Struggles of Transgender in Arundhati Roy's novel, The Ministry of the Utmost Happiness
Arundhati Roy's 2017 novel The Ministry of the Utmost Happiness deals with several issues. This paper analyzes the struggles of transgender, as observed in the novel with the character of Anjum, a transgender. This paper tells how the first person to accept the child is mother, father, and then comes the society. But in most of the transgender cases, children are neglected by their own family first and then the society. So, in this way the third gender becomes "Other", the marginalized, subaltern, colonized in one way or the other. It's very difficult for humans to survive when being neglected by one's own parents or forced by them to follow some basic laws of society. This is the sad reality of contemporary society. Here literature has become the true mirror of the society that shows the real picture. The role of the writer is to bring into light the problems, pains, sufferings of people and society, especially to give voice to the voiceless, and here the writer Arundhati Roy succeeds in doing so.
Keywords
Transgender, Gender Inequality, Family, Marginalization, Hijra
Introduction
Arundhati Roy is an Indian woman writer well-known for her writings on environmental issues and human rights. She has written her first novel The God of Small Things and published in 1997 and her literary genius shined and her first novel won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1997. Then she continued her nonfictional works on various aspects like national and global politics, human rights, and the environment. Then after twenty years, she published another masterpiece, her second-best novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, published in June 2017.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
This novel has many aspects but it is mostly divided into three parts. The first part deals with the hijra, a transgender woman named Anjum. The second part deals with the terrorism in Kashmir and the third part is of Dandakaranaya and woman Naxalite.
This novel has many small episodes, short stories of many minor characters, and the main storyline running between them. It is like a fabric interwoven with many characters all connected with one another. It is like a cobweb, where each thread has its own specific importance, all are interrelated with something very important. There are many minor episodes apart from the main narrative. The novel covers many social issues of Indian society like that of transgender, Gujarat riots, Kashmir issues, environmental concerns, politics, and many other aspects. It's a multidimensional novel.
What Researchers say and Analysis of their sayings
"Zainab, Jadoon, and Saeed (2018) discussed that negotiating gender and identity is very significant in the contemporary era of technical and scientific development. These researchers emphasized on the matter that we as a society do not take into account the possibility of assimilating the subgroups like the transgender as they are without altering their existing sexual characteristic traits."
(Zainab, Jadoon & Saeed, 2018).
In the above lines, researchers have shown how gender discrimination is observed in society, how transgender have not been given that space to develop, they are not accepted as they originally exist. Today in many countries like India, only two genders are given place. There are surgeries to change the sex to a best suitable to one's body. But the first right should be with the person and how he or she is comfortable and convenient with his own psychological and physical well-being. Then if that person wishes he or she can undergo an operation for more satisfaction and peace of body and of mind.
Danish Suleman & Dr. Faizahani Binti Ab Rehman discussed that "Gender does not matter when it comes to a heart of acceptance. Accepting everyone as they are, is what we need. Change in gender creates no difference in the emotions, pains, sufferings, care, love, and anger in a person. When society fails to understand this, voicing out and protests happen."
(Danish Suleman & Dr. Faizahani Binti Ab Rehman)
The above lines show that humanity is more important than anything else. All need to have some basic equal rights. Transgender people also have some emotions which others need to understand. When some basic rights, necessities, survival needs are not met with then there is no option left with transgender people, they are left with two options either to suffer and die in poverty or to disturb the people in society and forcefully they demand money and other things for their survival. So, the better option would be to live and let transgender people also live a happy and peaceful life in mainstream society.
As said by Nusrat Jahan in her paper, - "The novel is literally about everybody and everything happening in rapidly changing India, particularly about displaced and marginalized ones as the book is dedicated to "The Unconsoled". Anjum, like a thread, has brought all other marginalized people in one place, a graveyard, and potentially becomes the representative of the subaltern. Although Anjum started and is the owner of Jannat Guest House, here each and every person is free to live the life of their choice. Thus as subaltern, Anjum and other marginalized people gathered in Jannat Guest House and evidently sailed to form a new identity with freedom and liberation. From the examination of the representation of the "subaltern", it is clear that the condition of the subaltern have not changed much. In colonial times they were the victim of colonization and now they are the victim of a subtle and sustainable social cycle of domination that is structured by socialized capitalism. Study shows how Anjum, the transgender protagonist being the victim of social-political deprivation, sails to build a paradise of her own where falling people from all corner of the society gathered."
As discussed by Nusrat Jahan in her paper, it can be said that Anjum has become the link that connects all other subaltern and marginalized characters in the novel. Anjum herself has suffered a lot and so she left that world and made her own Jannat Guest House where she lives with a new identity with complete freedom not only that but she has also helped other people to live there with complete freedom who are rejected by society. So, here Anjum fights a long battle all her life and somehow manages to live in a graveyard but with some peace of mind and freedom. She was also once the victim of society and other dominant people in the Khwabgah. So she left those places and managed to settle in a place where no one would dare to live, it also shows that society has not given enough space and economic stability to such transgender people that they can live in the mainstream of society rather than a graveyard. So living in a graveyard is also a kind of injustice to Anjum and such subaltern people of the society.
