A woman’s worth?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, Sept 28, 2014

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  The widows of Vrindavan. Photo: V.V. Krishnan
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  The widows of Vrindavan. Photo: V.V. Krishnan

So let me add my voice to the controversy generated by Mathura Member of Parliament Hema Malini’s comments about the thousands of destitute widows and abandoned women who live in her constituency. In the fashion of most public figures caught out, Hema has proceeded to retract her remarks, and claims that she wanted the sons and daughters of these women to take responsibility for them.

However, the issue is not just her insensitivity towards these women, many of who barely survive on alms and die miserable lonely deaths, but that the Bharatiya Janata Party member has also cynically used these women to rake up an entirely pointless issue of regionalism. Go back to where you came from, she said in effect. For someone who is supposed to be aware of the Indian Constitution and the rights it gives its citizens, this exceeds limits of not just insensitivity, but ignorance.

The only salutary purpose the BJP MP’s remarks have served is to draw attention again to a shameful tradition that has no place in 21st century India. If Hema is worried about the conditions in which these women live, she should be questioning the very reason that drives them to Vrindavan.

What she and all of us need to question is why in India a woman’s worth is measured primarily through the institution of marriage. Why should a woman’s life end when her husband dies, or abandons her? Why does she become ‘inauspicious’ when this happens? How can we support or justify ‘traditions’ that debase women for no other reason than that their husbands have died or have abandoned them?

We cannot speak of women’s rights and equality as long as traditions like this exist, traditions that are reinforced by politicians who suggest that the solution to the situation in Vrindavan is to get families to send their destitute widows to temples in their own states.

The National Commission for Women (NCW), at the behest of the Supreme Court, had done an interesting survey of the women in Vrindavan. In its 2009-10 report, the NCW makes a number of useful recommendations that Hema ought to read and pursue, given that she represents these women in Parliament. She should also take time to read the report as it contains useful data, including more accurate estimates of the number of widows and abandoned women in Vrindavan. Based on detailed interviews with 216 women, the report documents their pathetic life and the reasons for their coming to Vrindavan. Although the majority of them were from West Bengal, there were also women from other states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. Most of the women were in the 60 and older age group. Also, while the majority were widows, among them were women who had been divorced or separated, women who came to Vrindavan with destitute and ailing husbands, and women who had never been married.

The report quotes the 2005 survey conducted by the Vrindavan Nagar Palika Parishad that estimated the number of such women at 3,105. Another survey in 2008-09 of the number of women receiving pensions placed the figure at 3,710. Even if these are underestimates, and they most likely are, the total figure would surely not exceed 10,000 in a population of 63,005 in Vrindavan (2,011 census). Incidentally, between 2001 and 2011, the population of Vrindavan grew by less than 10,000. So there is more than a little exaggeration in the numbers of widowed and abandoned women flocking to the city. Numbers aside, even if a handful of women are compelled to leave their homes and travel to a temple town many miles away just to survive, it is a matter of shame. We have to rethink the value of a woman within the institution of marriage. As long as she is measured first by the amount of dowry she brings, second by her ability to produce a male heir, and third by dying before her husband, the tragic saga of the widows of Vrindavan will continue.

The Prime Minister is busy travelling around the world, projecting the image of an India impatient to change and move ahead. Perhaps he should turn his gaze to the condition of widows in his own constituency, Varanasi, and that of his party colleague’s, Vrindavan. India will move ahead when we understand what is holding back half our population.

(To read the original, click here.)

Unequal unions

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, May 27, 2012

Taking the plunge: Wishes fulfilled? AFP PHOTO

Why should women obliterate their personalities, their lives, once they get married?

Last week, a young man, 24 years old and a graduate, introduced me to his new bride. He comes from a tradition-bound Maharashtrian family. The couple had completed their round of temples in the city. And I was told that after a month, the bride, a girl born and brought up in Mumbai like the bridegroom, would be dispatched to a village in the Konkan to help his mother with the housework.

