People's Democracy

THE two-day convention on Hindutva vs. Women’s Rights (March 1-2, 2001), organized jointly by the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), the Joint Women’s Programme, the Muslim Women’s Forum, the Women’s unit of the Indian Social Institute, and the YWCA of India, was unique in many ways. It brought together women from different regions cutting across religion, caste and class. When women’s organizations representing collectively millions of women speak they voice the aspirations and demands of not just 50 per cent of the people, but of vast sections of the male population that is poor, discriminated against and marginalized. In many ways the Indian - in fact the South Asian - women’s movement has far outstripped the women’s movement in the west in recognizing the wide range of issues that impinge on women’s equality and emancipation. In south Asia religious fundamentalism and sectarian nationalism have additionally become obstacles to women’s advance. The women’s movements in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have taken this threat very seriously, and some of the best analysis of how desecularisation of polities has affected societies have come from women.

The Convention was educative in the range of issues taken up for discussion. The sessions ranged from general perspectives to experiences of minority and adivasi women in Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, Tamilnadu and other states in the context of the Sangh Parivar having access to government power, and on the impact on women of state policies which reflect Hindutva ideology - on the family, on women’s political rights, law, education, rights of adivasi and dalit communities, on minority communities. With the convention giving an opportunity for interaction between those who are the victims of Hindutva politics and policies, and women activists and economists, academicians, lawyers and other professionals, it was an educational experience all the way round rather than a one way traffic. The Convention graphically brought to light the working of the Hinduva politics at the street level, details that do not find their way into the national press. It showed how fierce is the confrontation on the streets and at the grassroots, showing how thousands of oppressed women are being transformed into activists against oppression in their own areas.

Brinda Karat of AIDWA showed how Hindutva had little to do with religion, and was merely a strategy adopted by the Sangh Parivar to capture political power. The obsession to identify Indianness with Hindutva was leading to the violation and erosion of the rights of not merely the minority women but also those of the Hindu women, and to collating religion and Hindutva politics was thrushing forward patriarchal ideology in the name of religion and Indian culture. She called for women’s unity to fight this move to divide the Indian people along lines of religion and caste. Ms. Jyotsna Chatterji pointed towards the attempts by the Hindutva forces to resurrect sati, while other speakers, including SayeedaHameed, Ambrose Pinto, Mary Khemchand, underlined the moves designed to segregate women from each other and from the larger struggles of society, in order to render them more vulnerable.

Women minority groups and dalits in the different states, and tribal women from Jharkhand and Gujarat brought to light the intimidating tactics adopted by the Hindutva forces to suppress their cultural expression and co - opt them into the brahmanical religional but on equal footing. From the real life stories narrated at the Convention it was clear that a saffron Sangh Parivar invasion is taking place in their lives are forcing women in Gujarat and Jharkhand to use the mangal sutra and the sindoor as symbols of marriage, asking Muslims to adopt Hindu names to prove their loyalty to the nation and "joining the mainstream", on the assumption that they represent the mainstream. It was also clear that under government patronage BJP-ruled states or where the Sangh Parivar organizations are strong there is active recreation of old social evils so vociferously fought against for decades by the women’s movement. Untouchability, suppression of property rights, access to family income, sati pratha, gunghat, and restricting women to the home.

In Gujarat, as Misula Gamit, an adivasi recounted their very identities were being challenged and suppressed saffron coloured flags were being hoisted on their houses and they were being terrorized into declaring themselves Hindus and vanvasis, and. Nirmala, dalit activist from UP underlined that although she belonged to a caste where women and men were treated with some semblance of equality and where widows remarried, the Hindutva forces were making incursions leading to observance of Karva Chauth, dowry and reversal of the trend of widow remarriages. Vasavi from Jharkhand area narrated the struggles of the adivasis over land rights, and the heroic stance of the women to safegurd and protect their life pattern and sources of livelihood. Among the spokespersons from this area was also Sankhu Sahu, the first adivasi woman to work the plough in her area, who had to face the wrath of the fundamentalists in her community, but who is continuing her fight nevertheless.

Mariam Dhavale from Maharashtra, narrated how Shiv Sena-BJP combine is carrying on a systematic assault on the minorities, ranging from disbanding the Minorities Commission in the state, to abusing them, not allowing them to vote freely and denying them ration cards. Subhashini Ali spoke on the intimidating tactics adopted by the sangh parivar in UP – harassment of and discrimination of the minorities in their daily lives despite the fact that the Religious Places Bill is yet to be endorsed and made effective. She pointed out that while they made big noise about opposing the film on Benares widows by Deepa Mehta, they had shown utter unconcern for the thousands of women abandoned by the Hindu families during the Kumbh mela.

