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Feminism in India
Women empowerment has become a rallying call for Hindutva to vilify the Muslim Other. Hindu nationalist descriptions of Muslim men in India as being ‘hyper-sexualised’ and ‘hyper-masculine’ threats to Hindu women is a powerful illustration of such discourses (Kinnval 2019). The participation of women under Hindutva is widespread, leading to several prominent women leaders being celebrated by the larger Hindu population. However, this empowerment can only be sought out through a specific path. Leaders like Rajmata Vijarajaye Scindia, Sadhvi Rithambra and Uma Bharti were able to gain acceptance and devotion in the Sangh Parivar as they were voluntarily celibate women who dressed modestly and gave up earthly pleasures to pursue the immaterial, giving them a status elevated even to the one occupied by male pracharaks of the RSS following the same ideals (Basu 1993). These women renounced their female sexuality, which is seen as both dangerous and powerful within Hinduism, and this gave them immense respect in Hindu society. Simultaneously, it freed them from social restraints like forced marriages, an exile for widows (the rajmata was a widow) and subordination to patriarchal family members.
This article argues that women seized this choice of showcasing strength to achieve social mobility and a sense of belonging in an otherwise male-dominated society. This choice enabled them to live on their terms and gave them the authority to chide the Hindu male to become more masculine against the Muslim Other. Women even utilised the violent martial skills taught at the Shakas (volunteer camps) in riots and demonstrations throughout 1992-2002, including in Gujarat (2002), and more significantly in the Babri riots (1992) to showcase their agency in fighting the enemy physically (Kovacs, 2004). Women were no longer just seen as the victims of violence in various riots like the Gujarat riots of 2002 but came to be perpetrators of the same. This could not be the result of mere coercion by male members but was a conscious choice by the women to bolster their reputation and increase their standing in society. The transition of woman’s identity from the helpless and dependent Sita to the powerful and independent Durga shows an intersection where ideas of female agency and Hindutva ideology melted together to form a contemporary depiction of Hindu women while carefully avoiding any affront to the Hindu family structure, which is the basic unit of Hindu society according to Hindutva.
‘A Hindu woman is an eternal mother, a symbol of love, sacrifice, dedication, fearlessness, sanctity and devotion. The tender-hearted woman becomes bold and aggressive if time demands’ (Kovacs, 2004). This depiction of the ideal Hindu woman soon fell into disjuncture in the 1980s with enthusiasm felt by many women regarding the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, and as a result, the Durga Vahini was created. It sought to make women bold and aggressive as the norm rather than the exception. The organisation’s primary role model was the warrior goddess Durga who had slain the demon Mahisa, whom even the gods had failed to defeat. She was upheld as an example of independent women activism, not supporting other males as earlier depictions of Bharat Mata had sought to fulfil.
The most “disturbing” and powerful effect of Hindutva on women has been the widespread participation of women in riots and violent demonstrations. Sadhvi Rithambra is notorious for her speeches bordering on the profane that exalt Hindu men to fight Muslims and kill them. BJP MP Pragya Thakur goes one step further, with there being allegations that she was one of the principal conspirators in the Malegaon bomb blast resulting in several deaths and injuries to the minority community. During the outbreak of the Gujarat riots in 2002, an aged Muslim tailor with a small business in Ahmedabad was completely aghast that Hindu women in his locality burnt down his shop with the use of gas cylinders from their kitchen (Sen, 2021). Women have been part of various Hindutva protests in India, but their role was limited to logistics and sometimes shielding male members from arrest by the police. From 1991 onwards, a section of these women started engaging in militant posturing towards Muslim localities, physical violence against the imagined enemy, and even egging on their male brethren to violate Muslim women as a symbol of their commitment to the cause (Banerjee, 2006).
Hindu women have taken advantage of feminist and nationalistic tropes to carve out an “empowered” space for themselves within the larger consensus of Hindutva society, thereby directly accessing social mobility in the form of hero worship. This position is mutually advantageous since it enables Hindutva to attack the Muslim Other and claim to further the cause of liberal democracy, and the women have found one of the few paths available to them for improving their lives and stature in a patriarchal society. It has been a disturbing way for breaking a vicious cycle, but yet it is not something that could’ve been unforeseen.
References
- Akanksha Mehta (2015) The aesthetics of “everyday” violence: narratives of violence and Hindu right-wing women, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 8:3, 416-438, DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2015.1091656
- Amrita Basu (1993) Feminism inverted: The real women and gendered imagery of Hindu nationalism, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 25:4, 25-37, DOI: 10.1080/14672715.1993.10416136
- Banerjee, S. (2006). Armed masculinity, Hindu nationalism and female political participation in India. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 8(1), 62– 83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740500415482
- Catarina Kinnvall (2019) Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32:3, 283-302, DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2019.1588851
- Kovacs, A. (2004). You don’t understand, we are at war! Refashioning Durga in the service of Hindu nationalism. Contemporary South Asia, 13(4), 373– 388. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584930500070597
- Simoni, S. (2018). Queens of narco-trafficking: breaking gender hierarchy in Colombia. International Affairs, 94(6), 1257–1267. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiy198
- Sitapati, V. (2020). Jugalbandi: the BJP before Modi. Penguin Random House India.
- Utas, M. (2005). Victimcy, Girlfriending, Soldiering: Tactic Agency in a Young Woman’s Social Navigation of the Liberian War Zone. Anthropological Quarterly, 78(2), 403–430. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2005.0032
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