by Sourodip Roy 15 July 2022
Introduction
Gender and Cultural prism have often rephrased the definitions of the ‘self’ within this phallogocentric literary and cultural discourse. Literary theory and its interestingly fluid usage in social reviews even to date have made the field of Literature intersectional, reflective, interpretative, and hence a spectrum, a sequence of thoughts, a journey through which the reader is able to make the ‘illusive’ world associated with reality. The concept of multiculturalism has resurged paths to analyse literature and its conscious flow of psychic emotions in a beautiful pattern; wherein, social complexities and voices of repulsion regarding all forms of violence are echoingly strong. From this domain of theorizing experiences into clear shells of printed words, strong enough to portray the realistic political apartheid followed under cultural excuses is highly valuable. Moving to the dimension of Law, the complexities created through these patterns of constructive rules and customs, when applied to review any field allows us to apply an ‘intersectional’ and critical lens to venture into the discourse. Both Gender and Law are a spectrum, and my focus will draw on two popular films – Gully Boy, and Secret Superstar to analyse and discuss a few Muslim Laws, and their creation. Through these films, we get to know how hypocrisy continues with a glittering scene superficially and sustains through piping itself within the mainstream representation(s).
Interpretation and Reviewing Opinion
Islam has laid its existence in very ancient history, and whereof we need to know that majority of it is not codified, although some are. Islam in one word according to Muslim people as referred to in the book of B.M Gandhi’s “submission to the will of God” during the pre-Islamic period there was no law that was constructed based on equality. The rules and the belief system that were practiced during those times were mere customs formed by the powered person of the society which was the ‘man who was considered all mighty’. A man was the decision-maker; women were their commodity to use, which we will further discuss in detail. As B.M Gandhi in his book Family Law, quoted Dr. Tahir Mahmood that “The story of the Shariat is indeed the pitiable story…unilaterally divorce their wives…Muslim Law in Indian mind… (Gandhi, 2012). Now the question arises is/was Islam a law or just a mere a usage or custom, first of all, custom or usage is defined as the beliefs or practice of the people from time immemorable and it must be continuous and consistent. So, at the time of the pre-Islamic era, the most of their practices were derived from the perception of the man of those societies, there were no standard principles that were followed, and chaos and rivalry became the core of their living and the victims of such rivalry become the women they were captured by the winning party as a reward or as compensation for the loss.
Society as a whole is appropriate construction of a phallus-oriented discourse; society is a stage where social people are trying to play their role as scripted, usually hu-’man’ tending to follow the mainstream road few individuals try to break through that heteronormative path for which either they strike out from the society or declared as anti-national and playground why so cause as a coach trains his players how to play infield and strategy and position of every single player are made by their coach and that team is led by a captain depending upon their performance and how much they can follow their coach similarly inn society we have head whole devolves the rules and regulation of conduct and this rules are followed by the people of the society and those individuals are leaded by leader set by the heads (hypocritic). Marriage in a few words can be described as a social contract where two parties to the contract form out their demand in form of promises and either party agrees to fulfil those demands the most important aspect of which is the consent taken from either party to the contract without which the agreement is void and we can see that how a marriage full fills all the essentials of a contract, so the terms and emotion we shower on the term marriage and giving it a name of religious scarcement is nothing but just to hide the truth and for our own benefits, marriage is done just to give the parties the legal right to have sex and to procreate children otherwise the legitimacy of the child would come into question (either by force or consent that either way would be overlooked if the word marriage is stamped on it) now we can see how the women becomes the victim if this deluding aspects in society stills now women are not given the equal right as men they are always considered as inferior for which crimes like rape takes place. This popular way of thinking has been created by the superiors of the society or by the people like Yogi Adityanath who blames women for the very single actions of men and this kind of people rules our states who thought process says- “ladkiya chote kapre pehenegi