Mridula Kashyap
Dr. Mridula Kashyap teaches in the Department
of English, Nowgong Girls’ College, Gauhati University, Assam. Her areas of
interests are Women and Literature; Middle Eastern Literature; Islamic Feminism;
Critical Theory, Art and Creative Writing.
Abstract
The
notion of bacha posh refers to the cross-dressing of a girl as a boy
which is deployed as a way of disguising gender roles. It is a cultural
practice that was widespread in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan whereby girls
were raised as boys during their childhood till they attain the age of puberty
so that they could have access to educational opportunity, mobility, economic
and public spaces from which they were being deprived because of their gender.
But can such cross-dressing truly allow girls to receive the benefits of
patriarchy— the freedom that is limited only for the dominant gender? Is the
disguise of gender role a means of empowerment for girls or a form of
oppression? Is freedom only a kind of illusion? Keeping these questions in mind,
the paper will examine the practice of bacha posh as depicted in Nadia
Hashmi’s novels. One can argue that while bacha posh is practised with a
purpose of liberating the girls from the codes of restriction and subjugation
attached to the female body, it further complicates the subject position of the
person who disguises into bacha posh. Bacha posh is never a liberating
force, rather it reflects the sordid position of the female body in a socio-cultural
space. This is due to the gender dysphoria experienced by the bacha posh as
a result of the incongruity between biological sex and the masculine gender
role that the girls have to perform.
Keywords:
Bacha posh, Gender dysphoria, subjectivity, body, masculinity
***
Masculinity is not
a fixed entity embedded in the body or personality traits of individuals.
Masculinities are configurations of practice that are accomplished in social
action and, therefore, can differ according to the gender relations in a
particular social setting. (Connell and Messerschmidt
836)
The
idea of bacha posh is one of the constructions of masculinity and the
product of rigid patriarchy where there is a complex interplay between the body
and the social system that eventually leads to perplexing ideas of sexuality
and gender identity. Women’s body and space in Afghanistan have been caught up
in the mire of the turbulent history of state-society relations, the economic
situation and the discontent between religious and political status quo that has
led to unequal gender relations and dominant modes of ‘hegemonic masculinity’1.
These states of affairs have had their impact over women’s mobility, dress code
and sexuality. The oppressive state apparatus allows men to police women’s
mobility thereby constraining their space in the Afghan society. The Mujahideen
regime (1992-1996) and the Taliban regime (1996-2001) have established
hegemonic masculinity that legitimizes the subordination of women, specifically
the latter institutionalizes gender inequality and policing of women’s mobility
to the extent that they could not enter the public space without being
accompanied by a mahram (male relative). Restriction of women to enter
the public space also limits their economic opportunities and their ability to
access public services. Masculine dominance becomes normative in every
institution. In the family, the birth of a boy child becomes the most essential
and women are held responsible for giving birth to boys. Associated with the importance
of the birth of a boy child or the presence of a male member in the family is
the question of economic productivity as girls/women are debarred from that
space. Jenny Nordberb in her seminal work on bacha posh entitled The
Underground Girls of Kabul: The Hidden Lives of Afghan Girls Disguised as Boys (2014)
claims that every Afghan family must have at least one son, without which
the family would be considered incomplete, weak and vulnerable. So, every
Afghan married woman is obliged to bear a son and it becomes her sole purpose
in life, failing to do so she is stigmatized as dokhtar zai or “she who
only brings daughters” and her husband, in turn, is defamed as mada post or
“he whose woman will only deliver girls.”
Thus, in a society where hegemonic masculinity prevails, it is the woman
who always becomes accountable for the failure to bear the boy child. Against
this backdrop of masculine dominance and absence of space for the woman that
the custom of bacha posh develops. The notion of bacha posh refers
to the cross-dressing of the girl as a boy which is deployed as a way of
disguising gender roles. It is a cultural practice that was widespread in
Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan whereby girls were raised as boys during
their childhood till they attain the age of puberty so that they could have
access to educational opportunity, mobility, economic and public spaces from
which they were being deprived because of their gender. But can such
cross-dressing truly allow girls to receive the benefits of patriarchy— the freedom
that is limited only for the dominant gender? Is the disguise of gender role a
means of empowerment for girls or a form of oppression? Is freedom only a kind
of illusion? Keeping these questions in mind, the paper will examine the
practice of bacha posh as depicted in Nadia Hashmi’s novels. One can
argue that while bacha posh is practised with a purpose of liberating
the girls from the codes of restriction and subjugation attached to the female
body, it further complicates the subject position of the person who disguises
into bacha posh. Bacha posh is never a liberating force, rather
it reflects the sordid position of the female body in a socio-cultural space. This
is due to the gender dysphoria experienced by the bacha posh as a result
of the incongruity between biological sex and the masculine gender role that
the girls have to perform.
