The Government of India gave a red-carpet welcome to the Taliban delegation led by their Minister of Education, Muttaqi. Gen Prakash Katoch asks, “Should India be seen deferring to the Taliban?”
The Taliban’s human rights record, particularly its regressive misogynistic policies, is well known. No doubt, developing relations with the Taliban is a geostrategic requirement. Women of Afghanistan, who are deprived of human rights—particularly education and assembly—must be feeling totally betrayed, especially after women journalists were denied entry into the first press conference. Of course, due to heavy criticism, women were permitted in the next press conference.
As the Taliban came to power, their edicts came as a shock to the world at large. This is the same group that destroyed Gautam Buddha’s majestic statues, 53 and 35 meters tall, despite requests from various global powers. The world is watching the gross abuse of human rights helplessly. It is the same Taliban that imposed Jizya on non-Muslims.
The Taliban is an outcome of youth (then) who were indoctrinated in a few madrassas in Pakistan, including the famous Lal Masjid. While the Taliban has now assumed its own agency, the circumstances in which they emerged need to be recalled.
The Taliban has been indoctrinated in a particular version of Islam put forward by Maulana Wahab. When the Russian army occupied Afghanistan, America was not in a position to send its own army, as its forces were very demoralized due to their defeat in Vietnam. The Kissinger Doctrine was implemented, aiming to fight the enemy (Communists) by using Asian Muslim youth. The madrassas were promoted and funded by America. Mahmood Mamdani, in his book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, based on CIA documents, tells us how the Mujahideen were indoctrinated and supplied with 8,000 million dollars and 7,000 tons of armament, including the latest Stinger missiles.
These trained elements joined the anti-Russian forces, and the Russian army was defeated. America gained total dominance through wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. The Islam they practice is the most conservative version and resorts to violence against people, cloaking itself in the Islamic label. Here, human rights concepts find no place, and women and subordinate sections of society face the worst violations and subjugation.
This degree of patriarchal control and abuse of human rights is not yet seen in the Hindutva nationalism ruling India today. However, seeds of rigid patriarchy are very much present, and the concept of human rights is gradually being replaced by ‘rights for the elite upper caste and rich’ and ‘duties for the poor and marginalized,’ pushing them further to the margins. RSS, the parent organization of the ruling BJP, and Rashtra Sevika Samiti, which deals with women, are exclusively male organizations. They are based on a Brahminical version of Hinduism, in contrast to the liberal and inclusive Hinduism of Mahatma Gandhi—the one who was killed by someone steeped in Hindu nationalist ideology.
When Ambedkar was burning Manusmriti, the second chief of RSS, M.S. Golwalkar, was writing eulogies for books like Manusmriti. After the Indian Constitution was implemented, RSS’s mouthpiece came out with scathing criticism of it, saying it had nothing Indian about it. “Consider how Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, regarded as the most consequential head of the RSS, believed women were misled by modernity. Citing a couplet that states that ‘a virtuous lady covers her body,’ Golwalkar, according to Caravan, lamented that ‘modern’ women think that ‘modernism’ lies in exposing their body more and more to the public gaze. What a fall!”
When Laxmibai Kelkar (1936) wanted women to be incorporated into RSS, she was instead asked to start Rashtra Sevika Samiti, a subordinate organization. In its very name, the word Swayam is missing, which stands for self.
Later, Vijaya Raje Scindia (then Vice President of BJP) went on to glorify Sati (wife immolation on the funeral pyre of the husband). Mridula Sinha of BJP also advised women to conform to family norms where the husband is supreme (Savvy Magazine, April 1994). RSS progeny has opposed women wearing jeans and celebrating Valentine’s Day.
As the feminist movement emerged, it pushed for reforms like the abolition of dowry, female infanticide, and other abominable practices against women. RSS never initiated any of these struggles, nor did it oppose these reforms. It was against the Hindu Code Bill, which gave women some semblance of equality. As India had some democratic space after Independence—though it has been in free fall for the last few decades—women’s admirable struggles did earn them a better place in society. The march toward equality did take a few steps.
Today, RSS has Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Durga Vahini, and BJP’s women’s wing. Their values derive from the core RSS ideology of graded hierarchy and gender inequality. Here, Manusmriti has an important place, as their basic philosophy is rooted in the understanding that the ‘Muslim man’ is the culprit, while patriarchal values remain unchallenged.
It is true that the Taliban and many other Muslim countries affected by communal/fundamentalist Islam have the worst conditions for women, with the Taliban sitting at the bottom of the list. In India, as the grip of Hindu nationalism increases, the patriarchal ideology is not challenged by the RSS stable, while the feminist movement is doing its best to challenge the prevalent patriarchy. So currently, the degree of Taliban patriarchy is at the bottom; Hindu nationalism shares basic ideological similarities, while the women’s movement has made some significant yet inadequate strides.
What is similar between the two is the seed of patriarchy, while the degree of its social manifestation is very diverse. Every politics hiding under the cover of religion uses identity aspects of religion to uphold the values of feudal times, with the added spice of hate for people of other religions. Even Christian fundamentalism propagates the same. Nazism, a full-blown fascist regime, also defined the place of women in Kitchen, Church, and Children.
While we condemn patriarchy and the non-recognition of the concept of human rights, we should be aware that every sectarian nationalism structured around religious identity or the superiority of one race shares many of these despicable norms.
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