The Meanings of Ruswa – Word Definitions and the Politics of Emotions

23.04.2017

In Thomas Hardy’s novel, Jude the Obscure, the eponymous character at first makes an elementary mistake in translation. He believes that words have fixed meanings independent of context. It is progress in the language under study that enables Jude to see that context determines meaning. Words have a plasticity, not a fixity. Their situation is what gives them meanings. In this piece of writing, I want to investigate the meanings of the word “ruswa” which is used in a number of South Asian languages. Ruswa is a word which aims to convey a particular emotion. I want to stress the multiple meanings and understandings of the word rather than insisting on one univocal meaning. I will first outline the differing contemporary interpretations of the word by summarising arguments from an online translation site. I will then investigate my own meaning of the word through the use of autobiography. I will then reflect upon the political implications of “ruswa”.

I first began to think about the word “ruswa” while I was translating myself. One of the major loves of my life is Hindi music from Hindi film soundtracks. However, Hindi is not the language that I speak at home. I am therefore a life-long student of the Hindi tongue. There is a particularly lovely song from the movie Aashiqui 2 (Love/Romance 2) entitled Sun Raha Hai Na Tu, Ro Raha Hoon Main (Are you listening? I am crying) which had a few words which I didn’t know the meaning of. It was while I was reading the song translation that I stumbled upon the equivocal significations of “ruswa”. I had first thought that I knew what the meaning of the word was. It seemed that there was much more argument over the word than I could have imagined.

The online translation of the song can be found here: http://www.bollymeaning.com/2013/04/sun-raha-hai-na-tu-ro-raha-hoon-main.html . I will present the part of the song that is illustrated, so that the reader can see the context (legally for ‘fair use’, non-commercial and scholarly purposes of commentary):

Manzilein ruswa hain – (my) destinations are not cared for..

Khoyaa hai raasta – the path is lost..

Aaye le jaaye – (Someone, you actually) comes and takes me away

Itni si iltijaa – only this is my small wish..

Ye meri zamaanat hai – This is my surety,

Tu meri amaanat hai.. – you’re mine..

Haan.. – yes

Ruswa is translated by the website’s translator as “are not cared for”. While I had thought ruswa was an emotion in itself, the translator related it to emotion by relating it to the emotions of other people. This translation was very controversial and drew dissent from a number of interpreters, who posted their thoughts in the comments section underneath the translated song. I will summarise some of the positions. An anonymous commentator wrote:

“dude you don’t know the meaning of “ruswa”?? it’s not angry or annoyed. it means “badnaam” or “negatively famous” or simply “infamous””

This first meaning was one that I had never associated with the word ruswa. There was a reply to this first comment: “Ruswa means sad..so the translator s almst right”. This meaning was more in keeping with my own position. It stressed that ruswa was an emotion, although I did not see the emotion as being one of sadness myself.

Both of these translations of ruswa aroused further discord. The next poster wrote:

“Ruswa neither means sad nor angry… or badnaam or even annoy. It means destroy… manzilein ruswa he… translates to my goals or destinations or simply dreams… are destroyed….”

Here was something that was new to my ears again. There seemed to be an element of violence in the word ruswa according to this latest poster. Other interpretations of the word ruswa then surfaced. Here were the other definitions:

Sad/upset
“khafa hona” (to become separate, alienated)
“Naraz hona” (to be angry)
Ruined
Wtf
Dishonoured
negative
blocked

There were a whole host of seemingly differing interpretations around the word ruswa. Each interpreter thought that they were right in assigning their own meaning and that everyone else was wrong. However, there were some, like myself, who also thought that everyone’s meaning was equally valid. My own thoughts are that ruswa is such a complicated term that it can mean several things at once, whether or not we can see all aspects of the word and the relationships to self and other that it entails. It was very illuminating to see how much discord there was around this word in a contemporary song by contemporary commentators. Clearly, language is not the shared resource that some people claim that it is, but rather an all-out war of interpretation and meaning in which meanings and significations are highly contested over.

I want to outline my own interpretation of ruswa through an autobiographical example, for I have been “ruswa” myself as a child. In Punjabi, which is my mother tongue, I was “ruswa”. However, in Punjabi, the word “ruswa” was never used. The sentence that was used is “oho russ gaya” (He has become ruswa). The English translation that was used is “sulky” – He is sulking. I was frequently ruswa as a child and the terms were used a lot. I can well remember what the emotion of ruswa entailed in my particular situation.

I would become ruswa when my will and my desire was thwarted, when I thought that my family hadn’t taken me into consideration. Ruswa was set in the context of competing wills and desires: those between an organisation or collective (the family) and the individual (me). The original translator of the word ruswa was right: the emotion entailed a sense of being uncared for, or neglected. The emotion of ruswa entailed a particular feeling. The moisture in my throat would disappear, leaving me with a parched feeling in my body. There was a slight feeling of pain in my head. I felt angry (naraaz). I felt alone. I felt alienated, separated from others. I was misunderstood. I was the victim of power: the organisation, which was more powerful than myself, had tried to destroy my will and desire. The organisation had tried to destroy me (destruction and violence). However, this destruction had given rise to a peculiar feeling of individuality: I was now more myself in my hurt than I could have been if I was part of the collective.

