Concepts of Womanism/ Feminism in A Life Apart: An Autobiography by Prabha Khaitan

Abstract

Even though the concept of Womanism has roots in Black Feminism, still it can form some relevance and connection with Indian Feminism. Alice Walker (1944-) an African Black woman writer has positioned “Womanist/Womanism” in her critically acclaimed collection of essays, “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose”. Roughly, in Post-Independence India, women’s active involvement in politics advances their positions. The proportion of women in the Indian Education System skyrocketed. Due to awareness, Indian women make decisions in the realms of social, economic, and religious issues as well. Now, women lawyers, activists, politicians, administrators, and others focus on the upliftment of women’s conditions in India. These give birth to women-specific organizations, acts, amendments, and laws. In Indian Feminism based on the above-discussed layouts, there have been three waves in the last eighty years. Indian Womanism can be one of the most significant segments of Indian Feminism of the contemporary era. The primary aim of the Researcher is to conceptualize Indian Womanism while unwrapping the palimpsest narrative of Prabha Khaitan’s autobiography named A Life Apart. The second contention is to situate Prabha Khaitan as the best possible exemplar of an Indian Womanist instead of an Indian Feminist in the background of A Life Apart: An Autobiography.