; she accounts admirable depiction of social, personal, political and cultural interactions between the two countries. She has had inventive personality due to combination of contrary and divergent values and qualities of two cultures. She gives a bona fide explanation of the interaction and demarcation of two diverse civilizations (Iyer, S.N. 2004). John Ruskins point of view about Shakespeare, that he has no heroes but only heroines, is quite true in the case of Kamala Markandaya; we can say that she has no heroes but only heroines. She has particular interest in analyzing woman characters. In her most of the novels the narrators are likely to be female, and if not women, the narrative will be present a womans sensitivity in the main. She depicts the value of women of the society through her works, as she does in the present novel. In my thesis I intend to do an ecofeminists reading of the selected text Nectar in a Sieve, a work that recognizes these oppressed entities: the environment and the women. Ecofeminism is the name given to a variety of positions that have roots in different feminist practices and philosophies. These different perspectives reflect not only different feminist perspectives; they also reflect different understandings of nature and solution to pressing environmental problems (Warren, 1993). Ecofeminists argue that there is close relationship 2

between women and nature that comes from their shared history of oppression by male domination. They also argue that conventional and customary male centered approaches are echoed in male centered practices and discourse with respect to the environment. Ecofeminism literary criticism is similarly concerned with the depiction of nature; it emphasized how traditional representations often see the land as innocent, female and ripe for exploitation. This term/ word has its origin in Francoise dEabonne book Feminisme ou la Mort ( Feminism or Death) published in 1974 and translated into English in 1989 (Wagner,2008). Moreover Ecofeminism (a combination and connection of environment and women) is a value system, a social movement, an interdisciplinary approach and now a practice also, which offers a political investigation, that explores the link between androcentrism (men as centre of power and authority), and environmental mistreatment and exploitation. It is a thought and awareness that comes forth with the realization that the mistreatment and destruction of nature is directly linked to the western mans behavior towards women, and tribal land. The relationship of women and nature can be taken as positive medium for personal healing and curing (Birkland, 1993). Ecofeminists also talk about hierarchical dualism, according to which all high, prestigious and subtle traits are bestowed to masculinity rather than femininity. At this logic ecofeminists think that domination is the reason of this logic in a connection of value hierarchical dualistic thinking, which continues and justifies the potency and dominancy of women as well as nature (Warren, 1990).We can say that ideology is the point of juncture for ecofeminists and they think it the role of ideology, if women and nature are considered dominant. Ecofeminists argue that to make this utopia a fact, there is need to promote ideology of equality, non violence and non hierarchical systems, and there is need to hold nature and all living things, either non human in the highest regard. These key insights that hierarchical and dualistic thoughts are western; imposed by an economic system based on profits rather than needs are parts of ecofeminists perception and consideration (Kirk. G. 1997). They further highlight that humans rather men should not try to control nature but they should do work along, and must try to apart themselves from power-based acquaintances and dealings. By considering the further fact, personal is political, they argue that sphere of females private life is as important as of male. We are in the dire need to change the dominant patriarchal nature in the

prevalent system of society by snatching control and power from patriarchy (Gaard, G. Edi. 1993). The different paradigms and configurations of ecofeminism reveal different ways of analyzing the relation between women and nature, differences in the nature of womens exploitation and tyranny, and ways to solve them, the dominant theory of human nature and the idea of freedom, epistemology and equality on which different theories of feminism depend. (Rao, M. 2012). While as a social movement, ecofeminism includes post colonialism and socialist materialism/ Marxism in it. It is straightforwardly nature/ culture binary that joins women naturally to nature. In a postcolonial perspective, it becomes clear that many of ecofeminists critiques evolve from western point of view. When we move away from this realm, ecofeminism must spread out its focus to include non western thoughts and to understand the double binding of marginalization of being female and being colonized. In 1998 Greta Gaard and Patrick Murphy further argued that ecofeminism is not a single full-fledged theory and its practitioners have different articulations and thoughts of their social practice. After almost ten years this statement could not prove to be more true as branches of ecofeminism continued to expand even away from social practices ( as it was argued by Greta and Murphy), and now include social, radical, spiritual, Marxist and queer ecofeminism (Campbell, 2006). On the contrary, ecofeminists working with socialist/ materialist stream look upon nature and human nature as a construction of society, rooted in the analysis of class, gender and race. This class of ecofeminists argues that this framework has more potential to critique the issue more thoroughly. Going far away from radical feminists, this ecofeminism puts forward a critical study of dominant patriarchy, having focus on the dialectical relationship between capitalists production, and nature/ environment, womens reproduction (Merchant, 1992). Bina Agarwal also finds variables in womens historic and social relationship. Women, specifically from poor village or agrarian societies are both victim of environmental devaluation as well as energetic beings in the environment protection movements and rejuvenation of the environment. Further she is of the view that unquestioning acceptance of women- nature connection and the concept that, since women are the most ruthlessly affected 4

entities by the environmental degradation, they have endurance and natural stamina towards environmental reconstruction is unacceptable. The increasing disrespect of natural materials, under qualitative or quantitative manifestation, and decline in community owned property has been vitally responsible for the growing class- gender impact of environmental contempt and degradation (Agarwal, 1992). In the same way, capitalistic development and colonial intercession disrupted the societies resulting the capitalistic power in the form of industries and in the hands of men, and women were forced to do domestic labor only. Capitalistic system made reproduction subordinate to production and the role of nature was also ignored, While Marxs motto was to each according to his abilities to each according to his needs simply to satisfy the needs instead of greed. But in the cruel capitalistic system women of each and every class and race were exploited and marginalized, except some elites. But most of the capitalists were unable to categorize the women on the basis of caste, class and ethnicity, and considered all of them as recessive and marginalized class. In this way Marxist ecofeminists framework has more potential and power to analyze the link between gender and environment. Sharma also develops his point in the same stream, that the forms of capitalists mechanical development that are considered dominant have pushed the women towards margin and devalue their indigenous knowledge and skills, that they have got and practiced by developing a connection with nature. Further these rural women have not that familiarity and knowledge mandatory for technologies. With the increasing privatization of land by the capitalists, and due to degradation of natural resources the women made stuff is going to decline. Various international conferences sponsored by the United Nations and International NGOs have been held in order to give value to the women and the environment. For example, the United Nation conference on women in Nairobi in 1985 which brought close to ecofeminists leaders and facilitated them with further opportunities to develop their connection with International colleagues. Other International conferences that developed between environmentalism and womens issues were the United Nations Environmental programs global assembly on Women and the Environment and World Womens Congress for Healthy Planet, both held in Miami in 1991. These ecofeminists gathered to connect academic voices with activist voices, while there are other ecofeminists who focused only on activists and justice oriented, and consciously separated themselves from the 5

academic field in general (Oster, H.L, 2002). As ecofeminism continues to shift and grow, different dimensions will continue to add in it, while other dimensions can deteriorate and fade away by a more critical connection. Miscellaneous understanding related to nature of the web of relationships between different spiritual/ religious traditions can keep the ecofeminisms internal strife continue. Issues of race, color, class, population growth, dignity and priority of some humans over others, or of all humans over non human animals will stimulate the thoughts and actions of ecofeminist on a worldwide scale. Here I would like to mention warrens perspective to summarize ecofeminists ideological positions: ontology based on dynamic and admittedly partial knowledge as well as awe toward the complexity of embodied and embedded existence would contribute substantially to the profound social transformation that is needed. (Warren, 1997). While Greta Gaard writes that Things will not just happen---- women must do something (Gaard, G. Edi. 1993). While introducing the text, the linear chronological narrative of this text Nectar in a Sieve, describes the narrator Rukmani, the protagonists stages of self discovery, a twelve year old young girl, a married woman, then a mother, with her own life and different relationships. Like her identity as a child bride, a young woman wife and then a mother echoes ecofeminisms claim that her closeness to the land is thoroughly connected to her body and spirituality. Her identity is traced both by her labor and her love for land; this is the point where ecofeminism intersects with post colonialism and sets my theoretical framework as interdisciplinary. While on the contrary her connection with the land on a production and reproduction level sets this work in a materialist facet. This is noted when she is evicted from the land even rented. She has been depicted as an alienated sufferer, alienated from land and the place also. It is also worth mentioning that Rukmani as a major character, as axis of the novel, shows more inclination towards nature, but other women in the novel also have strong connection with the nature. Even Rukmanis daughter and sons also are interlinked with the land. With the advent of mechanization, her two sons want to join tannery for their economic expansion but finally they also have to leave the country when one is killed by the tannery officials in a false allegation. At this junction my suggested theoretical framework intersects with Marxism, where exploitation of the poor is at the height, where work is not according to abilities and needs. In this way Nectar in a Sieve is replete with the dominant issues of industrialization (building tannery by the westerns), urbanization, womens oppression and 6

exploitation in male dominated society, womens connection with nature and environments degradation, class and gender issues. Further Rukmanis deep tie with nature and the problem of tannery can, also be introduced from the very text, as Kamala Markandaya portrays Rukmani, the protagonist, Ira and environment as oppressed beings. Rukmanis work in the garden and total dependence on this resource through her hard labour depicts her deep rooted link with nature. She gets pleasure when she sees growth of her field. It becomes clear when she says, our freedom to work in the forest and to farm is very important (Markandaya, 2002, p. 241). It is also important to note that her reproductive labour and her domestic duties are not given any value in this rural male chauvinistic society. On the other hand Tannery is also a big issue for those who have deep ties with nature. It had taken childrens place and made bazaar prices too high (14). It had destroyed environment and nature. Not a month went but somebodys land was swallowed up, another building appeared. Day and night the tanning went on. A never ending line of carts bought the raw material in.(47). In the end Rukmani, her husband did not find what they hoped for from their sons and from the land. Their desires dashed to the ground as their wishes could not come true from both sides; there is only Irawaddy in the last to help Rukmani by earning from her illicit profession, which she considers sacred and above, over so called moralities. Here Rukmani due to continuous prey of grieves is called mother of sorrows. She dislikes changes that are at the climax in her surroundings. On the other hand Doctor Kenny represents progressive enlightenment and likes constructive programs for rural development and reforms during post colonial era and promotes social services. Here in the company of English doctor Kenny, Rukmani refutes the claim that she as a third world countrys peasant woman is made for land, and sees problem in her relation with nature. The point of resolution of her identity crises is considered through her dealings with Kenny. Indira Gansion writes in the introduction to the Nectar in a Sieve that [b]y giving voice to the main character Rukmani, Markandaya gives us a woman who has great affect on us through not only the problems of rural life, but also the problem that she is a woman (Gansion, 2002). To establish my own point of view I argue that South Asian people are ruthless in both gender sensitivity and environment sensitivity. They dont value the human beings, who wake with the dawn, do work in the fields for the whole day, grow a variety of foods for the 7

rest of the people and get back to their homes in the twilight of the dusk. We can say that they have such a strong tie with nature as cannot be untied. They have attached their life activities with the circle of nature to develop a deep connection and to establish value and dignity for both; for themselves and for land. These agrarian candidates especially women are more prone towards nature/ environment. They have made themselves masters of nature by an unremitting and permanent practice, and if someone tries to alienate them from their natural work they shed tear and sob as it is wearisome and difficult for anyone and everyone to go beyond the correlated field, particularly from that field, to which you grant your whole youth. It is not incorrect to say, if we do not consider both these entities (women and the nature/ environment) as independent, autonomous and neglect even one of them, we do not fulfill the principles and standards of this theory, but we contravene from it; the theory establishes them uniformly important and independent instead of their oppression and degradation by male autonomous bodies. Further, in Pakistan, ecofeminism is a neglected field, as neither any research has been conducted under this theoretical approach, nor any such literature has been written by Pakistani or Pakistani expatriate writers, while the land of this country is being abused and destroyed. This land/ environment have an undeviating link not only with women, but with all other human beings also, living on this planet. In the same way it is associated with literary circle also, because it deals with human beings and living non humans .These overriding issues make this statement worthy of investigation, as it is a field worth attention and there is dire need for writers to write in this stream, while scholars have a need to research in this dimension to set a social message as a result. Moreover, my teachers became a source of inspiration and motivation to carry on my research in this new ground, and they really mentored me to touch this exceptional field. Hence, I can say bluntly that women and land both are abused and devalued particularly in masculine regimes, where their worth is not considered, where people dont come to the fact that destruction of land will perish and disappear them from its surface. I argue that we may healthy, if our land/ environment is healthy, and if we value both of our land and ladies by considering them two independent entities, and dont intermingle them due to some of their identical (like reproductive) qualities we will be esteemed and valued in the world (my emphasis).

1.2- Statement of the Problem

Women are not given any significance and weightage in male dominated rural societies. It is considered there, that women are more prone towards nature, and have similar qualities also, like nurturance and reproduction; due to which these societies and many other societies view women and nature as the same, inferior, oppressed and subjugated beings. Though, both these entities are productive, yet they are not given equal importance and are not considered independent and valuable entities. Both (women and environment) are abused by the agents of patriarchal domination and by the agents of capitalism. Moreover the process of industrialization is a source of exploitation and oppression for gender and class.

1.3- Research Questions Q.1- How does the text create two parallel and independent entities- women and
environment, by means of demonstrating a complex environmental perspective?

Q.2- How does the text establish theorys triangular relationship (between, gender, class and
environment) by means of developing an intersectional matrix?

1.4- Significance of the Study

Very few researches have been conducted on ecofeminism on ecofeminism. Here in Pakistan Ecofeminism is a neglected field, both in writing and research, while our women and environment are facing grave problems of devaluation and degradation and demands attention. That is why I took this issue to do work on. This research will set a social message and will set a pathway for coming researchers. This will also enable the readers to understand the value and dignity of women and nature as two equally important but independent beings; by highlighting the serious issues of humiliation of women (especially working class women) and nature. This theory is significant because it allows us to do research in multiple

dimensions and is potentially pertinent and applicable to English studies.

1.5- Rationale of the Study

Objectives of my research are to reveal subtle affiliation between women and nature, and to find out how text establishes them as two analogous but independent entities even in a multifaceted environmental perspective. Another objective of this research is to trace that, how the gender issues in the novel are related to proposed theoretical framework, and

ascertain a triangular relationship (between gender, class and environment) by developing an intersectional medium.

1.6- Theoretical Framework

Theoretical framework for my research is Ecofeminism. This as an interdisciplinary approach sets my theoretical frame as triangular: Ecofeminism, Marxism and Post colonialism. Ecofeminists critic Karen J. Warren also describes this connection in her book Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, in many respects, contemporary environmental ethics reflect the range of positions in contemporary philosophical ethics. The latter (contemporary philosophical ethics) include challenges to them by non-traditional (for example, some Feminist, Existentialists, Marxists, Afro-centric, Western and Non-Western) approaches. Different theorists like Robert Session, Vandana Shiva, Karolyn Merchant, Murphy and some other relevant theorists point of views shall assist me to accomplish this research.

1.7- Delimitation
My study of Nectar in a Sieve under Ecofeminist approach will be limited only to analyse ecofeminist references within conjunction of Marxism and Post colonialism. As this text has multiple points of discussion but I shall approach only those aspects that are focus of my study under my suggested and approved title.

1.8- Methodology
This research will fall under qualitative paradigm. It will be descriptive and analytical research. For minute textual analysis, this text will serve as a base material which will be intensively and critically read to find out related references and comprehensive result. Though this research is deductive, but some subjective outlook is unavoidable. Regarding material for my research, text of the novel is primary material, while all the critical/ interpretive books, articles, reviews, journals and research papers shall serve as secondary material. Different theoretical works will also be read and considered for the thriving achievement of my work.

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1.9- Chapter Breakdown Chapter1- is the introduction, context, rationale and problematic of my study. Chapter2- presents a detailed literature review. Chapter3- is a detailed description of the theoretical framework which I am going to use to
analyse selected work.

Chapter4- is in depth analysis and discussion of the selected work under proposed
theoretical framework with the relevant theorists approach.

1.10- Working Definitions of key Terms Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism is a multi dimensional term that has roots in different feminist practices and philosophies. These different perspectives reflect not only different feminist approaches, but also mirror different understandings of nature and solution to burning environmental problems (Warren, 1993). Ecofeminists believe that patriarchal society is built on four interlocking pillars: sexism, racism, class exploitation and environmental destruction. This ecofeminists analysis projects that not only women but oppressed races and oppressed social classes are also closely tied with nature. They point out, that there is close relationship between women and nature that comes from their shared history of subjugation by male control and domination. They also argue that conventional and customary male centered approaches are echoed in male centered practices and discourse with respect to the environment. Moreover Ecofeminism (a combination and connection of environment and women) is a value system, a social movement, an interdisciplinary approach and now a practice also, which offers a political investigation, that explores the link between androcentrism (men as centre of power and authority), and environmental mistreatment and exploitation. It is a thought and awareness that comes forth with the realization that the exploitation and destruction of nature is directly associated to the western mans behavior towards women, and tribal land. The relationship of women and nature can be taken as positive medium for personal remedy and cure (Birkland, 1993).

Post Colonial Ecofeminism

Young, C.J.R defines post colonialism as a state in which a former colony has ostensible sovereignty because the former master has not left entirely or has taken a new 11

form of domination. The struggle for freedom, thus, continues, not so much by pushing the foreign away, but in redefining the social structures that continues to promote inequality and subordination, which colonialism inherited to the new nation. In a postcolonial perspective, ecofeminists critique evolves from western point of view. When we move away from this territory, ecofeminism must spread out its focus to include non western thoughts and to understand the double binding of female marginalization of being female and being colonized. All this colonization was for the short time commercial value of the market place, trying to control nature as just patriarchal societies tried to control women. While Val Plumwood, an Australian ecofeminist, in Graham Huggan, and Hellen Tiffins book Postcolonial Ecocriticism (2010) describes the very ideology of colonization to mingle up anthropocentrism and eurocentrism, where anthropocentrism underlies eurocentrism to justify those forms of European colonialism that consider indigenous cultures as primitive, less rational, and closer to children , animals and nature.

Socialist Ecofeminism
Socialist ecofeminism, like ecofeminism argues that women are somehow closer to nature, even if the affiliation is socially constructed. Ecofeminists working with socialist/ materialist stream look upon nature and human nature as a production of society, rooted in the scrutiny of class, gender and race. This class of ecofeminists argues that this framework has more potential to evaluate the issue more scrupulously. Going far away from radical feminists, this ecofeminism puts forward a critical study of overriding and prevailing patriarchy (patriarchal stereotypes to consider women as merely nurturing and caring beings), having focus on the dialectical relationship between capitalists production, and nature/ environment, womens reproduction (Merchant, 1992). To focus only on womens caring nature leads us towards the notion that women are just intuitive and discourages them from expanding the human horizons and capacities (Sandilands, C. 1999).

Alienation:
Alienation is the process by which worker is alienated from his/her natural work, from the community in which s/he lives and even from himself/herself. It is the practice, commonly of the capitalist or bourgeois class to act as masters of the lower/worker community, to rule

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them as their subordinates and to let them work according to their own desires and needs by neglecting their natural capabilities.

Displacement:
As a postcolonial term it is a phenomenon that brings crises of identity. A valid and active sense of self may have been eroded by dislocation, due to experiencing enslavement, or voluntary removal for indentured labour. It is not only physical displacement but a sense of being out of place socially and culturally. Moreover, this displacement brings alienation of vision and the crises in self image (Ashcroft, B. et al., 2004).

