Category: Gender

Threads of Resistance: Weaving Together India’s Gender Narrative

In her book ‘Religion And Women in India: Gender, Faith, and Politics 1780s–1980s’, Tanika Sarkar illustrates her arguments with fascinating and often little-known local details of the women and the men who worked to challenge the gender hierarchies of their times.

A key issue for all the students of women’s and gender histories lies in the deeply held assumption that these are in the end special interest subjects, important for those who study them, but not central for “mainstream” scholars. Tanika Sarkar’s important new book Religion And Women in India: Gender, Faith, and Politics 1780s–1980s follows many other scholars in exposing the intellectual flaws in this continuing “ghettoisation”. 

Unlike many others, however, she ranges over the whole history of the subcontinent from the late eighteenth century to independent India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in the 1980s. She shows how, at every stage, gender was not simply one of many social themes, but was in practice constitutive of key relationships right across the subcontinent’s politics, economies, societies and cultural orders. 

Cover photo of Religion And Women in India: Gender, Faith, and Politics 1780s–1980s by Tanika Sarkar

Religion And Women in India: Gender, Faith, and Politics 1780s–1980s, Tanika Sarkar, Permanent Black and Ashoka University, 2024

Her book also offers an exceptionally comprehensive introduction to scholars new to the subject, students and general readers looking to develop their understanding. The reader is spared dense footnotes, and offered a carefully focussed reading list at the end of each chapter. Yet the book is also much more than an overview or synthesis.

First, at every turn, Sarkar illustrates her arguments in practical and vivid terms, with fascinating and often little-known local details of the women and the men who worked to challenge the gender hierarchies of their times, to create new spaces for action or imagination, or, alternatively, who strove to defend the existing order. Second, she lays great emphasis on the particularities of local circumstance, the complexities and contradictions which often derailed the best-laid plans of governors, political leaders and social reformers alike. Third, the book makes a powerful argument for the centrality of religion, of “faith”, in any understanding of how gender has worked as such a powerful force across the turbulent centuries of colonialism and the coming of modernity. 

The remaking of colonial India’s gender order forms the major focus of the book. With a superb combination of nuance and narrative clarity, Sarkar ranges over the interplay between gender and the shaping of India’s legal systems in the construction of “personal laws”. She explores the gendering of labour with the move into factories and mines, the striving of elite women reformers to limit the labour of women workers, and the emergence of new professions for middle class women. A substantial chapter explores the gendering of colonial politics and the huge range of new political associations which drew in men and women, the young and the old in different ways. The ambiguities and paradoxes are striking here.

Even as nationalist politics and organisations both of the left and the right opened up some powerful leadership roles for women, these were cast in the language of maternal guidance, or the powers of the divine feminine. Even amongst the most progressive, separate spheres and complementary roles remained the ideal. Further chapters explore colonial gender in relation to sexuality, and the new worlds of print culture and popular performance. 

Where, in these explorations, does Sarkar locate the key significance of religion and “faith”, identified as critical in the title of the book? The theme is woven throughout. Sometimes it appears in the interplay of many forces: as she emphasises, in India as elsewhere, religion and gender are caught up in many histories. In other settings, such as the making of colonial laws, their interplay emerges as a key shaping influence.

More than any other topic, the making of colonial law also exemplifies Sarkar’s contention that gender is not simply one of the many themes for the historian, but was itself in colonial India constitutive of a whole range of other political and institutional relationships. It was through the law that the colonial state early sought to construct a basis of legitimacy for its rule, and rendered the subcontinent’s diverse communities legible – as essentially religious constructs – to British policy-makers.

Colonial governments and Indian leaders alike turned to the law either to alleviate the social constraints under which Indian women lived, or to defend them as the very cornerstones of family and religion. From the mid-nineteenth century, the emerging construct of “personal laws” affirmed what the colonial state saw as the essentially religious basis of Indian community identity, and indicated the limits of its willingness to intervene directly in matters of religion, family and custom. Through personal laws, with their constitution of men and women as different kinds of subject in relation to the state, colonial governments also sought to reassure family and community heads that their patriarchal authority was insulated from the powerful new forces associated with coming of colonialism. 

Sarkar traces out how this proliferation of personal laws around different “religious” communities not only shaped gender roles and individual life chances, but radiated out right across the wider field of politics. The gender wars of the nineteenth century – around the institution of Sati, the remarriage of Hindu widows and the legal age of consent – were critical in shaping Hindu revivalism right through into the 1920s, when a new generation of reforming nationalists and women’s organisations entered the fray.

India’s interwar Muslim leadership also looked to personal laws – in the Shariat Act of 1937 – to build the notion of a single all-India Muslim identity. What was less well foreseen was that in the longer term, this unitary model of “Hindu” personal laws did much to erode the latitude customarily allowed to lower caste, tribal and Dalit women, and gradually to disseminate Brahmanic social norms amongst them. 

Also read: Sunitha Krishnan’s Life Is a Story of Grit, Determination and Persuasion

Interestingly, though, it is in her discussion of sexualities – “Holy and unholy gender” that Sarkar makes her most explicit argument for the absolute centrality of religion in shaping the subcontinent’s cultures of gender. Rather than following the path of secularisation and “disenchantment” of the world that conventional theories of modernisation might have suggested, colonial India saw rather a huge proliferation of new forms of faith and worship, greatly amplified in the world of cheap vernacular print and new performance media. This proliferation was evident across all communities and at all social levels.

It extended from the charismatic saints, minor god-men, pirs and shrines often serving popular classes, to the reformist religious associations emphasising “modern” models of piety to the Anglophone educated, to the professional mystics and intellectuals who catered to middle-class piety, both reformist and conservative. 

Not all of these colonial religious cultures were conservative. Some opened up new roles to women as spiritual leaders, affirmed the importance of women’s work as “modern” wives and mothers, or advocated some forms of female education. However, most endorsed what were in the end conventional norms for women, which measured their value primarily as capable housewives and devoted mothers. Why was this so? Why was it the case that in the field of religious belief and practice, as in politics, such conventions proved in the end so entrenched, and the needs of women seen as necessarily subordinate to those of the family?

What is needed, Sarkar suggests, is a new history of Indian conservatism, which would take seriously the huge weight of social opposition that the most cautious of social reformers encountered when they pressed for change. Such a history would not attribute this conservatism quite so overwhelmingly to the bourgeois patriarchal values of the colonial state. Rather, it would look to Indian agencies of many different kinds – religious conservatives, community heads, men qualified in the new professions, liberal nationalists, middle class women – as they took in the lead in reshaping family and community identities amid the social transformations of colonialism. 

Although Sarkar takes the reader through these larger arguments, the book is also rich in local detail. Some of this emerges in her accounts of Hindu widowhood, the subject of such conflict and personal pain. She reminds us that the entrenched hostility to widow remarriage arose from the Hindu belief that a woman’s body was ardhangini, the half body of her husband, believed to live on in her until the end of her own days.

She looks at some well-known supporters for the remarriage of widows, such as Ramabai Ranade and the Maharashtrian men and women who worked with her. Sarkar’s narrative also offers a wealth of less familiar examples: the Shudra weavers of Bengal reputed to have embroidered verses praising the great reformer Vidyasagar into their saris, or the traditions of South Indian activism, such as Kandukuri Veeresalingam and his Rajamundry Widow Remarriage Association of the 1870s.

There are fascinating details about little-known women activists in other fields. The redoubtable Hari Methrani, leader of Calcutta’s Dalit sanitation workers, shamed male striker-breakers in 1928, and put the colonial police to flight by throwing pots of excreta over them. Less well-known Muslim women activists also feature. Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of the Awadh Nawab, personally led an attack on the Lucknow garrison in 1857. The remarkable Bengali intellectual Rokeya Hussain depicted a feminist utopia in her 1905 book “Sultana’s Dream”, which offered a powerful critique of the violence and aggression historically associated with masculine rulership. 

