A Review of the book ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian’ (2024) by Neha Dixit
“Thank God for women, humanity is alive!”
Neha Dixit’s book, ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian’, is indeed a courageous, gripping, and heart-wrenching story of not just Syeda but millions of Indians and their relentless struggle to stay afloat. Through her brilliant style of narration, the author takes us through the last 30 years of India through the ‘eyes and life of Syeda.’. The significance of the work is that it expertly unravels the link between the state and its policies in aggravating the dispossession of the poor and the role of corporate media in invisibilizing them. Although there has been no dearth of theoretical explanations in this regard, Dixit’s invaluable contribution is that she helps us trace this in the lives of people with flesh and blood through her painstaking investigation.
Coming of Age
Syeda, to whom we get introduced in the book, takes us through a journey that is nothing less than a survival thriller, but it’s not just limited to the struggles of an individual. The author enriches the plot by blending the themes of gender, communal bigotry, and poverty. Syeda was born in 1973 to a Momin Ansari family, an artisanal community of Muslim weavers in Banaras. The circumstances that led her to leave Banaras and start a living in Delhi—an unknown and ‘Be hudi’ meaning ‘ill-mannered,’ city—are shown to be enmeshed in the new economic policies of the 1990s and the rise of Hindutva politics that transformed the economic and political character of India. The crisis in the handloom sector, with the state’s withdrawal and favouring of exports, had a disastrous impact on handloom weavers. Many skilled weavers were left with no other choice but to transform themselves into daily wagers, rickshaw drivers, and construction workers in the urban landscape. To this section belonged Syeda and her family. Dixit shows how this economic crisis went hand in hand with growing communal tensions fanned by Hindutva ideologues.
Finding a Place for Oneself
After Syeda’s arrival in Delhi in 1995, the next 30 years, traced in the book remain a life of perpetual drudgery in small, dingy urban spaces, in whose background we see economic inequality, marginalization and communal violence looming large as never before. After the economic reforms, the MNCs that entered India switched to home-based production as it was far cheaper and more profitable. Dixit shows how, in a span of 12 years in Delhi as a home-based worker, Syeda had to switch more than 45 jobs with a working hour of more than 16 hours per day without an off day. The condition of women workers remains worse as they aren’t considered workers by the state or conventional trade unions, thereby leaving them at the mercy of the subcontractors. However, Dixit doesn’t reduce Syeda’s story into a binary of a victim or a survivor. She is portrayed as someone who switches to survival mode unconsciously, who isn’t willing or who cannot afford to give up. In this, Syeda becomes representative of the larger section of working-class women who toil day in and day out to provide for their families. Even in the face of severe adversities, they hope for a better future for their children and try hard to provide them with education to enable them to exit the quagmire.
Playing the Gender Roles
The book also draws a contrast between male and female workers; even when both are victims of an exploitative socio-economic structure, there are certain privileges that men exclusively get to enjoy. Akmal, Syeda’s husband, is referred to as a manmauji, who works only when he feels like it and chooses to sit idle or indulge in liquor and intoxicants to ease his physical and mental pains. Here, a stark similarity could be drawn between Akmal and Mohammad Ashraf, the protagonist in Aman Sethi’s masterwork, A Free Man (2011). Ashraf, a daily wage laborer, identifies himself as a house painter. According to him, an ideal job has a perfect balance of Kamai and azadi, i.e. how much you earn and how free you are. He doesn’t believe in continuous toil but in working for a few days, earning enough so that he could take a break and enjoy himself. As the money runs out, he takes up work again, and the cycle continues, but not without disastrous consequences. Nevertheless, Akmal, Ashraf, and the sons of Syeda can afford to think for themselves and act in ways that suit their interests. But for women, living on their terms and not on the conditions set by others doesn’t come easy.
Challenging Hegemony
The book emphasizes how the exploitation and injustice that Syeda and millions of women like her undergo are exacerbated by a heavily corporatized media with their incessant greed for profit. As the book ends with a detailed description of the 2020 riots in Delhi and the violence unleashed by communal forces, Dixit notes that Syeda’s life comes to a ‘grotesque full circle.’ But she gathers strength again, as she has done umpteen times before, to start from scratch. It’s definitely not easy, as she has already lost a lot and also a part of herself in this cycle of violence and injustice, but she chooses to look ahead and go forth. The book leaves us with several revelations and insights into the structural breeding of inequality and injustice. Through a bottom-up microhistorical analysis, the book amplifies the voices, fears, and aspirations of those at whom the state has turned a deaf ear. The ones whose blood is sucked out to build the economy and maintain the façade of development. In the face of all such challenges, Dixit makes a valiant attempt to counter the hegemonic narrative that legitimises oppression of the poor.
Dr Sonu Vincent is an Assistant Professor working in the Department of History at Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University. Her email id is [email protected]
