‘Break the Cage’

 

‘Break the Cage’

Generally speaking, a girl in the patriarchal system in India is seen as a Paraya Dhan (somebody else’s property) since she would eventually get married and be given over to her future husband’s family. This view is not held exclusively by the orthodox Hindu families alone, but also by the families cutting across religious communities, being impacted by the larger Indian society.

 

This traditional view of a girl as a burden has not changed much, despite the modern education, even among the well-educated working women, just as the well-educated well-off men also do not necessarily consider the women as equal partners in life. The girls are by-and-large discriminated throughout with regard to their upbringing, education, choice of schools and colleges and marriage. The married couples, barring some enlightened souls who believe in gender equality, prefer boys to girls. And the marriage becomes a one-way process of a woman surrendering her independence to cater to the male ego, and succumbing to the family pressure.

 

After the marriage, largely, working woman face a double whammy of managing both the job and the home, with the husbands and the in-laws offering no help in attending to the household chores, and do not enjoy economic independence even after earning. It would be unfair for a married working woman to do all the household chores as well. The patriarchal male chauvinism should have no place in the modern institution of marriage based on equality of sexes. For that matter, the marriage is not essential for a successful and happy living. Marriage is empty without mutual respect and dignity.

 

At a time when the Gen Z aspires to be independent and lead a more purposeful and meaningful life, the speech of Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, at his programme Chhatron Ki Goonj (echo of students) on 22 August 2026 in Pune – a cultural and educational hub of a progressive State of Maharashtra - is historically significant in two ways. First, the gathering of exclusively girls and women brings for the first time, the issues of women empowerment and gender equality into the center-stage of public discourse. Secondly, it came out from the leader of a national party that has the long tradition of addressing the women’s issues during the freedom struggle and after the independence.   

The central theme of his interaction with the girls is women’s independence and the different forms of control they face in everyday life. He described India’s 70 crore women as the country’s ‘biggest strength’. They represented 70 core unique journeys, unique imaginations and unique dreams.

 

In a way, Rahul Gandhi has resonated the tradition of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the Phule couple, Gandhi and Nehru of liberating the women from the stranglehold of a male dominated society. And only a leader with modern education and liberal mind, rising above the primitive loyalties of caste, religion, gender, and linguistic and regional prejudices could speak the way he did.  No other leader in the Opposition ranks or in the ruling party is a match to his sophisticated articulation of the women’s problems.  After all, he had grown up in the family that produced powerful women – his grandmother Indira Gandhi, mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka – linked to the destiny of India.

 

The event viewed in 100 cities across the country, was a resounding success with thousands of girls and women turning up, despite the curfew and 30 conditions the police imposed on the organizers; and the BJP government of Devendra Fadnavis making no stone unturned to sabotage the event, being scared of Rahul Gandhil’s increasing acceptance and growing connectivity and popularity among the Gen Z. The girls and women were roaring and dancing as he addressed the mammoth gathering. The girls felt that a prominent national leader at last listening to them and addressing their concerns like no one else ever did before. The girls cutting across communities shared their problems of gender discrimination and suppression on the stage.

 

Rahul Gandhi invoked the Manusmriti to show how the women are controlled by the patriarchy at different stages of their lives: “In childhood daughter should be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her Lord is dead to her sons. A woman must never be independent.” This is shameful, he said. It is this mindset that should be fought. There is nothing wrong a woman being a daughter, wife and mother, but that cannot be her only identity. He said: “Women must stand on their own feet and build their own identity…You do not belong to anybody except yourself.”

 

He called upon the girls to ‘break the cage’ to walk free. He said the BJP and the RSS hold a mindset that wants women to be controlled within cages: “What is the mindset? That a girl should be locked in a cage, she should be controlled, she should not work, and boys should get full freedom. They can do whatever they want, if they wat to abuse they can abuse, if they want to work, they can work. We do not want such an India.”

 

He targeted the Prime Minister over his remark that it was a cultural shock to hear girls using abusive language during the students’ protest at the Jantar Mantar recently, but had no problem with boys using the same abusive language. He also revealed the mindset of Mohan Bhagwat, the R$S Chief, who said that women are raped in ‘India’, not in ‘Bharat’.

 

Together let us smash the patriarchy, he told the girls: “Be loud, be proud and fight for your space in society”.  He cited some figures to show how the women are discriminated: women aged 15-29 spend 5.5 hours on house work compared with 30 minutes by men; 99% of sexual violence cases are unreported; 84% of women required family permission to work and salaried women earn 25% less; only 8% women own any property; 45% of dropouts leave education because of marriage or house work; 4.5. lakh female feticide take place every year, 80% women face harassment of one kind or another; 29% women face violence; 6% women raped; and 50% of women are forced to reject work or education because of safety concerns, 17,500 rupees are spent annually for the safety of a woman.

 

The frontal attack on the patriarchal system by a prominent national opposition leader, whom a large section of people, including the Genl Z, see as a future Prime Minister of India, is an indication of a new political narrative. It strikes directly at the ruling dispensation and the Sangh Parivar who subscribe to the out fashioned manusmiriti’s social order, and the regional parties that thrive on caste and community identity, with the ground under their feet slipping. It is a challenge to the orthodox and conservative men, who perpetuate the patriarchy.  And the Gen Z, millennials and Gen Alpha, who aspire to lead a safe and secure life with a just social order, find a new hope in Rahul Gandhi.

 

The instant impact of the event is that when Rahul Gandhi, after the event, wrote to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis drawing his attention to the problems of the tribal students, raised by a tribal girl during the interaction on the stage, that the tribal students are not allowed admission to  government hostels after 30 years, and that the tribal girls are asked to take a pregnancy test on their return from the vacation, the very next day the state government had announced removing of the age bar for admission to the hostels and stopping of the pregnancy test that is so humiliating.

 

Valson Thampu, retired Principal, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, speaking out of sense of justice, has some interesting reflections on Rahul Gandhi’s speech: What Rahul Gandhi said in his very powerful speech to thousands and thousands of college and university going girls has got under the skin of BJP. A gathering and meting as significant as this was virtually blocked out by the Indian media whereas things that seem silly, not concerned us, are given prominence, even how our Prime Miniter eats mangos attracts a great deal of media attention. But a programme as significant as this doesn’t concern anyone. He thinks this is gross injustice, utter discrimination; an insult to the soul of India.

 

This is the most massively attended all female gathering of a political kind in post independent India. The ABVP tried all its tricks to disrupt the gathering, and if possible, roll it out, but failed miserably, it added fuel to the fire. Rahul Gandhi enjoys tremendous respect in this regard. The Indian National Congress has a credible track record in relation to the status of women.  Whatever good has come to the women of India has come through the Indian National Congress.

 

The dependent status of women in independent India makes us wonder whether we succeeded in making the freedom meaningful. Swami Vivekananda said that ‘God cannot be pleased where in a country its women are unhappy’. All religions are discriminatory to women. Every religious scripture justifies inferior status of women. If India has to go forward, it has to do justice to women, unleash its women power.