Atrocities on Women Through the Ages

SikhSpectrum.com Quarterly

Atrocities on Women Through the Ages Zoya Zaidi Ages have come and gone and eras will come and go, but the plight of women is not likely to change. For eons, time has helplessly watched excesses done on women in the form of discrimination, oppression, exploitation, degradation, aggression, humiliation, you name it and women have suffered it. Four steps backward accompany each step forward taken in improving the condition of women. History is witness to the suffering of women since the inception of civilization. Cleopatra (69-30 BC), the queen of Egypt, way back in the first century BC, was driven out of Egypt, exploited by the great Caesar (with whose support, she won back her throne, and to whom she bore a son), consort of Anthony, married to her own, much younger sibling Ptolemy XIII (according to the tradition of the times), finally, fearing humiliation in Octavian’s triumph in Rome, took her own life. Helen, the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and wife of Melenaus of Sparta, was abducted by Trojan prince, Paris in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, which led to a ten year long siege and finally sacking of Troy, that led to the killing of thousands of Trojans and Spartans. The imprisonment and repeated rape of women in fascistic Germany by Hitler and his army, was “justified” under he pretext of producing a superior race, and the “Comfort women of Japan”, during the second world war, kept quiet for 50 long years-till they were old and weak-before they could muster enough courage and public support to raise their voice and speak about the tortures they underwent. Back home, in India, the ten thousand odd Widows of Vrindavan , marginalized and ostracized by society, live in institutionalized hell, being exploited by politician-pimp nexus, just because of the heinous practices of a society where widow-remarriage is a taboo, and where a widow is supposed to be a “bad omen” for any unmarried or a married, woman. Devdasi Yellamma poses for the camera, by Juhi Jhunjhunwala. The Devdasi system still persists in south Indian temples. If you take the country road from Dharwad, Karnataka you will reach the small temple village of Saundatti. It is in this village that the devdasi tradition, one of the most criticized forms of prostitution in India, is still practiced in which a young unmarried girl is “married to the temple”- “given away” in matrimony to God! She “serves” the priests and inmates of the temple, and the Zamindars and other men of money and power in the town and the village. The proponents of this “service” (read sexual satisfaction) provided by the Devdasis promote it as “service of God”. A devdasi is dedicated to this service of the temple Deity for life, without any possibility of escape if she so desires, because society refuses to accept her. Despite the governmental ban, initiated in the 1980s, hundreds of girls are secretly dedicated to Goddess Yellamma every year. The devdasi system is still flourishing in parts of India, especially southern India” [1]. Apart from the above-mentioned institutionalized exploitation of women, there are age-old customs which have been perpetuated by the so-called “culture police” and this includes Sati (Su-thi, a.k.a. suttee), which is a traditional Hindu practice of a widow immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre, Literally, Sati means a virtuous woman. A woman was considered virtuous if she died on her husband’s funeral pyre. In dying this way she was also promised a place in heaven. Satis are worshipped as Goddess and temples are built in their memory. According to Dr. Jyotsna Kamat, Ibn Batuta (1333 A.D.) observed that Hindus considered Sati praiseworthy, without it being obligatory. The Agni Purana supports the belief that a woman who commits sahagamana goes to heaven. Medhatiti denounced this practice as going against the Shastras, the Hindu code of conduct and Rajaram Mohan Roy, Dayanand Saraswati and Mahatma Gandhi made an effort to stop this practice. More recently Sati has been reported in Rajasthan (late 1980s), and Madhya Pradesh (in 2002) [2]. Traditionally, Rajput women committed Johar, by jumping in a well of fire to save themselves from dishonor as captives of the victorious enemy forces. The famous case of Rup Kanwar in 1987 highlights how millions of Indians gathered to pay their obeisance to “Sati Mata”-in other words to watch the “Tamasha”(spectacle). Since its independence in 1947, India has witnessed about forty cases of Sati with twenty eight occurrence in the state of Rajasthan alone (Oldeburg1992: 191) [3]. The term “Dowry-Death” is unique to India and nowhere else in the world is this custom so deeply engrained in the social fabric of society and widely prevalent among all sections of society as it is in India. In order to pay the groom’s family a dowry at the time of marriage, the bride’s family often gets heavily burdened in financial debt. Yet most Indians fail to question this strange custom. According to an article in Time magazine, deaths in India related to dowry demands have increase 15-fold since the mid-1980s from 400 a year to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s “Of the 1,133 cases of “unnatural deaths” of women in Bangalore in 1997, only 157 were treated as murder while 546 were categorized as “suicides” and 430 as “accidents”‘ But of 550 cases reported between January and September 1997, 71 percent were closed as ‘kitchen/cooking accidents’ and ‘stove-bursts’. [4] It is perhaps a consequence of this custom that preference of a male child is common among Indians and people will go to any length to see to it that a baby boy is born, or to put it simply, that a baby girl is prevented from being born. With the introduction of the ultrasonography technology, the task of aborting female foetuses is so much simpler although legally it is banned through a law enacted in 1994. According to a report in 2001 , to every one thousand boys born there are only 992 girls born in India, as against the expected number of 1000. Haryana and Punjab have even lower ratio of girls to boys - 793 girls to 1000 boys [5]. A total of 10 million girls foetuses have been aborted, according to a study report recently, in the last twenty