Do Urban Young Women need Empowerment?

I have been thinking of women empowerment quite a bit lately. In a steering away from my usual academia oriented thoughts on this issue, of late, I have been wondering about issues of theory and praxis in gender studies. Random conversations with people from various segments of society have made me wonder about the penetration of theories of empowerment into the lives of women.

A few minutes before I sat down to write this, my barely literate domestic help was sharing her troubles with me. She is not at all an effusive person. On the contrary, her silent but efficient presence for about three hours every day in my house reminds me of the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves. I wonder if any of my readers are aware of this story for children but it has stayed with me through the vagaries of time, especially due to its dubious message. I never could figure out why those elves, under cover of darkness, did the thankless work of creating those lovely shoes that made the shoemaker a reasonably rich man.  I now know why my elf is here rather than in her village about which she gets so nostalgic on those rare communicative days.  She has had to migrate, lose the familiar environs of her village, forego the support structure of the village community, turn into a semi-skilled worker from an artisan and regularly worry about her children’s future in this big bad city, to ensure that her husband breaks out of the habit of gambling. She has all her losses tucked in her armoury to throw at the husband each time he shows signs of steering towards gambling. And she puts them to good use. Recently, she used all of these and, for good measure, added the threat of a stick. This woman is totally entrenched in patriarchy but has learnt to negotiate her space within it.  My instincts, training, and experience have taught me to fight patriarchy and to be wary of women who try to work from within the patriarchal structure but I have new admiration for this woman, especially when I compare her with the young girls I meet in this huge metropolis.

Recently, while travelling in one of those wonderful air-conditioned DTDC buses, I saw a young man sitting on a seat reserved for women while a girl stood, struggling with a huge bag, clutching the too-high handle. I walked up to him and pointed out that the seat was reserved for women. He vacated it without a murmur. As it turned out, the passenger sitting next to him debarked at the next stop and the girl sat on that seat. Striking a conversation with her, I asked her why she had not demanded her right for the seat. There was a strange and poignant vulnerability in her, “what could I do, he was sitting there?” I didn’t know if I should empathise with her vulnerability or get angry with her. Here was a young girl, obviously a college student in this metropolis, who feels she cannot demand a right for which hundreds of her predecessors fought for years. The idea that the reserved seat was a safe and comfortable place within a crowded public space did not percolate down to this urban young woman while her need to come across as an amiable, independent and physically strong young person was overwhelmingly there within her.  What’s more, she was not thinking of her sisters who might need this space and of doing her duty towards them by reiterating women’s right to a reserved seat.

What’s with young people nowadays?

This question has been haunting me quite a bit of late. Regular interaction with the young adults I teach begs this question rather often. One such instance was a debate competition that I judged with two other colleagues. The organizers of the youth fest, in their wisdom, thought the topic they announced in advance should generate some excitement. The topic for the day’s debate was: “This House believes that live-in relationships are a threat to Indian Society”.

I will focus only on the contents of the debate that day and ignore my analysis of the form and structure of the presentations.

One would have thought the team arguing against the motion would win hands down, especially due to the demographic representation of the house; it was overflowing with urban young people in their late teens.  The motion was not put to vote but the arguments for and against the motion indicated the direction the wind took that day. 26 out of the 27 young people who spoke that day were envisioning marriage to be the ultimate goal for each romantic relationship.  The ones speaking for the motion were probably using this premise to build an argument, I thought, but why would the ones speaking against the motion shy away from alternatives to marriage, I wondered. The 14 participants who spoke against the motion were unanimous in deeming a live-in to be a trial run for a marriage.

Apart from the glaring lack of research on the institution of marriage, on the definition of the term and on the various forms of marriage, there was not a thought spared to relationships among the LGBTI people. Not one of the participants critiqued the mores of patriarchal, heterosexual marriages. No one worried about the situation of women enduring abusive marriages while there was a great deal of worry over girls getting “dumped” by guys in live-in relationships that go bad. And the best one of them all, the participants as well as the interjectors from the audience kept asking, “What will happen if the girl gets pregnant?” I really wanted to yell, “Go figure that out” but being one of the judges there I had to maintain a grave demeanour.

