Looking and watching are two different things. One is where you direct your eyes to have a glance. Watching means to look at someone, something or at an event and pay attention to what is going on, you notice and observe and try to analyze whatever you witness. This women’s day, like every other woman’s day, we looked, we did not watch, and we did not observe. The easiest thing one could have done is to look around and observe the female representation around ourselves, in leadership, in positions of power or authority, and make an opinion on our practices of tokenism in women’s day: perhaps it would have been a cake cutting ceremony preceded by some talk about how much progress we have made, feeling proud, and some music or dance celebrations. A real test of progress in any society is the growth of its women in positions of power, smashing patriarchy by contributing to the GDP of the country and at the workplaces, when there is gender parity. Think about it.
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar or Babasaheb as he is popularly known, was the chief architect of the Indian Constitution. To me, Babasaheb was a feminist before feminism’s first wave hit India. Sure, we had many women like Sarojini Naidu, Vijayalakshmi Pandit etc. in the Nationalist movement along other prominent male leaders with but the real progress of the society or the real mirror of the society can be seen only via how the lowest class of the society is progressing, which is in this case the women as a social group of the lowest caste. And to them, from day 1, Ambedkar’s constitution provided the right to vote and the universal adult suffrage to all the citizens of India, but more importantly, to all the women of the country irrespective of Caste, class, religion or any sort of discriminative factors. This was one of the factors what made India the world’s largest democracy. This was also a unique phenomenon as no modern democracy, had, till then, given the right to vote to the women as a social group from day one of their independence. In fact, until the time Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, even United States of America did not have universal adult franchise and the laws regarding representation and democracy’s basic right was discriminatory to blacks and most importantly to the black women. I say this to highlight the fact that in our conversations, when we talk about feminism and patriarchy, rights of transgenders and the backward sex classes including that of sexual social orientations of LGBTQIA+, we talk about a lot of traditionalist feminists like Phoole and Malviya, a lot of new feminist icons from pop culture in the form of Jacinda Ardern, Indira Gandhi, Meghan Markle and other champions from first wave to third wave feminism spanning first world to third world countries, yet Ambedkar’s contribution to the development of women in modern India and their progress is missing from our conversations. As a student of law, I have read Ambedkar and I have read the preamble of the constitution. We have learnt that whenever there is an ambiguity in the laws and whenever there is a question of interpretation of the constitution, Ambedkar’s preamble is the guiding light. Extending this, I believe, if we were to measure the development of women in today’s political and social India, we should find Ambedkar himself as the guiding light in defining progress in the 21st century of half the population, especially in socio-political setups. Tokenism, then, would be defeated and we would not end the conversations only on the 8th of March or 14th of April like that. Caste, Class, Ambedkar and Women It is well known how Ambedkar thought and saw caste and class as the biggest contributing factor to Brahminic idea of discrimination in pre independence India. Babasaheb extended his argument to blame these two enemies of the country in the subjugation of Indian women as well. He highlighted the idea of caste being deeply patriarchal, especially the Arya samaj argument he poses in ‘Annihilation of Caste’ where the samajists talk about reconstruction of the chaturvarnya. Reading the specific paragraph would make sense here: “The protagonists of Chaturvarnya do not seem to have considered what is to happen to women in their system. Are they also to be divided into four classes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra? Or are they to be allowed to take the status of their husbands. If the status of the woman is to be the consequence of marriage what becomes of the underlying principle of Chaturvarnya, namely, that the status of a person should be based upon the worth of that person? If they are to be classified according to their worth is their classification to be nominal or real? If it is to be nominal, then it is useless and then the protagonists of Chaturvarnya must admit that their system does not apply to women. If it is real, are the protagonists of Chaturvarnya prepared to follow the logical consequences of applying it to women? They must be prepared to have women priests and women soldiers. Hindu society has grown accustomed to women teachers and women barristers. It may grow accustomed to women brewers and women butchers. But he would be a bold person, who would say that it will allow women priests and women soldiers. But that will be the logical outcome of applying Chaturvarnya to women. Given these difficulties, I think no one except a congenital idiot could hope and believe in a successful regeneration of the Chaturvarnya.” Now you may think that we DO have women soldiers and if you go to South India, which is fairly less casteist than the Northern Hindi belt, you may find even Hindu women priests. Credit goes to Article 14 and 15 of the constitution. Now, in popular culture, you may get reminded of two very beautiful movies dealing with caste issues in the form of Anubhav Sinha’s Article 15 which is fairly based on blended caste-based violence against women in Badaun[1], and Unnao[2] rape cases, of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Prima facie, these cases have been a conscious attack of patriarchy and casteism against people of lower caste and women. The other pop culture reference could be that of Jai Bhim, which too talked about how caste and violence against women are often bundled, which Ambedkar highlighted directly and indirectly in his book Annihilation of Caste. In the form of a biographical movie of Justice Chandru and his quest with Ambedkar’s constitution in delivering justice which the state failed to harmoniously construct clearly stating its willingness to not abide by principles a just and humane India. Thus, even the pop culture, just like Ambedkar’s texts highlight the fact that caste and gender are bundled together very often and sometimes very strategically to supress the right of the minorities. Brahminical idea of patriarchy, thus, inculcates several types of discrimination and injustice at once. Ambedkar has proven that the Hindu society as a whole and specifically Manu’s writings and preaching on Hindu religion are deeply problematic, patriarchal and treats women as second-class citizen from Pilot. Thus, the role of Dr Ambedkar cannot be confined to any single dimension. He not only gave an academic dimension to the interlinkage between Caste and Gender but also paved way for the rise of Dalit Feminism in the longer run. In his works, he showed how within the Hindu religion women have been systematically given secondary status.[3] Limiting and summing up Ambedkar as a Dalit icon, is, to say the list, an injustice not only to Ambedkar himself, but to the ages of feminist movements in India. Ambedkar is much more than what the naked eye can see. A microscopic touch to the Ambedkarite idea of academia and social service by his readings needs to be promoted. Endnotes: [1] 5 Yrs On, Case of Badaun Girls Found Hanging From Tree Still Murky,https://www.thequint.com/explainers/badaun-alleged-gang-rape-and-murder-case-explained [2] Read more here: https://www.livelaw.in/tags/unnao-rape-case [3] Revisiting the writings of Dr B.R. Ambedkar through the feminist discourse | Arpita Giri, http://mainstreamweekly.net/article10819.html
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