The striking new problematisation of gender roles in colonial India also prompted change in the sphere of “culture”. Vernacular fiction, particularly in popular periodical literature, made it possible to imagine new versions of domesticity. Autobiographies and biographies enabled writers at many social levels to reconstruct the complex life-worlds of their own experience. The depiction of cruel personal relationships suggested new moral identities, as in Tagore’s sympathetic depiction of a woman driven to leave her abusive husband and family. Nor, Sarkar argues, were these developing cultural spaces available only to the literate middle classes. New performance genres drew much wider audiences, including audiences of women.

In towns and villages, the folk performance medium of Nautanki drew on much older oral forms, such as the songs of Bhojpuri women marking the turning of the seasons and key occasions during the ritual year. Urban audiences for popular theatre found their imaginations stirred with new desires, ambitions and resentments, which entered their repertoires of the socially possible. 

This sense of the complex balance of forces lies at the heart of Sarkar’s approach. Even when the weight of convention might have seemed most daunting, the historian should be alive to the spaces where men and women were able to imagine new possibilities, to find small weaknesses and fractures in apparently impregnable institutions. Vernacular literatures may have pushed very conventional images of women, but women gained new skills from their reading and a broadened sense of the community to which they belonged.

Women’s participation in nationalist politics limited them largely to “feminine” roles, but their very experience of action in the public domain marked an irreversible change in their consciousness. During the late colonial period, women’s political associations ultimately subordinated their feminist concerns to the needs of the united national struggle; however, through these associations, they learned to utilise the language of equal rights, justice, and equality in their own battles.

Unless we attend to these seemingly hesitant and fleeting moments of possibility, Sarkar argues, we cannot account for the post-colonial emergence of Indian feminism in the strong forms that it came to take from the 1960s. Nor can we understand the transformative intellectual break by which women, as well as men, came to be understood as right-bearing individuals.

Also read: The Rise and Fall of the ‘Idea of Asia’

These emphases on the key role of religion and the continuing challenge of conservative values run through the later sections of the book dealing with independent India, Pakistan and Bangladesh through to the 1980s. Personal laws still exist in all of them. Personal laws continue to be the fulcrum around which gender, politics and religion are held together in tension, making it difficult to move decisively beyond the issues which lay at the heart of the struggles of the colonial period.

In India, for example, the fateful decision to open the Babri Masjid site to Hindu worshippers took place in the wake of the Shah Bano affair, when Rajiv Gandhi sought to conciliate conservative Hindu opinion after conceding Muslim leaders’ demand that Islamic law should continue to determine the maintenance that a divorced Muslim wife could expect from her husband.

In the wake of the global political realignment following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, sixth-President of Pakistan General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq looked to strengthen his support amongst religious conservatives in the country through his Hudood Ordinances, which removed the legal protections that women had enjoyed under colonial law, and in effect re-masculinised Pakistan’s public sphere after the gains of the 1960s.

Independent Bangladesh’s remarkable record of economic growth, and the strength in particular of its garment industry enabled women to enter the industrial workforce in a way not seen elsewhere across the subcontinent. But the era of military rule from the mid-1970s was also accompanied by an Islamisation of state laws, particularly those affecting women, and the elevation of Islamic over Bengali identities.

In our own era of Donald Trump’s America, of the rise of Christian nationalism in some eastern European states, and close ties between the Russian Orthodox church and the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia, the strength of conservative religion across the subcontinent no longer looks like an aberrant failure of secularisation, but rather closer to a global norm.

Yet questions remain about the particular modern resilience, across the subcontinent, of conservative religious values in the field of gender. In such a capacious book as this, it seems churlish to ask for further discussion of particular topics. If a further question could be asked, it would be for a closer look at the remarkable tenacity of Hindu India’s culture of son-preference and the linked, still-vital principle of hypergamous or “anuloma” marriage.

Here, of course, “religious” considerations become difficult to separate from calculations of social advantage for the family as a collective, in which sons and daughters are seen to have very different roles and the marriages a family makes may bring important opportunities for its upward mobility. Some further exploration of this still-flourishing nexus between the religious and the social might yield further insights into the longevity of Hindu India’s conservatism in matters of gender. Yet that, perhaps, would necessitate a further, and rather different study. In the meantime, scholars, students and the informed general reader will find the very richest of feasts in Sarkar’s new book now before them. 

Rosalind O’Hanlon is an early modern historian and specialist in the colonial history of India. She is a retired Professor in Indian History and Culture at the University of Oxford.

10 Things We Say When We Speak About Rape

Layers of rhetoric surround rape in India, a place where it is easier to perform the action than speak about it with clarity.

The sense of disquiet or fear that pervades the life of most Indian women is further intensified with every new rape that is reported, whether in rural or urban India, whether to children as young as four or to a woman out with her friend or a woman accompanying her husband in an ambulance. Every day rapes occur, we read of a new incident, those in power offer anodyne words and people speak about the need to impose the death penalty for rape.

In what follows I make an effort to unpack the rhetoric that surrounds rape in India, a place where it is easier to perform the action than speak about it with clarity.

1

The names and labels used in everyday conversation and journalism (I am writing of the use of these terms in the everyday register, not in the usage by the law or in terms of the laws) for various forms of sexual harassment of women include molestation, sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, outraging the modesty of a woman, groping, and eve-teasing. A Google search reveals that these are all terms that are used, sometimes interchangeably, except maybe for ‘eve-teasing’ which even in India is seen as ‘frivolous’, but is still used, even by the police. 

If we were to grade these terms in accordance with the severity of the act, many would agree that  this would be the gradation we derive: eve-teasing – sexual harassment – molestation – outraging the modesty of a woman – groping – sexual assault and finally rape. And yet does this kind of gradation help in anything other than the obfuscation of the actual act? Does it not trivialise what happens? If a woman is groped, then to term it eve-teasing makes it an act that should be seen as some form of light entertainment (for whom?) rather than the violation of the woman’s body that it actually is. Similarly the use of the term “sexual harassment” for the incident at one of the prominent NITs wherein a student, alone in her hostel room, had a worker expose himself and make lewd gestures at her, makes the incident one which was harassment but not of an aggravated-enough degree. 

By naming incidents with these variable terms, we make it possible to tone down the gravity of the incident itself, normalising the deviance, shifting the focus away from what the victim undergoes. 

2

The protests of the wrestlers against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s behaviour and the sexual harassment that he had allegedly subjected them to, makes the same point: were the wrestlers raped? No. ‘At most he groped them, touched them in order to check their breathing.’ Vinesh Phogat spoke about the ways in which these terms help to normalise what is done to girls. She spoke of how touching was seen as okay. The level of assault determined whether it was worth making a fuss about, uncaring of the effect that it may have had on the person who was ‘touched.’ She calls the line that defines where ‘normal’ ends and where harassment begins a ‘dangerous’ one.

Many who would like to call these ‘minor’ incidents, rationalise them by saying that ‘nothing happened’ to the girl(s), as in the case of the wrestlers and the hostel student. To this, Phogat says that in India “They will only take it seriously when the assault is gruesome”.

So the many incidents where men expose themselves before women, masturbate before them, show them pornography, touch them or grope them are all minor infringements, not to be reported or protested against. And among the best ways of rendering them minor is to call them eve-teasing, outraging the modesty of a woman, or some such euphemistic phrase which obscures the violation perpetrated upon the woman. 

“Nothing much happened” is often used as a protective shield too, to excuse gender harassment in the workplace, or negligible transgressions of a woman’s personal space. In these cases, assault or rape may not happen but unwanted comments and gestures do and there may be other forms of sexual harassment. These are often covered up with claims that ‘nothing much happened’, ‘no one has been hurt’, etc., yet another instance of what Phogat speaks of when she says that, “Indian society normalises abuse and harassment.”

