One of the
worrisome features of the recent Gujarat pogrom was the active
participation of women in various capacities. Groups of women, for
example, were reportedly involved in making wicks for petrol bombs. Many
were seen applying tilak on the foreheads of men going out to “battle”. In
one of the few cases, where a policeman was charged with conniving in the
violence and looting, a mob of 2000 women gathered outside the police
station and demanded his release. All of this points to the growth of
Hindu communalism among these women.
This trend is not new. There
has been a long history of attempts by the Sangh Parivar — the group of
Hindu rightwing organizations, of which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
is a part — to involve women in its activities. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) started its women’s wing way back in 1936.
As one
could expect in right wing religious movements, the basic model is
strongly patriarchal. The ideology of the parent organizations shows
through their approach to social inequalities and stifling cultural
regulations — by either mouthing empty slogans or by recommending that
they be dealt with at an individual level. Thus, for example, instead of
campaigning against dowry, members of these groups are encouraged to pool
resources to reduce the burden. Working outside the house is generally not
encouraged, both because that would bring them in contact with men other
than their husbands or fathers, and because the primary role of women is
purportedly to look after the home and the family.
Such a view then
naturally allows the postulate that people of other religions, in
particular Muslims, are a threat to “our traditions” and the integrity of
society. Women are, in this view, the custodians of the family, and
through that society, they are then called upon to defend it. Appealing to
women to uphold tradition and requiring them to maintain some notion of
purity is not limited to Hindu communalism, but also other fundamentalist
groups and organizations — Islamic, Sikh, etc. For example, religious
fundamentalist groups of all stripes have passed decrees about the kinds
of dresses that women are expected, or permitted, to
wear.
Tradition, however, is a very elastic and ill-defined concept
in any society. Given the dual nature of modernity, with its promises and
its perils, appeals to tradition are always selective. Even
fundamentalists of all hues, while advocating notions of morality or
appropriate behaviour that may well belong to the middle ages, use the
latest technologies — cell phones and slick videos, for example — to
spread their messages. Fundamentalist movements are not the only
examples of appeals to tradition to serve a political purpose. A more
progressive example is the use of tradition within the context of
anti-colonial freedom struggle in South Asia. Neloufer de Mel, in her
recent insightful book on gender and nationalism in Sri Lanka titled Women
and the Nation’s Narrative, points out that during such struggles,
“discourses of nationalism strategically forward a homogeneous, cohesive
identity that is oppositional to the imperial power and culture.
Indigenous languages, religions, customs and traditions become
foregrounded in this move and women, as embodiments of community, are made
to carry their ‘best’ values.”
Such an artificial construction of a
cohesive identity by appealing to a selective notion of tradition is
valuable only within a narrow context — when the appeal is made to fight
against a colonial power that, as part of entrenching itself, had
systematically undermined native culture and sense of self-worth. The
architect of the British education system in India, Thomas Macaulay,
wanted it to create “a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but
English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect.” What else
was redeeming about the appeal to tradition in the context of
anti-colonial struggle was the desire to rescue facets of culture and
history that would allow the colonized to claim some kind of parity with
the colonizers. This led to attempts at researching and rehabilitating
native traditions of science, technology and medicine. Since this happened
within a process of modernization, it led to these examples being used to
inspire the growth of the modern versions of these disciplines in the
colonial country. The desire for parity with the colonizer also motivated
movements for women’s emancipation and struggles for equal rights, thus
allowing the questioning of the more odious aspects of tradition.
Neloufer de Mel also describes a more recent instance where
appeals to the traditional role of women, namely as mothers, has been used
for progressive ends. In the 1980s, the widespread violence practiced by
militant groups like the Sinhala JVP, and the crackdown by the Sri Lankan
state on these groups and their sympathizers, led to a movement of women
for human rights, a negotiated settlement to the ethnic conflict and the
war. One prominent group in this movement was the Mothers and Daughters of
Lanka. Here the appeal to tradition allowed this group to deflect a fair
amount of criticism about their anti-state agenda and helped create a
broad platform that mothers and daughters in all parts of the country
could join.
In the current era of globalization with its fast
changes and uncertainties associated with economic transformations, there
is a temptation to hold on to certainties, namely tradition. However, it
is important that this appeal to tradition not be hijacked by regressive
socio-political movements to attack basic values such as equality of sexes
or protection of the human rights of minorities that have been won through
a long process of struggle. Such attempts can be countered in at least two
ways. One is to attack those traditions that violate basic human values
that are now accepted as part of decent society. The other, and just as
important, is to use traditional practices and cultures in creative ways
to challenge these very groups.
