Sanskriti
a bimonthly publication of
progressive south asian politics

Volume 6: Number 1                    December 25, 1995

Look Ma! The Sangh Giroh's gone progressive!
(and Newt's a Revolutionary!)

Lately, on and off, I have been hearing a strange claim from members and apologists of the sangh giroh. The argument that the BJP and other family members of the giroh have a progressive position on gender and women s rights because they have been strong proponents of a Uniform Civil Code is a specious one. My purpose here is to rather briefly sketch the history of UCC, a) to (1) indicate that legal reform in Hindu community in India met with serious opposition from the ranks of Hindus and the Muslim opposition to UCC should be seen in that light; b) to unmask the real sangh giroh behind apparent progressive posturing by showing that although they may have talked the talk , they never walked the walk when they were in power in U.P., M.P., Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. In fact, as we shall see, often their talk is clearly sexist and anti-women s rights.

Regardless of its anomalies and constraints, in the sphere of property, marriage, etc., the Hindu Code Bill nevertheless granted some semblance of equal rights to Hindu women. In contrast, to the disadvantage of Muslim women in India, there has been no commensurate reform in Muslim personal law regarding families. As far as the Directive Principles of State Policy are concerned, the state is clearly expected to endeavor toward a uniform civil code for Indian citizens. The reason that (after the Law Minister Ambedkar s resignation in protest of abandoning the Hindu Code Bill in 1951) Nehru was able to push through the Hindu Code Bill (although after suffering a division in five parts) in 1956 was his tremendously popular mandate in 1952 elections. As sangh girohis never fail to broadcast, large sections of Muslims in Independent India were opposed to a common civil code around that time. They, however, conveniently forget to inform us that a large section of Hindus, too, were vehemently opposed to reforming and codifying Hindu laws who, as just one example, convened in Jaipur during December 16-18, 1948, for the All-India Anti-Hindu-Code Convention. The Nehru government was able to use a certain electoral leeway to reform Hindu law and (with hindsight, sadly) used the same freedom to allow the preservation of personal laws claiming religious authority. Equality before law to all citizens of Independent India was thus put on hold. Even so, because he felt that in the immediate aftermath of Partition the minorities (especially Muslims) needed special treatment and a sense of security he did not insist and push for common civil laws which they opposed, Nehru s heart was, so to speak, in the right place. This clearly was not the case with Rajiv Gandhi during the Shah Bano case and this clearly is not the case with BJP and the sangh giroh today.

While I've become convinced of the futility of engaging in serious debate with the Hindutva lobby, I nevertheless feel a certain responsibility to others who might find documented pronouncements from the Hindutva camp useful. For such interested parties, I shall present below (factual) documented examples of VHP-BJP uvach that'll show the two-faced nature of the sangh giroh's love affair with the demand for uniform civil code.

During 1992-93 when the BJP was the governing party in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, its Governments in UP and MP were busy rewriting textbooks prescribed in schools run by the respective states. In 1993 the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the National Steering Committee for Evaluation of Text-books produced a study evaluating a bunch of these rewritten textbooks. This study concluded that the "main purpose which these books would serve is to gradually transform [the students] into bigoted morons, in the garb of instilling in them patriotism [sic] (Quoted in S.K. Pande "Saffron History in Frontline, April 9, 1993, pp. 60 - 63) but, for the purposes of this article, I'm going to focus exclusively on the gender issue. In the chapter on "social change and development" in their textbook (produced for UP State Government-run secondary schools in 1992, during the BJP rule in the state) N.R. Sharma and A.K. Tomar discuss women's liberation thus:

"There is a movement of women's lib. Until recently women lived within the four walls of the house and united the family. Now, when women go out for work, they leave their families behind. The freedom of women creates a sort of tension in the families and many families break because of this sense of freedom and independence. Sometimes members of both sexes indulge in crimes and in immoral acts and the situation worsens." (Ibid.)

The implication couldn't be clearer: the proper place of women is the home where, beholden economically to the male members of the family, they should be confined. This theme of controlling the female is found in many religious worldviews of patriarchal societies. Among the varied and several Hindu understandings of the feminine principle one dubs it intermittently polluted/polluting and permanently dangerous to the masculine principle. In this line of thought, woman is rather powerful (though her power is understood as primarily "destructive") and the man, for the sake of familial and societal order, must keep a rein on her (destructive) power. For another source of this denial of independence to women, let's look at the seemingly contradictory text of Manu. Here are two quotes from Manu Smriti:

"Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth, her sons protect her in old age -- a woman does not deserve independence."

