Tag: Gender discrimination in India

Public Humiliation, Witness Silence, Gender Bias in ‘Sexist’ Harassment Cases

One classic example of ‘sexist harassment’ is: the woman is uncomfortable with a man’s personal advances and refuses them, and later he begins to humiliate her in the presence of colleagues, even in public.

One form of sexual harassment that is rarely spoken about is sexist harassment. It is assumed that “sexual harassment” at the workplace is limited only to ‘unwanted conduct of a sexual nature’. However, the POSH (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment at Workplace) Act 2013 refers to both ‘sexist’ and ‘sexual’ harassment. Inappropriate touching, showing pornography, demand for sexual favours or sexually coloured remarks are more direct sexual forms, but there are others too.

One classic example of ‘sexist harassment’, also stated in the sexual harassment handbook published by the Ministry of Women and Child Development is: the woman is uncomfortable with a man’s personal advances and refuses them, and later he begins to humiliate her in the presence of colleagues, even in public. Such sexist forms of harassment may or may not be combined with ‘unwanted conduct of sexual nature’ as stated in the POSH Act handbook.

Some of the other forms of behaviour listed in the POSH handbook that indicate workplace sexual harassment are: criticising, insulting, blaming, reprimanding or condemning an employee in public, humiliating a person in front of colleagues, engaging in smear campaigns and statements damaging a person’s reputation or career. These sexist forms of harassment need to be nipped in the bud, but are often brushed aside as minor complaints.

Sexist harassment has a long-lasting impact on women and their career, on their life course decision-making. Most aggrieved women or even Internal Complaints Committee (the statutory body to address such cases and complaints) members are not clear about ‘sexist harassment’.

Sexual harassment reports have been increasing in higher educational institutions (HEIs) in India. The University Grants Commission’s decadal data reveals that for HEIs in India, such cases rose from 147 to 296 between 2018-19 and 2020-21, a 50% increase. This is only the tip of the iceberg: the number of complaints officially lodged.

An independent recent study revealed that most cases of sexual harassment are never reported. One out of 10 students of HEIs interviewed in the study had faced sexual assault. Only 15% of the students had filed an official compliant with the Committee against Sexual Harassment (CASH) or Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). This reveals the systemic failure of HEIs.

The problems are multitudinous: social stigma within institutions, a patriarchal mindset, insensitivity in handling such cases, lack of gender sensitisation among faculty, students, including ICC members; a lack of understanding of the law, what constitutes sexual harassment, and appropriate procedures. All this creates apprehension among the aggrieved and also gives courage to perpetrators within the system to commit and repeat offences.

Also read: India’s Sustained Benevolent Sexism Has Let Its Women Down

Public humiliation and the silence

Incidences of public humiliation and intimidation implies that there were witnesses. An important question then is: what was their role, what did they do? Some join in the humiliation, while others choose to remain silent. This is a very expensive silence that destroys the integrity and self-respect of the aggrieved. It further adds to the power imbalance between genders.

The incident of sexual harassment is often reduced to a problem between a perpetrator(s) and one victim – which it is not. If the victim is new and on probation, she is obviously a junior in the organisation with few friends/support systems. The perpetrator is most likely a male in a position of power. And then there are those, both men and women, who remain silent witnesses: the perpetrator’s network and friends-circle, and those who pander to him because he is in authority. It is the social systemic inequalities that are reinforced by this system, and targets the aggrieved.

This systemic condition is also reflected in the ICC probes and the judicial procedures that may take place if the aggrieved lodges a formal complaint. In these probes, the victim’s immediate reaction to the harasser’s advances is over-analysed while the perpetrator is given the benefit of the doubt. His intimidation and humiliation of her in public is reduced to mere ‘criticism’ from a senior. Public humiliation is a form of harassment that is experienced by 57% of the 135 women interviewed in the health sector in Kolkata alone. The insensitivity with which some authorities deal with this form of harassment is itself ‘harassment’.

The POSH handbook clarifies that men with a patriarchal mindset tend to perceive what is in fact harassment as “harmless, friendly gestures” to which only over-sensitive women object. Sexist harassment includes unwelcome social invitations from a position of power, gestures of so-called ‘friendship’ which are not reciprocated by the woman, unwelcome and unreciprocated use of terms and signs of endearment by the man in power. This perception percolates into the larger society, prevails amongst some members of the ICC, and even in the legal system. In many cases, the victim resigns from the job with or without reporting the harassment to the authorities. Along with this, she resigns from her self-confidence, integrity and self-respect.

