India Dishonoured: Behind a Nation's War on Women (2 page)

She added: “My husband and I fought over my desire to have an abortion. I told him that this society does not value girls and I do not want to give birth to another one. When I gave birth to my first daughter everyone pitied me. They all told me that I could not have a son. The taunts from society and from my in-laws that I would have faced for not having a son forced me to abort. Knowing the amount of harassment my baby would go through after her birth, I think it is much better to die.”

 

1
Rs 5000 in 1991 is roughly Rs 25,000 in 2013 prices ($465, £300)

2
Rs 70 in 1991 is roughly Rs 350 in 2013 prices ($6.50, £4); Rs 500 is roughly Rs 2,500 now ($46.50, £30)

3
Translation: ‘truth always triumphs’. It is also India’s official motto, inscribed below the national emblem.

4
Figures from 2012 CIA World Factbook, relating to overall sex ratio of the population.

5
Vijayendra Rao: The Rising Price of Husbands, 1993

6
Vijayendra Rao, World Bank: The Economics of Dowries in India, 2006

7
‘India’s New Focus on Rape Shows Only the Surface of Women’s Perils’ - New York Times, Jan 2013

8
‘Indian brides pay a high price’ - International Herald Tribune, Oct 2006

9
Indian Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report, 2010.

10
‘Sourcebook on Violence Against Women’ (pg 111) 2001

11
‘Female Infanticide and Child Neglect in Rural North India’, Barbara Miller, 1987

12
‘Disappearing Daughters’ Action Aid, 2009

3.

To understand the origins of most cultural practices in India requires going back to centuries-old religious mythology. The
Ramayana
, within which this exchange takes place, is known to almost every Indian child from a young age. This epic tale of kings and queens, family duty and promises, love and war, tradition and honour, is a key part of the Hindu religious canon. Lord Ram is held up as the epitome of a dutiful son, a good husband and an honourable king who will do anything to rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of the evil Ravana. Sita is portrayed as the archetypal woman: kind, righteous, strong but obedient.

The story of Sita’s fate is important not just because the
Ramayana
is so highly regarded but because the above exchange, narrated near the end, illustrates the significance given to a woman’s ‘honour’. There are several versions of the
Ramayana
, narrated by different sects of Hinduism across different parts of the country. In most versions Sita accepts the trial of fire and walks through unharmed. However, in other versions she rejects the trial and calls on the Earth to consume her and spare her the indignity. The
Mahabharata,
another popular epic tale, has a similar tale to tell about the duty of men and women, the importance of tradition and the different roles of men and women. These religious texts undoubtedly shape popular perceptions on how women should act.

Salil Tripathi, a writer and columnist for the Mint newspaper in India, says texts such as the
Ramayana
and
Mahabharata
reinforce the underlying message that “if you want to be a good person, these are the role models to follow.”
For many of India’s Hindus (around 80% of the population), Muslims (14%), Christians (2.5%), Sikhs (2%), Buddhists (1%), Jains (> 1%) and other minorities
1
Indian Census 2011
– religion is a way of living and celebrating, not just a matter of attending a place of worship once a week. It can be extremely difficult to draw a line where religion ends and culture begins; the two have been intricately inter-woven over centuries.

But Tripathi says that religion did not always influence cultural attitudes – other factors had a bearing too. “Some of the restrictions on women’s presence in public are influenced by history. For example due to the central Asian invaders [the Mughals], who would kidnap women, they started staying at home and covering their heads.”

Of course, there are other theories too on why the role of women declined in public spaces. Tripathi says that British invaders and their Victorian-era morality also had a part to play in shaping Indian laws and attitudes. “For example gay sex was criminalised by the Victorians in India; prior to that it was not illegal.” He points out that some Indian religious mythology featured homosexual stories and temples had carvings of lesbian sex. “I don’t want to say that India was more liberal than Britain – but a lot of the Indian Penal Code was shaped by the criminal code that Victorian Britain imposed on India.”

Many Indians say that culture places men and women in different but complementary roles and that rather than subscribing to western ideals of feminist equality Indian women are in fact put on a pedestal. During one very popular Hindu and Sikh festival for example,
Rakhee
, sisters tie a thread around their brothers’ wrists, who in turn pledge to protect them for life.

This symbolism of Indian culture that puts women on a pedestal is very real – but it is also in fact the problem. Tradition requires that girls be brought up to be good daughters and later obedient wives, not independent women who should be encouraged to do what they wish. If she is judged to have brought ‘shame’ upon herself, she is seen as bringing shame on the entire family and even the community. Her role is reduced to remaining honourable until she can get married, produce children and run the household. In effect, by putting women on a pedestal, they are placed in a trap where they have to constantly live up to the expectations of others.

Not everyone accepts this status quo as given. Author Samhita Arni wrote
Sita’s Ramayana
, a graphic novel, in 2011 to highlight alternative interpretations to the story. “Many of the oral traditions - sung by women, who pass these songs from generation to generation - present a woman’s point of view and voice - something which is lacking, or seems to me to be absent, from the textual versions,” she says.

