The Movement in India
Below we reprint an open letter which was published in Manushi No. 5, 1980.
Manushi
CI/202 Lajpat Nagar
New Delhi, 110024
India.
Beginning with Our Own Lives. An open letter to women activists, women's groups and organizations.
Though we feel very encouraged by the fact that over the past year, many more individual women, women's groups and organizations have become activated around the issue of dowry and dowry murders, we have noticed with concern, a rather disappointing trend. Many of us who see our role as that of women "activists" mobilizing "other" women in protest action against atrocities like dowry murders — we who take upon ourselves the task of changing society's attitudes — continue to live our own lives almost untouched by the ideas with which we seek to influence others.
We, the undersigned individuals, feel that initiating any kind of social, political action is meaningless unless it begins with our own lives, that those of us who assume the role of mobilizers, lead protest marches and speak or write against dowry, owe it to ourselves and to all those whom we try to draw into collective action, that we do not in any way become party to such crimes as the giving and taking of dowry. We have no moral right to shout slogans if we privately continue to participate in marriages where dowry is given or taken. If we do not dare boycott the marriage ceremony of even our own brother or sister where lavish dowry is given, if we do not start the campaign in our own homes, what moral right have we to preach to others? We are not for a moment suggesting that every woman who participates in a protest action or starts getting involved in the campaign should be called upon to make such a commitment. We are referring only to those who take on themselves the task of mobilization or consciousness-raising with other women.
It is unfortunate that the viciousness of the dowry custom comes to be noticed only when a woman is murdered for it. We feel that all those who give and take dowry or participate in this ritual, are also responsible for making such murders possible. Are they not helping perpetuate a vicious custom which reduces women to articles of sale and barter?
We therefore appeal to all women's groups and organizations to ensure that the movement begin with our own lives, that all of us be prepared to pay the price of our convictions. At least the women actively involved in taking up any issue should seriously discuss how it touches their lives and make such commitments with regard to personally and collectively battling against it.
Some of us have been practising this form of boycott for a while. But now we publicly affirm that:
Some of us have been practising this form of boycott for a while. But now we publicly affirm that:
1. We will not attend or in any way participate in a marriage where dowry is either given or taken in however veiled a form (as gifts, trousseau, money deposited in a bank in the girl's name at the time of marriage), even if the marriage be that of a close relative or a dear friend. We will openly make known our reasons for boycotting such marriage, rather than just quietly staying away from the ceremony. We will also boycott all rituals wherein dowry continues to be given after marriage such as customary gifts to the son in-law's relatives at festivals and childbirth.
2. That we will henceforth not confine protest actions to dowry murders but will also protest when dowry is given at extravagant marriage ceremonies.
3. That we will not attend marriages in which the woman has no active choice-- in deciding whether she wants to get married at all or in choosing the person to whom she is to be married
By protesting only when murders take place, we are keeping our own homes untouched, because dowry murders, for all their frequency, are still rare as compared to the high frequency of dowry giving and taking. Almost all of us participate in or connive at the giving and taking of dowry - not just in the form of cash, jewellery, household goods, gifts to husband's relatives, trousseau but also innumerable gifts that flow from the woman's family to the husband's on every conceivable occasion — the various bribes that the woman's family is forced to continue offering so that she may not be taunted and maltreated.
Only when dowry itself is attacked in all its forms and manifestations, does the battle ground shift to our own homes and personal lives. It is there that the real struggle begins.
Forum Against Rape *
Carol Mansion
Sitaiadevi Temple Road
Flat no. 13
Mahim, Bombay-400 016
India
We published in Bulletin 14 an article from India's Forum Against Rape. We are publishing here an article taken from a recently received newsletter along with their address.
"Red Rose: An Incitement to Violence Against Women and Girls". You will want to know why we are protesting against this film. Its plot is simple. It is about a man who has become a sex maniac as a consequence of a few early bad experiences with women. Determined to take revenge on all women, he lures a series of women, has sex with them, and murders them. It's supposed to be a kind of psychodrama about how someone becomes a sexual criminal — or so it seems at first sight. But is it so simple after all? We do not think so. Behind the story is hidden a deeper message.
