THE SANGH KEEPS IT ALL IN THE FAMILY
The horror of it all seems blunted by the ease with which over 2,000 women signed up with the Karni Sena to commit jauhar (suicide by immolation) if the film Padmavaat was released. They were defending the honour of a mythical queen and their community. The valiant men of the Karni Sena chose the infinitely easier route of vandalising public property, terrorising school children and blocking roads. As it turns out, no one committed jauhar, the film was released and the goons folded their tents and vanished secure in the belief that indulgent state governments would do nothing much to them to bring them to justice.
This in a way is representative of the right-wing and its attitude to women. Women must make sacrifices to uphold the honour of a patriarchal order; please note that the Karni Sena men did not speak of giving up their lives to uphold Rani Padmavati’s honour. A real women’s movement would challenge notions of male domination in a family. In the right-wing, women are seen as symbols of the ideal woman, the homemaker whose primary task is taking care of the larger family unit. These women, who form organisations such as the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (the women’s arm of the RSS) are mobilised when it becomes necessary . While they play a supplementary role to the men, they enjoy certain privileges on account of their position. The women in the Shiv Sena, for example, have been known to mete out justice to shopkeepers they think are cheats, resist the police when the latter are doing their duty, even beat up neighbourhood bullies with impunity.
Yet when it comes to leadership roles and decision-making, women are left out of the picture. Whatever these women undertake even by way of social work is seen as something done at the behest of men. The women feel empowered by the fact that they get the legitimacy to break the rules, exert their influence, broker peace in family disputes, tell women who are being abused to adjust and justify various regressive practices on account of the fact that they are subsidiaries of powerful right-wing organisations.
The Hindu right-wing seeks to portray the Hindu nation in terms of the predatory Muslim and the pure Hindu woman who needs male protection against the predator.
When it comes to actual political or economic power for women, we see that the right-wing groups are not particularly vocal, and in fact, they are against any larger role for women outside of the home. If we go back to the origins of the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, its founder Laxmibai Kelkar approached RSS founder KB Hedgewar to see if women could join his organisation. Needless to say, he turned her away. It was 11 years after the RSS was founded the women’s wing took shape. Even then, it had to stick to the dictum enunciated by MS Golwakar that disparity is an indivisible part of nature. In no way were the women to be considered on a par with men. Women were always seen in relation to their association with men — as mothers, wives, daughters. At all stages of life, they had to heed the voice of their male relatives. It is not for nothing that the RSS calls itself the sangh parivar.
The women who signed up for jauhar don’t even seem to realise that they are nothing more than pawns in a larger game of imposing what is seen as good Hindu values on society. They don’t seem to question why men who breathe fire and brimstone over the perceived insult to a mythical queen are quiet, even complicit, in dowry harassment, female foeticide and rape. They feel comfortable imposing dress codes and conduct on women. This is not just the tyranny of patriarchy, it is the duplicity of patriarchy. Ramachandra Guha in Gandhi’s credo: History minus biases (Past & Present, January 28) makes a very valid point when he says that Gandhi would “have deplored the current distortion of history to serve narrow political ends”. It is a healthy academic endeavour to re-examine history, to give it more depth, to layer it with perspectives from different sides and, thus, lead to a better understanding of the times past. But to undo, wipe out parts that are inconvenient to one’s ideology is harmful. Distorting history to achieve short-term goals will have long-term effects.
PRABHU SHANKAR