January 2023: Lets Talk About Violence Against Women
Moni Basu’s article is a stark reminder of the numerous gaps that exist in India— gender, caste, class, and wage gaps are clearly highlighted in her narration of Amina’s lived experiences. And I use the word “reminder” because in 2014 I had the privilege of working as a photographer for a field study on women’s entitlement to land and income in my mother’s state of Uttar Pradesh. A day’s drive away from the bustling city of New Delhi, I witnessed a stark difference between billboards advertising women in tank tops and frayed Levis jeans to rural India’s women shielding their faces from predatory eyes with a ghunghat (face covered with the sari).
However, I am not certain if there needs to be this sharply delineated distinguishment between rural-urban and semi-urban divide when discussing masculinist predatory behavior across India. Violence against women and girls in rural landscapes is certainly much higher in rural India where antiquated patriarchal Brahminical ideologies are continuously defined and promoted. But we must owe immense credit to women in rural India for continuing to transgress and challenge archaic honor practices that promote hegemonic male supremacy (patriarchy), knowing all too well that each day they are under the serial surveillance of a collectivist masculinist culture. They are worthy of recognition for their resilience considering the fact that many are unable to have any access to independent income, illiteracy is still high among girls, and they are under the constant scrutiny of their drunk husbands and in-laws. In India, 82% of women are married to husbands that drink heavily, 57% of women are injured by their husbands, and 90% of women whose husbands are in state-issued forced rehabilitation programs (like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) programs in the U.S.) have been severely abused and tortured (Women’s Media Center). 90%!! This is a major gendered health crisis and women are disproportionately the victims/ survivors of the masculinist drinking culture. Women…deserve credit and recognition. The crisis at hand is not an urban-rural divide— it is an epidemic that runs across all caste, class, social, and religious groups.
I had the pleasure of meeting members of the Gulabi Gang, also known as the Pink Sari Gang, to women, young and old, working as homemakers, caretakers, and agriculturalists (I refuse to diminish their work by calling them agricultural laborers). They, cohesively demonstrated their daily frustrations while also showcasing their holistic feminist-oriented/dictated strategies towards secretly gaining independent bank accounts, hiding any little saved money in their undergarments, and walking in large groups during the early hours of the morning while their husbands slept, to deposit it into their savings account. A fatal risk indeed, if caught. I saw women demonstrate the collective carrying of lathis (large walking sticks) so that if they were suspected of transgressing their gendered social norms, they would beat the man incessantly and take their chances by invoking fear, knowing well that no state, law officials, or male entity can be trusted for their protection but confidence in one another is their bridge to a hopeful autonomous life. Never have I been so deeply infected by humor as I was when in the presence of women and young girls seated cross-legged in their saris and dresses on the dry mudded grounds laughing uncontrollably at each other’s stories of challenging patriarchy.
And though the need to survive another day may be less of a daily resolve in the minds of Indian urbanites, I can only speak from personal wisdom, the moment I step onto the soil of my mother[s]land, I feel a mixed sense of comforting familiarity, an association of “being home” with the alienating fear of attentive caution as I too become an immediate casualty of masculinist judgment. I grow watchful eyes all over my body, and my acute awareness to the prying male gaze sends sensory alarm bells awakening me to negotiate every next step I initiate. For many Indian women, their entire existence is defined by these daily negotiations, the behavioral and psychological patterns of restrictions of immobility and mobility within a contested space, a space that Shilpa Phadke refers to as “the urban theater of war” is the status quo. But this socio-cultural normativity which subjects primarily women to negotiated parameters of acceptance and tolerance of institutionalized masculinist surveylance is incredibly problematic and complicated. Not only is this process of negotiating normalized, but in many cases it is invisibalized. The normalization invisibilizes other forms of structural violence. One step onto Indian soil is a soiled reminder of the infringing gender-gaps that continue to exist, and mind you, I am only talking about the male gaze. This discussion becomes complex as we begin to bridge in more gaps with caste, class, sex, and religion.
