Journal of Political Studies, Vol.

26, Issue - 2, 2019, 137:147

Rediscovering the Discourse on Women’s Freedom: A Feminist Exploration of

Bano Qudsia’s Fiction

Farah Deeba and Dr. Ahmed Usman

Abstract

Bano Qudsia is an influential and one among the most celebrated Pakistani fiction
writers. She has a special significance in normalizing the established regimes of
gender in the Pakistani society. She presents, in her writings, the conditions and states
of women that belong to certain classes in the modern world, especially modern
Pakistani society. It will be a safe assumption to consider that she along with giving a
discourse in her fiction has also lived in accordance with her ideals. There has been an
extensive research on Qudsia, but she has never been looked into with the perspective
of gender specifically. This paper intends to highlight the perspective of Bano Qudsia
on freedom of women, as described in her novel Raja Gidh. Textual analysis
technique of the qualitative methodology is being used for interpretation and
description of the content of the novel. Under the textual analysis, ‗Close Reading‘
and ‗Narrative Analysis‘ has been done. Life spans of three characters of the novel are
thoroughly examined from a gender perspective. The writer's endorsement of the
traditional patriarchal view of the society and an attempt of its universalization by
incorporating the theme of biological essentialism side by side in her novel, have been
analyzed in this research paper. The impact of her novel in our society, especially
against the budding feminist movement has been one of the detrimental contributing
factors, leaving our women bereft and at the mercy of a traditional and heartless
patriarchal society.

Keywords: Bano Qudsia, Raja Gidh, Urdu Fiction, Feminism, Patriarchy

Introduction
Bano Qudsia is unique in the fact that she has normalized, after establishing, the
traditional gender regimes which are given actual strength by her practice of the same
ideals in her real life. Being a land of culture, Pakistan has a fair number of people
who are connect with the normative traditional discourse. When it comes to
developing a social perspective in the general public, the most exact force is culture. It
is also the major force in creating the belief system and mindset of the masses
(Qadeer, 2006). To infer that the Pakistani society is basically a traditional society and
this traditional narrative receives almost no opposition; is nearest to reason. This
narrative or mindset receives no opposition be it ideological or practical from any
influential stakeholder (Jillani, 2008). Literature being the purest and most refined
source of the traditional narrative has several other sources (Juriette, 2008). Fiction is
among the most influential and a deep-rooted literary category for it acts out the past
and establishes the future of any society in the present context and has an influence on
__________________________________
*Authors are PhD Scholar, Department of Gender Studies and Assistant Professor, Institute of
Social and Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.
 Farah Deeba and Dr. Ahmed Usman

the patterns of thinking in the individuals of that society, subtly and effortlessly.
Pakistan‘s fiction and its tradition have remained, to a great degree, engaged with
gender issues; even after the existence of this abundance of gendered fiction, it has not
been fully capable of raising a debate on these issues. Fiction plays an important role
in portraying gender, an if we do not critically present those realities, we will continue
to depict an incomplete view of the gender in our society.
Qudsia, being probably the sole Urdu fiction author, who has addressed gender issues
has remained steadfast in her beliefs throughout her life, even remaining strong in
upheavals, by believing on ―Personal is Political‖ (Heberle, 2016). Qudsia‘s
autobiography by the name, Rah-e-Rawan (Qudsia, 2011), evidently tells us the same
which is also supplemented amply through the media interviews she has given.
Qudsia, being a house wife, as is the norm of traditional Pakistani women was
submissive to her husband and lived a positively other-directed life. She would walk
one step behind her husband, is a good wife to him by obeying him until his death and
would ask him before even publishing her work. She was of the old perspective that a
woman‘s man is a demigod for her, and she must obey him in that respect. Her first
public appearance without her husband was only after her husband‘s death in 2004.
She was of the view that a woman must obey his man in all the injunctions of life. Not
only that, she believed that a woman‘s duty does not end in obeying her husband, but
she is the sole mentor to her children. Qudsia‘s friend circle was limited to the friends
of her husband; scarcely she had any personal friends, strictly speaking. Her thesis
was very clear, about which she was confidently outspoken, that a woman has
responsibility towards her man but her views on reciprocity, the man‘s duty towards
his woman, were not known. Therefore, she has received criticism from a notable
class of people (namely progressives‘, young generation with a belief in gender
equality, women‘s rights activists, academic groups, progressive writers etc.) on all
fronts owing to her ideas concerning the roles and duties specific to a gender, either in
her person or in her practical capacity (Qudsia, 2011).
Qudsia has been writing for a long time, indulging in non-fictional and fictional pieces
of writing, in which she addresses woman as a complete human being having a
rational, moral, emotional, and a spiritual being/self and has not reduced it to merely a
biological being. Defining woman as a biological and a merely physical being,
according to her, is a minimalistic perspective; to accept woman being a biological
subject is an attempt, in her perspective, that reduces her whole existence and essence
to her bodily self (Qudsia, 2011). Her discourses address the contextual and
contemporary conditions in a society that is concerned with the historical background
of their local woman. Qudsia has written extensively, she has authored seven novels,
two biographies, ten short stories, twelve dramas. Extensive academic research work
has been done on her writings by positioning her as a dramatist, autobiography writer,
short story writer, and a spiritual writer (Bano, 2008; Naz, 2015; Shami, 2006; Zia,
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Qudsia’s Fiction

