श्रीमती जी नहीं

एक दिन फेसबुक पर एक पुरुष मित्र ने मुझे एक वीडियो में टैग किया। लिंक खोलने पर मैंने देखा कि फिल्म में कई मर्द उन सारी चीजों के लिए माफ़ी माँग रहे थे जो औरत होने के नाते हमें इस समाज में झेलनी पड़ती हैं। हाल में इंटरनेट पर चले#metoo अभियान में भी कई मर्दों ने अपनी महिला दोस्तों का साथ दिया। 

ऐसे कई पुरूष हैं जो नारीवाद से डरते नहीं दिखते। उनसे बात करके लगता है कि वे औरत-मर्द के भेद-भाव को खत्म करने की ज़रूरत को समझते हैं। बराबरी के इस आंदोलन में शामिल होने की कोशिश भी करते हैं। फिर भी ज़बान कभी-कभी फिसल जाती है, वे कुछ ऐसा कह या कर जाते हैं जो इस बराबरी की मुहिम में ठीक नहीं बैठता और आप इस तरफ़ उनका ध्यान आकर्षित करते हैं। 

आप सोचते हैं कि एक सुलझे हुए इंसान होने के नाते वो खुले मन से इस पर आपसे चर्चा करेंगे। आपकी उम्मीद ये नहीं कि वे समस्या के हर पहलू से पहले से वाकिफ़ हों। आप इस आस में हैं क्योंकि वे समझदार और संवेदनशील हैं, वे ये मानेंगे कि जिनकी आवाज़ जाति, धर्म, जेंडर जैसे सामाजिक ढाँचों की वजह से हमेशा बुलंद रही, अब उन्हें कमरे में थोड़ा पीछे बैठकर दूसरों की आवाज़ को सब्र से सुनना होगा (हाँलाकि ये कतई ज़रुरी नहीं कि हाशिए वाले हमेशा सही ही हों)। पर आपके ऐसे कोई भी सवाल उठाने पर इनमें से बहुत लोग बिफ़र पड़ते हैं, "अब ये हद से ज़्यादा हो रहा है।"

हदें भी उनकी बनाई हुई, कम-ज़्यादा भी उनका। उस पल में वे आपके हमसफ़र नहीं होते जो कुछ समय पहले तक आपसे कदम-से-कदम मिला कर "लक्ष्य को हर हाल में पाना है" गुनगुना रहे थे। उनको ये वहम हो जाता है कि आप उन्हीं की पीठ के ऊपर छलाँग मारकर उन्हें पछाड़ने के मंसूबे बना रहे हैं। उस वक्त वे एक झुँझलाए हुए धनवान और आप एक लालची, एहसानफ़रामोश याचक बन जाते हैं। 

जाति/धर्म के मामले में भी ये बहुत होता है। पीढ़ियों से ऊँचे दर्जों पर बैठे लोग उन लोगों के हकों को लेकर नियम और सीमाएँ बनाते हैं जो उतने ही लंबे समय से शोषित रहे हैं। ज़ाहिर है कि पितृसत्ता/सामंतवाद का ये संदेश महिला या पुरुष, किसी के भी ज़रिए आप तक पहुँचाया जा सकता है।

अक्सर इस खीज से गुज़री हूँ जब औरत-मर्द की ग़ैर-बराबरी का विरोध करते हुए मुझे बताया गया है कि मैं फ़िज़ूल बातों पर वक़्त की ऐसी-तैसी कर रही हूँ और "बड़े" मुद्दे मेरे हाथों से फिसले चले जा रहे हैं। यहाँ एक "छोटा" उदाहरण देना चाहूँगी ये दर्शाने के लिए कि क्यों नारीवाद "छोटी" बातों के लिए भी इतना लड़ता है।

एक साहित्य महोत्सव में कई पुरुष लेखकों और कुछ महिला लेखकों को बुलाया गया। प्रचार सामग्री में पुरुषों के केवल नाम थे। जो औरतें थी उन सबके नाम के आगे "श्रीमती" लगा था। अपने नाम के आगे भी ये देखकर मेरा सर क्यों भन्नाया?