Also read: Being Vinesh Phogat — Wrestling with Power

3

Which are the rape cases or cases of sexual harassment that get the most media attention in India today?

In the immediate past it has been the Anna University case and the R.G. Kar case. Around the same time as the latter the rape of two little girls at Badlapur in Maharashtra by a contractual cleaner brought the town to a standstill. Back in 2019 there was the Hyderabad veterinary doctor rape case; in 2018 it was the Kathua case where an eight-year-old was held captive, raped and killed, and in 2012 it was the Delhi rape case. The stripping, groping, rape and naked parading of two Manipur women, the Hathras case and further back in time, the Bilkis Bano case, and the Bhanwari Devi rape case also received a lot of media coverage. 

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

Why is it that some cases receive more attention than others? In the main, we prioritise cases where the brutality is extreme, bodies are broken and  where the victim is middle class or upwardly mobile, is a child, or where the rape is part of a systemic problem. The extreme brutality and violence visited upon the body of the Delhi rape victim in 2012, and the R.G. Kar victim is one reason, but much of India takes cognizance only when we can identify the victim by her profession – veterinary doctor, doctor, physiotherapist, and social worker.

In a country where upwards of 30,000 rapes are reported yearly, where a rape  occurs every 15 minutes and where there must be far more taking place that go unreported, the news media highlights those that strike a chord or where the rape is embedded within a larger issue that also haunts the nation – whether that is Manipur, the Gujarat riots, the caste system or the situation of the nomadic Bakerwal tribe in then-Jammu and Kashmir state.

4

From as far back as I can remember, the usage of maa-behen-beti to refer to the women of this country has been a commonplace, especially when election season is ongoing, or when a ‘grievous’ rape has taken over the media. At that point the speaker embeds the women of the nation in this familial structure, wherein they are all either mothers or daughters or sisters. But the family structure is also exclusionary, and those who may not be accounted a mother/sister/daughter, can then become prey to those who think of them as the outsider. The family, whether by blood or in terms of the nation or race or caste or community, supposedly keeps its women safe while making it possible to prey upon those who do not belong to the said family. This becomes particularly apparent at times of communal riots and unrest, or in times leading up to such violence when there  are explicit calls to rape women who belong to the ‘other’ community or people group.

This ‘familial’ rhetoric is particularly troubling when one takes into account the fact that rape is often committed by a family member. While marital rape is not something that Indian law recognises, it does take into cognisance the fact that family members often perpetrate rape upon their women and young girls from their own families. The widespread nature of this is apparent in statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau for 2022, in which out of 31516 cases, 2324 were by family members. And these are only those that have been reported. Even as the familial rhetoric dominates the discourse when a particularly violent rape dominates the headlines, that does not mean that within the family women or girls are safe. Books such as Hush and short films such as Devi make this particularly clear. 

5

Devi ends with a frame with the words: “It is ironic that crime rates against women are higher in a nation where nearly 80% of the population worships goddesses.” Interestingly, there is also some myth-making around this fact: that as a nation we are devoted to the goddesses we worship and because we perceive women as goddesses, they are safe. Given the horrific numbers of rape and violence-against-women cases in India, this is manifestly untrue. And yet this is a popular myth as the film Devi makes clear, but one that was also busted in the aftermath of the R.G. Kar rape case, when various people exhorted the protesters to put aside the protests and focus on the Durga Puja festivities that were about to begin.

By equating women with goddesses we do a disservice to women in their everyday lives. Goddesses are powerful to a greater or lesser degree, capable of dealing with evil in the human and divine realms, and they dispense justice for mortals. Which part of this is seen as akin to what mortal Indian women go through on a daily basis? And yet, Indian girls and women are equated to goddesses and some are even worshipped on specific days.

Also read: ‘Restrooms Without a Latch and Bolt’: The View From R.G. Kar Hospital

6

Naming the victim of rape or in any way making it possible to identify the said victim is forbidden by Indian law and this is seen as, variously, a way of protecting the woman from further victimization or ridicule or ostracisation, of protecting the family which might otherwise feel the dishonour in worse ways, in their family, neighbourhood, etc. The law is meant to protect the woman who is otherwise shamed in our society but it also leads to an erasure of the victim. 

The way in which the stigma associated with rape is vested largely in the woman is indicative of the honour code of our patriarchal society and also adds layers to the woman’s responsibility for what was done to her. She is responsible because she may have “asked for it”; been friendly with strangers; been out late; been at a bar or club, getting drunk; dressed inappropriately; been in a profession that was not quite respectable; etc. That none of these may be applicable and that the man is at fault is overlooked time and again, as the meme below indicates. Yet the shame is still the woman’s and hence she and her family should not be shamed further by having their identity revealed.

7

While the woman is often stigmatised as seen above, in cases which are seen as heinous, the rapist is sometimes referred to as an animal, someone other than human. In the aftermath of the R.G. Kar case, the psychoanalysts spoke of the rapist as a sexual pervert, with “animal-like instincts”. By calling the rapist “animal-like” we dehumanise them and make it possible, indeed necessary, for them to be despised and hated, for the death penalty to be demanded for them and even for them to be killed in an encounter. We also overlook the fact that it was a human, not an animal who committed this grievous act. 

But in addition to stigmatizing the individual rapist, the use of the term “animal” to refer to him renders all other men human. While offering a convenient and necessary scapegoat, we also lull ourselves into the complacent belief that other men are not so, they are human and not animal like in their sexual desires, their perversions stop well short of the animal-like. Is this usage one that offers men a convenient cover for the so-called “minor” atrocities visited upon women folk that may never be called out or see the light of day?  Is this a strategy that helps women to live without worrying about every man one encounters? The animal and the human is a convenient categorisation that differentiates the vile and vicious from the everyday tormenter.

8

In cases such as Delhi 2012 or R.G. Kar, where the victim is not blamed for the rape, and where the terrible nature of the crime is acknowledged by all, the usual move is to demand the death penalty for the rapists. This is a demand that comes from the ordinary people as well as politicians. The usual reasons cited by those who ask for capital punishment is that the existing laws are not strict enough and that the death penalty will be an adequate deterrent for those who might contemplate rape. This usually leads to some back-and-forth among those belonging to the party in power and those attacking them as to whether the law is strong enough. In the aftermath of the Delhi 2012 case the Union government set up the Justice Verma committee to recommend changes in rape laws, which in turn led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013.

While the demand for the death penalty is commonly held to be the most just response to the gravity of the crime, it also gestures towards some kind of notional closure for the survivor or the victim’s family, a demonstration of justice seen to be done, and in cases such as the encounter killing in Hyderabad, jubilation that justice has been served, swiftly. This also recognises the slow pace of justice via courts where thousands of rape cases proceed slowly and interminably.

Underlying the demand for capital punishment is also the assumption that the law and police actions are all that are required to keep women safe. 

9

One of the missing components in attempts to reduce incidents of  rape is the shaping and educating of the young: an education that should extend from within the family to the community and nation. An education that within the family would show boys and girls that they are equal, that demeaning the latter is in no way acceptable and that would also show boys that there are unpleasant consequences for the ill-treatment of women. This is too big an ask for a land where small acts of violence against women are condoned, where in law there is no such concept of marital rape and where restrictive, patriarchal mores are still the norm.

And while it might be possible to educate the young at least somewhat, there can hardly be “adult education classes” for men and women “for gender empowerment”, even though this was one of the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee.

Also read: Mere Outrage Cannot Rid This Nation of the Language of Rape

10

Even if we were to educate all of both genders, one of the prime areas would need to be the concept of consent.

