As Assam mourns the death of one of its most celebrated cultural icons, Zubeen Garg, this article attempts to highlight the anti-feminist treatment of his partner, Garima Saikia Garg. She has been the focal point of many narratives that have emerged around the death and mourning of Zubeen Garg.
His death was marked by condolences and tributes as well as demands for investigation and conspiracy theories. Garima Saikia Garg has taken centrestage in both instances, with people connecting her to the death of her husband as well as monitoring her demeanour in a moment of grief.
The article finally attempts to examine why feminist movements remain relevant in this context.
Disciplining the Female Body
Women’s bodies have been disciplined throughout history to fit the patriarchal order. Heather Savigny in her work Cultural Sexism: The Politics of Feminist Rage in the #MeToo Era pointed out how women are disciplined into social expectations: from how they should look to the roles they are supposed to perform in the public sphere.
The same phenomenon of disciplining the body of Garima Saikia Garg was visible on social media during the state mourning of Zubeen Garg’s death.
When Zubeen Garg’s body arrived at the LGBI Airport in Guwahati, she was there to bring her late husband’s body home, wearing a white Mekhela Chador with purple borders and holding a gamosa in her hands. There was sindoor on her hairline, her eyebrows were drawn neatly, a purple bindi was placed on her forehead, and her hair was tied in a bun.
However, rather than empathizing with a grieving wife, people on social media began slandering her—for putting sindoor, for not wearing clothes that were completely white like a traditional widow, for matching the color of her bindi to her clothes, and even for drawing her eyebrows. People even questioned how she had the time to tie her hair.
This demonstrates how a woman’s body is always a site of contestation for society, where people decide how a woman should look while mourning. More than what she was going through, what mattered was how she looked and whether it was acceptable to society at large.
Claire Allen-Johnstone highlights how the freedom to dress has been central to women’s independence. Garima Saikia Garg’s attempt to reclaim her agency to dress as she wished disrupted the image of the culturally idealized woman and triggered vile responses from the Assamese public.
She was questioned for not looking like a widow. The traditional connotations of widowhood, however, are always tied to that of a timid, lifeless body whose desire to live and right to be happy dies with her husband. She is expected to wear colorless (white) clothes and avoid makeup. Through the collective shaming of Garima Saikia Garg, an attempt was made to tame her into submission to the larger patriarchal order.
No Identity of Her Own
Simone de Beauvoir famously declared “He is the Subject, he is the Absolute—she is the Other,” showing how society treats women as the other, that is, a mere object in relation to the man. This illustrates how women have long been considered subordinate to men—merely daughters, mothers, sisters, or wives.
The same happened to Garima Saikia Garg, who was labeled as “just his wife” by a section of Zubeen Garg’s fandom who failed to understand the significance of her presence. This came as a reaction to some of the crucial decisions Garima Saikia Garg took regarding the cremation and mourning after Zubeen Garg’s death.
For these fans, Zubeen Garg was an invaluable treasure of Assam and hence, the right over the decision could not solely be hers. According to them, the people of Assam had greater authority over his death and what needed to be done.
This narrative of her being “just his wife” conceals two important aspects of who Garima Saikia Garg is. First, even without being the wife of Zubeen Garg, Garima Saikia Garg has an identity of her own. She is a renowned costume designer and creative professional in the Assamese film industry.
She has produced three Assamese films and is also a reputed social and cultural activist. Second, even if she were just his wife (which is certainly not the case), it undermines the often unpaid labor and care work that goes into being someone’s wife. Women are often kept out of economic activities so they can perform their gendered domestic duties, which are mostly underappreciated and unpaid.
They perform a disproportionate amount of free care work in the domestic space to maintain the well-being of the household. Garima Saikia Garg is no exception. In several viral clips of Zubeen Garg’s concerts, she is seen consoling him whenever he became emotional or broke down on stage.
This form of emotional labour often goes unnoticed but plays an important role in the overall well-being of the husband. Garima Saikia Garg’s contributions therefore cannot be reduced to being “just a wife,” as no wife is just a wife. She is a person with agency and the subject in her own right.
From Sister-in-law to a Slut
Garima Saikia Garg was subjected to slut-shaming after she went live on Facebook from Zubeen Garg’s account, thanking the people of Assam for the love they showered on him. In the video, she urged fans to abide by law and order and also asked them to forgive Zubeen Garg’s manager Siddhartha Sarma.
She said Sarma had been a confidante for years and was like a brother to Zubeen Garg. Her sympathy toward Siddhartha Sarma agitated a section of fans who believed Sarma was responsible for Zubeen Garg’s untimely death.
These fans wanted the authorities to take appropriate action in the matter. However, elements within that group also supported mob justice. Her statement initiated a series of reactions that included dismissing her authority as well as fueling conspiracy theories about her having an illicit affair with Siddhartha Sarma.
The mob of fans began framing her as a co-conspirator in what they accused of being a murder. Their theory was based on two aspects: first, Garima’s public appeal for Siddhartha Sarma’s safety; and second, the belief that Garima did not show enough emotion while handling the news of Zubeen Garg’s death, which, they argued, implied she might have known about the alleged plans for his assassination.
Despite there being no solid evidence of foul play, mobs of fans have continued to circulate demeaning narratives and slut-shame the grieving widow of Zubeen Garg, based on the suspicion of an illicit affair.
Feminist scholarship has repeatedly highlighted how women are subjected to slut-shaming as a means of punishing and disciplining them into abiding by hegemonic masculine discourse. Slut-shaming can be defined as humiliating a woman based on presumed sexual behavior and appearance, regardless of whether or not she is sexually active.
Garima’s objection to hypermasculine mob violence and her reinforcement of the belief in legal structures made her a prime target for the hypermasculine mob. She was demoted from the position of being the bou (sister-in-law) to being branded a slut who allegedly murdered her own husband. Her character was questioned simply because she disagreed with the muscular ideology of mob justice.
Feminist Movement is Still Needed
The anti-feminist treatment of Garima Saikia Garg demonstrates the contemporary relevance of feminist movements. With the growth of alt-right, far-right, and misogynist discourses—such as those of the Tate brothers—that challenge the legitimacy of feminist movements and claim that the world has already become equal, this incident highlights how women are still forced to be the other in a man’s life and are subjected to different forms of violence.
Her character is repeatedly being questioned simply for speaking in favor of peace and harmony. It took society only a few hours after the demise of her husband to slander her public image. This shows the power that patriarchy still holds in our society and the position women are allotted within it.
Feminist movements across the globe have highlighted these issues and introduced powerful concepts to understand our social realities. These ideas have empowered women and men to navigate the structural and systemic challenges they face because of their positions in society.
Over time, these movements have allowed resistance to take root in different parts of the world. If there is anyone still questioning the relevance of feminist movements today, one simple question remains:
If the widow of one of Assam’s most powerful and popular personalities can be subjected to such treatment, what does it tell us about the condition of women belonging to economically weaker sections, lower castes, minority ethnic groups, or those identifying with the LGBTQIA+ movement?
Rishiraj Sen is currently working as an independent researcher. He was with IIM Ahmedabad as a Research Associate and was a Margaret Basu Scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) between 2022-23.
Dibyashree Mahanta is a doctoral scholar in the Department of Indian Languages and Literary Studies in the University of Delhi. She completed her Masters from Tezpur University.