What Happens in Ayodhya Doesn’t Stay in Ayodhya

A cluster of photos printed in a major English daily, the day after the week long rituals began in Ayodhya’s new Ram temple, confirms that our ‘Beti Padhao‘ and ‘Stree Sashkteekaran’ and various ‘Matru Kalyan Yojanas’ notwithstanding, the traditional gendered hierarchies remain firmly in place both on the streets and in the temple in Ayodhya.

In the 15-member Ram Janmabhoomi Trust, there seem to be no female trustees. In the sanctum sanctorum (garbh griha), women are absent from the team of male priests. When the wife of the main yajman performing the ultimate ritual sits with him on January 22nd, her role would be that of a helper to assist and be guided by a band of male priests. One of the photos in the daily shows an all-woman crowd bejewelled and dressed in fine traditional clothes, carrying pots of holy water outside the temple in a kalash yatra. Another one shows a cluster of basic rituals, to sanctify the garbh griha, being performed by priests in the presence of members of the Trust – all men. 

A pink daily covering the 54th annual meet of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos carried an agency report how the Ram temple in Ayodhya has created a buzz even in the posh Swiss ski town and that India’s Union Minister for Woman and Child Development attending the meet told the agency that her party had waited patiently for a long time for the lord to return so it (the temple consecration) is “a reason for celebration and joy” not only in India but also among all Indian communities around the world.

A day earlier, while addressing the WEF delegates, the same minister had also talked glowingly of her visionary prime minister’s “transparent approach” for “women-led development”. It shall be propelled by gender justice and gender inclusive infrastructure that will shift the focus from looking at women merely as contributors to the labour market and treat them as potential entrepreneurs she had said.

While all this was resonating between Delhi and Davos, an important report has surfaced. Titled Beyond Basics, the Annual Status of Education Report 2024 (ASER), is a comprehensive survey that has for two decades provided vital information regarding the state of India’s primary and middle level education. Brought out by the Pratham group, the meticulously crafted ASER reports have pointed out gender differences as also deficiencies in basic skills among India’s school children at the primary level. The latest report shows that although 85% children are enrolled now, more than half the primary school children surveyed still lack reading skills and can not do simple divisions. 

Also read: More Than Half 14–18 Year Olds in Rural India Cannot Do Simple Division: ASER Report

This year’s report has, for the first time, covered 34, 745 teenagers in the 14-18 year age group from 28 districts across 26 states. It found that 25% rural kids in this age group can not even read class two level texts in their own language. It also revealed harsh gender and rural-urban divides. Girls’ progress had slowed down during the Covid years due to lesser access to electronic  learning tools like smart phones and laptops. Post-Covid, 90% of the boys in the 14-18 year group now have smart phones and are on social media. And although only 9% have a computer at home, 85% have learnt how to use computers through phones.

Compared to boys, only 19.8% girls have access to smart phones and only 30% of them have an e-mail ID. So even if total enrolment numbers may have not gone down, their skills have been adversely impacted by the gender divide. When it comes to doing work other than household chores, more young boys work outside but teenage girls are mostly put to work within homes which increases their work load but restricts their mobility. Interestingly, boys outperform girls in financial calculation tasks however, they (76%) still do better than boys (70.9%) in reading texts in native languages. 

The annual meetings of the global super rich at Davos are where power packs from India’s political, corporate and media circuits have usually been giving gyan (sermons) to billionaires from the developed world on how Indian middle classes are flourishing and how the rural India is fast becoming a ‘smart’ consumer.

Also read: The Women Who Fought for Justice for Bilkis Bano

Back home, the mega companies in India showcase the rising female talent as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) exercises. It is politically sanctioned and creates good PR and photo-ops. So we have chosen groups of 100 or 20 ‘Most Powerful Women in India’ on cover of popular magazines as female icons and the mega bucks they are making draws long and sustained applause in shows where they receive awards. The obvious cracks in the image – when one of these women entrepreneurs gets arrested for murdering her child another another, hailed as a path blazer in banking, faces grave charges of mishandling bank funds – are played down.

Let’s face it. Our real history, like any other nation’s, is also full of stories of brutal gender discrimination, honour killings, mob violence and various forms of greed and graft. From where women stand, Sita’s experience of Ram Rajya, of being banished to the forest and being rehabilitated when found innocent years later, appears rather different. The images of Ram Rajya currently being seen around are selective and play up Ram as a baby (lalla) and a male archer much more than Sita’s husband or Kaushalya’s son. With such mind engineering through images backed by elaborate rituals, the inclusive Hindu religion is in danger of becoming  synonymous with patriarchy and patriotism as the warp and weft of our democracy. Is this why of late we’ve been regularly seeing self-appointed moral vigilantes on a rampage?

A female olympic medal winner sat in protest for months before her rapist was brought to books. Another woman from a minority community had to wait for two decades before her rapists were put behind bars and then she had to move the highest court when they were released “for good behaviour”. Watching these stories on TV you realise suddenly how naïve we have been about naari sashakteekaran (women empowerment). We can no longer ignore photographs of women carrying kalash and singing as though they are in a trance. The real drivers of India’s politics and media houses are steadily strengthening a whole male-controlled system where back-room deals, wiretapping of rival politicians, the media, Bollywood and sports celebrities is fast becoming acceptable in the interest of “national security”.

And yet most of us, who were educated in the state-subsidised government schools and colleges, copiously using the free libraries and the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) systems love our nation and continue to feel we owe it a huge debt. We can not but take note of our young that the ASER report talks of: being taught poorly in cash strapped schools, being fed garbage as they watch TV mindlessly through images crafted by some cells whose intellectual thresholds are as dubious as their version of our history and culture. At the moment, the dice appears to be loaded against them but it does not mean they are the inevitable playthings of inscrutable forces. The gender-based asymmetry of power and learning has been challenged in India time and again. There is no reason to accept it will go unchallenged this time.