Throughout our lives, it has been constantly been ingrained into our minds that violence is never the solution. Never. However, the story of Usha and that of Mary in “The Hunt” raise the interesting question: is it okay to use violence, if that is the only way to bring an end to horrible systematic oppression? Like many others have already said in the blog, despite my usual uneasiness to endorse violence, I do agree that it is morally defensible to attack your attacker in these strenuous circumstances.
In both Usha’s story, and in the short story, “The Hunt”, both protagonists and communities were put in a circumstance in which a violent reaction was the only way to successfully retaliate to the oppressor. As mentioned in “Half the Sky”, the community of Kasturba Nagar was basically under the oppressive rule of Akku Yudav. Under his gang rule, the whole community lived in constant fear; justified terror since Yudav was almost constantly abusing and gang-raping the women of the community. Despite these horrible circumstances, at first, Usha did not resort to violence but rather tried to resolve the solution peacefully; talking to the police, trying to file a claim and even get him arrested. Yet, despite these constructive steps, nothing was done to stop the horrid rule of Yadav but rather made him more hostile towards Usha. In the end, the problem was solved when all the women banded together and killed, maybe rather crudely, Yudav. Despite the rather violent nature of resolution, I do believe it was necessary. Like shown throughout the chapter, the women of the Kasturba Nagar were in a circumstance where all previous peaceful actions were virtually useless. Similarly, in “The Hunt” due to the higher class and economic authority of Tehsildar, Mary had no other way to stop the abuse from him. However, I do believe that Kasturba Nagar’s circumstances did seem more severe and thus their violent actions much more justified than that of Mary.
In both instances, I found it interesting that the violent, justified retaliation were taken as means of serving justice for the entire community. In both Usha’s story and in “The Hunt”, not only one woman was being abused but also rather all the women of the communities were being systematically oppressed. Thus, as Mahasweta Devi said in her interview, she justified Mary’s actions on the night of the hunt as, “She resurrected the real meaning of the annual hunting festival day by dealing out justice for a crime committed against the entire tribal society” (the author in conversation). Similarity, in India, the whole of women collectively killed the attacker. Thus perhaps I am okay with these violent responses since they were the only working solution and were needed by the entire community.
I am intrigued by this question of violence to aid the entire community vs. one person. For me, it is easier to justify using violence as a form of justice when the well-being of the entire community is a stake. However, I am hesitant to say that if only one person is being harmed and being systematically oppressed, that they should not get justice also. Can one really say which is worse: a perpetrator who rapes every women in the village once or a perpetrator who rapes one women repeatedly. I think each of the two situations are uniquely different, but all the victims deserve justice.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you. Like you mentioned, I too was curious about the idea of justifying violence when it used to bring justice to a whole community versus in just an isolated case. I too believe that all victims, regardless of the number of victims, deserve the right to equality and justice. However, when reading the previous posts I noticed how everyone, including myself, was struggling with the idea of endorsing violence as the right solution. However despite almost all of our uneasiness with the idea of fighting "fire with fire", in the end, roughly all of us concluded that in these strenuous situations, a violent reaction was the only viable solution. Thus, I was just raising the interesting notion that perhaps I was much more willing to endorse this use of violence since it was bringing justice to a whole community rather than using violent as the solution in every individual case.
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