2012). A number of articles have been written on Qudsia that have appeared on print
media ("Bano Qudsia & Writers (1970s)," 2017; Mushtaq, 2010; Raja, 2007). But
neither has analyzed Qudsia‘s writings on gender perspective with a feminist lens; nor
have academics and researchers challenged and questioned her role in literature on
presenting and endorsing traditional gender roles, particularly in her most famous
Urdu novel Raja Gidh.
Qudsia‘s first full-length novel is Raja Gidh which published in 1981 and considered
as most widely read Urdu novels since its publications. Although Qudsia fictional
work is expanded on ten (10) short story books, about twelve (12) dramas, seven (07)
novels, and two (02) biographies. Among all of these pieces of literature Raja Gidh
has gained the greatest fame. Its literal meaning is "The Vulture King". The novel‘s
title has been interpreted as "King Buzzard" (Raja, 2007). Raja Gidh is among the
major novels of female fiction produced in Pakistan and is an acclaimed masterpiece
regarded with many levels of appreciation. It is a huge importance in the plethora of
writings from Pakistan in female fiction. The rest of her fictional writings are also on
social themes and issues but have not been able to gain such attention of the reader as
much as has been given to Raja Gidh. Taking the immense popularity of this novel
into consideration, it has been publishing ever since its first appearance and has now
become a part of Pakistan‘s Central Superior Service (CSS) (Raja, 2007).
‗Raja Gidh', a novel whose plot revolves about and around a love triangle. This
triangle is owed to Seemi Shah‘s (a girl who is from an upper-middle-class family)
love for the two of her classmates, namely Qayyum (the narrator) and Aftab (the
second protagonist, or rather the antagonist). Some of the notable characters from the
novel are: Sohail (a liberal professor who is young), Amtul (a turned prostitute who
was once a radio artist), Maasi Ulfat (a lower-class woman), Abida (a married middle-
class woman who is desperate to become a mother) and Roshan (a middle-class girl
from a conservative family who is oppressed). The novel orbits around the unrequited
love of the two characters namely, Seemi Shah (the protagonist) and Qayyum (the
narrator). Both of them face depression owing to the unfulfilled desires of loving and
failures in finding true love. In a fairly deeper study, one understands that the novel
comes in touch with the Muslim creed of ‘Halaal’ (the permissible) and ‘Haraam’
(the forbidden). In this novel, vulture: a bird famous for scavenging is a metaphor for
the rebellion against the ethical impostions of religion and society. The analogy of
birds congregating to discuss the issue of making the vulture an outcast for he is used
to symbolize ‘Haraam’ – frequently appears in the novel (Qudsia, 1981).
The novel, apart from being a romantic tale in its appearance, raises certain questions
on the objectiveness of morals. It narrates the effects of relationships and gender
responsibilities in the Pakistani society, on the social multiplicity, especially keeping
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in mind the context of the writer, and suggests some answers to the raised questions. It
can be said that this is the first work of Urdu fiction that tries to complement and
amalgamate modern scientific concepts with religion and tradition and affirms the
existing gender roles in our society. The basic thematic substance of the novel come
from the binary opposites of ‘Halaal’(legal) and ‘Haraam’(illegal), and the
consequential spiritual detorioration caused by ‗Haraam‘ practices and the descent
into insanity. Simultaneously, there is an underlying attempt at every form of feminist
ideas or its manifestations (Qudsia, 1981).
To briefly describe it, Qudsia, in Raja Gidh, depicts the life span of her characters and
elaborately explains the importance of religion, culture and other societal institutions
in drawing the future and lifestyle of a woman. This paper tries to explore gender
narrative in the context of the impact of freedom of women described in Raja Gidh. It
explores the important aspects of Qudsia‘s works which have remained disregarded
until now. There exists a need for feminist literary critical gender analysis.
Methodology
This research work entails analysis of Raja Gidh and explores the feminine themes in
the text. This work aims at finding out the gender narrative in the context of freedom
of women of the leading and most-published female writer of Pakistan since Indo-Pak
separation in 1947. The research method that is being employed is qualitative. The
data has been analyzed by an interpretative approach which allows the researcher to
extract meaning and interpret the text (Mason, 2002). Views can differ in terms of
description and interpretation in any qualitative research as in the methodological
approach; for the design of the research, a textual analysis is being preferred. The
textual analysis aims to create and understand a dialogue between the reader and the
text and is not restricted to the author‘s perspective (Bauer, Bicquelet, & Suerdem,
2014). This article only aims to analyze the part related to women and this technique
analysis of a text is best fitted as it is focused on selecting a specific question of any
social structure rather than inquiring it holistically. This analysis of the text creates a
relation between the textual and the contextual meaning of the text (Lockyer, 2008).
Two techniques have been incorporated for the data analysis, in the category of
textual analysis: ‗Closed Reading‘ and ‗Narrative Analysis‘. Closed reading is defined
as a careful, organized and attentive exploration of a text and an observant attempt
towards the comprehension of the deeper meanings (Brummett, 2010), whereas, the
Narrative Analysis consists of an analysis of a given narration of the novel, its
elements in the plot, its character analysis, and the connections between them for a
more nuanced reading of these relationships. Analysis of the narrative is where the
researcher has, after identifing, focused on the plot of the novel, which has a direct
relation with the status of women; as Hennink et al. (2011) has expounded, that the
Narrative approach ―identifies‖ the core ‗story‘ of your text and describes the issues
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Qudsia’s Fiction