"Women destined to bear children, enjoying great good fortune, deserving of worship, the resplendent lights of homes on the one hand and divinities of good luck who reside in the houses on the other -- between these there is no difference whatsoever." (Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume I, Second Edition, Ed. Ainslie T. Embree, Penguin Books, 1988, pp. 228 - 229 [From Manu Smriti, 3.55-57; 9.3-7, 11, 26])

While keeping in mind Messrs Sharma and Tomar's lucid adumbration of the cause (singular) of familial breakup in India, I'd like to indicate the kinship such ideas have with some others who have claimed to be the glorious Aryans. Here s Goebbels, for example:

"A woman has the task of being beautiful and bringing children into the world, and this is by no means as coarse and old-fashioned as one might think. The female bird preens herself for her mate and hatches her eggs for him. (S.K. Pande, Bias against women. )

Here's Goebbels' boss, Hitler, himself:

"A woman has her battlefield too; with each child that she brings into the world for the nation, she is fighting her fight on behalf of the nation."(Ibid.)

Judge for yourself how seamlessly this discourse (from Manu to the Nazis and finally to our contemporary Sharma-ji and Tomar-ji) connects "women," "dependence," "familial cohesion," "social cohesion" and "the nation." If you are still unsure about the family-values credentials of our favourite BJP "educators," sample the spin they put on the history of progressive legislation on women in India:

"Legislation which has given rights to women is also responsible for family disorganisation [sic]. The Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, 1956; the Hindu Women's Property Right Act, 1937; the Special Marriages Act, 1954; the Hindu Marriage and Divorce Act, 1955 -- all such acts have raised the status of women. Women have right to the property of their parents [sic]. The total result of these progressive legislative measures by the Government in favour of women is tension and strife in the family."(Ibid.)

And like all good educators they too have questions to test whether their students have indeed learnt their lesson well. With the following question(s) provided at the end of the chapter, they complete the circuit of learning thus:

"What do you mean by the term `family disorganisation'? [sic] What factors have been responsible for family disorganisation in India? Which legislative measures have contributed to family disorganisation?"(Ibid.)

In my opinion, the National Steering Committee on Evaluation of Text-books was tres gentil to let all this pass as merely "negat[ion of] social change or reform in the context of urbanisation."(Ibid.) For those keeping score, yes, the Committee evaluated and severely criticised several textbooks (some of which have been in circulation for fairly long periods without any updating) used by Muslim schools in UP for presenting an extremely narrow, unscientific, unhistorical, irrational and often obscurantist view of subjects they are supposed to deal with. (For specific examples see either the report or S.K. Pande s Side Bar The other side, Frontline, April 9, 1993, p. 63. )

Moving on to the VHP: In October 1992 the "Sant Samiti" of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad set up a four-member committee to rework the present Indian Constitution, which it labeled "anti-Hindu." This committee was headed by "Swami" Muktananda Saraswati. During February 1993 a couple of research scholars spent three days with Muktananda Saraswati and he spoke at length on a wide range of issues with them. Reproduced below are some excerpts from this interview (For this part (Muktananda on Women) of the Interview see Mainstream, October 23, 1993, pp. 23 -25. Another half is in Mainstream, October 30, 1993 pp. 16 - 18.). I'll reproduce each question/answer dyad in full (completely) so as to avoid the impression of selectively quoting (from any one particular response) for the benefit of my argument(s); ellipses at the end of certain answers merely indicate a break in the flow of conversation and not a continuation of (unreproduced) response. Muktananda Saraswati uvach, as we'll presently see, is genealogically connected to Manu uvach, the pronouncements of the Nazis and the "wisdom" of BJP spin doctors (masquerading as educators).

Q: What should be the status of women in Hindu Rajya?
A: It should be what it should be. In Islam there's no place for women. A woman should be a woman, she should be a mother. In our scriptures it is written that women and sanyasis have been exempted from earning their livelihood because if a woman stays at home she can give proper guidance to her children. Our scriptures say that in childhood her father would look after her, when married her husband, and when old her son. And people will look after the sanyasis. But this tradition cannot work today because no longer are good values cultivated, and people are obsessed with accumulating wealth...

Q: What are your views on widow remarriage?
A: Why should she [remarry]? Those who want to can and those who do not want to need not.

