narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

hadramahilas (respectable middle-class women), women on such occasions played
out free, and sexually subversive roles that were otherwise denied to them (Ghosh,
2007: 196).
Reformist ideas looked down upon such disruptive and aggressive behaviour of women
who they thought were in need of ‘correction’ through their androcentric standard of
‘refinement’ and ‘taste’. Bashor songs came to be regarded as a ‘social disease’ by the
entire bhadrasamaj or respectable Bengali middle-class society in nineteenth century
(Ghosh, 2007: 194). These practices it may be argued are constitutive of the language
of resistance to a dominant cultural order as they had within them alternative visions of
the social world, and which were practised and valued despite attempts to suppress
them (Kumar, 1994: 52). That it required a concerted effort from educated Bengali men,
English missionaries and administrators to finally put an end to these practices and
spaces performed and inhabited by women, bears testimony to the enduring nature and
resilience of such cultural tradtions (Ghosh, 2007: 192).
Ghosh eloquently argues how in the nineteenth century Bengali homes and within its
confines of the antahpur, women waged a battle of their own through their solidarity and
sisterhood; “Shielded from direct surveillance and nourished by oppression, this
secluded space proved an ideal breeding ground for gendered social discontent” (2007:
212). However, she argues that this tremendous potential of hidden domains of conflict
through ‘hidden transcripts’ in fostering enduring social consciousness, struggle and
bonding has not been appreciated enough (212). It is only by reclaiming the visibility
and strength of these spheres that we can see resistance where we did not see it
before, and read conflict in apparently normative situations (Ghosh, 2006). Refusing to
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