Guest Post by Shivani Nag
In the days following the brutal rape and murder of a young woman in December last year, I remember waking up each day and being out on the streets raising slogans on women’s freedom and liberation. For months after that, there were a series of mobilizations, vigils, parades and protests, and my strongest recollection of those events is the resounding reverberation of ‘mahilaayein maangi azaadi… khaap se bhi azaadi aur baap se bhi azaadi, shaadi karne ki azaadi aur na karne ki azaadi…’. It WAS about justice for that one woman, but it wasn’t ONLY about that… it was also about many other such women – some forgotten, some not, some dead and some still around… it was also about all women, demanding not just justice but their right to life as equal citizens. We did not come out on the streets to be told how to be safe, but to convey it loud and clear that we cannot spend our entire lives trying to be safe without actually getting to live it. We came out to demand and defend our right to choice!!
The recent incident in JNU involving a young man brutally attacking his classmate and then killing his own self has shocked the entire JNU community and sent us all in a deeply introspective mode. We are not shocked because we suddenly began to feel that society had transformed, we are shocked because somewhere we did believe that in JNU we have been able to transform some notions to quite an extent and create a space that is democratic and gender-just. I have reasons to believe that this space still exists in JNU, as the majority of calls for introspection have come from within the campus, but this in no way means, that all is fine. And there are several reasons why it can’t be fine.
To begin with, an educational institution is not meant to merely certify those who already know or are already equipped with certain kinds of skills or theories. An educational space ideally should be an enabling and a transformative space. This is the kind of space we envision JNU to be. So when something happens that threatens this democratized and potentially transformative space of JNU, we do feel pained but we also try to face it with a renewed commitment towards preserving this space. However, it still can’t all be fine, because our world doesn’t begin and end at JNU. The mindset that led to this incident wasn’t a product of what the university inculcates, but a reflection of a larger malaise that is just so terribly hard to fight. And it is this that is really angering me right now and what I wish to write about.
Just when I was about to get slightly hopeful after hearing some people talk about how men must learn to accept a ‘rejection’, I came across a headline in Dainik Bhaskar’s online edition (dated 2 August 2013) that screamed- “बदले के लिए करना चाहता था मर्डर: सेक्स तक कर चुकी थी गर्लफ्रेंड, पर बाद में उड़ाने लगी मजाक” (For taking revenge, he wanted to murder: girlfriend had gone on to the extent of having sex, but later started mocking him).
[The online news article has been since then withdrawn after leading to much outrage, but a glimpse of the headline can be seen in this facebook link to the article on Dainik Bhaskar ]
I do not even wish to comment on the imagined content of this headline and the writing that follows, which infers they had sex from an excerpt from the boy’s note that says they were ‘close’ and then goes on to describe how after being close to him she chose to end their relationship or made fun of him and thus making her out to be the villain in the entire episode. What is striking is the pains that this write up takes to point out how the earlier explanations of the incident that said that the attack on the girl and the subsequent suicide by the boy were perhaps caused by his inability to accept a ‘no’ had suddenly been proved false!! And seriously, how? So a ‘no’ is an acceptable choice only at a certain phase of the relationship (actually at that early a phase, it isn’t even a relationship) and thereafter it becomes inadmissible? Suddenly the seemingly progressive sounding bytes on how the boy should have let her go after she refused his proposal have started appearing hollow.
Doesn’t it somewhere bring us all back to the same notions of modesty, chastity and honour when you begin to realise that the acceptance of woman’s ‘no’ as a legitimate response is only as long as one is able to view the woman as safeguarding something ‘virtuous’ in her, and thus being hardly reflective of an acknowledgement of a woman’s right to make her choices and decisions. I am neither an expert, nor someone close to either the woman or the man, who can talk about what really happened and more importantly it isn’t even mine or anyone else’s business to know what was the exact nature of the relationship between the people concerned. All that I do know is that at a time when a young girl is battling for her life, a girl who was brutalized simply because a man felt that his ‘ego’ was far more important than both her life – and his, the last thing we should show tolerance for is the usual tirade that a highly patriarchal society almost always reserves for a victim of its own oppressive clutches. And for record, I do not believe men and women to be equal victims of patriarchy.
So here is something that I strongly feel and while it doesn’t address all that is wrong with patriarchy, I feel at a time like this, it is important to reiterate.