Also read: The Cuomo Case Is a Textbook Example of Complicity and Silence Around Sexual Harassment

Gender insensitivity and sensitisation

Sexual harassment has its roots in patriarchy and is embedded in a social construction that perceives men as superior to women and makes most forms of violence against women socially acceptable. Gender insensitivity leads to the misunderstanding that male flirtations are harmless that all women should take in their stride. This perception appears in the justifications offered by the perpetrator. He will invariably say that he has invited other women similarly: when they did not have a problem, why is this particular woman having one, or why didn’t she immediately express her discomfort. His supporters will claim that he has always behaved thus with women: so there is nothing unique about this case, almost as though a serial offender must be excused precisely because he has done this to so many women! Such justifications are common to harassment cases, and it is important to understand them in the context of the history of gender discrimination and power inequalities.

POSH states that the aggrieved woman’s feeling of discomfort, and her sense that the man’s invitation is unwelcome, that should be the primary focus. But the reality is: lending a sympathetic ear to the aggrieved woman is supposed to be justice enough. Women are asked to join in expressions of sympathy towards the male, who may be an older man, or this is the first formal complaint against him (although, as noted above, it is common knowledge that this is standard behaviour from him).

This is the gender insensitive system that causes apprehensions among women regarding lodging a complaint, not to mention the ensuing social stigma. Typically, men are warned and women are consoled, and the matter is laid to rest.

Gender sensitisation is required at three levels: the young population through education, employees at all levels and the authorities. Women empowerment and gender sensitisation should be taught at higher secondary and graduation levels. Gender sensitisation teaches both men and women appropriate mutually respectful forms of behaviour. Higher education is a powerful tool through which women begin to understand inequalities, think analytically and address individual and socially discriminatory situations.

In India, the increase in the percentage of women in higher education has not directly contributed to women’s agency or empowerment. Most gender sensitisation sessions focus on the POSH Act and the stipulations of the law. These sessions need to include broader aspects of gender inequalities that touch on daily lives. The authorities also need sensitisation on appropriate ways of dealing with cases of sexual harassment. Otherwise most of the aggrieved will continue to remain silent about the abuse.

Sheela Suryanarayanan is associate professor at Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad.

It’s Time We Start Valuing Women’s Household Work by Paying Homemakers

Paying salaries to women for housework can give women respect, recognition, dignity and empowerment. The question then is, who will pay for it?

“They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work.”

– Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework (1975)

Shashi Tharoor tweeted on January 5, 2021, “I welcome @ikamalhaasan’s idea of recognising housework as a salaried profession, w/the state govt paying a monthly wage to homemakers. This will recognise & monetise the services of women homemakers in society, enhance their power & autonomy & create near-universal basic income.”

Last December, Kamal Haasan promised a salary to homemakers, as part of his poll promises in his seven-point governance and economic agenda, if his party, Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), is voted to power in the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly elections.

But, Kangana Ranaut opposed the idea, saying, “Don’t put a price tag on sex we have with our love, don’t pay us for mothering our own, we don’t need salary for being the Queens of our own little kingdom our home, stop seeing everything as business. Surrender to your woman she needs all of you not just your love/respect/salary.”

Tharoor responded, “I agree w/@KanganaTeam that there are so many things in a homemaker’s life that are beyond price. But this is not about those things: it’s about recognising the value of unpaid work & also ensuring a basic income to every woman. I’d like all Indian women to be as empowered as you!”

MNM noted in their agenda, “The MNM government will take steps to realise Bharatiyaar’s dream of ‘Pudhumai penn’ through education, employment and entrepreneurship for women. Women will break through established glass ceilings by the equal opportunities provided to them by our MNM government. Homemakers will get their due recognition through payment for their work at home which hitherto has been unrecognised and unmonetised, thus raising the dignity of our womenfolk.”

A few weeks ago, a member of MNM sought the opinion of economists on this issue. This led to a flurry of articles in various dailies. Thus, the matter gained prominence, and not wanting to miss the bus, all the major parties in the fray for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections in April 2021 are now stealing the thunder of Kamal Haasan by making payment of salaries to homemakers part of their election manifestos.

Also read: Women and the Burden of Unpaid Labour: What Is the Way Forward?