These
issues and complexities associated with the custom of bacha posh, set
against the backdrop of a perplexing Afghan history, are intricately interwoven
by Nadia Hashmi in her novels One Half from the East (2016) and The
Pearl that Broke its Shell (2014). In both the novels, Hashmi
exposes the vulnerability of woman as a result of the rigid patriarchal
structure that has constrained their lives altogether. Obayda in One Half of
the East is made into a boy with the belief that she would bring good luck
to the family and also render economic support because of her father’s wretched
condition when he loses one of his legs in a bomb explosion. After the catastrophe,
the family shifts from the city of Kabul to a small village where Obayda is compelled
by her mother and her aunt to cross-dress as a boy and take up the new identity
of Obayd. This new identity at the age of ten leaves her in a baffled state as
she was always comfortable being a girl. She realizes that she could not fit
into the straitjacket of any of the gender roles and suffers from a kind of
gender dysphoria. Hence, the novel centers on Obayda’s labyrinthine quest for
identity as the bacha posh identity that is thrust upon her does in no
way liberate her, further it aggravates her dilemma and leads her to an abyssal
position. In The Pearl that Broke its Shell, Hashmi intertwines the
intergenerational tales of two Afghan women who had to change their gender
roles under different circumstances. Like Obayda, Rahima is made into a boy so
that she could access the benefits of patriarchy and support the family as she
has no brothers and left with a father who self-medicates with opium. Rahima adores
her bacha posh life as it provides her with the opportunity to relish
the fruits of patriarchy which are otherwise denied to girls because of their gender.
However, the freedom that Rahima enjoys is cut short when her opium-addict
father arranges her marriage with an elderly and powerful warlord in exchange
for a huge bride-price and the supply of opium. At once Rahima’s life metamorphoses
from a carefree bacha posh to the fourth wife of Abdul Khaliq, the warlord.
Hashmi juxtaposes the story of Rahima with her great-great-grandmother Shekiba,
born a century ago, who had to perform the role of a boy and work in the farm
after the cholera epidemic killed her mother and the other siblings. As Shekiba
was Herculean build, she was also assigned the job of a guard in King
Habibullah’s harem, dressed as a man. The Pearl that Broke its Shell
projects how Rahima and Shekiba break up from their claustrophobic gender identities
to adopt a variation that would provide them liberation, only to realize that
such liberation is simply an illusion and therefore, the quest for their
identities continue.
Though
the body of literature produced in this area is limited, yet there are a few
fiction writers apart from Hashmi, who has dealt with the practice of bacha
posh in their works. Canadian writer and activist Deborah Ellis’ acclaimed
novel, The Breadwinner (2001), is about an eleven-year-old girl Parvana
who has to become a bacha posh in the land of Kabul where “bombs had
been part of Parvana’s whole life” (11). When the Taliban militia has confiscated
the land and asserted their hegemony, Parvana’s father is arrested, her education
is stopped and in the absence of any male member, there is none to run the
family. Under such circumstances Parvana is cross-dressed as a boy so that she
could become the breadwinner of the family, “As a boy, you’ll be able to move
in and out of the market, buy what we need and no one will stop you…” (27). The
novel, thus, captures Parvana’s struggle not only to search her father but also
to sustain her family. Ukmina Manoori’s memoir I am a Bacha Posh: My Life as
a Woman Living as a Man in Afghanistan (2014) narrates her story of
undaunted determination in her decision to remain a bacha posh throughout
her life, resisting family and social pressures of resuming to womanhood after
puberty. Once a bacha posh is on the brink of womanhood, she is expected
to discard her man’s clothing and take recourse to veil and think about her marriage.