I mean, what is up with these young people?

Are these their real thoughts? Are they that dumb? Or is this their idea of politically correct thought that should be presented from official platforms such as the lectern? Apart from the maddening lack of research, why is there such resistance to new avenues of thought? Is this urban complacency speaking? Have they fallen hook, line and sinker for the consumerist propaganda of Hollywood rom-coms and Bollywood cinema that celebrate the big, fat, expensive wedding as the ultimate dream of every individual?

I got some of my answers that day, in the form of one of the participants. The 27^th participant, the one exception who acted as a foil to foreground the lack of depth in the thinking of this young crowd. She had fire in her belly. This agrarian metaphor fits her perfectly. She could barely speak English, was far from an advertisement for MNC brand names in her attire, did not flaunt a chic hair-style, and hardly had any make-up on. This girl kept trying to divert her peers’ attention towards alternatives to marriage, to the oppression within marriages, was asserting the need to look beyond marriages. Here was a girl who battled with the very real threat of being pushed into a patriarchal marriage and was building her ammunition against it. And on the other side were all those urban young kids who think that they are way beyond the machinations of patriarchy. They believe they need not worry about reaching their dream destination of the grand consumerist wedding to the one they love or will learn to love, a la the Bharjitya movies, however, they sure are worried about unwanted pregnancies and getting ‘dumped’.

Is it time courses on gender studies were rethought? Should we teach them Germaine Greer and Shulamith Firestone? Would it help them? Or should we figure out new ways of empowering them to face the crises in their 21^st century urban lives? 

Identity Issues

This post is seriously overdue. 

My friends have commented on the previous post and raised pertinent issues. One of the foremost of these  being a displeasure with my interpretation of the Gita. As I had stated earlier, I am not claiming that mine is the definitive interpretation. However, I will not accept it to be wrong. An interpretation cannot be declared right or wrong; the critic can at best ask for a justification or an argument to support one's hypothesis. 

It is generally agreed that Arjuna was advised to do his duty. While I go with that part of the common interpretation, I would like to ask the following questions: 

1. Duty towards whom?

2. Duty for what?

3. Why should I not worry about the result (and in some cases the outcome) of my action?

4. If I do something how can I shrug off the responsibility of the results of my action?

5. Where does my rationality figure in all this?

The last question is the most important one. I am not demeaning faith here. I have immense respect for the faithful. It takes a lot of courage to believe in an abstract concept and to let your faith guide you through life. Also, it takes a lot of courage to hand over your rationality to an abstract concept. Even Arjuna, the Nar of the Nar-Naryana duo and therefore our preceptor, didn't do that. He believed in his hero, a human form whom he could perceive with all his senses. But his descendants outdo him. 

Most of the faithful, follow some interpretation of one or more of our religious texts. Very often they believe or are led to believe that the interpretation they follow is the most authentic one. This leads to fundamentalist thoughts and practices. While the people who identify with the group that is usually recognised as the intelligentsia feel there is not an iota of fundamentalism in them, I believe all of us are confused, for we are straddling between contradictory group identities.  

Take the case of Nirupama Pathak, a member of a professional class that is considered part of the intelligentsia in most societies. Her story is rife with contradictions. Not just the kinds of contradictions that make investigation difficult but also the kinds that make life difficult. The media tells us Nirupama was told by her father that the Sanatan Dharma precedes the Indian Constitution. He was not stating a historical fact. He was revealing the group he identifies with. Dharmendra Pathak was telling his daughter that his identity as a follower of Sanatan Dharma is more important to him than his identity as an Indian. Making such a declaration is not an act of treason in our country; nor is it an instance of disrespect to the constitution. The very same man was spending hard-earned money to help his daughter crack a rigorous set of tests to join the elite group that formulates public policy in our country. This sort of ideological confusion in more a norm than an exception in our country. His daughter was prey to similar confusions. This girl trained to become a journalist at one of India's most competitive journalism schools. She moved from a small town in a backward state of our county to the capital of the country to join a demanding profession. Probably, she set an example for dozens of girls in her town to think of careers. The very same girl addressed her lover in the form that is reserved for husbands in traditional Indian marriages. Her lover, who reminded her that she was a journalist and therefore cannot be coerced into anything, was fully aware of her rights and power as a journalist. Parallely, he seemed to have accepted her formal way of address and thereby endorsed the power imbalance between them. And as we all know, this power imbalance arises from age-old perceptions of gender roles in our society. This young journalist couple, with one of the best training in their field, were mimicking the power-structure that their parents followed; at least in form. Here is an instance of education leading to good careers but not to radical change in personal choices of social practices.

