Guest Post by KAVITA KRISHNAN
Even as the communal cauldron in UP is kept on the boil, there is news that the RSS has launched a campaign to tie Rakhis to lakhs of Hindu men, asking them to pledge to protect their sisters from Muslim men and “love jehad.” The VHP has been running a helpline urging Hindus to approach them “if your daughter is being harassed by Muslim boys.” And a khap panchayat in Muzaffarnagar has imposed a ban on mobile phones and jeans for girls, claiming that these result in ‘eve-teasing’.
Woven into the above events is an old, familiar theme – that of patriarchal restrictions packaged as ‘protection’. In the wake of the anti-rape movement that followed December 16 2012, the streets of Delhi and many other parts of India had resounded with the voices of women declaring ‘Don’t take away our freedoms in the name of ‘protection’ – protect our right to fearless, fullest freedom instead’. Those women had raised their voice demanding freedom from sexual violence – and also freedom from rape culture that advices women to dress decently to avoid rape; and freedom from the khap panchayats, freedom even from the restrictions imposed by one’s own fathers and brothers.
The RSS leader S Gurumurthy has just made it very clear what he and his ideology think of such women. He has called them ‘shameless’, as opposed to the ‘shy’ women who, according to him, represent Indian culture. And in a sense, he is right. Those women on the streets were indeed seeking to be ‘shame-less’: they wanted to be free of the special burden of shame, of ‘sharam-haya’, that women are expected to bear in our society. They were declaring that there is no shame in seeking pleasure, risk, adventure, freedom; that there is no shame even in being the victim of rape; and that in fact, shame should be allocated to those who are violent to women and deny women equality.
We can’t comfort ourselves with the notion that the RSS merely delivers obsolete lectures advising women to be ‘shy rather than shameless.’ The RSS strives to discipline wayward and shameless women. Any random internet search with the keywords ‘Bajrang Dal’, ‘ABVP’, and ‘Valentine’s Day’ will come up with news items, year after year, where these outfits ritually harass and humiliate lovers on Valentine’s Day, often getting them to forcibly tie the ‘Rakhi’ to declare each other as brother and sister. Babu Bajrangi, the RSS leader from Gujarat who was convicted for communal violence at Naroda Patiya in 2002, boasts of having abducted thousands of young women from his Kadwa Patel caste, who eloped to marry Muslim or Christian men or men from other castes. Describing daughters as ‘a live bomb that can erupt at any time’, Bajrangi said “Come, and let’s unite to save bombs… (Girls) have to marry within our own community. (When they) fall in love …run off and get married…(we) bring them back and convince them that they are ruining their future. They stay with me for a while and then return to their parents.” (Frontline, Dec 16-29 2006). It is important to remember that the same Bajrangi, ardent guardian of daughters, boasted on tape of having slit a pregnant Muslim woman’s belly open in 2002 (ek woh pregnant thi, usko to humne chir diya, …they shouldn’t even be allowed to breed … Whoever they are, women, children, whoever… Nothing to be done with them but cut them down) (‘After Killing Them, I Felt Like Maharana Pratap’, Transcript of Babu Bajrangi tape, Tehelka, September 1, 2007)
In the many discussions with hundreds of young women and men during that movement, many young men, too, spoke of what it means to love and care for their sisters; and how that love is distinct from the wielding of power over their sisters. The strands of love and power, both, are interwoven in the Rakhi or Rakshabandhan. The ‘bandhan’ symbolizes the affectionate bond between sister and brother. But its symbolism is also replete with the patriarchal power conferred on brothers to be their sisters’ keepers and guardians. ‘Bandhan’ also conveys the sense of restrictive bindings; and the patriarchal Indian family expects brothers to keep sisters in a firm ‘bandhan’ in the name of their ‘raksha’ (protection). Brothers are expected to keep their sisters under surveillance, and there is tremendous social sanction for their role in preventing the sister from pursuing love affairs with the man from the ‘wrong’ caste or community. Rakhi, then, has all the elements available ready-to-hand, suitable for the communal campaign of the RSS that calls on Hindu men to protect Hindu women from Muslim men.
The common sense understanding of ‘rape’ also lends itself easily to the RSS narrative. ‘Rape’, after all, is all too often construed as ‘sex with the forbidden woman’ rather than a violation of women’s autonomy and bodily integrity. The recent research by Rukmini S of The Hindu, on rape trials in Delhi, found that some 40% of rape charges were filed by parents of girls who had eloped consensually with a boy, very often from another caste or community. In these instances, ironically, the girl experienced violence – abduction, confinement, beatings – at the hands of her own family, rather than at the hands of the alleged ‘rapist’. And the violence may be at the hands of the State too. Policemen routinely abet the family’s violence towards such women. And in one instance studied by Pratiksha Baxi in her recent book Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India, a woman who had eloped to marry by choice, was jailed for abetting her own rape and abduction.