Ukmina writes:
At this age, the
other girls veiled themselves. Those who had, like me, lived their childhood as
a boy, gave up their shalwar kameez and the freedom that it conferred, little
by little. They abandoned their fields and their games to integrate into the
framework of their whole life from this point forward: the walls of their home.
They learned how to sew, take care of the children, help their mothers. It took
a few months before they embraced their destiny as women: at twelve years old,
they wore burqas and did not leave the house anymore without the presence of a
man. (15)
However,
Ukmina decides to deviate from such social norms and destine her life for the cause
of her country by waging war against the Soviets, entering into politics and working
diligently for the upliftment of the rights of the Afghan woman. Alike Ukmina,
Maria Toorpakai is another valiant figure whose A Different Kind of Daughter:
The Girl Who Hid from the Taliban in Plain Sight (2016) is a sports
memoir where she narrates her harrowing journey as a bacha posh to
become an athlete hailing from an oppressive region of Pakistan called
Waziristan, dominated by the Talibans. Toorpakai’s father always considers her
to be a “different kind of daughter” (7) as he could perceive that she is a
born athlete. She loathed dolls and wearing fancy dresses, instead preferred
boy’s clothing and playing outside in the dirt which “in my part of the world,
for a girl to venture out uncovered was haram— forbidden, a sin against
God” (7). In her part of the country women playing squash or any other sports
is considered haram. But squash is not simply a sport for her, but a
matter of life and death: ““It’s not about playing anymore, Maria. It’s about
staying alive”” her father tells her (164). It is only through adopting the
role of a bacha posh or in other words, masquerading as a boy, that
Maria Toorpakai was able to escape the death threats of the Talibans and flee
to Canada to pursue her dream.
The
word bacha posh etymologically means ‘dressed as a boy’ which is Dari
origin. The transformation of the gender identity of girls is decided by the
parents at a very tender age, often at birth. As decided by the parents, the
girls have to perform the assigned gender role till the time of puberty which is
considered to be their marriageable age. Although the community members are
aware that the bacha posh children are born as girls, but they treat
them according to their role-performance. As Nordberg writes: “These girls are
hidden, and that is exactly the point. To everyone on the outside, they are
just bachas” (48). But as they grow older and reach the age of puberty,
their role-playing becomes difficult to sustain, although some bacha posh refuse
to revert to their biological gender identity. The practise of bacha posh developed
against the backdrop of a hegemonic masculine society where “men have all the
privileges” (61). Among the various reasons discussed by Nordberg in her book The
Underground Girls of Kabul for the practice of disguising girls as boys in
Afghanistan are the predominantly patrilineal structure where sons are more valued
than daughters, the social stigma a family has to experience for having no son
and the pressure perpetuated upon families to bear at least one son. Because of
such social stigma and pressure girls are masqueraded as boys soon after their birth,
and the hoax sons are considered to be better than having no sons. There is
also a superstitious belief that the bacha posh in the family would
bring good luck to the future birth of boys in the family. As it is believed
that “through visual manifestation, when a woman looks at the image of a male
child every day, her body will eventually conceive a son” (69). Thus, till the
birth of the actual son, the bacha posh serves the family intention.
However, the intention varies as seen in the case of upper or middle-class
families where girls are cross-dressed as boys to keep intact the family honour
and prestige. Although the girls do not choose their enforced boyhood willingly
but in many cases “they enjoy their borrowed status” (67). The bacha posh
belonging to upper or middle-class families enjoy the privileges of going to
school and playing outdoor games with boys, which otherwise, they have been
deprived of because of their gender. But those belonging to underprivileged
families need to engage in forced child labour for economic sustenance of the
family. Nordberg observes:
Among
street children in the merchant business, selling chewing gum, polishing shoes,
or offering to wash car windows on the streets, some are actual boys, and
others are girls in disguise. They are all part of Kabul’s underbelly and, to
those who pass them by, mostly just invisible. (67)
Nordberg further observes that irrespective
of the families being rich, poor, educated, uneducated, Pashtuns, Tajiks,
Hazara or Turkoman, what is indistinguishable amongst them is their need for a
son. The made-up son supports the family as a breadwinner, plays the role of a mahram
by accompanying the female members of the family to public spaces where
women’s mobility is restricted, the one who can have access to education and
finally facilitates the family to be complete as the lack of son makes the
family incomplete. It is the clothing and the haircut that differentiates a boy
from a girl and permits the bacha posh to have access to all the
privileges and spaces that are otherwise restricted only to the male members in
a hegemonic masculine Afghan society. In this context clothing and haircut act
as a means of camouflage to conceal the female body while evoking the masculine
persona.
