Female Agency and Moral Consciousness in Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Mozail” and “Kali Salwar”

Abstract

Saadat Hasan Manto’s short fiction constitutes a radical intervention in modern Urdu literature through its uncompromising engagement with social hypocrisy, patriarchal authority, and moral violence. Rejecting sentimentalism and reformist idealism, Manto foregrounds marginalized female experiences to expose the ethical failures embedded within religious, communal, and economic structures. This paper examines two of Manto’s short stories—Mozail and Kali Salwar—to analyze how female agency operates under conditions of communal violence and material deprivation. Through close textual analysis and sustained engagement with direct textual quotation, the study argues that Manto deliberately relocates moral authority away from dominant institutions and situates it within the lived experiences of women who exist outside social respectability. While Mozail presents a woman whose ethical clarity is expressed through visible defiance, autonomous choice, and decisive action during communal conflict, Kali Salwar offers a contrasting portrayal of resistance grounded in endurance, economic vulnerability, and everyday survival. By placing these narratives in dialogue, the paper demonstrates that Manto does not privilege one form of agency over another; rather, he expands the concept of resistance to include both moral action and quiet persistence. The study further contends that Manto’s refusal to provide narrative closure or moral consolation reinforces his realist aesthetic and humanist commitment to truth. Together, Mozail and Kali Salwar reveal Manto’s sustained critique of patriarchal hypocrisy and his enduring relevance to discussions of gender, power, and ethical responsibility in South Asian literature.