[Written by: Mohammad Amaan Siddiqui and Siva Nanda Rajesh]

It’s India’s 77^th Independence Day, but for whom? India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru famously proclaimed, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.” But who is awake today? Who is free? And who is drowsing everyone else?

The Indian government is criticized for many issues. Unfortunately, their failures to protect women have been less discussed, and discussions unfruitful as BJP clocked substantial votes from women in 2019, despite their safety, rights, freedoms, and respect reducing over the last decade.

This Independence Day article discusses the women’s plight in today’s India. While many of us want to celebrate today, how can we expect people to celebrate a day that is not? Nevertheless, if you take a break and celebrate traditionally, tune back into reality and also celebrate by exercising your rights and duties. 

Critical thought, dissent, and reflections like this article are intended to guide us into being more active citizens who will contribute to a better-functioning democracy and espouse its constitutional rights, duties, and values as initially intended. 

In the famous first Independence Day speech, J. Nehru also said, “It is fitting that at this solemn moment, we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India, and her people, and to the still larger cause of humanity.” So when will we live up to this pledge, speak, act, and serve India?

Aggregate Statistics for the Status of Women in India 

There have been some improvements but many developments are inevitable in a somewhat stable country (education levels and rights on paper), subject to debate (women’s autonomy in employment), or are offset by harsher changes that are hidden from public discourse. 

“…during the BJP rule, cases of violence and rapes have gone up by leaps and bounds.”
– Dr. Roop Rekha Verma, Professor at Lucknow University. 

• India is ranked 148 out of 170 by the Global Index on Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS). 
• Between 2017 and 2021, women’s sense of community safety in India reduced from 65.5% to 55.9%. This value is worse than Iran (66.1%), which comes heavily under fire by mainstream liberal media all the time (GIWPS). 
• In 2018, India was described as “the most dangerous place on Earth for women.” 
• Crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh increased by 66% between 2015 and 2019. 

Did you know most of India’s mainstream channels are directly, fully, or partially owned, funded, controlled, or influenced by BJP members or their aides? To learn more: When Journalism is Sold: Lessons from India. 

Why did Women Vote BJP into Power? 

BJP won its 2019 elections with a substantial proportion of women voting for BJP. If BJP is harming women, why are they voting for them? 

The Disney fairytale analogy of Rapunzel’s relationship with her abductor, who she believed all her life was her mother, describes the fate of women under BJP. In the story, Rapunzel was gaslighted to believe that her mother knows best. However, Rapunzel was a victim as her mother (abductor) used her to stay young, and of course, she used Rapunzel’s long-luscious hair as a ladder. 

Similarly, on Independence Day in 2014, Modi assured that his party vowed zero tolerance for violence against women; however, intimate partner violence increased by 27% after 2016, and the abduction of women increased by 14%. The statistics on other violence against women (rape and dowry-killing) would only horrify you further. Thereby, women voters formed the strands of Rapunzel’s magical hair that elected her witch-mother BJP.

They win elections not by delivering outcomes but by making the public think they delivered the best. Elections diverge little from marketing gimmicks. To protect democracy, we must be more vigilant and avoid being fooled by the politicians who need our votes. BJP has a lineup of influential speakers, but we need to put facts over influence, and the opposition parties need to level up their campaigning and delivery, too. 

Unfortunately, the voters also politicize human rights issues. For example, as people opposed abhorrent crimes against Women in Manipur and BJP’s inaction, the mainstream effectively turned the conversation into whataboutery and pointed fingers at Congress. While many have identified this as spineless and immoral election campaigning, such vilification of opposition parties has earned BJP votes. 

Overall, even as BJP’s strategies have involved misappropriating data, hiding real data, and feel-good statements with poor implementation, ideological and information propaganda forms a core of their hold over voters. 

BJP’s Pseudo-Feminism

BJP applauds itself for being a feminist figure. In reality, they use patriarchial and imperial tropes. Rampant Islamophobia and ignorance were prominently visible during ‘triple talaq’ discussions and Karnataka Hijab bans, where BJP constantly linked Islam with oppression. There is little feminism about a party that imposes blanket opposition to core religious tenets of other faiths while supporting all decisions of its community. 