In discussions of rape in India, the question of consent is usually in two contexts: one, in cases of what might be called “breach of promise”, such as  cohabitation and eventual break up, where the woman feels cheated and the man is accused of rape; and two, in cases where the age of consent (which is 18 under Indian law) is used to claim that even if a younger teenager willingly entered into sexual relations with a person, her family members can claim rape as she is seen as a child and not of the age which can accord consent legally. In both cases there is a criminalisation of consensual relationships and punitive action for the male.

In other cases, consent is rarely brought into the picture. 

In cases which receive widespread media coverage, it is either apparent from the woman’s body, battered and broken, that she resisted with all her might or involves a small child – how can a four- or eight-year-old consent to something that is outside their sphere of knowledge?

But the legal codes in India do speak of consent at some length and the contexts in which consent cannot be seen as such: if it is obtained via fear, threat, or by the use of substances or when the person is of unsound mind. And yet, do we ever speak of consent as an integral and necessary part of a relationship? Do most Indian men understand the concept of consent and how it should impact their sexual desires and needs? Of course, this discussion becomes even more fraught every couple of years or so when the issue of marital rape is raised by society or the law or by some case which brings it into the public gaze once again. The fact that India does not “recognise” marital rape reduces the wife to someone who, having consented to the marriage, has consented to sexual relations in perpetuity with her legally wedded husband. What price consent?

§

We all know the words that are used every time a rape dominates our headlines. But the ways in which we speak of it, the words we use and the customary rhetoric employed by the media, the politicians and us, the ordinary people, also structure our thoughts and our understanding of what rape is, who should be kept safe, how the rapist should be punished, etc. While the rhetoric of rape in India is often affective and impassioned it is also, by virtue of its coded nature, anodyne and evasive.

Anna Kurian is faculty fellow, UNESCO Chair in Vulnerability Studies, Department of English, University of Hyderabad.

L&T Chairman Remarks | If Only Wives Had the Time To Stare at Their Husbands

The disproportionate burden of unpaid care work placed on women ensures that they are working well over 90 hours a week.

In a move that not only echoes but intensifies the uproar sparked by INFOSYS chairman Narayana Murthy’s controversial suggestion of a 70-hour work week, L&T Chairman S.N. Subrahmanyan has taken the discourse to a troubling new low. 

Advocating for a 90-hour work week, Subrahmanyan’s remarks glorify excessive labour and normalise gendered division of labour, rendering women’s unpaid care work invisible. 

In an undated video circulating on social media, Subrahmanyan is heard saying, “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wives stare at their husbands? Come on, get to the office and start working.”

His comment is steeped in the age-old gender stereotype that positions men as the primary breadwinners, responsible for working outside the home, while women are the primary caregivers, confined to domestic spaces. 

However, what husbands should be doing at home is not just sitting idly but participating in household chores, caring for aging parents and raising children. The strict and conservative division of work between men and women places the latter in a disadvantageous position where her freedom, agency and mobility are restricted by the burden of the household. 

This disproportionate burden of care work placed on women not only adds to their unpaid labour but also significantly hinders their ability to enter and sustain paid employment.

Women and unpaid care work

According to an International Labour Organization (ILO) report – ‘Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work’ (2018) – women in Asia and the Pacific spend 4.1 times more time on unpaid care work than men. 

Globally, women perform a staggering 76.2% of all unpaid care work, dedicating an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes per day, compared to men’s 1 hour and 23 minutes. This disparity translates into approximately 201 working days per year for women, as opposed to just 63 for men. 

In Asia and the Pacific, this burden rises to an overwhelming 80%. The report highlights that unpaid care work is one of the most significant barriers preventing women from entering, remaining in, and progressing within the labour force.

A 2022 report by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), ‘Building India’s Economy on the Backs of Women’s Unpaid Work: A Gendered Analysis of Time-Use Data’, reveals a stark gender divide in how time is allocated in both rural and urban areas. 

Among working-age individuals (15–59 years), women spend the majority of their waking hours on unpaid work, while men primarily engage in paid employment. 

In rural areas, women spend 8.2 times more time on unpaid work than men, a disparity that is even more pronounced in urban areas, where women’s time spent on unpaid care work is 9.6 times higher than men’s. 

This disproportionate burden places India among the worst-performing countries globally, trailing only behind China (72%) and South Africa (71%). 

As Dipa Sinha, assistant professor at Ambedkar University Delhi, aptly noted on X, “As if the wives are sitting at home, waiting to be stared at! Women who have a paid full-time ‘job’ are already working 90 hours a week.”

When stereotypes lead to violence

Burdening women with unpaid care work often leaves them economically vulnerable and dependent on their husbands for basic needs. This economic dependency creates a vicious cycle that severely limits their autonomy and decision-making power. 

In situations where intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs, this dependency becomes even more dangerous. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2018 report ‘Global Study On Homicide: Gender-Related Killing Of Women And Girls’, ‘home’ is the most dangerous place for women, with the majority of female homicide victims being killed by partners or family. 

Another report by UN Women 2024, ‘Femicides In 2023: Global Estimates Of Intimate Partner/Family Member Femicides’, reiterated that the most dangerous place for a woman to be was in her home while adding that the majority of women die at the hands of men.

The lack of economic support often forces women facing abuse to remain trapped in violent relationships, as they are unable to afford housing, healthcare or even basic necessities for themselves and their children. 

Additionally, those who do attempt to leave frequently face increased risks of returning to the abusive environment due to the absence of sustainable alternatives. This economic insecurity, driven by the gendered division of labour perpetuates cycles of violence and disempowerment for women.

Equitable redistribution of care work

Subrahmanyan’s remarks not only trivialise the labour that goes into maintaining households but also perpetuate harmful stereotypes that underpin gendered division of labour. To challenge these entrenched norms, there must be a collective effort to value and redistribute care work more equitably, with both the partners co-creating their households. 

This needs to be complemented through workplace policies like flexible hours, better childcare support, or state-led initiatives that recognise and compensate unpaid labour. 

Dismantling patriarchal narratives requires holding public figures accountable for normalising regressive ideas. Women’s unpaid care work is not an endless reservoir to be exploited. It is time that care work is seen as a shared societal responsibility and that economic and social systems actively enable women’s empowerment and independence, rather than perpetuate their oppression.

Anjali Chauhan is a PhD research scholar at the department of political science, University of Delhi.

When a Rape-Murder Is Fodder for News Channels’ Festival Advertisements

The behaviour of news media during the Durga Puja festival – which came shortly after the R.G. Kar rape and murder in 2024 – signals a pervading insensitivity.

As developments relevant to the rape and murder of the doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata recedes to the inside pages and diminishes to passing mentions, we will do well to sit up to a seemingly innocuous appropriation of the incident. This subtle leveraging of a horrific event by TV news media outlets in Bengal took place during the 2024 Durga Puja.

It must be said that this appropriation was less crude than many presentations that pass for news on TV channels today. However, such an appropriation of a news event into a festival has its roots in the need of the media-corporate nexus to be ahead in the race for viewership.

Billboards featuring build-up campaigns leading up to the festival played on the word ‘Durga’, ostensibly to celebrate independent women. In a series of ads by one such TV news channel, a woman doctor was featured on one such billboard, along with women following other white-collar professions.

Another one had a similar message but sans the doctor. It said that Durga Puja means celebrating the ‘Durgas’. 

Perhaps the boardroom brainstorming was around the urgency to do something that would not irk the already furious public further and rake in the views. Many believed people to be ready to shun festivities and thus shake the economy. 

Hence, boldly posing before the camera were actors playing the roles of ‘successful’ women in ‘respectable’ professions to make a statement around the fact that women are no less, that they deserve the respect of the society and so on.