Not only in the Delhi and its neighbouring regions and states, but in states all across India, such violence in the custody of the family often leads to murder – of the daughter as well as of her lover/husband. Such murders also enjoy social sanction – to the extent that they are termed ‘honour’ killings.
In most Indian cultures, across castes and communities, the young adult woman is viewed as a ward, an asset (paraya dhan – wealth that belongs to another) kept in trust for a future owner, that must be handed over sexually un-violated and ‘innocent’ to her husband. Therefore the daughter/sister is loved, adored, in her natal family, but hedged about by anxiety about her chastity, innocence, and sexual purity. And the Rakshabandhan, then, has the sister willingly, lovingly, making her brother the custodian of her chastity, and the avenger of its loss. The loss of ‘chastity’ – whether the sexual encounter is consensual or not – is equated with rape and the loss of ‘honour’. Uma Chakravarti (Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens, 2003, pp 35-36) remarks how “obsessive concern with policing female sexuality” is a stubborn feature across caste groups, with women’s free choice of partners being widely seen as “disruptive of the whole social order.” (Chakravarti, pp152-53)
So, here we have a scenario where a woman’s choice to love a man from another caste or religion is routinely branded as rape, receiving the horror and moral outrage evoked by rape. But there is very little outrage, and great social and political tolerance for the violence meted out to women – by their parents, brothers, community leaders and khap panchayats – who exercise their choice in matters of sex, love, and marriage. In Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and the whole of Western UP, this cultural field is a fertile one for the RSS and BJP to sow the seeds of communal violence. And they have done so, systematically and blatantly. The most well-recorded instance of this is Amit Shah’s speech at Bijnor during the Lok Sabha polls, where he referred to Muslims as “a community that violates the honour of sisters and daughters.” (For a video link to the speech clip and a detailed analysis of it, see ‘His Master’s Voice – Amit Shah’s speeches in UP belie the promise of a new BJP’ by Mukul Kesavan, (Telegraph, April 10, 2014)
As it is, the prevailing khap-style patriarchy makes it difficult for a woman of any community, to admit to a sexual relationship with a man of another community. In a substantial number of cases, parents and communities coerce women into renouncing these relationships, and even into accepting the parental narrative of rape. With the ongoing toxic communal campaign added to this mix, has it remained possible for a Hindu woman to admit to love, elopement, marriage, or pregnancy with a Muslim man? Or have the narratives of abduction, rape and forced conversion swallowed up the women’s own experience and narrative? The experience of marriage proving to be a pretext for sexual exploitation is a familiar one; the case in Rajasthan in which BJP Cabinet Minister Nihalchand Meghwal is among the accused, is after all a similar one. But in the communally charged climate of Western UP, if the rapist, or the husband who colludes in rape, happens to be Muslim while the wife is of Hindu origin, has it remained possible for a woman to speak of such an experience without her voice being overtaken by communal narratives?
How to restore women’s own experience – of rape as violated autonomy and dignity, as well as of violence meted out by family and community to break a self-choice marriage – to the narrative of gender violence, displacing the political narratives that threaten to overwhelm it and render it invisible? How to reclaim the brother-sister bond, and rescue it from the patriarchal and now increasingly communal culture in which it is framed? Perhaps a beginning can be made if brothers and sisters tie the ‘Rakhi’ to each other, pledging to defend each other’s freedoms and choices.
Kavita Krishnan is secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
RSS want political power permanently. They want to create a psych in the Indian female that “muslim men” are raping/harassing indian women, particularly Hindu female for converting them in to Islam. Are Indian people that much fools. This type of Politics never safe to our country, but pity is that RSS is knowingly spreading poison to sustain their power on innocent citizen..
RSS ideology in based on Nazi Germans and following Israel on the ground. Go eel is their real God. Let majority Hindus realise. Who Caste system in India ? Who maintained “untouchability for for 1000 of years in India? Why Ekalavy donated his thumb to Dr on a, the so called Aryan/Brahman?
…..?…………..?
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I have always had ambivalent feelings towards Rakhi. I do accept my sisters rakhi but I have always felt that there is a thinly veiled anti-Muslim text behind it. This article brings that anti-Muslim thing into the open.Unfortunately, this upper caste North Indian Hindu hegemonism has influenced many Sikhs too who have started going along with Rakhi bandan ceremonies although the ones who are more conscious of their historical heritage constantly oppose this. Can any reader comment if this Rakhi bandan things is practiced among South Indians Hindus and Dalits?
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Dear Pritham, Rakhi was never celebrated here in the South. But with advertisements, Bollywood movies and other mainstream narratives seeking to define THE Indian culture, there is a superficial festivity in the air… But it’s not been serious adopted or practiced by families yet.
