On September 19th, a Teenage girls and boys were stopped by a group of men in Jamui, Bihar. They were attacked and the girl was molested. They pleaded with their attackers, telling them that their families knew they were together. Then, a video from Samastipur, Biharappeared. The video showed four men molesting an underage girl who was with a boy. On September 22, a video from Banka, Bihar showed men Harassment of a woman in Mandar Hills. In Delhi it is said to have been a seventeen-year-old girl sexually abused in a park.
Once again, the youth of India take to the streets. This time the protesters are women and gender minorities from Delhi University. They protested for better street lighting, improved access to public transport and the opportunity for women to study and work without restrictions on their mobility. Their basic demand: safe streets.
India’s feminist movement against gender-based violence (GBV)
The feminist movement in India has been campaigning for security and freedom from violence since the 1970s. She defined violence as a patriarchal subjugation of the female body that is rooted in interpersonal gender relations. The movement has been instrumental in pushing through legislative changes to combat gender-based violence (GBV). The sustained agitation of the feminist movement led to the enactment of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act, 2012 (POCSO) and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
The seven men accused in the Jamui incident have been booked under the POCSO Act. They were then arrested. The Banka police have also registered a case against the men featured in the Mandar Hills video. The criminal justice system was used to put the accused behind bars. At the same time, two personnel from the Uttar Pradesh Police and two personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are said to be present sexually abused a woman at the farmhouse of an MLA in Amroha district, Uttar Pradesh.
As the revolutionary spirit of the DU movement demands security, we must ask ourselves: from whom do we demand security? The same people responsible for the breach? After incidents of violence, we put individual men behind bars. But the next day there were further incidents and we found ourselves on protest marches again. We have been asking for security for decades, but will it ever be achieved by arresting every perpetrator? How can we prevent sexual violence and ensure lasting safety for women and gender minorities?
The answer lies in identifying the root cause of violence: naming it, combating it and ultimately dismantling it. Brahminical patriarchythat has shaped the fabric of Indian society has also enabled and perpetuated violence. Women’s safety requires the elimination of Brahminical patriarchy, ensuring that the conditions for the spread of gender-based violence no longer exist.
Caste system violence, Brahminical patriarchy and Hindu supremacy
Indian society was shaped by the organizational principles of the caste system. The caste system was institutionalized through legal codifications in the Manusmriti, a Hindu religious law that established the rules for caste behavior. Manusmriti is based on Brahmanism, i.e. Brahminical practices and ideologies. This doctrine shapes Brahminical patriarchy, a form of patriarchy derived from the overlapping rules of caste and gender behavior enshrined in the Manusmriti.
Gender is essential to the caste system, as caste and gender intersect to maintain caste hierarchies through endogamous marriages that police caste boundaries. As a result, control over women’s bodies becomes crucial in maintaining boundaries between castes and allows the caste system to reproduce without disrupting the hierarchical order of closed, endogamous circles.
Historian Uma Chakravarti has shown how the Manusmriti gave men from the oppressor caste the power to control women and Dalit communities. Dalit feminists have traced gender and caste-based violence to Brahminical patriarchy, arguing that the Manusmriti sanction such violence and grant men from the oppressor caste the authority to carry it out. Caste hierarchy and gender inequality are maintained through coercion and violence. As a result, Brahminical patriarchy sanctions violence as a form of punishment for transgressions of caste and gender boundaries.
Although the Manusmriti dates back to the 2nd century AD, it is still relevant today as Indian society continues to be organized along caste lines. The Manusmriti lays down the rules of Brahmanism by which today’s Hindu supremacist society functions.
The Manusmriti granted this authority to men from the oppressor caste as a judicial privilege. This has led to the naturalization of gender-based violence by men of the oppressor caste, which has been repeatedly challenged by the feminist movement, particularly Dalit feminists.
Although the Manusmriti dates back to the 2nd century AD, it is still relevant today as Indian society continues to be organized along caste lines. The Manusmriti lays down the rules of Brahmanism by which today’s Hindu supremacist society functions.
Brahminical patriarchy is based on gender inequality and giving men patriarchal control over women’s bodies within a household. Brahminical patriarchy ties the honor of the family to the woman’s body and dictates that women be relegated exclusively to the domestic sphere. This is essentially a means to prevent them from violating gender and caste rules, thus maintaining caste endogamy.
Coercive control and violence are used when gender and caste boundaries are crossed. Such use of violence to morally police women’s bodies can be seen in the cases reported in Jamui and Samastipur. The teenagers in Jamui were attacked not only because they were together, but also because of the assumption that their families did not know they were together.
Moral policing as the ultimate preserver of the Hindu household and Rashtra
Such incidents of violence and moral policing do not occur in a vacuum. They need to be understood through the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva. The BJP-RSS nexus emerged from the Sangh Parivar and is based on the creation of a Hindu Rashtra. BJP leaders have often urged Hindu women to preserve the Hindu family and give birth to more children to ensure the sustenance of the Hindu Rashtra.
Women’s bodies are policed to reproduce a family conducive to the creation of the Hindu Rashtra – that is, a family based on the cultural script of Brahminical patriarchy.
For the Hindu nation to exist, every household must become a microcosm of the Hindu nation-state. Every family must emulate a Hindu household ruled by rules of caste and gender based on Brahminical patriarchy. As a result, women’s bodies are forced to reproduce a family conducive to the creation of the Hindu Rashtra – that is, a family based on the cultural script of Brahminical patriarchy.
Moral surveillance and violence become methods of controlling the honor accorded to women’s bodies and upon which the survival of the Hindu family depends. Through this framework, the BJP-RSS nexus seeks to create a federation of households based on the caste and gender rules of Brahminical patriarchy. When these families join together, they create a caste- and gender-based social order upon which the Hindu Rashtra is built.
Violence cannot simply be defined as the patriarchal subjugation of the female body – a conceptualization on which India’s laws and responses to gender-based violence are based. It is imperative to move beyond the individual victim-perpetrator framework and examine the systems of power that instrumentalize violence to perpetuate and perpetuate it.
The root cause of violence is not individual men but systems of power, namely Brahminical patriarchy, Hindu supremacy and the caste system. Violence keeps the wheels turning, enabling control over women’s bodies, the creation of families that reinforce Brahminical patriarchy, and the maintenance of a Hindu Rashtra.
On the way to freedom from violence
Given this kind of violence, can the incarceration of individual men prevent the spread of violence? Especially when a culture of impunity not only protects individual men, but also the systems of power from which violence in society emerges. While the men responsible for sexual harassment and molestation in Samastipur and Jamui have been charged for the crimes they committed, the systems of power remain intact.
Feminist movements in India are knocking on the doors of power and demanding safety on our streets and in our homes. But behind these doors are those in power who have been privileged by the Brahminical patriarchy. Behind these doors are the police officers who wear their uniforms and sexually abuse women. And in the same uniform, they also arrest other men who have sexually abused women. Behind these doors they shake hands with the politicians in whose farmhouses such violence occurs.
Maybe it’s time to stop asking perpetrators of violence to protect us from violence – a paradox if ever there was one. Perhaps it is time to confront the root cause of the violence. It’s time to meet Dr. to join BR Ambedkar Burning of the Manusmriti as a revolutionary act that initiates the arduous and sustained movement to dismantle the Brahminical patriarchy, caste system and Hindu supremacy under which the BJP-RSS has the upper hand and violence in Indian society continues unchecked.
