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108 Feminist Review

tion or clarify its understanding of nationalist philosophy.

Has the Red Flag Fallen? the Fate of Socialism in the 1990s, by Helena Sheehan, asserts the import-ance of developing socialist politics in a world where internationalist capitalism has a stranglehold. It gives a clear definition of capitalism and socialism. It is a useful introduc-tion and is written without jargon, but it doesn't say anything new.

Finally, the pamphlets on nationalism are thought-provoking. I haven't read much on thi!1 issue

'We Were Making History'. Women and the Telangana Uprising Stree Shakti Sanghatana (Lalita K., Vasantha Kannabiran, Rama Melkote, UmaMaheshwari, Susie Tharu, Veena Shatrugna) Zed: London 1989, £8.95 Pbk, ISBN 0862 32679 6, £32.95 Hbk, ISBN 0 86232 678 8

When thugs paid by the feudal 'Nizam', ruler ofHyderabad, tried to take away Chakali Ailamma's stand-ing crops, hundreds of peasants, women as well as men, helped her to gather them and defended them with slings, stones, chilli powder and pounding sticks. It was the begin-ning of a communist-led uprising which, between 1945 and 1951 was to involve three million people and three thousand villages.

Mter Independence from the British the Nizam fell. The army forced the resistance movement into the forest. The Communist Party in India split between those who were pro-Soviet and those who were pro-Chinese. Amidst heavy losses the Communist Party called off the struggle.

The militant peasant movement was broken and defeated. Its partici-pants were abandoned to negotiate with everyday life and the incompre-hension of their children. The forces

which approaches it from such differ-ent perspectives. They are challeng-ing and a worthwhile read. I was, overall, disappointed by those on sexual politics and am left to wonder how much their content actually re-flects current feminist debate in Ireland. Whatever the limitations I look forward to reading similar prod-uctions from Attic.

Joan Neary (Thanks to Clara Connolly for the late-night discussion and support.)

which had decided their destiny were remote from Telangana.

When the women's group, Stree Shakti Sanghatana, arrived to record the life-stories of women who had taken part in the Telangana people's struggle, they found that they were partly recording testi-monies about how memory endures many years of defeat.

Dudala Salamma asked, 'why did you all come this far?' She had grown old in the intervening years, given everything away and now could only walk with a stick. But she retained her memories: 'There is so much to tell - my story: a house, courtyard and all they looted -looted it all. I had a cot with headboard, woven with cloth tape and a large bed on it. It was a nice decent house. I fed the communists and they said "you fed them, tell us where they are", and tortured me. They hung me with ropes under my arms, sprinkled water on the ropes and put a spiked board full of nails under me. My feet were split into bits (crying). I was in bad shape. They tortured me so much.'

Skree Shakti Sanghatana re-flect: 'When Dudala Salamma re-turns with the urgency of a clock that must strike the hour to the pension that never came, she speaks not only of money, but also of a life that was given and a vision that was be-trayed.'

Dayani Priyamvada was the daughter of the chief police officer, much respected in his village. When she was fifteen, influenced by her communist brother-in-law, she slipped away from home to join the rebels. Through the Party she found the strength to break so drastically from her assumed destiny and to continue living against conventions. She expresses the political and per-sonal paradox which she has lived, turning 'a deaf ear to idle talk': 'We learnt to live without caring for all the pressures we faced. That is why although I lost something too pre-cious to be lost I still have an affect-ion for the Party. Even if my life was ruined as an individual, the Party was not wholly responsible after all.'

Drawn first to the communists because they were doing good work, later the women began to under-stand that they were part of a wider movement. 'We were full of firm confidence. We believed that this struggle which our comrades are fighting would bring us a socialist society. These dreams were smashed. Crushed like an egg.'

The story told by the women of Telangana is thus both an account of the emergence of the consciousness that life could change and the painful accommodation of this vision awak-ened, but not realized, amidst defeat. It could be recognized by people in many differing contexts from John Bunyan to the Sandinistas. It leaves those who were making history sud-denly abandoned by it. But the ob-sessive passion will not die within them. 'How can the dream of a new order that the Sangham (organiz-ation) spoke of ever leave us ... And how can that hope die?' asks Chity-ala Ailamma.