इस सूची में जब कोई पुरुषों का नाम पढ़ता तो उसे इस क्रम में ये जानकारी प्राप्त होती: अमुक नाम का लेखक इस सम्मेलन में आनेवाला है। महिलाओं का नाम पढ़कर इस क्रम में ये पता लगता: एक विवाहित महिला, जिसका नाम . . . है, और जो एक लेखक "भी" (विवाहित होने के बाद) है, सम्मेलन में आनेवाली है।

पुरुष की पहचान के लिए सिर्फ़ "नाम (और काम) ही काफ़ी है"। और एक महिला के बारे में सबसे पहले ये जानना ज़रूरी है कि वो एक पुरुष से किस प्रकार जुड़ी (या अन-जुड़ी) है। ये बात मेरे लिए बिलकुल नाक़ाबिले बर्दाश्त है और रहेगी। इसको लोग छोटा या मोटा, जैसा भी मसला आँकें ये उन पर है। मैं इसे तवज्जो देती रहूँगी।

हाँ, ये ज़रूर है कि कार्यक्रम संचालक ने इस दिक्कत को समझा और आगे इसे दूर करने की कोशिश की। पर कई पुरुषों ने जब इस किस्से को सुना तो तुरंत समझाने लगे कि कैसे ये एक छोटे मामले को तूल देना हुआ, और किस तरह उनका ज्ञान मेरे जिये गए अनुभव से बढ़कर है। 

कुछ ऐसा ही हुआ मेरे ब्रह्म समाजी विवाह को लेकर। हमारा विवाह एक "आचार्य" संपन्न करानेवाले थे। एक बड़े दफ़्तर में ऊँचे पद पर काम करनेवाले वे हल्की मुस्कान, धीमी आवाज़, कुर्ते-पायजामे वाले सज्जन अपने शीतल स्वभाव के कारण हमें तुरंत भा गए। काफ़ी गर्व से उन्होंने बताया कि कैसे ब्रह्म समाज में औरत-मर्द को ऊपर-नीचे नहीं रखा जाता। उन्होंने नमूने के तौर पर किसी के विवाह की पत्रिका दी जिसमें विवाह रीतियों को समझाया गया था। आनेवाले दिनों में मेरा साथी आचार्य से ईमेल और फोन पर जुड़ा रहा। हमने कुछ वचनों-रीतियों में बदलाव किए जिससे उन्हें कोई परेशानी नहीं थी।

शादी के कुछ दिनों पहले मैंने देखा कि एक प्रतिज्ञा में "भाईचारा" शब्द का प्रयोग किया गया था। मैं वैसे औरतों के बारे में चाहे जितना भी सोच लूँ, ऐसे किसी शब्द को पढ़ने-सुनने पर उस चित्र में मैं महिलाओं की कल्पना नहीं कर पाती। इसे बदलने के लिए झिझक और विनम्रता के साथ आचार्य से बात की। (झिझक इसलिए क्योंकि नारीवादी होने से किसी बुज़ुर्ग, या पुजारी जैसी हस्ती को, खासकर अगर वो मर्द हो, को नाराज़ करने का बचपन में पढ़ाया गया ड मन से पूरी तरह नहीं गया।) मेरी बात सुन वे कुछ झल्ला कर बोले, "भाषा ऐसी ही होती है। तुम भाषा को नहीं बदल सकती। अगर तुम्हारे पास बेहतर शब्द है तो तुम बताओ।" 

मैंने उनसे ये नहीं कहा कि भाषा ठंडी हवा के मासूम झोंके की तरह यूँ ही इधर-उधर टहलटी नहीं पाई जाती, सोच-समझ कर गढ़ी जाती है। उसका एक इतिहास, एक राजनीति होती है। मैंने बस कहा कि मैं कोई और शब्द ढूँढ़ने का प्रयास करूँगी। थोड़ी देर बाद जब मैंन "अपनापन" शब्द सुझाया तो वे तुरंत मान गए। 

क्या शुरू में वे इसलिए नाराज़ हुए थे क्योंकि हम तीन-चार बार भाषा में संशोधन करवा चुके थे? या अगर पहले की तरह मेरा साथी, एक पुरुष, उनसे इस बारे में बात करता तो उनका रवैया कुछ और होता? 

जब लोग अपनेआप को किसी सोच, सिद्धांत या अंदोलन का समर्थक बताते हैं तो ये उम्मीद ग़लत है कि समर्थन पानेवाले केवल एहसान मानें और उनके तरीकों पर सवाल न करें। ये सही नहीं कि वे हमारे महसूस किए हुए सच को छोटा बताएँ, ख़ासकर तब जब उनके-हमारे तजुर्बे बहुत अलग हैं।  

ऑस्ट्रेलिया की ऐक्टिविस्ट लीला वॉट्सन ने बहुत पते की बात कही है, "अगर तुम यहाँ मेरी मदद करने आए हो तो तुम अपना समय बर्बाद कर रहे हो। पर अगर तुम इसलिए आए हो क्योंकि तुम्हारी मुक्ति मेरी आज़ादी के साथ जुड़ी हुई है, तो आओ, साथ मिलकर काम करें।"

First published in Samayantar, Jun 2018.

Men, be allies, not apostles of equality

A Facebook friend, a guy, once tagged me in a video. It showed men apologising for what women have to go through every day because they are, well, women. Several men stood by their women friends in the wake of the #metoo movement as well.

