|
WAF Articles
Women and Hindutva
Journal no.5 1994. pp42-43.
Ratna Kapur and Brenda Crossman
0N 6 December 1992, over 200,000 Hindu fundamentalists destroyed the Babri Masjid - a 16th century Muslim mosque in the Northern Indian town of Ayodhya. They claimed that the mosque was located on the site of a Hindu temple, and marks the birthplace of one of the gods of Hinduism - Lord Rama (Ram Janambhoomi). The temple, they claim, was destroyed by invading Muslims, who built the mosque in its place. The Supreme Court had issued an injunction, ordering the "karsevaks" to stay away from the disputed site. They didn't. The Hindu fundamentalists showed the world that they would take by violent means that which eluded them by due process of law. Hindu-Muslim riots immediately swept across the country, claiming over a thousand lives.
The Ram Janombhoomi is part of a broader political campaign. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, (VHP), form the triumvirate of Hindu fundamentalism commonly known as the sangh parivar. Along with other more militant organizations like the Shiv Sena, they are agitating for the transformation of India's secular democracy into a Hindu state or Hindu rashtra. Some fundamentalists say it is to be a Hindu secular state. But to those committed to secular democracy and the rule of law in India, the vision of the Hindu fundamentalists is the antithesis of secularism. They reject the understandings of secularism as a separation of religion and politics, and/or an equal respect and accommodation of all religions. Under Hindutva - the ideology of this fundamentalism - Hindu values and customs will reign supreme in politics, and minorities will only be respected if they conform to the norms of the Hindu majority.
This fundamentalism is not only about religion. It is a campaign about hatred. In its more moderate moments, the rhetoric of the fundamentalists is directed against "pandering to minorities". But at its not uncommon extreme, this chilling rhetoric is overtly racist, fostering hatred and violence against Muslims. Bal Thackery, the leader of the Shiv Sena - the violent Hindu militants responsible for the riots in Bombay in January - has been perfectly clear on the position of the Muslim minority in India. In a recent interview with Time Magazine, he simply said: "Kick them out".'
Religious minorities are not the only ones with much to fear in Hindutva. Women - Hindu, Muslim and Christian alike - should fear the agenda of the sangh parivar. These fundamentalists are seeking to reassert the traditional role of women in the family, and thus seeking to turn the clock back on much of the progress that women in India have made in the last two decades.
The attitude of the sangh parivar towards women is often expressed in explicitly religious discourse. Throughout RSS and BJP literature, women are defined in terms of the images of Hindu goddesses - as mothers and wives, dutiful and self sacrificing. It is the image of the matri shakti, epitomised most recently in the controversy around Uma Bharati, (a high profile BJP Member of Parliament) who was alleged to have had a romantic exploit with another BJP member. The focus was on Uma Bharati, who had to prove and publicly proclaim her chastity, rather than on the man with whom she was alleged to have had the affair. Uma Bharati, a devout member of the BJP, readily accepted the burden upon her to prove that she was a good Hindu woman. She could participate in the sangh parivar, but only on its terms and according to its rules which, for women, meant playing their traditional roles their role as matri shakti. It is women, not men, who must be chaste and pure and who must, like Sita, go to great lengths to prove their purity.
But the BJP does not always deploy this religious rhetoric in their representation of women. Rather, the party's policies are often cast in the language of equality. This commitment to women's equality is articulated in the context of restoring women to the position they once enjoyed in the glorious, ancient (and entirely fictitious) past.
But what is this position to which women are to be returned? The BJP has stated that "men and women are equal but they are not the same". Since women are not the same as men, they are not to be treated the same as men. Accordingly, the BJP's policies emphasise the ways in which women are different from men, and in so doing reinforce sexist stereo types that have contributed to women's inequality. For example, the BJP support policies that emphasise women's roles as mothers and wives (maternal health care), while rejecting policies that go too far beyond these traditional roles for women (compensation for housework).
One BJP member has stated that "women who want to become men and want to make other women (like) men are worthy of ridicule". We can see in this statement the assumption of the natural differences between women and men. Women are women, and men are men. If women claim to be equal, then they are trying to become men. In other words, any claim that goes too far beyond the traditional roles of women in the family as mothers and wives is rejected as a ridiculous attempt to make women into men.
It is, at the same time, important to recognise that the BJP's policy does include a commitment to promoting women's education and employment. They have recognised women's socio economic dependence, and support programmes designed to improve their socio-economic status. Illiteracy, which contributes to women's poor status is also sought to be eliminated through improved access to education. Yet these policies are justified in the name of the family. A woman who has education and employment will accordingly be respected by her father, husband and son, Reinforcing their roles as mothers, wives and daughters in the family thus remains the cornerstone of the BJP's approach to restoring women to the position of equality reserved for them in Indian tradition.
While arguing that women are different from men, the BJP is at the same time using the concept of equality to attack the Muslim community. Equal rights for women means that all women should be treated the same. Equality for women, according to the BJP, means that Muslim women should be treated the same as Hindu women. Any laws that treat Muslim women differently from Hindu women is seen to violate the constitutional right to equality. Through this discourse of equality, the BJP attacks the practices of the Muslim personal law that treat Muslim women differently than Hindu personal law treats Hindu women.
The effect of such a strategy was illustrated in the BJP response in the Shah Bano case. In Shah Bano, a divorced Muslim woman brought a petition under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) for maintenance from her husband. According to Muslim personal law, a divorced woman is only entitled to maintenance during the period of iddat - three months following the divorce. The Supreme Court of India held that CPC was applicable where the personal law did not make any provision. The Muslim community responded to the decision with outcries of "religion in danger", and the Government responded by enacting the Muslim Women's (Protection of Rights in Divorce) Act. (2)
In this controversy, the BJP applauded the decision of the Supreme Court, and advocated against the Muslim Women's Act, 1986, on the grounds that it violated the rights of Muslim women. In their view Muslim women should have the same rights as Hindu women to maintenance. This position was similar to the stands taken by feminists and progressives. Yet the underlying strategy of the BJP was very different. It was, used as a way of attacking the minority community, rather than supporting women's equality rights. Further, in rejecting the Act, the BJP in no way deviated from its position that women are different from men and need to be protected. While reinforcing the idea that all women should be treated the same, it was quite clear that they should not be treated the same as men. The BJP was able to attack the minority community for its treatment of women, at the same time as it did nothing to advance the position of women within its own community. This same discourse of equality is seen in the BJP's continued support for the enactment of a uniform civil code to replace the diverse personal laws of the various religious communities. All communities, and all women within these communities, must according to the BJP, be treated the same. And treating the Muslim community the same as the Hindu community means subordinating Muslims to Hindu norms and practices.
Despite the rhetoric of equality, women have much to lose in Hindutva. Yet, in the destruction of the Babri Masjid, women politicians such as Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Rithambhara, played a very visible and voluble role in urging the "kar sewas" to pull down the structure. And women, more generally, are flocking to support the agenda of the sangh parivar and the establishment of its Hindutva ideology.
What is the allure? Why are women attracted to this fundamentalist and communalist agenda? Part of the answer lies in the way in which it affirms their identity, as matri shakti, as mothers, and as wives of the sangh parivar. The fundamentalist groups have all created particular programmes, organisations and roles for women. For example, the female wing of the RSS, the Rashtriya Sevika Samithi is designed to promote 'virtues' such as physical courage and strength and devotional attachment to the ideals of Hindu womanhood Like the RSS, the women's wing are given physical, intellectual and spiritual training. Both the BJP and VHP also have special women's organisations. These spaces and roles offered to women in the sangh parivar affirm their social importance. Their traditional roles in the family - as mothers, wives and daughters - are both supported and celebrated.
At the, same time, the sangh parivar offers women an escape from the world of domesticity. The Samithi, for example, offers women access to intellectual, and spiritual training thus both affirming their religiosity, and providing them access to a world of knowledge and spirituality from which they have been excluded. It is in fact this religious and renunciatory model that has created the very possibility for women such as Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Rithambhara to occupy such prominent positions within the sangh parivar.
Yet, these organisations bring women out of the family in ways that do not fundamentally challenge their traditional roles within the family. For example, the Samithi never completely brings women out of the private sphere. The shakhas, (the daily and weekly trainings) though bringing women outside of their families, are held in private spaces, which both facilitates their ability to attend and reinforces women's role within the "private" sphere. Moreover, the Samiti is careful to ensure that the power of the family to make decisions regarding its members, particularly regarding its female members, remains unthreatened. For example, a family's decision for a woman to marry trumps her own decision to participate in the Samithi. Thus, even this renunciatory mode does not completely escape the role of women as Matri Shakti. (3) These organisations bring women out of the family sphere only to reinforce women's role in this private sphere. They are appealing to women by giving them a role, but giving them a role in a traditional way.
Hindu fundamentalists are challenging the very secular fabric of Indian society, and the legitimacy of minority rights. They are also attempting to rearticulate a traditional role for women. Since the destruction of the Babri Masjid, feminists and other secularist forces in India have talked of little other than how to meet this challenge, and defeat this right wing, fundamentalist agenda. Part of the challenge for these progressive forces is to' unmask the strategy of the BJP to divide communities, and to expose its use of liberal democratic concepts such as equality as nothing more than a thinly veiled disguise to attack the minority community.
But the women's movement has a particular challenge. Feminists must counter the fundamentalist attack on women's rights, and the appeal of this Hindutva ideology to women themselves. Part of the allure to the women is the way in which their roles as mothers and wives is affirmed. The women's movement, on the other hand, has often been (mis)understood as attacking and belittling these roles for women. It is important, indeed essential, that feminists address this sense of alienation felt on the part of women - women for whom there has been little or no choice about being mothers and wives. The women's movement must continue to find ways to include these women and to provide them with the same sense of self importance as the fundamentalists. It is only by offering women real choices that we can begin to meet the challenge of Hindutva.
NOTES
|