Women confront communalism
TRUPTI SHAH is a member of the Inquilibi Communist
Sangathan (Indian Section of the Fourth international) and an activist in the "Sahiyar"
women's organization in
Vadodara in the state of
Gujarat. She spoke to /V about the Indian women's movement and the Issue of
Violence against women.
The interview took place on
September 21, 1991 in
Amsterdam.
T HERE are many small groups
who address themselves to the mass of unorganized women. Autonomous groups try to reach women in the slum areas and villages around basic issues such as housing rights or provision of electricity. The movement is not homogeneous. Groups address themselves specifically to, for example, slum women, village women, tribal women.
Others do consciousness raising such as street theatre and campaigns directed at the media. There are professional organizations of women doctors or lawyers and organizations which aim to help women with crisis centres and so on.
However there is a network and when an issue arises at the national level they come together and address it in their own way. Of course the leadership is usually from the educated middle class, but they have been conscious of the need to turn outwards.
Since 1975 the women's movement has been growing constantly and has had a definite effect on political life and on the government and on society as a whole. Many laws in favour of women have been passed, including laws on rape, on dowries, laws on violence within the family. The government is now setting up a special department for women.
The government is trying to coopt the women's movement, putting forward many feminist-sounding programmes such as an attempt to bring together women in rural areas to fight for their rights. Feminists are invited to participate in these programmes.
We have tried to work in them - as we did in Gujarat where we were invited to train the women involved in this pro-
October 14, 1991 • #214 International Viewpoint gramme. The issue of violence against women came up; there was a very influential man in the area who was abusing women. We wanted to fight against this man, but the government machinery came into action and we were thrown off the programme.
On the one hand they ask the feminist movement for their opinion on the issue of the maintenance of divorced and separated women but at the same time they have been passing a law excluding rural women from this benefit.
At the same time all the political parties had to address women's issues at the last elections and many trade unions now have women's caucuses.
There is an informal network of women's groups of many different types and throughout the country. Every two years or so there is a national women's conference. The last conference took place last December in Kerala. About 1,000 women came together from many different organizations and 12,000 women came to the
The conference decided that growing communalism and religious fundamentalism is a major danger for women's rights, threatening a rollback of what has been achieved through our struggle. In our country laws on issues such as marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance depend on religion. There is also a civil law. If a Hindu got married under a Hindu marriage law then the marriage thereafter would be regulated according to that law.
Restrictive religious laws
With the rise of fundamentalism the religious personal laws are getting more restrictive, while the constant atmosphere of violence is also restrictive. The organization to which I belong has been active against communalism for many years. We have been repeatedly threatened and told that this is not work for a women's organization. But in fact it is a major issue in our lives; the fundamentalists want to tell us where to work, what to wear and everything.
One of our activists went to distribute a leaflet in a Hindu area and she was not wearing the bindi [the spot on the forehead indicating marital status]. So people were asking her if she was a Hindu or a Muslim and said that they would not allow a Muslim woman to come into their
It was fundamentalist youth who were saying this. They told here that if she came again they might kill her. She was working in an office in this area and the fundamentalists went to the office and put pressure on her colleagues to tell her to dress properly like a Hindu woman.
The communal crisis has an especially bad impact on poor women. The government imposes curfews because of riots, and women street sellers cannot work.
The Hindu fundamentalists put out false information about us, claiming that we are anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim, that we get money from Arab countries, that our accounts are not in order, that we are all Westernized and do not believe in Indian
On March 8 we decided to have a demonstration against communalism, women's organizations throughout the country. The communalists announced that they would have a meeting in the same place and the same time as us and were ready to attack us. But we had many allies in the anti-communal movement, such as trade unions and left wing parties. We mobilized many women from the slum areas and others — we got about 1,000 people out. They were not prepared They also suspended attacks on us for the elections, since that would have made a bad impression. In Gujarat the majority of MPs are from the Hindu fundamentalist BJP. The same kind of attacks have been seen throughout India. * Dowry deaths - a product of
Indian capitalism
REAL mass movement arose in 1980 over the issue of rape, when a 14 year old girl police in a police station. There was a demand for a change in the law.