Though
a bacha posh feels empowered as a result of her entrée into the
masculine domain, this phase is transitory. The dilemma of these girls when
they have to revert to their feminine selves is analysed by Corboz, Gibbs and
Jewkes in their essay “Bacha posh in Afghanistan: factors associated with
raising a girl as a boy” (2019):
When girls raised
as boys reach puberty, they are usually ‘converted’ back into girls. This often
poses a dilemma for those girls who had more freedom and mobility during
childhood, only to have this freedom restricted when being required to re-adopt
a feminine identity and sometimes being prepared for marriage a short time
after becoming a girl again. Conversion back to being a girl may be
particularly difficult for those bacha posh who identify as male and
want to continue living as a boy. (3)
The reversion to womanhood involves a
constant struggle as years of performance makes it difficult to reappropriate the
body into the feminine persona. After switching to the feminine persona, she
has to unlearn the things that she has mastered as a boy and adopt the feminine
body language. The overt appearance becomes easy to convert but the
psychological impact left by years of performance is difficult to wipe out.
Shukria, a former bacha posh narrates her experience in Nordberg’s The
Underground Girls of Kabul: “With time, nurture can become nature…Becoming
a man is simple. The outside is easy to change. Going back is hard. There is a
feeling inside that will never change” (178). It is then that a bacha posh suffers
from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria results from the experience of gender incongruence
that causes uneasiness in the bacha posh after she switches to her biological
identity. Mark A. Yarhouse in his book Understanding Gender Dysphoria:
Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture (2015) defines
gender dysphoria as thus:
Gender dysphoria
refers to the experience of having a psychological and emotional identity as
either male or female, and that your psychological and emotional identity does
not correspond to your biological sex—this perceived incongruity can be the
source of deep and ongoing discomfort. Specifically, gender dysphoria is on the
one hand the experience of being born male (biological sex) but feeling a
psychological and emotional identity as female. Similarly, gender dysphoria is
the experience of being born female (biological sex) but feeling a
psychological or emotional identity as male. (19)
However,
Mark A. Yarhouse’s concept of gender dysphoria is different from the kind of
dysphoria experienced by a bacha posh. Yarhouse examines gender
dysphoria as a transgendered concept. But the gender dysphoria that a bacha
posh suffers from is not a genetic disorder as bacha posh is an
imposed identity upon the girl to perform the role of maleness: “Her identity
develops from a mere biological female to becoming a culturally defined boy through
social interaction, within the family and outside” (Sawitri 16). The bacha
posh is reared in an altogether different cultural setting where rather
than the fostering of feminine qualities such as compliance and submissiveness,
excessively aggressive masculine attitudes are encouraged. The momentary liberty
they experience as a result of the isolation from their birth gender creates
gender identity conflict in them.
