The untold, and probably incalculable, effects of bringing safety and security to women in the public sphere – through their sheer presence and visibility -- cannot be understated
Just a year ago, HD Kumaraswamy, desperate for a change in the fortunes of a party (the JDS) in precipitous decline, warned against the ill effects enabled by the new Karnataka government’s ‘guarantee’ of free bus travel to women. In a video that attracted the immediate censure of the State Women’s Commission, he told his audience at an election meeting that “our mothers in villages have fallen off track”, warning the women at the event to think about their families.
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He was voicing what many men have probably feared since the onset of free travel for women; that they are now leaving their families unattended while on jaunts around the state, quite often to visit temples that were long on their wishlists. Such enhanced religiosity should go unnoticed in a public life today suffused, to the point of delirium, with pilgrimages, forms of worship and obeisance at assorted shrines to saints, gods and goddesses.
‘Family in danger’ rope trick
It was the hypervisibility of women in the public sphere, and the relative independence enjoyed by them even within the home that was particularly irksome -- and the age-old ‘family in danger’ rope trick was once more performed.
It is early days yet in assessments of the fiscal effects and workforce participation rates of women since the Shakti scheme was started. At least one early study has shown a 5% increase in WPFR in the months following the implementation of the scheme. But there is no doubt, judging from the large numbers on buses, that many have made not only great savings on slender budgets but have also begun enjoying welcome relief from the ignominies of asking for permission or money to travel. The untold, and probably incalculable, effects of bringing safety and security to women in the public sphere – through their sheer presence and visibility -- cannot be understated.
But it is other forms of agency and individuation displayed by women that have, in just the last week, come to light, attracting the attention of commentators, politicians, and crime reporters alike. One woman from Hassan dared to refuse the thali from her groom while at the Kalyana Mantap, which made for melodramatic visuals; she declared her interest in marrying her lover. The ‘jilted’ family appears to have been more concerned about who would bear the costs incurred thus far, and the matter was amicably settled.
Preservation of family honour
But hot on the heels of this news was the tragic suicide of three members of a Mysuru family – husband, wife and young daughter – because the elder daughter had eloped with her lover. Anxieties about ‘mana-maryada’ – linked no doubt to the preservation of family honour and caste status – had resulted in this extreme step. But here too, the patriarch sought to control the daughter even after death, willing that she be denied any share in the inheritance.
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The reproduction of the caste order, so critically reliant on the fidelity of women, has been hovering not far from the headlines for many other reasons. A retired judge of the High Court, himself a Brahmin, recently publicly lamented the sorry state of the community (in numbers) due to (better believe this!) migration (no doubt to the el dorado of dollars) and miscegenation. Not long before him, in 2021, the Pejawar Mutt Swamiji had advised Brahmin women to stick to marriages within their community.
Fear over erosion of rights
However, the fears of upsetting caste numbers have been acutely enhanced with the announcement of the details of the 2015 socio-economic survey.
Today, as the three-phase caste census of SCs in Karnataka is underway, to determine sub-reservation among 101 castes constituting the SCs, there is even more anxiety about the possible erosion of rights based on numbers. And women, no doubt, must be restrained from exerting their own choices in the vital matter of marriage. But as the two recent cases, and the responses to the caste survey under way, clearly indicate, family (or caste) ‘mana-maryada’ is not all that is at issue. It is the fear that hard-won privileges will be undermined by the work of democracy, and by the hard knocks delivered to patriarchal privilege by the proliferation of individuated women.
We must not amplify the importance of the two recent incidents, or read the world in a grain of sand. For the most part, women continue to be the bearers of caste and family honour. As feminists such as Mary John have noted, the institution of compulsory marriage in India has had important (and unfortunate) effects on even workforce participation rates.
The real threat to women
And while all the world may love women’s labour, it is another matter when independent incomes and livelihoods – or state policy -- lead to new forms of social and cultural independence, and possibly social and cultural disobedience. Hence, the attack by right-wing brigades last year on dozens of women who had gathered in a Shivamogga hotel to commemorate Women’s Day. Much rather that (Hindu) women be trained, as the likes of Sri Rama Sene’s Pramod Muthalik would have it, in wielding the trident against real and imagined predators.
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This is why Kunal Kamra’s Naya Bharat show was an achievement: not just for showing the deadly venality of politicians, the idiosyncrasies of the rich, the servility of the press, and the victim-posturing of the majority. It was unusual because it held up a mirror to ourselves, and the degraded state to which our personal lives have been reduced. How many Indian males will have the courage to speak about their privilege, and their desire to protect that by painting themselves as victims? At a time when everyone, especially on the Right, appears eager to ‘save our women’ from imagined predators, Kamra tells us where the real threats to women are, namely, within our homes and families.
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