THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Why are Indian ‘liberals’ so fascinated by raising those issues of past for which people have diverse opinion particularly when they are related to communities and their history. Jauhar or not, Rajput in Rajasthan have kept it as a badge of their honor. And it is also a fact that it is not merely Rajputs, other communities too living in Rajasthan feel it as their pride. Rajput live elsewhere too but there are not many stories of Jauhar so the community itself is not homogenic as being made out. It is a fact about all the communities in India including Dalits, Adivasis, Backward classes as well as Brahmins too. Attempt to homogenise community identity is mostly a political project and has failed socially as very little efforts are made to bring them together socially and culturally. The reason for the same is that all of us want a distinct identity of our own and hence we are not ready to merge our identity with the bigger political project. Film makers are making films which have no history and historians have written as per jaati interests whether seculars or communal ones. Today, it remains highly polarized and divided where we are just entertaining ourselves by lampooning others and critiquing issues of past with an understanding of the present. Today, you have a constitution which work despite all faults. The issue of Jauhar has to be seen in a different perspective which separate it from Sati.
On September 4, 1987, an 18 years old Rajput widow Roop Kunwar committed Sati in Deorala, Rajasthan which was not merely valorised but politically used to mobilise people from all communities not merely Rajputs alone. I can tell you the story from my small town in Uttarakhand where I used to study. That was the time, when most of us got this intimation from the Marwaris of Rajasthan, who has settled there as business person and were our neighbours. Their women brought Prasad and photographs for distribution and shared the ‘miracle’ of Sati Mata. So the celebration of Sati was not a Rajput event but most of the communities in that region of Rajasthan and that is why an instant Sati Temple was erected at the place she burnt herself on the pyre along with her dead husband. Outside Rajasthan, groups were targeting the people while in Rajasthan seeking action against the ‘culprits’ while politicians were , it became a highly politicised issue and no political party dared to speak against this. The hypocrite Brahmanical intellectual and editor of Jansatta, a sister publication of the Indian Express Group, Prabhash Joshi defended it openly in his ‘Jansatta’ while BJP’s leader Vijaya Raje Scindia too defended it. No major political leader of the time spoke against it though there was significant outrage outside Rajasthan but the state was actually ‘celebrating’ it and only buckled under pressure when activists and media in Delhi continue to target the government. Rajasthan government brought Rajasthan Sati Prevention Act, 1987 and ordered strict action against those glorifying it.
However, the issue of Jauhar is different. It is basically the mass ‘sacrifice’ to protect one from being enslaved or raped by the invading armies. It is related to a protect your honor and dignity from enemy’s humiliation and torture during the captivity. And one need not to be surprised that collective rape has often been used against the enemies during the war or even during the ethnic cleansing by powerful group over other. This is a big reality even in today’s time as rape is an instrument of torture and attempted demoralization of the so-called enemy. Let us have a look at some of the recent war where rape became the instrument of powerful armies to engage in ethnic cleansing. These issues are simply not related to merely a gender one but ethnicity and religious identity matter a lot. Prejudices work a lot on these things particularly issues of faith and identity and women are the easiest target along with children and elderly people.
Let us see some of these big cases in recent history of rape and exploitation of women as ethic, religious dominance.
Rwanda conflict, 1994: Raped women numbering between 100,000 to 2,50,000 in one hundred days.
Kosovo War (1998–1999): Around 20,000 survivors.
Bosnian War (1992–1995): Between 20,000 and 50,000 survivors, predominantly Muslim Bosniak women targeted by Bosnian Serb forces who happened to follow Christian faith.
Bangladesh War : 1970-1971 Documentation showed Pakistan army’s torture and rapes of Bangladeshi women by Pakistani army and Razakars was between 200000 to 400000.
There are numerous reports post conflict about the psychological disorder as well as social stigma that women face and complete isolation resulting in collapse of an entire generation. A huge number of women were killed by the perpetrators of rape and torture on them to protect themselves from any future inquiry. A lot of those who survived were not socially acceptable and hence were pushed to sex trade and exploitation as economically they are not able to cover up their losses. The acceptability among people is nowhere. More important is the bitter truth about the mental agony and pressure that they have to go through if they happen to be pregnant. The major crisis erupted in Bosnia and Kosovo as those who were got pregnant faced resistance in two ways. The Christian clergy including Pope John Paul actually spoke against ‘abortion’ which most of these women wanted because they were carrying the child of those rapists who happened to be Christians. Most of the victims were Muslim women. Pope’s rejection of abortion in the name of ‘only God has right to take away our lives’ was a mischief to say the least. Why should the Muslim women carry the babies of those who tortured them, raped them brutally. But Pope had his own politics of spreading Christianity in these regions.
