Of the Zenana: Ismat Chughtai and the Feminist Utopia

Abstract

A zenana is generally read as a metaphor of male dominance over women. Marking a radical departure from this normalised perception of Zenana. Ismat Chughtai in her Lihaaf presents an alternative view. She destabilizes the association of a zenana with male governance and attempts to give it an altered dimension. While the popular readings of a zenana offer an understanding of it as a space to alienate women from the rest of the world, Chughtai in her Lihaaf uses the space as a microcosmic representation of her own world. This paper is an attempt to show Chughtai subverts a gendered space and establish a feminist Utopia around it. It muses on how patriarchy’s own intrinsic disparities produce it as a site of agential possibilities for women and create rooms for a feminist Utopia.