No matter what the Hindi or the Tamil or the English or the Bhojpuri or any other film industry tells us about the beauty of the unrequited love, if there is no respect for the other’s choice, it is simply not love. Here I am reminded of something I learnt long back in Psychology classes. One of the most crucial transitions in the life of a human being is the transition from the phase where one believes one is omnipotent or even the centre of the universe to one where the realization that there are others who feel or have their own needs like us begins to take shape. For a newly born infant, the world revolves around him or her. A baby experiences a need, lets out a cry and almost immediately gets what it wants. A mother who tends to the baby at that point of time is what psychoanalysts term an ‘objective object’, i.e., an object of desires that is perceived to have no desires of its own. The transition happens when this object of desire or need begins to be seen as a subjective object, i.e., an object that also has desires and needs of its own. This is the point where the sense of omnipotence and narcissism begins to end. Now if I were to re-examine the kind of ‘love’ that one sees in our mass media and in particular in movies like Devdas, or Raanjhaana, one is forced to ask if indeed it is ‘love’ or ‘self love’? Far from anything mature or gracious, it uncomfortably appears closer to the infant whose first love for the mother is indeed not ‘love’ for the mother but for the ‘objective object’ that tends to its every basic need, and thus in some ways is more a love of the self.
A man desires a woman and wants her to be with him irrespective of whether or not she wants to be with him. How is this love? How is it any different from wanting a particular kind of food or a car or a toy? After all we often hear people say “I love biryani”, “I love my playstation”!! If wanting a food item badly enough can make people term their want ‘love’, is it so difficult to understand that it is a similar desire or a want which also guides them to call their desire for a particular woman ‘love’! And so while an independent woman in a mutual relationship is still to be condemned for an act of consensual intimacy, a man can merely term his need or desire ‘love’ and be exonerated for even the most brutal of acts. I do not believe men and women to be equal victims of patriarchy. This is not to say that patriarchy cannot be oppressive for men with all its demands of overt and regular demonstrations of one’s masculinity, but men are not helpless pawns of patriarchy. Men do have a choice to accept and respect rather than resent a woman’s no.
A woman’s no means NO. No matter what the mainstream movies show you, a woman’s smile is not always indicative of her interest in you, it may just be sheer politeness. While there is no harm in expressing to someone what you might be feeling, in face of a ‘no’, ‘try try try till you succeed’, is not the mantra. Stalking, forcing, intimidating, blackmailing, teasing are not ‘wooing’ but actions that can get you booked for harassment. When Govinda sings “kab tak roothegi, cheekhegi, chillayegi, dil kehta hai ek din haseena maan jaayegi”, what he is demonstrating is not a way to a woman’s heart but a way to the prison gates, since any action that elicits displeasure, shouts and screams cannot by an stretch of imagination be deemed as indicative of love or concern.
An understanding of notions of choice and agency are absolutely essential if we wish to challenge such popular discourses where obsession masquerading as love is instantly glorified and accepted as a reasonable way of being. Unless we are talking of narcissism, a romantic relationship entails more than one person, and unlike familial relationships into which one is just born, it should be characterized by a choice for all involved, a choice to be in it or to walk out if it. People may grow apart, their objects of affection may change or there just maybe a late realization of incompatibility. Nobody can deny the pain or the hurt that is involved when a relationship breaks, or where a relationship that one may desire does not get formed, but one needs to realise that a relationship forced on someone is also painful and oppressive for that other person who does not choose to be in it and here one has to recognize one’s own agency in letting go and maybe feeling hurt for sometime, or forcefully holding on and causing pain to both.
All choices in life are not easy, but that does not take away from the fact that they still are choices and the very fact of them being choices makes us an agent of life and not a victim of it. And this is why I feel that though patriarchy is oppressive for both women as well as men, in case of women, deprived of choices, they are forced to be the victims of patriarchy, while men, with some of their choices intact end up being not victims but more often agents through which patriarchy unleashes its terror. Therefore to simply turn the discourse of how patriarchy oppresses women into one focussed on finding rationales absolving men from the responsibility for their own choices or failure to respect the choices of others can only serve the agenda of the same structures that continue to deny women the right to exercise choices or vilify those who actually do still manage to.
Shivani Nag is a Research Scholar at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. She is an activist with the All India Students’ Association (AISA).
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
must Congratulate Shivani for writing this brilliant piece and also for her interpretation of the events. When I look at JNU as a universe, I see it no different from from harsh realities that lie outside. JNU is a great case study of what happens when diverse unequal India meets at shangri-la. The inequalities persist. Bengalis remain rooted to their Bengaliness, Biharis to Bihariness, North-Easterners to North-Eastness. Poor students rarely afford to mix with rich urban English speaking middle class students. The equations of power prevail. And in a milieu like this, When a person enters with her/ his own context and family background added to JNU’s shortage of communication channels, frustration detonates. So as claimed by several people that JNU offers space , I consider it a farce (though for elite students and faculties it does). Making this incident to appear unique is not a way to understand the issue. It is very much part of the the larger malaise inside and outside us.
