By Dr. Ram Puniyani
The Government of India gave a red-carpet welcome to the Taliban delegation led by their Minister of Education Muttaqi. In response, India’s Gen Prakash Katoch asks, “Should India be seen deferring to the Taliban?
Taliban’s human rights record, particularly its regressive misogynistic policies, are well known. No doubt developing relations with Taliban is a geostrategic requirement. Women of Afghanistan who are deprived of human rights, particularly education and assembly, must be feeling totally betrayed, particularly after the women journalists were denied entry into the first press conference. Of course, due to heavy criticism in the next press conference women were permitted.
As Taliban came to power, their edicts came as a shock to the world at large. This is the same group which had destroyed Gautam Buddha’s majestic statues in Bamiyan, standing at 53 and 35 meters tall, despite the request from various powers in the world. The world is watching the gross abuse of human rights, helplessly. It is the same Taliban which had imposed jizya on non-Muslims.
Taliban is an outcome of youth indoctrinated at extremist madrassas in Pakistan, including the famous Lal Masid. While now Taliban has not only assumed its own agency, the circumstances in which they came up need to be recalled.
Taliban has been indoctrinated in a particular version of Islam put forward by Maulana Wahab. When Russian army occupied Afghanistan, America was not in a position to send its own army as their forces were very demoralized due to their defeat in Vietnam. At that time, Kissinger doctrine was implemented by America, which aimed to fight the enemy (the communists) by using Asian Muslim youth. The madrassas were promoted and funded by America. Renowned scholar Mahmood Mamdani in his book, ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim’, on the basis of CIA documents, tells us as to how the Mujahidin were indoctrinated and supplied with 8,000 million dollars and 7000 tons of armament, including latest stringer missiles.
These trained elements joined the anti-Russian forces and Russian army faced defeat. America got total dominance through war against Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. The Islam theTaliban practice is the most conservative version and frequently resorts to violence on people, forcing them to cover themselves with the burqa. Here, women and subordinate sections of society face the worst kind of violations of their human rights.
This degree of patriarchal control and abuse of human rights is not yet seen in the Hindutva nationalism ruling India today. As such, seeds of rigid patriarchy are very much there and concept of human rights is gradually being replaced by ‘rights for the elite upper caste and rich’ and ‘duties of the poor and marginalized’, pushing them further into the corners. RSS, the parent organization of ruling BJP, is an exclusively male organization. It has a Rashtra Sevika Samiti that deals with women.RSS is based on Brahminical version of Hinduism, in contrast to the liberal and inclusive Hinduism of Mahatma Gandhi, the one who was killed by one seeped in Hindu nationalist ideology.
When Ambedkar was burning Manusmriti, the second chief of RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, was writing eulogies for such books. After the Indian Constitution was implemented, RSS’s mouthpiece came out with scathing criticism, saying it had nothing Indian about it. Consider how Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, regarded as the most consequential head of the RSS, believed women were misled by modernity. Citing a couplet that states that “a virtuous lady covers her body”, Golwalkar, according to Caravan, lamented that “‘modern’ women think that ‘modernism’ lies in exposing their body more and more to the public gaze. What a fall!”
When Laxmibai Kelkar (1936) wanted women to be incorporated in RSS, she was in turn asked to start, Rashtra Sevika Samiti, a subordinate organization. In its very name the word Swayam is missing, which stands for self.
Later Vijaya Raje Scindia (the thenVice President of BJP) went on to glorify Sati (wife immolation on the funeral pyre of husband). Mridula Sinha of BJP also advised women to conform to the norms of family where husband is supreme. (Savvy Magazine April 1994). RSS has been opposed to women wearing jeans, and celebrating Valentine’s Day.
As feminist movement came up, it went on for reforms like abolition of dowry, female infanticide and other abominable practices against women. RSS never initiated any of these struggles, but also did not oppose these reforms. However, RSS was staunchly against the Hindu Code Bill giving women some semblance of equality to some extent. As India had some democratic space after Independence, though it is going for a free fall over last decade, Indian women’s admirable struggles did get them better place in the society. The march towards equality did take few steps. Today, RSS has Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Durga Vahini and BJP women’s wing, there values derive from the core RSS ideology of graded hierarchy and gender inequality. Here, Manusmirti has an important place as their basic philosophy is rooted in an understanding where ‘Muslim Man’ is the culprit, while patriarchal values remain unchallenged.
It is true to the Taliban and many other Muslim countries affected by communal/fundamentalist Islam have the women’s condition much worse, and indeed, Taliban sits at the bottom of the list. In India, as the grip of Hindu nationalism increases, the patriarchal ideology is not challenged by the RSS stable, while the Feminist movement is doing its best to challenge to prevalent patriarchy. So currently the degree of Taliban Patriarchy is at the bottom, the Hindu nationalism has the basic similarity at ideological level, while women’s movement has made some significant yet inadequate strides.
What is similar between the two is the seed of Patriarchy, while the degree of its social manifestation is very diverse. Every politics hiding under the cover of religion uses identity aspects of the religion to keep up the values of feudal times with the added spice of hate for people of other religion. Even Christian fundamentalism also propagates the same. Nazism, a full-blown fascist regime also defined the place of women in Kitchen, Church and Children.
While we condemn the patriarchy and non-recognition of the concept of human rights, we should be aware that every sectarian nationalism structured around identity of religion or superiority of one race, they share many of the despicable norm. (IPA Service)
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