Feminism in Folklore: Through the Lens of Qissas

This piece was originally published in the May 2025 issue of Pandora Curated.

Illustration by Koninika Bhattacharyya

In the silence of the night, the waves crash against the unbaked earthen pot, sinister smiles from across the bank, the pot melting with the water, slowly sinking on the riverbank.

Feminism, long before the first wave, manifested itself in the small village roads on the banks of the river Chenab. These manifestations continue to resonate through Punjab’s tradition of storytelling, termed Qissas, meaning ‘stories’. Qissas are fables orally passed down through generations. Though primarily a genre of Punjabi literature, the word has Arabic origins and was brought to the region of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan by migrants from the Arabian Peninsula. 

Qissas have been the dominant form of social knowledge transmission in these regions. Though it is difficult to trace the origins of the Qissa tradition, by the seventeenth century, they were “circulating in India's vernacular languages both orally and in the textual form,” posits Farina Mir, a professor and historian of colonial and postcolonial South Asia researching the religious, cultural, and social history of late-colonial North India at the University of Michigan. Deeply embedded in the collective knowledge of the population, Qissas became a shared cultural instrument, transcending communities and religions.

The Qissa tradition has largely shaped and influenced the cultural consciousness of Punjab and its surrounding areas. Although largely “fictional narratives, sometimes even fantastical,” these folktales are rooted in oral tradition and offer valuable insights into the dynamic socio-political and cultural fabric of the region, as explored by Mir in her text ‘Genre and Devotion in Punjabi Popular Narratives: Rethinking Cultural and Religious Syncretism.’ 

They often captured the communal tensions and the psyche of Punjab’s inhabitants during that period. For example, in popular retellings of Heer Ranjha and Sohni Mahiwal, love becomes a form of resistance against caste boundaries, patriarchy, and societal expectations. Commonly considered as mere romantic escapism, love, in the context of these Qissas, serves as a means for the women to challenge the status-quo. 

Sohni, for instance, although forced into a loveless marriage, does not wait for Mahiwal to come and rescue her. Instead, she crosses the river Chenab every night by herself, defying the traditional portrayal of passive female characters in folklore. Characters in these Qissas are also ostracised or separated from their families and communities (like Ranjha from Heer Ranjha), reflecting the relationship between Punjabi communities and their rejection of love.

While tragic love, separation, and loyalty dominate these stories, the themes of autonomy, agency, and feminism are just as prominent, though overlooked. Qissas authored by men through the lens of autonomy and feminism thus require a reexamination and analysis of how the discovery of this agency shapes the psychological milieu of the people of the region.

Five of the most popular and critical Punjabi Qissas (Heer Ranjha, Laila Majnu, Sohni Mahiwal, Sassi Punnu, and Yousaf Zulekha) were written by Fazal Shah Sayyad, a 19th-century Punjabi poet. The Punjabi Poetry Archive describes him as “one of the biggest Punjabi poet[s] that [the] 19th century produced.” Fazal Shah Sayyad’s versions of these Qissas form a larger repertoire comprising similar tales of tragic love, honour and dishonour, communalism and agency that contribute significantly to the Punjabi literature and oral tradition.

Among these tales, Heer Ranjha, Laila Majnu, and Sohni Mahiwal are perhaps the most embedded in popular discourse. The women in these three Qissas—Heer, Laila and Sohni—actively shaped the course of their destinies by rebelling and enduring the ‘consequences’ that it entailed. Heer was poisoned in the pursuit of love, Sohni drowned for it, and Laila, consumed by longing, succumbed to loneliness and died, all for love. These women exercised agency in defying societal norms through the course of actively resisting their destinies.

However, can the mere act of resistance in these Qissas be classified as feminism?  Regardless of how tempting it may be to classify their resistance as feminism, their employment of agency was never a direct and conscious challenge to the patriarchal norms. Their resistance stemmed from their pursuit of love, a desire they were not allowed to have, rather than a passion for fighting societal norms.

Resistance is an important theme in feminist studies, and many feminist figures have been politically involved in “challenging patriarchal structures and oppressive systems,” writes Medina. The act of resistance is essential to the development of the plot in these Qissas too, both direct (pursuit of love) and indirect (loving itself—a desire they were never allowed).The women of these Qissas not only resisted an existing social structure, but also employed agency and feminism within the traditional framework they were bound by. Their actions can thus be read through a feminist lens, as the very act of defiance bound within these cultural and societal norms is proof of the gendered norms of the precolonial Punjab.

Though their acts of resistance may not neatly fit into the modern understanding of feminism, they can be considered a form of proto-feminism, a proof of how agency and freedom have been sought throughout history.

Examples from these stories help us understand how women employ agency and nurture individuality even in subjugation. Sohni resisted her forced marriage by crossing the river in an earthen pot every night to meet her beloved; Laila braved ostracisation from her society and backlash from her family for her love, Majnu; and Heer vehemently rejected familial and societal expectations  by continuing her relationship with Ranjha. 

The lived experiences of the women in these Qissas and their choices illuminate the understanding of how the assertion of personal agency can challenge societal norms and the ‘morality’ of the society, even if done unintentionally.

Yet beyond the active resistance and employment of agency in positions of subordination, all three women meet the same fate: death. This recurring end in these three Qissas brings us to a critical question: why is female agency punished in such tragic love stories? What can we uncover by deciphering this hidden layer? Are Qissas solely simple fables, or do they represent a larger historical discomfort with women who assert agency and challenge societal norms? 

Though the recurrent theme of women asserting autonomy leads to the normalisation of supposedly defiant behaviour, the pattern of punishment stands proof of what behaviour is considered ‘acceptable’ by society. Through this recurring event, we gain a glimpse of the reality of historical Punjab and how its traditional, patriarchal values were upheld, reinforced through the region’s popular medium of telling and retelling Qissas.

Edited by the Curated Editorial Team

Harnoor Kaur Uppal (she/her), an undergraduate student of Global Affairs with a minor in Public Policy, is a writer at Pandora Curated. Her research interests lie at the confluence of media, politics and cultural studies, with a particular focus on the preservation of tribal identities and indigenous knowledge systems and their living traditions.

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References:

• Mir, Farina. “‘Genre and Devotion in Punjabi Popular Narratives: Rethinking Cultural and Religious Syncretism.’” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 48, no. 3, 2006, pp. 727–758. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3879442. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.

•  Medina, M.C., 2023. ‘The feminization of resistance: the narratives of #NiUnaMenos as social transformative action’, Journal of Political Power, 16(2), pp.237–253. doi:10.1080/2158379X.2023.2251109.

  
  

  Keywords: Punjabi Love Stories, Feminist Folklore Analysis, Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal Story, Qissa Storytelling Tradition, Punjab Feminist History, Oral Traditions India, Women in Punjabi Literature, Precolonial Feminism, Tragic Love Folktales, Resistance in Literature, Cultural Storytelling South Asia, Feminist Reading of Qissas, Agency in Folklore, Female Protagonists in South Asian Myths.