She says she had issues with the portrayal of Sita in the epic because the questioning of her chastity – which remains a controversial part – is often glossed over or edited with a happy ending. She wanted to retell the story through Sita’s eyes. This is also explored in her new book
Ramayana, The Missing Queen
.

“Sita, in the versions that had been told to me as a child - was a quiet, submissive woman - but here, in other traditions - there’s a warrior princess, a Sita who is strong and wise, a Sita who is compassionate, a Sita who raises her children as a single mother in the forest. These different Sitas intrigued me,” she tells me.

This contradiction is illustrated by the presence of strong women role models, especially in Hinduism. Perhaps the most obvious example is the goddess of war,
Durga
, who is considered invincible and celebrated annually at festivals.
Durga
is accompanied by other prominent female goddesses:
Lakshmi
(for prosperity),
Saraswat
i (knowledge), and
Kali
(power).

And it’s not just religion – India’s third Prime Minister after independence in 1947, Indira Gandhi, dominated Indian politics for the second half of the 20th century. Elected an unparalleled four times as Prime Minister – 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, she was voted the greatest Indian Prime Minister by readers of the popular magazine, India Today in 2001. Her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi has loomed large over Indian politics over the last decade and is the longest-serving president of the ruling Congress Party. Even among poorer, lower-caste communities there are strong women political leaders who command respect and terrify opponents.

In fact, across almost every aspect of public life, Indians can proudly point to strong women role models. Writers and activists such as Arundhati Roy and Vandana Shiva have become international names in their own right as they take on the government on environmental and social issues. There are women academics, actors, sports stars and activists that are highly visible in the public eye.

But exceptions to the rule do not demonstrate that the rule does not exist. Women make up only 11.1% of the 545 members in the Indian Parliament, while literacy and employment is significantly lower among women compared to men. There aren’t even any laws to protect women from sexual harassment at work.

It is undeniable that a mix of culture and religion perpetuates fixed views about how women should behave, though Hinduism has seen waves of reform movements
2
These include Swami Vivekanda, Hare Krishna and Arya Samaj amongst others.
over centuries that have challenged orthodox beliefs and helped improve the status of women. But while religion is open to interpretation, it is also indisputable that cultural and religious practices are used as justification to control women under the guise of ‘honour’ and ‘purity’. The model of a pure and traditional Sita who is willing to fulfil her role as a daughter and wife still looms large.

From the moment they have children, parents worry so much about ‘losing face’ in the community that while boys have all the freedom they want, girls are advised to avoid doing anything that would supposedly bring shame. It also means that when they disobey, women can end up paying a terrible price.

 

1
Indian Census 2011

2
These include Swami Vivekanda, Hare Krishna and Arya Samaj amongst others.

4.

“If a girl who has been raped commits suicide, will her brother not take revenge? Hindus must make sure they are feared by others. We have to prove our mettle. If they [Muslims] rape 10–15 of our women, we must also rape a few to show we are no less.”

What’s shocking about that statement isn’t just that it was made in the 1990s to a group of students, but that it was uttered by a woman, Krishna Sharma, a leader of the women’s wing of the Hindu nationalist organisation
Vishwa Hindu Parishad
(VHP).
1
‘Women and right-wing movements: Indian experiences’ – Sarkar and Butalia, 1995.

In 1992, a 300 year-old mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh state, was destroyed by a large mob of Hindu nationalists from organisations such as the VHP,
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) and their political wing, the
Bharatiya Janta Party
(BJP). For them the destruction of
Babri Masjid
wasn’t just a matter of historical accuracy and whether it was built on the ruins of a Hindu temple, but of reasserting their dominance after centuries of Mughal rule over India.

The quote highlights an important point about how inter-ethnic conflict in India uses women as a means to attack, and that even some women have accepted this dynamic. Once a woman’s body becomes a symbol of honour, not just for her place in society but also for her entire community – it becomes a target.

The destruction of
Babri Masjid
eventually led to a massacre of 58 Hindu pilgrims on a train in the Gujarat state a decade later in February 2002. This in turn prompted rioting across the State and the massacre of thousands of Muslims, where women were deliberately targeted for rape. Unfortunately this has become a familiar pattern over history. Mughal kings who ruled over large parts of the country before the British arrived saw women as the spoils of their conquests and frequently kept large harems. When India and Pakistan were partitioned by the British in 1947, violence frequently flared up in the form of mass-rapes by Muslim, Hindu and Sikh men against women of other religions. When villagers saw angry mobs arriving, women were expected to commit suicide to save their dignity, usually by jumping into the local well.
2
This is depicted very well in the Indian film
Khamosh Pani
/ Silent Waters (2003).

During the Bangladeshi war of independence against Pakistan in 1971, thousands of Bangladeshi women were raped by Pakistani soldiers in retaliation for what they saw as betrayal of the Pakistani nation. It only stopped when India intervened and routed the Pakistani army. Similarly, during the pogroms against Sikhs in 1984 and the separatist violence in the state of Kashmir over the 1990s, men in large numbers deliberately targeted women.

