SHAME By Jasvinder Sanghera,
Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99

Non-resident Indians claim to carry their culture in their heart wherever they settle. If Jasvinder Sanghera’s account of her life in England is anything to go by, then it appears that Indians abroad preserve only the worst aspects of their culture. Recently there was the news of a couple from Katalhedi village in Haryana, whose marriage was annulled and their week-old baby snatched by the caste panchayat because the parents happened to be from the same gotra or clan. The minister of state for archaeology, museum and archives, supporting the panchayat’s decision, has said, “They [the parents] should have kept the traditions in mind. It’s their fault.” One might imagine Sanghera’s parents speaking in very similar terms when they abandon her to her fate at the age of sixteen for the ‘sin’ of escaping an arranged marriage by eloping with a boy from a lower caste. Indians at home and beyond must be proud of their solidarity.

There have been numerous films and novels in recent times focusing on the cultural confusion of the Indian diaspora, so much so that the very concept has become a cliché. On reading Sanghera’s real-life story, readers will be convinced that emigrant Asian women have to do more than wrestle with subtle questions of identity. They have to fight a very real battle against the identity clamped down on them — that of a demure, subservient wife who will unquestioningly serve her husband, bear his sons, and work to raise the family. The ‘honour’ of the family resides in the women — meaning that the woman should obediently offer her body as the commodity of exchange between her father and her husband.

Growing up in Derby along with six sisters, Sanghera had been taught that the white population outside is corrupt and debauched. Home is the sanctorum of morality where daughters learn the art of becoming dutiful daughters-in-law. The most important lesson in this education was that “no matter what was going on in your life you kept your head high and presented a perfect form”. Husbands may be abusive philanderers but wives are expected to keep everything private. Unable to endure marital torture, Sanghera’s sister, Robina, sets herself on fire. While being taken to hospital with ninety per cent burns, the only plea she makes is not for justice, but to have her face covered. “With her dying breath she tried to spare Mum and Dad’s shame.”

Robina’s case is proof of the power of the strictures drilled into the psyche from childhood. The impulse to resist the norm simultaneously drives the mind to cling to it dearly. Comprehending the absurdity of the customs forced on her, Sanghera leaves her family, only to start craving a return to the securities left behind. She keeps calling her mother and gets a cold dismissal, “You’ve shamed us … you are dead in our eyes.”

Sanghera’s life thereafter becomes a paradoxical fight to reject the blinkered values by which her parents live on the one hand and to earn their approval on the other. She gets a caring husband, a beautiful home, a lovely daughter and a prosperous life but is still haunted by her parents’ cruel rejection.

The way her parents’ values have got imprinted on Sanghera’s mind is apparent not only in her desperation to have her mother’s endorsement for her actions but also in some of the expectations she has from her own life. Fuelled by the anxious need to be “somebody’s wife”, Sanghera bears silently the assaults of her second husband, Raj. After having given birth to his daughter, Sanghera writes about Raj, “He said he didn’t mind not having a boy.” Is the double negation in this sentence indicative of the husband’s unacknowledged disappointment or that of the author herself? However, Sanghera plucks up enough confidence to leave Raj eventually and starts living on her own with her children.

Sanghera now runs a project called Karma Nirvana, which helps Asian women who have been left destitute after being forced to flee their homes for various reasons. Most of these women are victims of honour-based violence. The women who manage not to get killed by their families often find themselves in a situation worse than death. Although brought up in England, most of these Indian and Pakistani women cannot speak English and have seen little of the world outside the boundaries of their homes. When familial persecution compel the women to run away, they are thr- ust into an environment they cannot relate to. The language barrier prevents them from communicating. The survivors display the psychology of the captive — “I ran away because I couldn’t be the person Mum wanted, but I don’t know how to be anybody else.”

Sanghera’s experience has helped her to reach out to these women. She starts supporting the victims by teaching them English first. Her own moment of triumph against her family came when she attained a university degree in English after having left off studies at the age of sixteen. In spite of entreaties, her father refused to attend the convocation. However, when he dies, Sanghera finds her graduation picture on the wall of his bedroom. Sanghera comes to know at last that her father had been proud of her, even if he had not verbalized his happiness while alive.

In narrating her tale, Sanghera’s voice changes from that of the waif’s who cried in the dark for her mother to the woman’s who has acquired enough confidence to counsel others forsaken like her. The book is dedicated to “Robina…and to Mum and Dad, who I now know wanted what they thought to be best for me.” Putting herself in her parents’ shoes, Sanghera can understand that the fear of being ostracized by the Sikh community in a foreign land caused them to be over-anxious on issues of familial honour. Apart from being a document of a lone woman’s fight against bigoted beliefs, Shame is also a story of growing up — of laying to rest the demons of the past by learning to forgive the tormentors.