Activists of the militant nationalist organization, Hindu Sena, shout anti-Valentine’s Day slogans as they prepare to burn placards during a protest in New Delhi on Feb. 12, 2015. (Photo: AFP)
By Myron J. Pereira
Feb 15 2023
A good bit of the country remains an unsafe place for women, children, disadvantaged and minority communities.
A few years ago the Thomson Reuters media organization placed India as the worst place in the world to be a woman. It understandably provoked anger and denial in most official circles.
When one lives in a fantasy world of one’s own — which is the case of most politicians and public figures — then anything which brings one rudely down to earth must be vehemently denied. Or disputed as incorrect. Or ridiculed as malicious distortion.
The Reuters survey on women examined six areas: healthcare; access to economic resources; discrimination; customs and social practices; violence, both sexual and non-sexual; and human trafficking. India fails on all counts.
And yet, as some activists have pointed out, this should be an occasion, not for defensiveness and denial, but for serious reflection and collaboration. But will it? Why are we so harsh and discriminatory towards women, half our population?
The main obstacle on the road to equality and respect for women is patriarchy, the rule of men.
As one of my colleagues, a rural social activist put it, whenever she’d ask the rural women she worked with, “You say you are there to serve men. But how do men serve you,” they would turn to her in astonishment, “Eh, didi , what do you mean? Men are not there to serve us, oh no! It’s we who have to serve them!”
“It’s precisely because women are more religious than men that they become the victims of “godmen” and priests”
Try as one might, it was impossible to change this mindset of most women.
Any discussion on how to fight patriarchy must take into account that the perpetrators are often within — inside the home, inside the family, and within religion.
Aren’t Catholics better than other religious communities where the oppression of women is concerned? Sadly, not really.
A quick look at the resistance of the hierarchy to women being ordained priests, or even deacons, and the rampant sexual exploitation of religious sisters by priests and bishops should leave little doubt in this matter.
It’s precisely because women are more religious than men that they become the victims of “godmen” and priests whose opinions indoctrinate them into subservience and obedience.
It’s not just sexual assaults we’re speaking about, but how women justify causing hurt to themselves as being “the will of God,” or karma. In fact, we have normalized the abuse of women by telling them to ignore it, put up with it.
And perhaps nowhere are patriarchal mindsets more brazenly flaunted than in the present rise of the Hindu Right.
This is largely because the Hindu Right has taken root in those parts of our society which are ignorant of scientific thinking, deeply controlled by caste, and wedded to a feudal mentality.
“There are other groups that suffer equally, in spite of constitutional provisions for their uplift”
This means in effect, a good bit of the country.
But discrimination and injury are not the fate of women alone. There are other groups that suffer equally, in spite of constitutional provisions for their uplift. I refer to Dalits and tribal people, and even more today to religious minorities.
If one is both Dalit and a woman, the discrimination is double — both from gender and caste.
And now the hatred and discrimination are spreading — to tribal people and minorities as well, Muslims and Christians.
Muslims are denied accommodation in our big cities, and rural Christians are chased out of ancestral villages. Note, it is the poor minorities who are treated thus, not the rich ones — not the Parsees and the Jains. No politician has been heard to say that Zoroastrianism is a foreign religion and that Parsees should return to Iran.
What kind of country has India turned out to be?
The social activist Harsh Mander observed that many other countries today display trends of violence similar to India, of rising hatred and bigotry, cloaked in aggressive and militant nationalism.
But nowhere except in India has this resulted in mobs being encouraged and empowered by their government to lynch and rape minorities, to film these actions and proudly post these videos on social media.
It’s a level of moral degradation peculiarly ours.
Years ago that indefatigable crusader against the corruption of the American automobile industry, Ralph Nader, described his country’s cars as “unsafe at any speed.”
Tragically we can say the same of women, Dalits, indigenous Adivasi people, children and minorities in today’s India. They are unsafe in any place.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News. – UCA News
