AFP
Asif Sardar Arnab, a librarian at the Dhaka University arrested for sexually harassing a student, was soon released — greeted by a cheering crowd who presented him with flower garlands.
His alleged victim was a student who enthusiastically supported the youth-led uprising that overthrew the nation’s autocratic government last year.
That young woman, after receiving a torrent of violent threats from religious hardliners emboldened by the political upheaval, now wonders whether she made the right choice.
“A perpetrator was freed because of a mob,” she said in a social media post.
“You can’t imagine the number of rape and death threats I’ve received,” added the woman, who cannot be identified due to Bangladeshi laws designed to protect sexual harassment complainants from retribution.
“We made a mistake by joining the movement. So many people sacrificed their lives in vain.”
Ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, ousted in last August’s revolution, took a tough stance against religious movements during her 15-year tenure. Her government was blamed for gruesome human rights abuses, and for many, her departure heralded change.
Since her exit, the hardline religiously fuelled activism that Hasina’s government had driven underground has resurfaced. Much of it is directed at Bangladeshi women, accused of failing to act with sufficient modesty.
Arnab, who works at the library of the prestigious Dhaka University, was accused of accosting a student on campus, saying that her choice of attire did not sufficiently cover her breasts.
The student complained, and Arnab was arrested. Supporters of Arnab, who believed he had acted in appropriate deference to his religious convictions, surrounded the police station and demanded his release.
They yielded when a court quickly bailed Arnab — something the female student attributed to mob pressure.
A spokesperson for Dhaka’s police force, Md Talebur Rahman, told AFP that Arnab was still under investigation and also acknowledged the menacing behaviour his victim had faced.
“She can lodge a complaint against those who have been threatening her,” Rahman added.
‘A crisis’
It is far from an isolated incident.
Several women’s football matches were cancelled this year after pitch invasions by hardliners angry at women’s participation in sport. Two women were briefly taken into protective custody by police this month after an altercation that began when they were harassed for publicly smoking cigarettes by a crowd of men on their way to pray at a mosque.
Hardline groups have also demanded that organisers of religious commemorations and other public events remove women from the line-up.
Dhaka University student Jannatul Promi, 23, said that the rising incidences of harassment had left young women feeling unsafe.
“We are going through a crisis,” she said. “The other day, I was waiting for the metro when a man approached me and asked if I should be outside without a veil. As soon as I responded, more people joined him against me.”
Fellow student Nishat Tanjim Nera, aged 24, said the authorities had failed in their duty.
“Harassment incidents are happening repeatedly, but there is no redress from the government,” she said.
‘Complete denial’
Several recent cases of sexual violence have captured public attention.
An eight-year-old girl died on Thursday from wounds she sustained during a rape days earlier — a case that prompted days of protests and vigils by women in Dhaka and elsewhere.
Such is the level of public anger that police have begun transporting rape suspects to court in the middle of the night, out of fear of attacks.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who leads the interim government which replaced Hasina, condemned the “horrific acts of violence” against women.
“This is deeply concerning and completely at odds with our dream of building a new Bangladesh,” he said.
Yunus’s administration has struggled to restore law and order, with many police officers refusing to return to work and the army brought in to help.
Since last month, it has directed scant police resources to a sweeping crackdown, dubbed Operation Devil Hunt, against gangs allegedly connected to Hasina and working to foment unrest.
Maleka Banu, of the feminist campaign group Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, said those resources would have been better spent on trying to curb sexual violence.
“What good is it for the government to simply express concern? We expected action,” she said.
“After Sheikh Hasina’s fall, a series of violent incidents followed. The government was in complete denial […] Now, they claim the fallen dictator is behind every crime.”
Freedom for Women Still a Far Cry
Image Courtesy: Social media
International Women's Day was celebrated the world over on March 8, but have women really been liberated?
I belong to Maharashtra, the state of Jyotiba Phule and Baba Saheb Ambedkar. I was born in the so-called 96 clan Maratha community. Seventy years ago, our family was a joint family, in which my father and his three brothers and one of his two married sisters lived, The other sister in her in-laws' house. My other aunt's husband left home after marriage and became a sadhu. His whereabouts were never known. Because of this, my elder aunt, who was the eldest, lived with us. She was childless.