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Thank you for these insights, Shivani. I believe they are more valuable than the angry-feminist trope, that only aids the endless ‘othering’ of men. I read your piece in consonance with this one http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2013/08/reality-written-in-lightening-on.html on the movie Fruitvale Station, where a young Black man, Oscar, is shown as being wrong and wronged. He has a prison and dope history and regularly cheats on his girlfriend, and is yet a good dad and a good son. Much of the Black male sexual stereotype, of being oversexual subjects and their sexuality being intertwined in violent (animal?) instincts, is being mirrored in recent discussions on ‘what is wrong with the Indian male’. Family, race, ethnicity, town/city origins are called upon to determine this violent, egotistical man, who has featured in real and reel life.
Although, I’d push for interrogating ‘patriarchy’ not as institution with agents and victims, but as cosmology – an overarching perspectival system. Even the most ‘progressive’ among us, men and women alike, are carriers and mediators of it. Such is the nature of popular discourse around patriarchy, that we have learned to point out certain kinds of stock tropes of violence as manifestations of it, and often fail to trace out, the insidious mundane ways through which it functions, all the while changing and adapting to new modes of being. So patriarchy of south Delhi and Meerut and New York, looks different from each other. We are quickest to jump on the manifestations that emanate from Meerut, perhaps.
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while playing the positions taken in the article, I must say that while saying NO after going together a substansive distance the woman must consider the mental processes of her companion and administer the bitter pill in an acceptable way. while man may be crude in his demands, the woman may be cruder in certain situations.
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What exactly does a ‘crude’ NO to unwanted sexual attention or stalking mean? The freedom to enter or be in a relationship necessarily implies the freedom to exit that relationship. That applies to both men and women. Of course, the person ‘left behind’ or disengaged with, can appeal to the person ‘leaving’ or ‘not entering’ to reconsider their decision. But how can they expect the response to their appeal to be tailor made to them ? They can hope for that, but demanding it means controlling the other person’s agency. And controlling, or wanting to control, other people is not love, or friendship, or intimacy, it is simply an exercise in power.
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Kaushik K. Thank you for your appreciation. Regarding your take on JNU, I have a different understanding. When I say that the world does not begin and end at JNU, it is in the context of JNU not being a place located elsewhere… Students who come here, do not immediately shed their baggage at the North Gate. It is a process of sustained engagement and dialogue that makes many of the ‘unlearning’ possible. I have witnessed such transformations in me and several others, so rather than thinking it to be a place with communication barriers, I see it as a very enabling and a transformative space. When you say Bengali remains Bengali, Bihari remains Bihari, I am not sure what you are trying to say. Shedding of prejudices, stereotypes, patriarchal constructions , etc. does not always has to be accompanied by a sense of loss of identity. Being bengali can mean different thing to different people. I haven’t become a lesser of a Himachali after coming to JNU, but definitely I am a Himachali who is no longer cocooned in my own little world oblivious and insensitive to what happens outside. It just is no longer a basis for my interactions or relationships. It is in JNU where I have grown to love and be able to sing revolutionary bhojpuri songs and speak bits and pieces of different languages without a sense of their being alien. Poor students not mixing with rich is surely not the established pattern here, though there may and always will be exceptions. I could go on with numerous more elaborations, but then the point made in the debate would be lost. When I say it is not unique… it is in the sense that no place can cause magic transformations since they are also located in a larger context. And also in the sense that the way we move forward from here, cannot be institution specific because our vision and responsibility for a better and a gender just world also do not begin and end with JNU…
And I agree with Shuddhabrata, what does a non crude way mean? With popular perceptions such as ‘in a woman’s no is a woman’s yes’, the ‘no’ often enough has to be said much more emphatically to be taken as a ‘no’. And seriously… you approach a woman, she says no, but because she is polite and smiling you see hope and continue to pursue. She again explains but then that is not enough because you feel she can eventually be won over. So you stalk and harass and when finally when she says it ‘crudely’ then she is the villain for not understanding your feelings and being insensitive. And unrequited love is not something only men experience. It is not like all women get whom they like, but how many end up throwing acids, attacking with axes or killing the object of their desire. Also, how many men who walk out of marriages or relationships care enough to not be ‘crude’!!? (PS: when i use the term you, it is not to point at you, but more generally)
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First, i would like to thank Nag for writing such an excellent piece. However, it does not explain the reality surfaced in our society. JNUites are also the part of the society. I have observed the statement of JNU thinkers in way like its a kind of patriarchy, no means no. Yes, Definitely, no means no. But, this is not a one way process. When the relationship is in the process, its get yes from both sides and when it breaks it does from a single side. Its is very easy for the social scientist to term such kind of attempt as a patriarchy or male dominance over women. In my opinion, we can not undermine the psychological impacts on individual of such kind of breakup. In metro cities, it is very common to changing the relationship as with the jet speed. But, still those coming out from villages have a lot meaning for love and relationship. And, no doubt Akash come from a such a background. Therefore, socials scientist have right to write a piece of article and take the intellectual benefits but the reality of each and every crime can not be explained in only few terms like Patriarchy and NO means No. JNU guys mostly rely on the books and their activism only run through the circle of JNU and the metros where the camera’s focus are vibrant. Please,come out of this comfortable reasons and relate your words with the society.
