Today after a long time I was thinking about our time in Banaras Hindu University (BHU). We had studied there in the mid 1990s. BHU has a large number of hostels for students which made it one of the most sought after university of our times. A time when Kolkata did not have many residential colleges and hence BHU received horde of students. I do not know how it is now. BHU or Varanasi was our first encounter with North India and its culture. In our cities we had faced taunts on the road, catcalls, comments on how we looked etc which was called "eve teasing" in common parlance. I have a problem with this term. It probably does not describe the grave impact it can have on a girl's life. I am relieved to note that others are also finding that expression strange. It is being called sexual harassment. and the #askingforit campaign by Breakthrough http://www.breakthrough.tv/ has been launched to show the falacy of the term. Coming back to BHU, however, what we faced there was utter contempt against women. It was strange to witness that contempt. Women were treated like animals in zoo. They were spat upon from the buses, pinched on the road, hounded and boys had tremendous fun from the scared faces of these girls. Many years later, a colleague from development sector who had traveled to Pakistan from Malaysia to facilitate human rights training had said something similar. He saw whenever he took out his mixed group of trainees outside the training hall and they walked on the road, a mini crowd gathered just to watch them. It felt, given a chance they would also throw pebbles to see whether these women react or not! My friend Adrian Pereira said, "I think its to compensate for their lack of other attributes to attract the opposite sex which make them react in that manner or an act to assert power over by using a physical action."
I have wondered forever, why so much contempt? And this is not only about women, it is also about other communities. My elder sister had a nice soft spoken driver whom we all called Mamu (Uncle). I always thought he was a nice gentle man till I saw him throwing the food I got for him from the famous restaurant in old Delhi called Kareem's (Don't fret! I saved the food!). He had taken me and some foreigner guests there and as it was past 8 pm, I thought I could get some food packed for him, which would save him from cooking late at night. Little did I know that it would annoy him to no end. He blabbered the whole way back saying when he had told me not to get food then why did I (I took it as him being hesitant)! And the more I asked why he could not eat from a Muslim owned shop, the more he got angry.
"We have never seen them in our area", he said.
I said, "But then you have also not seen me in your area. You had met no one from my family. How do you eat at my place?"
He got more flustered. "Now, how do I make you understand it is different. I have not seen those people ever"
"Which people?"
"Muslims"
"But, why would you dislike someone whom you have never met?"
Some more blabbering later, I got down from the car after telling him, "Then, you should not eat from my place too. I have friends from all religions and atheists too. They cook at my kitchen all the time. You never know who has cooked what you ate" and it worked. He never ate from my kitchen till the time he worked with us.
The other day I heard this from a friend. She has recently shifted to a residential complex. Where a relieved mother in law (her daughter in law just gave birth to a son) was narrating how she had to go through hell as she, herself gave birth to a girl 25 years ago. After her daughter's birth, she was distraught and so disappointed with herself that she could not bring herself to face the daughter. And mind it! This is after two sons. This daughter had two elder brothers. The mother still could not bring herself to hold her baby and to breast feed her. She could only pray day and night to the mother goddess to take this baby away. He own mother tried to make her understand but she could just not bring herself to feed the baby. The baby eventually died in a few months and the lady in question ended her story with a big sigh of relief saying, "Whatever you ask for with pure hear, mother goddess always grants that to you!"
The other day I heard this from a friend. She has recently shifted to a residential complex. Where a relieved mother in law (her daughter in law just gave birth to a son) was narrating how she had to go through hell as she, herself gave birth to a girl 25 years ago. After her daughter's birth, she was distraught and so disappointed with herself that she could not bring herself to face the daughter. And mind it! This is after two sons. This daughter had two elder brothers. The mother still could not bring herself to hold her baby and to breast feed her. She could only pray day and night to the mother goddess to take this baby away. He own mother tried to make her understand but she could just not bring herself to feed the baby. The baby eventually died in a few months and the lady in question ended her story with a big sigh of relief saying, "Whatever you ask for with pure hear, mother goddess always grants that to you!"
I understand when the contempt has a background. For example, I understand generalised contempt against womenfolk when one's ladylove has been particularly unkind for a long period of time. I am not saying that justifies it but saying that I understand it. I understand contempt against particular laws when one has been at the receiving end of it. I have seen people affected by riots to be the best advocates of minority rights but I understand they are the human beings. And I understand when one is not that large-hearted after being subjected to unimaginable cruelty. What I don't understand is a generalized contempt! For example, a whole Dalit village gets burned. All the Dalit houses are razed to ground. All men and women get killed whereas they have done nothing to you. Then the curious case of the contempt against Hijras or Transsexuals. Most of us don't even have one friend from that community. I am assuming we don't have enemies from that community too. We hardly know about them. How they live? What they live by? Then why such hatred? Why such contempt?