The women were in neat clothing, lest the brands associating with them be thrown off. Anything that might even remotely lead the audience to think deeper is best avoided. Playing up stereotypes around the ‘cultured Bengali’ keeps the audience in good humour.

A Durga Puja installation depicts the R.G. Kar trainee doctor who was raped and murdered in August. Photo provided by author.

It is okay if society tends to normalise sexual assault on women with “questionable moral character”. It is okay for us to feel a tad less outraged at such a crime happening to a poor woman – a pavement dweller or someone belonging to a poverty-stricken rural household. It is okay that such stories barely make it to the front page or become a breaking news, unless there is a potential for sensationalism. 

The bottom line of all this: come and join the noise of news that is heavily dependent on advertisements. Noise is the indispensable currency by which you can satisfy the compulsion to preserve the stereotypes around rape in our society: dishonour to the woman, victimisation of the victim, and worth our attention only when it happens to a ‘respectable’ woman. 

Whatever the majority gravitates to dictates corporate strategy. That the ruling party in Bengal swept the by-elections in November indicates at a possibility that rural or semi-urban people could not identify fully with the outrage of the tragedy. These are the people who suffer more due to the lack of access to quality healthcare. Many among them nurse a grudge against healthcare providers too. This explains why an eco-system was working overtime to erect a slur campaign against the protesting doctors. The urban lens of the media-corporate nexus fails to see such intricacies. 

Also read: R.G. Kar: Five Lessons From an Urban Power Struggle

But more importantly, what are the ramifications of a media having complete disregard for nuances? Can a media’s role solely be driven by profiteering? What degree of compulsions can lead them to create an advertisement around a gut-wrenching tragedy that shook the conscience of the people? 

The larger section of the so-called mainstream media propels itself into action whenever there is a glimmer of an opportunity to get more audience, irrespective of what it is – a tragedy, a win in a cricket match, or an opportunity to drum up cosmetic patriotism. Who wins in this race seems to win the game of garnering more viewership. They do it because they know that it is this kind of stuff that the larger section of the society laps up. Social media had anyway been flooded with posts on the woman doctor mentioning her real name and expressing sympathies in a tone symptomatic of patriarchy and exhibitionism. Catering to that very instinct made good business sense, forget the responsibility to question the people or show a mirror to them.

No wonder that we even have a channel today to give us ‘good news’ only, something quite akin to George Orwell’s 1984. 

The viewership of these media outlets grows by the day. The algorithms of social media help the cause – flooding timelines with whatever keeps on triggering fear, hate and greed. The audience of this comprises even the Rabindrasangeet loving Bengali, who require just a little nudge to believe any number of rumours about the doctor’s ‘murderers’ and discuss the religion of two of the people apparently involved in the crime.

While the protests had given hope, the displays of insensitivity point to the rot.

Biswapriya Nandi is a marketing communications professional.

Sunitha Krishnan’s Life Is a Story of Grit, Determination and Persuasion

In her autobiography I Am What I Am, the activist talks about her work with survivors of sex trafficking over the last three decades and how she has persevered despite serious adversities.

I Am What I Am, Sunitha Krishnan’s autobiography, is the powerful and honest story of the founder of Prajwala, the largest organisation in Asia fighting sex trafficking. Krishnan, a Padma Shri recipient, has been instrumental in drafting several victim-centric policies, comprehensive training manuals and handbooks for law enforcement in India’s anti-trafficking ecosystem. In her memoir, Krishnan talks about the five decades of her life and three decades of her activism.

Sunitha Krishnan
I Am What I Am
Westland, 2024

What makes I Am What I Am a compelling read is the gripping narrative and Krishnan’s approach towards challenges. Her story is one of grit and determination, charting her journey from Bangalore, where she faced a harrowing 24-day arrest for attending a rally, to her impactful rehabilitation work in Hyderabad. Her unwavering belief in the divine and trust in the universe served as a guiding light, even when faced with life-threatening encounters. Throughout, she shares valuable lessons on trust, belief and courage.

Krishnan does not adopt a victim mindset while talking about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault while on an education drive for kids in a village. Instead, she was driven by the conviction to turn her experience into a mission to rescue and rehabilitate as many survivors as possible. Her first rescue was when she was just 17, showcasing her unwavering. She has gone on to rescue 28,900 survivors, rehabilitated 26,900 people and prevented 18,000 children from entering the sex trade since she set up Prajwala in 1996.

In Krishnan’s three decades of activism, she faced many challenges such as death threats, vandalism, hostility by victims in court, betrayal, bureaucratic red tape and physical assault. Her resilience shines through, from surviving a near-fatal auto rickshaw attack and an acid assault to having her nasal septum broken while rescuing Rizwana, a young girl then and now a head constable in the police force. Krishnan’s only mission has been to fight for justice and uplift survivors of trafficking. There are many more such rescue stories in the book which will keep you engrossed and inspired.

Also read: ‘Held Captive, Pushed Into Prostitution’: Chilling Accounts of Punjabi Women Rescued From the Gulf

Apart from the hardships and struggles, the book also introduces you to the people in her life who stood by her throughout: her family, her grandmother, her friend Jo (who was a mentor and guide too) and Rajesh, who not only believed in her selfless work but eventually chose her as his life partner, highlighting the importance of support and love in overcoming challenges.

The chapters that stood out for me were chapter 10, ‘Moving Away for Good’, and the ones that followed. Krishnan makes the pivotal choice to leave her parents behind and start afresh in Hyderabad after a humiliating and disturbing arrest. It felt like she was following her true calling as fate guided her toward the cause she was destined to support. Her secret visits to Mehboob ki Mehendi, Hyderabad’s “red light district”, all while she continued her advocacy for slum dwellers, marked the start of her remarkable journey. She felt compelled to step in and help these women, and her dedication ultimately led to The Eternal Flame – Prajwala – becoming the largest organisation in Asia fighting sex trafficking. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even today, Krishnan challenges the society’s attitude toward survivors and demands a shift in perspective. Why is the victim always blamed? Why the apathy toward survivors? And why the resistance to their inclusion?

Krishnan’s story is one of determination for anyone who wants to make a difference. The final chapter, ‘I Am What I Am’, captures this sentiment beautifully. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of human trafficking, as well as the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.

Sarika Chavan is the Founder of Sparkle Gift Cards. She writes one book review each month since 2021. These are published at Reputation Today. She has recently edited a book called Spark, a collection of real life stories of India’s Public Relations pioneers. She lives in Mumbai.

Those Who Outrage Over Ramesh Bidhuri’s Sexist Remarks Miss the Point

Let it be said clearly: in Bharat, women are to be worshipped, not respected, and, god forbid, not to be made equal. That would be constitutional, not civilisational.

There is a disingenuous outcry against statements made by the honourable Ramesh Bidhuri of the “party with a difference.” The former MP had said that if elected he would make roads in Delhi as good as “Priyanka Gandhi’s cheeks”. 

Bidhuri subsequently, against strong backlash, made that customary and political ‘take-back-what -I-said-if-sentiments-hurt’ statement which we have become used to.

He also said about Atishi that in “changing her name from Marlena to Singh [the Delhi CM dropped her last name a while ago]”, she had changed her father – ‘baap badal dala‘.

The uppity-progressive, so-called modernist holier-than-thou outrage that follows misses the larger point that informs Shri Bidhuri’s concerns.

Put squarely, this uproar once again suggests how out of sync our elites are still with the profundity of our civilisational values.

Did not the Manusmriti, that scripture of scriptures which missed out becoming our constitution because of the rational misdemeanours of some of our founding fathers, enjoin upon us that women are to remain in protective check of first the father, then the husband, and last of the son?

But no, our founding fathers, corrupted by the high-falutin principles of pernicious events like the old French Revolution, and then the even worse, the Bolshevik one, had only a deaf ear for the wisdom of our civilisational instructions; they had to inscribe equality of all disastrous sorts for women when Nature clearly had no such equality in mind.