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JNU studetns need lot of cultural training of their emotional make up…it is almost westernized campus, at least in terms of man-woman free interaction, but the participants are unaware of western mores..where friendship, even intimacies are not taken for granted for marriage or possessiveness of an individual..feudal conscious/unconscious samskaras prevail, sometimes among even most advance idea promoters in JNU…
JNU we all try to think of an island, from my student days long back, even then our rational mind will always tell us..it can not be and is not an island..it has all the ills of society, only somewhat suppressed and positive aspects little more highlighted…rightly so also..but realism can not be overlooked..
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very well written..a man should have courage to accept “NO’ from a woman…one should respect the choice and right of woman in order to become a real “man” and if the man really love her…bt its nt so fair and easy always…u can find numerous example that how sometimes good hearted boys (mostly frm small town) are cheated and made victim of so called love relation..they are subject to ridicule and mockery by so called liberated folk of woman and man… ….i don’t hv any evidence and data to prove this…bt being a product of JNU like elite democratic place I have experienced this…..i don’t support what happened in JNU..it is disgusting and painfullll….no man has right to harass or make life miserable of woman if they get no at any point of time in serious relation….bt believe me, small town boys are victimized at such places….
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& what about the good-hearted small town girls that are victimized?
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Thank you for the writing. I felt this is the important line “Nobody can deny the pain or the hurt that is involved when a relationship breaks, or where a relationship that one may desire does not get formed, but one needs to realise that a relationship forced on someone is also painful and oppressive for that other person who does not choose to be in it and here one has to recognize one’s own agency in letting go and maybe feeling hurt for sometime, or forcefully holding on and causing pain to both.”
To come out of this requires the ability to reason out. This is were many react in different ways. Some realise it, some dont, take their on lives and in doing so hurt the other. Some become the devadas kind etc etc. Many years of film theses revolves around this & will still keep doing so & many will keep watching it.
Basal Ganglia. Thats the core of our brain which is primitive and the intelligent cortex which gives reasoning is above that. The basal ganglia is the same as you will find in all animals. All emotions are there. Hows this is reasoned out with and how it reasons to you in reacting varies with each person.
The case in JNU is one, you can find many more from other news. How do we come out of it? We cannot. Articles like these can help, but then all should read…some are watching movies and makers of which dont have the slightest notion of what we are talking….
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Very well thought out post. A woman has the right to say “No” anytime she feels so and the man has to accept. That is the ideal situation. However because of the non ideal condition of our society she should have to consider time and place while saying no. Having said that I think ultimately it depends on the individuals involved. There can be no singular set of emotions that can be followed by all. As regards to what is shown in the movies, they have their own compulsions and it is up to every individual to decide whether the “bollywood” way is good or bad for him/her. Of course it would be wonderful if such crass behavior as well as “self love” is done away with in our movies.
Whatever may be the circumstances the actions of the boy are indefensible and should be condemned as well as punished. Unfortunately in this case he was not ‘manly’ enough to face the consequences of his actions (death is not a a consequence).
I have never been to the JNU so cannot comment on it’s social fabric but I feel that it cannot live in isolation from the society where from it derives it’s input.
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Well the response is to no one in particular but a general sense that seems to be emerging from comments here and on other social media sites where the article has been shared. I am a little concerned about this invocation of rural-urban divide and the ‘cultural shock’ … I wonder if it is just that. One, let us not forget that the girl was also from a similar context and was under considerable pressure herself. I am only trying to problematize something which is being sought to be simplified… If it was only a cultural gap, then are we saying these incidents only happen in institutes like JNU, which at least creates space for a pluralistic interaction and does not happen at all in other parts of the country?! And why is it not patriarchy?? What do women do, when men walk out on them… and it happens all the time? What is it that makes men think that they must get what they desire? Women also love and do not always get whom they want, how many incidents can we recall when a ‘rejected’ woman threw an acid at a man? This is not simply an intellectual exercise … nor patriarchy a merely social science category…
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Dear Shivani,
I totally agree with you. In this instance, both the young man and the young woman come from non-metropolitan backgrounds. The young woman is from Muzaffarnagar in Bihar, before JNU, she was studying in Gaya. I simply do not understand where this trope of so called non-elite alienation (that gets generated when a passionate young man from a mofussil background is stung by the disdain of an elite, cosmopolitan woman) – is coming from. This is clearly not the case here. And to present it as a ‘rural/small town’ versus ‘urban/metropolitan’ issue, rather than a straightforward question of narcissistic misogyny seems to me to evade the issue.
I am utterly at a loss to understand the kind of ‘qualifiers’ that people are prefixing to the question of a woman’s lack of consent. How and why and when does saying ‘no’, or withholding consent become an issue to be debated? What is this difference between ‘ideal’ conditions that Vivek (below) talks about – where ‘No, really means No’ and the ‘less than ideal'(WHICH MEANS ALL CONDITIONS) conditions where a ‘No need not mean No’. It can be debated if, and only if, we think that a woman’s body, her feelings, her emotional and sexual commitments are subject to a man’s whims and fancies, either before, during, or after the commencement of a relationship. That it is a man’s ‘right’ to force a woman to accept his feelings, and if she does not, to punish her for her reluctance. There are those who seem to be justifying the man’s action based on the assumption that he was already intimate with the woman (or even that he thought he was). I do not see how that changes anything. Even if, hypothetically, a woman sleeps with a man, or enters any degree of erotic intimacy with him, what gives the man the right to think that she will do so forever, and unconditionally. He can think this way only if he assumes that she is his property. This claiming of a woman, her body, her agency, as a man’s property has nothing whatsoever with being from an elite or non-elite background. There are thousands of young women and men from rural areas and small towns who come to big cities. They do not all act as pathologically paranoid, obsessive or possessive individuals. In fact the majority of them do not. If they did, we would have dead and scarred bodies of women everywhere. This kind of stalking, obsessive, violent behaviour is as prevalent on campuses in the United States, (where young, usually white, solitary, introverted, alienated men with guns in their backpacks have been known to wreck havoc because a women they fancied did not give them adequate attention) as it is anywhere else. You do not have to come from a non-metropolitan, non-english speaking background in North India to be a pathologically violent man.
Further, as Shivani says, given that unrequited love is not an experience that only men have access to, why do we not see at least as many bereft women throwing acid, hacking, stabbing and shooting at the men (or women) that they have made the objects of their desire? Why is it that the overwhelming majority of angry, murderous lovers are men who attack women, or other men, and then sometimes attack themselves?
The answer to this requires us to think a lot about a lot of things, but broad generalizations that either want to wish away, or justify this kind of violence in terms of cultural, class or ethnic origins, simply miss the point.
best,
Shuddha
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thumbs up to u shivani for giving a mature insight on d subject…..interplay of emotions..of love and rejection aside….I feel there’s another social factor at play here. wid kids playing wid virtual bullets in videogames…violence is becoming an often visited emotion , beginning from childhood. patriarchy might be a demon…but it was friendlier earlier… I think there’s a need to bring these aggressive young minds to peace by engaging them in something that unleashes and uses all thier pent up energy….finding that worthwhile constructive task in which the youth can be engaged, is where think tanks should target.
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Reblogged this on unfinished creations and commented:
A must read:
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Agree with the post completely.
What it boils down to is sense of entitlement that men feel in society, lack of agency celebrated as feminine quality, violence accepted a norm to ‘tame’ women.
200% rise in crime against women in Mumbai in 2013 for example, is not, contrary to what you may think, happening in public places by strangers, but are these so called ‘crimes of passion’.
I wrote a sarcastic post on this heinous ‘romantic’ tradition.
http://indianfeminist101.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/crime-of-passion-my-foot-up-your-passionate-ae/
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Some inhabitants of jnu assuredly unlearn many things and transform in a number of positive ways. However, one thing that the students of jnu all are expected to learn by way of a sort of social osmosis is just how special they are. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth but that is irrelevant – you are from jnu, ergo you must be an exemplar of progressive virtues. It is one thing to mouth progressive or leftist or feminist catchisms and arguments and quite another to fashion ones life on those principles but very few seem to comprehend this.
To be sure, this incident shows us the worm in the apple in rather a jarring way.