Poor Nirupama lost her life due to her confusions. There are those also who thrive in them and glorify them. The less said of the leaders of the khap panchayat the better. These men are committing atrocities in the name of duty towards their culture. Most of them might not be able to state the religious source for their diktats on the kinds of alliances they will endorse and the kinds they will condemn. They get self-righteous about practising obsolete customs and do not feel the need to give their declarations even a semblance of rationality. The leaders of these khap panchayats wield an immense amount of power under the guise of culture. And once again, the most vulnerable are the women. With their rules, these men efficiently ensure that a woman marries into a village where she has no support; a place where there are no chances of finding a connection with her natal family. With such customs, a bride enters a domain where she cannot find the comfort of familiarity, will have to set out to be amiable and create a support structure. No wonder they cry as they do towards the end of the wedding ceremony. And the few who dare to defy these culture czars are killed. 

And these culture czars of Haryana are very clever. They have declared that tradition is on their side. They now want the law of the land to support them too. And they have roped in a few representatives of the people to speeden their goal. While one would not blink an eye over their getting an Om Prakash Chautala in their team,  Navin Jindal was a total suprise. He stumped his party by identifying with his electorate rather than with his public persona of a progressive, educated, cosmopolitan young man. No wonder they have asked him to explain his group identity. 

So, Mr. Jindal which group do you identify with more? The urbane man or the jat?

Group Identity

I have just stepped out of an academic presentation of some serious research on the link between memory and self-identity. When I saw the notice for this presentation, I felt that it would not interest me at all, couched as it was in social science jargon. I gave in to a gentle nudge to 'waste my time' over it only to realise that it gave me well-researched answers to questions that have been plaguing me for over a week now.

Before all of you who have no interest in academia or academic debates stop reading, let me clarify, this is not a blog championing the cause of academia or an appeal to intelligent young people to consider academic careers. This is one more post adding to my corpus of such posts, on the need for young people to spend some time thinking: thinking about issues around them, issues that affect their lives and their choices. It is easy to take the "beaten path" and reach one's goal within the time-frame set by oneself but can one live with that kind of success if it involves trampling upon family and friends? Old question, I know. Most Indians would immediately think of Arjuna, Krishna and the Bhagvad Gita and various interpretations of Krishna's legendary advice to Arjuna. So, here is my version of that famous dialogue, it went somewhat like this:

Arjuna: How can I wage a war with my elders for a kingdom?

Krishna: Kingdom, you are not fighting for something as paltry as a bit of land, I created a kingdom for you, remember, that can always be taken care of; you are fighting for your right.

Arjuna: But is my right greater than peace?

Krishna: Well, your right might not be greater than peace but your duty of fighting the evil in the world is. These people you see in front of you are perpetrators and / or supporters of evil. Fighting them equals fighting evil. Now that, as you very well know, is a good thing. So, while you seem to be doing an evil thing you are actually doing a good thing. Go ahead, fight your family, teachers, cousins, nephews, childhood mates for this will lead to ushering a better world.

I know many of you will tell me that is an extremely simplistic interpretation of an important part of the great song. Yes, I know that. It was deliberate. Simplistic never means incorrect. Let us start with simple stuff first. Anyway, this is not an exposition on the Gita; I am using my interpretation of this famous conversation to illustrate my point.

