On the perfection of Indian men, and the absolute essentialness of kumkum-sindoor

Today is the death anniversary of Pandit Nehru, architect of modern India. (Which, incidentally, looks more medieval than it did 70 years back, but that is for another post.) Jawaharlal Nehru's biggest misfortune might well be his progeny -- all those letters wasted on Indira.

Yet, while Nehru's legacy is tainted by the conduct of his descendants, today is still a good time to recognize his many achievements, foremost amongst which is his support for women's rights. Especially when in India today, sanitary napkins are taxed but "essential" items such as sindoor-kumkum-bangles is not. Progress, welcome!

In the Indian parliament, the 'Hindu Code Bill' was stalled repeatedly by more conservative-minded politicos. However, after winning the first general elections in 1952, Nehru revived the reforms which were passed into law after a lengthy and bitter debate in Parliament.

"Now, we are often told, reminded of the high ideals of Indian womanhood, Sita and Savitri. I do not seem to remember men being reminded of Ramchandra and Satyavan, to behave like them. I do not know if Indian men are supposed to be perfect, incapable of any further effort or improvement, but it is bad that this can be so. You cannot have a democracy if you cut off fifty percent of the people and put them in a separate class..."

- excerpt from a speech by Nehru in Parliament, from Ram Guha's Makers of Modern India

Why gender inequality persists in India: It's the soil, sistah!

Recently I came across an interesting article in The Economist which suggested that deep-seated attitudes to women might have something to do with agricultural practices! Surprised? The article cites a working paper by a pair of Harvard economists, Alberto Alesina and Nathan Nunn, and a UCLA business school professor, Paolo Giuliano.

The paper titled 'On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough' states in its abstract that "We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution and persistence of gender norms."

In its introduction the paper elaborates:

Originally put forth by a Danish economist, Ester Boserup (1970), who hypothesised that gender role differences have their origins in different forms of agriculture practiced traditionally. In particular, Boserup identified important differences between shifting cultivation and plough cultivation. 

Shifting cultivation, which uses hand-held tools like the hoe and the digging stick, is labor intensive and women actively participate in farm-work. Plough cultivation, by contrast, is much more capital intensive, using the plough to prepare the soil. Unlike the hoe or digging stick, the plough requires significant upper body strength, grip strength, and burst of power, which are needed to either pull the plough or control the animal that pulls it. Because of these requirements, when plough agriculture is practiced, men have an advantage in farming relative to women.


Also reinforcing this gender-bias in ability is the fact that when the plough is used, there is less need for weeding, a task typically undertaken by women and children. In addition, child care, a task almost universally performed by women, is most compatible with activities that can be stopped and resumed easily and do not put children in danger. These are characteristics that are satisfied for hoe agriculture, but not for plough agriculture, particularly since large animals are typically used to pull the plough.

The result, according to Boserup, is that societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture – rather than shifting cultivation – developed a specialization of production along gender lines. Men tended to work outside of the home in the fields, while women specialized in activities within the home.


This division of labor then generated norms about the appropriate role of women in society. Societies characterized by plough agriculture, and a resulting gender-based division of labor, developed the belief that the natural place for women is within the home. These cultural beliefs tend to persist even if the economy moves out of agriculture, affecting the participation of women on activities performed outside of the home, such as market employment, entrepreneurship, or participation in politics.

This is an intriguing hypothesis which seems intuitively correct too. Now, the working paper has validated it.

This study rings true for India, where the plough has been used in agriculture traditionally, and gender inequality is endemic. When in doubt, consult the Classics - in my case, Indian mythology. The plough, in fact, pops up in a couple of interesting places.

Remember Sita, wife of Rama? Her father, King Janaka, found her in a vessel at the head of a ploughshare as he ploughed his field. Woman in India, as in other agri-based traditions, is symbolic of fertility. It is the man, however, who owns the land and all that springs from it. Wicked!

In another tale from mythology, Balarama - literally the strong one, the elder brother of the more famous Krishna, is also known as Halayudha, carrier of the plough. Before he married his wife Revati, who was physically much larger than him, he used his plough to whittle her down to size! To this day there is a wedding tradition in parts of southern India where the yoke of a plough is touched to the bride's forehead. Any atavistic harkings here?

Of course, why certain regions prefer plough to hoe is a function of the soil, the weather, the crops available, the domesticity of animals, etc. Moral of the story? Bharatiye Naari, for your sorry fate blame the deep loamy Indian soil as against the shallow clay soil of Burundi. Why Burundi, you ask?

Because Burundi's female labour force participation (FLFP) is 90.5%, sistah! And FLFP favours gender equality, usually. Burundi, for instance, shows up in the list of least severe gender inequality by region.

