Brahminism and Women: In Ramayana written by women, Rama becomes a man of weak character, women describe Rama as hypocritical and sinful.
Golwalkar himself wrote that the traditional role of Indian women is to serve the husband and his family and bear children.
Golwalkar himself wrote that the traditional role of Indian women is to serve the husband and his family and bear children.
The history of Hindu Rashtra, which is currently being planned by the RSS and BJP governments, is rooted in the distant Aryan civilization. Just as Germany’s Hitler preached the superiority of Aryans, the establishment of Aryanism was the main objective of his dictatorship, so the Brahminism and Hindu Rashtra structures of the RSS have been patronizing the same Aryanism for decades. However, the important thing is that it cannot be said that the position of women was very high at any time. Power over women was a familiar social structure even before the caste system of Brahminism.
Position of girls in the age of Aryans:
India came under the control of the Aryan people from approximately the pre-Vedic period. The Aryans were originally pastoralists, some theorize, wresting their land from the ancient non-Aryan peoples of India through forced warfare. This history is mentioned many times in Rahul Sankritayana’s Volga to Ganga and Sukumari Bhattacharya’s Ancient India. From the Volga to the Ganges shows how equality in matriarchal social structures has been transferred to patriarchal social structures and how gender inequality has become institutionalized in society. Again, Sukumari Bhattacharya’s interpretation of Aryans’ living, society and religion in ancient India shows the social position of women at that time. In ancient India, Sukumari Devi writes, the Aryan society was primarily pastoral and patriarchal. Around the Rigvedic period, women’s roles were limited to child bearing, livestock tending and domestic service and cottage industry. Apart from this, no role of women was found in Yajna or other religious rituals.
Today’s manuistic tradition, which speaks of patriarchal aggression, is a social system much older than Manu, established by the Aryans. Patriarchal social system was never seen among the primitive peoples of India, some of the egalitarian and matriarchal practices among the tribal peoples can be seen even today. Mainly in the Himalayas and Himalayan foothills, the imprint of matriarchal social structure can be seen in several villages of Ladakh, Jammu, Himachal in North India. Besides, many people think that Bengal was once governed by a primitive matriarchal system. In Bengal and ancient Tibet, Shakti Sadhana was practiced from the earliest times, but the main worshipers of the Aryans were male deities, the number of women was very few. Sukumari Devi also mentions this fact in her discussion of the Yuga narratives of the Rikveda. Although he wrote in Rahul Sankrityayan’s Volga to Ganga, the position of women in the Asura society was disturbed, and in addition to that, the freedom of women to fight among the Aryans was undermined by men.
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What History Says:
To understand the recent fascist aggression, it is necessary to know its origins. No position is ever accidental, behind every position and event there is a history of its formation, from which its seeds begin to be sown. It is not possible to settle any position from the beginning without going back to that basis. Be it the practice of caste discrimination or class division or gender discrimination; I wrote the exercise because, over the ages, the powerful have given certain structures to the society to maintain their own benefits and power. They have forced certain social norms, institutional norms and religious norms to be practiced over the years or sometimes misunderstood by their subordinates, thus becoming the basis of society later on. It is difficult to find out what the social structure actually was. However, it has been seen that the communist, socialist social structure is the oldest social system of human civilization, later it has been distorted by a few people for their own benefit by establishing various rules and regulations.
Connection of women and land:
Our aim is to show the history of Aryan Brahminism through time and period. Philosopher Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology’ has inspired quite a bit to observe its link from the history of Aryanism to the present. Just as land acquisition is not today’s phenomenon, its seeds are planted in the Aryans establishing prestige in this country, so patriarchy is not a current issue. Its seeds have been planted since those early days. Many historians believe that Communism was established in the society during Harappa, Mohenjo-daro period but it is seen that there was class division within the society at that time. Its assumptions are derived from urban planning. An example of the gradual decline in the position of women since the Vedic period is given in Kshitimohan Sen’s ‘Women of Ancient India’. At one time in the Indian social system, men and women had equal rights over property, later it changed to women being equal to land, property, which men were responsible for protecting.
In 1962, Noor Alam discussed the rights of women. The primary position of women in Indian society was his discussion. He has shown in the context of the discussion that women’s sexuality has been seen as equivalent to land or land in this country since the beginning of time. Land ownership also remains in the hands of men. Along with that, the female body and women’s rights were also in the hands of men. Men understood that there was no way to exercise power over women without subjugating them to their sexual decisions. That original tradition is still going on in secret. Sometimes the state and sometimes the state-like family tell girls that her sexuality is reserved for her husband.
In the Vedic period, if an upper caste woman married a lower caste man according to her will, her social penalty was fatal, if a child was born from that marriage, the mother and child were drowned in the river. Sexuality is also linked to women’s sanctity. Brahmins introduced child marriage to preserve caste purity. It is not today’s politics to connect the purity of land or land with this purity. At that time, the Brahmins bound women to the land or nature only in order to maintain exclusive rights over women’s sexuality.
