The Submissiveness of Sita: Was It Resilience in Disguise?

• Sita, is superficially observed as the epitome of grace, elegance and adaptability.
• Sita, the name hardly taken in this world which worships Ram, is the reason why Ramayana came into existence.
• Call it history or just a religious text, the patriarchal face of Indian society is an obvious deduction to any reader.
• Sita stands out in her quiet ways, reclaiming the Ramayana, urging all of us to look at it through the eyes of a woman.

Introduction

Sita is a name that sounds so simple to all of us. Sita is a name almost lost in Ramayana because it iterates the story of Ram, her husband. Sita, the daughter of Earth, who made so many sacrifices, yet had to prove herself over and over again. Everyone seems to think that her capability to adjust, evolve, and adapt is what makes a woman. However, no one realises that in all her actions, even when she calls on her Mother Earth to engulf her in death, she was just answering society through resilience.

The Ramayana is an Indian epic that depicts Ram and how he was exiled to the forest for fourteen years by his father. Ram’s wife, Sita, decides to go with him, as does his younger brother, Lakshman. However, the tale twists rather suddenly when Sita is kidnapped by the king of Lanka, the mighty Ravana.

The kidnapping was a mere revenge tactic deployed by the infamous villain of Ramayana. His sister had not only been rejected by both Ram and Lakshman, but they had also cut off her nose. This was a strike on her honour, and Ravana, as the elder brother, had set out to seek revenge. What follows is a war where Ravana dies and Ram wins.

The Tale of Sita

The tale of Sita starts after the war ends, and Ram is supposed to take her back home to Ayodhya. Before this, she is first seen as the beautiful princess who chooses to marry when her father arranges a swayamvar for her. She is seen as the dutiful daughter-in-law when she goes to Ayodhya, leaving her city of Mithila. She is Ram’s ever-adjusting wife, who cooks good food for Ram, follows him to the forest when he is exiled, and takes care of him. She is also the homemaker when she makes a cottage in Panchavati into a home, nourishes the two brothers, and keeps her husband company throughout. This is the part of the story that people point to and keep comparing the daughters of Indian households to. But Sita’s adjustability is not to be confused with submissiveness. 

Sita was trained in martial arts from a very young age. She was taught the art of cooking so that she never has to rely on anyone else to satisfy her hunger. She could make any place a home, as is evident from the part of Ramayana where she is held captive in Lanka. The garden of Ravana, where she lives, surrounded by demons, is also her home when she sings, when she gives advice to the females and when she imparts wisdom to the cooks.

Sita does not get a voice until she leaves Ram’s side. With Ram, she is complete, as is God Narayana with his consort, Goddess Lakshmi. It is quite confusing because if seen closely, the whole war was fought for her, hence she is the reason behind the Ramayan. So why is the epic named after Ram? Why is it not Sitayan? Is Sita nothing but just a shadow in Ram’s life? Is she not an independent woman? 

After the War

Living under someone else’s man’s roof is considered adultery for a Hindu woman. That the woman was kidnapped under pretences and kept in a garden was not taken into account. That a queen who has always been the pride of her kingdom and her husband’s was never thought of. What was worshipped one day came tumbling down into the dust because the society raised a question at Ram: “How do you know she is still chaste enough to be your wife?”

It is then that Sita locks eyes with Ram. She sees not her loving husband but a ruthless ruler who demands the same things as his subjects. Without a complaint, she prepared a pyre, lit it, and walked into it.

Does she do this out of shame? Is Sita suicidal? Some might think on such lines. However, Maithili(since she was the princess of Mithila) knew that this was just an answer to the people and her husband. She knew the flames could not touch her as she was the purest of them all. She also knew that actions speak louder than words. 

In this, we see that Sita could have been as good a ruler as her husband, but she was never given the chance to do so by her father, Janak. Her father was more interested in marrying her off to a reputed family rather than having a girl sit on the throne. In contemporary times, this tradition still exists where girls are married off at the mere age of 13. Why, you ask? Simply because Hindus believe more in following tradition than evolving themselves.

Sita, having emerged from the fire, unburnt and having proved her chastity, walks hand-in-hand with Ram, her husband, to the city of Ayodhya, which celebrates Diwali upon their arrival. Her eyes sparkle with the joy of reuniting with her husband after such a long time. The trust that she showcases again talks of her perseverance and her will to forgive and forget. 

No one talks about the chances that Ram might have indulged in taking another queen while Sita was away. It was the norm in those days, after all. However, Ram is portrayed as Maryada Purushottam, the perfect man who puts his dignity above everything else. Sita expresses her nonchalance towards society when she looks only at her husband, but Ram puts the dignity of the throne and Ayodhya before his wife’s.

Sita Returns to The Forest

A few days later, Sita becomes pregnant. In the meantime, Ravana’s younger sister, Surpanakha, comes into the palace in disguise, and coaxes Sita to draw an image of her captor. Sita draws a likeness on the floor with rice driving Surpanakha to tears, which embed the image on the floor. 