So, apart from the five women in our house, including my father and his three brothers and their children, we had a family of 25-30 people. I am 72 years old now. I have never seen the women of our house coming or walking in front of men during the day. I have never seen my parents talking to each other. And the five women used to eat whatever was left after all the men and children had eaten. If there was insufficient food for them, I have never seen them cook again. That is why, all the women of our house have been physically weak and underweight! I
In Hinduism, women have been given the status of Annapurna Devi! But all the Annapurna Devis of our house were victims of malnutrition.
We worry about the rights of Muslim women. But I have seen the phenomenon of darkness under the lamp. My village is also included in the history of Satyashodhak Samaj. But, I have never seen the women of the houses of the so-called Satyashodhak leaders moving around the village during the day. Although this was 70 years ago.
How do women become victims of malnutrition? It is my opinion that women suffering from anaemia should not be measured by economic issues. This includes women from affluent families as well. Both men and women living below the poverty line are victims of malnutrition. On the contrary, among the so-called affluent sections, too, women are reminded from their birth, even during lactation, that they are girls. In this regard, the book, Second Sex, by French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir, looks at women from all aspects -- biological to social, economic and cultural. Every man and woman doing public work needs to read it.
In the early 1980s, I started visiting Bihar because of the JP (Jayaprakash Narayan) movement. After visiting the homes of socialist leaders, Gandhi-Vinoba Bhave followers, I saw that food, tea, snacks, everything was being served regularly, but the hands that made them were not visible. Even today, over 50 years have passed, but I have still not met the life partners of some of our socialist friends.
However, the names of Jayaprakash Narayan and his wife Prabhavatiji in Bihar’s public life are similar to Mahatma Gandhi-Kasturba. But if we leave this exception, the condition of women in all the states of North India is not very different even today.
A socialist leader had once occupied the seat of the country's Prime Minister for some time. Mrinal Tai Gore, a prominent socialist leader then, and some women got the opportunity to visit his ancestral house. Mrinal Tai Gore told me later that she felt the lack of women in the room. She said that she took advantage of being a woman and went inside the house and met the women of the household. And from the conversation, she found that some of them were post-graduates, while the other women were graduates. But they were forbidden to come into the meeting room. During his tenure as Prime Minister, this socialist leader’s wife was never seen in public life.
During 1990-91, while working on the aftermath of the Bhagalpur riots in Bihar, our team had to frequently visit Muslim localities because the community had suffered the most destruction. We saw some women gathered near the windows watching us very closely, but they were all veiled. There was no dearth of hospitality there either. But the hands that cooked the food were not visible.
Once Manisha Banerjee, Vani Sinha, Shamli Khastgir and Veena Aalase, who were among the women who often visited us from Calcutta and Shantiniketan, informed me that in a Muslim- dominated village named Rajpur, an exclusive meeting of women was being organised on the roof of someone's house in the evening, and I should address that meeting. After climbing the roof, I saw that except Manisha, Banidi, Shyamlidi and Veenaadi, all the other women were wearing burqa. But, as soon as I started my address, I saw that almost all the faces covered with burqa were now visible. I felt a bit embarrassed. Our meeting went on till it was quite dark, but the atmosphere was beautiful and pleasant.
Similarly, 15 years ago, I had gone to Aligarh Muslim University for the Maulana Azad Memorial Speech. The main speech was delivered in Kennedy Hall. I saw that all the students sitting in the lower hall were males. The female students were seated in the upper gallery. When I looked up, I could see only burqas. I had an extra day, so I expressed my desire to see the university. A professor was given the special duty of hosting me. After breakfast, he took me around in a university car. He also took me to the tomb of Sir Syed Ahmed. When I was returning from there on foot, an elderly gentleman wearing a sherwani greeted me and said, "I am the head of the department of Islamic studies, and I was very impressed with your speech yesterday. If you are not busy right now, can you come to our department for a chat for some time?" I promised him that I would visit the department some time later. When I stepped into his department, the very small hall was full of students sitting in burqas. The gentleman said: "Yesterday, you spoke about how Muslims of the whole world are being targeted in a planned manner in the name of political Islam. And this is the reason that these girls of our department wanted to meet you after listening to your speech from the gallery”.
I told him, “You have done me a favour. Because for the last 20 years, I have been working on the Hindu-Muslim issue after the Bhagalpur riots and in that, I especially try to focus more on women. Because it is women who have to bear the wounds of any riot and war more than anyone.” I noticed that in that hall, too, all the girls had lifted their burqas. A serious debate went on with all the girls for at least more than two hours.
