There’s a government poster against female foeticide that has a picture of a very young girl, odhni draped over head, rolling out rotis . The caption asks, in Hindi rhyme, ‘How will you eat the rotis she makes, if you kill her off even before she wakes?’ A classic endorsement of the idea that the girl child needs to be ‘saved’ merely in order to productively grow to be a roti -making automaton.
As always, full marks to the government for being stunningly tone-deaf and regressive. If there’s an equivalent of the Golden Raspberry Awards for advertising, this one should win it hands down.
I can visualise a government mandarin, white kurta and khadi jacket straining over rebellious paunch; podgy, beringed fingers stroking the copy presented to him for approval; nodding his head approvingly — ‘ Kya ad hai sir-ji’ . He will go home to a wife-cooked lunch, and tell the family about his amazing campaign to save the girl child. He won’t have the slightest clue why the ad is rubbish. Neither will a million others. Irony will die slowly on the rotitava.
It happens all the time. I read a recent interview with two 80-plus Tamil actors who’ve teamed up for a new film. The man proudly said that he “spoke” to the woman’s family to get their permission for her to act. Even at 80, women need ‘permissions’ and it doesn’t strike anyone as abnormal.
It’s in this rather depressing climate — made worse by Chennai’s blistering heat — that the news of Ireland’s stunning referendum came down like a cleansing shower. Last week, Irish people voted to make abortion legal in the primarily Catholic nation.
The historic vote and the kind of signal Ireland has sent out is particularly significant for India, and not just because it was the Indian Savita Halappanavar’s death that proved a major trigger for the vote, nor because Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is half Indian. What’s remarkable is how Ireland has made itself over — from being one of the most conservative and religious countries in the West, into a role model for liberal values.
Up until the 90s, unwed mothers in Ireland were consigned to shady hostels; until 1995 divorce wasn’t allowed; until 1980 contraception was illegal; until 1993, homosexuality was criminalised. The country has shaken off each of these bridles, culminating last year in its voting in a gay PM from a minority ethnic background, and last week in legalising abortion.
These are giant steps for a people who were happy thus far to be embraced in the tight stranglehold of the Catholic faith. The Church’s credibility cracking under the serial paedophilia exposés seems to have sped up reforms, but more importantly, economic spurs in the nation have meant prosperity, which means market and society opening up to fresh influences.
In India, meanwhile, religious polarisation continues to do roaring business. Our everyday headlines discuss with medieval relish stories of someone lynched for beef-eating, homes burnt down during religious processions, children raped for their fathers’ faith. Abortion is still a qualified right and not an absolute one, denying women full control over their bodies. Section 377 that criminalises homosexuality , an aberration supported unanimously by all religious heads, still hasn’t been booted out.
There’s been some encouraging stuff — mullahs silenced to get the triple talaq banned; khap panchayats ordered by the Supreme Court to not interfere in marriages — but there’s much more to do. Pundits and pontiffs can’t be allowed any longer to fan sectarian hatred and gendered violence on such issues; their writ must stop at the threshold of their respective houses of god.
However, in a deeply patriarchal nation, essentialising women’s roles in society is not the prerogative of bigoted theocrats alone. Recently, a female scholar-journalist ( eye-roll emoticon ) went on and on about her kolam -making and lamp-lighting skills and her dismay that her neighbours, a young couple, don’t know how to cook and that the woman wears shorts and no mangalsutr a to “show that she is married”. It was a pointless rant, but she had fascinated fans asking if she had a sister they could marry.
When womanhood is defined by sari -wearing and lamp-lighting or when we fight female foeticide with an ad celebrating roti -making, it is surely a sign that the battle is going to be a long one — often against all that we celebrate as ‘our culture’.
(Where the writer tries to make sense of society with seven hundred words and a bit of snark)