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CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Kamala Markandaya is very much familiar with the southern region, and is identified as master in the memorable depiction of female characters and nature in her novels. Doctor Rakesh Ravi (2010) provides a comprehensive and concise evaluation of Kamala Markandayas personality and her works. Her novel under study Nectar in a Sieve (1954) has been discussed as a true picture of rural and urban India by depicting Rukmani as an illfate poor lady later on a widow. Her exalted struggle with imprecise and indefinite destiny makes her character sublime on one hand and brings to light the miseries and hardships of Indian farmers on the other. This work is also taken as an account of false display of money, defective planning of funds; want of education, gender issues, environmental issues, working class exploitation and corruption. Her some other works like Inner Fury (1956) projects the eternal clash between passion and patriotism. Further it also gives an account of a love story. Another celebrated work A Silence of Desire (1960) deals with spiritual realities. It exposes the traditional and the modern values in the family. Possession (1963) deals with minor characters, how people help others to get benefit from them in future. They make conspiracies against them if they go against their choices. Another popular novel A Hand Full of Rice (1966) brings out the ill effect of large scale industry on rural economy. Two Virgins (1973) highlights the impact of blind modernism on rural life, in which character fails to live in traditional places and leave them in order to join big cities. Dona Seaman (2007) in her article Another Look At: Kamala Markandayas First Novel Nectar in a Sieve depicts this novel as a story of a peasant family in rural India and of the acceptance and creativity with which they met economic changes and natural disasters. Dignity of character, self confidence, and unselfish love are portrayed with a skill and charm that alleviate the baser human attributes and the solemn succession of tragedies that industrialization brought to their village. She also gives value to this work by saying a novel to read and perhaps reread for full appreciation; and further elaborates her deep affection for Markandayas eye-catching ability into the endless labor of the rural poor and the tyranny and oppression of women. Nidhi Bhatt in her article A Comparative Study of New Woman through the female protagonist of Kamala Markandaya and Shashi Despande (2011) views this novel as a work 14

that deals with the life and travails of a peasant woman, protagonist of this novel, Rukmani who is faced with great odds like famine, death, disloyalty and prostitution amidst a background of upsetting poverty, brings a constant battle. She appreciates Rukmanis revelation of such a world as the literate people are seldom find to examine and values her description of Rukmanis starvation as powerful and timeless. Rosemary Marangoli George in her article, Where in the World Did K amala Markandaya Go (2009) argues that written in London, where Markandaya had lived since 1948, Nectar symbolizes the life of female protagonist Rukmani, whose whole life mapped in this story appealed the audiences internationally. She also notes this novel as a contrast between East and West. Further she develops a similar tributary of peasant woman projection in Mahboob Khans worldwide circulated block buster feature film Mother India, Pearl S. Bucks The Good Earth and Nectar in a Sieve. In all these texts the pliability and dignity of the peasant woman is especially celebrated. Asha Rani and Shasha Bansal (2011) argue that Nectar in a Sieve tells the story of one womans search for something that is her quest for peace, happiness and shelter amidst hardships, oppression and sufferings. They also argue that the novel narrates the rise and fall of Rukmanis family as India grows and changes around her. These writers argue that this gloomy scenario of Indian village is due to economic, political and social changes that can be overcome by mutual understandings and by creating harmony among human beings and social classes. Bend like the Grass: Ecofeminism in Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve (2011) is an article by Dona C. Mount, in which she negotiates Nectar in a Sieve as Rukmanis attempt to recover and recuperate those elements of her rural life that she feels most deeply about, namely her sense of community and connection with the land and tradition She further elaborates Rukmanis struggle to maintain dignity and control over the life as some of the complex ways in which rural women of the global south discuss modernity. By considering it a postcolonial text she takes this novels structure very much similar to another early post colonial novel, Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, where the slow motion and conventional pattern of rural life is suddenly altered by a commotion brought on by outside forces. She also explains the reason behind this novel writing as an attempt to purify western thinking of unbending patriarchal binaries that maintained the oppression of both women and 15

non human nature through the historic associations of women with nature and as therefore inferior to men. Novel can also be read in the context of post Independence Indian Hunger Novel, and it also becomes a feminist text like the theoretical works of Carol J Adams and Josephine Donovan, who have worked to make prominent the connections between the subordination of women and subordination of animals. Further she writes that the analysis of Rukmanis character gives her a chance to have a look on ecofeminism, theorizing about the connection between rural women and the environment. Her nature of working in the text develops a type of closeness between her and land which is very similar to the early ecofeminist writings of body and spirituality. On the other hand her complete reliance on the piece of land for her survival reveals a susceptibility that troubles the celebration of this close connection. She also highlights that Rukmani favors this direct relationship with nature over the alienation of city life that was in the form of mechanization. On the other hand, Susheela Rao in the same article finds Rukmanis relationship with nature as well as her connection to the dynamics of season. Rao points to many passages in which Rukmani gives value to the artistic beauty of the landscape. Paresh R. Patel (2009) in his article Woman as a major character in Kamala Markandayas Selected Novels focuses upon the woman as an eternal universal mother figure bound by love and fondness to hearth and home. He also highlights that women are treated as a receiver, who undertakes their journey from parental home to their husbands house in order to bear children for their men and experience motherhood. S.G.Bhanegaonkar in a succinct titled as Fertility symbol in Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve in Amar Nath Prasds edited book Critical Response to Indian Fiction in English highlights Markandayas focus in Nectar in a Sieve on the priorities of rustic India which include the productivity and yield of nature, and fertility of women. A fairly large portion of the novel deals with marriages and marital life of dominant characters, with the major endeavor of focusing on the significance of fertility. He is of the view that Markandaya dexterously balances womens fertility with mens futility. Further he highlights that in this text Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya has succeeded in pointing out the natural supremacy and superiority of nature over man: it is a positive reception and appreciation of mother Natures massive productivity and the grand importance of our human endeavor, her beautiful descriptions of harvest and her brilliant and gleaming analysis of 16

motherhood, an indispensable and central part of womanhood makes Nectar in a Sieve a productive and rewarding study of fertility. But it is distressing to know that Markandayas love of nature has long gone unacknowledged, her criticism of industrialization and

urbanization, is still a point of debate on micro level, and her somber obsession and fascination with recurrent element of fertility has remained without a diagnosis. In extension he argues that many literary critics in India are busy analyzing the work of artists from feminists point of discussion, therefore turning a blind eye towards the major concerns( like fertility, role of land, and value to women) of creative writers. Her novels can also be studied in the modern feminist dimension, but Nectar in a Sieve is a starting exemption in the sense that it is a novel, Markandaya celebrates very much the disappointment and frustration of our feminists experts, the basic virtues of traditional Indian women- love for husband and children, a sense of surrender and sacrifice for the betterment of the family, and pleasure in fertility. These are the traits modern women appear to have little respect for, and the hearts of such women are away from simple pleasures of life (2001). Anita Myles observes that women in the novels of Kamala Markandaya are beyond doubt victims of social and economic pressures and disparities. However, they rise above all these economic pressures and differences. They rise above all these and traverse the barriers of discrimination only for an advance concept of universal love and accordance. Indeed their vitality both physical and emotional is considerable and appreciable. Moreover, she observes that her female characters are from variety of strata of society; nonetheless the common approach in all her female characters is their quest to be self autonomous, joined with nurturance for the family they have, and fellow feelings for the larger community of men and women, a venture in which the women are confronted with various obstacles arising mainly from the irregularities in the system of existing society along within the economic hardships. As the women battle with these emerging forces they develop an established vision of life. Though the desire for autonomy and nurturance co-exist leading to disenchantment at every stage, yet the female characters steadfastly refuse to lose either hope or courage; they are determined to achieve their task with a tireless effort. Perhaps that is the reason Kamala Markandaya herself terms her novels Literature of Concern and through this literature she is always in quest of seeking e something positive. She has portrayed the gloomy picture of

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Indian society due to multiple changes in that country, yet she believes that togetherness and joint consideration can create a momentous and significant existence for mankind (2006). Another writer Pier Paolo Piciucco observes in her edited book A Copmanion to Indian Fiction in English that Markandayas novels revolves round the height of poverty, social taboos and long-established outlook, and economic dispossession and deprivation. Underneath yhis broad pattern run the miniature currents of allied problems. There is a subdued condemnation of some of the social norms- the yearning for sons, the disregard and disrespect of the girl child, illiteracy and the governments droopiness and apathy towards the condition of the poor villagers. Nathan and Rukmanis poverty is not only due to natural causes but also due to having a large family. This writer regards that there is much emphasis on fertility, because this issue leads towards unhappy marriages and family disintegration even divorces (2004). Nagendra Kumar Singh in his book, Society and Self in the novels of Ruth Parawar Jhabvala and Kamala Markandaya (2005) observes that the author has derived inspiration from Prem Chands Godon- and the novel bestowed her great success and considers it one of the major Indian novels for Indian Literature in English. Shik K. Kumar call s Nectar in a Sieve the magnum opus of the writer. While another author credits her work by describing that it has been translated into 17 languages including Russian in 1958. This work got popular because it gives an authentic picture of Indian society; where people face perpetual deprivation and hunger, and die of malnourishment. This writer also quotes K.R. Chandrashekharans point of view from his article, East and West in the novels of Kamala Markandaya that she has depicted life of uncertainty lived by peasants of India, who make the major part of population. It is fate of those peasants to do work on the land, which does not belong to them and in reward they hardly get a square meal. Hena Ahmed in her book Postnational Feminisms: Post colonial Identities and Cosmopolitanism in the works of Kamala Markandaya explains that it is worth mentioning that Markandaya charts a literary territory that spans colonial and postcolonial India establishing her as a first generation post-colonial writer. Exploring the East-West, Indian British encounter by weaving it into the drapery of the village life, textured her romantic imagination, she renders it all into moving but strong accusation of the social and economic 18

systems. She draws on India for her characterization and setting, always using these to explore East- West cultural conflicts in relationships. It is not astonishing therefore that Markandaya chooses not to rejoice Indias political independence, achieved in 1947. She as a critic notes writers concerns for the poor that inspire her to socialistic enthusiasm over making their wrongs, right, her diasporic location can allow us to replicate on the view that transnational, cross cultural hybrid world- views disturb the cultural originary, interrupting the monologic discourses of modern-day nation-states. Her diasporic locations allow her as ambassador of India to England, reconciling the manifold locations and subjectivities deriving from her experience and background of Indian and English cultures. The complicated ways in which her colonial and Indian backgrounds get interwoven into her work opens up a question how for the postcolonial migrant or expatriate writer, alienation from and the craving for home on one hand and assimilation into and the need to belong in a new culture create an inbetweenness, an emergency in which the postcolonial diasporic writer is both rooted in the nation and a member of broad and larger world (2010). Indian American author Shashi Tharoor in an article Homage to Kamala Markandaya by Francis C. Assassi (2004) admitted that Markandaya was a pioneer who influenced all of our Indians writings in English. While in the same article Indo- Canadian poet and academic Uma Parameswaran is of the opinion that she is a pioneer member of the Indian diaspora, and her best novel The Nowhere man (1972) have glimpses of many diasporic issues with which we are anxious today. He also adds that Markandayas strength as a novelist comes from her sensitive and accessible creation of individual characters and situations which are concurrently representative of a larger collective; her prose style is smooth and controlled. Another Indian American writer, Indira Ganeson views this book as a predicament of women of earlier times- Indias struggle with modernity and the unbelievable acts of women for her family. It was sad and slapped me in the face that this book may explain the many starving lives in other countries. In the same article another literary analyst Edwin Thumboo says, she handles character, dialogue and description with skill. All three are integrated, mutually supportive, so that the fiction is impressive, as it creates warm and vivacious individuals. However, a literary analyst Meena Shirdwakar has recommended that the value of tyranny and sufferings are important constituent of Markandayas novels because she portrays her positive women characters as ideal nurturers and pain bearers. Novel appeals to the modern 19

readers for its moving and sensitive portrayal of the strength of a woman struggling with forces; they can not control. It is taken as the story about pliability of the human spirit and the importance of values. Dr. T N Kolekar in his research paper A Portrayal of Caste, Gender and Society in Indian English Novel (2012) suggests, Kamalas novel Nectar in a Sieve and A Handful of Rice as the novels of human suffering, where a number of children are born to the central characters and how much difficult it becomes to feed the increasing mouths, how prostitution is taken up to earn a little money etc. are beautifully depicted. Professor Alphonso Karkala highlights about the women novelists that they tried to show the world the hurdles they had to face and the disadvantages they suffered in an orthodox world of Hinduism. These women writers struggled to give shape and form to their autobiographical histories, which attracted publishers both in India and in the foreign countries. In Hindu philosophy women had no right to study Vedas (Hindus religious book). So, literacy became a farfetched quality in women. In the pre- Aryan age, women were considered equal to men. It was only in the Middle Ages down to the present, that male intended moralist society by constructing four walls for women, to prohibit her from rights and jobs equal to men. M. Razia in her article Feminine Mystique: Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve (2009) traces Rukmani, the narrator heroine, through a womans journey from selfsacrificing to self-realization from self- denial to self assertion, and from self- negation to self affirmation. In her view the heroine emerges a greater and stronger character than her husband Nathan. While according to Meera Shirvadkar, Rukmani is the silent, oppressed sufferer who is the daughter of soil, and who has inherited age- old tradition which they do not question. Their courage lies in docile or at times cheerful ways of bearing catastrophe and calamity of poverty. Geetha P in her research abstract named Images and Arch etypes in Kamala Markandayas Novels: A Study in Cultural Ambivalence (1991) narrates that structurally her novels echo the state of cultural ambivalence through a conflict pattern, which forms the basis of her plots- clash between village and city in Nectar in a Sieve, A Handful of Rice and Two Virgins. While C. Karthykayan and S. Gunaskaran in their article written in 2012 trace Nectar in a Sieve as a depiction of traditional Indian village life brought before eyes. The novel revolves around a South Indian village where the people live in accord with nature. 20

N.Sharada Iyer in Mohit K. Ray and Rama Kundus edited book Studies in Women Writers in English argues that Kamala Markandayas novels echo the more awakened feminine sensibility in modern India than other contemporary female writers. It can also be compared with Murugan the Tiller by Vankatramani because this work also projects the harsh realities of rural India, as Nectar in a Sieve rips open the sores of rural society. He also highlights it as a grass root novel projecting a dismal reality of the village. Writer also writes the novel as a realistic document of a village invaded by industrialization. The infringement of industry causes the destruction of the natural beauty, creates mess in farmers economy, specially uproots a tenant farmer, and brings in societys deprivation and loss of traditional as well as human values. The approaching of tannery, the so called modernity is the beginning of continuous problems. He points out in detail, though her fictions are deeply rooted in Indian soil and culture, yet they are multifaceted having rich texture, i-e her novels tell a story- a personal story; it is told against vast social background full of sufferings and tragedies. The hardships and the disintegration and collapse of the family fuse and mingle with the degeneration and dissolution of the rural pattern of life. In this way Nectar was to be obtained out of poverty and misery (2004). Shoshana M. Landow in her article The Value of Suffering in Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve (1989) portrays its positive woman characters as ideal victims and nurturers; they are from rural sections of society. They are the daughters of soil and have innate age- old traditions which they do not question. She points out that novel also shows their courage and cheerful ways of facing poverty or calamity. Same writer in another article Changing Images of Woman in South Asian Fiction (1989) states that in the last three decades, women writers have moved away from traditional enduring; self sacrificing women toward conflicted female characters searching for identity. The interest of women writers have changed with South Asian society and its relationship with the west. This trend in writing by South Asian women clearly appears if one compares the images suffering women in Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve. Dr. Rochelle Almeida in a tribute to Kamala Markandaya titled as The Epitome of Simplicity (2004) said that Kamala Markandaya chose to live a very secluded existence, shunning the press or public interest and caring little for scholarly outlook of her work. Given

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the mystique that surrounded her life, I consider myself deeply privileged to have had the opportunity to work directly with this eminent and renowned woman. Janet Goldwasser in a review article writes Nectar in a Sieve, a heroic book written almost half a century ago, describing events from two decades before that , it is still timely and worth reading. Despite the tragic story line, this is an absolutely beautiful book and a testament to human spirit and zeal. She writes Markandayas writing reminiscent, lyrical even as she describes scenes of sorrow. Each of us at the book club said we had been mould to tears at some point- Markandaya has ability and aptitude to make you love the characters as much as she must have. While Jai Kumar in his review article Kamala Markandaya (2004) appreciates her as a first generation of Indian novelists to write about the dilemma of the rural peasantry and the urban middle- class, immigration and interracial relationships. Her strength as a writer lay in her description of the struggle of the individual in a changing society. Though she is often grouped with the three stalwarts, Mulk Raj Anand, R K Narayan and Raja Rao, she created with her limpid and transparent style, a distinctive place for herself in modern Indo- British fiction. He also describes the most enduring quality of her novels, her passionate portrayal of Indianness and a thoughtful sympathy for rural peasantry. Elizebeth Jackson in her review articles titled as Feminism and Contemporary Indian Womens writing identifies in Kamala Markandayas writing East -West encounter as a major theme as well as racial prejudice, economic oppression and social injustices. Jackson argues that Markandayas early heroines are heroic mainly because of their foste ring qualities. While they submit to masculine authority, some heroin in her later novels questions this patriarchal chauvinistic attitude. M.K. Bhatanagar in his essay, Kamala Markandaya: The insider-outsider observes her first novel Nectar in a Sieve as basic preoccupation of Kamala Markandaya: the protagonist narrator Rukmani caught in hard peasant life; the vagaries of nature, the attitude of modern civilization, the forced migration to city and so on, illuminating how work without hope draws nectar in a sieve. In another book titled Kamala Markandaya, A Critical Spectrum edited by M.K Bhatnagar, Pradnya Vijay Ghorpades succinct Rural India in Kamala Markandaya focuses on the tragic predicament and dilemma of Indian peasants depicted by Markandaya in a natural realistic way. It focuses effectively on the theme of hunger, social problems such as poverty, lack of family planning, crime, beggary, 22

unemployment, prostitution, the zamindari system, demoralization and undermining, industrialization, caste and class conflict, superstitions, dowry system, low status of women, evil of the marriage system etc are evocatively portrayed by Kamala Markandaya. Further he mentions that writer gives a graphic picture of the rural life and its hardships. The sufferings described in the novel have typical rural touch; whether it is social, economic or religious level, the novel focuses on the Indian villagers life and its manifestations. S.Z.H Abidi remarks, Markandayas social realism is very close to the observed condition of life (2002). Kai Nicholson in Social Problems in the Indo-Anglican and Anglo-Indian Novel says, with her flawless and perfect representational realism and innovative description of Indian arcadia, Markandaya achieves a perfect deportment between the rural reality and the disciplined urbanity of art. The novelist has made Rukmani, the protagonist; narrate the tale, in order to show the subtle intensities of the poignant fabric. She has made a woman the central character because she knows that woman is at the center of the socio-economic structure of the Indian peasant and rural families. Rukmani is a symbol of an Indian rustic woman. Her views are reflections of a typical socio-cultural philosophy which is designed to make an Indian woman tolerant, subservient, innocent and easily satisfied with her lot. Moreover, she highlights another important point that Markandayas portrayal of the Indian village life and social system has an appeal beyond time limits. Anil k. Bhatnagar in Kamala Markandaya: a thematic study is of the view that Kamala Markandaya brings moral depreciation widespread in our societies in which man exploits others for selfish purposes and tempt for modernity corrupts mans moral values. She also highlights in her fiction; how the violence of nature and rapid industrialization led her protagonist Rukmani and her family to hunger and deprivation. She depicts the life of labor and uncertainty lived by leaseholder farmers. Moreover she brings out the fact that hunger like evil leads the families eventually towards degradation. It is irony of fate that people condemn a person for his bad acts without considering and analyzing the circumstances responsible for doing this. He also highlights Markandayas evaluation that poverty, famine and hunger leads to disintegration of family accompanying incalculable sufferings (1995).

