Violence as a means to control women
New Delhi: It keeps getting uglier on the national arena. Last week saw a Congress legislator from Assam being thrashed by a mob in Karimganj town. The fury of the men almost made you believe the woman was a murderess or a rash driver who had run over pedestrians in a drunken state. But the woman's crime was a rather tame one. In fact, going by what men have done for ages, it was no crime at all: Rumi Nath had married a man she met on Facebook without divorcing her husband.
A police case by her husband was all it took for the upholders of the patriarchal order to take the law in their own vile hands and unleash themselves in a cowardly manner on a woman. The fact that she was also pregnant surely couldn't have mattered a wee bit to these lumpens. Perhaps we shouldn't be taking this incident so seriously. After all, men do such things on a regular basis within the confines of their homes. Why, they sometimes deal out worse treatment to women from the underprivileged class, parading them naked on the streets or raping them in public view.
Nath thinks her political rivals are behind this dastardly incident. While this may be true, it doesn't explain the righteousness with which the mob went about the 'job'. This can be accounted for only by the chauvinistic mindset of the Indian male. He who condones a man marrying a second time but whose hackles get raised when a woman does such a thing.
Nath forgot when she took the step that she was threatening the entire patriarchal order. For, if more women chose the path she has taken, where would the poor Indian males be? How would they manage to get away with their insensitivity and shortcomings? Clearly, all this talk of change is bunkum. As far as the male attitude is concerned little has altered since those centuries when women were dubbed as witches and burnt at the stakes.
Source: www.indiatoday.in
A police case by her husband was all it took for the upholders of the patriarchal order to take the law in their own vile hands and unleash themselves in a cowardly manner on a woman. The fact that she was also pregnant surely couldn't have mattered a wee bit to these lumpens. Perhaps we shouldn't be taking this incident so seriously. After all, men do such things on a regular basis within the confines of their homes. Why, they sometimes deal out worse treatment to women from the underprivileged class, parading them naked on the streets or raping them in public view.
Nath thinks her political rivals are behind this dastardly incident. While this may be true, it doesn't explain the righteousness with which the mob went about the 'job'. This can be accounted for only by the chauvinistic mindset of the Indian male. He who condones a man marrying a second time but whose hackles get raised when a woman does such a thing.
Nath forgot when she took the step that she was threatening the entire patriarchal order. For, if more women chose the path she has taken, where would the poor Indian males be? How would they manage to get away with their insensitivity and shortcomings? Clearly, all this talk of change is bunkum. As far as the male attitude is concerned little has altered since those centuries when women were dubbed as witches and burnt at the stakes.
Source: www.indiatoday.in
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