Q: But is it a crime if a widow remarries?
A: It is a crime. It is a very big crime. If a woman has intercourse with more than one man serious disorders would result. AIDS is a result of this, with a woman having intercourse with 27 men and vice versa. If you have the right to advocate eating mutton, I should also have the right to denounce it. You may have the right to say that sati pratha should not be allowed, but, I should also have the right to say that sati pratha should be allowed...

Q: According to Hinduism should women be allowed to work outside the house?
A: This is not right because as a result of this the structure of the family gets destroyed. The whole world has realised this.

Q: Frontline has quoted you as saying that the State should not pass any laws concerning marriage and the family...
A: Why should there be a law for these things?

Q: But, should not the State interfere if a man wants to marry 25 women?
A: Why should you form a law for this? The man will bear the consequences of his actions... Why only 25, you can marry 2,000 women if you want...

[Notice, that, in "Swami"-ji's universe, not only must women be monogamous they also mustn't marry should they be widowed. Men, on the other hand, may be polygynous, potentially (and absurdly) marrying 2,000 women !]

Q: Should there be no law against child marriage?
A: In the Hindu system there is no law about the age of marriage.

Q: What about the Sharda Act?
A: _ Bhai Saheb_, you keep making these Acts but they don't affect us. If we have to practice child marriage, we shall do so...

Q: Should a woman be allowed to divorce her husband?
A: According to the Hindu Dharma Shastras marriage is a sacred bond and it cannot be broken. The woman is not only a wife but also a steerer of the family...

Q: In the past, when you say dharma ruled, did women have inheritance rights?
A: There was no question of that. This issue has arisen only now.

Q: According to dharma, should women be granted these rights in today's context?
A: The present system is 100 percent adharmik [irreligious] and is one which destroys society instead of unifying it. By giving inheritance rights to women the unity of society gets broken...

And now for something ENTIRELY SAME! Here, _bhaiyon aur bahinon_, for your amusement, is Mridula Sinha uvach. Ms. Mridula Sinha, President of the Bharatiya Janata Party Mahila Morcha during 1993, had this to say in an interview with_The Telegraph of April 7, 1993 (Also quoted in Shame: Leader or Misleader, Savvy, May 1993, pp. 56 - 57; Mridula Sinha s followup Savvy interview is on pp. 57 - 59.):

"We in the Bharatiya Janata Party are opposed to women's liberation because it is against men. It is led by a handful of intellectual women in the cities who have no understanding of the common people's ideology and aspirations... We tell women to be more adjusting, because they will have nowhere to go if they leave there husbands."

Q: Can a woman be blamed if her husband beats her?
A: Yes, Yes. Very often it is the woman's fault. She can provoke a man to such an extent that he beats her. And sometimes, women can be so ziddi. We tell the woman to try and adjust. After all, it is her family.

"We are not like other women's organizations that are prejudiced against men. Very often it is the woman's fault because she is not adaptable."

"In modern society, girls have an adjustment problem. They must learn to give their families first priority and their ambitions must come second."

"Yes, I feel a woman should look after her family and not work outside unless her family is economically deprived."

"My daughter-in-law used to work before her marriage -- she had a marketing job. But after she married my son, I asked her: Do you want a family and a good marriage? If so, how will you manage a job as well? And now, she does not work anymore. My work compels me to travel 15 days a month. But my whole family has been very supportive."

"I'm not afraid to say I gave dowry and received dowry... My father bought me a husband with just Rs. 5,000 and my husband has been earning for me ever since. A thousand-fold return on the investment! In fact 90 percent of marriages in India take place without dowry demands."

"Any police officer of the anti-dowry cell will admit that most of the cases that come to them have nothing to do with dowry at all. It's mostly adjustment problems."

Q: Do you think amending the law to give equal property rights to women would decrease dowry demands?
A: No! No! This will only increase it.

These examples, I hope, clearly show that the sangh giroh s trumpeting of universal civil code has little to do with a progressive position on gender and women s rights (she has the right to be NOT ziddi!, if we believe in our esteemed leader, Ms. Sinha, here}. On the contrary, if the giroh s clamoring helps generalise its image of homogenised Muslim community in India as fundamentalist, inward-looking, hidebound and backward it would have succeeded in pulling the wool over our eyes. But, friends, what wool? Whose eyes?

(Niraj Pant is a graduate student in Cultural Studies at the Univ. Of Pittsburgh.)