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Sudhar Kumar Arora in his book Study of Kamala Markandayas Women argues that India is the centripetal force in her novels, replete by confusion, violence, economic discrepancy, raging social and political changes her novels are praised due to social realities. She presents East and West in her works rather she seems to have undertaken the mission of interpreting the east to west. She treats the theme of tragic waste, the desolation and despair of unfulfilled or ruined love, the distress and agony of artistic ambition, the quest for self realization and truth by the young, all these themes are not only popular among South Asian countries but also popular with American and European novelists of this time period of ongoing decades. She comes to fore with firm willpower to carry on her fight for oppressed and subjugated women in male dominated society. Being a woman she inherits inborn proclivity to delve on the predicament of women especially rural oriented women. She perceives their wretchedness and misery from a sociological and psychological standpoint. She delineates their plight in the form of rootlessness and identity crises; a desire to be treated not only as mother or sister but also as an independent and liberal subjective being. He is also of the view that being herself a woman she has chosen woman characters as the protagonists of her novels. As a woman, consciousness about women and their dilemmas are central to her world, it is rather natural that the key characters in her fiction should be women. She has put forward their problems, yearnings and aspirations, failures and foibles of these female characters are at the hub in her literary texts (2006). A critic Balaram Gupta in his book Indian English Literature projects Rukmani as a mother figure, who symbolizes the mother earth. She is the virgin soil, the origin, the source, the life giver, the well mechanized, the nurturer, the sustainer, the helper, and even more, the last remedy, the consoler, the healer. Her honesty and veracity is never on the verge of collapse. Further he depicts Nathan as a stereotypical, conventional character, a passive victim, a poor tenant in every sense (1976). Another critic M.K.Naik feels that kamala Markandayas work Nectar in a Sieve is artificial in that Rukmanis village exists only in the expatriates imagination of her creator, while some others accuse and claim that she has oversimplified the rural Indian scene of which she is an absent narrator. She is alleged of overplaying poverty and sufferings with a conscious effort to make her fiction acceptable among Western literates (1982). While several others point out novels strong points like how the villagers suffer when villages land 24

changes from agrarian to industrial and it also focuses on emerging inconsistency between tradition and modernity. The work also shares significantly the concerns expressed by Leavis and Thomsons perception of the organic community of course without longing and melancholy. As they maintain that outward and obvious sign of that loss of the organic community was the loss of the human naturalness, which can be seen in the building of industrial era. The rural life has been depicted as a kind of violence by inducing industries into its roots. So her concerns are very rightly similar to the Leavis and Thomson. C.K.Naik in his succinct Rural India in Transition: A Study of Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve writes that Markandaya similar to Lawrence is sensitive to ugliness of the environment because she has so flamboyant realization and experience of what is vanished to the village life. He elaborates that Markandaya has given voice to her feelings through her narrator Rukmani, who then wants to flee from ugly and hideous surrounding (1969). Niroj Banerji writes that her novels are as crystal clear as the water of hilly lake. There is, undoubtedly, a kind of classical lucidity and transparency about them. The novelist does not get lost in the meanderings of the Joyacean Ulysses; she rather emerges sure and successful with each successive fictional narrative. This speaks of the continual growth of her mind and art which alone can ensure her a permanent rank among the major fiction- writers of commonwealth literature( in Arora, 2006). Sudhir rightly observes that the wide corpus of her novels is full of feminine colours; socio-economic, socio-psychological, socio-political, socio-ecological and socio-religious. These colours encompass multifaceted themes like the subject matter of tragic waste and grief, of unfulfilled love, of East- West conflict, of psychological maladjustment and social dissolution. They expose her as novelist of sensitive and decent, ethical concerns. Markandayas magical power and senses take these colourssocio-economic (earth), socio-psychological (air), socio-political (fire), socio-ecological (sky), and socio-religious (water)to create her female protagonists and other female characters. Sudhar also observes that in Nectar in a Sieve, Markandaya has shown the soulbreaking appeal to the socio-economic (earth) colour. Natures antagonism, resentment and the building of industries is the humiliating and serious blow for rural people already living in the grave phobia of uncertainties. They are people just like parasites, depending wholly on nature. She also presents variety of replica of hunger before the readers and makes them feel of the hardships and afflictions of the villagers as an independent observer. Indira Ganson in 25

introduction to the novel Nectar in a Sieve mentions though South-Asian fiction is replete with child brides and wife burning. These stereotypes and realities seem to be attractive for the western readers, but Markandaya establishes her point on the issues of daily life. We come to know through this writing that it means to make a home, have children and have a propensity towards field; what happens when the home, children and field are lost (2010). Pravati Misra in a book Class Consciousness in the novels of Kamala Markandaya writes that her early inclination to write fiction coincides with her deep concerns about poverty and immorality, conflicts and hardships, aspirations and dream of the down- trodden class. Two of her early novels Nectar in a Sieve and A Handful of Rice contain symbolic sketches of the ravenous community, the oppressed working class which struggle to a great extent for bare continuation and subsistence both in the rural and the urban areas. He further explains that unlike Chinua Achebe, Woll Soyinka and Caribean writer V.S.Naipaul, who reflects a deep sense of aggravation and frustration at the scattered old order and at the defeat of conventional values, Markandaya shows her well-built confidence on the undaunted spirit of the Indian social order to keep going itself even through the worst of trials and tribulations. In the same way Uma Paraseswaran observes: it is painless to compress tears of sympathy for the dilemma of peasant, underfed, oppressed, uneducated and easier still to provoke anger and disgust for the illogical, superstitious and under progressive masses. They stand there defenseless; open to every attack, be it indifference, emasculating aid and donation or disdain. But to evoke esteem even envy, for the simple faith and steadfast stubbornness they need sympathy and skill which Kamala Markandaya shows in her works. As Nectar in a Sieve is a lucid and patent record of the afflicted life of villagers and their social customs and institutions like child marriages, widowhood, ignoring female child, slavery, landlessness, casteism, homelessness and illiteracy. Pravati Misra also tells us that the bleak picture of social disparity and unhealthy consequences of urbanization has been painted in Mulk Raj Anands Coolie (1936), Bhabani Bhattacharyas So Many Hungers (1947), and He Who Rides a Tiger (1954); Niroj Banerji comments in the same paper about Markandayas realistic study of rural pathetic figures, at best, she is a novelist from those sensitive individuals placed in certain strong situations and of their subsequent actions and reactions in the given social and cultural context ( in Misra P. 2001) .

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Markandaya seems to suggest by the resilient humanism of an individual like Rukmani, whose unrestrained faith looks certainly beyond all physical sufferings and partakes of that peace that surpasses all understanding. She remains a symbol of Indian pastoral poor peasant, who has been educated to believe in the virtue of simplicity, of living with the minimum of needs and desires throughout her life (Kumar, p. 206). On the other hand John Frederic Muehl in his article Indian Village- Intimate View argues that people at John Day Company have been awaiting for a book that would do for India what The Good Earth, a book by Pearl Buck has done for china. They wished for a book with a true and vivid picture of land, particularly agricultural land and its people, and eventually they found it in Kamala Markandayas book Nectar in a Sieve. This book has an excellent graphics of day-to- day life of Indian village and description of the inhabitants living in that village. Through this spacious review of literature I come to the fact that researches in this particular facet, which I have chosen are a few. Moreover, ecofeminism theoretical framework as an interdisciplinary approach has not been used widely. If someone from Indian origin has touched this issue, then postcolonial dimension is the point which has been debated with great interest. While other dominant themes like east- west conflict; another way of exploring post colonialism, the said novel as a poverty and hunger novel, or the novel as the novel of rural India are the surface issues that has been projected by a large number of writers. It has been discussed that villagers are suffering under so called modernity; particularly women are the sufferers in those villages, they have to bear great pains and hardships for their own and their familys survival. In this way the detailed features of their works and their connection/ relation with nature and land has not been remained the significant and decisive issue among most of the writers. Another important issue that I find missed by most of the writers is the study of land and environment. We cannot deny the importance of ecology for our better survival on this planet, but we are degenerating our land by a variety of processes. So to highlight this grave and momentous issue is also need of the time. In this way my selected work under planned theoretical framework is well suited for my research, as it is a novel issue in this field, particularly in Pakistan. So I hope to find my work respect worthy and worth suited for modern critical and research interests.

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CHAPTER 3

MATERIAL AND METHODS

This chapter describes:

3.1- Ecofeminism (as a theoretical framework) 3.1.1- Woman in nature (Shivas point of view) 3.2- Origin and evolution of ecofeminism 3.3- Intersections of ecofeminism and ecofeminists ideas 3.3.1- Alienation 3.1- Ecofeminism
In my thesis I put forward an Ecofeminists way of reading Nectar in a Sieve, this theory recognizes both the oppressed entities that are environment and the women as equally important and independent. Ecofeminism is the name given to a variety of positions that have roots in different feminist practices and philosophies. These different perspectives reflect not only different feminist approaches; they also reflect different understandings of nature and solution to burning environmental problems (Warren, K.1993). Professor Glynis Carr opines, ecofeminist vary from other environmentalists in their emphasis on the ways that nature has been envisioned as feminine, the equivalent and mutually reinforcing oppression of women and nature/ environment, and the ways that environmental troubles and issues specifically, effect women. Incongruous and conflicting arguments and stances went on to recognize the position of men and women in relation to nature and to give answer either it is man or woman in more close relation to nature. Critics like Prentice 1988 feel that women and mens gender behaviours are determined biologically and are infact more close to nature as a result of their reproductive capabilities. Janis Beckland writes that, I see Ecofeminism as feminism taken to its logical conclusion, because it theorizes the interrelations among self, societies and natures. Third world countries have incredible hardships for women, who are the major providers of food, fuel and water in developing countries. By documenting the poor quality of life for women, children, people in the third world, animals and the environment, ecofeminists are able to demonstrate that sexism, racism, classicism, speciesism and naturism ( the oppression of nature) are mutually reinforcing systems of oppression (Gaard,1989). As a combination of ecology or environmentalism and feminism, it suggests a unique mixture of 28

literary and philosophical perspectives that provides literary and cultural critics a particular lens to investigate the ways nature is represented in literature and linked with gender, race, class and sexuality (Legler, T. G. 1997). One perspective to recognize Ecofeminism is that, it is a value system, a social movement, and a practice, that explores the links between androcentric and environmental destruction. It is an awareness that begins with the realization that the exploitation of nature is linked to western mans attitude toward women and tribal cultures. There is hierarchical dualism in dominant patriarchal cultures, that reality is divided according to gender, and a higher value is placed on those attributes associated with masculinity. Women are seen closer to nature in these cultures (due to productivity). The result is the evolution of patriarchal consciousness and complex morality based on dominance and exploitation in conjunction with the devaluing of nature and feminine values. Ecofeminists believe that we cannot eradicate the exploitation of nature without ending human oppression. Ecofeminism is also taken as a holistic value system as social ecologists believe that the root cause of all oppression is hierarchy, Ecofeminists tend to believe that hierarchy takes place as a result of the self/other opposition (Gaard, G. Edi., 1989). A superb definition comes from Noel Sturgeons Ecofeminists Natures that Ecofeminism is a movement that makes connections between environmentalists and feminism; more precisely it articulates the theory that the ideologies that authorize injustices based on gender, race and class are related to the ideologies that sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment (Campbell, A. edi., 2008). Crystal Watts (2010) defines ecofeminism as a movement that applies feminist philosophy and viewpoints to ecological problems. It is a term that projects the incorporated connection between feminist and environmental perspectives. Further she writes it is an intellectual basis of feminism and ecology, which focuses on issues like peace, womens rights, ecological and environmental justice. She also quotes Desjardins (2006) point of view that Ecofeminists consider social factors, as cause of ecological crises. They believe that dreadful conditions and degradation of nature are the derivative of social behaviours and patterns that support life styles of human hierarchy and supremacy, and social justice is the primary focus for them. According to Desjardins (2006), societies are the invention of human creation and the patterns of its creation help to provide and support human ends. This kind of man made structure reinforces thoughts and lifestyle that 29

encourages oppression and degradation of both natural world as well as human beings. Ecofeminism seeks to recognize the interconnectedness and battle these injustices; as Greta Gaard also suggests, more than a theory about feminism and environmentalism, or women and nature as the name might imply, Ecofeminism approaches the problems of environmental degradation and social justice from the premise that how we treat nature and how we treat each other are inseparably linked.

3.1.1- Woman in Nature (Shivas point of View):

This chapter also discusses briefly Shivas point of view about the woman in nature in general. She writes that the world is produced and renewed by the dialectical play of creation and obliteration, cohesion and dissolution. The manifestation of this opposite power, energy is called nature. Nature both animate and inanimate is thus an expression of power, the feminine and creative principle of cosmos; in relation with the masculine principle nature creates the world. Nature is intrinsically active; a powerful productive force in the dialectic of creation, revitalization and nourishment of all life, while without this power the force of creation and devastation is as powerless as a corpse. Further, person and nature are a duality in unity. They are inseparable complements of one another, in nature, women and men. In Cartesian concept ( mind and body are not identical), dualism between man and nature has allowed the subjugation of nature by man and given rise to a new world view in which nature is inert and passive, uniform and mechanistic, separated and fragmented within itself, separate and inferior to man and to be dominated and exploited by man. The split within nature and between man and nature, and its associated alteration from a life force that sustains to an exploitable resource characterizes the Cartesian view which has displaced more ecological world views and created an advance prototype of man subjugating woman and nature creates maldevelopment, because it makes the colonizing male the mediator and model of development. Women, the third world and nature become underdeveloped first by definition, and then through colonization in reality (1989).

3.2- Origin and Evolution of Ecofeminism:

French feminist Francoise dEabonne coined the word ecofeminism for the first time in 1974 in her book Feminism or Death to refer to the movement by women urgently and direly 30

needed to save the planet earth. Almost every ecofeminists author referred the movement towards this origin. Other than the often cited work of dEabonne it is hard to pinpoint the movement where ecofeminism first emerged. But Reuthers New Woman/ New Earth (1975), Griffins Woman and Nature (1978), Mary Dalys Gyn/Ecology (1978), and Carolyn Merchants The Death of the Nature (1980) are often considered the first genuinely ecofeminists texts that analyze the woman/ Nature connection in wake of environmental crises. Whereas Plumwood writes that the term was first coined in 1975 by Rosemary Ruther, and by putting it into present-day context she asserts that ecological feminism is in essence a response to a set of key problems thrown up by the great social currents of the later part of century- feminism and the environmental movement ( in Sandiland, C.1999). On the other hand cultural ecofeminism was originated in 1970 claiming that women-nature connection was developed as an invigorating and empowering expression of womens abilities to take care of nature. This women nature relationship holds particular importance for cultural Ecofeminists, especially when people question; why only women talk about the safety of nature. because it is embedded in deep social and psychological structures, revivification of pre- patriarchal religions, mystic and spiritual practices that deem womens ways of knowing and reasoning better matched to solve environmental problems. In male chauvinistic societies women are thought close to nature while men close to culture. Nancy Hartsock argues that this dualism is related to power structures, a way of looking at the powerful, dominant, white, eurocentric ruling bodies, a world that fixes omnipotent center ( men) and marginalizes Others (women, nature) (Kaur, 2012). Feminist historian Gerda Lerner and archeomythologist Marija Gimbutas provided some of the foundations for pre- patriarchal cultures analysis. Gimbutas theories of Old Europe are based in her intricate and widely critiqued archeomythological reconstructions. Her theories advocate that giving value to life, sometimes matriarchal and seldom militaristic societies existed before Indo- Aryan invaders gradually destroyed these cultures. Lerners historical reconstructions focus on the shift from small Neolithic villages to cities with the supplementary rise of patriarchal cultural systems. Both these theorist speculate, that in prepatriarchal Mediterranean world religious cultures with fertility goddesses and other natural symbols figured significantly. It was a time when cooperation not competition was given value. During that time period deities were worshipped and women were regarded central 31

figures in those societies. Gradually, patriarchal, militaristic sky gods replaced earth goddesses and gods. The mother goddess, whose body often constituted the earth, became the intention and target of the influential and potent sky gods. The prototype of male deities killing female or animal deities in an effort to establish a patriarchal order and to control forces understood to be chaotic and confused which repeats itself consistently. Dramatic expansion of ecofeminism in academic circles grew during 1980s and 1990s with the influencing works of Griffin, Daly, Ruether, Merchant and others. Activists movements sometimes having connection with academic file, but often outside of it, also increased in 1980s. Further, Gerda Lerner observes that while men conquered territory and built institutions which managed and disseminated power, women transmitted culture to the young and built the social network and infra-structures that provide stability and continuity in community (in Myles, A. 2006). It is also said that Ecofeminism has evolved from various branches of feminist inquiry and activism. Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism and socialism, Ecofeminists basic premise is that the ideology which gives authority to oppressions is of the same agents, as do not consider and give importance to nature. Ecofeminism describes the framework that authorizes these forms of oppression as patriarchy; an ideology whos fundamental self/other distinction is based on a sense of self that is separate, atomistic(Gaard.G. Edi. 1989). Michael Zimmerman argues that during the past decade Ecofeminism has become increasingly sophisticated and self critical. I couldnt agree more: in the realm of theory alone, but it has taken diverse strands from feminist spirituality, social ecology, transpersonal psychology, Foucauldian genealogical criticism, anti racist pedagogy, postcolonial literary criticism, and gay and lesbian history and have woven from them a vigorous and genuinely interdisciplinary tapestry of ideas and debates (Sandiland,1999). Karen Warren an Ecofeminists critic describes eight boundary conditions of feminist ethic. These conditions include coherence within a given historical and conceptual framework, an effort of feminism to stop all systems of oppression, a pluralistic structure, an inclusive contextual framework that emphasizes humans in relationship and provides a guide to action. Ecofeminists theorist and activists have met in world womens congress for a healthy planet that took pl ace on November nine to twelve in 1991. In Miami, Florida a thousand women from all over the world gathered to create a womens action agenda for presentation at the 1992 United 32

Nations conference on Environment and development. The dominant, hot and favorite topics of discussion were population, global economics, third world debt, environmental destruction, world hunger, reproductive choice, homelessness and political strategies for creating global change (Gaard, G. 1989). Other movements all over the world that are dedicated to the prolongation of life on earth, like the Chipko movement in India, movement against discarding dangerous and hazardous wastes in the US, Green Belt movement of Kenya and Anti- militarist movement in Europe and America are all labelled as movements in the wake of ecofeminism. These movements, it is noted that, are attempt to display the resistance politics of women working at small levels of power and points of connection between nature and women (Rao, M. 2012).

3.3- Intersections of Ecofeminism and Ecofeminists ideas:

We come to know by a variety of readings that theory intersects with Post colonialism and Marxism or socialist/ materialist Ecofeminism. When we talk about postcolonial Ecofeminism, we understand that it is a concept in circulation for some time but still at a burgeoning stage; we have need to recognize the double tie of being women and being colonized. A postcolonial Ecofeminists standpoint brings together the postcolonial ecocriticism and Ecofeminism into one analytical stream, and there it is necessary to understand the exploitation of nature, and the victimization of women bound with the conception of caste, class, race, colonialism and neocolonialism. In this way it also intersects with Marxism, when women are exploited and doubly marginalized due to low class, and being female. So in ecofeminism there is intersection of postcolonial, marxist and environmental matters (Kaur, 2012). Shiva, an Indian environmentalist and postcolonial critic and activist elaborates further the women nature relationship, as women are an intimate part of nature both in imagination and in practice. At one level it is depicted as the feminine to produce life and provide nourishment. Moreover, women produce and reproduce life not merely biographically but also through their social role in providing sustenance, and that violation of nature is linked with the violation and marginalization of women, especially in the Third World. She describes historical and colonial fact that all ecological societies and peasant embody the feminine principle. When these societies have been colonized and broken up, the men have usually started to participate in life destroying or migration activities; the women 33

meanwhile usually continue to be linked to life and nature through their roles as providers to survive. These women have a privileged admittance to the production principle on the basis of cultural and historical facts. Women of the third world have been dispossessed of their base for sustenance, but not of their minds, and in their uncolonised minds are conserved the oppositional categories that make the sustenance of life possible. For all women embedded in nature, producing life with nature, are therefore considering about and taking the initiative in the recovery of nature and the new insight provided by rural women in South- Asia and in other third world is that women and nature are associated not in passivity but in creativity and in the maintenance of life (1989). Even she also gives disturbing and pathetic

explanations to describe the current situation of earth, as the earth is rapidly dying, her forests are dying, her water is dying and her air is dying (1989). According to Shiva, colonialism is a steady and necessary condition for capitalists, for the generation of surplus thus involved the reproduction not only of the particular form of creation of wealth, but also of the associated creation of poverty and dispossession. Development was not possible without the process of colonization; it became an extension of the project of wealth creation in modern western patriarchys economic vision, based on the mistreatment and omission of women (of west and east), on exploitation and degradation of nature and abuse and erosion of other cultures. She argues that this kind of development can cause demolition for women, nature and subjugated or dominated cultures. Thats why third world women, peasants and tribes are struggling for liberation from such, so called, development in the same way as they earlier struggled for emancipation from colonization. Moreover, she writes that project of modern science are supported by western patriarchy as well as by their socio-political economic systems, and dominates and exploits nature, women and the poor (1989). Further Maria Mies describes women, nature relationship as reciprocal, productive as both cooperate with their bodies to let grow and to make grow. She concludes that while the patriarchal paradigm has made the man hunter an exemplar of human productivity, he is basically a parasite- not a producer. With the exchange of categories, made possible by focusing on the production of life, the masculinisation of the feminine (one of the gender based response to the process of domination) is no longer a viable option for emancipation (1989). 34

Rosemary Radford Ruether a mystic Ecofeminists advocates in her book New Woman/New Earth that feminist vision of a new society of social justice must have reckon with the ecological crises. She argues that both the human destruction of nature and womens oppression are perpetuated and legitimized by a hierarchical social structure that allows one group to dominate another. Reuther argues that this hierarchical social structure is rooted in dualistic ideology which she termed as transcendental dualism, which stresses separation, polarization and detachment between sexes, classes, human and non human beings, and in this binary opposition the subjugation of inferior is considered legitimate social arrangement. Woman as mother is a central issue in her demystification of transcendent dualism (Gaard, G. Edi. 1993). While same critic in another book provides gender analysis in ecological thought with an interesting nod, that since women in western culture have been traditionally identified with nature, and nature in turn has been seen as an object of domination by males, it would seem almost a truism that the mentality that considered the natural environment as an object of domination of women, sexism and ecological destructiveness are related in the symbolic patterns of the patriarchal mindset and they take intensive socio-economic form in modern industrial society . She saw naturalness as an ideology historically imposed on women and environmental degradation as justified by patriarchy. While Griffin pointed out in favour of land, that the earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring and how loved I am, to find liberation from patriarchy and ecological devastation. She advises women to listen their sister (Sandilands, C. 1999). Another observation is put forwarded by Plumwood in a review essay on Ecofeminists themes that the problem for both women and nature is their place as dualistic, which have their origins in classical philosophy and which can be traced through a multifarious history to the present. The focus of these founding works is the historical polarization of humanity from nature, men from women, mind from body, and reason from emotion in the philosophical and religious development of ideals of transcendent humanity. As Reuther writes in this analytic stream, all the basic dualities- the alienation of the mind from the body; the alienation of the self from the objective world, the subjective retreat of the individual, alienated from the social community; the domination or rejection of nature by spirit- all these have its roots in classical Christianity ( in Sandilands, 1999).