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Thanks Kaju for this confirmation that it is really not a South Indian festival. Its roots are in the patriarchal North India/Rajputana culture of warrior brothers protecting sisters from ‘marauding’ Muslims. RSS types obviously love it and would want to give it as big a push as possible to make it more widespread. Its reach to some non-Hindu communities ( e.g. many Sikhs doing it against the teachings of their gurus against such ritualism) and its spread to South India speaks for the success politically of the RSS walas and economically of the business types who make profit out of all the sales.
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Pritam, the Rakhi tradition predates modernist reactions. What cultural/ecclesiastical agency do you think prevailed in earlier medieval times? Somehow, one recalls work by Windy O’Flaherty: Women, androgynes and other mythical beasts (she deals with multiple myths). Germane to certain gendered conceptions and constructions,
similar salafi (and even other) derivations abound (see also Gyan Pandey, The Construction of Communalism’) from mentalites, and is hardly a matter of judging morality (which one is ‘better)’, as one could easily be doing. Its not for us to inscribe 21st c. modernity on the past/s, but it IS difficult to live through the ‘gross’ survivals of cultural formulation. Another useful reference would be a certain paper by Niv Menon (academia.edu)
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Rakhi and “anti-Muslim”? I remember one of the first stories I was told about it was of a queen sending a Rakhi to Humaun to request protection against a aggressive Hindu king.
As they say, it all looks yellow to a jaundiced eye. It is never a good idea to try to fit facts to a conclusion, rather than the other way around.
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You also seem to forget that for all your imputation of a conspiracy of a pan-national level to it, RSS is less than a century old., while the story of the Rakhi sent by Karnavati to Humaun actually comes from a seventeenth century Rajasthani source, quite contrary to your claim that it was rooted in some kind of “anti-Muslim” propaganda in Rajasthan. Given that the story is unlikely to be historical in all its details, it seems that any propaganda was in a direction opposite to what you believe it to be.
Sometimes pre-conceived notions do not agree with facts. It seems to me that an alarming fraction of Kafila commenters—when faced with this situation— seem take the route then of discarding the facts rather than the notions.
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While the situation described is perfectly true, it would’ve been better if the article hadn’t been politicised to make it seem like only the Hindu groups do this. This inadvertent leftist tendency to shelter Muslim atrocities while denouncing Hindu ones has lead to consolidation of Hindu forces ( among them , many are extremely patriarchal as described) against the brazenly biased leftists. Now the consequences of this bias are two-fold. One, the Left loses it’s influence amongst the Hindus who do not want to be shamed by people who are openly biased and hence the hindu fold grows progressively backward . Second, the Muslim community which is sheltered from all liberal influence or criticism remains backward and communal( not in the Indian sense) , it prevents them from integrating into the mainstream and enriching our nation. Surprising how a lil bias can do all that , no?
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Patriarchy is universal. I don’t think leftists shield Muslims at all…its just that the Parivar uses inter community love for its hate politics in much bigger way than Muslim conservatives. Of course not because they are any less of believers in controlling women’s sexuality but it’s just that they are not even remotely as influential as the Parivar. I think the same logic applies to the allegation that the left is not as hard on Muslim communalists.
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I think you are grossly underestimating the influence of Muslim hardliners, and greatly overestimating the influence of the Sangh. For all its bluster, it does not seem the Sangh has ever managed to push through a single bit of silly legislation through the Parliament (notwithstanding their somewhat ludicrous attempts to remove lines from middle school history books).
On the other hand, the Muslim hardliners were able to overrule even influential Muslim liberals like Arif Mohammad Khan, and essentially got the government to push through a legislation diluting the Right to Equality for Muslim women.
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Was there a greater “love jehadi” than Bhagwan Shri Krishna?
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“Rakhi, then, has all the elements available ready-to-hand, suitable for the communal campaign of the RSS that calls on Hindu men to protect Hindu women from Muslim men” Agree with a lot of the sentiment expressed in the piece but I do need to point out that rites and rituals can be infused with whatever symbolism you want. The festival is not about to go away and it is fun to meet up with family members in otherwise busy lives. If Rakhi is used oppressively, well, turn it around and use it as an occasion for happier evocations – of families where all members look out for one another and come together to celebrate good times. Extend this to communities. Why deliberately lead a life devoid of joy and colour when all one has to do is use the occasion to broadcast a different message, personal and political?
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“Perhaps a beginning can be made if brothers and sisters tie the ‘Rakhi’ to each other, pledging to defend each other’s freedoms and choices.”
How does that take away the joy and colour? I’m a bit confused as to what you think is being said against the festival itself. I thought the whole point of the article was, as you said, that its rituals were being used in the name of oppression and needed to be taken back.
