Dressed in a salwar kameez, with the dupatta slung across one shoulder and tied on waist diagonally, she was serving food and refilling the pracharikas’s plates at the Aurangabad camp in the most efficient manner. Supriya Hattekar, 22, has been associated with the Samiti since she was 12. When I sit her down and ask her where is she from, she emphatically says, “Sambhajinagar.” In January, 2011, the ruling Shiv Sena in Aurangabad passed a resolution to rename the city to ‘Sambhajinagar’. Several centuries ago, the city was named Aurangabad after the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb whose mortal remains are buried in the city. The city has almost 60 percent Muslim population. Supriya is a student of Master of Computer Application and aspires to become a software engineer. “Besides unemployment, there are two major problems that need to be addressed”, she says. “One is that young girls must be stopped from putting their pictures on social networking websites like Facebook. They risk their honour and then their pictures are morphed into nude ones and circulated. They invite blackmailing by this. Secondly, when girls are eve-teased, they are scared to talk about it for the fear of defamation. There is a need for a body which these girls can approach to avoid this.” It reverberates the misogynist comments like that of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj who described a rape survivor as a ‘zinda laash’ (living corpse). To add to that it also reminds of the fatwa issued by Madarsa Manzar-e-Islam of Dargah Aala Hazrat, an organisation of Sunni Muslim clerics, last month, who termed as 'haraam' the uploading of photos on the internet for matrimonial purpose and on social networking sites. Curiously but expectedly, the patriarchal idea of female honour, a commodity that needs to be protected, and the religious practice of putting the onus on women for being wronged, are deeply manifested in Supriya’s notion of female values.
It is also significant that female-pattern violence is more often characterized by self-defence as opposed to male pattern violence. The body-cantered practices for women have old and varied meanings and values within different currents of Hindu patriarchy. Supriya also volunteers to teach sword fighting and martial arts at the kishori vargs. These trainings can be witnessed at the training camps: elaborate, passionate drills with cries of ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’ and ‘Jai Maa Durga ki’ follow after each attack on the opponent. When I ask Pramila Tai, the purpose of training the girls in sword fighting in this day and age, she says, “I know it is obsolete. But it gives the girls a confidence that if an invader attempts to violate them, they can turn around and hit him hard with any object that comes handy.”
Muslim lust for the Hindu woman has been one of the staples of RSS propaganda and selective memories of rape during the Partition riots are well known. The ‘invader’ here is a direct reference to non-Hindus i.e. Muslims and Christians. From Savarkar's formative writings on Muslim rule in India, the stereotype of an eternally lustful Muslim male with evil designs on Hindu women has been reiterated. While the women are made to establish themselves as political subjects through an agenda of hatred and brutality against a besieged minority, it is love jehad that is seen as a crucial combat that they need to collectively and strongly engage in. Says Shanthakaka, “Muslim boys are encouraged to elope with our girls. The money they are paid to elope and marry a Hindu girl depends on the caste of the girl. The remuneration for Rajput girls is Rs one lakh and for Brahmin girls is Rs two lakhs.” Girls from lower castes are not seen as a good ‘catch’ neither does it bother the Samiti enough.
The kishori vargs are most potent tools to entangle seething teenage emotions with patriarchy. They propagate the idea of gendered spaces, curbing young questioning minds to aspire for domesticity and motherhood instead of independent, ambitious, liberated lives. Says Rekha, “ When the girls join the camp, they question us when we ask them not to wear western outfits like jeans or backless tops. They are told that it not our tradition to show the shape of our body parts. It takes time to make them understand the logic.” Comparatively, this may seem a lesser battle to fight. The Samitis regard higher education and professional careers for women as desirable, even though strictly conditional upon parental consent. Not surprisingly, most pracharikas are graduates and postgraduates. However, the Samiti manual clearly mentions that ‘after marriage, a girl will have many responsibilities in her new home. It is not advisable for her to bring disquiet by refusing to compromise. If ordained by her fate, her husband will permit her to study.’ This stems from the clear understanding that domesticity is the sole purpose of a woman’s existence and that equilibrium has to be maintained at all personal costs. Similarly, love marriage can only be allowed through parental consent.
Kemi Wahengbam, 26, has been a whole timer for the last two years. Originally from Manipur, her association with the Samiti dates back to when she was a teenager. Initially hostile and then hesitant to talk to me, she said, “Our work is like sugar in water. You cannot understand it unless you taste it.” Kemi later reveals: “I grew up amidst the army rule, bombs, killings. Association with the Samiti was a welcome change. Religion not just gave my life a direction but also a chance to see the rest of the country.” Kemi has been posted in Gujarat for the last two years and under her tutelage at least 50 new girls have joined the Gujarat shakha. When I ask Kemi about the Gujarat riots and the killings of 2,000 Muslims she resorts to the age old definition of a riot, which is irrational, spontaneous violence, not once acknowledging the possibility of it being organised. She says, “It was a reaction. Hindus are very tolerant by nature. Hindu kings have even funded the construction of mosques and churches in this country. So clearly, during Gujarat 2002, all thresholds were crossed for the Hindus to turn so violent.” Kemi’s answer exposes the complicity of the Samiti in the riots and the violence against the Muslims in the way that involves their informed assent to the brutalities against Muslim women which involved gangrapes, slicing of their breasts and the tearing open of pregnant wombs. Refusing to talk to me further, Kemi leaves the dormitory, where the pracharikas were staying for the camp.
I turn to Sharda from Jabalpur. In her late-20s, Sharda has been a whole timer for five years. She tells me that apart from the shakhas, the Samiti also counsels women in their respective areas. There is a manual that is followed. When I ask her, “What advice would you give to a victim of wife beating?” she answers, “Don't parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? Just as a child must adjust to his/her parents, so must a wife act keeping in mind her husband's moods and must avoid irritating him. Only this can keep the family together.” Similarly, divorce is also a non-option for women. She says, “Our task is to keep the family together, not break it. We tell the women to adjust. Sometimes, we try to counsel the husband too.”
Discussion in the Samiti are no mindless gestures but highly informed convictions. Knowledge and education are often used to vociferously debate contemporary issues in the light of Hindutva. The next session was to discuss such issues. FDI, the most recent point of opposition evoked passionate debates among pracharikas. Pramila Tai goes on to give an example, “Twenty years back, there were television commercials for food products that claimed that it is like ‘home-cooked food’. Now a days, the television commercials sell food products with a tagline that it is ‘restaurant-like’. Isn’t this an insult to women?” Her argument against capitalism is seen through the prism of the domesticated roles assigned to women. She adds, “Even when I may have ideological differences with Indira Gandhi, she took great care to meet the smallest of demands of her sons, Rajiv and Sanjay.”