By Deepa Majumdar
Yet another International Women’s Day has gone by, leaving us wondering where we stand as far as women are concerned. Gender is a moniker defined not only biologically but also socially. And yet, underlying all such extraneous monikers, there lurks an ego-based “I” that is far more complex. If we concede the doctrine of reincarnation, then the “I” is a mosaic contoured not only by our empirical experiences (psychological and otherwise), but also by dispositions inherited from prior lives. Womanhood, therefore cannot be seen only in terms of its literal façade of gender. Beneath the shared moniker of gender lurks a unique individuality that eludes simplistic identities. To forget this is to obscure human individuality … to deny that each individual is as unique as a snowflake.
And yet social realities are of paramount significance in how this elusive individuality expresses itself. Of essence to this self-expression is that basic freedom that stands as a universal aspiration of the human soul. But freedom can be external or internal. The language of rights applies only to external – not internal freedom. A right cannot be earned. It is a mandated claim. One can have a right to external freedom … but not to inner freedom, which must be earned. Where external freedom means the right to express oneself morally, without molestation, inner freedom is earned through arduous self-control. All sentient beings, animals included, thirst for external freedom, but it is human beings alone who can achieve internal freedom from the passions and impulses that obscure reason. Inner freedom therefore yields the sense of responsibility that ought to accompany every right – especially the right to external freedom. Without inner freedom, external freedom degenerates to license.
How does all this apply to the plight and aspirations of women – individually, collectively, and internationally? To answer this query, we must first understand the postcolonial state of the world. The myth of colonial feminism goes something like this … Feminism has been spearheaded historically by European civilization. Women and men in the former colonies therefore still stand in need of the colonial civilizing mission (now feministic). The dark man is far worse than his white counterpart, so that the dark woman stands in need of being rescued from him, presumably by the white man, but also by the white woman. The dark person stands in need of a civilizing education in romantic love and its carnal aspects for the dark woman is denied the right to romantic love …
Like all myths this one too possessesmore than a grain of truth. Indeed an intellectual articulation of feminism has perhaps started first in the western world, even if asceticism, which alone has the power to guaranteetrue, uplifting feminism, has been discarded by the west ever since its historical experience of the Enlightenment. Indeed, young romantic couples stand the risk of being stoned to death in Islamist (not Islamic) and other extremist puritanical societies. Indeed, patriarchy in countries like India continues unabated as far as masculine hypocrisy goes. For men to police women’s modesty in a society where women are raped with impunity, has to be the bitterest irony ever. We should not be surprised by the remorseless words of convicted rapist, Mukesh Singh in regards to Jyoti Singh, who died after being brutally raped and tortured, aboard a bus, in Dec 2012: “You can’t clap with one hand – it takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at night. A girl is more responsible for rape than a boy …”
Yet, despite these grains of heart-rending truth, colonial feminism is something to reject, inasmuch as neither pity nor condescension possess the power to quell oppression. I am not against the bad Indian male being shamed before the world – for his own good – through colonial feminism. But I am against a western denial of the virtuous Indian male, just as I am against all creeds of comparison. It does not help the traumatized woman, whether Indian or western, to compare her plight with that of any other woman. Colonial feminism serves a historical purpose by denying the dark man the status oflone emperor of his castle. But it does not serve the more vital cause of liberating the dark woman. Often it leads to voyeuristic international attention on the pain of the dark woman. Nevertheless, if there is a contest between selfish colonial feminism and selfish patriotic defense of India before the west, the former should win … for the sake of the chief casualty – namely, courageous, violated Indian women like Jyoti Singh. Whether LesleeUdwin’s recent documentary, “India’s Daughter” qualifies as a case of colonial feminism is for the Indian audience to decide. But to ban this film in India without a public mandate, is to prioritize self-centered patriotism over public anguish about rape. It is to deny the western person the right to speak out against rape in a former colony in a voice that transcends colonialism … a voice that is truly human, universal, and therefore cosmopolitan.
So long as a single rape goes unpunished, International Women’s Day will continue to be a farce. The fit punishment for rape is not the death penalty, nor chemical castration, but something potentially expiatory. Brutal rapists ought to be forced by law to serve women for the rest of their lives. What makes International Women’s Day appear farce-likeis the sharp polarity that stands before us today as a historical reality. Given the historically unprecedented, world-wide efflorescence of womankind, we have, on the one hand,a meteor-like rise in women’s social status. More and more women are holding public positions, far outshining men in their talents and performance. Women continue to be the foundation rock of the family, even when abandoned by their men. The specter of fatherlessness and the heroism of single mothers are a testament to the weakness of some men and the strength of some women. In short, womankind as a whole is now revealing historically, its innate Shakti or strength. On the other hand, never before has the world seen as great an objectification of the female body. Womanhood is desecrated today as never before, by a masculine carnal eye that degrades and reifies the female body, destroying family values and turning children into unwanted chattel. Rape statistics are perhaps higher today than ever before. It does not help that science has contributed to this debacle through a brute biologism that turns the carnal act into a pleasure principle and child bearing into production. The birth control pill and surrogate motherhood have done more harm to the sacred principles of family values, based on the foundation rock of self-control, than anything else. As for western feminism – so long as it clamors for the “right” to sexual sovereignty for women, without adding the duty and dignity of self-control – it cannot help but add to this sputtering crisis that does lacks altogether the power to confer true freedom on women or men. It is in this special sense that International Women’s Day has become a farce.