33 GENDER, PATRIARCHY AND RELIGION

Kaushiki Das

INTRODUCTION

Women across religions often suffer from discrimination,their body stigmatised, their movements and their social interactions constantly controlled; any transgression results in social ostracism.

Leela Dube draws attention to such practices in the context of India. Parda or veiling is a common practice among Muslims and Hindus for regulating female sexuality and for maintaining solidarity of an agnatic kin group in the light of entry of outsiders. Even in the absence of veiling, a proper demeanour, the maintenance of physical distance and proper modes of speech serve to keep women in check. Also, menstruation and parturition are deemed as polluted states during which women are forbidden to pray, fast or touch religious texts.Patricia Jeffrey’s study of the Pirzada women reveals that they are forbidden during menstruation to carry on those activities that connect them with their husband’s means of livelihood, like sewing curtains for the saint’s tomb or preparing sweets for the pilgrim.Although according to Theravada Buddhism, women are not polluted, yet their involvement in the bodily processes, including procreation and the nurturing of the young, is cited as a reason for declaring them unfit for ordination.Women are seen as more rooted in the world, unable to be detached, are the centre of household stability, and hence, cannot be monks.The Devdasi tradition is another instance of an exploitative religious tradition, wherein young girls dedicated to Goddess Yellamma end up being trapped in prostitution and sheer poverty. As patriarchal Hindu values spread to tribal communities, Samar Mullick argues, indigenous cultures are gradually getting negatively influenced and they too start targeting women as witches. For instance, it has been noticed among the Ho and Munda tribal communities.

Such oppression had its antecedents in the nationalist era. Nationalists had capitalized on the myth of the advanced Aryan woman, as evident in their historiography. According to Partha Chatterjee, on one side were those who opined that women were the repository of Hindu tradition, bereft of any colonial influences and on the other hand were those who believed that women’s reform should constitute a crucial part of the anti-colonial struggle. He added that the nationalists decided to resolve the women’s question by casting Indian women as Grihalakshmis and Kulalakhmis (Goddesses of home and kin-groups). For instance, women were depicted as Annapurna, the Goddess of food and were expected to provide an unfailing supply of food. In addition, they drew upon other Hindu mythological personages. While Rama was promoted as Sat-Purusa or ideal man to counteract the colonial construct of the weak, effeminate man of the East, Sita was the dutiful wife who remained devoted even as her husband exiled her to fulfil his ‘national duty’. In the nationalist imagination, women were supposed to be confined to the domestic sphere as their stepping out into the sphere,epitomised by Sita’s crossing of the ‘Lakshman-Rekha’, would wreak havoc.

A similar problematic rhetoric is endorsed by right-wing parties today. Their Hindu supremacist agenda is predicated on ‘proper’ Hindu womanhood; upper caste women were perceived as victims of the ‘Other’ — the Muslims and as custodians of national honour. This new politics of community, political scientist Zoya Hasan claims, served as a convenient ruse for strengthening patriarchal control over female sexuality. Runa Das states that the ‘Sangh Parivar has consistently deployed women’s bodies,images and representations to delineate post-partition history and re-aligning the boundaries of a Hindu domesticity,community and nationhood from a gendered and communal perspective’ [Das,2007:6]. Besides using the bogey of Islamic invaders, the Sangh employs the language of empowerment to mobilize women. Mahila Morcha, Durga Vahini and Rashtriya Swayam Sevika Sangh claim that they emancipate women by training them to be leaders in the public domain. However, Tanika Sarkar argues that their traditional roles remain uncontested, within a generally conservative domesticity. A distorted version of Hinduism idolises the imagery of docile, compliant woman, urging women to sacrifice their rights and recasting the patriarchal family in a benevolent light. The women’s wing of RSS does not recruit married women, urging them instead to focus on domestic duties and childcare. Even the martial arts they learn in the camps are supposedly healthy exercises to ensure strong sons.