Bacha
posh is not a novel tradition but can be traced back to
twentieth-century Afghanistan. King Habibullah Khan who reigned Afghanistan from
1901 to 1919 devised the concept of appointing women sentinels, dressed in
men’s apparel to guard the king’s harem. He designated his youngest daughter to
stand as the guard of the harem garbed in man’s uniform. Assigning male
sentinels to watchdog the harem could be hazardous to women’s chastity and the
royal bloodline. Before appointing women guards, eunuchs stood as sentries to
guard the king's mistresses. But, by his novel idea, women replaced the eunuchs
to stand as sentries of the harem, thereby marking the initiation of the
presence of cross-dressed women in the history of the royal stratum of Afghan
society. However, the presence of such cross-dressed women is not confined to
Afghanistan alone. Such women could be traced in different eras of the Western
and Eastern history who mostly performed the role of warriors. Nordberg cites a
number of such woman warriors who dressed as men:
In the first
century, Triaria of Rome joined her emperor husband in war, wearing men’s
armor. Zenobia was a third-century queen in Syria who grew up as a boy and went
on to fight the Roman empire on horseback. Around the same time in China, Hua
Mulan took her father’s place in battle, wearing his clothes. Joan of Arc was
famously said to have seen an archangel in 1424, causing her to adopt the look
of a male soldier and help fight France’s war against England. (198)
Nordberg further states that the Catholic
Church not only approves woman cross-dressed as a man but honours them for
their bravery and demonstration of masculine traits. Valerie Hotchkiss observes
that in medieval Europe, the women who cross-dressed as men preferred to remain
celibate throughout their lives. One also finds references in the
twelfth-century religious texts such as - Scivias by Hildegard von Bingen
and Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas- about engaging such women during
wars and other emergency situations. Dutch historians Lotte C. van de Pol and
Rudolf M. Dekker in their research on the experiences of these women discovered
that between the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in Europe, there lived more
than a hundred women who either took the profession of sailors or soldiers
disguised in men’s clothing. Their gender identities were revealed only after
their death when their bodies were carried off the battleground. These women
adopted male identity for reasons similar to that of bacha posh in
Afghanistan. Some undertook male identity to support themselves and their
families, some masqueraded as men to travel or evade forced marriages, while
others went for higher education as it was forbidden for women. Unfortunately,
they had to face trial when their disguise was unmasked, though the punishment
became lenient for those women who took part in wars for the cause of their
lands. However, by the nineteenth century, the phenomenon of women
cross-dressing as men gradually declined. Perhaps, it might be due to the rise
of an organized society based on a civil registration system where certain
measures like border controls and medical inspections were made obligatory for
soldiers as a result of which it became difficult for women to disguise as
men. Similar to the bacha posh practise
in Afghanistan, there exists in Northern Albania and Montenegro an age-old
practice known as 'sworn-virgins' as a consequence of a highly patriarchal and
patrilineal tribal society “where children are thought to stem directly from
the blood of the father, and the woman is considered merely a carrier” (199). Thus,
the bacha posh is not an exclusively Afghan practice but exists in other
parts of the world throughout the history of women.
This
age-old cultural practice is the core issue upon which Nadia Hashmi has set her
novels. In One Half from the East, Obayda becomes a victim of this
cultural practice at the age of ten when her father has been maimed for life by
the bomb blast and the family has to shift from Kabul to settle in the village.
Her aunt concocts the idea of transforming Obayda into a boy assuring her
mother that such a practice would herald good luck to the family.
Make Obayda into a
boy. With her as a son, she will bring good luck to your home. You’ll see your
husband cheer up. Then you plan for another baby in the family. Having a bacha
posh at home brings boy energy into your household. The next baby that comes will
be a boy. And once you have a real son, watch what happens. Your husband will
come back to life. I’ve seen this work in the families around us. It’s not
magic—it’s just how it is. And that’s when Obayda can go back to being a girl.
(14)
The new identity imposed upon Obayda makes
her world topsy-turvy. She always liked being a girl, doing “girl things” (2016:14)
and had a great fascination for dancing. The bacha posh identity becomes
problematic for Obayda as she has to unlearn the things that she has learned as
a girl for ten years and adopt the new language and behaviour of boys. She is
debarred from household chores and is expected to play outdoor games with boys
and go out to the market. A sense of insecurity and the fear of being exposed
looms large in her mind. Her sense of insecurity becomes more acute when she
goes to school and finds herself amid boys in the school playground: “I watch
the boys drift one way and the girls another. I am now in the weird place
between both worlds” (2016: 24). Her bacha posh identity leads her to an
awkward situation where she is neither able to assimilate with boys nor with
girls. Through Obayda’s complex state of mind, Hashmi projects that the dubious
identity of a bacha posh results from the fact that she has to enact masculinity
with a female body. Obayda struggles hard to perform the role of Obayd but
“still haven’t fully got used to it” (2016: 25). She finds that the masculine gender
behaviour is indeed different from that of the female and strives to tackle the
sex-gender dichotomy. However, Obayda’s struggle to appropriate herself to the masculine
gender role becomes less complicated when she meets another bacha posh in
her school. Rahim/Rahima tells Obayda that to perform the role of bacha posh
efficiently, she must stop thinking herself as a female garbed in male
clothing, but consider herself a boy: “You’re a boy, not a bacha posh,
Obayd. If you get that, there is nothing else” (2016: 36). Rahima has
competently adopted the masculine body language and loves her bacha posh identity
as it provides her with the freedom that she has been deprived of as a female. Though
‘Rahim’ is an imposed identity, yet she has been able to naturalise her body to
the masculine gender role because she has learned that “Being a boy is not all
in your pants. It’s in your head” (36). The body must adjust to the mind.
