www.sacw.net | 15 August 2005
"Our" Women, "Their" Women
Communal Ideology and Women
by Ram Puniyani
The Governments driven by communal ideology do come up
with moves, which many a times astound us beyond
belief. The BJP Government's decision to swap the
location of MLB Girls College and Hamidia College,
Bhopal (June 2005) is one such action, which betrays
the deeper communal thinking of the BJP Govt. of
Madhya Pradesh.
Government of Madhya Pradeh in one of its recent
orders swapped the MLB Girls College located in a
Muslim area with the co-ed Hamidia Arts and Commerce
College. The logic given by the Govt was that the
Hindu Girls were unsafe in Muslim area. The BJP
affiliates, RSS and Bajrang Dal, were more forthright
in giving the reasons for the unthinkable move of the
Government. Two members of Sangh Parivar claimed that
439 Hindu Girls in Bhopal have converted to Islam in
past 8years and 90% of these happened to be from MLB
College. As per them a confidential inquiry by CID has
revealed these statistics. An interesting and new
assignment for CID! One never knew CID is assigned
such tasks! It later came to be known that no such
inquiry exists and it was just a make believe
propaganda by RSS affiliates. It is not for nothing
that RSS also stands for Rumor Spreading Society!
As such MLB Girls College has a long and glorious
tradition, situated across the lake it has picturesque
location. Girls in general and Muslim girls in
particular feel at home here due to its ambience. It
has all the disciplines, science, home science, fine
arts and what have you. Its botanical garden is
unique. Hamidia College is having only arts and
commerce faculties. One is not sure how much time will
it take to set up these facilities in the new
location. In addition Hamidia College, located
kilometers away will deter the girls from Muslim
locality to travel that far. In effect it will mean a
deterrent for Muslim girl's higher education. To cap
it all Government never bothered to take the opinion
of the college authorities and students in such a
crucial move.
Any way, it does give the justification to the Govt.
to undertake this swapping, and it gives a sense of
righteousness to the Sangh activists who now will feel
that they have been ratified in their propagation that
Muslim boys and Muslims have been converting Hindu
girls in an effort to increase the population of
Muslims to eventually convert this Hindu nation in to
an Islamic state.
By now this propagation has been made the part of
social common sense. It is said that Muslim boys have
been given the assignment to lure or to intimidate the
Hindu girls into Islam. Surely, there is a decline in
the sex ratio amongst Hindus but the reasons for that
pertain more to dowry deaths, amniocentesis and the
killing of girl child in the womb and due to the poor
nutritional status of girls and mothers. Selective
conversion of Hindu girls into Islam may be occurring
more as a rarity than as a systematic phenomenon. But
it does serve as a powerful appeal to the communalists
that the "others" i.e. the Muslims are luring "our"
girls. This forms a powerful propaganda point for the
Hindu communal ideology. The ideology of communalism
plays around the game of numbers. It goes on to assert
that the population of minorities is on the rise due
to more wives and children of Muslims. And this will
result in this Hindu Rashtra being converted to
Islamic country. Communalism is the most blatant
patriarchal ideology, which puts forth the notions of
male centric world. It is based on the projection of
threat posed by the 'other'. One major threat
projection is about 'they' violating 'our' women. When
communalists construct the History, one of the points
taken to frightening proportions is that the Muslim
Kings did atrocities on the Hindu women. Here the
basic notion that during the era of Kingdoms women
were subject to control and violation of their being
by the powerful of the society irrespective of the
religion of the king or the feudal lord is
underplayed. The armies irrespective of their religion
resorted to rape and plunder of women, as exemplified
by various narrations of the exploits of the armies.
This continues today as well goes without saying.
One such narration, which describes Shivaji's army
bringing in the daughter in law of the Subhedar of
Kalyan, goes on to show the humane attitude of
Shivaji, who disapproves of the act of his army and
returns her to her family. While this incident shows
the plunder of women as the norm of the armies, the
communalists see this in a different light. Savarkar,
the pioneer of Hindu communalism, while commenting on
this incident criticizes Shivaji for this humane
policy on the ground that this could not bring in the
similar feeling amongst the cruel Muslims. Connecting
this up with what happened to women during the
partition tragedy, Savarkar's biographer, Dhananjay
Keer observes. " He (Savarkar) said that Pakistan's
inhuman and barbarous acts such as kidnapping and
raping Indian women would not be stopped unless
Pakistan was given tit for tat. Two years earlier
Savarkar had expressed similar opinion that the
liberal policy adopted by Shivaji in case of Muslim
women was wrong, as this cultured and humane treatment
could not evoke in those fanatics the same feelings
about Hindu women. They should have been given tit for
tat, he observed frankly, so that they might have
realized the horrors of those brutalities." Keer, Veer
Savarkar, Popular Prakashan, 1966, p.539).
Going a step further in the communal riots of 92-93 in
Mumbai and Surat and the Gujarat riots of 2002 Muslim
women were targeted in a horrific way. In all communal
ideologies women are regarded as the property of men
and as the vehicle of community honor. Rape is used as
the weapon to humiliate the 'other' community. The
rapists coming in Khaki shorts with saffron underwears
in Gujarat gave a message of sorts. The communalized
section of Hindu women helping 'their' men in
committing of this heinous crime spoke volumes as to
how the perversions of communal ideology can influence
the victims of communal ideology, the women
themselves. The other aspect, which has got linked up
with the communal ideology, is the dangerous fertility
of 'others' and "their" women. The selective targeting
of women's reproductive organs in the Gujarat carnage
stared in our face telling the tale of the success of
this propaganda which subsists as the fodder that
Muslims are increasing their population. The fact that
the relative rise in Muslim population has nothing to
do with religion, or that it has more do with the
poverty, illiteracy and social development does not
have any place in such thinking. In a sense when all
these acts are being perpetrated on the hapless
victims it is regarded as a service to a particular
nation as the case may be, in this case, the Hindu
Nation!
The present move to apparently 'protect' the Hindu
girls from the Muslims is the step further in the
Hindu nations gender project. It is the other side of
coin of gendered violence against "their" women. To
protect 'our' girls from 'them' is the logical next
step of what we have observed in the politics of
Hindutva and what we have seen in the case of Kausar
Bano and her likes who were raped and whose unborn
children were done to death right in front of their
eyes. The shifting of girls' college away from Muslim
locality reveals the deeper communal agenda, with BJP
govt. in power, it does intensify the communalization
process in the manners which are novel and horrific,
both at the same time.
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