Dipankar Gupta on violence against women: The backlash against equality
Open the newspapers and the reports of violence against women are so brutal, and up close, that they curdle your morning tea. Such crimes are not only on the rise, but traditional leaders have gone much further than they ever did in the past. Even the Hindu Marriage Act is now being questioned. Why has our world suddenly become so intolerant? Have we turned the clock back?
Not exactly! Dreadful as such incidents are, they probably reflect a slow churning at the base of our society. This process is so deep that most people who are in the thick of it do not quite know they are playing a historical role. Women are being attacked not because of a backward movement, but because there is a forward thrust. Women, today, end up offending patriarchal norms simply because they are exercising choice in a way that was unavailable to them in the past. If grandfathers are killing their granddaughters in the name of culture, it is because they feel the old world slipping away. As long as everybody lived by established mores, nobody got hurt. Do things differently and the heavy hand of tradition lands on you.
To get a measure of this, think back to the American South in the second half of the 19th century. This appears contradictory, but precisely at the point when slaves were legally freed and Lincoln had won the civil war the lynching of blacks began. As long as they did not raise their heads and played the Uncle Tom and Aunt Mamie stereotypes, it was alright: nothing ever happened to them. Till that time, lynching in America usually involved white people hanging other white people. Those who dangled at the end of a rope were horse thieves, or just plain thieves, or political opponents, and there was hardly a black man among them. Records tell us that between 1830 and 1850, most of those who were lynched were white. All that changed after the American civil war. The slaves had now been freed and were beginning to demand their rights as equals. It was then that white supremacists struck and lynching of blacks went epidemic: how dare they want to be like us?
Was there no prejudice against blacks earlier? Sure, there was; but why get angry for they behaved themselves and played the buffoon (if period Hollywood films are to be believed)? It was only when they began to demand their rights as citizens, that lynching began. Its frequency was the highest in southern United States where white people had prospered with slave labour. Ancient prejudices welled up among whites because a new world was threatening their way of life. In 1950, Rosa Parks re-ignited the civil rights movement in America when she stubbornly refused to yield her bus seat to a white passenger. Today, it is hard to imagine the kind of white heat that blacks felt on their backs - the United States has changed that much. With some luck and a lot of fortitude, India will too.
When Babli and Manoj were killed by their family in 2007, or when Monika and Rinku were done in by their kin in 2010 (their bodies strung up, lynch style), it was as if the medieval world had suddenly returned. The truth is that because these poor couples, in their own way, took on tradition, they had to die. If they had stayed on as obedient children of the clan, they would be with us today... Read more:
