Using Women as Shield

Rioting, destruction of public property, protesting against the government, opposition to the law enforcement agencies like the Police – all these are not new to the history of Bharat. Our democracy is alive and kicking because despite all these, we have never lost sight of the fact that justice and truth, freedom and governance are more important than the fight for them. It is also a fact when any protest has turned violent. As with any rule, there would be exceptions, but this article is about a relatively new phenomena being witnessed in our country, in the current protests against CAA, NRC and NPR.

If one were to look at the photos, one would be struck by three facts:

• Most of the people protesting belong to one religion, all of who seem to be extra religious and confirming to the dress code of that religion.
• Women have been led to believe that they need to protect their menfolk
• Children have been roped in to the protests.

It is not a new phenomenon in Bharat that Hindu women covering their head are called regressive, but Muslim women covering their whole head, face and body in the burkha are said to be those who are capable of exercising their freedom and choice. Paeans have been written about how women find freedom to study, dress as they please, work, etc. while wearing the burkha and how this has helped them evolve as activists while holding on to tradition.

As a woman, I am struck by this distortion that is supported by so-called intellectuals, so-called historians, so-called journalists, so-called liberal women and so forth. We have Muslim TV anchors who come revealing their hair, make-up, eyes, pout, arms, and their figure (some even photo-shopped) but go on to support everything that actually works against women – whether it is the abolishment of triple talaq or the school girls pelting stones on the law enforcement agencies, or women coming in this biting cold with small children (some only a few days old) and protesting on the streets of Delhi, or college students mouthing ISIS slogans and showing the ISIS finger salute. Do they not know how women hostages are treated by ISIS? Have they not heard of sodomisation of little boys by terrorists and even by teachers of Madarasas? Worse is the fact that these (in)famous journalists and intellectuals do know that the people protesting have no clue about the actual clauses in the CAA, NRC or NPR. All these people have come out to protest based on misinformation fed to them, especially by their menfolk and their leaders. Instead of actually liberating these misinformed women from their misery, our awakened minorities want to further inflame passions and further increase their misery, it seems.

The fact is that a woman who has become evolved enough to judge for herself what is right and wrong, who is able to feed herself the correct information, becomes so strong that she will then not fall prey to the agenda of some people. It is also true that she will then not allow her family members to fall prey to this either. The Muslim leaders of this country saw what happened when the Triple Talaq Bill was passed. That is why this time women have been trapped or herded into supporting the protests against CAA, NRC and NPR by feeding them false information. The misery that these women face while sitting in the biting cold in the open, or while being jailed will be then transformed into thinking that the Government is a ‘Fascist Regime’ which is opposed to minorities. Such women then will then pass on such thought to the future generations of the same community. This is how some people keep the poor and semi-literate or illiterates trapped in a vicious cycle of terrorism and slavery to a thought process. Filling their minds with hatred and violent ‘revolt’ makes them puppets to those who are then able to harness them to show their clout.

In my opinion, the Mohalla communities which were used in the past, to quell violence and contain rumours, should once again be put into action. Leaders of the Mohalla communities should be trained to spread correct information about the new Acts and Laws that have been passed and how they benefit us as a country. Giving information via social media is not the only way to pass on correct information. A personal touch and information dissemination by local leaders is the best way to provide people with correct information. Also, such groups can be used to douse flare-ups in time. The Home Ministry needs to think on this as a viable option to prevent any more such violent protests from taking place in our country again. This is even more required when the actual exercise on NRC and NPR starts. Being prepared with information dissemination will help us cruise through these exercises with lesser problems. Our country has the best of people and that is our strength – they are the reason why we are capable of becoming a Super Power once again.