It was the 19th of January 1990. Days were cold and nights bitter though there was no snow on the ground. Around 9 PM, loud and thunderous slogans of Allah-o- Akbar, Pakistan ka matlab kya/ La ila ha ilallah, Islam zindabad, Pakistan zindabad raised collectively by a multitude of humans and relayed through deafening loudspeakers pierced the air. These slogans were not new to the Pandits in Kashmir. However, the odd hour, the tumultuous banging and intriguing spontaneity, besides shrieking loudspeakers, all spoke threateningly that a storm was brewing in Kashmir.

Suddenly, telephone bells began ringing loud in the houses of most of the Pandits in Srinagar. Mobile phones had not yet been introduced yet. Each caller on the other end of the line asked his relative, friend or the acquaintance whether they were all right. This question carried more meaning underneath its stark simplicity. The caller told his respondent to come out of his house in that dark and dreary night and see for himself what a strange but alarming scene was unfolding on the streets and squares (chowk) of the capital city of Srinagar.
Scenes on the streets, squares and open spaces in the city were to be seen to be believed. Masses of the Muslim population, young, old, children, and women came out of their homes in the dark night, crowded the streets, gesticulating furiously and yelling slogans like ‘aazaadi’ (freedom), ‘Pakistanzindabad’, ‘Islam zindabad’, ‘la Ila ilallah, aazadi ka matlab kya/Laila ha ilallah’, ‘Kashmir Banega Pakistan’ etc. These crowds of people carried from their homesrugs, carpets, mats and furnishing, and spread it out on the streets and squares all over the city. They brought wood and lit bonfires to keep their bodies warm. Women and children, strongly clad in winter dress, were noisier. People sat, squatted, danced, shook fists made violent gesticulation as loudspeakers were fixed and microphones blurred a mix of Quranic verses, revolutionary songs, anti-India vitriolic and the supremacy of Islamic faith… Islamism, profuse admiration for Pakistan, stories of the heroes of early Arab conquests, the paradise created by Allah for the pure (momin) and hellfire for the kafir (unbelievers) etc. were the major themes of their outpouring. The crux of these surcharged utterances was that all symptoms of kufr (heresy), but-parasti (idolatry) and dualism as with the Hindus had to be cleansed from darulsalam (the place of peace) meaning Kashmir. Spirited stories of the heroes of early Islamic conquests and adventures were recounted to convey Islam’s might of destroying non-believers. This rant continued till the wee hours. The message for Kashmiri Pandits was simple – They were in the line of fire.

Like frightened pigeons, they huddled up in their nests and kept vigil throughout the night. Not a single soul came out of his house. The night-long tirade against non-Muslims snatched whatever remnant of peace of mind was left with them. For the first time in the history of Kashmir, this open and unabashed tirade was let loose against them on such a massive scale.

The administration collapsed. Law and order were thrown to the winds. The police deserted their posts. The Hindus could not muster the courage to come out and see their close relatives. Their survival was hanging in balance.
Overnight, it seemed, their Muslim neighbourshad changed colour. It was as if the brotherhood and fraternity that had been existing for centuries, was simply a mask, which had now been cast away.In a few days, the entire atmosphere had changed and the Panditscame to be recognised as ‘the other.’

The government was knocked out by a single night of mobdefiance and revolt. Next morning, not a single policeman was visible anywhere. They had withdrawn to their barracks or were hiding in their homes. The administrative machinery collapsed, and law and order crumbled.

From next morning viz. January 20, 1990, it was the rule of the mosque, the mullah and the Islamists. Loudspeakers fixed to mosque-tops blurred uninterruptedly, cautioning the Pandits to leave Kashmir. The refrain of their slogans was: “AsihgatsihKasheerBhattavbagairbattehnew san”(We want Kashmir without Pandit males but with their women folks). This shameful and shocking slogan will shame every decent Muslim.

Hate campaign carried forward through barbaric and inhuman violence, struck fear among entire Hindu community in Kashmir to the extent that anybody prepared to show even the slightest goodwill to them was faced with the threat to life. Al Safa, a local Urdu daily minced no words in telling the Pandits to leave Kashmir within hours if they wanted to save their lives and honour. Loudspeakers fixed to mosque topsblared a profusion of warnings.

More anti-India demonstrations were staged. Demonstrators were mad with rage, hatred and revenge. Fear-stricken Hindus (Pandits) did not find any source to provide them with the safety of life. In its evening news bulletin, Radio Kashmir (a state-run organ) listed the names of the Kashmiri Pandits gunned down by the terrorists during the day. The gruesome storiesunnerved the community members. They did not reach out to the majority Muslim community for protection because their minds and hearts had gone through a metamorphic change. The dynamics of secretive militancy, so rigidly drilled into the heads of the actors was of the level that a son returning after receiving training in PoK never disclosed to his parents and family members where he had been and on what mission.

Indoctrination was of the level that even parents feared their sons. This is best explained in the television interview which Bitta Karate gave to the security officials after he was arrested and interrogated by security agencies. When asked how many Hindus he had gunned down, he said that he had “lost the count after twenty-two.”
This was the last night which the five-thousand-year-old indigenous population of Shaivite civilisation of Kashmiri Pandits spent together in their homeland. They had somehow braved the cataclysm of eightcenturies of Muslim autocratic rule but, alas,the decimation of this ancient and indigenous community happened under the benevolence of “secular democratic” India. Now, ours is a homeless community dispersed over all the four corners of the world.

Epilogue
Muslim United Front (MUF) floated by Kashmir Jamat-i-Islami alleged that National Conference had undertaken a massive rigging in the assembly elections of1986. Its candidates were manhandled and incarcerated by National Conference (NC) goons. As a reaction, the MUF pledged to avenge NC’s denial of rights and sustained oppression. It conceived the plan of fomenting Kashmir armed insurgency, something for which Pakistan and its ISI were looking for.

Between July and December 1989, while the NC-Congress coalition government was in place in J&K, there were no fewer than 1600 big or small incidents of terrorism, firing, bomb blasts etc. in Kashmir Valley. Hundreds of Kashmiri youth sympathizers of MUF and activists of Jamaat-i-Islami took Srinagar-Sopore-Kupwaraand Muzaffarabad route landing in the terrorist training camps established by Pakistan’s top intelligence agency ISI and run by the retired generals of the Pakistani army. Many of them sneaked back into Kashmir with arms, ammunition and rabid Islamic ideology. Farooq and his party NC, was fully informed about their activities. The State police had arrested many of them but in July 1989, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah issued orders of their release from the jail despite the fact that a case of keeping illegal arms and sedition against the state was pending in a Srinagar court of law. The PoK strong diaspora of nearly a million people in UK played a crucial role in propping up the JKLF. It is the same group whose early activists were charged with the crime of murdering Indian diplomat Ravindra Mhatre in UK in 1982.

On 13 September 1989, JKLF murderers gunned down Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, the BJP Chief of Kashmir province, in broad daylight outside his residence in Srinagar. This sent a shock to the entire Hindu community. On 4 November 1989 JKLF terrorists gunned down Justice NilaKanthGanjoo, the judge who had given death sentence to the founder of JKLF, Muhammad Maqbul Bhat for the murder of a bank officer and a CID inspector. In December, Pandit Avtar Krishen Raina, Deputy Director, Food Supplies was gunned down in his office in Srinagar because he had questioned his subordinates how a truckload of good grains was diverted to the militants.

Indications were clear that the Hindus were in the throes of destruction. Up to 19 January1990, the exodus day, as many as 20 innocent Hindus were murdered in cold blood. Sensing that situation was getting worse in Kashmir, the Central government then headed by V.P. Singh with Mufti Saeed as Home Minister, sent Shri Jagmohan as the new Governor of J&K. As this announcement was made, Dr Farooq Abdullah resigned in protest saying that Jagmohan was not acceptable to him. The crisis was deepening in Srinagar and Farooq took a flight to London to join his wife and whiled away his time in playing golf and going to clubs. The ministers of the dissolved council of ministers rushed to Jammu and occupied government quarters to which they were no more entitled to after resigning.The former ministers became key to establishing contacts with the militant leadership whose representatives kept meeting them clandestinely but regularly.

