Thousands gather in Nagpur for feminist meet, oppose RSS "headquarter of patriarchy"

Thousands of women gathered in Nagpur at Indora Chowk Maidan following a rally in a feminist show of strength on the 120th remembrance day of Savitri Bai Phule, one of the first women’s rights activists of India, who fought against patriarchy.
Celebrating the life and legacy of Phule, who was also India’s first woman teacher, poet and writer, the feminist meet saw singing of songs, dance and theatre performances, and similar other cultural events to highlight how women have been subjected to “growing inequality and intolerance”.
The event started with a bike rally by young girls and boys of Nagpur and adjoining areas. Women and men from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat, Telengana and Odisha participated.
Speaking on the occasion, Delhi-based human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi, referring to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur, said, the main aim of the gathering was to “expose the nexus between the corporate and communal patriarchal forces n Nagpur.”
Gujarat’s Dalit women rights activist Manjula Pradeep said that Hindutva and Brahminism were “two pillars of oppression” and to break them into pieces, there was a need for forging unity.
Radhika Vemula, mother of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar who was forced to commit suicide a year ago allegedly because of political pressure, said, she decided to be part of part of the movement because she believed in justice and wanted to ensure that there was no more injustice like that Rohith had to face.

“I have had to face a lot of pressure since Rohith’s suicide, questioning my finances, my Dalit identity, but I am undeterred”, she asserted.
Others talked of “gender oppression” as being “intimately tied up with the structure of caste and transgender people being denied employment” (Bittu), and the need for the feminists to fight fascism (Jaya Sharma).

A resolution passed on the occasion “resolved” to unite in the fight against the oppressive social order created by the nexus of Brahmanism, Hindutva and forces that favour the ancient law giver Manu’s treatise, Manusmriti, which favours violence against “untouchable” castes.
Opposing anti-conversion and cow-protection laws, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), calling them draconian, the resolution resolved to fight against the ideology “which has harmed women on the basis of caste, class, religion, race, community, sexuality, gender.”
“The violence produced by Brahminical hetero-normative patriarchy is glaringly evident from the 20,300 cases of rape reported by Dalit women alone between 2002-2015, rising attacks on the transgender community, moral policing, domestic violence, child abuse, sex-selective abortions, dowry deaths, acid attacks”, the resolution said.
“We stand against the imposition of caste specific occupations such as manual scavenging, coercion into the Devadasi/Jogini/Bedini systems, the denial of work and access to education for women of oppressed castes and transgender people”, the resolution added.
Resolving to work for strengthening the implementation of “laws around caste and gender injustice, such as the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, and those addressing sexual and domestic violence on women and children, the resolution said, “We commit ourselves to striving for legal recognition of the crime of marital rape, and redressal against the horrific practice of witch-hunting.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog