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While the horrific rape of Damini,
Nirbhaya (December16, 2012) has shaken the whole nation, and the
country is gripped with the fear of this phenomenon, many an
ideologues and political leaders are not only making their
ideologies clear, some of them are regularly putting their foots
in mouths also. Surely they do retract their statements soon
enough. Kailash Vijayvargiya, a senior BJP minister in MP’s
statement that women must not cross Laxman Rekha to prevent crimes
against them, was disowned by the BJP Central leadership and he
was thereby quick enough to apologize to the activists for his
statement. But does it change his ideology or the ideologies of
his fellow travellers? There are many more in the list from
Abhijit Mukherjee, to Mamata Bannerji, Asaram Bapu and many more.
The statement of RSS supremo, Mohan Bhagwat, was on a different
tract as he said that rape is a phenomenon which takes place in
India not in Bharat. For India the substitute for him is urban
areas and Bharat is rural India for him. As per him it is the
“Western” lifestyle adopted by people in urban areas due to which
there is an increase in the crime against women. “You go to
villages and forests of the country and there will be no such
incidents of gang rape or sex crimes”, he said on 4th January.
Further he implied that while urban areas are influenced by
Western culture, the rural areas are nurturing Indian ethos,
glorious Indian traditions. As per him ancient Indian traditions
gave great respect to women, and it is due to these values of
Indian tradition, that villages are free from crimes against
women.
The statistics from India fly in the face of Bhagawat. In a
significant statistical observation and study of rape cases Mrinal
Satish, faculty member of National Law University, Delhi, tells us
another tale. He has used the court data and observes that 75% of
rape cases take place in rural India. His observations are based
on the cases reported in Criminal Law Journal from 1983 to 2009.
The cases of rape in villages, like that of Khairlanji and rape
against Adivasi women may not be on the radar of the Hindutva
boss, Bhagwat, but those engaged with the issues of dalits,
Adivasis and gender issues cannot buy the simplified rural versus
urban divide. One knows that patriarchy which looks at women as
secondary beings, primarily as sister, mother or daughter, rather
than a person in her own right. She is not a being with swayam
(selfhood) of her own. As for as RSS ideology is concerned only
men have swayam (selfhood). The full form of RSS, the male
organization is Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh while its women’s
organization is Rashtrasevika Samiti, do note that the word swayam
is missing here, in the name of women’s organization.
The myth that women had a place of honour in ancient Indian period
is a well constructed one. During the long span of ancient Indian
period the status of women kept changing, but women being
subordinate beings was the running theme. During the Aryan period
of pastoral life the women were supposed to commit symbolic self
immolation after the death of husband, later this got converted to
actual burning of the widows. It is probably around this period
that two great epics were written, Ramayan and Mahabharat.
In Ramayan Lord Ram banishes his pregnant wife Sita, because of
the rumours about her character amongst the subjects of Ayodhya.
In Mahabharat, the Panadavas use their common wife Draupadi as a
‘thing’ and use her as a bet in gamble. Not to be left behind
their cousins try to disrobe her in the court in front of the King
Dhritrashtra! So much for the glorious place of women in ancient
India! Later period’s values are well reflected in Manusmiriti,
where the women were explicitly denied education and serving the
husband and household chores were regarded as equivalent of
education for the women. Manusmriti gives the detailed code for
women and it leaves no doubt about women being subordinate or the
property of men. The Gupta period (3rd to 7thCentury), which is
regarded as the Golden Period of Ancient India, the women were
having limited access to education and barring few names which are
dished out to prove the glorious condition of Hindu women, mostly
the women were having limited access to education. Their
participation in Yagnas was secondary to husband, the Yajman, who
was the primary being who had solicited the priest for the Yagnas.
Yajnman word interestingly has no female equivalent.
The ideologues of the Mohan Bhagwat parivar attribute all the
prevalent ills to the coming in of Muslims. This is a very clever
ploy to externalize the internal suppression of women, and also of
dalits. It’s not too long ago in history that during British rule,
the continuation of this religiously sanctioned Hindu norm, Sati,
had to be fought against by social reformers. The ghastly sati
system, occasionally surfacing even now, and supported subtly by
conservatives has not been easy to eradicate as religion was cited
as the argument for preserving it. In the wake of sati of
Roopkanwar in 1986, BJP’s Vice President Vijaya Raje Scindia, not
only defended the sati system but also took out a morcha to oppose
passing of the bill against sati. BJP of is the political child of
RSS.
The travails of Raja Ram Mohan Roy in struggling against Sati
system are a legend. The child marriage was/ is another such evil.
While British wanted to bring in the law in early twentieth
century to abolish child marriage, the argument to oppose it came
from the sources of Hindu religion. It was asserted that as per
Hindu norms the girl must be married before her first menses,
Garbhadhan. It was argued that our religion’s norm about early
marriage cannot be violated. The introduction of widow remarriage,
the struggle to abolish Devadasi system, each of these has a long
and painful story to tell about the status of women in India, in
Ancient India, not influenced by modernization.
The education is the key to the empowerment of women and an
integral part of democratization process. It was a painful journey
and the efforts of Savitri bai Phule in this direction are
revolutionary in the true sense of the word. These efforts were
downright opposed on various grounds, the main obstacle being the
Hindu traditions.
As such what is being criticized by Bhagwat as modernization is
basically the process of democratization of society. This
gentleman is stuck in the feudal mode thinking and is upholding
feudal of social relationships in the garb of Hindu glorious
traditions. As per these traditions; caste and gender hierarchy
rules the roost. The atrocities against women are not due to
democratization, which this worthy is calling modernization or
westernization. The core of modernization is caste and gender
equality. The essence of modernization is abolition of hierarchy,
based on birth-the hierarchy of caste and gender. The process of
democratization is the march of society from formal values of
equality to substantive equality, and this the march has to be the
agenda of social movements. The roots of oppression of women lie
in the patriarchal values, which is the carry forward of ancient
and medieval values, related to feudal society, society with the
rule of kings, where woman was regarded as the one whose arena is
the domestic work. The condition of widows and the women who were
burnt alive as sati reflects the glorious ancient tradition to
which Mr. Bhagwat wants to push back the Indian society, undoing
all what Indian society has been able to achieve through the
struggle for Independence, which was not merely a struggle to
throw away the British rule but also a struggle to do away with
caste and gender hierarchy.
For Bhagwat, the ancient glory is a cover to hide the gender
inequality. Modernization is seen in a superficial way by many.
Here the ancient traditions are glorified without going to the
core of the social relationships. One is not criticizing the past,
but understanding it in the context of the social milieu, the
system of production, the level of education etc. is what is
needed. Blind glorification of the past or blind condemnation of
the past, both take the conclusions off the mark. To look down
upon modernization as a crass process is a deliberate one, to try
to bring in social equations, the epitome of which in a way is
Manusmriti.
Here even the facts of statistics are being put upside down to
prove a political point which is retrograde but covered in the
cloak of ancient glory. The borderline between India and Bharat is
not an iron wall, it is a fluctuating zone, merging and separating
in a very fluid way. The need of the hour is to look deeper into
the issue of violence against women. While all needs to be done to
create a safe atmosphere, women’s safety and space for their work
and creativity, we need to give a look at the social movements to
overcome the chains of patriarchy, which is at the root of
violence against women.
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