Critical Discourse in Telugu

K. Suneetha Rani

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032332680
• eBook ISBN: 9781000470444
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume forms a part of the Critical Discourses in South Asia series which deals with schools, movements and discursive practices in major South Asian languages. It offers crucial insights into the making of Telugu literature and its critical tradition across over a century. The book brings together English translation of major writings of influential figures dealing with literary criticism and theory, aesthetic and performative traditions, re-interpretations of primary concepts, categories and interactions in Telugu. It presents 32 key texts in literary and cultural studies representing thoughts, debates, signposts and interfaces on important trends in critical discourse in the Telugu region from the middle of the 19th to the end of the 20th century, with nearly all translated by experts for the first time into English. The volume covers a wide array of themes, ranging from a text by Kandukuri Veeresalingam on women's education to Challapalli Swaroopa Rani on new readings of the oral literature of the marginalised communities. These radical essays explore the interconnectedness of the socio-cultural and historical developments in the colonial and post-independence period in the Telugu region. They discuss themes such as integrative aesthetic visions; poetic and literary forms; modernism; imagination; power structures and social struggles; ideological values; cultural renovations; and collaborations and subversions.

Comprehensive and authoritative, this volume offers an overview of the history of critical thought in Telugu literature in South Asia. It will be essential for scholars and researchers of Telugu language and literature, literary criticism, literary theory, comparative literature, Indian literature, cultural studies, art and aesthetics, performance studies, history, sociology, regional studies and South Asian studies. It will also interest the Telugu-speaking diaspora and those working on the intellectual history of Telugu and conservation of languages and culture.

1 Kandukuri Veeresalingam: Women’s Education [February 1875]

DOI: 10.4324/9781003224761-2

Introduction

Kandukuri Veeresalingam (1848–1919) is considered the father of renaissance in Andhra. He was a social reformer who vehemently opposed social evils especially against women such as child marriage and widowhood. He established a girls’ school in 1874 at Dhavaleswaram and another school for girls at Innispeta in Rajahmundry in 1884. Veeresalingam Pantulu used writing as an instrument for social reform. He popularised several “modern” literary forms like novel, essay, and biography in Telugu. He has written many essays exclusively for women on matters of health, religion and morality. He opposed superstitious beliefs, fought against child marriage and championed the cause of women’s education.

He ridiculed the opponents of women’s education in many satires, lampoons and drama. Later he established the Widow Home. Also, he fought against the nautch system, the dancing girls who were dedicated to the temple but compelled to cater to men’s sexual desires. He strongly hoped that modern education will change the plight of the women caught in the web of oppressive customs and traditions. He believed in the development of better women (wives) and better homes with the help of modern education. His extensive writings also included a few journals that strived to address women to make them into wise housewives, for instance, Viveka Vardhini, a journal for women education, and Satihitabodhini, a monthly magazine for women. He was not only a social reformer but also an avid writer with many experiments to his credit. His novel Rajasekhara Charitramu (1880) is considered to be the first novel in Telugu. Inspired by Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of the Wakefield, it was translated into English and published in London. His other works also strongly opposed the superstitious beliefs and practices in Indian society and satirically attacked the religious and cultural institutions and agencies. He was a strong advocate of the use of common people’s Telugu in literature. His contribution to the critical discourse lies in the manner he attempted free translations of the English texts into Telugu, his use of common people’s language, his concern for the gender question and his advocacy for modern education.

This essay on women’s education is a translation of “Stri Vidya” by Kandukuri Veeresalingam. While being progressive in many ways, it reiterates the traditional roles of women. Veeresalingam uses descriptive synonyms for women throughout the essay which is very similar to the classical descriptions where women are addressed by their features or qualities, for instance, ‘pallavadhara’ which means the one with lips like tender leaves. He quotes from Sanskrit texts and gives Telugu meanings to these quotations in Notes. This reveals his argument in favour of the use of people’s Telugu in written texts/literature.