The government had been toppled, law and order derailed. In April, Mirwaiz Molavi Muhammad Farooq was gunned down in his home by two or three JKLF gunmen accusing him of having a soft corner for the Government of India. The mobs of Kashmiri Muslims brought out a huge crowd of protestors over the killing of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq. Near GawKadal, some miscreants among the militants fired some shots at the security forces moving in armoured vehicles. As a result of return fire by the security forces, dozens of protesting civilians were injured and some died.
The killing of innocent Hindus of Kashmir was accelerated by the JKLF barbarians after 19 January and in the next three or four months, about 500 of them were selectively killed. Details of these killings have been preserved.
This forced the devastated Hindu community to leave their homeland and seek shelter at a safer place.

Interestingly, while the government resigned and the administration collapsed and the Pandits were forced to flee their homes and hearths, not a single soldier of Indian army was seen on the streets of Srinagar or elsewhere. Had the government ordered the city to be taken over by the army on the night of 19 January 1990, the unfortunate Hindus of Kashmir valley would have been saved the exodus and destruction of their properties. In April 1990, Rubiya Saeed, the daughter of Mufti Muhammad, the Home Minister of India at that time, was kidnapped allegedly by the militants and released after three days. It is said that SaifuddinSoz, the Congress leader, negotiated a deal with Pakistani authorities and managed the safe release of Mufti’s daughter. What were the terms of the deal with the militant organizations has remained a mystery so far.

By the end of summer 1990, the entire Pandit community of nearly four lakh had left their homes and hearths, lands, orchards, shops, business, services, livestock and everything. In penury, they eked out a living in the burning cauldron of Jammu, some to be consumed by sunstrokes, some by the reptiles and some by drowning in the canal. The Kashmir radicalized political leadership spread the canard that the Pundits had not fled but were enticed by Governor Jagmohan to leave Kashmir so that “he would wreak vengeance on the Muslim population.” Such are the vagaries of human nature and the construct of its Satanic mind.

(Prof. K.N. Pandita is the former Director of the Centre of the Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, Srinagar. He can be reached atknp627@gmail.com)

The Statue of Unity will inspire generations to come about the values of integrity, patriotism, honesty and good governance.

The political trajectory of the post independence era politics in India has mostly revolved around Gandhi-Nehru dynasty. The ideological and political legacy of national movement was also built around certain personalities belittling the contribution of others like Patel, Shastri and Subhash. Over the years, this school of thought neglected the ‘collective contribution’ of many leaders for the formation of modern India, at the cost of personifying Nehru. Given the context, the inauguration of ‘Statue of Unity’ on 31st October, 2018 in the memory of great freedom fighter and national leader Sardar Vallabh Bhai patel, who was born in small village of Nadiad in Gujarat, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the ‘most befitting tribute’ to the Iron man of India whose legacy continues to inspire many of the later generations in India. His contribution for the freedom struggle of India stands unparalleled. In true sense he was one of the leading ‘mass leaders’ in modern India who played his role’ as a ‘savior, builder and unifier’ of India post independence. It was the ‘political statesmanship’ and devotion to the motherland of Sardar Patel that brought up the ‘political unification of India’ post independence in the times of fragile political environment, clash of competing interests and communal disharmony.

Beginning from his early days of political activism to becoming deputy Prime Minister of India, Sardar always was a ‘potent force’ of resistance against injustices and worked for the interest of masses. His boldness and confidence of the character can be attributed to one example from his childhood when he opted for Gujarati language over Sanskrit and was scolded by the teacher to which he replied gently that, “If everyone will choose to learn Sanskrit then we will have no work”. Carrying a humble background, he used to travel long distances to attend schools in Nadiad, Petlad and Borsad in Gujarat during his childhood.
His respect for duty and adherence to the principle of ‘work as worship’ can be understood from one example when Sardar choose to put the urgent telegram of his wife’s demise in his pocket after reading it during court proceedings, only to open it again when he had finished his submission and argument before the judge. Whether ‘personal or political’ troubles never discouraged him and with his iron will and greater determination, he completed whatever task he had under taken.

Beginning his political career as an elected Councilor in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Patel championed the cause of ‘gender equality’, was instrumental in removing the provisions related to non-qualification of women’s to contest local body elections in Gujarat. The Ahmedabad municipality general board passed a resolution to this effect on February 13, 1913 upholding right to contest for all in local bodies.
As a great ‘savior of India’, it was Patel who had made it clear to the British authorities that the proposed Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) which puts forward the proposal of three way categorization of Indian states into A, B and C is more worse than formation of separate Pakistan and cannot be accepted.

Similarly, the partition of India and formation of Pakistan, which was implied in Atlee’s statement of 20 February 1947, was immediately countered by the Patel through his proposal demanding for a division of Punjab and Bengal, and thereby saving Assam for India before the formation of boundary commission. He knew well the demography of these states and was well intended and timely in his efforts to save this Hindu majority landmass areas for India.

As a great ‘builder of modern India’, it was Patel who stood firmly with a sense of political realism and statesmanship to protect the unity of India against the 560 odd rulers of different principalities who were nursing their own ambitions of becoming independent rulers. Through his sheer boldness and diplomatic manoeuvring, Patel secured accession of all states to India. His willingness for use of force to build united India, made possible the solution of challenges being offered by sates like Travancore, Hyderabad, Junagadh, Jamnagar, and Jodhpur. The political crisis of Hyderabad needed an iron man with a great vision and Patel most befittingly finished his work to the service of motherland.

As a great ‘unifier of modern India’ he was man of decisive leadership, immense courage and political will, and with the abilities to take forward and execute its action in the larger national interest. Had the accession of Kashmir remained out of the Nehru’s fold, Patel would have certainly able to manage its more acceptable and consensual integration with Indian state despite immediate challenges.

As a great organizer and leader, his contribution to the nation remains excellent and unsurpassable. A great disciple of Mahatma Gandhi he was the strong force behind all his satyagrahas. In one of his speech on his way to Dandi, Gandhi admitted: “I could succeed in Kheda (1918) on account of Vallabhbhai, and it is on account of him that I am here today.” After he successfully led the Bardoli satyagraha, then Times of India wrote that Patel had “instituted there a Bolshevik regime in which he plays the role of Lenin”. He played a ‘key role’ in the formation of interim government in 1946, and was central player to the smooth transfer of power from the British rulers to India. As the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organised relief efforts for refugees fleeing from Punjab and Delhi and worked to restore peace post partition.

In the post-independence years, he played a very key role in the establishment of modern all India civil services in India. He was also instrumental in the formation of India Police Service (IPS) to allow better policing and security standards in our country. He realized the role of civil service in running the administration country based on institutional model of democratic governance.

Philip Mason, an English Civil Servant has described Patel as “courageous, honest and realistic and someone who can be compared to Bismarck”. The most befitting tribute to Sardar Patel was given by M. N. Roy, early Communist leaders of India, “What will happen to India when the master- builder will go, sooner or later, the way of all mortals? “.

Over the years in post independent politics of India there have been efforts to deprecate the contribution of Patel for India especially under the Nehruvian School of thought. However, under the present regime led by PM Modi there have been consistent efforts to restore the due respect and regard for all those national leaders who laid their life for the service of this nation.

Those who are critical of this statue must realize that these memorials in the name of our great leaders are visible source of civilizational and political history. These are step in right direction with no sense of revising history rather putting forward a more truthful picture about our national freedom struggle. It is an effort to appropriate the true values and principles propagated by our son of soils. It is neither a step to impose greatness on somebody nor any falsification about history. Rather recognition of Patel’s unparalleled rather lately recognized contribution to the service of nation. In addition to this, as many news reports suggest the statue is drawing huge number of tourists and revenue for the public exchequer, making it gradually a most of sought of place to be visited in India.