Pope John Paul II has urged pregnant rape victims in Bosnia not to have abortions, reported Los Angeles Times on February 28th, 1993.
“These likenesses of God, these new beings have to be respected and loved . . . ,” the Pope said in a letter to Sarajevo Archbishop Vinko Puljik made public Friday.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission and other human rights groups have condemned Bosnian Serbs and their Serbian backers for war atrocities, including the systematic rape of thousands of Muslim women. A European Community report recently estimated the number of rape victims at 20,000.
“The entire community has to rally around these women so painfully violated . . . to help them transform an act of violence into an act of love and welcome,” the Pope said.
But was life that easy that a woman tortured and sexploited by those suffering from fierce hate, would be able to live a life providing ‘love’ and ‘affection’ to those rascals. Was Pope being too clever to justify the ethnic cleansing since the perpetrators of the crime were practicing Christianity?
There were reports of terrible conditions of women who survived. Many committed suicide.
‘An 18-year-old Bosniak girl recovers at Tuzla Hospital after having an abortion the night before. She was impregnated as a result of multiple rapes by Serb soldiers at a rape camp in Pale, the Serb stronghold outside of Sarajevo.
During her 10 weeks in captivity, she was burned with cigarette butts, cut with a razor, and constantly humiliated for being Muslim. She was raped 16 times, often at knife and gunpoint. She says they told her that, “there were too many Muslim people and a lot of Muslims were going to give birth to Serbian children”.’
Fact of the matter is rape became a big weapon for ethnic cleansing and justification of it came from top religious leadership. And one is not blaming to one particular religion for that. The right wingers are present everywhere who see minorities as an obstacle.
I referred to these stories just to explain that women face violence and torture in every age including the medieval period. None want to blame one community or people but most of the time the invaders did it. If the Rajput women collectively committed Jauhar in Rajasthan then it is not cowardice but heroism. We need to make a clear distinction that in the society where rule of law exists, such a thing is not acceptable but Jauhar was only happened to protect Rajput women from possible humiliation, torture and exploitation.
Equally important is to understand that Jauhar and Sati are two different things. One is a collective decision of persons from the fear of being captured by the invading armies while the other is an individual act on the death of her husband. Anyone doing it must have been the work of great fear as well as powerful resistance. Rather than bowing to the enemy forces and becoming their sex slaves, women chose to sacrifice their lives. Now, it is not that women only are sacrificing. Their men too sacrificed for their country.
The problem is when everything that we are counting is as per the western mode of ‘individualism’ which is a big farce. Societies in our part of the world are collective and organised. You depend on society despite all the facts that we have to work ourself yet social capital is a big privilege in our part of the world. Those societies which talks about individualism and individual rights cant get away from the fact that they emerge from white Christendom or White imperialisms which discriminated against people based on their race and nationality. These issues are not much discussed as most of our ‘academia and other opinion leaders’ function on the big fat fellowships from the ‘liberal west’. So, they need to find some ‘issues’ of the past to punch some one and when people protest then claim victimhood.
There are two important issues when people compare it with current situation. First, Jauhar is related to war kind of situation when Rajput women preferred death than surrendering to the invading armies. They have kept their honour by sacrificing themselves and it is a supreme sacrifice. The dominance during the war has often been used as a powerful method to humiliate people and do the ethnic cleansing. It is not that Rajput women did not fight war. There are numerous examples of it in our history but when we twist facts to suit our political interest or jaati interest then it is problematic. Many ‘experts’ feel that had Rajputs ‘trained’ their women to fight the war, these women would not have committed Jauhars and would have fought ‘bravely’. They further argue that ‘sexual’ violence on a woman does not reduce her ‘honour’ and she does not need to die but live ‘respectfully’ and fight her battle. Well, I would like to state a few points here and how the liberals or so called Brahmanical feminists are missing the point. There are numerous examples of Rajput women fighting bravely for their territory in Rajasthan itself and led from the front. And it is not merely in Rajasthan; we have them elsewhere too including Uttarakhand where people still remember Tilu Rauteli and her bravery. The irony is that the same people blame Rajputs for ‘selling’ and ‘offering’ their women to ‘Mughals’ and ‘compromising’ with them. The problem is that those who committed Jauhars were not sitting silently to commit Jahuar. They fought and when they realised that it was difficult to survive, they preferred death than being a slave or humiliated through sexual exploitation. Remember, human rights existed when there is a rule of law. We have seen where is rule of law in Palestine and what happened in Gaza. Now the biggest ‘democracy’ of the world wants to even remove the name ‘Palestine’ from history. People die there fighting for the country despite knowing fact that the outcome is extremely difficult yet their sacrifice inspire people to resist. Jauhar was Rajput women’s resistance against invading armies.
