Free Souls Under The Veil: Critical responses to Salman Rushdie, Attia Hosain, Naguib Mahfouz and Sharmila Seyyid’s novels

Abstract

Gender construction refers to a complex set of social process that determines the set of
values, behaviour pattern and norms of conduct that govern roles and responsibilities
of women and men, as also their interrelations. Gender construction is culture specific
and therefore varies in different societies. The word ‘purdah’ has two related but
distinct meanings: one is physical in the sense of women wearing a veil or burqa to
cover their face from public view, the other is more complex and attitudinal, in the
sense of a social norm, whereby women live in seclusion, both from men and from the
sphere of civic and public action. One can be in ‘purdah’ in both ways. This paper will
study a few novels which talk about purdah system and will also highlight their
depiction of subjugation of women in Islamic society: Attia Hosain’s ‘Sunlight on a
broken column’, Salman Rushdie’s ‘Shame’, ‘Midnight’s Children’, Naguib Mahfouz’s
‘Palace walk’, and Sharmila Seyyid’s ‘Ummath’. Sri Lankan writer Sharmila Seyyid
in her novel ‘Ummath’ not only exposes the injustices meted out by Tamil nationalist
to Tamil speaking Muslims in Sri Lanka, but also critiques the Talibanisation of the
Muslim community in eastern Sri Lanka.