Rizwan Mustafa and Zoya Jamil Chaudhry in their paper "Representation of 'The Other': Tracing the 'Otherized' Segments of Contemporary Indian Society in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" carried out the research applying Edward Said's theoretical framework of "The Self" and "The Other", "Us" and "Them", and "Binary Opposition". This paper analyzes 'binarism' and the conflict between the center and periphery: between Hindus and Muslims, between male, female and intersex, between Touchables and Untouchables, as well as between the graveyard and the surrounding wider city. Living and the dead both are living in the same place, a graveyard. By choosing a transgender character she tried her best to draw readers' attention towards the inequalities that exist in society. This paper has highlighted the representation of 'the Others', their way of survival in a society that has rejected them from the mainstream of its structure. (Rizwan Mustafa & Zoya Jamil Chaudhry)
A brief analysis of what is said by Rizwan and Zoya in their paper. They have shown in their paper how hijra, Dalits, Kashmiri people, Muslims, are made others by the people in society. They are deprived of social, political, and cultural rights. Only Anjum's graveyard is well functioning and accepts all the people that are suppressed and oppressed by society. But the sad reality of India is that where people end their life, the graveyard becomes the place of life and comfort where they can live a life of their choice when they 'the Other' are not given a place to live in the mainstream society. This paper shows how these others like transgender are not accepted by their own family and society. They are abused and tortured. Their existence is thought of as a curse and so not accepted by the family and society. All the characters in this novel are others, they are given voice in this novel by Roy. Roy has dedicated this novel "To the Unconsoled."
Some Quotes related to Transgender
"How
to
tell
a
shattered
story?
By
slowly
becoming
everybody.
No.
By slowly becoming everything."
In this novel, all the major characters are suffering. They are broken. They experience everything worse in their life but still are alive. They are like living dead. They are broken due to the circumstances they are facing in life. They experience terrible pains in their life. So the stories they tell of their own lives are broken, fragmented, and in pieces.
"She lived in the graveyard like a tree. At dawn she saw the crows off and welcomed the bats home. At dusk she did the opposite."
Here she is Anjum, the transgender, she lives in a graveyard and no humans to interact with. The only companions she can have were birds and trees around in the bosom company of nature. She lived like a tree. It means she had to bear so many pains while living in the graveyard.
"When people called her names - clown without a circus, queen without a palace - she let the hurt blow through her branches like a breeze and used the music of her rustling leaves as balm to ease the pain."
These lines tell how society created problems for a transgender to survive. But she now was strong enough and let the pain flow away without affecting her much. She eased the pain with the music of leaves. When no humans help humans then nature plays a very vital role in soothing the pains of humans and calms them down. So in this way people in the society create disturbances and don't allow these others, transgender to live peacefully. Then they have to survive overcoming many struggles and hardships. Roy highlights the pain of the marginalized, transgender in this novel. She gives voice to the voiceless and in this way the novel is "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" is getting happiness by giving voice to the others and subalterns, by giving justice through the novel. Real happiness is when a person tries to remove tears from the eyes of other people and this is what Roy has done through this novel. By giving happiness to others one can gain real happiness and this is what Roy does, she has given voice to the marginalized people, she has tried to console the unconsoled.
"Who says my name is Anjum? I'm not Anjum, I'm Anjuman. I'm a mehfil, I'm a gathering. Of everybody and nobody, of everything and nothing. Is there anyone else you would like to invite? Everyone's invited."
The above lines tell the open and happy spirits of the protagonist Anjum. She is good to all being transgender but society is not good to her. She is brave enough to make her own new world in the graveyard and she is the leader of her own life and also supports many other downtrodden or rejected people, she welcomes everyone in her Jannat Guest House. She tries to bring freedom and happiness in her as well as the life of the people around her. Her name is truly reflected through her deeds in the novel throughout.
Conclusion
In this novel, Roy has tried to bring happiness to the lives of the marginalized characters in contemporary Indian society. She has spoken on their behalf. She has given voice to the voiceless. So, in a way, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is in the happiness of these people. By giving is what we receive. So by giving justice through literature, through this novel, Roy is trying to give happiness To the Unconsoled." In this novel transgender, Anjum has to undergo many struggles from childhood to later in life. First, she has to leave her own home, and then she has to leave the Khwabgah also. But she is brave enough to live the life she wants and rejects everything that is curbing her liberty. She is not allowed to be in mainstream society and finds a place in a graveyard. Anjum's graveyard is the place of multi-culture and multi-faith and all are welcomed. This is the lesson society needs to learn from the protagonist Anjum. If one person is good enough to all then why not all can be good to all? Let the vibes of goodness spread in all the directions of the world.
Works Cited
Jahan, Nusrat.
"The New Subaltern in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A
Postcolonial Study." European Journal of English Language and
Literature Studies 9.2 (2021): 1-11. Electronic. 2 February 2022.
Mustafa, Rizwan and
Zoya Jamil Chaudhry. "Representation of 'The Other': Tracing the
'Otherized' Segments of Contemporary Indian Society in Arundhati Roy's The
Ministry of Utmost Happiness." South Asian Studies 34.2 (2019): 489
- 504. Electronic. 2 February 2022.
Roy, Arundhati. Arundhati
Roy Books - Biography and List of Works. n.d. Electronic. 2 February 2022.
—. The Ministry
of Utmost Happiness. Random House India, 2018.
Suleman, Danish and
Dr. Faizahani Binti Ab Rehman. "Trangender Issues in Indian Society from
the Viewpoint of Arundhati Roy's Novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness."
South Asian Journal of Socail Sciences & Humanities 1.3 (2020):
159-172. Online. 2 February 2022.
Zainab, Noreen,
Aisha Jadoon and Amna Saeed. "On Being Ugly: An Analysis of Arundhati
Roy's Beauty Norms in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness." Global
Language Review, Humanity Only 3.1 (2018): 1-16. Online. 2 February 2022.