In no case, the inauguration of ‘Statue of Unity’, as the tallest standing sculpture in the world near his hometown, by PM Modi on his 193rd birth anniversary is the symbol of ‘true recognition and recollection’ of the ideals of unity, patriotism, honesty and good governance to which Sardar Patel stood for his whole life. In doing so, the incumbent Modi government certainly states its faith in those great ideals and values.

 

(Mr. Abhishek Pratap Singh holds PhD in East Asian Studies from JNU and teaches at Delhi University.)

Women as Leaders _ The Story of a Successful Sanitation Drive

Women in Indian culture occupy an ambivalent position. Accordingly, this article confines itself to an overview of the cultural situation of the majority of Indian women, which is to say, women in Hindu culture of which the author is personally a part. Coevally, the article consciously stays away from discussing the noticeably difficult and far from enviable position of women in non-Hindu cultures in India, lest the author be suspected of minority-baiting in these perilous times. Whereas, as a devout Hindu herself, the author can claim to speak with belonging, ownership and reform-minded good intentions from within mainstream Hindu society, not outside it.

In the traditional patriarchal Indian mind-set, the Devi or prime goddess of Hindu theology is enthroned on a pedestal to be worshipped as the sacred feminine. The position of Devi or Shakti is thus greatly exalted. She is worshipped as the Parashakti or Supreme Power, as the Jagadamba, the Universal Mother who created the male gods and their feminine counterparts.

How does this translate vis-à-vis the situation of mortal women? The reality is that Indian tradition discounts mortal women unless they deliver the goods in their prescribed role as a service sector. In particular, the position of the respectably married woman is supreme in Hindu society. As in any other transactional relationship, this status comes at a price.

Drawn from preceding centuries, the wifely virtues postulated by the sixteenth century poet Goswami Tulsidas of Varanasi went out as advice for wives given to Sita by Rishi Atri’s wife Anasuya: “Devotion of body, speech and mind to the feet of her lord, the husband, is the only duty, sacred vow and penance of a woman.” This is found in the Sri Ramacharitamanas, Aranya Kand, Verse Four; a seminal book of pervasive and lasting influence across North India.

This job description was detailed in the sub-universe of South India in the thirteenth century, in a hugely popular verse. Written by the Telugu poet ‘Baddena’  or Bhadra Bhupala in Neeti Saara, his treatise on morals, it says:  “Karyeshu dasi, karaneshu mantri, bhojeshu mata, shayaneshu Rambha, roopeshu Lakshmi, kshamayeshu Dharitri, shat dharmayukta kuladharmapatni,” meaning “Like a servant in doing the household chores, like a minister in giving her husband intelligent advice, serving him food as lovingly as a mother feeds her son, as seductive and pleasing in bed as the celestial nymph Rambha, as beautiful as Mahalakshmi and as forbearing as Mother Earth: the woman who has these six qualities is the ideal married lady of the house.” This verse hold up an ideal that is very much around in South Indian families even today. Intriguingly, though, there is not one verse in the entire corpus of classical Indian literature that details the virtues and qualities required of a mortal husband.  The author verified this in 2008 with the renowned Sanskrit scholar Sundararama Dikshithar of Kumbakonam, a ninth century temple town and seat of learning in the Kaveri Delta.

This ‘pragmatic’ attitude towards women sprang from the old Hindu belief that only a son could save a man from the hell called ‘put’: hence the term ‘putra’ for son – the ‘deliverer from put’. A wife was the socially endorsed conduit for this outcome, of no earthly use unless she produced a fine, healthy son and fulfilled her ritual duties as a griharani, the ‘queen of the house’. Indian patriarchs in general did not see wives as precious individuals; any eligible woman from the caste-allotted gene pool would do to keep their lives going.

Of course, there were rebels and breakaways but this was the holding pattern that prevailed across society for millennia and holds even today in both deeply conservative and superficially modern swathes. This entrenched attitude still plays out in millions of ordinary Indian lives notwithstanding the many exceptions resulting from over a century of Hindu reform in the growing number of educated women in many spheres of national life. The author may also claim to be a legatee and beneficiary of Hindu reform in several ways and owes her present freedoms to the courage and conviction of preceding generations of enlightened Hindus who changed society for the better.

It is in the context of taking that positive, inclusive change further that it becomes necessary to review the entrenched nature of the patriarchal attitude that colours everyday life in twenty-first century India for Hindu women. To do so, it may be worth our while to look at stories rather than statistics, since culture comes from ‘a way of life’. But first, what is the way of life of ‘Hinduism’ or rather, Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Law? What are its components? We may call it the Pancha Darshana or five aspects.

First, the foundational books in Sanskrit – Sruti-Smruti-Itihasa-Purana, which are:

l  The four Vedas (Rik, Yajur, Sama and Atharva)

l  Vedanta (16 principal Upanishads)

l  The two epics (the Ramayana and Mahabharata) and

l  The 18 major Puranas.

Second, there is a strong tradition of philosophers who have successively replenished the heritage. Three principal views of the abstract human-Divine connect are the philosophies of Advaita, Visishta-Advaitava and Dvaita. Third, there is a strong living oral tradition of Katha (religious discourse) and Naam Sankirtan or Bhajana Sampradaya (religious songs) by saint-composers across Indian languages, which have kept this heritage alive in popular culture across India.

While philosophy is the intellectual articulation of a world view, the oral traditions of Katha and Naam Sankirtan are its popular expression, conveying those ideas to the layman through the medium of the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavata Purana. Katha and Naam Sankirtan are easily accessible on TV, on YouTube and in live discourses/satsang. Though Katha and Naam Sankirtan are expressed in the mother tongues, they often include quotations from and references to the Sanskrit texts, the source that feeds them and unites them.

They also rely heavily on the Bhakta Vijaya, the eighteenth century Marathi book which retold the lives of 108 important saints from the preceding five centuries. Its special focus is on saints between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries from the ‘Varkari’ tradition, centred on Krishna as the deity Vitthala in Pandharpur.  Its author, Mahipati, was a scribe turned hagiographer. His book was translated into several Indian languages in the last 250 years and into English in the 1920s. Its tone and content uphold the patriarchal status quo which is often repeated, un-updated, in twenty-first century religious discourses.

Fourth, the components above, from across time and space, are held together by the ancient Hindu concept of the sub-continent’s sacred geography, ‘AaSetu Himalaya’, from the tip of the Indian Peninsula to the Himalayas – from the southernmost shores to the northernmost mountains. This sacred geography is underpinned by innumerable living temples and by pilgrim circuits like the Char Dham, the Dvadasha Jyotirlinga, the fifty one Shakti Peeth, the Devi circuit in Himachal Pradesh, the Aaru Padai Veedu or Six Holy Places of Kartikeya in Tamil Nadu, the sacred rivers and lakes (tirtha) and the sacred landmarks (kshetra) across the length and breadth of India. The seven mokshapuri or ‘salvation cities’ also play their part in holding this grid of sacred geography together.  They are Kashi, Ujjain, Mathura, Haridwar, Ayodhya, Dwaraka and Kanchipuram.

You can find the hand of sacred geography in the waters, too. First of all, take the Arabian Sea to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east. These are recent names. The old Indian names for these two great seas are ‘Ratnakara’ for the western sea and ‘Mahodadhi’ for the eastern sea.

Now take the rivers. There are seven sacred rivers of note: Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Sarasvati, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri.  Most Indian rivers flow eastwards. They are called ‘nadi’. A few rivers flow west like the Sharavati in Karnataka of Jog Falls fame, the Narmada and the Tapti. Technically, they should be called ‘nadah’, not ‘nadi’. However, since most of our rivers flow east, the common word for river is ‘nadi’.