that have particular influence on the story, there may be a number of sub plots in the
text, or paraller scenarios of various kinds of participants that can be spun into the
fabric of the narrative‖ (p. 279).
However, the validity of textual analysis is a major criticism on the method as it might
be assumed that the text solely expresses the researcher‘s perspective. To resolve this
issue, the researchers should engage themselves critically in the process of self-
reflection (Locker, 2008). The solution to this problem is that the researcher adopts a
different textual analysis while affirming his own positionality (Lockyer, 2008). In
research, positionality means the perspective of the researcher concerning the world
and the position adopted for the particular research (Foote & Bartell, 2011).
Reflexivity helps clarify the researcher's position which supports the researcher and
the readers (Smith, 1999).
In this research, the researcher‘s positionality of a feminist writer with the theoretical
ideology of geocentricism (Golban & Ciobanu, 2008) helped her to be self-reflective.
The emic description is a cultural relativist perspective and emic perspective is a
culturally neutral realist perspective (Hammond & Wellington, 2013). In this specific
study, the investigator's ontological position will be that of an insider where the
investigator has used the emic perspective urged by her life experiences and cultural
context. To cut it short, the researcher has followed the qualitative methodology under
the interpretative domain in the qualitative research, by combining and mixing certain
reading strategies, which have been extracted from literary study. Data analysis is
taken from social sciences. The original text has been perused and observed closely,
so that the understanding of how the relation between the parts of the text establishes
and how meaning is constructed regarding societal realities.
Findings
The Stance of Qudsia on the Life-Span of a Free Woman
Raja Gidh takes, for the specimen; the lives of a multiplicity of free women have a
multiplicity of different background, social contexts and age groups. The paper
analyzes the common underlying themes, the differences, the reasons for these
differences, and finally the impact of freedom they had. To this note, the three main
female characters i.e., Semi Shah, Masi Ulfat and Amtul have been thoroughly
examined. The novel narrates the lifespan of these characters instead of critically
analyzing them in a fixed time frame. The overall life history makes the reader more
adamant about the result anyone can have who would enjoy that level of freedom.