All those girls were post-graduates and some of them said that they would go for higher research studies later.
Half of the world's population is women. But the condition of women is still very unequal, to a greater or lesser extent. The worst situation is in those parts of the world where the feudal system still prevails.
The status of women is still very pitiable in almost all of North India and South-West Asia. The writings of Tehmina Durrani of Pakistan, Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh and Shirin Abad of Iran show that even today women are treated as ‘slaves’.
And in the so-called Western culture, women are still projected like a commodity, and object. Which why there is a competition to display their bodies in advertising and fashion shows—whether it is an advertisement of a men's underwear or his shaving blade.
Sex trade is a product of this very trend and has turned into an industry. I remember (in 1993-94), I got a chance to attend a conference on Human Rights (Huron) in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. It was inaugurated by the then Nepal Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Speakers at the gathering were only focusing on the excesses of the monarchy, police, and army. So, when my turn came, I said that "All the speakers before me have spoken of numerous reprehensible acts of oppression, atrocities and exploitation being done by the government and the royal family. But I have come from India, and I am from Calcutta. I am from Maharashtra. I have noticed one thing since my childhood, that from the towns of India to the big cities like Calcutta, Mumbai, 50% of girls in brothels are from Nepal. I have not seen anyone even close to Huron thinking about this subject, which is a very serious matter. Now the Rana regime has ended and democracy has begun. So, I expect the Honourable Prime Minister that special efforts should be made to stop the trade of all these women.”
Immediately after my speech, Prime Minister Koirala took the mike, and said, "I assure Dr. Suresh Khairnar that I will try, especially from my government's side, to end this practice!"
The Nepal Women's Organisation told me that I was the first person who had spoken on women's issues at the event.
Similarly, I have seen women working in every field in Kashmir and Palestine. We have seen women from the Kurdish-dominated triangle of Iraq, Iran and Turkey, which is also called the Total Kurdish Area. We have seen women wearing jeans and T-shirts and fighting, riding vehicles and horses. We have seen them working in every field of life.
The writer is former president of Rashtra Sewa Dal. The views are personal.
BOOK REVIEW: Savitrinama — Many Shades of a Rare Teacher, Poet, Revolutionary
Mukta, a 14-year-old untouchable student of Savitribai Phule, wrote an article in 1855 criticising Brahmanical hegemony and the exploitation of Shudras and Ati Shudras. Her words were, “These Laddu-eating Brahmins say that Vedas are theirs. Ones who are not Brahmins, have no right to read the Vedas. Doesn't it mean that we people are without religion, because we are forbidden from reading Vedas? Oh God, please let us know which religion is ours, so that we can make the arrangements”.
When Mukta read her article before the editor of Gyanuday, the editor was speechless on the revolutionary content of her text.
Reading this particular incident of history, informs us about the social impact of the Savitribai’s way of educating masses. Unlike today, when academic institutions are merely instruments of the ruling Hindutva ideology.
Savitrinama, originally written in Marathi and translated in Hindi by author Ujjwala Mhatre, along with the introduction by Hari Narke, is an important academic work on Savitribai and her struggles. According to Narke, there are 200 books on the Phule (Jyotiba and Savitri) couple. Out of these, 40 books are on Savitribai Phule. It is widely known that Savitribai was the first female teacher of India, but her revolutionary thoughts and political writings are less read. Thus, this book informs readers of how the Phule couple challenged the Brahmanical hegemony and found solutions to it.
Challenging Brahmanical Patriarchy
The Phule couple saw the lack of education as the primary enemy of the untouchables and women. This persistence of no education posed the oppressed sections toward institutionalised slavery, which not only “mentally” enslaved them, but “materially” too. Therefore, this institutionalised slavery required fundamental and systemic reforms.
This systematic and revolutionary reform began with the initial education of Savitribai herself. Savitribai, who was married at the age of 11, was always enthusiastic about education. Jyotirao educated her at home. During those times, when education was supposed to be the “preserve” of the Savarnas (upper castes), the Phule couple resisted against the social norm by educating themselves. Both within the private sphere and public sphere, their desire to read made the orthodox society unhappy.
Savitribai was facilitated by Sakharam Yashwant Paranjpe and Keshav Shivaram Bhavalkar, both friends of Jyotirao. Thereafter, the Phule couple began to establish institutions to educate the masses. They began schools for people from different religions, classes and castes. These public institutions were open to all castes. They introduced schools for Brahmin widows.
