Women’s choices — whether of partners, food and drink, times of day or night to be out and about — disturb those intent on ‘saving women’ from themselves
If Pramod Muthalik, head of the Sri Rama Sene, has his way, Karnataka’s women will soon be able to avert their possible dire fates by the adroit deployment of trishuls (tridents).
Announcing this bold scheme, Muthalik recently advised women in Hubballi to arm themselves and wield the trishul against suspected “sexual” harassers since neither the Karnataka Police nor the government can be trusted to protect their honour.
The trishul, rather than the pepper spray advocated by feminists, is Muthalik’s preferred weapon of defence. “Put them in your handbags,” he advised, “and prick the harasser”.
But will we soon see — should the righteous women of Hubballi take Muthalik’s advice seriously — a new category of domestic injury? Clearly, Muthalik appears completely innocent of any acquaintance with the fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data analysed by scholars.
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Rise in domestic violence
In the 2019-20 period covered by the survey, it was found that Karnataka (along with Assam and Bihar) has witnessed a sharp increase in spousal violence against women in the 18–49 age group.
The increase in the state was up from 20.6 per cent of women in NFHS IV (2015-16) to a whopping 44.4 per cent in NFHS V. And this is in part accounted for by more accurate reporting, as well as a completely new category of violence, “violence during pregnancy”.
Karnataka, the economic powerhouse of the south, dramatically leads the southern states on this ignominious list. Rural areas lead over their urban counterparts in forms of violence against women in homes (36 per cent rural to 28 per cent urban).
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The real oppressors
Muthalik’s proposed “trishul deeksha” on April 18 to arm women with this weapon against alleged “love jihadis” may thus go seriously awry. It might well end up ugly, with many men nursing not just pricked egos and masculine pride but serious injuries within the home inflicted by those at the receiving end of the violence.
The symbolics of choosing the “trishul” to deal with the hordes of Muslim men lusting after Hindu women may come unstuck if the gentle women of Hubballi decide to confront their real oppressors and harassers, who may be right in their homes.
After all, as we learn from all the cases of egregious intimate partner violence that make it to the newspapers, it does not take much to rile up the husband. Not just a week ago, an offended husband killed his wife and stuffed her into a suitcase, though both of them were virtuous Hindus.
Rage at being denied mutton curry, real and imagined jealousies, children’s failures in school, inability to produce a boy child, can all be triggers for the long-suffering husband to attack his insouciant wife.
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Spectre of ‘love jihad’
Yet, neither NFHS data nor anecdotal evidence on an almost daily basis deters Muthalik from marshalling the figures that paint the whole of Karnataka’s womanhood as vulnerable to the diabolic dreams of “love jihad” by Muslim men.
Not even the charge sheet, which has now been filed against former JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna and his alleged sexual exploitation amounting to rape of women of just one area, Hassan, and the alleged cover-up by his family, ruffles Muthalik’s concern and anxiety about Karnataka women.
What do they fear?
In the state which enjoys high levels of female work participation, though largely in the countryside, and the high visibility of women in cities and towns, the fears of Muthalik and his ilk could be something else. It could be love itself that he and his rampaging men are really afraid of.
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For them, love is a four-letter word. Women’s choices — whether of partners, food and drink, times of day or night to be out and about — disturb those intent on “saving women” from themselves. All men love women’s labour, even for wages, but most men can be quite picky about where those hard-earned rupees are spent.
It was Pramod Muthalik who led the attack on the Mangalore pub in 2009, in which women were beaten up for having challenged and “violated” Hindu culture. He then reaped a whirlwind in the form of the Pink Chaddi campaign, a naughty pushback by enraged feminists.
He and his “women-saving” cohorts would do well to guard themselves from having the self-same trishuls turned on them when the women of Karnataka begin to realise what they are being saved from and who they are being saved for.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