The point is simple. History is a complex issue and we need not to bring all those facts to make a point comparing it with today’s situation. Bombay’s cinema has never done justice to historical facts. In fact, they have made mockery of history every time so one need not learn history from them. But mocking at Jauhar and comparing it with Sati committed by Roop Kunwar is either ignorance or getting some brownie point of looking ‘secular’. If you want to fight a battle against Modi and BJP or RSS none deny, fight it but don’t push communities to them with your falsification of history. Such act only create hindrance in the greater path of unity among various communities. This is not time to dig their past by reviving historical wounds or prejudices. Right now, bring the issues which united people and they are more than those issues that created differences. Jauhar was the highest form of sacrifice that women did who preferred to die and not surrendered.
Yes, women do not lose their sanctity or purity just because they have been violated or sexually brutalised but it is also a fact how traumatised one might feel. All these things look great when we have rule-based order. We had the same debate after Nirbhaya and we stand in solidarity with that but let us differentiate between things which are being mixing up. Sexual violence at home, at the work place or at a public place need to be separated from issue of Jauhar which was an old practice and it may not happen now. Bollywood cinema is habitual of falsifying history and giving everything a ‘romantic colour’ so there is no need to either feel offended or glorifying it as a historical film. Even in the olden times the themes of superhit films Anarkali and Mughal-e-Azam actually narrate one story with two different conclusions. I mean, they narrate one story with two different outcome and both the film became hugely popular. Their songs are still remembered even when one may not remember the film itself. These films actually cannot succeed without romance and dance so they package historical facts into their commercial interests which many find offending. The fact of the matter is both films were purely fantasies and not really historical but people love them even today for the brilliant art work, acting and music and not really for their ‘history’. Anybody learning history from Bombay’s cinema can only be a ‘devotee’.
So, it would be better for people, not to bring historical things to justify their act today. If a Hindu woman has married to a Muslim man or vice versa does not make everything changed and we have turned a ‘secular society’. It is not necessary. These are matter of personal choices and nothing else but how many of us have got that to do so. We must remember that ‘individual’ is only ‘born’ when you are ‘financially’ successful. Read the stories of so-called honoured killing and you will remember why two lovers who marry each other get killed and our constitution and provisions have not been able to protect them. So those in cinema or media can chose to have an ‘individual life’, it is still not a choice for millions of others who depend on their ancestral property and need a legitimacy from their ‘jaatis’. Marriages were happening from the past and we must respect individual decisions rather than commenting them as a joke to denigrate them. Also important for all of us to focus on the issues concerning the nation, people. Deliberately creating a controversy to be in news will not serve any purpose but only help those who we pretend to fight against. Women and men have rights and they must be dealt with as constitutional mandate.
Social evils, caste discrimination, gender biases persist in our society and not among a particular community. Jauhar was a distinct factor or a different era and we are living in a different age today. It is also a fact that the act differs than that of Sati. Historical figures and events need to be seen according to that period and time. It is also a well-known fact that their act becomes a sense of pride and gratitude for all as they are our linked to past as communities still feel that rather than surrendering, they fought and sacrificed their lives. Jauhar was not done just because women were sitting at home and felt that helpless. Even today when student commit suicide we condemn it but is it fair to do so. When institutions fail us to provide justice people take their lives. It is a reality. Girls who are violated often find themselves isolated, ostracise. Fighting a battle has not been that easy. Nobody justify but we have not been able to create a society which can provide justice. It was done by those who were fighting their battle. Many people are able to fight because they have people to lean on while many others are unable to do so as their own families abandon them. So, social issues are complex and depend on how your near dear behave with you. Our battle is for a better today and for that we need to learn lessons from history and not to create unnecessary problems as it is only a matter of interpretation. Let us not mock them to suit our political interest in today’s time. They might not be your role model but still inspire millions of people who may not commit the same act but respect such act as being courage of conviction.