*

Women’s education¹ [February 1875]

That with education one acquired humility and intelligence is too well known, and it is not something that needs to be introduced anew. Even so, we hear that there are great people here and there who say that education makes one unintelligent. Such people are none other than those who would suggest that the Sun who dispels darkness renders darkness. Why bother about such out-of-the world wise men? As it is abundantly clear to one and all that with education one acquires wisdom, there is no need to independently emphasise that education is necessary for women just as it is for men and that it does a lot of good. Education is of no use to those who say, “What is the problem if one is not intelligent?” True, we are not competent to speak with such wise men. And some being of the view that the end of education is to obtain only employment argue according to their whim and fancy asking whether women who are educated would go to address meetings or work to earn money. If not, they wonder why they should be educated. If that is the case, perhaps they are of the view that even men who don’t lack food and clothing don’t require education! Aren’t there people in the world who have been living without being educated? How can they say that education is only for employment? Man can live and earn a living by doing wage-labour even if he is not educated. Any number of occupations is available to earn a living. For these, education is not at all necessary. Therefore, education is to obtain knowledge and wisdom, not merely to earn a living. It is for this reason alone that education is necessary for women too. Some say because we have umpteen number of books which deal with sringara (erotica), respectable women who read these may get spoilt and become licentious, and therefore they don’t need education. Even this need not be considered for the following reason: it is only our pundits who have read sringaraprabandhas (erotic poetic composition), and the others have not read them much. Even so, experience makes it abundantly clear that debauchery is more prevalent among the uneducated than among the pundits. From the reading of which sringarakavyas (erotic poetic composition) had they learnt this adultery? It’s stupidity, not education, that is the cause for all these bad traits. If they are educated, one can doubtlessly say that such bad traits can be cured. Though there are bad people among the educated, their evil traits are not a consequence of education. Occasionally, education may turn out to be an instrument in the evil deeds they perform, but merely because of this one cannot say no to education. In this manner, while using any of the good things some evil effects might occur. Just because taking rice does not suit one person who has fever, can we say rice is not good for anyone? There may have been one educated amorous woman who may have used her education to write letters to her paramour; similarly, some stupid people may have sliced their throats with knife-boards; some may have committed suicide by drowning themselves in wells; therefore, will any wise person think that education that is good for much welfare should not be obtained, or that knife-boards that are useful for many things should not be there, or that the wells in the backyards that give us the water that helps us survive should all be closed down. If one’s using things for destructive purposes all things in the world will keep yielding bad results and not one will bring in anything but evil. If one were to stop using them because of this, how will the world move on? One must obtain things useful and appropriate to each of them. There are many uses for education that are good for all, including for women. Even thousand mouths will be insufficient to detail them. Be that as it may. First, education will give wisdom. With that, one will acquire the knowledge of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. With that knowledge, one will learn to do good deeds and not to do evil ones. As a consequence, everyone in the family will stop fighting and live united. If women read books, they will retain the stories of virtuous women of the past and become eager to behave like them and become pativratas (devoted wives). Amongst us, if there are two women in the house, isn’t it unusual to find them living together without any fights because of their stupidity? Isn’t it because of this that we have the saying that it’s possible for a hundred tufts to exist in the same house, while it’s difficult for two plaits to live together? If women acquire education, shed their foolishness and gain intelligence, how much unity will they obtain and how much pleasure will they give to everyone who watches them? How much happiness would the lords of the house get not hearing about the destruction of the house! Look at the unity among the white women who have studied well! Wouldn’t our women too become like them when they get educated? As this is known to everyone from experience, there is no reason to specially demonstrate it with reasons and examples. It’s the responsibility of women, not men, to set right all the things in the house. This becomes very evident when we look at the debate between Satya and Draupadi in Bharatha. Had they been educated, how well and how carefully would they have performed these duties! Isn’t it because of our women’s inefficiency that the burden of the entire house falls on the men, and they are forced to look after house chores in annoyance after doing their jobs outside all day? A husband may at times have to go outside