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Seemi Shah – A Free Woman, an Easy Prey for the Vultures

The character of Seemi Shah engages the novel to the utmost for she is the most
important character. Being the only daughter of a bureaucrat of a very high rank she is
confident and outspoken young girl, who has good looks and who lives in one of the
most expensive areas of her locality. She has become a good prey for the men in her
surrounding, notably her professor (Sohail). Her parents have made sure that her
upbringing is from the finest institutes of the city. Although her parents have done a
lot to give her luxuries and tutoring, they have been unsuccessful in one thing and that
is to provide her with an environment of warmth and love at their home. She has
mostly lived with her nanny who has been her sole connection with love and insatiate,
she looks for true love, inevitably. She has been raised as an open and free individual
where her interaction with the boys is with utmost confidence, but this also entered a
sense of ego due to which she is unable to bear defeat. This is why the rejection of
Aftab‘s mother does act positively in her and she ends up feeling dejected and rejected
for that is a defeat. At this point, Qayyum (the vulture) gets the best of her for she has
taken her defeat so seriously that she cannot face herself and let‘s go of herself,
becoming pray the vulture. Here the author shows how the elite class is miserably
defeated of its own ideals and discourses of life. A free woman becomes an easy prey
for the men of her society for the ideals that free people live by make them sellable
items. This is because those ideals are indecently selfish and self-absorbed. They fall
prey to those who are nothing but the gluttonous.
Masi Ulfat – The Free Woman, a Tragic End
The author has then taken another specimen, this time from the lower class. Masi
Ulfat has lost her husband a long time ago. She bears a son from her late spouse.
Ulfat, after being widowed, is portrayed by Qudsia as a ‗free woman‘. Qudsia shows
that Ulfat is very fond of her freedom, unaware of its consequences. The result of her
ideal of freedom is a directionless life, morally. Earning a livelihood of managing a
clay oven (tandoor) in her village, she is indulged in prostitution in order to gather
some extra money, a saving to provide her son a better future. As a result, she ends up
defaming herself in the whole of the village. She becomes an embarrassment for her
son, ironically, for whose future she had indulged in such acts. Her son, emotionally
and psychologically tormented by her mother becoming the talk of the town, leaves
the village. Ulfat is devastated by this. She becomes frenzied and throws away all the
cash she has saved for her son‘s future. She also leaves the village, apparently in sheer
insanity. This concludes the tragic end another of Qudsia‘s ‗free woman‘.
Amtul – The Essentiality of a Male Guardianship
Here there is another character, Amtul, who, when she was quite young, was a worker
at a radio station and had a good reputation among the producers (male). However, as

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Qudsia’s Fiction

she ages she loses the attention of the producers and ultimately loses her job. Amtul,
who is a divorced woman with a spoiled son, indulges in immoral activities and
became a prostitute to earn a living. This tragic story ends in an even greater tragedy
where she gets murdered in her middle age. This honor killing of her by her own son,
whose sustenance was her main concern in indulging in that preposterous activity
shows how Qudsia‘s character lack safety without a male guardian.
Discussion
Qudsia identifies with all the women in her novel and does not portray them as evil,
but the strucutre of her novel‘s plot ultimately hints at the deduction that in a
patriarchal society, like the Pakistani society, liberation of women will do more
damage than repair. Women‘s free choice won‘t make their life any better. Rather, it
would worsen. Hence, she concludes that the conventional gender roles have a very
actual and pragmatic role in the society (Lindsey, 2015). She tries to defend the
holiness of these conventional gender characteristics and dominations through her
characters tragic ends. She emphasizes on the equilibrium in the society and if it is
disturbed, by proposing liberty for women, it will only result in more problems.
Moreover, Qudsia has gone to such extent where she considers this attempt at
liberation of women such a toxic attitude that it could end in the punishment of the
whole of humanity by them being extinct. She insists that for men, it is a kind of a
biological determinism that they act sexually in a very aggressive manner, like
vultures are which shifts the blame from them and takes to the women who must
guard themselves enough to keep the social fabric intact and chaste. This patriarchal
notion of putting all responsibility on women is defined as ―Power of Sex‖ in the
―Male-Supremacist Ideology‖ presented by an American radical feminist Andrea
Dworkin (Dworkin, 1981). According to her, male-Supremacist society asserts that
women are responsible for male sexual arisen ―whatever he (the man species) does, he
does because of a provocation that inherits in the female‖ (Dworkin, 1981, p.22).
Qudsia supports this patriarchal narrative in her work by putting all sexual
responsibility on women. Qudsia, on the contrary, has neglected the harassment faced
by women and young girls. This harassment is not only in their families but also in the
society. The psychological traumas with which these women have to cope for the
entirety of their lives in the patriarchal settings are owed to these harassments. She
somehow avoids the objective reality by ignoring the fact that a lot of incidents
involving sexual assaults go unreported in our society because such is the way of this
society that the publicization of these incidents will give the girl and her family a bad
name for the rest of their lives, even if she is victimized rather than being an active
partner in the aforementioned crime. Dworkin defines it as ―Power of Naming‖ which