In this famous instance, the warrior was convinced by his political advisor that he should identify the group he belongs to and act accordingly. The legendary warrior is not the only one who learnt his lesson well enough to lead his group to a Pyrrhic victory, most Indians learn this lesson rather well. We pick the groups we belong to and live by the rules of the group. Sooner than later, we learn to identify with some social groups and accept its rules. We then internalise those rules and develop our persona. People we interact with regularly can usually predict our behaviour and our reactions to social situations. That is possible because they learn to recognise the groups we belong to. The problems and discomfort begin when we shift allegiances from one group to another. Say, Arjuna decided that his allegiance lay with peace and not with helping in destroying some people identified as evil. What could Krishna have done then? What advice would he have given to Arjuna? That would have changed the Mahabharata significantly. It would probably have changed the Indian mindset also quite a bit, for we are a nation that takes our legends very seriously. Unfortunately, asking such questions borders on blasphemy. My intention, though, is to ask such questions and ask them of people whose behaviour affects the lives of millions in this nation.

Watch this space for on how group identities killed Nirupama Pathak and many more young girls in the recent past.

Staging a Walk-Out

Hans Andersen “Emperor’s New Clothes” has been twirling in my brain for the past few days. An incident at a wedding in the family sparked recollections of this tale that I had last read more than a decade ago.
The details of Andersen’s tale are a bit fuzzy in my head but I seem to distinctly recollect that the child in the tale is mentioned just as a child – name, gender, accurate age was not specified – in one version and in another one the child is a five year old called Gloria. I also remember that I had then preferred the previous version to the latter one. As a researcher of childhood I needed a peg -- some cliché, stereotype or depiction that would give me a ‘quintessential’ dimension of childhood. And in the previous version of the tale, this child whom I chose to see as the Universal Child, in my naivety, represented the brutal honesty that grownups like to associate with childhood.
Many books, many libraries, many discussions and many observations later, I now know that ‘scholastic’ assumptions about childhood and children are just about as harmful to them as market driven ones are. I try my best to steer clear of generalizations about childhood and ecstatic reactions to children’s ‘unusual’ behavior. Some incidents, however, lead me to the brink of glorifying some dimension of childhood.
I was playing with a five year old niece, during a wedding in the family, when we were informed that we were missing out on witnessing an important ritual in the elaborate Hindu wedding. We were also told that we ought to postpone our game and watch the rituals because both of us had travelled quite a distance to be there; she had come from the US and I had gone from Mumbai. I was sufficiently admonished and she was equally curious. We made a dash for it. At the scene of action, I tried holding her aloft so that she gets a ringside view of the ritual. Soon I had to confess that I might break my back. Promptly she stepped down and we hunted out a corner from where we could see the proceedings in minute detail. The ritual we were witnessing involves the bridegroom walking out of the wedding, accessorized as a sanyasi, and declaring that he cannot turn into a householder while his calling is that of a monk. The bride’s brother is sent to coax the bridegroom back to the altar. The rituals deem that this mission ought to turn successful, in each case, by merely offering the groom some jaggery. Knowing that most guys of our generation don’t quite like eating raw jaggery, the bride’s party keeps some chocolate handy to help the proceedings along.
Now my little friend could not make head or tail of the proceedings. I clarified them as briefly as possible; that the bridegroom is scared to get married and the other chap in the scene will give him a chocolate to make him come back to the altar. She had two quick queries: “Does he get to eat the chocolate?” and was suitably impressed by the assertive from me and followed it with, “So, they are not putting up a show?”. Now, the second one was difficult to react to. “Of course, they are!” ought to have been my answer but sudden aid from the part of my brain that stores information made me hold my horses. I remembered the catastrophe that ensued the child’s declaration that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes in Andersen’s tale. To avoid the immediate catastrophe of my little Indian-American friend publicly calling an Indian ritual a show upon my confirming her hunch, I quietly took the cowardly grownup route out of the situation by telling her, “No, that was not a show; that is how one gets married”. My spirits sank at my cowardice but were instantly revived when the child turned to me and planted a kiss on my cheek and ran away to play with people nearer her age.