Renouncing
the feminine gender indeed provides Rahima and Obayda with the benefits of male
privilege but they know very well that such freedom is illusory. They can enact
masculinity but can never be a man since the bacha posh is socially
perceived as a subordinated masculinity. The subordinated masculinity can in no
way be a liberating force, rather it complicates the subject position of the
body. They are both “one half from the east and one half from the west” (2016:
36) as Obayda’s mother describes them. They want to get rid of their dubious
identity as it prevents them from being neither fully male nor fully female. The
interplay between the body and the social process results in complex gender role
leaving them in an in-between position. Rahima confesses: “That’s the problem
with being half things…it’s hard if you think you’re missing something. I don’t
want to be a half thing. I just want to be one whole normal me.” (2016: 55). Obayda
agrees with her. With time Obayda becomes complacent in her role as a bacha
posh and is unwilling to retrogress to her birth sex. She desires to take
up the masculine identity in perpetuity, thereby dispelling the 'half thing' to
become ‘one whole normal’ being. But she is aware that like the bacha posh identity
thrust upon her, the parents would again transform her into a girl. Her sense
of insecurity rises when she comes to know about her mother’s pregnancy. If it’s
a girl, she would also be a victim of the tradition of bacha posh, but
if it’s a boy her role as bacha posh would come to an end: “If it is a
boy, I’m finished. My parents will have the son they need and my work as a bacha
posh will be complete” (2016: 60). To get rid of her contradictory position,
and live as unitary subject Obayda becomes possessed by the rainbow myth and heads
towards the mountain range in search of the rainbow with the belief that walking
under the rainbow would metamorphose her into a boy forever. Nordberg discusses
in her book how the rainbow myth of gender-changing is widespread in
Afghanistan:
The rainbow, a
favourite element in every mythology from the Norse to the Navajo people, often
symbolizes wish fulfilment. In Afghanistan, finding a rainbow promises a very
special reward: It holds magical powers to turn an unborn child into a boy when
a pregnant woman walks under it. Afghan girls are also told that they can
become boys by walking under a rainbow, and many little girls have tried.
(Nordberg 229)
Obayda’s disappearance in the quest for
the rainbow causes much tension in the family and to her utter dismay, she
finally learns from her mother that the rainbow is only a legend told to
children. Dejected, she questions her mother: “Why would you want me to be a
boy only for now? If being a boy now is good, isn’t being a boy forever even
better?” (Hashmi 2016: 91). Obayda was content with her identity as a girl
before the bacha posh identity had been imposed upon her. With the imposition of bacha posh identity, she begins
to grow up with altogether different psychosocial expectation which in turn
creates confusion about her own identity. This acute sense of discomfort
results from the non-conformity between her female body and the masculine
gender role that she has to enact which develops a kind of gender dysphoria in
her. The experience of gender dysphoria resulting from the imposed identity triggers
unease by isolating her not only from the family but also from the larger mainstream
society. Thus, Hashmi demonstrates the nuances and complexities associated with
the practice of bacha posh which proves problematic for girls to assimilate
back into their culture as they become baffled about their identity.
Hashmi’s
critical stance on the practice of bacha posh is also reflected in her
novel The Pearl that Broke its Shell. When the Taliban ruled over the
streets of Afghanistan asserting domination through force and noxious
practices, it became difficult for Rahima and her sisters to attend school and
leave the house as they had no brother but an inept father who was a narcotist.