There is no doubt that rape as a tool of war and conflict has been used across the world for centuries. But in the Indian sub-continent it is not just alarmingly common – this attitude also spills over to more family matters, largely because of the common thread about women’s ‘honour’.

The story of Huma, a well-paid professional who works in the city of London, illustrates this well. I met this feisty woman,
3
Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
now in her mid-30s, at a coffee shop in late 2012. She talked animatedly about topics she enjoyed, such as politics and the latest films, but became visibly nervous and fidgety when talking about her family. Only after knowing her for a few months did she feel comfortable enough to tell me that it had been ten years since she last communicated with her parents. She had escaped a marriage they forced her into, although her problems had started in her early 20s even before they found out she had a boyfriend. “They feared I was getting too ‘western’ and liberal, and it led them to do a range of things, even throwing out all my clothes like my jeans and tops because I needed to be more ‘traditional’,” she told me.

Though originally from India, her family live in the north of England and cling to traditional Indian customs. She rarely talks about her past, but feels she must confront it because the emotional scars still haven’t healed. After finding out about her boyfriend in her early 20s, she was told to get married to a man she did not know. “My mother repeatedly told me that I would bring shame to the family and threatened to commit suicide if I did not agree.” She added: “It was their way to control me and ensure I led a good Muslim life”. When her mother told her later she wasn’t pleasing her husband and not doing enough to be “a good wife” she felt she was in danger and ran away.

She was lucky to escape. A survey of 39 out of 52 British police forces across the UK in 2011 found records of at least 2,823 ‘honour-based’ attacks on women in 2010. The Crown Prosecution Service estimates that on average one girl is murdered every month in Britain over ‘family honour’ while the number of forced marriages could be as high as 10,000 a year.
4
The left cannot remain silent over ‘honour killings’, New Statesman, 2012
The United States and Canada have also seen similar attacks among South Asian communities, though there are no official estimates.

Huma contacted the police; she says they refused to help as they considered this a ‘domestic’ matter. “My parents told me they couldn’t go out and had lost their standing in society,” and that her actions led to her father losing his job. “They said nobody would marry my siblings because of my conduct.” Huma later confided she had experienced severe bouts of anxiety, guilt and shame, and had self-harmed and had suicidal thoughts. She has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Forced marriages are in fact common across South Asia. Indian researchers say more than 1,000 women are murdered every year due to ‘love relationships’. In most cases it is just accepted that the parents will decide who their daughter will marry. If they do not listen, the consequences can be horrendous. As women are afraid of reporting their family, it is likely the true figure is higher.

The National Commission for Women in India found in a recent survey that in 88.9% of cases, the perpetrators of the honour killing were family members. In December 2012, a young man by the name of Mehtab Alam calmly walked to a police station in the city of Kolkata, in east India, with the severed head of his sister in his left hand and a sword in his right, dripping with blood. He told a shocked policeman that he was ready to be arrested for murdering 22 year-old Nilofar Bibi – who had been married off at the age of 14 for “running off with a lover and dishonouring the family.”

There is undeniably an over-arching pattern here. The very attitudes that leads men to target women during inter-ethnic conflicts also encourages them to force daughters into a marriage. The ‘honour’ of a woman becomes a tool of control and abuse.

The same attitude also encourages labelling women as
good
or
bad
, with the implication that
bad
women provoke their own assault or rape. In several incidents across India, leading politicians or religious figures seek to blame women themselves for their misfortune. In the Indian State of Haryana the ex-chief minister backed the suggestions of a local village council that girls should be married off at the age of 16 – rather than the current legal limit of 18 – to prevent rape. He said, “We should learn from the past, especially in [sic] Mughal era, people used to marry their girls to save them from Mughal atrocities and currently a similar situation is arising in the State.”

In another case a village council also in Haryana blamed the consumption of the Chinese dish chowmein (yes, really!) for rapes. “To my understanding, consumption of fast food contributes to such incidents. Chowmein leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such acts,” said Jitender Chhatar, the council leader.
5
Haryana khap blames consumption of chowmein for rapes, Times of India, October 2012

All of these incidents took place in 2012. In many cases, the honour killings are sanctioned by unofficial village councils (
khap panchayats
), which are known for frequently issuing edicts condemning couples for marrying outside their caste or religion. Local politicians and police officials are also known to be sympathetic to these decrees.

Popular culture feeds into these attitudes too. After the Delhi gang rape came to light in mid-December 2012, The Times of India columnist SA Aiyar wrote that Indian films themselves sanctified pestering and stalking of women. “What’s truly terrible is the manner in which film heroes have for decades pestered, stalked and forced their unwanted attentions on heroines in a thousand films, yet ended up getting the girl.” That sent a message to men, he says, that “pestering girls is what heroes do, and a girl’s ‘no’ actually means ‘yes.’”

Indian politicians are perhaps the worst in this regard. The Chief Minister of West Bengal state blamed free mixing and media coverage for the rise in reported rapes. “Earlier if men and women would hold hands, they would get caught by parents and reprimanded but now everything is so open. It’s like an open market with open options,” said Mamata Banerjee.

Yes, she is a woman and this was in October 2012, a few weeks before the Delhi gang rape.