DMK chief M.K. Stalin announced on March 7 that if his party is voted to power, they would give Rs 1,000 per month to every homemaker in the state. Kamal Haasan was quick to accuse the DMK of copying many of its promises in its election manifesto, including providing a monthly salary to homemakers.

Following DMK’s announcement, the very next day, on March 8, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, E.K. Palaniswami, announced a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500 to homemakers as part of the AIADMK’s manifesto, saying that the DMK had got wind of it and announced it hurriedly a day earlier. Of course, Kamal Haasan’s party has not indicated how much they would pay the homemakers. Moreover, it is not clear at this stage how these parties are proposing to source the funds needed for this and other freebies they are promising in their manifestos.

Thus, the battle lines seem clearly drawn on this issue. According to a recent government economic survey, 60% of women in the “productive age group” of 15 to 59 were engaged in full-time housework. Note that nearly 84% of women’s working hours are spent on activities they do not get paid for, while the reverse is true for men – 80% of their work time is spent on paid work. These gender disparities begin early. The average boy spends more time on leisure and learning than his sisters, while the average girl spends more time on household work than her brothers. Boys participate less in regular household chores, such as cooking, cleaning and washing.

A typical woman’s day starts at about 5 am and ends after 9 pm. Thus, women have little time for themselves. It is estimated that the value of women’s unpaid household work amounts to nearly 40% of India’s current GDP (globally, it is 13% of the economy).

Although the Indian constitution grants men and women equal rights, a strong patriarchal system shapes the lives of women with traditions going back many millennia. Manusmriti, compiled around 200 BC, lays down how a woman’s life is to be regulated: “In childhood, a female is subject to her father, in her youth to her husband, and when her ‘lord’ is dead then to her sons.” Parents see daughters as liabilities and make them feel inferior to their brothers.

Also read: The Laws of Manu and What They Would Mean for Citizens of the Hindu Rashtra

This strong patriarchal tradition makes it difficult to remove the gender disparities. These disparities include sex-selective abortions, dowry deaths, low educational levels and high illiteracy in women, in addition to gender disparities in employment opportunities and wages. Unless these disparities are addressed by respecting the rights of girls and women India cannot become a developed nation.

It is rather ironic that the Census of India classifies as “non-workers” all household workers — all those attending to household chores like cooking, cleaning of utensils, looking after children, fetching water and collecting firewood. Hence, over 400 million women in India, nearly 65% of all females, constitute nearly 75% of those listed as non-workers in India. This categorisation has negative consequences in policies and programmes aimed at women.

Recently, the Supreme Court of India, in a motor accident claim case, observed, “The sheer amount of time and effort that is dedicated to household work by individuals, who are more likely to be women than men, is not surprising when one considers the plethora of activities a housemaker undertakes … A housemaker often prepares food for the entire family, manages the procurement of groceries and other household shopping needs, cleans and manages the house and its surroundings, undertakes decoration, repairs and maintenance work, looks after the needs of the children and any aged member of the household, manages budgets and so much more.”

“… In rural households, they often also assist in the sowing, harvesting and transplanting activities in the field, apart from tending cattle… However, despite all the above, the conception that housemakers do not ‘work’ or that they do not add economic value to the household is a problematic idea that has persisted for many years and must be overcome. … Fixing a notional income for a homemaker … is a step towards the constitutional vision of social equality and ensuring dignity of life to all individuals.”

Campaigns in support of wages for ‘housework’

In 1972, Selma James started the International Wages for Housework Campaign (IWFHC) in Manchester as a grassroots women’s network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work, in the home and outside. They wanted to change the situation of dependency of women, reverse the relations of power, and redistribute the wealth that they produced. Because the demand was for a wage ‘for housework,’ for any individual who performed it, and not a wage ‘for housewives,’ it was in a position to destabilise the socio-sexual division of labour. The “Statement of the International Feminist Collective” issued in 1972 in Italy, rejected a separation between unwaged work in the home and waged work in the factory, pronouncing housework as a critical terrain in the class struggle against capitalism.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, the IWFHC lobbied the United Nations Conferences on Women on unpaid work, and got the UN to pass resolutions that recognised the unwaged caring work that women do in the home, on the land and in the community. On March 8, 2000, women from over 60 countries around the world participated in the Global Women’s Strike (GWS). This strike was called for by the Wages for Housework Campaign, demanding among other things, “Payment for all caring work – in wages, pensions, land and other resources.”

