Ever since the furor over the Delhi gang
rape began almost a month ago, I have maintained a conspicuous silence about
it. My first reaction to the issue was – Don’t treat us like Goddesses, porcelain
dolls, or someone who needs looking after/protection, just treat us like human
beings.
As a woman who has lived in many parts of
the country and experienced many forms of molestation in all sorts of places
(public transportation, cinemas, on the streets etc) to me the beginning of the
real change was clearly to begin with my home.
I vowed to raise a boy who will respect all
women – not just his mother and sister, but all women he comes to deal with or
know, regardless of who they were.
Having said that, I began a journey of
intense soul searching that led me nowhere. Here I was, living in a nuclear
family, in a city where women are ‘safer’ than most other parts of the country,
raising two children almost single-handedly, ensuring that my daughter grows up
to value herself as the most important person in her life and ensuring that the
son values the importance of the women in his life, having in a way, complete
‘control’ over my circumstances.
Repeatedly, my thoughts crawled back to my
family – extended family (and we are a very large one at that) – to my cousins
– brothers and sisters, to my sisters-in-laws, to my aunts and uncles who have
often cited lack of ‘control’ over their circumstances that has led to their
indulging in, participating, encouraging or even supporting (through their
veritable vow of silence), activities that make me hang my head in shame.
I thought to myself, if the change has to
begin with me, it has to begin with my acknowledging that my extended family
(that encompasses my relatives from my father’s side) despite its urban living,
its money and its (lack of) education has scant respect for women, either their
own or others’.
I shocked myself when one day, it struck me
that the reason why I was so shaken by this girl’s ordeal was simply because
the perpetrators of the heinous crime seemed no different from the men in my
extended family – those men who make their wives abort female fetuses, those
men who beat their wives after drinking, or rape them in their bedrooms, those
men who believe that a woman’s place is inside the home, who should not be out
watching a movie with a male friend, or pursuing a career, who leer at women in
skirts in a bazaar, but won’t let their wives wear anything but sarees, who
pass lewd remarks about other’s sisters and wives, those men who want to
overpower their women with money, violence and morality….those men existed, within my family.
The news of the birth of another girl child
to a cousin who had previously undergone an abortion to rid herself of the
female fetus she was carrying, became the impetus for me to write two open
letters: one to the boys of my family (including the jijajis (brothers-in-laws) and uncles) and one to the women.
Dear Patriarchs,
Often in our interactions, I have been told
off by many of you as being too ‘independent’; some of you have jokingly
sympathised with the man who married me (not who I married) for his fate; many
of you have inwardly, many openly denounced my thought process and expressed
unhappiness, discomfiture and even anger at my so-called rebellion. Today I
invite more of your wrath through this letter but by the end of it, I hope you
realise why I am writing to you.
It
starts with your words
My first objection has always been to the
kind of language you use. The liberal use of abuses, aimed at mothers and
sisters, even in a joke or regular conversation has always been disconcerting.
Like most patriarchs of the family, the boys’ training begins young and by the
time they are teen-agers the MC and BC words become part of their everyday
vocabulary.
You claim to have respect for your women
(mothers, sisters, wives) and yet, your tongue carelessly spills MC, BC abuses,
night and day. That is because what you call respect is nothing but your
misogynist and patriarchal outlook in the garb of respect.
Control is central to your being. Your
mother follows the dictates of your father, you expect your wife to do the
same. You marry your sisters off into families that have money, and power, but
possibly no education; even if she is armed with a relevant degree and desires
to work you will pay no heed to her desires. You give huge dowries to marry
your sisters, to ensure their happiness; little knowing that money can only “buy”
temporary happiness. But you don’t worry about that – because once she is
married, she is the husband’s responsibility and she has to manage her own
life, for better or for worse.
SO if she has to kill a female fetus to
have a male heir (because her husband’s family and their values are just like
yours) you won’t blink an eye, you won’t protest, you won’t even acknowledge
her pain. And why are you so uncaring
and unfeeling towards your own sister? Because you will have done the same
thing to your own wife! You would have her abort a female fetus for the male
child, the heir who will carry the family legacy forward, which will ensure
that all the riches you have amassed stay within the family.
You disrespect the women in your home by
slaying an unborn girl child, by pressuring your wives to kill those unborn
babies, and by watching mutely as your sisters do the same.
And if you do have an inclination to help
your sister trapped in an unhappy wedlock (that you “purchased”) you will not
empower her to walk out on an abusive husband, or ensure that you will support
her, come what may. Instead you will continue to keep buying her happiness,
with expensive gifts to the in-laws, molly coddling them, wishing that the
problem will just go away.
You won’t allow your wives to pursue
careers, to enjoy their passions. Just like your housewife mother (out of
choice) did, you expect that your wife will keep your home uncomplainingly,
raise the kids, respect your parents, and do whatever it is to be the dutiful
wife (in your parlance).
And your drinking – that takes the cake!
You will feel neither remorse nor shame
when you make cheap comments about your own distant sister to her husband,
thinking/assuming that when you drink, every third-rate remark you make (even
if it about a girl from your own clan) will be excused or taken lightly. You
will not desist from passing crude remarks to the friends of your wives;
remarks about their bodies that speak volumes about the lack of values in your
upbringing.
Your upbringing won’t stop you from raising
a hand at your wife, or forcing her to have sex with you even if she’s not up
to it. You will exercise the ‘rights’ of a husband every opportunity you get,
because deep down you are comfortable in the thought that divorce is a taboo in
our family; that your hapless wife (who has already been told by her family to
‘adjust’ and ‘compromise’) has no financial security and will therefore always
be dependent on you; that somewhere, deep within, she accepts your behaviour
(as she does of her brothers, your brothers and other males in the family) as
‘this is what men will do’. She may or
may not raise a ruckus with you in private about your attitude, but she will
always choose to stand by you whatever your behaviour – either with her, her
family or other women.
