‘Dismantling Patriarchy Challenges Ahead’ [Text of Justice Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture by VP Hamid Ansari]

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari has delivered the 22nd Justice Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture ‘Dismantling Patriarchy Challenges Ahead’, on 30th November 2016. He said that the process of dismantling patriarchy may have been initiated but is yet to deliver a finished product.Here is the full text of the speech “It is a privilege to be invited to join a galaxy of personalities who have in previous years delivered the annual Sunanda Bhandare lectures. Justice Sunanda Bhandare is remembered as a pioneering figure in the long and hitherto unfinished quest for gender equality. This, in the second decade of the 21st century, may sound odd given that the Constitution of India and its provisions for gender equality have been operative since 1950 and have been supplemented by national legislations and innumerable international covenants to which India and most other nations subscribe. This dismal state of affairs is reflected in the Gender Inequality Index of the UNDP that in 2014 gave us a ranking of 127 out of 188. I submit to this august audience that the reason for this apparent enigma is less in the realm of legislation and rules and more in the unstated or partially stated major premise underlying social perceptions relating to human values and behaviour as it has evolved over several millennia. This pertains to the concept of patriarchy that has been defined by Gerda Lerner in her seminal study as ‘the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general. It implies that men hold power in all important institutions of society and that women are deprived of access to such power. It does not imply that women are either totally powerless or totally deprived of rights, influence or resources’. She argues that this predates recorded history and commenced in the third millennium B.C. Another study on the subject by Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as ‘a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women’. The resultant ideology, she adds, create ‘a variety of gender-differentiated forms of subjectivity.’ Others have defined patriarchy as ‘a specific psychosociological totality which is encountered in social and psychological structures.’ It is, in other words, a long-standing system that many are born into and participate in, mostly unconsciously. It is a process as well as a product. An evasive counterpoint in contemporary debates is to define patriarchy as ‘a rhetorical devise which props up feminist ideology by making it easy to impose a state of collective guilt upon half the human race, namely the male half.’ In our own country, patriarchy has been a living reality since the earliest times for which written texts are available. One study has summed up the situation in Vedic and post-Vedic periods: ‘In Vedic age, women were equal to their brethren…This continued until the latest days of the Vedic and Epic period even during the age which saw the composition of the canonical literature of the Buddhists. But after that, there was a reaction which was ushered in by the premature mass movements of the succeeding period and the evil effects as well as the unsocial tendencies of monarchism which well-nigh assailed the foundations of social existence or the peace and happiness of conjugal life… ‘The reaction led to a constant harping on the evils of women’s freedom and the consequences arising out of it. Women came to be looked upon as naturally deficient in intellectual powers and also liable to be swayed by evil examples. Hence laws were made to retain them under tutelage and they lost many of their social rights.’ An illustrative text is Kautaliya’s Arthashastra, where the woman’s status in certain legal matters is equated to that of slaves or bonded labour. One scholar has assessed that ‘the overall picture is thus one of women being placed in a subservient role but given adequate protection to ensure that this did not lead to total exploitation. How well the safeguards worked in practice can only be a matter of conjecture. It is possible that gradual deterioration, over centuries, in the legal protection guaranteed to women in the Arthashastra led to their being given a lower status in later codifications like the Manusmriti.’ Details of the latter are well known to many in this audience. Attempts have been made in different ages to sanctify them or put forth benign interpretations. A contemporary writer has opined, somewhat generously, that while Manu’s treatment of women cannot be called gracious: ‘one cannot really say that Manu was totally against women. He only succumbed to the dominant trends of the contemporary society and probably could not oppose them.’ Overlooked in the process, consciously or otherwise, is the totality of the societal framework in which these prescriptions were made. It was slanted and caste oriented and persists to...

‘Dismantling Patriarchy Challenges Ahead’ [Text of Justice Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture by VP Hamid Ansari]

Dr.Hamid Ansari

Tags