We will first try to look at the patriarchal narrative embedded in the religious texts.

RELIGIOUS TEXTS

Looking at “vrat kathas” that are related to the fasts undertaken on certain days or on religious festivals like Janam Ashtmi, Jasbir Jain argues that these are structured in a way so as to instil ideas of subordination in women. The kathas list specific performative acts of austerity, abstinence which are invariably undertaken by the woman for ensuring the wish attainment of the male members of her family. As such, her own aspirations and desires are cast aside; only her family’s welfare, particularly longevity of husband’s life and procreation of male children, is defined by the kathas as her ultimate priority in life. By moulding comportment and conduct according to the blueprint laid out for feminine subservience and by nipping any sign of defiance in the bud, kathas entrench patriarchal authority further.

Usha Menon similarly mentions three popular mythological stories in Orissa—two of them are about the Goddess Devi in her reincarnations as Parvati and Kali’s relationship with their husband, Shiva while the third narrates the story of an ideal woman Anasuya and her husband, sage Atrimuni. They all carry pedagogic elements relating to what constitutes the essential traits of the Hindu wife—obedience and deference to the husband. In the course of her fieldwork, she also mentions metaphors like earthen pitcher and the concept of rajas guna/qualities which depict women as impure beings whose behaviour has to be carefully monitored; although this belief dissipates once they enter the post-menopausal phase. She also argues that despite the prevailing belief that all Hindu women embody ‘Sakti’ i.e. female energy or power, it hardly translates into any social and cultural empowerment. She suggests that for actual and not just metaphorical power, they need to make Sakti immanent in them ‘through culturally prescribed actions’ [Menon,2002:1].

Subaltern studies theorist Ranajit Guha points out the oppressive aspects of Bhakti tradition. He mentions that the principal modalities or rasas embedded in the Bhakti tradition emphasize on servitude. The sringararasa (erotic mode) too stresses on subordinationto the male deity. It not only ‘spiritualizes and aestheticizes male dominance of gender relations but also assumes the sexual passivity of women’ [Guha,1998:48]. This is evident in the way tales about Lord Krishna’s sexual adventures among the gopis or milk maids of Vraj always focus on the former’s initiative to seduce and abandon hiscompanions. As such, the women are depicted as channels for the deity’s sexual pleasure, which is then glorified as an ideal of love as all-transcendent. When Kubja, one of the only female companions, expressed her desire to satisfy her sexual desire and not solely that of the male deity, she is vehemently condemned. Moreover, ‘the soul of the devotee becomes a gopi in its relationship to Lord Krishna and as such, becomes a female consort of the God’ while the latter does not undergo a similar transformation’[Guha,1998:49].

Moreover, the Laws of Manu presents Danda, the indigenous concept of dominance, essentially from a male point of view and hence, prescribes the use of force to exploit women either for labour or for sexual gratification of men. In fact, punitive sanctions imposed on women for disregarding a code of sexual morality are justified as vital for the maintenance of a monolithic moral order [Guha,1998:30].

However, Sharada Sugirtharajah begs to differ. She opines that there are some redeeming features that undermine the alleged patriarchy ingrained in the religious texts. As an example, she mentions Sita in Ramayana and Draupadi in Mahabharata as protagonists who balanced both roles easily—that of devoted wives but also as women critical of sexist notions of wifely behaviour.Philosophically speaking, Hinduism affirms the spiritual equality and inseparability of male and female. She adds that ‘as Shakti, the divine feminine power is latent in the masculine; without the former, the latter is rendered powerless’ [Sugirtharajah, 2002:8].

