The Insidious Patriarchal System

 

 

 

 

 

The Insidious Patriarchal System

The Supreme Court of India, in a landmark judgment March 25,2021, came down heavily on what it called ‘male formula’ structure in the army that resulted in deserving women short-service commission officers from being considered for permanent commission. A bench of the court consisting of Justices D.Y.Chandrachud and M.R. Shah held that “the structures of our society have been created by males and for males. As a result, certain structures that may seem to be the ‘norm’ are a reflection of the insidious patriarchal system. A facially equal application of laws to unequal parties is farce, when the law is structured to cater to a male standpoint.”  And that such systems are an affront on human dignity because of inherent systemic discrimination. The court quashed the application of fitness standards of 35 years old male officers applied to women in the age group of 45-50 years.

This male chauvinism is a reflection of how men treat women in societies across the continents. The human society dominated by men never accepted women as equal to men. It was only in 1918, after the World War I, that the women were granted the right to vote in the UK and the right to stand for Parliamentary election ten years later in 1928. It was in 1963 that the  US Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal for employers to pay women lower wages than men for equal work on jobs requiring the same skill, effort and responsibility. And yet women in American society continue to be paid less than men.

India has a long history of social reform movements fighting for the rights of women. The social taboos were sanctioned by the atrocious religious practices and the stifling caste system. Though the Rule of the East India Company in India had reduced India, first time in her long chequered history, to a political and economic appendage of a foreign country, the Company’s Rule, per se, did contribute to social awakening in general and among the lower caste people, in particular. The English education made it possible to fight against the barbarous social practices, giving rise to social reform movements, inter alia, in the British Provinces of Bengal, Bombay and Madras that championed the rights of women in 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy –“Father of Bengal Renaissance’- was the precursor of the socio-religious reform movements in the Indian subcontinent.  He promoted rational, ethical, non-authoritarian and social-reform Hinduism. He secured the ban on the evil system of Sati. He opposed the evil practices of child marriage, polygamy and dowry, and emphasised on importance of education and inheritance rights for women.

In the Bombay Province (Maharashtra), Savitribai Phule, a social reformist, was the first Indian woman to have received education. She was the first female teacher in India and mother of Indian feminism.  Her‘s is an extraordinary story of overcoming multiple challenges and numerous hurdles. Those days the Brahmin community’s domination in society was total. The Brahmins denied education to women and imposed their own diktats in the name of Hindu Shastras, with the illiterate and ignorant people at the bottom of social hierarchy accepting whatever they said as gospel truth of ‘dharma’.

Jyotiba Phule educated Savitribai, after the marriage. Both of them had benefited by English education imparted by Christian missionary schools and developed a very enlightened and progressive view of society. Savitribai went to a missionary school, and subsequently received training to become a teacher. They founded the first Indian Girls School in Pune in 1948. They worked to abolish the discrimination against girls and to secure gender equality; opposed the child marriage and encouraged widow remarriage. They were the true emancipators of women. The Brahmin community ostracised them.  The struggles, the life and work of Savitribai are well captured in an Indian historical drama television series –Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule’. It is so inspiring and captivating.

Jyothiba Phule, a great social reformist- given the title of Mahatma- for the pioneering work he did to promote education among women and lower castes and to eradicate untouchability which Gandhi and Ambekdar pursed later. He founded the Satyashodakh Samaj Society in 1873 to attain equal rights for people of all faiths and to uplift the oppressed classes. He recognised that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage and that education was vital for their emancipation.  He believed that the caste system was a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured pre-eminence and discrimination by Brahmins. .In his book Gulamgiri he thanks the Christian missionaries for making the exploited castes realise that they were worthy of human rights and dignity.

In the Madras Province another radical social reformist Periyar E.V.Ramasamy had emerged.  He was known as “the Father of the Dravidian movement’. He opposed the domination of the Brahmins in the British administration (3% availing 70% positions) and the exploitation and marginalization of non-Brahmin Dravidian people. He promoted the principles of rationalism, self-respect, women’s rights and eradication of caste.  His humiliating treatment by the Brahmins, when he was on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Varanasi, turned him into an atheist.  To eradicate the caste system he got his caste title Naicker deleted from his name.

Periyar founded the Self-Respect Movement with the following objectives:

:” to allow people to live  life of freedom from slavery; to do away with needless customs, meaningless ceremonies, and blind superstitious beliefs , to put an end to the present social system in which caste, religion, community and traditional occupations based on the accident of birth, have chained the mass of the people and created superior and inferior  classes;  to completely eradicate untouchability and to establish a united society based on brother/sisterhood; to give equal rights; to prevent child marriages based on law favourable to one sect ; to conduct and encourage love marriages, widow marriages, inter caste and inter religious marriages and to have the marriage registered under the Civil Law and to establish and maintain homes for orphans and widows and to run educational  institutions”

It was a very radical revolutionary agenda.  No doubt his work had a deep impact on the Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu. The politics of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati was also influenced by his movement.

Though these social reform movements contributed to removing some social evils and securing social justice, the rigid social hierarchy in India has, by and large, remained obstructive in achieving gender and social equality. The stranglehold of the customs and traditions, based on religion and birth, has not changed much since the days of Savitribai and Jyotiba Phule. Even the modern education has failed to change the mindset of the people grown up under the overarching patriarchy. The women continue to be discriminated and abused in one form or another. And the growing violence against the girl-child, women and children is the product of the insidious patriarchal system.