In a 2018 interview to the Boston Review, Silvia Federici noted, “The politics of wages for housework was shaped by women who had an understanding of capitalism, imperialism and the anti-colonial struggle. Thus we could not accept that women’s liberation could be a struggle for ‘equality with men’ or that it could be limited to equal pay for equal work. We saw that in the same way as the racialisation of Black men and women had served to justify slavery, so had gender-based discrimination served to exploit women as unpaid workers in the home.”

Thus, it is time we started valuing women’s household work. Paying salaries to women for housework can give women respect, recognition, dignity and empowerment. The question then is, who will pay for it? Can the government take on this additional burden? It is time we started working out the logistics to implement this idea whose time has come.

In fact, in 2012, the UPA government was seriously considering a proposal to make it mandatory for men to share a certain percentage of their income with their wives for doing household chores. Let us revisit that proposal. The feminist slogan of the 1970s – “The personal is political” – is coming to roost.

Samarender Reddy has a masters in economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Note: This article was edited on March 19, 2021 to remove a reference to Venezuela’s policy on paying homemakers. While the then president of Venezuela did announce such a policy in 2006, no universal income for homemakers has been implemented in the country.

India’s Sustained Benevolent Sexism Has Let Its Women Down

Women are being asked to give up their rights to freedom of choice and movement for protection. What if we choose not to register ourselves in the name of protection or marry a rapist?

“Will you marry her?” asked the Chief Justice of India to a man who is accused of repeatedly raping a minor. The accused stalked the victim on her way to school, gagged and tied her whilst he raped her, threatened to throw acid on her face if she spoke up and continued to rape her several times thereafter. The facts only came to light when she tried to commit suicide and her mother stopped her. She and her mother tried to file a police complaint, but the mother of the accused stopped them promising her son would marry her when she turned 18.

It is shocking that the Chief Justice would think it appropriate to offer marriage as a solution to the horrific criminal behaviour without even considering the rights of the girl.

However, this is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in the system when men in power continue to impose suffocating rules and policies, pronounce misogynistic and sexist statements, totally ignoring the rights of women, treating them as objects.

Also read: Can Judges Dispense Gender Justice While Expressing Views That Go Against It?

A poor record of women’s rights

Last month, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh announced that under a new programme to be put in place, a woman moving out of her house for her work will have to register herself at the local police station and she will be tracked for her safety. This was announced whilst inaugurating ‘Samman’, a fortnight long awareness programme for crime against women. ‘Samman’ translates in English to ‘honour’.

In Uttar Pradesh, under the guise of women’s safety, police will use artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled cameras to detect distress on women’s faces with no regards to their privacy. In January, the Bombay high court ruled that groping a minor without ‘skin-to-skin’ contact is not sexual assault.

These new policies also bring to mind benevolent sexism which has in a way convoluted “honour” with purity of women, putting them on a pedestal like a goddess or glorifying the role of a mother, wife and daughter but at the expense of their agency and independence. Often when there is a rape that is reported, politicians and leaders refer to women as daughters while also victim blaming them as though the fault lies with them. They are devalued to an extent that it seems as though they are second class citizens and invite men to violate them.

Recently, after visiting the family of a 50-year-old Anganwadi worker and rape and murder victim, a National Commission for Women’s spokesperson Chandramukhi Devi said, “Even under any influence, a woman should keep track of time, and should not venture out late. Perhaps, had the victim not gone out in the evening, or gone along with a family member, she could have been saved.”

Representational image of activists holding placards and light candles demanding justice for rape victims and to prevent crimes against women. Photo: PTI/Mitesh Bhuvad

The onus to prevent the violence against women and girls is also portrayed to be the responsibility of women and used to withdraw various freedoms. Last year when men gang raped an 11-year-old girl in Dumka, a politician said, “The rising incidents of rape and gang-rape are testimony to the negligent approach of parents towards their daughters. They allow their daughters to move out of their home after dark.”

He further said, “Boys and girls often cross socially accepted lines because they have easy access to internet and mobile phones.”

In many parts of the country, girls are thus not allowed to have their own mobile phones lest they stray and cultivate bad habits. No such restrictions are imposed on boys who are free to roam outside the home at all hours of the day and night.