We Were Making History is at once a remarkable chronicle of rebel-lious peasant consciousness and an exploration of how the revolutionary process and the assumptions of the politics of gender held by the Party affected the women. This is not an antiquarian exercise for Stree

Reviews 109

Shakti Sanghatana themselves are engaged in questioning how to create a socialism shaped by women's needs as well as men's.

Their very appearance seems to embody long-silenced grievances which begin to crystallize.

Saidamma saw her husband shot in the village by soldiers: 'No one came to ask us what did you suffer? Like you ask now ... They just shouted slogans and went away.'

Manikonda Suryavathi sold her silk wedding saris and dedicated herself to the Party. But one day she spoke at a village meeting in dan-gling ear-rings. Years later she re-membered the stem letter of reproof from the District Secretary. The Party tended to blame women for infidelities, banned marriages, wavered about girls leaving their families, assumed childcare was the women's individual responsibility. It was a political stance which denied the necessity of tackling gender dif-ferences and asserted an abstract equality.

However, this universalist vision was capable of unifying de-spite diversities. It also left the women with concepts which tran-scended everyday reality, the desire for equality and well-being. It held out hopes so powerful they cut many bonds which constrained them; it gave them great courage.

'When we left home and stepped out braving all this', Dayani Priyam-vada recalls, 'we did so in the faith that there was a good future, a fine society coming, in which all of us would live really well. We dreamt that in families there would be no such thing as women bending before men. We dreamt that we would live so freely and happily. But repression came so soon that we never had time to question whether that equality was there in the Party itself.'

The women of Telangana thus not only tell a story of valour but of the particular strains of giving them-selves to a political movement which empowers even though it denies

110 Feminist Review

many aspects of their experience as women. So their chroniclers are listening both to a narrative and to an unfinished political creative labour. They alert us to reading oral accounts with all our senses. Then we are able to 'hear the questioning, the wavering, even the outright re-jection of explanations as we read against the grain of the volubility and listen for the gaps, the hesitan-cies, the silences, the evasions'.

To record a life is an act of trust and power. 'You hold the pen, it all comes from my stomach', the para-lysed Dudala Salamma tells the younger women. The narrator de-pends upon the chroniclers but knows all too well the differences between life and words. None the less, there is a certain recognition between women in different circum-stances who refuse to accept the world as it is.

Dudala Salamma assumes they will know why she risked so much for the communists: 'You ask why did I feed them? Why have you come here to see me? Why do you roam about for

Wild Women in the Whirlwind: Afra-American Culture and the Contemporary Literary Renaissance Edited by Joanne M. Braxton and Andree Nicola McLaughlin Serpent's Tail: London 1990, £12.95 Pbk, ISBN 1 85242 180 0

Recently, I saw an excellent show detailing the life and work of Jackie 'Moms' Mabley, the first Black woman stand-up comedian, during the course of which 'Moms' related how she worked with all the greats of the time - Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday and others.

She also talked about the racism which affected them all and the downright difficulties of being a Black woman determined to make it

the Sangham (organization) or for women? I too wanted to do the same thing. At least you can read a few letters but me, I used to graze buffa-loes.'

The dream of 'a good future' was abandoned by history in Telangana but, because the members of Stree Shakti Sanghatana searched with resolve for 'a lineage of resistance and growth', their experiences can be handed on to many other women who spend their lives roaming about questing for equality, freedom and happiness in the world. The memo-ries of the women of Telangana defy the emergence of a future 'sealed off from change'. We Were Making His-tory is thus both a moving record and a dramatic act of political inter-vention. The power of such testi-monies is transmitted over time and circumstance. It is a book not only about women's heroic past but about the dilemmas of socialism and femin-ism today.

Sheila Rowbotham

on her own terms in a racist, sexist and generally hostile environment.

The show made me remember 'Moms' Mabley, and appreciate her in a way that I did not when she was alive and performing in our midst: another Black heroine rightfully re-vived and revered.

In the same way, the women-performers, writers, poets, doers and thinkers - who are the lovingly por-trayed subjects of Wild Women in the Whirlwind are themselves given new life by the substantive scholar-ship on their lives, which this book documents. Wild Women consciously sets out to ensure that these women and the history they represent are not lost to generations.

Likewise, the women (and men) who contribute to this latest an-thology in what is now becoming a long list of exemplary publications setting out Black women's story are

'We Were Making History'. Women and the Telangana UprisingWild Women in the Whirlwind: Afra-American Culture and the Contemporary Literary Renaissance