The emotion of ruswa led to a particular strategy in which I expressed my emotion to the organisation (the family). However, my power as a child was severely limited by the range of relationship that I could take and forms of action against the organisation, the family. The act of resistance was in silence and active separation, termed misleadingly by western commentators as “passive aggression”. I would sulk. I wouldn’t communicate with anyone, or share their language. I would refute their entreaties. I wouldn’t be consoled or comforted. I would dwell upon my injury. The emotion of ruswa in my mind is connected with a word which none of the commentators on the website touched upon: aggrievement. The dictionary definition of aggrievement is the quality or state of being aggrieved, which Miriam-Webster defines as:

: troubled or distressed in spirit
2a : suffering from an infringement or denial of legal rights aggrieved minority groupsb : showing or expressing grief, injury, or offense an aggrieved plea(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggrieved )

For me, ruswa was aggrievement. I had been slighted. I had been oppressed. As the party of limited power, as a child, I had suffered from an infringement or denial or rights. There was a response to injustice in the emotion of ruswa for me. I was the victim of injustice. I had been oppressed by the many. I was in the minority and made to feel it.

Ruswa then, in my translation, in my own personal response, is aggrievement. It is connected to justice and injustice. It is connected to the rights of the minorities and those with lesser power against the will and desire of the majority and their greater power. In contradiction to the other interpreters of the word, my definition of ruswa is connected to law, justice and power, to the relationship between the minorities with less power and the majorities with more power.

For me, ruswa is a political term. I am still ruswa. I haven’t changed. However, the family has been replaced by this society that I live in. The meanings of ruswa, which is a specific emotion, expresses the position that this society is trying to put me in. I am still caught up in ruswa. Being ruswa is a result of politics and power and the expression of ruswa is a result of politics and power and the expression of language and resistance. Ruswa is a word that every minority group in the world has felt and known. However, they have never been able to fully express what ruswa means in a language that the world will understand. To understand ruswa fully, one has to be ruswa. And being ruswa also means that one does not fully know ruswa: one is caught up in the trap of self-reference, out of which one cannot escape. Being ruswa means being limited and severely constrained, both physically and mentally.

I ask the reader to dwell upon the meanings of ruswa. I can only see aspects of ruswa, just as others can only see aspects of it. When I was a child, the emotion of ruswa would go away for a while and then resurface. I was trapped in a relationship outside of which there was no escape: the family. Even know, while I am trapped in the relationship of this society, there is no escape for the one who is ruswa. To escape the emotion of ruswa would take a world-altering event and only then would one be able to see what ruswa had meant, for it would be no more.

Internalising Stereotypes: Suggested Identities, Individuality and Free Choice

25.04.2018 –

Abstract: Oppressed groups in our society internalise negative constructions of identity and learned sets of behaviours transmitted in media which override personal responsibility and individuality. They do this because they are required to exhibit such identities and behaviours on the public stage because of the constraints imposed upon them by culture.

Keywords: Stereotypes, Cultural Brainwashing, Free Will, Personal Responsibility, Negative expectations

Elaboration. Clarification. Evidence.

Speculation, even that of the armchair theorist, has to be sustained by the holy trio I have just cited. The last time I wrote, the topic was how the justice of the oppressed has been constructed as inevitably having a violent and bodily conclusion. The argument that I made was that the identity of the violent individual and even the framework of action of this individual have been transmitted across Western culture and time as a model for the behaviour and personhood of oppressed groups in our society. This is a model which they turn to in order to construct ideas of justice and individuality and to deal with injustice in this society since it is conceived of as “their own justice”, a justice that is peculiar to them and in which constructions of personhood and difference are inherent. Another reason why they turn to these models for identity and action is because they have been systematically denied any other form of expression in this society so that they cannot become factors in public thought, politics and in the apportioning of power.

There is a big assumption in the argument that I made. Instead of talking about individual responsibility, consciousness and so on, I cited the phrase “cultural brainwashing” in the key terms at the start of the speculations. I argued that individuals take up the identity and framework of action evident in the plays of Shakespeare and such productions as the recent Black Panther movie because they have been insidiously insinuated to them from the time before they have even been born.

Why have I assumed that the identity of the violent avenger is suggested to oppressed individuals and can override conventional notions of individuality, free will, conscious choice and personhood? Is there any proof of this? Just because something is there in Shakespeare and the Black Panther movie, and a similar thing seems to happen in real life, does that prove that my speculations are correct?

While I was pondering whether fiction can be invoked to prove something that happens in real life, I thought I would make a few notes on the topic of suggested identity and the internalisation of stereotypes and how both relate to free will, choice and conscious thought. To introduce the topic, I want to write about a recent change in advertising standards which you can read about here – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40638343

As the BBC writes, the Advertising Standards Authority have set out a mission statement to “crack down on ads that feature stereotypical gender roles.” There were particularly aggravating examples that were cited:

One example was an advert for Aptamil baby milk formula that showed girls growing up to be ballerinas and boys becoming engineers.

