That woman is a victim of
patriarchy, I know is an understatement. Women in India and in almost all
countries of the world are treated as chattel, a disposable possession. The
female child was unwelcome. Indians, history shamefully records, never
considered female foeticide a sin. In the 21st century too, despite
legal restrictions, some doctors oblige rich parents in destroying the unborn
female foetus. The girl child is a liability not an economic proposition. On the one hand mythology has created female
deities at times more powerful than the male ones, like Durga, the three
Divine consorts of Hindu Trinity- Brahma,Vishnu, Maheswar. Saraswati, Lakhmi
and Parvati are for creative arts, prosperity and happiness respectively. But
in the family situation the woman is the Gruhalakshmi, the deity of the home and she has to keep it shipshape for
her husband and children. Women like nature is a display disc of beauty,
order and pleasure. But she has no freedom to dream, to love, to entertain
ambitions of power, adventure or self-fulfillment. Her husband is her god,
master, owner.
The question of freedom of self,
individual identity was raised by Draupadi in the Mahabharata when she was
staked at the dice game by Yudhistira after he had lost his own freedom. Can a
husband retain his ‘rights’ over a wife after he himself has lost his freedom? This
question was not answered by the scholars and the wise men present in the royal
court. Bhisma when asked however timidly opined that the laws of dharma are
silent on it yet a husband’s rights over the wife cannot be questioned at any
stage. Fate and metaphysical justice helped Draupadi in her moment of shame
imposed by patriarchy and evil men, otherwise history of epic India would have
recorded the most shameful chapter of man’s lewdness and moral fall as well as
the sexist bias of patriarchy. In modern civilisation too women anywhere is a ‘Second
Sex’ to borrow the title of Simon De Beauvoir’s
epoch changing book on women, perhaps the most important book in Feminist
literature. Since then much water has flown in the Ganga but women do not enjoy
a changed status. In the film industry the item songs are still danced out to
please the lustful eyes of men only. She is built for man; for his pleasure,
for the prolongation of his clan. The housewife is now changed into homemaker
but she is still used by powerful men for honeytraps.
But the most heartening thing has
now been rolled out of the Supreme Court of India. Although Prime Minister
Narendra Modi gave a call for ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, it remained mostly a slogan for a large percentage of India’s population. The educated and affluent
women wanted more freedom, less moral policing and moral flexibility to prove
their worth and fulfil their innate virtues in different fields of activities:
the poor and tradition bound Khap –Panchayat victims fell to honour killing
even for expressions of love, a value considered to be a wilful transgression
by patriarchy. Violence and rape and other instinctual barbaric violations of
their dignity continued despite political sloganeering and legal reddressals
enforced by the establishment.
But the Supreme Court under the
leadership of Justice Deepak Mishra opened up a few vistas for the oppressed
women flapping their newly generated wings to fly away from the stakes of
patriarchy. Tripple Talaq, a repressive non-Quaranic practice was quashed in
2017 to give the Muslim women some sense of security. The LGBT community was
given the honorific Third Sex, and Article 377 was struck down to give the
otherwise less fortunate people freedom to express their love and seek their
pleasure. But the most forward looking judgement came in the form of
decriminalization of adultery. Gender justice took another path breaking step
when Justice Mishra made the human soul free of religious and sexist bias.
Faith is the aroma of the soul and women now can express their faith in the
Sabarimala temple where for the last 800 years women between 10 and 50 years of
age were forbidden by the same patriarchy; Reason! Menstruation makes a woman
impure! How can a biological function of the body, specific to women to
procreate and expand the human race be impure?
Now the husband is a “manager of
household” not a master. Woman is free to choose life style and love without
patriarchal restraint. Hopefully freedom will not become a licence for bohemian
shenanigans.