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Human exploitation of nature is not only based on the ideology of male domination, Huey- Lily comprehensively enunciates, but also have a profound impacts of gender on environmental problems, because mens traits like aggression, competitiveness and militarism are related to the ecological destruction while womens traits like nurturing, caring and compassion are associated with the ecological receptivity. In the same book Vinda Lance aroused contempt against ecofeminism by saying that, didnt they recognize their own oppression realized that environmental degradation has proceeded to a point where everyone is threatened regardless of race, class or gender and became involved with environmental struggles. He discovered that environmental action is hopelessly male-oriented with an emphasis on rights and obligations. While defining ecofeminism he explains it essentially a conceptual framework that can suggest a number of courses of action. Its other aspect is analytic methodology. To be an ecofeminist means to be constantly aware of relationshipsbetween humans and non humans and their pattern of domination. For him the fourth element of ecofeminism is a process that respects difference and encourages discussion and that embraces a range of praxis. Diversity of experience and expression, like assortment of life forms is a necessary goal of ecofeminism. In this way an ecofeminists future requires us to be visionary and be patient at the same time (Sandilands, C. 1999). Patrick Murphy expands on his theory that Bakhtinian dialogics can allow for uniting of multiple concerns: A triad of perceptions has appeared, which, if integrated, can lead toward an affirmative praxis: the Bakhtinian dialogical method, ecology, and feminism. He argues that feminism and environmentalism have been separated far too long, as have the concept of theory and practice. Ecofeminism as a theoretical framework necessarily leads to action. The dialogic method leads to active contactdialogue between groups and concepts that suffer due to artificial separation. Murphy bemoans the tension between Marxists and feminists who argue over, whether issues of class or gender should receive more attention. Philosophical linearity has kept the two groups of theorist apart, Murphy writes, and the struggle to end both patriarchy and capitalism needs to be placed in an even larger context: the relationship of humanity with nature. Gretchen Legler echoes many of Murphys concerns. For example, in her succinct Ecofeminists Literary Criticism Legler defines Ecofeminism as a hybrid criticism that mixes environmental and gender concerns for a very specific reason. She asserts that the abuse of land continues because Earth has been 36

conceived as feminine. Like Murphy, construction of

and other ecofeminist critics she argues that

nature as female is essential to the maintenance of this harmful

environmental ethic and is essential to the maintenance of hierarchical ways of thinking that justify the oppression of various others in patriarchal culture by ranking them closer to nature or by declaring their practices as natural or unnatural. Ecofeminists suggest that the reimagining what nature is and what kind of relationship can exist between humans and nonhuman world is part of the elimination of institutionalized oppression on the basis of gender, class, race and sexual preferences and part of what may aid in changing abusive environmental practices (Legler, T.G. 1997). Marti Kheel elaborates, if the images of women and nature under patriarchal society have facilitated the exploitation and abuse of both, then new ways of perceiving the world must be sought. The natural world will be saved not by the sword of ethical theory, but rather through a transformed consciousness toward all of life. Nature which has been imaged as female has been depicted as the other the raw material out of which culture and masculine self -identity are formed. In this way, there is need to transform consciousness of the patriarchal society (1989). Carolyn Merchant a socialist Ecofeminist has presented a detailed history of western social practices around nature and described a transition from organic to

inorganic/mechanical one. Where once mother Earth was a source of fright and venerationshe insisted that the earth was considered female and this gendering worked to the advantage of women before the scientific revolution. Further she argues that in an earlier JudeoChristian doctrine, there already existed domination over nature and women, but the emergence of scientific rationality was the final twist that released the full destructive potential of western patriarchal culture. The development of modern science allowed that the already existing Judeo- Christian desire to recover mans lost domination over the universe, materialized specially over nature (Merchant, 1980). She also puts forward a fundamental question in socialist/ materialist ecofeminism, what is at stake for women and nature when production in traditional societies is disrupted by colonial and capitalist development? Now the potential of socialist/materialist ecofeminism when combined with post colonialism comes to the front to offer a more thorough critique of the matters like gender, class, domination, race and so on. Such questions can easily be 37

answered by uniting these theories into one (Kaur, 2012). It is necessary to remember that she is the second one after Karen J. Warren to unite three theories for a comprehensive analysis of a text under the lense of this interdisciplinary approach. In the context of growing capitalist economic and social relations, Merchant wrote, this Death of nature was devastating for the natural world: because nature was viewed as a system of dead, inert particles moved by external rather than inherent forces, the mechanical framework itself could legitimate the exploitation of nature. Moreover, as a conceptual framework, the mechanical order had associated with it a system of values based on power, fully compatible with the directions taken by commercial capitalism (Sandilands, 1999). Merchant maintains a deep-seated logic that all women do or can share an ecofeminist standpoint, this standpoint is relatively transparent in the daily practices of women especially those marginalized from the history of patriarchal capitalist social relations and that exposure rather than construction is essential for inherently ecologically sound consciousness of at least some women. Even if white women are doing some work to achieve Ecofeminists identity, the southern women are engaged in that form of the voice from which a nonalienated nature already speaks. Merchant writes: women in the Third World are working to maintain their own life support systems through forest and waste conservation, to rebuild soil productiveness, and to preserve ecological diversity. In doing so, they are assuming leadership in their own communities and they are slowly achieving the goals of Ecofeminism- the emancipation of women and nature. Bill Mckibben, an American environmental journalist suggests in his re- issued book Death of Nature, that hurricane, thunderstorms and tornados become not acts of God but acts of men (2006). For him the end of nature is synonymous with scientific methodologies for manipulating nature, with deliberate choices to bring about lasting changes as it happen in genetic makeup through the process of biotechnology. Graham calls it misplaced technocratic optimism (2002), which is again the subject matter of Carolyne Merchant, whose influential study The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and Scientific Revolution (1980) describes the pre modern images of the earth as a precariously balanced living organism to a modern mechanical order in which earth is considered exploitable due to its resources. She mentions, scientific revolution was one cause of the death of nature; the rise of industrial capitalism was another, and the third was colonial expansion, similar to capitalism by the ideologies of possession, global 38

management of material assets, and the economically motivated conversion of human labour into natural resource. Within many cultures, anthropocentrism has long been naturalized, Val Plumwood argues. The absolute prioritization of ones own species interest over those of the silenced majority is still regarded as being only natural. She further claims that ironically animals and the environment are often excluded from the privileged ranks of the human, considering them available for exploitation, as Cary Wolf explains by citing Derrida: The humanist concept of subjectivity is inseparable from the discourse and institution of speciesism which relies on the unstated acceptance and the full transcendence to the human by sacrificing the animals or animalistic. It makes possible a symbolic economy in which we can engage in a non criminal putting to death, as Derrida puts it, not only of animals but of humans as well by marking them as animal. In this way Post colonial/ Ecocritical alliance brings out, the changing relationship between people, animals and environment- one that requires attention in turn, to the cultural politics of representation as well as to those more specific processes of meditation that can be recuperated for anti-colonial critique (in Huggan, G. & Tiffin, H. 2010). Now a days, problems are being complex by the wide spread perception that modernity is post natural in the dialectical sense of losing human connection to the natural environment. One dimension of this dilemma is that presented by Horkheimer and Adorno, whose work traces the historical process- consolidated by modernity by which after nature, the mimetic relationship to nature that characterizes what they call the pre- civilized period after nature, the rational assertion of human beings over and against nature, in what they call historical phase. Adorno can be called ecological thinker, when he shows how the progress of rationality turns into opposite, which suggests that the technologies developed and endorsed by modernity have the power to emancipate, but also to eliminate the world. Horkheimer and Adornos historical phase can also be looked at through the end or death of nature thesis, which is generally embedded in terms of the pre dominance of a new, mechanical order over an earlier, organic one, although- as Horkheimer and Adorno- these two orders are by no means mutually exclusive, and any understanding of modernity must take account of the ways in which they are deliberately entangled (Huggan, G. & Tiffin, H. 2010).

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Michael Zimmerman again argues, during the past decade that ecofeminism has become increasingly sophisticated and self critical. It is not the theory alone, but it has diverse strands from feminist spirituality, social ecology, transpersonal psychology, Foucauldian genealogical criticism, Heideggarian philosophy, anti racist pedagogy, postcolonial literary criticism, and gay and lesbian history and has woven from them an effervescent and genuinely inter-disciplinary tapestry of ideas and debates. (Sandiland, C.1999). Vandana Shivas Staying Alive represented an important moment in the unfolding of Ecofeminists analysis in a response, to include considerations of racism and colonialism. She argued that development was a project of western patriarchy. She relied heavily on earliest Ecofeminists analysis of dualism and difference but at the same time added a significant analysis or development as one of the logics of patriarchy unaddressed by earlier ecofeminists. Shiva, the third world, Indian activist and environmentalist maintained that not only could the oppressions of women and nature be linked to oppressive dualistic constructions of the other, but so too could racism and colonialism. The development was in fact mal (e) development, the domination of feminine principle by the masculine. All problems of oppression, including the physical demolition of the earth apparent in most development projects, could be traced to capitalist embedded dualism, women, as the sustainers of life- mostly in countries of the south- needed to be empowered to give value to feminine principle against the overvalued patriarchal consciousness of the technological development and economic growth (Sandiland, C. 1999). Characterization of the standpoint is another exemplary logic in Shivas work to understand the experiences of women and nature and to locate resistance to the root patriarchal problem as space marginal to patriarchal practices. Rather than considering the feminist ecological standpoint an achievement of political intervention, Shivas analysis held that such a standpoint could be accessed quite directly in a daily lives and ecological knowledge of women most marginalized and subjugated by patriarchal domination (1989). Within Shivas point of view, another important point is the dichotomy of culture/ nature and the involvement of man with culture and woman with nature have been manifested since the early stages of western thought. This point of view was highlighted by Sudan J. Hakman. According to her, Susan J. Hakman highlighted that the dichotomy of culture/nature and the involvement of man with culture and woman with nature have been manifested since the 40

early stages of western thought. According to her, this association is not an isolated phenomenon, but closely related the detection of woman as emotional and silly and therefore barred from the territory of knowledge in general and from the territory of science in particular (1990). Although nature, in the western convention has been described feminine, her characterizations have changed along history and more dramatically with the birth of science. Before the enlightenment, nature was feared as a wild, puzzling spirit of temptress but also well-regarded as a nurturing mother; it was conceptualized as alive and female, associate with women. This two sided image generated opposing attitude of respect which constrained her abusive exploitation, and on the other hand, the image of nature as a wild force cultivated a social desire to tame her unrestrained behavior, to control her power (Hekman, 1990). Similarly, when the master/ slave and self/ other dualism is applied to colonizer/ colonized, the other in this dualism is inferior. The impact of such dualistic thinking where hierarchies are set up between supremacy and compliance, the inferiorised group must internalize this inferiorization in its identity and conspire in this low valuation, exalting the values of the center, which form the leading social values. In this way the categories of colonizer, culture, men claim to be reasoned, humane and rational, while nature, women and colonised become heir to the qualities like primitivism, emotional and uncivilized (animal). This dualism is directly associated with western philosophy of epistemology and ontology, where women are regarded ontological or life producing beings; they have the ability to understand the chemistry of land on organic basis and thus they are considered best candidate to take a stance in favor of nature/ environment/ earth. Moreover, ecofeminism oppose to divide culture into two dualistic arenas (Kaur, 2012). Environmental destruction due to the agents of capitalistic patriarchy is another important issue within ecofeminism. This dimension is explored by Bina Agarwal and Ariel Salleh; they have put forwarded their point of views about environmental destruction due to capitalist patriarchy. Agarwal, like socialist/ materialist Ecofeminists views that women suffer due to capitalist empowerment; not only due to natural relation with the environment but they have such a position in a society as is the most affected by environmental decline also and resultantly they are the most interested entities in resisting against environmental exploitation. Salleh writes that on international scale women undertaking 65 percent of the 41

worlds works for only 5 percent of its pay effectively are the proletariat. With this statistical ratio she brings eco-socialism and historical materialism together and stresses that since the women are interested in tough existing productivist structures as a global majority, women as financially viable underclass are shockingly well placed to bring about the social changes needed for ecological and environmental revolution (Kaur, 2012). Robert Session and Dorceta Tailer brought class observation to Ecofeminism by means of an economic critique of society. According to Sessions judgment when we are given a choice between saving jobs or saving environments, we at once talk about our jobs; she mentions this phenomena in his book Ecofeminism and Work: From within the system, we tend to think of economic values such as cost and benefits, profits and efficiencies, instead of environmental values such as biodiversity, ecosystem health, homeostasis or the inherent merit of natural beings. While Dorceta adds the factor of race to Sessions important discussion of class in her book Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism. She points out that environmentalism has traditionally excluded women of color, which is somewhat ironic since damage to the earth is often most atrocious in minority neighborhoods. Taylor praises the Environmental Justice Movement, the latest stage of development of environmentalism, for incorporating a push for justice in Terms of Earth as well as race, class and gender. Taylor criticizes the field of ecofeminism for not doing as well as well as the Environmental Justice movement in capturing the complexity of the concerns of women of color. She further revealed through tireless research of justice

movement that pollution affects the health of the women and children inexplicably. The movement broke new ground when they began arguing that the capitalist manipulation of resources was connected to the degradation of nature and women (Session, R. & Taylor, D. in Warren). Ynesta King, one of the founders of U.S ecofeminism suggests that life on earth is an interconnected and consistent web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hierarchy; human hierarchy is projected on to nature and then used to justify social supremacy. Ecofeminists theory seeks to show the connections between all forms of domination and reject all hierarchies, including the natures suppression. Their practice is anti-hierarchical (Lori, 1993). The same ecofeminist has called it the third wave of the womens movement demonstrating her sense, at one time, that this most recent manifestation of feminist activity 42

was large and vital enough to make it equal to the first-wave nineteenth century womens movement and the second wave womens liberation movement of 1960 and 1970s. On the other hand, Vance elaborates her inner self about nature, I live in a town in New England, but the forest is my home, because it provides the continuity in my life, the place I return to, humbly, time and again. But as I view the wild places of my life that way, I am no different from generations of humans, environmental despoilers and environmentalist alike, who see the non human world in terms of its value or use for them. I may love it and honor it, but I slip constantly into the prevailing western view of the forest, and nature, as separate, other, a place to go to. I hardly take it as a metaphor of property and custody. The forest may be home (Gaard, G. Edi. 1993). Following the lead of first wave feminists and later theorist such as Simon de Beauvoir, 1970s radical feminist analyses focused on womens differences from men. This focus was born in part from dissatisfaction with the ability of the other progressive movements. As exemplified from the text of Red Stocking Manifesto; women are an oppressed class; our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants and cheap labor--- we identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All other forms of coercion and exploitation are extensions of male supremacy (in Sandilands, C. 1999). She also highlights that man seeks in woman the other as nature and as his fellow being. But we know what ambivalent feelings Nature inspires in man. He exploits her, but she crushes him, he is born of her and dies in her; she is the source of his being and the realm that he subjugated to his will; Nature is a vein of gross material in which the soul is imprisoned, and she is the supreme reality; she is contingence and idea, the finite and the whole, She is what opposes the spirit, and the spirit itself. Woman sums up nature as mother, wife and idea; these forms now mingle and now conflict and each of them wears a double visage (in Cuomo, J.C. 2001). Ecofeminists see both women and nature as inherently feminine and therefore oppressed and exploited by masculine or phallocratic regimes of meaning and power. These Ecofeminists have a tendency to response masculinity by upholding femininity as the 43

superior mode of being. Further ecofeminism offers necessary criticism not only of systems of masculines domination and oppression but also of nonfeminist environmentalism, that take no accounts if the implications and cross pollination of reciprocal relationship is the social and environmental. Ecofeminists philosophies and social movements aim to take these connections seriously (Cuomo, 1998). Further Ecofeminists do not prefer a single vector of analysis and make other axes of change into secondary effects, as Marxism privileges economic forces of production, and radical feminism privileges gender relations, thus an Ecofeminists perspective draws from social and ecological contexts in an effort to develop open and evolving, rather than over and done with explanations (Lahar, S. 1993). Karen Warren describes eight boundary conditions of feminist ethic. These conditions include lucidity within a given conceptual and historical framework, an effort of feminism to stop all systems of oppression, a pluralistic structure, an inclusive contextual framework that emphasizes humans in relationship and provide a guide to action (Gaard, G. Edi. 1999). We are needed to examine the oppression of the natural world and of the women by dominant patriarchal power practices together or neither can be discussed entirely. Reuther describes in New Women/ New Earth that women must understand that there is no liberation for them and no solution to the environmental downfall within a society whose preliminary model of relationships are power, domination and supremacy. They should unite womens movement with that of environmental stir for the basic reshaping of socio- economic relations and the fundamental values of this modern industrial society (Hogbood- Oster). We can note that writers are coming towards giving a potent voice to women and nature to speak individually, as Markandaya gives voice to Rukmani and nature to speak itself, while these voices have been remained missing frequently in English especially in South Asian literature. Deep reading highlights and makes aware to the reader that their (women and nature) voices are pressed under labor; this pressure and absence of voice became the subject matter for ecofeminists readers and writers.

