By Dr Suresh Khairnar
International Women’s Day is celebrated today. But have women really been liberated?
I myself am from the great Maharashtra of Jyotiba Phule and Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar. I was born in the so-called 96 clan Maratha community. 70 years ago our family was a joint family in which my father and his three brothers and one of the two sisters got married and lived in her in-laws’ house. My other aunt’s husband left home after marriage and became a sadhu. His whereabouts were never known. Because of this, my elder aunt, who was the eldest, lived with us. She was childless. In this way, apart from the five women in our house, including my father and his three brothers and their children, we had a family of 25-30 people. I am 72 years old since I was born. (25-12-1953) I have never seen the women of our house coming or going in front of men during the day. I have never seen my parents talking to each other. And the five women used to eat whatever was left after all the men and children had eaten. I have never seen that if there was less food for them, they cooked it again and ate it. That is why I have seen all the women of our house physically weak and underweight! In Hinduism, women have been given the status of Annapurna Devi! But all the Annapurna Devis of our house were victims of malnutrition.
We worry about the rights of Muslim women. But I have seen the phenomenon of darkness under the lamp. My village is also included in the history of Satyashodhak Samaj. And with my own eyes, I have never seen the women of the houses of the so-called Satyashodhak leaders moving around in the village during the day. Although this was 70 years ago.
Since we are talking about love jihad, I remembered that there was a Maratha farmer family in our village. Perhaps that gentleman had married a woman of Sunhar caste, so he kept a sonarin (mistress). And a Maratha professor had married a madam named Kulkarni, so he kept a baamniin (mistress). This word was used by the people of the Satya Shodhak village named Malpur.
I have seen in my own house that the women of the house eat only after the men eat first. How do women become victims of malnutrition? This is one of its classic examples. It is my opinion that women suffering from anemia should not be measured by economic issues. This includes women from affluent families as well. On the contrary, people living below the poverty line, all, that is, both men and women, are victims of malnutrition. Because in terms of food and drink, both eat the same food. On the contrary, among the so-called affluent people, women are fed from birth, in their lactation, that they are girls, this feeling is given at every step. For this, the book named ‘Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir is very good and has been written by looking at everything from biology to social, economic, cultural aspects. Every man and woman doing public work needs to read it. And the name is also very appropriate – ‘Second Sex’.
In the early eighties, I started visiting Bihar because of the JP movement. And after visiting the homes of our socialist, Gandhi-Vinoba followers friends there, I saw that food, tea, snacks, everything was being served regularly, but the hands that made them were not visible. Even today, more than fifty years have passed. And we have not met the life partners of some of our friends.
However, the pair of Bihar movement leader Jayaprakash Narayan and his wife Prabhavatiji is similar to Mahatma Gandhi-Kasturba, seen in Bihar’s public life. But if we leave this exception, the condition of women in all the states of Bihar-North India is not very different even today. A socialist leader had once occupied the seat of the country’s Prime Minister for some time. And Mrinal Tai Gore and some women had got the opportunity to visit his ancestral house. Mrinal Tai Gore told me that I was feeling the lack of women in the meeting room except for some outside women, so I took advantage of being a woman and went inside. And deliberately met the women of the house. And from the conversation, it was found that some of them were MA and some were graduates. But they were forbidden to come to the meeting. And you must also be remembering that during his tenure as Prime Minister, his wife was never seen in any public life. Although he was also considered the son of Acharya Narendra Dev of North India and Jayaprakash Narayan ji.
During 1990-91, while working on the aftermath of the Bhagalpur riots, our team had to frequently visit Muslim localities. Because the Muslims had suffered the most destruction. We saw some eyes of women gathering from the windows of the houses to watch us very closely, but we never saw those women as they were veiled. But there was no dearth of hospitality there either. But the hands that cooked the food were not visible.
So once Manisha Banerjee, Vani Sinha, Shamli Khastgir and Veena Aalase, who were among the women who often visited us from Calcutta and Shantiniketan, told me that in a Muslim dominated village named Rajpur, an exclusive meeting of women only was being organized on the roof of someone’s house in the evening. And the responsibility of addressing that meeting was given to me. After climbing the roof, I saw that except Manisha, Banidi, Shyamlidi and Veenaadi, all the other women were wearing burqa. But as soon as I started my address, I saw that almost all the faces covered with burqa were open. I myself felt embarrassed seeing this sight. And later, till it got dark, our meeting continued in a very beautiful and pleasant atmosphere.