the country too. In such a case the wife may have to share secrets about a lot of household chores to the husband. If the wives are uneducated, won’t they have to put up with not being able to share such secrets via letters back and forth and not being able to do anything but keep quiet? Even if one were to share such things in secret to someone else and get them to write, wouldn’t all the secrets be in the street, following the saying that if you cross the threshold of the house it is as good as crossing the Ganga with all the secrets being transmitted from one to the other? Moreover, if women are educated like men, their children too will be very intelligent. Look, in the world, the children and the women of the lower classes tend to be less intelligent compared to the children and women of the upper classes. Why is that so? Among the upper classes, even if the women are not educated, they are intelligent because of their living together with men who are educated. If the women too are educated, imagine how much more intelligent would they be? Similarly, the children too tend to be more intelligent because of their living together continuously with educated fathers and the mothers who have become famous due to their living together with their husbands. As the men among the lower classes themselves had not been educated, even the women who live with them tend to be less intelligent compared to the women of the upper classes. In the same vein, it so happens that their progeny too tends to be unintelligent, having lived all the time with uneducated parents and relatives. Why talk about women? Reflect on matters concerning men. Tell me, what’s the difference between uneducated lower-class men and educated upper-class men? If one wishes to show the advantages of education, there are countless. If one were to write about all of them, it’s like picking up the grains of sand and washing them! It’s not as if our elders don’t know the use of such an exercise! Women’s education in our country has been in existence for a long time, and not something that has made its entry recently from somewhere. For some reason, such education has been gradually declining but has not completely disappeared. Even now among women from respectable families there are many who are educated. More recently, because of the greatness of the Mohammedan rule that had existed for some time, women’s education has slightly taken a back seat. Why only women’s education? When our country had been occupied by the mlechhas (derogatory term meaning inferior and impure people), how many of our dharmas had gone down the drain! Because we were lucky, because of this English rule, good dharmas have been gradually rising up and spreading throughout the country. Even so, as they say, thousand obstacles for Vigneswara’s wedding, to carry out one good deed one will find thousand impediments. This is how it is. Some amongst us who think of themselves as pundits, knowingly or unknowingly, argue in the beginning that education turns out to be the cause of women’s downfall, that it is against ancient tradition; later on, even after knowing, they behave like people who insist on their point of view winning over, and fight, deceiving innocent people. Whatever be the influence of their scholarship, that Hindu women lacked education is unbelievable. Women’s education is not scientific either; for us sruti,² smriti,³ traditional customs are the authority, among them smriti which is not in conflict with sruti, traditional customs which are not in conflict with both smriti and sruti are acceptable; nowhere in the srutis had women’s education been prohibited. At least in the smritis one finds that women are considered ineligible to recite the mantras in the Vedas. Therefore, isn’t it clear that women can study other things? Moreover, women like Somidamma [like the wives of Somayajis] ought to read some of them. To that, there are some assigned duties too. That’s why Sakuntala utters some sentences from the Vedas and as the entire court listens she explains their meaning. It is precisely because of this it becomes evident that women of olden times knew the meaning of the Vedas. That women from respectable families like Sita, Damayanti and others had studied is mentioned in the puranas and other such writings. Perhaps they would say that these civilised people of the past, their husbands and their fathers are not orthodox! Let them say so. We will take care of it then. Therefore, there is not even an iota of doubt that women’s education was acceptable to the srutis, smritis and the puranas. The custom and tradition have been added to them. Those who argue that caste women are not to be educated too accept that in the past there was the custom of the Kshatriya women being educated. It may become clear to all from this that their argument is weak and not wise. This is because girls of the royalty too are none but women from respectable families. Once one accepts that there was a custom of educating some women in the past, the argument that women from respectable families did not have education attracts the fault of being half-truths.⁴ Be that as it may; even women other than Kshatriyas were being educated in the past; it’s not as though only women of royalty were being educated. When king Bhoja was ruling, it is quite clear that an educated Brahmin family had come and recited some slokas. The following is the sloka recited by the wife of the Brahmin:

What if only one wheel for the chariot, a snake is its rein

the sky way its path that has no base, a handicapped without legs the charioteer?

