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Paper short abstract

This paper analyses the "natural" cruelty that stems from roles assigned to women in Qissah Chhabili Bhattiyari (1864). Also known as the "Tale of the Deceitfulness of Women", the qissah pits the tenacity of the women characters against the sordid helplessness of the hero for whom they fight.

Paper long abstract

(Folk Narrative, Literature, and Media Panels)

Since its first known publication in 1864, Qissa Chhabili Bhattiyari (“Chhabili the Innkeeper”) has circulated in multiple versions and genres, including a versified adaptation published in 1869 as Qissa Fareb-un-Nisa (The Tale of the Deceitfulness of Women). This is a story in which the tenacity and ingenuity of the female protagonists—Chhabili and Bichhittar—are set against the passivity and helplessness of the supposed “hero,” Zaman Shah, for whom they struggle. As literary theorist Kumkum Sangari has observed, “misogyny provides the structure of coherence” to Qissa Chhabili Bhattiyari. Yet the qissah simultaneously reveals how the women’s resourcefulness does not stem from an essentialised or “natural” femininity but from their social positioning—particularly the differences of class and status that shape their agency. The narrative does not overtly moralise but instead juxtaposes the women’s active strategies with Zaman Shah’s inertness and lack of resolve.

This paper examines how the text constructs what may be read as a “naturalised” cruelty rooted in prescribed social roles—sex worker/innkeeper versus wife—where the latter enjoys moral and financial support, while the former is denied respect or even the right to life after a decade-long relationship with the prince.