by D. R.
Chaudhry
PATRIARCHY in
social organisation has been the dominant reality to define the nature of
gender relations in human society that rendered it male-dominated in most parts
of the world since the dawn of human civilisation. Much has changed since the
primitive times but the male dominated ethos still holds sway. In spite of all
the advances made in the field of woman emancipation, male hegemony is still
the dominant reality.
The
Divine Right of Kings theory gave unlimited arbitrary powers to the kings in
Europe. The French thinker Rousseau in his Theory of Social Contract first of
all, cogently challenged this. The liberative core of the ideas of thinkers
like Rousseau, Voltair and others led to social churning culminating into the
French Revolution in 1789. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were the basic
postulates of this great social upheaval. This finally led to the democratic
form of governance in Europe that enabled the people to elect their own rulers
through voting. However, equality, one of the moving ideas behind the social
churning, eluded women for a long time and they acquired the right to vote
quite late in several European countries after arduous struggle. Moreover,
equality, in substantial terms, still eludes them.
The USA
is one of the most developed and educated parts of the world. The egalitarian
principle as symbolised in the gigantic Statue of Liberty in New York is
supposed to be the moving force in American society. But women there are still
clubbed with the socially deprived and marginalised sections like
African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, etc. that go
by the appellation of minorities. The policy of the affirmative action has been
followed since the days of President Kenned. It gives preference to these
groups in matter of employment, admission in educational institutions,
allotment of government contracts, etc. Unlike India, there is no quota system
and the Federal and state governments have devised their own methods to provide
relief to these groups. In spite of all this, the American society is very much
in the grip of white male domination.
Woman’s
lot still continues to be at a disadvantage in the developed parts of the world
like Europe and North America. The situation is much worse in developing
countries. The problem has been further compounded in India where the powerful
scriptural authority has been invoked to downgrade woman.
A
shaloka in Rig Veda reads: “Women have unsteady brains. They are not
trustworthy”. Manusmrity, a basic Brahminical text to define the cantours of
social organisation, says: “A girl, a young woman or even an old woman should
not do anything independently. In childhood, a woman should be under her
father’s control, in youth her husband’s, and when her husband is dead, under
her son’s. She should not have independence.” The Biblical idea of woman as a
weaker vessel, open to temptation and Hamlet’s anguished cry over his mother’s
perfidy equating woman with frailty (Frailty, thy name is woman) get much more
concrete expression in the Hindu scriptures. Right from womb to the tomb, woman
has to traverse this long journey under the male hegemony. Ram Charit Manas of
Goswami Tulsidas has a powerful impact on the Indian psyche and therein woman
has been clubbed with “Shudras, animals and the uncivilised who need to be
thrashed.” The veil has been a symbol of ignorance and darkness that needs to
be cast aside if one has to have the glimpse of the ultimate reality as
stressed by Waris Shah and Mira. However, this veil (ghunghat) fell to the
share of woman in India.
An
attempt to understand the nature of gender relations can be facilitated by
referring to the concept of the ideal womanhood. Sita and Draupadi are the two
towering women in Indian mythology and folklore. Sita, the consort of Rama in
Ramayana, is gentle, docile and submissive. She symbolises the purity of spirit
as well as the body. Her unshakable fidelity and devotion to her husband marks
her out as an exceptional woman. Draupadi, the consort of five Pandavas in the
Mahabharata, stands in sharp contrast to Sita. She is aggressive, assertive and
self-willed. She is conscious of her rights and fights valiantly for them. Her
knowledge of the affairs of the world is remarkable and her debating and
argumentative skill exceptional. She would not meekly submit to a man because
he happens to be her husband.
Who
should be the ideal woman out of the above two? Dr Ram Manohar Lohia who did
seminal thinking on the issue of oppression in Indian society voted for
Draupadi and it is difficult to discount his arguments. He wanted to start a
debate on the topic that India’s ideal woman was Draupadi and not Sita or
Savitri. The Indian society could not advance, argued Lohia, so long as half of
its population was cast in the image of Sita. Crusaders for the downtrodden
like Jyotiba Phule and Ramasamy Naicker exhorted women to come forward and
assert their identity. Mahatma Gandhi laid due emphasis on woman uplift.
However, in spite of all efforts made by numerous social reformers and
thinkers, the depressed state of the Indian woman continues to stick out like a
sore thumb, thanks to the inexorable operation of the patriarchal structures in
society. Her image as an ‘abla’— a hapless creature — persist as conveyed by
the well-known Hindi poet, Maithli Sharan Gupt: “Abla jeewan haai tumhari yehi
kahani/ anchal mein hai dudh aur ankh mein pani.” (Milk in breast and tears in
eyes. This is the story of hapless woman). Myths depict Indian woman as tender,
passive and helpless while the male counterpart symbolises activism, sternness
and physical valour. Myth represents reality in its heightened form and is not
its replica. Often, it is at variance with social reality.