3.3.1- Alienation:
Alienation is the process by which worker is alienated from his/her natural work, from the community in which s/he lives and even from himself/herself. It is the practice, commonly of 44

the capitalist or bourgeois class to act as masters of the lower/worker community, to rule them as their subordinates and to let them work according to their own desires and needs by neglecting their natural capabilities. Socialist feminists have observed that human experiences are shaped according to race, class, gender and sexuality, without this it is neither accurate nor theoretically helpful to refer to them. From an ecofeminist perspective the human alienation from nature may be experienced in one way or the other by those who have created, chosen, perpetuated or in some manner continue to benefit from the alienation and in quite a different way by those whose alienation from nature is not a chosen condition but a matter of force. Not a chosen condition but a matter of force is critical point in this term alienation. About westerns alienation, ecofeminists as Susan Griffin, Raine Eisler, and Australian Val Plumwood have made the argument that westerns alienation from nature is the product of a certain ideological shift made by elite class of people. In Woman and Nature, Susan describes the way that men in authority decided that women were closer to the material world (productive) of nature and those men were closer to the ideal world of spirit. Hence, the identity if men was based on difference and on the separation from nature and women. While discussing alienation from nature, Raine Eisler in The Chalice and The blade argues that western cultures alienation from nature dates back towards Christianity and Greeks, and is a part of dominator model, a model in which male dominant religions replaced earth based goddess spiritualities, and that the idea of human separateness was forced on the whole cultures. While, Plumwoods critiques in what she calls the master model identity which is deep in Western Cultures alienation from nature. The master model identity is not only masculine identity, according to her, unlike most cultural ecofeminists, rather it is a complex cultural identity formed in the context of class, race, species and gender domination. She also mentions the domination of sexually diverse others. This master identity creates and depends upon a dualised structure of otherness and negation with key elements of dichotomized pairs as mentioned earlier (Gaard, G. 1997). Hence, human alienation from nature, according to these theorists is the product of western culture, where human identity is found out with the help of dichotomized pairs. It 45

reveals that identity is neither static nor unitary. Only the devalued other is alienated from the nature, which in itself is devalued. The same process of alienation has been travelled to South-Asian particularly, to rural societies where women (working class) and nature is considered equal and same due to their nurturing and reproductive qualities. We can say that ecofeminism highlights hierarchical dualism, self/other opposition, environmental destruction, social injustices, feminine principles exploited by masculine regimes, considerations of racism and colonialism, disparaging potential by emerging scientific rationality and opposing attitudes towards nature and environment and let the women do work for the emancipation of both entities; environment and women. It is important to mention that ecofeminists want to give women and nature their personal identities without any discrimination, and that their emphasis is not to call them equal to men. In short ecofeminist reading of fiction enables us to understand that women and nature both exist in literature, regardless of their apparent absence. This reading also enables us to recognize that both these entities are autonomous, and in the last it also points out that where in the text women and ecosystem are oppressed and victimized and fight back for their independence. My next chapter will describe in detail that how there is subtle established relationship between women and nature, which remains the same even when nature is unkind to men and how all these pinpoints are prevalent in the text. I shall seek help from this intersectional and interdisciplinary theory of Ecofeminism to analyse this piece of work and to meet comprehensive and fine conclusion.

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CHAPTER 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1- ECOFEMINIST CRITIQUE OF NECTAR IN A SIEVE
This chapter answers my first research question by in-depth analysis of the text under the guidance and directions of Ecofeminists theory. Rukmani, a poor rural woman, the central character and narrator of the novel, describes her story of hard life, and shows her bravery inspite of all heavy odds put on her by cruel society and nature. This protagonist develops her bond with nature from the very beginning of the novel. This association with nature seems stronger after her marriage with Nathan, a poor tenant farmer. Her strong ties with nature seem to be superb, brilliant and thought provoking. The text explains Vandana Shivas perspective that how the development is actually mal (e) development and a cause of environmental demolition and threat of livelihoods for the poor peasants. Shivas other aspect that peasants, including women and men, are regarded feminine infact; historically and colonially, is also under consideration in this text. The novel also depicts Rosemary Radford Ruethers argument that humans destruction of nature and womens degradation are perpetuated and legitimized by a social structure based on hierarchy (in the form of western thought of Industrialists) that allows one group to rule another and many other theorists point of views. It seems due to Rukmanis close tie with nature, that her day to day activities and duties are environmentally driven. A normal person cannot even think about these natural objects which this young protagonist mentions, when her husband has gone and she is a widow. Sometimes at night I think my husband is with me again coming gently through mists, and we tranquil together (Markandaya. 2010, p. 01). The single word mist in this reference is a complete depiction of late summer season (autumn), when nights are drenched, when often rain falls and the meadows and pastures are full of dew drops. This atmosphere is so amusing and pleasant for the protagonist that it romanticizes her, and she feels peace and serenity in this climate when she does find herself with her husband; as dew nights are naturally considered to be calm. Her choice of weather does not seem poor, inspite of her being peasant, whereas this is the season when there is not much greenery in the fields and on the trees, but she is blissful and contented. Her connection

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with nature is surely marvelous and a matter of positive reception. The protagonist from the night scene goes towards break of day, Then morning comes the wavering grey turns to gold (p.02). The arrival of dawn and the shining of the sky give the beautiful golden colour to all the objects present in this world. This description presents Rukmanis deep and intensive love for nature, which grows ever and never comes down. The scenery of dawn is beautiful, which most of the people enjoy by waking with the arrival of it, but her practice to see things with the colour of dawn aware us that she has more inclination towards nature, not only to observe and enjoy it, but also to give it worth by telling its affirmative aspects, reimbursement and benefits to the reader. Rukmani again tells, Sleepers awake and he softly departs (p.03). The short clause makes obvious the verity that these people go to sleep with the memory of nature (the coming of moon and stars), and awake with the same memory of arriving the natural object (that is sun, the dawn). In this way their sleeping and awakening is unswervingly connected with nature. They praise these objects of nature and consider them blessing and a source of peace and tranquility for themselves. Not only they, but their own children and the children of whole community come out with morning sunshine. This sunshine is a kind of new hope and optimism for these village residents. They start their work with keenness and gusto to find better opportunities for their survival. There is an optimism to find better fields and overgrown vegetables and grains for their own, their family and for other communitys survival. It is not wrong to say that Kamala Markandaya develops her point in the favour of rural woman, who has been married as a young girl, does all the household work and also does some work in the field, where her way of connecting rural woman with nature leads us towards ecofeminism (womens connection with nature). My point to mention this connection is not that womens working at houses and in the fields is the mark of degradation, but I suggest that work never degrades a human being; it provides dignity and self esteem to the worker. My point of departure lies within earth, nature and environment when they are not given any rate in our societies; our land is abused and degraded, eroded by waste and chemicals, destroyed by the so called fertilizers, without considering the fact that it provides us nurturance, the product of our survival in the form of grain and vegetables, in the form of oxygen, and above all a place to live in. In the same way 48

women are not given certain respect, they are abused and not valued inspite of their hard struggle for the survival of their family and for the pleasure of their husbands. All their efforts are meaningless and they are exploited and degraded as the entities of second rank, particularly in male dominated, feudal and tribal societies, that are very common practice in South- Asian region. This evil of abusing both the striking and prolific beings (women and nature) is not tolerable by many activists, ecologists and environmentalists; that has been discussed in the previous chapter, and they come out to produce literature and to raise their voices to grant respect to both. While going to her husbands house, she the devotee of nature gives a stunning account of her minute observation. The air was full of the sounds of bells, and of birds, sparrows and bulbuls mainly (p.04). It seems that even before marriage she has deep concerns with surrounding environment. She starts her journey in a bullock cart and reaches a mud house, and says in a pretty manner, It suits me quite well to live here.(p-06). It seems her compromise with her fate as well as her love for nature that after leaving a splendorous house she is ready to reside in a mud house quite contentedly and gleefully. But I argue here that her love for nature does not mean that she is equal to nature, but we must consider these entities, nature and women as two independent and different things. This protagonist also wants the same; she by developing her link with nature wants to give nature an independent and valuable place, and to establish the fact that ecofeminisms preliminary premise is to consider them two different and independent things. Another central point to ponder upon is that not only women but men also have strong ties with nature; both they have equal concerns and expectations from nature. It is also significant to note Vandana Shivas point about historical and colonial reality that all ecological (biological, green) societies and peasant exemplify feminine principle. So, this peasant family, even men are regarded as feminine in this text, and ironically, their place of appreciation is the same as that of women. This activist and environmentalist elaborates that when the societies were colonized the men frequently started to play a part in life destroying, resettlement, or migration activities, while women started to develop their ties with nature through their

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dominant roles as providers for survival of a family. Hence, we must understand that nature, environment and women are active rather than passive agents for the maintenance of life. Peasant familys brilliant description of strong ties with nature is vivid here, when she sees the blue sky, gentle and tender trees and a brook that ran near the paddy field. Rukmani mentions that brook belongs to the part of my life, but that days of my life have passed. It was a suitable place of washing for me, when I was a new bride. I found it after an hours walking; there was not only ample water but a sandy beach also. She calls, Water was dear but not swift running. (p. 07). She came to that water to wash bundles of clothes. Not only she washes, but when she has finished with the washing, she carries them towards sandy beach and spread them on the grassy lawn near the bank of the brook. Just imagine, grassy lawn and the bank of the brook are beautiful sights, and wonderful objects of nature, where people wish to go and enjoy their evenings. But these people, whom we consider pitiable peasant creature, using all the natural beauty and resources for the accomplishment of their work, I think, are far better than those who neglect these resources. Most probably, sun, the hot object of nature is the prime resource of heat that we can use for the execution of our tasks, but we are chasing mechanical resources in this modern life and are putting behind the use of natural objects. Poor peasants strapping correlation with nature must not be regarded to devalue them or to exploit them; but we should appreciate them for their elongated and entire days work in the company of nature. It is quite right to say that we have replaced our natural ways of requirement with the modern day mechanics that is considered the variety of development and modernization in our societys false perception; the same point has been developed by environmental activist Vandana Shiva, when she calls this development, a mal (e) development. We come to know in the text that not only Rukmani, but other village women are also prone towards nature. It can be taken as their own love or their compromise with the village life, but apparently they are happy with this relation. They are also going towards same brook carrying bundles of cloths on their heads. They love the brook and sandy beach; not only to wash clothes but to enjoy also. They feel tranquility and gratification in the camaraderie of these natural sceneries. They seem not only enjoying these natural beauty but they take great care to avoid the environment get polluted. Perhaps they are born for the safety of mother earth. They are the creature truly contributing for the care of nature and environment. By 50

doing hard struggle they try to establish their worth in their own families and outside the family (in patriarchal society), by doing all household duties even in the great trouble, but facing all the hardships for their family and for the safety of nature. They can use chemicals to facilitate themselves, but they dont use because they respect earth, environment and objects of nature, more than men do. Nathan, poor tenant farmers love for nature is also at the surface when one of the many women tell to Rukmani that, Nathan built your hut with his own hands (p. 08). The whole process from the very beginning of the building of hut seems to be very natural and it also shows Nathans deep tie with nature; making bricks from the mud and to get them dry in the sunlight, making walls, and the roof of the natural bits and pieces to get ready a dwelling place for his wife, all it shows his concerns for nature. These people having great care for nature fulfill their needs from natural resources with the help of hard personal labour and spending least. In this way natural ways, instead of mechanical ways are the ways of development and of progress for them. Rukmani seems to be contented and at ease with having the little; she has seen the changing days of her father, perhaps that is why she says, While the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautiful to the eye, and your husband sees beauty in you (p.08). In beautiful rhythm of her narration she links the beauty of nature with that of her own beauty that her husband saw in her; it depicts her contented and harmonious life. She adds more, You have a good store of grain laid away for hard times, a roof over you (P.08). Nature is prominent when she mentions good store of grains and about her dwelling place, made of mud and with a roof of wood and straws. Each and every object of their use has been got from the natural resources. It shows their firm belief on nature and the mercy of nature on them. Rukmani mentions while a woman has all these belongings she must be contented. Their happiness can also be estimated with the fact that these rural families do not want to move towards cities from their rural houses. While reading the text I noted; their interests lie within having animals, and using them in their fields to augment the fertility of the land. Rukmani again narrates that, We kept a milch goat (p.09). 51

These village people love the animals very much. This goats milk was the only source of nourishment for her younger son. They love each and every object of nature, and give them value and respect by not considering them inferior beings. They, just like all ecofeminists, give equal and independent value to plants, animals and all human beings, but the things of their own necessity and use. A particular village food fried in desi ghee is common to them. We also come to know that their ways of earning their livelihoods are completely embedded in land, nature. It is produced from the land whatever, they sell to earn money, and men and women work equally without any discrimination. As, Old Granny lived on what she made by selling peanuts and guavas (p.09). They grow and cultivate both these objects from land and feel relax by selling their own product. She sells both these things in different time periods of the year. For example, in winter she sells only peanuts and in summer her routine shifts towards selling guavas. But for the whole year she never goes towards any mechanical resource in the insatiability of earning more and more. Rukmani, our protagonist, being the daughter of village headman does not know, how to milk the goat and how to plant seeds; which she comes to know at her husbands house, as she learns, How to churn butter from the milk, and how to mull rice (p.10). These activities bring her close to nature and we find her irresistible in adopting these habits with love and devotion. Her connection with nature strengthens and she grows a beautiful garden at her house; this garden becomes very special to her. She compares her life stages with her work in the garden and with the growth of vegetables, and seems to be spiritually connected with nature, as Sussan gives an account of nature before enlightenment that it was feared as a wild, puzzling spirit of sexuality but also well respected as a nurturing mother; it was conceptualized as alive and female, associate with women. This dualistic approach set a double standard for nature, as a wild force there was a social desire to tame her unrestrained behavior and power, while as a nurturing mother constrained her abusive exploitation. It is common practice till now to consider it the spirit and object of sex like women, while to give a little value to them on their being mothers. Here the development of pumpkins can be compared with her pregnancy when she has Ira in her womb (spiritual ecofeminism), and she grows as the pumpkin has different stages of growth, and we also come to know that her 52

work in the garden is somehow valued while her reproductive labour is not given any significance in that rural family. In this way there exists same dualistic condition as there was before enlightenment, as during reading it was noted that Rukmanis growth of a garden pleased Nathan, especially the growth of pumpkins, which was precious to Nathan because he has never grown them before, in his own garden. It seemed that Rukmanis happiness lied with the happiness of Nathan as Rukmani got happy when Nathan was zealous on her pumpkins growth. It gave Rukmani vigour to give more time and more worth to land as she tells us that, I planted beans and sweet potatoes, brinjals and chillies and they all grew well under my hands (p.10). Her strong connection with nature provided her family more food and more earning. Rukmanis commitment to the nature never comes down, even in the days of her pregnancy. In those days she expects from Nathan that he will do work in the paddy field, but he is a work shirker and not ready to listen even. She recounts that, Sowing time was at hand and there was plenty to be done in the field; dams of clay to be built to ensure proper irrigation of the paddy terraces (p.12). She knows about the field work more than his husband; to built dams of clay is not the womans work, but when he is not ready to hear even, how will he come towards work?. So, it is the work that Rukmani has to do. She prepares clay dam so that, her field can get proper irrigation. She does great care of the land to get better output for her family and to earn livelihood for them. Once she has sown the seeds, she has not to do much work. So, she sits in her garden and contemplates over the seed splitting process, and ponders over the vegetables vine growth, because she has grown all these products for the first time. She narrates, And their growth to me was a constant wonder- from the time the seed split and the first green shoots broke through, to the time when the young buds and fruit began to form (p.13). Rukmanis emphasis on the care and nourishment of the plants and vegetables, or her care for their lives is very much similar to the Ecofeminists writing about the women as giver and sustainer of life. She gets astonished over the constant growth of brinjals, pumpkin and beans, and her curiosity increases until she sees their full growth. She calls this growth of 53

vegetables a conscious growth, unlike her own unconscious growth. Splitting of the seed and the growth of the green leaf becomes a constant source of excitement for Rukmani. Her deep concerns also highlights that Rukmanis great care and association with nature is very much like the care and association with her own child, though the child has not born yet, but she takes care of land and nature just like a child. Reuthers Woman as Mother is a central point of her demystification of transcendent dualism and the work is also the same attempt as Rukmani shows her deep ties with, and care for nature; just like a mother. We also come to know through reading about the redundancy and idleness of Nathan, as in the delivery days of her wife he is not ready to irrigate the garden, and the same work is done by Kali, another female character (perhaps the name has been given after the name of Hindu goddess, the goddess of power). She took pains to water the garden, and one morning I saw her tending the pumpkin vine, which was overladen with flowers (p.15). She does not only water the plants but also praises the richness of the production and love those plants that are healthy. It shows that the other women of the rural community also show care and concern for nature but not as much as Rukmani does; her garden yields a good quality pumpkin, which is not produced in every field. This time of overproduction becomes a time for rural people to praise nature, to praise its fertility and production. Susan describes that in colonial dualistic approach women are considered the entity, better to understand the chemistry of land on organic basis and thus they are regarded the best candidate to do work on land and to take stance in favour of nature, land and environment. While ecofeminists reject this colonial dualistic approach and try to establish the worth of land as well as of women including all humanbeings equally. Rukmani inspite of a poor peasants acts as an active agent to take care of nature, as she does work with his husband even more than him. As Shiva also writes that the masculines paradigm of food production involves the disorder of the vital links between forestry, agriculture and animal husbandry, which have been considered the sustainable model. So, women activist, and ecofeminists reject this masculine model and prefer to have female production model as sustainable resources. In this text Rukmani provides this sustainable resource not only to her family but her left community also. She looks after her own planted garden as well as works in the outside patch of land with her husband. She is a woman who 54

knows about the duty of land more than her husband. She does care the land not only to earn money from it but also to give value and to pay rights to the earth. She tells us, Sowing time was at hand, and I was out all day with Nathan planting the paddy in the drained fields (p.17). She is well informed about the time periods when and how a particular field has to grow. As she again tells, Corn had to be sown too, the land was ready (p.17). When she takes an advance care of land, she also believes in its fertility. She says, While I came behind, strewing the seed to either side and sprinkling the earth over, from the basket at my hips (p.18). During the ploughing she is also doing her duty with Nathan. We should say, she has the main role in the production and she is the one who is contented and pleased with her work and lot. When Western environmentalists speak about the company of nature, that company and association is only for recreation and refreshment as it is a common practice there in western parts of the world, while Rukmanis work and association with nature is not a kind of tonic or refreshment, but it is productive and creative work needed for their survival. Her work is genuine and non- alienated form of work. It is not only for Rukmani that her work is creative as her being active agent, but all the women of third world countries do such kind of work for their survival. The only fact is that they sacrifice themselves wholeheartedly with a great devotion to get the production from land. Rukmani has faced a number of hardships and she knows the worth of land, because if there is no land there is no hope to survive. Thats why she also thinks about Iras marriage, she does not find kalis son as a suitable match because they do not own any land. She never wants to indulge her daughter in the same problems as she herself has suffered. Thats why when old Granny searches for a match, Rukmani describes it, At last we found one who seemed to fulfill our requirements: he was young and well favoured, the only son of his father from whom he would one day inherit good portion of land (p.35). Her commitment with nature compelled her to prefer land for her daughter also.

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She does also describe the opposite side of the nature that it demands great concern and affection and a little negligency leads towards calamity. That is why she says, Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid; but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has you by the throat (p.35). It shows that though Rukmanis relation with nature is strong and meaningful but it seems ambivalent and undecided. In the beginning of the novel she does seem entirely dependent on the mercy of nature, as she is depending on nature for her own endurance and for the nurturance of her family. She seems powerless without land and nature. But in this passage it seems that she is speaking from a position of power. She has got endurance to portray the true picture of nature, which she (nature) possesses. Nature does have mercy as well as embodies demolition. These two aspects of nature give Rukmani hope and fear respectively, but she does not get angry. We know that in some parts of the novel, particularly in the beginning and after her marriage, when for the first time she does work in the field she gets good production that makes her familys survival easy. She also earns money that fulfills other necessities of her family and she does saving also. But in most of the parts of the novel her struggle is greater than natures output. We come to know, her family suffers a lot, and most of the members of her family are undernourished. She depicts the picture of natures destruction in the long monsoon, in the form of flood that flowed away all the seedlings from the land, the roof construction of the hut, as well as the paddy field, even coconut trees had been struck. An unnatural stillness lay on the land. Vegetables did not show any sign of surviving. The corn field was lost. Our paddy field lay beneath a placid lake on which the children were already sailing bits of wood (p.40). When Rukmani and Nathan go to bazaar to buy something for their starving children, they find nothing as most of the shops are closed, some flood has taken away with, and which are open they do not want to sell on normal prices. Nature has made the picture of the village gloomy and desolate. Rukmani tells, Their faces faded; the two younger ones began crying listlessly from hunger and disappointment. I had no words to comfort them (p.42).

