Must We Imagine Sītā Happy?

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of “elite outcasts” within utopian frameworks through a comparative analysis of Sītā, Oscar Wilde, and Leon Trotsky—figures who occupied the nucleus of power before their eventual banishment. Unlike subaltern dissenters, these outcasts speak the vocabulary of the regime. However, unlike Wilde and Trotsky, Sītā's intellectual heritage has been undermined due to the tacit prejudice of the society that refuses to take the ideas produced from the sphere of reproductive labor seriously. Building on this critique, the paper reclaims Sītā from her conventional role as a passive wife, daughter-in-law, and mother. Instead, the paper situates her as a critical thinker, who articulates complex understanding of labour, justice and retribution. Within the deterministic-fatalistic framework of the Rāmāyaṇa, Sītā emerges as a free-thinking agent, who destabilizes the preconceived by introducing the subversive. The paper parallels Sītā's journey with Albert Camus' Sisyphus (Myth of Sisyphus), and places her in dialogue with Wilde and Trotsky, illuminating how elite dissenters, even in defeat, embody the radical freedom: of living without a master, and enjoying the rare category of happiness reserved for who place their faith in themselves.