Presentations by Chandrakala Pandey, Shubha, and DR Goyal depicted how religion has always been used to – Religious text suppress women’s rights giving sanction for women’s oppression, making women a party, to their own oppression by creating and endorsing definitions of ‘ideal’ women. The definitions of women as essentially mothers, defenders of tradition and bearers of the patriarchal family were aimed at keeping women backward, divorced from the mainstream struggles, even as real life situations were forcing women to come out in opposition to these efforts.

To subvert the democratic goals of the women’s movement varied strategies were being used – from depiction of women in the media, beauty contests, forms of caste domination, cultural symbols, selective use of tradition and consumerism. A multipronged struggle was needed to counter this broadbased armoury of the Hindutva forces. This is reinforced by the RSS attitude to women and their role of ‘safeguarding patriarchal values’ which derives from their politics, and is thus essentially anti-democratic opposite to the idea of equality. As D R Goyal pointed out the Sangh Parivar would never permit the BJP government to unable the passage of the Bill on women’s reservation in Parliament as this would usher in a new process of politicisation that could spell danger for the politics of the sangh parivar.

Citing Rashtrya Sevik Samiti Tanika Sarkar analysed their role in carrying out the politics of the sangh parivar. Prior to the Ayodhya movement this organisation had little role to play except train women in being good Hindu women and in equipping them to inculcate in their children hatred towards the minorities. In the wake of the Ayodhya movement they were transformed into karsevikas. After the demolition was effected they have again been confined to becoming the bearers of the Hindu tradition and the patriarchal Hindu family as envisaged in the RSS vision. They are not encouraged to question the women’s situation in the family or society.

The same purpose is served through their propoganda material. Indu Agnihotri showed how their pamphlets reflect their entire thinking and politics, keeping women subjugated, and how this subjugation is inherent in their social and political vision. As far as they are concerned the massive female workforce and the one third households headed by women, just do not exist; for them there are no signs of tension and no changes within the family since "time immemorial". Theirs is a static, backward vision bent on eroding the gains of the women’s movement.

Consequently determined to deny equal rights to women. In this determination as Kirti Singh pointed out, the sangh parivar characterising equality as a western concept, opposing it in the name of a fictitious glorious and superior Hindu tradition. Similarly the Hindutva forces oppose the ban on polygamy in the Hindu Code Bill on the grounds that it disadvantages the Hindu male in relation to the Muslim male! In other words, they stand for uniform and equal privilege between communities to men, but oppose equality within Hindu society. They are completely opposed to equal property rights. A analysis of the existing laws and shows that despite the hue and cry being made by Hindu fundamentalists, little has changed for women in real life in terms of gaining justice through the operation of these laws in practice,

It is important to bring out clearly that the Zoya Hasan stressed that Hindutva is not a general tendency in India, policies and perspectives of the Hindutva forces are in fact directly contradictory to the basic structure of Indian society, which is based on pluralism and diversity in culture and social expression.

The privatization and communalization of education is being equally used to take education out of reach of the majority of the people, most particularly women and young girls. The rewriting of textbooks to create hatred towards the minorities and inculcate a gender bias are part of this process.

A thorough critique of the liberalization process and the impact that it is having on the large majority of the Indian people, particularly women was made by Amarjit Kaur and Jayati Ghosh. Women are bearing the brunt of the cuts in subsidy and changes in the organization of production; women are being driven from the organized sector into the unorganized sector where there is no protection of their rights. Retrenchment is also hitting women the most. Automation, creation of special export zones, and other such changes are intensifying exploitation.

Jayati Ghosh characterized the present situation as one where as a result of government policy there are no jobs, no food, no public welfare for millions. The pace of disinvestments and other aspects of liberalisation are resulting in a rapidly declining employment rate, a decline in public expenditure on infrastructure, on development, education and the erosion of the public distribution system in food. Women are specially hit not merely due to the way families leave women with least access to income and facilities within families, but also from the onslaught of the Hindutva ideology which insists that their place is within the home, and in its welfare as opposed to rights approach visualizes them only as dependents. Attack on welfare expenditure like hospitals, water, clean and adequate infrastructure means ultimately that the unpaid, unrecognized and ‘invisible’ work of women increases. This is the direct link between Hindutva and liberalization process in so far as women are concerned.

The convention ended with the adoption of a policy statement that laid out the framework for the mobilization of all sections of people in defence of women’s rights, the rights of marginalized communities and minorities, who are the worst victims of the Hindutva platform. It characterized Hindutva as inimical to women’s rights, opposed all policies and concepts that are anti-people, including that concept of the Hindu family which sees women’s place at primarily the home, resolved to fight for the land rights of the adivasis, for minority rights of cultural expression, opposed the imposition of Hindu practices on the minorities and the dalits in the name of Indian tradition, and demanded among other things an enactment of the legislation on domestic violence, strongly upheld the vision of secularism and democracy, and demanded the immediate passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill.