From Sabarimala protests to the nun rape case, Kerala society’s attitude towards women reflects a dichotomy

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” Today nothing could describe the situation in Kerala better than these famous opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities written more than 150 years ago. 2018 was a year of turmoil. And a year of hope. A year when floods ravaged God’s Own Country and a controversy over God brought emotions to a raging boil. A year when women were pitted against women and vote-hungry politicians fought over their bodies. A year when a nun stood up and called out a senior priest for sexually attacking her unlike her sisters in the past who had quietly put up with such assaults. And it was also a year when women standing up for progress and gender equality created one wall while their sisters fighting for a diametrically opposite value… the status quo of tradition… put up another. Kerala has excellent social development indices. Women, in particular, have done well, with the female to male ratio at 1084:1000, a literacy rate of 92 percent and life expectancy of 76.3 years for women. All these are much above the national levels. The maternal and infant mortality rates in Kerala are also healthily low. [caption id=“attachment_5898521” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Kanaka Durga, 39 (L) and Bindu Ammini, 40, the first women to enter Sabarimala temple which traditionally bans the entry of women of menstrual age. Reuters/Sivaram V[/caption] So there are perplexing questions. If women are discriminated against, would the social development indices be so good? Has gender equality been achieved or not? If it has, why is there even a debate over it? What is the Sabarimala issue really all about? About menstruating women being impure? About women in the childbearing age being temptresses? About the true believers of Ayyappa wanting to protect Him from their disturbing vibes? Is it about rational thinking? Irrational tradition? Constitutional rights? There is no doubt that political parties are exploiting the situation to the hilt. Each party has taken a stand on the issue after gauging the mood of what it perceives to be the most exploitable vote bank. Even the usually suave Shashi Tharoor who claims to be a supporter of gender equality did a volte-face after initially applauding the verdict. He threw in his own bit of obfuscation into the mixture by skillfully skirting the issue of women being viewed as desecraters of the temple. The irony is that in the process of accusing other parties of politicising the issue, he coolly turned the mirror away from his own party which was doing exactly that. So that brings back the question: what is that hidden misogyny in this society which continues to allow such complex Lakshman rekhas to be drawn around women? And the answer is not simple. Because Kerala society itself is so complex and its social history is unlike any other. The history of how women have traditionally been treated in the past perhaps has a bearing on the dichotomy which exists today. The myth about Ayyappa’s bachelorhood getting disturbed by women in their prime may be irrational, but many prominent women including top-level bureaucrats, actors and public figures have suspended their disbelief and come out to support it. Simply because they have been brought up (or as the activists would say indoctrinated) to believe that women are the keepers of tradition and they must always be aware of their boundaries. So while women are educated and have been encouraged to go out to work, they are still expected to believe that the menstrual flow is not the blood of life, but a polluting liquid. And unlike men who can perform the pilgrimage after observing 41 days of austerity (which most of the male pilgrims actually don’t), women have to also prove that they don’t bleed every month. As Kanakadurga, one of the two women who entered the temple pointed out, the women of the family are the ones who observe the rituals of purity, make special food for their menfolk and get their irumudi kettu ready. And yet they are the ones who are supposed to be impure. [caption id=“attachment_5898561” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Hindu devotees stop a car to check if any women of menstruating age are headed towards the Sabarimala temple. Reuters/Sivaram V[/caption] Irrational and often unjust traditions have been discarded in Kerala in the past, but not without a fight. For example, traditionally, all women were forced to bare their breasts as a mark of respect before men and women who were of a superior caste. This was not a freedom given to them but a demeaning tradition. The worst affected in this were the Dalit women. They were considered avarnas and had to publicise their “untouchable” status in public by the way they dressed. They were never allowed to cover their torsos with cloth in public or wear any gold or silver jewellery. Those who refused were fined and there are stories of their breasts being cut off as well. According to legend, Nanari, an Ezhava woman cut off her own breasts when she was asked to pay a breast tax. Some of these obnoxious rules were revoked by Rani Lakshmi Bai of Travancore in 1851. And then it was the Ezhava spiritual leader Sri Narayana Guru who took the women one step forward by urging families to clothe themselves and to educate their daughters. Thankfully there have always been rational voices. “Activists” who pushed for change. And these radical protests and activism came not from outside, but from within the communities. When Lalithambika Antharjanam, an early feminist and radical writer in Malayalam, wrote about the sufferings of Namboothiri Brahmin women she spoke from firsthand experience. It was better to be born a dog ten times over than to be born a Namboothiri woman, she wrote, thus tearing off the veil of secrecy which hid the plight of these women. She revealed the terrible side of the purdah which enveloped them. She wrote about the girls being denied education once they reached puberty and of the severe restrictions and discrimination against the many widows and spinsters in her community. Over years many discriminatory practices were done away with. But does that mean the Lakshman rekhas disappeared? Not really. Battles were fought. Some freedoms won, others lost. When the matrilineal tharawads collapsed, the women were no longer the owners of the family wealth. And so they ended up paying dowries to get married because a “traditional” monogamous marriage and a single unit family became aspirational. Patriarchy quickly took over here as well and male elders of the family continued to lay down the rules for their women. The conservatism of bright educated women with exposure to the outside world is always paradoxical. When religion comes into the picture, the lines get totally blurred. What makes them want to continue to obey outmoded traditions? Is it the feeling of comfort and security they get when they stay within the boundaries of the known and “time-tested” conventions? Like glass ceilings, the Lakshman rekhas are almost invisible to those outside the periphery. The women who are confined within are the ones who have to pick up the courage to make the cross over.