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Kudos to you for writing this. This tragic incident reminded me a similar incident that occurred in Lahore a few years ago when a young man shot a girl who had spurned his advances in front of her college before killing himself. The girl died on the spot as did he. As in this case what was most disturbing about the incident was peoples’ reaction to it. It was disgusting to hear comments like ‘All is fair in love and war’ and those likening the boy to Devdas. It is so sad how in our two countries some people have this tendency to romanticize unrequited love and sexual harassment. Indeed for many people, as portrayed in many films, love is a function of how long and how persistently you can harass the girl. It is so disturbing. I hope this girl gets better soon. Lots of prayers for her.
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Very well written and a vivid exploration of an issue that has not been dealt with till now. While a man should have the courage to accept a NO one should also realise that love in the true sense is beyond the realms of the physical. It could be worship for someone you admire and while forcing, stalking etc. is not justified by any means, one at the same time can also not outrightly condemn a male for pursuing his love interest in a constructive and appreciative way despite being handed a NO. The topic is macro in nature and cannot be generalised. A NO could be a result of reasons like not knowing the person well, being sceptical about certain things etc.
Well I know I am traversing out of the real issue you tried to convey. A job well done I must say.
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Really great comments by Shivani and Shuddha above. We need to combat the deeply entrenched ‘fear of women’ among us as Santosh Desai put it.
Caste and its associated norms of endogamy and female sexual purity are clearly a large part of the puzzle here. The Western world has its own patriarchal norms, but they dont include intense anxiety about female sexuality.
I also feel that the general environment of politics as ‘faltu ki baat’ in middle class households, prevents a lot of young and articulate women from entering politics and demanding a political class that is more proactive on the very serious issues that they face. We have political agents representing nearly every ‘jaat’ but none representing the very marginalized population of women.
On a more hopeful front, I feel that sports can be an important instrument for changing attitudes. I have myself seen the change in Indian women’s confidence and attitude towards themselves after they have run half and full marathons. We must promote more sporting activities among girls (especially running) and a Title IX like law should be considered for the sports leagues coming up in India.
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I simply must point out out, for the benefit of everyone that the western world is just as anxious about female sexuality as the so called eastern world and just as murderous in its reprisal. There are some strange ideas being expressed with respect to women’s emancipation. Here’s the rub though: men will blame shapeless society and amorphous patriarchy, rather than introspect all the while telling themselves that they are better than the one what done the deed.
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Zenedine, I dont think there was a widely practiced system of arranged marriage in Western history like we have in India even today, atleast not in the past 500 years. I have not come across many instances of women being killed by their father, mothers and brothers for marrying against their will. In colonial India, during partition, we had entire families telling their women to jump in wells to protect their ‘honour’, I have not come across a single such instance in WW1 and WW2 Europe. Is there an analog for sati in Western culture ?
And yes, participation in sport does help, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6039120a-e9bd-11e2-bf03-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2YuG8C213
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A response to some of the feedback and comments I have received –
while I do concede the cultural difference some students may experience on entering JNU, it is important to examine the impact of patriarchy, because even as the incident in JNU has shocked us, such incidents are not restricted to JNU alone and I do also feel that our response to it must also address a larger context. The culture of JNU is a shock not just for men from non urban backgrounds but in many ways, to almost all of us who enter this space. Despite having done most of my education in cities, JNU was a shock for me because i did not think it was possible for a girl to walk alone at night at 2 am, or walk in a boy’s hostel without being made to feel like an alien or be seen walking hand in hand with a boy without inviting judgmental glances. And did it turn all of us dysfunctional? The fact of JNU being a different kind of space is what makes it liberating despite some limitations that may always be there. With the recent surge in acid throwing incidents in all parts of the country for reasons that are similar to the ones in the JNU incident, it is important what sense we make of them . Yes we certainly do need gender sensitization and a regular psychiatric help in JNU and in all educational spaces, but we will still have to call spade a spade. The only cultural shock in JNU is not simply of free man-woman interaction, and yet the brutal manifestations have been specific in nature and this must be reflected upon. Also, some responses to this article, have largely focused on the psychological difficulties over and above patriarchy (Some have even suggested that my invocation of patriarchy in this context is uncalled for and merely an intellectual exercise). I really want to ask are relationships the only source of stress in our lives today. People are struggling with jobs, educational opportunities, a larger alienation resulting from migration and uprooting , but do they pick up axe and acid on all instances? How many acid throwing incidents on employers who did not hire you even when you most needed a job for survival and felt that you were the most deserving of all interviewees, or on bosses who denied a well earned promotion or on bosses who sacked transferred you for not complying with their corrupt policies or on teachers who discriminate or reject a hard work of 4years… no on most instances people don’t pick up axes or bottles of acid… but in case of women, it comes more easy… does it really have nothing to do with a sense of power over them. In all other instances cited, men are aware of their unfavourable position in the power hierarchy but in case of women, the power equation changes and what is it if not the awareness that ‘one can do it’, that leads one to selectively be resentful of a woman’s no, even when there might be more hurtful ‘no’s and rejections from some other quarters? We surely can explore cultural and other angles, but not by pretending that patriarchy is not manifested here!!