This benevolent sexism whilst at some level may appear liberal actually scuttles a woman’s rights, making her submissive to men and in need of protection from men. The idea that one needs to marry one’s rapist as though that justifies the act and is the right solution is atrocious.  The idea that one needs to register oneself at the police station so that one’s movements can be tracked for one’s safety is equivalent to being voluntarily surveilled and there is no backing down from there on.

In a way, we are being asked to give up our rights with regards to freedom of choice and movement in return for protection. What if we choose not to register ourselves or marry a rapist? Does it mean that the State has no responsibility to ensure our safety? Does it mean that we will be blamed should we get trolled, attacked, stalked, assaulted and raped?

Also read: Only Ten Countries Have Full Equal Rights for Women

Dealing with violence against women and girls means first confronting the sexism, patriarchy and the harmful gender norms that govern our socio-cultural landscape. The next step is to ensure that rules, laws and regulations are fair, and our biases do not influence how we implement and execute them. By controlling the freedoms of one gender does not guarantee safety or well-being of the entire society.

Many women, including me, are outraged about this pronouncement by the Chief Justice of India and are calling for his immediate resignation.

We cannot have leadership that devalues women. There is an urgent need to educate everyone on being gender sensitive and challenge unconscious and implicit biases. This education must be introduced at an early age in schools and it should be part of every organisation’s portfolio of training so that lawmakers, policymakers and people in leadership positions do not ignorantly or wilfully introduce legislation that is harmful to one gender. Else it would only serve to further create an insecure culture, patriarchy and discrimination.

ElsaMarie DSilva is the founder of Red Dot Foundation (Safecity) that works on gender justice and equality. She is an Aspen New Voices fellow and a Yale World fellow. She tweets @elsamariedsilva

Gender Discrimination in Malayalam Film Industry, Says Panel Headed by Ex HC Judge

The Kerala government had appointed the commission in May 2019 to look into the problems faced by women in the Malayalam film industry.

Thiruvananthapuram: The three-member panel which looked into problems being faced by women in the Malayalam film industry has said there is gender discrimination and urged the state government to constitute a tribunal headed by a district judge to settle issues within the fraternity.

The commission, constituted by the CPI(M)-led LDF government in 2017, submitted its report on Tuesday.

Former Kerala High Court judge K. Hema, who headed the panel, said there are a lot of issues being faced by the women in the film industry.

“We spoke to several men and women in the industry. Screenshots, audio, and video clippings have been submitted as evidence on the goings-on in the industry”, which forms part of the 300-page report, she told reporters.

There is gender discrimination in the industry, she said.

Veteran actor Sharada and former IAS officer K.B. Valsala Kumari were the other members in the panel.

The report touches upon the various problems being faced by actresses in the industry, including the practice of casting couch and gender discrimination.

Also read: In Tollywood, the Bottom of the Pyramid Is Leading the #MeToo Movement

A release from the Chief Minister’s office said the findings of the commission were serious.

Women coming into the Malayalam film industry face sexual harassment, the report states with evidence. It said the practice of the casting couch is there in the Malayalam film industry.

Many women coming to this field were forced to provide sexual favours to get opportunities and the victims do not file police complaints, the release stated.

The Kerala government had appointed the commission in May 2019 to look into the problems faced by women in the industry on the basis of a memorandum submitted by Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), an outfit of women in the Malayalam film industry.

The WCC had claimed that the practice of ‘casting couch’ exists in the industry and had urged the commission to probe into this aspect also.

Several people who come to this field are subjected to various types of exploitation, WCC, an organisation that includes actors, directors, scriptwriters, and singers was launched to safeguard their rights and ensure gender justice in May after the abduction and molestation of Malayalam actress in Kochi.

A Girl Named ‘No More’ Offers a Lesson in Gender Equality

‘Vendaam’ in Tamil means ‘no’ or ‘not any more’ – one of the several names typically given to a girl child by parents overcome by their desire for a boy.

Chennai: For several years, Vendaam would pause for a moment before introducing herself to anyone. This was because in her name, she carried the shame and neglect associated with being a girl child.

“Vendaam” in Tamil means “no” or “not any more” – one of the several names typically given to a girl child by parents overcome by their desire for a boy.

Today, Vendaam has done her parents and her village proud. The 19-year-old, in her final year of engineering at the Chennai Institute of Technology, was recruited by a top Japanese firm after a campus interview. She will be paid an annual salary of Rs 22 lakh.

Vendaam is perhaps the first girl from the small village of Narayanapuram — where it is common custom to name newborn girls in this humiliating fashion in the hope that a boy will be born next – to overcome adversity in such a dramatic manner.