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But I would like to mention here that we ourselves are responsible for these floods. We are cutting trees ruthlessly and mercilessly for the process of mechanization or to establish so called modernization. We do not come to the point that as much trees we cut, as much we cause rains to take form of the floods. The plain lands without greenery and without trees causes destruction. In this way we ourselves are destroying nature and call her (nature) disparaging and harsh for us. On the other hand, we also come to know that inspite of large scale destruction (that is also manmade) they were able to find their more economic means of surviving in nature. There are some alternate resources in the form of salted fish, roots of leaves, the fruit of the prickly pear, and plantains from our tree (p.44). So they are happy again when there are a large number of fish that are natural source of their survival for many days. In this new natural resource, her hope and optimism compells her to earn money by sowing more vegetables, I would plant more vegetables (p.45). Kunthi and some more women, minor characters in the novel, accept the so called modernization caused by the establishment of Tannery in the village. Perhaps these are the people who do not know the value of independent life and again want to give themselves in colonizers control, while Rukmani, our narrator, is against the Britishers building of tannery in her village. She craves for the charming, hushed and quiet life of the village. She wants to go away from the clatter and crowed set due to tannery. Their village community has changed into such kind of people as do not give value to the humanity but only design for their own wealth. Thats why, Rukmani mourns over the construction of Tannery because it has taken their land, has made them alienated from their work and is a cause of destruction of their livelihood. It has ruined their days serene and nights slumber. This mechanization has contaminated the environment, and more than this, it is also dangerous for different species of animals. It is not a productive and positive phenomenon, but the obliteration of nature. It is right to mention here Jackie, A. Giulianos point of view that ecofeminists construct such new cultures as embrace and honour caretaking and development. They hold close, men and women of each culture uniformly. They embrace plants, animals and ecological interconnectedness. Thats why, Rukmani feels desperately sorry for those tannery workers, who went away from nature, 57

Deprived of the ordinary pleasures of knowing warm sun and cool breeze upon their flesh, of walking out light and free, or of mixing with men and working beside them (p.48). These mechanical people have taken themselves away from nature, and when our protagonist goes to the Muslim houses, she says the same: those Muslims women are stuck into their houses while she enjoys the real pleasure of life in the form of open fields, and the sky and the tolerant and free for all sight of the sun. She again looks happy when one day of the week tannery is closed and she finds the placid and calm environment of her own choice. Infact life in the company of nature is cool and contented. She gives a beautiful account. Each time I paused I could hear sparrows twittering and the thin, clear, note of the mynah (p.49). It shows she does not only love land and its production, but also to the environment and animals. She gives one and the same importance and value to all living, though non-human things. She can be called ecofeminist within the text, constructed by Kamala Markandaya. She also seems to be the object of speciesist nature of this industrial process that is evident from her grumbling against the merciless use of non human animals at tannery, when she ponders upon, within her fears for her daughters safety. Here Nectar in a Sieve becomes an exemplar of ecofeminist theorists like Josephine Donovan and Carole J. Adams, who have worked to highlight the connections between the subjugation of women and the subordination of animals. Here one day, when the tannery is closed, is the blessed day for her, because she finds the things of her choice, the natural productions. She praises the cool morning, clean and unsullied air without clamor, and a variety of notes of the striking birds. I also noted Rukmanis deep concern with manmade and natural objects during her religious festival, when she does not want to buy mechanical product but does some work by her own. She takes part with children to celebrate this festival of Deepvali, but within natural choices. It seems she cannot keep herself away from nature. She mentions, I twisted cotton into wicks, soaked them in oil and placed them in mud saucers ready to be lit to light (p .54). These village dwellers, especially their women enjoy the acquaintance and bond with nature; the courtyard, open air, mud huts, and the magnificence of stars. These things make their life a blessing for them, and the providential creature that spend the whole time in the company of nature. They love these things because they are the masters of their art and find it 58

straightforward and contented for their life. Rukmani and her family also have a deep love for nature because they are masters in this field. They do not want to bow before white masters to learn something, though they do some positive things yet for their own benefit, but they do this even after barbaric and inhuman treatment; we also come to know in the text about their savage inhuman commentary for village people. With this art they are in a position to impart same art to the coming generation and to other people. Thats why Rukmani grumbles when her own children decide to join tannery, Two sons have gone, now the third is going- and not to the land, which is in his blood, but to be a servant, which he has never been. What does he knows of such work (p.68). But in order to relax themselves they come back towards their land; the only source of their happiness and reparation. Here Nathan for the first time encourages Rukmani, though your son has gone, yet you can feel the joy of land that is still with us. He speaks, Look at our land- is it not beautiful? The fields are green and the grain is ripening (p.69). At this she gives beautiful account of land with love and devotion, we sat together on the brown land that was part of us. Paddy fields were rich and green before us and the air was cool and still (Markandaya, 2010). It is a time when they have shifted themselves away from tannery resources, as their son went to tannery against their will, and they started to live on those resources but for a little time. Now again they are back towards their genuine resources. Their whole love for paddy field is rich again, to which they say, Holding in itself our lives (p. 70). The entire dependence of their lives is on the fields, especially on paddy fields. They give such a value to land that they have developed reciprocal relationship with land; land cannot survive without their efforts and they cannot survive without lands production. They get not only their survival needs from land but also get the annual payment of the landlord. That is the reason they get worry, when the production is least or nil. It is common to say that nature has ambivalent role in this novel. If nature is ambivalent or cruel, the same is the community also, the praiser of nature, now curse nature. The beautiful sky is cruel now; the earth and gods are indifferent. No doubt, another community is responsible to destroy the land and its fertility, as tannery not only has taken the land of fields but its chemicals are continuously being added into the earth to destroy it. When there 59

is not enough water on the land to evaporate or make vapours, how the rain would come? And the result is famine in their village for that time. They face problems in paying the revenue to the landlord, and it is pitiable when Nathan says that we can give our collection of necessary day to day things, because we can survive without them but land is very important, because we cannot survive without land. As If land is gone our livelihood is gone and we must wander like jackles (p.73). And Rukmani says in this hard time, There are the saris left, good ones are hardly worn, and these we must sell (p.73). I can mention that land as well as hope is a continuous source of survival for them. Here the particular villagers are ready to sacrifice everything to achieve the company of land. They are preferring land over their basic needs. Even they agree to sell seeds but not land to prevent themselves alienated from the nature. Nathan argues, It is better to be without the seed than bereft of the land in which to plant it. Seed is cheap, it can be brought. I can earn few rupees, or perhaps my sons. (p.75). Within these hardships lies their prevalent hope, which is evident from Rukmanis words, Let us only try, I said with the sobs coming fast. Let us keep our hope for a next harvest (p.75). We see that nature is merciful inspite of some villagers and particularly Whitemans bitter treatment of nature and Rukmani mentions, Then we saw the storm clouds gathering and before long rain came lashing down, making up in fury for the long drought and giving the grateful land as much as it could suck and more (p.77). With the arrival of this rain their future has been secured and their hopes have been fulfilled. But according to Rukmani fear is the constant companion of the peasant, because they have no other source of their income and survival. Thats why fear prevails more than the hope. Otherwise they are lover and praiser of nature. Even in their dreams they love natural objects. They care for those objects that have come out of the land as Rukmani describes, I would bring out the rice, and measure it, and run the grain through my fingers for sheer love of it (p.80). When Nathan was unable to sleep at night or even at day, he also did find peace in the company of land. 60

I saw him sitting in the paddy fields as he often did when he could not sleep (p.83). On the other hand Rukmani is very much caring to her family. She preserves a lot for her family, so that she can able to use it at the time of calamity. Here we come to know that humanbeings are also ambivalent in nature, as Nathan robs the rice to give it Kunthi and Rukmani grumbles at this loss because she considers the rice the most precious thing for her family. She bemoans at this loss. My heart is sick, I said. I have been robbed, and by one of my own children, of rice, which above all things is most precious (p.84). Paddy fields are real pleasure for these villagers, particularly when the fields are rich in product. They remain busy with the land to find pleasure as well as product. When the paddy ripens, Rukmani describes that, We watched it as a dog watches a bone, jealousy, lest it be snatched away; or as a mother her child, with pride and affection (p.93). It should be her, only her, because she loves that field. No doubt fear is constant companion of the peasants. They are in the clench of same fear as has destroyed their land and paddy field. Though they are the devotee and caretaker of the nature, yet they have to suffer due to other peoples mechanical ways to destroy nature, otherwise it is merciful to them. They are also kind to nature and their association with nature brings a good output. Only the trouble occurs when other communitys (capitalists) mechanization dominates their great effort and the land becomes barren and bleak. They grumble about this situation. But for this time nature provides them an exceptional output as Rukmani tells us, Contrary to our expectations it was a very good harvest. Every husk was filled. Paddy stood firm and healthy, showing no breaks in their ranks (p.101). Nature gives them potency and power when it is merciful and productive. Their gratification and delight are at the top to see the heaps of rice. They are in enthusiastic and exuberant mood to see the much good fortune. Now they are in a position to pay their debts and to store more and more. Rukmani, by seeing good production takes immediate decision to get back towards her garden, because she had earned a lot by growing vegetables in that garden. It was a happy time for her and her family. She has developed strong ties with nature since then. Thats why she says,

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I shall need to buy bean seeds and chilli seeds, and perhaps a few young pumpkin vines sweet potatoes of courseI have made a lot from my vegetables before (p.102). Their life becomes organized and cultured with the vegetation process, and they have high feelings and ambitions within their growth, and above all they are satisfied when they have stored a large portion of grain. We come to know how their aspiration, spirits and satisfaction lie with the nature. With these high spirits and contentment they go to offer prayers and to thank nature. Kamala Markandaya compares smooth skinned brinjals and pumpkin to the young woman. Does she want to establish nature and women as one and the same? Certainly not. She is describing the community picture or the point of view common in the community, who consider both these things as of one rank and the same. Rukmani takes these gifts of nature and go to sell them in the bazaar. What the men do? They make spiteful observation about women as there is Biswas in the text, and Rukmani does not go there. She is a typical rural woman who has reared her children on the only source that is land. They have earth in their blood. They are involved in the land to the extent that they cannot survive without land. But Rukmani mentions that her children have no love for the land (p.109). She also presents a beautiful contrast of the country and town life, that nature is absent in the town instead of shifting of seasons that can be seen only outside of the town. She mentions town as crowdy and filthy, and we forget to perceive and take pleasure of the beauty of the objects of nature. On the contrary in the beautiful village life, she adds, we live in the green, quiet fields, where nature seems to give us a silent message that I am blessing, constructive and helpful thing for the whole mankind, give me worth and heed ( Markandaya, 2010, my emphasis). In this way she prefers her own village life and the persistent company of nature, not only to enjoy but also to get material for her survival. In this way, study shows that in every predicament she finds remedy in the positive aspects of nature. In the novel, very late, Rukmani comes to the fact that land is the mistress to man. Only men can do work in it, because it demands hard labour. The point goes against ecofeminist point of views, because they establish land, men and women as independent entities, but we shouldnt forget that she has come to the age when work, particularly the hard labour of the field is impossible for her. Even Nathan in this age is not able to do work

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well. The second fact is that they only get enough when the production is rich or when the harvest is good, but they also have their slant times. Markandayas protagonist, Rukmani was against the tannery from the very beginning to establish the worth of the land. She was in the state of fear in the same way as she was in the fear of natures bitter side, when there was nothing to harvest and the groceries were unfilled. Calamity over calamity! on one side there is fear of tannery and on the other side Sivaji comes to say to empty the land in two weeks because they want to sell the land to the tannery owners. With these outcomings Rukmanis prediction turned into reality as she had said in the beginning, tannery would eventually be our undoing. I had seen it since the day the carts had come with their loads of bricks and noisy dusty men, staining the clear soft greens and cleaving its cool silences with clamour (p.131). It means, she understands well, how they as poor beings can suffer? These establishments (like tannery) and the departure of land are the points against ecofeminists approach. Moreover, tannery is like a serpent in the garden that begin to nurture its poisnous head, devouring green open spaces, polluting the green atmosphere and tempting simple peasants into greedy, self centered and immoral. Wavering light from the wick in its saucer of oil fell on his face, somber and serious as it always was in repose Markandaya gives beautiful aspects to Rukmani to illustrate and to give a picture of her as a great devotee and admirer of nature. She is the personality that enjoys nature on a great extent. Here we also come to know that Nathan also shows his deep interest in land, as he wants to return to the land by considering his body able to do work only at fields and to console himself he says, Together we can rent another piece of land------ live as we did (p.134). Their only source to fulfill needs and hopes and to make them contented is land. Thats why they always wish to rent land again to start their life with a new passion and fervor. Ecofeminists, as Giuliano A. Jackie argues, recognize the manipulation of nature, women in less developed cultures, where women gather food, water, fuel, fodder and also face the technological devastation, and Rukmanis village is the same society and the same practices are done here; even Rukmani herself is not free from these troubles, as she also does all this. Thats why the text suited best to study under this ecofeminist theoretical approach. We come to know that their departure from land has compelled them to stay in the city temple on charity. They come to know city lifes problems also, that if hunger and fear existed in the 63

villages, it also marred the cities; as they noted that many men and women in the city, on the temple are combating their way with viciousness to find meal (Markandaya, 2010). Urban people are indifferent and unresponsive to other people coming from far off places. Villagers or the people shifting from villages to cities are in a messy and haphazard condition in the crowd of citizens. There is no one to guide to the poor villagers properly; some even do not bother to listen them. It is pathetic and deplorable to note that some clever citizens guide them wrongly. Overall it was sturdy and tough for them to find their sons home in the city. It becomes clear in the text that village dwellers are not only environment friendly but they are philanthropic too. Rukmani go to the city to live with their son Murugan, there is no one to guide them rightly in the city premises but a poor child, Puli, and in the same way at Birlas house, when she suggests them that they should go after taking lunch, only the servant and his wife treat them in a cool, responsive and gracious way. Tired with the citys hostile and unreceptive life they again crave for a piece of land. They miss greenery, arrival of the birds, grass, fresh air and brown beautiful land. They prefer to starve rather than dwelling in city or to get bread of charity from city temple (Markandaya, 2010). Rukmanis continuous gaze over Pulis absence of fingers, seeing only stumps shows her concern for community, which enhances when Puli tells, I have no mother poor or otherwise (p.169). Her concern and sense for Puli increases at a greater extent, when she thinks, the disease can creep up towards other limbs, while there is limit to the achievements of human courage (p.176). She does all for that boy on the way as she can. She buys pancakes and rice cakes for him, after when he does agree to go with her. She spends a lot of money for the sake of Puli; no doubt she gets uneasy inwardly for the time being but to soothe herself she says that she is extravagant only for once (Markandaya, 2010). Within her own poverty stricken condition, she is a silent and minute observer of the left city community. She observes, a group of children there with their begging bowls and depicts a perfect picture of community dwelling in the city locality. Her account about this particular community is pitiable but marvellous too, Those dozen or more looked as if they had never eaten a full meal in their lives, with their ribs thrust out and bellies full blown out like drums with wind and emptiness: and they were

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they were extremely dirty with the dust of the roadside- and the running sores many of them had on their bodies, clogged with mud where blood or pus had exuded (p.152). Rukmani shows her deep concerns and love for the things that are present in the environment or community, and this particular community also gives hope to Rukmani and Nathan to earn more by doing some other hard labour, quarry (stone work) that will give them more than two to four annas. But it is pitiable to see that the particular labour, which they do, is not according to their temperament; they have not done such kind of work in their previous life; thats why they, two in number (wife, husband) produce less stone pieces even than that of an old man. Moreover, this work is again a direct assault on the environment and nature. It is against that organic form in which they are masters. This hazardous and painstaking work enables them to get some extra money but they are in a continuous danger of dynamite blasts also. This work can be considered complete destruction of nature as Rukmani narrates, The air was full of flying dust and stone particles, part of the trouble lay in keeping ones eyes open while striking (p. 171). Hence, it can not only be the destruction of nature and environment, but also of human beings vital organs. They can suffer from many perilous diseases including fibrosis, asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) due to continuous dust intake, and how these poor people can get treated with their meager wages. Hence, these diseases become fatal for them and these inorganic forms of work are not only dangerous for environment and nature, but a grave cause of deaths for this poor community (Markandaya, 2010, with my emphasis). It is also noteworthy that continuous fear is with them even in the city too, where they are getting charity food once in a day. Especially Rukmani gets worried about Nathans medicine and cloth to put on, which they cannot manage in the city, and can manage in the village otherwise. On the way nature is merciless and cruel to them once again, as it rains heavily when they are getting back to their village after a hard city life. It rains for a long time and Rukmani is with her ailing husband entirely wet on the way. Her own land and her own earth were able to provide her consolation and comfort at the end and she wept with happiness. Study shows Rukmanis deep concern and affection for land, environment and for the community. There is such a subtle relationship that Rukmani establishes with nature as no one can untie, neither in the village nor in the city inspite of a great hardships that she confronts with, at both places. 65

4.2- INTERSECTIONS OF ECOFEMINISM IN NECTAR IN A SIEVE

As Nectar in a Sieve is structured in the same way as Mahboob Khans film Mother India, Pearl Bucks The Good Earth (which deals with the fortitude and dignity of the peasant women. Moreover it is related to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe where changing pattern of rural village is brought by outside forces. Critics have also compared it with, as Thirty Umriger mentions in his afterword for Kamala Markandayas Nectar in a Sieve Agnes Smedleys Daughter of Earth and Upton Sinclairs The Jungle. Rukmani shares a lot of things with Smedleys heroin Marie, and Upton Sinclairs Sinclair. Though there are points of departure also, but she resembles Marie in her stoicism and shares with Sinclair that, how poor live under inhumane conditions. In the previous chapter I analyzed the text of Nectar in a Sieve as an ecofeminist text, but that analysis was of women in relation to nature only, that is dominant and prevalent part of the text; this chapter shows that gender discrimination and exploitation of the rural families and other social evils are also at its affinity, as Susan Griffin and Val Plumwood highlights that how alienation from land created complex cultural reality. Moreover, the arrival of white missionaries creates the problems for innocent, village dwellers in the form of displacement. These points intersect the theory and establish its dimensions in relation to Marxism and Post Colonialism. We can note that due to having profound and compassionate tale of the changing village pattern this text of Nectar in a Sieve is comparable to the Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, a story of troubled and changing South Africa during 1940s. Both these works touch the hearts of the readers deeply and inspires a rehabilitated and improved faith in the dignity and seemliness of mankind. There is exploitation, poverty, early marriages, over population, and patriarchal feudal systems as Misra also points out, that Nectar in a Sieve is a clear picture of hungry rural peasantry, whose life is afflicted by the existing social institutions and rituals such as child marriages, widowhood, negligence of female child, slavery, casteism and illiteracy (2001). In the very beginning it has been seen that dowry is a big problem to find a suitable match in South-Asian societies. Even a persons designation, which he has had once, does not work in this regard. As in this text Rukmani the daughter of village headman was married to a poor tenant farmer due to not having rich dowry and everyone said about them, a poor match. Rukmani speaks it in this way, 66

That was why they could not find me a rich husband and married me to a tenant farmer who was poor in everything but in love and care (p.01). We come to know about rich mans standard that is dowry, rich in form, to marry a girl; beauty of the young girls does not matter in these self centered, selfish societies. Due to not having dowry these women do work for day and nights; not only at homes but also at fields while their work is not valued. Absence of dowry becomes a source of exploitation for these poor women. They are treated as inferior beings, as Rukmani herself feels when she was taking to her husbands house in a slow moving bullock cart, Such a disgrace for me. How shall I ever live it down (p.05). It is a time when she is continuously yelling and crying, during the whole six hours of her journey. It is the custom of village and patriarchal societies to do not call their husbands by their names, as it is considered humiliation for men figures. Similarly Rukmani also says husband, instead of his real name Nathan. Nathan is a poor peasant that is evident from Rukmanis description about his house, in which she does work equal to Nathan to build it. Together we twisted the fiber and bound the palms, shaping them to the roof and strengthening the whole with clay (p.17). On the other hand Rukmanis father already knowing the consequences of his being poor, permits Rukmani to practice hard in writing and reading, because he is also suspicious about her dowry in future due to his changing status. He knows what hurdles can come and stop the way of his daughters happy marriage. Whereas her mothers attitude towards her education is wretched and deplorable (woman against woman), when her father advises her to practice hard; her mother considers it all vain and futile. She does not favour her husbands idea. She thinks it is only husband and sons duty to look after a woman, while education is not necessary as she has to do work at home; take care and fed children. Though point goes against feminism but it favours feminism also; it often happens and it is common everywhere that woman does not favour woman for many reasons. After facing the problem of dowry, there is another suffering for Rukmani, when after many years a female child is born to her as a first child. It is a common custom of the patriarchal societies to get disappointed and consider themselves unlucky. In this way gender