The young man introduced his wife as Tapasya. I asked the young woman her name. She said it was Usha. “But ‘they' have changed my name”, she said. And both seemed to accept this unquestioningly. As if it was the most natural thing to do. So the girl loses not just her last name but also her first name. In other words, she becomes a new person, apparently with no connection with her past.

This name-changing custom, followed only in some parts of India, is at the extreme end of the continuum that ordains that a woman's identity and independence ends the day she takes her marital vows.

The change of name might seem a minor issue. But it is what it represents that needs to be questioned. Why? We need to ask that. Is it essential? Will it make a difference to the quality of the marriage? Will it make a difference to the lives of the young people entering into matrimony? And why only the girl? Perhaps both ought to change their names so that they start their lives on a completely clean slate!

First in France

A stark contrast is France where the new woman in the Presidential Palace in France, is the first unmarried woman to live there alongside the man elected as President. On May 6, France voted in Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party as President. With him came his “First Lady”, Valerie Trierweiler. The two are not married and as of now have no plans to do so.

Ms. Trierweiler has been married twice, divorced twice and has three children. Mr. Hollande has four children from a previous relationship. And the French do not think this relationship is worth even a comment.

What is interesting about this is not just the non-marital arrangement. Or the ease with which the French seem to accept it, but the fact that Ms. Trierweiler, a 47-year-old political journalist with two decades of experience, has chosen to continue in her profession. She says she has no plans to be financially dependent on her live-in partner. “I haven't been raised to serve a husband. I built my entire life on the idea of independence,” she is quoted as saying in the New York Times.

The idea here is not to advocate an end to the institution of marriage or to debate whether live-in relationships are ideal. But the example of the independent Ms. Trierweiler is interesting not just because she is with the President of France, but because their relationship and her attitude towards it highlights an important question on women and marriage.

Is it essential for a woman to obliterate her personality, her life, once she gets married, or when she enters into a publicly-acknowledged relationship with a man? Does she not have the right to remain her own person?

Is there something sacrosanct about women subsuming their lives in that of the men they marry or live with?

Surely this is one of the reasons girls count for so little in our society.

In India, we are not encouraged to ask such questions. In fact, questioning in general about anything is actively discouraged. Children are firmly told not to be pesky if they question. Girls are put in their place if they do — or called “Maoists” as a Kolkata student was branded by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during a recent television talk show.

In our educational institutions, “note-taking” is the norm, not argument and questioning. As a result, there are scores of so-called customs that continue unquestioned by most people except a few who are inevitably called “rebels”. But women's status within marriage is most certainly an issue that needs constant questioning.

Expected sacrifices

Some of this is changing as more girls get educated and follow careers. Many customs have been questioned and have been modified. Yet, the expectation that the woman will automatically and willingly “sacrifice” her independence, her career, her personality, and even her given name at the altar of marriage somehow remains sacrosanct.

What is even more perplexing is how, despite a so-called “modern” education, the majority of girls continue to accept without question that their years of freedom, or independence, are limited to the time they get married.

Some edifices are too solid, too difficult to bring down. But perhaps we can begin by training our young people to ask: Why?

(To read the original, click here )

Money and marriage

  

Will changes in laws make a difference... Illustration: Keshav

Why the recent Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill may not make much difference to a majority of rural women.

Should women cheer now that the Union Cabinet has approved the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill 2010? If it becomes law, women will have the right to an equal share of property acquired after marriage and divorce will become easier. The additional ground of “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” has been added and there is a shorter waiting period when both parties want to end a marriage.

Most television talk shows have focused only on the urban, educated, middle class women. There is an assumption that divorce and partition of marital property affects only them. There are also crazy scenarios being created about a “divorce epidemic”.

Exercising rights

In fact, we have to ask whether such a change in law will make any difference to the majority of women, especially those living in villages. Most women do not know that under law they are granted many rights. Even if they do know — such as the right of daughters to inherit a share of their parents' property — they are forced or persuaded to sign away their right. A recent study by the Rural Development Institute (RDI) of women's land rights in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar noted that more than half the Hindu women surveyed had signed away their right to land they would have inherited.