to ladke to bhadakna hi hain na” in this society everything is fixed and set for the woman their conduct, behaviour ,ways to live their own lives one of which is marriage it is sacrament where after taking Saptapdi the marriage becomes socially complete and during those seven steps all a consensus-ad-ideam (meeting of mind) happens which forms the essentials of the contract which is described above, marriage is bond which somehow benefits the men as because though exceptions are there but in majority of the cases after the marriage women’s are not allowed to work if allowed they are given condition that they have to maintain both the family as well as work if something needed to be prioritise then it must be the family that comes first and after everything if they are not getting pregnant or not willing to then they have to go through harsh comments means after making her body go through such agony now to you want her to produce next generation for you and still now in many places how people does abortion if the baby is a women instead of men (is she your re-productive machine?) and after all that she needs to nurture that child and if something goes wrong, blame will be on her; marriage is somehow a way to restrict women from her freedom in majority cases, and very single aspect of which can be seen in the movie Gully Boy and Secret Superstar, where the women were bitten by the men, and no independence of women was presented, which was a clear reflection of the social designs women are place into. As in Gully Boy in the middle scene, wherein Safeena (Alia Bhatt) was caught by her mother for what she does hiddenly. Her going out with Muraad (Ranveer Singh), and her outing with friends was somehow understood by her mother and she was explicitly assaulted by her where the mother stated “ladkiyoko isiliye zyaada padahana nahin chahiye…pankh nikal jate hain unki” (Gully Boy, 2019). Safeena’s claim that she is not allowed to do anything except for going to college and coming back home was confronted by her mother’s question “aur kya chahiye tumko” (Gully Boy, 2019). This question is a powerful strand and voice of an identity who should be marginalized and fit itself into the definitive patterns of our society; deviating from which is simply ‘not allowed’.
Moving to the situation of marriage and marital space, the Secret Superstar clearly reveals how the power-play lies in the hand of the male authority and the woman is simply unable and shackled within it. The character playing the mother’s role- Najma was a victim of this phallogocentric order of identity politics. Najma was seen to repeatedly ‘accept’ the assault on her, and regulate her emotions and pains through the instilled fact that women must admit themselves to their owner men. Like Gandhi in his work stated that men can read Quran and wives must not; clearly women are trespassers here in the world of knowledge, where men must be the ruler; therefore, women are encompassed within the room of ‘what you don’t know, don’t question’, as was Najma in Secret Superstar. Despite the fact that her daughter was trying to rescue Najma, her sibling (Guddu), and herself from this patriarchal regulation of her father through a divorce, Najma still never accepts it, and even in the last scene she threatens her husband to share these assaults in the YouTube channel, but the fact of divorce taking place was never shown, quite because of the limiting rights Islamic Law bestows to their women as B.M Gandhi wrote that talaq “a male can give talaq by his one-sided or ex-parte decision and wife consent is not required at all” this showed us how in both the films Gully Boy and Secret Superstar the women lead could not give talaq to their husband even though they had a toxic relationship and the women suffered from both mental and physical violence/torture this gets us through the phase of where we see that how the dominancy of “man” is portrayed and how these films have adopted those pietistic customs.
Conclusion
Had the subject of Gully Boy been a woman then the movie would have been more efficaciously presented; although for the movie Secret Superstar, the subjective presentation was strong although subverting the Islamic laws was somehow lacking. In both these movies, finance/money and financial independence could be previewed as a crucial factor that was oppressing the voices of the women showcased. Financial security and access to the same is deliberately cramped for women, for if this is provided to them, they would definitely not be under the ‘control’ of men, but there are many controversial aspects to the same. Thus, my short review of these two movies was to show how the literary situation of the cultural aspect of the society was represented through these screens whilst questioning the laws situated within Islam, vibrantly but not unequivocally.
References
Gandhi, B., 2012. Family Law. 1st ed. Delhi: EBC, pp.30-90.
Gully Boy. 2019. [film] Directed by Z. Akhtar. Bollywood: AA Flims, Zee Studio.
Secret Superstar. 2017. [film] Directed by A. Chandan. Bollywood: Zee Studios.