Loriliai Biernacki too argues that some 15th-18th century Tantra texts signals a transition from the notion of ascetic male domination over women and over body, thus countering the misconception that sex in Tantra constructs women as objects for male gains like supernatural powers [Biernacki, 2006:187]. The Brhannila Tantra is a Goddess-centred or sakta text, followed in the northeast, which explicitly advocates respecting women even beyond the sex rite, something lacking in the other Tantra texts like the Kularnava Tantra or the Kulacudamini Tantra. For instance, it urges the practitioner to bow down to the woman he will engage in the sex rite with and not to force women to mechanically satisfy his own desires. The Cinara Tantra, another north-eastern sakta text of 17th century, also instructs the practitioners to avoid abusing or criticising women and more importantly, preaches that salvation can be solely achieved by serving women, a subversion of the idea of salvation attainment by worshipping men. Interestingly, Biernacki states that the texts do not invoke Goddesses who are intangible, metaphysical deities nor is the woman considered to be a temporary channel during the rite.In fact, it exhorts the veneration of ordinary women in their everyday lives. Moreover, by focussing on the body, Biernacki argues, the oppressive binaries (man/woman,mind/body,subject/object),mental schemas that project women as inferior, are contested.

Sharmila Rege too points out that B.R. Ambedkar had also attempted to engage with Buddhism to analyse the question of gender empowerment. In ‘The Rise and Fall of the Hindu Women’ (1951), he tried to counter the nationalist myth of the Vedic woman and the charge against Buddha for the fall of women from an erstwhile high position. Interestingly, in his refutation, he tries to demonstrate how oral traditions can get mistranslated in the midst of codification. He argued that the Buddha never disapproved of contact between the Bhikkus and women. He lauded the initiative to allow women to be inducted into the Bhikkuni Sangha, since earlier sanyas or renunciation as a goal was denied to women. The Bhikkuni Sangha appreciated women as rational human beings capable of intellectual communion [Rege,2013:71]. More importantly, it welcomed all kinds of women—widows, prostitutes,married and unmarried. Ambedkar argued that in light of such freedoms, it is unlikely that Buddhism was responsible for the decline in women’s position. In fact, Manu’s intricate rules for women was meant to curb this freedom, as evident in the exalting of the husband, refusing cremations to women who were part of “heretic” cults and to those born out of mixed unions, thereby entrenching further Brahmanical patriarchy.

Thus, there have been numerous instances of critical inquiry of religious texts.

RELIGIOUS SPACES

The patriarchy ingrained in texts is reinforced through segregation of religious spaces. Women are especially banned from entering places of worship when they menstruate. The Vedas explicitly state that menstrual blood is an evil manifestation of women’s power as it can poison and even kill a man. Any transgression was to be severely punished. This was the cited as the grounds for the arrest of a young actress in Kerala for violating this cardinal rule. She had visited a certain temple which had barred the entry of women altogether (because of their possible ‘polluting element’). On the order of the Kerala government, the Crime Branch charged her under Section 295 of the Indian Penal Code related to offending religious sentiments. Similarly, the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi banned the entry of women inside sanctum sanctorum that houses the saint’s tomb. Even, Haji Ali Dargah, Mumbai in in 2012 banned the does not permit women to be near the tomb of Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari since the Sharia deems it as a sin.

However, these bans have not been without contestations. In 2010, under the initiative of governor of Assam, JB Patnaik, women entered the sacred confines of Patbausi Satra at Barpeta district. In Gujarat, women challenged the community laws barring temple entry of women who marry outside. Moreover, a small congregation of women prayed beside men under the aegis of Ajan Peer Dargah at Sivasagar. This trend has its historical precedent in 1988 when the Idgah Masjid in Shillong allowed women to enter its premises to offer their namaz or prayer. Since then, there have been numerous instances of Muslim women praying in mosques, from the Palayam mosque in Thiruvananthapuram to the Zamiat-Ahle-Hadis mosque in Orissa, with some of them even petitioning the courts to grant permission for their entry, like in case of Mangalore’s mosque in 2010. All India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board reiterates that Islam has never forbidden women from praying in mosques. Since July 2013, Sharia courts managed by women were established across the length and breadth of the country in Mumbai,

Ahmedabad, Pune, Odisha and Tamil Nadu. In another positive development, the Pandharpur temple, on orders from the Supreme Court, inducted women priests for the first time and allowed them to conduct rituals at the Rukmini temple, which had so far been the monopoly of upper-caste men.

PERSONAL LAWS DEBATE

A controversial debate surrounding personal laws and their impact on women has been raging for years. Proponents of the Uniform Civil Code, including some feminists, pleaded for the need to introduce uniformity among personal laws of different faiths. While liberal nationalists like Minoo Masani condemned personal laws for threatening national unity, women leaders like Hansa Mehta and Amrit Kumar perceived them as an obstacle to women’s empowerment. There has been ample evidence to demonstrate such claims, such as in the infamous Shah Bano case. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, introduced by the government in 1986 and which stipulated that the husband must pay a “fair and reasonable provision” for maintenance, was denounced as an attempt to bolster Muslim personal law and appease the fundamentalist forces. It was also perceived as a move to discourage women from taking recourse to constitutional law.

Even today, there have been challenges from various quarters to personal laws. For instance, Mary Roy opposed the rejection of her claim to her father’s house, which was denied to her under the Travancore Syrian Christian Act, 1916 and the Cochin Succession Act, 1921.

Article 44 of the Indian Constitution in 1950 encouraged the establishment of the Uniform Civil Code(UCC) by the state. The UCC was projected as a necessary instrument to override the multiple legal systems existing in the country, critical for ensuring women’s rights and for protecting national integrity. Dating back to 1937 when the All India Women’s Conference pleaded for the application of UCC for all religions, the women’s movement continued to lent its support to the UCC, well into the 1980s.

Unfortunately the rancorous opposition to the personal laws has drowned out the alternative view supporting them. Rohit De writes that regrettably, the focus of the personal laws debate has shifted from all forms of community identity and the state to exclusively on Muslim personal law during the Shah Bano case in 1985 [De, 2013:6].

Women’s groups like All India Women’s Democratic Association (AIDWA) voiced their concerns. They were wary of the Uniform Civil Code, perceiving it more as a tool in the hands of political parties to cash in votes. While the right-wing parties presented Hindu laws as the ideal laws, the Muslim community resisted any attempt to reform their personal law (despite opposition from Muslim women). Hence, AIDWA and others distanced themselves from the two parties and instead focussed on introducing equal, common laws in areas of matrimonial property and registration of marriages.

Prominent Feminist Nibedita Menon has refuted the Hindu Right’s push for the UCC to be modelled on the Hindu Personal Laws. She argues that contrary to its claims, the latter have never been reformed and have been selectively codified. Any personal law in consonance with North Indian, upper-caste practices were codified, thus eliminating the vast spectrum of liberal customary laws. In fact, the opposite has been true in many cases. Muslim personal laws have afforded better protection to women through their inheritance laws and the right of mehr. At the same time, she attacks the community laws as being by-products of colonial attempts to, in consultation with self-appointed community leaders, organize the great multiplicity of laws under four religious personal laws. Hence, these cannot be defended on the grounds of being natural and prior to any other identity.

By 1995, the thrust was more on incorporating reform within Personal Law,bringing in laws that cover areas neglected by secular and personal laws and evolving a gender-just law framework of rights,pertaining to areas covered by personal laws and the public domain of work.

WOMEN’S AGENCY AND RESISTANCE: FEMINIST THEOLOGY

In the following section, we will look at how women have appropriated theology to forward their cause.

Feminist theology is unique in its acceptance of religion as a vehicle of change, yet at the same time recognizing the oppression that stems within. According to Sheila Collins, it does not advocate abstract syllogisms, rather it is concerned with women’s lives—their feelings about their families, their daily routine,etc.

Feminist theologians belong to two different groups, espousing different strategies for contesting patriarchy. One set advocates myths and rituals of Goddess religion while the other intends to amend religious institutions from within.

The former perceive God as sexist, preferring to celebrate the Goddesses of ancient cultures and the Goddesses within themselves. In particular, pro-Christian theologians cherish their ‘powers of fertility and procreation as well as of insight, stifled under the oppressive weight of western culture’[Porterfield,1987:4]. They envision in the future a feminist society based on the harmony between women and the earth. Rituals are conducted in order to evoke a sense of energy, wilfulness among its participants. These often involve inversion of the existing ecclesiastical establishment, as in case of the Women’s Spirituality Movement in 1976, documented by Naomi Goldenberg.

On the other hand, feminists within religious institutions do not accept the notion of a misogynistic God, preferring to view it as a source of emancipation. They demand ‘women’s ordination, a new language about God, and greater ecclesiastical recognition of women’s needs and contributions’ [Porterfield,1987:3].Christian feminists play down the masculinity of Jesus Christ, highlighting the more androgynous attributes of love and compassion [ibid:6].For instance, Rosemary Ruether insisted that rather than worshipping Christ as male authority, He must be viewed as representative of non-sexist humanity.

While The Church and the Second Sex (1968) authored by Mary Daly pleads for greater egalitarianism between Christian men and women, Ruether explored the images of Mother Mary and ancient Goddesses. In 1973, Daly’s Beyond God the Father, she argues that discourse about God the father is a projection grounded in specifically patriarchal societal structures and sustained as subjectively real by the usual processes of producing plausibility such as preaching, religious indoctrination, and cult’ [Cady, 1989:6]. She insisted on post-Christian feminism, predicated on separatist female communities [Porterfield:1987:6]. This demonstrates that Christian feminists were trying to articulate Goddess religion within the Bible. Daly made a radical statement when she argued that women’s devaluation in Catholicism revealed a phallic world order, one which has to be destroyed through sisterhood [ibid:3].

Jana Opocenska mentions that by authoring the Bible, men could define male and female sexuality as well as determine the portrayal of women’s encounters with God in the texts. Feminist hermeneutics is the only key to their liberation.

Alice Walker evokes the concept of ‘womanist theology’. Concerned about the prevalent racism in feminist theology, Elizabeth Fiorenza and Rosemary Radford Ruether have tried to incorporate experiences of black women within the framework of feminist theology. In addition, ‘Queer and Indecent theologies’ emerged contesting the existing sexual theology.

The Zar cult of northern Sudan, studied by Janice Boddy, comprises of women practicing healing rituals that use Islamic idioms and spirit mediums. It offers a challenge to men’s hegemonic praxis and insists on the complementarity of women with men, despite its operation within the same parameters.

Closer home, Usha Menon rebuffs the two predominant portrayals of Hindu women—either as passive victims of sexist social structure, meekly accepting their own subordination (as per Dhruvarajan, Jeffrey,Roy) or as crypto-feminists resisting oppression through proverb/song/story ( as per Jefferey, Bannerjee and Oldenberg) and ready to rebel at the first politically opportune moment [Menon:2002:3]. Instead, she recognizes women as active agents who take full advantage of the available resources to build a preferable identity.

Women’s oral narratives of the Ramayana have not only vigorously contested patriarchal norms, but also shifted the focus onto more liberal renditions of Hinduism—Tantic, Bhakti and art texts– than the oft-quoted androcentric texts of Dharmashastras and Laws of Manu. According to Sugirtharajah, Bhakti especially offered greater latitude for women to experiment with their gender roles. Women poet-saints like Mirabai in 16th century and Akka Mahadevi in 12th century subverted customs and replaced enslavement to their husbands with intense devotion to God.

