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October     Last updated: October 14: 7:00 p.m.

The Moving Finger Writes
M.V. Kamath

Coming to terms with history and reality

A study on rape, commissioned by the National Commission of Women (NCW) whose prologue stated that Indian women enjoyed a high position in society before the eighth century prior to foreign invasions, has been attacked by leftist groups, fundamentalist Muslims and some others as "distorting and communalising history". The report is in danger of being totally scrapped or, at best, accepted after deletion of what is considered an "offensive" reference to "foreign elements", in flagrant disregard to facts. The allegedly "offending paragraph" consisting of about 135 words in a report that runs into 160 pages reads as gollows: "... In India, in ancient times, women had enjoyed an able position in the household and in society. As the "queen" of the household her position was envied by her counterparts elsewhere. Unfortunately, constant invasions by foreign elements from about 8th century changed the scenario to the detriment of women. Her vulnerability to abuse by the invading hordes bestowed upon man responsibility to protect her and from thence developed the inherent dominant role of the male within the family fold and her inevitable dependence on the male.

Long years of invasions and infliction of crime on her resulted in many protective measures. The direct effect of this state of affairs was perforce, keeping women within the four corners of the home and consequential enforced illiteracy which has been, by and large, her lot since then..." Attacking the report, Syed Shahabuddin in a letter to the NCW says: "The report... in full of historical inacurracies, unacceptable presumptions, untenable conjuctures and prima facie absurdities...". One Ms Mabel Rebello, described as Vice-President of All India Mahila Congress (I) says in her letter to the NCW: "It seems that Muslim invasion in India has been cited as the main cause of 'detriment of women'. Interestingly, the term Muslim invaders apparently has been used surreptntiously as an innuendo. In wonder if Ms Poornima Advani (the author of the report on Rape) has taken to any historical data in this regard before arriving at this remarkable conclusion..." Ms Advani has been charged with "communal bias".

Others who have attacked Ms Advani are Brinda Karat (All India Democratic Women's Association), Lalita Balakrishnan (All India Women's Conference), Vina Mazumdar (Centre for Women's Development Studies), Zarina Bhally (Indian Association for Women's Studies), Jyotsna Chatterjee (Joint Women's Programme) and Sadhona Ganguly (YWCA of India). Their argument is that what Ms Advani has written is "not history but its distortion". Now for some facts. U.N. Goshal, formerly professor of history, Presidency College, Calcutta, writing in the monumental work The Classical Age (edited by R.C. Majumdar) says of "The Ideal Wife": "The picture (drawn by Vatsyayana) exhibits those qualities of service and self-restraint as well as sound household management which have remained the hallmark of Hindu wives... During her husband's absence she exerts herself in order that his affairs may not suffer... she frames an annual budget and makes her expenses accordingly (pages 568-569)". Who but a "queen of the household" would do such things? Still later, writing on "the general status of women", Goshal says: "Among the most striking changes during this (Gupta) Period may be mentioned the increased recognition in Katyayana of the woman's right to her property... women in the Gupta Age were not disqualified from the exercise of public rights... The women did not generally observe the purdah and remain in seclusion... For such a peculiar custom, to which they were absolute strangers, would surely have been noticed (by Hieun Tsang and I-tsing)... (page 574). Now for what happened after the invasion of "foreigners".

the references are from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's series on The History and Culture of the Indian People edited by R.C. Majumdar, rated as one of the finest and most objective historians. The chapter on Social Life and Hindu Society is again the work of Prof Goshal. He writes: "the Muslims took delight in enslaving Hindu women en masse from the highest to the lowest rank and many of them, including those who once were princesses were forced to entertain the Muslim court... (page 582). Goshal quotes from the Tarikh-i-Wassaf and Alla-ud-din Khalji's campaign in Gujarat as follows: "... The Muhammadan forces began to kill and slaughter, on the right and left unmercifully, throughout the impure land, for the sake of Islam and blood flowed in torrents. They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000... more than pen can enumerate... In short the Muhammadan army brought the country to utter ruin and destroyed the lives of the inhabitants and plundered the cities and captured their offsprings" (pages 624 to 626). Goshal them quotes Ibn Batutah thus: "At that time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives ten of whom the vezir sent to me. I gave one of these to the man who brought them to me but he was not satisfied.

My companions took three young girls and I do not know what happened to the rest" (page 627). By then "the purdah or seclusion of women had already become a common practice" (page 608). Goshal mentions Ibn Batutah's "graphic account of the barbarious, almost incredible, cruelties perpetrated on the Hindus by the Sultan of Ma'bar" and gives many more examples. Writes Goshal: "Such pogroms on Hindus were not accidental or merely passing epidsodes. All these are by no means imaginary pictures or more theoritical deductions. They are fully supported by such positive evidence as we posses regarding the relation between the Hindus and the Muslims..." It is best not to quote other atrocities on Hindus perpetrated by what Ms Advani (no relation of L.K. Advani) describes as "foreign elements". Syed Shahabuddin obviously has not read Indian history. Nor, equally obviously, have the ladies refered to above. A standard argument adduced is that if 'foreign elements' mistreated Hindu women, so did Hindu men as well. What is forgotten is that Hindu women did not go to Muslim countries to dishnour their women folk, and that had their been no alien invasions, the lot of Hindu women would have been vastly different—and for the better. Ms Advani is perfectly right in her deductions. One can only feel pity for out leftist women's organisations who refuse to face up to historical facts in order to stress their secularism. Secular distortion of Indian history has been the bane of education in India. Muslims, as the BJP's new President Bangaru Laxman says are the "blood of our blood". But that shouldn't mean that we must forget the blood-spattered history of India.