Seeing the image of Ravana on the floor of their bedchamber, Ram grows furious and exiles Sita to the forest. However, he does not do so himself; he sends his brother Lakshman along with her under the pretence of picking up berries. When his brother breaks the news, Sita removes her finery, opens up her hair and walks into the forest as if it is her home. She never complains, cries or wreaks havoc.

At a certain point, Sita’s behaviour strikes as weird. Any person in their common sense would wage a war to bring such humiliation on them, time and again. Today, it would not take even a day’s thinking to plunge into divorce and end all of it. But Sita endures. She teaches that her silent ways of acceptance are not submissiveness; it is endurance of the highest form. A pain like this can only be borne by a force of Nature herself.

Sita becomes a mother all by herself. She gives birth to twins, Luv and Kush, amidst a bed of grass, only the cold rocks and the warm sunrise to keep her company. She was what we call a “single mom” today. She taught her children to call themselves Sita’s sons and not by their father’s names, as is done in every Hindu household till today. The name, caste(gotra), and family name come from the paternal side,and nothing from the Mother is carried forward.

If we think about it, Sita was the first rebel. Only her ways were far different from Che Guevara, Martin Luther or Nelson Mandela. She never talked or made a pompous show out of herself. She quietly made a statement through her actions. In this way, she even brings society’s wrath upon herself but chooses not to be affected by it.

After she walks into the forest, she does not hold on to her husband, even though she is still married. In her thoughts and talks, she says she is Ram’s Sita and no one can own her. In retrospect, she wants to say that she chooses her consort and that she is her husband’s wife, which is her own choice and not an obligation.

Sita is like the wind, and she can never be owned. She is like water; she adapts to every crevice of her life and writes an incredible story that generations later are researching. She is the Earth, nourishing everyone with her ample wisdom. And it is this wisdom that teaches her that silence is not subservient. Silence is a sound far more powerful than any other war cry.

Through her silence, Sita teaches all women to be their own selves. Women endure a thousand pains, yet they wake up the next day and face the day with a smile. She symbolises this pain and teaches the rest of the society that women’s smiles hide unseen traumas. She teaches us that war can also be fought without bloodshed, and rebellion can be waged with a simple smile.

The Death of Sita

Sita is called upon to the court of her husband one last time when her sons sing the Ramayana to her husband. She arrives as the ascetic, devoid of the fine jewellery that she wore as a queen. However, this is synonymous with Tyaga (renunciation), which only hermits or monks of the highest spiritual stature can achieve. “For he who has nothing, has the greatest peace of all.”

When the same society that had pointed a finger at her after the war asks Ram to take her back, he does not. He does not look at her, but asks her to prove her chastity once more. Sita, the ever-graceful goddess, smiles and asks her Mother Earth to engulf her if she ever does anything but pure in her intentions. Strangely enough, the Earth splits into two and swallows her whole before Ram could even touch her. This is her Brahmastra(final weapon) as she calls death upon herself instead of answering society time and again, which does not deserve her.

What greater revenge, if there is to hate than love itself? What greater revenge on war than life? Such was Sita, a woman complete in herself who chose a man to enter her world. She chose to be the strong companion and the nourishing Mother despite having a whole kingdom treat her poorly. 

Even in her death, she calls on her Mother and not her father, because mothers protect their own fiercely while fathers are more of providers and more concerned about the dignity of the family.

The Woman, The Goddess, The Rebel

Sita does not crumble when she is humiliated, when she is called “polluted”. She calmly gives her answer through the most painful rituals. These have been etched across history as the moments where society has called upon the woman as a villain. The Ramayana in its entirety displays how deeply patriarchal Indian society was, is and somehow continues to be.

Throughout the ages, and through different renditions of the same epic, Sita’s story stays the same. Unlike Ahalya, who became indifferent towards her suspicious husband, Sita embraced her better half in all glory. She displays extreme buoyancy through her livelihood, once as an adopted daughter, then as a wife, and finally as a mother.

Sita embodies the daughter-in-law, wife, and homemaker of every Indian household, who believes in the strong patriarchal system that unfolds in Ramayana. Every dream burned, every desire buried under the stronghold of household politics and society. However, she fights every question that is thrown at her viciously. Once with fire, another with oaths, and then Earth. She speaks volumes through her silence, her “submissions”. She sets an example of how women can be a version of Goddess Shakti herself through her strength and her resilience.

The story of Sita is one forged in fire, blood and pain. It is also the story of every woman in India, hidden behind metaphors and similes. The smile reflects the pain, the submissiveness- her immense strength. Her story is testimony that a patriarchal society will always raise fingers on a woman, no matter how pure. Her story is one lost among the pages of an epic, elaborating a male protagonist. Like the famous author, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni says, the character ofSita deserves her own Sitayana.

Through her silence, Sita teaches all women to be their bare, natural selves. Women endure a thousand pains, yet they wake up the next day and face the day with a smile. She symbolises this pain and teaches the rest of the society that women’s smiles hide unseen traumas. She teaches us that war can also be fought without bloodshed, and rebellion can be waged with a simple smile.