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male supremacist society uses to make women silent over violence by attaching
shaming to the victim (Brecher, 2015; Dworkin, 1981, p.17).
Qudsia has influenced, through her powerful pen, the infant of women rights in
Pakistan by giving it the environment and circumstances that were need for its growth.
She must have been doing it to liberate women of the discourse and suppression
enforced by the society but incidentally, she was doing it on the stake of women
empowerment itself. She did not contextualize her attempts in the global scenario
where western woman has surpassed all the issues to which she was merely pointing.
Her lack of acknowledgment of the fact that the western woman‘s liberation has made
her a more active participant in the growth of the world making her contributes to it
(Synder, 2008).
The writer‘s indifference towards the modern feminist ideas shows that she was
unable to find such shortcomings in their society, which she foresaw in our culture.
Had she understood the modern western woman, she must have used her
understanding to fortify her perspective. Therefore, it can be safely said that even
though she has tried to make her rationale seem universal, by integrating biological
essentialism (Warin & Hammarstrom, 2018; Witt, 2011) in the thematic substance of
this novel, her canvas still remains pretty narrow after all, for the western femininity
has been kept out of it, which could have been the most relevant issue that could
provide her with a backdrop for her theme. Secondly, the writer portrays the
contradictory gender, i.e., women deeply entrenched in their conventional and
spiritual ideals and also, living with a man with the duties of a guardian, even if they
are inactive ones. She intentionally portrays women who have an inactive male
guardian. The writer wishes to prove that even in a male dominating society, living
under the shadow of a guardian i.e. a male is better than relying on one‘s own self
(Kringelbach, 2016; Pateman, 1988).
The writer is in a general disapproval of love affairs, specifically if women are
engaged in such affairs. The woman who contravene from societal cultural and moral
restrictions are to pass through despondent mental situations and end up becoming a
disappointment, emphasizes Qudsia (Wilson, Mikahere-Hall, Jackson, Cootes, &
Sherwood, 2019; Turner, 2004). For example, Amtul and Seemi Shah are two perfect
models from the lower and upper classes respectively. Even though Roshan goes
against the religious, and the societal restrictions by indulging in extra marital sexual
affairs with Iftikhar and is impregnated by his child as a result; but, she reunites with
him with the help of Qayyum for she remains loyal to him.
Conclusion
Our society is rigid and traditional in the manner that it does not support any open and
frank interaction between males and females. This study of Raja Gidh demonstrates

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Qudsia’s Fiction

that this novel presents considerable shades women characters that with endorse this
fact and gives a bad ending to those characters that have tried and stood against the
norms of the society. Thus, we see, that the patriarchal society considers itself
pardoned of the fact that it has been unfair to women by justifying itself through
finding the fault in the women itself. Naturally, women who have been living in such
kind of societal circumstances cannot escape from suffering psychological traumas.
The writer endorses the traditional concept that a male guardian is essential even if he
is not playing a positive and encouraging role in a woman‘s life. According to the
writer, freedom of women creates more harm than good for women themselves. She
strongly endorses the traditional gender roles through various characters to whom we
can easily relate and can find in our society. Thus, Bano Qudsia did not correctly
portray the concept of women freedom through the female characters, their
circumstances and wrong choices, as part of the novel‘s plot, mislead the reader that
freedom of women is inherently a bad thing, against the natural order and always ends
up tragically

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