The struggle with her name began as soon as Vendaam discovered what it meant. Through the years, it only got worse. “I have repeatedly asked my parents why they gave me such a name. I have always been reluctant to tell people my name and have often been ridiculed for it,” she says.

Also read: How India Can Get Better at Delivering Justice for Children

The third child of poor agricultural labourers of that small village near Tiruthani in Thiruvallur district, Vendaam had a difficult childhood. “My parents struggled really hard to raise us. They had no land of their own,” she says.

The family’s fourth child after her was a girl too.

“After that, we decided not to have any more children” says Vendaam’s father, G. Asokan. His wife Gowri supports the family by looking after two cows and finding work under the MGNREGS whenever possible.

The family lives in the group house allotted by the government to them a decade ago. They have added an extra room to accommodate the daughters. “Our elders thought we should name her Vendaam and it was a custom too,” Asokan says, not without guilt.

The prejudice in naming his daughter notwithstanding, Asokan was determined to give a decent education to his girls. “I had studied only till the fifth standard, and my wife had never been to school. We were certain our kids should not suffer the same fate,” he says.

All four girls would thus walk two kilometres every day to the nearest government school in the next village, Ammaiyarkuppam. “When we joined plus-1, we got bicycles under the government scheme,” says Vendaam, whose days are now spent filling paperwork for a passport before she flies off to Japan.

While his other daughters showed interest in either the arts or pure science, Vendaam chose engineering. “I scored 1095 in my 12th standard exams and had a cut off of 188.75. Getting into engineering was not a problem,” she says. But paying the fees was. This was when her college authorities came good, granting her a full scholarship. “We offer full and partial scholarships to more than 80 students every year based on two criteria – merit and family background. Vendaam naturally fitted into both” says J.M. Mathana, principal of the Chennai Institute of Technology.

On May 13, 2018, NUALS Kochi conducted CLAT for 54,000 plus candidates. Representative image. Credit: PTI

The desire for male children is so deep-rooted that in order to be respected a girl child needs to be extraordinary academically. Representative image. Photo: PTI

Had the scholarship not come, Vendaam says she would have settled for an arts course like her sisters.

The college had foreign language courses. Vendaam opted to train in Japanese. “She was a fast learner, so when the time came for campus interviews, she could converse in Japanese,” Mathana notes.

Also read: How Discrimination Against Girl Children Can Be Addressed

Throughout, concerns over her name reigned over her social interactions. Mathana remembers how Vendaam had recoiled while being introduced to her during their first meeting. “She would be so abrupt with her name that nobody could hear it properly the first time. I was stunned but a colleague explained why she was being so,” the principal says.

In villages across Tamil Nadu, it is also not uncommon to find girls named “Pothum Ponnu” or “no more girls” for the same reason. Tamil writer and school teacher T. Parameshwari says the practice is prevalent across Tamil Nadu and not just the southern parts of the state, as was commonly thought.

“I have worked extensively in the northern districts and would come across names such as ‘Vendaam Mani’ or ‘Vendaam Ponnu’. In the south, they give names like ‘Pothum Ponnu’. In some cases, they give names like ‘Mangalam’ or ‘Poornam’ signifying a good, auspicious end. The objective is the same, though. They do not want a girl child,” says Parameshwari.

Cultural anthropologist Dr A.K. Perumal says the practice goes beyond the desire for a male child. “Originally, the idea was to protect the child from any evil. By giving names like ‘Mannangatti’ or ‘Kuppai’ (which mean ‘trash’), parents hoped that the evil force will indeed treat their child as trash and leave her or him alone. Much later, the custom was probably misinterpreted to create an unfavourable environment for the girl child. In Tamil Nadu, this misinterpretation of the custom accompanied the system of dowry,” he says.

Also read: Collective of Women, Queer Groups Suggests Measures to Strengthen Draft Education Policy

Historians say the desire for a male child is so deep-rooted in society that it is no surprise that it manifests itself in such naming practices. For parents, it is a prayer of sorts, rooted in belief.

Drawing parallel with anthropologist George Frazer’s notions of sympathetic magic and contagious magic, writer and folklore historian A. Sivasubramaniam says the practice found its ‘validation’ in belief that uttering some words over and over again would have the desired effect. “They believe in the magic of such rituals. When you keep using the names ‘Vendaam’ or ‘Poornam’ in the house, they believe it will translate into reality,” he adds.