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Sharmistha, perhaps you missed my last paragraph? I have not in fact spoken of giving up the festival or even the ritual but of infusing new meaning in it – taking Rakhi out of the patriarchal frame while retaining the idea of celebrating a bond of affection and caring between siblings.
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While it is true that the origins of the ‘Rakhi’ are protection centric… that was a product of the times in which the custom (today’s festival) took shape. Also true are most of the things written by the author. At least I agree with her. Except that the festival need not be trashed as it has a fairly secular connotation and for the enlightened, is simply about sibling love. Just because it is being twisted by people with vested interests….is no reason to trash it. Also, the tendency to treat women as objects in which is vested the honour of the family…community….caste….religion… is not just limited to the Hindu religion. Nevertheless a hard hitting piece well written.
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“…and also freedom from rape culture that advices women to dress decently to avoid rape”
Even western countries betray similar patriarchal tendencies by advising their female travelers to dress conservatively in India!
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With the rate at which the Indian society is evolving and integrating with world in this age of the internet such festivals have lost some of their relevance with the evolving of womens liberation etc. A modern emanciated woman (who maybe role models) certainly would realise in about 20 years time that she does not need a brothers protection.
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The love jehad paranoia is so fantastic, it is beyond farcical. Because its sevaks can’t get girlfriends, the India’s largest NGO has started a social movement against the impossibly glamorous villain it calls the love jehadi.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the author of these RSS scripts turned out to be a master satirist with a twisted sense of humour. The twist being of course that the fear of love jehad in its many guises is what fires tragedy in places like Dakshina Kannada and Muzaffarnagar, not to mention Delhi.
In a well-functioning and diverse intellectual ecology, I suppose we need this analysis of rakshabandhan. But I also wonder if perhaps a well-aimed spoof might not be enough to show up the love jehad horror show as the shoddy production that it is?
Incidentally, if we need further proof of “inspiration”, it may be worth checking out Levaha, the far-right Israeli group that similarly tries to police Jewish women’s relationships with non-Jews, especially Arabs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehava
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Even the British and Sikhs suffering from the same “paranoia”.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/punjab/amritsar/love-jihad-exploitation-of-uk-sikh-girls-by-pak-youths-worries-akal-takht/article1-1177246.aspx
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As usual this comment will not be published but if it do then searc ythis on net
Maryam Yusuf a bahraini muslim/Arabic Muslim girl who married a hindu in bangalore and converted to hindu renamed herself as Maya at Arya samaj was declared Kafir by the Sultanate of Bahrain and her passport was seized by that fanatic islamic country the only case perhaps in world where marrying a boy of different religion results in seizure of passport their was very little reporting on this matter and no big panel debates on this sissue in india only small articles by TOI,IBN and NDTV
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They’d seize her passport even if she had married an Indian Muslim guy. Since you do not know, they are only allowed to marry Gulf Arabs preferably from their own country
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Pla read more about group called AlUmmah in kerala who kills Hindu boy who marry or love a muslim girl infact they were the first to start this moral policing in india as early as 1990s well if you go into early times it was Shahjehan in 1600s who when saw that many muslim girls marrying hindu boys and converting to hinduism in kashmir punjab and gujarat ordered a farman that either the husband convert to islam or we will take muslim girls away.
Dont live in a foolish paradise search on google books about farman of shahjehan asking hindu boys to return muslim girls or convert to islam.
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So what? This doesn’t change a thing about the RSS and it’s hate mongering. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
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Using isolated random incidents to weave a non-existent, even “inverted” thread is quite unfortunate.
Whatever the origins of rakhi might have been, like many of our enduring social traditions, it has changes with the times.
It might have escaped the left liberal brigade what Tagore did with rakhi – he used it as a totem of unity between Hindus and Muslims while protesting against the partition of Bengal, in 1905. Ironically at the time, most Muslims supported the partition and looked a the anti-partition movement as “Hindu conspiracy”.
Today, rakhi has a somewhat similar, if lower status in our social milieu as Diwali, holi, Durga puja and X-mas. Festivals with religious origins but celebrated as mass civic celebrations on secular lines. One has to see the business in X-mas trees to see te point every year in December.
The patriarchal aspects of Rakhi are barely visible anymore – it is now an occasion for family reunions in a large measure. The other notable feature of rakhi is it’s use as a “weapon” by teenagers to fob off “interested” boys. Again, visible across school campuses all per India – if anything it’s symptomatic of increased sexual confidence of india girls, and boys.
To pick up a couple of isolated incidents by te loony fringe and ignore the wider societal impulses only show that the author is looking for evidence on a conclusion already reached, rather than testing a hypothesis.
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I think these saffron terrorists are highly inspired by the discouragement muslim women receive against marrying outside community (& if they marry, they are encouraged to convert the man to islam).
It’s long time we realize that fanatics of both sides are brothers in arms.
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