Unsung Heroes: Sara Abubakar, a feisty woman who tackled patriarchy, communal violence, misogyny through her writings

She was forced willy-nilly to wear the burqa at her marital home in Mangalore, even though wearing it had never been compulsory in her natal home. Similar restrictions on women and their movements in an educated family astounded Abubakar, but she had to flow with the tide. The next three decades of her life went by as she gave birth to four sons. Surrounded by conservative men in the house, Abubakar even found it difficult to read a newspaper since that was meant for the men and rarely reached the inner rooms.

Yet over a period of time, she was able to persuade her husband to get her books from a library. As his was a transferable job, once they had a house of their own around 1963, she became a library member and joined women’s associations to further her own interests and slowly opened up to the world around during their sojourns to various places in Karnataka.

Abubakar attempted to write stories and articles but they did not see the light of the day. It was only in 1981 that Abubakar’s first article, written in response to an editorial about communal harmony, was published in the Lankesh Patrike weekly. Because of the encouragement she received from the magazine’s editor, Abubakar decided to give voice to the problems of Muslim women, which had not found a voice till then. The community she portrayed in her works is the one she hailed from—the Malabar Beary. Yet most of the problems portrayed were present in other Muslim communities as well. Quite a few of her preoccupations could also be seen as symbolic of oppressive structures in other communities and religions too.

Her first novel, Chandragiriya Teeradalli, portrayed the agonies of the Muslim women whom their husbands gave the instant triple talaq in the heat of the moment, only to repent later but to no avail. Through her portrayal of this very common problem faced by the Muslim women, Abubakar called for genuine changes in the attitude and the law that governs her community. The novel, which was initially serialised in Lankesh Patrike, also drew widespread criticism and denials from orthodox Muslim circles. In fact, the series of intimidations she faced had a positive impact on her writing career as they made Abubakar all the more determined that her voice would not be silenced.

In her works, Abubakar addressed women-specific problems of “serial marriage” and polygamy as in Sahana and Vajragalu, or that of single or unmarried motherhood as in Panjara. Many of her novels were written from a Muslim woman’s perspective. Her short stories like “Huttu” deal with the problems of serial pregnancies and “Moole Muttida Hulu” with the agony of a woman abandoned even by the son she has struggled to bring up. Many writers also point out that Abubakar’s brand of feminism was not militant, but it raised important questions about the man-woman equations in Muslim society as also other Indian communities.

Considerable parts of her works also dealt with the multi-dimensional issues such as communal riots and the insecurity of the poor, as in the short story “Arakshitha”, or with corruption, as in “Tala Odeda Doni” or her Kannada translation of former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar’s book on the 2002 communal riots. The Karnataka government recently received widespread criticism for removing Abubakar’s “Beauty and the Beast” from a school textbook.

Muneer Katipalla, state president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, recalled that he grew up reading Abubakar’s work. “I grew up reading her novel Chandragiriya Teeradalli, which was published in the Lankesh Patrike regularly. She was very upfront and vocal about the injustice meted out to Muslim women due to the wrong interpretation of Muslim laws,” said Katipalla, who met Abubakar for the first time in 2006 during a protest against communal riots in Mangalore. He recalled how Abubakar supported the CPM-linked organisation in protesting against the 2009 infamous pub attack and other instances of moral policing, and assaults on women, in Mangalore.

Katipalla also recalled that the Nudi Siri programme, a cultural and literary conference conducted by educationist Mohan Alva annually, featured noted writers including U R Ananthamurthy and Baraguru Ramachandrappa. “We felt literature is not the monopoly of certain lobbies but it belongs to people. So in 2012, we started our own literary campaign called Jana Nudi that was more people-centric. In fact, Abubakar was one of the first literary icons to join us in the campaign. She stressed that literature should speak about communal issues, economic disparities and other everyday problems,” said Katipalla. “My biggest takeaway from her journey is the way she fought patriarchy tooth and nail through her literary works and for standing her ground with confidence despite many odds.”

Abubakar was the recipient of the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award in 1995. She also received an honorary doctorate from Mangalore University in 2008. She was presented a felicitation volume in 2009, for being the first woman writer in the district and the first Muslim woman writer in the state to be so honoured. She won the best novel award from the Karnataka Sahitya Academy for Chandragiriya Tiradalli in 1984. She had served as president of the Karavali Lekakiyaru Mathu Vachakiyara Sangha in Mangalore.