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discrimination is at peak in these rural communities. Rukmani knows about this custom, thats why she grumbles, The tear came, tears of weakness and disappointment; for what woman wants a girl for her first born? (P.15). She complains and cries, perhaps due to knowing the bitter fact that Nathan wanted a male child as his first child. While she (Ira) is such a humble creature as sits merrily, playing by herself without differentiating between shade and sun. It is pitiful to note that Nathan neither gives value and care to land, nor loves or care Ira, but both are inferior objects for him. Like the colonizer, as Susan describes, when master/ slave and self/ other dualism is applied to colonizer, the other in this dualism is inferior. Nathan inspite of a tenant farmer has the same standards as other people of his society have. Her first born female child is not valuable for him because he does not want a pulling infant who would take all the things in the form of dowry and leave nothing behind except painful memories (Markandaya, 2010). Nathans approach about female child is not rational but in the dualistic approach, categories of colonizer, culture, men are considered reasoned, humane and rational, while nature, women and colonized receive the qualities of primitivism, emotional and uncivilized (animal). It is quite right to say here that these rural men consider women only life producing entities. Rukmani has become a pathetic figure on the birth of a female child as her first baby; she had not fulfilled the wish of her husband, so she is not happy. She seeks the help of western doctor Kenny whom she met for the first time to get help for her ailing mother. She was at cross purposes first, perhaps due to his being western or due to being impatient with Rukmanis cultural practices, at which he shows resentment and uses non- human commentary for her and for other villagers. But instead of all these drawbacks she likes and waits for Kenny due to his compassionate and honest manners. Over time she develops such sort of relationship as every village fellow criticizes, but we can understand that she is not totally illiterate, she has high values for her reading and writing skills and does appreciate Kennys education and humanistic values also. She has developed a kind of intellectual romance with Kenny; a kind of love which she is unable to develop with Nathan (who does not know anything beyond his village life). Thats why she enjoys dialogue and conversations with Kenny inspite of his rough tone for sometimes. Thats why she starts and fluently goes on speaking, 68

I have no sons, only one child a girl (p.20). She was unable to stop herself as she is full of complain and objections. What have we done that we must be punished? Am I not cleaned and healthy? Have I not borne a girl so fair, people turn to gaze when she passes? (p.20) But she becomes terrified also when he offers to come and see him for help, upon which Kenny cries, You are an ignorant fool, I will not harm you (p.20). She gets treatment from that western doctor whom she unlike otherwise and Kennys intercession makes her to born many sons after the time period of seven years. Rukmani narrates, My husband was overjoyed at the arrival of a son (p.20). It is also worth noting the villagers common practice to have a great feast on the sons birth, by preparing a variety of dishes. They celebrate many merry hours in this great celebration. Rukmani mentions that the boy was not beautiful like Ira but it does not matter for the patriarchal societies. I think it, a sheer exploitation of the female child to give her a sense of inferiority since her very birth. Whereas Iras great love for her brother shows her feminine and motherly qualities. As Rukmani also tells that, She looked after them as much as I did, while she was still a child (p.22). It seems Markandayas reading of the text Nectar in a Sieve shows Markandayas realistic depiction through factual explanations about Rukmani; she elucidates her class, family and resources for her familys survival. Vegetables which Rukmani grows in her garden are not approachable as a whole due to a large number of family and due to their poverty. They have to sell from those vegetables, and it is pitiful to know that best vegetables are sold and stale or spoiled vegetables are left to eat at home. Such a pathetic picture leads us towards Marxism, where we come to know about the exploitation of working class; where there is double suppression of these poor tenant farmers; one by the land owners ( can be regarded as capitalist) who receive high revenue without considering the arrival of any calamity and its effect on production and cultivation, second, tannery( arrival of the white men with a superficial purpose of providing employment to the villagers but with a hidden motive of establishing market or capitalism) has created problems for these poor workers that has given them a sense of alienation( a Marxist term) and displacement (a post colonial term). Their 69

connection with nature has got weakened due to these interferences (my emphasis). Further it is important to note, when she goes from house to house to sell vegetables she also goes to Muslim house and observes her fingers, fair and slender were laden with jeweled rings any one of which would have fed us for a year (p.48). Rukmanis own prejudices and the societys economic differences and hierarchies are evident from this detail and the major cause that can be taken behind this entire problem is tannery. Tannery on one hand is the source of pollution and dirt, and on the other hand it is a source of good wages. People working over here earn much more than the field workers and they are able to buy more articles of daily use. Shopkeepers have made their prices high with these tannery workers, and they showed regression when these workers were going, while Rukmani favours their going and grumbles by describing tannerys drawbacks. Robert Session point out in her work Ecofeminism and Work that we tend to think of economic values such as cost and benefits, profits and efficiencies, instead of environmental values such as biodiversity, ecosystem health, homeostasis or the inherent merit of natural beings. She further made clear through tireless research of justice movement that pollution affects the health of women and children inexplicably. The movement broke new ground when Dorceta Taylor with session argued that the capitalist manipulation resources were connected to the degradation of nature and women. Robert Session and Dorceta Taylors emphasis on the degradation of nature and women echoes Markandayas approach in her work Nectar in a Sieve when her protagonist raises her voice in favour of tannery workers going back, and grumbles over the drawbacks of tannery, Tannery has been built on maiden, an open field shared by all. They have invaded our village with clatter and din, had taken from us the maiden where our children played, and had made bazaar prices too high for us (p.27). In this way Rukmani is full of objections and does not like the mechanization of tannery. She recollects the past when there was no tannery, when children played in the fields, when there was no noise of machines but peace in the presence of greenery and nature, when the prices of the things were not sky rocketing but very common. Thats why she says when the tannery builders go that she is not sorry to see them go. High prices are a problem for all villagers because most of the village community is poor, workers, or tenants. Rukmani also mourns at high prices, and elaborates the fact that arrival of the tannery has made all the 70

things beyond their approach. They have not tasted dhaal (pulses), ghee, sugar since their arrival. In this modernity man has become selfish and corrupt. But we come to know that men are ready to accept their arrival realizing the fact that they( white men) will not go back , only Rukmani does not agree to accept their presence, because those people have crushed nature and the habitats of animals as well as of human beings, and Rukmani cant tolerate all these. These are the reasons when Nathan speaks in an uncultured way to knee down before them by using the simile of grass. Foolish woman, Nathan said. There is no going back. Bend like the grass, that you do not break (p.28). She again cries that her son Murugan has gone to city, because tannery frowned on him and these ruthless tannery men have taken the life of my other son; many other people have also been affected by its arrival. She seems to be ambiguous character as she speaks when, her son Murugan has gone away and has made a silent marriage, even without inviting his parents, perhaps that is also a reason that Rukmani says, Tannery cant be blamed for every act (p.132). There are double standards for the Whiteman as village is not a suitable place to live for them. That might be due to poor housing facilities, poor environment due to clatter of tannery, pollution and dirt (they themselves have created), and due to poor community as most of the tenant farmers are living there in that village. Their standards are much high than that of the villagers. Though they are in charge of this whole mechanical process, they do not dwell neither in the tannery outlets nor in the village apartments, but prefer to live somewhere else. Rukmani is somehow thankful because her house lies at a suitable distance from the tannery. So she can save herself and her family from large part of noise pollution but still noise is there. The air pollution due to the chemicals used in brews and liquors is not uncommon to them. It had made air sick with foul smell. It is a cause of bad health, many upper respiratory tract infections. It is also a source of rich lands destruction and has made problem grim and bitter for the villagers. They are unable to take breath serenely. Rukmani goes to illustrate that even birds have forgotten to sing hymns, because trees are being cut down hardheartedly. These colonizers or tannery builders have destroyed their habitats, they have no natural place to sit and sing; they have gone far away and their voices have become 71

strangers for the nature lover villagers. These villagers especially Rukmani thinks not only for her own self, for all humanbeings but also for land, for environment, for trees and for birds and animals. She is the creature to take care of all. Further, it can also be noted that the people who cant think for human beings can never be considered to have favour for animals, birds and their habitats (Markandaya, 2010, with my emphasis). Rukmanis doing compells us to think as she is not a woman but an angel. All the day she is active in doing hectic work in garden and at the field; in the early morning she does not sit free rather goes to collect cow dung. It makes patent that life for the villagers is tough to manage. It is also dismal to know about Rukmanis son undernourishment due to untimely weaning. She can provide her milk only from her goat which she sold due to not having proper resources for her familys survival. Further there is bleak and grim picture of poverty again when Rukmani mentions the destruction due to storm, which blew away all the mud houses of the poor villagers, only tannerys strong buildings were eminent there. All the huts, including Rukmanis were demolished. There was merciless and pitiless destruction with all of their belongings. Nature has become destructive only for these poor dwellers of the village. There are calamities for time and time again. People are without eating resources and shopkeepers have nothing to sell. If someone have something to sell he has made prices sky rocketing. There is no worth of two rupees in those days. There is height of exploitation even by the villagers themselves. As Biswas says that, Two ollocks I will let you have and that is charity (p.43). It is the time for shopkeepers to earn more and to exploit poor by asking high prices, Take it or leave it. I can get double of this sum from the tanners (p.43). In spite of all these predicaments Rukmani and Nathan say, times are better, times are better. Kenny asks that you too are starving and enforces them to yell on these dilemmas, cry for help. He feels sorry for them when they dont speak for their rights. He advises t hem that you people will die of starving if you do not ask for help, that can be taken from the landlords or from the government of that time; it is the responsibility of the governments to compensate people during hard and depressing times. But these illiterate people do not have such manners to cry and ask for help. Here Kenny seems to be only positive white man who

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have come and lives in the village as their well-wisher; have come to make them civilize, to ensure them their rights and duties for a better survival (Markandaya, 2010). There is nothing in this country, oh God; there is nothing (p.43). Poverty, as Social scientist S.C. Dube in Misras book also elaborates that circumstances make Nathan unable to provide sustenance to his family and these issues compel Arjun and Thambi to discuss their final decision to move to Ceylon Tea Plantation. Arjun explains to her mother that there is nothing for us here, for we have neither the means to buy land nor to rent it, would you have us wasting our youth, chafing against the things we cannot change? (P.72). In this way displacement exists when the forceful events compel them to leave their natural habitats, where there is exploitation, alienation and suffering for them, where the rich and greedy zamindari thrive by their ruthless agents like Sivaji, where there are cunning merchants in the form of Hanuman, and moneylenders in the shape of Biswas. In the presence of these cruel figures how these poor villagers can prosper, thats why they decide to displace for their harmonious survival. Within this picture of poverty there is another poignant issue of gender differences. Women, especially from working classes encounter many problems. Ira after few years of her marriage is divorced due to her barrenness, whereas the men of patriarchal society need sons. It is very painful to know that Iras husband left her, while it was his responsibility to get medical treatment for his/her deficiencies. But it is generally considered underestimation in patriarchal societies, and a woman becomes only a play toy in the hands of men. It is totally on mans discretion to take a woman or to leave her whenever and wherever he wants. It does happen with Ira also. She, the poor figure gets medical treatment at her parents home with the help of her mother, and the western man Kenny is again there to help them as poverty is constantly there with them. Perhaps that is the reason Ira cannot get treated at her husbands house. Her parents are also unable to pay for her treatment, but they have Kenny in the form of a miracle and are get treated free of cost. In this way, it seems Markandaya wants to establish positive values of the westerns into the heart of eastern people, even after a long rule of British colonization and after establishing the capital markets or trade zones after decolonization. She wants to tell through Rukmani, a practical woman and a protagonist that a small percentage of white men also live there who are not as much merciless as others are.

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There is a glance of poverty again when Rukmani narrates her feelings about her youngest son Arjun that her little teaching has improved him very much, otherwise we were not in a position to buy books or to send him school. Rukmani was glad to see his efforts that he has started to teach others, and took no interest in land, at which Nathan, a traditional farmer was shunned and terrified; he was unhappy with his sons decision. Arjun understood that rented land was not constructive for them, and decided to join tannery. Rukmani showing offence on the name of tannery mentions, You are not of the caste of tanners, what will our relations say (p51). It is not essential for Arjun to think what others say. The only thing important to him is to earn for eating. Thats why he does not care for Rukmani or other relatives statements and goes to work in the tannery. He also mentions that, We never have enough to eat, especially since Ira came to live with us (p.51). It seemed a burden first for Nathan when he didnt want a female child who would take all the belongings with her, second for her husband who left her with an accusation of being barren; without getting any medical aid and thirdly for her brother who is a newly earning hand of the family. Does she have any fault that she has to bear all these bitter attitudes? This gender politics and gender discrimination in South-Asian societies particularly in India illustrates how stereotypes and notions about womens traditional roles are hard and inflexible to negate. No one cares while she has become a pitiable figure. She spends most of her time in loneliness, in resentment and in calmness. It seemed she had lost the bloom of her youth. Her ways of thinking and feelings have been injured by all the male figures around her. Another sorrowful issue is, who would take care of her when her parents want to move to their elder son and they think that other sons will also get marry soon; there is no one to take care of Ira. Their long thinking takes them back into their past and they ponder about dowry that make them able to marry Ira for the second time and she will get happy with this decision. Rukmanis son Arjuns words on the other hand illustrates the impact of capitalism, exploitation of the poor and alienation of the workers, when he describes to Rukmani that he does not want to do work n the field as there is more exploitation of the workers than that of working in the tannery.

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If it were your land or mine, I would work with you gladly. But what profit to labour for another and get so little in return? Far better to turn away from such injustice (p.52). Here Nectar in a Sieve seems similarity to the Raja Raos Kanthapura, a tale of South Indian village by means of same narrative mode, and the conflict caused by the changing social processes; exploitation of the villagers by the British colonizers. Though it makes them equal on one thematic level but similarity exists. When landlords ask for annual revenue they also say that if they get fail to pay, the land will be given to another. How painful it is when these poor tenants say, It is hard time for us (p.73). In these hard times nobody is able to buy anything. On the other hand we can see villagers are not ready to live under white mans rule for the second time. They are not ready to get alienate from their work in which they consider themselves master. They have got such skills as make them feel free and independent. Hence, the troubles start when Rukmanis two son go to tannery to do work against the wishes of their parents. Here the exploitation of the workers starts when they ask for high wages. Their discourse on labour, rights and power is anomalous to Rukmani. She being the worker on land is unable to separate the workers from that work which she does. She is unable to understand that her own sons would take a contradictory stand towards her own work. Hence, it happens there at tannery that their eating times are taken back from them, and they go on strike with that kind of stubbornness that they will not go without increment with a logic that they are not asking for charity. Rukmanis sons were at the forefront in this voice. Rukmani, the poor pathetic figure advises them to obey as they are master but her sons know better what they are to do. Thats why they say, People will never learn (p.65). Once Kenny said the same but Rukmani was unclear. They (Kenny and Rukmanis sons) mean to say this is, people will not learn how to fight for their rights. They will not learn how to raise voice against injustices, against exploitation, and against cruelty. Rukmanis sons have this sense because they are somehow educated. They are able to recognize their rights and the tricks of white missionaries. These white men are also ambiguous; exploiter and adviser at the same time. At one side they themselves are exploiting the workers by establishing markets in the post colonized country, but on the other hand they are here in the 75

same country to make people civilized. Kenny becomes harsh while guiding them that they should be their masters like me, and if they are not, they can at least speak for their rights. Particularly at the point when Rukmani says that time will be better soon, he gets frustrated and harsh over her fatalistic attitude. His harshness can be judged from these words, I go when I am tired of your follies and stupidities, your eternal, shameful poverty. I can only take you people in small doses (p.70). Another gender issue prevalent in the novel is of fake relations. Kunthis husband has left her and is living somewhere else, while Nathan, Rukmanis husband is living with Kunthi, who comes to get rice and water in a manner as she is the owner of these things. She comes and says, I have come, not to be seen, or to see you, but for a meal. I have not eaten for a long time (p.81). Due to having this illicit relations with Kunthi, Nathan robs his own food store and hands it over to Kunthi, by whom he has got more sons. That is why he says, Not for myself, he was muttering, trying to control his treacherous voice, for another. I took it for another. There was no other way. I hoped you would not notice. I had to do it (p.82). How strange it is that he has five sons from Rukmani, a hardworking and lovable wife but he is still disloyal to her. He inspite of poor tenant is following the rule and pattern of patriarchal society. Then he adds that it was a long time ago, I was very young, even before marriage for the first time I did it (p.85). It is sorrowful to know about man, womans mutual but fake relationship when Rukmani mentions, The man, who finds a woman in the street, raises an eyebrow and shapes his finger so that she follows him, throws her a few coins that he may possess her (p.114). These are common activities among South- Asian patriarchal societies and common villagers to chase woman and to develop relationships, though on fake bases to create disloyalty among their own families. Even in hard days they, themselves are unable to do any other work, their families starve, even children die of malnourishment, but they dont avoid such activities. It is vital to note that how alienation is affecting the poor farmers. For these tenants, in hard days when no one was able to buy or grow something, there was frantic and desperate competition among people who have and who have not. This competition put an end to 76

humanity, except Rukmani as poverty and hunger also are unable to dehumanize her. Those who have not, were compelled to eat grass, because there was not enough to fulfill the need. They bore severe pain and stomach cramps in those hard days. Markandaya provides a gloomy and bleak detail of their efforts done to make both ends meet. They have to eat food, which even animals reject. Rukmani narrates, We fed on whatever we would find: a sweet potato or two, blackened and half rotten, thrown away by some more prosperous hands; my sons return with a few bamboo shoots, a stick of sugarcane left in some deserted field, for every edible there was a desperate struggle (Markandaya, 2010). Rukmanis son Raja is killed by the tannery men and the text illustrates in this way that Markandayas critique is not only about gender issues but class and caste vulnerabilities are also point of discussions for her. These capitalists are not only alienating the workers from land but are also making living, off the land more difficult by offering meager wages. These workers killed the innocent boy in a false suit of robbery. This alienation of the poor class leads us towards Susan Griffin and Val Plumwoods point of view that men in authority or power decide, what is to be alienated and from what?, where that elite classs men are only identified on the basis of separation from nature, poor class and even from women. Plumwoods point of view that complex cultural identity is based on the context of class, race, species and gender discrimination, is the hallmark of this alienation, as Rukmani and her family are only identified as poor tenant farmers. Within this alienation there is exploitation of these workers also, when tannery man states to Rukmani, You may think of it later, and try to get compensation. I warn you it will not work (p.90). She, the poor lady is unable to understand, if death has some compensation. They continue to argue that they have no fault in killing him, but they are absolutely exempted from this killing; you cant file lawsuit against us (Markandaya, 2010, emphasis in original). We see when poverty and starvation are continuously there with this poor family, it is Iras turns to do work for the survival of the family. Kuti, her youngest brother was about to die of starving, which she could not see and made instantaneous resolution to do work. Nathan shows resentment while she is not ready to accept any morality; only to fulfill the hunger is her intention. She adds that she will do work each and every time as much as there is need, 77

and that she cannot bear hunger anymore (P.99). Nathans bitter attitude at Iras stubbornness is childish, he says, No man will look at you, defaced as you are (p.98). Though she was unable to save Kuti from death, and he died of starvation. Rukmani is relax, as she feels her son has got salvation from the cruel trap of hunger. He is a self centered man, doing wrong deeds, even in his downtrodden life and doing nothing constructive for the better existence of his family. While on the other hand Ira with her doings is able to buy household things and milk for the younger child. She is a brave girl who hides her tears inspite of a series of sorrows and predicaments. She has fought her battles alone (p.114). She was meant to have children (same page). When she has a child Rukmani narrates that she was as happy as a bird (p.115). She enjoyed every moment with her son. Though Rukmanis comparison (by using simile) of a woman with a bird is not praiseworthy and is taken as a point of departure from an ecofeminists approach, while she as a woman is a lover of mankind, lover of animals, trees and children. She describes her baby the most beautiful. Perhaps the compensation of Iras life tragedy lies in carrying this approach by negating the moralities that patriarchal society and her own family, especially her father has set for her. It seems that she wants to assert her own agency over her body, and also sets a way of undermining patriarchal societys perception about Indian peasants as subjugated beings. On other side Kenny was back to England for a long time, he gets back here to help every downtrodden villager. He struggles hard to make people aware of the negligencies of the government, and the mean villagers are discussing Rukmani and Kennys scandal, inspite of having their different approaches and priorities. Biswas, a cunning man says to Rukmani to stop to listen to news, when she was going to sell vegetables. Kenny is back. Rukmani responds it is good for everybody; he immediately adds especially for you. Kunthi has told me that he is a good friend of you and has done much for you. She answers again that he has done much for us. No doubt that she is indebted to doctor Kenny because he has treated Rukmanis ailing mother for the first time, then he has treated Rukmanis and her daughter Iras infertility respectively. Thats why her hate for westerns has changed into love, but only for Kenny, a western doctor; and she goes with garlands and lime to welcome him as some other people also do. Once again Kenny shows his short manner, 78