Moreover, BJP’s legal feminism is only to the extent that they want to raise women but never equal to the upper caste Hindu man. Legal analysts analyzed even supreme court cases and right-wing activists’ demands and found negligible feminism.  

Similarly, the BJP intelligently appointed Droupadi Murmu as the second-ever woman president of India – a token act.Suppose the BJP was espousing equality and democracy. Why would they replace the tradition of inaugurating the New Parliament building with the president with himself, a monarchical symbol (sengol), and Hindu priests? 

The government’s “feminism” is riddled with contradictions. While the Minister of Women and Child Development and Minority Affairs, Smriti Irani, began an uproar over a disputed action of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi’s wink in parliament, she remained silent over the country’s larger issues, including major outcries from the currently deeply conflicted Manipur until very recently. 

BJP’s officials make unequivocal misogynist remarks every other day and often defend those accused and convicted of sexual assault. The government has been on the side of Brij Bhushan, BJP MP and President of the Wrestling Federation of India, who has been accused heavily of sexual assault by many women wrestlers. Even in his case, the mainstream response was to attack the integrity of the wrestlers and take immediate lawfare action against them. The government’s wilful inaction or incompetency is also evident in several other cases. 

BJP and Misuse of Religious Narratives 

The misogynist and communal ethos established by their politics has resulted in the development of virtual auction simulators where users pretend to buy Muslim women (bulli bai, sulli deals), “processions” chanting slogans like “taj nagar me jayenge, burqe wali layenge” (“we will go into taj nagar and bring back burqa-wearing women”), events where Hindu men are commanded to “go home and make babies” and find Muslim women to marry into Hindu households. Many of these are bolstered by lies around alleged ‘love-jihad’ problems, of which no verified evidence outside far-right media houses with a track record of false news and hate speech exists. 

While feminism needs attention nationwide, and all parties display drawbacks, the BJP performs the worst because their actions have impacted aggregated indicators, lived experiences, and misused religious tenets for political ideology. Besides, when they form the central government and in many states, why shouldn’t the focus be on them first?

Hindutva is a one-sided, carefully crafted narrative that serves its interest groups like BJP, RSS, and Sangh Parivar. ‘Hindutva’ literally translates to ‘the Hindu way of life.’ BJP reformed its party ideology in the 1980s to ‘Hindutva’ to gain support through communal politics. But the dangers of the single-sided story are detrimental, especially for the unsuspecting voter. 

Regarding women’s rights, Hindu nationalists misappropriate scripts likeManusmriti to justify gender discrimination, altering historical context and romanticizing an idealized past. This ancient Hindu law sparked debates and academic discussions around many aspects of a woman’s life, such as her independence and sexual agency. Manusmriti and many other vedas place the male at the center of society, marginalizing women’s agency. Period taboos, honor killings, and gatekeeping education for women are normalized. It not only influenced the society of the Indian Sub-Continent for a few thousand years but also continues to influence society even now/ Rising right-wing Hindu nationalism is perpetuating oppressive narratives, endangering India’s political stability and the rights of many marginalized/minority groups. The propagation of misused religious scriptures amidst rising Hindu nationalism sets back gender equality and social justice.

Despite Manusmriti placing women at the bottom of the social ladder and enforcing the four-fold varna system, one of the instances we can see the collision between religion and politics is when Khushbu Sundar, a BJP leader in 2020 attempted a protest against the remarks made on Manusmriti’s discriminatory practices by the Tamil Nadu Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) chief Thirumavalavan in both his webinars as well as his awareness campaign by distributing the Tamil version Manusmriti among civilians. Another instance is during the rituals of the Bhoomi Puja for the Ram temple building on the land of the demolished Babri Masjid, the RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat cited a verse from the Manusmriti that has clear connotations of Caste Hierarchy. In the past, the Sangh Parivar had also condemned the terms socialist and secular on India’s preamble as it wanted a constitution based on Hindutva drawn narrowly from the Manusmriti. 

