Selective, hateful attack on Hindu women and their beliefs
It is one thing to be a voice and show solidarity towards groups with little to no access in halls of power — be it monetary, political, or social. It is completely another to selectively dissect, divide and demean the said group based solely on their religious beliefs.
An article in India New England, claims to speak for women in India, in response to another rebuttal on a completely different topic —that asserts Hindu women are fierce and nurturing at the same time. Sujay, in his rebuttal (more of a rant), cites click-bait news articles which claim Indian women fair worse than Saudi women. Unfortunately, it reveals that he neither has any significant on-ground experience or cultural contacts in India or in Saudi Arabia.
The original article selectively attacked Hindu women for practicing their beliefs, their choice of clothing and their freedom of speech. It derided Hindu women for fasting on Karwa Chauth, wearing Saari’s on festivals and for loving their sons and spouses. It claims all these are a grand plan of Hindu patriarchy, rooted and isolated in Hinduism alone.
It would have benefitted Sujay’s case if he doubled down on that line of Hinduphobic thought. But he digressed and compared privileged women of the West, aka White and wealthy, with underprivileged women of India, aka Brown and poor. He said:
India is a far worse place for women than any country in the West.
The sepoy mentality seems to have transpired through generations and is now affecting Indians living in America with privileges and comforts of a society built on Adam Smith’s Captialism, resource extraction and appropriations as its foundational values.
If Hinduphobia was so casually flung and weaponized against Hindu women, would he slip into the same abyss of Islamopbobia and Christianphobia? I’m sure, he would. He will claim that Muslim women wear a hijab so their hair doesn’t arouse men. He would also claim that in Latin America, where 80–90% of people are Catholic, 4 girls, not women, are raped every second — because of their Christian beliefs. Chinese atheist women likely don’t fare any better.
To claim that American women somehow fair better than ‘3rd world’, that West is better than rest, is a direct result of colonial hangover mixed with self-hatred of their own culture and people. The statistics expose a completely different story.
81% of women in the US have experienced some form of sexual assault or harassment during their lifetime. Will he tie it to Christianity?
These kinds of devise narratives propagate and normalize the problem devoid of any context. Do women face problems in India? Sure they do. Is it because of Indian men or Hindu men and their beliefs? Definitely, NO. On the contrary, Hindus face an existential threat, especially in America, for being white washed, assimilated or worse digested beyond recognition into mainstream American culture. Research shows that Hindus don’t consider ‘religion’ as a major influence on their lives.
So if not religion, what are the sources of these hate crimes against women that are so universal across the globe — irrespective of economic, religious or ethnic backgrounds? How much do economic pressures play into it? What about objectification of women in megaphones of our societies: media, movies and social media? What about the education level of men and boys? What about the role of alcohol, which most religious folks abstain from?
In Indian-Amerian context, what about the cultural disconnect and imitation of white identity that we immigrants proudly wear on our sleeves?
We can only solve challenging problems by forming consensus, rethinking, and modernizing ideas. When we divide and selectively attack our own, it merely deflects and even exacerbates the original issue.