Outside laid a heap of garlands, ross, lilies, and chrysanthemurns; evidently others had been before me (p, 105). Rukmani starts to describe her own hard times to which he does not respond and Rukmani musters up her courage to overcome her shyness and asks about his home life. She asks with curiosity, why your wife does not accompany you? (p.106) and in this way once again they enter into a discussion related to gender role and gender priorities. As Rukmani mentions, A womans place is with her husband (106). She wants to say perhaps that Kenny must keep his wife with him, it is his responsibility. These are the remarks what Kenny understands from Rukmanis statement while it can also be said that she wants to mention that it was duty of her wife to follow him to India. Kenny is ruthless and short tempered over Rukmanis continuous and nasty and spiteful discussion and says to her impatiently, You simplify everything, being without understanding. Your views are limited it is impossible to explain to you (p.106). Here for the first time Rukmani competes with Kenny when she answers, Limited, though my knowledge is, but not wholly without understanding (p.106). And again she tells, I saw a spark of admiration in his eyes for the first time (p.106). This meeting of her, while discussing gender roles, is a turning point in Rukmanis lifelong ability to speak for her. They also discuss Iras quick conceiving. It does not wonder Kenny, though they also are with some specific boundaries, but they also accept the freedom of choice approach of a person, yet it is hard for Rukmani to accept Iras illicit pregnancy. It also differentiates their approaches to life, which are totally opposite. Rukmani narrates about Kennys return as another change in their life, as he is ready to build a hospital and Selvam will find a job there. Kenny has been portrayed as a positive character, a non exploiter, as K.R Chanrashekharan illustrates in his essay East and West in the novels of Kamala Markandaya, that the novelist has projected good missionary and philanthropic spin doing his best for a backward country without vanity or ostentation. He is also a natural observer of Indian villagers lives (in Misra, 2001). His high ambitions for the survival of poor people are complimentary. He again calls, you must cry again if you want help (p.111). It again shows his approach, that is totally different from villagers (patriarchal and peasants), and he is ready to ask for help and to collect charity to construct a hospital. He 79

gathers charity from western community to serve humanity of under developed, South- Asian countries. There is dire need of this hospital in the poor and poorly managed villages and countries, where poverty can be estimated by not having schools for education and hospitals for treatment, where poor die in the streets inspite of the fact of having patriarchal control over these villages, and where westerns want to establish a charity hospital for poor people. When Plumwood says that anthropocentrism is used to justify European process of colonialism, and European process of colonialism see indigenous cultures as less rational, closer to animals and nature. She is right in her argument, but what else can be said when people are not rational to develop some necessary facilities for themselves. I think European colonial process and to point out indigenous as irrational, closer to animals was justified, but the real problem was of exploitation, that on the name of help they established their own capital and these indigenous poor became poor forever. When Kenny wanted to establish hospital, his approach was without exploitation, while there was need of enough money to establish this hospital, as Selvam said, every pie has to be fought for; it cannot be easy (p.122). Though Kenny is with an open mouth to criticize villagers at their deeds at once, but his approach is without greed, and he is pitiful and careful to the people. He often comes to check Rukmanis husband and tells that he is not getting much to eat as rice water and rice everyday are not beneficial for him; he also needs protein in the form of milk and eggs. These dreadful issues explain how poverty strikes the life. Due to his poverty stricken illness and attacks of several diseases like rheumatism and fever Nathan is unable to do work at land, and Rukmani herself is unable to pay her forcible attention to land, thats why she says, the land is mistress to men, not to women: the heavy work needed is beyond her strength (p.127). That particular land is also being taken back by the landlords and no one has courage to speak for his/her rights. We see that only Selvam has got courage to speak on his fathers behalf, perhaps he has learnt to speak for his rights from Kenny. When the land has taken back from them by the landlord, only Selvam inquires after his father to protest against this loss. He from younger generation expresses his anger against the injustices and exploitation, to which Nathan answers, I protested, but it has availed me nothing.

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We can understand that there is no law for the poor people, who suffer every time and everywhere, and Nathan again says that we can only grieve but there is no redress (p.133). When the land has been taken back they have no other source of their survival in the village and have decided to go to Murugan (their third son). Ira is not ready to go she is happy and satisfied in her chosen task, though immoral yet needed for her survival. As we come to know during reading this text that many women (whose husbands do not work or those who are prey of poverty like Rukmani and Nathan) have indulged themselves in indecent act of prostitution for their survival. These gender issues (that men are responsible to compel women to indulge in illegitimate acts and same men are responsible to criticize the same women for these acts). We also get an opportunity to understand that women are more careful about human, plants and animals life, as on the way, when carter unyokes the bullocks, Rukmani observes the scratch on the shoulder of one of the bull. She mentions it to the man who doesnt care and only shrugs his shoulders that what can he does? This makes evident to us that villagers are not only ruthless to women and nature/ environment but they are merciless to animals too. Though he has no other source of earning for his survival instead of these bullocks, yet he can get it treated for its benefit and for his own better earning. But it is a dilemma that men do not care. They do not care for anything. Everywhere they seek opportunity to criticize women and everything. We can see that Rukmani, the angel of mercy is a sufferer again in the hands of men when she goes to get charity food at the temple. She asks for her husbands portion and gets scornful remarks like she expects a double portion, another said, she is mad or she tries to make capital out of charity (p.147). There is a long queue of people fighting to find out their way in an impatient and ferocious way without waiting for their own turn, and how painful it is to know, when Rukmani and Nathan lost their small assets in the form of money on the temple and could not stop to buy anything for food stalls and went on the way without having a glance on the bazaar. They wanted to go to their sons house in the city to seek shelter, but found many troubles in finding him. Reaching the place where Kenny has sent to her son, she finds him absent as a man tells that he has gone for two years. How pathetic it is to know that in a pitiable and pathetic way she asks, Had he done some wrong? (p.155). Infact after the tannery workers killing of her son she is conscious of such vicious acts as done by the white colonizers. It is also pitiable that these poor figures are taken as beggars in the city periphery. 81

Again we come towards gender issues as we come to know that Murugan has gone leaving his wife alone at home. She is living in a poor condition, without having enough to eat inspite of the fact that she does work as a sweeper and cleaner at someones house. She gets only fifteen rupees per month and free residency in return, but she has to do this to nourish her children. Here this lady has right to get appreciation that she chooses and prefers work hard to feed her family. On the other hand Nathan and Rukmani decide to get back as they do not want to be burden on that lady anymore; Rukmani decides to write and read letter but poverty makes them sad as they also have to buy paper and ink, and they dont have money. How lovely it is when they calculate words and money per day and they will collect the exact for their departure. As Rukmani, now an old figure wants to go to her youngest son living at their old house. She hopes to get comfort and support from him. Troubles and hardships are always with her. Poverty stricken, lost in city life, away from her natural connection Rukmani loses her husband on the way to home and she loses her only company that was with her on the whole journey. She became alone and more helpless. She is grieved over this loss. She finds difficult to live without him, considering him her love and life by forgetting his all disloyalties. People on the way, showing mercy to her, ask, Have you no sons to help? and she replies no- not here (p.183). She is optimist about her old home and leased land that deserted her. By doing this she comes to overturn the fate of those migrants who travel from rural areas to city. She proves that she is not ready to accept the harsh and raucous city space as her fate. She gets back and thinks the land the life to my starving spirit (p.186). Their small home, where Selvam and Ira are living welcomes her and provides shelter to Rukmani and Puli (the small boy) in which she showed her optimism that he drew out all the arrow of sorrows one by one and she is no more alone. We, the reader can just imagine about their hard and difficult continuation of a new life in a new arrangement (Nathan has died, Rukmani has turned old, Puli is there as a new member in that family, only small piece of land is there to live, their land for cultivation has gone). Rukmani, the axis of this superb tale sacrifices her whole life in a gallant way in a persistent battle for the sake of those whom she does care and give value. She has inextricable bondage with human community and for all other characters, though from non human community. Moreover, it can be said on a greater extent that novel illustrates, worsened socioeconomic conditions responsible for a number of social evils that has been 82

explained and discussed in this chapter. Hunger, poverty, exploitation and feudal systems can lead towards problems like disintegration of family, illegal institution of prostitution, and a mad migration towards cities. This socioeconomic conditions lead people towards illiteracy, and illiteracy is a big cause of exploitation and suffering within the worse socioeconomic condition itself. It will not wrong to say, that to be poor is a crime in this world, and people suffer and are punished for being poor. As long as there is poverty, social evils and malpractices also continue and humanity gets its end out of human beings.

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CONCLUSION
Ecofeminism as a theoretical and critical field of study can not only be taken as a sub genre of feminism or ecocriticism, but as an interdisciplinary field it takes Post Colonial and Marxist dimensions also. It is concluded that ecofeminism highlights hierarchical dualism, self/other opposition, environmental destruction, social injustices, feminine principles exploited by masculine regimes, considerations of racism and colonialism, disparaging potential by emerging scientific rationality and opposing attitudes towards nature and environment and let the women do work for the emancipation of both entities; environment and women. As a social movement, it can be said that ecofeminism includes socialist materialism/ Marxism in it. It is straightforwardly nature/ culture binary that joins women naturally to nature. While, in a postcolonial perspective, it becomes clear that many of ecofeminists critiques evolve from western point of view. When we move away from this realm, ecofeminism must spread out its focus to include non western thoughts and to understand the double binding of marginalization of being female and being colonized. It is important to mention that ecofeminists want to give women and nature their personal identities without any discrimination, and that their emphasis is not to call them equal to men. In short, ecofeminist reading of fiction enables us to understand that women and nature both exist in literature, regardless of their apparent absence. This reading also enabled us to recognize that both these entities are autonomous, and in the last it also pointed out that where in the text women and ecosystem are oppressed and victimized and fight back for their independence. I conclude that South Asian people are ruthless in both gender sensitivity and environment sensitivity. They dont value the human beings, who wake with the dawn, do work in the fields for the whole day, grow a variety of foods for the rest of the people and get back to their homes in the twilight of the dusk. We can say that they have such a strong tie with nature as cannot be untied. They have attached their life activities with the circle of nature to develop a deep connection and to establish value and dignity for both; for themselves and for land. These agrarian candidates especially women are more prone towards nature/ environment. They have made themselves masters of nature by an unremitting and permanent practice, and if someone tries to alienate them from their natural work they shed tear and sob as it is wearisome and difficult for anyone and everyone to go beyond the correlated field, particularly from that field, to which you grant your whole youth. 84

It is not incorrect to say, if we do not consider both these entities (women and the nature/ environment) as independent, autonomous and neglect even one of them, we do not fulfill the principles and standards of this theory, but we contravene from it; the theory establishes them uniformly important and independent instead of their oppression and degradation by male autonomous bodies. Further, this land/ environment have an undeviating link not only with women, but all other human beings also, living on this planet. In the same way it is associated with literary circle also, because it deals with human beings and living non- humans. When we come towards the text of Nectar in a Sieve, it can be justified that text explains Vandana Shivas perspective that how the development is actually mal (e) development and a cause of environmental demolition and threat of livelihoods for the poor peasants. Her other aspect that peasants including women and men are regarded feminine infact, historically and colonially is also point of significance. The novel also depicted Rosemary Radford Ruethers argument that humans destruction of nature and womens degradation were perpetuated and legitimized by a social structure based on hierarchy (in the form of western thought of Industrialists) that allowed one group to rule another and many other theorists point of views. I also say briefly that womens working at houses and in the fields is not the mark of degradation, but I suggest that work never degrades a human being; it provides stateliness and self esteem to the worker. The only departure lies within earth, nature and environment when they are not given any rate in our societies; our land is abused and degraded, eroded by wastes and chemicals, destroyed by the so called fertilizers, without considering the fact that it provides us nurturance, the product of our survival in the form of grain and vegetables, in the form of oxygen, and above all a place to live in. In the same way, it is finalized that women are not given certain respect; they are abused and not valued inspite of their hard struggle for the survival of their family and for the pleasure of their husbands. All their efforts are meaningless and they are exploited and degraded as the entities of second rank, particularly in male dominated, feudal and tribal societies, that are very common practice in South- Asian region. This evil of abusing both the striking and prolific beings (women and nature) is not tolerable by many activists, ecologists and environmentalists; who come out to produce literature in favour of these entities and to launch special movements by establishing non- governmental organizations and by setting different walks. 85

It is also finalized, when Western environmentalists speak about the company of nature, that company and association is only for recreation and refreshment as it is a common practice there in western parts of the world, while Rukmanis work and association with nature is not a kind of tonic or refreshment, but it is productive and creative work needed for their survival. Her work is genuine and non- alienated form of work. It is not only for Rukmani that her work is creative as her being active agent, but all the women of third world countries do such kind of work for their survival. The only fact is that they sacrifice themselves wholeheartedly with a great devotion to get the production from land. It is also a crux point that these villagers find their ways and means of survival in nature, inspite of its being hard. Nature provides them in the days of high production and in the days of floods and other calamities, and Markandayas approach to connect Rukmani and nature in all the good or bad days of life, in all the complex situations of life is justified. When these villagers give a gloomy picture of nature, it becomes necessary for me to reject their point and to tell them the factual picture that we ourselves are responsible for these floods and other destructions. We are cutting trees ruthlessly and mercilessly for the process of mechanization or to establish so called modernization, or to develop high capital out of agricultural land, and we forget to give value to our green land. We do not come to the point that as much trees we cut, as much we cause rains to take form of the floods. The plain lands without greenery and without trees causes destruction. In this way we ourselves are destroying nature and call her (nature) disparaging and harsh for us. It is commonly said that nature has ambivalent role in this novel. In a compact way it can be said that if nature is ambivalent or cruel, the same is the community also, the praiser of nature, now curse nature. The beautiful sky becomes cruel now; the earth and gods become indifferent. No doubt, another community is responsible to destroy the land and its fertility, as tannery not only has taken the land of fields but its chemicals are continuously being added into the earth to destroy it. When there is not enough water on the land to evaporate or to make vapours, how the rain would come? And the result is famine in their villages in those times. I would also like to mention rich mans standard in this conclusion, that is dowry, rich in form, and to marry a girl; beauty of the young girls does not matter in these self centered, selfish societies. Due to not having dowry these women do work for day and nights; not only 86

at homes but also at fields while their work is not valued. Absence of dowry becomes a source of exploitation for these poor women. They are treated as inferior beings or the human beings of second rank in male chauvinistic societies. I also conclude that there are double standards for the Whiteman as they dont think village a suitable place to live for themselves. That might be due to poor housing facilities, poor environment due to clatter of tannery, pollution and dirt (they themselves have created), and due to poor community as most of the tenant farmers are living there in that village. Their standards are much high than that of the villagers. Though they are in charge of this whole mechanical process, they do not dwell neither in the tannery outlets nor in the village apartments, but prefer to live somewhere else. In this way Whiteman never does favour of the orients in most of the matters, but always undermine them and consider them inferior beings. While on the other hand tannery is a cause of destruction not only for human beings but it also has perished birds habitats and the dwelling places of animals. Villagers are unable to take breath serenely. The pivotal character of this text Nectar in a Sieve, Rukmani, can be concluded as an angel of mercy, a tragic figure due to a series of grave problems and an active agent to do work for the whole day, within nature and without nature. Here women not only suffer due to their being close to nature, but also due to many other social problems like marriages, dowry, barrenness, being poor, fake relations and due to giving birth to a female child. Hence, they become tragic figures due to all these grim issues and due to colonizers consumption of agricultural land. Further, it can also be concluded that these villagers take interest in education, but their poverty does not allow them to buy books and other articles for education. Gender politics and discrimination in South Asian societies particularly in India illustrated that these womens stereotypical traditional roles (equal to nature, reproductive, and nurturer), are hard to negate or change in these societies. I can say in a nutshell that the critique of Markandayas novel Nectar in a Sieve is not only about women nature connection and about gender issues but class and caste vulnerabilities are also things of discussion in this text. The nascent and burgeoning factor of alienation that had created the frantic and desperate competition among have and have not had also become the source of vanishing humanity in that village. People had no other option instead of eating grass and they bore severe stomach cramps. The tannery builders are not only alienating the 87

villagers from their natural work, but they are exploiting them also by introducing meager wages. They are killing the innocent lives in petty disputes and the poor parents are crying continuously in that loss. They are being exploited that if they think for compensation of that loss, it will not work. Hence, it is true to say that men in authority decide between right and wrongs, they decide, who is to be awarded and to what extent. In this way complex cultural identities are formed on the basis of class, race, and species and on the bases of gender differences. But with all these difficulties these peasant women are not ready to accept themselves as subjugated beings. They have done a life long struggle for themselves and for their families. Their effort at every stage is praiseworthy and a matter of great respect. Markandaya has given voice to nature, a non human character to speak on its behalf. It is devalued, degraded and exploited equal to women, or even more than women in patriarchal regimes. In these societies men consider themselves the master of all the productions and it is right to use the dichotomy of malefactor/ benefactor, but they consider themselves benefactor of women and nature and all other things present in the community. Men everywhere seek opportunity to criticize women in every matter. Here in male centered societies they are considered the benefactor and well wisher and the agents to control women, and provider of each facility. These men do not give value to land, animals, and women. They consider themselves the master and all in all of all the things. In this way they use negative use of their power, which is given to them in a particular society. Moreover, it can be said on a greater extent that novel illustrates worsened socioeconomic conditions responsible for a number of social evils that i.e. hunger, poverty, exploitation and feudal systems can lead towards problems like disintegration of family, illegal institution of prostitution, and a mad migration towards cities. These socioeconomic conditions lead people towards illiteracy, and illiteracy is a big cause of exploitation and suffering within the category of worse socioeconomic condition itself. It will not be wrong to say, that to be poor is a crime in this world, and people suffer and are punished for being poor. As long as there is poverty, social evils and malpractices also continue and humanity gets its end out of human beings. It can also be added in the conclusion that, perhaps men bring women from their parental houses to their own houses in order to bear children and experience motherhood. Otherwise they are expelled from the houses just like a stray animal without getting any medical aid 88

within the issue of bearing children the dominant aspect is to have male children, otherwise women dont have any worth in these societies. It can be said bluntly that women and land both are abused and devalued particularly in masculine regimes, where their worth is not considered, where people dont come to the fact that destruction of land will perish and disappear them from its surface. I argue that we may healthy, if our land/ environment is healthy, and if we value both of our land and ladies by considering them two independent entities, and dont intermingle them due to some of their identical (like reproductive) qualities we will be esteemed and valued in the world. Moreover, it is concluded, that writers are coming towards giving a potent voice to women and nature to speak individually, as Markandaya gives voice to Rukmani and nature to speak itself, while these voices have been remained missing frequently in English especially in South Asian literature. Deep reading highlighted and made aware to the reader that their (women and nature) voices were pressed under labor; this pressure and absence of voice became the subject matter for ecofeminists readers and writers. Further, it can be said finally that it is not the story of a particular village with only characters of Rukmani and Nathan, but they depict the whole agrarian community who are indulging in or facing these grim issues of exploitation and sufferings. Markandayas realistic portrayal is notable and a point of appreciation.

89

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