It is well-known that the Ganga is India’s holiest river. The Mekong in South-east Asia is named after her. Mekong means ‘Ma Ganga’, Mother Ganga. Of all the towns on the Ganga’s banks, it is Kashi or Varanasi which has made Ganga pre-eminent. Kashi itself is made great by Lord Shiva. He is worshipped in Kashi as Vishvanath, Lord of the World. Every believing Hindu is supposed to make a pilgrimage to Kashi at least once. There are boys in places very far away named ‘Kashi Vishvanath’ because they were born after the momentous family pilgrimage to Kashi. In the old days, when people from other parts of India set out to Kashi, they said their final goodbyes at home because it was so far away and the journey to and fro was so dangerous and difficult. But go they did. Everyone was so emotionally invested in Kashi that they risked their lives for millennia to get to ‘Hindu Central’. So, in actual fact, what makes Kashi great is the living river of believers.

The flora of India is also deeply entwined in the country’s culture, in its epics, its temple architecture, its prayers, pujas and daily rituals, in every region of Sanatana Dharma. This concept is active from the notion of the ancient tapovan or sacred forest to the tulsi in each Hindu home, the sthalavriksh or sacred tree of every temple, the bilva leaves offered to Shiva, the presence of Sri Hanuman believed to grace the coral-jasmine tree (parijatatarumoolavasinam), the pipal, sacred to Vishnu, the banyan under which Shiva meditates as Adi Guru Dakshinamurti, and the lotus which is both the seat of the gods and their hand-held attribute, and also the philosophical metaphor for the seat of the gods in the human heart (hridaykamal).

Fifth, the panchang or Hindu lunar calendar of personal and public rituals, fasts, feasts and festivals serves to guide, affirm and keep all of the above alive in the daily life of the majority of Indian people despite the differences in region, language and local culture. The panchang, with some regional variations, is based on the vast Hindu cyclical concept of time. This Hindu concept of time informs and directs the above four components. The city of Ujjain is the prime meridian of the Hindu universe of discourse since ancient times.

The Pancha Darshana, as the author calls this scheme of things, is all-pervasive and deeply rooted across Hindu society for millennia. Within such a strong, vibrant culture that has been thought through to the last detail, it requires great courage for a Hindu woman to claim an individual identity. Her identity is usually subsumed in her husband’s and society is noticeably wary of widows, divorcees, single women and women who have to live alone. It is frequently as uncharitable to wives who do not bear healthy sons.

Regrettably, in this vivid, dynamic culture that marries a land to its people with both poetry and precision, besides the respectably married mother of sons, only two other kinds of women are accorded dignity – old women and celibate renunciates. Traditionally, therefore, the only escape route for Hindu women from the narrowly judgmental side of patriarchal culture was through religion. They could leave home only to become women saints.

The common link between the women saints is that they all wished to escape oppression or heartbreak at home. All except for the girl-saint, Andal, in the eighth century, who was in love with Lord Vishnu. She is believed to have disappeared into Vishnu’s image at the temple of Srirangam in Tamil Nadu. Her collected poems to Krishna, the Tiruppavai and Nachiar Tirumozhi, are acknowledged as a major influence on Sri Ramanuja, the tenth century founder of the Srivaishnava movement, which swept like wildfire over India. Sant Ramanand was Sri Ramanuja’s follower; Sant Kabir was Ramanand’s disciple and so on. The tradition includes deeply influential poets like Jayadeva in the twelfth century and Tulsidas in the sixteenth. This means that little Andal was a person of great influence in Indian history. However, our textbooks do not tell us that a girl child inspired a great and lasting religious and social reform movement.

Meanwhile, Karaikal Ammayar, ‘the old lady of Karaikal’, is the earliest woman saint known to us. Her real name was Punitavati. She lived in the port city of Karaikal in the sixth century, in the old Chola country. She is one of the sixty-three ancient Tamil Shaiva saints, collectively called the Nayanmar, whose statues are found in every major Shaiva temple in Tamil Nadu. The legend goes that Punitavati was a young woman devotee of Shiva who received a magic mango from him one day as a mark of his favour. Her husband, the merchant Paramadattan, refused to believe it and so she begged for another mango from Mahadev to convince her husband that she spoke the truth. When the second magic mango appeared, her husband could no longer think of Punitavati as his wife for she now seemed like a goddess to him. He moved to another town and married another woman. Punitavati was devastated. She begged Mahadev to turn her at once into an ugly old woman. She then went all the way north to the Himalayas and climbed Mount Kailash upside down on her head and hands, for she did not want to disrespectfully put her feet on holy Kailash. The positive interpretation of this story is very Shaiva, that she was liberated from a lifetime of worldly ties and went off to God sooner rather than later.

Besides Karaikal Ammayar, the most famous old lady saint of the Tamil country is Avvai, a composite of two personas. The legend goes that when her parents fixed her marriage, young Avvai begged her favourite deity, Ganesha, to turn her into an old woman so that she could escape having to be married and waste her human birth as a bond-slave of domesticity.

At this stage, let us look into the historicity of Avvai. ‘Avvaiyar’, meaning ‘Respectable Woman’, was the title of more than one poet in different periods of Tamil literature. The first Avvaiyar is said to have lived during the Sangam period, c. 3rd century BCE and was greatly respected by the Tamil chieftains VelPaari and Athiyaman. She wrote 59 of the poems in the anthology called Purananuru. The second Avvaiyar reportedly lived during the time of Kambar, of Tamil Ramayana fame, in the reign of the Cholas, c. ninth-tenth century CE. She is imagined as an old and intelligent lady. Her poems remain very popular even today. Her aphorisms in the Aatichoodi contain a list of dos and don’ts for daily life. Avvai’s sayings, even after a millennium, are among the very first texts taught to children in Tamil Nadu.

After Karaikal Ammayar and Avvai, we have Akka Mahadevi of Karnataka in the twelfth century and Lal Ded or Lalleshwari of Kashmir in the mid-fourteenth century. They became ‘women saints’ after they were severely ill-treated by their in-laws. They left their families and actually wandered about naked in utter rejection of everything that their societies stood for. Akka was ten when she was married and Lalla was twelve. The Kashmiri language is reportedly full of Lalla’s sayings. Lalla had to eat last, alone in the kitchen, after everybody else. Her mother-in-law used to put a big stone on her plate and cover it with a layer of rice to make it look like a large helping. Her husband was of no support at all.

Why was the mother-in-law so unkind to a little girl? We do not know. Perhaps she was unkind because she had the culturally sanctioned power to be so. But it is too easy to sneer that ‘women are women’s worst enemies’. If that is so, is it not because their softer natures have been perverted over a long time by the social pressure to produce sons and quietly put up with bad behaviour as their duty? In this discouraging scenario, both Akka and Lalla transferred all their love to Shiva. They wrote poems to Mahadev that people still recite.

And then, in the 16th century, we have the most famous woman saint of north India, Meera Bai, who suffered extreme persecution from her in-laws because of her unswerving love for Krishna. Meera left home too, to take her chances alone in pursuit of Krishna, although she was a royal Rajput widow of only thirty-eight years.

Medieval Marathi women saints like Jana Bai, who loved Krishna as Vitthala Pandurang at Pandharipur, did not have an easy time, either. Jana Bai was left as a child at the temple by her starving parents. Sant Namdev rescued her and took her home. She spent her whole life as a servant to his family. Such examples suggest a consistent pattern that women saints sublimated their suffering and individuality into God-love.

To return to Akka Mahadevi in more detail, ‘Akka’, means ‘elder sister’ in Kannada, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil. She was called that later in life. The name she was given at birth was ‘Mahadevi’, meaning ‘Goddess Parvati’. Akka was born to a rich Hindu family in Udutadi village, in present-day Shimoga district in Karnataka. She was married off at the age of ten to a man named Kausika, who was a Jain chieftan. The Jains, then as now, were a prosperous community and Akka was expected to live the life of a medieval ‘corporate wife’ – to dress well, bear her husband sons and fulfil her prescribed biological, domestic, social and ritual duties. Instead, Akka ran away. Moreover, she cast off her clothes, possibly influenced by the Digambara or ‘sky-clad’ sect of naked Jain ascetics, and wore her long hair as her only covering.

