Inter-Caste Gender Performativity in Indian Hindu Culture: A Postcolonial Gender Study in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things

Abstract

This study uses Judith Butler's concept of "gender performativity" to examine Mulk Raj Anand's "Untouchable" and Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things" in order to draw conclusions about the inter-caste gender performativity in Indian Hindu culture. Some autobiographical writings preserved evidence of voluntary and 'non-theatrical inter-caste connection' which transcends the boundary of untouchability, despite the dogmatic and historic hostility against inter-caste relationships in Indian Hindu society. In a consenting intercaste relationship, women, as the subaltern gender, never know for sure what caste they belong to. They are generally discovered to be branded off the caste of the males who touched them, rather than naturally belonging to any caste of them. Women in non-consensual inter-caste relationships are kept quiet by the strong touch of males from higher castes, yet this does not affect their social status. It's a double standard, and the higher classes control both settings. The non-dramatic setting challenges the elite rhetoric of 'impurity' and the concept that inter-caste contact would result in retribution in the next world. This connection demonstrates that the theatrical concept is nothing more than a bourgeois-political tool used by the ruling class to subjugate the lower classes. This study is qualitative in nature and was conducted using a closed-textual-reading approach. The impact of inter-caste gender performativity on both authors is discussed, and the gender performativity of Hindu castes is examined in four settings (theatrical, non-theatrical, public, and private). The study demonstrates that each author is impacted in their own unique way by gender performativity as imposed by society, and that gender performativity is conditional within the Indian Hindu castes, both onstage and off.