Haryana
is primarily an agrarian society and its towns too are like villages with
modern facilities. There is not a single town in the state that has the
ambience and culture of a metropolitan centre. In such a social milieu, a
woman’s sensibility is very much shaped by agrarian lifestyle. A Haryanvi woman
is not a soft creature as reflected in the Indian myths. She does not very much
burdened by scriptural authority and Brahminical value system. However,
male-dominated ethos still holds sway in Haryana society as human relations are
governed by patriarchal structures.
In a
male-dominated social ethos, the quest for a male child is incessant while the
female child is treated as a curse. Haryana folklore crudely depicts female
child as highly unwanted. An example or two would suffice here. “Chhora mare
nirbhag ka, chhori mare bhagvan ki” (One who loses a son is unlucky and one who
loses a daughter is god-like), or “Dunia mein do garib batae, aek beti, aek
bail” (There are two lowly creatures in the world: a daughter and a drought
bull). This mindset is reflected in the declining social status of woman in Haryana.
Sex
ratio is an important indicator of gender relations. South Asia is the least
gender sensitive region in the world. The global ratio (excluding South Asia)
of female to male is 106 while in South Asia there are only 94 women per 100
men. Haryana’s record is shocking in this respect.
As per
1991 census, the female-male ratio in Haryana is 865: 1000. The latest figure
is much worse. It is the worst in the world and negates the popular image of
Haryana as a modern, progressive state. Even sub-Saharan African countries like
Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana marked by famines, epidemics, civil wars and
political instability, present a better record. Material advance is no
guarantee of the healthy gender relations. Per capita income in Kerala is much
lower than the one in Haryana but Kerala can match any advanced country in
matter of indicators like sex ratio, access to education, health services etc.
Female
infanticide in the form of foetal genocide is rampant in Haryana. Clinics
conducting sex-determining tests have mushroomed all over the state. Now vans
fitted with necessary equipment visit villages to destroy female foetus. The
latest figures show an all-time low of 861 women per 1000 men in Haryana.
The
gross distortion in sex ratio in Haryana has created an explosive situation. It
is likely to have devastating consequences in times to come. The unsustainable
imbalance in the sex ratio is fast reviving the outdated, hideous custom of
‘atta-satta’ (exchange of brides between two families) in some areas. The green
revolution has reached its plateau and there is crisis in agriculture in the
state. The lifting of quantitative restrictions on import of many items
relating to agriculture and dairy as a consequence of the WTO regime and the
gradual dismantling of the minimum support price mechanism for the agricultural
produce by restricting the role of the Food Corporation of India would further
compound the problem. The fragmentation of land holdings has rendered
agricultural operations unviable in case of the most of the peasant families in
the state. This has rendered the employment scene in rural Haryana too dismal
for words. There is no industrialisation worth the name in the state to absorb
the unemployed youth. The state government is rubbing salt into the wound by
taxing the unemployed youth to bolster its financial position. An application
form for the post of a constable has been priced at Rs 500. The unemployment
coupled with dim prospect of matrimonial alliance has made the rural youth
restive. This finds expression in the rising crime graph in the state. Several
dozen young men from Baas village in Hansi subdivision are lodged in Hisar jail
to face trial under different charges. When the Haryana Chief Minister visited
the village as a part of the programme of ‘sarkar apke dwar’ (government at
your door step) and asked for the demands, the village demanded setting up of
sub-jail in their villages to obviate the trouble of going all the way to the
district headquarters to meet their wards in the jail.
The
UNO’s Fourth Conference on Women held at Beijing, the capital of China, in 1995
laid down nine major concerns for women like education, health, violence
against women, women and property etc. Haryana’s rulers have been most
insensitive about a girl’s share in the parental property. The Central
Government passed the Hindu Succession Act in 1956, putting a daughter on a par
with a son in matter of parental property. The Haryana Assembly passed a
resolution in 1967 requesting the Central Government to change the Act.
However, the then Indira government refused to oblige. A similar resolution was
passed in 1979. The President of India withheld his assent to it.
The
growing assertion of the khap panchayat in matter of marriage between
consenting individuals in the recent past is enigmatic. Kangaroo courts are
held and barbaric judgement like liquidation of the couple, tonsuring their
heads in public, ostracising them from the community, depriving them of their
right to property and residence in the village, etc. are passed if a particular
marriage is suspected of violating certain norms thought to be sacrosanct by
the panchayat mukhias.
A
parallel judicial system is emerging in Haryana. It is again the girl who
suffers most in this medieval system of justice.
There is
an urgent need for gender-specific development paradigm to correct the
pervasive gender inequities in our society. The hope of male generosity in this
matter is misplaced as is evident from the fate being meted out to the proposed
bill on reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and in state legislatures. Women
have to work out their own salvation. They have to organise themselves and
struggle, with active help from the enlightened section of the male population.
No society can acquire dynamism if almost half of its population is kept in a
state of servitude.
