RSSThe women´s movement in India is marked by diversity in class, caste, religion and region. While urban middle class women form the articulate visage of the movement, there are millions of women working at the grassroots who are the real face of the movement, albeit hidden.
Everyday, 1 million women from 750,000 villages across the country continue to play a crucial role to end hunger and poverty. These are women who have been elected to the village panchayat (councils), according to the Hunger Project, New Delhi. The organization empowers women to be key agents of change.
Just before Valentine´s Day on Feb. 14, a group of young educated middle class women under the banner, Consortium of Pub-going Loose and Forward Women (CPLFW), launched a campaign through the Internet to protest the attack on young women in a pub in Mangalore, southern India, on Jan. 24. A moral brigade of religious fundamentalists declared that they would not allow Indian women to go to pubs or celebrate Valentine´s Day, which they term as imports of Western culture. They want Indian women to follow the patriarchal traditions of Indian culture.
Having embraced the culture and lifestyles offered by globalization, the CPLFW are intent on preserving their freedom and public spaces. They are supported by a number of secular thinking males. Senior women activists are simply amused at the group´s suggestion to send pink underwear to the leader of the moral brigade as ridicule.
Laywoman theologian Crescy John, 76, asks, “What is this going to achieve?” A young student counselor, Chrisann Almeida, however, asserts, “At least it has got the attention of the young people who will defy this moral brigade by celebrating Valentine´s Day and going to pubs!”
I asked a group gathered to discuss if this campaign would have any positive impact on the larger issues of violence, alcoholism and poverty that women in the country face. I also asked if they would demonstrate when the next woman in a village was stripped and paraded naked, as is done frequently to punish women from former low-caste communities. All agreed that we have to wait and see if this protest can morph into something more significant for the women´s movement.
Maria Athaide, a senior educationist said: “The novel creativity of the campaign attracted my attention. Since I am an educator, I am never really interested in anything else but my work in education. I realize that I should begin to get interested in women´s issues.”
Suren Abreu, a priest, said, “A campaign like this has the value of attracting people to an issue. However, I disagree with the call to young people to fill the pubs on Valentine´s Day.”
There are important issues that are being sidelined by this campaign, such as the molestation of young women at the pub and the fact that the girls have refused to come forward to identify their attackers because of family pressure. They are afraid the publicity will spoil their marriage prospects. The incident of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after she was humiliated by a group of “moral police” for being seen in the company of a Muslim man and later beaten by her father are also a worrying fallout.
Yes, we need to send a strong message that defining norms of behavior for women by any group of religious fundamentalists is unacceptable because we can decide for ourselves what behavior is desirable to live our life in a responsible way.
The Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India started its Commission for Women to help create awareness among women and in the Church about their status and dignity and to enable women to live with dignity, free from fear of violence. A good network and considerable work has largely raised awareness among women, but a perceptible lack is felt in awareness among men.
Violence to women cannot be addressed without going down to its roots in patriarchal attitudes intricately woven into social and religious structures. Work for women in the Church is hemmed in by the articulation of Church teachings and rules framed by a largely patriarchal male leadership.
The women´s movement in India and the rest of Asia is genuinely concerned about life and death issues related to women. The Church leadership needs to listen to women, empathize and understand that there is a link between how women are viewed by society and religion with resultant attitudes that cause violence to them.
I am reminded of a telling remark made by a bishop as an aside at a regional meeting of women leaders of the Indian bishops´ Commission for Women, when he said, “It is only when women can be made bishops that female feticide will stop!”
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Virginia Saldanha lives in Mumbai, India. She is executive secretary of the FABC Office of Laity and Family, and former executive secretary of the Commission for Women in the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of India.
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