The Sun keeps travelling everyday till the end of the sky, this is possible for the great

only because of their will, not due to the instruments they possess.

After this, is the sloka recited by the daughter-in-law of the brahmin:

You find the flower for a bow, a row of bees for the string,

The side-glances of the fickle-eyed women are the bows,

Friend-Moon, lifeless; he has no body, but Manmatha disturbs all the worlds

The Mahatmas perform deeds because of their strength, not because of the instruments.

[That means they can achieve without instruments.]

In another instance, the sloka that an old Brahmin woman who lived on the banks of Jahnavi recited in the king’s presence:

The heroic fire of this king Bhoja is shining bright; as for the forts of his enemies, as this fire makes its entry, instead of the dried grass being burnt, it is sprouting and spreading wide.

If we sit down to write, one can find them in plenty. After this, during the time of Krishnadevaraya’s rule, the Brahmin women were educated. It is clear from the writings of the famous Appaya Deekshitulu’s daughter that she too was educated. For the fear of extending the length of the writing, instead of giving more examples, I can refer to just one sloka. When her people tried to marry her off to someone less educated, she says the following to her father:

One who refers to avyayas like vihasya and vihaya as shashti and chaturthivibhaktis, one to whom aham and katham are dvitiyavibhaktis, how (katham) can I (aham) become a wife to such a wise man?

[Deekshitulu’s daughter, thus, examines, reproaches and ridicules the groom to be.]

Why these words of ancient times now? Even in the present days, we can see the custom of women studying among traditional families. Not somewhere. In the household of Sri Paravastu Venkatarangacharyulu from Visakhapatnam, the eminent among pundits and the most well known in the world too, women have been educated. Everyone will probably know that Srirangamma, daughter of Sri Paravastu Srinivasacharyulu, has written works such as Streevidya Samarthanamu. From this it becomes evident that even among the Brahmin women have traditionally been educated from the past to the present. Like this, women had been educated not just among Brahmin and Kshatriya castes; it has been there among the other castes too, but women who had been educated, like the educated men among them, have bee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Translators
• Notes on transliteration
• Introduction
• 1 Women’s education [February 1875]
• 2 Prologue to a memorandum on modern Telugu
• 3 Prologue to Radhika Santvanamu
• 4 Foreword to a history of Telugu literature
• 5 The harm done to Telugu
• 6 The Sitamma Tikkanna Sculpted
• 7 Introduction to Musalamma Maranamu
• 8 Man and woman (excluding the aspect of love)
• 9 Freedom of the artist
• 10 Purpose of poetry
• 11 The structure of poetic revolutions
• 12 Those six poets
• 13 Why Sanskrit, Oh Swami?
• 14 The word is the world
• 15 The story of Rama and the class character
• 16 First-generation short stories of Telangana
• 17 The origins of Telugu drama that one does not wish to see
• 18 Literary criticism, too, is social praxis
• 19 Music that’s snapping its shackles
• 20 Protest against the caste hegemony
• 21 Literature and its philosophical premise
• 22 The trajectories of Kalingandhra story
• 23 Rasa and women’s experience
• 24 Why has Madhuravani changed?
• 25 Reflections on Marxist literary criticism in Telugu
• 26 Coarse winnows that sift literature
• 27 Difference of perspectives between Dalit literature and revolutionary literature
• 28 The furnace
• 29 A garden of mirrors—reclaiming the Sufi past and contemporary Muslim discourse
• 30 Poetry is but the reflection of realistic identities
• 31 Muslim women’s poetry
• 32 The story of Yellamma—the philosophical perspective
• Index