Supposing, for example, he had had bad experiences with two or three men — would he have then declared war on all men? Of course not. So the theme of revenge in Red Rose hides something else — an expression of hatred and contempt directed towards all women. By pretending that a rational act is involved — 'revenge' — the film tells us that such acts are, in some way, justified.
Secondly, the hero is supposed to want to humiliate women sexually because he was earlier sexually humiliated by a woman. But if a woman is sexually humiliated, raped, what is considered to be the logical response? Not revenge, but suicide. And the hero's own wife, at the end, is not revengeful but forgiving. So this theme - the sexual nature of the 'revenge' - is really used to justify the use of the sex act itself not as something to be enjoyed by men and women but as a weapon against women, a means of humiliating, degrading, and terrorising them.
Finally, the actions of the central figure are exceptionally brutal, vicious and repulsive. Yet he himself is portrayed as the hero — someone deserving sympathy, someone to be identified with.
So if we look beneath the surface of the film, a three-fold message is being put forward. 1) There are a few good women who will put up with any abuse from a man, but most women are bad, and deserve to be treated with hatred and contempt. 2) Sex is a weapon against women and should be used to dominate, humiliate, terrorise, and degrade them. 3) Men who behave like the hero should be sympathised with and identified with.
In other words, this is not simply a story. Red Rose has the same effect as propaganda against women. It adds to illusion that women are victims of rape and other forms of atrocities because victims are amoral and provocatively dressed and hence justifies use of women as a sex object
It is an incitement to violence and atrocities against women exactly the same way that communal propaganda incites people to violence and atrocities against dalits and minorities
It is common to hear pious protest about well-publicized incidents of rape and other atrocities against women. But what is the use of these protests if at the same time we turn a blind eye to the daily barrage of propaganda against women — in so many films, magazines, pornography, advertisements — propaganda which builds up a mass culture and mass psychology which is rapist through and through? So long as such a culture exists, atrocities against women and girls will continue to occur. To fight against the oppression of women must include fighting against this culture. The daily incidents of rape indicate how urgent is this task. Let us start with the protest of Red Rose.
* We have just received word that the name has been changed to Forum Against Oppression
As a response to the initiative of the Bombay women and Forum Against Rape, women in other cities organized similar groups. Below is an excerpt from a newsletter of women in New Delhi.
Amrita Radha
Stri Sangharsh
C - 3 Press Enclave
New Delhi 110017
India
Since February 1980 women's groups in different centers have been involved in a campaign against rape. We started with the Mathura case and put forward a set of demands focused on rape in police stations and the lacunae in the rape law. Towards this, we had in Delhi a week long program of street plays, area meetings, and seminars, — culminating in a demonstration on International Women's Day.
After the demonstration, women's organisations here began to get requests from women for support, legal aid, etc. All of us felt the need for a women's home — a place to which women could come for refuge, shelter, and support. The existing institutions are themselves said to be exploiting women as prostitutes or low paid wage earners. The Joint Action Committee has decided to start a campaign to demand the setting up of a battered women's home, which could be run by women's organisations/groups.
Work in Delhi - Stri Sangharsh. As part of the campaign we have suggested the formation of a rape crisis cell which would offer support and aid to rape victims. Members of Stri Sangharsh are already working in an informal cell, but we hope to expand and formalise this. At the moment we are involved in two cases: (1) Sunlight Colony. A thirteen year old girl was raped by a local gunda, who has already had a series of convictions for smuggling, assault, etc. The gunda has terrorised the basti people and has recently been let out on bail, in spite of the petition presented by the basti people, asking that he be not be given ball. (2) Khan Market. The son of a local meat walla and two of his friends attempted to rape a 24 year old woman who worked as a servant in the area. She escaped from them and a case of assault has been lodged. All three are out on bail, and have asked for a "settlement".
We have just finished an investigative report into mass CRP rape in the Santhal Parganas. One of the reasons why we took up this issue was that we felt that police rape outside the police station is increasingly acquiring an institutionalized form, and we haven't emphasized this as yet in the campaign. The pamphlet will soon be printed and distributed. It would be great if you could write back and tell us how many copies you'd like, and whether you'd like Hindi or English ones. We'd like to sell them for 25p each.