Nabaneeta Dev Sen argues that the Sita has been used as a convenient ruse to bolster Brahmanical patriarchal ideas about a model wife, just like Rama was epitomised as ideal man. Yet at the same time women have not uncritically endorse such a passive imagery; subverting it through their own versions of Ramayana. Therein, they decry Rama as an irresolute, apathetic and unkind husband; calling him names and berating him for losing his mind. Sita is no longer portrayed as a Goddess, but as a wife tormented by injustice, sadness, seclusion. Clearly, there is a digression from the mainstream renditions of the epic.

She draws attention to various instances of women’s retellings of Ramayana’ such as Chandrabhati’s take on the Ramayana in 16th century wherein the latter holds Rama responsible for the fall of Ayodhya. The other instances that Sen cites are Balakanda and Uttarkanda. While the former deals with the birth and marriage of Sita, the latter narrates the after-events of war and the protagonists’ return to Ayodhya. None of the two celebrates Rama’s supposed virtues—his physical strength or his fathering capabilities, concentrating rather on his flaws, his leaving behind of Sita. In fact, when Rama exiles her to the forest, he does not regret the cruelty meted out to her, but rather misses the comforts she provided as his wife.

There are some common threads running through women’s interpretation of the epic, chronicling the life events experienced by them—child marriage,domestic abuse and pregnancy. Explicit details entailing Sita’s sufferings of domestic violence are sung by women reflecting on the exploitation they themselves endured. For instance, the protagonist is described as being denied meals, feeding her only bitter neem leaves and imprisoned within barred rooms. In another example, her transgression of the Lakshman rekha, which ultimately results in her seizure by Ravana,is justified by women as stemming from her greed to have sons. This reveals the pressures to have male heirs since it is projected as the only way to acquire a legitimate position in society.

Although definitely not a rebel, the allegory of Sita does offer them a persona and voice. At the same time, it provides them a channel through which they can articulate their grievances, fears of abandonment, insecurities and anxieties. The disillusionment is palpable as the singers share their troubles.

More importantly, the songs lament the precariousness of a woman’s social identity, dependent rather on her husband’s; without it, she is deemed as nothing. Sita’s loneliness as an orphan, a central theme in most of the songs, has been used to convey the despair of a woman who suffers from the same isolation; the self always being alienated. Singing about her tribulations provides some respite for women who have been otherwise taught to bear all their pain in silence.

Brasher (1998), Griffith (1997) and Rose (1987) draw attention to the way women respond to Church’s patriarchal dictates, motivated by the instrumental need to negotiate gender relations and to ensure marital stability. Thus, the traditional idea of agency as an extraneous intervention into the structure shifts to a more dynamic understanding of it as deliberate conformity with the structure. Contradicting the notion of agency as resistance against relations of domination, Saba Mahmood identifies agency as a capacity for action that historically specific relations of subordination enable and create [Mahmood:2001:3]. The piety movement, Mahmood contends, is not radical and does not seem to usher in much agency since it tries to secure the very virtues equated with female passivity—humility, shyness and modesty. By pursuing traditional ideals and practices that condemn women to an inferior status, it is hardly shaking the foundation of patriarchy. However, rejecting the idea of internalisation of patriarchal norms, feminist scholars, during 1970s, argued that agency is not possible only through sources existing outside religion, such as education or employment, but also through conceptual and practical resources offered by it. Women, Mahmood argues, employ hegemonic cultural practices that have so far worked in favour of men, subvert them and then reutilise them for their own interests and agendas.

Gail Omvedt points out that there has been a gradual transition from the 1980s feminist movement that condemned the patriarchy embedded in religion to the current stage where the denunciation is retracted and there is an acceptance of the ‘feminine principle’, which unites men and women alike. She argues that ‘within this redefined attitude to religion/ethnicity/culture, traditional gender resources could be drawn upon by women without subscribing to and actively opposing Hindu communalism’ [Rajan, 1998:4]. Whether it is Shetkari Sangathana in Maharashtra waging a campaign for property rights and political representation or the Chipko Movement demanding forestry rights, stri-shakti has been an essential component in the collective struggle. Radha Kumar documented how some women claim to be possessed by the Goddess as an effective way to get their demands accepted by their family members.