I find these difficult to understand. What makes you so angry with a whole community, with whom you have never had any interaction? Or your limited interaction has not produced any reason for that strong contempt. Or may be I am wrong. During your limited interaction with women, Dalits, minorities, you have observed how others act with them. You have seen your father's attitude towards your mother. You have seen your mother's attitude towards the woman who came to clean toilets. You have seen your grandmother throwing food shared by Muslim families as these were "unclean". Actions speak louder than words and stay with us for a lifetime, unless we question each one of them and go to the very root of why such contempt!
Yes Nayana, unfortunately the contempt you talked about continues. In my own perception, it is a complex web of factors that have shaped this attitude, some historical, some contemporary. In Indian psyche, which is still very tribal in a general sense of the word, there is and has always been a notion of "the other", and this other is often subjected to various kinds of discrimination including what you call contempt. There is pure and not pure. This includes the areas of eating habits, dressing, language (non-sanskritized) and is largely responsible for discrimination based on work and descent (caste). This is also partly true for attitude towards Muslims in addition to a perception of Muslim community being oppressor of Hindus for centuries. And sensitivity is one 'whole'; it seldom happens that one is sensitive to one thing/group/culture and insensitive to others. If it is part of your personality, the real self, it gets reflected in most actions/reflections that one is attached to. For instance, being a Dalit activist (or tribal or even environmental activist) without being sensitive to the value of diversity will be a self defeating proposition.
ReplyDeleteWhat is most perplexing however is attitude towards women which instead of getting better is going downhill. I coordinated a project of a British School called St Christopher School based in Letchworth. The project named 'Links with Rajasthan' entailed students' exposure to Rajasthan Society in groups of 12-15 students for three weeks each. Majority of the students used to be girls aged around 16 years. It was always a challenge to take these students to villages or even to urban markets even though people in Rajasthan have a good exposure to westerners because of tourism. Whenever they visited villages (through NGOs) the students would invariably face crowds (hostile looking at times) around them; comments, pinching were part of this. Although there was a good pre-visit orientation of these students both in England and when they landed in India, the experience was traumatic for many of them. Physicality was only one part of this. However, in spite of all this many students always wanted to come back, and I somehow managed the situation as and when it developed. It was way back in 1992-94. I dread the possibility of coordinating those visits now. In those days, in many cases,we collectively (students, accompanying teacher and I) sort of concluded that it was inability of the local people to communicate and meaningfully engage with white students which triggered this attitude including contempt. In many cases we tried to lessen the distance between two groups. Not everything worked perfectly, but it helped immensely. I am not sure how it would turn out now.
Nice one dear!
ReplyDeleteYes. This is a fact. Gujarat is a shining example in showcasing innumerable incidents of hatred and disdain towards the Dalits and Muslims.
However, in case of Hindu -Muslim dynamics, people who have lived or grown up together have showcased examples of cooperation, sharing, loving and living together. In Ahmedabad however, such stories are limited mostly to the slum settlement areas of the old city or the "Walled City" , where people have learned to co-exist and depend on each other for survival and daily or routine works.
But these are also the areas where the sporadic incidents of 'rioting' has been observed. And, we all know how these clashes are engineered.
Common people, wage earners,slum poor, who have worked and lived in mixed communities do not have this contempt. I am saying this out of my experience in working with the slum quarters along Sabarmati river bed. The Muslims here make the Rakhis, brooms, kites and participate in Holi, Diwali and Navaratis' Garba Dance. The Hindus again have iftarr parties and go to the peer baba and also to the Dargah for mannat. But this is only in those areas where they have lived together and respect each other well enough. Sadly enough, 'ghettoization ' of the city, a pattern seen in the state as an aftermath of 2002 genocide has robbed Ahmedabad of this beautiful pattern of co -existence as well. The wounds inflicted have dried since long but scratch the surface and blood comes oozing out....
Among the elites, there is some arbitrary efforts towards 'HUM' (Hindu-Muslim fraternity) but with Dalits, the situation has been worse. Even co-existence and growing together has also been ruled out due to extreme occupational segregation since ages. This is difficult to counter. the only significant changes that can be made is that of the mindsets through inclusive education, that too at a young age...which means the entire state education machinery needs to wake up to the need to make a dent...which is far from happening.