Inheriting property or land is crucial for many women seeking some form of economic security. Yet, this is precisely where their lack of knowledge or ability to exercise the right forces them to continue living in abusive and violent marriages. To walk out of such a marriage means walking into destitution. But if they fight for their right and succeed in getting their share, they are ostracised by their own community. Nothing has changed the entrenched belief that a woman, once she leaves her natal home, has no right to anything there and that the dowry she carries with her is adequate compensation.

The other side of ignorance about rights is the absence of supportive structures to help women claim their right. According to the RDI study, 61 per cent of women said they had never gone to a revenue office and of these 99 per cent said this was because men handled such matters. Of course, it did not help that the majority of the lower level revenue officials were also men. A simple step like appointing more women to such posts might begin to make a difference.

Several studies have shown that women who have the ability to stand on their own feet are less likely to tolerate an abusive marriage. Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule as is evident from the searing essay written by the young poet and writer Meena Kandasamy, “I Singe The Body Electric” (http://www.outlookindia.com/ article.aspx?280179) where she speaks about the abuse she suffered within the first four months of getting married. Economic independence did not protect Meena from domestic violence but it gave her the courage to walk out.

Double-edged

What about women living in villages, in highly patriarchal societies, where the majority of women accept that beatings and abuse are part of what marriage is all about. In such societies, inheriting property can become a double-edged sword.

A fascinating study on the link between economic independence and domestic violence is by feminist scholar Prem Chowdhry for UNWomen (http://www.unwomensouthasia.org/ economic_security.html). She could not have picked a more appropriate state for such a study. Haryana has one of the lowest female sex ratios in the country. It has become known for the horrendous incidence of so-called “honour” killings where young men and women are murdered merely for marrying a person of their own choice. According to the National Family Health Survey-3, 27 per cent of married women in Haryana have seen physical, emotional and sexual violence and 46 per cent of women and 33 per cent of men felt that a husband beating a wife was justified in certain circumstances. In such a State, where girls are not allowed to be born, can women escape such violence if they assert their right to a share of property?

As in the States surveyed by RDI, in Haryana too women tend to sign away their right to parental property. But now this has begun to change. With the spread of urbanisation, property prices are hitting the roof. Girls are now demanding their share, often egged on by their in-laws. Of course, there is no guarantee that they will have control over the money if they manage to get it. But the study cites many instances where the situation of women, and even of their daughters, has changed dramatically once they have money or property in their own name.

Studies like the one by Prem Chowdhry and many others firmly establish the link between women's economic independence — either by way of property or an assured income — and a reduction in domestic violence. Even as laws are changed in the name of empowering women, we have to take the first steps — of informing women of their rights and creating the supportive structures that will guarantee that they can exercise these rights.

(To read the original, click on the link above)

What's in a name?

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 7, 2010

THE OTHER HALF

Last month, divorced women in India must have been startled to read a news item in a leading English language daily newspaper. It stated that the Bombay High Court had ruled that divorced women could not use their former husbands' surnames. The “ruling”, apparently, was in response to an appeal filed by a woman against a judgment in the Family Court in a case filed by her former husband. The judge had restrained the woman from using her former husband's name stating, “By using the ex-husband's name, or surname, there is always a possibility of people being misled that she is still the wife, when in fact she is not.”

The item caught my eye and I decided to check with a well-known lawyer whether there was any provision in law under which a court could give such a ruling. Did it in fact apply to all divorced women, as the story seemed to suggest, or was it just a judgment in a particular case? I was told that in fact the court had not given a “ruling” and that a single judge had merely upheld the judgment of the lower court in this particular matter. This did not mean that it applied to all divorced women. In fact, she pointed out, there could be no such ruling as people were entitled to take a name of their choice and could at anytime change their names simply by filing an affidavit.

Questioning a convention

The story, despite its inaccuracy, has triggered off a debate on whether women should change their names when they get married, and whether they should revert to their maiden names when they get divorced.