Some scholars have also taken a fresh look at sacred literature, trying to unearth the emancipatory potential within. Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi opine that while there may not be an explicit matriarchy in Hinduism, the seeds of a matriarchal culture are embedded in it. Women are celebrated as ‘life-givers and sources of activating energy’ [Rajan, 1998:3].

Paula Richman argues that the multiple traditions of the Ramayana enable questioning it. Ramchandra Gandhi in Sita’s Kitchen draws attention to the Sita tradition in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist folklore and philosophy which equated women with motherhood, preservation, pacifism,nature, thereby opposing the masculinity venerated by proponents of Hindutva.

Mukti Mangharam tries to view the Ramayana through a feminist and queer lens, attempting to subvert its current desexualisation by popular renderings. She insists that the notion of dharma in Valmiki’s Ramayana is complicated by presence of premarital,queer and extramarital love.Valmiki,she argues, acknowledges the female sexual power as represented by Sita, which enables a very powerful feminist reading. Sita is a key player in the enactment of her sexuality and is not a passive object.

Draupadi is another mythical character deployed for feminist agenda. Pratibha Ray’s novel “Yajnaseni” is a fiery argument against patriarchy. The protagonist, Draupadi, resents the manipulation of women as pawns for political gains, the hypocritical standards of upper-caste morality regulating women’s sexuality and perpetration of sexual violence.Ray tries to urge women today to emulate Draupadi’s mode of vehement protest against rape rather than Sita’s inward mode of protest.Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi” (2006) highlighted the intersecting axes of caste/class/religion that oppress women through the tribal protagonist. The latter, continuing the Naxalite struggle after her husband is killed, launches an affront on the patriarchal codes of honour and the state’s exercising of brutal power on the marginalised. Also, unlike Mahabharat’sDraupadi hailing from a royal background, she cannot be saved from being raped, thus, drawing attention to the class-caste dimensions of sexual violence.

Rashmi Luthra argues that the ‘appropriation and reworking of traditional narratives has been an important strategy for women to interrogate dominant ideologies and articulate resistant ideologies’ [Luthra:2014:3].Gail Omvedt cites the example of eco-feminist movement which utilizes religious symbolism, such as Prakriti/feminine nurturing force within Hinduism to project women as superior.

The Jnana Prabodhini in Pune has even been training women to perform all samskaras since 1997. The organisation claims that the scriptures describe women as ‘shuddah, poothaah, yoshitho yajnaayaimaa’—roughly translated, it means pure, worshipful, blessed practitioners of yajna.

Simultaneously, several organisations striving to protect rights of Muslim women have mushroomed. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and the Muslim Women’s Rights Networkfocus on reforming personal laws and matrimonial rights. Bader Sayeed,a lawyer, approached the Madras High Court with a Public Interest Litigation demanding a stay on qazis issuing triple talaq/divorce certificates. They are seeking a codification of Personal Law (Sharia) Application Act,1937, which will lead to accurate interpretations of the Sharia on matters of divorce, alimony,polygamy,etc. They believe that the Quran is gender-neutral and dynamic, negating the need for the Uniform Civil Code. Following the Shah Bano case which witnessed a miscarriage of justice due to faulty interpretations of the Sharia, Zeenat Shaukat Ali insisted that women must acquaint themselves with the religious texts so that they can reclaim their rights granted within Islam [Kirmani,2011: 15]. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan explicitly engages with Islamic texts, driven by the idea that this strategy will help mobilize women, not alienate them. It also does not support a Gender Justice Law demanded by another organisation, Awaaz-e-Niswan which aims at substituting the separate personal laws.