What made a young, gently-bred girl reject her prescribed life and wander bravely alone into the aggressive, jeering world of the male gaze? We cannot begin to imagine what she must have endured, or the strength of mind and conviction she had to make and keep this terrifying choice. We can understand why Punitavati and Avvai wanted to be turned at once into old women.

Akka loved Shiva as ‘Mallikarjuna’, her ‘Lord, white as jasmine’, the way Andal and Meera loved Krishna. This love poured out in about 350 vachana or sayings in Kannada. After wandering around alone for some time Akka wished to join a ‘soul family’ of Shaivas. The Veerashaivas were a new and radically democratic group of Hindus in the region. She made her way to their camp at a place called Kalyana and asked to be one of them. Scandal had preceded her and she must have presented an unsettling sight; young, staunch and unclad. Allama Prabhu, the Veerashaiva leader, was caught between his heartfelt Shaiva empathy with all creatures and this severe test of his belief. Did ‘all creatures’ include a woman who broke so many male rules? Despite his great saintliness and impeccable credentials as a spiritual democrat, this democracy did not automatically include single, socially free young women.

Instead we see the overpowering need of the male mind to build a social context for Akka’s ‘wildness’, to fit her into society as ‘God’s wife’ if not man’s. This is how tradition reports the encounter. Allama Prabhu asked Akka, “Who is your husband?” Akka answered, “I am married forever to Mallikarjuna.” Allama Prabhu said: “Why do you roam around naked as though illusion can be peeled off by mere gestures? And yet you wear a sari of hair? If the heart is free and pure, why do you need it?” Akka said, with absolute honesty: “Until the fruit is ripe inside, the skin will not fall off”. By ‘fruit’ she meant that her mind was not ready yet.

Melted by her sincerity, Allama Prabhu accepted Akka into the Veerashaiva fold. But after some years, while merely in her twenties, Akka left to look for Mallikarjuna. Not one person supported her. The tale goes that she went to the holy peak of Srisailam, an ancient Shaiva temple in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh.  Adi Shankara, the founder of Advaita philosophy, is believed to have meditated under an ancient banyan tree at Srisailam and composed the Shivananda Leheri there.

It is possible that Akka was eaten by a tiger in the jungles around Srisailam. Her body was never found. Alas, there are many in our land even today who bear witness to Akka and the company of Hindu women saints. Nine hundred years after Akka, in the twenty-first century, little girls are still being married off early in India despite the modern law that forbids it. Although the present law of the land is on the side of Hindu women, society has yet to catch up with the law in many areas, for it is mentally held back by its old cultural reflexes as indicatively sketched above. It will take a collective and detailed effort across Hindu society to upgrade its attitude to its women while keeping much that it holds dear from its deep and vast tradition.

There is that vital, inexorable difference though between the past and the present to speed Hindu society along the margdarshan or path marked out by our Constitution. Today, a Hindu girl is legally empowered by Hindu reform to ‘get a life’ as the colloquialism goes without having to renounce normal human ties as her saintly predecessors were compelled to. In the eyes of Indian law, the Hindu woman is a free, equal citizen.

In sum, our society is a work in progress with regard to women in Hindu culture and the task calls for encouragement at every level to fulfil India’s human potential.

 

(Renuka Narayanan writes on religion and culture. Formerly an editor and a diplomat, her published books include The Book of Prayer, Faith: Filling the God-sized Hole,The Little Book of Indian Wisdom (Penguin),
A Madrasi Memoir (Academic Foundation), The Path of Light – Inspiring Tales from Upanishads, Jatakas and Indic Lore (Penguin Random House India) and Hindu Fables (Juggernaut). She has just completed a book on Lord Shiva for Penguin and is presently working on a life of Adi Sankara for Speaking Tiger Books.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of November-December 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Anger and women

As I sit down to write this, the world (of news and otherwise) has erupted over Serena Williams and her actions at the US Open final against Haitian-Japanese player Naomi Osaka. Post after post on my social media timeline since Sunday, September 9, has been about her fit of anger after an umpire gave her a code violation. It soon went on to be called “the mother of all meltdowns” by at least one leading US media house.

The coverage when I woke up on Sunday morning Indian Standard Time was skewed, at least from what I could immediately get my hands on. Initial reports made it out to be this: Williams was handed a code violation after she was coached from the side, she then lost a penalty point for breaking her racquet in frustration over this, and then a game penalty when she called umpire Carlos Ramos, a “thief” and “liar” and became very angry with him. Williams was nowhere close to winning the match, and she then lost and allowed the audience to boo 19-year-old Osaka, Japan’s first Grand Slam singles champion. The teenager, who idolises Williams, cried during her prize ceremony and apologised for winning. Following that, Williams accused the umpire of sexism at a press conference.

Why has this become such a huge deal? Williams is a woman, and black. Most people — men and women — think she is “using the gender card”, and not just that but the “colour card” too. Some even think the poor umpire “did not stand a chance” against her rage. Many opinion pieces and posts on this that I have seen use these words or strongly imply that that’s what the 36-year-old did — fight unfair because she was angry. And at a time when feminism is back under a spotlight, and especially when men feel threatened, it is no wonder this is garnering so much attention. When questions of colour, race, women, immigrants, being woke, being liberal surround us, did one of the most successful black women in the world actually have the audacity to claim someone was being sexist (or racist) towards her because she was losing a match and angry?

One cannot assume to know what Williams was trying to do or what went through her mind, but from the videos I watched later, it did not seem as simple as the reports made it out to be — sure, she lost her temper, she shouted at the umpire which led to her losing a match, but she also attempted to make up for the disaster of an evening by telling a crowd of booing people to let Osaka have her moment. Later, at a press conference, she brought up sexism, which seems to be “convenient” to people. But sexism has never been convenient for women. Some weeks ago, Williams wasn’t allowed to wear a black catsuit — which she had worn to prevent life-threatening blood clots — and I was surprised that she did not say a word though women on the internet rallied around her. But that night at the US Open final, she did speak up. And she seems to be paying the price.

I have heard many arguments and complaints against her now. Some would say she is a global figure, an idol for women, black or otherwise, and that she needs to act the part, she cannot go around accusing people of racism and sexism whenever convenient, or much less shout about it. But some people do not seem to realise this — women have tempers, they are not perfect, they cannot keep quiet while fighting their battles all the time. Whether there was sexism from Ramos or not, we should probably just allow Williams her anger. She has earned it after years of being two of the things that people vilify most — black, and woman. Williams has probably lost thousands of battles in her lifetime just because of her gender and race, and is perfectly human if she loses her temper when she feels an umpire is being unfair. Who would not?

Some would argue then, that the point is they are not judging her because she got angry but because she dragged gender and discrimination and even her daughter into it. And that she has done this before. But let us return to just the anger for now.

A lot of people did not appreciate the way she handled herself that night, women included, of course. But it simply seems to reinforce that women have to constantly behave themselves in order to be taken seriously. By other women as well. I am not sure that because Williams lost her temper she is less of an idol or sportsperson. It seems most people would have preferred her to remain silent, behave appropriately, because in sports, losing a point or game is all part of the package and one has to be prepared for it.

There are those who would also say she lost it because Osaka was a better player, and that Williams owed it to Osaka to win gracefully. There are thousands of “arguments” against what Williams did. But how many of these people have thought about what it is like to be a black woman for a day, forget a lifetime? And why cannot they just allow her her anger, even her accusations? But everyone is always worried about accusations harming a man’s reputation, hurting his feelings or whatever it is, whether it is to do with sexism or assault or any such thing. Very few people give the accusers the benefit of the doubt, and if they do, they are viewed as crazy feminists.

Dr Salamishah Tillet, co-founder of A Long Walk Home, a non-profit to end violence against women, wrote in an op-ed: Studies show that black women are less likely than other groups to express anger in situations in which they are being treated unfairly. Tillet also wrote that her sister was afraid for the tennis player because “she knew too well how easily black women’s expressions of rage could be turned against them.”