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Vikram, if I were to follow your logic there’d be no patriarchy anywhere except India. Why do you think the Americans are so crazy about abortion? Ever heard of slavery? The genocide of the native americans? You never came across any instances of european women jumping into wells? That’s too bad for the millions that were raped and murdered I say.
And sports help with what precisely?
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Zenedine, of course patriarchy is widespread in the human world. But we cannot simply claim that patriarchy was the same everywhere. The intersection of caste and patriarchy in ancient India made for a particularly oppressive regime for women.
“There was a close connection between caste and roles and relations within the household, especially those between men and women. … Apart from individual statements and the contexts in which they were made, it is necessary to identify broader social and family roles and structures valorized in texts such as Manu Smriti (300 BC). The strengthening of the patriarchal nature of the family and increasing subordination of women is reflected in various ways in Dharmashashtra works of this period. Women withdrew from public life, their access to knowledge was diminished, and they were increasingly dependent on male kinsmen. The preference for sons over daughters was accentuated and women were increasingly relegated to the domestic sphere. The increasing restrictions on their sexuality were reflected in the great emphasis on chastity. Pre-puberty marriages were one way of ensuring this. …By the time of Smritis and Puranas, women were relegated to a position of almost complete subordination and subservience, and were treated as items of property, on par with Shudras (the lowest caste).”
Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Education, 2008, page 419.
Are there any parallels to this level of subordination in the Roman or Byzantine era ?
And yes, I have heard of slavery. I am not claiming that the West was some paradise for everyone (or is even today), only that certain aspects of patriarchy had and have much greater intensity in India.
Regarding sports, I dont have room for a complete exposition here. But do read the link in the last comment of mine.
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Vikram, let me first say that I chose harsh words in my reply because I suspected that if I hadn’t you would try and silence me with a smug, pedantic reply. I am not as ignorant of ancient history as you may believe and throwing a quotation will not suffice. The dharmashastras, the manusmritis? Of course they reflect something peculiar to India but they do not encompass it. Just think about it: what do the dharmashastras have to do with what happened in the school of languages? I am sure you could find connections but you must also apply occam’s razor…you’ve not explicated these aspects of patriarchy that you say are particularly intense in India? i dare say an axe murder is as intense as things get. I read that link yours…susan rice, Christine lagarde, Hillary Clinton, condolezza rice, Sheryl Sandberg? Are you suggesting that these mass murderers, apologists for American fascism and soulless corporate shills are worthy role models? I dare say they are not.
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This is becoming an exercise in competitive self-flagellation. Yes, there are examples of extreme misogyny and hierarchy in the western classical period – the absolute subjugation of women in ancient Greece along with arranged marriages and their forcible carrying off in Sparta, etc. – and yes, that kind of extreme misogyny was forced onto the back foot in the 20th century. Indian feminism has proved itself eminently capable of tackling Indian patriarchy. The first step is in educating men on the proper rules of behaviour – “no” means “no” and stalking is not romantic. It is criminal harassment. It is a very difficult lesson to teach young men who live in a society where open mingling between the sexes is just not allowed. Places like JNU are sometimes the first place where such socialization happens (often to the great disapproval of family back home). Campuses should, as Shivani Nag states, be the sites of educating people in equitable gender relations that they can then carry over to their lives post-education.
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Whether it is a mere exercise in self-flagellation, time will tell. Lord knows that the self congratulatory, smug fools that pass for educated people in this country could do with some. I fail to see what ancient history, Indian or non-Indian, has got to do with this matter. Nor do i agree with the west is best nonsense. Its pure and simple misogyny which can be found wherever there are men. What really gets my goat is people using these extremely serious issues to show off their degrees.
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Fair enough Sharmistha. I hope the Indian feminist movement keeps growing from strength to strength.
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Good article Shivani and a great comment too. The evasiveness with which men deal with such incidents and the excuses they make for such behaviour is beyond ridiculous. However, JNU for me was a culture shock not so much for the gender equality but for level of caste politicisation. Our student representatives were chosen based on caste (someone from SC community got the maximum number of votes not because he was the best candidate but because all the SC guys in the class voted for him). To me, that was the culture shock at JNU, that educated people actually voted on caste lines rather than merit of the candidate.
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Re-posting here content of a comment earlier posted in a related debate following the TOI report :
We are repeatedly reminded of the ominous portends of men wanting more to possess women than respecting them as people with equal rights ..Albeit they often do so in violent, distorted and expressions of love,romance or whatever in disguise.