Last year, before the general election, actor Sanjay Dutt kicked off a similar controversy when he suggested that married women should adopt their husbands' surnames. He was clearly peeved that his sister, Congress MP Priya Dutt, continued to use her maiden name — which also established that her father was Sunil Dutt — instead of her married name. He was clearly not so worried about her violating a tradition as the political advantage she gained from maintaining her maiden name.

In India, not only are women automatically expected to adopt their husband's surname when they get married, but in some communities, as in Maharashtra, they are also expected to change their first names. As a result, once married, their identity changes completely. It is almost as if getting married also means wiping off your previous identity and completely subsuming yourself in one chosen by your husband and his family.

Politics of identity

Although the overwhelming majority of Indian women automatically follow the custom of adopting their husband's surname, increasingly some of them are asking why this should be so. What does the institution of marriage have to do with your name? Are you any less married if you adhere to the name you were given by your parents? Are you any less your husband's wife if your surname is that of your father? Is not love and understanding more important than unquestioned tradition? Should the choice not be left to the woman rather than being an imposition, one that she might not want?

Professional women, for instance, who marry after they have already established themselves, much prefer to stick to their maiden names. On the other hand, there are many women who marry young and get established in their professions after marriage. As a result, their professional identity is based on their married name, that is, if they have chosen to take their husband's surname. If such women get divorced, what sense does it make for them to revert to their maiden names? In other words, the issue is not so much whether women take their husband's surnames or not after marriage but that they should have the freedom to decide.

And why is it that the burden of name change is put on the shoulders of women alone? After women get married, if they choose or are compelled to adopt their husband's surname, they have to change all their names on their passports, bank accounts, driving licence, etc. It is not surprising then that only around two per cent of divorced women revert to their maiden names after divorce. This is not because they want to misuse their former position as being married to a particular person, or to appear to be married to him, but because it is just too much trouble. And in any case, they also want to remain connected to their children who have the same surname.

Perhaps in the long term, it would be simpler for women to hold on to their maiden names whether they marry or not, and whether they get divorced or remain married. This is not such a radical suggestion as it might sound. Even in very conservative societies, such as Iran for instance, women do not change their names when they get married.

Markers of belonging

In the past, the issue of surnames has often been subject of debate in many social movements. In the 1970s for instance, many young people who were part of the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan, chose to drop their surnames because they felt that these identified them as belonging to a particular caste. As one of their principal struggles was against the institution of caste, they felt they should start the trend of dropping surnames altogether. When they got married, their names remained unchanged. Neither the man nor the woman had to worry about a surname. In South India in any case the issue of surnames often does not arise as people use initials.

Surnames are just an instrument for ascertaining family lineage in a patriarchal society. In modern societies, where marriages are registered and courts rule on divorces, why should the last name of a woman matter on issues of succession? Fortunately, some of the bureaucratic hurdles before married women maintaining their maiden names are now being removed and it is a little easier to get a passport, for instance, with your maiden name even if you are married. Schools in Maharashtra now accept the mother's name as the guardian of a child, something they did not do earlier where only the father's name could be entered.

Such changes in rules are important. But the controversy over surnames essentially illustrates the mindset that lays down that a woman's own identity must be submerged in that of her husband's once she marries. Women, married or unmarried, divorced or widowed, are equal human beings, with the same rights as men. Surely this should be reflected in the institution of marriage.

(To read the original, click on the link above)

Of marriages and money

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, Feb 7, 2010

THE OTHER HALF

Indian weddings have become a cliché, an occasion to display wealth and money. Where is the joy of the occasion?

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Where's the fun? Does having fun necessarily mean a heavy price tag?

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Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

A question of prestige? Lavish affairs...

Today, February 7, 2010, a young woman I have known since she was nine years old is celebrating her marriage. There will be no lights or bedecked thrones for the bridal couple at this wedding reception. There will be no band playing outside the venue. The young woman and her groom will wear what they feel comfortable in, as will the guests. And there will be good food, good fun and plenty of good will. And best of all at minimal cost.

Why mention costs and weddings in the same breath? Because in India, they are inseparable. Think wedding and think ostentation, heavy expenses, stress and exhaustion. Where is the joy of celebration? Where's the fun? Does having fun necessarily mean a heavy price tag?

