“I like stories where women save themselves.” – Neil Gaiman
Picture a young lady squatting on the cold cement floor on a winter evening, incessantly coughing, frying fish, with a purdah covering her face. I a small boy at the time, who called his mother by first name, would often pull the veil down and get scolded. I was agitated on why she had to undergo this needless transformation visiting our paternal home-town and how could she cease to just be my mother.
By the way, the lady had a master’s degree in Chemistry and could not take up a job apparently because the permission was ‘denied’. A lot has changed since then, and the respect is now acceptable without any voodoo on display. So, it has often bugged me on how could I not write on the Sabarimala issue, which though transcends socio-political and religious boundaries, has some eerily similar fundamental problems at its core.
This piece would be at the risk of being totally unoriginal, as has been the political imagination and landscape in India, painted through the decades, in the same broad absurd strokes. We have all witnessed the political game that has been deftly played out in Kerala for the past several months. That it has been at the cost of social harmony and a complete breakdown of the law and order situation is anyone’s guess.
So, What’s The Issue?
Lord Ayyappa, the deity of Sabarimala temple is considered a celibate and as a practiced tradition there has been a restriction on the entry of women of menstruating age. Supreme court had recently ruled in the favour of entry of women of all ages into the temple recognizing their right to freely practice religion. However, this incited sharp reactions from a section of the society, especially religious and political groups who pulled no punches to ensure that the order was prevented from being carried out.
Blatant disregard for Supreme court order is nothing new nor is the lack of will or the ineptitude of the political class to uphold the same. This has happened with the law reversing the verdict in Shah Bano case, opposition canvassing against the government position on Triple Talaq, or the ruling party’s own stand on Sabarimala. Any progressive movement whatsoever has been marred by political implications and ‘mis’ alignments in favour of popular mob opinion or vote-bank compulsions, rather than on what should have been paving the way for a gender neutral and women empowered society. Furthermore, the use of violence in creating an environment of fear, to get women to forcibly submit to the demands of an outdated thought system is both concerning and condemnable.
‘The gates of the temple closed for purification rites after the entry of two women’
The veil of religious sensibilities and long prevailing traditions have often been used as smoke screens to give credence to our collective misogynistic mindset. Though it’s quite ironic that on one hand we have a sustained government backed awareness campaign to promote the usage of sanitary pads and on the other the proponents of the same, stand in shameless hypocrisy to prevent the entry of women of menstruating age inside a temple. What’s more disturbing is the complicity of learned women who remain silent by-standers or in some cases try to muzzle the voices of their counterparts and doom them to continued tyranny. In a scientific society (which we claim or better aspire to be) it’s strange that whims of divinity or its ill-informed followers always take precedence over women rights.
Our Dear Confused Gods
“You should do things because they’re right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.” – Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Myths surrounding Gods are seen as great tales of prevalence of good over evil. However, when at times gods feel threatened by the so called ‘impurity’ of women, or better even deities ‘case in point Sita’ or get offended ‘as happens in many religious institutions and places of worship including Sabarimala’, then maybe we are in need of some better stories and sensible storytellers. People taking offence on behalf of their gods is nothing new in any part of the world. But our society with its fair share of gods, hundreds of thousands of them, just compounds this multitude of ‘hurt sentiment’ problems.
“Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.” – Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
The argument of upholding traditional customs and values falls flat, especially when considering that, ‘not so long-ago practised’ Sati, child marriages, dowry system and the discriminatory ‘purdah’ have all been a part of the same culture and tradition. Though recognizing that no society is perfect, what we do need is a conscious effort on our part to keep evolving and not be stuck in our ‘illustrious’ past.
‘A woman cast out by her in-laws for entering the Sabarimala temple’
All of us came across this news some pitying, some sympathising and some sneering at the outcome. This practice of inextricably linking women to the honour of the family invariably plays out to create obligatory requirements in which she has no say at all, and which moreover serves the sole purpose to align with the ever-changing notions of social propriety. The foundations of these practices are built on her sacrifices and any deviance from these locally accepted norms are not received very kindly. The spate of honour killings across India, if anything is indicative of this mindset gone awry. The extent of a woman’s freedom becomes a by-product of the limits of our male ego and the tolerance of a patriarchal society.
“Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.” – Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
What’s saddening is that the people in public life who often profess to support feminism have preferred to stay politically correct or asleep on the issue, rather than taking any firm, strong, ‘not so convenient’ stand. Fear of the self-anointed full-time caretakers of religion and part time arsonists looms large in their mind space. After all what’s not good for business is not worth their while. And besides, I guess political patronage is ever more important in these trying times.
While some might still be debating whether this is an issue of women rights at all or simply about preserving the traditionally followed practices and leaving the overtly sensitive religious nerves untouched. But putting aside all these inherent contradictions, the fact that it has already become symbolic to the liberation of women from the clutches of archaic, poorly drawn out, exclusionary rules, it’s all the more imperative that – we by our silence don’t let our women down. Women do not and should not seek validation to change systems which are discriminatory in nature. We often forget that these rights were never ours to grant and that we as society should stop taking a high ground and this false sense of grandiose generosity when – what we will simply be doing is righting the wrongs.