It also reminds us of a set of class caste gender driven elements in the social life that help mounting stress to pathological levels rather than alleviate.
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A brilliant piece.
It just cements the facts that we as whole excuse everything that a boy/man does with “boys will be boys”. Parents should take a lot of blame for this prevailing attitude. Scolding a boy “are you a girl to cry” or “show me your bangles” etc also makes it indelible in their growing minds that women are are inferior in all aspects and men are superior and so should always have the final ruling on anything a women does etc.
Though educating women plays a huge part in changing these notions, the sad fact is that these thoughts are also reflected by educated women without an actual thought of what it means.
Men should also be educated from an early age to even lend a ear to discuss these things as they grow in years. We see most of them becoming uncomfortable when any discussion about equality, rights, status of women comes up, leave alone the word “rape”.
Movies play a huge part in romanticising the notion of women saying “no” when they say yes and have to be “persued” by all means to be made to accept a man’s overture. Any woman who expresses her interest in a man is considered bold (read vamp) and so is the anthitheses of a “good” woman.
When there is a so called outrage when news like this comes-up, i am always uncomfortable with the type of slogans, headlines, thoughts, discussuons that come up. The morality is always a main factor in such discussions. Why should that even come-up? And why everything always related to “chastity” or “virginity” or “sexuality” of a woman?
Patriarchy – Why would men want to give up this? As long as they are not affected, it doesn’t matter. Their mothers, sistesr, girl children are essentially their chattel’s to be tolerated, used as a tool to bargain with, or simply hand-over to someone else to wash their hands off. Who cares what women think?
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It all boils down to mindsets and attitudes towards women and the sense of entitlement that men think they have over women. If incidents like these were confined to the larger cities, theories about inability to assimilate, the urban-rural divide and culture shock, etc. would have greater credence. But, the fact is, smaller towns and cities and villages aren’t very different in the ways they treat women. And, I think, the notions about unrequited love that we’re bandying about are a little ridiculous. Unrequited love has been a great literary tool and, in more cases than not, has a certain nobility attached to it than it’s been given credit for. It hasn’t been about harming the other often enough in Literature for it to become the accepted norm. Let’s not, for want of a better way to describe it, malign unrequited love. This is about our attitudes towards women and how little we respect them. Besides, it applies just as much to women, who, as has been pointed out often here, don’t react violently like men do. So, clearly, it’s about our inability and/or unwillingness to accept women as equals.
Even during the prolonged demonstrations after the rape of the young girl last December, I thought we were focusing on completely the wrong aspect of the problem and, therefore, weren’t likely to find any lasting solutions. We were all focused on how it was handled by the authorities, the police and the government. I think that was a very small part of the problem. We were so blinded with rage and so completely focused on blaming the police for the way it handled the situation that we overlooked how much we ourselves are a part of that equation and how much we contribute to it. It was the same during what I call the Anna Hazare circus – focusing too much on what’s wrong on the outside and overlooking the corruption and prejudices within ourselves.
A friend from the south used to laugh about the mama’s boy culture prevalent in the north but, while it’s true, especially in the way they are pampered and indulged at home, mores of male pre-eminence manifest themselves in other ways in the rest of the country. Nor has the problem anything to do with the myths and stereotypes about the urban-rural and educated-uneducated divide. I don’t know what the current figures are but, until recently, it wasn’t so much the Punjabs and Rajasthans and MPs but the well-heeled of south Delhi and south Bombay who topped the list of areas with highest instances of female foeticide.
We can continue look for someone or something to blame until Kingdom come and continue to affix little Band Aids on the visible cracks but unless we get to the crux of what is really wrong – i.e. our own attitudes and how we view women – the wound will continue to fester. And, for all the progress we claim to have made in the last couple of decades, I really believe that, as a society, we’ve actually regressed.
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Let me say again for the benefit of anyone confounded by this whole unrequited love thing…this scene from hell manifested in Jnu recently is not love. Rather it is a profound and visceral absence of love…the lack of a conscience or in plainspeak, an axe murder.
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Yes, lovely piece. Tough. No jargon, no faff, straight from the gut,
I work as an artistic director with a theatre ensemble based in Goa. A few months ago the ensemble, two young women actors, toured Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad with our new performance, ‘Woman/River’ that uses music, movement and a long poem that celebrates woman as it does the power of water to both give life and strike back…
I like the fact that both the actors consciously targeted performances in boy’s schools, saying it was not women who had to change but men, and that they were going to catch them young…
I have just emailed the link this very thoughtful essay to my nineteen year old son.
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