The Phule couple resisted the traditional customs of child marriage and female infanticide. Two of the many schools established by the Phule couple were, Native Female School in Pune and Society for Promoting Education among Mahars and Matangs.
In 1882, Jyotirao Phule exposed the conditions of education among the non-Brahmins before the Hunter Commission. He argued that, “There were no schools for women that can be called our own”. Despite the establishment of schools for widows and untouchable women, the dropout rate among students remained a huge problem for the Phule couple because the dropouts mostly belonged to the working class and were victims of both Brahmanism and feudal slavery. Thus, the Phule couple began to provide financial assistance to those students to reduce the dropout rate.
Brahmin widows who could neither marry nor have hair (the hair of widows used to be chopped off to make them look unattractive), urged the Phules to take action against such corrupt practices. They provided shelter homes for widows, where they could learn and foster their children.
The book mentions the terrible story of two Brahmin widows. The first story, important to this discussion, is about Kashibai, a Brahmin widow. She was a worker at Jyotirao’s friend's house. Kashibai was manipulated by a Brahmin neighbour. Her sexual contact with the person made her pregnant. Scared by the consequences of bearing an illegitimate child, she killed her child and threw the body in Govande's private well. This incident occurred due to the patriarchal construction of our society.
Kashibai was given the harshest punishment for her act. She was sent to Andaman and Nicobar cellular jail, widely known as Kala Pani in 1863. She is named as the first woman in the history of India to be sent to Kala Pani.
Deeply shattered by the incident, the Phules sought to organise and educate upper caste widows. They opened community shelters to provide space for Brahmin widows. Consequently, their appeal reached the widows. Till 1885, as many as 35 Brahmin widows joined these community shelters.
It was the sheer dedication of Savitribai Phule that she envisioned the society as a whole as her family. The Phule couple was childless, for which they also faced slurs from the society, because childlessness was assumed to be the failure of women predominantly.
In 1874, another Brahmin widow, Kashibai. visited the Phules. She, too, like many Brahmin widows, was a victim of sexual violence that resulted in unwanted pregnancy. The Phules, who were childless, adopted the baby, and named him Yashwant.
The Satyashodhak Samaj, initiated by the Phules, also conducted “Satyashodhak Marriages” and promoted inter-caste marriages. Marriages promoted by Satyashodhaks shunned ritualism. These marriages did not follow the “dowry” system. Yashwant’s marriage, too, was held in the Satyashodhak way.
Savitribai Phule challenged all the predominant patriarchal social relations. She used to face humiliation for teaching working class children. The upper caste men used to throw cow dung and dirt on her. They used to gather around the street to stigmatise her. Savitribai Phule, determined to educate her children, didn't fear humiliation by the Brahmanical patriarchs. Instead, these occurrences strengthened her determination. People around her were inspired by her dedication for the human cause.
Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, who was editor of Deenbandhu, was greatly inspired by Savitribai. Lokhande led a massive strike by the Naai (barber) community, which was also considered inferior by the Savarnas. The motive of the collective strike was refusal to the practice of shaving the heads of Brahmin widows. According to Brahmanical customs, it was necessary for Brahmin widows to remove hair.
Kavya Phule
Savitribai, along with her social activism, wrote poems that questioned the ruling Brahmanical ideology. These poems highlighted the oppression of Shudra, Atishudra and working classes. A few of her poems are titled as, Angrezi Maai, Mannat, Shudra Sabd ka Arth, Angrezi Seekho and Agyan. Her words echoed resistance and strived for a better world. She spoke of the terrible conditions of peasants being exploited by feudalism, religious dogmatism and communalism.
Her poems spoke of resistance, liberation and history. Poetess Phule knew the importance of art and culture. This artistic side of Phule is less known and acknowledged. Civil rights activist Nina Simone has spoken on the arts and politics in a more nuanced way.
"An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters, sculptors, poets, musicians. As far as I'm concerned, it's their choice, but I CHOOSE to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty. And at this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when everyday is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved. Young people, black and white, know this. That's why they're so involved in politics. We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore. So I don't think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and NOT reflect the times? That to me is the definition of an artist."
--Nina Simone.
Poetess Phule, too, reflected the times she was living in. In her poem, Shudron ki Vyadhi”, she wrote about education as the only means to achieve liberation for the Shudra slaves.
