It is Ramanavami today, the birth date of Lord Rama, heralding the festivities that annually replicate the joyous celebration of Rama’s victory over Ravana, the epical triumph of the Good. Theatrical performances of the Ramalila show up in village chaupals as well as in sophisticated urban centres. Men and women from all walks of life pay tribute to the enduring mythology of an undated tale.
Where is Sita in all of this? When was she born and to whom? Tulsidas has dwelt on the maternal glances of Kaushalya ma when the toddler Rama found his feet. But who was Sita’s mother? Who was her biological father? The familiar tale of the baby girl found in the furrow of King Janaka’s field is a perplexing riddle to genealogical mapping. Janaka named her ‘Sita’—literally meaning ‘found in the furrow’. Others call her Janaki, daughter of Janaka, or Mythili, the princess of Mithila. Under patriarchy, women’s names—and their roles—are relational, as I understand from my several years of delving into women’s studies. Abandoned by a mother (presumably), discovered in a furrow, and finally, at the end of a constantly challenged life, returning to Mother Earth by an act of will, is Sita a self-progenated ‘goddess’ who can be seen through modern feminism as the unitary woman?
Early texts might even support this view. There appears to be a Sita who existed prior to the Sita of Valmiki’s Ramayana. A verse in the Rig Veda mentions an earth goddess, Sita, who blesses the crops and brings fecundity and prosperity. But such a Sita is contrary to the Ramayana-related traditions, which prohibit certain forms of agricultural labour for women. According to farming practices in the hill regions of northern India, women are not allowed to touch or use the plough. A poignant folk tale from the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh recounts how a devoted wife waited anxiously during the planting season, hoping that her man would come back to the village and attend to the fields. The children starved, the earth turned brown, but there was still no man. One day at early dawn, she hitched the oxen to the plough. As the sun panned over the caked earth, the village awoke to the sight of this lonely woman doing an unwomanly job. There was first a sense of shock and the fear of Earth’s curse, but finally there was admiration for the woman’s courage in breaking meaningless traditions.
In folk tales, the primitive and the modern, the scripted and the oral are often conflated. When I came upon this story, I was fascinated by its emphasis on the Earth connections of the Sita myth. Ecology and sustenance are vital in farming communities. The ancient goddess protects the fields but also lays down some laws of labour distribution by gender roles—these have sustained farm practices in traditional communities. Now, a ‘money-order economy’, as it is called, is prevalent in the hill regions, where the men leave home to get employment in the plains and repatriate their incomes to the village. Who will then operate the plough, a male symbol though it might have been in the past? The ancient Sita who blessed the crops needs to be invoked so that the new exigencies can be met.
This amazing adaptability of myths is seen in many other aspects of Sita’s story and its modifications. In the Himachal village, it was a spontaneous retelling of an old tale whereas in sophisticated forums, the Sita story is given deliberate connotations. The name resonates with meaning, its suggestiveness allowing for infinite possibilities of interpreting woman’s position in Indian society. It is useful that Sita’s genealogy is unknown. She is, in a compelling way, unique, though the Ramayana, traditionally told, binds her to the role identification of the ur-wife within a complex triad of Rama, the ‘devoted husband’, Ravana, the evil abductor and Hanuman, the supreme follower.
Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, propounded a version wherein the Rama–Sita relationship was one of equal partnership. He famously remarked, ‘My ideal of a wife is Sita and my ideal of a husband, Rama. But Sita was no slave to Rama. Or each was a slave to the other. Rama was ever considerate to Sita.’ Against the backdrop of nationalism and the freedom movement, the ‘wifely role’ had to be redefined and there could be no better strategy for change than the evocation of this iconic couple. In his own relationship with his wife Kasturba, Gandhi attempted to demonstrate this ‘modernized’ companionship, with his autobiography, My Experiments With Truth, giving several instances of Kasturba’s questioning of Gandhi’s choices, their discussions and participation in unconventional modes of wedded life.
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