Simple and joyous

My young friend and her husband have proved that you can have a joyful occasion without spending too much money. Their wedding, that took place two weeks ago, is one that none of us will forget. The bride came dressed in a nice, bright Kanjeevaram sari. The groom wore a silk kurta. A handful of family and friends turned up wearing an assortment of nice and ordinary clothes. Everyone met in a dark, barely lit corridor of the Old Custom's House in Mumbai leading to the office of the Registrar of Marriages. The dowdy surroundings, the persistent smells from the women's toilet nearby, the sight of a garbage dump in the small courtyard, or the general shabbiness of the environs did nothing to dampen the spirits of the wedding party. Even the dour clerk, whose job it was go get multiple forms filled and signed — each with a photograph stuck on it of the bride, bridegroom and witnesses — did not affect anyone. Mini crises, such as the lack of any glue in the registrar's office to stick the photographs, were deftly overcome, no one quite knows how.

Once the paper work was done, the fee paid, the couple and their hangers on were summoned inside a tiny room that was little more than an enclosed corridor. At one end sat a smiling woman, the Registrar, who had dressed in a nice silk sari for the occasion. At the other end was the dour clerk, him of the multiple forms. And in-between, in the non-existent space were two “thrones” covered in frayed red velvet, under dust-laden plastic flower garlands, awaiting the “just married” couple.

The bride and the groom signed various forms and registers, stood up with small pieces of paper in their hands and declared that they accepted each other as husband and wife. Thanks to friends who had a sense of occasion, they were handed garlands with real flowers that they put around each other's necks. There was much hilarity and noise as all this was happening. The Registrar seemed to enjoy it all. I'm not sure the expression on the face of the dour-faced clerk changed. All that remained then was for the newly married couple to sit on the “thrones”, wait for the sickly yellow light to be turned on, and smile and pose for wedding pictures.

That done, the wedding party of around a dozen trooped to the best known Irani restaurant in Mumbai and devoured vast quantities of its signature dishes. In a couple of hours, the wedding was over, the couple were unstressed and happy, the family and friends were satisfied, and everyone went home knowing that they had just witnessed one of the best weddings ever.

Clichéd

Why go on about this wedding, you might ask? I do so because the Indian wedding has now become such a cliché. There is something almost automatic about the way it is planned and performed. Traditions are all mixed up. North and South have merged in certain customs. And all parts are united in one thing — it is an occasion when vast quantities of money must be spent and put on display. The compatibility or future happiness of the couple involved seems almost incidental.

The wedding I describe above came to mind on reading that the government is trying to tighten the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 by making it mandatory for couples to inform the dowry prohibition officer about all gifts exchanged during the wedding. Such a measure will, some believe, help the woman to reclaim her “dowry” if she leaves or is forced to leave the marital home. But can such a rule ever be implemented in this country? Whether you call it dowry, or something else, the “gifts” exchanged during weddings — most often a one-way traffic from the girl's side to the boy's — are beyond belief. Officially, they are not “dowry”. Yet everyone knows that the girl's welcome in the marital home is closely tied to the quantity of these “gifts”.

And what about the expenses that the girl's family is expected to incur for the wedding? Again, this is not called “dowry”, nor is it a “gift”, yet if money is not spent according to the norms set by the boy's family, it is the girl who will have to pay the price. So parents have no choice, or so they believe. In the end, law or no law, the value of a human being is being quantified in crude commercial terms. What does any of this have to do with “holy matrimony” or women's rights?

The real tragedy of the increasingly consumerist culture in which we live today is that young people, who one would expect are capable of thinking outside the box, who should have the courage to assert what they want, are either going on unquestioningly with wasteful traditions, or are even endorsing them. As a result, any desire to curb expenditure that existed in a generation that came out of the National Movement is now so thoroughly buried that one wonders whether it will ever surface again.

That's why the wedding I write about was such a pleasant change and an example of how young people can think for themselves, can decide to be different, and can still create a joyful and meaningful experience not just for themselves but for others.

(To read the original article, click on the link above)