Women
are objects
Your remarks, your looks, your behaviour
are indicative of the deep-rooted malaise of our society that is confined
neither to caste nor class. We will go to a temple and bow our heads to a
Goddess, BUT in our homes and on the streets, we will objectify women,
disrespect them, even kill those unborn girls!
Do you realise now that you have turned out
to be no different from those six men who raped that girl on the bus? This
horrific revelation is the reason I write to you today.
All of you, my dear brothers,
brothers-in-laws and uncles, please remember that there is a little girl
growing up in your family (yes, the one you didn’t kill, the one who was
allowed to live) looking at you, your demeanour and your behaviour. One day she
will break the vicious circle that has entrapped her mother and the women
before her and question you on your misdoings. Today you are not answerable to
me, but I hope you have your answers ready for that day of reckoning.
Your truly,
Ritu
My dear sisters and aunts,
Yesterday I got the news of the birth of her
second girl. It came as a shock because I am aware that she had already aborted
one child a few months ago because it was a female. This time, did the sex
determination test go wrong? Or did she decide to keep the baby, whatever be
its sex?
Knowing what she has often said about the
importance of the male child in the family I daresay it’s the former. And my
heart goes out to her, not because she gave birth to a girl, but because she
will have to have a third child for the coveted boy (yes, despite her two
C-sections and the impending danger of a third delivery).
This educated (MBA degree holder) is not
alone. Her older sister, perhaps the only one in our generation (so far) to
have three children, was compelled to have the third after the birth of two
daughters, and after aborting one or two female fetuses. Another sister-in-law
went through the same ignominy twice, thrice (I’ve lost count) before she
conceived the male child.
I have grown up with all of you my sisters (and
my feelings are on similar ethos for my bhabhis
as well) and I cannot for one moment condone or even attempt to understand how
all of you, women with good, sound education, can accept or live with the
status of no-grade citizen inside your own homes.
Your husband’s families don’t let you grow
as an individual, chances are that you have given up the dream of working
despite your MBA or CA degrees to conform to the family’s wishes; husbands beat
you at will, rape you in your bedrooms; you are forced to abort your girls; you
are mentally harassed for dowry and related issues; your parents can never stop
fulfilling the ‘demands’ of your husband and his family; you watch as your
drunken husbands and brothers misbehave with other women (maybe even your own
sister), make fools of themselves, get into needless brawls, spoil
relationships, and yet, and yet, you call yourselves happy.
As a woman, my heart bleeds as I write this
because I know that when confronted, the truth will be distorted because as a
clan, as a society we are used to lying to keep up charades. “Happy family” –
the biggest entrapment known to Indian society especially us, the middle class,
has obscured our sense of right and wrong.
I know that you’ve often been coerced into
toeing the line. You have succumbed to pressures –from fathers (this is what
girls in our families do; protect our virtue/honour/family name, etc.), from
brothers and now from husbands (for very much the same reasons as your father).
Your sense of adjustment and compromising becomes
so intricate a part of your lives, that you begin doing the same with your
sons, forgetting where to draw the line, pampering them as the ‘khandaan ka chiraag’, forgetting to
change the warped value systems of the clan that they are growing up with, forgetting
to teach them to respect women, forgiving all their insolent and uncouth
behaviour with their wives (or even with you), overlooking their flaws and
focusing on protecting their male egos from all and sundry.
Your daily lives are filled with homely
activities interspersed with regular intervals of retail therapy and although I
know how important money is, can it make up for the loss of one’s dignity?
Or are you in a ‘comfort zone’ having
become exactly like the mother-in-law you cannot stand – giving explanations
and justifying the abortion of your own unborn child (because a boy is
necessary for furthering the ‘vansh’)?
Do you, like your in-laws make every frail
attempt to camouflage the loss of the baby as an unfortunate miscarriage, an act
of Nature, not of willful murder?
Can you raise a girl (yes, the one you
didn’t kill) inside that home where you face discrimination?
Will you teach your little girl the same
values you were imparted (or have imbibed) – adjust, compromise, don’t complain,
get beaten, get raped, abort that unwanted girl child?
Do you honestly believe that wearing
diamonds and expensive clothes, driving luxurious cars, living in palatial
homes, can actually NULLIFY the disrespect meted out to you?
Do you desecrate women who lead happy lives
as individuals? Or do you envy them their freedom, their choices, their free
spirits?
Do you look at yourself in the mirror every
morning and smile at the person you have become? Or do you dream of the girl
you were?
Ask yourselves these questions and seek the
answers my dear sisters. Don’t hide behind the mountains of rules the males
have raised just to rule over you. Don’t impose those rules on your daughters
and daughters-in-laws.
Learn to decipher between your will and your
willingness and their impositions and assaults.
Learn to say NO – Follow your passion,
pursue that career, hangout with your friends from college without the guilt,
give birth to the child borne out of your love.
Learn to fight back – Kick him if he
beats/rapes you, call the cops, call your friends/well wishers, call the media.
Learn to protect – not just the child you
brought into the world, but that baby who found its home in your womb, and
whose only wrongdoing is her sex.
Learn to raise a boy who will respect all
women. Let him break the cycle of patriarchy and misogyny and became a man who respects
and loves all humanity, including and ESPECIALLY women.
Learn to appreciate – the beauty of life,
without having to whip out your wallet or flash your diamonds for it.
Learn to demand – your rights as a HUMAN
BEING.
Empower your daughters, empower your
mothers and mothers-in-laws, sisters, sisters-in-laws, empower yourself.
In hope and prayer,
Your sister,
Ritu
