Gendered-Trajectories, Dissentient-Dreams: Re-reading "Lihāf" and Kāghaẓī hai Pairahan in the Postcolonial Context

Prima facie, the feminist resistance is to be seen in all the disciplines and discourses today, yet a deeper analysis unfolds layers of antithesis within it, whatsoever. The tussle between the Oriental and the Occidental ideological stands affect the feminist issues invariably, and more so in the Third World countries. This article demonstrates the grit of an unconventional Muslim female voice of Indian subcontinent- Ismat Chughtai (1911-91) as recorded in her autobiography, A Life in Words: Memoirs (2013), a translated work to English, originally written in Urdu under the title Kāġhaẓī hai Pairahan (1988) and magnum opus “Lihāf” (1942). Along with drawing parallels on Spivak’s and Connell’s ideas of “subaltern” and “hegemonic masculinity” respectively, this research attempts to analyze and contextualize the feminist issues in the Third World vis-à-vis Indian sub-continent.