But Asokan’s beliefs have now changed.

“We are really happy; she has proved not just to our village but to the world that a girl child is neither undesirable nor a burden. If anything, she is going to redeem us from the abject conditions that we are currently living in,” he says.

Before doing so, Vendaam has an important task: She is keen to change her name. “My father has been trying to do that for a long time, but his efforts have been unsuccessful. I will not stop trying though. All I know is I am not carrying this name to Japan with me,” she says.

Parameshwari finds in Vendaam’s success story a taste of bitterness. “To become desirable or even acceptable, a girl has to do something – do well academically or take financial responsibility for her family. But a male child carries no such burden. Being a male child would be sufficient to absolve him of carrying any shame, guilt or neglect. It is this that we need to change,” she says.

Kavitha Muralidharan is an independent journalist.

Are Women in India Hampered by ‘Hindu Rate’ of Gender Discrimination?

The plight of women in the country has its roots in Hindu traditions, and a Reformation may be needed to fix it.

The plight of women in the country has its roots in Hindu traditions, and a Reformation may be needed to fix it.

The underlying reasons for the skewed sex ratio and gender discrimination lie elsewhere in some long-standing Hindu traditions. Credit: Riccardo Romano/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Nature ensures that roughly an equal number of boys and girls are born. This parity holds true for almost all countries. India, however, stands at odds with this natural order.

Selective abortion of female fetuses leads to fewer girls being born in the country (about nine girls per ten boys). Feticide and premature death of girls due to neglect add up to an estimated 63 million women “missing” from the population.

The oft-cited reason for this gender inequality is that Indian parents have a strong preference for sons. This explanation though holds true only in some states. A third of the Indian states show no such preference for male heirs and have fairly balanced child sex ratios.

Sources: Economic Survey; National Family Health Survey; UN; World Bank.

Sources: Economic Survey; National Family Health Survey; UN; World Bank.

The government’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (Save the daughter, educate the daughter) policy, which seeks to eliminate the imbalance, is based on the premise that the uneven sex ratio is due to low literacy among women. But wealthier urban states, such as Delhi and Punjab, where most women are not merely literate but are also school matriculates, are among the abject cases of this gender bias, and poorer rural states with low female literacy, such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, have more favourable sex ratios. This also suggests that economic development or urbanisation may not wipe out gender bias in India.

The underlying reasons for the skewed sex ratio and gender discrimination lie elsewhere, in some long-standing Hindu traditions.

Devi or the doormat

Hinduism has an impressive capacity to sustain contradictions. Within its fold, Hinduism simultaneously holds dualism and non-dualism; devotion, doubt and denial; self-denying spiritualism and self-gratifying materialism. One such contradiction is the status of women. Hindu mores deify women as the venerable mother, and as formidable goddesses, even as they relegate them to submissive inferiority.

Three traditional Hindu practices underline the inferior status of women and are consequential to gender discrimination in India. These traditions make some forms of gender bias that are prevalent in all religious groups particularly acute among the Hindus.

First, customary Hindu inheritance practices under the Mitākṣarā and Dāyabhāga systems privilege sons and alienate daughters and widows from ancestral lands. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 codified these practices as law in independent India and applied them expansively to cover Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Sikhs. Under this broad application, sons inherited ancestral property if the deceased did not will it otherwise, while daughters and widows were left high and dry.

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In contrast, in Muslim, Christian and tribal communities, specific procedures endowed women with the right to inherit some lands. Tribal inheritance rights varied by community and region, but Muslim personal law generally allowed both daughters and widows inheritance. Christian laws too gave widows a share of the inheritance and, following the 1986 Mary Roy case, extended to daughters the right to ancestral property.

The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act in 2005 sought to give Hindu women legal rights to ancestral lands, but its progressive intent was undermined by a host of perverse tactics to deny Hindu women property. Subterfuge included “gifting” the daughter’s due share to her brothers, and increased female feticide and childhood mortality.

These responses not only deprived Hindu women of their legal rights but also seem to have erased decades of progress made in leveling sex ratios. National Family Health Surveys reveal that the overall number of females to males declined sharply after the 2005 law, more so in states with more Hindus. In states where the population is mostly Hindu, overall sex ratios now are comparable to the distorted levels that existed in the 1990s.