The second issue was violence against women in the family, and in particular dowry deaths. Very many women are murdered because their families provide an insufficient dowry. To give an example; in Gujarat official figures say that each day six women are burnt alive for
There was a debate in the women's movement. Some say that this practise is a remnant of the pre-capitalist past of India and will die out with increasing education and development. This is also western scholars. However socialist feminists have insisted that this practice was not prevalent in pre-capitalist India, but is on the contrary the result of the impact of imperialism and of the really existing capitalist India of today.
In the past this practice was known only in the upper castes, where daughters would be married upwards in the caste system. For this a dowry had to be
INDIA given as a payment for the social rise and an alliance with a powerful family. Caste and land were the two main ways to get power in feudal India.
Furthermore in the upper castes, women were not allowed to work in the social productive process, and were considered an economic burden on the family, so that a compensatory payment was expected from the bride's family.
However in the lower castes women worked in social production and were thus an economic benefit. With the penetration of imperialism the whole Indian economy was disrupted; the cottage industries in which women worked were completely destroyed. These women became unemployed and were unable to get work in the factories. For example millions of women worked at rice pounding in 1901; but thirty years later there were only a few left. Thus many lower caste women became a burden family. Of course, these women do work in the home, but their work is not considered productive, it doesn't count in mar-
The process of Sanskritization
At the same time the whole process of Sanskritization took place, with lower caste people adopting the mores and customs of the higher castes. The dowry custom spread among the lower castes and the amount of the dowry increased. Thus capitalism has seen a custom from feudal times become more widespread and more cruel. The fight against it is a part of the fight against imperialism and
The middle classes have adopted consumerist values. A doctor or someone well-placed in the administrative sector will ask for more dowry for goods -there are more factors at work than under feudalism. Education and economic and political status have become added to
Another important issue is that of female foetuscide, where the sex of the foetus is found out and girl foetuses aborted. Abortion is legal in India and is even encouraged by the government as part of a population policy. The government is also forcing contraception on women and further pressure to do this is coming from the IMF and World Bank. Contraceptives that are banned in the First World are being used in India without the knowledge or consent of the women. This includes injectible contraceptives such as depo provera which are very bad for women's health. Female foetuscide is also felt to be a good way of controlling the population since it reduces both the number of people and the number of potential mothers.
And of course doctors make money out agains women another form of violence 19
Poisoned factories and techno-fantasies
International Viewpoint #214 • October 14, 1991
MALAYSIA of increasing profits, and also to secure proximity to growing Asian markets, especially important in the late 80s as automation replaces labor.
Within the electronics industry itself, semi-conductor companies have consistently accounted for over 80% of the total output; and United States electronics com-
IN popular economic terms, the Malaysian government's policies of rapid development have achieved many successes.
Through the New Economic Policy (NEP) formalized in 1970, it set out a path of export-oriented industrialization to address the country's poverty and unemployment. Per capita GNP has risen rapidly, marking Malaysia as an up-and-coming NIE
[Newly Industrialized Economy] and a growing Malaysian middle class has emerged. But behind the simple GNP figures lles the reality of an expanding gap between rich and poor - that is poverty has not been eliminated despite the increase in urban jobs.*
JIM STOCKTON he import substitute formula of
T development, implemented after independence, did little more than continue the British colonial pattern of dependence on raw material exports (rubber and tin originally, and later palm oil and timber), while doing nothing to alter the colonial pattern of racial division in the economy. By the end of the
60s, widespread unrest had built up to the point of eruption. In 1968, the government passed the Investment Incentives
Act, thus embarking on an aggressive policy of wooing foreign capital for exportoriented manufacturing.
The goal of rapid economic growth was in fact necessary for the racial goals of the
NEP, to bring ethnic Malays (bumiputras)
into the mainstream of the economy, for the government knew quite well that
Malaysia's Chinese and Indian merchant class would more readily share a growing pie with the Malays than a limited one.
Low wages attract investment
The policy met with spectacular success in attracting investment in sectors that were labor-intensive — and indeed "low wages" is the reason most cited by investors for their move to Malaysia. This is not however to deny the importance of the many incentives offered by the government — tax shelters, repatriation of profits, political stability including stringent controls on labor, and low environmental standards. Global competition and management/labor struggles at home are also key factors.
The development of free trade zones, first around Penang and then Kuala Lumpur, drew thousands of people from the