Also read: From Hema Malini to Priyanka Gandhi: Male Gaze is a Reality of Indian Politics, Both Sides of the Aisle

For more than seven lost decades, we have had to make political noises to conform to a constitution which contradicts our civilisational treasure-trove of insights in every line and paragraph.

But how long may such arbitrary compulsions hold in check the truths of Nature and the teachings of Manu?

What wonder then that dedicated civilisational soldiers like Bidhuri feel constrained now and again to voice that deep frustration with the undesirable prominence of women in our public life which Manusmriti, had cautioned us against?

Notwithstanding the sins of these lost decades, however, the tide is turning. Thank Prajapati, this Vishwaguru nation is stridently returning to the timeless tablets of ancient sagacity.

Those that still foolishly seek to stand in the way may not have too long a rope left to keep from descending into the pit where they truly belong.

Clearly, Macaulay who still stirs a hand or a foot in his coffin is now set to be truly dead and buried without hope of resurrection.

Let it be said clearly: in Bharat, women are to be worshipped, not respected, and, god forbid, not to be made equal. That would be constitutional, not civilisational.

Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

Fractured Frameworks: How Legal Gaps Promote a Rape Culture in our Country

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) missed a crucial opportunity in dismantling gender paradigms. With the omission of Section 377 altogether, male and transgender victims are deprived of any legal recourse.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, as the world slept, India awoke to the gruesome rape and murder of 31-year-old trainee doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College. Following the incident, the nation reverted to a well-documented pattern. A harrowing incident occurs, triggering grave and sudden outrage, often accompanied by demands for harsher punishments for the accused, as exemplified by the Aparajita Bill. Over time, however, the nation slips back into complacency, awaiting another incident to reignite its fury. From Mathura, to Nirbhaya to R.G. Kar, the cycle of tragedy remains unbroken. 

India remains a country that’s highly reactive and rarely proactive, whose policy makers remain inert until a catastrophe occurs. While retributive justice has its place, it serves merely as symptomatic treatment, failing to address root causes. 

Rape isn’t merely an act of uncontrolled carnal desire; it is a manifestation of deeply ingrained societal prejudices. It reflects a pervasive culture that trivialises sexual violence and perpetuates notions of ideal victimhood, chastity, and female passivity. Our gendered laws inadvertently reinforce these biases, perpetuating the very culture they seek to dismantle. 

Gendered laws and reinforced stereotypes 

Prior to the enactment of the new criminal laws, Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) defined rape as something a ‘male perpetrator’ did to a ‘female victim’. Rape against men, which was governed under Section 377, was not officially classified as an offence of rape but rather as ‘unnatural sex’. 

The newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) missed a crucial opportunity in dismantling such gender paradigms. With the omission of Section 377 altogether, male and transgender victims are deprived of any legal recourse. While such an omission could have been an act of legislative oversight, it reflects the societal notion that rape against cis-women is inherently more serious than rape against other genders.

Rape, regardless of gender, must be viewed as a violation of one’s bodily integrity, not of honour or chastity. The omission of Section 377 also discounts the idea of homosexual relationships and the possibility of rape in such scenarios. While the BNS makes the perpetrators of certain offences gender-neutral, it continues to recognise only women as victims in such cases.

Also read: Mere Outrage Cannot Rid This Nation of the Language of Rape

Our laws continue to reinforce the notion that men seek sex while women respond to it, thereby placing women in a submissive position. This, in turn, promotes a rape culture in society where women are viewed as passive sexual objects, making them more susceptible to rape. 

Such gendered laws create immense dilemmas for the judiciary as well. For instance, in Priya Patel v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court had to acquit a woman charged with the offence of gang rape solely because it was ‘conceptually inconceivable’ under Section 375 of the now repealed IPC. The law ended up reinforcing the patriarchal notion that women are passive recipients of sexual violence, incapable of perpetrating it themselves. 

The persistence of victorian morality 

Despite laudable efforts towards decolonisation, our penal provisions retain vestiges of colonial morality. Section 74 of the BNS, which deals with acts outraging the ‘modesty’ of women, places the focus on female purity and chastity instead of upholding their autonomy.  

Ambiguities in the language of these laws, including terms like ‘unwelcome behaviour’ and ‘modesty’, lead to misuse while failing to address systemic inequalities. These provisions place a disproportionate emphasis on punishing sexual wrongs, thereby neglecting the promotion of sexual rights such as freedom of expression, sexual autonomy, and equality in relationships.

Blind spots and intersectional exclusion 

The marital rape exception in Section 63 highlights the deep-rooted connection between societal prejudices and laws, underscoring the urgent need for policy reform. Furthermore, laws also turn a blind eye to intersectional aspects of rape, especially with regards to how caste, religion, sexuality and other socio-economic factors leave or entirely exclude certain communities from protection and public discourse. 

A call for genuine reform 

If our bureaucrats genuinely wish to tackle the scourge of rape, they must look beyond symptoms and start addressing root causes. It is crucial for our lawmakers to address the systemic factors that perpetuate a rape culture in our society, starting with the very laws they draft. 

Watch: ‘Women Not Considered Persons, But Possessions’: Lawyer Vrinda Grover on Rape in India

Instead of reinstating IPC’s Section 377 in the BNS, the legislature should focus on making the existing penal provisions for rape gender-neutral, thereby encompassing individuals of all genders. Additionally, laws addressing the ‘modesty’ of women should be rephrased to shift the emphasis from protecting purity to upholding personal autonomy. 

The R.G. Kar case painfully reminds us that despite years of reforms, the horrors that Mathura and Nirbhaya faced persist. Even after years of freedom and legal progress, India struggles to protect its women and uphold their rights. It’s time for change. It’s time for reform. At the stroke of the midnight hour, it is time to awaken- completely, genuinely and sincerely.

Sai Dharshan K.S. is a law student at OP Jindal Global Law School.

‘I’m Just a Girl’: Social Media Props up Lighter Side of Girlhood, but What About Its Dark Side?

The most brutal truth of girlhood is that violence isn’t just feared, it’s expected.

In recent years, social media has given rise to a variety of light-hearted trends that revolve around what it means to be a girl. TikTok and Instagram are flooded with content around “I’m just a girl”, “girl maths” and “girl dinner”.

These trends depict a carefree, fun-loving version of femininity, portraying girls as obsessed with iced coffee, using quirky calculations to justify purchases or eating snack-like meals instead of balanced dinners. Charming and playful, these trends paint girlhood as a series of whimsical, harmless quirks. But is this depiction truly reflective of what it means to be a girl in this world?

Social media trends have certainly captured some wonderful aspects of being a girl. There is beauty in adorning oneself in makeup, choosing the perfect dress and enjoying the little things, like iced coffee or indulging in a fun, random meal. This is the lighter, more celebrated side of femininity, the side that’s all about self-expression, joy and the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure.

The carefree essence behind “I’m just a girl” is endearing because it allows women to revel in their experiences without taking themselves too seriously. It gives them the chance to celebrate their femininity and to own their “girly” side, which was often previously dismissed or mocked by mainstream culture.

However, this image of girlhood, while lovely, isn’t the whole story.

For every post about iced coffee or “girl dinner”, there is another side of girlhood that doesn’t make it to viral trends, a side filled with fear, vigilance and anxiety about survival. While girls celebrate the lighter aspects of life, they are often forced to live with the underlying reality that harm may be just around the corner. This is the side of girlhood that many are hesitant to talk about, but it is one that countless girls and women experience daily.

Girlhood is also clutching your keys in your hand, ready to use them as a weapon if you need to. Girlhood is not wearing that pretty dress in public because it might draw the wrong kind of attention. It’s always looking over your shoulder when you walk home, knowing that danger could lurk in the shadows.