“दो हजार वर्षों से शूद्र एक व्याधि से हैं पीड़ित । भूस्वामियों की गुलामी से हैं अब तक दमित ।।
हाल देख उनका, मन बगावत कर उठता है।
क्या इससे मुक्ति का कोई सहज रास्ता हो सकता है?
शिक्षा ही एकमात्र राह, और नहीं विकल्प। गुलामी की जंजीरें तोड़, मानवता का करें संकल्प ।।”
In another poem, Divya Kheti, she explains how the labour of Shudra peasants is appropriated by the priestly class.
“शूद्र खेती कर जैसे-तैसे निज पेट पालते हैं। उच्चवर्णीय बिन श्रम के छप्पन भोग खाते हैं ।।
The Phules considered English as a progressive response to Brahmanism. Savitribai Phule’s poem, Angrezi Maayi, well explains their optimism toward the English language.
अंग्रेजी माई ज्ञान सच्चा हमें देती है।
मानवता का दूध पिला, शूद्रों को समर्थ कर देती है।। दे तालीम उनको, दूर करती है अज्ञानता, जोड़ती है शूद्रों का मनुष्यता से नाता ।।
Savitribai’s Letters …
Apart from protest poems, Savitribai wrote three letters to Jyotirao Phule. Her first letter to him, written on October 10 in 1856, provides us insights about the first Muslim female teacher of India, Fatima Sheikh. Recently, a public intellectual has claimed that Fatima Sheikh never existed, instead, she was a fictional character. Reading this letter of Savitribai Phule, provides us concrete evidence of Fatima being the historical figure and close companion of the Phules. In this letter, Savitribai also shares the essential details of the dominance of Brahmanical ideas in her family. She faces criticism from her brother for her emancipatory moves toward the uplift of untouchables. However, her brother was unanswerable to Savitribai’s rational arguments.
Rad Also: Fatima Sheikh: Politics of Historical Erasure, Exclusion
In her second letter, written on August 29, 1868, Savitribai mentioned an “unusual” incident. According to the letter, a Brahmin, named Ganesh, who had interest in the “ritualistic” activities, reached Savitribai’s village. During his work of teaching religious rituals, he had a relationship with an untouchable girl named Saarja. Both fell in love. Soon, the villagers were informed about their relationship and Saarja being pregnant. Angered by their inter-caste relationship, the villagers paraded both of them on the streets and decided to kill them. Savitribai, when informed about this, reached the spot and resisted against the villagers’ tyranny and saved Ganesh and Saarja. People who were silent on the injustice being done to the couple, were shocked by Savitribai's courage.
The third letter, written on April 20,1877, gives the reader insights into the horrible reality of famine in the region. According to Savitribai, rivers, canals and trees, everything withered in the region. People were dying of hunger. They were forced to flee to other places. She decribes how people are drinking their own urine in compulsion, to save their lives. In response to these horrible sufferings, Satyashodhaks moved forward to help the peasants and distributed material necessities to save their lives. Fifty Satyashodhaks were arrested by the British officials, but on the insistence of Savitribai Phule, they were set free.
Apart from these essential letters, this book consists of speeches of Savitribai Phule on different subjects, such as industry, ethics and morality and indebtedness.
Phules’ Love For the Society
This book makes us aware about the many shades of Savitribai Phule. She was revolutionary in many aspects. She understood the pain and suffering of Brahmin widows, taught students from all classes, helped out the victims of famines and droughts, provided financial assistance to the students and much more. Brahmanical patriarchy, that dominated every sphere of the times then, was challenged through the institutionalised and systemic measures of Savitribai. Her revolutionary activism teaches us the true meaning of love and revolution. Love shall never be limited to individuals, instead it shall be extended to the oppressed classes of our society.
She is not only the first female teacher of India, rather she has ‘firsts’ in many spaces. She was the first woman in India to participate in a funeral procession. After the death of Jyotirao, her life-long comrade and partner, Savitribai performed the last rites.
The Phule’s revolutionary activism challenged all the prevailing “isms” of the times, such as, feudalism, casteism, colonialism and communalism. Savitribai Phule, mother of the Indian working classes, passed away after falling prey to the dangerous plague disease, while saving the life of others.
The writer is pursuing a Masters in political science at the Department of Political Science, Delhi University. The views are personal.
No comments:
Post a Comment