“Do not bring gender into it when it’s all about behaviour,” a cartoonist said, defending his now-famous caricature of Williams in The Herald Sun. But, how do you separate the two when all your life’s experiences provide the context?

The male coverage: ‘The sport that made her a multi-millionaire’

But what really angered me, considering I do not play tennis and cannot judge how an umpire and sportsperson should act in the game, was the coverage of Williams and later, opinion or “analytical” pieces. The media reports on what happened at the match all blended into one for me. From local Indian reports to AFP and the like, they all used words such as “tantrum”, “meltdown”, “fit” etc to describe how Williams behaved. It made me wonder how many of the editors were women, let alone women of colour, or even just people thinking about the language they were using.

The same pictures were used too — Williams pointing at the umpire angrily, or her weeping at the podium. Pictures can be used very effectively in copy. It is often the first thing a reader catches, and one of the most important.

In the first day or two after the incident, I saw one news outlet, just one, had used an image of Williams hugging Osaka during the prize ceremony.

The tendency for the media is to play up what they think readers will like. In this case, as in most others, it was negative emotions. But it would have done no harm whatsoever to use an image of Williams crying with Osaka (which some did do later, but very few), or trying to grin and bear the pain together. It is just (terrible) instinct to hone in on the negative emotion here.

Several media houses that I follow, both print and web, carried similar copies too. They printed the initial news (with headlines similar to the ones mentioned above), and then what she said at her press conference. A leading English Indian newspaper’s website posted a piece from AFP titled “After US Open meltdown, Serena Williams says she is ‘not a cheat’, accuses tennis of sexism”. The image used was a close-up of her crying. “Serena Williams insisted she was not cheating in the US Open final on Saturday before accusing the sport which has made her a global icon and multi-millionaire of sexism.” This is how the piece opened. I won’t elaborate on how it continued.

The implications? Since she is an icon and millionaire, she has no right to call out sexism in the sport, especially since some people think it is fake. So, if journalism or writing make me wealthy and I am luckier than a lot of other disenfranchised women, I cannot complain about sexism in journalism? Ah. I see.

Anger and other feelings at work

I have worked at multiple organisations now, almost all in the media in India. One of the reasons I have been able to empathise with women like Williams is because she is human. Her fights are public, and her emotions are real.

Thinking about it after I read a piece in ‘The Cut’, I find I cannot be openly angry in the workplace either. I have never thought about it much since I have not had time to, but the truth is, I have not been allowed to be. Most women have to be pleasant, affable, preferably smiling, no matter how much work they do, and how little they are paid. And God, forbid they ever speak of inequality at work — they become outcasts then.

Most organisations would like to believe they treat men and women equally. They do not. In my view, very few, if any of them do. Even if, say, one’s argument is that half the top positions at these companies are filled by women, who says women are not sexist? They have been raised in the same society that teaches men they can behave differently from women.

At work how does one explain to men that they take up more space than women do, that they speak louder, have more confidence because they have been allowed to do so since they were young, and that this is usually much harder for women to do? When women shout or  strongly put forth their opinions, especially if it is to disagree with someone else (usually a man?), how seriously are they treated? These are even smaller instances of sexism though. From what stories women in Indian media share with me, it seems difficult to even occupy a space at the top, or somewhere near there in some media outfits, unless the woman is a “features person”, let alone be there and be able to express strong opinions, or anger. This is not to say that there are not Indian media houses with women at the top, but this certainly is not the norm, and not all the women have as much power as it seems they do.

From personal experience, men are given promotions quicker than women. Men speak up during meetings more, and even if they do not always contribute something new and fresh, they speak with confidence — something a lot of women do not always have. And if we disagree with someone, especially if it is to do with gender policy or something related, we are labeled difficult, unfriendly, “that feminist”, or something else. I have never had to hear what men at work say about me when I am not around, but there has been one instance when a junior photographer told me that women like me “take this mansplaining thing too far”, because I asked him not to coach me on how to edit a copy.

In this instance, I did not even get angry, since it was not the first time a younger man was telling me how to do a job he had never had.

Now I realise, I have never seen a woman really lose her temper at the workplace. I am sure there are companies with fuming, screaming women bosses, but I have not had one. The closest I had was a loud, female colleague who often told me what to do, which annoyed me. I realise now, her behaviour was unnatural for her gender, which is why I disapproved. I have had plenty of men behave the same way with me, but they did not evoke the same anger till a couple of years ago.

Now, when I find myself losing my temper more often than not, I have to bite my tongue. It’s impossible to fight the system, keep your job, and your cool, and impossible to do it day in and day out. (Which is why one would think Serena Williams just lost her temper one day. It happens. We get tired of having to fight.) To many the media seems an open, less gendered, more “liberal” field, but it just comes with its own forms of sexism. Once you are viewed as “that feminist”, even the seemingly gender norms defying, cool bro boss (be it male or female) will be wary of you. And I am not even getting into unequal pay, mostly since salaries are kept private and whatever one hears is based on rumours.

I also realised that men have fragile egos or feelings. Half the reason women cannot yell back, point out errors or be assertive is because men just have not been trained to handle it and end up taking it badly. Simply put — we cannot behave like men. At least, we cannot behave like them and expect there not to be any ramifications. For instance, a female colleague of mine once had to tell a male editor that she used to play cricket, and hence, she could write up a match report. He had told her he would be away that evening, but could still write it up, before he launched into why the match was important, and so on. Once she told him she was perfectly capable of writing up one, and hey, she used to play the game too, he looked shocked and, briefly, even hurt. Although it was only for a few seconds, she and I saw it. Then he grew embarrassed. Since then, he avoided her as much as someone working at the same company possibly could. We later learnt he had given the resident editor a negative report about her work (he was higher up than her in the hierarchy), though there was no proof to connect the two incidents.

Women at work

When I was younger, I would often wonder why so few women occupied senior posts at the organisation where I worked. I noticed that even if any topmost positions were filled by women, they tended to be single women. Of course all of these are not meant to be sweeping generalisations, but in the course of my career, these have been my personal observations.

Some years ago when a colleague worked until almost her due date, and came back to work a few days before her three months of maternity leave were over, I asked her why. She said something to the effect of, she could not presume her job would just be there waiting for her when she returned. Since then, many of my friends and colleagues have become mothers. Most have given up their jobs, or had to choose between staying late at work or returning home to their children, ie, between a promotion and their child(ren).

Since the above incident, the law has changed in India. Maternity leave is now six months, not three. But, instead of helping women heave a sigh of relief, I have heard from some that they fear their bosses could do them more harm now, since they were entitled to twice the amount of paid leave. Of course, people could argue these fears are unfounded, baseless. But then why do so many more women choose to freelance?

But even for women who do not have to split their time between children and work, rising to the top is hard. The numbers speak for themselves.

According to a UNESCO report on women in the media, in the Asia-Pacific region, women hold only a fifth of governance positions, and less than ten per cent of top management jobs. The numbers are highest in Eastern Europe — 33% and 43% in the top management and governance — and in Nordic Europe — 36% and 37%.

A look at the gender discrepancies on Page 1 bylines shows a disparity, ranging from 49.5% and 40.9% of articles written by women to 16% at another English newspaper in 2017. Not surprisingly, sports had the lowest representation of women, at 9.1% at one newspaper. As the report I am quoting points out, editorials and op-eds by women are slightly higher (24.5% by women), but this in no way means there is diversity among the women.

“In our conversations with female journalists currently or previously employed at print newspapers, many people noted that there are many female reporters on staff, but there are few in leadership roles,” the report said.

Aside from the people who write the news, the people in the news are also more likely to be men. From stock images used, the subjects of news reports, and people or experts whose quotes are gotten for stories, the majority are likely to be men. “Only 22 percent of the people heard or read about in the news in India was female; the corresponding figures for Malaysia and Nepal were the same: 15 percent… Women were found to comprise only 23 percent of the news subjects in stories from the total of 84 news websites included in the survey,” UNESCO says. The report covers a lot more — safety of women, the pay gap, and sexual harassment.

