Interview with Volga - Telugu Feminist Poet/Activist
Chris Chekuri
Interviewer Kanaka Prasad <pra...@grove.ufl.EDU>
Volga (Mrs. Lalitha Kumari Popuri), a feminist writer and activist from
Andhra Pradesh, India is currently visiting USA. She has been very active
in feminism, both as an activist and writer, for the past fifteen years.
She is currently active in her capacity as the president of Asmita Resource
Center for Women in Hyderabad. Her and her colleagues' writings galvanized
the telugu literary scene towards an open, ongoing recognition and
discussion of women's issues from a feminst point of viwe. Several writers
in Andhra Pradesh have committed their writing to the cause of feminism.
Volga (and her colleagues), in her own words, 'work and write for the
political empowerment of women'.
I had an opportunity to interact with Volga when she visited the
University of Florida at Gainesville last week as my guest. Contrary to
what stereotypes about feminists and about her writing may portray, Volga is
a friendly, soft-spoken lady with a deep committment to her cause. She is
clear and very insightful in her observations, and disciplined in action.
Her approach to (feminist) action is without any romantic notions of
personal sacrifice or immediate, dramatic change. She speaks about the
oppression of women and their agony in concrete terms, citing countless
examples of dowry burnings, rape, dometsic violence and abuse. Her mission,
she said, is not only to redress such abuses but, more importantly a
conciousness raising to remove the causes of such wrongs. Following is a
part of the interview (translated from telugu) with Volga, recorded when she
was in Gainesville between 8th-16th July, 1996. Some of the questions are
related to literature, while the others are about her workand experiences.
I'm posting it in parts, to avoid a very long post:
K: Please tell us about yourself. What prompted you to move towards feminism?
V: To tell you about myself.., right from my childhood I wanted a lively
relationship with the society around me. I must change. And also must play
a role in changing the society around me. I took an active part in many
social and political movements, to cause a change towards the society I
visualized, particularly with the leftist student, literary and political
movements. During this involvment, I analyzed my experiences and questioned
myself about my role as a woman in this work and also in the society. This
questioning brought about a fundamental change in myself and made me move
towards women's movement. Soon, I became an active part of it. As I
thought about women's role, I learned more about gender and patriarchy.
Changing the society doesn't mean a change in the economic and class
relations alone; one must address the diversity marked by different genders,
races and castes and several other such differences. As I began to focus on
this complexity, I felt it has an important role to play in women's
movement. I believe that the work I'm doing in women's movement will
contribute towards a growth in the society and in myself.
K: What are your observations on contemporary telugu literature? How would
you like for it to change?
V: Present scene is not too bad. There is no denying about the pop,
commercial literature on one side; however, we're also seeing works that
reflect the social life in a serious manner. Feminist and Dalit literary
works in telugu today are much better than similar works in other Indian
languages, both in quality and quantity. However, we are lagging behind in
criticism. There is a dearth of good criticism, one that is helpful to
both readers and writers. Publishing books is another problem the writers
are facing. There is no proper distribution network. Forming groups such
as Writers Co-ops can fill this gap and take literature more into the public
life.
to be contd.
Chris Chekuri
Interviewer Kanaka Prasad <pra...@grove.ufl.EDU>
interview with Volga (continued)
K: Do you agree with the now pervalent perception that leftist movement in
olitics and literature (in A. P.) failed? How is feminism different from
these movements?
V: If the leftist movements do not reform themselves, they are doomed to
fail. There was a considerable damage to these movements because of their
failure to accommodate newer forces, to pose new questions and to look at
the problems from new, different vantage points. Feminism is different from
other movements in that it encourages introspection and self-criticism,
allows posing new questions in understanding our problems and discourages
forming a model for liberation before its realization. Because of their
willingness to recognize and accept diversity, feminist movements are
likely to thrive in a more democratic way.
K: Main stream readers and writers percieve yor publications as radical.
Why? Is there resistance to your work? From what kind of people?
V: To those who consider pop and pulp fiction as main stream literature, our
works seem radical. Even among them, the traditionalists offer more
resistance, than sensationalists (who do not pay much attention). In the
beginning, feminst literature was attacked by, of all people, those who were
considered progressive. Feminst writers could withstand that attack and
survive. Criticism will always be there. One particular criticism that I
face often is that I am destroying the family structure. However, as I
explain what sort of a family structure that I am attacking and what
democratic structure I am seeking in its place, this criticism wanes.
K: You state that literature is a tool you employ in your mission to achieve
political and social empowerment of women. Is the resulting literature of a
lesser quality than that without such explicit social mission? In other
words, can it still be 'good literature'?
V: There is no rule that says that the literature committed to the cause of
empowering women or the down trodden must be of a lesser quality. There is
a misunderstanding or myth that it is so. There are many reasons for this.
We have pre-conditioned notions about 'quality'. Often, works that are
rhetorical, abstract or embellished in style are considered superior to
those that are simple, straight without any ornament. Kodavtiganti Kutumba
Rao (Koku)'s style didn't receive the same level of recognition that
Chalam's or Ravisastry's style received. However, the way Koku fashioned
telugu language for writing prose was unprecedented. There is a danger of
dismissing simple writings as simplistic. Social mission will only add
depth to literature. A large part of literature coming out of a
socio-literary movement can indeed be of a lesser quality. But that is
no reason to think that the entire literature with a social mission is
dull. Our yardsticks for assessing quality should change with changing
times. Unfortunately, this is not happening in telugu literature.
to be continued...