Similarly, fifteen years ago, I had gone to Aligarh Muslim University for the ‘Maulana Azad Memorial Speech’. The main speech was delivered by Kennedy Hall. I saw that all the students were sitting in the lower hall and the female students were sitting in the upper gallery. When I looked up, I could see only burqas in the balcony. I had an extra day, so I expressed my desire to see the university. A professor was put on special duty to host me. And after breakfast, he took me around in the university car. He also took me to the tomb of Sir Syed Ahmed Sahib. And when I was returning from there on foot, an elderly gentleman wearing a sherwani came and greeted me very politely and said, “I am the head of the department of Islamic studies, and I am very impressed with your speech yesterday. If you are not busy right now, can you come to our department for a chat for some time?” So I said, “Today I am just having fun in the university. So let me come to your department for some time.” And that’s how I got along with him, and when I stepped into his department, the very small hall was full of students sitting in burqas. And the head said that “Yesterday you told how Muslims of the whole world are being targeted in a planned manner in the name of political Islam. And this is the reason that these girls of our department, who are talking a lot about you after listening to your speech from the gallery yesterday, as soon as I saw you going to the grave of late Sir Syed sahab, I gave you the trouble of taking the trouble of walking here.” I said “It is not a trouble, you have done me a favour. Because for the last 20 years I have been working on the Hindu-Muslim issue after the Bhagalpur riots and in that I especially focus more on women. Because women have to bear the wounds of any riot and war more. And I saw that in the hall here also all the girls had lifted their burqas over their faces. And a very serious debate went on with all the girls for at least more than two hours. Whereas when my host professor sahab told me that during the teaching It is time for your lunch with the staff and to interact with them. Then somewhere the conversation with those girls was going on continuously. All the girls were MA and some of them said that we have to do research later also. That is why they had also taken my email and phone number.
Half of the world’s population is women. But the condition of women is still very unequal, to a greater or lesser extent. And the worst situation is in those parts of the world where the feudal system still prevails. The condition of women there is even worse.
In which the condition of women is still very pitiable in almost all the countries of North India and South-West Asia. The writings of Tehmina Durrani of Pakistan, Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh and Shirin Abad of Iran show that even today women are treated as slaves.
And in the so-called western culture, as a commodity, the song “Tu cheez badi hai mast mast” is a reflection of the same mentality. Because she is a ‘cheez’ means an object. Which is used. And that is why there is a competition to display their bodies. Who is displayed the most and with how much vulgarity in advertising and fashion shows? Whether it is an advertisement of a man’s underwear or his shaving blade. In that, there is always a woman with minimal clothes.
And the sex trade is its product, it has turned into an industry. I remember (in 1993-94) I got a chance to attend a conference on Human Rights (Huron) in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. And it was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. And I also got a chance to speak. So in my speech, other speakers were only talking about the excesses of the monarchy, police, and army. So when my turn came I said that “You have made all the speakers before me aware of the numerous reprehensible acts of oppression, atrocities and exploitation being done by the government and the royal family. But I have come from India, and I am from Calcutta. And I am from Maharashtra. I have noticed one thing since my childhood, that from the towns of India to the big cities like Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi, I have seen 50% of the girls from Nepal in the brothels. And I have not seen anyone even close to Huron thinking about this subject, so it seems a very serious matter to me. And now the Rana regime has ended. And democracy has begun. So I expect from the Honorable Prime Minister that now special efforts should be made to stop the trade of all these women.
So immediately after my speech, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala again came on the mike and announced by taking my name that “I assure Dr. Suresh Khairnar that I will try, especially from my government’s side, to end this practice!” And with an invitation for dinner, Nepal Women’s Organization said that Dr. Suresh, you are the first person we have seen speaking on women’s issues, so we have specially invited you to speak in our organization and after that you have to come for dinner.
Similarly, I have seen women working in every field in Kashmir and Palestine. And they never seemed any less or behind men. During our journey, we have seen women from the Kurdish-dominated triangle of Iraq, Iran and Turkey, which is also called Total Kurdish Area. And we have seen women wearing jeans and T-shirts and fighting, riding vehicles and horses. And we have seen them working in every field of life. And these days they are also taking on the ISIS army. Earlier, these Kurdish women had defeated and pushed back the army of Abu Bakr Baghdadi. So, when I sent them an email of felicitation, they immediately wrote that will you just sit there and do felicitation? Come with us. So I wrote in reply that I have crossed 60.
Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal
8 March 2025
Source: countercurrents.org