In the 21st century, India must combat challenges like violence against women and ensure women an equal position in society outside the theoretically stated rights in the Constitution., Unfortunately, the government has encouraged one-sided communal tactics, detrimental to the nation. In the marathon for appeasing the vote bank, parties intentionally forget the consequences of extreme religious ideologies, such as the case of Hindutva and the promotion of Manusmriti. Vulnerable groups such as women, scheduled castes, and tribal communities suffer the most, as this religious text considers these groups at the bottom of the ‘ideal’ social hierarchy. It also comes with flavors of the paradox between the actions of the ruling party BJP. ‘The Beti Bachao, Beti Padao’ (‘Save the girl child, educate the girl child’) initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a scheme that aims to promote the education of the girl child. The scheme predominately targets the clusters of India, such as Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Punjab, and Haryana, where female literacy rates are extremely low. However, the irony is that these regions witness substantial propagation of political Hindutva because of the larger vote banks.

Conversely, Manusmriti contradicts the true nature of Hinduism in many cases. It is also important to note that Manusmriti is a man-made legal text in ancient India to serve their interests. In reality Hinduism glorifies Narishakthi (Strength of women) and has multiple goddesses in its books to represent this. Goddess Saraswathi, for instance, is the goddess of knowledge and and forms a core of Navrathri for blessings in education. Many subjects like consent, respect, education, and free will are transmitted through many other religious texts of Hinduism. All in all, communal politics cherry-picks Hinduism’s patriarchal and oppressive elements, harms the nation’s welfare, and misleads unsuspecting believers. 

Ultimately, a true Hindu would stick closer to the original and holistic tenets of dharmic values and religious texts, learned through faithfulness, not inherited from politically charged speeches and processions. The fight to reclaim Hinduism from politicians is the same as Martin Luther’s attempt to spread Christianity among the people, not controlled by the Church, and also likens the bastardization of Islamic texts that justify crimes occurring under ISIS, Taliban, and others. These ethos are well supported by the crafters of our constitution, like B.R. Ambedkar.

The Trio of Extremist “Nationalism,” Misogyny, and Suppression of Dissent 

Unfortunately, authors like us, other activists, journalists, and many, are told by “nationalists” that these issues don’t exist and accuse us of propaganda peddling. Ironically, their responses are always accompanied by hate, threats, insults, and rape comments toward the women of our family. It is a pattern – complain about women’s safety issues in India, and the safety issues instantly worsen. 

In 2015, Amir Khan and his wife vocalized concerns about India’s safety issues but were met with more threats and stern remarks from the ruling government. These issues are far larger regarding women journalists critical of the government. Although the volume of hate, in-person and virtual, is large from the conservative nationalist voter base, even elected officials engage in degeneracy. S.V. Shekher, a BJP leader in Tamil Nadu, attacked a woman journalist’s integrity because of her critical questions, claiming she is an “illiterate scoundrel” who “slept with big shots” to become a prominent anchor. Hundreds of women journalists have faced physical violence, abuse, hate, stalking, revenge porn, and more for criticizing the post-2014 Indian government. In an independent democracy, these issues should not persist. 

In 2020, an incident that gained global attention was the Hathras case, in which a 19-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped and murdered by four upper-caste men. However, some BJP leaders victim-blamed and supported the perpetrators instead. While one decided to host a rally to support the accused, another urged that we teach the daughters ‘proper values.’ Ranjeet Bahadur Srivastava, a leader from UP, accused the victim of having an affair and claimed that the sexual assault occurred because she invited her partner. Subsequently, the government misused legal provisions to jail journalists for about two years with false accusations. 

With the aforementioned problems, abuse of law to silence activists, and much more, even we authors were unsure if this should be published. As a Hindu woman, how can I safeguard myself from the potential “nationalist” bigotry that will follow? As a Muslim, for how long do I have to keep trying to wake up my neighbours till they realize it’s us they have to unite with, not elected governments, should they want to maintain the India that was envisioned 77 years ago? Is the government really maintaining democracy and feminism if two actual nationalists have to fear so much to do what is beneficial for all of India, and not just legal but also recommended under its constitutional rights, duties, and values? 

Commit to Democratic Service, Feminism, and the Constitutional Idea of India

This independence day, we need to commit to being more active political citizens. That is the first step to making democracy work and keeping its constitution alive. Instead, many of us have been pawns in parties’ political games. This must change. Secondly, being aware of your rights and responsibilities as a citizen. By no means can a political party violate your fundamental right to live without the fear of persecution and your right to practice and profess any religion. At the same time, it is also your responsibility to choose your leaders wisely and protect your fundamental rights as a citizen.

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