Home
FOSA/CAC Position
Letters
of Support
Textbook Edits
Action
Alerts
Press Coverage
IN DEPTH:
Nobel Laureate Dr.
Amartya Sen's Views
The NCERT Case
Caste and Gender in
Ancient India
The Coming of Aryans
About the Hindu Education
Foundation (HEF) and Vedic Foundation(VF)
Fact Sheet
and Chronology
|
Just
as they attempt to replace an understanding of caste as a system of
hierarchical and oppressive relations with an idyllic view of caste as
an unproblematic system simply shaped by different "capacities," the
HEF and VF propose to whitewash gender inequalities. Instead of
acknowledging that in ancient India women had fewer rights and
privileges than men, the proposed edits from HEF and VF simply declare
that men
and women had "different rights and duties." This blatant
erasure of the historical experience of patriarchy is a great
disservice to students as it may hinder their abilities to recognize
and confront gender oppression in the present. Once again the
desire to provide a sanitized account of the past has overridden any
pretense of commitment to historical accuracy or even concern for the
historical experience of women.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are
some of the changes you are opposing regarding women?
2. Isn’t it true that we had
women sages in Ancient India and the Hindu society of that time was a
very egalitarian one?
3. But
patriarchy was also present in other religions. When there is no
mention of the treatment of women in Islam, Judaism and Christianity,
why are you supporting the singling out of Hinduism’s treatment
of Women?
1. What are some of the
changes you are opposing regarding women?
The
HEF recommended that the sentence "Men had many more rights than
women." be
replaced with "Men had different duties (dharma) as well as rights than
women. Many women were among the sages to whom the Vedas were
revealed." The HEF also wished to replace the text, "Men had many
more rights than women. Unless there were no sons in a family, only a
man could inherit property. Only men could go to school or become
priests" with "Men had different rights and duties than women,"
and "Women’s education was mostly done at
home."
We think that these changes downplay the
many written and customary laws in Ancient India that limited women's
rights to safety, livelihood, justice systems, property, education and
marriage. Sanitized histories that neutralize these imbalances can
blunt students' abilities to interact respectfully with today's
realities of gender oppression in their own lives and in the world.
2.
Isn’t it true that we had women sages in Ancient India and the
Hindu society of that time was a very egalitarian one?
Was
Ancient Indian society egalitarian? Given the diversity that
lived in the region, one would assume it would depend on which
individual, community, region, and moment in time you asked.
We
should remember that even in Ancient India, Aryans were only ONE of the
many diverse communities that lived there—we just happen to know
more about them because of the extensive texts they left behind.
In all probability, those different communities in Ancient India
differed in their discussions of rights and responsibilities for men
and women. Also, ALL those societies—Vedic and
non-Vedic—and many more later on, contributed to the development
of Hinduism as we know it today.
Second, even in the Aryan
society, it would be wrong to say that there was egalitarianism.
There is enough textual evidence to show that women did not have rights
to any property or inheritence. Historians often point to the
fact that there were women sages who contributed to the Vedas to assure
the reader of gender equity in ancient times, though only about a dozen
of the more than one thousand hymns (one percent) of the Rig Veda were
wholly attributed to women sages.1
3.
But patriarchy was also present in other religions. When there is no
mention of the treatment of women in Islam, Judaism and Christianity,
why are you supporting the singling out of Hinduism’s treatment
of Women?
First, it is important to note out that we
are not the writers of the textbooks, which we agree need massive
revisions to address issues of racism and Eurocentrism, but we have no
say in what is highlighted in sections on other religious
communities. If there are issues of racism, patriarchy, and
marginalization of subaltern peoples in other sections of the
textbooks, we stand in solidarity with those who advocate accurate and
ethical histories that empower students to think about and fight sexism
and racism in the present.
Secondly, as members of South Asian communities, we
believe that pointing out issues of sexism, patriarchy, and caste
oppression in our communities in order to *empower* our children and
our allies to address these issues is not the same as Orientalist
histories that used these realities to justify colonization and
denigrate the communities of South Asia.
Notes:
1. Roy, Kumkum
(1995) "Where Women are Worshipped,
There the Gods Rejoice': The Mirage of the Ancestress of the
Hindu Woman" Women and
Right-Wing Movements: Indian Experiences. New Jersey: Zed
Books. Pp. 10-28. |