Girlhood is crossing the street when someone follows too closely, speeding up your pace and calculating escape routes you shouldn’t need to – a study by ActionAid India in 2016 found that 79% of women in India faced some form of harassment or violence in public places.

Girlhood is the fear of being objectified and hyper-scrutinised before you even reach adulthood. It’s hearing that four women are raped every hour in India and in 95% of cases, it’s by someone they know.

As much as social media trends celebrate the “fun” of being a girl, the reality is that dressing up often comes with the concern of how others will perceive and potentially react to one’s appearance. It is exhausting to navigate a world that both encourages girls to look a certain way while also blaming them for the attention they receive.

The most brutal truth of girlhood is that violence isn’t just feared, it’s expected. From the moment a girl learns to walk alone, she’s taught that the world is a battlefield. Crimes like sexual harassment, assault and murder aren’t rare horrors, they’re our daily realities. One in every three women will face physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. One in three. Let that sink in. That’s not just a statistic; it’s a death sentence for dreams, security and peace of mind.

But the violence itself isn’t the final blow. It’s the aftermath that makes the pain unbearable – the gut-wrenching reality that those who commit these atrocities often walk away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, if even that.

Turn on the news, and you’ll hear stories of girls and women brutalised, but how often do you hear about real justice being served? Rapists walk free, murderers roam the streets and for every one of them, there are countless more girls living in fear, knowing the system isn’t built to protect them.

Justice is a mirage, a distant concept that never quite materialises. Reporting an assault feels like standing before a firing squad, where your truth is picked apart, doubted and disbelieved.

Girlhood is not just wearing your fear like armour; it’s carrying the weight of an entire system that will fail you when you need it the most. It’s growing up knowing that even if you scream the loudest, the world will still cover its ears. This is the stark, horrific reality we rarely speak of, but it’s the one that defines what it truly means to be a girl.

How long can we keep pretending that girlhood is all fun and games when the unspoken reality is survival? What would it take for the world to finally acknowledge that behind every viral trend, there’s a girl carrying a burden far heavier than her iced coffee?

Yogyaa Gupta is a second-year English honours student at Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi.

The Roadblock To True Queer Liberation

‘Patriqueernormativity’ reveals the limitations of queer inclusion in India, where visibility does not equate to true equality

While legal milestones like the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 2018 have marked progress for LGBTQIA+ rights India, true queer liberation remains to be achieved.

Often queer inclusion is permitted only in ways that uphold the patriarchal setup and traditional gender norms associated with it. Despite increased visibility, queer identities continue to be marginalised within societal frameworks that prioritise patriarchal family values. 

Defining ‘Patriqueernormativity’

Patriqueernormativity is a term that encapsulates the integration of queer identities into societal structures without challenging the foundational norms of patriarchy and heteronormativity. It describes a system where queer inclusion is permitted solely in ways that maintain the existing power dynamics, ensuring that gendered hierarchies remain intact.

To break down the term:

– Patri refers to patriarchy, a system of power rooted in male dominance, in which societal structures are shaped by and for the interests of men. Patriarchy persists through cultural norms, legal systems and everyday practices, creating a hierarchy that privileges men over other genders .

– Queer represents LGBTQIA+ identities, including those who challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality. Under patriqueernormativity, queerness is superficially accepted as long as it conforms to dominant heteronormative expectations. 

Also read: The Legal Path to Being Arrested for Merely Loving

– Normativity points to the preservation of societal norms – in this case, heteronormative and patriarchal norms. Queer individuals can be included, but their inclusion is conditioned on their ability to fit into pre-existing frameworks, preventing any real disruption of traditional gender roles and relationships.

Thus, patriqueernormativity refers to the selective and controlled acceptance of queer identities within a societal structure that ultimately remains patriarchal and heteronormative. For example, queer individuals may be visible in popular media, or legal changes may occur, but core patriarchal and heteronormative values – such as the privileging of traditional family structures, male authority, and hetero-centric social organisation – are never fully challenged.

Theoretical framework

Patriqueernormativity is consistent with Foucault’s power relations where power operates not only as oppressive, but as productive to the extent that it determines the norms by conditioning certain actions and punishing others. Foucault opines that power does not work in negating or even in banning or ostracising persons, it is exercised by controlling what is permissible.

Within this frame, queerness is acceptable only within normative confines that reinforce male dominance. That is why queer visibility exists but is also limited in terms of what it is able to challenge and change in a queer way.

Similarly, Judith Butler’s concept of performativity provides insight into how identities, including gender and sexual identities, are shaped by dominant norms. Butler argues that identity is not fixed but is instead performed within the confines of societal expectations.

As it stands, patriqueernormativity shows how the inclusion of queer identities in India (and perhaps in other societies) suffers from a constricted and institutionalised understanding. Within the system queer people and their identities are accepted, provided that they do not in any way challenge or redistribute power away from the patriarchal heteronormative order of Indian society.

Victorian Morality and Section 377

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, enacted in 1861 under British colonial rule, was rooted in Victorian-era morality, which imposed rigid, heteronormative sexual and gender norms. The British forms of law, for instance, tried to control people’s sexual behaviours by proscribing anyone engaging in “unnatural” activities such as consensual homosexual relationships. Such an imposition marked a clear break from the more fluid and diverse notions regarding gender and sexuality that existed in India prior to colonial presence.

Also read: Why the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita Is a Missed Opportunity for Gender Justice

Before British colonisation, India was home to a range of gender nonconforming communities, such as the hijras—a recognised third gender in many parts of the subcontinent. Various religious and cultural traditions, including Hinduism and Sufism, embraced diverse expressions of gender and sexuality, offering space for gender fluidity and same-sex love. However, with colonial rule came the enforcement of Western norms, which systematically erased or suppressed these indigenous identities, framing them as deviant and immoral.

Although Section 377 was struck down in 2018, the underlying Victorian moral frameworks remain embedded in Indian society. These conservative attitudes persist in how many still view queerness as “unnatural” or incompatible with traditional family values. This particular tendency is what underpins patriqueernormativity – where legislation becomes more progressive but does not change the behaviours enforced by society.

The law may no longer criminalise queer existence, but the moral landscape, shaped by colonial ideals, continues to restrict true queer liberation in contemporary India.

Beyond decriminalisation of homosexuality

In September 2018, India witnessed a historic legal victory with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, which decriminalised homosexuality by striking down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The judgment marked a profound moment for queer rights, as it symbolised a long-overdue affirmation of queer identities and their place in Indian society. The celebrations that followed were jubilant – pride marches grew larger, queer individuals spoke openly and a sense of liberation echoed through urban spaces. The bench proactively articulated the dignity of queer citizens for the first time in an incremental step toward inclusion.

Although the ruling lifted the criminalisation of consensual same-sex relationships, it did not address aspects of its implementation. It only resulted in decriminalisation of private, consensual acts and did not give any other substantive rights. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is still rampant; same-sex marriage is still illegal, queer couples are still not allowed to adopt, and inheritance provisions do not provide for same sex spouses.

These rights, which are critical in ensuring that an individual lives with equitable dignity have been elusive, putting queer persons in a legal and social quagmire. In effect, the decision made it possible for the queer population to be out in the open but without availability of, or full involvement in, the apparatus of marriage and family which provides the cover of social acceptability

This is where patriqueernormativity is an important term. As a combination of patriarchy and heteronormativity, patriqueernormativity permits a visibility of queerness, but only within predefined limits. While this may have eliminated the legal day-to-day oppression, true equality and belonging are still withheld from them.

Queer people are now “accepted” in the boundaries of patriarchal society, but their unions are still seen as ‘less potent’ than heterosexual relationships.

