The Bandit Queens

Violence against women is so pervasive in this novel that it forms the story’s very foundation, for the aftermath of abuse keeps Geeta isolated, friendless, and defiant. Similarly, the constant presence of violence within this culture serves to drive the plot forward, first with Farah’s request for Geeta to assist in murdering Samir, then with the death of Darshan; and throughout the novel’s progression, its entrenchment in modern Indian society is profoundly manifest. All of the characters’ lives have been touched by violence, whether in the form of direct physical abuse or through the extortion of dowry. Violence is also found in the show of support for friends and loved ones whose lives have been ruined by abuse; or, conversely, in the communally enforced secrecy surrounding the shame of it. From the beginning, it is clear that many of the characters—even the women who are being abused—accede to participate in the often deadly silence that enables such an intractable social problem to be perpetuated. For the sake of cohesion, the community itself often becomes complicit in the abuse, and this trend also emphasizes the lower value that Indian society places on women in general. Within the context of the novel, only when the women take matters into their own hands does the abuse cease and the shame lift.

As the plot unfolds, the narrative reveals the powerful effects of the social mores that keep such domestic disturbances private. For example, as Geeta herself complains at various points in the book, nobody reached out to her when Ramesh was abusive. When Farah tries to talk Geeta into helping her murder Samir, she appeals to Geeta’s own experience of abuse, saying, “He drank and he hit you. I know he did. I saw. We all did,” to which Geeta bluntly replies, “But nobody did anything about it” (10). Later, it becomes even clearer that the women are the primary culprits in the unspoken silence surrounding such marital violence. When Geeta reminds Karem that his alcohol fueled Ramesh’s violent rages, Karem claims that he had no idea that Ramesh abused her. When Geeta suggests that everyone knew about the abuse, Karem replies, “All the women did! But I didn’t know until Ramesh was gone and everyone was talking” (45). Later, after Samir dies, the women pretend to be surprised by Farah’s revelations of abuse. This dynamic reveals that the women must preserve the status quo, for too much of their agency is still bound up with their male partners.

Abuse also begets trauma, and trauma interferes with rational thinking and agency. This pattern is compounded by traditional values that effectively impose different standards for women than for men. For example, in Preity’s back story, it is revealed that she has been scarred for life by the man to whom her family dooms her to wed. After he throws acid on her, thinking she is Priya, the twin who rejected his advances, Darshan “married Preity with her parents’ consent. Who else would have her?” (103). There is no question of forgoing marriage; this might bring shame or unwanted scrutiny to the family. In Geeta’s case, the return of Ramesh robs her of agency, as past traumas come bubbling up to the surface. Ramesh literally silences her without raising a hand. Saloni is well aware of the toll that this past can take, and she refuses to allow her friend to regress, saying, “He’s isolating you again. He’s taking away your independence again. No meetings, no loans, no friends” (270). One of the hallmarks of abuse is the tendency to keep the target isolated from friends and family who might interfere with the cycle of abuse.

Still, with the help of Saloni and others, Geeta quickly uncovers Ramesh’s lies and rediscovers her own strength. Even before she becomes aware of Ramesh’s thievery, she questions the ways in which abuse is couched in terms of tradition. She and Saloni discuss caste, particularly the reality of how difficult it is to rid modern India of this ancient system, and Geeta compares this to abuse, saying, “Like how husbands will hit us and we should keep quiet, understand and accept it? Is that also ‘tradition’?” (230). She finally realizes, after Ramesh returns and abuses her trust, if not her body, that she herself made excuses for his behavior. Now, however, Geeta will no longer accept abuse as a fractured form of love. When she shoots Ramesh, it is not entirely in self-defense; rather, it is for a larger sense of social justice, for she wordlessly declares her refusal to lend her complicity to this cycle of abuse. When Geeta later sees Ramesh, blind and confined to his bed with his alcohol, she suppresses her momentary flash of sympathy, for she knows that “there was no sense in apologizing for being a survivor” (333).