Chris Chekuri
Interviewer Kanaka Prasad <pra...@grove.ufl.EDU>
interview with Volga (continued)
K: How is your work affecting women?
V: If the work we are doing doesn't touch at least a few, then it is a
waste. Some deeds give immediate results where as we can discern results
from others only after some time. We can see the changes caused in women's
lives because of some aid or other material goods. In contrast, when we're
trying to raise their conciousness at a broad scale, the effects will not
manifest themselves so soon. I'll cite two examples: Asmita organized
women's societies in two large slums and is working with them. Initially
they were reluctant, but gradually the became united. When there was a rape
in a large government hospital near their colonies, they organized
themselves to gherao the hospital superintendent and questioned him. The
level of their spirited action made us real happy. Similarly, when some one
beat a 12 year old servent maid, the slum dwellers (women) went to the
police and saw to it that the person was arrested and organized all domestic
servents using this case as an example. These examples demonstrate how
women become more aware. The same is true of all of us working in Asmita,
including myself. I think it is impossible to cause such chnges elsewhere
without causing them first in ourselves.
K: What is patriarchy? Why has it been so difficult for men, even those
recognized as progressive thinkers and revolutionaries, to unerstand
feminism? How do you deal with such attitude?
V: Patriarchy is a social-political system, whereby men alone wield power
and continue control over it. It is a method that keeps women under
constant opression and continuously strngthens the circumstances favorable
to such opression. Eventhough patriarchy changes in form, its essential
work is to sustain the opression of women. Men do not like to lose the
special previeleges accorded to them in patriarchy. The resulting behavior
and thinking become an integral part of them, which makes it difficult to
see and get rid of it even for the most progressive thinkers. It is only
through the struggle for improving their place and status that women can
bring about a change in (such) men.
K: Would you comment on the issues that affect women of different classes
and how you respond to their diverse needs?
V: In addition to class, there is diversity among women with respect to
their caste, religion and race as well. While working on women's issues, we
must take all these factors into account. For example, if we start out with
the assumption that the problems of all middle and upper class women are the
same, we wouldc be surprised by the personnel laws that are different
between Hindu and Muslim religions. Similarly, there are differences among
lower class women as well. All of us know that the problems upper and lower
class women face are different. Even as we deal with these issues
differently, we always strive towards a common agenda. Addressing the
problems of women of all classes, castes and religions is difficult in deed.
At present, our work is focussed on lower and upper class, Hindu women. In
Asmita (Resource Center for Women), weomen from different religions are
involved. We understood the Muslim women's plight to some extent, because
of our work with the large muslim population in Hyderabad.
K: What are your current activities?
V: I introduce feminist politics to the readers through my writings. Urban
middleclass women form this readership. Writing alone doesn't completely
satisfy me. So I also work as an activist in Asmita (Resource Center for
Women) and mingle with the women's movement as much as possible. Asmita
does different things for women, covers a wide range of work. Among
thiswork are providing legal aid to women, organizing women of two large
slumsin Hyderabad, providing gender training to our fellow organizations in
the state and health training for women, organizing village fairs (jAtarAs) to
raise conciousness and organizing workshops for female writers. Asmita
played a key role in the participation in Beijing Women's Conference, in
advertising for the conference andco-ordinating the delegation from South
India. We also led rural women to Delhi and organized a conference of
committment. After the Beijing Conference, Asmita organized a seminar
involving the women from southern India, formed a National Alliance for
Women Organizations (NAWO) and working to give a new definition and
character to the women's movement nation-wide. In all this work, I play
some role as the excutive president of asmita. I strive to incorporate my
creative talents into such work.
K: You celebrated Chalam as an extraordinary writer who could empathize with
women. How is he relevant today?
V: What Chalam said about women's minds, bodies and experiences are very
much relevant even today. There is a lot of similarity between the way how
feminism is empowering women today and what Chalam had to say about women's
freedom then. He addressed women's health, reproductive rights, sexual
freedom and domestic labor-all these issues. Feminism is working on those
issues today. As a unique writer who discussed their problems in literature
honestly and seriously, women recognize Chalam and celebrate him.
K: We (expatriate Telugus) are typically professionals with careers in
science and technology. Many of us have interests and emotional committment
to A. P. What role can we play in the changing social-literary scene back
home? What specific activities would you like to see coming from us?
V: Your living here gives you access to advanced science and technology. In
Andhra at present, there is a pressing need for advanced studies in social
sciences and literature. I do not know much about science. Why don't you
collect information here and present/write about it for people back home?
If you write about what you are doing here in your field, how it is changing
and what opportunities we have to adapt those developments and publish it
there in telugu, that would be very useful for researchers, activists and
workers back home. I think this work is not difficult and should be
interesting to you all.
End of interview
P. S.
I'd like to wrap this up with an anecdote Volga related. ( We were talking
about raising money for the things one wants to do.) She and her friends
met Satyajit Ray in Calcutta, discussed with him their aspirations about
making alternative movies and expressed concerns over money. He brushed
aside those concerns and said, "What you need is a burning passion, a total
commitment. When that is present, money will come; it is only secondary."
Later they did make the movie 'Bhadram Koduko' which was received well and
won several awards.