This was written in conversation with Premchand's approach, as opposed to people actively looking to find possibilities for agency in these structures. For an exploration of that, see the entries for and on February 19

Yashpal's women and his goals as a social critic

I wanted to follow up on our in-class discussion about the contrast between Yashpal’s portrayal of educated, middle-class women compared to his portrayal of poor, rural women. Inverted from Premchand’s tendency, Yashpal imbues his rural women with life, courage, and agency in the face of the social structures that constrain them. Shabbu from “The Second Nose” is a woman of character; she is unabashed and expressive about her beauty. Yashpal juxtaposes her positive agency with Jabbar's negative agency. After becoming obsessed with her from the sight of her alone, Jabbar locks himself up in his room in protest when his parents try to marry him to someone else. He pursues his goals by restricting. When she becomes his wife, he perceives her as his possession. He feels threatened by the most simple expressions of her agency: existing in her body and wearing the clothes she likes. Her vivaciousness is a threat to his desire for control. He eventually goes as far as cutting off her nose so that other men don’t find her beautiful. Yashpal portrays a feminine agency in his criticism of a violently life-denying form of controlling masculinity.

Draupadi from “The Girl Who Was a Devotee” is another picture of feminine agency in rural life: in her case, she manages to carve out a place for herself despite the constraints of social relations. Despite the imposed restriction of agency she suffers as a child widow, she finds ways to assert her own agency. In terms of clothing, she doesn't have the same expressive possibilities as other girls her age. But Yashpal portrays her as dedicating intention and care to constructing an elegant appearance with white garb that society imposes on her. Within the frame of what is possible for her, she is very active. She works hard and supports her parents from a young age. She declares herself a devotee because: “since she enjoyed none of the advantages in life of ordinary women, why should she accept the constraints under which ordinary women have to live” (201). She approaches social structures in terms of how she can use them to live a good life. In both of these stories, Yashpal’s critique of rural social life celebrates the agency of the women that navigate it. He celebrates women’s agency in contrast to the violent male insecurity that seeks to control it; he celebrates women’s agency in their ability to find a place using social systems so often used to limit them.

On the other hand, he portrays educated women as victims of their (different) social structures, incapable of taking up the agency to resist them. Urmila from “Borrowed Happiness” begins, in Sethi’s eyes, as the “embodiment of a fulfilled life” (42). By the end,

She found it impossible to deny Sethi anything he desired. When he so wished, she had to wear a blouse without sleeves or back. Of course, Urmila would wear those very clothes anyway, and took pleasure in pleasing Sethi, but her own individuality, her own will, what has happened to them? (57)

Sethi, taken by her aesthetic of motherhood and fulfillment, takes control of her life by supporting it. She becomes objectified; she is reduced to a token of aesthetic pleasure for Sethi. As opposed to Yashpal's rural stories — which in their critique of a society that constrains women, gives them great agency — his portrayal of a middle class, educated woman reproduces the dynamics which deny her agency. Like Premchand’s denial of agency to his rural characters, this landed as problematic for me. The comparison between the two hints at their different goals as social critics, though: Premchand seems to be deeply concerned with the deprivation enforced by the poverty and hierarchy of rural life, and on the other hand is interested in portraying the loss of morals in urban environments that he reads as giving people more agency. Yashpal, on the other hand, celebrates the agency of rural subjectivities in the face of social constraints. In contrast, his portrayal of more urban women offers an account of educated India as no less constraining. He is concerned with demonstrating how a modern, bourgeois India is no more free: it is no coincidence that Sethi is the embodiment of the bourgeois-entrepreneurial spirit. My guess is that his celebration of rural women’s agency compared to his denial of agency to his educated women comes out of this concern.