Women Who Break Free: Review of Tahmima Anam’s ‘Uprising’

Tahmima Anam’s new novel Uprising (Penguin Random House) mirrors an unjust world where women fall prey to the system that perpetuates cruel forms of patriarchy. But Anam does not leave readers stranded in a bleak world of despair; instead she offers them the possibility of resistance, unveiling a horizon of new possibilities. She brilliantly threads together dialectic realities—on the one hand, women are inured to living a life bereft of livable conditions, while some of them keep alive a smouldering sense of resistance with the hope of ushering in change.   

Uprising opens with the arrival of Kusum, who is “practical, sturdy and smart”, to a brothel on an island which “was at the end of the country, in the middle of the river that emptied into the sea. It was twenty huts long and four huts wide”. The narrative shifts to Kusum’s past a few pages later. The daughter of a poor fruit-seller, Kusum could not continue her studies after class 5 while her sister Pyara studied till class 7. But Kusum yearns for an education and learning. After being inspired by the student protests against the government, Kusum joins the protests and her voice becomes “a note in the chorus of the chants”. She also lures her sister into joining the protests where a bullet wounds Pyara fatally. With her sister’s death, Kusum is consumed by guilt and anguish. And that heralds profound upheavals in her life.

Anam builds this multilayered story so organically that it encompasses a wide gamut of socio-political issues—patriarchy, violence, the environment, poverty, capitalism and resistance.  However, central to the novel is the motif of resistance against the wrongs perpetrated on women, the environment and ordinary people.

Kusum, forced by poverty, is trafficked for prostitution to the island brothel which is under Amma’s control. Amma had also been trafficked long back. A defiant Kusum inspires the women around her to break free from Amma’s grip. Amma, who once was the victim of the patriarchal system has become the victimiser and is playing the role of an agent of patriarchy. Thus, the novel poses questions about deeply entrenched patriarchy and how its tentacles encircle individuals regardless of their gender.

The title of the novel corresponds to the ‘Monsoon Uprising’ in Bangladesh. It also refers to the uprising staged by individuals, especially women, against their everyday suppression. Embodying the idea of protest and sacrifice, the novel, however, ultimately unleashes hope. Although the narrative unfolds in the backdrop of the Bangladeshi socio-political locale, it develops into a more profound meditation on the uprisings and injustices happening across the world. Recalling Salman Rushdie here, whose words of praise also glow on the cover of the book, calling it “a kind of miracle”. He writes in one of his essays “that works of art... do not come into being in a social and political vacuum; and that the way they operate in a society cannot be separated from politics, from history”.

Uprising, an extraordinary work of art, offers a crystal-clear topography of Bangladeshi politics and society, although it resonates with a sense of universality.

Anam knows that imagery is the wheel of a powerful piece of fiction and she makes sure that her intensely impactful imagery grips readers. Some of the evocative scenes are sure to jolt readers awake and also unsettle them. For instance, Kusum suggests that the women in the brothel—Mala, Heera and Lopa—should smear their bodies with menstrual blood and mud to keep themselves filthy. This would make sure that the men wouldn’t dare to approach them for sex. The scene contains insurmountable grief and the rage of oppressed women as well as a tinge of painful reality.

One of the unique strands of the novel is its protagonists: the fatherless children who are forced to helplessly witness the exploitation of their mothers. The novel is narrated in the voices of these children—Pori, Rita, Brishti and Bindu who suffer the hardships of destitution. Educated and inspired by Kusum, they too join the chorus of rebellion against Amma. Since this is a coming-of-age novel, these children, years after they grow up, reminisce about the struggles of their mothers and Kusum’s path-breaking ideas of resistance. They are aware that the long-ago uprising has changed their inner landscape forever. Their mothers’ stories are etched on their hearts. Thus, Anam’s Uprising treads the rocky paths of the travails of women and ends with the energy of hope.

(Mohammad Farhan is an academic and a writer)