THIS week Kiran Bedi joined the Delhi BJP as its star campaigner, and declared in the first very statement that in Delhi “women’s safety is the main issue and not Statehood”. She said that if she wins elections than she would ensure that there was better policing including community policing in order to ensure women’s safety. Almost immediately in response to this, Sharmishtha Mukherjee, the Congress candidate from Greater Kailash, stated that the main issue for her constituency is women’s safety and she would use her MLA funds to do community policing if she won. It is clear that the arrival of high profile campaigners in the Delhi BJP has propelled a competitive war of words in case of women’s safety. However the whole debate, as triggered off by the BJP nominee has got focused on issues of policing and law and order rather than on the larger issues that have been earlier raised by the women’s movement.

Right Wing

Politics & Women

The perspective of women’s safety as a law and order problem is designed to ignore the social and political causes that aggregate violence against women. These causes are engrained in patriarchal and socially conservative attitudes that are today characteristic of the Sangh Parivar. In a recent address to the RSS workers in Assam, Mohan Bhagwat stated that “rapes are an urban crime shaped by westernisation, and are not a matter of concern in rural India where traditional values are upheld.” Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. It is a dangerous trend. But such crimes won't happen in Bharat or the rural areas of the country. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes. Where Bharat becomes 'India' with the influence of western culture these type of incidents happen. The actual Indian values and culture should be established at every stratum of society where women are treated as 'mother'. This understanding forms the basis of moral policing that is done by the Sangh Parivar and affiliates as was started and done by the Ram Sene in Bangalore.

The other aspect is the emerging caste and Hindutva alliance that is evident in the functioning of the khap panchayats and other traditionally conservative institutions. Haryana chief minister Manoharlal Khattar has come out in support of the khaps by stating that “khap panchayats consist of experienced members of the society and they make sensible decisions. It is a very old system that has been followed over hundreds of years”. Following up on this view, he has literally justified the endorsement of honour killings by the khap panchayats. Hence the campaign against marriage by choice is supported by the Sangh Parivar which justifies the actions of the khap panchayats as “tradition”. This conservative of the RSS and its affiliates is clearly grounded in social structures which have been penetrated by them over the years. Hence the long term decline in violence against women is related with changing attitudes and combating social traditions and customs that devalue and oppress women. Treating this as a law and order problem is therefore a short term and myopic perspective of dealing with the issue. It also gives right wing Sangh Parivar organisations to spread the communal and brahmanical patriarchal ideology without any hindrance.

Such a world view treats women as subordinate and the property of men, whose basic function is a reproductive one. This function is necessary not only for maintaining and reproducing the family, but also for maintaining the demographic balance in the society. Hence Sakshi Maharaj recently opined that Hindu women should produce at least four children. Though an embarrassed BJP issued a notice to him, but he was followed by another leader Shyamal Goswami who exhorted Hindu women to have five children. Not to be left behind, Sadhvi Prachi asked women to have ten children. These statements directly meant to maintain and increase the Hindu rate of growth so that they remain the dominant majority in the country. The understanding of the Sangh is that this is essential in order to keep up with the reproductive rate of the Muslim minority who should not catch up with the Hindus in terms of numbers. This stereotyping of Muslims naturally has an adverse impact and propelled vicious polarisation in which women have been both displaced and physically assaulted.

Another aspect of the problem is the way in which the Sangh Parivar has been targeting the women of minority communities in riot situations. The rapes and assault of women in the Gujarat riots of 2002 has been well established in evidence presented in different court cases. The recent riots in Muzaffarnagar have also led to displacement and assaults on women. Far from punishing the accused, the BJP has rewarded them with electoral tickets and positions in the government. This justification of the communal targeting of women is based on the understanding that the ‘purity of the woman is a sign of the honour of the community’. Therefore dishonouring women is one way of forcing the minorities into submission and increasing their feeling of insecurity. The fact that the Modi government refuses to acknowledge that its party members and Sangh organisations are spear heading such a campaign has led to a further bolstering of the confidence of these organisations. Such a contrived silence will naturally help the agenda of patriarchal communal forces and put women at risk.

In the light of the discussion above it is quite clear that women’s safety can only be ensured by combating rightwing politics. Under the current situation the measure of community policing being suggested by Kiran Bedi and the BJP will only become a tool in the hands of the RSS affiliates to do moral policing. It will also help to camouflage the real issues concerned with women’s safety for which the women’s organisations have been struggling. The need for proper accountability of the police, basic public infrastructure and transport ensuring women’s safety, and transformation of social attitudes and structures are the medium and long term struggles of the democratic women’s movement. Clearly the programme of the RSS and its affiliates goes against this understanding. If the BJP is serious about women’s safety in Delhi then it should first rein in and control the activities of its parent organisation and affiliates. In the light of this Bedi’s concerted attempt to subvert the issue in the name of community policing and law and order can also be seen as a way of diverting the attention of the public from the communal agenda of the Sangh Parivar.