Misogynistic Uncles in the Parliament

In the 1970s when Iran was fighting the corrupt Shah’s regime, women stood equal to men in the fight. After the February revolution of 1979, which brought Khomeini to power amid much fanfare, it was those women who began suffering the most. Among the section of society that opposed Khomeini’s taking over of the state and imposing of an Islamic rule, there were a number of women and feminists who saw this as a clear threat to their identity and as a result to the sovereignty of the nation. Among other things that Khomeini’s Islamic rule would impose, somehow the buck stopped at compulsory Hijab for many of these women, who felt that this was a clear indication of a looming threat. But most of the society (including many women who were revolutionaries) didn't see this as an issue worth taking up because in the face of other bigger issues that the state was looking at, wearing of a Hijab didn’t matter. When the intent of the system began revealing itself, many began to see wearing of a Hijab as not just a ‘religious dress-code’, but a reflection of a wider paramount misogyny in the system and its ruler. The system was misogynist, as most systems are. 

Misogyny in systems is not something that has been looked at enough. It emerges time and again when women take to the streets and the system begins trying to put them in their place; when they see the woman as too outwardly or using ‘ashleel’ language, recently as in case of Jantar Mantar protests. Threats, abuse and intimidation are often benevolently used on women so they tow the line, while the patriarchs sit in parliament and talk about the Bharat Mata of their dreams.

Women have played a significant role in any protest this country has ever seen. The recent examples of protest in India, the anti CAA-NRC protests and the Farmers’ Protest of 2021, were largely successful because of massive women-led participation. Or if we look at the longest running protest - the Narmada Bachao Andlon, which has produced a generation of tribal women who speak their minds, we know that protests are not just about an issue but a significant sociological exercise for a democracy. Protests may produce future leaders but more importantly they produce aware citizenry. 

The Farmers’ protest of 2021 is a classic example as to how the lives of many women confined to the kitchens until then never leaving their homes, barring special occasions, were suddenly making long trips to Delhi by themselves or with other men. Women I spoke to often said that now they just have to tell the household that they are leaving for a protest and not ‘seek permission’ as they previously had to. These are big changes. Changes perhaps many of us in urban spaces take for granted.

American philosopher Judith Butler in her book Gender Trouble describes gender as not something you are born with, but something you perform. Performing gender correctly and repeatedly ensures a woman (or a man) a place in her society. Performance of gender, she argues, gives the designated roles stability and therefore legitimises them. 

An experience of being a woman also varies in a society with caste, class and other social hierarchies, leading women to be bound by womanhood rarely. The young girls and women at Jantar Mantar did not ascribe to the definitions laid down for them by the Whatsapp uncles and aunties and their like, and the idea of a protest as a serious intense space. Instead they mocked the leaders and parliamentarians rather openly using abusive language. The debate somehow has now centred on whether using abusive language is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and more specifically how could women use it. The aging uncles desperately clinging on to some dharma code have now let their vigilantes out to do the dirty work. 

Home addresses of young girls are available to them, they are showing up at their doorsteps and trying to inculcate ‘sanskar’ into them. The trauma these girls have had to go through cannot be imagined. To lose a home, have death threats issued openly to you and live your life covering a face because you made a reel that went viral is harrowing to say the least. This is harassment of the worst kind and somehow is extremely saddening that only the women protestors have to go through it.

The perversion of gender and its ideas has taken a new low this time. The aging Prime Minister of the country has taken to making instagram reels to appease the younger generation who are already suffocated by his increasing Instagram presence and are responding by producing funnier reels with even more fervor, which they are finding are being removed amidst a sanitizing exercise underway to cleanse the app of its ashleelta because the chief uncle has landed on it. The uncle-ness of the ruling status-quo has taken a massive blow and with it their manhood. A generation that has grown and matured beyond its time thanks to the freedom of the internet, is trying to be held accountable by uncles doing havans at Jantar Mantar in an attempt to purify the space of its too outward politics. The same boring tattered playbook that this country has seen enough is being put to use. But to not much avail if we are being honest.

Jantar Mantar was history’s way of delivering a scathing response to human folly stacked up for generations that only understands human experience in terms of vote bank politics. It's the narrowness of this vision that was challenged. Abuse flew like a raging river on Jantar Mantar for days. No one can explain the revelry or the bemusement that was felt while using those cuss words. It was poetic justice of some sort to be able to do that openly in Central Delhi. And it was directed against a system and a man who represents it by putting his face or every action of the government. 

Why must he then see this as a problem now? After all, he is the poster boy of the ruling status quo. Jantar Mantar saw a generation that is deprived of any real sense of security in the world and that included young girls. There were students with three degrees but no jobs and no prospects either. There were others who felt reduced to rubble by the very education system that is supposed to protect their future. There were parents too who came to support their children. There was a mother-daughter duo I met on the first day in the metro and we walked together to Janpath. I met them again on the last day gleefully making their way through the crowd and congratulating me amid the so-called abusive slogannering that is hard for the parliament uncles to hear. All the parents I met were present for their children. They didn't seem to mind the creative use of slogans by men or women. 

 No matter how hard we try and convince ourselves that we are a monolith of some sort, we continue to keep failing at it. Despite all the resources and media at their disposal, the ruling status quo cannot fathom one thing - the pulse of this country and its people. The more they try to impose an idea of India on us, the more they are like an abusive family we try to escape. For women to be heard, women will have to speak up, whether men like it or not. The social rules are bending.

Discourses around politics are changing, gender is a fluid term and whether the likes of some misogynist parliamentarians contend to the fact is otherwise because something deeper is at stake here which is tied to the safety of women and her place in a society. And whether they understand it or not, no one is seeking their permission anymore.