Organisations like Awaaz-e-Niswaan and Bharatiya Muslim MahilaAndolan strive for reform within the framework of the Muslim Personal Law Board, looking at scriptural sources of gender justice. They initiate dialogues among the community, especially engaging with the Ulama, and negate the idea of an oppressive Islam, insisting that the prevailing patriarchy was established on a selective interpretation of the Quran. They also offer marriage counselling to bereaved women and organise legal awareness camps in the slums against anti-women fatwas. Women’s organisations too vociferously voiced their outrage against polygamy, unilateral divorce and demanding right to property as well as to initiate divorce proceedings. In 1918, the All India Muslim Ladies Conference passed a resolution against polygamy. President Sharifa Hamid Ali launched a drive in 1930 for delegate divorce, ensuring that women can initiate divorce without losing their mehr.

The All-India Muslim Women’s Rights Network deals with issues concerning impact of communal rights on Muslim women, emancipatory role of state and reform of Muslim Personal Law. In 1999, it documented and analysed the diverse civil and family laws applied to Muslims. All India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board also encourages Muslims to self-interpret the Quran, adapting their religious beliefs to their everyday life. [Schneider:2009:14] STEPS, headed by Daud Sharifa Khanam, questions the Jamaat’s authority (traditionally headed by men) to decide matters concerning women—- divorce, dowry, domestic violence, custody. It accused police stations of referring women’s complaints back to the Jamaat. Hence, they intend to replace the extant Jamaat with one consisting of women members. They currently plan to erect a mosque exclusively for women and open a centre for research on Islamic jurisprudence.

CRITICISM

The attempt to fuse feminism with religion has been criticised as well. Rajeswari Rajan is sceptical of the tendency of not just left secularists and Hindu nationalists but also feminist theologians to portray Hindu Goddesses as empowering role models. Often, it is assumed that since Hinduism has a tradition of worshipping Goddesses unlike other religions, it must be espousing a matriarchal worldview. However, Rajan argues that the Goddesses are often used as references to sanction behaviour of women who diverge from the mandated norms. Moreover, worshipping Goddesses has never translated into any material improvement in the lives of women. Rajan argues that a certain version of feminism ‘pre-empts western feminist demands even as it simultaneously aggrandizes the scope and politics of that tradition and co-opts women’s agency for its own ends’ [Rajan,1998:5].

Goddess-inspired Hindu feminism, Flavia Agnes points out, can alienate women of minority communities. KanchaIllaih drew a divide between upper-caste Goddesses and Goddesses worshipped by lower classes. Through the example of Pochamma,a village deity, he buttresses the point that the latter are not bound by traditional gender roles, sans gender, caste and class affiliations.

Urvashi Butalia, Tanika Sarkar and Paola Bacchetta too argue that feminism which revolves around Goddess role models has communal undertones. In organisations like Rashtra Sevika Sangathana, through the appropriation of images of fierce warrior Goddesses like Kali, Hindu women are geared to carry out the xenophobic,militant Hindutva propaganda against the ‘other’. As such, it alienates women from lower-caste and minority religious communities. Therefore, feminism has had an uneasy relationship with religion, fraught with uncertainties and myriad contestations.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, scholars are now trying to transcend the conventional view of religion as colluding with patriarchy to enslave women and of women as passive receptacles of false consciousness. Rather, region is being acknowledgedas a vehicle of agency and change.This was observed at the Asian Conference on Women, Religion and Family Laws (1987) where women’s groups demarcated between the spiritual aspect of religion and the utilization of religion as a tool to score political points, arguing that the latter is responsible for instigating fundamentalist movement. They claim that as long as cultural customary practices and religious laws did not oppress women, they should be permitted. At the same time, they are cautious not to be victimised by patriarchal concepts of multiculturalism.Thus, we see how religion and patriarchy weave a complex web, one which women have tried to interpret and counter in their own unique ways.

REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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DOCUMENTARIES:

• Storyville: Sex, Death and the Gods., BBC – Directed by Beeban Kidron in 2010-2011, it is a documentary on the plight of the Devdasis in India.