It's the soil, sistah ...

We Need a Sita Redux

In Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino delivers a speech in the film’s denouement where he says: If I were half the man I was five years ago I’d take a flame thrower to this place. In this instance, I feel the exact same sentiment – even though I am not Al Pacino, I’m not an Army vet, heck I’m not even a man! But I feel that sense of outrage, fury and helplessness that things can come to such a pass...

However, since I am a writer, I must write, seeking a way out of this miasma, and this is my response. And my question to you: what is yours?

The unfortunately named ‘Ruchika molestation case’ is in the headlines in India again, this time for the release on bail of the molestor. The case relates to an incident in 1990 when the 14-year-old Ruchika was molested by a high-ranking police officer. She protested but no case was filed. Instead her family was harassed repeatedly and three years later she committed suicide. In May 2010, twenty years after the incident, the court sentenced the police officer to eighteen months in jail – after six months he was released on bail. Such travesty of justice is not uncommon in India. It took a senior bureaucrat, Rupan Deol Bajaj, a decade to get a verdict of sexual harassment against another police officer – a sentence of three months in jail.

Molestation of women in India is a routine phenomenon, couched under the faintly Victorian sounding ‘eve-teasing’. The phrase implies a relish on the woman’s part. Yet, the phenomenon ranges from verbal assault to groping to molestation.  It is a euphemism for the sexual harassment that women are subjected to whenever they step out of their homes. The eve-teasers hang out in front of girls’ colleges, on footpaths, inside public transport – any public place is fair arena. The victim has been taught to ignore, look the other way, do anything but avoid calling further attention to herself. If she proves to be the anomaly that objects, she is accorded with persistent media attention, public speculation on her morals, infamy for the family, endless rounds of the law courts and police stations, and, finally, a verdict that hinges on the ludicrous.

The cost of a few gropes versus the shame of a public case – should any woman speak out against sexual harassment? But it never ends there. A culture that does not teach its girls to stand up, that vests its women with upholding the family’s honour, that refracts it’s daughters’ conduct through the what-will-people-say prism engenders a society where women become expedient. Eve teasing is hydra headed. It spawns other succinct two-word atrocities: acid attack, honour rape, dowry death.

When quizzed on their notion of the ‘ideal woman’ most Indians recall Sita. She is the wife of Rama, who is the embodiment of Dharma, one’s righteous duty, and the hero of the Ramayana, a Hindu epic. She is the Indian archetype of the woman of virtue, devoted to her husband, self-effacing and pliant. That perhaps is the reason why so many parents name their daughters after her. Very early on I realized she was not my type. Perhaps because I grew up in a Sikh household or because of my parents’ feminist proclivities, Sita never exercised a hold on my imagination. I was more interested in the fiery Draupadi who stands up to the enemy in the other great Indian epic, Mahabharata. Or Rani of Jhansi, the young queen who was one of the initiators of the Indian revolution against British colonials in 1857.

During my school years a Hindi teacher was discussing an episode from the Mahabharata. In a game of chess with the enemy the Pandavas stake all their possessions, and lose. Ultimately, they bet Draupadi, their wife, as a pawn. Aghast at this unseemly turn of events – Yudhishthira, the eldest Pandava, is held up as another model of Dharma – I voiced my protest. The teacher looked at me directly, questioned whether I knew better than the great epics and told me to shush. Plucky Draupadi, however, restored my faith. In the same scene she goes on to berate her husbands and the elders seated in the assembly for not voicing their protest.

An examination of the contemporary interpretation of the epics reveals how, in multiple retellings, the characters and stories have transmuted from the original. Modern recountals of the Ramayana close on the ‘all’s-well-that-ends-well’ return of the victorious Rama with his devoted wife to his kingdom. However, the story doesn’t end there. Sita, since she was abducted and spent time in another man’s palace, had to go through a test of fire to prove her purity. When the righteous Ram still forsook her, Sita lived separately from him, brought up her two sons on her own, and until the end refused to return to him despite his pleas.

                               

In the booming India of today more women are stepping out of their homes to work. Do they have the necessary role models for these contemporary times? Simultaneously there is an anxiety as to whether Indian culture will withstand the western onslaught that is concomitant with a liberalized economy. The answer to the twin questions is one: Sita redux. We need to bring Sita back to our popular imagination in all her original glory as a complex, mature, independent woman who could stand up to her avowedly righteous husband’s wrongdoing. A society of one billion people cannot progress if its women are taught to look the other way. If such were the case then the Rani of Jhansi would have cowered in her palace when it was besieged, and India would still be a British colony.