The much-publicized International Women’s Year has come and gone, and to flatter the female ego, the year is now stretched to a decade. How long can we go on fooling the fair sex like this? Has the IWY done any real good to India except for those holding seminars? Why should we be so hypocritical that we do not want to get down to brass tacks? What did the women of India gain by the 13-year rule of Indira Gandhi, who has now launched her second hereditary rule? Why not stop bragging of the country’s “glorious cultural heritage”, the “Sita image” of the Indian womanhood? Why not make her look into the mirror? It is high time that we ponder over these questions; at least after the publication of the “Report on the Status of Women in India” which laid bare in all nakedness her glamours “Sita image“.
The report was submitted during Indira Gandhi’s first term as the PM, but despite being a woman she never implemented this report. Has India succeeded in abolishing prostitution in at least one State? On the other hand religion has justified Devadasi system. Why do we hear of increasing cases of rapes of women? The decline and fall of the Indian woman cannot be a sudden discovery. We do not want the Government’s official report to prove that the Indian woman has been a chattel and a slave. The trick was played on her as early as 500 B.C. from the days of the Manu Smriti. The Laws of Manu make no bones about prescribing the status of a slave to woman. It is true every organised religion has given a second-class status to woman. No religion allows her to become a priest. No woman has so far become the Jagaduru, a Pope or the lmam. Barring socialist countries, where god and religion are a taboo, every capitalist-feudal country has treated the women badly and the women have put up with it. We have seen the true liberation of women in China during our visit in 1980. But no religion has committed greater crimes against the women than Hinduism.
Let us look into the laws of the Manu. What does chapter 9 of the Manu Smriti say: Manu directs that women must be kept in perpetual dependence by the males of their families “day and night”. Manu ask’s man never to trust a woman-whether she be his mother, wife, sister or daughter. “She may tempt them any moment”, says Manu. He goes to the extent of saying that woman may be abused, kicked or even killed – no sin. It is a one-way traffic with Manu. Any thing that a man does is right and the woman is always wrong. There is no court of appeal. Why hasn’t a single woman raised her little voice against Manu, who inflicted the most damaging and permanent wound on the Indian womanhood? Is he not the enemy no-1 of the Indian woman? Hundreds of causes were cited for the decline and fall of Indian woman and speakers at seminars and conferences during the IWY cried hoarse about them. But not even a single one of them tried to trace the beginning of the decline and fall of Indian woman. Not a single one of them hit the bull’s eye.
We Indians are masters in side-tracking the issue. We indulge in hairsplitting arguments without touching the basic problem, because the moment a Hindu touches the basic problem it is he who gets hurt first. So the Hindus leave the basic problem as it is and indulge in sophistry. The Hindus are more busy trying to cure the symptoms rather than the disease. What then is the disease – the basic problem? That brings us to the official “Report on the Status of Women”. The report in Chapter 1 cites “the inequalities inherent in the traditional social structure based on caste, community and clan with socially accepted rights and expected role of women which have a very significant influence on the status of women“. From this we can make out that the official committee knew full well that the status of woman is indeed linked with our value system, with our hierarchical caste structure. But why did the committee fail to attack this false, dangerous value system? Why this willing-to-wound; but-afraid to hurt policy? We can’t blame the committee. After all Indians are known for such thing. They can never think straight. They believe in changing only the form but not the content. It is foolish to think of the status of woman in isolation. Her decline and fail is linked with the decay of the Indian masses as a whole of which she is a part. Those who try to separate the two are deliberately doing so to divert our attention from the existing realities. It is these elements who try to highlight the “special problems” faced by women: prostitution, Devadasi, rape, child marriage, dowry, widowhood. suicides, widow burning, unwed mothers, destitute women. Those who demand urgent remedies to cure these “ills”, do not know that legislation both at the Central and State level does exist prohibiting these evils. The official committee itself has made a deep study of each of these special problems and has come to the conclusion that despite legislation prohibiting many of these social evils, the practices still persist at a much more disturbing scale.
Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution clearly spell out that there shall be no discrimination against persons on grounds of se, caste or creed. Further every individual shall have equal opportunities to education and employment. But where are all these freedoms? Only in books. Mere legislation cannot bring about social change. As long as the social economic inequalities persist any attempt at reform will amount to mere cosmetic changes. The official committee sheds tears over the poor literacy among the Indian women. This is a devastating comment on the working of our Constitution and our judicial apathy. And let it be remembered that women are not the only victims of this sordid state of affairs. The Untouchables, tribals, OBCs, Muslims and other weaker sections are also sailing in the same boat. If Untouchables are by and large working as slaves, the wife of the Untouchable is the slave of the slave. Therefore, exploitation has been always there and it is the bane of Indian society. If Hinduism is the cause of the social degradation of the vast masses of human beings in India, women – including Brahmin women, have been its first and worst victims. Mahatma Phule met with stiff opposition from Poona Brahmins when he arranged for the remarriage of a Brahmin widow. Unfortunately, when our “society women” ignore all this and talk only of the status of women and how to improve it. they are simply copying the Western women libbers. What is the Western concept of women’s lib? Throwing away her bra and under garment? It is for these reasons that the western lib movement is petering out, since it failed to integrate itself within a larger movement for basic changes in the socio-economic structure. We hope the Indian women libbers will ponder over this and try to destroy the very foundation of the problem – the problem of Indian poverty that flows out of our social and economic inequalities. The proverbial Indian poverty is not so much due to economic exploitation as due to social exploitation. While there has been such a ballyhoo during the IWY in the whole of the Western world, why not even a whimper is heard in the socialist countries? Has anybody tried to examine this?. Why do our society ladies want to ignore the big strides made in socialist countries in the field of emancipation of women? The way China is treating the women should bring shame to USA and Japan. Those who shout about women’s lib in India should not go the Western way at least after seeing the achievements of their counterpart in socialist countries. Let them know that their salvation lies in the total socio-economic transformation in the Indian society. As long as the Manu and his poisonous values pervade our society, Hindu India cannot give a place of honor to woman. Let them work towards basic changes in the socio economic structure of the country by repudiating Manu – the woman-hater. The true woman can rise only from the ashes of Manu.