A number of men are coming out in support of feminism. They appear to understand the need for gender equality. Still at times they slip, and you draw their attention to it. You expect that they would discuss the situation with an open mind. You don’t require them to know every aspect of the problem but you have seen them being sensible and compassionate. So you assume they would agree that those regularly privileged by hierarchies of religion, caste and gender should now take a step back and listen to others in the room. But this supposition is often broken with a “now this is too much” from them.

They draw the boundaries, and decide what is enough or too much for those who have been marginalised for centuries. In that moment, they cease to be your fellow travellers moving towards a common goal. They start worrying you’re going to jump over their backs and gallop ahead leaving them behind. In that moment, they become a peeved donor and you, a greedy, ungrateful beggar.

I have faced being patronised by men who tell me how I am quibbling over small things while I should be focusing on bigger issues widening the gender gap. I would like to share a “small” example here of why we as women stand up for these apparently bite-sized issues.

A literature festival invited many authors; I was one of them. The invites and posters carried the names of the men. For the women, they had used the prefix Mrs. Anyone reading would have got this information about the men in the following order: an author named so-an-so is going to be there at the festival. About the women, they would have learned: a married woman, called so-and-so, who also happens to be an author (apart from being married), is going to participate in the fest.

I had a problem with this partisan approach, and the organiser understood and tried to fix it. But many men who heard termed it as nitpicking, and started stressing on how their knowledge of what was important should gain precedence over my lived experience.

Something similar happened around the time of my wedding. My partner and I had chosen to have a Brahmo Samaj wedding, which is supposed to be egalitarian towards the couple irrespective of their gender or religion. The acharya/priest who was to conduct our wedding was a highly placed official in a private body. His gentle smile and soft-spoken demenaour immediately put our wedding jitters to rest. He proudly shared with us the tradition of equality practised in Brahmo weddings, and showed sample scripts which had detailed the rituals. In the days to come, my partner was in constant touch with him. We modified some of the rites to make them even more uniform for the couple and the acharya readily accepted the tracked changes.

A few days before the wedding, I noticed the word “brotherhood” in the script. No matter how much thought I give to women, when it comes to such words I am unable to visualise women in the picture. I politely, and with much hesitation, talked to the acharya about it. (I was hesitating because my feminism had not erased from my mind the taught fear of upsetting men in the venerable role of elders or priests.) He was irked at my suggestion: “This is how language is. You cannot change language. If you have a better word, tell me.”

I did not say that language wasn’t discovered while it was roaming about like innocent, blitzkrieged sheep. It was shaped with a design in mind; it has its history and politics. I only tried to find a substitute, and when I suggested ‘kinship’ in place of ‘brotherhood’, he gave it his go-ahead.

Had he been upset at first because he was tired of our various modifications? Would he have reacted differently if, as usual, my partner had spoken to him?

When people announce themselves as allies to a certain movement or an ideology, they should not expect that the ones they are supporting should take it as a favour and not raise questions. It was precisely by dominating clans denying the truths and everyday realities of certain sections of society that these groups had originally got pushed to the periphery.

Allies to the feminist, or any other, movement would have to stop being imperious in order to contribute and gain equally, just as those who have faced persecution needn’t always be right about everything. The words of Australian activist Lila Watson makes sense in this context: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

First published in Deccan Herald, 17 Mar 2018.

Saving our Culture, Killing our Daughters

“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.”

- Hubert Reeves

We’d like to share a few vignettes with you. These are true stories about women that the authors know. Their real names have been changed to protect their identities. It has been a difficult journey to connect the dots, not to see the stories as atomized happenings built from particular contexts. As soon as we started linking the struggle of women here in India to the globalized context of corporate capitalism with its corollaries of extraction, patriarchy and cannibalism, an emerging thought-form started to show itself. It is the concept of wetiko, a word that comes from the Cree Nation, one of the First Peoples of North America. More on that later.

After spending almost a decade in an unhappy marriage, Nikita finds the courage to get out of the destructive relationship. When her family finds out, her father threatens to kill her. She attempts suicide—a move that she believes to be her only recourse. Although she is somehow saved after a close shave with death, her mother continues to insist that there must still be no question of a divorce. She cannot stray outside the cultural context of male-dependent marriage.

One day before her wedding, Roshni discovers the abusive side of the man she is planning to marry. She tells her father that she wants to call the wedding off. He gets furious and says he's already spent a fortune on the wedding preparations. He shouts the cold calculus of investment and invokes the cultural and social shame that would follow if she does not stay the course. And so she does. The outcome is predictably horrendous.