In part, this skew could be attributed to increased inter-state migration, usually of men in search of work, and to greater availability of medical technology by the turn of the century to terminate female fetuses. But distorted childhood sex ratios (0-4 years), which cannot be due to migration, suggest otherwise: the ratios declined in states where most people are Hindus. If technology has facilitated discriminatory feticide, then it has happened more so in predominantly Hindu states.

Sources: National Family Health Surveys; Census of India.
Note: The Hindu share is calculated by subtracting Christians, Muslims and the Scheduled Tribes – i.e., those who are not under the Hindu Succession Acts – from the of state population. In the northeastern states, since the ST population subsumes Christians, the calculation subtracts just the ST share.

Further evidence comes from census data, which records sex ratios by religion. It is not just states that are mostly Hindu that have suffered from worsening childhood sex ratios; it is the Hindu community at large. Far fewer girls than boys are now being born into Hindu households than at the turn of the century, and the skew has deepened more among the Hindus; other religious groups too witnessed decline in the number of girls, but their childhood sex ratios are within the normal bounds of what we see in countries around the world.

Source: Census of India

Source: Census of India

Second, the custom of dowry for brides makes Hindu families treat daughters as a financial burden and sons as prized. The practice has seeped into other religions in India, but its wide prevalence among Hindus makes parents averse to having daughters, favoring sons instead.

The custom of dowry for brides makes Hindu families treat daughters as a financial burden and sons as prized. Credit: Reuters

The custom of dowry for brides makes Hindu families treat daughters as a financial burden and sons as prized. Credit: Reuters

Third, besides material factors, such as dowry and property rights, there are transcendental reasons for gender discrimination in Hinduism. In Hindu tradition, sons are seen as the sole legatees of family line (See, for instance, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad). Hindu parents hold that, after their death, sons – and not daughters – will deliver them from evil and carry on their duties; they expect to live on in this world through their sons. Daughters are not deemed to carry forward the family lineage.

In a culture infused with beliefs and practices that esteem sons, daughters can be dispensed with. That is what state-level childhood sex ratios suggest. Far fewer girls than boys exist in states where Hindu culture and traditions are more prevalent – i.e., in states where the population is predominantly Hindu.

Sources: National Family Health Survey 2015-16; 2011 Census of India.

Sources: National Family Health Survey 2015-16; 2011 Census of India.

A preference for sons thus seems to hold sway in states that are mostly Hindu, whereas in states where most people do not belong to the Hindu fold childhood sex ratios approximate parity. Skewed sex ratios are not a pan-Indian phenomenon; they are largely a Hindu problem.

The problem of sex ratios is just one indicator of the general plight of women in predominantly Hindu states; other indicators paint a grimmer picture. Women in these states are more likely to be unschooled and thus poorer, unhealthier (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2), and be victims of crime than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. The lives of women in predominantly Hindu states, if they were not cut short in the mother’s womb or in infancy, seem poor, nasty and wretched.

Sources: National Family Health Surveys, 2015-16; Crime in India 2016 (NCRB); 2011 Census of India.

Sources: National Family Health Surveys, 2015-16; Crime in India 2016 (NCRB); 2011 Census of India.

Need for a Hindu Reformation

Any attempt to deal with gender discrimination in India must start with a firm recognition of what lies at the root of this social ill.

In the past, such social ills had galvanised a galaxy of reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Dayananda Saraswati, R.G. Bhandarkar, Chattampi Swami, Narayana Guru and Vivekananda. In their quest to distill and celebrate the essence of Hinduism, these reformers sought to cleanse its traditions from the degeneracy of caste prejudices, child marriage and widow burning; they campaigned to educate girls, extend inheritance to women and allow widows to remarry.

These days, Hindu reformers are a rare species. Those who profess to champion the cause of Hindus are fixated on the bugbears of ‘love jihad’ and the erosion of Hindu population advantage, artfully disregarding the fact that the real demographic threat to Hindus comes from the community’s regressive traditions that lead to abnormal sex ratios and subject women to wretched lives.

The absence of enlightened leaders, and the ineffectiveness of progressive legislation or modernisation to redress social ills point to the need for a popular collective Reformation of Hindu traditions to annihilate gender discrimination.

What better to have as the first canon of this Hindu Reformation than the treatment of all women as equals, not merely the veneration of a few.

Anoop Sadanandan is a social scientist and author of Why Democracy Deepens. His tweets @SadanandanAnoop.