Onto the H-word

Harassment? What is that? Most people do not seem to know what harassment constitutes exactly. And yet, I have not worked at a single media organisation where there has been a clear sexual harassment policy or a workshop held, or anything concrete done to let people know that these problems are real and can be tackled at the workplace. Not one.

Forty percent of the women respondents to the UNESCO report said they “witnessed sexual harassment” at the workplace, versus the 25% of men. I am guessing there were also some who did not know that they were being harassed.

While a sexual harassment complaints committee, commonly known as the Vishakha committee, has been made compulsory at the workplace in India, only one company I have worked at made it clear that they had one. Mostly, the women I know who have been harassed chose not to say anything, for reasons ranging from, “It is too much effort”, “Nobody will believe me”, or “I do not want to get into trouble”, to “I was not sure it was proper harassment since he did not touch me”.

Most of the cases I have heard as stories. “Someone said Rahul said this about married women, because Ananya is not doing her work properly”, or a (often drunk) man coming on to a woman at a party (happened at multiple organisations), to a senior editor sending inappropriate text messages to staffers or commenting on clothing. There are hundreds of examples. Yet, nobody cares to spell them out as harassment. No woman wants to be the one insisting such trainings or meetings or workshops are held either. Even if they are, they often just end up crying themselves hoarse.

(This article has been written under pseudo name for personal reasons.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of November-December 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Introduction

Armed conflict, insurgency, civil war and ethnic rivalry all have devastating effects on the entire community, however, it is the women and children who are particularly affected due to their vulnerable social status in society. This is predominantly evident in patriarchal societies in which women have relatively smaller roles in social and political decision making. According to the estimates of UN, systematic abuse of women, sexual slavery, rape, forced sterilisation and murder are often used in conflict situations as ‘effective’ strategies of war (Bushra & Lopez, 2004). Similarly, conflict and insurgency leads to loss of family support when their husbands and other earning male members are killed and the social stigma attached to being a single woman in a male dominated society becomes exponentially higher. Their safety as well as recovery from untoward incidents is also compromised by their lack of exposure and understanding of established government aid machineries.

Against the broader social political landscape of the expanding participation of women and their increased vulnerabilities in situations of armed conflict, this article attempts to analyse the effects of insurgency on women in India’s Northeast region. The Northeast has witnessed insurgency as well as the longest running armed conflict in the country. This has resulted in huge casualties including women and children. Therefore, this article makes a modest attempt to understand the dynamics of insurgency and its effect on women in the region.

Conflict, Insurgency and Women:  An Overview

Insurgency, conflict and war affects society depending upon the nature and magnitude of the conflict.  Sometimes, it affects the life of the people, entire economy, livelihood and social fabric of the community (Walsh, 2000). The state machinery is often paralysed and the life of common people is devastated by the collapse of health and transport systems. The case of Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Darfur etc. are classic examples of such conflicts. Some conflicts are less pervasive and the impacts are limited to partial failure of economy and infrastructure. The specific impact of conflict on men and women also depends on the social role of women and their positions in family prior to the conflict (Walsh, 2000).

With the emergence of insurgent groups within the national territory demanding secession, there have been significant changes that have affected women. In the case of these conflicts, the traditional warfare with military is often replaced by the use of new actors including women soldiers, child soldiers and suicide bombers (ADA, 2009). Women also take part in ethnic violence either voluntarily or as a result of forced abduction into the group. Women and girls are abducted and forced to marry leaders of rebel groups or captured as slaves. In many contexts, rape and physical violence are used as the strategies to exhibit power, authority and control over the opponents (ADA, 2009).

There are three ways in which women are affected by conflict. One is in the personal sphere as individuals, in which women face threat of their life from landmines, bullets, bombs etc. Here, unlike men, women may not be able to escape quickly due to their physical health, pregnancy or general restrictions in mobility (Bushra & Lopez, 2004). Thus, they are at a higher risk than men while directly confronting militants. Also, they are vulnerable to rape and sexual violence. The fear of personal danger and chances of rape force women to restrict their mobility. This reduces their participation in work, food aid, relief programs and even their effort to get fire wood for cooking (Carrillo, 2000). The restricted mobility as a consequence of fear of personal danger has deeply affected their livelihood and survival during the phase of armed conflict effecting their mental as well as physical well being. Lack of communication, transport and medical services also restrict the availability of medicines further effecting their health and safety. In traditional communities in which men control power, male members of the family get preferential rights over food items. Thus, in many conflict-affected communities, women eat last and are forced to suffer from starvation and famine. Hence, it is evident that social context and gender relations also play a key role in determining the impact of insurgency over women.

The second dimension is the private sphere.Insurgency and conflict affects the survival of the family, which is the principal arena of a women’s responsibility. Often, women have to take responsibility of the household when their father or husband loses his life. This increases their economic, social and psychological burden on one hand and drastically reduces their support system on the other (Bushra & Lopez, 2004). For example, when the earning male member of the family is killed, they have to shoulder the responsibilities of farming or trading in which they have no previous experience. Apart from that, conflict forces women to migrate to other places in search of jobs and income. In many contexts, women are also forced to take to commercial sex work as a livelihood option (Bushra & Lopez, 2004).

Third dimension is the public spherein which the policies and social rules alienate and oppress the human rights of women. In many post-conflict reconstruction phases, women are denied participation and their social role is restricted to the household level. Women hardly get support from community structures that are built on the premise of patriarchal values (Bushra & Lopez, 2004). For example, in Nagaland, where entire state is affected by the longest running insurgency in the country, there was a strong objection to women’s participation in the political sphere. The Naga Hoho – the apex body of all the hill tribes in the state strongly opposed the initiative of 33% reservation for women in urban local body elections stating that it would infringe upon Naga customary laws and traditions. This kind of opposition not only puts social pressure on women candidates but also prevents them from taking necessary steps towards public participation.

Insurgency and Armed Conflict in Northeast

Since independence, almost all the states in the Northeast have witnessed insurgent movements and armed struggle in one form or another. The reasons for the emergence of insurgent movements include ethnic rivalries, cultural supremacy of one tribe over the other, migration and religious identity amongst various other factors. While some movements demand separate statehood or autonomous territory within the region, others demand secession from the country.  The armed conflicts in the region and terrorist activities have ultimately resulted in mass killings, breakdown of administration and collapse of the democratic edifice of the region. Terrorist groups run various parallel administrations in their strongholds and have disintegrated the public distribution system (Sachdeva, 2006).

While observing the magnitude of militancy in the Northeast, it is visible that the majority of the insurgent groups have transformed themselves into terrorist and extortion based entities, regardless of their primary objectives and ideology. In the case of ULFA in Assam, one of the many factors why insurgency emerged was due to unabated Bangladeshi migration into the state. But, later, the leadership found shelter in Bangladesh and rejected their earlier anti-Bangladeshi position (Menon, 2008). Similarly, insurgent groups in Tripura, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the All Tripura Tiger Force, was based on the premise that there was a need to uphold the cause of tribal population in the state. However, it was this very tribal population that NLFT represented that suffered due to conflict and was forced to support the organisation. While these organisations today, get small arms from neighboring countries, capabilities of even relatively smaller groups to challenge peace in these regions is high. As a result, insurgent groups have successfully transformed themselves into huge abduction and extortion rackets collecting regular contributions from the public, government servants and business houses as is the example of Government of Peoples Republic of Nagaland/Nagalim (GPRN). When people have had to live under the fear of a parallel government collecting taxes, they have often found it convenient to bribe militant groups for peace and safety rather than risk death and abduction.