Complaints had also been made about adverts for clothing retailer Gap that showed a boy becoming an academic, and a girl becoming a “social butterfly”.

What was the justification for cracking down on such adverts? As the BBC journalist writes:

The review suggested that new standards should consider whether the stereotypes shown would “reinforce assumptions that adversely limit how people see themselves and how others see them.”

“Portrayals which reinforce outdated and stereotypical views on gender roles in society can play their part in driving unfair outcomes for people,” said Guy Parker, chief executive of the ASA.

“While advertising is only one of many factors that contribute to unequal gender outcomes, tougher advertising standards can play an important role in tackling inequalities and improving outcomes for individuals, the economy and society as a whole.”

There is a simple idea at the heart of the justification of the advertising crackdown: media plays a role in constraining individuals to adopt certain identities and schemas of action. Media can determine and limit notions of personhood and action. Media can override ideas about free will and choice to produce certain types of individuals that act in a certain kind of way. Stereotypes in the media can be internalised and magnify and build on societal expectations to influence behaviour and identity. There is a qualification: media is just one factor in contributing to “unequal gender outcomes”.

The question remains, however, whether this justification is valid or not. The ASA suggests that media is just one aspect of an entire societal apparatus which is producing gender and gendered forms of identity and behaviour. They make the same claim about cultural brainwashing that I do, that such cultural brainwashing produces zombies that lack responsibility and free will. How exactly is this process of cultural brainwashing played out?

As I was thinking over this topic, trying to work out how individuals internalise expected identities and learned sets of behaviours, one persistent image kept on coming to mind. I am talking about the case of the athlete with the home crowd advantage. There is no need to focus on a particular example, since everyone knows exactly what I am talking about. Here is the typical scenario. There is a home crowd which is composed of people of the same nationality. The home crowd have one athlete in the final who is of the same nationality as them. If one looks at the past record of this athlete, there seems to be very little chance that they will win anything. The athlete’s ranking is not that good. However, the crowd expects the athlete to bring home a medal. Somehow, amazingly, the athlete performs better than he or she has ever performed in their life. They fulfil the crowd’s expectations and bring home a medal. It is the same with teams as it is with individuals.

Here, then, is the prime illustration of how a society’s expectations can be internalised in order to produce a certain identity, that of medal winner, and an expected set of behaviours, a medal winning performance. But what isn’t remarked on and what is brilliantly weird about this phenomenon is that it actually happens. How can someone whose body hasn’t ever and seemingly can’t perform at that level suddenly do what it does in the final? Why does their body and their behaviour change so radically? It is precisely because of the societal expectation that they act in a certain way and become medallists. And this societal expectation is based in nationalism and ideas of national identity. These athletes are drawing on notions of shared and constructed identities in order to behave in a certain way. All the training that they did in their life never allowed them access to a medal winning performance before. It required an internalisation of shared national identity and a meeting of the expectation and demand of the nationalist crowd in order to achieve that result.

One can see then, that individuals can internalise identities and behaviours which are expected of them by society and which themselves radically transform them and their actions in a way that is nothing short of miraculous. The expectations of a group can change the very fabric of reality. These expectations can override conscious thought – the athletes have always consciously tried to win but were never able to gain the victory, however much they trained and tried. It is the adoption of a shared cultural identity and set of behaviours by athletes which, although they are seemingly unrelated to the task in hand (after all, it is not a requisite qualification of being British that one is a gymnast or fast runner) completely changes performance and result and, indeed, alters the body at a fundamental level.

Well. Let us return to our ideas about how culturally shared negative expectations of oppressed individuals can transform their behaviour and override conscious thought, free will and choice. If the scenario in the athlete example can be seen as analogous to how a culture works, then we can see how and why negative expectations fundamentally change the character of individuals. Such expectations, transmitted though media, are internalised and are too powerful to resist. They do away with ideas about free choice, individual responsibility and individuality. Such ideas crush the very stuff that persons are made out of to reproduce stock types. They are too powerful. The group’s expectations completely overwhelm and defeat the individual. The individual can then only exhibit learned behaviour. The word exhibit is important. I think the athlete situation is analogous to the situation in culture because of one important point. Both the athlete and the oppressed individual are on display. They have to perform as though they were in a play to a society that is watching since their actions take place in public. This is why I think that the justice of the oppressed is a form of communication and perceived as the only way to express ideas about justice and the resistance to injustice.

Well, such are the speculations of the armchair theorist. What is the importance of such idle speculations and this short note on the matter? I think the significance is that in Western media, there are only really negative representations of oppressed peoples. They are always shown as violent, barbaric, backward and criminal. Where are the positive role models? When was the last time you saw a British Asian as a hero in western media? The fact is that it is negative expectations of us that are always channelled in the western imagination. If people then internalise and act on these negative expectations, which are not just in media, but everywhere around us in this society, are these people really to blame? If personal responsibility and individuality are really obliterated by group expectations, can we point the finger at perceived criminals? Surely our ideas about law and justice, which rely on notions of free will, choice and individual responsibility have to change?