years, after the introduction of ultrasound technique in India [6]. Nearly 500,000 female foetuses are lost to selective abortion in India: “Of the 15 million illegal abortions carried out the in the world in 1997, India accounted for four million, 90% of which were intended to eliminate the girl child” [7]. In contrast, according to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, in most countries there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males [8] whereas up to 50 million girls and women are missing from India' s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination in India. Rape, a most despicable crime against women, is so rampant that every one hour a woman is raped in India [9, 10], and if all unreported cases are taken into account it may be a matter of seconds or minutes when a woman gets raped. In Delhi, which has become the “Rape-Capital of India”, in 2005, on an average one rape was committed a day. The rape of a South African model just before New Year’s Eve, and a French woman has made Delhi internationally notorious. Girls are being sold by their parents, for money, in Hyderabad, to old Arab Sheikhs, and from other states like Bihar, Bengal and even Bangladesh, to land owners of Punjab, Haryana, Weastern UP and Rajasthan. An investigation by Deccan Chronicle revealed that around 3,000 Hydrabadi Muslim girls were sold by their poor parents to rich old Saudi men and a large majority of these women end up working as domestic maids and comfort women without any privileges of a wife. [11] Incest is also rampant and according to a Delhi organization RAHI, 76% of women abuse cases occurred in childhood and 40% of these were committed by family members [12]. Recently some cases have come to light, which are hair raising in their nature. The case of a father in Lucknow, who has a child each from both his daughters. After his arrest showed no remorse and was quoted as saying: “There is only one function of a woman in this world: ‘To satisfy the man!’” The famous case of Gudia, who became a toy in the hands of the “Maulanas”, who finally succumbed to SLE, a totally curable disease, if diagnosed in time, and given proper treatment which I, a Rheumatologist by profession, can confidently state, is another example. The case of Imrana is another eye opener. She was raped by her own father-in-law, declared outlawed for her husband, the father of her children, and forced into further living with her father-in-law. It is ridiculous, yet practiced and sanctified, and to top it all, even accepted, in the name of “Religious Fatva”. In short women and society are at wars with each other. In conclusion I will like to share two of my poems written about women. Woman Burning Bright, is about excesses on women through the ages, and the other, written on eight of March 2002, is titled Eight of March (an introspection). Burning of A Hindoo Widow, by James Peggs. Woman Burning Bright Centuries have come and centuries have gone, Moment-to-moment I burn along… Life is burning desert sand… Pooja lamp, I burn so bright Without a wick, with incandescent light… In hell-fire-of-separation, I burn, My beloved, unconcerned… Bowl of poison, I drink without a hitch, Like Meera*, my moon is eclipsed… I have stood the “Test-of-Fire” With Sita**, on burning pyre… Like a candle melts my soul, Moths a thousand, encircle close… My womb’s scorched again and again, A mother, I love without a gain… My forehead, Vermillion-dyed, In bright–red flames, a “Burning-Bride… Still, I burn on the “Funeral–Pyre”, As a “Sati, much to my ire… As one born out of a litter, I was sold to the highest bidder… Quietly, in the womb done away I never saw the light of the day… “Wood burns to coal, coal to ashes, I burn so, neither coal nor ashes…”*** Centuries have come, and centuries have gone, Moment-to-moment, I burn along… Humanity is a barren desert land…. Eighth of March (An introspection) It’s 8th of March, I stayed at home, I did not celebrate! The silence of death reigned in the streets, My soul was inundate With cries of helpless women & children, That echoed with impotent rage: The baby girl in the womb smiles Innocently at me: “Save me! From my death!” She cries, “Death before I’m even born! From being stifled in my womb, I want to escape my watery tomb, And see the world in its bloom…” The girl in rags on the street, Grins impishly at me: Oblivious of the shame and neglect, Ignorance, and abject poverty… The precocious child-woman, Of forbidden nooks of society, Sneers at me jeeringly: “What have you done? To save my flesh, From the devilish trade Of innocent feminity?” The “burning bride”, With anguish cries: “Save me, from “my Savior”, -My cruel “Companion of Eternity!”- For oppressed centuries…” The mother Earth hangs Her head in shame: “What has become of my children? To bring about this carnage of humanity, To dance this bloody dance Of savage brutality? I ponder, muse and introspect: “What have I done? To alleviate their pain, To maintain life’s sanctity? What right have I to celebrate? To rejoice insanity? The time has come To break the chains, To free myself of my own pain, To do something, This little something, To save humanity: The virgin feminity… This poem may not be re-produced without express permission of the author. REFERENCES 1. Juhi Jhunjhunwala in the Glimpes magazine http://theglimpse.com/newsite/printarticle2.asp?articleid=198 2. Dr. Jyotsna Kamath in http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/hindu/sati.htm 3. VenessaParila in http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/spring99/parrilla/parr1.htm 4. By Amanda Hitchcock, 4 July 2001 in http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/ind-j04.shtml 5. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/607894.cms 6.(keep) 6. http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=85598 7. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/SAsia/forums/foeticide/articles/foeticide.html 8. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/607894.cms 9. http://www.indianchild.com/sexual_harassment_india.htm 10. http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/rape_laws.htm 11. http://keralamonitor.com/sept192004.html 12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/259959.stm http://www.sikhspectrum.com/022006/women.htm