Effect of Insurgency on Women in the Northeast

While we consider the indicators of women’s status and social position in society, the Northeast is relatively better than the rest of India. Recent evidence shows that except in Arunachal Pradesh, literacy rate among women is much higher in the region compared to other states in India (Das, 2013). While Mizoram ranks second in female literacy rate, Tripura enjoys fourth and Nagaland occupies eighth position (GoI, 2011).  Similarly, in terms of female work participation, Northeast is far ahead of other Indian states. Apart from that, there is a relatively low gender disparity in work participation (GoI, 2011). However, this is mainly because of the existence of community based subsistence agriculture that utilises more female labor. Though higher literacy rates and education amongst women also leads to increased participation of women in the workforce, this is still limited to a greater degree because of the conflict in the region resulting in a slower economy and limited industrialisation. The positive trend is visible in terms of sex ratio which is higher than the national average in almost all Northeastern states (Das, 2013).

However, in spite of their higher participation in the work force, and the high level of literacy amongst women, their role in the decision making process is minimal. Even though there are high social indicators, women in the Northeast face serious problems that affect their life and livelihood. The prolonged conflict and insurgency as well as the emotional toll of living in an oppressive environment has devastated their support systems and restricted their social mobility. The destructive effect of insurgency is deeper amongst women and there is relatively little documented evidence on the physical and psychological impact of conflict in the Northeast. This does not necessarily mean that the impact was less compared to other conflict areas but that scholarship and data collection is limited.

Due to the remoteness of the region as well as the economic backwardness caused by decades of conflict this situation of extreme poverty and social exclusion in the region is often exploited by the human trafficking mafia. Both girls and young boys were trafficked for child labor and sex trade. Reports state that young girls and women from majority of the insurgent affected regions were trafficked to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia (Hayes, 2012).

In Assam, missing girls were reported from Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Barpeta, Bongaigaon, Nalbari, Kamrup and Guwahati (Goswami et al., 2005). These are insurgency affected areas which suffer from rampant poverty and lack of livelihood. Most of the girls were lured by agents on the pretext of getting jobs but could never be traced again. This alarming situation is prevalent in other parts of the region as well. Reports state that acute unemployment, prolonged conflict and loss of livelihood forced many women to take up the sex trade as a livelihood. In addition, there are also case studies that show the plight of women in the Northeast selling liquor and drugs to support their family (Das J. , 2012).

Sexual violence and rape are common in the region. But due to social taboos and cultural dignity, many women suppress and hide the incidents. Hence, the documentary evidence on the magnitude of rape is ambiguous in the case of the Northeast. Therefore, intervention and provision of post-trauma care is very difficult in several contexts (Goswami et al., 2005). Also, due to fear of repercussions by insurgents who have informers and supporters embedded in civil society and even in government posts, a large number of incidents and crimes against women are not reported.

Although, it is known that in most of the states in the region, there has been a large displacement of population due to insurgent activity, the effects of displacement have been harsher on women than men. For example, many women from the Chakma community in Mizoram lost their homes and savings when the entire village was burnt down by insurgents. They had to escape into dense forests and live for weeks without food and shelter. Pregnant women died without any medical intervention and children suffered. Subsequently they moved to makeshift refugee camps in Southern Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh amongst other states. There were accounts of rape and sexual assault against the women in the camps and many refugees sent their children away to orphanages in order to give them a safer environment. This is not an isolated account many women even today under the physical and mental strain of living in conflict areas send their children to far away boarding schools run by NGOs or even orphanages.

In the case of one of the women interviewed by me in Manipur (Case Study 1); her husband a truck driver refused to pay the tax that was collected by insurgents operating in his area. He was shot dead leaving Case Study 1 without any means to support herself. Her husband’s family refused to help her and abandoned her shortly after the incident. With three daughters under the age of ten to raise in addition to navigating through government procedures to claim benefits, she was not sure if she could continue and became psychologically unstable. Fortunately for her she came across an NGO that helped her to get back on her feet. She relied on her knowledge of weaving common amongst women in the region for her income. The NGO also helped her access the government pension allotted to widows, a small sum of Rupees three hundred per month. Though it was not much, she said that she appreciated it greatly in her time of need. She also sent two of her daughters away to a boarding school in Noida, UP with the aid of the NGO. Case Study 1 also recognised that most of the women in this situation are not as lucky, she only sent her children when she was completely satisfied that they would be safe and taken care of.

The second victim I interviewed in Manipur (Case Study 2) also lost her husband to conflict. Similarly to Case Study 1, she had no means to supplement his income and was left with five children to take care of. She also had no knowledge of how to pursue her case in order to get justice for her husband. She used to cut and sell betel nut and weave to supplement the income that was lost with her husband. She not only fought the social stigma involved with being a widow but as in the situation with Case Study 1, her husband’s family also abandoned her.

In both cases, the women had to live under suspicion, constant vigilance and fear in addition to the unimaginable emotional strain and pressure of finding ways of looking after themselves as well as their children. Situations like these are worsened by the limited rights women have over property and land ownership. Tribal councils too do not favour giving any representation and participation to women. These biased and patriarchal social norms make life for women extremely difficult.

In Nagaland as well, women living in conflict areas are often victims of patriarchal norms. Young widows are forced to work and look after their families, although the patriarchal system does not allow them to claim property rights. Not only do they have to suffer from structural and social backwardness, but also have to face the emotional repercussions of armed conflict as well.

The role of women as members of insurgent groups is also a dimension that needs exploration. However, with the limited research that has been undertaken on the subject it is apparent that they too are victims of not only their situation but also oppressive patriarchy. In an interview with former women members of ULFA, it was understood that they were trained in arms and at the forefront of underground movements. However, they were not part of any decision making or negotiations in the post-conflict period. Besides, having experienced physical, mental and social violence on a continuous basis their identity as women militants was never recognised by their male counterparts (Deka, 2018). Similarly, their suggestions and demands were never articulated or represented in the post-conflict peace building process.

The Way Forward

While analysing the impact of insurgency in Northeast India, it is evident that gender dimensions have been completely neglected. Considering the impact of insurgency on women in the region, the issue requires specialist mitigation during peace talks and agreements by the government agencies. Even so called ethno nationalists have never taken into consideration the gender dimension in any of their demands, completely forgoing the alleviation of women’s status in their narrative.

Women have been forced to not only to be an active part of the conflict but also unwilling victims. In short, the place of women has never been defined in ethnic nationalistic discourse although women have been forced to suffer the aftermath of ethnic violence across the region (Hmingthanzual & Pande, 2017). This reality makes the situation extremely complex for the women survivors and victims of insurgency in Northeast.

Similarly, there is lack of a common platform for women on which they can discuss the impact of insurgency in order to not only create a support group for themselves but also to create knowledge and scholarship on the same. There is a need for accountability from government bodies that have been set up to aid women in difficult situations like these, for instance, the State Legal Services Authority that should have dispensed free legal aid to victims but failed to do so in the case of the two case studies from Manipur.

The lack of awareness also plays a considerable role in preventing the right intervention and support for women. In the case of grants and pensions, it is necessary (and the responsibility of the government) to intervene. Awareness programs need to be set up to ensure that every woman is aware of the monetary support that she is liable to receive. Often women are also at a loss on how to navigate the government machinery in order to find the right form of assistance. The government must recognise the emotional toll borne by victims and set up free effective treatment centers/help centers for counseling and psychiatric evaluation based on their specific needs. Alongside primary intervention, the importance of their rehabilitation must not be overlooked through women specific skill centers and employment initiatives. The implementation of these initiatives must also be evaluated annually to ensure that funds and services meant for victims are not held back or diverted as often happens.

It is evident that insurgency has seriously eroded the social, economic and political structure of the region and thereby creating a culture of violence, oppression, mistrust and mutual destruction.  Insurgent movements and armed conflicts have destroyed the life and livelihood of women in the region through systematic rape, killing, physical assault, displacement, trafficking and many other factors. Since women have added responsibilities in the household, the economic and social burden over women is more intense.

A modern day civilised society must be judged by the way they treat their vulnerable groups. As we move towards peace and security in the region, it is necessary for the government to take concrete steps in recognising the impact of this long emotional process women have had to bear by living in a conflict region.

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(Rami Desai is the Director of iSTRAT CA, a company that deals in research,
communication and data management and skill development. Views expressed are personal.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of November-December 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)