WOMEN LEADS IN ‘AGNISNAN’, ‘ADAJYA’ AND ‘AAKASHI TORAR KOTHARE’: AN EXAMINATION OF ARCHETYPAL WOMAN’S ‘ESSENTIALIST IDENTITY

Abstract

Essentialism or its more lucid epithet Essentialist Identity of woman is reminiscent of a powerful and influential school of postcolonialist feminism that distinctly popped up in 1960s. It seeks to explain the varied predicaments of women in a preeminently patriarchal set up characterized by the hegemonic socio cultural and political codes of identity, traditions, and modes of economy, gender politics, representation, resistance and identity. Ina typical Indian context, it implies the compulsion, both conditioned and forced, on the part of the woman to abide by the archetypal roles defined and assigned to her by the well-structured male hegemony of the predominantly patriarchal socio-cultural order. It is what denies her any dignity, reward, recognition, self-esteem and even remuneration. The three contemporary Assamese award winning films are probed into to descern and decipher its all engulfing regressive impact on Indian woman.