After years of convincing her parents (daring to do so because she had taken care to choose someone from the same caste), Kriti finally marries the man she loves. Dowry is also demanded by and given to the groom's family. Kriti accepts this, feeling that the man could not be rude to his parents by interfering with their way of things and saying no to a dowry. A month into the marriage, her spouse starts physically assaulting her and cutting off her contact with everyone outside the marriage. She works up the courage to tell her parents and talks of lodging a police complaint and leaving him. They call up the man and condemn his behavior, but forbid her from leaving the relationship. They say she chose the relationship, a contract was sealed, and she must now accept the consequences.

What is the common thread in all of these cases? Of course, the institution of marriage plays a central role. As do the cultural norms---familial expectations, caste requirements,  national demands, the precepts of patriarchy and the hegemony of globalized capitalistic mores. The assumed subservience of women and the desirability of a patriarchal marital arrangement are taken as givens.

In all these cases, the women were economically independent. Some even had what is often a luxury in Indian society - the "freedom" of dating and choosing a man to marry as long as he didn't not belong to certain castes or religions. Yet, once they entered the institution of marriage, they were chained by its rules such that to try to break out would have been seen by their families as a violation of their "culture" and "honour", and the most egregious “failure”. The fear of this rupture in cultural norms dominated their minds so much that some were willing to kill their offspring, while others didn't seem to care about whether or how their daughters would live if forced to continue within the oppressive structure of their marriages.

Some will argue that these are distinctively Indian problems. That the violence against women is endemic to our culture. But if we step back far enough, it becomes clear that this stems from our violence against the ultimate female deity – Gaia herself.

Our separation from Nature started over 12,000 years ago with the advent of what Daniel Quinn calls “totalitarian agriculture”’ when we left the trusting bosom of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and built the first city-states through the mechanistic extraction of farming. Many hunter-gatherer tribes were matriarchal, as women brought in the majority of the food, and did so on a more consistent basis than their male-hunting counterparts.

Economic anthropologists tell us that the first buildings we created in the Fertile Crescent were granaries. Once we had a surplus of food to protect, the natural social extension was a militia to protect the food, and then of course, a hierarchy of nobles and priests to manage the managers. The Ziggurats of Ur and Babylon point to the genus of our current brand of capitalism, which is simply the logical continuation of the exploitation of Nature, accumulation by dispossession, the wholesale commodification of Life, the pillage of slavery and colonialism, the rationalistic duality of the Enlightenment, and the extractive heaving of our Earth to fuel the Industrial Revolution. Late-stage capitalism, or neoliberalism, as some prefer to call it, is the outcome of all of these historical forces.

These machinations of modernity have always required a contempt for the natural world. The scientific revolution of Bacon and Darwin, and the resulting speciesism corroborated our special place above Nature, and indeed above the feminine aspects of our own nature.

From the inception of the first Ziggurat, men were rewarded for their brutality, ruthlessness and sheer strength. Women were subjugated as weak and irrational commodities to be traded to the most tolerant bidder. This history is not particular to India. It is the history of our so-called civilization.

When the Cree Nation in what is now North America first came into contact with European colonialists, they thought the Europeans were consumed by wetiko, a mind-virus of cannibalism. The Sioux Nation perceived them in much the same light, referring to the newcomers as Wasichu or “”fat-takers.” It has been argued that this thought-form originated from our initial separation from Nature, or more accurately, our perceived separation. Like all memetic viruses, wetiko is communicable – it moves from one host to another, whether that is an entire culture or an individual, mutating to best serve the illusions of its host, driving it further onto the path of self-consumption until there is nothing left.

Instead of being loving parents, it is common for people to turn into masters who own their daughters and disown them at the first sign of disobedience. Looking at the stories of these women who are denied recognition and rights as independent human beings, and witnessing the condition of the Earth that is called our Mother, in this Anthropocene era where 200 species are going extinct every day, there is no doubt that the spirit of wetiko has been embodied into the globalized system, especially the Western democracies. Their  spreading of the wetiko meme has taken the form of an invisible hand that’s dirven by, selfish rationalism, market fundamentalism and financial capitalism. It has resulted in the superiority of man over woman, calcifying cultures over empathetic adaptation, and cannibalism over Life itself.

Whatever we think Indian culture is, however autonomous and historically endowed, once we see the larger historical viewpoint, the constellational entanglements with the British Empire, imperialism, cultural genocide, and the imposition of wetiko values, we will see that Indian culture is just one configuration that was created through a set of male-dominated rules and the tumultuous compounds of historical accretions. In many ways, culture is just a collective delusion, a set of shared beliefs, expectations and role behaviors. We have a choice at this juncture in human history: to save our culture and kill our daughters, or to transcend our culture, and have women fully participate in the process of guiding our collective evolution to create the potential for a living planet once again.

First published in Intercontinental Cry, 24 Jan 2017. With Alnoor Ladha.