Under such circumstances, Madar-jan (a term of endearment for mother)
transforms Rahima into a bacha posh as she needs help with the errands
and it has seemed unfeasible for her to depend on Padar-jan for anything.
“Bachem, from now on we’re going to call you Rahim instead of Rahima”
Madar-jan tells her (2014: 35). Once the bacha posh identity has
been thrust upon her, Rahima has to adjust her body to accommodate herself into
the new gender role. To maintain the charade, she has to learn the new language
and behaviour of boys like Obayda. Like most of the bacha posh, it
becomes problematic for Rahima to enter into the new territory: “My instincts
were to jerk back, to run away and never to look them (the boys) in the eye
again” (2014: 67). Rahima has to readjust her body to a completely different
psychosocial expectation and is indeed perplexed to observe the transformation
in her mother's behaviour towards her. Her mother constantly orients her to acclimatize
her body to the masculine gender behaviour and she is constantly apprehensive about
the masquerade being exposed:
“Listen, Rahim-jan.
You should be out with the boys, playing. That’s what boys do— do
you understand what I’m saying?” …
… “Yes Madar-jan,
but sometimes I just don’t want to. They… they push each other a lot.”
“Then push back.”
I was surprised by
her advice but the look on her face told me she was serious. Here sat my mother
telling me the exact opposite of what she’d always said. I would have to
toughen up.” (68)
Rahima’s cross-gender identification as a
result of the imposed identity altered her mother's response to facilitate her
to adopt the cultural expectations of maleness. As already referred, Rahima is
not the only member in the family to have adopted the practice of cross-dressing.
Rahima hears from her aunt Khala Shaima the account of her
great-great-grandmother who was a son to her father and worked in the farm like
a boy and who also worked as a harem-guard in King Habibullah’s palace, dressed
in man’s uniform. Resisting the tradition of reverting to the birth sex once a bacha
posh attains the age of puberty, Rahima nevertheless continues to
cross-dress as a boy till Padar-jan arranges her marriage with Abdul Khaliq,
a dominant warlord. Padar-jan decides to marry off Rahima and her two
sisters with Abdul Khaliq and his cousins in exchange for a large bride price
and a supply of opium. Madar-jan resists but to no avail. Padar-jan is
obstinate in his decision. Nordberg discusses how at this moment daughters are
discernibly the cards played by Afghan fathers:
Men make
alliances, and not necessarily in the best interest of their daughters. These
alliances are related to the social prestige and honour of the family. But it
may also be opportunism. They want to marry up to create more security—
financial or physical— for the family in a time of need. (Nordberg 152)
Through the predicament of Rahima, Hashmi
projects that in a hegemonic masculine society woman are repressed at every
stage. Bacha posh and marriage act as restrictive mechanisms that
threaten the subjectivity of women. Firstly, she is transformed into a boy by
the imposition of the bacha posh practise to absolve the family from
stigma and undertake the family responsibility, next, she is regressed to a
girl by the imposition of marriage for the financial security of her family. Deniz
Kandiyoti describes the marriages of young girls to older men as “distress
sales to food or cash” (Kandiyoti 180). Rahima and her sisters become victims
of such forced marriages but in case of Rahima things become more problematic
because of the frequent reversal of roles imposed upon her.
At
the age of thirteen, Rahima becomes the fourth wife of the warlord Abdul Khaliq.
Years of performing the masculine role have left certain permanent marks in her
which prevents her from accommodating wholly into her new role as Abdul
Khaliq’s wife. Her marital life becomes highly dissatisfying. She loathes her
husband as he dehumanizes her by inflicting violence upon her to assert his
dominance:
The thought of him
made me queasy. I hated the feeling of it. I hated his breath, his whiskers,
his callused feet. But there would be no escape. He called for me when he
pleased and made me do what he wanted. (Hashmi, 2014, p.169)
Abdul Khaliq’s oppressive nature restricts
Rahima’s autonomy and space in her new environment. Ever since Rahima was
converted into a bacha posh she was debarred from household chores, and
now reframing her life to feminine obligations has been difficult for her. Her
mother-in-law asks Abdul Khaliq’s first wife, Badriya to keep Rahima under constant
surveillance so that she gets acquainted with her feminine duties and can
perform appropriately the role of a wife:
“Make sure she
does a good job, Badriya. This girl has a lot to learn. She was a bacha
posh, don’t forget. Can you believe that? A bacha posh at this age!
