Kaivarta Women and the Mythological Contours of Waterscape: Reading Homen Borgohain’s Matsyagandha as a Critique of Intersectional Feminism

Kaivarta Women and the Mythological Contours of Waterscape: Reading Homen Borgohain’s Matsyagandha as a Critique of Intersectional Feminism
William Sajid Sultan and Oindri Roy

Abstract

This article examines Homen Borgohain’s Matsyagandha (1987; trans. 2023) as a reimagining of the Mahabharata myth of Satyavati through the lens of caste, gender, and subaltern resistance. By situating the Kaivarta community within the symbolic and material waterscape of the Mohghuli River, the study explores how Borgohain transforms myth into a vehicle for articulating indigenous feminist consciousness. The novel’s female protagonists – Menaka, Kamala, and Memeri – embody a dynamic continuum between disempowerment and agency, reconfiguring their marginality into a space of self-assertion. Through parallels with Satyavati’s mythic trajectory, Borgohain’s narrative highlights the enduring conflict between purity and pollution, power and exclusion, revealing how feminine desire and survival become strategies of transgression within a caste-stratified society. Engaging with Nivedita Menon’s critique of intersectionality, the article argues that Borgohain’s text resists the imposition of Western feminist frameworks by foregrounding an indigenous intersectional reality historically embedded in India’s social
fabric.