The fight for marriage equality

The battle for same-sex marriage in India is one of the most significant legal and social struggles for the queer community since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 2018. While this landmark judgment marked a major step toward equality, the ongoing fight for marriage rights highlights the limitations of that victory. At the heart of this battle are deeply ingrained societal beliefs about “family values” and the sanctity of marriage, which serve as major points of resistance to recognising same-sex unions. These objections are often rooted in a fear of disturbing heteronormative family structures.

Those opposed to same-sex marriage often mention the need to uphold the time-tested version of a ‘family’, proclaiming that marriage, only meant for a man and a woman, is centered on procreation. These views are not just about legal definitions; they are about protecting an idea of the family that upholds patriarchy by reinforcing gender roles. The Indian family structure, as envisioned by conservative voices, relies on the binary of male and female, where the man is traditionally the head of the household and the woman the caretaker. Any disruption to this model challenges the very foundation of this patriarchal order.

Patriqueernormativity helps explain this resistance to same-sex marriage. 

Marriage, in Indian society, carries a great deal of symbolic and social significance. It is not merely a legal contract between two individuals; it is a social institution that confers legitimacy, status and belonging. For many, marriage is the gateway to full participation in societal life – it connects individuals to family networks, ensures property rights and allows for legal recognition in issues of inheritance and adoption. Without access to marriage, queer relationships remain outside the bounds of social legitimacy. The refusal to grant same-sex couples the right to marry is not just a denial of legal rights but a reinforcement of the idea that their relationships are inferior to heterosexual ones.

The denial of marriage rights keeps queer people on the margins of Indian society, regardless of their legal right to exist. While they are no longer criminalised for their sexual orientation, they are still denied the social and cultural recognition that marriage provides.

The ongoing fight for same-sex marriage is, therefore, not just about the legal right to marry but about the broader struggle for full recognition and equality. Patriqueernormativity explains how queer identities are controlled and constrained, even as they are made more visible. Legal victories like the decriminalisation of homosexuality are important, but until marriage and other rights are granted, queer people will remain second-class citizens, visible but unequal.

Commodification of queer identity

Since the 2018 ruling, pride marches in Indian cities have gained increased visibility and momentum. These events, held in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, have become both platforms of celebration for the LGBTQIA+ community and public displays of queer identity. Pride, for many, represents a vibrant expression of individuality and defiance against years of marginalisation. But simultaneously, these festivities have also morphed into centres of intensifying commercialisation, where corporate advertising and other commercialised elements subvert their original, radical aims.

The increasing participation of corporations in pride events has led to a phenomenon known as rainbow capitalism. Businesses put on rainbow logos and sell pride products in the name of supporting the community. While this indicates a certain level of tolerance and normalisation of queer identities, it comes with the danger of commercialising the queer struggle by turning it into a brand that makes money instead of a movement that seeks to challenge the status quo. Pride becomes a simple product to be pushed out with little reference to the struggle it grew from.

This commercialisation intersects with the concept of Patriqueernormativity. Corporations and urban elites embrace pride marches, but in doing so, they often strip it of its political potential. Pride marches are tolerated and celebrated as colourful, controlled spectacles that showcase the “diversity” of society. However, this visibility is conditional: it exists within the boundaries of market-friendly, apolitical spaces. True activism, which would push for systemic change and the dismantling of heteronormativity and patriarchy, is sidelined.

Patriqueernormativity enables this dynamic by creating safe, controlled spaces for queer identities to be visible. As long as queer expression remains commercially viable and culturally palatable, it is accepted. But when it threatens the status quo by questioning family structures, marriage norms, or gender roles, it is either ignored or marginalised. 

True liberation

Patriqueernormativity reveals the limitations of queer inclusion in India, where visibility does not equate to true equality. True queer liberation in India requires dismantling these underlying power dynamics to ensure genuine inclusion and equality.

To achieve this, a more transformative approach is needed – one that challenges the patriarchal structures underpinning societal norms. This includes legal recognition of same-sex marriage, adoption rights, and equal access to social and economic privileges. Additionally, efforts must be made to shift cultural perceptions by promoting education on gender diversity, fostering inclusive media representation and ensuring that queer activism remains radical. Queer communities should continue to push for systemic change that goes beyond visibility and directly confronts patriarchal norms.

Disha is a Ph.D. scholar and senior research fellow at Dr. K. R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Gisèle Pelicot’s Case Could Make a Real Difference to Rape Survivors

Pelicot is an older survivor, victimised in her own home by her former husband and others she knew. This is far departed from the “stranger danger” stereotype and speaks to a harsh reality that most cases of sexual violence occur between people who know each other.

The mass rape trial that shook France is entering its final phase after ten weeks. But its implications for how we think about sexual violence and who experiences it will last much longer.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, testified to her ex-husband’s repeated, long-term sexual abuse. Dominique Pelicot admitted in November 2020 to drugging his then wife over nearly a decade, and recruiting dozens of other men to rape her. There are 50 other men on trial beyond Pelicot’s ex-husband.

Gisèle Pelicot decided to waive her right to anonymity, which victims of sexual offences are entitled to in France. In doing so, she has opened the door on a tough conversation about rape in relationships and marriages. As this case exemplifies, the realities of sexual violence can be very different from what people consider to be “typical”.

The stereotypical rape (and other sexual offences broadly) involves a lone, young, attractive, female victim being attacked by a male stranger, at night, in a public place. The attacker may use a weapon, and the victim resists the attack physically.

Very few cases meet all of these criteria, and most cases are drastically different. For example, many survivors of rape may be male, older or disabled. Their attackers may be people they know and trust or may be charming and generous, and the attack may take place behind closed doors. For female victims, the most commonly reported perpetrator is an intimate partner (46%), and for male victims, it is an acquaintance (38%).

Pelicot is an older survivor, victimised in her own home by her former husband and others she knew. This is far departed from the “stranger danger” stereotype and speaks to a harsh reality that most cases of sexual violence occur between people who know each other, and within private spaces – often the perpetrator’s or victim’s home.

If a victim does not feel they meet the typical criteria for rape or sexual assault, they may minimise their own experience or not realise what has happened. This experience is especially prevalent in cases of marital or relational abuse and among male victims, where survivors may not realise their consent was important or needed for sex to occur.

As a result, non-stereotypical survivors are less likely to seek support following their victimisation and are sometimes more likely to experience negative outcomes in their physical, mental and sexual health.

Believing victims

Victims or cases that are different to the stereotype can often be discounted, experience shame, guilt and victim blaming from others, including the justice system.

Research has shown that non-stereotypical cases of sexual violence are more likely to be disbelieved or discounted, and that their cases are more likely to result in a not guilty verdict. Male, disabled, and older survivors of rape or sexual assault are less likely to report or disclose their experiences to the police or social circles because of a fear of not being believed or treated well.

Many victims, stereotypical or not, have negative experiences when seeking help or disclosing. These cases are less likely to be taken on by the police and victims face more barriers to accessing support through sources such as domestic abuse charities.

Having positive experiences when disclosing their experience, either socially or with the police, has been found to greatly improve victim outcomes and post-traumatic growth. It also makes them more likely to seek support and report future incidents. It is important to treat all survivors with the same degree of belief and respect, even if they do not fit your idea of what rape or sexual assault victims “should” be.

Anyone can be a victim of sexual assault. Gisèle Pelicot’s case, while extreme in its nature, is a landmark. She has become a feminist hero in France, and rightly so. Her willingness to speak openly about her experiences is already helping dispel stereotypes about who experiences domestic or sexual abuse, and how they are expected to act.

This conversation must continue, to increase the likelihood that more victims will access the support they need and, if they report or disclose, that the experience will be positive and supportive one.

Tadgh Tobin, PhD Candidate, Forensic Psychology, Nottingham Trent University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.