No wonder she has no clue how to carry herself as a woman. Look at the way she
walks, her hair, her fingernails! Her mother should be ashamed of herself.” (176)
Her mother-in-law not only condemns her for
lacking feminine traits and but also accuses her mother of allowing her to
continue with her bacha posh identity even after puberty. Rahima’s only
salvation in her miserable life is her son, Jahangir. Being able to bear a son
Rahima’s position in the family becomes somewhat better as Jahangir becomes one
of Abdul Khaliq’s favourites. But any reprieve for Rahima is momentary. When the
new government comes to power and demands women to be members of the
parliament, Abdul Khaliq promotes Badriya as one of the members to exert his
influence over government affairs. As Rahima knows to read and write, she offers
to help Badriya in Kabul. Though she seems uncertain to leave Jahangir behind
but grabs the opportunity when Abdul Khaliq permits her to assist Badriya in
Kabul. While she is in Kabul, Jahangir becomes ill and by the time she returns
home, to her utter dismay he passes away. Rahima could not believe her destiny.
Jahangir was her only solace in her wretched life. The demise of her son leaves
her dejected and devastated. Rahima bemoans her lot:
I was a little
girl and then I wasn’t.
I was a bacha
posh and then I wasn’t.
I was a daughter
and then I wasn’t.
I was a mother and
then I wasn’t.
Just as soon as I
could adjust, things changed. I changed. This last change was the worst. (2014:
384)
Life provides Rahima with such diverse
ephemeral roles that each time she attempts to accommodate herself to a particular
role it alters and then she is assigned to another new role. The death of her
son steals the very breath of her existence. When Rahima is still not able to
overcome the grief at the loss of her son, Abdul Khaliq accuses her of their
son’s death: “A bacha posh. I should have known better. You still don’t
know what it is to be a woman” (2014: 408). At every blow, he curses her for
being an irresponsible mother. He cuts off her hair and assaults her brutally,
causing Rahima to miscarry her unborn child: “Fresh tears for a new loss. I may
have killed one of Abdul Khaliq’s children. But he has just killed another”
(2014: 409). Nevertheless, Rahima does not abandon hope as her aunt Khala
Shaima’s words ring in her ears. She often used to say her that everyone needs
an ‘escape.’ Inspired by Khala Shaima’s words Rahima make plans to escape from
her state of wretchedness. When she goes to Kabul with Badriya to assist her,
she narrates her whole story to Hamida and Sufia, the women parliamentarians
with whom she befriends and makes plans to escape by feigning sickness.
Finally, she cuts off her hair, cross-dresses herself in men's attire to
transform from Rahima to Rahim and escapes from her restrictive life.
Hashmi’s
novels project the complexities faced by the feminine body through participating
in the social practice of bacha posh. The practice of bacha posh is
the outcome of a dysfunctional society and a reflection of its vulnerability.
Though by feigning masculinit,y girls can have access to freedom yet such a
notion of agency proves to be evanescent. Hashmi demonstrates how her
characters suffer from gender dysphoria because of the imposition of bacha
posh identity upon them. Both Obayda and Rahima want to get rid of the
subordinated masculinity of bacha posh at it complicates their subject
position and leads to complex gender relations. Their quest to initiate
themselves into masculine gender roles and their despise against their birth gender
grows from the subordinate position of women in the hegemonic masculine Afghan
society. But they also come to terms with the fact that that by enacting
masculinity through the practice of bacha posh, they can never truly liberate
themselves from subjugation, rather it results in further subordination of
their bodies.
Notes.
- The
concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ which has influenced gender studies across
diverse academic fields has been discussed by Connell and Messerschmidt in
their essay “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”
Works
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Julienne, Andrew Gibbs and Rachel Jewkes. “Bacha posh in Afghanistan: factors
associated
with raising a girl as a boy.” Culture,
Health & Sexuality, 17 June 2019,
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