Position of Women in Ancient Literature: The Ramayana Episode
The position of women is also captured in this national epic. Historical epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata are seminal texts on the status of women in the society of that time. In Nabanita Devasen’s essay ‘Women Retelling Mahabharata’, when she tries to look at Chandravati’s Ramayana from women’s point of view, she finds one patriarchal practice after another. Abduction and marriage were a very common example of this period. It is very clear that there was no place for women’s consent or will. Also Navnita also highlights the bleak life of women in exile and the abandonment of wives by Aryan men. He repeatedly wanted to point out that there was no sexual freedom for women in Brahmanist and Aryanist societies. Fulfilling men’s wishes, men’s desires was the only identity of women, in the context of that time. If the woman was abducted by another strong man, he was to be punished. Navneeta says, when girls are writing Ramayana, the aspect of repression against them comes to the fore. In Ramayana written by women, Rama becomes a man of weak character, women describe Rama as hypocritical and sinful. On the other hand, they are developing Sita in a strong way. Although Sita is still a victim, she shows the courage to speak openly about the injustice done to her, to seek justice. There is a saying in Indian folklore that the language spoken by girls is the language of loneliness, the language of misery.
It is in the Ramayana that we get glimpses of the relationship between husband and wife left behind by the Brahminical social structure. The husband tests the wife for chastity, while the man does not have to undergo any test to prove his own integrity. This ‘tradition’ is also going on in the Hindu Rashtra towards which we are moving. Once, the Supreme Court acquitted a man after raping his minor wife day after day. The court used marriage and childbearing as evidence and surprisingly it was the girl’s responsibility to provide evidence of rape. Isn’t this incident similar to Sita’s ordeal?
Volga to Ganges episode:
In the novel Volga to Ganga, during a war between two clans, the women of the defeated clan, including all their property, land, cattle, weapons, crops, were taken away as loot by the conquered clan. In other words, even in Aryan society, women were equal to land, crops and property, a symbol of wealth. In many Sanskrit poems women are described as ‘Sri’, which is mainly used to refer to wealth. The system of caste system has influenced the lives of girls more than the lower caste men. A product of Brahminism was a system of caste discrimination (pratiloma) where if a child was born from a marriage between an upper caste woman and a lower caste man, the woman along with the child was drowned in a river. Jalpatra system also represented the form of exploitation of lower class women by upper class men in society. According to this custom, a wealthy upper-class man could use a lower-class woman as his protector, physically exploiting her. If a child was born there, that child would have no paternity. While the lower castes were kept untouchable, at the same time the upper castes did not shy away from physically exploiting women of the same caste.
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Property Repression: The practice of sati-immolation
No instances of co-mortality have been found in early Indian social structure. According to Kshitimohan Sen’s writings, in the Rikvedic and later periods, the practice of cohabitation was introduced into the society simply to establish power. Such a system originated to maintain male dominance in the transfer of property. Earlier, in the Aryan society, the rule was that if the husband died, the surviving woman would marry another person and produce children. In the case of marriage, it has been seen that child marriage was not practiced in the early Arya society, later the powerful people introduced the practice of child marriage to maintain racial purity. Also the practice of marrying women of their own choice has also been perverted due to the same reason.
Suppression of Brahmin Women:
The impact of patriarchy on lower caste women as well as Brahmin women was dire. Many women had to be killed for property due to the system of aristocratic system or polygamy of Brahmin men, many were deprived. The practice of repressing women’s sexuality and excluding them from all social rights and roles through widowhood was later traced back to property ownership. In many cases widows were not only exploited in terms of social rights. They had to be physically exploited within the family.
Status of Women in RSS and BJP Rule:
Ambedkar’s Act, Feminist Act is a part of the Indian Constitution in the present social system but the situation is the same. The current government is sending the message in many ways that the main goal of women is to protect women as property, serve family and husband and produce children. Golwalkar himself wrote that the traditional role of Indian women is to serve the husband and his family and bear children.
According to statistics, exploitation rates on women are higher in states ruled by BJP. An upper caste doctor castigated the woman after he forcibly dragged and sexually assaulted a nurse in Karnataka. 21 police personnel were acquitted of raping 11 tribal women in the jungle. Tribal woman set on fire after rape in Rajasthan Nothing is new, only the clothes have changed. A handful of powerful people have come to use history as a tool and distort it only for the sake of their own political advantage and impose it on the society, today is no exception. Just as the omission of the history of the Mughal empire from textbooks is not an isolated incident, neither is the rise of patriarchy over women. This practice is also latent in progressivism. Sometimes it wakes up when it gets a catalyst.
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